Stranger on a Strange Island Chapter 1
A/N
Two of the most famous dragon-riders in history meet... and they'd better learn to work together, or they'll face a double calamity. This story starts in the middle of "The White Dragon," when Jaxom and Ruth were returning Ramoth's stolen queen egg. Most of the action takes place in Berk, between the first and second movies. The story is rated K-plus; the language is all K.
o
The sky above the Keroon plain was clear, hot, and too quiet. Jaxom glanced around and saw the danger, the silver mist of descending Thread raining down across the desert. He scrambled to the queen egg, Ruth right beside him, both digging it free, pushing it into the sling, frantically trying to judge the leading edge of Fall.
As fast as they worked to secure the precious burden to Ruth for flight, they were not quite quick enough. The leading edge of Threadfall fell hissing to the sand around them as Jaxom vaulted to Ruth's neck. "Up!" was all he could exclaim. Ruth belched out a stream of flame as he took off, trying to clear a path in front of himself so he could go between.
A ribbon of fiery pain sliced Jaxom's cheek, his right shoulder, his forearm, his thigh. He felt, rather than heard, Ruth's bellow of pain as they went between. Jaxom had never been Threadscored before; he felt his dragon's pain as though it was his own; and the shock and the agony broke his concentration. He lost the mental picture of their destination. Without it, Ruth's jump across time and space was unguided.
The flight between should have ended by now. On and on it went. They should have emerged in Benden Weyr's hatching ground, to restore the stolen egg and prevent a civil war. But he'd failed! Ramoth's egg would never be returned; Benden would go to war against the Oldtimers; and he and Ruth would never emerge into the sunlight again. The cold blackness was closing in on him. "We're lost forever," he tried to think at Ruth.
We are not lost, the dragon replied. I simply do not know where we are going. Jaxom remembered nothing after that.
o
"I can't believe you two!" Hiccup burst out. "You actually collided in mid-air, trying to catch that stupid black sheep! Did you both forget that this is just a game?"
"A game has to have a winner," Astrid shot back, "and it was not going to be him!"
"It wasn't going to be you, either!" Snotlout retorted. "No Jorgenson has ever lost to a girl, and I wasn't going to start today!"
"Then maybe you aren't really a Jorgenson," she said archly. Snotlout didn't like the implications of that. The two of them were about to come to blows.
"Actually, you both lost, because neither of you finished the race," Hiccup cut in, trying to keep this accident from degrading into war. "Your dragons lost, too! In case you didn't notice, they both wrenched their wings when you flew them into each other. Now, neither of them can fly for days, which means you're both grounded. Was it worth it, just to win a lousy dragon race?"
"It was worth it to keep her from winning," Snotlout said hotly.
"Then it was all for nothing," Hiccup informed him. "She was so far ahead, she didn't even need that black sheep to win. I think Fishlegs caught it after you two crash-landed. That put him in second place, three points behind Astrid, but he finished and she didn't, so he's the winner. Snotlout, you're tied with the twins for last place."
"She would have won anyway?" Snotlout visibly wilted.
"Hey, you can't stop the best, even if you knock us out of the sky," she smirked.
"Aww, man!" Snotlout fussed. "You should have told me the score before I ordered, 'Ramming speed!' I got my dragon all banged up for nothing!"
"And you!" Hiccup continued, turning to face Astrid. "Have you forgotten, Snoggletog is coming, and that means the great migration is almost here? Your dragon needs to fly away in a few days and lay her eggs! Now she can't fly! What are you going to do?"
Astrid looked stricken. "I hadn't thought of that," she admitted, then glared at Snotlout. "You should have told me what day it was, before I ordered, 'Ramming speed!' I don't know what Stormfly is going to do now."
"I know what you two need to do," Hiccup decided. "Now that you both know that you did something totally stupid, you need to shake hands and make up." Astrid and Snotlout folded their arms and glared at each other. "Fine, make fists and make up excuses instead," Hiccup shrugged. "You've got at least a week to be grounded, stuck in the village, so you can't get away from each other. If you have to pummel each other senseless to convince yourselves that you're right and the other one is wrong, just leave your dragons out of it. Please?" He was almost begging.
