Chapter Text
Everything hurts. It’s the first thing Ruffnut registers when she opens her eyes with a faint groan. All she sees is the same old boring ceiling that she’s seen above her for days now. Has it been days? She hardly even knows.
She just knows that the times she’s awake feel more and more scattered.
Time that she has no idea what’s happened in, except for vague memories of being awake to scream. And of a voice mostly talking at her, a voice she really never wants to hear again.
She groans softly, turning her head a little. Why does it hurt so much? Yeah, whatever they’ve been doing to her seems to hurt worse every time but it’s not like this. All she can feel is a burning agony, ripping its way through every inch of her and it won’t stop.
Pain’s never really bothered her before. Usually it’s just the cost of getting to do something fun and it can be new and interesting, when it’s not like she hasn’t spent her whole life with something hurting anyway.
But this?
This is worse. Much worse.
She feels like she can hardly breathe through it. Not a kind of pain she’s finding fun. She wants it to stop. She needs this to stop.
Her throat tightens with an uncalled-for desire to cry. She doesn’t really cry about things. That’s more her little twin brother, but right now, she almost wants too anyway.
And where is her brother? Is this what they’re doing to Tuff? She hasn’t seen him in – in… she has no idea how long.
She hasn’t seen any of her friends either, since the day they were captured. What – what are they doing to them?
She needs to get out of here. But yeah, even she can learn eventually that squirming against the same ropes for hours isn’t gonna get them any loser than last time. After her first few escape attempts got foiled… Well, she didn’t stop trying but she’s trynna come up with a better plan, okay?
Hard to think about when she can barely breathe.
And something else feels different. She doesn’t know what it is, just that there’s a strange energy pulsing inside of her. She thinks she’s felt it some of the last times she was conscious but it feels stronger now. Or maybe it’s that she’s more awake now. She has no idea. She just knows it’s a really weird feeling.
Well, easier to think about that than how much everything hurts.
The sound of the door swinging open has her tensing instantly. She really, really hates being tied down. Way easier to be annoying to your captor when you can move around.
Footsteps draw closer, approaching the side of her bed, if that’s really what whatever she’s been tied down to can be called. It’s more like a very uncomfy plank of wood. This is not a place to sleep.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?” Gydda Bloodvist’s voice filters in from far away. Does she seriously sound sympathetic? Really? Like she’s not the one who’s doing this.
The woman leans over her, dark hair falling in her face.
“Go to Nifheim,” Ruffnut tells her sweetly.
Gydda reaches for her, probably to brush the hair out of her face or something – and Ruffnut swears if she does that one more time, she’s going to actually really enjoy when they burn this place down. Well, seeing fire is always fun, but that doesn’t mean she usually wants people getting hurt in the damage. Right now, she really can’t say the same, though.
But instead of touching her, the woman’s hand just…
She doesn’t really see what happens, only that a weird rippling feeling runs through Ruffnut’s head, as though her hand just went through her.
…What?
She looks down, wriggling a little.
She saw the strange bluish glow in the room but she’d been too exhausted to really think about it. Until right now. Because she’s the one who’s glowing blue. Sort of.
Her entire body is rippling, shifting, like –
She tries to move and her hand phases right through the ropes that should be firmly tied around it.
Gydda’s face pinches in what better not be worry. “This isn’t what I meant to happen, Ruffnut,” she says, “But don’t worry. It might hurt, but it will give you a power like you’ve never had before and then together, as a family, we’ll be invincible.”
We? Like there’s some we here? Like she’s not the one who kidnapped all of them and has been holding them prisoner for however long it’s been? And experimenting on them? Or whatever this is supposed to be.
Ruffnut’s never been captured before. With the wars on Berk over, she never really thought it was something she’d have to think about again. Really, her and Tuff kind of thought getting kidnapped sometime would be fun. At least it would be something interesting and their life’s been boring with not near enough explosions in years. But this is never what she had in mind.
“What did you do to Tuffnut?” Ruffnut grits out.
“Oh, he’s fine.” She leans against the edge of the bed. “Really, Ruffnut, you know I wouldn’t hurt him. He’s going to be my son, just like he’s your brother.”
