21ENJOY ~
Varian was in and out of consciousness for what seemed like an eternity. All that he could recall was pushing and kicking against the wallowing darkness of an unforgiving vicious sea, before the taste of its salty murky waters burned and filled up his lungs, devouring him from the inside out. His vision momentarily became a blur, like a poor quality painting that's been smeared into distortion.
It wasn't that long before Varian drew out a painful breath. Struggling to keep the rhythm of chest steady, he completely managed to cough out all the ocean water out of his lungs. Varian was very dazed and confused, but he was sure he was out of the water, and heard the distinct resonating sounds of concerned voices. At first Varian felt a heavy sense of relief for his survival, but then he wondered if his mind was playing a cruel trick on him. Varian swore he heard someone asking if he was dead.
"If he's dead I call dibs on deboning him!" A female maybe. With an awfully strange rough tone to her voice.
Another replied with, "Hey! No way, sister! You always call dibs on deboning. If you're deboning him I call dibs on keeping his skull." The voice's tone was simliar but it was a lot more deeper. Male.
A third voice, male, ended the conversation. "No Ruff, Tuff! No one's deboning anybody, no one's getting anybody's skull, and he's not dead. He's just resting." He heaves a sigh. "Now. Was there something you wanted to report to me or are you two just being . . . Annnd you're gone . . . "
Varian wasn't so sure what happened next, but he fell asleep for what felt like minutes. Then he felt his heart beating so fast, so loud, he thought it might burst. Something was wrong. Varian snapped his eyes wide open. He found an overly sized pair of bright green eyes on a giant, scaly, pitch black, winged creature boring its stare right into his soul. His initial reaction? To scream. Naturally.
Varian quickly sat up and found himself backing into a wall, "MONSTER!" He shouted.
"Nah." Someone casually replied. "That's just Toothless." The voice animated from a young man with choppy auburn hair and deep green eyes. He had a ruddy complexion with light freckles sprinkled all over his nose. His attire was rather bizarre. It consisted of vest-like armor made out of leather and double layered shoulder guards, with a red-orange, long sleeved tunic underneath, and brown pants. What made him unique was his left foot, which wasn't a foot at all, but rather a metal prosthetic.
"TOOTHLESS?" Varian exclaimed. "What's a Toothless?"
"Only the most mysterious and fearsome dragon ever known to all vikings! The Night Fury." The young man said, "Don't mind him though. Toothless is usually harmless. Just give him a giant trout and he tends to behave . . . Well, most of the time."
A deep, low, groan vibrated out of the creature. Almost as if he was in disbelief, glaring at his owner.
A chuckle. "What? You got to admit, you do tend to get a little spoiled!"
When the look of terror ceased to exist on Varian's face the young man's playful demeanor slightly changed to more of a embarassed one. "Oh. Gods. Sorry. Where are my manners?" He said. "I'm Hiccup. You're at The Dragons Edge. Welcome."
Varian was utterly stunned, having a loss for words. All that he felt was the pounding coming from his chest. He studied his surroundings sitting in a corner of an uncomfortable bed made out of wood consisting of itchy animal pelts. He seemed to be in a strange cabin of some kind, a hut, with a long and tall domed roof. It was lit by candles and the natural sunlight coming from the wide enormous entrance that made up half the place. The only other things that took up its small space was a working table, and oddly shaped banners of all colors neatly decorated on the wall above it.
"Dragons?" Was all Varian could manage.
Startled by the small outburst, Hiccup nodded. "Uh, yes."
"Evil, fire breathing, giant, scaly, DRAGON, dragons?" Varian continued.
"Evil might be pushing it a bit." Hiccup frowned, and then added, "Some are dangerous, but with the right training they can be tamed. Most of the time."
Trying to wrap it around his mind that such beings exist, Varian ran his hands through his hair. "Impossible!"
"No. Not really." Hiccup insisted. "Just slightly challenging-Uh . . . You act like you've never seen one before."
"That's because I haven't!" Varian exclaims. "Dragons don't exist where I'm from!"
Hiccup's only reply was an expression that consisted of surprise and confusion, "What?"
"They're just beasts in tall tales and fables fought by brave warriors to rescue their fair maidens from distress."
"Where are you from exactly?" Hiccup asks. "Actually, first of all, who are you?"
"My name is Varian." Varian suddenly snaps. "I'm from the kingdom of Corona-" Then he pauses as he realizes his fists were clenched from slow uproaring of raw emotion. He let's out a shaky breath, finding that the only reason he was getting angry, was because he was trying to hide the fact that he was scared. Varian was now letting it sink in that he was away from his mainland. Alone. In some forsaken place he didn't know. He was questioning wether or not if he was in his right mind in making the decision to leave. Actually. Was he at all in his right mind when he struck his King in the face? Varian should've just stayed and hid in his mainland. Corona was beyond perfect, but at least it was home. "I . . . WAS from the kingdom of Corona." He corrected.
"Did something happen?" As soon as he asked it Hiccup regretted it.
Varian felt like he was at the heart of the ocean's storm again. He solemnly stared at his palms, slowly saying, "If I told you, you wouldn't have a very good first impression of me."
