A/N: Wow. So, uh, that was a long delay in posting. Sorry about that, guys. I got a new job, one that has new lines of business opening up so getting settled has taken quite some time. I figured it was best to just focus on one fic, so I've been mostly working on the RotG stuff since it's cowritten and that means when I'm flagging someone else can take over. I'm hoping now that things are settled that I can work on this one more, especially since we still have some ways to go.

Not gonna lie, the new trailer had me feeling some fannish inspiration.

Anyway, just giving thanks to my bestie Kate, who helped me majorly by unleashing her inner clueless teenage boy and writing some of the Snotlout lines in the beginning of the chapter.

Also, I'd just like to note that I'm working on original novels. One of them is being written with aforementioned bestie Kate and might be up your alley if you like HTTYD. It has Vikings and samurai and a time-tossed anachronistic world that's anachronistic for Reasons, and magic swords and evil emperors, and criticisms of imperialism. If a folklore-heavy fantasy adventure with wise-crackin' teens trying to be heroes instead of misfits is up your alley, bump me an email to kirajlane at gmail and I'll add you to a mailing list. If we can't get it published in print, we're self-publishing, so lemme know if you'd be interested.

Chapter 6

"Does that look like a barrel to you?"

"If a barrel was the same shape as a boot, then yeah, it's a barrel."

"I don't see you finding it either."

"What about that?" Tuffnut pointed. "That rock over there?"

"Which one?"

"The one shaped like a barrel."

Snotlout spotted it, then turned to look over his shoulder at Tuffnut, glowering.

"The other one looked like a barrel, too. Like a boot barrel," Snotlout muttered under his breath. "Head on in, Hookfang."

The dragon flew them in closer to the water. Though the water was dark, they could see that the passageway was there to the right of the barrel just like Bertha had said. The waves that lapped at the rock were much darker than the rest of the ocean.

Snotlout looked nervously into the darkness of the abyss and then looked at the island. It was doable, holding their breaths long enough to get through, but only if they managed to get straight through. If anything went wrong, if they went down a turning they weren't supposed to, they were going to drown in the dark. The prospect was almost terrifying enough to make him turn back.

Almost.

But that was what he always did. Acted tough, then chumped out at the last second. Even though he rationalized everything and made up excuses as to why he could do that and still be considered tough, deep down inside, there was a part of him that knew he wasn't. There was a part of him that had doubt. It certainly wasn't a conscious part of him or something he acknowledged, but it was there.

All he knew was that he felt guilty and he wanted to make it go away, and even despite years of taunting and competing with Hiccup, even though he still liked to rile him up most of the time, since Hiccup had saved the tribe he was almost starting to like him. Actually hanging out with him and teasing him instead of just teasing him, being led by him around in all kinds of crazy (and often fun) adventures, seeing Hiccup watch their backs over and over again - all those things had, inexplicably, fanned into flame the tiny little sparks of fondness that had been created when Hiccup saved them all. It was a tiny flame, not exactly a roaring fire, but it was there. Sometimes Hiccup drove him nuts with his smug "Look at me, I'm the idea guy that did a bunch of brave stuff" know-it-all-ey thing, but even so, Hiccup was the one that had taken his hand and made him reach out to Hookfang and he couldn't even imagine his life without Hookfang now. (Who else would set his pants on fire?)

He had to set things right and, like, while torture was totally awesome, the thought of puny little Hiccup being actually hurt by a bunch of crazy Outcasts didn't sit well in his stomach. If anyone got to torture Hiccup, it should be him, and only in the ways that were funny, like dunking him in the fish barrel next to the docks, not ways that had lots of blood and actual pain and stuff.

"You ready?"

"Totally," said Tuffnut. "By the way, I'm going to win the breath-holding contest this time. Only, if you lose, try not to lose too bad. 'Cause...then you'll be dead."

"Fat ch-" Snotlout was cut off mid-taunt as Hookfang dove underwater, so the rest of his taunt came out as mostly bubbles. Which meant that by the time Hookfang surfaced, he'd already embarrassingly lost the breath-holding contest.

"Yeah, that's, like. Exactly what you shouldn't do," said Tuffnut. "Or you'll die."

"Uh, clearly not," Snotlout objected, "Or I'd be dead. Since I'm not and I survived on less air than you, I think I win this round.

"Nuh uh. But we probably shouldn't argue about it while Hiccup is getting brutally tortured. (Man, he has all the luck.) Okay, ready?"

Tuffnut inhaled and exhaled several times to get his breathing to slow down and Snotlout did the same. Then they both sucked in deep breaths, leaning in low so they wouldn't be swept off the dragon by the drag, and Snotlout slapped Hookfang gently on the neck so he knew to dive.

The dragon immediately rolled under the water. Though it used its massive wings to swim as thought it was flying through the air, the dragon moved somewhat differently under water, its sinuous neck rolling back and forth like a sea snake, it's finned tail helping it to steer. Fortunately, Fishlegs was right about the hydrodynamic properties of the Monstrous Nightmare and they made good time. Snotlout was scared at first that they wouldn't be able to see in the tunnel, but to his relief, it was packed with little fish that had strange phosphorescent lights on the sides of their bodies. It gave them just enough light to see that Bertha was right. The path was indeed relatively straight. Snotlout briefly wondered how she'd even known, but considering the chieftainess had swam from island to island after being shipwrecked she seemed the type to be able to swim in underwater caves without dying.

Probably for fun, knowing her. She'd probably explored the surrounding islands just for the heck of it.

Even though Hookfang made good time, Snotlout's lungs were starting to ache as they reached the other end of the tunnel and he was starting to panic just a bit, but the dragon darted up through the end of the tunnel and broke through the surface of a pool of water to sweet, life-giving air.

Exhaling the breath he'd been holding, Snotlout sucked in deep breaths of cool cave air and in the half-dark, he heard Tuffnut doing the same next to him. When they both caught their breath, he heard Tuffnut chuckle a little chuckle.

"I can't believe our helmets stayed on."

"I know, right?" Snotlout rolled onto his back in the water, sucking in sweet gulps of air. "I figure, though, if I never take mine off, maybe after enough time it might fuse to my head. I've been sleeping with it on."

After they'd caught their breath, Snotlout patted Hookfang on the nose and told him to stay there and they started to make their way out of the cave.

