12. Room of (Almost) Doom

Their banter had petered out after the first few flights of stairs.

They weren’t even a fraction of the way there.

They stepped in silence, the hot sun beating down on them making the hike all the more strenuous. Hiccup didn’t question how the sun was shining in an interior room, he knew the answer was magic.

Magic was the answer to most of his questions these days.

Realizing they’d be in Bruno’s room for an extended period of time, Mirabel decided to make conversation. If they had to climb the entire tower, she’d rather not go insane in the process.

“So!” She called down to Hiccup, a few steps behind. “How’d you meet Toothless?” The boy froze mid step, a nervous expression overtaking him. “I thought you didn’t want me to talk about my dragon?” She chuckled as she climbed. “I’ll make an exception! I want to know how you managed to train an entire dragon. I’m sure you didn’t just pick him up at a pet shop.”

The boy still looked hesitant. “It’s a bit of a story…” Mirabel stopped, and swiveled to face him. She glanced up and around, taking note of the seemingly endless stairs they’ve yet to climb, before looking back to him. “We’ve got time.”

Hiccup shrugged. She had a point.

The two began moving again as he started his tale. “In my…old village, there’s a war…” Mirabel stiffened at that. She had never known war, but from what little her Abuela had told her, she knew it definitely wasn’t good. “Vikings and Dragons have been fighting for generations. It became our way of life. If you wanted respect, recognition…human decency. You had to kill a dragon.”

One of the boy’s words jumped out to her. “Wait, Viking? You don’t look like a Viking.” She had read about Vikings in stories. They were large, loud, smelly people who lived for the thrill of battle and the salty sea. The antithesis of her scrawny friend. He sighed as a disheartened expression overtook him. “Yeah, I don’t…”

The sadness, the resentment in those three words stunned Mirabel. She was used to a bit of sarcasm from the boy, not this amount of bitterness. “I wasn’t a big, burly meathead like the other Vikings. I tried to be, for years I tried. But every time something would go wrong, and it’d reinforce the idea that I was useless.” His eyes flashed with the phantom of old determination. “I knew what I had to do. I figured it out when I was twelve. If I wanted to have a place in my village…I had to kill a dragon.”

They were really starting to sweat, this heat was unbearable. “I created a machine, to capture dragons. After dozens of failed attempts…it worked. I had done it, I shot a dragon right out of the sky! I would kill it, and finally get some respect.” Her pace slowed a little. “The dragon you shot down…that was Toothless?” He nodded, before realizing she couldn’t see him. “Y-Yeah.” She turned to face him, just a bit. “…You were gonna kill him?” He looked down, ashamed. “I…I thought I had to…” She fully faced him now. “So why didn’t you?”

Hiccup tried to avoid her eyes while looking for the right words. “I dunno I... I couldn’t…I wouldn’t- “He blurted his next words. “Because he looked just as scared as I was!” He sighed, calming down. “I looked at him, and I saw myself…” The girl gave him a look he couldn’t quite decipher, and they resumed their ascent.

“After that I realized-He helped me realize-that dragons aren’t inherently evil. They’re just like any animal, if they can be understood, they can be trained.” He began to fiddle with his hands. “When I…When I shot him down his tail was damaged. He couldn’t fly anymore. I made him a prosthetic tail-fin, to help him get in the air again. During that time…” A genuine smile worked its way onto his face. “…He became my best friend.”

Hiccup’s heartrate accelerated. He knew he was about to attempt a risky maneuver, but he was feeling daring. “He used to be my only friend, but I can’t really say that anymore.” The girl in front of him stopped abruptly, and turned to him. Eyes wide in disbelief. He gave her a shy, lopsided smirk. She returned it tenfold.

The two friends continued their climb.

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They were almost to the top. They took their minds off the soul crushing ascent with small talk.

On the topic of favorite colors, Hiccup answered green and Mirabel answered gold.

On the topic of hobbies, Mirabel waxed on about the joys of sewing and embroidery. And Hiccup indulged her with stories about his inventions, mostly his catastrophic failures.

On the topic of favorite foods, they both had the same answer. Julieta’s cooking.

Finally, with heavy breaths and aching legs, they reached the top. Mirabel lifted herself over the final step with great effort, followed by Hiccup shortly after.

