Author's Note

Hello again! I want to thank you, dear readers, from the bottom of my heart, for the response we've gotten for the last chapter update, on here and on Tumblr. You don't know how much your excitement and comments mean to us. Thank you for sticking with us through all this and for enjoying the continuation of this story.

I really loved getting into Hiccup's mind for this chapter. I love him so much. Thank you again for reading. This is for you all!

How to Train Your Dragon II
The Dragon Whisperer

Act III
A Friendship Tested

Chapter 32
The Bravest Thing a Hero Has to Do

The dark woods of the Herkja forest slowly gave way to orange flame, as Hiccup and Toothless and Astrid flew above the island, towards the sounds of battle and dragonfire. Concealed from view by the immense smoke of the burning town, already Hiccup could feel the fear rise in his chest, the dread that what he was about to see was his doing, that by relinquishing his father to this rash reaction, he had condemned his tribe to the very death Rune had wanted.

He leaned down on Toothless, took in the humming power of his dragon's body. They had not flown like this in far too long––an intimacy where he could feel Toothless' own emotion reverberating into him with every wingbeat and pulse. He felt a fire in Toothless' bones, an anger, and it worked its way into his own anxiety and fear, his own weighed conscience, and the glimmer of hope he gained from the person who sat behind him now.

Astrid wrapped her arms around Hiccup's waist, fingers laced in his lap, her knees nestled behind his. He looked down at his left leg, at the twisted, hurried twine that tied him taut against Toothless' stirrup. It was an unsophisticated job, he knew that when he and Astrid attached it back in the forest. But Heather had done away with his own modified stirrup, intending as she was to never let him fly Toothless again. The knots had to be strong enough to run Toothless' tail, to withstand whatever chaos faced them in the coming battle. And so here he was, attached to his dragon, an immovable limb to his dragon's body, as Toothless was an immoveable part of himself––and it felt fitting, that after all they'd gone through apart, all the pain and agony to find each other, that they would face the final test part and parcel of each other, the fate of one attached to the other––as it was before, as it would always be.

The smoke thickened as Toothless reached the edge of the flaming town, just in front of the great mountain in the center of the island. The charred smell of wood burning mingled with the black ash and the cries of fleeing townspeople below. And from up here, even with the sweeping speed of Toothless' wings, Hiccup could make out the little figures in the midst of the flames––some in dark skirts, some old and barely able to walk, some running into burning homes, crying, wailing, knowing too well the quieting of the small voices within.

Hiccup looked to the sky, wanted to find a Scauldron to put out those flames, and he burned to somehow end the agony of death that pierced the very air around him. He flew past the town, towards the shore, and there was yet more death, more agonized screaming, stark against the sand and rock, unhidden by flame. He saw men scrambling on the shore, blood and sometimes severed limbs trailing them on the beach. He saw slaves cutting down masters, charging into warriors with the desperate anger of the unfree finding liberation in violence. He saw rebellion dragons playing with their riders before swooping around, jaws clenched on them, bloodthirst in their eyes. He smelled suffocating smoke in the air, the warm, tingling smell of wood, the sharp acidic aftertaste of Zippleback flame. And blood, he smelled blood and ash and the cool knife-crisp wind of the storm.

And he looked for his father––amid the crashing waves stained red with hot blood, amid the crumbled debris of ships scorched by dragon fire, amid bodies that floated, fought, or died between the sea and the land. A hot lump formed in his throat, as he swung around a fifth time over the sea. It was getting harder to deflect the flying arrows and dragonfire, in the crossfire between ships and dragons and men. It was getting harder to pick out which bodies in the water below were Hooligan and which were Skirra Vel. He let out a desperate yell suddenly––in frustration, in anger, in a bitter losing sense of why. Wouldn't his father have seen him by now, his own son? On the only Night Fury this side of the archipelago? And shouldn't he have seen Stoick, calling out for his son, yelling in that big voice of his, hurtling his anger at the world and the boy who could never do what he was told?

Hiccup blinked away the moisture in his eyes, breathed out and found his heart ragged, his throat thick with rising bile for the bloodshed that raged everywhere around him. He didn't want to admit what he knew might be true. That all this death, all this lost hope––in all of it, his own father might be only one swath of the scythe sharpened by this war. That everything he had done, everything Heather had done––all the sacrifice and bitterness and agony and joys––all of it paled in the immensity of consequences like this, the death and the terror on this scale. For who here on this beach had experienced Rune or Stoick's heartbreak? Who here in the town had cried Hiccup's tears or felt Toothless' anger? Who here in the air had felt Heather's confusion? None of them, and yet they were the ones dying these deaths––Skirra Vellite and Hooligan alike.

Overwhelmed by grief and guilt and anger, Hiccup stopped looking for a dragon to put out the flames that were too large for anyone to put out alone. He nudged Toothless to rise, overwhelmed by what he'd seen. And as he rose, he found it almost too easy to bury that piercing knowledge of death and see the battlefield as a single amassed yell, a white noise of nothingness, smothered in gray––his father somewhere, somehow in the midst of its bloody heart.

This would all have to end, he realized. He had to end it, or the battle would rage until no living soul was left alive.

He felt Astrid's arms around him then, and in her arms he felt the tremor of his own soul––the same shock and anger, the same immense sorrow. "You need to focus on being chief, Hiccup," she said, quietly. And he could tell she was holding back her own panic, keeping in the sorrow and the realization that when they left Berk those ages ago, that was the last they'd see of Stoick.