Wether Varian had a good impression on Hiccup or not didn't matter. It was wether or not Varian had a threatening demeanor toward Hiccup or his dragon. It was too early to tell who Varian was, to Hiccup he just looked like a distraught, grief stricken boy. It could've easily been just an act, but deep down Hiccup had a feeling it wasn't. Sensing the uncomfortable tension brewing between Varian and him, Hiccup didn't press for any more questions. Instead Hiccup got a rather very loud uncalled visitor.
Varian's skin crawled as he came into the scene throwing his arms up in the air with an intense exasperation.
"HICCUP, BROTHER! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" He was a fairly muscular, fairly large young man, with big wild green eyes. His hair was short, red, and sticking all over the place. He wore a leather and metal tunic, with a large wing spread dragon designed on his chest plate, wrist guards, knee guards, brown pants and boots. At a distance one could assume he had scars that looked like vicious claw marks on his right eye and left arm, but they were just permanent painted markings. The real scar took up half his right cheek. He looked like a complete mad barbarian.
"Dagur!" Hiccup exclaims. "Haven't you heard of common courtesy-Ah. Who am I kidding? What are you doing here?"
Wether he heard it or not, Dagur simply continued to rant and rave. "I tried and I tried, but they just won't break!" He huffs. "Those weird spikes are taking over Berserker Island and are DRIVING ME . . . tothebrinkofinstanity. And you know how I feel about that phrase!" A pause.
Varian tried not to cringe when Dagur suddenly became silent and stared straight at him.
"Oh!" Dagur smiled. Which looked more like a crooked senile grin. "Who do we have here?" Then he gasped. "HICCUP! Why didn't you tell me you and Astrid had a kid-"
"Oh my gods! Dagur! How would that even be possible? Astrid and I aren't even married yet-"
A short silence fell on Dagur before a roar of laughter escaped out of him.
Hiccup simply gave a look of utter annoyance with a hint of embarrassment as if he should've expected this kind of humor. "You got me. Very funny." He said through his teeth.
Dagur suddenly shouts. "HI, ASTRID!"
Hiccup's expression by then was just priceless.
A strikingly beautiful young woman with piercing blue eyes makes an appearence by the entrance. She looked angry, for she was out of breath when she said, "I tried to stop him!"
She had blonde hair wrapped in a short braid down her back with bangs that covered the left side of her face. She wore a metal-studded leather band across her forehead, a sleeveless shirt in varying shades of blue, tan cloth bracers on her arms, and metal bicep wrappings above them. She also had a brown studded skirt, another black one underneath it, and dark blue leggings.
Astrid sensed the awkwardness between the smug looking Dagur and a flustered Hiccup, she was about to ask what had happened, but then she noticed Varian. Astrid had softened her expression and smiled. "You're awake!" she said. "I thought you were a goner when my dragon and I found you. You've been out cold for days now. Are you all right?"
"Define all right?" It sounded harsher than Varian meant it to be.
"I'm sorry! But would you excuse us?" Hiccup said a little irritably. "Toothless, stay." He escorted the newcomers a few feet out of his hut.
The dragon tilted his head in confusion and stared at Varian as if to ask what in the world is going on? And Varian couldn't believed he shrugged at him in return.
There was a long intense discussion between Hiccup, Dagur, and Astrid. Varian held a scoff. If they wanted a private conversation they should've just went somewhere else to talk. Varian pretended like he didn't hear anything, but when they occasionally dropped his name he couldn't help it. By the sounds of it, Hiccup and Astrid concluded that Varian wasn't a threat to their Dragon's Edge. Not to their knowledge, anyway. If only they knew . . . That wasn't necessarily why Varian evesdropped. What he heard was a conversation about the storm that brought Varian . . . and an outbreak of mysterious indestructible pointed rocks.
"This is so strange. Not only did these stones appeared on the Dragon's Edge, but on Berserker Island too?" Hiccup was concerned. "What is going on?"
"Fishlegs has examined them." Astrid added. "He said it couldn't have been made from any known dragon. Or an unknown one for that matter. Not only that, they seem to have come right out of the water, and stopped, surrounding our island."
"It's the same thing on Berserker Island. My people are on serious high alert!" Dagur says. "We need a plan, brother! I say we gather all sorts of weapons and cause some MAYHEM!"
"Hold on!" Hiccup said with a little frustration. "Let's have a more reasonable approach to this. I think we should send out some of our riders and warn Berk and nearby allied tribes about these stones."
"Fishlegs, Snoutlout, and the twins are already on it." Astrid says.
"So is my sister, Heather." Dagur added. "There's also one thing I forgot to mention! Which is so idiotic of me since the message came from my lovely, dear, Mala. You know she says I tend to forget things whenever I'm under stress, but I tell her it's impossible-"
"Dagur!"
"What is it that she wanted to tell us?"
"RIGHT! My bad. My queen, Mala, has come to come across a strange visitor from a faraway land who might be the solution." Dagur scoffs. "She's seriously weird though, claiming to be royalty, but she's also very delicate and oddly polite. Gives me some serious butterflies, I DON'T LIKE IT! And OH GODS her HAIR!"
"A visitor?"
"Can you at least try to say her name?"
"I DON'T KNOW! It's like RAPS . . . RUMPLES . . ."
"Her name is Rapunzel. Princess of the kingdom of Corona." Varian suddenly announces, silencing the conversation, and having three pairs of eyes lurk in his direction. "You shouldn't have involved yourself or anybody you care about with those stones."
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