The Blasphemer clung to my back, her unworthy form pressed against the vessel of my god. Her scent, sweat and fear polluted the sacred air surrounding us. This could not stand. She needed purification, to be broken down and remade in the crucible of terror until she truly comprehended the power she had offended.
I folded my wings and dropped from the sky like a stone.
The shriek from behind my god was music—the sound of arrogance shattering. I snapped my wings open just before we would have been dashed against the waves, the g-force pressing the two humans hard against my spine. I didn't level out. I immediately went into a spiraling, gut-wrenching barrel roll, turning the sky and sea into a dizzying, inseparable blur.
"TOOTHLESS! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! BAD DRAGON!"
The god's voice was a lash, but it held no real sting. He did not understand. He was too forgiving, too merciful. His divinity was tempered by the soft heart of the mortal vessel he inhabited. He could not see that this punishment was a necessary act of devotion. I was protecting his sanctity, teaching this mortal the proper fear required in the presence of a god.
"He's not usually like this," he tried to assure her. Oh, but I was. This was my true nature: the wrathful protector, the zealous guardian. He had only ever seen the adoring supplicant.
I climbed high, a black speck against the afternoon sun, and then dove again, aiming straight for a menacing sea stack, a granite needle rising from the churning water. The Blasphemer's screams grew hoarse. Good. Let her throat be raw with repentance.
"Toothless, what are you doing?! We need her to like us."
Like us? The thought was so absurd it nearly made me falter. Why would a god need the like of a mortal? Mortals existed to worship, to fear, to serve. Their affection was as meaningless as the foam on a wave. He was playing his part too well, this vessel. He had forgotten his own divine nature.
"And now the spinning. Thank you for nothing, you useless reptile."
The words were sharp, but the feeling behind them was exasperation, not true anger. He was scolding a disobedient pet. He had no concept of the holy war I was waging on his behalf. The term 'useless reptile' was so far from the truth of my being—the First Servant, the Divine Wrath—that I simply disregarded it as the babbling of a god confused by his mortal shell. My focus remained entirely on the female. I would continue this purification until I received the one thing that mattered:
Submission.
And then, it came.
"Okay! I am sorry! I'm sorry! Just get me off of this thing!"
Her voice was broken, stripped of its pride and fury. It was the sound of absolute surrender. The apology was not for the boy she clung to; it was a desperate plea to the terrifying, unknowable force of nature that held her life in its claws. She was sorry. She understood. She had trespassed, and she had been punished, and now she begged for mercy.
Satisfaction, pure and absolute, washed through me. The ritual was complete.
Instantly, I leveled out. My movements became as smooth as silk. The terrifying dive transformed into a gentle, effortless glide, my wings catching the updraft from the waves below. The world fell silent, save for the whisper of the wind over my wings and the ragged gasps of the two humans on my back.
My god immediately began to fuss, his attention shifting from me to the female. He murmured soft, comforting words to her, his hand patting her arm. I expected to feel a wave of divine approval from him, a silent 'thank you' for bringing the blasphemer to heel.
Instead, I felt something else.
It was a subtle shift in his aura, a change in the very scent of his being that only I could perceive. For weeks, his essence had been a clean, pure thing—the smell of rain-washed earth and creation itself. When he was happy, it was warm like the sun. When he was focused, it was sharp like ozone. But now, a new note was added to the chord. It was a focused, tender warmth that was not directed at me. It flowed past me, enveloping the female who clung to him. It was the scent of a blooming night flower, of honey warmed by the sun. It was the scent of mortal longing.
Of attraction.
My god. Guedo. The Life-Giver. Had a crush. On the Blasphemer.
The concept was so alien, so fundamentally wrong, that my mind buckled. It was like watching the sun decide to rise in the west. Why would a being of his magnitude, a force of creation, feel such a mundane, mortal emotion? And for her ? The one who had hurt his vessel, who had desecrated his sanctuary? It was a paradox that threatened to unravel my entire understanding of the universe.
And then, a second, more terrible thought followed. A thought that I've been brushing aside ever since the beginning, a mere mistake that would've been corrected with time, but had hit me with the force of a boulder.
He didn't know.
The creature on my back, the one whose legs I felt trembling slightly, the one whose heart pounded with a mix of residual adrenaline and newfound affection for the girl behind him—he had no idea what he was. He wasn't a god playing the part of a boy. He was a boy utterly unaware he was a god.
He was just… Hiccup.
The name, which I had always considered a fleeting, mortal label, suddenly bore profound weight. Hiccup. A boy who had a home outside the cove. A member of his village. A boy with friends, a family, a whole life beyond the quiet cove, a life about which I knew absolutely nothing. My senses had been so overwhelmed by the profound divine essence I felt, so engrossed in my discovery of a living Guedo, that I had never once bothered to look at the person. I had seen the vessel, but I had been utterly blind to the boy inside.
