Hiccup gasped, disoriented. His eyes were shut against the bright light. His feet were dangling over open air, but he didn't feel the familiar vertigo of falling. The air smelled like smoke, and he could hear the crackling of fire and the muted grumbling of an angry crowd.
"Stop! Just… stop." Hiccup's eyes snapped open at the sound of a voice he thought he would never hear again. He looked into familiar green eyes in disbelief.
"Dad?" He whispered incredulity. Stoick dropped him, and he almost fell as his left foot hit the ground. Something was wrong. Looking down, he saw that he had two feet. He stared, but his fathers voice snapped his attention away as his confusion rose and threatened to turn into hysteria.
"Every time you step outside, disaster follows. Can you not see that I have bigger problems? Winter's almost here and I have an entire village to feed!" The large, red haired Viking glared down at his son.
Hiccup felt like he would be hurt if he wasn't in shock. He looked around the village as horror grew within him. It was exactly as it was before they'd made peace with the dragons. "What?" he said, horror and fear in his voice.
"Why can't you follow the simplest orders?" For a minute Hiccup thinks that he is just in a nightmare, reliving his failures and his father's disappointment back at a time when killing dragons was as honorable as it got. Then his eyes met Astrid's. He could see his own shock and confusion reflected back at him, but also a growing realization and determination.
"Get back to the house," Stoick barked, before turning to Gobber. "Make sure he gets there. I have his mess to clean up."
For a moment, Hiccup just stood there, staring at his father's retreating back. "Come on then," Gobber said. "Let's go."
Hiccup followed him along towards his house. He tried pinching himself, but the pain was real as ever. He took a deep breath and tried to think. If this wasn't a dream, then what was it? He doubted it was Valhalla. Except for Astrid, events were unfolding exactly the way he remembered them on the night he shot down Toothless. It was almost like he had gone back in ti-
His thought process slammed to a halt when his eyes landed on his cousin. Snotlout was on the edge of hyperventilating, hands running over his stomach. The twins must have spotted him at the same time as Hiccup, as in the next moment he was in the middle of a Thorston sandwich. He made no attempt to get them off, but his head turned up, and Hiccup met his eyes. They were filled with panic and confusion but were clear and alive. Alivealivealive.
Hiccup lunged toward his cousin, only to be stopped short by Gobber grabbing him by the scruff. Only his immense trust in and respect for Gobber stopped him from breaking his arm, as an obstacle between him and his cousin. His alive cousin. Not a familiar stranger like his Dad, but the same friend who had bled out in his arms not ten minutes earlier.
"C'mon laddie, yer Dad said ye've gotta go back to the house," Gobber said as he began to haul Hiccup along. He wasn't quite sure what he would have done if Astrid hadn't appeared behind Snotlout and the twins. She mouthed the word woods at him as she took Snotlout's hand to pull him and his attachees in that direction, waving Fishlegs on when he started to approach. As always, Astrid was quick to adapt to a strange situation and incredibly good under pressure. Hiccup suspected that his wife may have already figured out what was going on, and took a moment to thank the gods she was with him before nodding at her and turning to follow Gobber home.
"Yer awfully quiet," Gobber commented, and Hiccup could hear a bit of worry beneath his carefree tone. "Thinkin about what yer Dad said?"
"Something like that," Hiccup answered, most of his focus still on getting to his friends and figuring out what was going on.
Gobber shot him a concerned look as he started to go up the stairs to his house. "Hiccup," the one legged Viking started, putting a hand on the teenager's shoulder. "Ye just need ta stop tryin so hard ta be something that yer not."
Hiccup almost smirked at the irony. "I know Gobber, and I think things might be changing soon enough." He felt the blacksmith's worried gaze on his back as he slipped through the door into the house.
As soon as the door closed he was running through to the other side, hurrying out the back door and sprinting for the woods.
He tripped over his left foot, tumbling to the ground when it didn't meet the uneven forest floor in the same way as his prosthesis. He shoved himself back to his feet, ignoring his scraped palms as he stumbled on as quickly as he could. Soon he could hear his friends' voices in the distance and hurried towards them.
He found them in a clearing about a half mile from the edge of the forest. His cousin was sitting on a log with the twins pressed so close against his sides they were practically in each other's laps. Fishlegs was kneeling behind Snotlout frantically searching his back for a gaping wound that miraculously did not exist. Snotlout himself seemed to be in shock, and Astrid was trying to talk him out of a panic attack, even as her own voice was edged with hysteria.
Hiccup threw himself into the huddle, adding his own chant of "alive, alive, alive," to the chaotic cacophony his friends were already producing. His sudden addition to the group was enough to cause them to topple over to the forest floor. Fishlegs' panicked babbling cut off with an oof as he found himself on the bottom of the pile. Astrid let out a yelp as she was dragged down to land sprawled atop Hiccup and Ruff, and Tuff cut off his mumblings about draugr, which were very much at odds with the way he clutched his 'undead' friend. Ruffnut's sob turned into a startled laugh, and soon they were all laughing hysterically as they held each other in bruising grips.
