#htty2

Viggo smirked. “Like my surprise? I’ve been working on a test for a while now and I needed a subject. Harnessing the power of a skrill…and you. Now that I can bring people and objects through time, however, I can accomplish so much more.”

Hiccup felt sick. “Viggo what did you do?”

“I brought them forward in time. They are from your past.”

Viggo turned and walked away.

Hiccup leaned against the door and turned to face the other two.

“What’s going on?” Stoick asked.

Hiccup mulled over the words. “I think... you’re in your future – my present. Maybe…three years out?” He studied little Hiccup. Two legs. “Four looks about right.”

“Who are you?”

Hiccup raised an eyebrow. “If you can’t tell from looking at me, I’m not telling you.”

Stoick glared, but little Hiccup said, “Wait.” He’d figured it out.

Hiccup grinned at him. “My friends are probably going to come rescue us. We’ll have to grab my friend, Toothless, since Viggo’s got him tied up somewhere.”

Little Hiccup gasped and let out a chuckle.

Stoick rounded on him. “You know him?”

Hiccup shrugged. “We have a mutual friend.”

Little Hiccup turned away from his father. “You said your friends will be here?”

Hiccup nodded. “Probably. They’re at least looking for me. Unfortunately, Viggo’s prepared for that. Here’s what’s likely to happen: Viggo uses us as hostages and captures my friends when they arrive. Option two is we try to escape, with some level of success. Viggo’s planning on that, though, so probably what’ll happen is I go back for the Skrill, and Viggo takes the opportunity to take you hostage. This is all happening as my friends arrive, which is the only reason he has to do this, so after I give up, he holds us hostage and makes them give up. Then he either attacks our home, makes us work for him, or both.”

Stoick and little Hiccup watched him with wide eyes. Hiccup frowned. “We’ll have to find some way to avoid that.”

“There’s no way,” little Hiccup gasped.

Hiccup smiled, “Not exactly like that, no,” he allowed, “but those are best case scenarios. Viggo could have a different trap in place. He could be planning to let us go, for some reason, or to kill us here and now.”

“What’s most likely?” Stoick demanded.

“Viggo’s a grand plan kind of a guy. He likely has a huge plot to let us go and take us out some other way.”

Little Hiccup said, “Let’s get out of here, then, and work on circumventing Viggo’s plan later.”

Hiccup nodded in agreement. “Can you work with Toothless?” He asked little Hiccup.

“Yeah,” little Hiccup said, “But we don’t have much practice.”

Hiccup nodded. “That’s okay. He can do most of the work, he just needs someone to work the harness.”

“What are you two talking about?” Stoick frowned. It tickled at Hiccup. Had his father’s frowns become more friendly over the past few years?

From the way little Hiccup subtly edged away from Stoick, it seemed like it.

“Our escape,” Hiccup said. “Toothless will help us get out of here, but he’ll need help. I was making sure your son knew how to help.”

“Dad,” little Hiccup said hesitantly, “I need you to trust us, even if it looks bad.”

Stoick’s frown deepened. “What does that mean?”

Little Hiccup began to say something, but Hiccup interjected, “It means that our means of escape will be confusing to you and you’ll probably want to get angry. We need you to promise you won’t, at least not until we’re safe.”

“Okay,” Stoick said, “what’s the plan?”

“I’ll get you two to Toothless and adjust his harness so Hiccup can do his part. Then I’ll get the skrill and catch up.”

Stoick blinked. “Skrill? How are you going to get that without dying? Why?”

Hiccup winked. “I have my ways. Viggo captured the skrill a while ago and has been using it to attack us. It’s too dangerous a weapon to leave in Viggo’s hands. Knowing him, he brought us to his base, believing it to be too fortified for us to escape. Or as a trap of some kind. Either way, the skrill will be here.”

“How will you escape?” Little Hiccup asked.

Hiccup raised an eyebrow. “I’ll have a skrill.”

Everything was quiet for a while. Little Hiccup worked at his chains until they came off, then a familiar face appeared.

“Heather!” Hiccup exclaimed.

“Hey,” Heather said, “Viggo doesn’t know I’m here. Ryker only let me come because he wants to taunt you.”

Hiccup grinned. “That’s fine with me.” In a lower voice, he said, “they can’t know who I am,” he gestured to the others, “so until further notice, we’re siblings.”

Heather raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Lemme guess, it’s because if we see my brother, he’ll call you ‘brother’.”

“Yeah,” Hiccup said. “Will he try to stop us?”

“Oh, almost definitely.”

“Wonderful.”

Heather snorted. “I’ve unlocked Toothless’ cell, but he’s still in there. Your stuff is in there, too.”

