“All spirits are flawed. There is something ties them to this world, something that has kept them incomplete since the moment of their death. And until they find that missing piece, well…”
Fairy lights swirled giddily about him, weaving drunken circles as they danced and flirted through the deep shadows cast by innumerable and uncontrollable tongues of flame. Swathes of saffron and amber burned into his eyes as he glanced around with weak eyes; the disaster coated the landscape and grounded the vast black sky.
On occasion the wall of heat was broken by flashes of pearl – the teeth and claws of their defenders, their attackers. Without fail those friends or foes were shortly and greedily consumed by the gouts of heat which left no traces of their presence, flesh and tracks and scents alike devoured by the fire.
Gazing down upon the scene from its celestial perch was the pale moon, its full face offering no reprieve from the pain and suffering to those it glimpsed.
A memory sparked in his mind, the embers catching and burning with clarity: a similar but so-so different night on the wing, the full moon an approving and warm disk hovering above the cloud line.
He reached out a grasping limb past and through the swirling cinders that posed no danger to him, searching for – for something important, that much he knew. Knew that certainty would reveal itself to him upon the discovery of his goal. Lethargy fought against him, tugged at his bones and weighed mortal flesh to an unacceptable crawl. Energy was leeched from his muscles until they were dragging and cackling frost tenderly crawled along tendons and ligaments to leave them frozen in place.
It’s cold, so cold he can’t— he can’t think.
Even his thoughts were rendered heavy and muddy. Bogged down and diminished until they were useless and indecipherable. Body and mind were left spent by his efforts until there was nothing left: no spark, no fire, not even the tiniest of coals.
A painful groan erupted from his throat as his head flopped down into the dirt. Dust was sent rising into the air with a joyful freeness that was shortly ravaged by the nearest grasping fingers of flame.
His eyelids felt heavier than mountains as exhaustion gripped him mercilessly; a hand not his own entered his vision and he wrenched his gaze wider despite his body’s cries for relief. The limb was a pale ashen color, marred a burning red and charred black in equal measures. Its fingers reached and stretched out despite the painful-looking injuries wrought upon them.
Those damaged digits pressed themselves firmly yet gently against his nose. The strange sensation was followed by that of a second arm wrapping itself around his head while his eyes struggled and ultimately failed to focus on the being that had placed itself before him.
“Don’t go,” a familiar voice pleaded, the croaking whisper hardly registering to his ears – hoarse and weary and cracked and so so tired.
Dry, too, from the relentless heat that surrounded them. Wet with an internal storm.
“Please, Toothless, don’t go.”
The name tickled the farthest reaches of his conscious mind – which was ever-shrinking, crumbling at the edges into the blackness – and the touch as well so he managed to rumble a half-hearted promise and sighed, unknowingly, uncaringly growing deaf to the cries that begged him to remain, to “Stay, Toothless, don’t go! Please!”
He was so cold. So tired. Still searching, still ungraciously rewarded with nothing.
He was so tired. So cold.
He could keep looking when he woke up.
It could bear to wait a few minutes for a short nap, surely.
Five minutes.
Five.
He slept.
He fell.
He was no more.
I’d Known You In Another Life (would you tell me if you’d forget me)
“They won’t even know it’s gone.”
Truth be told: when he had first woken up it had been the utter silence that had shocked him the most.
Berk was, for a largely wooden Viking village that was part of a former seven-generation feud with fire-breathing and flying reptiles, a prospering village by most every definition of the word. Constant sound from sun up to sun down and beyond was a given, what with its boisterous human residents and various reptilian species that wound through the streets.
And, well, Vikings. They yelled on a good day and bellowed the rest of the time. Nor did that even begin to account for the daily chores and responsibilities consistently present in any good village, regardless of the ethnicity of the population.
Gossip threaded with commands were traded between the sailors lounging on the docks – those who had come ashore learning what had occurred in their absence while hauling fresh and bountiful catches onto the docks while others hurried to depart, harried farewells thrown over the sides. Flying overhead of it all or perched on the yard were the dragons and their riders assigned to the vessels, to ward away attackers and defend the fishermen if need be; or if the waters were peaceful, to drive the schools closer to the surface and into the sailors’ nets.
Throughout the town proper was the bustling of manual labor, the ringing of steel and iron being wrought and encouraged into useful shapes, the hammering of carpenters repairing homes burnt by errant dragon fire or laying down the foundations of a new homestead, the chopping of trees being felled and prepared for use; and that was only a short list.
So when the first thing Hiccup had heard upon waking was the sound of silence, the utter quiet had disturbed him in ways he hadn’t known were possible. Certainly he had longed for peace before but definitely not anything of the bone-deep variety that made him itch to crawl out of his own skin in an attempt to escape the disquieting emptiness.
What he noticed second was the smell. His most recent memories were rich with the scents of fire and smoke, warm and cloying on the tongue and heavy and choking in the lungs. Here, wherever exactly he was, smelled clean and salty like the sea breeze once a storm had passed.
Third was the unbroken presence of long and uncultivated grasses. No buildings. No roads. No trees. Only the strange vegetation, stalks gently waving in a warm summer wind. He turned around in a half-circle, confused and looking for any point of familiar. For something, anything to jump out at him and offer meagre reassurances that he was still on or near Berk.
Then something caught his eye. Standing a short distance behind his original position was a tall runestone that glittered blackly, face adorned with carvings that almost glowed in the moonlight. Hiccup approached the monument and placed a hand on the stone. It was cool to the touch and beaded with mist as though it had been splashed by sea spray, despite sitting a considerable distance from the shore.
Though the light wasn’t near bright enough to read the inscription – the moon was already beginning to crawl its way to the horizon behind the runestone – his eyes picked out the shape of a legged serpent scrawled onto the marker. Its fanged mouth hung open drolly and its wide blank eyes stared out to nothing. Runes chafed underneath his fingertips as he pulled himself away from the stone; idle curiosity urged him to inspect it further but other, more important matters demanded his attention.
Since the earth had failed to answer his questions beyond a runestone raised for the unknown dead, he looked to the stars instead for the familiar constellations that any sailor could pick out of the night sky: Frigg’s Distaff, the Great Wagon, the Eyes of Thjazi and Duneyrr. Within seconds they were found but strange. Off, somehow. Weaker than they should have been. Hiccup glanced at the moon, wondering if it was drowning out the stars but – no. The satellite was smaller, more distant than memory claimed it should be.
Then he remembered, a whisper of a thought calling out – a light had placed a claim on his soul and drove away the Valkyries that had come to take the dead to Valhalla. He had only caught glimpses of the mounted shieldmaidens but their frustration had been evident in the skittishness of their steeds, the clanging of their weapons. Only another god could have such power as to turn away Odin’s soldiers.
He had turned to the moon, questioning, and the moon has spoken back.
Not yet, it had whispered to him, gentle and secretive. Your place is here.