Shame, hot and sharp, pierced through my chest, a feeling more painful than any rope that had bound me, more grounding than the fall that had crippled my tail. I had not been serving a person. I had been worshipping an idea. I had projected millennia of my species' myths and instincts onto a lonely, clever, and kind-hearted teenager. I had ignored his pleas, terrified the very person he was trying to impress, and acted not out of loyalty to him, but out of a selfish, possessive zealotry for the god I so desperately wanted him to be. My desire for him to claim me, to use me as a vessel for his divine seed—it wasn't a holy imperative. It was a deeply selfish fantasy that had completely disregarded the confused, vulnerable boy at the very center of it all.
My flight path faltered. My mind, reeling from this paradigm shift, ceased to command my wings. We began to drift downwards, a slow, silent descent as I grappled with the enormity of my failure. I was so lost in my internal maelstrom that I didn't notice how low we'd gotten until my paws skimmed the ocean's surface.
Splash.
The cold shock of saltwater against my feet was like a slap to the face, jolting me back to reality.
"Whoa! Toothless? What's wrong?" Hiccup's voice was filled with genuine concern.
"Is he okay?" Astrid asked, her own fear momentarily forgotten.
They were worried. About me. A monster who had just terrified them. Their concern, so freely given when I deserved only their fear, was a gift I did not deserve. And in that moment, I knew I had to give a gift in return. I had to be better. Not for Guedo, the abstract deity. I had to be better for Hiccup , the boy. My friend.
My purpose, once a simple creed of worship and desire, now fractured and reformed into something new, something more complex and terrifyingly precious: the duty of a friend. My mission was no longer to be the first acolyte of a returning god. It was to be the friend of a boy who desperately needed one. And what did this boy want right now, more than anything? He wanted to give the girl on my back the memory of a lifetime. He wanted to show her the magic he had discovered. He wanted her to see him , and by extension, me, as something wonderful, not something terrifying.
My resolve hardened. I would give him that gift—the gift of a perfect moment. A memory of beauty to wash away the ugliness of my earlier rage and his own fear.
With a powerful thrust of my wings, I angled upwards, not as a warrior, but as an artist. I would paint him a memory. I pushed past the initial layer of clouds into the high, thin, freezing air where the last rays of the sun bled across the world in shades of orange and violet. I began to fly, not for myself, but for him. I wove through cloud canyons, feeling the cold mist on my scales, and soared over their misty peaks. I let a small, controlled stream of plasma ignite with a soft, crackling hum, not as a weapon, but as a brush. As we flew, the warm, violet glow from my mouth illuminated the water vapor around us, creating shimmering, silent ribbons of light—an aurora borealis made just for them.
I was no longer showing off the power of a god's servant. I was sharing the magic of a boy and his dragon. This was not for Guedo. This was for Hiccup.
After a timeless interval spent dancing with the stars, we came to rest on the quiet peak of a large, soft cloud. The world below was a dark blanket, pricked with the tiny lights of distant villages. The sky above was a swathe of velvet, littered with the diamond dust of infinity.
"Alright, I admit it," the female's voice was soft now, stripped of all fear and anger, filled only with a profound sense of awe. "This is pretty cool. It's... amazing. He's amazing."
I felt a swell of pride. Not for myself, but for Hiccup. I had helped him do this. I had given him this moment.
"So what now?" she asked. "Hiccup, your final exam is tomorrow. You know you're going to have to kill a..." Her voice dropped to a whisper, so I wouldn't hear. "...kill a dragon."
A cold dread trickled down my spine, but I pushed it away. We would deal with that later. Together.
"Don't remind me," Hiccup sighed.
Suddenly, my sensitive ear-plates twitched. A sound, distant but growing. A chorus of wingbeats. Dozens. No, hundreds of them. They were all around us, hidden in the darkness.
"Toothless, what's happening?"
Instinct took over. I dropped from the cloud, banking sharply to the left, dodging a shape that materialized out of the gloom—a Gronckle. Then another, a Zippleback, its two heads focused on its path. We were in the middle of a river. A great, silent river of dragons, all flying with a grim, zombie-like determination in the same direction. They were flying towards the nest. Towards the Queen. And we were being swept along with them.
We were a drop of ink in a river of shadows. The night sky was filled with the grim procession, a silent, funereal parade of dragons flying with a single-minded purpose that chilled me to the bone. There was no joy in this flight, no freedom. It was a commute. A forced march. I flew amongst them, a ghost in their ranks, the two small, warm bodies on my back the only points of reality in this waking nightmare.
I tried to ignore them, to weave our way out of the current, but it was too strong; the sheer number of bodies created an inexorable pull.