"So what's the plan?" asked Tuffnut as they peeked out of the cave's entrance into the forest from behind some rocks. "We need one of those, don't we?"

"Personally, I think plans are overrated. They take too long to make and they can still go wrong. You know what's a better idea? Just doing what doesn't suck. Let's go do that."

"Okay, cool."

With that, the two of them carefully and quietly made their way out into the woods, keeping an eye out for Outcasts. They had to make sure they weren't seen but also had to find some to spy on. In a fit of stupidity that was somehow silently relayed to each other (possibly via some sort of stupidity osmosis) they both uprooted a bush and starting walking along using them as cover. Naturally, neither gave any thought to how moving bushes would look to the enemy.

They did find the enemy quickly enough. In a clearing ahead was the flickering light of a fire, and a group of scar-faced, rough-looking Outcasts sitting around it. The two creeped as close as they could to the clearing and the moment it seemed like one of the burly Vikings was looking in their direction, they set them down.

Then they listened.

"'Ey, anyone got any salted herring left? I'll trade you, uh... I know I've got something."

"Nothing that'd be a fair trade."

One of the Vikings was picking at his teeth with a small knife.

"How much longer do you think it's going to be?"

"I'unno. 'Til the Berk Vikings attack and we ambush 'em or Alvin sends someone back with orders for us to leave. Which he might. They might have figured out the ruse."

"Still, even if they have, they'll never find where the boss and the others are hiding the boy."

"Too right. No one would ever look there."

"Where?" Snotlout hissed, but one of the Outcasts suddenly looked up as if he'd heard him, and he immediately snapped his mouth shut.

"You 'ear something?"

All the Outcast's sat and listened for a little while and Snotlout and Tuffnut both froze in place, not making a single sound.

Eventually one of them shrugged. "You're hearing things, you are."

"What d'you think the boss is doing to the little runt?"

"Dunno but you know how creative he can get. Remember Cramknock the Crusty?"

"Yeah?"

"You remember what was left of him?"

All the Vikings laughed dark little laughs at that.

"After that boy outsmarted the boss, he's probably in for worse."

Where they hid in the bushes, Snotlout briefly closed his eyes and Tuffnut's mouth set in a thin, little line.

"I'm surprised 'e's held up this long. In any case, we should be called back by the boss soon. No chance they thought to look on Bloodsand Beach.

Snotlout and Tuffnut both shared a look of surprise. Bloodsand Beach and the island it was on was the site of a horrible Viking battle several hundred years before. It was thought to be cursed with the most horrible curse any cursed place had ever been cursed with, the kind of curse where you bled out of your eyeballs and your insides became outsides. Even Vikings like the Outcasts were superstitious enough to avoid going there. Case in point, one of them said:

"Brrr. I'm almost glad we got stationed here instead. That place gives me the willies."

They had Hiccup's location, so it was time to haul their butts out of their through the tunnel with Hookfang. Snotlout took a step back and seeing him move, Tuffnut started to do the same.

Neither of them stepped on a stick. That was always what happened in situations like these, someone stepped on a stick, the bad guys heard it, and everything got all tense and scary. They did make noise, but it had far more to do with the muskrat Tuffnut had eaten that morning not entirely agreeing with his stomach.

The sound of flatulence, loud enough for any Viking to be proud of, rang loud and clear through the woods.

Snotlout rolled his eyes skyward, as if beseeching the gods to spare his life (and spare him from the stench), as Tuffnut stood there looking pretty proud of himself. If they were going to die because he let one rip, at least an impressive one was ripped that day.

"Did you 'ear that?"

If they ran, the Vikings would just hear them and give chase. If they fought, they'd probably just die.

So Snotlout scrunched his face up frantically and tried to do that thing that some of the others sometimes did: that whole thinking thing. Hiccup was the best at, but Fishlegs and Astrid could do it, too, and it meant they figured out that third way of doing something besides "run from it" or "hit it," so even though thinking was far, far beneath a Viking such as himself, Snotlout gave it a shot.

His eyes popped up again and he suddenly made a snorking noise.

"What are you doing?" Tuffnut whispered.

"Making them think we're not people," Snotlout whispered back, and then he went back to snorting noises. Tuffnut shrugged to himself, realizing that yes, the Outcasts might buy the idea of wild animals being flatulant and joined in, snorting and snorking away.

"Sounds like some wild boar."

"We could use some lunch."

"Not worth the trouble around these parts. They'll take a piece of you if you try to take a piece of them."

Still snorking, Snotlout moved away in the underbrush, waving for Tuffnut to follow him. Eventually they were out of range of the camped out Outcasts, stopped snorting and broke into a run towards the cave.

"Bloodsand Beach," Snotlout said. "Why would they set up their base there? By now, all their eyeballs probably fell out."

"Maybe the Outcasts want to scare all their enemies by having big, gaping awesome holes where their eyeballs used to be," said Tuffnut as they climbed back on Hookfang's back.

"Then how could they still fight if they can't see?"

"If you saw someone walking towards you all cursed, with no eyeballs, and blood oozing down their face, would you stay and fight?" Tuffnut asked.

"You, sir, have an excellent point," said Snotlout consideringly as they got ready to hold their breaths.

Then it was back into the cold and the near-dark, through the tunnel lit by fish that looked like stars. As the water rushed past him and over him, Snotlout could only hope this would make up for not having Hiccup's back the first time, so that the feeling that was still chewing at the bottom of his gut would finally go away.

"Get the men together," said Alvin as he walked out into the courtyard where his men were.

"Finally got him to sing, boss?" asked Savage, grinning.

"Like a starling," Alvin bragged. "But we haven't got much time before someone tries to come to his rescue."

"Did you kill him?"

"Can't kill my only hostage, can I?" Alvin pointed out. "Besides, there's other species of dragons out there besides the ones we're training 'ere. If we come across any to add to our arsenal that are too hard for us to figure out on our own, we'll need the lad. And he won't dare hold back now. Not if he knows what's good for 'im. If we can hold on to 'im, we should."

"They might be on dragons by now, Stoick," said Bertha, as the riders geared up and got ready to fly out.

"They might be," Stoick said, his expression making it clear that he didn't want to consider the implications of that, of the fact that Hiccup might have broken, might have been hurt enough to break for that to happen by now. "But if they are, they're not as experienced with flying with them as we are. Even with how little time you've had, you've picked it up better than they'll have time to."

