Chapter Text
A boat will arrive approximately 3 days after this letter is delivered to you. When it arrives, we expect your firstborn child to be waiting on the docks. They may have one luggage bag and are permitted to bring a pet. Once they are on board, expect their return in approximately four years.
Blackavar the Brutal, chief of the Coal Caverners, requires a husband and wife for his son and daughter. The selection process will take all four years, as only the best suitors will be chosen for the heirs. Should your child succeed, you will obtain a marriage treaty with the Coal Caverners and a 50% decrease in yearly tribute.
The Coal Caverners guarantee your child’s return, although we cannot guarantee their health or status. If your child is not waiting at the docks at the time of the boats arrival, expect substantial repercussions.
Yours,
Coal Caves.
That was the letter that arrived three days ago and still, Stoick hadn’t processed it. No one had. But here they were, stood on the docks watching the boat approach. They’d had countless meetings at the Great Hall, and Hiccup and Stoick had had a hundred rows at night about whether he should go.
Round and round they’d gone, for the whole three days. Some would say Hiccup had to go, and others would say they should fight back while others still said they should tell the Caverners he was dead.
“It’s bullshit.” Astrid had said. She’d been one of the first to accept the reality that, no matter what they thought, Hiccup had no choice but to go.
The Coal Caverners weren’t any tribe—they were renowned for being more brutal than the Hysterics, Berserkers and Outcasts put together. The Berserkers were on their yearly tribute list, for Thor’s sake. Even Dagur yielded to Blackavar. The Hysterics and Outcasts were allied: no surprise there, they were all as brutish as each other, renowned for aggression and outlandish torture methods.
“I feel like life’s only just become worth living, like I’ve only just connected to my dad, and now they’re coming to drag me away again. For four years.” Hiccup would never let anyone other than Toothless hear that. Letting his dad, Gobber and his friends know how much he hated this would only make it harder on everyone.
Over the past few decades, the Caverners’ reach had spread across the archipelago and beyond (Trader Johaan claimed his rule reached lands that had kings instead of chieftains, but Snotlout called bull). Any island that was deemed unworthy of an alliance like the Bog-Burglars or that refused to submit like the Black Briars would be added to the yearly tribute list, where the Caverners would come to collect a set amount of whatever they decided. Berk’s was wood, thirteen boats full of it. It was a costly sacrifice: it meant they had to pass up on a lot of buildings, weapons and refurbishments but they didn’t have a choice.
Everyone knew that anyone who tried to oppose Blackavar was immediately killed with no hesitation. Your island would be decimated, warriors slaughters, and women and children taken to become slaves and prostitutes. Even now, a year after Hiccup and Toothless had killed the Red Death, Berk’s armada was nothing against the Caverners, even with the aid of the dragons.
Even Dagur’s fleet was dwarfed in comparison.
“You don’t have to go, we can still figure something out.” Gobber said as the boat drew closer.
Hiccup grimaced. “We going to have this conversation again?”
He nudged him. “I just don’t want you to leave, lad, that’s all.”
“None of us do.” Fishlegs said. Hiccup smiled sadly, turning to the sea. They were standing on the docks, the boat only a few moments from shore. Astrid lifted her hand to the sky, shielding her eyes from the evening sun.
“You’re coming back.” She said.
He looked at her. “Do I have a choice?”
She kept her eyes on the approaching ship, “No.”
He cracked a smile. “Damn, I guess I’ll see you in four years, no questions asked.”
“Exactly.” Ruff patted his head, and Tuff in turn, patted hers.
“Maybe you’ll be taller than us too.” He said.
“Fat chance.” Snotlout scoffed.
Hiccup shook his head, turning to his father as the boat slowed down, approaching the dock.
“I don’t want you to feel bad about this, dad. There’s nothing anyone could’ve done, we’ve been over it a thousand times.” He said.
Stoick sighed, looking down at him, “I know, but it doesn’t make it okay.”
