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highkey-lowkey-as-hell · 2 years ago

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I’d love to know more about the httyd watt au if you don’t mind! I haven’t watched everything in the whole franchise, but this au sounds really cool

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OH HELL YES

okay so this au is based mostly off of race to the edge, which is a tv show on netflix that takes place right before httyd 2, because that's my favorite part of the franchise. if you don't know what that one is, it's six seasons, and it covers the last year or so before httyd 2, and most of it revolves around one artifact called the dragon eye, which the dragon riders discover hidden in an abandoned ship, and which contains an unbelievable amount of secret dragon knowledge. it also has a map that extends far past the archipelago, so the riders decide to explore it, and they establish a base called dragon's edge, which is in the name, and it's where they live for the entire series before eventually going back home to berk. so, in the au:

eva - hiccup

kate - astrid

clark - fishlegs

farrah - snotlout

annleigh - heather

cairo - dagur

chess - mala

mattie - gustav

riley - trader johann

reese - atali

eva, kate, clark, and farrah are all probably pretty obvious, because they're also from the movie franchise (i tried to figure out a ruff and tuff but there's honestly no replacing those two), but: cairo is the chief of the berserkers, a neighboring viking tribe, and she's an antagonist for the first two seasons before switching sides and allying herself with the dragon riders, even gaining two dragons of her own: a gronckle named shattermaster, but after shattermaster is injured in a fight, she starts riding a triple stryke named sleuther. annleigh is her half sister, who is... a complicated character, who has a love-hate relationship with the dragon riders for a while but eventually becomes an ally, and she and kate are besties - her dragon is a razorwhip named windshear, who she rescued as a baby. chess is the queen of a different nearby tribe, the defenders of the wing, and she and cairo meet at a peace summit and initially hate each other, but then they fall in love and get married in the finale!! and chess doesn't have her own dragon, but she always rides behind cairo on sleuther. mattie is a teenager from berk a few years younger than the dragon riders, and she rides a monstrous nightmare named fanghook and wears some of the riders' gear from the first movie, obviously trying to be like them, but she tends to accidentally cause chaos so they won't let her join the riders, but eventually, kate trains an auxiliary riders team to defend berk, and mattie is their leader. reese was... honestly kinda hard to find someone for, because i just ran out of side characters, but atali is the leader of the wingmaidens, a tribe of women that protect baby razorwhips and are important allies of the dragon riders, so i thought she could work for that!!! and riley....... well, riley is top 10 anime plot twists of all time, she pretends to be the dragon riders' ally for five seasons (and another show before rtte!!!!) before finally revealing herself to be the Ultimate Bad Guy who's been behind everything!!!!!!!!

anyways, now that i've explained it: kateva is my Utmost Beloved (i have so many aus with them haha) and i am in LOVE with the hiccstrid!kateva dynamic!!!!!!!! i love kate being suspicious of eva's sudden success in dragon training in the first movie, love them going on that romantic flight together, love kate giving eva that "so what are you going to do about it?" pep talk after stoick captures toothless, love the "that's for scaring me" *punch* "what, is-is it always going to be this way with you?! because-" *kiss* "... i could get used to it" at the end of the first movie. i love that scene in the beginning of httyd 2 at the itchy armpit, eva telling kate about her conversation with her father and kate mocking her, and then seeing smoke in the distance and they go check it out and stormfly gets knocked out of the sky and eva and toothless catch kate before she hits the water, i love eva deciding to go after drago after stoick orders all dragons grounded and kate goes after her, i love kate shouting "TAKE HIM DOWN, BABE!" when eva and toothless are fighting drago and the bewilderbeast, love the "oh, we're still doing that one, huh? that's hilarious. c'mere, you" kiss at the end. httyd 3 is.......... not my favorite of the trilogy, but i love the "maybe we should take gobber's advice and tie the knot. that should fix everything! but hey, if you're having doubts about yours truly, i'm pretty sure farrah's available" "she only has eyes for your mom" "ohhhh, playing dirty now, huh?" "you asked for it! looks like there might be a wedding after all" "oh, how dare you! that is a low blow- no, no, you are not getting away! OWW, okay, okay, you win, you always win!" "you knew what you were getting into" "uh huh, sure" scene, kate finding eva working on toothless's new tail and saying "look at you, embracing change! i am proud of you", i love kate taking eva to find toothless in the hidden world, i love kate and eva taking out bad guys to save each other and then causing an explosion while smiling at each other with romantic flight playing in the background, i love kate helping eva stand after she lets her fake leg fall into the sea with grimmel, and then them getting married??????? and having zephyr and nuffink????? AND TAKING ZEPHYR AND NUFFINK FLYING TEN YEARS LATER????????????????????????????????

speaking of flying, i just have to say: eva and toothless, kate and stormfly, clark and meatlug, and farrah and hookfang.

also, astrid!kate is my favorite fucking thing, like c'mon???? maybe it's just because i'm kind of in love with both of them but like,,,,,,, c'mon, kate and stormfly and the "stormfly, drop it. good girl! stormfly, fetch. works every time" scene in httyd 2??????????? kate and "never take a toy from a dragon"??????? kate doing the speech about eva that goes "she's only the daughter of stoick the vast, his heir to the throne of berk, and the greatest dragon master this world has ever seen! and unless you let us go, right now, she is going to blast through here on her night fury and blow your entire fleet of ships to splinters"???????????

this has been an incoherent ramble which i will conclude with: hiccstrid!kateva and astrid!kate thank you for your time

#we are the tigers #httyd au #the httyd au is one of my top aus ever #(closely followed by gearbreakers au)#especially the kateva in it is so >>>>>#but i didn't even get to kateva in rtte!!!!!#buffalord soldier and blindsided and mi amor wing #ahdghfasdgfkagsdufgaksugdfjkasgjhkdsghjasghjdfshagj #them >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>#kateva

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strawberry-skies-xx · 4 years ago

Text

a million reasons to let you go

C H A P T E R F I V E

word count: 2087

tags: eventual hiccup/astrid, slow burn, fluff, angst, happy ending, feral hiccup, hiccup whump, bamf hiccup, protective astrid, protective hiccup, interrogation, aftermath of torture, implied/referenced torture, hurt/comfort, stoick’s a+ parenting, stoick’s bad parenting, hiccstrid fluff, hiccup and toothless friendship

main masterlist | story on ao3 | next chapter >>

When Astrid walks back to the cove, she knows something’s wrong.

For one, there’s two spots where the bushes are burned and ash covers the area in a wide circle - Astrid thinks she sees something like shreds of paper scattered among the grass - and for two, when she comes up on the cove, she sees Toothless bent over the lake, drinking water, but his tail is lashing behind him and he keeps glancing up, as if watching for a threat.

And this time, Astrid knows it’s not a play-fight.

She moves forward, sliding down the cove rocks, and watches Toothless lift his head, green eyes locking on her. She gives a small, reassuring smile - and Toothless bares his teeth, growling, and then he turns his head towards the waterfall and lets out a roar.

She tenses, glancing towards the waterfall. Of all the things she’d expected to happen when she came back, this was not it - she thought she was making progress.

Apparently not, she thinks, as Toothless’s low growl rumbles steadily through the space, and his hostile glare is set on her.

Auburn hair appears from behind the waterfall, followed by Hiccup, who is decidedly less friendly than before, as he stalks towards her in that lethally graceful half-crouch with his hood up, one hand on his sword hilt and Toothless’s hostile glare reflected in Hiccup’s own glare.

She raises her hands in surrender, backing away slowly, glancing between Hiccup, Toothless, and Hiccup’s hand on his sword. She can feel her heart rate pick up, fear shooting through her and nearly paralyzing her in the way only the boy and his dragon can do to her.

“Hiccup,” she says, voice slightly panicked, and she gets a hiss in return, “what are you doing?”

“You lied,” he says, gritting it out as if it’s painful to say. Astrid winces at the tone - all her progress, gone because of whatever happened between last time and now that makes him think that she lied. She almost wants to give up, because she’s never met anyone as closed off as Hiccup and getting close to him is a lot harder than she thought it would be.

Some small part of her wants to get close anyway, because - and now she can’t help but admit it - she does care about the two of them. Whatever imagined slight Hiccup thinks she’s done against him, Astrid knows she would never intentionally hurt them. She’s long since abandoned her original mission, and it’s just now that she’s realizing it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Astrid says, and winces internally at the wording that’s sure not to go even slightly towards convincing him of her innocence. “I didn’t lie, Hiccup,” -he hisses again at his name, and she makes a mental note to try not to use it until she’s proved innocent and he doesn’t look like he wants to kill her- “I don’t know what happened that caused this, but I never lied to you or T- ...or your Night Fury,” she corrects when Toothless’s growl turns into a harsh snap of teeth. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

It’s silent for a long moment, one in which Astrid thinks her heart is going to pound out of her chest, until suddenly Toothless’s gaze shifts up to the trees above her and she screams, ducking as a blast of violet fire shoots very suddenly above her head.

She opens her eyes, glaring at them. “What was that for-“

There’s a high-pitched scream, and Astrid turns around to see-

“Snotlout?!” she asks loudly, as the Viking stumbles down the cove rocks, eyes wide and panicked. “What are you doing here?” She glances back at Hiccup and Toothless, who are glaring at both her and Snotlout. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed!”

Snotlout stops a few feet away from her and gestures at the dragon and boy. “And you couldn’t have?! You were talking to them, Astrid! Like friends! And I’m pretty sure that’s a Night Fury, who can kill you with no effort! Like it almost did me!”

He glares at Toothless, who only growls back, and Astrid sighs as she sees Hiccup standing in the curve of Toothless’s body and tail, sword alight with fire on one side and green eyes defiant and hostile towards both of them.

“Snotlout,” she says, with the tone of quickly dwindling patience, though she can feel herself panicking inside. She knows she can’t do anything to stop the dragon and the boy if they decide to attack Snotlout, because their trust of her is as fragile right now as their trust of Snotlout, and the near helplessness is not a feeling she likes. “They are not going to hurt you as long as you don’t hurt them. Right, guys?” she asks, turning a meaningful glance on Hiccup and Toothless.

The only response she gets from them is Toothless’s steady growl and Hiccup’s fiery glare. She sighs again, though she’s still tense with adrenaline and attempting to stop the dragon and the boy from killing one of the Vikings of Berk. She isn’t sure how long she’d be able to keep Berk from hunting down the two if they did that.

Astrid looks at Snotlout. “You won’t hurt them either, right?”

Snotlout’s eyes widen and he gestures indignantly at them. “Are you forgetting the fact they almost tried to kill me?!”

“They were not trying to kill you, Snotlout!” she says, exasperated. Her patience is very quickly running out - she was not made for mediating situations. “You were the one spying on them! They live here!”

Snotlout rolls his eyes. “Oh, and you just know that, do you? Aren’t you supposed to be with the women of the village, learning how to be my wife? I’m pretty sure this isn’t it-“

His sentence cuts off with a scream as Astrid throws one of her daggers hidden in her clothes, hard enough to pin the shoulder of his shirt into the tree bark behind him, her patience very quickly vanishing.