Much like any good Viking Hiccup knew the names of those that filled Asgard’s halls and composed Odin’s court. And though he was not often worshipped outside of feasts, there was only one deity associated with the moon and was responsible for directing its position and phases in the sky. Máni.
So: a moon god had tied him to Midgard for some unknown purpose that he wasn’t eager to share and without instruction nor hint as to what he was meant to do.
Hiccup was walking blind. Somehow, it felt no different than normal.
He departed from the runestone with a final brush of the fingers across its carved face before he could work up the will to explore. Logically, examining and taking inventory of his surroundings and the resources the environment offered him was the first step. Secretly, however, he wanted to examine the marker further but also find refuge from Máni’s indecipherable eye.
But he was only mortal (immortal, perhaps? or undying, as it was literal divine intervention that had prohibited his passing,) and could hardly prevent a god from locating him if said deity wished to find him.
Absently Hiccup wondered if he needed to eat or drink. Then his thoughts naturally wandered to the necessity of other basic needs and just how necessary they were, given his current state.
Only one way to find out, wasn’t there?
One teeth-chattering dip in the ocean later proved beyond doubt that he could become cold. And wet. And potentially drown, he thought, after he had finished hacking up water and his head stopped spinning, though his shoulders still burned. So: he could become cold, and if he could be cold and wet, the converse must be true as well.
Thus he was definitely not a spirit, or at the least not a draugr or a haugbui, as he had only felt cold after jumping into the water and any attempts to shapeshift bore no success.
By the time he had recovered from his brief (and rather foolish, now that he thought about it; he could almost hear his father bemoaning Hiccup’s lack of sense) stint in the ocean and properly dried, the moon had set and allowed the sun to begin cresting the far horizon. Its bright fingers were painting the skies rosy and lit the oceans into molten gold; far in the distance was an early morn mist and he feared it would expand over the island he was trapped on by mid-morning.
There was little he could do about that, however, and he dealt with the knowledge in the same way he dealt with everything he couldn’t change: by working extra hard to change what was within his abilities.
Given the passage of time he tentatively determined that hunger nor thirst were of great concern to him, as he didn’t feel famished or starving, nor was his throat dry and scratchy from a lack of water. It could have been that, in death, his body was made more efficient and didn’t require sustenance as often, but something told him that was not the case and he simply didn’t need to eat.
It was a small relief given that he hadn’t seen any animals or vegetation suitable for consumption. That didn’t mean there weren’t any, however, which brought him to his next objective, which was to get off the island. There was the horrid possibility that he was stranded in the middle of the ocean; he hadn’t so much as glimpsed a boat the entire time he was conscious and there were no signs of neighboring islands.
When Hiccup finally came to a halt about an hour later, trembling slightly from exhaustion, he had circled the island two-and-a-half times and, despite not reaching its zenith, the sun was beating down with unforgiving heat. On top of that he had nothing to show for his effort: no obvious means of transport, no signs of land in any direction.
Ungracefully dropping into the dirt he held his head in his hands, wondering what games the gods had decided to play with him now. What was the point in preventing the Valkyries from taking him, only to strand him on an island he couldn’t escape from? Was it a punishment? Some kind of convoluted reward?
There was no logic behind it and that frustrated him.
Maybe that wouldn’t bother other Vikings, who could get through just about anything with only their axes and the knowledge that even if they fell, there would be a Valkyrie to catch them. Hiccup wasn’t like other Vikings. Beyond the whole dead-not-dead thing and knowing there wouldn’t be any steeds to bear him to Valhalla; to be more specific, his instinctual craving for order set him apart.
For reason.
For purpose.
For sanity.
For some rationality as to why he was left stranded on some thrice-damned island with no explanations—!
A snarl escaped his throat as he turned on his heel and stalked down to the rocky shore, kicking away any smaller, unfortunate rocks that happened to lie in the middle of his warpath. One escaped into the rocks; another ran into the grasses. A third skidded off and was swallowed by the frothy tides, chased along with an irritated glare.
Hiccup’s angry façade lasted for all of five seconds before reluctantly fizzling out; sighing, he dropped down to sit – and winced when a particularly sharp rock made its displeasure with that idea known.
After prying the stone loose from where it was embedded in the earth, he lobbed it away; despite growing into himself over the years, his strength had never quite rivalled that of his peers and it fell only a few steps away, clacking angrily as it landed. Suppressing a rueful smirk Hiccup turned back to the horizon and wondered how Toothless was doing.
Several seconds passed in silence.
Dread knotted together in his stomach as the gravity of his thought hit him.
He had forgotten about Toothless. He had forgotten about Toothless. He hadn’t spared a single thought for the handicapped dragon since he had first woken up on the island, so strong was his focus on escape instead! Leaping to his feet he moved to search for the reptile – then remembered that he had looked all over already, and if he had seen scale or hide of the reptile he certainly would have gone to find his friend.
Aborting the movement halfway forced his body into a lurch; he spread his stance to compensate for the sudden shift and promptly felt his foot crush itself into a too-small foothold, probably the same hole he had made by tossing that rock away. A curse and an apology slipped through his lips as he went down.
I’m sorry, he thought, and braced himself for the fall.
For the second time in who knew how long, Hiccup woke up in a place he didn’t recognize. Was it so surprising that he was already sick of having no idea where he was nor so much as an inkling as to how he had gotten there?
Last he could recall he had been on the empty island Máni had dumped him on; now he was on what appeared to be a small, rocky peninsula sparsely populated with hardy grasses. He picked himself up from his undignified sprawl and half-heartedly dusted himself off, keeping one eye on his surroundings. It was nowhere he was familiar with, that was for certain, but there was more land on one side and, in the far distance, cliffs to the left and right as well as another small island.
It was better than being stranded, Hiccup decided, desperately clinging to an optimistic outlook. Though what he would give to have Toothless by his side—!
An iron band of guilt wrapped itself around his heart and squeezed mercilessly for his inconsiderate behavior, for having forgotten his best friend. He hunched over slightly at the very real pain and grunted as the burning bled through his chest and happened to catch sight of the grass he was standing on.
The vegetation native to whatever land he was currently in was short but tough-looking, much like the species on Berk, necessary to survive and repopulate the island after particularly harsh winters. Being the early days of the summer season the plant life should have been at full strength, lush and healthy with the waxing hours of sunlight and the warm-ish temperatures. Or what passed for warm, anyways.
Underneath his feet was another story entirely. Blades black as char, tips waving with a cloying, pungent smoke, the grass around him was wreathed in shadows that looked to be spreading death wherever they passed. Through the thinner layers of blackness, he could see the vegetation slowly paling to the color of ash in a near-perfect circle with Hiccup at the epicenter.
Hiccup choked in surprise and stumbled away from the marker of his presence, towards the ocean; the thought of what might happen to the waters made him halt in fear. He settled for perching himself on an exposed boulder. The shadows beneath him sulked in disappointment and retracted into nothing.