"But he's not dead," Hiccup said, weakly, but knew it was his innocence speaking, the part of him that could not let the image of his father go, nor unhear his voice calling out war cries in his memory, or unfeel his large hand on his own small shoulder, telling him everything was going to be okay.

"None of that matters right now, you know that." Her voice took on a stiffness, a scaffolded warrior's tone, the voice of the girl who called him out on the docks of Berk many years ago, forcing him out of his sorrow, forcing him into sense and into hope. She was fighting too, he could feel that, but she was fighting for him, for her people––because she had always seen him as her future chief, and she, even more than him, was prepared for the weight of that. "Our people, they need you," she whispered.

He looked out over the storm, the roiling skies above the battlefield––lightning behind those clouds, the nascent smell of rain in the midst of the smoke. And he fought the urge for self-preservation––the need to unbury the weight in his heart, to find either his father or his body––something to answer the agony of the unknown that teared at his soul. And yet he knew he had been gone long enough from this war, that the price he'd paid for his best friend was the bloodshed here now. He had Toothless; he had the part of him he needed to defend his tribe, stop this war. That was the argument he'd told his father, and now… would he leave his tribe again to chase after love, the way he did for Toothless? He could not let his people down… and he could not leave his father to the unknown. But why did it always have to be a choice? Why does doing the right thing for your people mean doing the wrong thing for your family, your friends? Is that what responsibility was, what leadership was? What being a chief was?

Sometimes the bravest thing a hero has to do is not fighting death or dragons, but facing the consequences of your own actions.

"Find him for me, Astrid," he said, thickly.

"Of course."

He swallowed the burn that grew inside him, tapped Toothless gently. "Come on, bud," he said, turning aside from the wreckage below, the graveyard of living men on the shore.

§ § §

"Focus, Hiccup," Astrid coaxed behind him. "You can do this." They'd talked about it before, in the woods when Astrid tended his injuries. He had to let both tribes know he was alive––if the reason the Skirra Vel had followed Rune into this madness was to end the life of the Hooligan heir, and to condemn the Hooligan chief by destroying his tribe. He wondered how many of the Herkja soldiers knew he had been a slave under Heather's household; he wondered if Ragnar was somewhere below, casting his whip upon yet another dragon or Hooligan. He felt the twinge of those wounds on his back again, felt the fire of defiance push slowly to the forefront of his mind. They had a chance now, if Heather was truly captured, if Rune was dead, as Hervi had said. The Hooligans only needed a leader, to gather the chaos into line, to push one more time into the breach, to organize the dragons again, to unify the warriors spread wide across this strip of land and sea…

If only Stoick were here.

Hiccup now realized the longing his father had felt, when he was the one who ran out on the tribe, to find a dragon on an island far from home. Because as dragons were his own specialty, war was his father's. And because of him, they both had to live through a battle where they had lost the person who should have been there, but was not.

Hiccup nudged Toothless, whispered low to the dragon's ear, "Bud, fly as high as you can, in the middle of the battlefield." He knew what he had to do. A battle where there is no leader is a battle already lost. "Give it all you got, bud. It's a message, not an attack. Make it flashy."

Toothless hummed, looked back at Hiccup and throated a deep rumble of understanding. Hiccup leaned back, heeled in the tailfin and they swept upward, into the storm and the dim flashes of lightning deep within the clouds, past the fighting dragons and the piercing flap of angry wings in the air. He knew only Toothless could stop the war in its tracks, only Toothless could command the war in the way he needed now. And as they caught the wind high above the battle, he felt the sound and smell of war slowly ebb, as the electrical charge of the clouds above sparked up in his metal leg and his saddle, the hum of the storm stronger at the edge of the bloodshed in the air below. The sky was like an ocean up here, the winds blowing upward into the exploding clouds. He tasted liquid and lightning and ash.

Toothless curved down suddenly, reared midair and shot out a shocking cascade of plasma––boom, boom, shock, crash––explosions across the battlefield, directly behind the Hooligan ships, off to the sides of the island, and skittering across the flames of the town. He shot into the air and into the fire, great swelling masses of blue and violet, a crack like thunder doubled over and sharp, deep into the ears of those who heard it. The darkening sky lit up like the day, and a violet hue cast a filter over the battlefield. For a moment, the war was the color of spring flowers, and the warriors stopped, as the ground shook with the boom of shockwaves that warped and ran into each other. Hiccup, near the apex of the sound, felt his entire body register the pulse of that power, rhythmic and pushing deep into his bones. Toothless' blast, at full power like this… that was the deep, commanding shock that he knew would take the world to its knees. And he was depending on it to be its salvation.

He looked around, the buzz in his ears fading, slowly, and he saw the dragons around him pause––look to Toothless with the liquid fire of rebellion in their eyes, their jaws hanging slack with ragged breathing, but their wings flapped up a moment, paused mid-air in the midst of their anger. The eyes sought for the Night Fury, and the slow collective hum of a hundred and more dragons caught the air, and Toothless below him vibrated and pulsed with an inner growl that ran low and deep across the air. Hiccup felt the dragon's body tense, the wings pulse down with a hard conviction, as the dragon's eyes shot back and forth across the battlefield, into the eyes of a hundred dragons that looked to him, hissed at him, heeded him, listened to him.

