Chapter Text
A Heroe's Guide to Alternate Timelines
Camicazi, the viking warrior, heir to the bog burglar tribe, thief and escape artist extraordinaire, is extremely tired.
It has been a long adventure the past month and some days, Hiccup would know the real length of it, she's sure but it's too troublesome to keep track for her, personally. Fishlegs, half clinging desperately to his own table leg and half beached upon the thing, is already half asleep, staring vacantly upwards at the sky. It's just a little overcast now, no more of the fearsome storm that had sunk the American Dream 2, and the sea is calm.
It's terribly lulling. Camicazi cannot feel much of her legs anymore, just the weightless way they drift in the water, and her head is very heavy. If only she could have been like Hiccup! Lazy bum. He's been asleep this whole time.
A shame. Hiccup is very good at problem solving and adrift in the open ocean with nothing but a table and two hunting dragons is a problem indeed.
Camicazi is very close to laying her head down on the edge of the table for a little nap, just a few minutes, when Fishlegs mumbles something on the other side of the table.
"Hm?" She says, similarly unwilling to enunciate with real words. He twitches his fingers, vaguely in the direction of the sky, and says again.
"Dragons."
She looks and sure enough in the semi-distance there is the unmistakeable shape of dragons flying in formation. Looks like five of them, maybe six.
"Should we call out?" She asks but Fishlegs doesn't answer. He had felt very strongly that swimming to shore with the Hysterics and meeting the natives of America was a bad plan, worse even than drifting out to sea on a table with Hiccup out for the count, but he doesn't have any strength left to feel strongly with so he doesn't much care what they do at this point. Surely Camicazi can decide?
"We should," she decides, as he had hoped she would, and with herculean effort drags herself further up onto the table and raises one arm halfway in the air. "Help! Help!"
Fishlegs isn't sure how she does it. It's not a very loud shout, it has no chance of reaching the far-off dragons, but it is more than he could manage at the moment and for that he is in awe of her.
Far overhead, buffeted by the sea winds and surrounded by the chatter of the other riders, none of the Edge Riders can hear the feeble shout of the castaway down below. However, the sea is a rather monotonous view, and the brown blemish of an overturned table with little dragons and vikings clinging to it is enough to catch the vacant gaze of Tuffnut, who has largely tuned out the last several minutes of conversation, since it is mostly his sister complaining.
"Hey, what's that?" He points.
"Probably another sea stack, Tuff." Hiccup replies, long suffering. "What's this one shaped like?"
"Uh, its a short sea stack then." Tuff says, squinting. "It's too far away for me to tell what it looks like. Kind of boatish, actually. A half sunk boat, maybe?"
"Hey, it actually does look like a boat, Hiccup!" Fishlegs says, peering down at the sea far below. When he points the others look too, which Tuff thinks is very unfair. "Maybe we should check it out. There could be shipwreck survivors."
"Hm, you're probably right Fishlegs. Let's go check it out."
Camicazi is trying to convince Stormfly to fly up towards the dragons and tell them to look down when Toothless chatters something incomprehensible and Stormfly makes a considering growl.
"You're right Toothless, they do seem to be getting closer." She says in Norse for Camicazi's benefit. "I won't have to fly up there at all!"
The dragons circle them. Fishlegs whimpers a little, and Camicazi blinks languidly up at the silhouettes.
"I dont recognize any of those dragons," she says.
"Me neither." Fishlegs agrees. "We are very far from the archipelago though..."
One, sort of round, dragon separates from the pack and flies down to meet them. The rider on the back of the nobby bumpy toad of a dragon is portly with broad shoulders and an embarrassing lack of facial hair. Camicazi doesn't see any tribal crests but at a glance she'd place him as a Peaceable Wanderer. But that can't be right since he has a dragon and a tiny helmet with wings sprouting from it.
"Ahoy!" She calls and her voice cracks. "We need a lift, if you'll grant it to us."
"Hello! Of course, we can rescue you!" The viking (?) says and his voice squeaks audibly over the hum of his dragon's buzzing wings. "Uh, you're shipwrecked then? What direction have you been drifting? We'll fan out to look for other survivors."
"You won't find any. They all swam to America," she tells him. "And they were all Hysterics anyway. Hard buggers to rescue. Not like us bog burglars!"
"America." The peacable viking repeats looking uncertain and a little sad. "You're sure? If you tell us where-"
"Please, help us! It doesn't matter where we came from or where you take us!" Fishlegs suddenly blurts out in a burst of energy and berserker hysteria. "My best friend! He hit his head and almost drowned! We've been adrift for hours!" He sniffles and Camicazi looks to him, alarmed. It's not befitting of vikings to cry! "Please, just help us to the nearest island!"
"We're quite stubborn," Camicazi agrees eagerly. "Good vikings, we'll make our way on from there. Though a few healing herbs and a meal would be welcome too. And dont even think about taking us captive-"
"Whoa whoa!" The peacable viking says, alarmed. "We'll help you, don't worry. No capturing necessary. We have a place you can rest back at our base. You can stay as long as you need and leave whenever you like."