How it could have happened he wasn’t sure. He had never heard of anything capable of killing simply by being in its presence except perhaps – perhaps… Hiccup glanced up at the early-morning sky. Still shot through with rosy tints, it was slowly but determinedly turning a deep summer blue.
Máni had prevented him from passing on with the dead, so perhaps Hel had cursed him for his undeserved life? Or his continued presence in Midgard came at the price of killing whatever life was unfortunate to come into contact with him? Both explanations hurt with the pain of being struck down with an axe.
Hiccup wasn’t sure which was worse: to be cursed because of an act he had not performed or desired, or to be cursed simply because he failed to die properly. Not even his father had made him feel so unwanted, so useless, not even when he had (temporarily) been exiled from his tribe. At least then he had been able to fight back and prove that the dragons weren’t what they had believed them to be. How could he fight against a goddess’ curse?
Slowly, almost hesitantly, several shadows rose up in front of him, looking thin as the saplings that sprouted from the ashes of dragon fire and just as substantial. He tensed at the sight; he didn’t want to cause any more death today, thank you. The darkness seemed to still in response to his thoughts and Hiccup started, causing the strands to jump slightly as well.
Were… Was the darkness alive? Common sense told him no, that was impossible. But the same had been said of the dragons, seven generations of the dead and injured that had laid down their lives against the reptiles.
And yet.
Hiccup bit his lip. He was hesitant to indulge in his curiosity, but it also didn’t seem an issue that would be leaving him any time soon. Not to mention that not killing Toothless had probably been the best decision of his life, regardless of what anyone else would have done in his place. Strengthened by those thoughts, he reached out to touch the shadows.
They shivered and wavered, parting to allow his hand to pass through. When he drew back, startled and just a little upset – some kind of comfort that he didn’t have to risk killing through touch alone would have been nice – the strands weaved together and expanded before his eyes, taking on a familiar shape.
Tears stung his eyes as he took in the form of his oldest and closest friend. “Toothless?” Hiccup whispered quietly. A rumbling purr answered the query and the grief swamped him so hard it physically hurt. He threw himself at the shadow-dragon, arms gratefully wrapping around its thick neck as he allowed himself to drown in his sorrows; a long, sinuous and complete tail curled around him while a heavy wing gratefully curtained him off from the rest of the world.
Deep down inside he knew that it wasn’t his best friend and only a cold shadow of a memory of the true Toothless – but it was close enough, and that was all that mattered.
Shadow-Toothless – and he had to think of a better name for the poor creature that wasn’t – was not a Night Fury at all, as Hiccup had originally suspected. His instincts said that the faux reptile was something closer to an imprint, memories of the dragon it resembled an iron-cast mold filled with cooling metal, the being before him the fashioned result.
Nor was it to replace Toothless or serve as a substitute until they could meet again. It knew it was a mass of recollections given solid form, and it was happy enough to be that. The entire matter was depressing down to the minutiae and to not be pressed to examine it further left Hiccup guiltily grateful as he pushed it all aside for later consideration, if ever.
In any case the shade was solid enough that Hiccup could clamber onto its back, real enough to support his weight and corporeal enough to fly through the air – as though mere memory and braided smoke were substantial enough to substitute for true flesh and bone. Part of him wanted to test their limits – how fast could they go? could they still tire? – but something insisted that he had somewhere to go, tugging him away from where they were.
By the same instinct or by design of some greater force, the Night Fury turned south-east and together the pair soared over the ocean, moving away from the rising sun. Eventually they broke away from the coast and flew over open waters, no land in sight. Hiccup wasn’t concerned; he still didn’t feel the need to eat, though his body was admittedly becoming sore from sitting in one position for so long.
They stopped briefly on another island for his sake; dead Hiccup may have been, but immune to saddle sores he was not. And the shadow dragon was not wearing a saddle, either. Despite the discomfort they didn’t dally long and continued their journey. By the time they had come to their destination, the sun had already passed over its zenith and the warm afternoon was settling into a cool dusk.
Even though the Night Fury didn’t need to sleep, being made of shadows, it was more than happy to provide Hiccup with a wing and a warm side to rest his head on for the night, once he had finished walking away the soreness that had settled itself comfortably in his muscles during the flight.
The world turned; seasons changed; and all around them the world began to die.
Berk had lain far enough to the north that seasons had mostly consisted of an unreliable spring-summer and an unforgiving winter, where snow tended to fall without warning and whatever vegetation failed to survive was buried under mounds of frost. Most of the island’s forests were a sturdy spruce variety with the occasional oak thrown in, but they all remained green and healthy despite the long and dark winter months until their eventual death, when their needles browned and fell off gray branches.
Here – wherever that was, exactly – the transition from humid heat to icy cold was by comparison infinitely sluggish; he could feel the winds minutely crisping and cooling. Even the leafy trees he passed by changed colors before his very eyes, something he had only heard of in tales from traders before travelling out on dragonback had become a possibility.
But here, farther south than he had ever dared to go before, the scenery was more breathtaking than even a skáld could describe, had they bore the inclination to weave such tales instead of the blood and fighting they often preferred. Hiccup himself wasn’t so predisposed – he could read and write, true, but his hands were better set to a hammer and tongs than vellum and ink – and still felt overwhelmed by what he saw.
Around him the boughs shed their verdant summer uniforms for a palette of reds and yellows and everything that fell in between. There were even shades he didn’t have a name for, that he never knew could exist. And unlike the terrible incident on the coast, his presence didn’t kill and his touch didn’t induce decay; swiping his fingers across the broad green leaves would instead burnish their skins and bleed them out until they matched their festive neighbors.
But nothing good could last forever and everything had to come to an end. Yes, wherever he walked the grass shriveled into patches of brown while the leaves he touched faded from healthy greens into bejeweled dresses of crimson, amber and gold. Yet if he lingered too long – and it was a harsh lesson to learn, one that had to be retaught at every turn – the sod would burn and smolder, their deaths bearing bitter and oily smoke. The trees’ bark would bleach into bone and crumble into nothing. The leaves, beginning with the lowest branches, would curl away from him and blacken, dropping from the stem once they could no longer stand the tortured half-lives they were unfairly subjected to.
So they continued their travels and struggled not to linger.
And the world turned on.
Together they flew farther than Hiccup had ever travelled before, moving so fast that the land and sea were sent blurring below into smudges of vague colors while hills and mountains gave way to valleys and fields that rose again in a strange kind of cycle. They went so far that any day now Hiccup expected to see the earth fall into the ocean and, far beyond that, the great serpent Jörmungandr consuming his own tail at the edge of the world.
No such thing happened.
Land continued to crawl out of the horizon at an astonishing length; briefly he spotted a break in the monotony and believed they were coming to the end of Midgard, fear and excitement mingling into something volatile in his chest, but another landmass grew out of the edges of the world and he slumped back onto the false dragon’s back, both disappointed and relieved.