The scrawnier of the two teens was initially elated to have reached the top, peering over the edge he saw what looked to be a bridge. No more climbing, it was all smooth sailing from here. His elation evaporated like a dewdrop in the blazing heat, when he saw that there was in fact no bridge. Just a large gap separating them from the temple on the other side.

Bruno’s room was the worst.

After the pair took a moment to groan in frustration, they got to work. Mirabel tore a wooden stake that was tied with rope from the ground, and tossed it to the other side of the cave. Where it got caught on some stalagmites. Hiccup gave it a few experimental tugs; It seemed secure enough.

It had better be secure, because what awaited them if they failed was a long, painful drop.

And even if they survived the fall, there was no way Hiccup was climbing all those stairs again.

They both gripped the rope together, Mirabel on the left, Hiccup on the right. At first they tried not to breach the other’s personal space, but they decided surviving was worth a few moments of awkwardness. So they huddled close. The toucan was sat on a wooden pole on the other side, watching them with great interest.

They counted down from three to synchronize their launch, and they both jumped at once. The rope swung, the two teens precariously dangling at the bottom, and they fell into a heap on the other end.

As Hiccup caught his breath, Mirabel quickly stood. Eyes wide and fists pumped up in victory. With a celebratory hoot, she stomped the ground.

And the ground beneath them to crumble into the abyss.

She frantically stepped back, and grabbed Hiccup who had come this close to falling to his demise. The two crept over to the edge of the cliff, joined by the toucan. They watched the hunk of rock tumble into the darkness. After a chillingly long pause, a reminder that their deaths would not be swift should they fall, they finally heard the THUD. The toucan gave Mirabel a deadpan stare, clearly blaming her for this. It then looked to Hiccup, back to her, and back to Hiccup with half-lidded eyes. It then rolled those eyes, with a look that said “Good luck with that…”

The trio hesitantly moved towards the temple, peeking behind the entryway to see what may be inside. They walked further into it, taking note of the strange carvings on the walls. Each one depicted a man, who was doing something with his hands. He was making something? Whatever it was, it was square. And definitely green.

They heard a clatter, and both swiftly looked behind them. It was just the toucan, who had knocked a pot over. Huffing in relief, they turned back around-

Only for Mirabel to knock a pot over, herself. Hiccup yelped as several rats jumped out of the pot and scrambled up and into another carving of the man. The man’s facial features were hollowed out, leaving him with wide dead eyes and an eerie gaping mouth. One of the rats went into his nose.

Gross.

They eyeballed the carving in disgust, as the toucan chattered with fear.

They heard a creaking, and swiveled to see a large, round door. Partly open, almost foreboding, almost inviting.

The trio looked towards each other…

And the toucan flew out of Bruno’s room as fast as it could. The two called after it-

“Quitter!”

“Thank you for nothing, you useless bird!”

The trio now a duo, Mirabel and Hiccup stepped into the round door’s room.

It was spacious, dark, and…

“Empty…” Just as the bespectacled girl said that, the winds starting blowing harshly. They turned just in time to see the door slam shut, trapping them in complete darkness.

Before Hiccup could mutter another sarcastic quip, light returned to their senses. A faint green glow, coming from behind them. They fumbled around in the darkness, bumping into each other more than once, before it was illuminated enough for them to find the source of the glow.

Beneath them, in a pool of sand, were a multitude of jade lights. Scattered haphazardly. The girl knelt down, brushing some sand away to reveal a green shard. She examined it, looking for any answers, but got none. “…What’s hurting the magic?” She whispered.

She retrieved another shard, and fit it together with her first one. They fit perfectly, like a puzzle. And the image it held became just the slightest bit clearer.

Seeing what had to be done, Hiccup bent down beside her and began gathering shards along with her. He gave her a third piece, that looked like it would fit best with her two. They gazed into the connected pieces to see…

A figure, her figure. They both gasped, and Hiccup shakily whispered. “It’s you?” Before they could ponder what that meant, they shuddered as the room was beginning to quake. They both looked to see a scattering of cracks snaking across the wall. Dust falling from the ceiling.

It looked like the cave was going to collapse.

With them inside.