When they regained control they sat up, staying in their little huddle as they fought to catch their breaths. For a minute they just sat there, eyes darting from person to person. It was Snotlout who finally broke the silence.
"I don't understand. I thought I …" he took a deep, shuddering breath before continuing, his voice firmer than before. "I died. I know I did, I felt it. So how did … what …" he trailed off, looking lost as he gestured around at the whole situation.
"After you, uh, left," Tuff started, clearly hesitant to use the d-word in regards to his miraculously still alive friend, "the whole cave started glowing. And there were these weird runes, and there was this noise like WHOOoooorsHreeEEEEEEOOOoOOOoOO. Then Odin's Fire was everywhere, and then we woke up here."
Snotlout blinked in confusion. "What?" he asked, still staring at Tuffnut in bafflement.
"I have an idea of what might be going on," Astrid cut in before Tuffnut could attempt to elaborate. Seeing that she had everyone's attention, she took a deep, slightly shaky breath. Hiccup reached over and took her hand. She shot him a half smile before her face retook its grim, uncertain cast.
"I think we might have gone back in time."
There was a beat of silence.
"Ha ha, good one Astrid. But no really, how'd we get here?" Ruffnut laughed, the mix of mirth and curiosity finally taking away the last of her tears. Hiccup, however, wasn't listening. He was studying his wife, cataloging small details he hadn't noticed in his relief and disorientation.
She whirled on Ruffnut. "I'm serious Ruff, it's the only thing that makes sense. Did you not see Berk?" Her hair was up in a style she hadn't used since they were seventeen, a spiked circuit rather than a braid holding it back and her bangs hiding half of her face. Her face was rounder than he was used to, cheeks a little too chubby and ears sticking out a little too far. She was wearing a tight green shirt that had been destroyed shortly before the establishment of the Dragon Academy, and it showed how much skinnier than usual she was.
"Pull the other one, its got bells on it," Snotlout snorted. Hiccup's attention snapped over to his cousin. He was still pale, and had his arms crossed protectively over his stomach, but he was quickly regaining his usual bravado. However, that wasn't what held Hiccup's notice. The same familiar differences he had noticed on Astrid covered Snotlout. The armor he had taken to habitably wearing since his appointment as Marshal was gone, and the scruffy mustache was nowhere to be seen. He looked softer than usual, as if a decade of weapon training and battle experience had been peeled away. He also seemed to be significantly taller.
Hiccup then looked down at his own twig arms and realized that, no, Snotlout was just as short as ever. It was Hiccup who was the wrong size. His gaze traveled down his fishbone body to his feet. Both of them. He wiggled his toes. All ten of them.
"I'm just saying," Snotlout continued as Astrid shot him a glare, "how likely is it that we managed to accidently break the laws of the universe! We probably just got hit with some weird dragon hunter drugs or something, and now we're having freaky hallucinations."
"No," Hiccup broke in before Astrid could respond. "No. It can't be a hallucination. It's too detailed. It's too real. I'd forgotten," he paused, and gestured at his left foot. "I'd forgotten what it felt like. And there are too many little details, stuff that I doubt my mind could conjure up. It's exactly like it was when we were fifteen. I mean, just look at us!" He gestured around at the rest of the group.
Everyone's eyes bounced around from person to person. Tuffnut ran his fingers through his hair with a frown; they slid through easily, as it was devoid of its usual dreads.
"Oh Thor," Fishlegs breathed, and his voice cracked and ended in a squeak. This seemed to be the last piece of evidence anybody needed, and acceptance filled their faces.
Tuffnut broke the silence. "Okay, so we're back in time. What do we do? I say that we use our future knowledge to convince everyone that we have been granted mystical powers," he wiggled his fingers mystically, "and convince them to bring us tribute!"
"A wonderful plan, my brother Nut," Ruffnut responded. "I mean, we could try and stay inconspicuous in an attempt to preserve the timestream or something, but your plan sounds waaay more fun. Besides, I don't even remember what I was doing at this time yesterday, let alone today ten years ago."
"Toothless," Hiccup whispered, and then he was running.
He could hear his friends cursing as they scrambled to their feet behind him, but he didn't slow down. It had just hit him that this was the night that he'd shot Toothless down, brought his best friend crashing out of the sky. His entire focus was on getting to his dragon.
Unfortunately, it didn't take long before his left leg decided to once more remind him that it still existed by bringing him tumbling down. Luckily, the fact that he was still a fishbone meant that Astrid had easily caught up with him, and she managed to catch him before he hit the ground.