Shadow-Toothless unabashedly, good-naturedly chuffed at him; his unamused scowl only caused it to chortle harder. He muttered under his breath about useless reptiles and tried to ignore the dragon’s infectious mirth and the twitch of his own lips. There had been little worth laughing about since he had woken up on that thrice-damned island, and even less in the weeks preceding that.
Once they had crossed the strip of ocean – more of a strait, really, with a thin, stringy archipelago smeared across the southern sea – they followed the rocky coast south and east, heading into the newly discovered mainland. Even here there were great forests, mostly the same needled species or others of similar bearing, differentiated by the width of their trunks and the shapes of their branches; interspersed throughout the coniferous trees were leafy branches, splashes of fiery fanning colors between the thin green needles.
There were humans here, too, but Hiccup was wary of approaching them. He wasn’t entirely certain how his death and the results of it would affect the living; after all, if plants began to die at his touch, would humans and living creatures age as well? The thought of it was terrifying and most definitely not something he was eager to find out, so he avoided them as much as possible, skirting around the edges their villages and as far away from the signs of human habitation whenever he could.
Several weeks had passed when he felt boredom begin to creep upon him and the tug to leave wherever he had ended up. They had mostly cruised around the continent, content to explore the lands they had never seen before. Now, standing before the ocean once more, something called upon him to depart.
They went.
Chains dug into his waist, wrapped themselves around his arms and legs without mercy. Solid polished links of steel that tugged him away incessantly, leading him back to that strange island and its black runestone and unnatural silence. Even Shadow-Toothless – and he still had to think of a better name for it – seemed to suffer from anxiety, soaring higher than Hiccup had ever dared to fly during life for fear of passing out in the thinning air, of broken bones and torn muscles.
Just one of the perks of being dead, he supposed. The harsh laugh the thought produced was whipped away by the rushing air.
Eventually the grey churning water gave way to land. And it just kept giving and giving; when it became clear that it wouldn’t break back into ocean they banked north towards the coastline until it shattered into large islands covered with thick and dark forests. Those in turn tore themselves apart into smaller isles, and further and further until there was more water between the earth than land bridged the ocean. Once they recognized the shape of the Barbaric Archipelago underneath them, the pair turned one more time and dove at the ocean, losing altitude at speeds that would rip the breath right out of the lungs of the living and leave them – ineffectually – gasping for air.
In response Hiccup held on tighter to the darkness that propelled him onwards, entirely undisturbed by their potentially deadly momentum. Soon-not-soon-enough the dragon flared its wings out as wide as they could stretch, a move that would have wrenched bones out of their supports and shattered the sternum with the sudden reversal. As it was the false Night Fury merely groaned with the effort and crashed into the sudden dirt; Hiccup strained to keep himself attached as they gouged a deep furrow into the island, flipped once, twice – and somersaulted right into the frigid waters.
Immediately the dragon dissolved, gone on contact with the churning tide. Hiccup, on the other hand, had to flail his way to the surface, breaching the choppy waves with great effort. The skies had been heavy with clouds for days and threatening to break into a storm without a hint of rain; now of all times the wind was picking up, stirring the water so it crashed into the shore and sent up freezing spray onto the rocks.
As soon as he had crawled back onto land and done what he could to wring out his clothing – not that that it had helped very much; he was still rather cold and damp – Hiccup felt that tug again, an indescribable demand that he start moving. So he did, and that pull directed him to the lone runestone that rested in the center of the island.
It reminded him, in a way, of the guardian stones that had surrounded Berk, long ago carved from the nearest sea stacks: solemn defenders stranded in an unfamiliar ocean. Rather than in a literal ocean, however, the runestone stood in a sea of grasses. Set against a background of heavy storm clouds, the black stone that the marker was carved from seemed to suck in the meager light, pulling everything closer to it.
In the wispy light that penetrated the cloud cover he could barely make out the words inscribed upon its surface, hidden within the sinuous designs. One finger shakily traced the runes, confirming their presence.
Ástríðr let ræisa stæin þennsa æftiʀ Hiksti. Fjall inn naðr aldrnari. [Astrid had this stone raised in memory of Hiccup. Fell in serpent fire.]
His hand dropped and he turned away, unable to look upon the stone anymore. Somewhere inside himself he had known what the stone read, in some sense or another, but having it confirmed still hurt deeply. This was the physical proof that he had died, in the absence of a body.
Astrid knew better than anyone else (alive) that he wouldn’t have wanted a runestone. Knew that at others’ insistence, he would acquiesce to it being placed in Berk, either on the coast or on one of the stacks near the village.
Which meant—
Berk was—
A wounded sound tore itself out of his throat and he turned away from the marker. Around him the grasses’ shadows coalesced into a dragon, a Deadly Nadder with scales of grey and black that crouched down only long enough for him to hastily clamber onto its back, launching off that damned rock as soon as his feet were off the ground.
Overhead the clouds rumbled and refused to break.
The first noise he registered was quite akin to the cracking of a whip; he started at the sound, breath unwillingly punched to sharp gasps of surprise as he flinched away from the cruel snaps, the reports now accompanied by a braying cry agnate to that of a horse – but there were no horses that lived here, not last he had checked. Which was just a few hours ago, wasn’t it?
As he scrabbled away from the source, determined to put distance between him, the stranger and their herd, an arm wrapped around him while a hand pressed itself to him mouth, muffling his breaths with an irritable hiss of warning in his ear; a second voice spoke somewhere to his left and behind him, soothing words from a stranger’s mouth in a stranger’s tongue as his assailant began dragging him from the battle.
Another arm curled around his waist to lift him to his feet and suddenly the gage became a lead, guiding him away from where he had been; yet he couldn’t help but look back and away from where he was being led to. Some thirty paces and more from him was a short, a very short man – they couldn’t have stood any higher than his waist – wielding a pair of glowing and golden whips that flailed about in a strange-looking duel against a herd of misty, shadowy horses only visible for their contrast against the other.
Oh, and the man was glowing as well. And golden.
Hiccup spared a moment to wonder how he had slept a wink through the fighting, then if there had been any fighting at all while he had been sleeping and if not how he had managed to sleep through their approach—
With some reluctance he forced himself to focus on more pressing concerns, such as who the hell was holding him hostage and why.
Glancing back at his captor, who was rather stubbornly facing in the direction they were moving, Hiccup took stock of his situation and their surroundings. The being pulling him along looked to be about as tall as he was, perhaps a smidgen more or less; their clothing didn’t speak of a fighter, but their companion – whether they be allied to the multitude of horses or the odd glowing man – clearly had knowledge of serious sparring, so he decided to reserve judgement until proof was provided. The owner of the second voice was nowhere to be found, had they ever existed at all; it would be a fine time to start losing his mind, after all, and Hiccup’s luck usually ran that way anyways, so it wasn’t entirely out of the question. Beneath their feet was mostly silt and the long grasses that grew from it, with few rocks dotting the surface, so an unexpected tumble was unlikely.