"And so have I," said Johann, getting up on his newly adopted Nadder with the improvised saddle he'd made.

"Johann," Stoick said, taken aback. "This will be dangerous and you're not a fighter. You don't have to -"

"Ah, but what the lad did to save my life was dangerous, your grace. Brunhilda's not going to let anyone else ride her after how the Outcasts treated her - she's taken quite the liking to me, you see - and you need every dragon in the air you can manage. She and I have decided that we owe him a debt and I'm not a man that reneges on his debts. We're going to bring your boy home."

Stoick was very obviously moved by Johann's decision and all he could do was nod gratefully, as he turned back to Thornado.

Snotlout and Tuffnut had rushed back with the information and they'd flown to a nearby island to get themselves battle-ready and spread around supplies they needed. It had been decided that Astrid was going to hold into the things Hiccup might need, like his false leg, a change of clothes they'd borrowed from someone in the village before leaving on the rescue mission, a little medicine kit with splints and bandages and medicinal herbs, and a blanket. They were all packed and secured tightly in a small saddle bag they'd managed to rig up.

Toothless was padding at the ground impatiently as she finished up, eyes narrowed, his body completely full of tension.

"Soon," Astrid said quietly to the Night Fury, rubbing his nose. "We'll have him back with us soon."

As soon as they were ready, the Vikings took to the air on their dragons and hoped against hope all of their searching hadn't been in vain.

The Outcasts waited, their island shrouded in clouds of dense fog that had been produced by their dragons flaming the water. The dragons were still somewhat antsy, not entirely used to their new masters, but surely, they had the advantage here. They were more familiar with the island and there were places to hide in the rocks so they could ambush the Berk Vikings as soon as they showed up.

"Where are they?" asked Savage.

"They'll be 'ere any minute now," said Alvin. "Mark my words, they're stupid enough that they'll go charging right in after one of their own. When they do, they won't even know what hit 'em."

He was right about one thing.

They were going to charge in.

He was juuust slightly wrong about which party wouldn't know what hit them.

The loud shriek that came of the Night Fury's attack only echoed down out of the clouds seconds before the first plasma blasts struck, taking out three of the Outcasts' catapults. Before the Outcasts could even turn their own nervous, doubtful dragons to aim, the Night Fury and his rider pulled up out of their dive and rocketed back up to the cloud cover.

"You were sayin', boss? About them not knowing what hit 'em?" Savage said wryly.

"Shut up! Everybody, up in the air!" Alvin barked.

Astrid was nearly gleeful as she flew back up through the cloud cover with Toothless. She and Stoick had come up with the plan together, with Bertha helping with a few considerations they hadn't thought of. One of the major advantages they had was their experience with flying dragons.

"They're not going to know how to use space," Astrid had said when they'd hovered an island over and decided their plan of attack. "I remember one time when we were all racing and it looked like we'd lost Hiccup but right near the finish he came up from underneath us out of nowhere. We didn't think of looking anywhere but ahead. They're still going to be thinking in left or right, not up and down. We can use that."

"Aye. Good thinking, Astrid," the chief had said and then he and Bertha had worked out a plan.

Astrid went in for another dive, this time from another spot in the clouds. This time was a little more dangerous because the Outcasts were ready for her, but she'd gotten the hang of Toothless' tail-rig by now and she was already a talented flier in her own right. While she wasn't as good as Hiccup on Toothless as good as she normally was on her own dragon, she and Toothless were still able to dodge all the fireballs and catapult shots sent their way; it seemed nothing could touch the Night Fury's speed. After Toothless' white hot bolts of flame destroyed the remaining catapults, the two of them careened back up into the cloud cover again.

"The catapults are down!" she called out to the Vikings flying in range. "Time for stage two!"

She patted Toothless' neck. "Toothless, you know what to do.

The dragon snorted in affirmation, letting out a single guttural cry and then another, a noise that carried out over the distance and reached the ears of the Vikings and dragons farther away.

Out around the island, Astrid saw the fog the Outcasts had created around their island thicken and start to move inland as the great wingbeats of Hookfang and Barf and Belch blew it inland (Bertha's idea). If Alvin and the Outcasts wanted fog, they'd get fog, but it wasn't going to be a convenient barrier around their island. They weren't going to be allowed any visibility either. Astrid heard the shouts of anger and confusion start moving from below up into the cloudbank as Alvin's men starting wising up to the fact that they needed to train their eyes upward as well as out to the borders of their island.

That meant it was time for the other part of stage two, which was fairly simple. While the Outcasts were drawn upward to search for them in the mists and clouds, the Berk Vikings were going to dive down and fire at them from underneath. Flying silently with Toothless to the edge of the Outcast's fort, Astrid and the dragon dove straight down, pulling up around ground level. She could see the shapes of the Outcasts' dragons passing through the cloud wrack above, dim shadows backlit by the sun shining above the cloud cover.

Toothless blasted bolts of his lightning-like fire above and not long after, the dragons came crashing to the ground. Fortunately, they looked injured rather than dead. Astrid didn't want them hurt, if possible and she knew Hiccup would be upset if innocent dragons were hurt in the course of rescuing him. When she got a better look at the familiar markings the dragons had, that held even more true - these were Berk dragons, the owner-less dragons that were part of the colony that lived on the island.

It made sense when Astrid thought about it. Even though they were riderless, they were more trusting of humans than wild dragons and half-trained already. They also strayed farther from Berk, which had likely made them easier to catch.

Before the downed Outcasts could give away their position, she and Toothless swooped back up into the thickest part of the fog again. Now, all around them, she heard the vicious sounds of battle; the Berk Vikings were attacking the Outcasts much like Hiccup had attacked the Green Death - with hit and run tactics, coming at them from every direction. Astrid itched at the thought of the fight she was missing, but Stoick had entrusted her with a much greater responsibility than keeping the Outcasts distracted.

Besides, she was probably going to see some fighting even without having to jump into the aerial fray.

Astrid heard Stoick's dragon roar his deafening roar, once, twice, then three times in a row.

Stage three now. It was time for her to move. As she and Toothless dove out of their evasive patterns, Astrid heard Alvin's cheerful voice ringing out over the clash of the fighting.

"What are we even fighting for, Stoick?" he called out. "The dragon knowledge is mine and even if you win the battle, ol' Alvin's going to win the war."

"You know why I'm here!" Stoick's voice rang out powerfully from overheard, like a thunderclap. "I'm here for my son!"

