There was a saying. When things look bad, imagine how they could get worse, and prepare for those eventualities. That way one can only be pleasantly surprised or prepared. There was just one problem with that cheery outlook on life.

Heather couldn't imagine how her life could get any worse. She had finally slipped up and was captured by some of the many Berserkers looking for her. Why they wanted her so badly, she had no idea. After they had razed her island, slaughtering all of its inhabitants, she had fled. She didn't know why they had attacked. No one did, but now she had a horrible suspicion. Somehow, they knew she was there. She still didn't know why, and that frustrated her to no end.

She was currently a prisoner in the ship of those Berserkers, presumably on a course to Berserker island from the isolated island village they had apprehended her at. By now though she knew better than to ask any of her captors. They responded to anything she said the same way. A punch in the face. She wasn't sure, but it was possible, that might have been official Berserker protocol because they all did the same thing. She would have guessed the three men she had been stupid enough to try talking to would at least have responded in different ways, but they all did the same thing. So now she was pretty sure she had some fairly large bruises on her face and nothing to show for it.

Her captors' silence lasted about five days into the journey. Then they lowered their guard a little bit, and she would sometimes hear them talking if they stood directly above her cell on the deck of the ship. of course, they never said anything useful, although the stupid rumors they shared were entertaining. They once spoke of a ghost talking to treasure hunters, of all things. Another time, she heard two guards debating whether or not the mysterious figure that rode a Night Fury was skinny or fat. Apparently, they had each heard stories that argued either way. To Heather, that indicated that this 'Rider' didn't exist, despite the stories. She was pretty sure the story that began all of those rumors had come from Berk. She tried not to remember the circumstances behind her discovering that source of information. It reminded her of why she had been on Berk, which led her thoughts back to her parents…

Lingering on the past wouldn't help her escape, which she was determined to do if only to spite her captors. They clearly needed her alive, so failing in an escape attempt probably wouldn't be deadly. So, on the sixth day, when she felt the ship cast anchor at what she thought might be around noon, indicating that they were stopping at some piece of land, she considered how to escape.

A chain connected her leg to one of the bars that made up the front of the small, closet-sized cell all Berserker vessels apparently had. She had to sleep these last nights sitting up, so she was sleep deprived and sore. That didn't matter. The other walls of the cell were solid wood, and the door was locked, as was the chain attached to it. Her only advantage was that she was pretty sure the same key fit both locks and that these particular Berserkers were fairly stupid. Strong, but stupid.

About ten minutes later, one of the guards unlocked the door and set a small plate of food down. It was barely enough to keep her from starving, as usual. They might need her alive, but only just. She moved toward it and the guard, who assumed she was going for the food. He was wrong.

Lightning quick, she jabbed with her hand flat, fingers first, straight at the bulky guard's throat. Anger and desperation made up for her starved and sleepless state and the crack of something in his throat breaking was not loud, but it was noticeable. The guard slumped to the floor and clutched at his neck, a strangely wet gasp sounding oddly loud in the quiet ship. That had not been a good sound. She thought she might have broken a finger or two, she hit so hard, but clearly, more damage had been done to the Berserker than her hand.

As she bent down to grab the key, she tried to ignore his pained gasping for air, which quickly faded into stillness. That attack hadn't been intended to kill him, but she was pretty sure that it had. She wasn't a hardened killer, not quite, but it was hard to feel remorse for one of the men responsible for the deaths of everyone she loved.

With the death of a guard, her certainty that she wouldn't be killed if recaptured was fading away. How valuable a prisoner was she? She didn't intend to stick around to find out.

She quickly unlocked her manacle. The door was still open, and she stepped over the fallen body of the guard, wincing as she used muscles that hadn't been able to really move in almost a week. Her head spun, but she didn't fall. She looked around the interior of the ship, but she didn't see any other Berserkers... or her ax. It was nothing special, but it had been hers.

At that moment, she realized that the ship seemed too quiet. There were, by her best guess nine of the Berserkers total, now eight. Where were the others? Hopefully, they had stopped at some busy port so she could easily slip away. They had probably left only the one guard here in the meantime.

