Chapter Text
Wings slice through the air as Astrid and her fellow riders fly in formation.
The landscape isn’t exactly thrilling. Ice. Streaking clouds. Snow banks. Makes it easy for her mind to wander.
The five years of peace with dragons is a meager amount of time compared to how long the war with the dragons lasted, and yet it feels like this has been Astrid’s whole life. She couldn’t stand to lose Stormfly; to lose any of the dragons that have made Berk their home. The thought of dragons being forced to serve a cruel man makes her want to seethe; just as it brings up uncomfortable memories.
There once was another, who forced dragons to attack in their stead. Who single-handedly made vikings view dragons as a plague, creating an environment of kill or be killed. Berkians refer to it as the Red Death, though they never actually saw it; only heard about it second-hand from Astrid herself. But she left something out. A secret, five years old; as familiar to her as the dragon she rides.
But she’s soon shaken out of those musings. More ice shouldn’t have her gaping, but it does. This isn’t the regular glacial white. It’s green, eerie and unnatural. A whole mountain is trapped in it. For a wild moment she wonders if they found Niflheim, the primordial world of ice. Home to darkness, cold and mist.
Despite their objective, curiosity overtakes them all; a small moment to look won’t hurt. As the white haze of clouds passes from her vision, Astrid sees the first catapult.
It’s far from the only one.
There are a few ships in a state of destruction—the rest must have sailed away. A successful fleet. Leaving behind catapults, bolas, discarded weapons.
Dragon traps.
The kind that dures the dragon in with a captured one, only for a metal dome to close around the attempted rescuer.
Astrid moves to land.
“Um, why are we going toward the site of total destruction?” Fishlegs’ voice is a little higher than usual.
“Hello, have you met us?” Tuffnut demands.
Astrid doesn’t look at them, eyes only for burned metal covered in fresh snow. “Those look like Drago’s traps.”
“So?” says Ruffnut.
“So, we should check it out.”
“Okay,” Tuffnut says. “Why?”
“Ugh.” She flies her dragon closer.
“Astrid, that’s not an answer.” She hears the wingbeats behind her and knows they’re following her. “Astrid!”
Snow crunches beneath Stormfly as she lands. Right in front of a trap. Singed metal.
There are bodies. Fresh. Human and dragon alike, though they are...few. Fewer than one would think, considering the magnitude this invasion must have had, unless Astrid is right. Drago, after all, would go for capturing dragons over killing them.
Looking up, Astrid sees a platform of green ice. It leads to the mouth of a cave, which looks black and endless from her vantage point. Niflheim, she thinks again, uneasy. Wind slices at her exposed flesh, rubbing it raw. Amongst the torn wood and the snow is more of that unnatural ice—except torn up like everything else.
“Okay,” says Fishlegs, nervously. “We’ve taken a good look. Bad things happened here. Can we go now?”
Something dark catches Astrid’s attention from the snow. She dismounts, landing neatly on her fur-lined calfskin boots. Snow crunches beneath them as she moves.
It’s a mark. She picks up the flag it belongs to with cracked knuckles, pressing chapped lips together. White fabric, easily camouflaged by the snow—if not for Drago’s sigil, black as ashes.
She was right. Drago did this.
Is this what he’s got in mind for Berk, too?
Footsteps in the snow.
Astrid feels herself tense up. Fishlegs mutters a lament about no one ever listening to him; she ignores it. Too late now, after all.
“Something’s coming,” Astrid says.
Fingers wrapping around the leather hilt, she grabs her axe. The sound of weapons unsheathing fills the air, temporarily drowning out the noise of the approaching footsteps. The winter sun chooses this moment to go behind the clouds, making the world a shade darker, gray instead of yellow. This only tenses everyone further, thinking it to be a sign from the Gods.
Spikes shoot forward. They land in the snow, one by one. Spike. Spike. Spike.
Astrid barely has time to realize that she recognizes those spikes when the Deadly Nadder comes into view, running straight for them. The white snow behind it is turned red with every step.
Blood.
Teeth bared, it attacks. The riders all scramble to dodge, quickly moving to mount their dragons.
A catapult isn’t capable of dodging. Wood splinters as it collapses.
“Split up!” Astrid calls. “It can’t follow all of us!”
And it decided to follow her, her and Stormfly. Astrid’s own Nadder moves quickly through the snow.
A wall of fire is released between the two Nadders. Astrid looks up and sees that Snotlout has taken to the air. Hookfang is ready to release another attack while the Nadder screeches.
“Snotlout, don’t! It’s already injured! We need to gain its trust so that it will let us help!”
The Nadder takes advantage of Astrid’s distraction. She can’t completely dodge in time, pain lancing through her as a spike grazes her arm.
“Astrid!”
She groans. Stormfly turns her head, distressed, and the injured Nadder charges forward.
For a moment, time seems to slow. For a moment, Astrid is sure that this is it. Valhalla beckons. The valkyries are on their way. In the slowed march of time, she has a reel of greatest hits playing in her mind; her greatest achievements and her greatest regrets. Both involve a tiny bundle of delicate bones, with a dark fringe, freckles dusted across his face, speaking with sarcasm and hand gestures.
Astrid’s sharp exhale seems to resume the passage of time, followed by the sound of an arrow flying through the air. The sound abruptly cuts off. Target hit.
The Nadder falls, toppling sideways.
Astrid looks up. On the platform of ice stands a person. Holding a bow.
Looks like Drago left someone behind to take care of unfinished business. Clutching her trembling arm, Astrid seethes with anger.
Fishlegs assists Astrid off Stormfly. She doesn’t dismount so much as stumble, until she’s on her knees in the snow. Cold seeps through her while Fishlegs grabs a bandage from his saddle bag. He wraps the bandage around Astrid’s arm.
The twins and Snotlout have approached them by now, still mounted on their dragons; unsure what to do. Astrid doesn’t pay them any mind until she hears Snotlout exclaim,
“What the Thor?”
She looks up.
The archer has jumped off the ice platform. But instead of plummeting to certain death, he is flying.
Her first thought is that humans aren’t meant to fly, only to disregard that immediately. There is one human she could think of. One who would be able to come up with something like this: artificial wings. Thin as Hiccup was, sometimes she pictures all his bones as being hollow, like a bird’s. A creature made for flight. This flight looks graceful up until the messy landing in the snow. The tension in Astrid’s body lessens.
Only to come back to herself with a start. This isn’t Hiccup. And she shouldn’t be thinking of Hiccup at a moment like this. She needs to stay grounded. She usually has no trouble with it, but—glancing at her still-trembling arm—she isn’t entirely at her best right now.
As the archer approaches, blood pools around the Nadder. Red snow that doesn’t come from the arrow wound. Astrid realizes they would not have been able to save this dragon. The archer made it quick. Ending any needless suffering.
And Drago wouldn’t leave men behind to kill dragons he missed—Drago wants to own the dragons, control them. This Nadder was collateral damage, that he wouldn’t care for in the slightest.
This...is different. She holds up a hand, easing the tense riders, letting the archer approach.
He moves with extreme caution, resembling a defensive dragon. The first thing that draws her attention is the metal leg leaving odd prints in the snow as he walks. Then she takes in his armor, which isn’t like regular armor at all—it’s made of black dragon scales, with brown leather and an intricate blade at his hip. His face is hidden by a helmet, all but the flash of green out of the eye slits.
Astrid startles at the sight of those green eyes. They’re already gone before she can process why. He’s turned his face away from them, kneeling in the snow, in front of the Nadder.
The helmet clatters on the ground. The arrow soon follows, bloody tip landing in the snow.
The quiet among the riders is oppressive. It feels like all of them are holding their breath, waiting. Wind burns on their cheeks.
He leans in.
Astrid’s eyes widen, uncomprehending, as she watches the archer suck at the wound he created and spit out the blood. Someone gasps. He gets back up, turns around. Wipes at his mouth with his hand and spits out the last of the blood, all while looking straight at them.
Astrid shivers in the cold wind. It’s blowing the archer’s brown hair forwards.
Something about him unsettles her, and it isn’t just that his mouth is smeared with dragon blood. It’s the wind-swept hair, she realizes, in addition to the green eyes. Odd thing to fixate on, but it makes something ping in the back of her mind, as she squints at the braids.
Though the bodies are fresh, the air is far from clean. It already smells of decay, nearly making her gag. She’s not the only one. Yet the archer—whoever he is—holds firm. The weight of his gaze is heavy.
It occurs to her, suddenly, that she was already sure of the archer’s gender before she saw his face. There was no way she could have known, yet... It just seemed right.
“I’ve read about this,” Fishlegs mutters.
Astrid looks at him. In low tones, she asks, “What do you mean?”
He raises his voice. “It’s typical dragon behavior. When they fatally wound one of their own, they take the blood into their own mouth as some kind of ritual. Some think it’s to honor the dead after the kill. Others think it might be the opposite.”
Dragon behavior.
Astrid feels another shiver go up her spine.
