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Bragi thought that the trembling in his hands would never stop. The sight of Dagur as he stood in the path of the heavy crumbling stone roof had made his heart stop. The ground crumbled beneath Dagur's feet from the weight of stone crashing into the edge of the cavern. The large drop loomed, disappearing into deep darkness that would've claimed his life had Bragi not shoved him out of the way.
That was the thing.
Bragi had needed to shove him out of the way because Dagur—the one thing Bragi needed to protect the most—would have died if he hadn't. Dagur had been pushed to safety, he'd been fine, but his eyes as the next piece of the cave ceiling crashed into the cavern ground next to him were behind Bragi's eyelids every time he closed them. His heart had suspended in his throat as the cavern's stone floor cracked and crumbled beneath his feet.
Dagur had shrieked his name when he fell.
His name, and Dagur's voice filled with fear, that was what scared him most. He never heard Dagur sound so afraid before. That sound lingered, he replayed it over and over in his mind. All the while as he clung onto the leather straps that Hiccup added to his saddles, his hands refused to stop trembling. He hoped-
He hoped Dagur made it out from the caverns before they collapsed around him. The last Bragi saw, he'd crashed into the side of the cave after Toothless had hit him with his tail and he hadn't even made it to his feet before Hiccup had snatched the sight of Dagur's safety from him. The entire caverns were crumbling around them, crashing down in pieces from small stones to the size of boulders. Dust had kicked up around them, the rumbling had been so deep he could feel it reverberate through his legs up his body. He should've known it would be the case, they wouldn't have been allowed to linger after snatching Gustav away from Dagur, not after the teenager betrayed him. Yet he'd been so close to Dagur after months, mere months of being away from the man he loved in favour of being surrounded by their enemies and that moment was quickly torn away from him.
Gustav was loud as he climbed from his dragon's back, voice moving at a hundred paces a minute as he talked about Dagur and what he thought about the Berserker Chief. Hiccup seemed exasperated as he hopped off the back of Toothless as they landed safely at the stables, but he didn't snap at Gustav to stop talking. Maybe he'd realized then that Gustav perhaps was smarter than they all thought he was? Maybe he realized that it would be useless because the kid clearly learned nothing from this experience.
Bragi didn't want to be around either of them. With solid ground beneath his feet, he considered what to do next and caught sight of his hands. He remembered Dagur clinging to him, the way their palms fit together as he was so desperate to not let him fall. The scar on his palm was silvery where the rest of his flesh was mottled pink from blood rising to the surface.
"Hey."
He looked up from his cracked nails, dirt beneath their pale colouring. The skin around his thumbnail was cracked and rust-coloured from where he'd picked at it along the flight. He had been thinking about Dagur.
It was all that consumed that his mind as each wing beat further and further away mad his chest tighten with heaviness. He took a deep breath, smelling the salt of the sea. A gentle breeze stole the scent from him.
He opened his eyes and turned to the direction of the greeting.
It was Ruffnut in front of him, her pale blue eyes peering at him like she was the first one to notice that something was wrong. Concern pulled at the corners of his mouth, down turned to display her vexation. Her blonde hair was pushed out of her face, her helmet securing the long, thick braids out of her eyes. She was fidgeting with one of the purple wraps that sectioned her braids.
"Ruffnut." He rasped, voice caught in his throat. "What're you-"
She interrupted him by grabbing his arm.
He feared that maybe if he spoke, the words that would tumble from his vocal chords and they would lead to him completely falling apart. He had to be in control around the dragon riders; they were his enemy and after his outburst towards Gustav during training before the kid ran off—the last thing he needed was for them to see him lose it now.
Ruffnut quickly had him by the elbow, her arm looped around his own and her less calloused fingertips brushed against his bare elbow between the gaps of his wrappings. The touch admittedly startled him. The twins were affectionate by nature, but even this sudden movement was out of the norm. For her to cling to him instead of rough-housing like she did with her brother, something warned him in the back of his mind not to trust it, but his mind was a mess.