She carefully ascended the ladder that led to the deck of the small ship. After going just high enough to see, she confirmed with a subtle glance around that she seemed to be alone on board. Then she saw the mountain.

It was unusual, in that the normal mountain peak one would expect was instead a flat surface, giving the mountain a cut-off look. As she ascended to stand fully on deck, she realized something. They had stopped at an island, but it was no port. Most of the island spread before her was covered in thick and tangled forest, with that single mountain rising from the back and center. There were no docks, no people, no villages. Not even any signs of boar or dragons. Not that she wanted to see either of those.

Of course, that also meant that there was no sign of the other Berserkers that had been on the boat. She decided to take the chance. She probably wouldn't starve to death here, and she could hide in that underbrush. Even if it meant living here until another boat came by, it would be better than wherever these Berserkers were taking her.

She leaped off the side of the boat and swam to the beach. She almost didn't make it, so weak from lack of food and space for six days that the waves almost defeated her. But she forced herself to stand as she reached the beach. The forest would be safety, a hiding place, and she couldn't falter yet. Safety, if she could just get there.

That hope swiftly faded when a Berserker stepped out of the woods about twenty feet away. He stared at her in shock. He was armed, but he was also carrying a barrel.

Fresh water, she guessed in despair. They were all probably just taking the opportunity to restock from a nearby stream. She knew she was too tired to outrun even one of them, but tried anyway and made it about halfway to the forest before he grabbed her. It was only a dull disappointment when other Berserkers stepped out of the forest, also carrying barrels of water. The Berserker holding her shook her in anger.

"What do you think you're doing?" He threw his mace at another Berserker who blocked it with his club. Apparently, the rest of them were used to this kind of thing. "How did she get out?!" That was directed at the rest of the Berserkers.

Heather watched as one of them waded back to the ship and climbed aboard. Her heart was pounding as they all waited. Then a shout of disgust rang out.

The Berserker reappeared at the edge of the ship. "She killed Hoern! He's dead in the cell!"

That was when Heather knew she was done. There was no way they'd even slightly underestimate her again if she even got another chance. If they didn't just kill her here and now. She really just wished she knew why. Why did they do any of this in the first place?

The massive Berserker holding Heather shook her again, glaring at her. "You are very lucky Dagur wants you alive. Otherwise, I'd slit your throat right now."

Another Berserker moved closer. "Dagur just wants her alive though. We can make her regret killing Hoern without killing her..." His face was menacing.

"Good idea. I'm open to suggestions." That was the Berserker holding Heather.

Heather tried to keep a straight face as the Berserkers called out worse and worse punishments. She failed miserably. Some of the things she was hearing were entirely capable of accidentally killing her. She blanched at the next words out of her captor's mouth.

"Good suggestions, all of those. I can't decide..." He leered evilly at Heather. "It is a long voyage back to Berserker island. We can just run through that list until we get there. I'm sure Dagur won't mind."

"Or, you could explain what in Thor's name you are doing on my island."

Heather whipped her head around in shock at the voice. It hadn't come from any of the Berserkers, but the forest. She would have guessed that no one lived on this island. It was almost enough to take her mind off of her current predicament.

The Berserker holding onto her tightened his grip as he responded. "Oy, show yourself! I don't talk to someone when I can't see their face." He subtly gestured behind his back at the other Berserkers, who dropped their barrels and put hands on their weapons.

The response came quickly. "And I don't show myself to armed Berserkers. Say, is Dagur still as insane as I remember?" That last part was taunting. "Or has he hit his head hard enough to fix that? You never know, it might work."

Insulting a chief was a good way to die, especially with armed Berserkers on the other end of the insult. Heather was not at all surprised to see the leader of the Berserkers send six of his men into the woods after the voice. She was pretty sure that was what the speaker had wanted, so it was no surprise when none of them came back.

The only two Berserkers left were the leader and the crossbowman. The leader tightened his grip on Heather's arm. He seemed nervous now. There hadn't even been sounds of a struggle.

The crossbowman pointed his weapon at the trees aimlessly. "Now what?"