Astrid grins, something cruel and mocking, and walks up to him, relishing the fear in his eyes - for the moment. But it’s a damn good moment.

“I am not your wife,” she says under her breath, and she doesn’t think about the dragon and dragon-boy behind her. All she thinks about is Snotlout, pinned against the tree and staring at her with eyes wide in fear, and my wife. “I will not be your wife, I am not your wife, and there is nothing you can do, Snotlout,” she hisses his name, “to make me your wife. This is nothing more than a title. Are we clear?”

He’s silent, and Astrid smiles. She pulls out another small dagger, and examines the sharp steel edge. Her gaze flicks back to Snotlout, who’s looking between her and the blade.

“I said, are we clear?”

Snotlout whimpers. “Yes, yeah, no wife, I get it-“

She wordlessly yanks out the dagger in his shoulder and turns away, tuning out his muttered comments as she slips the daggers back into her clothes and walks away.

Snotlout stands up behind her, and once she’s several feet away and has calmed down slightly, she turns back around, blue eyes alight with hostile fire. She meets Snotlout’s gaze.

“You are going to go back to Berk, and you’re going to say you never saw me out here. Got it?” she says, tone steely. Snotlout nods silently, and then she continues. “And you’re not going to tell anyone about these two, understand?”

Snotlout glances at Hiccup and Toothless, who Astrid hasn’t looked at to see their reactions since she pinned Snotlout against the tree, and then he looks back at her and nods wordlessly again.

“Verbal answer, Snotlout,” she says, almost boredly.

“Yes, Astrid,” he replies - as if he’s gritting it out, and with a petulant tone like a child, but still an answer.

And if Astrid discovers that he’s let slip about Hiccup and Toothless, then Snotlout may find himself losing a limb or two in the very near future.

“Go,” she says, and glares at Snotlout’s retreating form as he turns and sprints as fast as possible out of the cove.

It’s when he disappears into the forest that she looks over at Toothless and Hiccup, still crouched together as always, but Hiccup has put his sword away and is watching her silently.

She sighs and turns away. “Sorry. I know you don’t trust me right now, so I’ll go,” she says, quieter and more tired than she ever lets herself be in front of anyone else at Berk. “You know that I carry weapons with me around you two, when I was supposed to be unarmed this entire time. And I led Snotlout to you too.” She runs a hand through her hair, letting out a breath and slumping down against a nearby rock.

It’s quiet for a long moment, and Astrid almost turns around to see if the pair left.

“You didn’t lie,” Hiccup says quietly behind her. Astrid freezes, waiting for him to continue - if he’ll continue.

“No, I didn’t,” she says, after he doesn’t respond. The situation feels fragile, like glass in her hands, and she knows that this is a critical moment to rebuilding Hiccup’s trust towards her.

It’s silent again. She turns around to see Hiccup sitting staring down at the grass, leaning against Toothless, who cracks open one eye to watch her as she watches Hiccup.

“Hey,” she says, and the boy looks up at her. This didn’t work last time, but… all she can do is try, and their relationship is the slightest bit better than it was back then. “Come to Berk with me. Live with us. You’ll be able to visit Toothless out here, but you’ll have reliable shelter, food, water-“

Hiccup’s green eyes turn flinty, switching to a glare, and he stands up - or, as much as he ever stands up, in that same half-human, half-dragon crouch - with that uncanny grace of his. Astrid inhales sharply as Toothless growls at her, sensing Hiccup’s distress, and Hiccup himself walks towards her, gaze hard.

“No,” he says, and it’s the calm of it that makes Astrid feel like she’s being threatened. Hiccup looks evenly at her, and for once, he speaks on his own.

Astrid doesn’t like it.

“I am not going to go to Berk,” he says. “I told you that, and yet you keep trying. We are acquaintances. We are not friends, we are not lovers,” and Astrid thinks she hears the slightest hint of bitterness when he says that, “and I am not a Viking.”

Toothless rumbles from next to him, pushing his head under Hiccup’s hand. Hiccup turns just slightly towards him, letting Toothless lift Hiccup’s arm so it rests on his nose, and then he glares at her again. “You know I would rather stay with Toothless than ever go near Berk, or any Viking. You know I don’t want anything to do with humans,” -Astrid definitely notices that wording- “and you know that I’m not going to join you.”

His lips twist in a mockery of a smile, cold and bitter. “You know I won’t leave Toothless so you can kill him and capture me.”

Astrid sucks in a sharp breath. “How did you-“

“You’re a Viking,” he says, and the bitterness is back in his voice. “You’re all the same.”

Astrid frowns and opens her mouth, but Hiccup continues on, interrupting her before she even begins. This is the longest she’s ever heard him talk, and she hates it. She hates it so much, because he’s right. That was her plan, this was all her fault because she kept coming back, the hunt was her fault, everything. If she’d never told the village, if she’d never come back to them the third time, none of this would’ve happened.

“I am not going back to Berk,” he repeats, and his voice gets harsher - but not at her, oddly. “You can’t make me go back to Berk. You know this, Toothless knows it, I know it. So stop trying.”

He glares at her for a few more seconds, and then turns away. Astrid watches him, struck silent by the vehemence in his reaction - vehement enough to actually talk to her about it.

She doesn’t say anything, or do anything, as he leaves on Toothless’s back.

Later on, she’ll come to regret that more than she’s regretted anything of these encounters with him.

next chapter >>

#httyd fic #how to train your dragon #hiccup haddock #astrid hofferson #snotlout jorgenson #feral!hiccup

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void-tiger · 5 years ago

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...screw it. I’ll *maybe* write an AU that’s from the point Takashi first crash lands back to Earth.

You know, one that has him having a twin and a preKerb friendgroup made up of Ryou, Lisa, Matt, Veronica, and Ginger (in my fanon she’s Hunk’s sister)? You know...Shiro actually having family and friends that then includes the Paladins? (Oh...and people actually at his launch other than Keith and the Holts. Well, the ones who weren’t currently deployed on their own missions at that time.)

Lots of rambling and thought-dumping as to how that might look plot-wise in a broader sense under the cut (along with other fixits)

Veronica’s seen ribbing her younger brother but also trying to cheer him and his assigned team back up before carrying on with her Garrison Job.

The Trio still sneaks out and runs into Keith causing not-well-thought-out shenanigans beyond a successful diversion.

The Trio+Keith run headlong into Ryou, Lisa, Veronica, and Ginger who had the exact same idea as their younger siblings/the idiot (former) cadet. They ARE Shiro’s friends, afterall. Only, they’re the “scientists” and stick Iverson and the REAL scientists with the sedatives instead of Shiro. (They also made more of an effort to keep an eye on Keith than Adam ever did. They’re also well-aware that Pidge is actually Katie and keep an eye on her, too, but decided not to push her about the shoddy disguise. They *might* be covering for her regarding Iverson&Co, though.)

(Also, the Shack belonged to Ryou and Shiro. But Keith’s staying there, too. Ryou’s not happy about Keith trying to bust Shiro out without him.)

After the initial confusion, the Actual Adults (barely!) TM take over and have everyone pile into their cars while they try to shake off the Garrison and eventually regroup back at the Shack. (Keith’s driving Shiro’s old bike back since he’s the one who took it out. Shiro’s placed in the back of Ryou’s car with the seats laid flat. Ryou’s back there trying to keep him restrained until they can do triage, with Lisa taking over as the driver. Everyone else is with Veronica and Ginger. Or, they all took a ScoobyDoo van from the start vs several cars.)

Shiro actually recognizes the entire Trio, but introduces himself, anyway. (He’s a pilot, not an engineer or analyst. And although Veronica and Ginger bragged about their baby brothers and Matt about his genius gremlin sister, and Ryou definitely bragged about Hunk’s progress, it just didn’t quite work out for him to meet the cadets personally, save maybe Pidge—PR, aviation instruction, and Kerberos prep kinda ate away at his time. He did keep an eye on Lance’s progress, but...any remnants of time kinda went to Adam before the breakup and mentoring Keith. (Ryou kinda just insisted on crashing in Shiro’s post-breakup issued room until the twins finally pooled their resources to buy the Shack.))

The hunt for the Blue Lion goes about the same, only the group’s larger. Blue still picks Lance, kidnaps everyone else like a box of kittens, and goes for a joyride before getting serious. (“YEP. That’s definitely your Lion, Lance,” Veronica snarks.) The same Paladins experience the Vision as before, with the others giving them strange looks when they all randomly zonked out in tandem for half a second.

They eventually end up in Arus’s solar system. (The adults are very, very glad that they didn’t ever have time for pets. (And in this version, Ginger isn’t already a mother, and the Adults are all about 23-26, give or take.) Then internally freaking out about kidnapping a bunch of kids by accident, and kicking themselves about not having any sort of letters ready for everyone’s family. That...could’ve been thought out better (and moves to the top of their priority list. Galaxies away or not, mean purple aliens kinda implies they’ll be gone for awhile. With...a bunch of kids.)

They wake up Allura, but Ryou’s the one to catch her. Veronica twists Lance’s ear before he ever opens her mouth. (“Yeah yeah I know. She’s gorgeous. But not the time.”) (RIP, Lance’s ears...they’re not safe in any reality.) Allura and Coran pull up their starcharts...and discover the same, awful news. The adults herd everybody out to give the Alteans some space to grieve in private.

Allura starts to describe the Lions, but the group interrupts her. (“Uh...we kinda saw a big giant robot in our heads?” “Yeah, and it was freaky watching them all look like zombies for half a second, so hard pass.”) The rest of it goes on as usual, only Lance gets whacked for self-postulating, and Blue actually gets a description this time.

The soon-to-be Paladins split up to look for their Lions, with Keith still at the Castle. Ryou and Ginger set to work helping Coran get the Castle operational again, while Lisa and Veronica take on the task of helping Allura sift through 10,000 years of data backlogged.

Obviously certain events like Sendak capturing the Castle and Crystal Venom would play out somewhat differently. For one, neither Ryou or Lisa would leave Shiro alone. And at least one of them would probably stand with Coran about the ethics about all of it, even if they reluctantly agree that it’s the best option they have.

As far as Shiro’s disappearance, they catch on a LOT sooner that Black’s damaged and actually curling protectively around Shiro. (You know. Like Toothless and Hiccup. Just sayin’.) (As well as an explanation as to why Shiro ended up stored within BlackLion during the fight to protect him, while the other Paladins were not by their own Lions.)

Jiro still shows up thinking he’s Shiro, but has the others gently inform him that no, no he’s not. (Shiro may or may not be already out of BlackLion and recovering.) Jiro consents to having extensive tests done. They find all of Haggar’s implants (and discover that Shiro actually got stuck with a few of his own that Black separated from him when they extracted him out...now that they know what they’re looking at. Oh, and the Blacktashi Bond’s still well and good, but Shiro does have more trauma to work through. At best Shiro’s unconscious the entire time he was stored as energy particle. At worst? Sensory deprivation and FullBody Amputation. Nothing about Shiro being suspended in the Void could’ve been pleasant, even though Black was well-intentioned.) Once free from her control, Jiro’s more determined than ever to take her and the Galra empire down. (As well as freeing the other clones. The others share that sentiment, but especially the Shirogane Twin, who decide to accept Jiro as their “triplet from another mother”.)