"Come on." She insisted. She didn't give him much opportunity to stop her as she pulled him away from where Gustav was still chattering and the others swarmed him and Hiccup with concern. As she did so, Bragi caught sight of Astrid looking at him as Ruffnut led him away. Next to her, Tuffnut gave his sister a brief nod of his head and a two-fingered gesture before Ruffnut managed to lead him away.
The conversation behind them faded away. What remained was the sound of the wood beneath their feet; Ruffnut's shorter stride matching his as she walked along with him, before she maneuvered them down steps towards the boar pit. He could hear the sound of his own heart thundering in his chest, louder than it had any right to be.
He felt lost, not for the first time since he'd grown up, in a spiral of his own decisions. This was his plan, his choice to be apart from Dagur and thus, putting him in danger like he'd just been exposed to. There was little he could do by way of exerting his feelings in the ways that he normally would have; sparring, training, teaching or Dagur.
When they'd reached a decent distance away from the stables and the training ground, boar pit and the twins hut in sight, she slowed her steps but didn't let go of him. She was deliberately keeping hold of his arm, grounding him in the moment against the intentions of his mind as it tried to wander back to the subject of his concern, the focus of his worry.
"Figured you needed a break. Gustav looked like he was talking your ear off." She said honestly as she guided him to a stop. Her tone was slow and tentative, testing the waters with him for a response. "And he drives us mad, so there was no way he wasn't getting on your nerves. Astrid'll ask Hiccup to send the kid back to Berk tomorrow morning. It'll take him the whole day to get back."
Bragi wondered when she realized that he wasn't alright. His eyes flicked down to his boots, scuffed and still dusty from the caverns, avoiding her gaze.
Was it when he'd left? Did she see it in him when he climbed from Toothless' back and he trembled with something (fear, or maybe rage). Had it been because he hadn't said a word as Gustav mentioned Dagur.
It was very likely that last thing… yes. That one.
No other reason.
"He talks too much." He finally offered her, still staring at the dirt between their feet.
"Well I guess that's a part of his charm," She said. He could hear the shrug in her tone as she continued. "whatever little charm he's got anyway."
"My preference for people is a short list." Bragi huffed. He felt her fingers tighten on his arm some with that statement. Maybe it hit too close to home, maybe she simply thought that she and her brother weren't included on that list. He looked away from her still, caught between trying to gather himself or letting her see his struggle.
"It doesn't… have to be." She tugged on his arm to drag his gaze to her. He met her pale blue eyes, they were earnest and sincere and knowing. "Dagur means everything to you. I listen when you talk to Tuff y'know. It had to be hard to see him again… to fight him."
Bragi froze. She was right on the nose with that.
They had gone in expecting a fight and he'd ended up rescuing Dagur instead because it was engrained in him.
A near two-decade long expectation to keep Dagur safe was pretty much a part of him. He loathed the idea of leaving Dagur behind, of making him feel forgotten and betrayed. The longer he stayed away from him (because it'd already been four months and each moon cycle was beginning to drive him insane) the harder it was to try and remember just why he decided to do such a thing.
There were so many downsides.
They were no longer on Berk.
He was outnumbered essentially eleven to one, six riders and their five dragons, not to mention the night terrors that were trained and Hiccup's strange and uncanny ability to befriend almost all wild dragons which crossed their path.
He didn't know where he was in terms of travel by boat.
Who were the closest allies?
Who were his closest enemies?
What a situation to be in, which he'd done to himself.
"It'd be like me fighting Tuffnut, except Tuffnut's really annoying sometimes and having a brother on the other side of a battlefield would probably be really hard to deal with. So I guess, maybe it's worse than if I was fighting Tuffnut, because I'm older than him and I'm supposed to look out for him but you're older than both of us, you've known Dagur for years so if you had to fight him-"
"I can't fight him!" He blurted out. The thought of even hurting Dagur during this farce… this charade, it seemed entirely unthinkable. He'd grown up with the scent of charred flesh and the pain of what it felt like to watch others simply die to dragons. While he appreciated and understood that not all dragons were one in the same... it didn't change that their livelihoods, their home, was constantly threatened. "I can't- seeing Hiccup fight him today I just… couldn't stand the thought of losing him. I almost did lose him and it-"
scared me.
The words caught in his throat.
It scared him beyond belief.