“It doesn’t matter now. Just look at it like I’m going on a really long flight.”
“But you’re not.” Stoick said, “Who knows what they’ll do to you there to try and make you ‘suitable’.” He failed to hide his sneer. How could someone just take his son, who he’d only just begun to get to know, and face no repercussions? No push back? No opposition? It went against his very nature.
“I’ve got Toothless.” Hiccup said, putting a hand on his best friend, who nudged him, tail swishing gently as the boat creaked to a halt, swaying on the water.
A man, middle aged with black hair and thick eyebrows who seemed to be missing three fingers, stood on the mast.
His voice boomed across the docks. “We are here to collect the heir to the tribe of Berk, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III for his attendance at Coal Cave Academy, compulsory by order of Blackavar the Brutal.”
Hiccup turned back to his father, holding out his hand.
Stoick scoffed. “Don’t be stupid, son.” And pulled him into his arms. Hiccup stiffened, unsure what to do. Nevertheless, he found his chest filling with warmth as his father gripped him, but sorrow took over once he realised it seemed like he was holding him like he’d never be able to again.
As the Caverner continued to speak, announcing technical jargon about how disobedience would result in ‘insert threat, second threat and third, worse threat’. Hiccup wasn’t really paying attention. Saying your final goodbyes for what could be four years, or what could be forever, did that to a person.
Gobber crushed him in a similar hug, Fishlegs got tears all over his coat, babbling something about how no one else understood dragons like he did, and Snotlout mumbled a reluctant expression of how he’d miss him. The twins offered to blow up the boat with Barf and Belch, which he kindly declined. And Astrid.
“Stormfly is tracker class. We’ll come after you and find you if you don’t step foot on this dock in four years.” She scowled. “And when I find you, I’ll be pissed, and you’ll know it.”
Hiccup smiled. “Even if you find my bones?”
“Well then I’ll be pissed at your bones.” She folded her arms, eyes sparkling slightly, amusement covering her apprehension. “But I won’t need to be, because when I stand here and watch the boat arrive again, you’re going to step off it.”
“Even if you’re missing some more limbs.” Tuff grinned.
Ruff nodded. “Gobber can always make you some more.”
“Are you Hiccup?” The Caverner peered down over the boat, his shadow looming over him. Hiccup looked up, nodding.
“Get on.” He said. “It’s a five day journey.”
Hiccup nodded as they pushed down a docking plank, allowing him to board. And, hoisting his bag further onto his shoulder, he did. Toothless began to follow.
“Hold on, what is that?” The Caverner stared at Toothless, a mix of scepticism and disgust on his face.
Hiccup looked behind him, Toothless tilting his head. “Oh, that’s my pet.” It made him cringe to call him that, but if it was the only way he could bring him, then he’d have too. He’d apologised in advance, thankfully.
“What is it, though?”
Right, they weren’t that familiar with dragons. They’d come across some on their voyages, but only hostile ones and no one ever saw night furies, so they would have no clue that was what he was.
“Uh,” Hiccup blew out a long breath, scrambling for an idea. “He’s native to this part of the archipelago, he’s a type of dragon. He can’t fly, though.”
Toothless could fly fine with the adjustments. A few months ago, he’d tried to give him a prosthetic that allowed him to fly alone, but he didn’t want it. Yesterday, however, Hiccup had brought it up again, pitching that Toothless might have to be able to fly alone if they needed to escape or fight. Reluctantly, Toothless had accepted it and allowed Hiccup to fit him with it. The upside was it was a lot harder to spot, so hopefully no one would notice. Although he couldn’t lie that he was a dragon since the wings made it undeniable, but perhaps if they believed he was some unknown, flightless species, they wouldn’t view him as a threat.
They specifically hid all their dragons whenever the Caverners picked up their tributes, just like they did with the Berserkers, in case they thought Berk was too big of a threat and killed them all anyway.