"Hiccup wait," she said, grabbing his shoulders as he started to scramble to his feet.
"I can't. Astrid," he grunted as she forcefully kept him from taking off again. "I just shot him down, he's all alone out there, tied up. He's probably scared. I have to get to him."
"I know Hiccup. Trust me, I know. But you have to think. What if he didn't come back with us? What if," she took a deep breath, and seemed to be fighting back tears. "What if they don't remember us?"
"No," Hiccup whispered.
"My Meatlug," Fishlegs said at the same time.
Snotlout lost what little color he'd managed to regain. "No. No! You're wrong. Hookfang has to be back. I can't …" Fishlegs, who looked seconds away from bursting into tears, grabbed one of his violently shaking hands.
Tuffnut glanced around at his friends before looking down at his sister, who was clutching his hand with white knuckles. He forced a smile and said, "Hey, it's not like we haven't done this before, right?" His grin became a bit more genuine as he got more into what he was saying. "Like, imagine Gobber's face when he sends us in to fight Barf and Belch, and we totally just train them instead. It'll be awesome!"
Ruffnut sniffed and wiped her eyes, then forcefully thrust off her melancholy. She shoved her way in between Snotlout and Fishlegs, throwing an arm around each of them. "Yeah, but that's because we're the best bro! Snot's just worried that he's going to be on fire again, and not in a good way."
A strangled laugh forced its way out of Snotlout's throat. "Shut up, Ruffnut," he muttered.
Astrid took Hiccup's face in her hands. "Trust me, Hiccup, I want them to be back just as much as you do. The thought of looking into Stormfly's eyes and not seeing my best friend looking back at me, it's," she looked down to blink the tears out of her eyes. Then something fierce overtook her expression, and the fire that made her Astrid was back in her gaze. "But she'd still be Stormfly. Tuff's right Hiccup. Whether or not he remembers you, it's still Toothless out there. But you have to be careful. Approach him the same way you did last time. If he remembers you, great, but if he doesn't you'll have to treat him like a wild dragon, and it could take a little while to gain his trust for the second time."
"What about the rest of the dragons?" Fishlegs broke in. "They'd still be in the training arena. If they did come back with us, my Meatlug is going to be so worried right now."
"We should stick to the script until tomorrow," Astrid said. She pushed on when Fishlegs looked like he was about to object. "I know, we all want to check on them now, but we don't want to bring too much attention to ourselves right now. Everybody's leaving to look for the nest, and it will be easier to figure out what to do without our parents looking over our shoulders."
"Right," Snotlout muttered. He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders, as if he was physically pulling himself back together. "Right," he said again, firmer. Then Snotlout their frightened friend was gone, and Snotlout the Marshal stood in his place. "We'll sneak in to check on them tonight, but leave them in the arena until everybody leaves. Does anyone remember how long the meeting will last?"
"I remember Dad coming back from the Great Hall about an hour or so after they finished putting out all the fires from Hiccup's accidental destructive rampage, which was totally awesome by the way," said Tuffnut. "He had to pick up his hammer, because they wanted to set sail first thing tomorrow, and a couple of the boats needed to be patched up."
"I was helping put out fires," Astrid chimed in. "The moon was just starting to set when I went home, and everyone was heading toward the Great Hall at about the same time."
Snotlout glanced up at the moon. "Okay, we've probably got a little over an hour. That'll be plenty of time for Hiccup to free Toothless and for us to get back to Berk. The biggest problem is going to be the guards. There won't be any actually up by the arena, but they'll see us if we go for the bridge."
"We can get in from the back," Hiccup proposed. "Most of those cliffs aren't that high, and we can use the rope from the bolas to rappel down the rest."
There were nods all around.
"Okay then," Hiccup said, and once more set out in the direction of his dragon. He could hear the footsteps of his friends behind him, and Astrid took his hand. His gut was still churning with worry over what he would find. A repeat of the war with dragons was something strait out of his worst nightmares, and he wasn't sure he could handle looking into his best friend's eyes and seeing nothing but hate and fear.
His steps faltered as he caught sight of the broken trees that marked Toothless' less than gentle landing. He felt his breath catch in his throat, and panic began to claw its way up his spine.
Then Astrid kissed him. It was short, and chaste, and slightly awkward in their younger bodies, but he could feel all the love she had for him. She smiled down at him, and simply said, "It'll be all right," before stepping away.
He glanced around at his friends. The twins grinned at him, Fishlegs gave him an encouraging nod, and Snotlout shot him a thumbs up. His spirit bolstered by his wife's encouragement, and surrounded by the support of his shield brethren, Hiccup found his courage. Whether or not Toothless remembered him, he was still his best friend, and they would fly together again. And he would always, always, have his friends.
Hiccup nodded decisively, straightened his shoulders, and marched down to meet the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself.