Chapter 12
~ Astrid's POV ~

I stared at Solomon from a considerable distance as he slaved away in the blacksmith workshop.

I couldn't help but wonder what had really brought him here, it wasn't what he said it was, I was sure of that.

"Hard worker isn't he!"

I jumped around and Spitelout was stood behind me polishing an axe. The look on his face was almost disappointment, not that that was unusual, just normally when that look plagued his face, he was looking at Snotlout.

"Yeah...I don't get it..." I agreed with a shrug.

I drifted off into thought of Solomon's strange behaviour the night before. There was something very odd about his sudden appearance.

Spitelout lumbered over to my side and joined me in staring at Solomon.
I thought Spitelout was being weird too, but again, nothing unusual there!

"I don't mean to pester you, but can you please explain what all the extra weapons are for now and where Hiccup is? Things like those don't go unnoticed, Astrid."
I slumped a little more into the door post.
I had been expecting this conversation, but not at this very moment.

"You know that girl, Eva?"

He nodded and gestured for me to continue.

"She's an escapee from the Granite Skull. A man there, Eddval Skull Hunter has all the Night Furies captive and he is building an army. Hiccup and I just went to investigate, but we got caught and Eddval used me to take Hiccup captive..." I paused as my breath caught in my throat. I turned to look into Spitelout's face. "Hiccup's being held there...and we can't do anything unless we risk his life. I can't take that chance. So, we have been building extra weapons hoping that Eddval will attack first."

The words left a nasty taste in my mouth.

A hope was no reason for them to leave Hiccup out there all alone. Spitelout frowned thoughtfully and rubbed his chin. "Why don't we just attack? We would have the advantage from the skies. I'm guessing Eddval wanted to use Hiccup to train his Night Furies?"

"We can't...-" I broke off, remembering what a single blast from a Night Fury did to Stoick the Vast.

The thought of the same fate dragging Hiccup away was unbearable.

"-You...didn't see Stoick..." I said, wagging a single finger at him. "One blast...that was all it took to kill such a warrior....Hiccup is brave and has great mental strength, but physically, without Toothless, he wouldn't stand a chance against an army of wild Night Furies."

There was silence for a minute before Spitelout answered. "I have one question still, would the Night Furies hurt Hiccup as long as he is riding one of their own?"

I thought about that for a moment.
He had a point.

If Hiccup was riding Toothless, would another Night Fury hurt him?

It could work, but it could fire in the opposite direction too and become a fight between two Night Furies.

Why did everything fall back on me unanswered?

You think you're gaining on something, then it all falls through and you're back to square one.

Spitelout gestured to the young man working and smiled. "Who is that kid anyway?"

I frowned, but a smile creased the corners of my mouth and my eyes.
"You know what, I don't really know....I'm gonna go and find Eva, I'll talk to you later."

I strolled to our house and shoved myself through the dodgy door.
"Eva! Eva!" I called through the empty rooms.

I checked around them and then checked her room.

She was no where to be found.

The only clue of her disappearance was the open back window.
I hurried to the window and grabbed the window sill before thrusting my head out in worry.
"Eva!" I yelled again hoping to receive a quiet questioning reply from the girl I had become so fond of.

"Oh no..." I muttered under my breath.

I darted out of the house with a glimmer of hope inside that I was heading the right way.

The docks.

Surely that was where a runaway being chased would start for when on an island.
Taking a short-cut through the woods, I hoped I wasn't too late.

Questions flew through my head scaring me and making me feel sick

How long had the girl been gone? Where had she gone?
And most of all, why had she left in the first place?

As the 300 year old docks came into view I couldn't see her, worry dashed my glimmer of hope and I drew to a halt on the crooked bridge path.
Desperation gripped me and I didn't know what to do now, then I heard the voices behind me.

"Whoa whoa! Slow down!" Laughed the friendly voice of Solomon.

"Get off me! I have to go!" Eva fought, desperately trying to escape his grip.

"Where are you off to in such a hurry?"

"To find my best friend!"

"Who's your friend?"

"His name's Hiccup and he needs my help! Now let me go!"

I watched Solomon with his strong arms wrapped around Eva's waist, pinning her back.

"Eva!" I called, running toward them.

I threw my arms around her upon reaching her.
"I was so scared! Where were you going?!"

Eva looked down angrily and ashamedly. "To save Hiccup. I know the Granite Skull, I knew what I was doing!"

I held firmly onto her shoulders, sternly looking into her face.
"Eva...you can't save him alone, none of us can. What if something went wrong? Hiccup or you would never forgive yourselves and if something happened to the both of you, I'd never forgive myself." I explained sadly.