Heather unlocked the cell and their chains.

“C’mon, I’ll take you to Toothless.”

Stoick and little Hiccup followed them , but they ran into Dagur just one corner from their cell. He stopped, blinked, and said, “Brother, what are you doing here?”

Hiccup grabbed Dagur’s arm, “Dagur, I need to talk to you.” He turned to Heather, “Go ahead and take them to Toothless.”

Heather nodded and dashed off, little Hiccup and Hiccup following.

“Please don’t kill me,” Hiccup said.

Dagur raised an eyebrow. “Thirty seconds,” he said, “then I attack.”

“Viggo figured out how bring people through time. Those people were me and my dad from four years ago. I need to escape and figure out how to return them to their time.”

Dagur’s other eyebrow had joined the first. “And how do you plan to do that?”

He explained his plan, praying to the gods that Dagur wouldn’t turn on him.

“Fine,” Dagur sighed, “I’ll take you to the skrill. But you owe me.”

Hiccup nodded, “Of course. Thanks Dagur.”

The skrill was in the center of the camp, according to Dagur, tied down and half submerged.

They didn’t encounter many difficulties. In fact, nothing happened until they were around halfway to the skrill.

It set Hiccup on edge.

They were hiding behind one of the tents when someone blew a horn. Dagur cursed. “That’ll be the signal that you’ve escaped. We need to hurry.”

No one was guarding the skrill.

Dagur pulled out a set of keys, unlocking the cage.

The skrill, naturally, threw a fit when it saw them. Hiccup ran over to undo the chains, barely visible in the murky water. The skrill calmed down a little. It seemed to recognize him. Dagur glanced at Hiccup.

“Go,” he said, “Don’t get caught.”

Dagur nodded and ran off.

He turned to the skrill. “Hey…” he held his hand out. “Can we do this? I just need you to take me home.”

The skrill screeched at him, but allowed him to climb on its back.

“Thank you,” Hiccup said. The skrill screeched again and took off.

Beneath him, Viggo screamed.

Toothless had set down on an island about half a day’s trip by boat. By dragon, it was an eighth the time.

“Thank you,” Hiccup touched the skrill’s snout, “for saving me.”

The skrill bowed, turned, and flew off in the direction of the archipelago. Hiccup turned to the others. Toothless sat between little Hiccup and Stoick.

“He started to yell at me,” little Hiccup offered, “so Toothless got in the way.”

Hiccup snorted. “We’ll rest here for a while. I don’t know what Viggo did to Toothless, but we want him to have energy if he’s going to carry us back.”

As he talked, he rifled through his stuff. An extra leg (always good), his flight suit – score! – some rations, leather, flint, a toolkit… it looked as if Viggo’s guards had left everything alone.

“Viggo let us go. He’s smart – the smartest man I’ve ever met. Our escape was too easy. Hey Hiccup, can you set up a fire?”

Little Hiccup got up.

“Why don’t you explain your friend to me while he does that?” Stoick raised an eyebrow.

“You’re not reacting the way I thought you would,” Hiccup mused.

Stoick waited patiently. Hiccup got the feeling there was a storm inside that Stoick had mastered the art of hiding.

Hiccup told Stoick a shortened version of the story of how he met Toothless. During that time, little Hiccup came back with the firewood.

“Toothless?” The dragon blasted the pile. The light of the fire didn’t help Stoick’s appearance.  “Who’s feeling fish?”

“And how would we acquire that?”

Hiccup raised an eyebrow, mimicking his father’s habit. He gestured to Toothless. “He can catch enough to feed all four of us.”

Toothless proceeded to do just that. Stoick edged closer to Toothless, snatching his fish and quickly retreating, like a frightened cat.

Toothless rolled his eyes. Hiccup patted him on the side. “Give it time, buddy.”

The dragon snorted.

“Can you understand him?” Little Hiccup blinked.

Hiccup gave half his fish to a terror that was sniffing at it. “Yeah, in a way. He just ‘said’ “I gave it four years already.””

Little Hiccup watched in awe as his older counterpart checked Toothless over.

“That’s ridiculous.” Stoick said, “Dragons are animals. They can’t understand us.”

Toothless snarled gently at Stoick, but Stoick didn’t seem to realize the harmlessness of the action. He narrowed his eyes.

“Toothless says he likes “our Stoick” better. I don’t blame him.”  

“If you know me already, I’ll assume you’re a friend. I don’t trust you though.”

Hiccup shrugged. It didn’t bother him in the slightest. This man wasn’t his father, plain and simple. “I’m still going to get you home.”