Because he’s not a dragon, but a human being. On Berk they have integrated dragons into their lives, but there’s still a hierarchy. No one actually lives like a dragon. They live like vikings do, worshipping the Gods.
“I don’t get it,” says Snotlout, full of agitation and not trying to hide it. “Is he a hunter or is he a dragon in human clothing, make up your mind!”
“I don’t think he’s a hunter,” Fishlegs says, brows furrowed.
“Me neither,” Astrid says quietly.
Sick of talking about someone who’s right in front of them, she steps forward.
“You saved my life. Thank you.”
The Nadder was out of its mind with pain and grief. Astrid does not begrudge its actions.
Instead of accepting her gratitude, the archer walks away instead; turning his head to keep them in the corner of his eye. It makes him look even more like a dragon, keeping potential enemies out of the blind spot.
“Wait!” Astrid calls out before she realizes what she’s doing, scrambling forward in the snow. The riders follow her, silent. “Drago did all this, didn’t he? We can help each other out.”
For a moment, she thinks he will ignore her. But then, he faces her. Slowly.
There’s something wild in his eyes, flickering back and forth, from them to their dragons and back to them again. Like he can’t comprehend that anyone could be a friend to dragons, that anyone could be different from Drago. Her heart aches.
“It’s okay,” she tries, stepping forward, only to halt when he takes a step back. It’s not unlike trying to soothe a wounded dragon.
None of this feels okay. It all feels very, very wrong.
“On Berk, dragons are our friends.”
Her eyes widen when he lets out—well, it sounds like a laugh. Or a scoff. Or something in-between, filled with a scorned disbelief. His eyes are no longer wide, but narrowed with suspicion.
The dragons, oddly enough, don’t seem as tense as their riders. Because the archer has been acting like a dragon, she realizes. They don’t view the archer as a threat.
“Drago is our enemy, too,” Astrid says, tasting salty sweat on her lips. “You should join us.”
Still, he remains silent. Green eyes, staring at her. They’re so familiar, so much like...
“Um, Astrid?” says Fishlegs. “I don’t think he can...talk.”
Snotlout scoffs. “What do you mean, he can’t talk?”
“Maybe... He grew up with dragons and he’s just feral.”
“Cool,” says Tuffnut.
“No, not cool,” Snotlout snaps. “What if he attacks us?”
“He’s literally just standing there,” says Ruffnut.
“Yeah, why is he just standing there?” asks Tuffnut. “Hey, Belch, you speak his language. Go ask him.”
“Well?” Ruffnut asks after a short pause in which Belch does absolutely nothing.
Tuffnut shrugs, “I don’t know. I don’t speak the language.”
“Enough!”
Astrid lets out a breath.
His height, his stance, the confident way he carries himself. The blood on his face. It’s all different. The eyes are just a fluke, she tells herself. Lots of people have green eyes.
“We can’t linger here. What happened... With that Nadder...”
Astrid swallows. Even the twins take a moment to look solemn.
“We have a mission to complete,” she finishes.
“Mission?” asks Ruffnut.
Astrid sighs. So much for being serious for once. She knows it’s their way of getting her mind off of what happened, but by Thor, it’s so annoying.
“Ugh, yes! Reconnaissance? We’re supposed to find out if the intel is true?”
“Intel?” asks Tuffnut.
Her patience thins even further. “From Eret? Of Drago’s sudden and drastic rise in dragons and strength? What do you think we’re—oh, nevermind.”
The annoyance at the twins’ antics fades when she looks at the archer once again. He can understand them. She knows he can.
She hates the thought of him staying behind in this mountain, all alone. She hates the thought of anyone losing their dragon, let alone what must have been hundreds. If the intel is true, this invasion might be the cause.
“Listen... If you ever change your mind, you’ll be welcome in Berk.”
“Yeah!” Ruffnut grins. “We’d love to take tips in chaos-causing from some feral dragon boy we met by a mountain!”
“But we’ll need a crash course in Dragonese first,” Tuffnut adds.
Astrid sighs. “Let’s just go.”
Before flying away, she casts one last look at—him. He watches them all go, still silent.
With an aerial view, she sees the spot with the most broken green ice, and—
Her body goes even colder than it already was.
She had overlooked it before. An enormous oversight; like Frigg overlooking mistletoe when it came to protecting her son, only for Loki to immediately carve a spear out of it. White as clouds, it camouflages so easily in the snow, like Drago’s flag. But just as Frigg’s son Baldur is dead, Astrid is looking at a body.
It’s humongous. The biggest dragon Astrid’s ever seen. And that’s saying something.
