Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There are few children on the Isle of Berk. They are often grouped together; for training, for eating, as a collective to be raised and protected by the people of Berk. Where one is, so the others must be. A rule, unspoken and not, of convenience and safety both.

There are, however, a few times they are apart—by necessity, by choice, by interest. There are followers, within the small group of teenagers, and there are leaders. There are outcasts, and there are tormentors. There is a clear distinction, a line carved in stone, not drawn in sand, between these children, for all they might have grown up together and played with the same toys.

The sole outcast, one child, a singular, small boy, is the only one who spends his days, nights, and in-betweens alone. Of the whole village, he is, perhaps, the loneliest of them all. Forsaken from his small group that has been assigned to him from birth, he is then outcast from the entire tribe as a result. Intentional or not, there is no place for him with a sense of belonging. 

Where the rest are busy during nights thick with dragon shrieks and human screams with pails of water and desperate attempts to control fires, the outcast is sent elsewhere, to hide, to cower, to the safety under a rooftop and one of the few fires burning by choice. He is made to lift hammers larger than he may ever grow, beat metal that is stronger than any of his bones into shapes meant for death and destruction. He will repair weapons he will never wield, sharpen blades he will never use, promote injury and devastation without the fear of battle. Death will be on his hands, through the blades and maces and axes he forges and repairs and creates. He will not have to scrape dragon blood from beneath his fingernails, as others do, but instead soot, and ash, and smoke that clogs his lungs and makes it impossible to breathe.

He is a strange boy, however—this knowledge, of doom and dismay, of his part in it, curdles in his gut, where in his master it brings nothing but joy and pride. It makes his hammer heavier, his swings less precise, and brings more scolding and burnt fingers and blistered palms. It is an odd feeling, one that has no place in him, or at least, it shouldn’t. It has no place in the heart of a dragon-killing viking, of that he is sure. It is something akin to mercy, or perhaps more accurately empathy, a thrum in his soul that cries in tune with every death, human or otherwise.

It is foreign. It is wrong, or so he believes. It is, perhaps, the reason he is such an outcast—a sixth sense, in a way, that has others giving him a wide berth. There is something different about this boy, instinct screams, something wild, something strange. Strange, in the course of Berkian history, is a synonym for bad, and no one is spared of this feeling, not a single person. Not even the boy himself, a distinct sense of wrongness within himself and his body, and it shows, in every aspect—in how he falters, how he stumbles, how he is unsure and frail and drifting about without a place in the workings of the village of which he is, sometimes dubiously, a part.

It shows in the way he tries to make up for it, tries to make himself dangerous in other ways, tries to make himself a viking in other ways—tries to be bloodthirsty, and violent, and eager for the kill. It shows in his creations, in the things he makes, the way he tries, even though it burns in his chest, in the space between his ribs and his lungs, painful and dark.

He creates things, with tension and springs, triggers and ropes, that work if given the chance. 

They are not, ever, given the chance. 

He builds something akin to a wooden casket. It is symbolic of the death it is intended to wreak, even though they as a people do not use the coffins it is modeled after. Within, however, is not a body, but a complicated combination of machinery, invention, and innovation. It has more tension than a crossbow, more weight than an axe. It is more useful to the boy than either of these, and yet, would be useless to everyone he knows. 

It snaps open with a sharp crack, a sound that spells doom for any other weapon. It is interesting—though at the moment, the boy is too preoccupied to notice—just how opposite his creation is to the tools of his people in every way. 

It is opposite in the way it operates, as well, the barest touch has it springing to life in a way that is foreign to everything but the creatures who breathe, whose heart pumps iron blood from their fingers to their toes and wings and tails. This creation, alas, has no beating heart, no veins through which blood would course. But it has bones of wood, tendons of rope, joints of iron. It is more alive than most would expect, and it shows, in the way its metal shell of an eye follows a creature hidden among the stars, as though it envies the true life it possesses. As though it can see, with an eye that will never have the ability to do so, the great power of this creature, its freedom, its—

It looses itself only at the pull of another, with another beating heart, with breath that escapes his lungs, power and freedom less than that of the creature in the sky.

There is a wail, and the boy, unfamiliar with these sounds but for the screams of his own people, wishes, desperately, to cover his ears like a child. Instead, he watches, as a shadow plummets, the opposite of a star, into a forest of more shadow and darkness and fear.

There is a feeling in his chest, as he watches, that is not elation, or pride, or happiness. He presumes, naively, that this is what comes after a kill, what his father and mentor and townspeople whisper about when they recount tales of blood and injury and death. He presumes, naively, that he will learn to revel in this feeling, that soon enough, it will turn to joy, arrogance, pride.

This boy, this outcast, this child, has never experienced sorrow. It is a unique feeling that buries itself within, cold and hard, one he is unfamiliar with.

His machine stands beside him, soon to be abandoned, left to the mercy of nature and time. His machine cannot feel envy, or anger, or sorrow. It is but a pile of wood, and rope, and iron. It cannot breathe, it cannot see.