Stoick frowned. “Back to our time? I can’t wait.”

Hechecked the moon. “I’m going to take a nap,” he announced, “if you could wake me up in a few hours, that would be great.”

He didn’t wait for response, just laid back against Toothless.

—-

He was shaken awake as the sun was rising. Little Hiccup, terror in his arms, pointed to the horizon. Ships.

Stoick was asleep as well. Little Hiccup looked exhausted; he clearly hadn’t slept at all. Hiccup blinked.

“Thank you. Once we’re in the air, I’ll show you how to tie the foot pedal in place and you can sleep.”

Little Hiccup nodded and wandered over to his father. Hiccup set about preparing to fly. His flight suit was undamaged, so he decided to glide. The strain of carrying two people was enough of a burden.

They were in the air before the ships were distinguishable.

“Alright, Toothless,” Hiccup patted the dragon’s side, “let’s get up as high as we can.”

“Why?” Stoick asked.

“You’ll see.”

When they were high above the clouds, Hiccup pulled out a rope. “Tie yourselves to Toothless’ harness.”

Little Hiccup wound the rope around his middle without comment, but Stoick refused.

“Hiccup, you know what falling out of the sky feels like,” Hiccup said, “Can you convince him?”

Little Hiccup shook his head. “You know him, he doesn’t listen to me.”

Fair – Hiccup’s relationship with his    Stoick had progressed a lot.

Stoick frowned at little Hiccup. “Yes I do!”

“No you don’t,” Hiccup said, “not yet, anyway. Look, if you want to fall to your death, fine, I won’t stop you. But then you’ll be leaving Berk without a chief – because you clearly haven’t trained him    at all to take over the position.”

Stoick crumbled and wrapped the rope around himself.

“Thank you,” Hiccup said, standing up.

“What are you doing?” Little Hiccup said, alarmed.

“This!”

Hiccup ran and jumped off of Toothless’s head. Little Hiccup and Stoick screamed in alarm, and then in fear, as Toothless took off after Hiccup. When he’d built up enough speed, he reached down and opened his wings.

Little Hiccup laughed. “You’re flying!”

Hiccup flashed a smile behind him. “Yep!”

He glided most of the way home – about a day’s flight. Gravity naturally pulled him down, and Toothless glided with him. They spent a few minutes only feet above the water, enjoying the smell. Then Hiccup tucked his arms in and dropped into the water.

Toothless grabbed Hiccup and they restarted the process.

It took three dips before they reached any familiar land, a small island just inside “their” territory.

On it was Snoutlout, who was, naturally, sleeping.

Hiccup landed – crashed – onto the beach, kicking sand all over Snotlout, who jumped up with a startled shout.

“I was just taking a break!” Snotlout defended when he saw Hiccup.

“Of course you were,” Hiccup agreed easily, “A break from what?”

Snotlout rolled his eyes. “Looking for you. Then waiting for you, once Heather’s terror-mail arrived – what happened to your hair?”

“Viggo. What did she say?”

Snotlout shrugged. “She said she’d break you out… and she mentioned something along the lines of like… time travel?” He rubbed his neck, “I don’t really know what that means, but…”

Hiccup nodded. “It means this,” he stepped aside, revealing little Hiccup and Stoick.

Stoick glared as soon as he realized it was Snotlout he was looking at. “You’re in on this -“ he flailed his arms “- draconic mutiny?”

Snotlout stared at them for a few minutes, then scoffed. “Why am I not surprised?”

“I’d be worried if you were,” Hiccup smirked. “Viggo’s been pulling this shit since we met him.”

“Is everyone on Berk in on this?” Stoick said, “speaking of Berk, where are we? I haven’t recognized a single island so far.”

“Yeah, pretty much all of Berk is in. You, Gobber… even Spitelout.” Hiccup shrugged, “Toothless is a good influence. As for why you don’t recognize where we are, that’s because we’re actually several day’s flight from Berk.”

Stoick looked skeptical. “How far is that by boat?”

“A week?” Hiccup looked at Snotlout, who shrugged.

“We don’t really travel by boat anymore.”

“Why not?”

“We really only use boats if there’s a lot of stuff to carry around,” Hiccup explained, “when it’s just people, we use dragons.”

Hiccup turned to Snotlout. “Let’s get back to The Edge. We can send a terror-mail once we’re there.”

Snotlout nodded and turned to climb onto Hookfang. Hiccup turned to his other companions. “Who wants to fly with Snotlout?”

Stoick glared at Hookfang, then at Toothless. Hiccup saw the man’s resolve at the same time as his younger counterpart. Little Hiccup trudged to Hookfang.