Chapter Text
There are rumors of a ghost on Berk.
No one pays attention to the boy running through the night, surrounded by flames and beating wings and fierce roars. No one notices the contraption he pushes in front of him, up to the highest point he can find, right in front of where the stars wink out as a shape flies across them.
He swings the weapon towards the sky, pulls back all the triggers and levers, and waits. Green eyes track the stars, track the black velvet of the night, and the roles are switched suddenly - hunter becomes the hunted, by a boy of barely eight who’s smarter than anyone gives him credit for, almost too smart for his own good. His father certainly seems to think so.
Violet fire flashes, accompanied by a high-pitched shrieking whistle, and a watchtower explodes in a shower of wood and sparks to Hiccup’s left. For the briefest blink of a second, the flames illuminate a black shape blotting out the stars, melting against the night, and Hiccup shoots blindly at the half-visible shadow, the dragon that haunts nightmares and the night sky.
It all happens very quickly after that. He’s thrown back by the force of his victory, wood slamming into his shoulders and back hitting the hard dirt, and doesn’t have time to celebrate before he stands up and turns. A Nightmare flares in front of him, teeth bared in a growl and wings spread menacingly, the heat of the flames warming Hiccup’s skin almost dangerously.
Then there is a flash of red and a massive form, Stoick’s withering glare shot at him and clearly visible even in the dark night as he slams his axe into the side of the dragon’s face, and Hiccup takes that opportunity to slip into the shadows - the same as the Night Fury, he thinks briefly, and isn’t that odd - back to his house, thoughts racing with the images of the flash of purple fire and the dark shape falling down from the sky, like a meteor.
Raven’s Point. He fell just off Raven’s Point, Hiccup repeats in his head, like a mantra.
-0-0-0-
The door slamming is a louder noise than Hiccup remembers, and he tenses from his spot laying on his bed. The flash of black against the flames, the way the stars were extinguished for half a second like they were simple candles, flees from his mind as he sits up, his father stomping into the room.
“Dad-“
Stoick glares up at Hiccup from where he slides to perch on the side of his loft, legs hanging down, and his voice cuts off whatever pleas Hiccup tries to make. “What were you doing out there, Hiccup? You could’ve been seen!” he growls.
Hiccup rolls his eyes, not threatened in the least by his father. He’ll learn, he knows, when he comes back with the head of a Night Fury. They’ll all learn. “No concern for whether I could’ve gotten killed, I see,” he says instead, tone flat and injected with all the sarcasm his eight-year-old body holds - which is quite a lot.
Stoick barrels on, heedless as ever of his son’s remarks. “You were out there. If you got killed, it would be your own fault. I tried to protect you, but you won’t listen to me!”
“And why should I?” Hiccup asks sharply, turning his own fierce glare on his father. “In case you haven’t noticed, you don’t listen to me either , Dad!” he almost hisses, green eyes incensed. “I’m barely even a person , here. The disgraced son, who was supposed to be sent off to sea as a child, but instead, was kept by his father and made to live as a ghost in the village! Honestly, I don’t know what’s worse. Actually being dead, or being seen as dead.”
Stoick goes quiet at the same time Hiccup does, his eyes widening at the words that had come out. His tone drops instantly, voice turning pleading again, trying to make up for the sheer magnitude of this mistake he’s made. “Dad, I’m sorry, I didn’t-“
“I think it’s time, son,” Stoick says quietly.
Hiccup freezes. No. No. “What?”
Stoick turns and sets his weapons down, movements calm as he picks up wood from the stack by the door and sets it on the stack of burned wood in the fire. “You’re old enough,” he continues, voice still that horrifying, very un-Stoick-like quiet calm. “I can’t keep this up forever. Eventually, the village is going to find out that you’re alive, and all of my efforts will be for naught. It’s time.”
Hiccup’s breath comes shallow in his chest, his heart pounding wildly. Stoick can’t do this to him, he’s not an adult yet, he can’t-
“You have to go,” Stoick continues, something like grief in his voice - but that can’t be real, not with what he’s doing now, not with the bleak future that he’s forcing on Hiccup. “There will be a ship on the other side of the island in three days’ time. You have one hour to pack up everything you need, and then you must leave.” Finally, his gaze turns up to Hiccup, half-draped in shadow from his place on the edge of his loft, and sitting perfectly still, frozen in fear and shock. “You were exiled years ago, Hiccup, as a child. I’m only doing you a favor by following through. The village won’t be kind to you if they find out you’re here.”