Ruffnut's gaze softened.
Before Bragi could stop her, she'd thrown her arms around him, squeezing him tightly in a hug he hadn't expected but wasn't quite sure he didn't want.
When was the last time someone hugged him like this?
Real and genuine. She was saying something in his ear but it felt like all he could hear was a rushing torrent. She was squeezing him tight enough that his ribs ached and his chest squeezed. She was holding him like he mattered to her in this scheme of grand schemes. It could have been Dagur… if he thought hard enough about the hours before Dagur threw him overboard, the last person that held him so he could simply be Bragi had been Dagur.
A shuddered breath escaped him.
Slowly, he brought his hands up to hug Ruffnut back.
She was tall, but she felt fragile in his arms as he wrapped them around her. The teenagers weren't like Dagur, stocky even if they weren't as tall or as broad as their parents had been. Dagur certainly never met Osvald's stature even if he surpassed him in height and Bragi was tall but he was nothing like his father. He never met the twins' parents, either of them, but they could've used a good feeding maybe.
She still squeezed him hard enough to rival Dagur's strength, rocking them back and forth with a little giggle of glee the longer Bragi allowed her to hold on.
"You're too skinny." He muttered, catching Ruffnut off guard as she finally loosened her grip around his shoulders. "We should feed you more."
"Maybe… but everyone in the Nutt family tree is pretty much like this." She shrugged underneath his arms, the movement limited by their embrace.
Bragi pondered that for a second as he let her go and really looked at her. He could see the same strong features that most Berserker shield maidens carried. High cheeks, the set of her jaw, and her pale blue eyes. She'd clearly inherited her colouring from her mother, though his reds and green eyes and dark hair were more common on Berserker Island.
"You both must take after your mother." He muttered and gave her a once over. Too skinny for his liking. If he fed her and Tuffnut they would grow to their Berserker roots. "Which means you've got Berserker blood and a Berserker appetite. I can cook tonight, something from home then."
Her eyes widened in surprise.
"Really?"
"The fleet is used to cooking with limited resources. Dragon's Edge is much more equipped than our ships have been in recent years." He shrugged before letting go of her to turn towards the boar pit. "Some of my men could burn water. Dagur was always a good cook… We learned it from his mom. She made a wicked beserk chicken."
"Don't let Tuff hear you say that."
Bragi snorted, the image of the chicken coming to mind. Tuffnut's so called lycan-wing and now new best friend. Both the twins didn't look it, but they really were softer hearts hidden behind harder defensive shells and he watched, time after time as they were dismissed as fools. Foolish? Yes. Absolutely brilliant? Also yes.
The thought that his brother might've turned out to be like them was heart wrenching and hurt worse than his fear of losing Dagur. It made him look away from her before he saw someone else in her place. All this free time to think, all these moments that forced him to confront parts of him he'd never allowed to surface before was making him soft.
"Hey, we'll never understand what it's like for you to fight Dagur…" Ruffnut murmured, her voice softening as she caught on to his sudden dampening mood. "But you don't have to go through it alone. We're here for you. Even if it's just to throw some boars around or cause chaos to take your mind of things."
"Ruff that's…"
"The least we can do."
It hurt him to think that she could be the enemy. That she and Tuffnut would, like the rest of the Dragon Riders, be under Dagur's boot one day. Maybe he could petition for Dagur to take them in. It wasn't the first time, they wouldn't be traitors, not if they were Berserker by blood.
"If there's ever a day something ever puts you in a position where you fight against Tuffnut…" Bragi began, choosing his words carefully. "I know that you would do whatever it takes to keep him safe. He's your brother."
"You're my brother too." She said firmly and she gripped onto his hand. "You're not even from Berk and you've cared more about me and Tuff than our own dad!"
"You're a Berserker, I'm loyal to my people-"
"It's not the same." She cut him off to press her hand over her heart. "You've given us more grace and kindness than most people would think about because of our name. You help us, you listen and don't treat us or our ideas like dirt."