Jiro still longs to be a Paladin, though. Allura and Lisa gradually over time begin to share that same longing. Eventually they feel a sort of phantom bond that mimics the one Jiro has with Black not just with the OG Lions, but also an even stronger one they can’t quite pinpoint. They eventually learn that they’re being Called by the second meteor.

Lotor’s still a rival right about the same time. However, by the time he tricks the Paladins into going after the meteor for him, the Castle’s a better match for his ship vs him getting away. (Because, you know. The OG Paladins are still with their Lions. And although Allura went with them to explore the distress call, Coran had Jiro&Co to help him man the Castle.) They fight to a standstill, then eventually call a ceasefire. They’re better about uncovering WHY Lotor wants the meteor/quintessence. Also the surviving Alteans are members of his crew, albeit still disguised to protect them from the Empire. They evacuate the colony vs sticking around. Lotor wants the quintessence first to end balmera mining and komar stripping, but also to have a second attempt at making the colony work.

Allura and Coran are shocked to learn that they’re not the last of their race, but eventually Lotor agrees to carefully continue checking Honerva’s research with Team Voltron&Co before deciding what to do with the comet, and if Lotor’s idea for “unlimited quintessence” is even possible...which eventually leads them to Orionde. (*drops better explanation about that pocket dimension HERE*) Also, the other Paladins probably make it through with both Allura and Lotor in-tow once they stop fighting the Lion and instead evade or request permission to enter (hey, it’d be a nice callback to A Bond Cannot Be Forced), but only Allura and Lotor make it all the way to the end.

When Allura and Lotor rejoin the Paladins and the rest of their crews, Lotor agrees to abandon his attempts to reopen the Quintessence Rift on the remains of Daibazaal--at best Haggar could then seize it and do unspeakable damage. At worst, all of Reality folds in on itself and collapses. There are no shortcuts.

Team Voltron press to know why the Galra covet so much quintessence in the first place:if it’s just to power their technology, then surely it’s past time to discover other means of energy. Lotor reluctantly reveals that the Galra are essentially extinct: what started as a way to extend their lifespans gradually mutated them overtime into no longer being genetically compatible with other members of their own race. They either continue taking the quintessence, or die off. Team Voltron then questions if Lotor and his Generals have that same problem--turns out, yes and no. The Galra are somehow still able to reproduce with other races (which he, Keith, and the generals are the proof of), but there are often complications with those pregnancies. In addition, Lotor and his generals spent enough of their early lives eating quintessence-enriched foods to have developed that same addiction they’re still struggling to ween themselves off of, if it’s even possible at all.

Jiro then casually waves as proof that the Galra have successful cloning...so why not just genetically engineer the next generation to NOT have quintessence dependencies and whatever other genetic mutations that are dooming the Galra. Lotor stares at the clone dumbfounded--he hadn’t even considered that. (Aka, sometimes you need a fresh set of eyes to find plausible solutions to problems.) (*cue Save the Galra subplot mixed in around Typical Campy and Main Plot Adventures*)

The meteor is also used to create three new Lions, who immediately Bond with Allura, Jiro, and Lisa.

(For continuity’s sake? Let’s just say Lotor was never declared Emperor Pro-Tem, but always remained exiled/an outlaw.)

(*campy episodes*)

Pidge and Shiro finally find Matt. However, Matt now needs a brace for the leg Shiro injured while posing as “preChampion” to be able to support him. Shiro’s extremely guilt-ridden over it, but Matt assures him that ultimately it did save his life, and instead of having him transferred to a mining penal colony, he actually got transferred as a researcher after fixing the transport. After that, he bid his time for a chance to escape...which he eventually did when his scheme serendipitously coincided with a rebel attack. Unfortunately, Sam didn’t survive, Matt learned post-escape. The stress killed him well before his transport ever took him to a penal colony.

Voltron’s allies continue to grow. However, Zarkon finally recovers right about the time the Blades discover a quintessence supply chain of a new kind of quintessence...which eventually leads to the discovery of SEVERAL cloning fascilities where BlackPaladin Grade Quintessence is being harvested from hundreds of thousands of Shirogane Clones. Takashi, Ryou, and Jiro are all understandably outraged and physically sick at the revelation. Jiro also questions if his quintessence mimicking Shiro’s is the only reason why the BlackLion saved him at all [despite knowing where/having back her Paladin.] Shiro and Ryou try to reassure Jiro that that can’t be the reason/that he has his own value/etc, but Jiro’s unable to quite believe them.

The clones are finally freed (*cue tense battle here*), and like Jiro, many of them are pissed and choose to join the Rebels’ Ranks in various fields as both payback and a genuine desire to help and explore.

(*cue MORE SciFi Camp and Diplomacy etc*)

Eventually there’s another showdown with Zarkon, Haggar, and Company, spanning either into one massive battle or several smaller ones happening at once. Zarkon’s more powerful than ever thanks to the stolen Shirogane Quintessence Haggar used to revive him (that he continued to nom on up until the clones were rescued, although he still had his stockpile to ration)...but his attempts to seize the BlackLion/bust apart Voltron that way fail spectacularly. The Bond cannot be forced, and blacktashi healed eachother.

Zarkon then summons his anti-voltron made from finally successful robeasts with living pilots. (it’s...a work in progress. as in, how does Sendak fit in, or prolly instead Sendak’s Clone, etc etc. But ultimately some of the previous antagonists return, after they got much more backstory etc in Campy TM stuff) (*cue mech battle*)

Allura finally has her match against Haggar and wins.

(Lotor&Co have their own role, but idk what)

At last...Zarkon and Haggar are defeated, with the bulk of their forces either killed, in custody, or on the run.

Lotor fights his way to the top of the Kral Zera to light his flame. However, his rule and insistence on change isn’t popular with the bulk of the remaining empire after 10,000 years under Zarkon. The remnants of Zarkon’s forces also try to cause trouble. There’s also tension with Voltron and the former Rebel Coalition as the universe attempts to rebuild their societies after being subjugated for so long.

The surviving Alteans also long for their own planet and begin to rebuild their culture now that the Galran threat is finally gone, but they’re still vulnerable.

(Earth’s solar system also may or may not have been destroyed near the end of the 10,000 year war, with the surviving humans mainly being the former Galaxy Garrison, so they’re looking for their own planet/system, too.)

(*cue MORE Save the Galra...and The Galra Have Entered The Planet Race!*)

So, you know. Basically an adaptation of Vehicle Voltron as a “post game”.

Aaand, yet more smatterings of SciFi Camp as they rebuild/are Really Really finally at peace, and they finally just get to explore and experience the sort of Paladinship their predecessors did before Zarkon dragged everyone into the 10,000 year war. Because exploration/campy vld stories are always fun.

#long post #read more #vld au #take it back to the start #fixit fic #plot bunny corral #I wanna know what shiro having his own friendgroup would look like...and them being just as dorky and stubborn as he is alright?#except them actually being on earth when Shiro crashes (oh and actually being at his launch? or some of them?)#(vs...them being already deployed in space. which is my excuse for VeeLaDeeFixit)#then of course taking the same elements and past voltron elements and hopefully making a better fusion. or at least less grimdark

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welovekpopscenarios · 7 years ago

Text

More Valuable than Riches (Fortune Hunter! I.M x Reader)

Admin: Mimi

Description:

Fandom: Monsta X

Genre: Fluff

Pairing: I.M/Changkyun x Reader

Warnings: Small mention of violence

Word Count: 2172

A/N: I’m not really happy with this, it didn’t turn out as adventure-y as I wanted but I wanted to get it out before I think too much about it and leave it sitting there forever, never to see the light of day again. It seems kinda rushed at the end but I hope you still like it. Happy reading, as usual! (was this inspired by uncharted? You bet your booty it was)

Since Changkyun was a young lad, with chubby fingers that pried open the libraries history books and small dark eyes that absorbed each word on the ancient, worn pages of pirates, explorers and others alike, he wanted to be an explorer. A great discoverer, who would uncover lost lands and find old tombs, digging deep into the history of the earth to become one of the greatest men in the world – but of course, life doesn’t always work the way we want it to.

Instead of fame and glory, all Changkyun became was an infamous fortune hunter (a fancier term for thief, as Jooheon had put it), stuck in a lousy Indonesian ruin trying to solve an impossible puzzle (because of course people had to make things difficult when they could be solved in a matter of minutes), and with a smart ass who liked to point out his misfortune every waking moment, as if he wasn’t already aware of the miserable turn his life took.

“So if I turn the dial here, the light on the wall moves over there…” he mumbled, brows furrowed and a sweaty forehead creased in concentration as he focused his attention on the current puzzle in front of him. He was amazed at how he was able to solve the other bizarre puzzles he had encountered on this journey before finding himself in the middle of the Indonesian jungle in a run-down temple trying to figure out the next clue before moving on. This one was proving quite difficult so far, however. But it’s not like you were helping in any way.

“Gosh, it’s so hot out,” you whined, opting to recline on a broken stone slab in the middle of the room rather than aid Changkyun in the impossible task of opening the mysterious door. “Do you have a fan?”

“Well, my mom used to always tell me she was proud of my achievements,” Changkyun began, a minuscule smirk flashing on his face once he heard your dramatic groan followed by a sarcastic laugh. “But, no. I don’t have a fan. Want me to ask the hotel to turn up the AC?” he mocked.

“Do, and file a complaint while you’re at it. The service here is terrible, it’s like the workers are dead,” you chimed, flinging a pebble towards the remains of some poor unfortunate soul who thought himself smart enough to handle the puzzle in here too. Maybe Changkyun will join him. Well, he hopes, anyway, with how little progress he’s making with the puzzle. He sighs out in frustration as he turns another useless dial.

“So…” you droned, sitting up and scuffing the ends of your boots against the gravel littering the ground. “You nearly got it, bud?” Another sigh from Changkyun, this one louder and wearier than the last. “I’ll take that as a no. I wish I brought a book with me, if I knew you were gonna take this long.”

Changkyun turned to face you, a brow raised, and indignation etched into his dirtied and sweat ridden face. “You could, oh I don’t know, help?” he commented, frowning when a wry smile spread across your lips.

“I could,” you began, “but I’m just the hired help who was never really hired, remember? You’re the brains of us two, and you’re the one who wanted to go after this treasure to begin with. Besides, I’m no good at these weird ass puzzles, so just leave the fighting to me.”

Changkyun grumbled incoherently, taking a step back from the dials. His cocoa coloured eyes roved over the mysterious contraption, hands poised on his hips and a furrow to his brow as you watched his face take on a look of pure concentration. It was something you admired about him, admittedly, how intelligent he truly was behind that mask of humour and his dedication to pursuing his childhood dream. A dream that took a slightly different, more illegal turn, but still, he was doing what he wanted, and you envied him for having his life seemingly sorted out while you still drifted in and out of messy brawler jobs that you hated.