And as the hundreds of watching dragon eyes gazed on, a hundred more human ones looked up from the shore, up from the ships, and from the backs of dragons Hooligan and Skirra Vel, looked up to him and Toothless and the source of the violet terror.

And Hiccup knew his moment had come, when he had the ear of both his enemies and his friends, and when Toothless had a hold on the dragons in the air. Astrid pressed her body closer to his, the whisper unsaid in her voice, her trust unflinching. He held her hand, looked down at the unreal vision of a battle stopped in time.

"Tribes of the archipelago!" Hiccup shouted, and he forced a depth to his voice he didn't know he had. "I am Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, Hope and Heir to the Hooligan tribe, son of Stoick the Vast. You were told that I had died. But those reports are false."

He could hear, even from here, a collective thrum of shock from below––Hooligan dragons reared in the air, their riders cheering. Skirra Vel below stopped, and in their eyes Hiccup could read uncertainty––the fear of their dragons turning on them, the loss of leadership, the news of his own life and the sight of their prize dragon, the Night Fury, in the air on the side of the Hooligans.

"Skirra Vel," Hiccup continued, shouting, "Your chief is dead and your heir is captured by Hooligan warriors. I speak to you now because my father too is gone, and I––" A hitch caught in his voice, and his eye caught sight of the warriors he knew on Berk––Spitelout and Phlegma, Sven and Gobber. Looking at him from Spitelout's ship. And it shocked him, to see those eyes after all that had happened, and to flinch to look upon them.

"I am chief now," he said at last, a denial still fighting inside him, and a terror of responsibility and grief that threatened to unnerve him. Toothless below him sensed his wavering strength and eyed him, gathered the air in his throat and reared, sent a volley of plasma into the sky and set the clouds above alight with violet pulsating sound. The atmosphere shook with thunder. Dragons shuddered in the air. And Hiccup knew his friend was buying him a moment to fathom his grief, collect his strength, to speak again.

He took a deep breath.

"And as chief, I will not tolerate the hatred between our tribes. My father and your chief fought each other, and they put an end to each other's anger with their own lives. We fight now not for our own salvation, but for the hatred of another age, another time, another man. If we continue, we will all die today. Do we shed our blood today for our fathers' hatred? Do we die for the sins of the past? I tell you, no. I will not let that happen.

"Your dragons are consumed by the Red Rage. Your men die on the shore, leaderless. Your village is on fire; there is nothing left of your homes and your land. I, Hiccup Haddock the Third, chief of the Hooligan tribe, I offer the same hand of reconciliation my father gave you on the shores of Berk. Let us help you."

The growl in Toothless' throat revved, and he shot one more time across the battlefield, sending a three-part volley fast across the sea. Flames erupted on the surface of the ocean, encircling the battlefield in a wide ring of violet dragonfire. Subtle shock waves strummed back, and Hiccup felt a chill run through him, a sense of the quivering foundation he had tried to sink into the wavering sea of these people––a foundation of change, of trust, of his own authority. And it frightened him suddenly, the fact that they might actually be listening to him, that he may yet have the power to change the course of the war. That all this was possible because Rune was gone, Heather was gone… and his own father was dead.

The wind was picking up fiercely now and Astrid pressed her head against the back of his neck, whispered, "I think you did it."

But Hiccup did not respond, overwhelmed by his own words, and the sorrow that was finally acknowledged in his soul.

§ § §

Hiccup, still swept in the waves of the storm above the battlefield, looked out over the sea and the shore, calming his heart, trying to focus, knowing that what came next would be no easier than what he had just done––to return to his people, only to tell them the chief that had run out here to save him had died.

I'm sorry, Dad…

The thought burned inside him, and he blinked away the tears that fought to scream out of him. He longed to throw his body against Toothless and mourn for the father who loved him so much he would risk his entire tribe to save him. He shook, tried to look out over the battlefield, as if the sight of death would comfort him…

And he saw faces upturned towards him, skirmishes that continued across the shore, some warriors pausing, some willing to fall back towards Hooligan ships, some Skirra Vellites holding their weapons, as if the tools had lost their purpose. And he felt Toothless, still shaking with the guttural hum of a constant communication. The dragon's keen eyes kept watch on the dragons around him, and Hiccup knew it was Toothless that was keeping the rebellion in check––not resolved, but somehow scaled back, and he longed once again to know what it was that ran through his Night Fury's mind, what thoughts were passing across the windy expanse from one dragon to another. He wondered if his dragon knew the pain that burned in his soul now, if he sensed that Stoick was gone, that the chief of Berk would never see Toothless again. He leaned down suddenly, heaving a silent yell that he dare not let out. What had he done?

"Hiccup." Astrid's voice came, like a light in the growing darkness. He breathed, looked back at her and the eyes that settled on him, sure and comforting, a strength from which he drew freely. She leaned her cheek against his shoulder, wrapped her arms around his waist. Hiccup closed his eyes, for a sacred moment in this chaos, closed out the sounds of storm and clack of metal from his ears. He had to go be the leader his father always wanted him to be… one more time, now, before he could sit at the foot of his father's chair back at their little home on Berk, crawl up on the seat, feel his presence, feel his voice, and truly, terribly, at long last, mourn.

He heard familiar voices, then, in the air around him. Voices almost too joyous to be real, but tainted by a sadness he had grown too used to in this place. He gasped, could not believe he was seeing the twins, Snotlout, and Fishlegs in the air, guiding him down on their own dragons––Hookfang, Meatlug, Stormfly, Barf and Belch. A little worse for wear, that was the Skirra Vellite's doing, but still… alive and flying.

