Chapter Text
You shall know them by the taste of their blood, and see their worth by the flame of their hearts.
You shall speak their tongues and walk among them like wolves among sheep.
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Chapter 1: Shadows, Where Snow Won’t Fall
The winter winds arrived early this year. Not too early to cause trouble, but just early enough to have the people of Berk rushing to complete all their assorted preparations for the coming season.
Winter was a cruel and indifferent mistress, and only the prepared had any chance of making it through. Thankfully, Berkians were more experienced than most in that regard. That certainly made Hiccup and Stoick’s jobs easier. Well, as easy as the Hairy Hooligans and their dragons can make anything easy.
A massive explosion of magma and less than pleasant smells interrupted that almost positive thread of thought as Gran-Magma (Twins-given name) ruptured from a wall, spewing magma left and right, flapping her wings erratically, struggling to take off. Normally, a Titan-Wing wouldn’t struggle with such a task, but for Berk’s very own Gronckle representative of this stage of life, flying was becoming harder and harder. A long life of relaxation had made sure of that. A sudden outburst like that was unusual to say the least.
Hiccup had no time to ponder the elderly dragon’s mood, as he was already rushing to the leather shop that Gran-Magma had set on fire, the stench of raw hide aflame poisoning the otherwise crisp winter morning air.
Dodging swings of the bulbous, spiky tail of the previously gentle giant, he stepped towards her confidently, but carefully, to not startle her even further.
“There, there, girl. What’s got you so riled up?” He asked in a friendly manner, loud enough that she’d hear him.
To his credit, Gran-Magma did calm at the sound of his voice, calm enough that she stopped her rampaging. Hiccup approached further, hand outstretched, ready to place it on her snout as he had so many other times.
“That’s right. It’s me! Hiccup! You wouldn’t melt your old buddy, right, Granny?” He cooed at the gentle dragon. She may have been as big as a house, at least a more humble-sized one, but she was as sweet and agreeable as any Gronckle.
She puffed a hot plume of air in his direction, the intense heat that illuminated her mouth spread over him like a blanket. Hiccup, in turn, chose to ignore the stinky dragon-breath.
Out of the corner of his vision, he spotted movement behind the wall, or what was left ot it. The tall, usually quiet leather worker, Tara, was poking her head out, blonde hair frizzled by the heat.
“Are you okay?” Hiccup called out, still focused on soothing the dragon before him. He could multitask, thank you very much. “That must’ve been quite scary, but it’s all right now, you can come out to pet her!”
With a nervous gulp, Tara slinked out of the shadows, a woman of her size and brawn being this quiet and shy was uncharacteristic, he thought, but was it really Hiccup Horrendeous “Fishbone” Haddock the Third’s place to judge? No, not really.
He held out a hand, taking hers gently and guiding it to the nose of the behemoth dragon, who was now bubbling with delight.
“This is the first time she’s done anything like this.” He explained. “What happened in there, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Tara hesitated for a moment. Her voice came out almost as a whisper.
“I…I don’t know. I was preparing some new yak skins to stretch. Gran-Magma came down from her walk around the village, you know how she is, and lay down to rest. All of a sudden - boom! She wakes up and starts running around. I didn’t even know she was able to run at her age.” Tara recounted. “She wouldn’t listen to the kids or me, just looked around like someone had prodded her with a fire poker. I don’t think she wanted to hurt anyone.”
“Is anyone hurt?” Hiccup asked, realizing he hadn’t checked for any injured people. He could practically hear his dad scalding him for it.
“Thank the Gods, no. The kids got out quickly; they’re with friends now.”
Hiccup nodded. In his head, he was already allocating resources and people to go fix up the leatherworker’s shop, maybe get the Twins to deliver some lumber from the mill downshore. But first, he had to get Gran-Magma away from the–
Another bout of screaming, draconic and viking, took his attention away, as a flock of Deadly Nadders took off in panic.
“I-I can handle her from here, please go, chiefson.” Tara prompted, hand on his shoulder.