Briefly he considered the merits of fighting back or attempting an escape. The other being, or beings – as he had clearly heard two voices behind him when he had first been grabbed, barring a sudden onset of insanity – had made no move to introduce themselves or attempt an explanation as to what was going on. That was an understandable slight, given the brawl still being fought out behind them, but was also enough incentive to warrant an escape.
Well.
There was, without a doubt, something going on – and he had always been too curious for his own good, hadn’t he?
Besides, he was dead. He had nothing left to lose anymore.
One of the horses turned a blank-eyed stare onto them and, inexplicably, Hiccup felt a jolt of terror flash through his being. He hadn’t felt such fear since the Red Death had emerged from her mountain, so long ago. Its glowing eyes were pools of molten gold swirling in a crucible that flared as it screamed and broke away from the herd to charge directly at them. Shadows wreathed behind it in a trail of smoke and ash, and wherever its hooves touched down the grass blackened and withered.
A half-strangled curse was hissed in his ear and his guide pulled out a stick – okay, where had that come from? he was certain there had been nothing of the sort on his captor’s person just a second ago – and pointed its curved end at the incoming equestrian.
Soft humming filled the air moments before a blast of ice shot out of the far end of the stick and struck the horse head on. It cried out in pain and reared up onto its hind legs; when it tried to drop down and turn away it failed, the air freezing around it until the creature had stilled entirely.
All Hiccup could do was watch the entire process with wide, disbelieving eyes.
Okay, don’t piss off Jokul here. And watch out for the business end of that stick.
The display of power had distracted Hiccup and his speed had begun to flag; in response, the being thus dubbed Jokul yanked on his captive’s arm, intending to force him to pick up his pace but instead caused him to stumble.
Once he regained his footing and was certain he wouldn’t trop again – whether due to the terrain or his kidnapper – Hiccup glared at the other being with a caustic retort resting on the top of his tongue – and was promptly forgotten as he caught sight of the ice user’s companion, most likely the very same one that had spoken to him earlier.
Striding just ahead of them on a pair of long legs was what Hiccup believed to be a bipedal grey-furred hare, which appeared to be wearing a bandolier of some sort; it was difficult to be certain between the mammal’s dark coloring and the moonlight. It – he? – turned their head and muttered something to Jokul in an accent that Hiccup couldn’t make heads nor tails of.
He wondered, probably illogically given that he was still in the process of being kidnapped without explanation, if the rabbit was one of Ēostre’s light bearers. Then he dismissed the thought because it was late summer and the dead of night, so there was little reason for a spring deity’s attendant to be present. Let alone take someone against their will.
Beyond the fact that he still had no idea why they were there and kidnapping him, of course.
The hare came to an abrupt halt and turned on its heel to face them. Jokul continued forward for several steps to close the distance between them before stopping as well.
“Remember the plan,” the rabbit warned, and tapped a foot on the ground twice.
In response a hole crumbled into existence between the three of them, deep and dark and menacing and only slightly wider around than the creature that had created it. Hiccup tried to take a step back but his guide’s grip tightened warningly on his arm. The grin treated to his taller companion was disturbingly light in contrast.
“No worries, kangaroo,” he flippantly answered. “I haven’t forgotten a thing.”
Then he leapt into the darkness and dragged Hiccup down with him, his delightful whooping echoing in the emptiness.
Falling down a tunnel with a complete stranger and no idea where he was headed to disturbed Hiccup, but it was the unknown factors that vexed him more than the slide-like qualities of the tunnel or its heavy darkness. The shadows whispered to him as he descended, softening the drop and reassuring him.
Friends, they sang to him. Love-hope-trust-faith-Toothless-good.
His head snapped up as he heard the Night Fury’s name and bit back a cry as it struck a rock embedded into the earth. Around him the darkness apologized for the injury, crooning comfortingly in his ear as it eased the pain, even if it couldn’t eliminate the discomfort caused by a trail of blood sluggishly dripping down into his eye.
After blinking the lights out of his vision he noticed the change in temperature – it had been growing steadily warmer as the tunnel continued on but suddenly it was blazing – the earth spat him up and out, leaving Hiccup sailing through the air unsupported.
He had several moments to appreciate the unexpected view before gravity took hold upon him once more, forcing him to drop like a stone. Before he could do much more than realize that he was falling Hiccup found himself being gently deposited to the ground by a hand tightly gripping at his collar and a strained groan as its owner struggled with his weight.
“Man, just how much do you weigh?” Jokul groused as he alighted nearby, scrutinizing Hiccup as though expecting him to pull rocks out of his pockets. Hiccup shrugged and looked around, his nerves tingling with apprehension.
Before them was a grand expanse of stone ruins that dominated the landscape, flanked by trees on one side and what was likely a deadly drop on the other. Their remains had long since been overrun by one species of Hedera [ivy] or another, their leaves glistening silver in the moonlight and throwing shadows over the dismantled entrance – which, now that Hiccup thought about it, was hot despite the late hour.
Sweat made his skin prickle (or was it that eerie feeling of familiarity? of lingering fear?) and his clothing sticky and uncomfortable. Jokul looked no more delighted with the heat than Hiccup was; nor was he above using his stick to create small flurries to keep himself cool as he strolled up the dusty path towards a half-standing gate with pitted and charred stones. Hiccup, far warier than his apparently fearless guide, turned around to catalogue his surroundings in case an escape became necessary.
Just a few strides behind him was the deepest gorge he had ever laid eyes on; the light only managed to penetrate the hole a few arm spans deep before giving up. On the other side was half of a crumbling bridge, its architectural quality speaking for itself given the obvious time that had passed since its creation. Hesitantly, Hiccup sent an inquiry towards the shadows that resided in the gorge. He couldn’t quite suppress his flinch as they hissed back at him, half-forgotten grievances and ancient rages stirring and rearing their heads at his presence.
Rather than risk angering old ghosts any further he retreated, hurrying over to Jokul, who was clearly more than familiar with whatever dead place they had come upon. The winter spirit looked rather amused as he took in Hiccup’s expression but the latter ignored him, wondering why the courtyard they had entered seemed to touch his memories more than the outer walls had. The sight of the debilitated castle up on its small hill was no more helpful than staring at the wall had been.
If anything the area was becoming more oppressive by the second, shadows lengthening and sharpening into malevolent creatures of the dark, eager to bowel the pair of intruders for treading unto holy ground. The skeletal remains of the walls towered over them, harsh and overbearing, resembling the unforgiving grounds of a prison rather than a castle. Even the heat became stifling, choking; how the plant life didn’t ignite and burn up into ash Hiccup didn’t know.