"Then you came a long way for nothing. The lad's dead."

"Liar!"

"Awright, so maybe I am lying. E's not dead, but 'e may as well be. Gotta give 'him credit, he was made of sterner stuff than I thought. Held out for quite a while - but he was still cryin' out for his daddy in the en -"

Alvin's voice was cut off by Stoick's roar of fury. Astrid heard the shrill screech of whatever dragon Alvin was riding and the sound of flames crackling through the air.

It was okay that Stoick was losing his cool; it would keep Alvin distracted. That was why he chose Astrid to take on the most important part of the mission rather than doing it himself, because he'd known it would take very little to wind up...compromised.

The only problem was that Astrid was close to being compromised, too. After hearing that, she couldn't stop herself from imagining Hiccup hurt and scared and crying out for his father in the dark. Imagining it seemed to make the world turn red as if it was bleeding at the edges and all she could hear was her heartbeat in her ears, concussive like the beats of a dragon's wings.

Everything that happened after that was something of a blur. She was aware of spotting a ramshackle little base and urging Toothless into a landing. She was aware of landing on her feet and pulling her axe out of its sheath at her back. She was aware of the ground flying underneath her boots as if she was hovering over it, her surroundings a blur of fog and movement.

The rest was a little...fuzzy. There were guards, she was sure of that, but then there was kicking and the ker-thunk of her axe and then there weren't guards anymore. Toothless may have been biting something and growling next to her, taking part in the whole nebulous guard removal process, adding to the disappearing act. Toothless looked up just as tongues of fire hit the ground next to him, aimed haphazardly by inexperienced dragon riders and then Astrid looked up too, her hand going to the extra knife she'd added to her belt for the rescue mission. A single blast of fire from Toothless downed a dragon. A single quick flick of her wrist downed the Outcast, and she found, to her great confusion, that the knife wasn't in her hand anymore.

But the red was still there, pushing her forward, driving her towards the one thing she knew would make the red go away.

Another guard-post was stampeded through, crushed by the Night Fury's body and more guards wound up on the ground, no longer moving. As they both surged forward, finally getting to hurt the ones responsible for hurting Hiccup, for taking him to a godsforsaken rock with blood-cursed beaches in the middle of nowhere, Astrid let out a roar that almost sounded dragonish in its rage and Toothless let out a roar that almost sounded a little human in its concern.

What little conscious thought was left marked the moment for what it was - this was who she was when she really dug down deep. For all she could act tough and aloof, the ferocity she felt right now was her natural state, one that she knew could come forth when it was needed to protect family and friends and tribe - and Hiccup, someone who'd somehow squirmed his way into all those other categories and also made a little niche of his own.

Toothless stayed outside because he couldn't fit through the one door, but that was alright - someone needed to guard it, especially when there were other ways in. At least that was one entrance she didn't have to worry about enemies pouring in from.

More Outcasts fell with what felt like just a thought and she left them behind, groaning on the floor as she searched the rooms of the little fort. The last one was a place with spikes and chains and chairs that looked like they were made for the opposite of comfort, but she had no time to be horrified, no time to be sad, because Hiccup hadn't been in any of the other rooms and there was a box in this room that was big enough to hold someone Hiccup's size.

She bashed off the lock with her axe, threw open the lid, and saw a skinny body was folded up inside.

He was pale. He was so pale, his skin a waxen grey that was even worse than it'd been when they'd flown him to Gothi from Dragon Island. It was worse than when he'd been caught in the grips of a fever, delirious and drugged so he didn't wake up and feel the pain of his missing leg.

The fight went on around the outpost but the space around him felt impermeable and frozen in time just like her heart had suddenly frozen in her chest.

"H-Hiccup?" she said softly, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

His skin was clammy and cold and she felt as if she'd been stabbed.

So, not being one to beat around the bush, she reached into the box, grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, shouting, "WAKE UP!"

That jarred him awake and for a moment he struggled with her as if trying to get away, whimpering pitifully, but she lifted him up and out of the crate bodily and held him close to her until he stopped struggling.

"It's over," she said, her voice trembling, soft enough that she almost didn't recognize it. "We're going to take you home."

He was having trouble keeping his eyes open and it was made all the more difficult by the fact that one was swollen shut, but eventually he managed to blink his left eye open and roll it up to look at her face. Another whimper slipped past his lips but this one was one of relief.

His hand, bruised all over and shaking, reached up and brushed against her cheek and somehow between that and the look on his face, she knew what he was thinking, what he was too exhausted to say. If he'd been a closed book days before, in the hold of the ship, he was open now, and she could read every rune on the pages.

The words were: 'I knew you'd come.'

That was when the door burst open and Alvin stormed into the room. The rest was the red blur surging back in full force after it had started to dim, the rest happened so fast that, to her dying day, Astrid couldn't even remember all the details.

She knew there was a part where he said he was taking Hiccup to get more of the dragon-training knowledge from him and she'd put Hiccup down and gotten up to face him.

She knew there was a part where Alvin mocked her. "Do you really think a little lass like you can stop me?"

She knew that he took a swing at her with his axe.

The rest, though, the rest was a disorienting swirl of rage, of darting underneath the blow and slashing at his back, only just missing his vitals because he dodged. The rest was a blur of rolling and darting and moving, maneuvering him away from Hiccup. Weapons clashed against each other and Alvin cursed with each little cut she got in, cursed a each spatter of his blood on the ground, which was probably all the more irritating to him because he couldn't seem to spill any of hers.

It was a blur up until Stoick burst into the room, bellowing at her to get Hiccup out and then the red started to fade and she was moving without hesitation to unclasp her shoulder armor and toss Hiccup over her shoulder, carrying him with all the ease of carrying a small child. Yes, she wanted to kill Alvin. Yes, she'd been close to actually doing it, but that wasn't why she was here and even in her altered state, she knew that. All of the ferocity driving her was directed at what was most important to her and she carried it out of that room like a very precious sack of turnips.

Thanks to the other Vikings, Alvin's men were too distracted to fight her and thank to Toothless the way out was clear. She got Hiccup outside and over to Toothless, who bounded up towards his boy, whining in alarm at his limp form.

"He's alive, but we have to get him out of here as quick as we can," Astrid said, jumping on Toothless' back, lowering Hiccup off her shoulder and getting him situated in front of her, and stowing her axe in its strap at her back.

