The Great Beyond

Chapter 42: Midnight Scrum (Reign)

              My thoughts drifted away as I loaded some of the berries I had gathered into Shriek's saddle bag, the worries of today infecting my concentration. Hiccup and I had ventured out to an island not far from the Edge to collect a few fruits Stoick had asked us to bring for him to Berk for its 400th anniversary celebration. Hiccup hadn't exactly responded well to that request, falling silent and staring at the wall until I forced him to get up and leave. I knew he still felt guilty that Berk's gold had been lost to Viggo, and that meant Berk was sometimes scrambling for scraps, but it wasn't completely his fault... or really completely any of our faults. He'd purposely been avoiding going home because he was so afraid of facing his dad after what happened, and watching him like that absolutely broke my heart. Hopefully, the celebration today would ease his mind for a while.

"Toothless!"

That certainly didn't sound like the scream of a relaxed person.

My heart started beating furiously as I hopped up onto Shriek, preparing for whatever was causing Hiccup to shout like that.

"Toothless!"

A moment later, Hiccup came up over the hill, chased by a fleet of Outcasts. For a moment, I paused and just stared at them, impressed that we were actually seeing the Outcasts come out of hiding, but my mind snapped back to me, and I pulled on Shriek's saddle, making her take to the air. I had her roar from that distance, scaring off the Outcasts and knocking them to the ground, but not killing them. Toothless blasted at the feet of a trio heading in our direction, and with one last Sonic Boom, those chasing Hiccup were taken care of.

I landed Shriek and slid off her saddle, running to Hiccup to make sure he was alright. He been knocked to the ground and was panting from distress, but he appeared unharmed. I crouched down, helping him up and placing a hand on his chest, assuring myself that he was alive and here in front of me.

"You okay?" My words came out as a whisper as I attempted to find my voice.

"Yeah, I think so," he panted, still trying to recover from what happened. Toothless nudged his rider's side, causing him to laugh. "I'm all right, bud."

"Who were those guys?" I looked to the spots where they had been downed, finding only burn spots and abandoned weapons. Cowards... "They didn't look like Dragon Hunters."

"You know, I don't know," he answered honestly. "With all the flying axes and tumbling down hills, I forgot to ask." Though I wanted to just be worried, I couldn't help but laugh at his joke. At least that proved he was truly fine to me.

Both of us got distracted by Toothless, who was off in the distance playing with some piece of paper, rolling it up and bouncing it between his paws with wide, excited pupils. I hadn't seen that before, meaning one of those guys had likely dropped it.

"Hey. What you got there, Toothless?"

The Night Fury backed up so that Hiccup could get a good look at the piece of paper. It took him a moment to read over what was on it, and when he did, his eyes went wide with fear. My instincts kicked in, and I took long strides toward him, reading what was on the paper pinned to the ground. That image and the words at the top were all I needed to see to know what was going on.

"I think I know who those guys were..." Thinking fast, I snatched up the paper and headed for Shriek. "We should get out of here. You fly out in front of me, I'll keep an eye out." Realizing that I was beginning to panic, Hiccup reached out and took my hand.