“Huh,” The Caverner glanced Toothless up and down, huffing, “Alright, whatever.” He stepped off the side of the boat and wandered across the deck, “Hurry up.”
Hiccup hauled his bag over the side of the boat, hopping onto the deck with Toothless close behind. Toothless looked behind him, Stoick catching his eye.
“Look after him.” He whispered, with a confident, pained nod. Toothless tilted his head, dipping his snout in response before disappearing into the boat.
The Berkians watched the boat depart, the heart of their island on it. Within minutes of it being out of sight, something already seemed to be missing. As Astrid walked back up the steps towards the village, everything felt wrong. Even once the dragons were let out of the houses and the village became busy again, it still felt wrong.
Everything about this was wrong.
***
If he could, Hiccup would’ve liked to stay and watch Berk disappear from view, the sun drawing to a close over the island, but it quickly became clear that such things were going to be a luxury from now on.
“Below deck.” Another Caverner. She was tall, quite lean with a clean-shaven head and pale eyelashes.
“What?” He looked at her.
“All the kids we’ve picked up on this run are below deck.” She said, voice toneless as she blinked at him. “Go below deck.”
“I was just going to watch—”
She stared at him, “Go below deck.”
Something about her made him want to shrink. Even Toothless seemed on edge, spine raised slightly despite trying to hide it. Hiccup looked around. Actually, it wasn’t her that was causing the tightness in his stomach. It was the whole boat. It was littered with weapons, but that wasn’t the problem. It was the people. Almost every one of them was staring at him with this look in their eye. Some were hesitant, reluctant, imploring, but most were hard. They glared, jaws clenched and body on high alert, like any one of them could spring at him at any moment.
He looked back at the woman. “Why is everyone staring?” He asked. He wasn’t going to loose anything except time spent wondering if he asked, so might as well.
She stepped aside, gesturing to the hatch that led below deck. “Ask your new bunkmates.”
Logically, there was nothing to gain from being stubborn here, so he picked up his bag once more and opened the hatch. The smell was the first thing that got to him. Rot. Sickness, more likely. The air was painfully stale, and he wasn’t even inside. He hesitated. It smelt worse than his cell at Outcast Island a few months ago when Alvin tried to force him to train a dragon army.
He opened his mouth to speak when he felt a dull, heavy thud on his back. His body lurched forward, skin hitting wood as he tumbled down the stairs, shoulder hitting the corner of the bottom step. He groaned, grabbing it and wincing. Someone had kicked him in, boot colliding with his spine. Toothless growled immediately.
He widened his eyes, looking up at the hatch, “Don’t!”
Toothless stopped, looking down at him and tilting his head. Hiccup shook his slowly. They couldn’t risk the Caverners killing him. Hiccup watched as a staff prodded Toothless’ side, anger rising in his chest. The night fury glared at them (whoever they were, they were out of view) before reluctantly descending the stairs.
The hatch swung closed, and darkness fell.
“Are they gone?” A voice, coming from the left. Hiccup jumped, head swinging in her direction.
“I think so.” Another voice.
“We can light it up now.”
A candle flickered on. The light was a deep orange, and it lit up around three people. One of them, a boy, stood up.
“Who are you?” he asked, leaning towards Hiccup slightly.
“Uh,” Hiccup tried to stand up, something that was marginally difficult when your shoulder was pounding with pain and you had a prosthetic leg. “Hiccup, from Berk. This is my friend Toothless. He won’t hurt you.” He had to make sure no one would try and kill him right from the start, the sooner the better. He understood dragons were scary, and it would take time.
“Hiccup?” A voice, a girl’s voice. Hiccup turned around. The candle didn’t reach that far, though, so he waited, glancing around.
A girl came into the light.
“Heather?” He raised his eyebrows.
She groaned. “Oh my God, of course! How could I forget you’d be here?” She stepped forward, pulling him into a hug, “I’m so glad to see you.”
