"What is that?"
My eyes swept over the view in front of us, struggling to come up with some sort of explanation. All I could think of was fire, or more specifically, the smoke of a particularly large bout of flames. The only problem was that there weren't any actual flames to be seen, just a seemingly endless out pour of smoke from something in the far distance.
"I guess I'll find out," Hiccup said with a shrug before making his way over to Toothless. I watched him climb up, quietly considering my options. 'Attempt to convince him to not fly over to possible danger', which was an obvious no, seeing as Hiccup was quite possibly the most stubborn person to exist. 'Stay behind and hope for the best' was also a definite no. I sighed, rubbing my palm against my cheek before shaking my head and hopping onto Frostbite's back. She turned her head to survey the other pair of dragon and rider before huffing through her nose.
"I guess we both will," I finally said, voicing my intent to follow him. He looked for a moment as if he was going to protest but the expression was quickly replaced with satisfied smirk.
"Alright then, come on," he insisted before taking off. I wrapped my fingers around the handle of Frostbite's saddle just as she leapt out to follow behind.
Knowing she would keep her gaze locked on Toothless and in turn allow me to observe our surroundings, I let myself scan the trees beneath us. They were seemingly dead, though I was unsure if it was due to the weather or if something more grave had happened here.
I was so busy observing the trees that it wasn't until Hiccup spoke up that I noticed the source of the smoke.
A very odd, very destroyed mass with impossibly large shards of ice sticking out from wherever you looked was the destination we were heading for. My mouth fell open a bit but I couldn't think of anything that would accurately convey the awe.
"What happened here?" Hiccup had murmured, beginning to circle the ice. I shook my head gently, noticing what seemed to be remains of some form of wooden shelter embedded in the upper ice pieces.
The sound of a catapult caught my attention, but it was the net released that caught Frostbite in its tangle. I released my hold on Frostbite with a shout as she began to fall, snarling and thrashing in an attempt to escape. But without a dragon beneath me, it wasn't a simple feat to stay air bound. In fact, it was entirely impossible and I felt my stomach drop as I went racing towards the ocean, eyes scanning the sky in panic.
I felt something grasp my upper arms and I looked above to confirm that Toothless had managed to catch me. I exhaled shakily, turning my head to search for Frostbite. She lay below, wriggling before a group of men eyeing us intently. Hiccup steered us to them and Toothless released my arms as I felt my feet touch the ground before he landed beside me.
I wasn't entirely sure what was happening, even as Hiccup began trying to talk and reason with the attackers. I tried to ignore the urge to bury an axe in the leader's face as he made snide remarks about our Night Furies and remained silent, waiting for Hiccup to figure out whatever plan he was coming up with.
"How do you suppose we explain this mess to Drago Bludvist?" the leader spat, gesturing to the surrounding area.
"Drago-- what fist? Does anything you say make sense?" Hiccup said in utter disbelief. His quip went largely unnoticed as the leader continued his cryptic explanation of what had happened. As if we had any idea of who had done this, or why.
The leader, revealing himself to be Eret and proceeding to use the phrase 'dragon trapper', pulled out his sword and pointed it at Toothless. He earned a sharp snarl from the Night Fury before the others sprang forward to attack. I exhaled the breath I hadn't known was being held before Hiccup ran for Frostbite, pulling out his fire sword and slashing her free while Toothless distracted. I ran over, dropping to my knees to pull the net further apart.
"Come on, Frostbite!" I insisted. She swiftly pulled herself out from under the net and I hopped onto her back, following behind Hiccup and Toothless as they rushed into the air.
"You will never hold onto those dragons, you hear me?" Eret shouted. We ignored his yells, making a hasty escape as quickly as we could.
"Drago is coming for them all!"
The words echoed in my head, even as we'd flown well away from the trappers. There hadn't been an ounce of empty threat in his tone. Eret had entirely believed our dragons would be taken, sooner or later.
"Hiccup, something is really wrong here," I called out.
"D'ya think? I kind of figured that out when they tried to kill us all," he replied, a bitter sarcasm peeking out beneath his latter words.
"But why? Why would they feel the need to kill us? What exactly happened there?" I ignored his tone, too busy engulfed in worry. I didn't even want to try and come up with possible reasons for the incredible ice display.
He seemed to be thinking about it too, eyebrows furrowing in thought as he slowly shook his head.
"I don't know," he said. He sounded almost defeated, like it bothered him to not know the answer. I chewed on the inside of my lower lip, sparing a glance behind us at the spectacle that was moving further and further away in distance. I didn't know any better than Hiccup.