"Stormfly!" Astrid's voice was almost choked, and he felt it too––the cathartic pain of finding your friends alive after facing too much death. The dragons surrounded him, the riders' voices at once relieved and empathic.

"We thought you'd died––"

"Are you sure––is Stoick gone?"

Fishlegs flew up close to him, little eyes heavy at they stared at him. "I honestly thought I'd never see you again," he said, quietly. "I'm sorry about everything."

"Yeah." Hiccup said, tensely, avoiding the other rider's eyes. It seemed like an age ago since he came to this island, his friends chasing after him, trying to stop him from doing something stupid that would get him killed. Well… it wasn't him they'd be mourning, after all. He struggled to listen to what the riders were saying now, forced himself to push down his guilt and grief… "Are you all okay?" he asked, to no one in particular. Everyone had gone through some share of this war.

"No worse than most of us," came Ruffnut's voice. "Fishlegs here had the honor of busting us out."

The twins' Zippleback hovered above him. It was a shock, to see their long haggard faces, not as sarcastic as he remembered, not as lethargic, but… very grown up, somehow. There was a darkness in their eyes, and he wondered what they had gone through when he had been fighting for Toothless' life, when he had been dying on the shore, when he had been a slave of the Skirra Vel.

"Me and Ruffnut," Tuffnut began, his voice was gutterally low, "we're really sorry about your dad. Life is… very upside down right now."

Hiccup clenched his jaw, nodded. He couldn't bring himself to say anything, lest he let loose the carefully guarded stormwater in his soul. "I'm sorry I brought you all into this."

"Don't be," Ruff hummed, simply.

Even Snotlout's face was heavy with an uncomfortable sorrow, his eyes tired from worry. "They need to make you chief, Hiccup. There's not much time."

Hiccup took a deep breath, looked back at the battle behind him and knew he had to act soon on the words he promised. He swept down with the rest of the dragons towards Spitelout's ship, where he saw what was left of the War Council––Spitelout, Phlegma, Sven. Gobber was there too, and there were tears in those small eyes, blood in his yellow beard. Behind them lay men and women laid out across the ship, in rows as other Hooligans tended to them, red stains across the deck… and dragons––dragons spread out on other ships behind Spitelout's, scorched and cut and bruised, the wounds of a war between not only humans but dragons.

He landed and let Astrid off gently. Stormfly squawked as she perched on the ship's edge, bent down to let Astrid mount her. She paused, looked at Hiccup and laid a hand on his leg. "I'm right behind you."

He squeezed that hand gratefully, turned to face the War Council that approached him.

"Hiccup," Gobber gasped, rushing up to him, a barely held-in relief flooding over him. "We were sure we'd lost you, boy. But yer here, alive!" He clapped Hiccup on the thigh. "Stoick would have been so happy." His brow tensed and he tried to smile, thinly though his beard. "Welcome home, Hiccup."

Hiccup felt an anger twist in his soul. "I don't deserve a welcome."

Gobber's face mellowed, looked up at Hiccup the way he had in years past, when he had been Hiccup's sounding board against his dad's tirades and tongue-lashings. The mentor-Gobber, the one who would listen. "Yer wrong, Hiccup. Stoick would have done anythin' to have ye back, and I don' think even death woulda' stopped 'im." Gobber's own voice caught suddenly and Hiccup turned away, the heat in his throat thick and terrible. Gods, why… Why did he risk all this, for him? When he could have waited? He would have come back with Toothless, and Stoick would still be alive. Did it matter that he was beaten here, burned, and tortured? He'd have gotten away, somehow. Why did his father care so much, believe so much, protect so much?

Hiccup closed his eyes, felt the hum of Toothless' throat lilting up, to him, and he knew the dragon was feeling his pain. It was all too similar to how Hiccup felt about Toothless, he realized. That he would run to death's door on this blasted island to save the dragon he loved. Love was a strange, powerful drug. It made you refuse to trust someone, made you feel as if you needed to be their savior; it made you run into death when that other person may have better wished you stay alive, for them. And in the end, love made the one still living wish they had been the one in the grave.

"I'm sorry," Hiccup said, and he felt tears moisten his face.

"And we're sorry, boy. For letting the past catch up to you. Ye had nothin' to do with anythin'." Gobber looked wistfully out at the sea, and Hiccup could sense the tremor of longing that ran through the older man, felt the pang of memory in his small eyes.

They shared a moment together, silent and heavy, in the chaos of the storm.

"I saw him, ye know," Gobber continued, quietly. "I tried to stop him from attackin' his brother, but ye know yer father. Stubborn, dragon-headed. A proper Viking." He chuckled and Hiccup tried to smile. "We watched him, from his flagship, and we tried, my gods we tried to catch up with 'im. But i'was no use." He sniffed and breathed out forcefully. "I saw Rune strike the blow, an' I saw Stoick go down. The sea caught him, and we tried… but the mad dragons got to us then, came an' destroyed our ship. Halldorr was killed, and Gandalfr. But I'm hangin' on…" Gobber punched his chest with a tightly clenched fist, wiped his eye with his arm. "Ye can't hold us Hooligans back that easy."

Hiccup wiped the tears from his face, breathed out shakily, focused on Gobber, tried to recover his strength. He had come too close to the abyss of grief, and he could not afford to set sail into that darkness, not yet, not here. "My dad's still out there. I have to believe that. How else can I lead our people?" He looked up at Gobber, found the older man's expression change to one of sorrow from wistfulness.