"It looks like they're hauling in their kill," Hiccup's thought was a low murmur against my neck spines.
"Uh, what does that make us?" Astrid asked, her voice tight with a fear I was beginning to find justified.
We were observers. Unwilling pilgrims. And I was the only one who knew the name of the god to whom they were being forced to pay tribute.
I looked at the dragons around me, truly looked at them. I saw the dullness in their eyes, the weary, automatic beat of their wings. There was no will here. Only obedience. A cold dread began to seep into my bones. My own feelings for Hiccup, my Giver, were a blazing sun of devotion in my chest. It was a feeling of joyous, willing servitude. I wanted to offer myself to him, to be the vessel for his divine purpose. It was a holy, sacred desire.
Wasn't it?
Looking at these hollowed-out shells, a sliver of doubt, cold and sharp, pierced my certainty. Was my own overwhelming, all-consuming adoration so different from their mindless obedience? I served him because he was Guedo. They served the Queen because she was their Alpha. Where did devotion end and slavery begin? The thought was a heresy against my own heart, and I pushed it away, focusing on the comforting weight of Hiccup on my back. My bond was different. It had to be.
The air grew thick, heavy with the stench of sulfur and dread. Ahead, a plume of smoke blotted out the stars, rising from a jagged wound in the sea: the volcanic island that served as our prison. The river of dragons descended, pouring into the maw of the volcano like water down a drain. I had no choice but to follow, my wings held tight to my body to avoid colliding with the others in the cramped, suffocating darkness of the tunnel.
We emerged into a cavern of hellish proportions. It was a vast, terrifying cathedral of rock and fire, its ceiling lost in a swirling vortex of smoke and embers. A lake of molten lava bubbled and spat at its center, casting a blood-red, flickering light on everything. And all around, from a thousand ledges and crevices, the dragons of the flock landed. With a weary, defeated air, they regurgitated their catches—fish, sheep, yaks—directly into the fiery pit.
"It's satisfying to know that all of our food has been dumped down a hole," Hiccup muttered.
Astrid's face paled as she realized the truth, her voice a whisper of horror. "They're not eating any of it."
Of course they weren't. This was not a meal. It was a sacrifice. An offering to appease the insatiable hunger of the one true tyrant. This was the tithe paid to the Red Death.
As my paws touched the hot stone of a high ledge, a change rippled through the cavern. The mindless, shuffling movements of the dragons ceased. A Gronckle, dropping a load of singed fish, suddenly froze, its boulder-like head swiveling in my direction. A nearby Zippleback stopped its bickering, both heads staring at me with wide, luminous eyes. A whisper, a scent, a presence had entered their awareness. It was me. But it wasn't me they were sensing. It was the divine aura of the boy on my back.
The news brought by the Terrible Terrors had arrived. The prophecy had been delivered.
I braced myself, expecting the reaction I had witnessed before: the dawning reverence, the worshipful purrs, the submission. I flared my wings slightly, a proud display of the one who had brought their lost god home. See? I wanted to project. See who I serve? Your salvation is here!
But the reaction was wrong. All wrong.
There was recognition, yes. A thousand pairs of eyes locked onto Hiccup. The name Guedo echoed through the cavern, not as a shout of joyous praise, but as a hissed, fearful whisper passed from dragon to dragon. There was no reverence. There was only a tense, terrified anticipation, as if they were watching a lamb being led into the slaughterhouse. They looked from Hiccup to the lava pit, and then back again, their eyes filled with a dreadful, hopeless pity.
And then, the lava pit began to boil.
The bubbling intensified, the entire cavern trembling as something of immense size began to stir in the molten depths. Slowly, monstrously, a head emerged from the fire. It was larger than a Viking longhouse, its scales the color of cooled magma, its face a grotesque mask of cruelty studded with half a dozen malevolent, yellow eyes. The Red Death, the Queen of this hell, rose to face us, lava sluicing from her colossal form.
Her gaze swept over the assembled dragons with utter contempt, before landing on me. And then, on Hiccup. A low, guttural rumble echoed through the chamber, a sound that was half laugh, half earthquake. Her voice, when it came, was a psychic sledgehammer, a wave of pure, tyrannical will that crashed into the mind of every dragon present.
«SO. THE HERALDS SPOKE THE TRUTH.» Her multi-eyed gaze was fixed on Hiccup, a butcher appraising a side of meat. «THE LIFE-GIVER RETURNS. THE GREAT FERTILIZER. HOW... CONVENIENT.»
There was no worship in her tone. No reverence. Only a hungry, calculating avarice.
«MY BROODS GROW WEAK. MY ARMY THINS. THE HATCHLINGS ARE FEW, AND MANY DO NOT SURVIVE. WE REQUIRE A MORE... RELIABLE SOURCE OF REPLENISHMENT.»