Something hit him, dropping him instantly. Heather saw a small, spherical rock about the size of her closed fist land in the sand next to the downed crossbowman, whose forehead was beginning to display a growing bruise.

And then there was one, she thought with grim amusement. At least someone could take these idiots down.

The voice came from the trees again. "Let her go, and I'll only knock you out." There was menace there. "You said Dagur wanted her?"

The Berserker scowled. "Yes, which is why I ain't doing that!" He started backing through the sand, towards the shallows and the boat behind him, pulling Heather along.

"Tell Dagur I'll be in touch." The voice sounded crafty now. "And if you want to survive telling him that, I'd suggest you never mention you were the ones who caught her and then lost her. Just tell him you found someone who already had her prisoner and arranged for him to hand her over. Like I said, I'll contact him myself."

The Berserker protested warily. "But that didn't happen! We captured her, fair and square!"

The voice laughed. "I'm not giving you a choice. Enjoy your involuntary rest." Another stone flew out from the trees, knocking the last Berserker out cold.

Heather stood alone on the beach, entirely uncertain as to what she should do now. The stranger had saved her, but he had also told the Berserkers he'd be handing her over to Dagur himself. She wavered, exhausted, near-starving, and dehydrated, before clenching her fists, determined to...

No. She couldn't fight, not like this. It was not giving up so much as admitting the truth. She was spent.

She sat down in the sand and spoke aimlessly. "Well? What now?" This was pointless. Whoever the voice was, she probably couldn't even escape an angry yak at this point.

The voice didn't reveal himself. "That depends. Why do they want you so badly?"

Heather almost screamed in frustration. "I wish I knew! I've never even met Dagur, but apparently, he's willing to kill my entire island to get to me! His men have been chasing me for more than a year." She sighed, entirely done with this whole debacle. "Does it really matter? He's already killed everyone I care about. My parents, my tribe, everyone I knew." She really didn't know why. That made her mad, but it also depressed her. Her parents had died for nothing. At least, nothing she knew of.

The voice was soft. "Yes, it matters, because I needed to know if Dagur actually had a good reason for holding you, prisoner. That definitely doesn't count." There was a pause. "You really have no one left?"

Heather didn't answer. She had already said that. She idly scanned the forest edge, searching for the speaker, but knowing he probably wasn't visible. Finally, she responded. "No. No home, no friends, no family. Does that cover it, or do you want more details on exactly what I don't have?" She was shouting now. "I have nothing!"

"That makes things difficult." The statement was almost resigned. A man stepped out from the depths of the forest.

Heather stared. He couldn't have been over twenty, and he was wearing a strange, foreign armor. It seemed to be made out of small overlapping plates and was fairly form-fitting. No bulky pauldrons or suit, just black leather and black... scale. That was what it was, black scales molded into the shape of various pieces of armor. He carried a matching helmet, and a strange staff with metal... ends on his back. There really wasn't any recognizable shape to them, and they certainly weren't built for combat like that, although there was a blade involved. It looked almost incomplete. The wood of the staff was dark blue, the metal smoky purple. It was like nothing she had ever seen.

This didn't look like a hermit or a castaway. He seemed entirely comfortable being here. He walked confidently and quickly towards her. He held out his hand, which had a scale gauntlet over the back of it.

She stared at it, then realized he was offering to help her up. She took his hand and stood. "Do I look that weak?" It was a serious question.

He frowned. "Yes. I assume treatment as a Berserker prisoner wasn't great." He let go once she had stood, and turned to examine the boat.

Heather frowned. "What did you do to the other Berserkers?"

He laughed. "I didn't kill them if that's what you're asking. They are enjoying the same mandatory resting period as all uninvited guests who won't leave peacefully." He turned to look her in the eyes. "No one leaves here with both the knowledge that there is something on this island besides a convenient stream and the knowledge on how to get here." He gestured towards the boat. "Which is why these particular Berserkers are going to wake up on their boat, about a hundred miles..." He trailed off. "Where were they sailing from?"

Heather pointed West. "An island a few days East of here."

The man nodded. "They'll wake up a hundred miles East of here. With no maps whatsoever. They'll be forced to keep sailing West to hopefully find their destination..."