Eva nodded sadly and I stood up straight to face Solomon, to my dismay, he had just saved me a whole lot of trouble.

"Thank you Solomon, that one's on me." I smiled weakly.

"You're too right." He laughed, scratching the back of his neck.

Eva slowly turned around and gave Solomon a blank look. "Solomon? Solomon....Magnus..." She asked hesitantly.

He frowned, but a smile was still dominating his face. "Yeah...that's right, squirt! And what do you go by?"
He asked, bending down as she stared at him, her eyes dazed and excited at the same time.

"Eva....Eva Magnus."

The smile faded away and the colour drained from his face like a waterfall down a cliff.
"W-what...did you just say?..."

"Eva...my name is Eva Magnus..." She repeated faster this time, her voice laced with excitement.

He leant forward so he was looking her square in the eyes. His breathing quivered and Eva could see that his hands were trembling.
"...the Little..."

She giggled and a couple of tears spilled over their cheeks as he recalled the nickname he had given her long ago.
"....Yes."

He threw his arms around her waist and lifted her up, gripping her tightly as if to never let her go.

I stared with confusion, how did they know each other?

"I thought I lost you..." He mumbled tiredly.

"You found me, you found me, you found me..." Eva kept saying as she clung to his tunic and buried her face in his shoulder.

Eva's voice was almost a whisper as she repeated the words.
Solomon ran his fingers over the back her head.
"Yeah that's right, squirt, I found you..."

I rested my hands on my hips and sighed. "Alright, where's the connection?" I asked with a smirk.

Solomon laughed and rested Eva's feet back on the floor.

"Solomon's my brother." Eva answered.

My eyes widened. "What?! Solomon! This big oaf is your brother! I thought your family was..." I trailed off and looked down.

Eva took my hand and smiled slightly.
"So did I..."

She ran forward and hugged me tightly, almost as tightly as she had hugged Solomon himself. "Thank you for bringing my brother home!" She squealed excitedly.

I squeezed her back with a sad smile on my face, I knew this would be my last time with my surrogate daughter/little sister.
She had her family back now.

"You're welcome..." I sighed, letting her go.

With that, she ran back into Solomon who lifted her up again, I had never seen him smile so naturally.

"Thanks Astrid." He grinned, roping me into a hug.
In that moment my heart shattered into a million pieces.

I remembered that day outside my house that I had seen Hiccup playing dragons with Lucy.
I had gone out and Hiccup had spun me around then roped Lucy and I into a hug.

It wasn't Solomon's fault, he didn't know, but I pulled away and stared at the floor.

I was still, in a way, angry at Solomon from last night, and this made me inappropriately feel more anger toward him.

He smiled giddily and I took a step back. "That's alright...but, now I've helped you reunite your family, will you please help me reunite mine?..." I requested, forcing a broken smile.

Solomon, with Eva in one arm, took my hand with a sympathetic smile.
"Of course...For once, let's go by Eddval's motto, a friend for a friend."

I nodded, but tears stood in my stinging eyes. I was terrified of the road that lay ahead of us. A battle was burning on the horizon and death was inevitable for some.

I was afraid it would be something too big for us to handle, something we've never faced before.

Fear of the unchangeable dominated the bravery.
Being scared is contagious and this time, the entire island was riddled with the feeling.

~*~*~*~
~ Hiccup's POV ~

I was yanked from my sleep late one night by a rough hand pulling me to my feet.
I was no longer a prisoner of war, but a villager under the close eye of two guards and Luca's supervision.

"Get up." A gruff voice ordered harshly.

I blinked a few times to gain focus and looked at the faces around me. Three men in armour with spears and helmets were dragging me out.

"Wait! Where are we going?" I asked, my voice slurred with sleepiness.

"Move." Again the voice ordered.

One of them poked my back with the spear and I leapt forward.
"Hey! Can we lose the spear, please?!" I disgustedly groaned, rubbing my back.

They grabbed me and thrust me through the door into the tunnels, away from Luca and the room I stayed in.

"Would you mind telling me where....we're....going..." I trailed off as we entered a small room and one of the men pushed me to the floor on my hands and knees.

I leant on my hands as the sharp stones beneath me knifed the flesh on my hands and knees, spilling blood onto the floor from my red raw blisters.

"Agh!" I whimpered, unable to move with the weight of a strong arm upon my back.
I lifted my head up enough to see I was inches from a short fat man's grumpy face.

"Look down." He demanded, his voice rough.

