Beyond the Sunset | HTTYD (Discontinued)

Chapter Three

"Are we there yet?" Todd complained. 

I sighed. "I think it's your turn to answer, Deav."

He glared at me. "No, we aren't 'there' yet. Does it look like we are?"

"I don't know," Mav huffed. "I've never been to Bark."

"Berk," I corrected. 

"Why are we going there anyway? The salt gets in my eyes." A girl with pink hair said, coming up from belowdecks. 

"Sleeping Horror has awoken," Todd said. "Finally."

"Nice of you to join us," Deav said. 

"It takes work to look this good," she said. 

"Nobody cares, Ignorance," Mav said. "Some of us don't have to work for it."

"Ignorance?" I asked. "You know her name is Blythe right?"

"Todd accidentally said 'ignorance is Blythe' instead of 'ignorance is bliss' the other day," Mav said as if that clarified everything.

I shook my head and turned to adjust our course slightly. The argument migrated to the other side of the ship, leaving me to my thoughts. I'd sketched what I could remember of the old map before we left, but I couldn't remember the exact location. Hopefully, we wouldn't run into the Hunters, the people who had captured me years ago. The people of Berk really had lived in the Scandinavian area, although I had told the woman they had lived near Alaska. Getting them caught up in a wild goose chase was all I could hope for; we would need time to establish our position before they came to try and take the island. 

"What's that?" one of the lookouts shouted, pointing out on the horizon.

"How am I supposed to know?" another replied. 

"Use your telescope," a third said, taking his own out from his pocket and looking out in front of him.

"Anything of importance?" I asked. 

"It looks like a ship," he said. 

"Any people?"

"Not that I can see."

"Let's go check it out." I steered my ship closer to the abandoned one. The ships went silent as we sailed nearer to the ghost-like vessel. Some people hadn't yet realized that we weren't alone on the seas. This was a sort of wakeup call.

I jumped lightly onto the metal deck, watching carefully for traps. Just because something is abandoned does not mean it isn't operational. 

I kicked open a door and barely had time to glance inside before a slew of arrows shot towards me, confirming my theory of traps. 

"What are you hiding?" I muttered, stepping through the doorway and over the wire that would surely release another trap, most likely a net or metal bear trap thing. A desk covered in papers and maps stood behind a chair in which a recently dead man sat. 

"Gross," I muttered. As I started to rifle through the papers, the door opened. 

"This boat could be rigged," Deav said. "You shouldn't have come in here without a soldier. Don't--" He yelped as he hit the tripwire and was caught in a net suspended from the ceiling. 

"Some soldier you are," I said, not looking up from the papers I was packing up. "What were you saying about traps?"

He unsheathed his sword and cut through the net with one swipe, landing on his feet. 

"I am prepared for a fight or trap," Deav said. "You aren't."

"I think you'll find that I am more than prepared for most things that come my way." I tucked the stack of papers into my bag and slung it over my shoulder. I jumped as the dead man slid to the floor from the movement in the boat. 

"Should I be concerned about the dead guy?" Deav asked. 

I ignored him and took both the sword and the sheath the dead man had been holding before leaving the room. 

There wasn't much else of interest on the ship; a few weapons and a little food. The crew was nowhere to be seen, save for the dead man we had already found. Even still, the crews from our ships were eager to leave the ghost ship behind. 

"Are you coming, Merica?" Deav called to me. 

"Just a second!" I had seen something that I wanted to check out before we left. 

The crew's quarters had been suspiciously empty when we had looked it over for useful things. Instead of glancing over it and leaving, I switched on my flashlight and took in the damage to the inside. At first glance, I thought that the room had been built with black wood or painted with a dark color. Upon closer inspection, the color was the result of something completely different: fire. A concentrated fire that targeted only certain places of the room, so hot that it didn't burn down the ship, only disintegrated everything in its path. 

I looked back at the doorframe, which I now noticed was somewhat splintered along the edge as if someone had tried to break into the room from the outside. The floor was dented in some places, and the scorch marks lined every wall except the one the door was on. The doorframe itself was blackened and crumbled away at a touch. 

"Endeavor?" I called. "I need a second opinion."

"We have to go soon. Can it wait?"

"Not exactly."

I could hear him grumbling as he obligingly climbed down to where I was.  

"What do you think happened here?" I asked. 

"I think a member of the crew accidentally set the room on fire," he said. 

"That's what I thought, too, at first." I gestured to the untouched wall. "Why does this side not have the aftereffects of a fire, yet the doorway does?"

"I don't know, but I'm assuming you have a theory."

"I do, but I want to make sure there aren't any other possibilities."

"Unless someone decided to kick the door halfway across the room, burn only three of the walls, burn and splinter the doorframe, and make the crew disappear, no, there are no other options." Deav crossed his arms. "So, what's your theory?"

"You're going to think I'm crazy," I said, "so give me a chance to explain."

"Okay," he agreed. 

"Dragons."