-
"There he is! The pride of Berk!"
Stoick's enthusiastic shout served our greeting as we touched down beside the forgery. I climbed off of Frostbite, watching as Hiccup rushed over to his father.
"Sorry, got held up. Uh, Dad, can I have a word?" he asked, but was instantly dismissed by Stoick as his father rambled on about chief necessities.
I kept a distance from Hiccup, watching with sympathetic eyes as he struggled to intervene with his dad's words. It was futile as Stoick began to assist a villager, at least until Hiccup cut straight to the point. He finally caught attention, and I waited as he began to describe our experience. Fishlegs appeared out of seemingly nowhere, asking if we'd found any new dragons, but Hiccup shook his head.
"We didn't stick around to find out. These folks weren't particularly friendly," Hiccup explained. I watched silently as Gobber questioned why, and finally decided to chime in as Hiccup described the trappers.
"The weirdest part was their fort. It was completely destroyed. You could barely tell what it had been, with all the ice sticking out of it," I said, glancing at Hiccup for his continuation.
"They are building a dragon army, or at least the guy they work for is. Dargo.. Bloodyfist or something," Hiccup shrugged. The recognition and something else (fear?) in Stoick's eyes sent a chill through my spine. Perhaps this Drago was a lot worse than we had originally thought him to be.
"Bloodyfist..? Drago Bludvist?" Stoick insisted, gripping Hiccup by the shoulders. Hiccup nodded passively before his eyes narrowed, surprised at his father knowing.
"Uh, yeah.. wait, you know him?"
-
"No dragon or viking sets foot off this island until I give the word!"
I trailed behind Hiccup, eyes wide as I listened to the distressed conversation. Stoick had raced off the second Hiccup had confirmed Drago's identity, and set to begin locking down the island. I caught mentions of preparation for war, and I zoned out, hearing Hiccup shout back in frustration but not grasping the words. Had we really come across something as dire as an intention of war? It seemed impossible, but memories of the ice destruction, the evident truth in Eret's words and his descriptions of their past actions began to bring doubt into my mind.
"A chief protects his own."
Stoick's quiet declaration brought me back from my thoughts and I turned my focus to Hiccup. I could see the intent on his face; he was leaving anyway, despite what his father had asked.
"Hiccup," I said sharply, raising my eyebrows in disbelief. He gave me an apologetic look before pressing a kiss to my cheek.
"I have to," he murmured.
I almost argued then, but the pure determination in his voice and the sole belief in his eyes that he could fix this, that he could change whatever needed to be changed; it stopped my words from escaping.
Instead, I inhaled deeply, glancing at Stoick who was still busy trying to conduct the lock-down before watching Hiccup as he sprinted over to Toothless, climbed onto the dragon and set off before anybody could spare an opposing thought. I faintly heard his father shout, focus entirely zeroed in on making my way to Frostbite. She seemed to sense my plans and raced off the moment I gripped the saddle, managing to escape being locked inside.
I shouted Hiccup's name once I saw the drawbridge raise shut behind us, and he turned to look back before a grin appeared on his lips.
"What are you doing? I thought you'd stay behind," he called back as Frostbite sped to catch up.
"Do I ever stay behind?" I countered as we neared the duo. He laughed a quiet chuckle before shaking his head, shrugging a shoulder.
"I was hoping you wouldn't, anyway," he added. I felt a smile pull on the corners of my lips before I nodded.
"I'm with you 'til the end, Haddock. Even through all your inevitable bad decisions," I teased. He gave me a mockingly offended raise of his eyebrows, lips parting to voice whatever sarcastic reply he had come up with. I barely caught it through the wind, but I already knew what he'd meant. I always knew what he meant. It really hit me, then and there, that I truly was with him until the end.
And I wouldn't have had it any other way.
---
holy crap. holy shti did i just finish a story for the first time in my life. achievement
so thats it folks!! thats the end of this fic. slightly abrupt, pretty short and definitely a lot earlier than i had intended (there was prob enough ideas to last another 10/15 chapters and i realized how incredibly insane i was for trying to fit everything into one fic) but it is the end!! i left it open for the opportunity of writing a sequel in the future if i ever wanted to do so :-)
ps i did try to keep the movie scenes minimal. which just means i avoided quoting word from word and did a lot of summarizing lmfao you guys hopefully know what happened in those scenes, if not, go watch the movie whenever u can bc u shouldve probably done that by now u r so missin out
anyway here is my final thank you (so.. thank u...) and it was 1 hell of a good time. we should do this more often. whats ur number pal