"My selfishness does not make me good!" Bragi protested. Nothing he did was purely from the good of his own heart, he thought he made that clear. Honourable yes, selfish? Also true. The twins were Berserkers and he loved his tribe, no matter how scattered they were. "I believe in you both with all my heart, but I won't lie and say that I don't hope, given the chance, that if I can go home, that you both would consider even for a brief moment to embrace being Berserkers. It's unlikely, I would be asking for so much but selfishly I would hope that you would come with me. Come back to Berserker Island. To your mother… to… somewhere that won't take you for granted."'
"You're talking about leaving Berk. You want to go back to Berserker Island? But Dagur exiled you, you're a traitor-" She worried. He spotted her chewing on her bottom lip. "It won't be safe."
"I'm talking about being where you belong." He finished. "Being a Berserker… it's all I've ever known. It's all I've loved. I know my people. I love my people. The kids, the vikings I've trained with. When you fight with someone there are bonds forged that you can't break. Dagur is… Dagur will understand-"
"He's Dagur."
A complaint, a statement and a fact all rolled into one.
"I've always been able to get through to him." He caught her wrist where she'd thrown her hands up in disbelief. "Please Ruffnut. Trust me. If there's a chance you could go somewhere, anywhere, where people actually knew you… wouldn't you go there too?"
Her eyes softened. Her nose scrunched up in the way she always did when someone pointed out something that was right but she didn't want to admit it. It was a habit both she and Tuffnut shared when faced with confronting information. She lowered her arms.
"Fine, but you're not going anywhere right now, mister! Or without a goodbye!"
Bragi broke out into a smile at her fierceness as she jabbed a finger into his chest.
ᛉ
"So what's with the sudden urge to cook?" Hiccup peered at the grill and fire curiously. "You've never done it before."
"What, and interrupt Snotlout's attempts at becoming a master chef?" Bragi joked. He heard the young teen gasp with affront from where he was sitting, immediately launching into defence of his cooking abilities.
The redhead chuckled to himself, shaking his head fondly as Hiccup gave an exasperated roll of his eyes.
The smell of meat juices and spices wafted from the fire pit in the clubhouse as rendered fat dripped onto the coals from the hot plate suspended over the fire. The meat sizzled, taking on the colour of the rub that he'd smeared across it's surface. Orange stains from the spice rub lingered on his fingertips as Bragi sprinkled some salt over the meat.
"Nothing really…" He answered more sincerely as the others, both human and dragon, began to gather into the room following the scent of a home cooked meal. He caught Ruffnut out of the corner of his eye, pulling her brother down to sit while the meat continued to sear. "Just… missed home that's all."
He heard the familiar padding of Stormfly's feet landing on the clubhouse's walkway as Astrid returned from her evening patrol around the island, coming straight to the club house instead of the stables.
"All clear." She announced her arrival with an update. "No sign of any ships nearby, waters are calm, not even any fog to hide in."
Bragi turned his head to look at her. He knew she was out searching and keeping an eye out for Dagur's ships and the worry that he'd followed them back somehow. She seemed unbothered, a little windswept but otherwise fine. That settled something in him at least.
She made her way around to the firepit and inhaled deeply before all her interest turned towards him and the food he was preparing.
"That smells good."
"Really good!" Fishlegs added excitedly.
He couldn't help the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth as he turned the meat over. Wafts of steam rose over the meat strips as they began to sear on the other side.
"They won't take longer than a couple of minutes." He said, loud enough to catch all their attentions. "If anyone wants to cut up some vege-"
"NO!" Came the collective cry of at least three teenagers. Snotlout looked green, Tuffnut's face had paled and Ruffnut looked betrayed even as her eyes drifted to the meat still sizzling. His laughter interrupted his own insistence that a side dish that wasn't meat was a necessity.
He shook his head fondly as he reached for a knife and started cutting through some potatoes and carrot to toss on the hot plate with them. Deep down he could pretend, that it was Heather complaining about vegetables, that it was Dagur egging her on. That it was his mother making him cut them so he could put them into a bowl where it'd be just the two of them eating while Osvald and Cnut were busy.
"Thank you," Hiccup said quietly, close enough for Bragi to hear him over the chatter that began to rise. "For doing this… especially after the day you've had."
He levelled Hiccup a smile.
"Of course, what're friends for."