Trembling with fear, they both grabbed as many shards as they could as quickly as they could. Stuffing them into Mirabel’s bag. Once all the shards were collected, they stood to quickly make their exit. The girl nearly dropping her glasses in the process.

Hiccup was at the door, and was about to open it, when he noticed his companion wasn’t beside him. Looking back, he saw her back in the pool. Digging into a pile of sand. They had missed a piece, and she was risking it all to retrieve it.

With a gulp, he couldn’t help but notice that huge chunks of rock were falling from the ceiling. The last shard in hand, she hastily tried to make her way to the door, but she tripped on a piece of rubble.

Just as another piece of rubble was about to crush her.

Jolting in terror, he shouted her name and quickly ran to her. Tackling her, he caused the two to roll away from the spot that almost became their early grave. Standing, and rapidly helping her to her feet, they rushed to the door. Climbing the piles of sand that had begun to cover it.

They both pushed against the door, but it wouldn’t budge. The room was filling with sand, fast. Hiccup continued to slam against the door, wishing now more than ever that he was the big, burly Viking he wasn’t. Just as it seemed they were going to drown in a sea of sand, the door finally opened. And the two were carried out by a rushing sand stream.

Rolling to a stop, the two took a moment to catch their breath. Mirabel looked to her right-

And saw she was right at the edge of the cliff.

Yelping, she scrambled onto the nearest safe ground she could find.

Which happened to be Hiccup’s chest.

“Can’t…breathe…” She quickly jumped of him, muttering rapid-fire apologies as he wheezed for breath, and he released a few hacking chuckles. Happy they escaped that sandy tomb.

She opened her bag, the two of them gazing at the shards they had acquired.

And they quickly got the hell out of Bruno’s room.

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Still huffing from the adrenaline, the pair swiftly hurried from Bruno’s room. They turned a corner-

And slammed straight into Alma.

As Mirabel stuttered out an apology, she looked at the duo in confusion. “Where are you coming from in such a hurry?” She looked to Hiccup with even more confusion. “And why are you here?” She then noticed what they were covered in, and the skeptically placed her hand near Mirabel’s head. “And what is in your hair?” Before either of them could come up with a convenient excuse, a they heard a shout coming up the stairs.

“MY GIFT!”

Luisa clomped her way upstairs, looking quite distraught. “I’m losing my gift!” The three of them turned to her as Alma whispered. “What?”

Luisa started rambling the reason for her woes. “Mirabel and I were having this little talk about me carrying too much, so I tried not to carry so much but I realized it was putting me behind! And I knew I was gonna let everyone down!”  Hiccup had never seen the mighty girl look so…vulnerable. It was a bit unnerving, but more than anything he felt bad for her. She seemed really upset.

Mirabel’s sister continued. “And I felt really bad, so I was grabbing all the donkeys! But then when I went to throw the donkeys in the barn, they were…” she took a shuddering breath. “HEAVY!” with a wail, she cried herself to her room.

Hiccup watched as Alma turned to eye his companion with furrowed brows. “What did you do? What did you say to her?” Mirabel fumbled with her words. “Nothing! I-I don’t- “Her grandmother cut her off with a huff. “Mirabel, I have to go get the Guzman’s for Isabela’s engagement. Stay away from Luisa until I can talk to her, tonight we can’t have any more problems! And whatever you’re doing, stop doing it!”

She pointed her scowl to Hiccup. “And you! You have to go now, this is a family dinner. Are you family?” Before he could respond with his signature dry wit, she was already pushing him down the stairs and to the door. “Exactly!” Hiccup looked over his shoulder, mouthing the words TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE to Mirabel. She nodded, being calling out to him. “Talk to you later!”

To a casual listener it just sounded like a promise to hang out soon, but they knew it was a promise to discuss their findings. And perhaps find out how exactly to save the miracle.

Mirabel was looking towards Luisa’s fading door when Hiccup was finally shoved outside. “You can play with Mirabel tomorrow!” Was all she spoke before she shut the doors on him. Preparing to head out herself and fetch the Guzman’s in a short bit.

Hiccup glanced up at Mirabel’s window, wondering what the girl was doing. What she was seeing.

He hoped it was good news.

But he doubted it.