Camicazi squints at him but he must be a very good liar, or else she is just too tired to notice his tells, cause she thinks he might be being honest. He lowers the dragon to nearly sea level. Its claws dip into the wave peaks. Toothless hisses something that is probably obscene and the peacable viking offers Camicazi his hand.
"Come on, I'm Fishlegs. I'll fly you up to the others."
How odd Camicazi thinks to herself. He doesn't look like a runt, but he must have been, once, for the naming dame to give him such a name
Fishlegs brings the girl up to the other riders and hands her off to Astrid who gets her settled in front of her in the saddle. Astrid is pretty slight (deceptively so) but the girl is tiny, barely a weight to hand over, and can lean back comfortably against Astrid's chest, dwarfed by the blond woman.
Hiccup watches her settle with curious eyes. They don't come across many people that aren't at least hesitant around the dragons and this little girl is straight up blasé about a beast that could eat three of her in one mouthful.
"She said there isn't anyone else to rescue," Fishlegs reports, "And the boy that's unconscious hit his head and nearly drowned. I don't know Hiccup, it's pretty odd..."
And this isn't the first time castaways have turned out to be more than just victims of misfortune, Hiccup thinks to himself.
The rest of the riders are exchanging glances and watching the blond girl cautiously. Their rescued victim seems barely able to keep her eyes open and looks particularly pathetic since she is dripping wet.
And yet.
"The other kid can ride with me. Ruff, Tuff, can Barf and Belch carry the table by its legs? I dont think we can keep the other boy stable if he's slumped over dragon back. Best to bring him as he is."
"You got it boss!" Ruff chirps and goes to peel away from the group. Tuff grumbles something moodily and fights her while Fishlegs eeps! And hurries to collect the other swimming boy before the larger dragon can cause enough waves to drown him.
Just then, one of the two dragons that had been perched on the upturned table legs flaps up to join them in the air. Hiccup watches its sinuous body shift in color as it flies, ever-changing. A miniature relative of the changewing, perhaps? But very few dragons he knows have such a snakelike body shape...
"Hey, where did you guys come from?" Snotlout barks and the girl raises her head to blink at him blearily. "You've got dragons!"
"So do you," the girl says. "Everyone does."
"Uhhh, not where we're from." Hiccup says. His brain is cranking out questions faster than he can process them. And definitely faster than either of his shell-shocked guests can answer them. "Dragons mostly terrify people where we're from."
"Dragons are terrifying," the girl agrees readily. "But we're vikings so it doesn't really matter." She squints at them. "I don't know your kinds of dragons though. They seem a little less scary than most. No rotating teeth or brain-picking claws. And they're on the smaller side."
"Ooohhhkay there's a lot to unpack there." Hiccup says. "Let's start simple. What's your name?"
"I'm Camicazi," the girl replies. "We're from the Barbaric Archipelago. But anywhere you can take us is better than here." She gestures down at the ocean. Fishlegs, both of them, are coming up from below and the two-headed green dragon with the table balanced in its claws behind that. Camicazi can see Toothless, crouched low over Hiccup's chest, shielding the boy's face from the wind with his wings.
Camicazi droops, all of the energy going out of her in an almost audible gust.
"We'll be alright, wherever you take us," she says confidently, but so quietly that only the blond woman can probably hear. "So long as we're together."
Astrid catches Hiccup's eye and shakes her head minutely. Not now. He nods and turns in the saddle to help the weedy little boy with glasses cross over onto Toothless' back.
"Thank you," he murmurs quietly into Hiccup's shoulder. "Thank you. I wasn't sure what we would do."
He's a lot less confident than Camicazi , Hiccup thinks idly.
"We always try and help others when we can." Hiccup assures him. "What's your name, kid?"
"Fishlegs," the boy says like a sigh. "Fishlegs No Name." He leans his head on Hiccup's shoulder and moans softly. He's damp all the way through and shivering lightly.
Hiccup stiffens at the name, but on the repetition, he relaxes. It's... A weird coincidence, that he has the same name as one of the Riders, but not unthinkable. Hiccup has certainly never met a Camicazi, after all. But Fishlegs is a proper horrifying viking name, so it is not so unusual to find another one.
"Nice to meet you Fishlegs. I'm Hiccup." He says. "Try to relax. It's just an hour or so to the Edge."
"There is no Edge," the boy mumbles. "I've seen the coast of America. The world is as round as a... Pancake...?" He trails off and Hiccup just wraps an arm over the boy's shoulder as he slumps even more bonelessly into a light slumber.
Fishlegs dreams of storms and strange dragons. Of a sea that falls off the edge of the world in a great crashing waterfall and a table drifting peacefully over the edge of it. He dreams of Hiccup holding him in place in his dragon's saddle, but when he looks to the side he sees Camicazi holding Hiccup in another dragon's saddle, riding along carefree. Two Hiccups he thinks, frazzled. I can barely keep up with one!