There once was another, who forced dragons to attack in their stead.
The blue-scaled dragon queen of Helheim’s Gate. The biggest dragon Astrid had ever seen. Until now.
Something she no longer shares with Hiccup. A secret, five years old: Astrid didn’t see the Red Death alone. She remembers freckles standing out dark on his whitened face.
Fishlegs yells, “What in Midgard is that?”
Astrid grimaces, once again shaken out of Hiccup-related thoughts. It’s been a while since he’s been such an active presence in her mind. “That’s...a good question.”
“How could anyone manage to bring such a dragon down?”
Another good question. She has the answer to neither, and so she says nothing. They are all unsettled, flying away from the mountain. It feels like the unease has seeped into Astrid’s bones; it feels like something that might kill her.
Big blocks of ice. Streaking clouds. Snow banks.
More of the same. Until they get to Drago’s harbor.
A fleet of ships, of dark brown wood, all of them with fires lit from controlled forges. There are so many ships, scattered over a great distance; on the navy blue water, docked near ice. And they are so big. But by far the biggest ship, decorated with a dragon skull, is the closest to something in the water.
“What’s down there?”
Another question they don’t have the answer to.
“Okay, Stormfly. Three moons, like we agreed.”
“Do we have to send our dragons away?” Snotlout whines.
“Do you want Drago to capture them?” Astrid counters. “Besides, they’re a dead give-away that we don’t belong here.”
Astrid sighs when the dragons do not move.
“Come on, you’ve known this was the plan since we left Berk.”
Stormfly still looks like leaving is the last thing she wants to do. Astrid’s heart pangs. She puts her hand on Stormfly’s snout, blue scales rough under her palm, as the dragon’s eyes close.
“You remember the island we—wait, actually. The mountain. Go there. It’s got good cover and I doubt Drago will return there. Okay? Good girl. Stay hidden. Stay safe, and we’ll do the same.”
Her suggestion is an impulsive one, drawing more than one look her way. No one questions her, not out loud, but—she can practically hear them wondering. What about the archer?
What about him, she retorts in her mind. Practically a dragon himself, she doubts he’ll mind offering refuge to theirs.
Eret has gotten them inside. Stormfly saved his life once. His mind about dragons changed forever, he now wants to help them destroy Drago’s empire. The ‘new recuits’ are taken on a tour. Not the big ship, with the uneasy waters. One on the edge of the fleet, where security is more lax. Easier way to gather information.
Thick, reinforced wooden doors. White-and-black banners. Racks with weapons. Chain links clinking.
They’re taken past workers, melting iron and making steel, for their traps and their weapons. Astrid soon gets used to the clink of metal, hammer on steel. It’s not only humans. There are dragons. Armored. Miserable.
After splitting up to cover more ground, Astrid strikes up a conversation with one of the workers. He’s on break, eating yak chops, and shares one with her without her needing to ask. Despite the kind of person it’s coming from, she accepts the food, taking a generous bite of the meat before speaking.
“I’m new here. I have a question—since we’re stationed on a ship so far away from Drago’s, do we ever get to meet him? I’m...an admirer.”
Astrid very impressively manages to say this with a straight face, and she even swallows down her food like the statement isn’t hurl-worthy.
Her new friend works the forge and makes traps. The other groups Astrid has been able to discern are soldiers, and tranquilizers. The soldiers wear their own clothing but similar face-revealing helmets. The tranquilizers wear hoods made from polar bears, carrying darts to stun dragons and humans alike, able to camouflage easily in the icy environment.
“Probably not. But I hope so! He’s so tough. He picked a fight with an alpha dragon.”
An...alpha dragon?
He misreads Astrid’s confusion as awe.
“I know. Such a massive dragon, such a terrifying presence. More appropriate for Ragnarök, rather than anything belonging on Midgard. The Bewilderbeast protected so many of its kind in a mountain, keeping them from us. But the dragons are nothing in the face of Drago. Not even the queen of the dragons could stop us.”
“Queen?” Astrid asks sharply.
“Or the prince,” adds the worker. “More like a lost boy now. The dragons stole their souls, poor things. Then again, maybe now that we took his dragons, he’ll become human again.”
She can see the mountain in her mind’s eye, but not as she found it; not in the aftermath, but in the midst of its destruction. Drago, standing on one of his dark ships, overlooking red fire and black smoke. A wind filled with embers. Astrid’s jaw clenches as it all slides into place, suspicions confirmed.
“And... That’s why Drago’s strength has increased now? Because...”
”...we control so many more dragons now than we already did, that’s right!”