After a moment, Astrid airily said, "I wouldn't dream of letting Stormfly get any of Snotlout's dirt on her!"
"Yeah, like she said, only the other way around!" Snotlout snapped.
"Great! You're starting to think alike already," Hiccup nodded. "It could be a stressful Snoggletog this year, with both of you in each other's faces all day, but I –"
"Hiccup!" Fishlegs was running toward them as fast as his stubby legs could move him. "We've got a problem!"
"Four problems, actually," Hiccup said matter-of-factly. "Two injured dragons, and two riders who are probably going to go Berserker on each other, the first chance they get."
"Then make it five problems," Fishlegs said as he skidded to a halt next to them. "There's a strange dragon lying on the beach! With a strange rider!"
"What are they doing?" Hiccup asked, his problems with Astrid and Snotlout instantly forgotten.
"Either they're sleeping, or they're out cold, or..." Fishlegs didn't finish. "I was taking a victory lap around the island – you know, kind of rewarding Meatlug for us winning a Dragon Race for the first time ever – when I saw them. I didn't stop to check them out; we came straight back here to tell you. They've got some kind of big bundle with them, too."
"Show me!" Hiccup ordered as he ran for where Toothless was napping. Astrid turned to run for Stormfly... and stopped as she realized that Stormfly wasn't going anywhere.
"Astrid, you can ride with me if you want to," Hiccup said over his shoulder. "I may need all the help I can get."
"I want to!" she decided, and ran after him.
"Hey! What about me?" Snotlout called.
"You can ride with Fishlegs," Hiccup called.
"Ride with Fishlegs? Forget it," Snotlout said sullenly, and slouched away to check on Hookfang.
As Toothless and Meatlug took off, Hiccup said, "Fishlegs, tell us about this dragon."
"I never saw anything like it," the big youth answered. "It's a little bigger than Toothless, I think; it has four legs and two wings, and it's black!"
"Another Night Fury?" Hiccup's heart soared.
"No, I don't think so," Fishlegs corrected him. "It has a forked tail, it doesn't have any tail fins, it has little knobs on its head, and its head isn't shaped like any of our dragons. It doesn't look dangerous or anything. Well, not any more dangerous than any other dragon."
"What about the rider?" Astrid called.
"I never saw him before, either," Fishlegs admitted. "His clothes don't look like Viking clothes, and his helmet doesn't have any horns on it."
Hiccup relaxed slightly. Aside from the Vikings of Berk, the only other person he knew who had ridden a dragon was Heather, and Fishlegs had definitely said that the mystery rider was a "he." They weren't any closer to answers, but at least he wouldn't have to deal with the complications that always followed Heather like rain followed stormclouds.
It wasn't easy to spot the dragon from a distance; its dingy black color made it blend in with the stones on the beach. It was lying on its side, curled around some kind of large bundle. The unknown rider lay a short distance away. "They haven't moved from when I first saw them," Fishlegs noted, which seemed superfluous because both dragon and rider were clearly unconscious.
"I wonder what happened to them," Hiccup wondered as Toothless landed near the unknown pair. He watched his dragon's reaction carefully. The Night Fury had a sensitive nose and a very good sense of which dragons could mean trouble. If this pair was dodging the penalty for some crime they'd committed, or had been banished because of some kind of sickness, Toothless would notice something amiss long before the humans picked up on it.
The black dragon waited for Hiccup to dismount, then padded over to sniff the strange dragon. Then he sniffed the rider. He looked over his shoulder at Hiccup, clearly puzzled by something.
"He doesn't know what to make of them," Hiccup explained to Fishlegs and Astrid, "but he doesn't sense any danger." He walked over to join Toothless. "They've both got some odd-looking wounds, like they were raked by a red-hot sword or something. I'm sure Gothi can fix those. But there's something strange about that dragon. I can't put my finger on it."
"I don't recognize it from the Book of Dragons," Fishlegs nodded, "but with all the new places we're visiting, I'm getting used to unknown dragons. It looks like a great big Terrible Terror, except for the forked tail and the shape of the head. Its scales must be really small; they're hard to see."
