Chapter 16

They quickly arrived back in the nest, Hiccup's paws hitting the mossy ground softly as they approached the King. 

"Your Majesty," his mother murmured as she bowed before the King. 

Cloudjumper quickly followed her lead, Stormfly and Meatlug did their half bows, and Toothless lowered his head in respect. Still feeling slightly uncomfortable being the only one not bowing, Hiccup stepped forward. 

"You wanted to speak with me?" he asked. 

The King nodded, "I did. Your mother told me of your plans to take down the Red Death Queen's nest, and I would like to speak with you about it into further detail." 

"Uh, sure," Hiccup responded. "What do you want to know?" 

"What exactly is your plan?" the King asked, seeming to settle down in the water below them, and leaning forwards to listen. 

"Well," Hiccup said, "we don't really have a very definite plan yet. The first step that we had was to figure out if there were any nearby allies that would be willing to help us, so we got a map from Trader Johann, found our way here, and now here we are." 

The King hummed, "And do you know what the specifics of taking down the ruler of a nest entails?" 

"Um, no?" 

Hiccup turned to look at Toothless, who seemed to just have a moment of realization, and cringed under Hiccup's gaze. 

"I, uh," Toothless stammered, "may have forgotten to go over that specific detail." 

"How do you forget-" Hiccup started, but the King cut him off by clearing his throat. 

"It is not of any important matter that you are not yet aware of the requirements to take down the Queen," the King said. "I would be more than willing to inform you now, if you so wish it." 

"Yes, please," Hiccup said sheepishly.

The King nodded, "Very well. Taking down a nest's ruler is much harder than one would think. First of all, only one dragon has the ability to challenge an Alpha, the exception being two if they are Mated. This dragon would have to formally challenge the ruler's throne, and if the ruler does not accept, that would mean that the ruler is yielding to the challenger, and therefore giving up the throne. But, if the ruler accepts the challenge, then the ruler and the challenger must duel, whichever one who makes the other yield first becoming the Alpha. 

"Now, this all may seem very straight forward, but the important part is that if you truly wish to challenge the Queen, you must do it alone. No allies or any other dragon will have the ability to help you, as dragons will not accept multiple rulers unless they are two that are Mated."

"Oh," Hiccup said, his face falling. "So, I'm guessing that means that you guys won't be able to help us take her down." 

"No, son," his mother said sadly. "I'm afraid that if you really want to overthrow the Queen, then you must be able to take her down alone." 

"But there are ways that we are able to help you," the King said reassuringly. "I have heard stories of the suffering that Queen has caused, and I would be more than willing to offer you guidance. Your mother tells me that your Dragonborn abilities have not yet shown themselves, so until then, I suggest that you work towards strengthening the bonds of your Flight, improve your skills as a Leader, and continue to gain more understanding of how our dragon world works." 

Hiccup looked at him confusedly, "Wait, you think that I could actually challenge the Queen and win?" 

"I do," the King said firmly. "As an Alpha, I have the ability to see into dragon's minds, as well as their capacity for magic. From the first moment I saw you, I could see how strong you were. The amount of magic that you could one day hold is remarkable, and if you are taught how to use that magic correctly, there is no doubt that you could very well be the most powerful dragon to ever fly the Great Skies." 

"What?!" Hiccup exclaimed, "How is that possible? I'm not some super ultra-powered being, I'm just Hiccup. Sure, I'm Dragonborn, but that doesn't mean that I would be able to battle a giant Alpha dragon." 

"But it does, son," his mother said. "Like I said before, Dragonborn have far more magic than almost all dragons. I believe that my own magic has about the same capacity as the King's." 

"And yours is far greater than mine," the King added. "Of course, you could abandon your mission; certainly none would judge you for it. But, if you still wish to challenge the Red Death Queen, then I assure you, your abilities are far greater than you could ever imagine, and if you do attempt to challenge her, you will win." 

Hiccup looked between his mother and the King helplessly, unsure of what to say. 

"You don't have to come to an answer now, son," his mother said. "I will help you to reach your full potential whether you want to challenge her or not." 

"Thanks, mom," Hiccup said gratefully, and she smiled back softly. 

"Then, young Dragonborn, I suggest that you lead your entourage back to the rest of your Flight," the King said. "I have no doubt that they await your return." 