Hiccup gave him a tense, shivering smile. "I need to be out there, Gobber. I need to get the Skirra Vel on the peace table. None of that will happen if I can't control the mad dragons or help the slaves––neither have a loyalty to anyone, and all they want is freedom. We can't fight a three-fronted war."

A paternal glow lit up Gobber's face. "An' here I was thinkin' all my instruction was going through deaf ears." He looked down then, tapped Hiccup's left leg, running a finger over the hack attachments to Toothless' stirrup. "That's not very like ye, Hiccup. Want me to run a proper metalwork on it?"

But Hiccup was looking at Spitelout, ahead of him, his face grave as he approached Hiccup with the other members of the war council, a sheathed sword in his hand. "It's okay, Gobber," Hiccup said. "War's a hack job anyway."

Stoick's second-in-command lifted the sword laterally towards Hiccup, one hand on his own sword, the other on the one he presented to the new chief. "We don't have time for a proper ceremony, Hiccup. But this was Stoick's father's sword, the Endeavor. Take it." He let the light catch dimly on its plain-shafted hilt. "Stoick wanted to give it to you the day you became a man."

Hiccup let the sword rest on his outstretched palm, and as Spitelout let it go, he grasped it with a tentative conviction, a promise, a deep longing. "Thank you," he said, hoarsely. He looked at it, the dark, partly-charred hilt, nicked and dented in the cross-guard and well-worn on its grip. But unsheathed, it gleamed in the dim storm-light, edged and sharpened. It had been prepared for him, to celebrate something his father would never now see.

He latched the sword to his waist, prayed that he would be worthy of his father and his memory. Spitelout bowed to the new chief, Gobber and Phlegma following, and soon the entire ship gave him regard, a grieving pallor falling on the warriors who still could not believe a great man as Stoick had fallen.

His War Council met him, briefly then, to give an account of the war as it had gone. Hiccup made plain that he did not mean to kill his way to victory, that the only way to make amends with the Skirra Vel was to show forgiveness––"It's what my dad wanted, back at the beginning. Retribution only sends hatred down the generations. At some point, someone has to say that the wrongs done to them wouldn't be answered. No one can do that but the people wronged. And I'm asking you today, do not avenge what the Skirra Vel did to us. It ends here, today."

They needed to stop aggressions gradually––but definitively. Hiccup commanded that riders go out and send word of his promise down the ranks. The Skirra Vel had already been weakened from the battle as it was, with attacks on their line from both dragons and slaves. They had no leader and were chasing openings in the Hooligan ranks. Hiccup ordered they shore up the line, close in the semicircle of ships along the shore, burn the wreckage that could not be used, thus preventing passage along the line. Encircle the Skirra Vel along the beach, using the town and the burned ships and positioned dragons as barriers around the battlefield. Provide medicine to the injured, without regard for whose side they were on. He ordered a small dragon squadron to Berk, to replace medical supplies lost in the battle.

Finally, they needed to get Hooligan dragons out of the air; the Red Rage could not be stopped by mere firepower, and more dragons in the proximity of madness meant a greater risk of their being caught in the dragons' anger. As for the slaves, they needed to be made free. They could not hope to fight two wars with humans and one also with dragons. He needed messengers to send out the Hooligan promise. They gave him parchment and he took a charcoal, wrote out quickly his pledge, signed it chief of the Hooligan tribe.

"And Heather?" one of the tribesmen asked.

Hiccup looked up from writing. "What about her?"

"She was lost when Stoick fought his brother. We do not know where she is."

Hiccup nodded. She hadn't shown herself or approached the Hooligans, and there was a lack of coordination of the Skirra Vel on the field. It could mean she was missing, or maybe… maybe her own loss of Rune had done something to her, as his own father's loss threatened his heart every breathing moment. She was a passionate person, and her feelings were buried, visible in breaths and jagged edges, and she hated him with a passion that belonged to her father. But if Rune was dead, what then? He looked out over the shore, towards the sky and the lightning that now sparked up the clouds above, looking for her, for the last enemy to face, the last of the leaders who wanted this war.

"Well then…" he said, "if you see her, tell her I have a message." He asked for another parchment, wrote a few words on it, words that seemed too simple for the magnitude of what he was hoping to accomplish. "I forgive her," he said, "and I offer peace and help for her and her people."

He set his eyes upon his people, saw a few challenging faces in the ranks. "It sounds unwise, I know. But I have been with this people and I have been with Heather. I know who she is, and she is not ready for the cost of this war. Her people are not ready for dragons. And she knows that. I can talk to her."

Gobber rolled his shoulders, sighed. "Maybe the boy's right. We've lost enough as it is, and it's certainly worth a shot."

Astrid glared at him with a violence dimly held in check. Hiccup understood that feeling in her now; she had seen what Heather and her men had done to him––the assassination attempt, the physical and mental abuse. But it was the right of your loved ones to feel vengeance for you; and it was the choice of the victim not to feel the same. He caught her eye, tried to tell her things were going to be okay.

She tensed her lips, knew she had committed to supporting him through this last battle. "What do you want us to do?" she asked, rearing on Stormfly as the wind picked up again and thunder rolled across the waves.

"You and our friends, look for my dad," Hiccup said, quietly.