Heather grinned. "And wind up right back where they started, with no idea what happened."

The man nodded. "That's the idea." He frowned thoughtfully. "But they could find their way back here. Hopefully, they think there's no point. They'll report to Dagur eventually. That's when this gets difficult."

Heather shied away from him slightly. "Difficult how?"

"I won't turn over an innocent to a bloodthirsty lunatic, but Dagur seems to be looking for you, and his men know about this island now. So, I can't ignore him entirely. I need to meet him somewhere, and... dissuade him from pursuing you."

That strained belief. "Why would you bother?"

He shrugged, his eyes betraying the affected nonchalance. "I can't do something nice?"

"Something nice would be getting me off this island. Getting Dagur off of my back is too much for this just to be charity." She glared at him. "You can't trick me."

"Pretty sure I could," he argued, "but… I do have other reasons to want him to stop looking. You were last seen here, and caught around here. I'd rather Dagur and his men never come back here, which won't happen if he keeps searching for you."

Heather looked at him curiously. "You say that like there is something here he shouldn't know about."

He met her eyes. "Yes, there is. Me. That's all you can know. If you want to leave, that is." He seemed entirely serious.

Heather wasn't sure if she did want to leave. The Berserkers would be looking for her, and she didn't really have anywhere to go anyway. "What if I don't want to?"

He laughed. "Sorry, but you living here isn't an option." He suddenly seemed to reconsider that. "Well... probably not." He shook his head. "You wouldn't want to if you knew everything, and if you knew everything, I couldn't let you leave."

Heather pointedly surveyed the dense forest and apparently lifeless island. "Try me." She was curious now, and she really had nothing better going on.

The man snorted. "No. Not right now, at least. You seem dead-tired, probably hungry, and definitely dehydrated by the look of your face. There's a stream over there, and I can bring back food." He made a point of narrowing his eyes and staring at her warningly. "Do not leave this beach."

Heather surveyed the relatively small patch of sand. "For how long?"

The man turned to leave, heading back into the forest. "I'll bring food." He disappeared quite quickly, black armor blending into the deep shadows of the forest.

Heather considered what he had said. He was hiding something, and if she saw whatever it was, she couldn't leave… but she was pretty sure she didn't want to leave. This place was the perfect hideout, complete with a competent guardian who kept it hidden for his own reasons, and who didn't seem opposed to her being here, just sure she wouldn't be able to handle whatever he was hiding, and unwilling to risk it.

She quickly made her way over to the stream and drank fresh water until she couldn't anymore, content to wait a little while. Then she had a thought. What about the Berserkers he had knocked out? Surely they would wake up eventually. The man somehow planned on getting them back on board their ship and a hundred miles from here before then? He would have to make sure they all stayed unconscious for several days to do that, and she was pretty sure he didn't intend to just keep knocking them out the whole way there. Now that she thought about it, how did he plan on getting away from the ship of hostile Berserkers once he had piloted it where he wanted, even assuming he could somehow get all that way without them waking up? She abruptly wondered if he was simply crazy.

"Am I crazy?" Maour asked the empty air as he ran back to the caves, leaving Heather alone on the beach.

Well, she thought she was alone... and Maour also only looked like he was talking to no one. Things were not as they appeared.

'Possibly,' a voice snorted sarcastically. 'I'm wondering the same thing.' It was near and yet unplaceable if Maour had tried to figure out where the sound was coming from.

"Toothless, what would you have done?" Maour ducked a low-hanging branch, moving fluidly through the trees. "She was going to be tortured."

'I know, but showing yourself was crazy,' Toothless retorted. 'You could have just knocked her out too and left her somewhere on another island.'

Maour stumbled, tripping over a shrub. Toothless was right. "Then why didn't you tell me about that option before I struck?!"

'Because I just thought of it,' Toothless admitted. 'And now it's too late. Also, she wants to stay here.'

"I know, I was there," Maour quipped, regaining his stride. "Do you think..?"

'Don't get ahead of yourself... but maybe.' A mental snort. 'It's been long enough. You need a mate.'