I put my head down and the man grabbed me by my hair.
The pain was excruciating and a ripping sound cut through the quiet as they tore my shirt and then it fell over my wrists.
Almost immediately after, a blast of icy cold water splashed over me, almost freezing me to the bone.

Now I was wet, cold, and bare to the skin, the fat man yanked me up into a sitting position on my knees by pulling my hair and began slicing away with a knife.
The man shaved my hair short and sliced away my short beard expertly quickly, as if he had done it many a time until all that remained was some uneven stubble

As soon as he was done, the soldiers who had brought me here joined in and they began dressing me.

Everything was black.

A black tunic was first, then came the armour. It was my old armour that I hadn't seen since my arrest, except all colour on it had been dyed black with tar or something similar.

Once I was back on my feet and dressed from the tip of my toes to the top of my head, I stood quite still, unsure of what was to happen to me next.
As I stood quietly a voice behind me whispered, "hold still."

I gasped and then a sharp, burning sensation fried the hairs on the back of my neck.

The man held red hot iron upon the skin on my neck to tattoo a number to me. When he pulled the iron away, the man behind me, whom I never saw the face of, pushed me by my head, forward and out of a door.
"He's ready for work."

Inside the next room, Eddval was sitting on a large throne-like chair drumming his fingers on the arm rest.
The room was circular and dark. Strange patterns similar to those on shields and armour of these people decorated the walls and floor, and also carvings of a language I couldn't understand were engraved too.

Eddval grinned, his eyes burning with satisfaction. "You look like a warrior now. See for yourself."

Eddval gestured to the left where I turned to a broken mirror and gasped.

I was a skeletal figure and everything was black that I wore. My skin clung to my bones like a vacuumed wine skin and my eyes were dark and sunken.
I looked like death warmed up.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked, my voice trembling.

"Because I know you will do what I want you to do. You are one of the Skull Hunters now."

I stepped forward and clenched my fists making the blisters on my hands burn as if I had my fingers coiled around a flame. "I will never train your dragons." I snapped, without thought.

Eddval stood. "Forgive me, but I must ask, why?"

I held my glare at him, firm and stern, and stood my ground. "Because you're a monster...You can do anything to me, but nothing will make me give in."

Eddval slowly and mysteriously walked to the other side of the room, clicking his knuckles as he went.
He was so mysterious that it made me side step backwards with caution.

"I see...maybe this will help you give in." Eddval suggested and, with a click of his fingers, a door opened.

A soldier entered the room, and at his feet, Avril with a knife held tight to her throat.

"Hiccup..." She murmured through the tears.

Her weak gasp told me that she had already undergone torture of some sort just like she had before.

I gulped desperately.

"It's your choice, Dragon Master, my dragons, or her head. It should be a simple decision, except a small thing stands in your way...mercy."

My eyes darted from the girl to Eddval and back and forth and back.

"Hiccup don't do it...I'm not that important..." She protested, a cry escaping her lips.

For a moment, I considered letting the child die, then I looked in her eyes.
Fear, terror and confusion rattled her like an earthquake.

I knew, had it been Lucy, the question wouldn't be a question and had my father been in my place, the question wouldn't have been a question either, Avril or Lucy alike.

"Alright...I'll train your dragons." I decided.

I slammed my hands to the floor and fell to my knees.
I knew the consequences would fall back on me, but innocent blood was not the way to bear a mistake.

"Just as I suspected...," Eddval walked close and neared me so he was millimetres from my ear, his breath gushing down my neck like free-flowing poison. "You're weak, and the innocent always break over the weak. Heroes always admit defeat to love when mercy is practiced.
In the face of it, you are nothing."

Those words rang in my mind like a cry across an empty room, echoing over and over, bringing the memory of my father dying to save me, a sacrifice too big to comprehend.

I wanted to kill Eddval there and then, I really did, but I knew it was impossible. I had no weapons, Eddval had a hundred just in his cloak and an army of soldiers.

My only hope was a starving Night Fury somewhere hidden in the underground network of tunnels beneath our feet.

I knew without Toothless, I had no battle, it was suicide.

I would have to figure out a way to get Toothless out before Eddval called for the 'Dragon Master' to begin training this brutal army, or maybe...just maybe...

training was my escape route.

~*~*~*~

Yay! So we have reached the end of chapter 12! I hope you enjoyed it!
What did you think about Solomon and Eva being related? Did you see that coming? What about Hiccup becoming a Skull-Hunter? Who do you think he will betray, Berk or the Granite Skull? Well, watch this space for the next update! :)

Thanks again,

~ Httyd_2014 <3