Her eyes softened, and she bit her lip, nodding. "I'll keep my eye on you." She turned, was about to fly off towards the other riders, but paused, brought Stormfly up close to him. She leaned over to him and he smelled the smoke mixed with the sweat on her face, the crisp char of her furs. She cupped her palm against his jaw. "I am proud of you. My chief," she said and lay a soft kiss on his forehead.

He closed his eyes and leaned against her hand a moment, taking in the warmth of her words, the blessing of her trust. He picked up her hand, kissed her thin, blood-stained fingers––his blood––and then she turned, was in the air in a moment, along the shore and wreckage and smoke. And he longed for this to be over, to be flying in the air with her by his side, not with raging dragons beside them, but sunlight and sea mist and bright, icy clouds.

"Hiccup." A voice came suddenly, from Hiccup's left. Hervi?

Hiccup turned and saw the old man on the Hooligan vessel. "How did you get here?"

"Surrendered to one of your men." He held up his hands, showed Hiccup the loose rope that bound him, as a prisoner of war.

Hiccup shook his head, motioned for Gobber. "Take those ropes off of him."

"Him? But 'e's an enemy combatant. Worked with Rune, no less." Gobber blinked, waving his arms about for emphasis.

"He was a slave, and he saved my life out there. Release him."

"Yes, of course, in that case." Gobber worked off the bonds and Hervi bowed, and Hiccup realized it was a reflex from acquiescing to too many masters over the past twenty years. "I have a job for you," Hiccup said. "The slaves." He looked to Hervi with a familiarity, a certain shared comradeship in a life few in Berk knew. "Tell them to follow you, to make peace with the Hooligans. Could you do that?"

Hervi's brow creased, and Hiccup could see the delicate sense of self-confidence waver. He knew the old man had been chief once of this place, knew he loved the people, and he had seen the old man risk his life for him once before, and he imagined that maybe this offer now would be something he could do to atone for what sins he felt he had committed.

Hervi was quiet a long while, and when he spoke, he looked to Hiccup with eyes that were moist with a depth that was long hidden. "I said before I had waited too long to help my people. I will do this, Hiccup. Thank you."

Hiccup smiled tightly. Hervi turned from him, and he caught sight of the slavemark on the old man's forehead, remembered the same brand on his own temple. Hiccup's face grew grave, and he turned to look to the sea, following Hervi's gaze. "We'll give you a dragon, and you can let the slaves know we will set them free. They cannot fight both of our tribes and the wild dragons. If they join us, they will not be slaves, but free men and women."

Hervi nodded and bowed low. Hiccup waved a hand to stop him. "You're a chief, Hervi. Don't forget that."

The old man laughed a pained laugh that slipped low into a hopeful, almost nostalgic hum. He said, quietly, "Maybe two slaves can be the chiefs their people need today… Wouldn't you say?"

Hiccup nudged his head down, unused to the responsibility of that name, that weight, of the cost to own it. "We have to try."

§ § §

The moment of the storm was coming, the tumult of the skies and the air was at a head. A dragon could tell these things, feel the breathing lurch of the air as it rose and fell, swept across and over, preparing for the downfall, preparing for the blast. The winds were already so strong that it grounded some smaller dragons, the air so thick with ash that it slowly colored gray the ocean around the ships.

Toothless felt electricity in the air, even down here, but even more, he felt the presence of another Strike Class dragon… and Toothless knew who it was and what he wanted. And he hoped more than anything that they would not meet on the battlefield, not with Hiccup with him now, not with the war and the dragons pushing that Skrill's mind to an edge further than the cliffside he was already on.

Toothless knew Hiccup was carrying a heavy burden. He knew the pain that laced Hiccup's voice, felt the universal emotion that was embodied in those words. It took him back to a time ages ago, when a small Night Fury watched as his own father was swept into the Death Spiral, his small green eyes too young to see one's parent leave this world, his dragon's heart too unsteady to set off into a world on his own, alone, always different. But a child can feel the shared pain of the loss of a parent––and Toothless felt that same pain now, even as the boy tried to be a leader of his people, tried to take the place of someone they were not ready to let go.

And he did not want Hiccup to have to go through the grief he had gone, when he had lost his father to the Skrills on this very island in his youth. And yet still the boy was trying––to end a war, end a feud, push through with his lone voice to stop an age of bitterness and hatred.

For Toothless, it took the premeditated shedding of human blood to realize the boy had been right all along.

Toothless had caught the attention of the dragons in rebellion, who saw him as something of a leader for suggesting they fly with the humans in order to escape. It was a thought Toothless had expressed in the midst of his own anger––and the ferocity of his unwillingness to let Hiccup be taken from him.

Torch the humans like a wood.

The chant was a powerful drug in a wild dragon's soul, a call to an ancient beginning, an almost timeless sense of camaraderie and being. An unchanging dragon essence, or so it was thought.

But Toothless knew in his heart that this was wrong. Humans like Heather were unworthy of his love and devotion; those who hurt Hiccup would never have his loyalty. But the slope of anger and rebellion is slippery, and the rage he felt towards only some was spread to all in the hearts of dragonkind. They saw no distinction between Skirra Vellite and Hooligan, bad or good, young or old, innocent or guilty. They killed one and all. And so Toothless fought to keep the rage from reaching him, that tried to pull him back into the lashing violence of a creature who believed no common ground could be found between the species.