Toothless lunged forward and launched them into the air immediately, showing the same lack of hesitation to leave that she felt, and then they were over the tumult, the wind carrying the sound of clashing weapons and dragon fire up to them and then carrying them away.

The red had faded to a dull pink and the world started to resolve itself back into what it usually was rather than a blur of sight and sound and instinctual movement. He was unconscious again, shivering in her arms even though she had pulled him close and was trying to keep him as warm as possible with her body heat. She pulled the blanket she'd brought out of Toothless' saddle sack, careful to not let anything fall out before she buckled it up again, and wrapped it around the teenage boy bundled in her arms.

She finally understood what she'd had trouble understanding so far. The answers she was looking for in regards to one Hiccup Haddock had struck as if the gods had thrown the knowledge into her brain like a lightning bolt.

She had been afraid of the shaky feelings he caused in her because she was afraid they were un-Vikingly, or at least un-Vikingly in a way that took her personal definition of Viking into account, but that was stupid, because the shakiness in those feelings was from the restraint. It was like how someone's arm might shake if they were trying to hold their arm back from dropping a deadly blow while enraged. In the end, there was ferocity under the shakiness, a kind of ferocity any Viking could be proud of. It burned like the light of a forge and like the fires in the torch-statues around the island. It cut through everything like the sharpest axe and packed the same punch as the hardest bludgeon.

Now that she'd almost lost him-again-she realized how deep that ferocity ran and she knew, most importantly of all, that feeling it made her more of a Viking than ever.

"You're going to wake up," she told him as she held him, "and you're going to heal and you're going to be fine."

She pressed a kiss to his forehead and then rested his head against her shoulder.

"And then I promise you, Hiccup, I won't waste any more time. I promise."

Stoick matched Alvin blow for blow as they fought. A far off screech from Toothless, one that sounded more like "Time to go!" than distress, brought him some relief but did nothing to change his desire to see Alvin's head on a pike.

Stoick didn't consider himself an exorbitantly violent man - a violent one, certainly, like any good Viking was, but not exorbitantly so. He preferred to view killing - especially the killing of people (though dragons were being absorbed into that category) - as something that should only be done when it was absolutely necessary for survival. There was just less blood feuds that way.

He thought there was joy in battle itself, in the ebb and flow of blood through a warrior's veins, in the ever-shifting challenge of it, but he also thought a good Viking shouldn't take joy in the act of killing itself.

Alvin was now the exception. Stoick wanted him to die suffering and as he fought Alvin in the room his son had suffered in, he felt such things shamelessly.

"Now now, Stoick, where's all this anger coming from? 'Stoick's Little Disappointment' was what he's called in other tribes, innit? If you really cared about the lad, you wouldn't have told everyone and their Uncle Olaf that you couldn't wait to be rid of 'im. I was doing you a favor."

Stoick only let out a bellow of rage as he swung his hammer at Alvin's head, catching the edge of his helmet, the other Viking's quick dodge only just saving him from having his skull caved in. The blow sent Alvin reeling and it only made the Berk chief lay on the violence even harder.

He was not the kind of man whose anger made him lose focus. No, anger was a great motivator and Stoick had no trouble maintaining the steely resolve all the men and woman of his family line had managed during a fight - Hiccup included.

The thought of what had caused all this - him not acknowledging that last fact, making his son feel like he had something to prove - only stoked the fire. He knew how his son thought. He'd gotten better at figuring it out but didn't always understand the weight of Hiccup's thoughts right away, but he still understood now. Hiccup had gone to Hopeless to prove himself and he'd faced "Bertha" alone because he thought that was what Stoick would do.

It was his fault his son had suffered in this dark, ugly little room and his mistake in overlooking the tactic Alvin had used in switching the ships that had made his son suffer even longer.

His son was terrified of being a failure, of the world around him forcibly dragging him back to the days he was a nuisance under foot, and rather than reassuring him it wouldn't happen, rather than trusting him with the kind of responsibility Hiccup often used as a rope to rein himself in with, Stoick had cut him loose and shoved him in the direction of the Bog-Burglars with the hard-headed notion that he had something to prove.

Stoick's anger at Alvin was all that much more thunderously powerful because it was mixed together with Stoick's anger at himself, for yet again feeding into his son's insecurities when he should have known better that they were there, when he was responsible for their existence in the first place.

No force on Midgard could have stopped him now. The gods themselves could have swooped down from Asgard and planted themselves in front of him and he would have beaten them out of the way with the nightmarish chair the Outcasts had strapped his son to.

Since no gods were present, Stoick opted to relentlessly pummel Alvin with it instead, wielding it like a lopsided club in one hand and swinging his hammer with the other.

"Nothing to say?" said Alvin, after taking a blow to the face from the chair that was so hard a leg of it snapped off. He blocked Stoick's hammer with an axe blow.

"I have nothin' left to say to you," Stoick snarled. "All that's left is what I'm going to do to you."

That was when Stoick threw the chair at Alvin, hitting him square in the gut. While he was still reeling, the Berk chief reached for some chains dangling against a wall and ripped them free of where they were bolted to the stone. When Alvin moved to strike again with his axe, Stoick whipped the chains around the handle and yanked the weapon clear from his hands.

He didn't have long to face his enemy unarmed, however, because the Outcast quickly recovered by picking up the steel poker resting with its tip in the fireplace and brought it down hard on Stoick's arm. The combination of the bone-breaking force and the burning pain from the white-hot tip made Stoick drop his hammer reflexively but it certainly didn't take him out of the fight. A swing of the chain caused Alvin to jump back and then Alvin swung the poker and Stoick swung the chain again with such force that when the two met, part of the chain shattered off and spin over to the floor and the poker bent in the middle and was ripped free from Alvin's hands.

Wrapping the remains of the chain around his fist, Stoick strode forward purposefully.

"Now, Stoick," said Alvin nervously, realizing that he'd perhaps underestimated his opponent's focus in this fight. "This the kind of example you want to set for your boy? He doesn't seem the type that's keen for the kill. What'll he think of dear ol' dad killing an unarmed man?"

"I don't know everything he'll think," said Stoick, punching Alvin soundly in the face with the chain-wrapped hand, before he even had a chance to duck. "But at least one thing he'll think is that you'll never. Be able. To hurt 'im. Again."

Punches became punctuation and the flurry of them sent Alvin's way were so rapidfire all he could was take them.

