Chapter Text
It started with the silence. Stormfly was the first to stop chirping. She stood on the deck, alert and still, her frills twitching—but no sound escaped her throat.
Meatlug followed, her usual humming replaced by eerie quiet.
Then Hookfang, who always complained, always growled, fell into silence like the grave.
And Toothless... Toothless stopped purring.
That’s when Hiccup knew something was wrong.
At first, Hiccup thought it was nothing. Maybe Toothless was just resting deeply—dragons sometimes did that after long flights. But as the silence stretched on, a strange weight settled over the hut like a blanket too heavy to lift. Hiccup sat up in his bedroll and reached out, placing a hand on Toothless’ side. Toothless twitched violently—far more than a startle. His whole body spasmed beneath Hiccup’s palm, and a low, strangled sound escaped his throat. Not a purr, not a growl—something hollow, feral, and confused. His eyes flew open, wide and unfocused. “Whoa, bud,” Hiccup whispered, pulling his hand back. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”
But Toothless didn’t respond with the usual chirp or nudge. He simply stared into the dark corner of the hut, his pupils blown wide, his tail twitching like something invisible had just brushed against it. That was when Hiccup noticed the others.
Stormfly, perched in the rafters, wasn’t sleeping. Her head jerked every few seconds as if tracking movement that wasn’t there. Meatlug, outside, had buried herself beneath a mound of sand and rock—too deep, too quiet. Hookfang was completely still, his usual snores absent, his chest barely rising. Even the twins' dragon, Barf and Belch, weren’t fighting each other in their sleep. It was unnatural. Hiccup stood and stepped outside. The moon hung low over the cliffs of Dragon’s Edge, casting long, twisted shadows across the camp. The wind had died, and the waves lapped against the shore with too much calm. It was too quiet. He met Astrid’s eyes across the clearing. She was already awake, sitting on the log by the firepit, sharpening her axe—but the edge of the blade was already perfect. It was just something to do with her hands. “You feel it too,” she said quietly.
He nodded. Behind her, Snotlout crept out of his hut, scowling. “Hookfang hasn’t moved in hours. I thought he was dead. I even… I checked. Twice.”
Fishlegs came stumbling from the forge, hair mussed, still holding his journal. “Okay, so it’s not just me. Meatlug is hiding from the sky. She’s never done that before. She’s—she’s never afraid of anything.”
Ruffnut and Tuffnut arrived last, dragging their bedrolls with them like capes. “We heard whispering,” Ruffnut said without preamble. “Barf and Belch were shaking.”
“Like, shaking shaking,” Tuffnut added, eyes unusually serious. “You know how they always kick each other in their sleep? Yeah. They didn’t.”
The six of them sat around the firepit, but no one lit it. The crackle of flame felt too loud for a night like this. Instead, they huddled in the half-dark, voices low, surrounded by sleeping dragons who were far too still.
Hiccup rubbed his hands together, glancing between them all. “Something’s wrong. Really wrong.”
“No kidding,” Snotlout muttered. “You think it’s a plague? Like… a dragon-only plague?”
“Maybe it’s the environment,” Fishlegs said. “Toxic spores, or a bad shift in wind currents. The migration routes are changing. I’ve noticed some nesting grounds are completely abandoned. It’s like they’re… avoiding something.”
“There are no new wounds,” Astrid said, “but they’re acting like they’ve been hunted.”
Ruffnut leaned forward, voice hushed. “What if it’s a ghost?”
Tuffnut nodded sagely. “Or a curse. Like a silent curse. A silen-curse.”
Snotlout rolled his eyes, but no one laughed, not this time.
Hiccup looked down at his hands, then over to Toothless, who was curled up by the hut’s edge, eyes still open, staring into the dark. “Whatever it is, we can’t ignore it. It’s spreading. The dragons are withdrawing. Dragons don’t just go quiet.”
He reached for his map and unrolled it slowly on the flat stone in front of them. “There’s one place we haven’t checked. Somewhere far west of the archipelago. It shows up in old sailor myths but doesn’t have a name. It’s always covered in fog—and none of the patrol routes go near it.”
Fishlegs squinted. “Wait, I think I’ve read about that. Sailors call it the Veiled Isle. Said to be cursed. No dragons sing there, no birds. Just… whispers.”
Astrid frowned. “That sounds familiar. Gothi told a story once, when we were little about a place where the wind talks. Said if you hear your name whispered by it, don’t answer.”
A silence fell between them all.
Ruffnut finally broke it. “So… we’re totally going there, right?”
“Yes,” Hiccup said quietly. “At first light. We find out what this is. And we fix it. Before the dragons stop making noise altogether.”
No one protested. Even Snotlout stayed quiet. Above them, the moon dipped lower, casting a strange silver light across the sea. The dragons slept—but their bodies twitched. Their ears flicked toward sounds that no one else could hear. And just before the riders finally drifted to sleep—someone heard it again.
A whisper. Right behind them. But when they turned… There was no one there.