Is she really –
“Tuff already has a mom. And so do I. You know, we have the same mom.” She tries to shrug a little, and what’s weird is that moving actually works this time, “And she’s amazing and she’s certainly not you.” Well, they don’t actually talk to their mother very much and haven’t since they were like twelve but she was still the nicest adult they’ve really ever been around. Or used to be around. Until they moved out on their own.
“All six of you will be my children,” Gydda replies, as though not hearing her at all, “You might think you don’t want it right now but you’ll understand eventually. You’ll all finally have somewhere you really belong, forever.”
Yeah, maybe her and Tuff wished they’d have an adult who actually wanted them around years ago but that was years ago and she certainly doesn’t want this woman around. “Oh, well what if the others don’t want to be siblings?” Ruffnut sasses back. Actually, she has a few very important questions about this, not that any of this woman’s stupid rambling is important anyway, but still. “I mean, what are you gonna do about Snotlout and Astrid? That’s just weird.”
Actually, it’s kinda gross.
“We’ll all be family,” Gydda replies, “Regardless of how exactly each of you see one another.”
“We really didn’t need your help with that,” Ruffnut shoots back. Tuff might be the only brother she has and there’s no one in the world more important than him, but the others are still… Well, they’re friends. The only friends her and her brother have ever really kept, especially for years. Does that make family? She thinks it kind of does.
Ruffnut looks down at herself again, tuning out the woman’s voice as she starts talking again. Yeah, she’s good at that. When your specialty is making people really, really angry, you get good at ignoring adults when needed.
Her body is flickering. It’s going through things. Her hands keep phasing through the ropes.
What did she do to her?
Ruffnut doesn’t really get scared but right now, she can’t ignore the icy fear that’s crawling its way through her chest. It’s like she doesn’t feel real. That’s why it hurts, doesn’t it? Because she’s… what, exactly? Not managing to exist very well?
But hey, being able to go right through things might be cool. At least, it’ll certainly be useful in meaning there’s nothing to stop her from getting out of here.
She has no idea how this works, what it means, or anything but she jerks upright, punching Gydda in the head.
The woman drops with a startled yelp and Ruffnut tries to get to her feet. Her legs pass through nothing, and then she’s just falling, going down on her hands and knees on the floor.
Wha –
What?
Gydda is trying to get up.
Ruffnut punches at her. Her hand goes through her head. No, no. This doesn’t even –
She tries again. Her hand is solid this time, and she smacks her over the head, knocking her out. Finally
And no need to worry about locked doors because she can just go through this. If she can even get to her feet. It takes a few tries to even get herself off the floor without falling and she tries to think about anything but the rising panic rolling in her chest.
Her head is spinning. Everything is spinning and burning, and the hand Ruff raises to brace herself on the doorway is flickering, pale blue trailing her finger’s every motion. Unreal. Almost like a ghost. Like she’s not real, not standing here, but thank you, the pain wracking her body is actually very, very much real.
She needs to find Tuff.
But Tuff won’t be able to get out. She heard him. She heard her baby brother screaming.
Gods, she is going to kill that woman.
They’re all in cells in a hall. Tuff was – on the end, across from her. She’s heard his voice enough to figure that out. She can’t go right to him.
Think, think, think – wait, what’s she thinking?
Ruff ducks into the hall and swerves into the cell to her left. The doors open easily from the outside. They’re locked on the inside – that doesn’t seem fair. It swings open when she shoves it, and Ruff stumbles forwards, barely catching herself on time to keep from faceplanting. Her hands catch her knees as she leans forwards, gasping.
Her vision blurs. Everything blurs. Breathe.
Breathe – she’s gotten broken ribs before. She can breathe through this.
She can’t.
Okay.
Up.
Ruffnut squints in the darkness – there’s Snotlout. Well, help better than no help. She sprints to his side, gripping the ropes and yanking, though her hands tear themselves in half again and she gasps at the ripping, numbing feeling of something being wrenched through them.
The groan he makes is soft and faint, slowly prying an eye open. He’s so quiet and still it makes her angry all over again, a helpless fury burning in her veins as hot as the pain. No one should’ve been able to hurt one of her friends. “Wait, Ruff? Are you Ruff? Is this Valhalla?”
“No, this isn’t Valhalla,” Ruffnut snaps, dropping to one knee, because being on the ground is the only thing that’ll keep her working. And she has to be fast. Her fingers fumble with the knots struggling to tear them free. “I’m getting you out, muttonhead.”