"S'all your fault," Alvin said, spitting out blood, trying to get a good hit in, but only managing to feebly block some of Stoick's blows. "All'a you! Because I was small. 'Cause I was weak back then. And I was cleverer than the lot of you! That's why you hated me! You all made me what I am!"

"We hated you because you were a low-life, rotten, thieving, lying, cheating pile of dragon dung! We were wrong in how we treated people who didn't fit our idea of what a Viking was supposed to be - but you didn't have to turn into this, Alvin. You didn't have to betray and try to ruin everyone you came across!"

"I had no other choice!" Alvin roared, finally driving Stoick back with a vicious elbow to the throat. "You have to take respect when you're a Viking!"

"My son," Stoick wheezed, "earned it. And he never once hurt a living soul - not in any way that couldn't be fixed." The chief laid into the Outcast once again, his breath back. "Don't stand here and tell me this is the only man you could've been! We did wrong by you now and again, but we still counted you as one of our own. It's no excuse - not when my son went through the same and is turning into a better Viking than either of us could hope to be!"

Stoick managed to finally - and brutally - beat Alvin to the floor.

Strangely enough, that was when the Outcast started to laugh.

"I missed that righteous outrage of yours, Stoick. Shame I won't get a chance to hear more of it."

That was when Stoick heard - and felt - a strange rumbling sound that seemed to be coming from the ground. The vibrations were strongest under his feet and instinct had him leaping to the side just in time to avoid the dragon that crashed up through the floorboards where he'd just been standing.

The Whispering Death. Stoick had caught glimpses of it in the aerial battle earlier but this was the first he'd ever seen on in all its sinister glory up close. The only other place he'd seen one was in the Dragon Manual. Apparently, Alvin was the only Outcast that had chosen a wild dragon instead of the strays from Berk.

"My new pet doesn't seem to like you."

The dragon's rotating rings of teeth whirred menacingly as it darted forward, trying to shred Stoick where he stood, but the chief's quick dodge meant it got a mouthful of the table instead.

Turning and hissing with malcontent, it fired a ring of fire at the Viking, but for someone as well-practiced as Stoick at dodging angry dragons, this was practically a child's game. Diving once more, he managed to snatch up his hammer from the floor as he rolled.

It was getting a little too crowded in here to keep this up - and a little a little too hot now that the place was going up in flames.

"Why don't we take this outside?" he growled.

Alvin was standing in front of the only window in the room, one with a shutter that was bolted shut, but it opened up easily enough when Stoick charged at him, causing them both to smash right through it - and part of the wall. Alvin took the brunt of the blow just as planned.

The Outcast had managed to pick up his axe again while Stoick had been distracted by the dragon so now the fight continued outside, the two Vikings meeting each other blow for blow, sparks dancing in the air as their weapons clashed against each other. The Whispering Death couldn't risk using its fire when Stoick was so close to its master, so it opted for circling around the two warriors in a sinuous dance, like a snake preparing to strike. Every so often, it darted in and tried to bite Stoick but every time it did, he managed to beat it back with a vicious hammer blow.

This went on until Alvin managed to get in close enough to snag the dragon's saddle with one hand and hoisted himself up to ride it. Now the fire the dragon blasted down at the Berk chief was relentless and Stoick was forced to retreat, running and dodging his way towards the cliffside. His eyes darted to look up in the air and then he put on speed, running straight for the edge.

"You're finished, Stoick! You may as well stand still and accept the inevitable," Alvin crowed.

Stoick kept running towards the cliff-side and when he reached the edge...he jumped.

Alvin's ugly face screwed up in confusion.

"...what."

That was when Thornado and Gobber dropped down from above in a sheer vertical dive where the chief fell.

They rose again over the cliffside, Stoick now safely on Thornado's back, and turned to face Alvin, the Thunder Drum letting out one of its deafening - and damaging - screeches in Alvin's direction. The Whispering Death dodges to the side and then it and its rider slipped away into the mists.

"I'm not sure I like these odds, Stoick. They're bit too even for my tastes," Alvin's voice echoed out of the fog. Thornado screeched his destructive cries in the direction the voice had come from but it didn't seem to hit its mark, because Alvin spoke again, this time from another direction.

"I'm sure I'll be seeing you again, anyway. Who knows, maybe it'll be back on Berk!"

Laughing, Alvin disappeared, his voice fading as he flew away.

"Hey, where'd they all go?" shouted Snotlout as the dragon and rider he'd been fighting slipped away into the fog.

"They're scattering!" Ruffnut called out.

"Heck yes they are, because we totally kicked their butts!" cried Tuffnut triumphantly.

Indeed, the Outcasts had all scattered, heading off in every direction - at least the ones that were still standing. (Quite a few weren't.) No doubt they had a meeting place planned in case of retreat. Tactically, it wasn't a good plan to go after them when they'd have to spread out to do it. There was too much potential of ambush, but even so, Stoick's desire for revenge almost had him giving the order anyway.

As if reading his mind, Gobber said quietly, "Stoick, we should get to Hiccup and Astrid. The Outcasts can wait - we'll track them down soon enough, but we need to make sure none of the Outcasts stumble on them before we get there."

"Right," Stoick breathed through gritted teeth. "Of course."

His next words were barked out so loud anyone flying over the island would hear them.

"All riders, move out! We're heading to our fall back point."

It was both the place Stoick wanted to go the most and the place he wanted to go the least. He needed to know if his son was alright - but was terrified of the possibility that he wasn't.

Astrid was not a gentle person. Gentle didn't protect the village and cave in the heads of enemies. She'd geared up for the war she thought she was inheriting from her parents at an early age and even with the dragon peace, she hadn't bothered to take that mental gear off. It fit her well. Even without the dragons to fight, there were plenty of battles out there - case in point, she'd (probably) killed her first enemies today.

She still wasn't sure how to feel about that and she could tell it was something she was going to have feelings about, but not now. That was for later when she was cleaning and sharpening her axe alone somewhere and trying to decide whether or not she should put notches in the handle to keep count or forget it ever happened.

For now she had other things to worry about and one of those things was being gentle when she just didn't do gentle.

Somehow, she managed. She tended to Hiccup as if he was made of the most fragile crystal and tried not to think about how awkward it was to drag him around like a dead deer and pose him like some kind of human-sized rag doll. She also tried not to think about how awkward this was about to get, because first thing was first: the clothes had to go. They were filthy and reeked of sweat. Clearly the Outcasts had felt Hiccup should do as they did while he was there and forgo anything resembling a bath.