"That's what is different about this dragon!" Hiccup burst out. "It doesn't even have any scales! It has hide, kind of like a pig, except much darker, and it doesn't have bristles."
"And it smells a lot better," Fishlegs nodded. "I've never seen a dragon like that before, anywhere." He reached out to touch its flank.
The moment he made contact, the dragon stirred. Fishlegs leaped straight backwards with a cry as the dragon tried to stand, then returned to being curled up around its burden. Its eyes opened, and that was the really alarming part. Its eyes didn't have whites and pupils; they were multifaceted, whirling, and colored yellow. It turned its head to focus on the nearest human, which was Hiccup, now that Fishlegs had jumped away.
Help my rider!
Hiccup put his hands to his head. He could have sworn he heard someone else's voice inside his head! "Fishlegs, did you hear something?"
"Aside from the surf and my heart pounding in terror? No."
Please help my rider!
The dragon was staring at him. Hiccup was trying to sort out this confusion on the fly.
"Did you say something to me?"
Fishlegs replied, "I said, aside from the surf and my –"
"No, not you, Fishlegs! I mean the dragon!"
"Umm, Hiccup, dragons can't talk, and that one hasn't made a sound."
"He's talking to me in my head! He said, 'Please help my rider.' "
Astrid shook her head. "Hiccup, if you're hearing voices in your head, that is not a good sign."
Hiccup turned away from both of them to face the dragon. "How can I help your rider?" he asked it.
He is lost, frightened, injured, and he needs to be fed until he recovers.
"What about you? I can see that you're hurt, too. Are you all right?"
I am hurt, but I will recover. I must not move. I must keep this egg warm.
"A dragon egg! So that's what you're protecting! Well, it's your good luck that you landed in a place where people like dragons. We'll do whatever we can for you. And your rider. And your egg, too. That is one big egg!" He turned to Fishlegs. "You and Meatlug need to fly back to the village. Get Snotlout and – oh, for the love of Thor! Hookfang is injured, so he and Snotlout can't fly! We need some serious dragon muscle to bring this pair back to the village, and Snotlout picked a bad day to knock his own dragon out of the sky."
"And mine," Astrid added tartly.
"How about Gustav and Fanghook?" Fishlegs suggested.
Hiccup sighed. "Every time that pair gets involved, things go badly. But we don't have much choice. Sure, get that pair and send them here, with a sail from the shipyard. They can use that to carry this dragon back to town. Also, tell Gothi that she's going to have an unusual patient, and warn Gobber to make a little room near the forge for a dragon egg that needs to be kept warm."
"Got it!" Fishlegs said over his shoulder as he ran for Meatlug.
Astrid looked concerned. "Hiccup, are you sure you're hearing that dragon's voice in your head? I don't hear anything."
"Astrid, I know what I heard. It's like thinking to yourself, only it's someone else's voice."
She looked away in dismay. He was finally losing it.
He faced the dragon. "What do you mean, your rider is lost?"
We spent too much time between, and he lost touch with himself.
"Too much time between? Between what and what?"
Between. Just between.
"This isn't helping. Can you tell me where you're from?"
We are from Ruatha Hold. We must return this egg to the Benden Weyr hatching ground, quickly. Jaxom says Lessa will send the northern dragons to war against the South if anything happens to that egg.
"Okay, that means absolutely nothing to me," Hiccup admitted. "I don't know where Ruatha or Benden are, I don't know what a Hold is, I don't have a clue what a weyr is, and I've never heard of Jaxom or Lessa. Can you help me out here?"
The dragon's eyes were shading from yellow to blue. It looked confused. Everyone knows those places, and who those people are. That is, everyone on Pern knows. Where am I?
"You're in Berk," Hiccup started to explain. "It's an island in the Barbaric Archipelago, out in the North Sea. It's the home of the Hairy Hooligan tribe of the Vikings. My father, Stoick the Vast, is chief of the tribe."
Those names mean nothing to me, the dragon admitted. I think we have traveled a very long way from home.