Lost in your thoughts you missed what he had said until a pebble was chucked in your direction.

“What?” you snapped, rubbing your knee from where the impact of the pebble hit you.

Changkyun pursed his lips and narrowed those chocolate eyes of his. Yikes, not a look you enjoy aimed at yourself. “You’re not stupid, you know,” he remarked, eyes scrutinising your form, and suddenly this blazing hot temple felt as cold as Antarctica under his gaze. “Far from it. So uh…don’t sell yourself short,” he shuffled awkwardly, gaze flitting between the ancient puzzle and you, at a loss of what to focus on as a silence descended upon the temple. He cleared his throat and swallowed. “Help me with this, will you? Or else we’ll never get out of here and you’ll never get to fulfil your dream of taking a bath in a solid gold tub.”

Feeling unusually fuzzy after his backhanded compliment, you rose from your spot and moved to stand beside him, your arm brushing against his muscled one that left you with the same familiar sparks you’ve been feeling every time he was close to you.

“What do you need me to do, Captain?” you joked, a half assed way to cover your blushing form in the mask of humour and waving a hand in your face to fight against the heat of the jungle. Changkyun seemingly took no notice, having averted his eyes and moved his body away from yours to stand at one end of the puzzle. He nodded his head towards the opposite end of where he stood.

“Go to that end of the puzzle, we’ll see if we can finish this damned thing together,” he grunted, flicking through the pages of his notebook. You did as told, fiddling cautiously with the dials, all displaying different symbols and letters ranging from crosses to stars, A-Z, and everything in between. Why were pirates so stingy with their gold? Did they have to make everything as complicated as this?

Changkyun began giving orders as soon as you were ready - “turn that one”, “try that one”, “ok that one’s broken, let’s just put that one aside”, “ok nevermind, that was actually a large snail shell”, but to no avail after a full hour of bickering. Fed up of hearing the word ‘dial’ once more, you changed the topic of conversation.

“What made you want to do this kind of stuff?” you asked. Changkyun paused, glanced at you out of the corner of his eyes before returning them to the notebook in his hands. “I’ve always wanted to be an adventurer when I was younger. I wanted to discover new places and find riches, ever since I was a kid. I can remember reading every book about pirates I could find in the library, I went there so much, the librarian eventually just gave me a book to keep for free,” he said fondly, fingers tapping idly at the worn leather cover of his notebook. You smiled warmly at the image of a toothless Changkyun hounding anyone who would listen the stories of the worlds most famous pirates.

“And how did it work out?” you questioned. He looked up in confusion, a light ‘hm?’ reverberating in his chest. “The fortune finding,” you clarified with a smirk. Changkyun gave a wry laugh, his eyes scanning the dingy cave you both landed yourselves in in search of these so called ‘riches’.

“Well, I’ve found none so far-“ you cackled loudly, “-but! I think we’re onto something good here. I really do. Plus, with the views and adventure we’ve seen so far, I think it makes it all worth it. Don’t you?” he grinned, and oh. Oh no. That smile was more dangerous than any fight you’ve been in, because it made you weaker than a kitten and gave you the strongest butterflies you’ve ever felt. Damn you, Im Changkyun. Why must you be so imperfectly perfect?

“What about you?”

“What do you mean?” you replied, moving to sit on the stone slab like before. Changkyun followed, sitting on the opposite end but close enough that you could feel the summer heat radiating off his bronzed skin.

“Why did you decide to be a security-type person?” he asked awkwardly, unsure of how to phrase your ‘occupation’. Should have been blunt and just said ‘thug’. You sighed, rubbing your neck.

“I didn’t really, it just kind of happened, grew up that way. Got into a lot of fights when I was younger, did some defence classes and boxing, got into bar fights more than I ever went to school, and then one day a guy comes up to me and offers me a job to be his protection for a while. I needed the cash, took the job, and doing these types of jobs is all I’ve been doing ever since. Not good for anything much other than that,” you mumbled sombrely, eyes trained on your boots.

“Don’t say that,” Changkyun argued, but you cut him off with a scoff.

“Why not? It’s the truth. I’m only good for putting a fist to someone’s face and ruining lives-“ a sharp pain to your forehead interrupted your self-deprecating speech, and you looked up with a scowl to see Changkyun’s hand raised mid-flick, a pout on his handsome face that made it look years younger. It suits him.

“Stop,” he demands, sticking out his tongue childishly.

“Stop what?”

“All that negative talk, bad mumbo jumbo, not good. You’re amazing.”

As if this jungle couldn’t get any damned hotter your face just flared as hot as the sun at his words. He too realised his bluntness and coughed awkwardly a few times before continuing. “Since we started this expedition you’ve been annoying, cheeky, a pain in my ass-“

“Oh thanks, I really appreciate that,” you droned, but he shushed you quickly.

“But… you’ve been nothing but amazing and helpful since the day I met you. You’re strong, kind, well-abled, cute, independent, funny, intelligent, and overall one of the best people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I am not worthy to stand in such a divine presence,” he whined dramatically, falling to his knees and bowing at your feet. You smiled bashfully, near ready to flick him right back over his kind words and goofy actions, but you remembered something.

“Wait, go back. What was that you said?”

“Uh…you’re one of the best people I know?”

“Back.”

“You’re intelligent?”

“Back again.”

“You’re funny and independent?”

“One more,” you smirked, enjoyed how the tips of his ears turned pink despite his attempt at feigning nonchalance.

“You’re strong?”

“Go forward,” you sighed good-naturedly, crossing your arms as you stared down at him.

“You’re…you’re cute,” he mumbled shyly, refusing to meet your gaze. You laughed quietly and leaned forward to get a better look at his face.

“Bingo.”

“Yeah well, you are. You’re beautiful. Anyone would be a fool not to see it,” he said quickly, still not raising his head to look at you. His words made a comfortable warmth spread over you – not the blistering heat kind like all around you. It made you feel liked, wanted – accepted.

“I…thank you. You’re not so shabby yourself,” you joked mildly, noticing the growing smirk on his lips. “How long have you thought that I was cute?”

“Oh, you know. Since the day I met you, I guess,” he shrugged nervously, standing up to face away from you and towards the puzzle again. Your jaw dropped in shock.

“Changkyun, that’s over a year ago!” you exclaimed.

“You know what they say about pining,” he simply replied, fiddling with his notebook once again. Pining? Oh lord save you, he was going to be the end of you.

“I don’t know, what do they say,” you inquired.

“Oh, I don’t know either. I was hoping you knew,” he sassed, and it was like he was back to normal with his front of humour to deflect situations he did not feel confident in.

“Well,” you began, “we need to finish this puzzle as soon as possible so we can find our riches, get back to our hotel and you can take me on a real date. Somewhere classy. Like KFC.”

Changkyun turned to stare at you in mild shock for a moment, until a grin spread across his lips and a light rosy hue dusted his dirty cheeks. “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s get going, shall we?”

Safe to say, after spending hours solving the puzzle, the only thing you received for your efforts was another clue pointing to another damned puzzle somewhere in Malaysia that would no doubt require more climbing, searching, and thinking. But, as you sat next to Changkyun, watching as he drove by the coast in his 4x4, you’d like to think something more valuable was discovered in that ruin. Something completely priceless.

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duskisnigh · 8 years ago

Text

Or Just Some Human Sleep (Snow White AU)

AO3 Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9914666

Rating: Teen

Word count: 2328

Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri and Victor Nikiforov, Eventual Victuuri

Warnings: minor descriptions of violence, temporary character death (magical slumber), fic mocks and discusses the problematic elements of the original tale, which includes issues concerning consent and indebtedness

Summary:

“No, thank you,” Yuuri insisted, holding the broom in front of him like a weapon. “I may be fourteen, and I may have lived a relatively sheltered life, but I am not stupid, and I’m pretty sure you’ve drugged that apple.”

The aftermath of the first image in this comic

“No, thank you,” Yuuri insisted, holding the broom in front of him like a weapon. “I’m think I’m good.”

The friendly demeanor of the apple vendor had gone, replaced with something more sinister. She now stood in the way of the cabin’s only exit, face hidden under indoor shadows, an eerie figure silhouetted against the soft afternoon light.

Tension filled the tiny cabin, so palpable Yuuri imagined he felt it crackling on his sweaty skin like sparks of malevolent magic, taunting with the promise of harm. Perhaps that was what it was. Yuuri glanced over the dark-cloaked figure, her crooked nose and skeletal fingers, the folds around their eyes and the stretch of skin around her toothless grin, and he thought of a childhood’s worth of warnings against witches.

The witch lifted the apple higher, shook it in Yuuri’s direction. “But this is a magic wishing –”

“I may be fourteen,” Yuuri interrupted, every effort devoted to keeping his voice steady, “and I may have lived a relatively sheltered life, but I am not stupid, and I’m pretty sure you’ve drugged that apple.”

Even as he tightened his grip, only slightly aware of the bark of the crude broom digging unsympathetically into his palms, Yuuri felt resignation sink heavy in his stomach. He had been petrified by the demonstration of strength when the door was forced open, torn off its hinges completely and flung across the floor.

He thought now it might have been magic, but regardless of which, he knew he had no chance of emerging victorious should a struggle arise. He continued to cling to his broom solely for some comfort in the illusion of control.

In the end, it took barely a minute.

Leo will have a hard time fixing the door, was his thought when an invisible force ripped the broom violently from his hands. Guang Hong won’t be pleased with the mess, was what came to mind when he was lifted off his feet, fingers still burning, and slammed against the wall above the fireplace. Jars and decorative mirrors atop the mantelshelf tumbled to the ground, shattering.

Phichit- Phichit’s pie will burn in the oven.

The hand around his neck was raw-boned and mercilessly cold, but most of all it was unabashedly eager. Amidst the haze of pain and breathlessness he saw the gleeful glint in the witch’s eye, but before he could wonder how he could have possibly wronged her to warrant such hatred, the red, wet heat behind his eyes reached across his field of vision in an overwhelming, suffocating black.

Surely, he thought, as what he imagined must be a piece of apple was being shoved down his throat, there must be an easier way to kill a person.

He woke up to six teary dwarf faces surrounding him, and the smell of roses too strong under his nose.

“Phichit’s resting in bed because of a bad stomach,” Guang-Hong said, when he caught Yuuri ‘s gaze searching. His tired smile was laced with a familiar sort of exasperation. “He ate your pie anyway,” he continued, by way of explanation.

“Oh, Phichit.”

Sitting up, muscles objecting from disuse, Yuuri did not take long to realize what had happened. He observed the meticulous arrangement of white roses around him, shivering from a sense of displacement that raced cold down his spine. He tried not to think too hard about magic (more specifically, its apparent ineffectiveness), but allowed the dwarves to fuss over him, taking time instead to appreciate what had been done for him: someone had taken out the splinters in his palms, rubbed his hands in ointment and bandaged them.

More effort than necessary for a dead person, Yuuri thought, feeling tears beginning to gather.