"Hiccup, I'm going to get you cleaned up, okay?" Astrid said to him, hoping he understood what was going on.

His only answer was a semi-coherent noise that she hoped was agreement.

They'd chosen this island as a meeting point for three reasons: its considerable distance from Bloodsand Beach (it'd taken four hours to get here, minus the few short stops she'd made on smaller islands to check Hiccup's condition), its terrain (which made it highly defensible), and because of the freshwater stream that came down from the mountains.

That stream was particularly handy now. Astrid carried Hiccup to it, bridal style, and put him down on the flat, rocky bank next to the water. Stripping off his clothes in a brisk and businesslike manner was not easy when they were stuck to him with sweat and he was flopping around limply like the sole purpose of his unconscious life was making her drop him.

She'd held onto greased pigs that were less slippery.

She'd held onto greased babies that were less slippery. (Long story, that one, and part of why she'd tried babysitting for someone else in the village a grand total of one time).

She grimaced as she almost dropped his torso against the ground but caught it just in time. Toothless narrowed his eyes at her.

"I don't see you helping," she protested.

Eventually, she managed, and when she did what she saw was the kind of thing that would reduce softer people than her to tears.

His skin was mottled with ugly, swollen bruises, already turning purple and blue and yellow. Lacerations and scrapes and even small burns marked his body. Most of the broken and bruised skin was on his arms and legs - and face - but she could tell Alvin and the Outcasts had gotten plenty of good hits into his stomach and chest, too. There were also countless little marks that looked like bug bites.

The world went tinged with pink again and something burned inside her when she saw that some of the bruises were in the shape of large fingertips.

Fortunately, the only things that seemed broken were a few of his fingers.

Just a few. Just a...

Toothless let out a low crooning noise of misery at the sight of how battered Hiccup was, snuffling around his face, and it helped Astrid to hear it because it felt right that someone made a noise like that over this and it wasn't going to be her.

"It's not that bad," she said to Toothless, pretending there wasn't a quaver in her voice. "It looks worse than it is."

She slipped off her boots. Hiccup winced as she hoisted him up and got him into the water, wading in fully clothed in the shallows and slowly lowering him in. Immediately, he started shivering and made an inarticulate noise of protest that didn't quite make it all the way to a sob She didn't blame him - their part of the world couldn't really be described as "balmy" and this island wasn't much warmer than Berk.

So she tried to make it quick, trying not to press down on his bruises as she wiped away the sweat and grime, as she washed the dead spiders out of his hair and tried not to think about how they'd gotten there.

Toothless splashed right in with them, letting out more worried noises and nosing at Hiccup. It turned out to be a help because she had something to prop the other teen's weight against as she cleaned him off.

Then she carried him out of the water and bundled him in the blanket. He shivered uncontrollably now as she dried him off and tended to his wounds (ignoring the little hisses that came out through his teeth), and dressed him in the extra clothes donated by the Bog-Burglars. They were too big for him.

"No surprise there," she muttered to herself, slipping her feet back into her boots.

The clothes made him look even smaller and frailer. When it came to the socks, it was a help, though, one normal Viking-sized sock meant for someone's foot was big enough to put over his stump of a left leg.

For a moment, she just looked at him, now dressed and still shivering where he lay, and decided that there was one thing that needed to happen now rather than wait for later. Pulling it free from where it had been stowed in Toothless' saddle-sack, she knelt down and gently strapped on his false leg.

It had been taken away from him to make him crawl.

He was going to need to walk upright again.

Toothless helped her build a fire, which dried out the blanket and then giving him food and water was next - bread and cheese in half-conscious little bites and gulps. Then she took off her spiky skirt and settled on the ground, her axe not far from her hand, pulling him against her in a bundled heap so that his back rested against her. Toothless curled around them both and Astrid leaned back against his scaly side, watching the fire dance in front of them for a moment, trying to stave off the feeling that the red-orange glow was seeping into her world. Then she looked at Hiccup's face as he lay there curled with his head on her shoulder. His eyes kept periodically flitting open, as if he was starting half-awake again every few minutes.

"You need to sleep," she told him matter-of-factly. "We're here. We're not going to let anything else happen to you."

Hiccup looked over at his dragon, feebly reaching out a hand to rest it on the Night Fury's head. The dragon made a quiet rumbling sound, a noise that could only mean he was trying to comfort his boy. It was almost like the dragon equivalent of a lullaby, deep and sonorous and strangely beautiful. The boy looked at his dragon with gratitude and his dragon looked back at him with love and for a moment, it was almost like Astrid could see the bond between them. The air felt heavy with it, as it there was something there, something solid enough to cut with her axe - only she knew that if that something actually was solid, no axe could cut it and no hammer could break it.

Just the knowledge that his dragon was there seemed to chase the last of Hiccup's fear away. The frown lines at his brow relaxed, his breathing evened out, his tense body went slack, and his eyes finally stayed closed. Astrid felt him taking long, even breaths where he rested against her and she let out a little breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

Now she was shaking.

He was safe. He was safe and warm, clothed and fed, cleaned and mended. She could feel his warm breath against her chin and neck where he was nestled against her.

He reaction to that - to him here, warm, breathing - was something visceral, a full-body reaction. Muscles finally unknotted and her stomach twisted into a knotted mess of emotion as if to make up for the new dearth of knots. She wanted to laugh even though nothing was funny and wanted to cry even though she was happy.

All because this stupid boy had gone and gotten himself kidnapped.

But it was okay now (even though parts of it weren't okay and wouldn't be until she had time to clean the blood from her axe).

Toothless suddenly perked his head up and shortly after, there was the sound of wings flapping on the wind. Astrid reached for her axe, just in case, but Thornado's cry in distance made it clear who was approaching.

Stoick was already leaping off his dragon and thudding heavily to the ground before it even landed, bounding over, visibly terrified by the relative stillness of Hiccup's form.

"He's okay," Astrid said quickly. "I cleaned him up, patched him up, and got some food and water in him."

"How bad -?"

"Only his fingers were broken. Otherwise, it was just cuts, scraped, a few burns - he was in worse shape after he fought the Green Death. He's just exhausted. I just got him to go to sleep."