Jokul must have felt the unspoken hostility as well, because his voice carried more than a touch of nervousness when he spoke. “The others had better hurry up,” he muttered, waving his stick in the air. Another heap of snow dropped from the air above them but it melted and evaporated with a hiss and a snap before it hit the ground.
Both stared at the point where the precipitation had disappeared, frozen. Jokul brought his stick up and held it in both hands in a defensive position, eyes flickering from one end of the courtyard to the other in a systematic fashion, despite the death grip he held on the wood. Hiccup faced in the opposite direction, armed with nothing more than his fists. Somehow, he wasn’t liking their odds so far.
A loud shout made them both start and whirl to face the source of the noise. Entering the courtyard, grumbling a litany of complaints and half-threats, was the rabbit that had sent them there, flanked by the golden man and… Hiccup frowned and rubbed at his eyes. No, they weren’t deceiving him.
On the hare’s left was a large man whose size was reminiscent of Hiccup’s father, only he wore far more red than Stoick ever had, and his cloak and hat were lined with thick black fur; a luxury that his father would never have indulged in unless his people could afford it as well.
Flying behind the group and tittering to herself was what looked to be a kind of Disir. Most of her body was covered in feathers, save for the pale portions of her face and hands. A ruddy yellow at her collarbone, the plumage lightened into green around her torso, blue at her waist and thigh, darkening into violet around her calves. Rather than hair, she sported a crest of similar coloration, and a number of longer feathers that lifted from her back, similar in appearance to a sparse cloak or a bird’s tail.
Hiccup realized he was staring and dropped his gaze. The Disir could be kind or cruel in turn and were often both mercurial and volatile in nature; their words as sweet as honey even as they planted a knife between one’s shoulders. On top of that they were minor goddesses and often present in Odin’s court, meaning they – collectively – held a degree of power in Asgard as well.
In short: not someone to mess with.
Thankfully neither she nor her companions seemed to notice his lapse, or really notice him at all. They had fallen deep into discussion during his lack of attention, their voices low enough that Hiccup couldn’t make out what they were saying beyond the initial inarticulate outburst of anger. Actually, most of them were speaking. The short man didn’t utter a single word, only listened emphatically to the heated conversations between the other three beings.
Jokul perked up when he saw the four and lowered his stick to a more neutral position, though it wasn’t lowered entirely; the heat still lingered in a menacing haze and the air remained stifling. Judging from the grimaces the newcomers wore, they felt the disturbance as well – and the hostility, given the obvious wariness they exuded.
The only vaguely human-looking member of the group approached them, one hand resting on the hilt of a sheathed sword. “Jack,” he rumbled, and it took a moment for Hiccup to realize he was talking to Jokul. “Where is Merida? She—”
“You!” an incandescent voice screeched from behind, blistering in its fury. Hiccup cringed at the tone and cautiously moved to face the speaker. Seeing her made his heart lurch but for all the wrong reasons. A mane of fiery red hair framed a young, round face smeared with phthalo blue across the cheeks, offsetting her watchet eyes.
Over her saffron tunic were a few bits and pieces of scarred leather armor; the breast piece was shattered and cracked around a dark and deep gash that would have been fatal if inflicted and a simple kilt dropped to her knees. Strapped to her back was a rounded shield and, below that, a heavy spear; a short quiver was belted to her side and in her hands rested a wooden longbow.
Recognition seared through Hiccup he felt his hands tremble minutely as he tried to back away from the angry young woman. All he could see was snowy flesh and blood-stained lips, hear the soft sound of a lullaby easing the way into death amidst promises of peace and happiness. All lies, of course, or they would never have met on Midgard again.
“You,” she growled at him. The shield maiden produced an arrow and nocked it on her bow as she approached him, its dagger-sharp tip levelled at his chest. Hiccup raised both hands in a gesture of surrender while fighting with himself to maintain eye-contact with the familiar stranger.
Around them the five companions had armed themselves yet made no move to either turn the young woman away or attack Hiccup; rather they looked confused by her actions and unsure if he was a threat. He grimaced as she drew closer and rested the end of her arrow in the hollow of his collarbone, forcing him to resist the urge to swallow.
Her stormy eyes were narrowed, lips drawn down into a sneer. “You destroyed my home. You butchered my family. You even killed me. But now I’ll. Kill. You.”
Her eyes burned into his, brimming with a depression that had long since smoldered into righteous anger. They burned through his soul, examining every secret, every scrap of knowledge he held before flinging it aside, deemed unworthy of her attention. He was truly at her mercy and not only for the blade resting at his throat.
“Whoa, now hang on a minute,” a voice said, snapping the tense silence that had hung in the air like bated breath. “You don’t need to resort to violence—” Jokul – Jack’s stick flashed into Hiccup’s vision and knocked the arrow into the air, away from them both. The crook of the wood turned and caught the shaft, successfully pulling it towards the wielder and away from the shield maiden. “—when you could just talk it out instead,” he suggested, twirling the arrow between two fingers.
The girl seethed, pointed an accusing finger at Hiccup. It was marginally worse than the arrow had been. “Talk? Talk? What is there to talk about? His people came to my home, my lands and killed everyone! Slaughtered them! Like pigs! And you want me to talk about it?”
In the extremes of his peripheral vision Hiccup could see the gathered beings start, clearly not expecting such a declaration. He kept his eyes forward, mouth shut and watched the disillusioned young woman rant on about the abuses that her clan had suffered at the Vikings’ hands. Because what could he say? He had never enjoyed those expeditions, as rare as they had been before and even after the Red Death’s reign. But they had not ended with the destruction of his home and family, either.
He felt their eyes turn onto him, questioning, accusing, and the obligation to speak, to defend his tribe and his people from her scathing tongue. Had he been more like his father he would have given her the chance to fill their ears and minds with her words, then slowly, methodically tear apart each and every insinuation and allegation as painfully as possible without harming so much as a hair on her head.
There was a reason, after all, that Stoick had been so well respected as a Viking chief – beyond his impressive size and undisputed skills with every physical and linguistic weapon known to the Archipelago.
And Hiccup was not. He was far from that level of social savviness, between the early onset of social outcast-dom and his tendency to fall back on sarcasm, which most Vikings didn’t understand, being too straightforward to bother with implementing or understanding vitriolic undertones. Nor would physical ability help him, not when she had already extrapolated the violence committed in these lands.
So he remained silent as the shield maiden reamed him and everything he had once stood for, flaying him with words for the deaths and destruction of everything she had once held dear. And why not? Certainly she deserved it; she, much like him, had not passed on as they were supposed to despite their undoubtedly honorable deaths. Those who died in combat were supposed to earn a place in Valhalla, or at the least Fólkvangr. Yet here they were, still stuck in Midgard.
Hiccup bit his tongue as she turned to face him again, daring him to speak against her.
“You’re right.”
“You damn well know I’m right!” she spat back. Then confusion spread across her features, taken off guard by his agreement. “What?”