Something goes cold inside Hiccup, then. Some light, some hope that his father would accept him someday. Even as the ghost of Berk, even as the disgraced, runt son who is supposed to have either been dead or raised on another island. He had always thought, maybe, if he tries hard enough, well...
Hiccup’s green eyes go flinty, the way he’d learned years ago when he first discovered power and who held it and who didn’t - and he didn’t hold it, he figured out very quickly - and he feels a different sort of fire rising in him. “Okay, Dad,” he says quietly, and his boots barely whisper against the wood of the loft as he silently packs up what little things he has. His notebooks, some charcoal, food and his waterskin, his dagger. The loudest noise is that of Hiccup’s chair scraping over the wood as he pulls it to the window and climbs up, sliding out of the opening and down to the ground. He doesn’t look back.
Instead, he looks up at the dark forest in front of him, feels the new fire inside him burning bright and harsh and determined. Hiccup starts running, fast and quiet, slipping into the shadows as he’s done all his life, as he’s been doing since he first knew what he was and that he had to hide , from everyone and everything.
Just like a ghost.
-0-0-0-
A boy of eight comes upon a trapped Night Fury, bound in rope. He takes his knife and cuts through the ropes, and follows the dragon to the cove it escapes to.
-0-0-0-
Astrid hasn't been near the cove for years, but her axe thuds just as satisfyingly into the trees around it and the bark makes just as good of a canvas for her to imagine Snotlout's face, broken by the steel of her blade as she hurls it at the wood. She fumes, yelling her frustration into the sky and channeling it into the power and precision behind her throws.
She’s going to be married to him. Sold off like livestock, because the Jorgensen family is inheriting the chiefdom and the Hofferson family needs money and power and respect. It undermines everything that Astrid has worked for, her own respect in the village as a warrior before a woman and more likely to throw an axe in your face than to do your laundry or cook for you. It undermines her as a person, not a docile wife to be ordered about by an arrogant man.
She stalks off through the forest, slashing the plants in her way and growling hate at the trees as she embeds her axe in them before yanking it back out again and repeating the process. It’s not as satisfying as it would be if she could actually sink the steel into Snotlout’s smug face, but it’ll have to do, and she has a vivid imagination. Especially when it comes to hurting Snotlout.
She looks up, seeing the crash trail that’s been there for years. The trees were nearly razed when the Vikings first found it ten years ago, like something massive had landed and skidded down the hill, leaving a deep trench in the dirt and smashing every plant and animal in its way, including several unfortunate trees. They’d searched up and down the trail, finding only the cove with its lake and waterfall at one end and a crater of disrupted dirt at the other end. No dragon, like they’d originally thought, and no other animal was massive enough to make that kind of track.
Since then, most of the foliage has grown back, some adolescent trees growing back in the other’s place after they were cleared out for wood, but there’s still a clear line between the old forest and the new one, curving down towards the cove. Astrid follows it, spinning her axe in her hands, thinking of increasingly non-lethal painful places to shove her axe and various other weapons into Snotlout.
There may be no avoiding the marriage, she thinks bitterly, and nearly throws her axe into another tree at that thought, but she’s not going to make it easy for Snotlout. If there’s one thing Astrid can’t, and won’t be, it’s a docile house-wife. She’s going to make him regret it, if it’s the last thing she ever does.
Astrid ducks automatically underneath the tunnel that leads into the cove, slipping easily down the familiar path to the ground. The rock she usually sits on is there as always, but her anger doesn’t let her sit. She paces, walks around the lake and splashes water on her face, and slowly her anger drains away to a simmer.
Oh, it’s not gone. Not at all. She’s just not wasting her energy on throwing her axe anymore, and is waiting to use her energy on making Snotlout regret all his life choices.
She walks towards the waterfall, silently seething, and lets herself calm down slightly by admiring the crystal-clear water as it tumbles down, like glass shards, or diamonds. Behind it, the shadows of the water play on the wet stone, reflecting the fall.