Maour stopped running due to self-preservation. He had no desire to run into a tree, too distracted to concentrate. "Not what I meant, and you know it."

'Yes, but teasing you is fun. Still, focus on keeping her alive and oblivious for now. Sound her out a bit while you're at it.'

"On that note, is she staying where I said?" He accessed Toothless's vision, pulling on another aspect of the link between them. His vision sharpened, and widened, changing to show his adoptive brother's viewpoint.

No, she had not moved. She was sitting in the shade by the stream. Accessing Toothless's hearing yielded nothing of interest. She was entirely unaware of the darker black lurking in the deep shadows of the forest, still and silent.

Silent to her ears, anyway. It took a link to hear any dragon speak. As only Night Furies seemed able to create them, and she was not a friend of dragons, she definitely wouldn't hear Toothless speaking.

He let go of Toothless's senses and resumed his trip to their cave. The pack needed to be informed, and some very quick decisions made.

Heather wasn't really sure how long she waited by that stream, but it didn't feel like very long before the man was back with a cooked fish and a wide piece of cloth. He handed Heather the fish and kept the cloth. Heather ate quickly but eyed him warily as she did. "What's the cloth for?"

The man frowned. "It's a blindfold. I'll need you to put it on, and follow me after you finish eating." He seemed annoyed by this but resigned to the necessity of it.

Heather laughed. "You really are paranoid. This must be one doozy of a secret you're keeping." She was becoming more and more sure she wanted to know what he was hiding. This blindfold presented her with an opportunity. She could always take it off before he could stop her.

The man wasn't amused. "It is. And it is going to stay a secret."

Heather thought back to something the man had said. "What makes you think you can't trust me?" She didn't think she looked untrustworthy, and she did owe him, so he could just demand she swear to secrecy, whatever it was.

The man grimaced. "Most Vikings can't be trusted with this. They would only see the parts they wanted to see and ignore the rest. I can't afford to take any risks, but I already am by having intervened at all. I should really have just let them leave with you. But I wouldn't. So, the blindfold."

"Now?" Heather had by now finished eating and felt much less in danger of fainting from exhaustion. She held out her hand for the blindfold, but when started to hand it to her she abruptly pulled her hand back. "Where are we going?"

"Off this beach, for a start. There's no shade here." He waited patiently for her to take the blindfold. She didn't, and he sighed. "Nowhere bad. I just need to get you out of sight of the beach, and ideally, somewhere you can stay a few days, while I figure out how to get you to the nearest island."

Heather blinked. "Don't you have a boat?"

"No, I do not." He didn't seem at all unhappy about that. "I probably should for situations like this, but boats are really hard to hide."

Heather didn't like what that implied. "Are you stuck here?"

He seemed to consider that. "Well, if I wanted to leave I could hitch a ride on a passing ship. They're rare, but they do come along every once in a great while." There was definitely more he wasn't saying. That was far too dangerous a situation for anyone to be so calm about.

Heather was beginning to feel nervous. She didn't like where all of this was going. A lone stranger, garbed and armed foreignly, alone on an island with no boat and no interest in leaving. But he couldn't be surviving here indefinitely because there was definitely no room for large farms or wild game here. No one stopped here except for water because it was clearly uninhabitable. She now had one suspicion, but she shoved it aside. She was not superstitious. Still... "What's your name, anyway?"

He smiled. " Maour. And you would be?"

Heather relaxed minutely. There was one name she had been dreading. That one piece of truth that was like a shard of ice, cutting into what she knew of the world. The one she had learned on Berk a few years ago. She didn't want to think about that. It brought back memories of her parents. "Heather."

Author's Note: Well, here we are. A few points of interest:

At the moment, the plan is to keep this story updating every Thursday morning, as Living Vicariously did.

This story, with around 25 chapters, is not as long as Living Vicariously ended up being, somewhere around 130,000 words total. On the other hand, it's not the last story in the series either, not by a long shot, so at least we'll get to the next one sooner, right?

A shout-out to my beta, Fizzlemcschnizzle, who helps ensure this isn't crap from both a plot and grammatical standpoint. And, given this was written a good half a year ago now, it needs it.