“You’re right,” he repeated, voice low, eyes still on hers. “I don’t believe that my tribe should have attacked your clan. It was shameful and terrible and a disgusting act all around, and nothing I can ever do or say can ease the pain we put you through.”
“You…” She trailed off and a strange shadow entered her eyes, a cold wind blowing out the fire of anger she had been harboring all these years. Deflated, she took a step back, dropped her bow. “I never…”
The effect his words had on her was painful to watch. Her skin had lost its color, once-bright eyes dead to the world. She looked as though an important, vital part of her had been snatched away and in its absence apathy had swiftly bred; or that she had only just come to realize that part of herself had been missing all along and the sudden knowledge had stained all memories for which she had been bereft of that part black, inflicting such pain that she could no longer function.
Her light, her lifeline, her entire reason for existence had been torn away from her by the utterance of two simple words. Somehow Hiccup knew that she could not, in good conscience, kill a man who had agreed with her so wholeheartedly that he would speak against his own people and allow her to take his life at her own discretion.
The air around them turned cold. Hiccup could feel the warmth being leached from his bones, see each breath frosting with increasing clarity.
He turned away to give her some measure of peace and, by chance, glimpsed the strangers once more. Most of them appeared to have the same thought as Hiccup had and looked away, not out of shame, but out of kindness. Jokul, Jack, stared at her with unconcealed apprehension and slight fear until the hare nudged him with an elbow and afforded him with a heavy look.
The boy must have understood the rabbit’s intent because he cleared his throat, loudly, and said, “Do either of you know of a spirit named Pitch?”
Or maybe not.
She jerked out of her stupor and made a valiant attempt at pulling herself together. Darkness still lurked behind her eyes. The air warmed slightly as well with her distraction; not much, but noticeably so. “No,” she muttered. Louder, “Are they the owner of that herd?”
Hiccup perked up with interest. “Herd?”
She tightened her mouth and looked away from him pointedly. The rabbit answered in her stead: “There was a herd of Nightmares – horse-like creatures – here two nights ago.”
“Like the ones that showed up when you did?”
He seemed to bite his tongue before answering. “We stopped them from attacking you.”
“By kidnapping me, of course.” Hiccup nodded sagely, pretending to understand their reasoning. He faced Jo— Jack, hoping for answers. “You know who this ‘Pitch’ is and why they attacked us.”
Rather than responding immediately the Disir fluttered closer, her wings smeared into a glimmering blur in the moonlight. “It isn’t safe to talk here,” she began, but Hiccup shook his head.
“No. You’re not taking me anywhere without explaining yourselves.”
He planted his feet firmly into the earth and reached out for the shadows, reassuring himself that they were still there. In the far distance he could feel the old grudges sulking and simmering their displeasure, but his own and those of the strangers were still amiable enough to comply if it came down to it.
“I’ve already been kidnapped by you people once and I’m not going anywhere else with you without some kind of an explanation.”
Over the Disir’s shoulder Hiccup saw the tall, red-robed man frown heavily. It was the rabbit that took over, however. “Look mate, we don’t have the time to play games. So pipe down and trust us when we say it isn’t safe to talk.”
Jack turned to face the hare, his arms crossed in front of him. “Now hang on, none of you remember how your talk with me went?” The mammal cut himself off, frowned heavily at the white-haired boy and drew back. “Exactly; you can’t just take people with you and expect them to go along with it.”
“Even though you did the kidnapping?” Hiccup pointed out.
He shrugged. “Things were a little urgent in your case,” he dodged neatly. “You were in danger of being killed or kidnapped by Pitch. I wasn’t.”
The redheaded girl chose then to speak up. “But you do know why we were targeted and who is after us.”
Another round of grimaces followed. Unsurprisingly enough it was Jack who answered. “Not so much on the why as the who, but we know it was Pitch.”
Both of them stared blankly at him.
“Also known as the Boogeyman or the Nightmare King,” he continued.
“Boogey…man?”
“The Nightmare King?” the girl scoffed, her tone mocking. “He can’t be very terrifying if he uses púcas to attack people.”
At that the rabbit made a noise of indignation while Hiccup turned his gaze to her in surprise. “Púcas? You’ve heard of them too?”
She shied away when he spoke to her but nodded. “Tall, dark horses with golden eyes…”
“Or black-furred rabbits.”
“Am I supposed to be insulted by this?” The hare was glancing between the two of them, anger positively spilling off of him in waves. “Do either of you even know what a Pooka is?”
They spoke together: “A shapeshifter.” Hiccup didn’t even need to see her face; he could hear the disgust in her voice, the grimace in her tone.
The rabbit groaned and ran one hand-shaped paw down his face. “This is gonna be a long night,” he groaned.
They went.
It had taken some time and plenty of arguing, but eventually they went. Despite his stubborn insistence to remain where he was, Hiccup was undoubtedly the most relieved to leave the castle courtyard. Old hatred clung to the grounds, a poisonous elixir that stained everything it touched. He wondered why none of the others had seemed bothered by it; they had felt the heat and the cold, of course, but not the emotions that had underlain it all.
Perhaps it had to do with his personal connection to the place? His part, however small, in the massacre that had occurred there?
Just thinking about it made him shiver, bringing crowding images of blood and bone to the forefront of his mind that resisted being pushed away or ignored. And he could not; the girl had survived the destruction of her village and Viking honor demanded she receive retribution. Though she wasn’t a Viking, Hiccup suspected their traditions were similar enough to warrant his death – and since she wasn’t going to do that either (or at the least he was pretty sure she wouldn’t) he owed her a blood-debt.
Foreboding hung dark and heavy at the realization. He knew – somehow, he knew that she was going to be collecting on that debt, and that when she did, it would be more painful than anything he had ever experienced before.
Honor demanded it.
Tradition commanded it.
Memory expected it.
His breath came out involuntarily, violent as a blow to the sternum. At the same time the shadows around them swelled menacingly, an echoing thunder bouncing off the walls as something approached. Simultaneously the group of – friends? familiars? misfits? Hiccup wasn’t quite certain how to define them, anymore – drew into a loose circle, herding him and the girl into the center as they produced their armaments.
When the first horse burst out of the cocoon of darkness the rabbit barked (and really, wasn’t that an odd thing?) “North!”
In response the red-robed man, who was apparently North, grunted as it charged at him; he knocked it in the head with the flat of one blade and chopped its head off with the other. The entire creature dispersed into glittering, night-colored sand that sank into the earth.
Hiccup had seen some crazy things since he had died, but tonight was taking the cake.
North reached into his coat and pulled out a glass globe while the Disir and the short golden man covered for him, drawing away any horses that attempted to attack him or slip into the circle. He muttered something into the crystal before lobbing it backwards at Hiccup and the girl, prompting them both to try and catch it.