“Where – where’s Hiccup?” Snotlout blinks, sluggishly, consciousness fading in as slowly as it does for her every time. “Where’s everybody?”
She can’t think about that. She can’t think about how she hears her little brother screaming right across the hall from him, about how she has no idea if they’re all still alive. She doesn’t even know if she’s still alive – she’s flickering. And it hurts every time, the constant aching, burning tearing like being sliced open with a hundred different knives simultaneously.
“In their cells,” Ruffnut snaps, tearing through the first rope. Snotlout reaches over to rip off the rest. Something shifts in his eyes, dark and unsettling – and then the air prickles with energy and the rest of his restraints just tear off with a violent flare of purple fire.
Yeah, what else is new?
She grips the bed’s edge to haul herself upright, swaying but gritting her teeth to get herself up – they have to move.
For Tuff.
For her brother.
“Everyone’s in here?” Snotlout asks. He dives to grab his helmet from the floor, swiping his forehead on his wrist – he looks as sweat-soaked from pain as Ruff knows she is herself – and makes for the door. There’s no one in the hall, though she swears she hears something distantly – though that could be anything. Could mean anything.
“Split up!” Ruff hisses hoarsely to speed this up – sounds like something Hiccup would do. The second door feels like it opens easier than the first, though her fingers fumble with the lock a pathetic amount. She’s a dragon rider. She’s a dragon rider. She fought in the war with the Berserkers and the Screaming Death and the Red Death and all the other Deaths. She can open a lock.
Come on, stupid fingers. Even if it feels like they’re being sliced open.
She finally gets the lock and flicks the door in.
Tuff is there, thrashing instead of unconscious like Snotlout was.
Is he crying?
If that woman made her brother cry, Ruff is going to gut her ten times more painfully.
“You are not – Ruff? I must be dreaming again, ‘because you look an awful lot like Ruff.”
“I am Ruff, you muttonhead!” Ruffnut hisses, tears of sheer relief flooding her eyes unbidden. Her brother’s okay. She wasn’t sure if he was dying or missing a limb or some other such awful, untreatable injury. Oh, yeah, pain is fun, except when it’s tearing apart your every second of existence, and now all she wants to do is cry.
She tugs at the ropes instead. Again.
“And we’re getting out of here.”
“Where’s Hiccup?” Always their first question now – that was Ruff’s, too. It’s so strange to think about a time before he was half the center of their chaos, before she called him a friend. But seriously, the next time he gets them all captured in something so ridiculous, she is going to whack him. She might anyway if he’s not bleeding to death.
“Snotlout’s getting him.” Ruff grabs her brother’s arm and hauls him upright. Tuffnut topples against her for support, groaning, though she doesn’t see any blood. She hates that she doesn’t see blood. There’s no blood on herself, either, but the pain is worse than when she fell off Barf and broke three ribs or all those times she got set on fire.
But her stupid, stupid little brother, other half or whatever is alive, and Ruff does her best to limp into the hall, dragging him. Snotlout’s emerging the cell across from the one Ruff was held in, Astrid’s arm over his shoulder, the blonde leaning heavily against his side. She’s stumbling, eyes mostly closed, and will probably be Changewing-level feral when she remembers this.
“Fishlegs?” Astrid slurs, though Ruff can’t tell if that’s a statement or question. She hauls Tuff to the door right beside hers to get the last lock – she’s pretty sure she heard Hiccup on her right, though he was a lot quieter than Tuff. And Snotlout.
Okay, actually, she heard him the least.
Tuff beats her to the lock, groaning and shaking his head to unsee stars, probably. Ruff doesn’t feel like poking him over it.
She doesn’t feel like anything.
Hiccup’s awake, staring blankly at the ceiling, but he turns his head towards her when he sees her, inhaling sharply. Ruffnut feels a stupid stab of jealousy. Hiccup’s the one who got them into this mess – why is he the one who escapes unharmed? His eyes don’t even have the same barely conscious, half-glassy feel all the rest of them share.
But his foot’s gone. It’s set right in his view and too far out of his reach to ever get his hands on, even if he could move one of his arms. Ruff’s rage rises renewed. No form of graphic, glorious murder is gonna be enough here for that woman.
Behind her, she thinks she hears Snotlout swear.