Hiccup needed no further instruction. Mounting Toothless, who’d been lounging in the sparse sun a few meters away from the scene, the sly reptile, he took off to find someone with their hands free to help with corralling the dragons into the newly built cliffside stables.
He found exactly who he was looking for resting on a seastack attached to Berk with a small rope bridge, sitting with her back to a bright blue Nadder. Astrid waved him over with a smile as bright as the moon.
“Astrid! I’m sure glad I found you so quickly.” Hiccup called over the splashing waves and wind, which had picked up considerably. Even Toothless struggled to keep hovering mid-air at it. “We got a situation with some Nadders panicking.” He finally elected to land on the seastack, next to the shieldmaiden and Stormfly.
“Hello to you too.” She replied with a bit of snark. “Afraid I can’t help, though. This lady over here,” She patted Stormfly’s neck. “Has been on edge all morning. Barely got anything done, so I decided to bring her away from the village.”
“Gran-Magma also randomly went crazy just now.” Hiccup recounted, earning a laugh from her.
“Please don’t tell me you’re actually calling Granny that.”
“It caught on before we could nip it in the bud, she even responds to it now,” Hiccup sighed, sitting down next to her.
Toothless bounded over to Stormfly, who was still visibly stressed, looking around. He crooned gently at the blue dragon before him, earning a quick nuzzle and squawk before she returned to her self-assigned lookout duties.
“I heard a couple of people talking about Terrors going berserk in the night, too. The whole rookery seems on edge today.”
The fact that the Terrible Terrors went crazy first was a major clue, Hiccup thought.
“In mixed rookeries like ours, small dragon species are often lookouts for the bigger ones,” He contemplated out loud. “But seasonal shifts like this wouldn’t set off an island-wide alarm. I don’t recall any weird dragon sightings that would’ve caused this.”
“So what do we suspect?”
Hiccup shrugged.
“No idea, but tell you what, it’s a damn amazing time for the dragons to start freaking out, what with these early winter winds.”
The two Vikings shared a laugh, letting a calm silence fall over them. The wind had calmed, rustling the sparse weeds on the seastack gently, and the waves lapped the base of it with tamed ferocity. The ocean was still the ocean, Hiccup thought.
A series of loud squawking washed over them, the flock of Nadders making itself known with loud flapping and bursts of flame. A group of about a dozen individuals of various ages, but no young ones, had congregated together and made for the surrounding seastacks. They began setting up what looked like temporary nests, using talons and horns to dig out any loose gravel and displace it to the edges to form a rudimentary shelter.
“And what’s so special about the rocks that they can’t do it near the village?” Hiccup wondered out loud.
“Maybe they’re moving out?” Astrid suggested. “Berk is getting a little crowded, and not every dragon will want to move into the whispering death tunnels.”
“We’ve done a wonderful job renovating these into the stables, thank you very much.” Hiccup replied in mock offense.
“Come on, Hiccup,” Astrid sent him a pointed look. “How many large flying, emphasis on large and flying, dragons do you think we will be able to get into the depths of these caves without hollowing out all of Berk beforehand? Even their previous cave-like home was much more spacious than this.”
“Yes, but the landlord was a mean Titan Wing parasite, who enslaved them!” Was Hiccup’s retort. Astrid conceded. “And besides, Granny was outside when she had her accident, nowhere near the stables. Care to explain away that little mishap, Miss Book-of-Dragons?”
Astrid took her part in this silly game very seriously. She turned her nose up, eyes squinted, arms crossed, with a dismissive tone taking over her voice. “Well, as you probably know,” She began, forcing a nasal voice. “The Gronckle known as GranMagma is as old as the Archipelago - nay- the world itself, and also a Titan Wing,” She dodged many swats from Hiccup, who was very, very upset at her improper imitation of him, but didn’t convince her to stop. “And as we all know, old people are strange animals and get weird dreams sometimes. Therefore, it is reasonably adequate to assume that she had old people's dreams.” She finished her bit with a triumphant and heroic gesture, declaring to the world: “I am Hiccup Haddock the Third and I am very smart with dragons!”