Stoick knelt next to them, his hands hovering over his son as if he was afraid he'd shatter him to pieces with a touch.

That didn't last for long. Astrid helped move him so Stoick could sweep him up into his arms and bundle him up in his fur cloak.

Bundled in the furs, Hiccup's unswollen eye peeped open.

"Dad?" he said weakly, his voice raw.

"I'm here, son." The chief's voice was thick. "We're going to take you home."

"I think - I think I'm gonna let Phlegma take over the negotiations now," Hiccup said and somehow, despite it all, his tone was rather wry.

"Seeing as the real Bertha helped us with the rescue effort, it's not something any of us have to worry about anymore. Don't you worry about a thing. Go back to sleep."

The other Vikings crowded in, looking on as Stoick the Vast, the ever-imposing chief of Berk, cradled his son like an infant, looking as if he was a hair's breadth away from crying like an infant himself.

"Hiccup's gonna be okay, right?" asked Snotlout. "I mean, he got beat up but he's not dead, so he's gonna be okay, right?"

"What he went through," said Gobber, "is the kind of thing that could break some of the strongest o' Vikings. But he's a strong boy and he's got the rest of us. It might take some time, but he should recover just fine."

It was right then that Astrid saw Hiccup's eyes briefly flutter open, as if what Gobber said had made him think of something important. It was the shrewd, calculating face he made when he figured out something clever or finally solved a problem he'd be fussing over for weeks.

It was his "I have a plan" face.

Then, just as suddenly as it was there, it was gone. His eyes flicked shut again and he slipped away to the welcoming realms of sleep.

Astrid wondered if it was just some strange nervous reaction or if it had meant something as she helped set up camp and they worked on the line up for the night watch, but by the time she was ready to sleep, she was too tired to wonder or worry about anything.

"Astrid, you should have seen how you whaled on those Outcasts," Tuffnut said to her as the teens all settled in. "You went totally berserker."

"I did not," Astrid protested. "...did I?"

"I'd say it's a distinct possibility," said Fishlegs. "Even at your most focused, I've never seen you move that fast before."

"It was weird, like...the whole world went red and all I could think about was getting the annoying things in my way out of my way," Astrid said.

"They just happened to be people," Snotlout said helpfully.

Astrid frowned. "Just like you happen to be a person," she said threateningly.

"Boy, I sure am tired," Snotlout said, faux-yawning and rolling over.

"What was it like?" asked Ruffnut. "We knocked a few riders out of the air but they got back up again. I don't think we killed anybody."

"It was like...it was like all I saw was red and it wasn't a color. It was a living thing pushing me forward - and the only thing that would make it happy, make it stop pushing...was if there was more red."

"Oh man, that is so cool," said Tuffnut. "I wish I could go into a trance state and have a murderous breakdown. Some people have all the luck."

"Yeah," Astrid said slowly, still not knowing how to feel about it. "I guess I'm just lucky."

It was a good thing, wasn't it? Being able to react that way with enemies.

Wasn't it?

When Astrid woke the next morning, it was to Stoick's concerned voice waking up everyone else in the camp that wasn't already up from the watch.

"Hiccup?"

Astrid sat up quickly, hand going straight to the handle of her axe. "What is it? What's going on?" she asked, going from groggy-to-hostile in an impressive five seconds flat.

Hiccup was sitting in the grass of the field, in a dirt patch, his hands fumbling away at something. He seemed frustrated with his broken fingers and how some of them had been bandaged together with his other fingers.

"Oh," he said distantly. "Hi, dad. Hi. I'm just - you know how it is. You wake up first thing in the morning and have to fix something. I'm just - I'm fixing it."

"What are you - why do you think you need to fix something?" Stoick asked slowly, confused, moving over to kneel next to his son. Hiccup shied away just a bit, as if the movement had alarmed him

"That's what I do," Hiccup said shakily. "When I'm not breaking everything, I'm fixing everything. Hiccup the great big hero, Hiccup the dragon conqueror, always saving the day, always..."

For just a few seconds, he trailed off, looking out into the distance as if his mind had suddenly gone somewhere very far away. Anyone that hadn't been paying attention to the conversation now was, watching Hiccup's conversation with his father with great concern.

"I think I'm doing both this time," he finally said. "I broke everything so now I have to fix it. A two-fer."

"Son, what are you talking about?" Stoick asked with great concern. "What did you break?"

"Oh, just the world," Hiccup said tremulously.

Stoick almost laughed at that but Hiccup's serious expression stopped him from doing it. "Hiccup, you didn't break the world -"

"But I did!" his voice cracked. "I broke our world - I changed something and it was like a siege weapon - it was like. Well. You know how it is, move one part and the calibration is off. I moved a piece and now it won't work anymore. But that's okay!" He reached out a bandaged hand for his father's massive one and patted it gently. "I just - I just need time to fix this."

He went back to work on what looked like... well it looked like a big pile of flowers.

"Hiccup -"

"Dad. You're distracting me," Hiccup said, sounding annoyed. Finally, he seemed finished with...whatever he was doing. "There! It's perfect!"

It was...a mess. It looked like maybe it was supposed to be a daisy crown, like he used to make for her and Ruffnut when he was very little, back in the days when he was just the small boy that was the chief's son and not a walking disaster. But it was barely holding together, no doubt because of his crippled fingers.

He got up unsteadily and walked over to Astrid, kneeling in front of where she was crouched on the ground, and placed it on her head. It started to fall apart as soon as he did.

"You get the first prototype. It'll keep you safe from Alvin."

He smiled at her and it was one of his usual smiles, the "Look what I made, do you like it?" smile. Astrid looked into his eyes and he stared back, then briefly rested his forehead against hers and turned away, leaving her sitting there with her eyes glassy and her mouth hanging open in shock and horror.

Her expression was mirrored by the chief's face, only his was tinged with a much deeper devastation. The same shock and horror was on the faces of every Viking watching.

Hiccup settled back down and started picking more wildflowers.

"Now I've just gotta make enough for everyone in both of the our villages. See? I've got this. We're covered on this whole The-Outcasts-Can-Ride-Dragons thing."

He went back to work. They sat stewing in the silence that came when one acknowledged their own failure.

"Oh, Hiccup," said Gobber sadly, but the boy ignored it, patiently weaving together flower stems with broken fingers, desperately trying to fix what was broken, while all the others wondered how in the world they would do the same.