He stared straight ahead, her hair brushing the side of his face as she drew away. What was going on?
“Sorry, Heather?” He repeated, staring at her and wrinkling his nose.
She chuckled. “Yeah, Heather.”
“Why are you here? I don’t-I don’t understand.” He ran a hand through his hair.
“Ah, right, yeah, well, some good news and some less so good news.” She said.
“What is it?”
Toothless nudged Heather’s hand, letting her stroke him as she spoke. “So, turns out I have a brother.”
“Oh, what? Really? Who—”
“But that brother is Dagur.” She finished.
Silence.
Hiccup shook his head, raising his eyebrows. “Wait, Dagur?”
She nodded slowly, lips pressed in a line. “Yeah.”
“Damn.” Hiccup leaned back on Toothless. “That’s…something.”
She snorted.
“You know him?” The boy who’d spoken earlier reminded him that there were other people present. Hiccup turned around.
“Oh, yeah, this is my friend Hiccup. He saved me a few months ago when I was uh, working for Alvin to get my parents back.” She said.
The boy raised his eyebrows. “Oh.”
“What’s that?” Another boy was staring at Toothless, wide-eyed with fear.
“That’s just Toothless.” Heather said.
Hiccup put a hand on him. “He’s my uh,” he weighed his options, “pet.” He gave him an extra rub for that.
“What is he?”
“He’s a,” Hiccup glanced them up and down. He wasn’t sure what tribes they were both from, so he couldn’t tell whether this was wise or not, but he didn’t have much choice. “He’s a, uh, he’s a dragon.”
“A dragon?” One of the boys backed up against the wall, sliding down it. He couldn’t have been older than fourteen.
The other boy, the older one who had lit the candle, approached. “Neat.”
Hiccup was pleasantly surprised. “Uh, yeah, I suppose so.” Then he remembered. “Oh, right. When one of the Caverners told me to go below deck, everyone was staring at me and it was, well, it was pretty weird. She told me to ask you all why.”
No one replied.
He looked around, at Heather, who was looking at the floor. “What?”
The boy sat back down next to the younger boy.
“Keep quiet and you should be fine.” Heather said, sitting down just in range of the candle. He followed her, sitting next to her with Toothless.
“But why were they staring at me like that? What’s going on?”
To his frustration, no one was answering, and even when Heather spoke, she was completely avoiding his questions.
“So that’s Nico over there,” She pointed at the boy with the candle, short with dark hair and a multitude of small metal rods sticking out of his ears and face. “And then you have Jean—”
He interrupted her. “No, stop, why were they looking at me like that?”
“Just tell him.” Nico said, glancing at the smaller boy, who was holding his knees close to chin, pale blonde hair brushing his forehead.
Heather sighed.
“Yeah, just tell me.” Hiccup said, “This is ridiculous.”
Nico took over. “You were testing their patience, probably.” He said, looking back at him, “They did the same thing to the fourth kid they picked up.”
“What happened?”
He gestured to the other side of the cabin, the section shrouded in darkness.
Hiccup squinted, unable to see anything. “What is it?”
“Jean is over there.” Heather said quietly. “You should stay away from that side.”
He frowned. “What? Why?”
“He’s sick.” Nico said, scratching at the planked floor with his fingernail. “Probably contagious.”
“I am contagious.” A voice came from the darkness. It was weak, scratchy, and raw. “They’re right, you should stay over there.”
“What’s wrong?” Hiccup asked.
“You wouldn’t know.” Jean said, “I live outside the archipelago.”
“He said ‘France’.” Heather said.
“Basically,” Nico leaned his head back on the wooden wall, “His parents tried to keep him back because he’s sick, but they wouldn’t allow him to. Once they dragged him up, he couldn’t move fast enough, and they started beating him until he eventually scrambled down here.”
Heather muttered. “We heard it all.”