The wound on her arm is throbbing.
“Oh.”
His eyes narrow. It’s not quite suspicion, not yet, but it is the beginning of it; a growing confusion.
She forces the words out, “I just... find it hard to picture anyone taking down such a dragon.”
He laughs again. “Fair enough! I’m lucky I saw it with my own eyes!”
Reconvening with the others on a quiet spot of the ship, she sees solemn faces all around. Uncharacteristic of her friends. Astrid can insist all she likes that she wants them to be more serious, but now all she wants is to be away from this place, sharing a drink after a dragon race and laughing with the sunset gold dissolving into the dark. Faces half in shadow as the twins ramble on or Hookfang messes with Snotlout while Astrid and Fishlegs exchange a smile.
A memory untouched by time, the fifteen-year-old Hiccup they remember doesn’t fit in this group. But then, he never really did. They never let him.
“I don’t like it here,” Snotlout says. “I don’t want to stay here for another minute, let alone days.”
“I second that,” says Ruffnut.
“I third that,” says Tuffnut.
Astrid did it again—letting her mind wander to Hiccup. She lets out a frustrated huff.
“You guys, think of why we’re here. We’re doing this—for our dragons.” She lowers her voice as much as it possibly can be lowered for that last part. “To save them from all of this. Don’t lose your determination.”
”...Astrid is right,” Fishlegs says, eyes lingering on an armored Gronckle in the distance, forced to make Gronckle iron in the forge. “We won’t let them end up like this. And we will save the ones who already are.”
“Exactly,” Astrid says firmly, ignoring Snotlout’s incredulous protest of how, exactly, are we going to—
Her attention is diverted by a stutter in her heartbeat.
Moments afterwards, Astrid notices one of the soldiers from this ship hurry toward the exit, eyes set on the big one belonging to Drago in the distance.
“I’m following him.”
“We’ll come too,” says Snotlout, but Astrid’s already shaking her head.
“No. There’s a lot to cover here—you guys need to note Drago’s dragons and defenses. And remain stealthy. Got it?” She doesn’t wait around for an answer, not wanting to lose the soldier.
She doesn’t need a reminder to be stealthy. She remains unnoticed with ease, following him to the biggest ship of the fleet. The size is just about the only difference. It’s still dark and dreary; with lots of metal and Drago’s ironically white flag everywhere.
Her eyes go wide when the soldier goes straight for the plank, where Drago himself stands. Overlooking the water.
As the two talk, Astrid feels the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. She’s not alone.
She turns her head and—it’s him. The boy from the mountain. Wearing his face-obscuring helmet once again, brown hair peeking out beneath it.
Did he follow them?
But how? She thought there were no dragons left on that mountain.
The soldier leaves. The air smells of sweat, smoke and blood. In the distance she can hear the hiss of steam; the grinding rasp of metal against a sharpening wheel.
Drago turns to look at whatever is chained underneath the water, frothing the navy blue waves, only to turn around swiftly just as the boy makes his move.
“If you would take your revenge upon me,” Drago says, with a lazy smirk, “I, too, am seeking vengeance. For everyone who has ever lost anything to the dragons.”
He knew.
He knew the boy was coming.
How?
“And conquer people in the process. Don’t you pretend to be noble!”
That voice.
Astrid barely notices the clang of weapons, the soldiers who don’t move until Drago will command them to act. In the fight, the helmet is removed, clattering on the wood. The reverberation of blades ricochets. The boy pushes in close, the swords scraping against each other until they both jump back.
Astrid feels a shiver go down her spine, some kind of shift in the air that can’t be explained by logic. It’s instinct, honed after countless battles.
She looks behind her.
Nothing.
She looks up.
The soldier from earlier, on a wooden platform. It’s him, she realizes, he saw the boy and promptly went to warn Drago about it, and now... He must’ve noticed Astrid from his position—but his eyes aren’t trained on her, as he readies a bow and arrow.
Astrid follows the trajectory with her gaze, stomach sinking, and finds herself with a clear look at the boy’s face. No blood. No darkness. No way of fooling herself any longer. His face is as familiar as his green eyes. His mouth, his ears, his nose, the freckles scattered across pale skin. The expressive eyebrows and the bow of his lips.
“Hiccup!”
It’s instinct that has her running forward without further thought, flooded with too many emotions to count but above all of them, sheer desperation.
For a moment, she thinks she was too late. She heard the arrow fly but even though she stepped in its path, she feels no pain. Yet, when she looks down, there it is. In a trance, she presses her hand to the wound.
Withdrawing, she finds it to be coated with blood.