Only after he had properly thanked each of the dwarves for their care and ushered them inside the cabin did he direct his attention to the lonely figure shifting uneasily under the big oak, a little distance away from the burial ground.

His upbringing would demand it be done, but Yuuri was not keen on conversing with the stranger. The stranger, whom the dwarves referred to as Prince Victor, had seen him at his most defenseless. Yuuri’s body was only placed uncovered in the clearing because these parts of the woods were meant to be hidden away from the rest of the world. Victor had unwittingly stumbled into what was supposed to be a space for private mourning.

“Your Highness,” Yuuri greeted, hoping he had kept the anxiety out of his voice. The knowledge that he had been laid completely vulnerable in front of this unfamiliar person twisted and rolled uncomfortably in Yuuri’s gut, like he imagined charcoal pastry would.

But manners were manners. “Seung Gil said I would have remained quite dead if it weren’t for you, so I understand I owe you at the very least my gratitude.”

Yuuri grimaced. The words tasted as metallic in his mouth as the wedge of poisoned apple.

“Um,” Prince Victor said, intelligently, and there was a curious pink to his cheeks. “There’s no need, really.”

“They also insisted they would rather I heard the story from you,” said Yuuri, slowly, not entirely sure he wanted to. There had been a very suspicious hint of a barely repressed grin on JJ’s face.

“There’s honestly very little to it,” Victor mumbled. Yuuri noticed that Victor’s shoulders were visibly tense. He attempted not to derive too much satisfaction from the fact that Victor felt apparently just as unsettled by the circumstances, despite his physical and social advantage over Yuuri.

Faced with Yuuri’s expectant silence, Victor sighed. “I was returning from my morning hunt. I took a wrong corner, got lost, and the next thing I knew I was showing up uninvited at someone’s funeral.” He had the grace to look extremely sheepish.

“I was going to leave immediately, but I recognized the royal crest on your mantle, and I’m aware Queen Mari has been sending out search parties for her missing brother – ”

“Wait, Mari is queen?”

“She ascended to the throne a week ago,” Victor replied.

“What about my step-” Yuuri said, but something prudent within him stopped him mid-question. The sharp, icy leer of the witch pierced into the forefront of his mind, and there was an uncanny sense of familiarity there that Yuuri did not want to delve too deep into, afraid it might cut a little too close to the heart, that the chill might stay a little too permanently. “Never mind. What happened after?”

“I confirmed your identity with the dwarves, and I thought, oh well, this is really unfortunate,” Victor said, and the manner of which he phrased it might have been slightly unpolished – considered flippant, even rude, perhaps, if Yuuri were his parents – but Yuuri thought he could empathize with the need for some degree of dissociation. Discovering the dead body of a neighbouring monarch’s little sibling in your woods was a delicate, even terrifying, position to find yourself in.

“I wasn’t sure what the right course of action would be,” Victor continued, dragging a hand down his face. He looked rather drained. “So when the dwarves mentioned their suspicions of magic being involved, my mind wandered to those ancient tales of princes and princesses that discuss chivalry in a magical context, so I thought, I don’t know, should I just kiss you or something?"

“You WHAT?”

“Which, I quickly realized, was a horrible idea,” Victor hurried on, hands raised in front of him, looking more like a gesture of surrender than one of mollification, “because the old literary greats had little concept of consent, and it would be unwise to blindly adopt the then-romanticized practices formulated upon an antiquated understanding of the knightly code.”

Yuuri looked only very slightly chastened. Victor shifted from foot to foot.

He cleared his throat. “I eventually told the dwarves I wanted to take your body back to my castle -"

“Excuse me?”

“- where your sister is, because that is also where the diplomatic meeting with my father is currently taking place!” Victor added, quickly. He appeared as though he wanted nothing but for the story to end immediately, and rather regretful that he had gone into any detail at all.

“As we were moving your coffin, I may have accidentally dropped you.” The pink in Victor’s cheeks, having mostly faded over the course of the relation, was back in full force. "The piece of fruit lodged in your throat fell out of your mouth and you woke up by yourself. You –”

He cut himself off. Then he made a gesture with his hand, to show that he had concluded.

“When I woke up, “ Yuuri said, watching Victor’s face carefully, “I scared you, didn’t I?”

Victor bristled. “I think it’s fair to say you scared everyone.” He threaded a hand through his bangs, pushing his hair back, perhaps to disguise the real purpose of hiding part of his blushing face with his arm.

Receding hairline, Yuuri thought, rather unkindly, but then again, Victor had dropped him.

“Well, thank you, regardless,” Yuuri said finally, and the stretch of silence that preceded wasn’t as long or as uncomfortable as it could have been. The dwarves were right; it was still the direct result of Victor’s actions that he could be standing and talking right now. Had Phichit been there instead of Victor, Yuuri doubted he would have let any of his brothers send him tumbling to the ground.

Then Victor made an aborted movement, like he had wanted to reach out to Yuuri, and all of a sudden Yuuri was remembering too clearly his lessons about royal indebtedness and obligation, an overlapping of voices of teachers, instructors, advisors, all grim with warning, warning against being a prince and beholden.

“What are you going to do now?” Yuuri asked uncertainly, throat dry.

What do I owe you now?

It was surely just the cause of his anxiety, the demon that too often took his thoughts on a voyage through rough uncharted waters and stranded him with no means of return, the demon he had tried all his life to exorcise. But he could hear his father’s voice, ringing, admonishing.

Death before dishonor, it said.

“Yes, what are you going to do now?” a voice cut in, loudly, before Victor could open his mouth. It was Chris, the oldest of the dwarf brothers, making his way over and situating himself between the two of them lazily, like he had always belonged within the conversation. “Yuuri’s quite beautiful, isn’t he?”

Flushed with embarrassment, Yuuri was about to protest, to ask what his appearance had to do with anything, when he felt the small but firm tug at the back of his trousers, behind his knee right above his boot, where he found Chris’s hand gripping him.

Chris’s eyes, like always, were smiling, and as usual, the edges of his mouth were curled upwards in a non-committal way, but Yuuri stared in wonder at the newfound tightness of Chris’s jaw, a kind of rigidity alarmingly incongruous to the rest of his body, character and way of life as Yuuri knew.

It registered, then, that Chris’s strange way of holding himself in front of Yuuri was not unlike how he had held Yurio behind him when Yuuri first arrived at the cabin, giant and foreign and begging for shelter. Chris gripped him now as he had gripped Yurio, with all the caution and preparedness born from an older sibling’s protective instinct. Chris, who may have lived longer than Yuuri and Victor combined, who must have witnessed things and heard things and whose wariness surely must mean –

“Uh”, Victor said, looking completely lost. He had the panicked air of a person knowing he was being tested, but hadn’t the slightest idea what on.

“Uh,” he said again, circumspect, eyes darting from Chris to Yuuri, as if they would somehow spare him and surrender the answer.

“Well?” said Chris, unrelenting, lifting an impatient eyebrow.

“I suppose? He’s…cute,” Victor eventually decided. He hastily turned to address Yuuri directly, so as to avoid further discourtesy. “You’re cute?” he said, bemusement still evident, all ungainly limbs and fidgeting, and Yuuri understood that when Victor looked at him, he saw someone with eyes still too big, a face still too round, and a heart too willing to open itself to the world.

He sees me as a child, Yuuri thought.

The feeling in his chest, Yuuri realized, was relief.

“I’d like to give you a ride back to my place, where you can reunite with Queen Mari.” Victor paused. He was still eying Chris nervously. For all that he was three times the height of a dwarf, he appeared to be extremely intimidated. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is,” Yuuri said. Chris’s grip on him had loosened. “Thank you.”

And for the first time since he had awoken, Yuuri smiled at Victor, a gesture Victor hesitantly returned. The warmth that blossomed beneath Yuuri’s ribs was gratitude, and it was genuine.

Fifteen years later, Victor Nikiforov would look back to that time he accidentally brought Katsuki Yuuri back to life as one of the most stressful experiences in his life, and he would laugh.

And then he would tell anyone who would listen that their falling in love had nothing to do how he saved Yuuri from his enchanted sleep, for the two of them would not find love in each other until years later, when Yuuri’s kind and open heart became less of something to nostalgically envy and more of something to wonder at and admire.

No, their marriage – when it eventually happened – had little to do with duty or obligation (and here, Victor would make a face) or even gratefulness, but instead everything to do with how Victor won the heart of his beautiful, headstrong prince over bit by bit, one diplomatic meeting at a time, one romantic gesture after another, until seduction lost its purpose.

End

#victuuri #victor nikiforov #yuri katsuki #yuri on ice #snow white au #yoi #fic #this wasn't so much about Yuuri's anxiety as how I imagine he would be if he were in snow white's situation #it was more of what would have happened if he hadn't opened the door #anxiety gets a small mention #I mean there's a bit in there where his mind gets ahead of itself and he thinks the worse of Victor #kind of like when the fandom thought Victor was COUGH evil COUGH #con crit is absolutely welcome #please tell me how I did

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strawberry-skies-xx · 4 years ago

Text

a million reasons to let you go

C H A P T E R S E V E N

word count: 2029

main masterlist | story on ao3 | next chapter >>

Gothi grumbles for all of three seconds when Astrid wakes her up from her early bedtime, but as soon as she sees Hiccup cradled in Astrid’s arms, her face sobers and she gestures to one of the extra beds.

Astrid sets him down gently, and if asked she will deny to her last breath that she runs a concerned hand through his hair, but Gothi doesn’t say anything and Astrid steps back to let her examine him.

Astrid stands there worriedly for five minutes before Gothi whirls and smacks her arm with her staff, gesturing irritatedly to a chair, and Astrid reluctantly sits down.

Shoving down the fear and worry for Hiccup doesn’t work, so Astrid spends at least an hour watching Gothi strip Hiccup’s shirt, touching hesitant fingers over what does turn out to be a brand on his chest, rubbing in lotions and wrapping bandages, all in utter silence except for Astrid’s racing thoughts and worries.

Finally, Gothi turns around and Astrid stands up instantly. “Will he be okay?” she blurts out first, without thinking.

She quails only slightly under Gothi’s reproachful look, but the elder nods and Astrid exhales in relief, feeling a weight she didn’t know she had lift off her shoulders.

And then she turns to the real issue, the one equally as pressing as Hiccup’s survival, if not part of his survival.

“Gothi,” she says hesitantly, and the healer turns from her sorting to face her. “Can you- this needs to be a secret, for his sake. Please?”

Gothi’s expression doesn’t change, and for a heart-stopping moment Astrid thinks that she’ll have single-handedly betrayed Hiccup and possibly ended his life, but then Gothi gives a slight nod and an indulgent smile. Her face turns stern just as quickly, tapping the Berk seal on a nearby parcel and glancing outside, and Astrid takes it for what it is.

Gothi won’t hide it from Stoick if he asks, but she won’t tell beforehand either. That’s more than Astrid hoped for, anyway, and now she hopes desperately that her luck doesn’t run out, and Hiccup survives.

