Soul of Furies (Book Three)

Chapter 7: Realization

I lift a hand to my ear, my eyes widening. Nightstar cocks her head at me, her eyes still wide and confused.

"That was weird," I mutter, shaking my head back and forth. I raise my eyes to the trees around me. "If there's another goddess that wants to talk, by all means come on out."

"Thora, I don't think there's another goddess," the voice says. Nightstar scratches her ear plate with her hind foot.

"Who's there?" I demand, again reaching for my empty scabbard only to remember that my sword is back home. "Who's talking to me?"

"No one, unless you can understand Night Fury all of a sudden," the voice comments. "But I mean, come on, how could—"

"Oh my Odin," I gasp, spinning to face my dragon. She makes a small noise of surprise. "Nightstar, are you...talking to me?"

"Um...maybe?" She swings her head around as if checking for more onlookers. "You don't know dragon language, so if you're hearing me right now...maybe you hit your head too hard," what I think is my dragon's voice says.

"No. No way," I mutter, stumbling backwards as I grip my head. "Nightstar, tell me something only you would know about me."

"What? Um...okay." She shuffles in place as she thinks. "The first time you tried to take me on a flight, I bucked you off and sent you flying into a tree. Your tunic got caught on a high branch and you couldn't get down no matter what you tried. I felt bad afterwards so I helped you out." Nightstar smiles, looking proud of herself.

I sit down on a rock, still holding my head as my stomach lurches. I am actually talking to my Night Fury, that's the only explanation. She's the only living thing I was around when that incident happened.

"Is this Vár's doing?" I wonder out loud. "I don't think she's the kind of goddess that can make animals talk."

"Nah, but it probably was the gods. Maybe this is their way of giving you extra helping in righting those wrongs."

"Righting those..." I mumble, trying to get my mind working. I still have a headache from the fall, but thankfully it's fading. "Do they want me to go home and apologize to Hiccup? It can't be that easy."

Nightstar wanders over to my side and sits down, raking her claws against the earth as she stretches. "Well, Vár said something about your wish...could that be something?"

"My wish to never have existed, of course!" I say, snapping my fingers. "If they changed some sort of pattern from my life and sent the past me down a different road...oh, I know what to do."

"Enlighten me?" Nightstar requests.

I get to my feet, cupping her large face in my hands as I stare into her eyes. "Okay, this is a long shot, but we have to find the 'me' from this alternate timeline. We find her, we convince her to go to Berk, and everything goes back to the way it was and I get almost twenty more years on my deal."

"Where to first, then?"

I don't have to think very long to know. "We need to check my old village. If I'm there...well, you understand."

"Loud and clear, Thora." Nightstar flaps her wings once. "Let's get going then. We've got a time limit!"

I leap on her back without a word and she takes off, spiralling into the air and leaving the ground behind.

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My heart sinks as we come into the territory of Hermaōr. The village still lies in ruins, like how I remember it from the last time I came across the wreckage with Astrid and Ruffnut. It hasn't changed, although I notice more foliage and a more weathered, aged look to the decimated buildings.

"Do we check it out?" Nightstar asks.

"Yeah," I respond, although my voice is tight. If my village was still destroyed in this timeline, then there must've been some other event that changed during the years on my own.

Nightstar lands on the ground and I slide off her back, breaking into a sprint towards my old house. Nightstar follows without hesitation, her gaze flickering over every spot we pass. I have no doubt that she's remembering our last encounter here.

Inside my home, I run into my parents' bedroom and begin searching for artifacts to solidify their existence. The chest that held the cloak, necklace, sword, and painting is standing up, the way it was when I left it the last time I came here.

But something is different this time, and the animosity of the simple scene makes my blood go cold. The hidden bottom of the chest is missing, my father's sword gone. The painting that had been hidden inside, the one with the group shot of the Demon Dragon Slayers, lays on the floor, torn in half. The tear runs right in between my parents' figures, severing them from each other.

"It wasn't torn when you found it the first time, right?" Nightstar clarifies.

"Yeah...and my dad's sword didn't leave the space in that chest," I add.

I pick up the picture, carefully holding the two pieces together as I examine my parents' faces. They look different too, but that change is so minuscule that no one should be able to tell. They don't look as content. They look more hardened, more stoic than I remember.

I look towards the top floor, still connected to the bottom level by a broken staircase. I whistle, signalling Nightstar to my side. No words are needed, my command understood as she flies me up to the second floor. I run down the hall to my old bedroom and skid to a stop in front of it.

My mouth falls open and I stumble, my shoulder hitting the doorframe and sending a spiderweb of pain up my arm. I'm too shocked to react.

No bed, no childhood toys, nothing. Even the old stuffed sheep that I gave to Runa to have as her own is absent. The room is still burnt, like every other area in the house, but anything indicating that a child lived here is gone.

Nightstar comes up behind me. She looks as confused and scared as I do. I walk into the room as if moving through a dream, searching for the picture; the picture of me and my parents that had managed to escape the flames of the demon dragons.

I see the corner of it under a chair and I breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that it'll give me solidification. I kneel down and snatch it, lifting it up and unfolding it easily. My eyes widen and my breathing speeds up as I take in the portrait, my emotions ranging from anger to pain to confusion.

Everything is the same. My father and his warm blue eyes, his auburn hair, his freckles, all the same. My mother is next to him, her smile as kind as ever and her blonde hair done up in braids.

The only thing that's missing...is me.