Hiccup nodded, and turned to his mom, "How about we come back in a week. By then, hopefully we'll all be settled." 

She gave him a warm smile, "Alright, son. I'll be waiting for you." 

After his mother gave him a good dragony goodbye-which consisted of lovingly bumping her head against his-Hiccup and the others took off, soaring through the chilly northern skies towards their home. 

* * * 

Five days had already passed, and Hiccup was more than ready for something interesting to do. 

When they had first gotten home, it took nearly three hours to tell the entire story with Hookfang, Sharpshot, Barf, and Belch's constant interruptions. But then a day went by, and then another day, and another, and Hiccup had never been more bored in his entire life. 

On Berk, he had spent his days working in the forge. With the dragons, there was absolutely nothing to do. Sure, they went hunting, and flying, and Toothless gave him fighting lessons twice a day, but that was it. Hiccup had no idea how dragons could spend their entire lives doing virtually nothing. 

Groaning, Hiccup plopped down on the ground next to Toothless, his eyes sharpening in the darkness of their cave, "Toothless, I have absolutely no clue how you spend your entire lives just hunting and flying." 

Toothless laughed, "That's why dragons find Mates, Hiccup. It's the only way to make life interesting." 

Hiccup raised an eye brow at Toothless. 

For a moment, Toothless just stared at Hiccup confusedly, before the realization of what he had just said dawned on him. 

"Oh, right!" Toothless exclaimed, seeming to shrink into the ground, "Sorry." 

Hiccup sighed, "It's alright. I just wish that I had something to do. I'm bored out of my mind." 

Defeated, Hiccup shifted into his half dragon form, laying face down on the cold rock, his limbs splayed out wide. 

"Well, what did you do when you lived with the humans?" Toothless asked. 

"I worked in the forge," Hiccup answered. 

"Why can't you do that now?" 

"Because we don't have a forge."

"Why can't you make one?"

Hiccup opened his mouth to answer, but his mind began to whirl. He sat up quickly, deep in concentration as he mentally went through the list of everything a forge really needed. They would need fire, tools, and iron. 

Fire would be the easiest to get; they were fire-breathing dragons, after all. Tools would be more difficult, especially an anvil and a sword sharpener, but he might be able to trade with Johann for some good quality tools. But what about the iron? Sure, it would be easy to trade with Johann for it, but iron could get incredibly pricey. Iron ore itself was fairly common, but the process of turning the rock into iron was very time and labor inducing. The only reason that Berk hadn't gone broke from their large use of iron was because they had slowly accumulated the mass amounts of iron over the three hundred years Berk had been there, and they would always recycle their iron. 

Hiccup sighed, "I don't know, Toothless. I don't know how long Johann would accept our dragon  things, and iron is incredibly expensive." 

"What's iron?" Sharpshot asked, making Hiccup startle.

"How long have you been there?" Hiccup demanded, glaring up at the Singeing Singer, who was sitting on his ledge. 

Sharpshot shrugged, "I don't know, I just woke up. So, what's iron?" 

Hiccup sighed again-he seemed to be doing that a lot lately-and began to explain to the little dragon, "Iron is the metal the humans make their weapons out of, as well as their tools and a bunch of other stuff." 

"Ohh, that silver shiny stuff," Sharpshot said. "Why don't you just ask Meatlug to make some for you?" 

"What?" Hiccup asked, confused. 

"Yeah, I've heard that if Lava Grubbers eat some rocks, their lava comes out all strange, and when it hardens, it turns into the silver shiny stuff," Sharpshot explained. 

"How does that work?" Hiccup asked, but he was already shifting into his dragon form to go find Meatlug. 

"I don't know," Sharpshot said, "but I've heard that the Lava Grubbers find it really annoying at times." 

"Interesting," Hiccup muttered to himself, and took off down the cave. 

At this point, he knew the cave system pretty well, so he quickly weaved through the corridor before he shot out into the sky. Hiccup sniffed the air, quickly locating the direction that Meatlug was in. Her scent was highly recognizable, because it had more of a rocky fire smell than the other dragons' fishy fire smell. 

He found the Lava Grubber standing on the rocky beach, munching on rocks. 

"Meatlug," Hiccup called out as he landed, "could I talk to you about something." 