"It sounds that way," Hiccup nodded. "We don't have any dragons around here that look like you."
I am the only one of my kind. There is no other dragon like me, who can do what I do.
"And what can you do?" Hiccup asked. He was always curious about dragons.
I can maneuver in the air better than any other dragon, I can talk to the fire lizards, and I always know exactly when I am. The dragon paused. Oh, my. We have traveled a great distance in time as well as in space. I have no point of reference for this time.
"Today is Thorsday, if that helps," Hiccup said. "What's a fire lizard? Do you mean a Terrible Terror?"
"I sure wish I could hear the other half of this alleged conversation," Astrid complained. For lack of anything else to do, she was checking the unconscious rider for signs of broken bones or other injuries. He seemed all right; he was stirring, and moaning as if in a distant agony.
Toothless suddenly grunted and looked out to sea. A small flock of Terrible Terrors was closing in on them. "Speak of the devils," Astrid growled.
"What do they want with us?" Hiccup asked Astrid. "Can't I work on one problem at a time?"
These are not real fire lizards, the dragon's voice said, but they still seem to like me.
The tiny dragons landed on the strange dragon – something that very few Berk dragons would ever tolerate – and began scratching at his hide. To Hiccup's surprise, the black skin began flaking off and dropping away in patches. Underneath, the dragon's skin was pure white. He picked up a patch; it crumbled under his touch.
"It's mud! It's covered in dried mud!" Astrid cried. "If that happened to Stormfly, she'd go out of her mind!"
"Why are you covered in mud?" Hiccup asked the dragon.
Jaxom said I needed to be black so no one could see me at night.
"And who is this Jaxom you keep mentioning?"
Jaxom is my rider.
"Okay, now we're getting somewhere! Astrid, the rider's name is Jaxom."
"So you say," she muttered.
"No, so the dragon says! Why won't you believe me?"
"Hiccup, dragons can't talk! And they sure can't talk into people's minds!"
Hiccup smiled. "They talked into our minds once, and we could talk back to them. Don't you remember?"
"Well... yeah," Astrid admitted, "but that wasn't normal, and neither is this!"
Hiccup turned back to the dragon. "Could you do me a huge favor and talk to Astrid's mind, the way you're talking to my mind?"
The dragon glanced at her. Astrid's face went blank; then she gasped and nearly tripped over her own feet. "The dragon is talking to you!"
"Apology accepted," Hiccup shrugged. "Hey, look! Here comes Fishlegs! But where are Gustav and Fanghook?"
Meatlug landed next to them. Fishlegs slid off his dragon, looking confused. "A few minutes ago, this was a black dragon! Now it's white! Is it a color-changer, like a Hobblegrunt? And what's with all the Terrible Terrors sitting on him?"
"No, Fishlegs, it's a white dragon who was coated in mud so he'd look black. That was important to his rider for some reason. As for the Terrors, I have no idea. Now, why didn't you do the things I told you?"
"I did, Hiccup, I did! At least, I tried. But the sailmakers wouldn't give a sail to Gustav because he's just a kid who doesn't need any sails. He didn't think it made sense to come here without the sail, so he stayed in the village, waiting for something to change. Gothi says she's busy – she's treating half a dozen small children for the pox – but she can fit in an unusual patient if she really has to. And Gobber says 'no way' on the egg in the forge. He says, the last time we kept dragon eggs warm around here, they blew up half the village, and he's not going to let that happen in his workplace."
Hiccup's face darkened. "Do we always have to do things the hard way? Those sailmakers will move plenty fast if my father gets involved, and I know some ways to get him involved! As for the egg, we'll find some other way to keep it warm. Fishlegs, stay here with Astrid. If that rider wakes up, keep him comfortable. I'll be back in a few minutes."
"What do I do if the rider doesn't wake up?" Fishlegs asked.
Hiccup smiled. "Talk to the dragon. I think it'll be a conversation like you've never had before." He jumped into Toothless' saddle and they were airborne a moment later.
o
A/N
When Hiccup says the dragons talked into people's minds before, he is referring to events from another story of mine, called "Do You Mind?"