Hiccup doesn’t wake for four days. At first, it’s from the sheer severity of his injuries - Astrid spends a good hour in the forest tossing her axe into trees when she learns that the men starved Hiccup for the week they had him - but Gothi puts Hiccup into his own sleep just so he can heal faster. She kicks Astrid out after the first morning, and she spends two days stalking around the village, glaring hard enough that everyone avoids her.

Fishlegs, however, doesn’t succeed. Astrid chases him down on the second day, pulling his Book of Dragons edition out of her clothes and dragging him just into the edge of the forest, swinging him so his back hits the bark of a tree and she holds the book up, expression stormy.

“What do you know about them?” she demands.

Fishlegs’ eyes widen. “About- about who? Where’d you get that? I left it in the forest!”

“And why were you in the forest near the cove, and why was the plant next to it burnt to a crisp? And why are there annotations that aren’t yours in the book? The Night Fury page is filled!”

Fishlegs whimpers, eyes darting around. Astrid glares, until his gaze meets hers and he closes his eyes, squeezing them shut as all his words come out in a rush.

“Snotlout and the twins asked me to go to the cove with them and we saw a Night Fury!” Fishlegs blurts. Astrid keeps her glare up for another long moment, then steps back, her expression smoothing over into the closest approximation to a neutral face as she has these past two days.

Fishlegs opens his eyes hesitantly, watching Astrid worriedly as he slowly turns to face her again, relaxing only slightly. “So… you’re not going to kill me with your axe?”

Astrid grins. “Oh, you’re not off the hook yet. Did you see anyone else?”

He hesitates, gaze darting around again, and Astrid glares again. It takes all of three seconds, in which Fishlegs meets Astrid’s glare and whimpers, for him to start talking. “There was a boy with the Night Fury. He was… defending it,” he says, and his eyes start to light up with the mystery of something he hasn’t learned about. “I’ve never seen anything like it, Astrid. He had a flaming sword, and moved with the dragon like-”

Astrid cuts him off. “I’ve heard enough. I’m assuming Snotlout and the twins were foolish enough to attack those two?”

Fishlegs nods, and then his eyes widen as he realizes what she said. “Wait, you know them- Astrid, what have you been doing-”

“Find Snotlout and meet me back here as soon as possible,” she interrupts, tone sharp.

“You know, I really don’t think-”

Astrid glares at him, feeling the anger simmering in her gut, and Fishlegs quails, nodding quickly. Astrid watches him for another moment, and then walks past him, annoyance in every movement of her body.

She has to find the twins.

“You went after him twice?!”

Snotlout glances down at Astrid’s axe, whose edges are embedded in the wood on either side of Snotlout’s head and the curve in the middle circling his neck, and then back at Astrid, whose glare is fiercer than it was when she was interrogating Fishlegs.

“Yeah, why is this important?” he asks, voice panicked with the threat to his neck. “They kicked my butt both times, well, they did one time and you did the second-”

Astrid shoves her axe closer to his throat, effectively cutting his sentence off with a yelp, then yanks her axe back with a glare and walks away. She faces the group - Snotlout, the twins, and Fishlegs - and glares at them all.

“Do you know what could’ve happened if the rest of Berk found out about those two?” she asks, voice harsh. “If Stoick found out about those two?”

Tuffnut makes a questioning face. “Well, you told Stoick and he didn’t believe you. I’d say nothing would happen.”

Astrid whirls on him, turning the full force of her glare towards him, and he goes quiet. “If they got injured,” -and she tries not to think about how they already are injured- “their defenses would’ve been down, and you know Berk would hunt them if they ever discovered, and believed, there to be a Night Fury in the forest. And the boy too!” She didn’t say Hiccup, because it was far too risky and she couldn’t trust them with his name. “He would’ve been brought back to Berk and most likely jailed!”

Under her glare and harsh words, all four of them shrink away from her anger. It’s a long moment before Snotlout finally speaks up, hesitantly and still glancing at the axe in her hand.

“You know them, though, right? I saw you talking to the kid the second time I attacked them. Or- tried to attack them. A bit difficult, you know, with all the axe-throwing and threatening-“

Astrid holds up her axe and smiles. “Would you like me to throw it again?”

Snotlout shakes his head quickly, voice rising an octave and hands raising in surrender. “No, no axe-throwing, I didn’t mean it, it was a joke!”

She lowers her axe and sees Snotlout let out a breath of relief, and then she looks at him - neutrally. “I do know them. I’ve been talking with them for just a few days.”

Fishlegs frowns. “But you called the hunt a month and a half ago.”

Astrid nods. “I didn’t have much time to sneak out and see them.” She glares at Snotlout, again. “And the last time I did, they had tried to leave. Because of what you did. The boy thought that I lied to him about not wanting to hurt him. He threatened me, and thanks to you the trust he’d built in me was almost entirely destroyed.”

Snotlout glances away, muttering something under her breath that Astrid doesn’t care to find out, and Ruffnut speaks up next. “So what now? We have a dragon and a dragon-boy who want to leave, why don’t we let them leave?”

Now Astrid sighs defeatedly, staring down at the floor. “They can’t.”

“Why not?” Ruffnut asks.

“They did leave,” Astrid says. “I came back… and the Night Fury was all alone in the cove. The boy was injured and unconscious, so… I took him to Gothi.”

Fishlegs gasps. “Where’s the Night Fury?”

“Still in the cove. He was injured too, and unconscious. He would’ve never let me take the boy otherwise.”

“Does Stoick know?”

Astrid looks up at him. “No. Do you think the village would have been so quiet if he did?”

Fishlegs sighs. “No…”

Ruffnut frowns. “So… now what are we gonna do? If the boy is at Gothi’s… how long until Stoick goes in and asks about him?”

Astrid looks down. “I don’t know. We need to get him out somehow, but he’s too wounded to leave without more medical attention, and his medical supplies aren’t nearly enough. The dragon can’t apply medicines, either, so we can’t bring them to his cave.”

Tuffnut looks up then, out at Berk, and his eyes widen. Astrid opens her mouth-

And gets cut off by Stoick, towering over her and with a stormy expression on his face. “Astrid,” he says. “Who is the boy at Gothi’s?”

Now her eyes widen - that was a much shorter time frame than she expected to figure something out about Hiccup, and she blurts out the cover story that she hadn’t fully refined yet, because she didn’t think Stoick would find out so fast, but now it’s all she has. “I found him,” she says quickly. “He- he was injured, and unconscious, so I brought him to Gothi. I didn’t want a big deal made of it so I asked her to keep it a secret,” she adds on impulse, adrenaline and fear shooting through her. “Neither of us were going to lie if you asked, though, I swear!”

Stoick stares her down, expression unflinching. Astrid stares back, ignoring the wild pounding of her heart, and it seems like forever until Stoick’s face softens and he steps back.

He nods. “I believe ye. Come with me to Gothi’s. I want you to tell me what you know about him, and where he may have gotten his injuries.”

Stoick walks away then. Astrid shares a panicked glance with her friends, eyes wide and slightly trembling as the weight of what she has to do and lie about drops down on her, and she turns to follow Stoick.

Hiccup is still unconscious when they make it to Gothi’s, but he looks a little better - some of the bruises have faded, and the bandages wrapped around some of his cuts have stayed white instead of being soaked in blood. He’s also been cleaned, face and body now free of dirt and blood, and Astrid resists the urge to go to him and touch him, just to be reassured that he’s alive and breathing. She doesn’t know when it was that she started caring about him so much, but it’s happened and now she can’t exactly stop the tight feeling in her chest when she thinks about Hiccup being hurt.

“Do you know his name, Astrid?” Stoick asks. “Where did you find him?”

Astrid shakes her head, staring down at the ground. “I don’t know his name. I found him,” -she thinks of everywhere on Berk, because she knows she can’t tell Stoick the truth or they’ll find Toothless, and picks a location anywhere but the cove- “on the south side of the island, by the water. It looks like he’d washed up on shore.”

Stoick grunts. “When he wakes, we’ll ask him about his name, where he’s from, and what happened to him. We can’t have intruders on our island.”

Astrid nods, worry for Hiccup and thoughts about how she’s lying to the Chief of Berk making her hands shake and her heart pound. She turns away, hiding her face from Stoick.

“Yes, Chief,” she says.

next chapter >>

#httyd fic #how to train your dragon #hiccup haddock #astrid hofferson #stoick the vast

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strawberry-skies-xx · 4 years ago

Text

a million reasons to let you go

C H A P T E R S I X

word count: 5196

author’s note: really long chapter, things start happening!

main masterlist | story on ao3 | next chapter >>

Snotlout doesn’t act up any more for another week - probably due to Astrid’s death glares and too-sweet smiles at him whenever he gets close to her - so she sneaks back to the cove despite herself.

There’s a slim chance of Hiccup actually being there, after what she did, and she knows it, but she goes anyway. She can’t help it; she’s drawn to him like she’s never been drawn to anyone else before, and she wants to talk to him and gain his trust simply because she still cares for him and likes him as a person. The worst that could happen is that she spends the day alone.

And one of her only friends is gone, but she’ll deal with that. She’ll have to.

Astrid makes it into the cove and doesn’t have time to despair at the fact that neither of them are there before Toothless leaps out of the waterfall cave, not at all in a friendly way.

She instinctively puts her hands out to try to placate him, bending her knees and walking slowly backwards as he stalks forward, teeth bared, but not growling at her.

“Hey Toothless,” she says, and her voice only shakes a little despite her racing heartbeat and adrenaline shooting through her, “where’s Hiccup?”

Toothless roars at that, leaping forward, and there isn’t any time for Astrid to defend herself before she finds herself pinned under the Night Fury’s claw, his face locked in a snarl above her and green eyes burning with hostility.

She screams, naturally, because it doesn’t matter how well she may know the dragon if she’s having a near-death experience with it, and her breaths come short as she turns her head, looking away and closing her eyes, waiting for the inevitable blast of fire.

It never comes. Astrid turns back slowly, opening her eyes, and sees Toothless’s snarl disappear. Instead, he almost looks scared, like he pinned her down out of desperation and fear rather than any actual hostility towards her personally.

And then she gets her answer - there’s no Hiccup. There hasn’t been this entire time, and she knows that if Toothless threatens her, Hiccup is most likely right behind him - to either threaten her too, or save her.

She frowns. “Toothless,” she says, quieter, and the dragon’s growl is half-hearted, “where’s Hiccup?”

Toothless huffs, stepping off of her and running away to the pile of boulders, and when Astrid sits up, he’s watching her, body curving in that sideways way of his that usually means Hiccup is in that curve and they’re both on the defensive. It’s wrong, somehow, to not see the boy there with his flaming sword, and Astrid gets the feeling that something is very wrong.

Toothless whines, diverting his attention from her to sniff at the grass, pawing at it and eventually scorching it with a low burn of fire before laying down on it, letting out a mournful warble. He looks back at her, then at the inside of the circle of his body, where Hiccup should be.

Astrid frowns, her stomach dropping and dread suddenly making her feel cold. “He’s gone, isn’t he? He’s in trouble.”

Toothless gives a whimper, and Astrid feels her stomach drop further. Her next question comes out with no small amount of trepidation. “Where did he go?”