Except, the shadows are deeper and darker, and Astrid tilts her head, walking closer around the side of the waterfall and studying the stone behind it.
The shadow of the waterfall isn’t there. Instead, there’s a deep black void, with a few scattered rays of sunlight shining like bars on the stone across from the opening - a cave, she realizes suddenly. There’s a cave behind the waterfall.
Well, she never was one to leave things alone, and imagine if there’s a dragon in there. It would be a good way to expel her anger at Snotlout, she thinks, and raises her axe as she walks into the shadows.
It’s a small opening, barely enough for a Nadder to get through, so she rules out some of the bigger dragon species - Monstrous Nightmare, for one, and perhaps a Zippleback if they didn’t squeeze. She thinks a Zippleback would only pick this as a resting space if it was desperate, because it’s definitely not big enough for their entire body to fit easily into.
Axe over her shoulder, she creeps forward, and then pauses when she hears the sound of light breathing.
There’s no dragon, however. The cave is dark, and the sunlight doesn’t add much light to see by, so Astrid is going in practically blind. Not a huge comfort, when her enemies are hundreds of pounds heavier than her and can breathe fire.
Wait. The cave is dark.
She studies the shadows again, specifically the dark spot by the far wall, and sees it rise slightly before deflating again. Rise and deflate. Rise and deflate.
Her eyes make out the sinuous curve of a scaled spine, a tail curled around, a wing half-extended. On the other end, the dark, vague shape of a head, paws, and some slightly oval shape on those paws, a silhouette too dark to make out.
Astrid gasps as she realizes what she’s looking at, and backs away in shock.
It’s a Night Fury. She stumbled upon a Night Fury, sleeping.
The sound of breathing stutters for just a moment, and she finds green eyes locked on her suddenly, nearly glowing in the dark. The sun shifts just right at that moment, illuminating a face with freckles, cheek pressed against the Fury’s folded paws, the rest of the body covered by the protective (or possessive?) wing and tail curled around him, and finally a messy tangle of auburn hair at the head.
A human head. And a human face, and a (supposedly) human body. Curled up with a Night Fury, face peaceful, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
She glances back at the dragon, whose green eyes are still tracking her, and realizes that the only reason she isn’t dead right now is that the Fury doesn’t want to disturb the sleeping boy. Maybe he’s its friend, she thinks, or maybe he’s prey.
She’s going with the latter.
She can feel her breath coming short, heart pounding, but her grip doesn’t slip on her axe. She hasn’t trained for her entire life to miss out on the one and only opportunity she might ever have to kill a Night Fury.
She does stand frozen, though, for much longer than she’d ever admit, her blue eyes locked on the Fury’s green ones.
It takes her several moments to hear the low rumble vibrating through the cavern, coming from the dragon, apparently, in very obvious threat. She takes a breath, briefly running through just how much of a bad idea this is, an image of the Book of Dragons page on Night Furies flashing through her mind.
Hide, and pray it does not find you.
She raises her axe, fingers tightening, and gives a cry before charging forward.
Astrid gets three steps and through processing the lightning-quick movement and high shriek of the Fury before she feels her skin heat as a bright flash of purple fire singes her arm and hair. She yells in surprise and at the shadow of pain, turning briefly to see the scorch mark on the stone behind her, feeling the last traces of the scalding heat that had skimmed her skin.
And then she realizes she can see the scorch mark.
She turns back around and sees the Night Fury crouched around the boy, who’s now half-standing and half-crouching, one hand on the Fury’s scales, which vibrate with a low, steady growl, and the other hand holds a-
Flaming sword?
Astrid glances between the three, first at the flaming sword - she really has to get one of those, she thinks first, once she figures out how he did it - and then the Fury, whose tail is still curled around the boy, wings folded against its side and its body curving around him as he stands, and then she looks at the boy.
He has the same green eyes as the Fury, and they’re fixed on her just like the dragon, the firelight from the sword playing across his tangle of auburn hair and freckled face. The bright green shades with something almost like recognition, obvious intelligence flashing through his eyes as he glances at her axe, then back at her face, still in that tense half-crouched position. Astrid has the absurd thought that it’s part dragon and part human, the way he’s standing with his knees bent slightly, in the curve of the dragon’s body like it’s as natural as sleeping with his head resting against the creature’s paws.