"Uh, sure, Captain," Meatlug said nervously. "What do you need?" 

"So, Sharpshot was telling me that if Lava Grubbers ate the right kind of rocks, their lava turns strange and will become silver and shiny when it cools," Hiccup said. "Is that true?" 

"Oh," Meatlug said, relaxing, "yeah, that's true. It can get really annoying at times, so we often avoid eating those rocks all together." 

"Could you show me?" Hiccup said excitedly.

"What?" Meatlug asked, confused. 

"Could you show me-how you make the iron," Hiccup responded. 

"What's iron?" Meatlug asked. 

"It's the silver shiny stuff, now can you show me?" 

"Uhh, sure," Meatlug said uneasily, "I think I saw some of the right rocks over here." 

Meatlug began to walk towards the other end of the beach, Hiccup quickly following behind. 

"Now, sometimes these rocks don't make the silver shiny stuff, so I might not get it right on the first try," Meatlug said. 

"Can you point out which ones combine to make the iron?" Hiccup asked, shifting into his half dragon form and pulling out is notebook. 

Nodding, Meatlug pointed them all out  to him, and Hiccup quickly jotted them down. 

"So, limestone, sandstone, and iron ore," Hiccup recapped, and Meatlug nodded her confirmation. 

"So, do you want me to eat them, or-"

"No," Hiccup said. "I'll hand you the ones that I want you to test out, and then write down the results in my notebook." 

Hiccup quickly gathered three piles of rocks, one of limestone, one of sandstone, and one of iron ore. 

"Do you have a general idea of how many of each rock you have to eat?" Hiccup asked. 

"I guess the most of it is the light grayish one," Meatlug said, gesturing her head towards the limestone. 

"Okay, so the largest amount is limestone" Hiccup muttered, scribbling in his notebook.

"And I think I barely ever taste the dark looking one whenever I make it accidentally," Meatlug said. 

"Alright, little amounts of iron ore." Hiccup said, finishing his writing before looking up at the Lava Grubber. "Okay, let's start simple. The most obvious thing to try first would be three limestone, two sandstone, and one iron ore." 

Hiccup laid out the rocks in front of her, and she eyed them wearily before scooping them up in her mouth and beginning to crunch.

"Now, I probably didn't get it first try, so you'll have to bear with me, but-" 

Meatlug cut Hiccup off by spitting out her lava on the ground about a foot away from Hiccup, and he watched as the lava began to harden, turning into a smooth, shiny iron. 

Hiccup blinked, "I did not expect that to work."

"Okay, can you tell me why you wanted me to do that now?" Meatlug asked. 

"Oh, right," Hiccup said. "Well, I've been really, really, really bored for the past few days, and Toothless helped me realize that I'd be a lot less bored if I was able to forge stuff like I did on Berk. The problem with that was I don't have the right things to be able to forge things. I would need fire, tools, and iron. Fire is easy, tools I can trade for, but iron is incredibly expensive to be regularly buying, so I needed another way to get iron. Sharpshot overheard my conversation with Toothless and told me to come see you." 

"So," Meatlug said, "you want me to make iron for you so that you're not bored?"

"I mean, if you want to," Hiccup said, not having realized that the Lava Grubber may not want to help him. 

Meatlug frowned, "How often would I have to do this?"

"Not too often," Hiccup assured her. "Only as much as you're willing to do." 

"Okay," Meatlug agreed, "I'll do it." 

"Thanks Meatlug," Hiccup exclaimed, shifting into his dragon form. "Do you want to come help me plan how I'm going to get tools, or do you want to stay here?"

"I'll stay," Meatlug said. "Come and get me when you need me to make the iron for you again." 

Hiccup nodded, grabbed the now almost cooled lump of iron, and jumped into the sky. He found Toothless inside the cave, sitting in the same spot where Hiccup had left him.

Toothless looked at the piece of metal in surprise, "Wow, you were able to make the iron that quickly?"

"Yep," Hiccup said proudly. "The recipe was incredibly easy to figure out once Meatlug told me the kind of rocks she needs to eat and how much of each she usually eats. I honestly expected it to be more complicated." 

"You'd think it would be more complex," Toothless agreed, standing up to sniff the iron. "So you'll be able to do your forging stuff now?"