“I so don’t sound like that!” Hiccup cried laughing, a deep blush settling over his freckled face.
“You so do… Mister Dragon-Master.” Astrid bowed.
The earlier air of mystery had dissipated altogether; even Stormfly had humored Toothless, the two dragons now in as playful a mood as their riders, hopping around and play-wrestling precariously close to the edge of the seastack.
“Lad! Lad!!” Gobber’s yelling interrupted the serene moment, his tremendously loud voice carrying over the roaring waves as he flew by them on Grump.
The lazy lump of a dragon landed with an exhausted groan. Hiccup imagined a dragon this lethargic wouldn't even be able to take off in a decade or so. Grump huffed and puffed to the middle of the seastack, dragging his body on four stubby legs, and plopping down right, legs splayed like he’d been plowing fields all day instead of sleeping, interrupted by the occasional reigniting of Gobber’s forge. Truly, the laziest dragon on Berk. A charmer, though.
“What brings you out of the forge this early, Gobber?” Astrid asked. “I don’t recall you scheduling lunch breaks. Or any breaks at all.”
“Aye, I don’t and never have, and never will!” Gobber declared, proudly placing his hook-hand over his heart. But then his voice hushed down. “But eh… there’s… something you lot need’a look at. Urgently, says Gothi.”
“Gothi?!” Both Hiccup and Astrid exclaimed. The village elder seldom made requests of the Dragon-Riders
“Aye, Gothi.” The Smith confirmed. “Said she saw things in the fire, some vision, wouldn’t specify, but wants you lads ‘n lasses to take a look at it, urgently. And Hiccup,” He leaned in closer. “Keep it quiet for now, I’ll distract Stoick, so he doesn’t think yer slackin’ off. Island’s due west.”
With little fanfare, he shook Grump awake, climbing atop the tubby dragon, and flew off to Berk’s direction, leaving Hiccup and Astrid confused and a bit shaken.
“Remind me again, why are we here?” Snotlout protested loudly, as he often liked doing.
“Yeah, I feel like heading out on the vague instruction of: 'Go find my mystery vision-island, oh, and bring all your friends along!’ is a bit low-key even for Gothi.” Tuffnut agreed.
“Don’t get us wrong, Hic,” Ruffnut chimed in. “We all love a little call to adventure from time to time, but at least check the weather forecast before sending us on a magic quest!”
“S-s-so much w-w-w-o –” Whatever Fishlegs had to add was interrupted by thunderous sneezes that rocked Meatlug mid-air and, in all earnestness, probably exposed their sneaky retreat from chores to the entire Archipelago. “...Excuse me.”
“Cheers!” Multiple voices replied.
“Come on, guys, I thought you liked getting some off-time.” Hiccup said, his voice partially muffled by the oncoming snow. “You get to ditch the boring stuff like woodchopping, butchering sheep, woodchopping some more, plugging up holes and whatnot, and instead go on a quick, easy adventure with us! Ain’t that right, bud?” He rubbed the warm scales atop Toothless’ head, earning a sweet purr from the dragon.
“Easy for you to say,” Snotlout’s relentless assault on everybody’s ears continued. “Your job was to tell us what to do!”
“And it was my honor and solemn duty to assign you the task of herding the yak into the winter pens,” Hiccup smirked, looking back with a pensive hand over his chest.
They’d been flying in relatively calm weather, the snowfall easing up around them. Something was off, though, and even if the Riders couldn't tell, their dragon partners could.
Stormfly was first. Breaking formation, sending out distressed squawks, and even growling when Astrid tried to calm her down. Hookfang was a surprising second, looking around nervously, ignoring Snotlout’s attempts to get him to focus. Barf and Belch were next; the Twins’ dragon tried to get ahead of the group to deploy a smokescreen of gas to conceal their movements. The Twins got them to get back to their position, where they remained, nervously chittering between themselves. Meatlug was shaking like a leaf, which wasn’t uncommon for her, as she was a gentle, yet scaredy dragon, but combined with all the other warning signs, at least she could feel vindicated.