A cold, sickening dread, far worse than any I had felt before, began to bloom in my gut. This was not how it was supposed to be.
The Queen's massive head drifted closer, her hot, foul breath washing over us. «BRING THE VESSEL TO ME. IT WILL SERVE THE NEST. ITS BODY WILL BECOME MY FACTORY. ITS SEED WILL BE MY PROPERTY. IT WILL SPEND THE REST OF ITS SHORT, USEFUL LIFE HERE, ENSURING MY LEGACY. IT IS A TOOL. AND IT IS MINE.»
The words struck me like a physical blow. A tool. A factory. A breeding slave. She had taken the sacred prophecy of Guedo, the promise of life and creation, and twisted it into the most profane, utilitarian purpose imaginable. In that moment, in her monstrous, avaricious desire, I saw a dark, horrifying reflection of my own.
My fantasy from the sea stack, the thought of bearing a clutch warmed by his essence, had felt so pure, so holy. But what was it, really? It was a desire to use him. To use his divine gift for my own purpose, for the continuation of my own line. I had cloaked it in the language of worship and devotion, but at its core, was it so different from the Queen's desire? She wanted to use him for her army. I wanted to use him for my legacy. The thought was a venomous serpent that sank its fangs into my heart, and the poison of shame was instant and absolute.
My devotion was a gilded cage. The Queen's was one of iron. But a cage is still a cage.
My horror was no longer just for Hiccup. It was for myself. For the monster I had almost become.
I looked away from the Queen, my gaze sweeping over her enslaved children. And for the first time, I truly saw them. I saw the gaunt frames beneath their scales, the dullness in their eyes, the scars that littered their bodies. I saw the hopelessness that clung to them like a shroud. I had been one of them, and in my divine obsession, I had forgotten their suffering. The Queen didn't want to save them. She wanted to perpetuate their misery, and she planned to use my Hiccup, my friend , as the instrument of that eternal damnation.
To downgrade him. To reduce the wonderful, complex person I had just begun to know into a simple biological function. The very thing I had secretly, shamefully, fantasized about doing myself.
No. Never.
I didn't wait for a command. I didn't need one. With a roar that was pure defiance—defiance of her, and defiance of the monster within myself—I spun on my heel and launched myself from the ledge, away from the monstrous Queen and back towards the tunnel.
«SEIZE HIM!» the Queen's command thundered through the cavern.
Instantly, the air was filled with dragons. They swarmed us, a desperate, clawing tide of bodies. But their attack was wrong, just like their reverence had been. Their movements were clumsy, their eyes filled with a terrible, pleading conflict. They were obeying their Queen's order, but their instincts were screaming at them to worship the very being they were trying to capture.
«FORGIVE US, LIFE-GIVER!» a Nadder shrieked in my mind, its talons scraping uselessly against my wing.
«SHE FORCES US! WE HAVE NO CHOICE!» a Gronckle cried, trying to block my path, its eyes wet with what looked like tears.
They grabbed at Hiccup, at Astrid, their claws surprisingly gentle, as if trying to capture them without harm. It was a chaotic, heartbreaking ballet of violence and apology. They were trying to drag my friend to his doom, and begging his forgiveness as they did it.
I became a demon of vengeance. I blasted through their ranks, not with lethal force, but with concussive, stunning bursts of plasma that sent them tumbling away. I snapped and snarled, a black whirlwind of protective rage. Hiccup clung to my back, his own fear forgotten as he watched the tragic, desperate battle unfolding around us.
We reached the tunnel, a dark promise of escape. I poured on the speed, flying through the winding passage with a reckless abandon born of pure terror. The sounds of the chase, the cries of the Queen's rage and the apologies of her slaves, faded behind us.
We burst out into the clean, cold night air, the moon a welcome beacon in the sky. I did not slow. I did not stop until the familiar, comforting shape of Berk was on the horizon, and then I flew faster still, until the sea stacks that guarded our cove rose up to greet us.
I landed, not with the gentle grace of our earlier flight, but with a jarring thud, my legs trembling from exertion and residual horror. I immediately lowered myself, allowing Hiccup and Astrid to slide off my back onto the soft grass of our sanctuary.
The silence that fell was heavier than any stone. Astrid stood frozen, her arms wrapped around herself, her face pale and shaken. Hiccup simply stared at the entrance of the cove, his mind clearly replaying the hell we had just escaped.
I looked at him, at this boy who carried the weight of a forgotten god within him, who was desired by monsters and tyrants, and by the monster that lurked in my own heart. The Guedo fantasy was dead, burned away by the fires of the Queen's nest. All that was left was the boy. My Hiccup. And I would let the world burn before I allowed anyone, including myself, to turn him into a tool ever again.