The Rebirth Of A Dragon

Hiccup's Point of View

⸻

"Restrain them."

The command left my mouth like the strike of an executioner's axe-sharp, cold, and absolute. No room for debate. No hesitation.

The two dragons who had flown Stoick and Gobber here moved without a sound. Their talons curled like iron traps-one pinning Stoick's arms against his sides, the other shoving Gobber back with a guttural growl. The old men didn't resist. Not truly. They were too focused on me now. Their eyes weren't filled with the defiance of warriors, nor the pride of men who believed in their cause.

Only confusion. And fear.

I stepped toward them.

"And listen closely," I continued, voice low but echoing like thunder between stone walls. "Until I return... you'll answer to my mate."

Astrid stepped forward beside me, Stormfly's presence flanking her like a silent blade in the dark. Her posture was perfect-shoulders back, chin lifted, her glare unflinching. There was no mercy in her eyes.

Only fire.

Only mine.

The word lingered-mate-and when it did, I watched Stoick flinch as though I had struck him with my claws instead of my tongue.

Gobber blinked. "Mate?" he repeated, as if the word itself was foreign. His eyes flicked from Astrid to Luna, who lounged like royalty behind me in her true form-massive, sleek, obsidian. A queen cloaked in shadow.

"You mean... wife?"

A dark laugh rumbled in my throat as I rose fully from where I'd crouched beside Astrid. Her hand never left my side. "No," I said, smiling like a wolf with blood on its teeth. "I mean mate. In the way dragons mean it. The only way that matters anymore."

Stoick opened his mouth. Probably to shout. To plead. To deny. I didn't care.

I raised a single clawed finger, and silence followed like a dog.

"You humans cling to words," I said, pacing toward them slowly. "Titles. Son. Wife. Chief. You throw those words around like they have meaning. Like they define you."

My gaze locked with his. No emotion. No forgiveness.

"But I'm not bound by your names anymore."

Astrid moved behind me and laid her hand lightly against my back. Not to steady me-but to show the world where she stood. With me. Always.

She was proud. She was certain. She was ready.

I spread my arms wide, palms turned upward. The shimmer began to rise along my skin-slow at first, then cascading like waves of starlight.

"You want to know what I am?" My voice dropped into a whisper sharpened by fire. "I'll tell you."

"I'm the consequence of everything you refused to love."

Then the transformation came.

Scales burst from beneath my skin with a slow, slick tearing sound. My wings erupted behind me in a stretch of midnight leather. My fingers curled inward, bones cracking, reshaping into claws built not for building... but for killing. My eyes narrowed, pupils slicing into slits as power flooded my limbs.

I wasn't shedding a mask-I was shedding a cage.

Behind me, Luna rose with quiet grace, letting her form shift effortlessly. Her flesh melted into shadow. Wings snapped free. Fangs emerged. She moved like a goddess sculpted from the night itself.

She stepped forward then, her emerald eyes narrowing on Stoick and Gobber.

Her voice, when it came, was like winter wind over bone.

"Artemis," she said, spitting the name like poison, "was the lie we gave you. A leash. A name to make me easier for your kind to stomach."

Her wings spread wide-huge, flawless, final.

"My name is Luna," she declared. "And I have always been a dragon."

Stoick staggered back. Gobber went pale as snow.

"You paraded her around as your wife," Stoick growled, the last flicker of his pride surfacing like a dying flame.

I stepped forward, fully transformed now-half man, half Fury, all truth.

"She is my wife," I said. "Just as Astrid is my mate."

I looked between them both-one born of fire, the other of shadow. One who sharpened me, the other who saved me.

"The difference is that Luna helped me become what I was always meant to be. Not your chief. Not your heir. But something greater."

"I abandoned my humanity the day I marked her-and the day she marked me back."

Astrid stepped in again, and I turned to her. I lowered my head.

She kissed me without a word-long, slow, filled with every flame still burning between us. Her hands cupped my jaw like I was sacred.

When I pulled away, Luna moved beside her, touching Astrid's cheek gently before pressing a kiss just below her eye.

Astrid smirked, breath curling from her lips like smoke.

Then she whispered, voice like silk over steel:

"Burn her to ash."

We stepped away from the humans-those broken relics of a world that never wanted us.

Side by side, Luna and I shed the last pieces of flesh and bone. Our full transformations took hold.

Wings tore the sky.

Spines rippled like rivers of obsidian.

Eyes like molten gold narrowed toward the storm.

We were not two people anymore.

We were death made flesh.

And then-we roared.

The sound cracked through the clouds like the voice of some ancient god returned to reclaim the sky. Every dragon in the island turned toward the source. Every beast bowed.

The Green Death stirred in her crater, eyes blazing with the dull light of age and arrogance. She turned her head toward us, slow and heavy, like a mountain becoming aware.

She didn't understand.

But she would.

I leapt.

Luna followed.

The sky opened to receive us.

We spiraled together, black streaks against red smoke, climbing higher, higher, until the island below shrank to a shattered tooth on the horizon. The heat built. My blood sang.

I could feel her beside me, breath synced to mine. A rhythm older than any song.

We reached the apex.

I folded my wings.

She folded hers.

We dropped.

Twin shadows screaming toward the Queen's skull, claws curled, jaws open.

I fired.

So did she.

Two cores of pure dragonfire-purple, blue, searing and ancient-merged mid-air into a spear of vengeance and love, and struck the Green Death's shoulder with the fury of a falling star.

The impact was cataclysmic.

Her body recoiled violently, legs sliding in molten rock, eyes wide with confusion.

And her scales-her scales-shattered.

Chunks of armored flesh were blown clean off, fragments raining like black hail into the caldera.

She shrieked.

She bled.

And for the first time in centuries, she feared.

But we were not done.

Even before the smoke cleared, Luna looped around in a spiral of graceful wrath. I darted in the opposite direction, circling her like a blade drawn across a whetstone.

The Queen's eyes found Astrid standing at the cliff edge.

Wrong move.

"Luna," I growled through the bond, eyes locked on the beast's swollen head, "aim for the left side of her face."

She chirped once in reply, a sound that promised agony.

"I want her to feel it. I want her awake for what's coming."

"And I'll blind her," I added. "When she can't see, she'll panic."

"And when she panics..." Luna snarled, savage and gleeful, "...she'll fly."

"Exactly."

We split.

She veered right.

I dove left.

And then-Luna fired.

Her plasma slammed into the Queen's face just above her jaw, into the cluster of ancient, half-sealed eyes.

The detonation lit the sky.

The queen shrieked, writhing.

Those extra eyes cracked open-bloody, gleaming, furious.

Good.

I came down like a black meteor, claws extended.

I didn't aim to kill.

I aimed to scar.

My talons raked across the eyes she had just opened, tearing them into raw, wet ruin.

The queen bellowed. Her tail lashed. Her wings snapped wide.

She was awake now.

She was angry.

She was airborne.

Rocks shattered beneath her. Ash blotted the sky. The ground trembled.

From the ledge below, Astrid raised her hand and waved as if watching a pet perform a trick.

"Luna!" I called. "Now we fight on our terms!"

The sky had become our battlefield.

And the Queen had finally made her last mistake.

She followed us into the air.

Into our kingdom.

And now?

Now she was ours.