Tuff moves, shaking himself. He’s limping, face wet, eyes red, but kicking himself back into motion from whatever mindless phase he’s running through just a minute ago.
“Thanks, guys,” Hiccup tells them immediately sitting up as though he’s not sore from lying there for days in some freaky half-frozen, mostly out-of-it status. Did he get hurt? Ruff tosses him his leg, which he ties back on and gets up, swaying for a moment, then stabilizing. “Everyone else okay?”
“We’re okay.” Fishlegs’ expression is screwed with pain, but he’s on his feet. Snotlout’s holding Astrid again, muttering something that sounds like a plea to stay on her feet.
Ruff wishes someone could hold her.
“Where are our dragons?” Hiccup asks.
“Outside,” Fishlegs answers immediately. “I – I can find them if we get out there. I think.”
“When did you suddenly become the locator expert?” Snotlout asks.
“When did you start shooting purple fire off your hands?” Fishlegs sasses right back.
“I’m not even gonna ask,” Hiccup decides. “Lead the way.”
Ruffnut finds herself pitching again, head spinning and throbbing and throbbing. She finds herself slumping into Tuff, impressed her brother is somehow able to get a grip on her, and his contact somehow slightly soothes the throbbing, even if only a little.
“Look out!” Snotlout yells, and everything goes in chaos. She hears sounds, and then a cry from Astrid as she stumbles and trips, eyes blurring almost green as they haze over and grow distant, a strange glowing shadow at her palms. Fishlegs dives to grab her, yanking the girl safely into cover, only to take an arrow to his lower back for his efforts.
“Fishlegs!” She thinks that was Hiccup. Hard to tell.
There’s gotta be at least a dozen arrows pointed at them.
“Okay,” Tuffnut yells furiously. He wrenches away from Ruff, leaving her smacking onto the ground on her knees, shaking and trying to grab him to pull him back, because she is not letting her little brother die today. She reaches his hand, but her fingers mist right through him with a burning stab of pain. “You are not turning us into the… whatever kind of cheese that was. What was it called? But you are not killing any of my friends today!”
The arrows fire.
Tuffnut’s hands blaze red, and the arrows just… shift, melting into little red bubbles and pointlessly drifting upwards towards the ceiling.
Snotlout’s hands are blazing with purple fire again and slams his hands onto the door, which explodes in a sparking flare of purple.
Tuff grabs Ruff’s arm and hauls her to her feet.
She thinks she blacked out briefly somewhere on the way, but then Belch is lifting her by the back of her tunic and dropping her onto Barf, who returns the same favor with Tuff. Fishlegs is sprawled atop Meatlug, slumped forwards. He’s bleeding badly, but they can’t stop to think about it until they’re nice and out of here.
He won’t actually die from that, will he?
Hiccup helps Astrid onto Stormfly and sprints for Toothless, ducking another series of arrows.
Snotlout whirls with a yell and Hookfang’s violent fire blast covers as they take off, doing the fastest return dive for Berk Ruffnut ever remembers being sincere on her part.
“Fishlegs, are you okay?” Hiccup calls, pulling Toothless closer to Meatlug. “Never mind. I think I…”
“I’m fine,” he grunts, trying to push himself up.
Astrid makes a quiet, strangled sound, as if she just realized what her random freeze-up caused. Ruff throws her a glare of annoyance but is slumped too heavily against Barf to think about it, mostly confused as to why she’s not falling through her dragon when she can’t stay in contact with anything else very long.
“We have to get that arrow out of you.”
“I think we better leave it until we reach Berk,” Fishlegs protests weakly. “Or else…”
“I – I think it’ll be okay. Trust me, Fishlegs,” Hiccup tries, pulling closer.
“Oohhh.” Tuff winches in sympathy. “Glad that’s not me.”
“I bet you wish it was me?” Ruff guesses, trying to push herself up, one arm hooked over Barf’s horns.
“It would be awesome,” her brother agrees.
She wasn’t really planning to watch Hiccup trying to patch up Fishlegs mid-flight until a strange little orange glow catches her eyes and Tuff gasps.
Hiccup’s glowing. Just like the others, his hands are shimmering a bright orange, and Fishlegs just makes a quiet little sound of relief.
“What are you doing?” Snotlout asks, leaning back on Hookfang to get a closer look.
“Healing?” Astrid guesses.