Still, Astrid can’t think of this man as human. Nothing about this is human. “What are you?” she asks instead, adrenaline still making her body shake with the thought that she’d almost died. Not that she hadn’t expected to, charging at a Night Fury, but that doesn’t make it any less terrifying.
The boy doesn’t respond, but he does step forward, the sword held in his hand with far too much familiarity for Astrid’s liking. Facing a Night Fury is hard enough, but a boy with a flaming sword? Her odds are significantly lowered, even from the sliver-thin they had been before.
He gives a low growl of his own, slicing the sword in front of him, and Astrid instinctively takes a step back at the warm threat against her skin. She glances between the Fury, who’s still vibrating with that low, steady growl, and the boy, whose green eyes are flinty and who takes another step forward.
She nods, the weight of just how far she’s in over her head dropping on her suddenly, and then turns and runs, heart pounding wildly and adrenaline shooting through her. She hears a strange hiss from behind her, and then the Night Fury breathes down her neck.
Its claws graze her back as she rolls away, a growl coming from behind her as she screams and keeps running, sprinting out of the cave and climbing up the cove wall faster than she’s ever done before. Black streaks past her peripheral view, and Astrid gasps in sheer terror as she sprints out the tunnel and through the forest, up the crash trail and towards Berk as fast as humanly possible.
She doesn’t hear the dragon, exactly, but she feels its paw land against her back and she turns, wildly swinging her axe with all her strength and feeling the flat of it connect against something hard. She doesn’t pay attention to the hurt yelp behind her, or the frustrated growl, because she’s already turned around again and started running.
Her breath comes in short pants, every nerve alive with the threat and the chase, feeling the soft thuds of the dragon’s paws as it hunts her. She doesn’t have time to wonder why it won’t just take off and catch her that way, because she sees the houses of Berk in the distance and puts on a desperate burst of speed.
Within seconds, she hears the Night Fury’s growls grow more distant, and turns around just for a glance of the dragon pacing at the treeline, wings half-spread and the boy coming up behind it, placing one hand on the dragon’s nose and watching her sprint into the village.
She keeps going all the way through town, up to Stoick’s house, before slowing, out of breath, and knocking on the door. She’s still panting, but what she just saw can’t wait. The dragon and the boy can’t escape before Berk finds them, especially not when she almost died running from them.
The door opens and Astrid looks up, and up, and up, until she finally meets the confused, slightly irritated eyes of Stoick the Vast, who looks down at her, a frown set into his face. “Astrid?”
She gasps, doubling over for a moment with her hands on her knees, and finally looks up again and pants out, “Night Fury. There’s a Night Fury.”
Stoick’s frown gets deeper, and heavier, and a harsh light enters his eyes. “Where is this coming from?”
She shakes her head, waving one hand. “I almost died!” she bursts out, looking up at Stoick with all the honesty she can muster. Bluffing about something like this is not tolerated in Berk, and if they don’t believe her…
“I was- in the cove, and I went-“ she pants, but keeps going, “-went behind the waterfall, and found a cave, and there was- there was a Night Fury, I swear to Thor, Chief, it shot at me and started chasing me-“
“Shh, Astrid. Calm down,” Stoick rumbles, and she trails off into breathless silence, watching him as he looks up and out at the village. He glances to his right, and Astrid notices Gobber standing there - when did he get here? - before Stoick speaks, voice hard. “Gather a team to go after the Night Fury.” He looks back at Astrid, whose eyes are wide and who still hasn’t completely caught her breath. “It won’t survive until nightfall if I have anything to say about it.”
Gobber nods. “Righty then,” he says, and turns away, lumbering down the hill and towards the village, starting to call out orders to the few villagers who’d gathered to watch Astrid’s wild sprint.
Astrid gives a half-smile, feeling a familiar fire spark in her at the thought of getting vengeance on the creature who nearly killed her. She doesn’t tell him about the boy, but she doesn’t need to. She wants him to herself, and besides, maybe he can still be saved, if only she can separate him and his dragon.
“Thank you, Chief,” she says, and her smile grows a bit wider at the same fire reflected in Stoick’s eyes as he looks down at her.
“That Night Fury won’t be allowed on my island roaming free,” he replies, a dark note in his voice.