The Night Fury looks up at the sky, giving a mournful warble, and then looks back at Astrid. He turns to look back at his tail and growls, baring his teeth and flipping it against the ground in what looks a lot like frustration.

Astrid’s dread only rises. She glances at Toothless’s tail, following the black-painted metal and leather up from one tail fin to the saddle, studying the stirrups, and her eyes widen as she realizes.

“You can’t fly without Hiccup,” she breathes. Now she sees the slightly lighter shade of black on one tail fin, the strokes of paint rather than the swirling markings of the rest of Toothless’s body, and she knows she’s going to have to do something unforgivable to save Hiccup.

Unforgivable to them because they won’t let her near six feet of them, and unforgivable to her because she’s a Viking of Berk.

She kills dragons, not ride them.

And yet, she thinks of Hiccup, wherever he is, alone and vulnerable. Sure, he has his flaming sword, and plenty of skill to use it, but her image of him has always been Hiccup-and-Toothless. Dragon-and-boy. There’s no Hiccup without Toothless, and no Toothless without Hiccup. It’s become more unthinkable than riding a dragon, and so that’s only part of what makes her do what she does next.

“Toothless,” she says slowly, taking a step forward, and forces her way through her fear when his head snaps towards her and his pupils narrow, a low, threatening growl rumbling in his chest as his teeth bare.

She holds a hand out, advancing very slowly. “You want to save Hiccup, right?” she asks, and wills her voice not to shake.

The fact that Toothless gives no further response tells her the answer, and she nods, mustering up a small, reassuring, only slightly hysterical smile.

“We need to work together to save him,” she continues. Astrid thinks this might be the most dangerous thing she’s ever done, even after running towards Toothless on that first day and getting nearly burned to death because of it. She knows she should be shaking with the adrenaline, terrified out of her mind, but all she can feel is a quiet, certain calm, as Toothless glances between her hand and her face and his growl slowly subsides into curiosity - still tinged with hostility and threat, though.

“I want to save Hiccup,” she says, and Toothless tilts his head. “I can’t do it alone. You can’t do it alone.”

She’s a foot away now, and she can feel the panic beating at the edges of her calm, but she forces past it even as Toothless growls again, instead standing still and keeping her hand out.

“Let’s go save Hiccup,” she says, softly, meeting Toothless’s eyes as his growl fades again and he glances between her hand and her face.

Something tells her to turn her face away, so she does. She closes her eyes, and turns away, and hopes that she doesn’t lose a limb.

Part of her feels insane for doing this, and another part feels as if it’s discovering freedom like she’s never had it before, and yet another part is panicking wildly. That part is thoroughly smothered, and smooths out into even calm, with a little bit of joy, as she feels Toothless’s black scales nudge against her palm.

She looks back at the dragon, whose eyes are closed as he pushes into her hand, and when they open, he watches her for a second with open trust in his eyes before his pupils narrow and he huffs at her, turning away.

Astrid exhales, watching Toothless in disbelief, and a breath of hysterical laughter escapes from her as she drops her hand.

Oh, Hiccup’s going to kill her for this.

But they have to save him first.

Toothless’s eyes narrow as she walks towards him, putting a hand on his saddle, but he doesn’t do anything to stop her. She meets his gaze again, trying to make herself the least threatening she can possibly be.

“You don’t have to trust me,” she says - and she’s realizing just now that she’s talking to a dragon like he can understand her, and feels a bit ridiculous, but she keeps going. “You just have to help me save Hiccup.”

Toothless huffs again, but he tilts his body to allow Astrid into the saddle, and she slides her feet into the leather stirrup straps. One side - the side associated with the prosthetic tailfin, she guesses - flips back and forth, and she pushes her heel back to switch it. Something whooshes behind her, and she doesn’t have time to look back at it before Toothless is launching from the ground, wings spread wide and beating around her.

Astrid screams, instinctively pressing herself to the saddle and shutting her eyes, hiding her face. Toothless banks suddenly, and then-

Gods, they’re upside-down. Astrid can feel herself lifting off the saddle, and she screams higher and holds on tighter, curling her fingers in the leather loops she finds underneath the slight upwards curve of the front edge of the saddle.

“Toothless-“ she screams, hiding her face as the Fury rights himself and then - oh Thor, he starts spinning, corkscrewing in the air, and her screams grow significantly more high-pitched than before, knuckles white with the grip she has on the saddle.

It’s when Toothless dives directly down and then flips, dunking her head under the water, that she realizes he’s not doing this for the joy of saving Hiccup. He’s punishing her - and that brings with it the terrifying thought that he understands everything that’s happened between her and Hiccup, since that’s the only way she could’ve offended him.

She screams out the first thing that comes to mind, the thing she hasn’t even known she wants to say, but when she does, she knows she means it. “I’m sorry,” she yells, burying her face into the leather of the saddle, “I’m sorry, just stop throwing me around, I’m sorry-“

She gasps as Toothless levels out abruptly and the flight gets so suddenly smoother that she looks up out of disbelief, and then her eyes widen and her mouth opens.

The white clouds glow with the sunlight, tracing everything in honey-gold, and Astrid breaks out into a slow, helpless smile as Toothless smoothly curves into a dive down. She leans back against the saddle, legs tight around Toothless’s flanks, and holds one hand out, passing it through the clouds.

She laughs, feeling a weight lift from her chest that she didn’t even know she had, spreading her arms out and closing her eyes. Her fear vanishes, replaced by the cold wind against her face and the feeling of the clouds against her skin.

Now, she doesn’t think about Snotlout. She doesn’t think about the arranged marriage, or Spitelout, or Berk, or even Hiccup, abandoned and vulnerable as he is. None of that matters here, as she opens her eyes and grins. “This is pretty amazing,” she breathes in sheer awe, and her smile widens as she glances down at Toothless, who tilts his head to look at her.

Astrid watches his mouth open, curving in what looks like a smile, with no teeth, and she laughs again, patting Toothless’s nose. He turns back to face forward, shooting a blast of violet fire into the sky in front of them and shaking his head.

Astrid grins as the faded fire warms her skin. Gods, now she knows why Hiccup loves Toothless so much. Having this experience? Being able to soar through the skies, feel the clouds and cold air on your face, see all the world beneath you?

Astrid decides she wouldn’t ever trade this for anything, and that’s when she sets her face into a determined, fierce smile, leaning down near Toothless’s scales.

“Let’s go save Hiccup,” she says, tone hard and determined, and Toothless warbles in response, a slight growl sharpening the edges of it. He shakes himself out and Astrid tightens her fingers in the saddle, pressing herself down as Toothless dives.

The sea opens up beneath them as they emerge from the cloud cover, and Astrid can’t help but grin with the exhilaration of flying as Toothless levels out just above the waves. She leans down to skim her hand above the mist Toothless’s wings spray up, laughing all the while.

Toothless lifts smoothly up from the ocean, rising with barely a wingbeat, and Astrid watches the horizon as they fly towards it, the sun warming her skin and wind whipping in her face. She’s never felt better, but there’s still a small, loyal part of her that is a Viking before- whatever it is she’s becoming. Dragon lover, dragon rider. All of this is amazing, she’ll admit it, and she almost hates herself for not being able to abandon her heritage so quickly.

She shoves all that out of her mind, though, as she spots several dark spots against the bright horizon and tries tugging lightly on Toothless’s saddle to pull him up.

Toothless growls at her, apparently not trusting her fully yet despite the flight, and she leans down near his ear. “There’s a fleet of ships up ahead,” she says. “We can’t be seen by them yet, especially if they have Hiccup with them.”

There’s a pause in which Astrid can almost feel Toothless thinking it over, and then Toothless rises into the clouds, but he huffs with the reluctance. Astrid only hopes that he’ll allow her to help him when they decide to actually attack the ships, because if they don’t, Hiccup may not have a chance of surviving.

They soar above the clouds, glimpsing the sea below in short flashes as they approach the ships, and she sighs. “Toothless,” she says reluctantly, and the dragon’s ear-flaps twitch, “you have to let me help you. If you don’t,” -she ignores Toothless’s huff and stubborn head-shake- “Hiccup may not have a chance of surviving.”

That gets his attention. Astrid watches him go still again, thinking it over. After a long moment, she gets a reluctant growl, and she gives a triumphant smile.

“See, I knew we could be friends,” she says teasingly, and Toothless flicks her cheek hard with his ear-flaps in retribution.

She only laughs, and only for a moment, because as soon as she sees the ships directly beneath them, her smile fades and she tightens her hands in the saddle, leaning to the side to see better.

She swallows hard, her heart rate picking up and adrenaline beginning to shoot through her. There’s nineteen years of dragon-killing under her belt, and half an hour of dragon-riding, and none of attacking with a dragon, and the stakes for this fight are so high that she can’t make mistakes. Hiccup’s life depends on whether she can defeat these ships. There’s no room for failure.

It’s not a flag that she’s ever seen before, but that doesn’t matter. They have Hiccup, she knows this with certainty, and that means they’re enemies.

She takes a breath, calms her nerves, and leans down against Toothless. “Toothless,” she says quietly, forcing her voice not to shake. “You’re going to dive, and then shoot the masts of the ships. Try to take them down with your claws too, if you can.”

Toothless warbles in response, and Astrid pushes back the tailfin, and then Toothless folds his wings and shoots downwards. Astrid presses herself against the saddle, focusing on the ships through her hair whipping in her face, and watches the people on the ships growing steadily larger turn at the high, building shriek of Toothless’s sharp dive.

She ducks her head into her arms as Toothless fires, one mast exploding in a burst of violet fire that smokes around her, and feels him twist around the nets and arrows being fired at them. Toothless’s claws grip a mast, both of them dipping and then rising as he pulls the mast down and lets go, and Astrid feels arrows whistle past her ear as Toothless flaps his wings quickly to rise back into the cloud cover.

Astrid uncovers her face and looks back down. Two out of the six ships are down, one on fire and one steadily sinking, and their element of surprise is gone. The ships all have cages on them, made of a greenish metal she’s never seen before, and all of them have men with nets, ballistas, bolas, and bows trained on where they think her and Toothless are.

She tugs the saddle left, and fortunately Toothless banks with her. They’re facing the ships now, and she feels it when Toothless realizes her intentions, folding his wings and diving.

They swerve around the first volley of arrows and nets, Toothless snapping his wings out and curving around the ships, firing at the bottom of one on the outside and watching it sink. Astrid scans the remaining three, looking for anything that might signal that Hiccup is on the ship.

She curses when there’s nothing, and Toothless rises back into the cloud cover, circling the last three ships.

“We’re going to land on one ship,” she says to Toothless, who growls at the suggestion. She keeps going anyway, because this is the best plan she can think of, and there isn’t much time left. “And we are going to take it. The other two will try to board, and all we have to do is fight the men on the ship as they come.”

Toothless snarls, but he agrees, because he twists and dives. Astrid presses herself down against the saddle, preparing, and swings herself off as Toothless lands on the deck, throwing both of her daggers at two of the men that try to rush her.