When the island came into view, Toothless broke too. Veering off-course sharply in an attempt to make a U-turn, he almost shook Hiccup off, his ability to fly with him. Only when he was reminded of that did he relent, seemingly having forgotten all about his disability in the rush to leave whatever was on that island.
The Riders couldn't stomach forcing their dragons inland. Landing as far as their partners allowed, they would proceed on foot into the island, which was mercifully small and under normal circumstances wouldn’t even register with them.
“Is everything okay, bud?” Hiccup knelt next to Toothless, whose pupils had turned to thin slits in his brilliant, green eyes. All the dragons paced around nervously, looking up at the sky or out towards the ocean. “Hey, hey,” He tilted the dragon’s head towards him, giving him a reassuring smile. “It will be okay, we won’t be long. I promise, we will be outta here in no time.”
Toothless didn’t seem convinced, nor did the other dragons. They huddled together beneath an overhang carved into the rocky shore, barely fitting under it. Like a litter of terrified kittens, they watched their riders make their way to the island interior.
The island itself was desolate, a single tall flat rock with a low valley in the centre and one entrance to it from a gravelly beach, void of vegetation or any source of fresh water. It was also deathly quiet. Neither seagulls nor ravens made any noise from the crevices in the protruding rocks, and even the wind seemed to have quieted down.
“Hm, good island for a base,” Astrid noted. “Surrounded from all sides but one with natural walls, a small beach, and rocks that make docking a boat near impossible. Trappers would like a place like this.
“I think they did.” Hiccup pointed towards the inner valley.
Empty cages. Not many, likely they had only recently set up here and were interrupted by the early winter. The riders exchanged a look, each nodding in unanimous agreement to investigate.
Moving further in, they discovered the grizzly remains of a camp, dusted with snow. Ripped up banners flapped in the sparse wind, tents torn asunder by massive claws, cages cleaved in two by a singular impact.
“Hiccup, look!” Fishlegs called out, kneeling by a massive footprint in the gravel. “Three-toed, short, curved talons, very deep, so it was likely heavy and running. But I’ve never seen a dragon with a footprint like this.”
“I got another one here!” Astrid called out from a small distance away. “Looks like a paw print, definitely running around, skidmarks everywhere.”
“They must have captured multiple species then,” Hiccup mused, hand to his chin. “The dragons broke out and destroyed the camp, fled the scene, and left the Trappers to the cold.”
“One problem with this theory is that the footprint I found looks like it carries a creature way too big for any of these cages. We’re talking about a creature the size of a Boneknapper, or at least a similar weight category.” Fishlegs said. His attention turned to one of the ruined cabins. “And look at this battle damage!” He gestured widely to the roof of the cabin, which had a giant hole in it, resembling a strike from a sword more than one from claws.
“Hate to interrupt the nerd tirades,” Ruffnut interrupted. “But does anyone else feel a faint smell of death around here?” She pointed to the edge of the valley, where the natural walls met the rocky floor. Indeed, several bodies could be seen in the distance - human and dragon. Even more disturbing were the remains of a massive pyre in the middle of it.
Hiccup’s stomach dropped. Even from this distance, he could tell something wasn’t right.
Steeling themselves, the Riders forged on, batting the increasing smell of decay with an underlying smoky aftertaste.
The sight was a massacre. Grievous wounds, the likes of which required tremendous force to inflict, marked the bodies of Trapper and dragon alike. One man had been cleaved in half at the torso, another had been slashed in a cleaner, more precise manner. Some bore the unmistakable marks of dragon bites, though even Fishlegs struggled to identify what dragons could've done this.
The dragons were just as bad. Killed in combat, from what Astrid could infer from her assessment, they sported bite marks, weapon marks, and one Nadder appeared to have died of asphyxiation. The small flock consisted of a Zippleback, a Monstrous Nightmare, two Nadders, and a Snow Wraith. Each body also appeared to have had its heart removed.