And now, looking out into the sea, at the bloodshed shared by both dragon and humankind, he knew that he still had a chance to change these dragons, give one last measure of loyalty to his conviction that dragons, as well as people, could change. Hiccup might be the most compassionate, understanding Viking when it came to dragons, but to speak a dragon through a rebellion like this… That was his, Toothless' job, and he knew it. Toothless was the link between dragons and humans, the one who understood humans the most––from both sides now. The agony and pain they could cause, but the love––oh, the long-suffering love––that these dragons did not know.

Toothless launchd himself from the ship, Hiccup upon him, and shot a blast into the sky, calling the dragons to him, hissing out with a ferocity that a Night Fury rarely uses. Dragons of the rebellion––listen to me, he called out, sweeping the battlefield. He watched the angry eyes turn to him, the livid haze in them ease as they heeded his ancient call.

Have you also a human you wish to kill? A hum of voices came back at him, the drug and disassociation of violence still strong in the dragon horde.

Toothless hissed, shot the ground to emphasize his vicious denial. Fellow dragons, you do not realize the grave mistake you're making here. You have all heard the stories. The tale of the power of the Night Fury. And the tale of the Skrills on this island.

A Timberjack hissed back, And the tale of a traitor––

Toothless snarled, cutting off the other dragon with a sharp, commanding hiss. Call me a traitor, but know this––we each of us, Skari and I, have a tale to tell. Toothless looked up at the lightning swirling in the sky above, the presence of that dragon somewhere in its smoky heart. You know the hatred in Skari's eyes. He is here to avenge his family, use this, even the rebellion, to rally his anger towards my species. He and I both have lost our parents to a hatred from an age ago. I am done with the anger, but he––he will lead us into madness and death in order to bring shame to my family.

A collective snarl hummed from the dragons around Toothless, as their eyes glanced his way and to the lightning storm above. They could not deny the fact that Skari was himself broken by bitterness and driven by rage. But Toothless knew even with the truth of that he could not hope to bring an end to the fighting. There was too much blood shed already in this war among dragons. The only thing he could do is hope and pray that this peace he would propose to them was possible in their future. He believed it could, because of Hiccup, he believed it was possible… And he looked at up his rider, felt the love coursing through those green eyes, gazing down at him with unspoken support––and a certain longing, a hope for understanding, the kind of look he'd seen far too often in his Hiccup's eyes. Toothless turned to his dragonkind, hissing with a deep, threatening growl as he swept across the sky.

I won't presume to change your minds, my fellow dragons. I won't deny I've befriended a human, but a traitor is someone who denies the essence of their kind, who gives them over to the enemy, and I have done none of these things. I cannot deny the evil that these humans have done to you, and I cannot erase the bloodshed of a thousand years of humans upon dragonkind.

But what I can do is change your hearts. Maybe not for today, but for our future. So remember what I say here, right now. Because I know a truth you have yet to understand. That humans and dragons can live in peace, if we give them that chance. I am a traitor because I decided to give mercy to a human. But when I did, when I spared his life––this human led his people into a love for our species. He changed the world of the human for our sakes. And dragons have known a peace there unlike any our dragonkind has known before. This is the peace I wish to give to you. With my human ally at the head of this new world, our kind need not stain our blood with killing. That we can save ourselves, our children, by trusting.

Stop this rebellion––the humans are spent, they are dying and there is no hope for them. But listen to my boy… He is not like the others. He, and the tribe of humans he leads––they see us dragons for who we are; they do not kill us, and with them we are free.

Toothless swept across the sky, his voice a booming crack across the land. He set his gaze up to Hiccup, as the boy looked at him with a gravity and presence that spoke to Toothless of an immense respect and wonder at who he was. Toothless looked out at the rebellion, the dragons that paused in their violence, their eyes conflicted in the rage they had succumbed to––and the revelation of his words.

A human once told me we dragons were not what they thought we were. And I know that humans are not what we believed them to be. They are capable of forgiveness, of love, and they can bring peace to our divided world, if we give them the chance.

I know you call me a traitor. But maybe it is only a traitor who can risk to see the world anew to make it better.

§ § §

The Skrill was a powerful creature, and in him Heather could sense that thrill she had felt that time long ago, when Toothless had saved her from the earthquake on Dragon Island. That strong, consuming sense of protection, of danger, of a thing that somehow acknowledged you without words, but only feelings. And it occurred to her that this connection she had found in Toothless, that hummed through a glass darkly here, was that same feeling she had known as a child, when her own father had saved her from the rivers of her birth island, when it burned with raids and bloodshed and plunder. Today, she craved that comfort, that destruction… that salvation.

The Skrill flapped his dark, purple-tinged wings, took her over the battlefield. It was chaos, a melee of bloodshed and violence that brought a sense of unwilling hopelessness to her heart.

Oblivion.

She looked up into the gray skies, at the empty faceless comfort that seemed just beyond her grasp. Beyond the fighting dragons, the screams and death… If only she could touch it, find its peace in her own heart.

She felt a tear push its way out of her eyes, and she knew she was losing herself out here, chasing ghosts and anger. She couldn't look down at the battlefield anymore, couldn't see the warriors and dragons dying before her eyes, the magnitude of the battle and the… pointlessness of it all. They had been fighting for her and her father, for the salvation of their chief, and now he was gone… Was Ragnar right? Did it all not matter anymore? Did she matter anymore? What would Fate have of her, now that those thousand deaths too were on her conscience?