“Whoa. Hiccup, that is really cool,” Fishlegs gushes, mostly out of it, but still enough to be him. “We all have new abilities, and I think Hiccup’s are healing!”
“Great,” Ruffnut moans, lifting her head a little. “Wanna give me a shot?”
“I can’t exactly control it,” Hiccup admits. “When I saw this…” he motions at the bloodied arrow. “It just sort of… bubbled up inside me. I don’t understand it. But sure. I’ll give it a shot.” He pulls up closer alongside Barf and reaches out, orange dancing on his fingers, then vanishing.
He shakes his hand, frowning, but the glow doesn’t come back.
“Lemme guess, you can’t?” Tuff asks grumpily.
“I – I don’t know.” He frowns down at his hands. “I’m sorry, Ruff, I don’t know what’s wrong. It’s almost like…” Hiccup trails off, gnawing on his lip. He’ll freeze up when there’s something he doesn’t want to say.
“Like you what?” Ruffnut demands.
“Like it doesn’t think it can heal anything.”
“You get super-duper healing abilities and can’t even heal this?” Tuffnut demands. “Ruff’s basically shredding, and not that it’s not awesome, but it’s… not awesome?”
“Definitely not awesome!” Ruffnut yells sideways at him. Goodness, this hurts so, so much.
“We’ll figure something out,” Hiccup vows quietly. “I – there’s got to be something.”
Sure. Maybe. But they’ve fought dragons and all sorts of things, just not magic. She’s never been turned into a half dragon, and this isn’t just gonna go away. It’s here to stay, in all the pain it comes with.
***
They go to Gothi as soon as they get back to Berk. It’s strange to be back on Berk after what happened. It hasn’t been long but everything feels different. Maybe, it’s just that all Ruffnut can focus on now is the pain.
Gothi is scribbling on the ground, Gobber translating. “She’s asking if you know what she did to give you these… abilities?”
“It was some kind of dragon,” Hiccup speaks first, though he looks so tired, “I think. We never really saw. But it’s not a kind of dragon I’ve ever seen before.”
That doesn’t even make sense, though Ruffnut remembers the same thing. It was a little bigger than a Monstrous Nightmare and a little bulkier, and it was rainbow colored. Well, she doesn’t know if it was actually rainbow colored but it’s color seemed to shimmer and shift every time she looked at it. She remembers seeing it a few times, while she was mostly unconscious.
Gothi scribbles on the ground again. And keeps scribbling.
“She says it may have been an Infinity Dragon.”
“What’s that?” asks Fishlegs.
“How have you not heard of it if someone else has?” Snotlout asks grumpily.
“It’s a legend,” Gobber translates, from Gothi’s writing, “Of a dragon that has the power of the Infinity… sticks?”
Gothi smacks him in the face with her staff.
“Oh – stones. I knew that didn’t seem right,” he protests, “The Infinity Stones are rumored to be powered by the gods themselves. Time. Space. Reality. Power. Mind. Soul.”
“That makes totally…” Tuffnut trails off.
“No sense,” Ruffnut finishes. They got the tiniest bit of power of the gods? That really doesn’t make sense. If they did, why does it hurt so much?
“What’s happening to Ruff?” her twin demands.
Gothi keeps scribbling.
“She says you have Space,” Gobber replies, “So where you are in space keeps changing.”
“So what do we do?” Ruff asks, because for once in her life, she feels terrifyingly lost. Her hands keep flickering blue, in and out of existence, right in front of her and she can’t stop it.
“She knows of…. no way to fix it,” Gobber offers, and even he seems sympathetic, “But if these powers are yours, there must be some way for you to learn to control them.”
Control this? How? She doesn’t even know? She tries and she could swear when she focuses too hard, her hands just phases even more. Or maybe it’s when she’s getting scared. She doesn’t know but she’s terrified. She can’t live like this.
“You’re saying Ruff’s going to be stuck like that?” Hiccup asks, eyes widening.
“For now, yes,” Gobber translates.
Until she somehow figures this out on her own.
Tuffnut tries to hug her. His arms only touch her for a moment before they go through her. He starts crying.
Hiccup scoots a little closer but he looks about as a loss as everyone else what to say or even do.
Yeah, because it’s something wrong with the stupid totally not-awesome magic inside of her that she hates. Could be cool. Maybe. But right now, she has no idea how she’s supposed to live with this.