Broken Prophecy: Tangled Fates

Chapter 3

Bud looks up, wincing in sympathy as Hiccup extracts yet another of the seemingly endless hollow hair like spines from his arm.  ‘How could anything that small have more spines than a Spinetail?’  Glancing over to the now dead rodent, he gives it another quick sniff, just to make sure.  Glancing to his little-brother, Bud stands up and approaches him.  The great dragon gives a chuff of displeasure to his small companion, a warble meaning ‘Be more careful not to trip into some strange spine-rats den.’  The earliest scent of infection draws his attention and before Hiccup has a chance to move, Bud gives his still bleeding arm a wet lick.

“Ugh…  Bud, what are you doing?!  That’s disgusting!”  Hiccup watches as his scaled friend tips his head in curiosity.  Looking down to his arm, with a look of wonder, he realizes the pain and angry wounds have numbed to a comfortable level and what bleeding there was had all but stopped.  Flexing his hand he winces as some of the freshest wounds open up again.  Turning his head away, he places his faith that his friend hasn’t suddenly taken a liking for Viking flesh.  Memories of Gobber’s drunken stories around the forge about the loss of his hand and foot come to mind as he feels the warm wetness of Bud’s tongue against his arm again.  Squinting through a partially closed eye, he sees an expression of smug pride on the black-scaled face looking back at him.  With a snort, Bud turns away and burns a ring into the dry ground before curling up.  

“Go on Bud, You’ve flown pretty far this afternoon.  Any idea where we are?”  Hiccup looks up to the darkening night sky, many of the constellations he was familiar with have been replaced with new, strange stars.  The air is warm, even as the moon takes its place in the sky.  strange, colorful birds nest in even stranger trees.  Hiccup’s stomach grumbles its displeasure at being ignored all day.  Reaching into one of the discarded baskets he pulls out a small piece of dried meat and a hard fist-sized loaf of bread.  Being small finally shows itself to be an advantage, as Hiccup satiates his hunger with only half of the loaf and a few pieces of dried meat.  His father would have seen his meal as nothing but a snack, and would have eaten most of what he brought in a single setting.  Shaking his head, as to clear his thoughts.  “I’m going to need to find food soon.”

Getting up, Hiccup walks in the dark toward the treeline.  Bud lifts his head to watch his little brother with curiosity.  Drawing an old, mostly sharp dagger from his belt.  Hiccup begins hacking at a tree branch.  Cutting a branch that was almost as long as he was tall, Hiccup takes the mostly straight length of wood back to his ‘campsite’.  Slowly, deliberately he sets to whittling away at the branch.  Carefully he strips away the rough bark, slowly shaving away knots and smaller offshoots.  Lost in his project, he lets his hands work without actively thinking.  Putting down the now mostly smooth shaft of wood and much duller dagger, Hiccup glances up at the first rays of daylight.

Despite working throughout the night, he doesn’t feel tired.  Shrugging out of his fur-trimmed vest, Hiccup stretches it out and with great care begins cutting the heavy leather into strips.  With some experimentation he finally settles on a couple of pieces that are reasonably long, but narrow enough for his needs.  Picking up some of the more durable spines, discarded from his arm, Hiccup begins to use the leather laces he cut from his vest to wrap and tie a trio of spines to the end of his staff.  

Bud looks up from his makeshift nest to watch his two-leg brother wander off toward the shoreline.  Getting up with a big, cat-like stretch, the ebon dragon follows.  The walk isn’t far, but does wonders to shake off the last remnants of sleep.  Sitting down, he tips his head as his little brother steps into the surf.  Watching in silence as his companion stands motionless, with the odd stick in his hand.  

Hiccup lifts the stick over his shoulder with one hand and throws, sending it into the water several feet away.  Bud watches in fascination as his smaller companion retrieves his ‘wood-spine’, a small fish skewered by the smaller spines attached to the end.  With a whoop, Hiccup shows off his accomplishment, the small two-leg beaming at his larger friend.  Bud stands up, sniffs at the tiny fish.  ‘This wouldn’t feed a hatchling, let alone an adult dragon.’ he warbles.  Then turns his attention to the same place in the surf.  Without warning, Bud launches a bolt of blue plasma into the sea, an explosion of force sends a spray of water skyward, raining down on the both of them.  Bud looks back to his friend, to find him standing slack-jawed and sopping wet, dozens of stunned fish begin rising to the surface around him.  Giving him a reassuring coo, ‘Don’t feel bad.  It was a good first attempt.’  Then without further preamble begins gathering the bounty of fish and swallowing them whole.