She stared into the ridges of cloud above her, urged the Skrill towards the blackness, the throbbing hums of lightning and wind. "Take me there," she whispered, and somehow, somehow she knew the dragon would know. It was as if the boy Hiccup was right, that a dragon was more intelligent that she would ever know. She looked down at the dragon, its bright black eye livid with life and purpose. It wasn't glazed like the eyes of the dragons who were killing her people; no, this dragon was different, and she felt a danger and a hope in that. It would be good to die at the hands of a dragon who seemed almost… human.

Up here, in the midst of the clouds, it was as if the battle did not exist below. She heard only rumbling thunder, the brisk swell of wind gusts, the electric tingle of impending thunder. She heard the low, guttural breathing of a mountain, far away, as it prepared to blow. And she felt the thrill in the air suddenly, the life of the storm as it boiled here, scoffing at the inconsequence of the petty humans below. She knew storms, she knew volcanoes, she knew the signs of disaster. And she knew this storm was stronger than all of them, that this coming eruption would tear the skies, that the heart of the storm would bring dragons and ships to the mercy of the gods.

She couldn't see his face anymore, the harried face of her father dying in her arms. She laughed at the loss of his figure from her mind. Was this what death was like? The loss of everything that meant something to her, the loss of care and reason? She closed her eyes, felt only the rush of air around her. She grew cold in the whipping wind, knew the Skrill was rising higher and higher into the thundercloud, and she felt sparks snapping around her, striking her with pinpricks of pain, washing her with a buzzing confusion, and it was like a drug, the pain in her mind and her body… soothing in its continuity, in its intensity, carving her up like dragon's teeth on her skin. And she hissed a bitter laugh at the agony, the way it consumed her mind and ate up her heart. She felt the Skrill roar, his thin, ripping voice lashing with a joy only a wild creature could know––and she knew the lightning was rippling in spasms across the dragon's body, the creature gathering up nature's energy into itself, preparing for a battle of his own––a battle bigger than her human pain, bigger than her broken heart.

The Skrill growled, slanted sideways into the wind, rocketed up and swirled, forcing her to clutch him closer, that subconscious instinct of staying alive. She sensed him also laughing, that lilting hiss that vibrated from his throat. She felt her fear and tears mingling up in confusion inside her, and she knew that somehow this was Fate and Hiccup slaying her through this dragon––to guide her into a maelstrom of mirrors, a curving hall of her own reflection, her own sorrow, to kill her from the inside and make existence tolerable by cleansing it of logic and sanity.

Her father died knowing too much truth. Can she do the opposite, and find final peace by a blissful confusion? An amnesia of the heart?

She felt her body throb with the skies as her senses came alive––felt the prick of rain, the wavering colors in the clouds, the dots of light below them, where the warships still burned. She felt the dragon's shuddering heartbeat, the acidity of his breath mingled with rain, and the tangy lisp of white light weaving around his wings.

That's when she heard it––the boom, crack, clash of a violent thunder from below, the shocks of energy making waves in the understory of cloud. And then––something human piecing into the white noise of her mind. A voice, almost quiet in the midst of the storm, but loud in her mind––a voice too full of grief, of reason, of leadership.

"I am chief now––" said the voice far away, cracked with an earnestness that shoved agony into her heart. Something deep inside of her cried out to respond to it––to come back from the edge of her own salvation and return to the damnation of the living world.

"No––no, no," she begged, closing her ears, but she knew what was happening below, she knew the consequence of the battle on the shore, knew that as she chased oblivion in the heavens, the enemy her father had so longed to kill would snatch victory from her dying hands in the hell below. Is that what this was coming to––not only losing her tribe but Hiccup taking them? How low did Fate want her to fall?

She screamed, hated the pressing sense of desperation trying to carve a conscience in her mind. She longed for the peace that dragons had––anger that was pure, violent, and final. What was this heart she had, that it chained her to all the noble things she had so longed tried to uphold? What was this pride, that she had to return from the peace of this blessed insanity?

The Skrill below her heaved, descending. She pressed her heels into the dragon, bidding it to go, to follow its violent heart. She sensed a oneness with the dragon, and she realized he too was listening to the boy below. Was the dragon also a hand of Fate, that it would know her heart so well? There was a sense of mission in the dragon, the way he roared at the wild dragons around him, calling to them like a captain to his men. She felt small in the midst of the dragon eyes and the bloodied dragon jaws, small and lost but someone at one in the ferocity of their anger. They were dragon, not human. They knew where to direct their anger. They did not have the agony of conscience, of loyalty, of love.

Oh, how the Hiccup boy would disagree. But look at them, the beautiful violence in the redness of their eyes. They killed and did not question. They took lives without remorse. They looked out for their own dragonkind, and they were contented and whole in their anger. How she longed to dissolve the morass of her pain into the clean, elegant simplicity of that violence. The dragons hummed around her, like a chant. She let the chant fill her, consume her heart in the instinct of their guttural screams. If the boy Hiccup loved dragons so much, well then wouldn't he be pleased by her now? If being a dragon meant living in this beautiful agony––if it meant putting an end to all that caused pain in this world, closing the books of vengeance and guilt, quelling the last call of Fate's judgement with the destruction of the world. If being a dragon meant being without feeling, without fear, without guilt––then let the dragonkind take her… and let the world burn.

She pressed her body against the Skrill's shoulders, felt the throbbing shock of the lightning that ran continuously across him. "Find Hiccup, find the Night Fury," she breathed.