It is an inanimate, unpolished, dangerous mirror.

Chapter Text

There is a dragon, who lives, not in the sky, but in a cave, shackled by soul and mind.

It survives in the heat it should revel in, in destruction and fear and death it should be accustomed to.

The leathery membrane of its wings belong not to itself, but to another—as do its claws, its tail, its muscles and skin and bones and heartbeat. It is weighed down by teeth, clamped tight around its throat, each bigger than its own head, and not one a true presence.

It is free, in the ways that do not matter, to breathe and twitch and feel.

It is caged, in the ways that matter, to an unwilling fate, to a life it does not wish to live.

It is at the mercy of another, of one more powerful, more free, more cruel. The others have given it a variety of names, far outside a chance of being heard—names that describe its nature, its habits, its heartlessness. The dragon is not privy to these names, spoken only within the safe confines of one's own mind, and instead, is made to call her as all else do: The Queen.

She is not a queen, however, in any way that is real. She is a tyrant, and the dragons under her control are not subjects, but rather, something more like victims. They hunt, they hurt, and they attack, never of their own choice, but a higher one, a demand that pierces through will and body like a spear. It is monotonous, repetitive, cyclical—attack, bring back food, attack, bring back food, and pray not to be eaten. There is no life within this existence, none that is worthwhile, even for a dragon. And even so, wishing for death or not, there is no escape. 

Efforts to do so prove futile as well, and every attempt is followed by a laugh that is not there, a mockery that is not vocalized. A plunge into the depths of the sea only ends with a dead fish between jaws of steel, brought back by a pull that is impossible to ignore. Every headfirst dive into a spire of solid rock ends in nothing but pebbles. 

Dragons, as a whole, have no sense of right or wrong. They do not classify such things—whether it is above or beneath them is up or debate, if anyone were to care to do so. They have no distinction between one another with the exception of the self; they have no friends, no comrades, no parents or siblings or family. The Queen uses this to her advantage, this lack of bonds, to forge only one—between them and herself. It is a forced bond of servitude, of inauthentic devotion and sacrifice.

Her orders carry them over the winds, a whisper like nature herself guides them. It pushes them further and further to find food, to wreak havoc, to do whatever happens to please the Queen’s fancy. 

There is a little isle of rock and dirt on their winds, full of creatures familiar and not. Sheep and yak are recognizable, easy prey. There are other structures, however, trees that are stripped of branches and leaves and have grown into strange arches, covered in sheets of reddish-brown rock, that house unfamiliar creatures. They walk on two legs, horns of metal and no wings to speak of, even though they seem to possess similar intelligence to that of dragons. Perhaps more, given the strange things they carry, or perhaps less, given the way they seem to scream at each other with no sense to the sounds they make.

The Queen holds a hatred for these creatures, for whatever reason, and it means that, of course, the rest of them are filled to the brim with a ghost of anger, a spectre of rage and a need for revenge for things that have not happened—not to them, at least. They are ordered, like mindless soldiers, to battle against an enemy that has no grudge against them, to rain the hellfire and destruction that resides in the spaces between their bones, in their lungs and throats, upon an enemy that does not have their thick skin, their armour plates, that cannot fly and chase them down. 

It is like hunting, the dragon supposes, but it feels far more cruel, needless, when there are endless fish in the sea, dozens of islands from which to take sheep and yak and other, thicker, bigger animals. It is cruel in either direction, in truth, to the creatures it will later learn are called Vikings, People, Humans, in the relentless buffeting of fire and brimstone, but it is cruel to them as well, because these creatures, the ones that walk on two legs and scream and have horns and huge metal claws, learn how to strike back. The dragon’s hide is not thick enough to protect from these creatures’ claws, from their ropes and stones. The hollow bones of their wings are not thick enough to withstand the tension the Humans create, the thin membrane stretched between them cannot heal as other places would, and it is not strong enough to withstand the Vikings’ airborne attacks. They are still land-bound, interestingly, but they learn quickly how to make pain soar in great arcs even higher than some of the dragon’s companions can shoot. 

There is one who is different. The dragon does not see it coming; its mind is clouded, foggy, and even then, it is lackluster, angered by more than the Queen’s wishes. It is trapped, and sluggish, and tired—in the hold of another, it is impossible for it to react, to make the miniscule adjustments and movements and breaths it has spent its whole life learning how to fine tune. It fights the wind, instead of gliding on its current, as all of its unfortunate companions do as well—it follows not the stars, but a will of shadow and darkness. It is blind.

It does not see, at any point, the human that fires a new rope-rock contraption. It hardly sees the rope-rock at all, until it is too late, until it is wrapped tight around wing, bone, tail, and muscle. It bites, like it has dragons’ teeth, and coils tighter as the dragon thrashes, as if it were alive. 