She takes one of their axes, swinging it up by her shoulder and charging at some men who are sneaking up behind Toothless. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees one of the ships preparing to lower a board to cross into the ship she’s on.

Toothless flicks several men overboard with his tail, which lashes as he faces the next few, and both he and Astrid roar and charge at them. Astrid swings her stolen axe and her fist into the faces and stomachs of the men, and Toothless fires violet blasts and whips his tail at them, biting and pouncing on them.

The soldiers from the other ship start flooding the path, but all Toothless does is shoot the board as most of the men are on it, throwing some of them in the water and others back onto the deck of their ship and into yet more soldiers, falling like dominoes. Astrid grins and pats Toothless. “I’m going below deck to check for Hiccup,” she says.

Toothless whines, but allows her to go, turning back to the boarding ship and giving his best snarl and baring of teeth, tail whipping in angry motions behind him.

Astrid climbs down the ladder below deck, turning to see a simple hallway with cages lining the walls.

She walks forward, tracing her fingers along the greenish metal the cage doors are made of. The cages are all empty, and she almost turns around to go back when a dragon snaps at her fingers and she yelps in surprise, yanking them back and glaring at the dragon.

It’s a Monstrous Nightmare, a dark violet purple and growling at her with its teeth bared as much as it can through the leather muzzle. She watches it light its skin on fire, yellow eyes hostile as it watches her, and suddenly she realizes the decision she has to make.

Freeing the dragon is what Hiccup would do.

Leaving it is what a Viking would do.

Astrid hesitates, eyes flicking to the metal chains hanging above her head that pull open the doors. There’s a chance that this dragon will kill her if she lets it free.

And there’s a chance that it won’t.

She sighs, feeling her loyalty towards Berk shatter a little further and her loyalty to Hiccup build that little bit more, and jumps up to yank the chain, swinging the cage door open and letting the Nightmare out. She doesn’t dare touch the muzzle, only ducks and hides her head against the wall as the dragon charges out - thankfully, not on fire anymore.

It’s quiet, and Astrid almost turns to look at the Nightmare, but she freezes when she feels hot breath whuff past her hair, blowing it so it drifts upwards. She gasps quietly, fear shooting through her and making her heart pound as the Nightmare sniffs her.

It seems like forever until the dragon pulls away, and she peeks out of the cover of her arms to see it watching her, the muzzle on the floor a few feet away, before it huffs out a breath of smoke and turns away, running to the ladder and climbing out of the hole.

Astrid exhales, trembling, and stares in disbelief at where the Nightmare was. She looks down at herself - no burns, no scars, nothing but the memory of hot breath against her hair and neck.

The Nightmare let her go, all because she decided not to hurt it.

The screams from outside break into her moment, and Astrid shakes herself out of it, running up to the above deck and shoving all thoughts of the Nightmare out of her mind.

Toothless is shaking a soldier in his jaws, snarling and then tossing him overboard - whether he’s dead or alive, Astrid can’t tell, and she doesn’t much care either - before turning to her. He makes an urgent, desperate noise and then turns, leaping over to the other, notably empty ship, and disappearing below deck.

Astrid follows, finding Toothless halfway buried inside a cage, nosing at something in the corner and whimpering. He pulls away, and Astrid gasps in horror as she sees what he was nosing at.

It’s Hiccup, unconscious and covered in blood and dirt, a shackle around his ankle connected by a chain to the wall. He looks terrible, with blue-purple bruises on his face, cuts on his face and bloody bruises and blisters on his hands, and Astrid tries not to think about what looks like a brand disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt.

She forces her hands not to tremble as she pulls a pin out of her braid, pushing it into the ankle cuff’s lock and twisting it until it clicks. She forces the tears not to fall as she pushes the cuff away, but she can’t force herself not to care as she pulls Hiccup towards her, cradling his head in her arms and wiping off some of the dirt on his face.

He doesn’t stir, and she shoves down the rage rising in her, standing with a dangerous calm, holding Hiccup with one hand beneath his head and the other under his bent knees.

She climbs onto Toothless’s back, and neither of them need to say anything for Toothless to start running towards the hatch to the above deck and shoot up. Astrid cradles Hiccup to her chest and holds onto the saddle, face set in a hard, cold rage.

They fly up and out, Toothless firing two precise blasts at the ship beneath them and the third, last ship, and a cruel smile twists Astrid’s face as she watches them start sinking.

It’s only when Toothless yelps and drops several feet that her rage is broken by concern and she frowns. She looks back, finding the arrow protruding from his tail, and further back she sees the third ship, which is quickly sinking but has Hunters on it aiming bows at them. She screams as Toothless shrieks in pain and plummets several feet again, flying unsteadily back and forth.

Her arm tightens around Hiccup and she puts a hand on Toothless’s head. “Come on!” she yells, her eyes on the slowly-nearing shape of Berk in the distance. They just have to make it there, they just have to make it there…

Toothless roars as a second arrow hits him and he’s flying so low he’s skimming the water now, rising and dropping every few feet, the drop getting lower and the rise getting shorter every time. Astrid holds Hiccup with one arm and tugs on Toothless’s saddle with her other hand, looking worriedly down at the ocean, which is far too close for her liking.

Toothless shrieks and Astrid rubs his head again. “Toothless, we’re almost there!” she yells above his next shriek. She feels the mist of a wave spray her arm and she cringes away, pulling Hiccup closer to her.

Berk is right on them now, and Toothless whines and roars as he slowly struggles to rise. He gets above the trees - and then he plummets. Astrid screams and curls herself around Hiccup, feeling the wind whistle past her and the trees get very close very fast.

She yelps and screams as she tumbles through the trees, curling tighter around Hiccup and pressing them both down against Toothless, her legs squeezing in a death grip on the Fury’s sides.

When they land, Astrid skids, letting go of Hiccup as she hits with a thud and rolls several feet away. Toothless lets out a pained noise from off to her right where he lays on his side, breathing heavily.

Hiccup’s still unconscious from where he lays on the ground, with several more cuts and more dirt on him than before, and Astrid runs over to him, ignoring her own pains and building headache.

Toothless whimpers. Astrid looks around - and then she realizes they landed in the cove.

She goes over to Toothless, lifting his head and pulling hard backwards. “Come on,” she says. “We have to get you to the waterfall cave, you’re vulnerable out here.”

Toothless’s eyes open slowly, hazy with pain and fatigue, and she pulls again. “Toothless, you have to help me,” she says - and he pushes himself up.

It’s a long several minutes for Astrid to half-drag Toothless into the waterfall cave, and when she gets there, she lets him curl up in the dark corner of it and watches him pass out nearly instantly. She takes that opportunity to pull out the two arrows, and turns to the boxes stacked along the wall of the cave.

She doesn’t want to go through Hiccup’s things, especially after Toothless trusted her to save him, but she doesn’t have a choice. Toothless needs medical attention.

She picks the box closest to her, pulling open the top, and starts her search, shoving aside the guilt.

The first three boxes have nothing - only food, bottles of water, and clothes. She supposes they can work for bandages if it comes to it, but she sets aside the third box and starts on the fourth.

The fourth has the crest of Berk on it - Astrid knows this most likely isn’t it. She shakes the box lightly, hearing something metal rattle inside, and her curiosity piques. She thinks back to Toothless’s tail, and Hiccup’s flaming sword… he had to have gotten all that from somewhere in order to be able to make it. Maybe this will tell her where it all came from.

She pushes aside the thought that he stole from Berk to make them, though it’s more logical the more she thinks about it. Which she doesn’t.

She lifts the top off and looks inside-

And her eyes widen as she sees Fishlegs’ copy of the Book of Dragons in there with three other leather-bound journals, a small wooden cup with charcoal sticks in it, and metal gears and parts piled in the last corner of the box. There’s books too, stacked in one corner, most of them battered and worn, but not ruined. They’re used often, but well taken care of in the meantime.

She makes a mental note to return to that box, and turns to the fifth and last one. In there, she finds two saddlebags and some other smaller bags. The saddlebags are empty, and most of the smaller bags as well, but she grins triumphantly as she finds medical supplies in one of the smaller bags anyway - and a veritable selection, too. Hiccup was prepared, and must have been gathering these things for years. Astrid doesn’t want to think about whether he had to learn the hard way what he needed to supply himself with.

She turns to Toothless, pulling out the bandages, and uses the bottle of alcohol to pour it on his arrow wounds. Astrid has no idea whether dragon healing works the same as human, but she cleans the wounds with the alcohol anyway, wiping them down with one of the cloths in the bag, and then using the lotion she finds in a small tin labeled ‘WOUND CARE’ in neat Norse. Finally, she wraps the bandages and ties them off, testing them with two fingers before sitting back.

Then she turns to the fourth box.

The first thing she pulls out is Fishlegs’ Book of Dragons, flipping it open to a random page.

Skrill, it says, in the Norse of the old Vikings that had copied it. Fishlegs’ annotations are scattered among the old writing, and even fresher than that is the same neat Norse script as was on the lotion tin.

Hiccup has crossed out the deadly over-exaggerated facts on the Skrill and replaced them with actual facts, which, compared to the descriptions of attacks that she’s grown up with, seem almost weak. She reads his additions, including feeding habits, drinking habits, and - Astrid wonders when this became not surprising - things that the dragon loves.

She flips a few pages forward, skimming the dragons and finding that nearly all the pages have additions written on them, and then she stops.

Night Fury, reads the top of the page, in the original old Norse. And instead of a blank space, there’s a neat drawing of a Night Fury - of Toothless, curled up with his head on his paws. It’s different from every other picture in the book, which depict the dragons as poised to strike, jaws open and claws out.

Astrid thinks she likes this version better.

Hiccup has crossed out nearly everything that the old Viking had written, and Fishlegs hadn’t made any annotations, so Astrid reads a page of solely Hiccup’s knowledge on Night Furies.

She smiles as she reads Hiccup’s snarky comments on Toothless’s pranks on him - will drop humans off cliffs and cut the rescue way too close; will dunk human underwater and/or throw human into water entirely, causing human to almost drown - and the corner where that is written is singed slightly, the page blackened. Astrid laughs and keeps reading, and then she reaches the end of the page.

Hide, and pray it does not find you.

It’s crossed out, nearly unrecognizable if she hadn’t memorized the exact place those words had been written on the page, and Astrid runs her fingers over the charcoal. She remembers disobeying these words when she first met Hiccup and Toothless, and now Toothless is asleep next to her and Hiccup is-

Hiccup needs to be brought to Gothi. Astrid knows that, and still she looks up at where the waterfall obscures her view, and sighs, reluctant.

I am not going to go to Berk.

Astrid stands up, sliding the second Book of Dragons edition into an inside pocket on her clothes, and leaves the waterfall cave. She picks Hiccup up in the same carry as before, studying his dirty and blood-smeared, unconscious face. “I’m sorry,” she breathes.

She pushes his hair back, looks up in the direction of Berk, and starts walking.

next chapter >>

#httyd fic #how to train your dragon #hiccup haddock #astrid hofferson #toothless

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