"I need to get the proper tools, but after that, yeah," Hiccup said, shifting into his half dragon form to inspect the metal further. 

"Where will you get the tools?" Toothless asked, but Hiccup barely registered the words. 

"Interesting," Hiccup muttered, lifting the metal with his hands. "It's incredibly light. I don't think I've ever seen a metal like this." 

After a moment of thought, Hiccup raised the iron above his head, still marveling at its lightness, and slammed it down towards the ground. 

Toothless yelped, jumping back at the sound of metal hitting rock filled the cave, "What was that for?!" 

"I was testing it," Hiccup said, leaning down to pick it up again. "Usually, metals this light are incredibly brittle, and break easily. But look, there's not a scratch on it." 

Hiccup held out the iron for Toothless to examine, and the other Moon Sweeper sniffed it lightly. Of course, Hiccup knew that he wasn't that strong, but the metal didn't even have any imperfections. The surface of it was smooth as silk, and it shined like it had just been polished. 

"Well, I'll admit it," Toothless said, "it's definitely good quality." 

"I know," Hiccup said excitedly, "imagine what we could get it we traded it. Honestly, considering how easy it is to make, we could probably trade Johann enough of it to make ten forges. Not to mention everything else we could get with it." 

"But you don't want to overwork Meatlug," Toothless said warningly.

"Oh, of course," Hiccup said hastily, "I would never want her to do more than she could handle." 

Toothless nodded in approval, "So should we take this to Johann now, or get some more of it so we can get more tools?" 

Hiccup considered for a moment, "If we brought the metal to Johann as is, it probably wouldn't impress him very much; it's just a lump of iron. But if we let him feel the metal, show him how durable it is, then we can promise to give him a supply of weapons and tools made out of it if he gives us forging tools beforehand." 

Toothless tilted his head, "That would work? I would have assumed that if Johann made deals like that regularly, then humans would just start taking stuff from him without paying it back." 

"That does happen sometimes," Hiccup said, "but traders tend to spread gossip around themselves, so if you backstab one trader, all the others will refuse to trade with you." 

"Weird," Toothless said. "I always assumed that humans were a lot less civilized." 

"I assure you, humans feel the same way about dragons," Hiccup laughed.

"How are you going to find the trader?" a familiar high pitched squeaky voice asked. 

Hiccup jumped, turning to glare at Sharpshot, "Could you stop doing that?" 

"I could, but then you wouldn't learn to be aware of your surroundings," Sharpshot answered. 

"I'm aware of my surroundings," Hiccup said indignantly. 

"Hiccup, if you were aware of your surroundings, you would have smelled Sharpshot the moment you stepped into the cave," Toothless said. "Great Sky above, I could probably tell you where every dragon on this island is at this very moment." 

"How the heck could you do that?" Hiccup asked. 

"What do you mean when you say "heck"?" Sharpshot asked. 

"What?"

"Your human sayings are different from ours, and I'd like to understand them," Sharpshot answered. 

"Wait, does that mean that you can tell that I talk differently than other dragons?" Hiccup asked, suddenly self-conscious. 

"Well, not exactly," Sharpshot said. "You don't hear it until you look for it. But you definitely talk differently. We use sayings like, "oh, Great Sky Above" or "for the love of the Sun God", and you don't use those things."  

Hiccup's brows furrowed, "Should I be using those sayings?" 

"It might help you seem more dragon-like," Toothless offered. 

"But only use the ones that belong to you," Sharpshot warned. "A dragon that lives in the Great Sea could say things like,"may the Great Sea guide you". But a dragon like you who flies in the Great Skies and magic comes from the Moon Goddess would say stuff like, "by the Moon Goddess's Moonshine".

"Um, okay," Hiccup said. "I can try doing that, but can we get back to the task at hand, please?" 

"Yeah, fine," Sharpshot relented. "How are you going to find the trader?" 

"Oh," Hiccup said, now realizing that they had absolutely no idea where Johann could be. "I'm not quite sure." 

"We could have Stormfly help us track him," Toothless said. 

Hiccup considered, "Okay, yeah. Let's do that." He turned to the Singeing Singer, "Please go find Stormfly, Meatlug, and Hookfang, and tell them to come here." 

Sharpshot nodded, and took off down the cave. 

Toothless sighed, "This forge better be worth it."