It cannot escape, trapped, and a shadow, for the first time, begins to recede from its mind. It pulls away like he is suddenly diseased, dangerous—or perhaps, because he is suddenly and entirely useless. The same realization overtakes the dragon, beyond being trapped, he will never be able to fly again. He will never beat his wings with anything but futility, and in all likelihood, the creatures that walk upon two legs and never touch the clouds will find him. Whether it is hours or days, or even longer, the dragon will be found, and he expects no mercy—for it is not what he has shown them.

The isle below is aflame, as it is every night, but the place the dragon plummets towards is dark, empty, and cold. The sky spins above, stars blurring into something that burns the eyes, and even as it begins to vanish beneath the cover of trees and rocks, the dragon finds that it is the very first time he has seen such a color. The sky is, for the first time, beautiful.

Just before he hits the ground, with twigs and trees snapping against his spine like whips, the dragon realizes for the very first time—

He is free.

Chapter Text

There is a time—after the dragons have left the small island of Berk to the sole mercy of its icy weather and dangerous waters, after the raids at night have abetted and the only eyeful of scales are those belonging to lizards, the only gnashing of ferocious teeth and stealing of sheep is the fault of wolves—where if one listens, late at night, in the darkness and the silence, they can still hear the Night Fury. Some will swear to have heard it on nights where there is not a cloud in the sky, in the summers when the weather is clearer and nights last but a few hours, with but a scant few moments in the cover of total darkness, when the stars are scattered across the sky like divine freckles on a gods’ face, shining even more light than the moon upon the village. Some will claim to hear it on nights when the weather of the archipelago lives up to its fame, icy sleet and hail and dangerous gale winds abounding, thunderous claps and flashes leaving ears ringing and eyes sore.

They swear to the Great Gods above and below that they can hear the beast, in between the strikes Þórr’s wrath, can see its sleek black form, through the hail of Skaði’s rage. The storms are the worst they have been in centuries, and still, there are whispers, of a creature, of death itself, circling their village like one of Óðinn’s Ravens.

Most of these claims, if not all, will be dismissed, with naught more than a glare and a change of subject. They know better. The people of Berk have already had two crazy Night Fury stories to contend with, and neither hold pleasant memories. They are bitter, and dark, and taste like ash and smell like death. No one is eager to remember, with the looming shadow over their shoulders and in their minds. 

The thing is, they do hear the Night Fury. They can hear the air shearing against its midnight scales, the whistle of wind against its sleek underbelly when it takes a turn just this side of too tight, something urged, purposeful. They will also hear the whisper of pine needles, the crashing of waves against stony cliff sides, and the flap of canvas sails in sea breezes. Who is to say, really, which belongs to what?

There is one, among the people of Berk, who hears the Night Fury more often than any other. She can hear the wind rip itself apart against its black wings, can hear a creak of metal and leather unlike anything they have in the village, because she knows what to listen for. Just a few moments of experience lend themselves to something new—an ear keen for one creature, and one alone. Unique. Only.

She will hear the beast, and the companion no one knows about—no one believes exists— and she will look to the heavens, trying to spot a figure indistinguishable from the sky and stars, and she will feel, for a scant few moments, regret. It will dawn on her, in the middle of the night, even when there is no sound to accompany it, for the rest of her life. It will persist into the morning, and every time she lays eyes on her chief, and any suffering her village might undergo, and it will begin anew, hot and painful in her chest, worse than any anger, or fear, or humiliation she will ever bear. 

She will see, on occasion, a flock of wild dragons on the horizon. She will watch them, throughout the course of the day, alight on the spires leading up to the larger mainland they call home, will watch them dive into the sea to pick off fish that wander a bit too close to the surface, and she will watch them pass over Berk, over treetops and houses with more repairs than original material—they will pass over, wings flapping like they’ve all heard many thousands of times before, but they will not land. The villagers will watch, in deep suspense, for many hours, trekking from one end of the island to the other, beneath the bellies of the dragons, to make sure they do not set talon or claw on their island. She will watch them watch the dragons, she will watch them prepare arms that have not seen battle in many months, and she will watch them tense and murmur and whisper amongst themselves— the dragons are coming for us again, they’ll steal our sheep and rations and kill us, they will bring hellfire once more— and it will ache, in her bones and in her soul. She will not arm herself, she will not partake in the whispers and the murmurs, but she will hurt in a different way.

She will hurt, because she knows, in a way that is different than this experience, this sudden peace, the flocks that have passed over in the past few weeks—she will know, because she has seen, that the dragons mean no harm. She will know, because she has lain a hand on the hide of a creature of nightmare, of storms and of death, and it was warm, and kind, and merciful beneath her touch. 

Now, she recognizes it as more mercy than she had deserved—more mercy than she deserves. 

Her fear is gone, too late, and her heart hurts where her friends’, her fellow villagers’ stomachs do, pitted with fear and anticipation.

She will watch the dragons fly over and past their island, never land. She will hear the Night Fury in the middle of the night, its visits growing fewer and farther in between.

Some day, its loops around the island will halt. Some day, the visit in the middle of the night will be the last. The murmurs of the Night Fury will die out, forgotten, and she will be the only one who remembers whispers of the boy forgotten long before then.