Instead it slipped between their outstretched fingers and broke on the earth. The dirt crumbled underneath them and together they fell into a whirlwind of color and sound, the fluctuations in temperature and decibels disorienting and sickening to one unused to sudden chaos. Something dark slipped past them both into the stream – Hiccup reached one hand out to it, extended the limb as far as he could – and they were spat back onto solid ground somewhere else entirely.
Both humans fell face-first into a powdery snowbank.
Hiccup pushed himself out and looked for the creature that had come with them, hoping to see his beloved dragon. Merida, after extricating herself from the impression her body had made, spat out a few strands of flyaway hair and hugged herself; she had experienced bad winters before, but that was nothing compared to artic temperatures that currently besieged them. She watched as the former Viking tottered through the knee-deep snowfall, quite happy to sit in her little hole.
Wherever they were it was cold, obviously, and quite dark, their only source of illumination the distant stars and moon overhead. Wherever they had gone they were still in the same time zone, or near enough that the time of night seemed to be nearly the same.
“Toothless?” Hiccup called. His words echoed over the silent landscape, breath puffing into tiny clouds of condensation as he waited for something, anything to indicate that the dragon was nearby.
Boundless silence answered him and his shoulders slumped with defeat. Then he gathered himself and soldiered on, carving canyons in the crisp snow wherever he walked. Merida followed him with her eyes, shivering where she stood. She wondered if this Toothless was a friend of his – possibly another spirit or a creature that could see them. Maybe even one that could help them locate Pitch Black and force some answers out of the so-called Nightmare King. Something to focus on instead of the Viking who had helped destroy her home, rescinded his people and denied her revenge.
Gazing out upon the frozen field yielded nothing except a mild case of snow-blindness. The crystals were dazzlingly clear and painfully bright to look at for long and more than once she had to avert her gaze to the night sky to blink spots out of her vision. Merida couldn’t hear anything over the Viking’s shouting; the growing distance between them didn’t help as the near-perfect snow and crisp air made for excellent acoustics, even with no walls to trap the sound.
She twisted around and huffed, seeing— there, there was something approaching. A shadow was gliding closer to her, leaving an untouched plane behind it. A pair of glowing eyes stood out in its face, the color of grass parched by an extended drought.
Even with the cold Merida felt a distinct chill crawl along her spine. Her heartbeat quickened as adrenaline set in and her mind began racing. Something about the creature was very unsettling, unnatural enough to disturb even the undead. She shrank back and blindly fumbled for her bow, distantly hoping it had made it through with them intact.
The shadow did not slow its approach. If anything it hurried closer, its menacing aura strengthening as it closed the gap between them. She didn’t dare turn her head to see if the Viking had come back; she couldn’t even hear him anymore, if he was still speaking at all.
Her fingers closed around frozen wood and Merida drew it to her chest. Her body acted on autopilot as she reached over her shoulder to select an arrow, nock it on the string and aim it. About a meter-and-a-half away the silhouette stopped. Its eyes swirled with yellow-green malevolence and glared at her. In the darkness she glimpsed the iridescence of teeth too sharp to be human.
Her hands trembled.
It lunged for her and the first arrow flew wide. As an archer Merida prided herself on her marksmanship under pressure and she cursed herself for missing such an easy shot. But as it was the projectile soared close enough that the creature lurched to the side, reflexively avoiding it. While the movement didn’t cause it to trip in the snow as she would have hoped, it did buy her enough time to prepare another arrow.
“Hey!” a voice shouted. She recognized it to be the Viking and, though she wouldn’t admit it, Merida felt relieved at hearing his voice. It meant she hadn’t been left alone in a sub-zero wasteland with some deranged beastly creature intent on attacking her, and it was distracted long enough for her to take another shot.
Upon the Viking’s shout the creature turned to appraise the newcomer. From where she stood Merida could make out every emotion that played across its face: shock, joy, relief, confusion. Just because it could feel emotions, however, didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous and wouldn’t hurt them.
Training and experience had taught her to take every advantage at her disposal, to make every attempt count.
Calloused fingers let go of the fletching and the arrow flew straight and true; she could feel it in her bones, see it as the shaft curved through the air and slipped between bones to rest in the flesh of her opponent. It jerked as the metal pierced its body, one hand belatedly rising to touch the point of contact as red seeped out from the wound.
Never aim for the head, her father had told her once. It’s a tempting target to be sure, but it’s a foolish one.
No; always aim for the heart, Merida. In war and in love.
Slowly the Scot lowered her arms, still tense from the short-lived battle. Belatedly she realized she was shaking, each breath short and painful; Merida forced herself to inhale deeply and let it out slowly.
Snow crunched as the Viking rushed past her, yelling, “Why did you do that? You don’t shoot random strangers!”
Several scathing comments came to mind, each harsher than the last. Biting them back she settled for a sharp, “I’m certain you would know about that,” and moved closer to her victim.
The creature had pale skin and dark hair and overall looked remarkably human. Rather tall and skinny, but human nonetheless. Also definitely male. Kneeling in the snow at his side was the Viking, pressing both hands to its chest in a futile attempt to stem or slow the bleeding. Its eyes were no longer glowing and were a clear-but-clouding green, a shade that reminded her of the fields around her home when she had stilled lived. Merida wondered how she could have believed them yellow and felt a small curl of guilt in her chest.
“Everything’ll be alright,” the boy was blathering, ignoring the blood that stained his palms and spilled out onto the snow in an ever growing puddle, melting long-frozen layers with its warmth. “Help is on the way, I swear.”
He grasped the Viking’s wrist with a surprisingly strong-looking grip and turned its face to the moon. She saw the being’s mouth move but heard no words, and while she didn’t have the head for lip-reading Merida knew well enough that it was asking something.
Making his final requests.
Though she wanted to turn away from the sight something compelled her to stay. Maybe it was the fact that she killed him. Or a morbid curiosity had held her in place; this was her first killing, outside of the battle that had taken her life. Then there was no time to waste thinking of those felled, only survival of those who still walked.
Whatever the reason, Merida didn’t turn away, so she saw the moonlight grow stronger around them, bathing the area with the soft ambience. Her eyes widened as the creature’s skin darkened in color, pale snow deepening to midnight black. Saw how its flesh became hardened and patterned, shifted; her grip tightened on her bow once more as the creature went from humanoid to definitely not human. The Viking was no longer supporting the creature, for it was simply too large for him to do so. When its body stopped changing the once-human creature looked to be twice as long as the Viking was tall and perhaps would have stood at about chest height.
Really, if Merida didn’t know any better she would have labelled the creature as a dragon.
It softly crooned at him, vocal chords warped beyond producing proper speech, if they had ever been capable of it at all. The Viking curled over the beast anyways, a heartbroken sob wrenched out of his lungs.
“Toothless,” he cried, and Merida winced. She knew the name. She heard his pain. “Please, don’t go.
“Don’t go. Please, Toothless.”
