Broken Prophecy: Tangled Fates

Chapter 2

Kari watches each of the gathered as Tannlaus finishes recounting their tale.  Hiccup unconsciously worries at his left foot, while Toothless protectively wraps his tail around his human friend.  The older Hiccup or “Guardian'' as his dragon-friend ‘Bud’ calls him, rested against each other, completely relaxed in each other’s company.  Her eyes stay focused on the final member of their little troupe.  Horrendous watches quietly from the outskirts.  Always on the move, he doesn’t sit down for very long before getting up to find somewhere else to sit.

“So…  Let me get this straight.  You met actual gods?”  Hiccup asks, sounding awestruck.

‘Is that so hard to believe?  I mean, here you are, sitting with other versions of yourself.  Is meeting a god so strange?’  Kari replies.

Guardian chimes in, “So you are us?”

‘Not quite…  I could have been any one of you, but because Loki interfered…’

“You are not one of us.”  Guardian looks to Hiccup, then Horrendous.  “So how do we differ?”

“I shot down a Night Fury.”  Hiccup begins,  “I was going to kill it, but I looked into those eyes and saw someone just as lost and lonely as myself.  

Guardian nods, the old memory still fresh.  “So…  You left before Dragon Training?”

“What?  No…  I stayed.  I completed training, even ‘won’ the honor of killing the Monstrous Nightmare.”

Guardian nods sagely, “That’s when I left!  Astrid found out about Bud and I, and we left.  It was no longer safe for either of us.  I would be branded a traitor, and Bud would be killed.”

Hiccup sits agape, “You ran?  Just like that?  You never thought to go after Astrid?  Never thought to try and change her mind?”  Looking on in terrible awe, “What about the village?  What about Berk?  If you left, who fought and killed the Red Death?”

Kari jumps in, ‘Don’t judge him.’  She pins Hiccup with a stare, turning back to Guardian.  ‘So…  Tell us your story.’

    *****

    “We are leaving.”  Hiccup looks for his dragon companion, “What do you think, Bud.”

    “What’s going on?”  Hiccup's thoughts are interrupted by a feminine voice.  The blonde shield-maiden slides down from the boulder she was resting on, and lands lightly on her feet.  Sunlight glints off of the dangerous looking edge of her axe.

    “Wha!!!  Ahh, Astrid!  Astrid, um Astrid…  What are you doing here!”  Hiccups stares agape as the young woman steps forward, blocking off his path.

    “I think the question is what are YOU doing here?  Nobody gets as good as you, especially you!”  The blonde shield-maiden jabs at him with the head of her axe.  “Are you out here training with someone?”

    An angry growl cuts her off, sending her into a defensive stance.  Her axe held in one hand by the end of the handle.  She winces at the decision to sacrifice control for the added bit of range, as from the shadows of the nearby tree-line emerges a dragon nearly as black as night.  Her free hand reaches out, grasping Hiccup by his odd looking harness, she tosses him bodily to the ground, “Look out!  A dragon!!”

    Despite Astrid’s sudden, and unexpected throw, Hiccup kept his wits and rolled with the sudden momentum.  Rolling into a crouch, he dashes forward with his arms outstretched.  “Whoa…  Whoa, you scared him.”

    “I scared him?”  She asks in disbelief, “Wait!!  Scared WHO?”

    “Astrid…  Bud.  Bud, Astrid.”  The dark dragon snarls threateningly to the young woman.

    The mixture of emotions that flash on her face is enough to make Hiccup realise it was all over.  Her look of confusion is quickly replaced by frustration, then anger.  Wordlessly she shakes her head. The look of complete betrayal was the final nail in the coffin, as he watches her retreat into the forest toward Berk.

Grabbing his basket of personal belongings and a second basket of fish, Hiccup ties both to the sides of Bud’s saddle.  Lightly the boy climbs up into his place on his friends back.  “We need to go.  Now!”

With a curious coo, Bud focuses and leaps into the sky.  The sudden rush of wind in his face, and the sensations of wind filling his wings makes the moment of stress and worry melt away.  Climbing through the sky, the ebony scaled dragon breaches the grey cloud cover.  From above the gathering storm clouds, the world becomes surreal.

Hiccup relaxes his grip on the saddle.  Wind whipping through his hair, and rushing past his ears in a roar.  His eyes gaze out over the endless expanse of grey clouds.  From above, the clouds seem less threatening, almost peaceful.  The wind currents stir up the soup of fluffy white and grey into a homogeneous grey mass.  The grey layer of storm clouds stretch out before the boy and his friend like an endless plain.  “Well Bud…  Where do we go from here?”  With a shift of his foot, Hiccup leads his friend on a northwestern course.

In a matter of wingbeats Bud realises where his friend is taking him.  With a cry of alarm, he draws his flight short.  Hovering in place he resists his friend's direction.  All of his thoughts focused on all of those other dragons in thrall to the monster in the volcano’s heart, and his little brother being devoured nearly throws him into a panic.

“Whoa, there Bud…”  Hiccup is at once confused and worried by his friend's sudden change.  Glancing down, he can make out he sheer terror in his eyes.  “Whoa, Bud…  It’s ok…”  Stareing out into the vast distance, Hiccup pats and strokes his friend's neck, trying to reassure him.  “Is there something out there?”  After a moment Hiccup shifts, “Okay…  Then let's try south.  I know Trader-Johan spends a lot of the season in that direction.  Maybe we can see what’s out there?”

Bud’s tail clicks into a new setting, and the dragon spins in a tight arc before settling on a southerly course.  Within minutes of taking to the air, dragon and rider, lose themselves to the feelings of freedom and growing adventure.  Flying into the greater world, with no idea what awaits them out there.