Hiccup didn’t know what to do with that information. They beat a sick kid. For what, being ill? He couldn’t tell for sure how ill; he couldn’t tell anything for sure, actually. He didn’t know where ‘France’ was, it quite frankly sounded made up, he didn’t know what Jean looked like and he didn’t know whether his sickness was something he should genuinely be wary of.
Although now it made sense why it smelt so foul when he opened the hatch.
The Caverner hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said the journey back to Coal Caves was five days long. Hiccup counted ten meals tossed down to them, one in the morning when brighter light filtered through the planks above, and one in the evening once it got dark enough to light the candle—something which they only had because Jean had brought one in his bag, apparently. It was mostly bread and fish, along with jugs a barrel of water they brought down the first night and cups so they wouldn’t have to come back. Clearly, they held no regard for the younger kid’s bird in the cage or Toothless, since nothing ever came other than bread and fish. Thankfully, Toothless could eat the fish while he ate the bread.
The second day had been spent wondering what Coal Cave Academy was going to be like, what would happen, and how many other ships there were, considering there were only five of them here. He also spent a lot of time catching up with Heather, filling her in on the past few months on Berk, and she explained how she discovered Dagur was her brother. The third and fourth day were dire, though. Boredom was setting in, Jean was speaking even less, and Toothless was getting more and more agitated staying in such a cramped place. But stay they did. They didn’t exactly have a choice.
And on the fifth day, they docked.
“No we haven’t.”
“Yeah, we’ve definitely stopped moving.”
“But the boat’s still moving.”
“That’s just because of the sea.” Heather said, “You can hear people, way more than there are on this boat.”
Sure enough, the hatch swung open. Light beamed in, deep and rich orange tones of sunset. It was early evening. Hiccup squinted: light only came flooding in when they were given meals, so it was a given that it would take some time to adjust being outside again.
“You ready?” Heather asked, standing up and swinging her bag over her shoulder.
Hiccup shook his head. “No, no I am not.”
The Caverner with the missing fingers peered down. “You don’t have all day.”
Hiccup followed the others up the steps and off the deck, jumping down onto the docks one after the other. And when he looked around, it just confirmed it.
Yeah, he was not ready for this.
If the docks reflected the island and its inhabitants, that reflection would not be good. Unfortunately, it was pretty accurate.
The island itself was around double the size of Berk, and it was crammed top to bottom with infrastructure, houses practically leaning on top of each other. As they walked along the docks, it was obvious what the overall state was.
On the right of the island, the buildings were much bigger, stronger and polished, framed by the tallest mountain visible behind it. On the left side of the island, though, everything was run down. He could tell even from there that it was crumbling and far more densely packed than was safe.
“Follow me.” The woman, the one with the shaved head and pale eyelashes, that unnerving stare, spoke, walking along the docks. Hiccup turned around.
Jean.
It was the first time he’d seen the boy, and it made him feel sick. He looked around nineteen, but it was impossible to tell. His skin was sunken, cheeks hollow and skin cracked and dry. His joints were angry and red, like even moving them could cause the skin to flake off. He looked like he was struggling to walk, his gait uneven and speed far slower than everyone else. His breaths rattled in his chest, hair patchy and lips pale.
“Are you okay?” Hiccup whispered as they walked.
Jean laughed, immediately coughing and covering his mouth, hands trembling as his chest heaved. “No. You shouldn’t be near me. My doctor says it’s contagious.”
Hiccup ignored him. “What does the doctor say you have?”
“I have lots of things, the skin thing,” He held out his hands as they walked, “Is eczema. We don’t know if it’s contagious or not. But the sickness,” He looked down, “He’s calling it ‘anémie’, which in your language I think is ‘anemia’.”
“Oh, well, our healers haven’t come across those.”
Jean shook his head. “I’ve never heard of it other than from my doctor in France.”