“Gnarly,” Tuffnut commented.
“Way too gnarly,” Ruffnut added. She sniffed, covering her mouth in disgust. “How come they haven’t frozen over? This has definitely been here a while.”
“Because obviously we’ve happened upon some murder cult and the bodies are cursed! Let’s. Go!” Snotlout insisted, his voice had pitched up noticeably. “I can see why the dragons didn’t wanna come here, there is bad juju on this rock, and Snotlout is having none of it! Hookster, I’m coming, buddy!” He rushed off to the shore, ditching everyone.
“Wait, we can leave?” Tuffnut asked, clearly trying to sneak off too.
“No, we can’t leave,” Hiccup said, raising his voice to make sure Snotlout hears it. “There is clearly something very messed up that’s happened here; we can’t just leave it.”
“But you said quick and simple adventure,” Ruffnut reminded him. “This doesn’t look very adventure-like. More like a mead hall story waiting to happen.”
“The chief’s son and his loyal companions get sacrificed on Cannibal Murder Island, a tale for all ages!” Tuffnut made a grand gesture, throwing his arms out.
“A fate I’m trying to avoid, thank you very much!” Snotlout shouted from the other end of the valley, marching on to his dragon.
Astrid looked to Hiccup, a silent conversation taking place. She nodded to Snotlout, and he shrugged in response. Unsatisfied with that answer, she opted to run to the rambunctious Viking and pull him back by the scruff of the neck, but much to her dismay, he’d already mounted Hookfang and was preparing for takeoff.
“Snotlout, get back here, or so help me, Thor, I will fold your clothes with you still in them!” She shouted her command, but it fell on deaf ears, as the red dragon and his rider were already speeding off, carried by favorable winds.
“Let him go, Astrid. He knows the way home.” Hiccup said, though he couldn’t hide how frustrated his cousin’s stubbornness was making him. Not that he blamed him all that much, this place was messing with him, too. Maybe this was the reason he himself wasn't chasing Snotlout down. He turned to the remaining Riders, who were pretending none of this was happening, to avoid the firestorm that Astrid would unleash on any insubordinate Vikings. In a way, he was glad she was like that.
The woman in question, however, had her attention shift to something in the near distance. Squinting her eyes to try and see better, she reeled back in horror.
Hiccup followed her gaze to the apex of the cliff wall, where fried blood stained the edge and flowed down like a waterfall.
“Does anyone find it strange how we’re just barely glimpsing all these massive things?” Fishlegs was shivering, in fear or from the sheer cold, Hiccup couldn't tell. “Because this pyre and these bodies were not visible from the air.”
“What are you implying, some concealing magic at work? Come on, Fishlegs, we know you know better than that.” Hiccup said, though even he was having doubts about how normal and real this whole mission had been. “It’s just some trade gone wrong. Probably.”
“Veeery wrong,” Tuffnut added unhelpfully.
“Exceptionally wrong,” Ruffnut further added, even more unhelpfully.
Astrid had returned to them, having given up on chasing Snotlout. Her gaze never moved from that massive bloodstain on the cliffside. Hiccup couldn’t tell if she was also beginning to fall for the Twins’ fear-mongering or if she had been worried prior and was only now beginning to crack like the rest of them. After all, it was hard to ignore how heavy the air felt, charged with some unknowable energy. The stone floor felt as if it were vibrating, and even the wind swirled in a circle around the island, nature itself casting a fog over the sights upon it. The worst feeling of all was the ants - tiny pinpricks underneath his skin that crawled up and down his spine and limbs, that warning from something deep and primordial within to flee before the culprit returned to the scene of the crime.
“Hiccup,” She began, her blue eyes piercing, yet barely concealing the brewing anxiety. “Let’s check out what's up there and … I don’t know, go home.”
