Nothing to Fear

Chapter Fourteen: Zebah

Zebah.

Hiccup knew that name. He'd heard it before... a few times, actually. As he stared at his daughter, still clinging to her dragon, his mind began to race. Why was this name so familiar? Why did he connect it to Maero? Had he met someone named Zebah there?

And suddenly it hit him.

Didn't Javan the Deceiver, the man who had sold his son into slavery, call him Zebah? Yes, now that Hiccup thought about it, Javan's first words to him were an exclamation of surprise that he was still alive. A few people on Maero had made the same mistake. He'd shrugged it off then but now...

"You knew Zebah?" he asked his daughter with wide eyes.

There was a long pause before the girl nodded. Everything seemed to hit Hiccup at once. The mystery of this man, this name that had followed him for years, was about to be solved by his own daughter. A part of him didn't want to know what had happened. And yet he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he must know. It was a piece of Adrianna's darkest hours that he had never known existed. A man whose name followed her too. The escapologist in the stories she had told three years ago... had they been true?

The girl's face was hidden in her dragon's neck. Her whole body trembled and she let out little squeaks as she breathed far too fast. Her father strode forward and put one of his hands over hers.

"What happened in there?" he whispered. "What did she do to him? To you?"

The girl shook her head and tightened her hold on the Monstrous Nightmare. Hiccup sighed deeply and reached up to gently stroke her hair. A tiny twinge of pain radiated through his stump but he hardly noticed in his concern for his daughter.

"Don't make me go back." she whimpered after a few silent seconds.

"Hey," Hiccup carefully tugged on her hair to get her attention without hurting her. "Let's get out of here for a minute. You can tell me what happened."

The memories flashed in Adrianna's brain as if they had happened in the last five minutes instead of a full decade previously. She couldn't look at her father and she certainly couldn't talk about it.

"Addie?" Hiccup whispered.

"I can't tell you. It's in the hut somewhere but I don't remember where." Adrianna mumbled into her dragon.

Suddenly, a sharp pain radiated in Hiccup's stump. A few twinges had irritated him during the flight but the elevation wasn't a good sign. Toothless made a cooing sound and nudged him as he hissed in pain.

"There's a storm coming." Hiccup said, gently rubbing his stump as the pain decreased. "Soon."

"So go." Adrianna muttered. "Go find it."

"Addie-"

"I can't go in there." she whimpered. "Don't make me go in there."

Hiccup would have stayed to argue but the now constant discomfort in his leg was an indication of a heavy storm. He was going to have to go in on his own and hope he found it. Meanwhile, Adrianna trembled as she clung to her dragon. She was never going to tell him, or anyone else, what had happened in there. What she had seen. It was a story she was going to take to her grave.

She had expected her daddy to come by now.

The strongest man in the world always came when she needed him. He always burst in and threw his arms around her. He always made her feel like everything was going to be okay.

So where was he?

He hadn't come when she had awakened with her hands and feet tied to the walls. He hadn't come when the old woman who claimed she was Poppy's sister had slapped her across the face. He hadn't come when the growls of her stomach were ignored by the woman, who laughed when she saw the girl suffering. And the most surprising thing of all was that this time, when she needed him more than she had ever needed anyone, he didn't answer her cries for help.