Hiccup looked at his feet, stepping up off the docks and following the group through the streets. The streets, they made him sick. When you stepped off the dock, a place that was crammed full of countless boats from small ones like the one they’d been on to ones that towered higher than houses and wider than the dock itself, it was like a false pretence. The plaza was filled empty apart from a statue in the middle of a man on a horse, presumably some ancestor of Blackavar the Brutal, perhaps the founding Coal Caverner. But it only took a few minutes of walking to peel away the grand marble structures and black and grey decorations to reach the true Coal Caves.
“I’ve been instructed to walk you through here to show you where you will end up if you are removed from the Academy.” The Caverner spoke, not stopping as he led them through the island. Heather walked a few paces in front with Nico and the younger boy.
The streets gradually worsened, growing more and more dilapidated as they walked. The roads were cobbled, gutters filled with slime and dirty water. Houses overhung each other, closing in on the street to make you feel like they could fall in on you at any minute, crowding out the grey sky. The people, however, varied.
Children were a rare sight, occasionally glimpsed in doorways or playing down the side of houses, but never in the street.
When he watched a woman get thrown out of a house, half naked and bloody, Hiccup knew why. She scrambled to cover herself, getting up and rushing off, barely giving Toothless more than a second glance. In fact, the reaction to Toothless was a lot less…obvious than he’d been expecting. The only people who seemed to even notice him padding behind was the odd child, who would stare and point, or groups of men on street corners, smoking something foul smelling and acrid, leaving a dry taste in the air. They’d look the group up and down, snigger to themselves before going back to their conversations.
“This is appalling.” He whispered. Toothless warbled in agreement, making Jean jump a little.
“Putain.” He huffed, rubbing his arm.
“What?”
Jean looked at him. “Oh, it means fuck.”
“Fuck?”
He cracked a smile. “You don’t have that where you’re from?”
Suddenly, a deafening crack. All noise stopped, aside from the sound of washing and working. Heads turned just up ahead.
A water pump. They’d passed a few so far, and there always tended to be a lot more people around them, and a lot more shouting too. But the crack, that came from a person. A man, wearing some sort of black armour, stood over another man.
Hiccup retched, covering his mouth and looking away. He saw it happen. The armoured man shoved the other into the water pump’s metal bar, and his back…Hiccup watched it fold on itself, splitting and bending unnaturally before he fell to the floor in a twisted mess.
He just snapped his spine.
He was dead.
And almost as quickly as it stopped, the streets began to move again. People practically stepped over the body to fill up their jugs from the water pump, others carrying on walking past or continuing their conversations. Slowly, Hiccup looked around. The looks on people’s faces, they were…unshaken. Like this happened all the time. The only person who seemed to even be reacting was a child that came running from nearby, barely over six crying for her dad and pulling on the man’s arm.
“Hey, Kronar, come tell these kids what to expect.” The Caverner called for the armoured man, who turned. His skin was pale, face unblemished and smooth, strangely symmetrical.
“Who are they?” He asked, coming over. Hiccup grimaced, not wanting to see a man who so casually killed someone.
“A bunch of kids for the Academy Blackavar’s doing for Ylva and Thorir.”
“Ah, right.” Kronar looked at them. “I’m a Wielder, and if you’re going to the academy, you’re going to see a lot of us.”
The other Caverner nodded. “Yeah, but they’re not going to be as nice as him.”
Nice? Him? Why? Because he had a face a mother couldn’t hate? Hiccup sure could hate it.
“Wielders keep you in line. If you don’t stay in line,” Kronar turned and gestured to the scene left at the water pump, “That’ll be you.”
As he walked away, all Hiccup could think about was how desperately he wanted to jump on Toothless and shoot into the sky. Fly off and never return. But he couldn’t—if he did, Berk would be punished and everyone would die.
He was doing this for his family. His home. He had to stay.
Once they continued to walk, Jean muttered under his breath, “Ah et bien merde, Connie aurait du me laisser mourir avant de monter sur ce putain de bateau.”