“Even the enforcer of the law sees reason!” Ruffnut cheered. Her brother whooped, and the two proceeded with their second favorite activity - bashing their helmets together. It was a shame, Hiccup thought, for how smart the two were, yet how quickly they snuffed out all intelligent thought with constant self-inflicted concussions.
Astrid rolled her eyes, deeming the assertion that she was some sort of “enforcer” not worth acknowledging. “Fishlegs! Let’s go.” She called out to the gentle giant.
They found him kneeling by one of the dragon bodies, a violet male Nadder with bright yellow spots in his hide. It had been almost bisected with a single strike from what looked like a straight-edged blade across the torso, yet the only organ missing was the heart.
“Why only the hearts?” He muttered, his voice turbulent, body shaking, transfixed by the mystery of it all, yet terrified beyond sanity. “Dragons have fatty livers and kidneys; these have good muscle on them, so it wasn’t for eating–”
“Fishlegs,” Hiccup placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, turning the man to meet his eyes. “We will get through this. I know this is scary now, but if we’ve learned something in these past four years, it’s that the unknown is just a few questions away from being known.
This seemed to steel Fishleg’s resolve, as he got up, dusted himself off, and took a steadying breath.
“Alright, let’s go see who got splattered.” He said grimly.
“Yeeees!” Ruffnut cheered. They would have to have a long talk with the Twins about their morbid enjoyment of this.
The climb was smooth; the horseshoe-shaped cliffside of the island sloped gently on one end, creating a natural platform of smooth rock, leading up to the summit of a small, sheer cliff, where the next piece of this violent puzzle was located.
Seven people, three men and four women, bound by the ankles such that their bodies radiated out like a star, with their arms tied together at the wrists, forming the twisted spokes of a wheel. Each had their eyes opened, looking dead up at the sky, black ichor draining from them like ink. Each had also had their throat cut open with smooth, precise motions, more akin to a butchery than a murder in the midst of battle. Their hearts were also missing, much like they did for every other body. The slight incline towards the island interior drained the ample blood, forming the dried-up waterfall that had given its location away. The smell of burnt iron and the familiar buzz of unseen forces at work permeated the area, heavy like lead. The sides of Hiccup’s head thumped rhythmically.
Fishlegs doubled over and vomited. Tears of fear sprang from him like broken dam walls.
“I hate this!!” He cried out. “Get me outta here!!!” In his rush back down the ledge, he tripped, cutting his hand on a jutting rock. He opted to stay there, knees up to his chest, heaving. Ruffnut, whose curiosity had been overly satisfied to the point of actually taking things seriously, went to his side, wordless for the first time probably ever.
Tuffnut was much the same - clutching his head in a silent scream, he breathed heavily. His knees shook like leaves.
“If Snotlout were here, he’d have probably passed out already,” Astrid noted. And though she tried to downplay her reaction, Hiccup could see the crease of her brow, the dying light in her eyes, and the way she gripped the handle of her ax, white knuckles and all.
As for himself, Hiccup was shaking all over, stomach churning, vision pulsating with odd feelings. Strangely, the violent sight was the only normal thing in this place. Gruesome, hideous crimes against the people and dragons who’d fought to survive, but also grounding, reassuring that they weren’t witnessing illusions cast by the fog. This was real, he thought, unlike that faint buzz, that if focused on, sounded all too much like a whisper.
His next decisions would weigh heavily. He had that terrible feeling one gets in the groin when looking out over a steep, tall cliff, as if the empty air itself were beckoning him sweetly to walk off the edge, to greet the void with open arms and scream–
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?!” Astrid growled in his ear, her hand gripping his arm as if she were trying to pinch meat off bone.
Hiccup came to his senses, inhaling deep as if startled awake from deep sleep, and put his left foot back to the other. The ledge in his mind was not a metaphor, it seems. And the ocean would’ve been much closer, had Astrid not stopped him in time. Looking around, he realized he’d walked off a not-insignificant distance from the massacre, away from his friends, too.
“Hiccup,” She began, her voice stern and commanding. A lightning rod for his attention, Hiccup would latch onto it and reel himself back to reality. “This place is fucked, and we need to go! And whatever this is,” She gestured to the increasing distance between him and the ledge.”We will discuss it alone, okay?” Finally, softness crept into her tone, cushioning the fall to consciousness.
Hiccup steeled himself. “You’re right…” Looking back at his friends, unaware of what had almost happened. Fishlegs was coming down from his panic, as were Ruff and Tuff. Now was the moment to get them together and leave. “Everyone!” He called out, beckoning their attention. “We’ve seen enough, but before we go, we need to get our story straight,” He began. “When we get to Berk, everyone turns in for the night and says nothing of what we saw here, until I go to Gothi and figure out why exactly she sent us here on this…” He gestured uncertainly with his hands. “Cursed beyond all reason, place.”
“No way!” Ruffnut left Fishleg’s side, standing up with her hands to her hips. “We’re also coming to Gothi’s, I ain’t getting left in the dark to what the Hel we just witnessed. This place is evil, I ain’t about to drag some crazy cursed juju home.”
With everyone united in this sentiment, Hiccup relented.
The dragons were ecstatic at the possibility of leaving this cursed island, as were the newly traumatized Vikings. Hiccup, for one, would be taking a tankard or two of the good ale to his room that night.
The ride itself was quiet; evidently, nobody had anything to say, but the winds were favorable, and the sky was clear of snowstorms for the whole flight. Even the Gods wanted them home and safe as soon as possible. And so, when Berk came into view at last, all Riders sighed in relief, the palpable tension releasing from them and their dragons.
Gobber awaited them by the stables, tapping a peg leg nervously on the stony floor. His grim face lit up when he caught sight of the Riders approaching.
“Oh Gods, finally!” He yelled out, waving with a prosthetic hook at the dismounting Vikings. “I thought I’d have to start breakin’ things to keep Stoick from looking for ye! Where were ya, lads and lasses?”
“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you…” Hiccup spoke first, followed by a choir of agreeing noises from his fellow Riders. “We’ll go to Gothi, but first, where is Snotlout? He ditched us.”
“Snoutlout’s come and gone, lad,” Gobber replied. “Came back hours ago, pale as snow. Wouldn’t speak a word, flew right off due to Raven Peak.”
“He must be in Toothless’ grove then,” Hiccup surmised. “He’ll be back.”
With that, the group moved on to settling their dragons in for the night at their respective hutts, making sure the stressed animals had ample dragon nip to keep them from lashing out while they were away. Only Toothless opted to join them in the ascent towards Gothi’s mountain abode. The agreement to let the dragons rest and hoof the distance was also silent and unanimous.
Gothi met them at the platform leading up to the house, clutching a bushel of herbs in one hand and a bucket of clean spring water in the other. She proceeded to wash their faces with it silently, dipping the aromatic herbs in the bucket and shaking off the excess water between people. By the time she was done, the water had taken on a dark tinge with a violet sheen on the surface. Gothi observed the water before scribbling runes in the soft dirt by the platform.
“Pollution,” Gobber interpreted. “Bad sign.”
Gothi nodded to invite them into her hut, closing the door last when they had all filed in. She then had them sit in a semi-circle around the hearth-fire, while she threw more herbs in it, spreading a pleasant aroma in the air. Several new ornaments hung from the ceiling and rafters, glinting in the firelight like stars in the evening sky.
Hiccup felt relaxed, probably for the first time this entire day. As a matter of fact, if he could, he’d have taken a nap here on the floor of the Seer’s hut. But duty calls, he reminded himself.
“Gothi,” He began, leaning forward, concentrated. This broke the calming spell over the other Riders. “Before we begin… what was in your vision that made you so urgently send us out there?”
The Seer’s face was overcast by shadow, her expression worried. She stood in front of the fire, facing the young Vikings and Gobber, a small table between them all with parchment and coals. She took a sheet and a coal and began scribbling on it.