Hiccups point of view
Freya stared at the broken figure on the ground, her little fists clenched, her voice cold and flat as stone.
"I want him to feel what I felt."
Her words cut through the air like the edge of a blade.
"Every bruise. Every crack. Every scream I had to choke down alone." Her breath hitched slightly, but her gaze never wavered. "I want him to suffer. Just like I did."
My chest burned.
Not with pity.
With pride.
With wrath.
I reached forward, gently brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. "You're strong, my Valkyrie," I whispered. "Stronger than anyone here."
Then I turned to Luna. Our eyes met. She understood immediately.
"Take her," I said. "She's already carried too much."
Luna's claws gently slid under Freya's legs and back, lifting her effortlessly.
Freya didn't protest—but her eyes never left the man on the ground.
"I'll make sure he understands," I promised.
And then I stood.
The man was trying to crawl. Somehow. Pathetic. His knees were shattered, his arms limp at his sides. His mouth bubbled red with every breath.
He looked up at me with fear.
Finally.
Finally, he saw what he'd done.
I stepped over him, crouched low, my face inches from his bloodied ruin of a face.
"You hurt my daughter."
His mouth moved. No sound came out.
"You laughed while she screamed."
His body trembled.
"You called her worthless. You broke her arm. You enjoyed it."
I smiled.
"And now... I will show you what it means to truly suffer."
He tried to roll away. I let him.
For a second.
Then I stepped on his back, pressing him flat against the arena floor, grinding his spine into stone.
He screamed.
Not from pain.
From panic.
Good.
I knelt, wrapped one hand around the back of his neck, and yanked his head up so he could see the crowd.
So they could see him.
"This," I said, raising my voice for the first time, "is what happens when you touch what's mine."
I turned his head toward the dome.
Toward the elders.
The cowards.
The ones who watched it all happen and did nothing.
"You all made this," I hissed. "Every sneer. Every silence. Every time you turned away while they laughed at her pain—or mine."
My claws dug deeper.
"She was a child. I was a boy. And you threw us to the wolves."
He tried to wheeze something. I slammed his head once against the stone, then again.
He wasn't unconscious.
Not yet.
"Feel this," I whispered, leaning close to his ear. "Every second of it."
I reached down, gripped his thigh—and twisted.
Bone cracked.
He howled.
Then I snapped the other leg. Not cleanly. Jagged. Messy. Purposeful.
He sobbed now.
Not out of pain.
Out of despair.
I lifted his face again and met his gaze. "I want you to remember this feeling every second until you stop breathing."
I gripped his jaw, tilted his head toward the crowd again.
"Let this be your final lesson, Berk."
And then—
I snapped his neck.
Not with a scream.
Not with ceremony.
Just a simple, final crack.
His body slumped instantly.
Limp.
Lifeless.
I stood slowly, covered in blood, steam rising off my skin from the heat of my fury.
Behind me, Luna cradled Freya, whispering softly into her hair.
Beside them, Astrid stood. Her smile had faded, but her eyes were wide, stunned.
She had seen everything.
I turned to the village.
And I let them feel me.
Let them taste the blood in the air.
"This," I said, my voice ringing across the dome, "was your only warning."
My words cut clean.
"If anyone—anyone—dares to lay a hand on my daughter again... if anyone so much as thinks of threatening my wife..."
I raised my hand. Let them see the blood dripping from my fingers.
"...you will get the claws."
I raised the other.
"The fire."
Both arms open now.
"And a death so slow, so painful, you'll beg to die long before your soul is allowed to leave your body."
Luna's eyes gleamed behind me.
"And it won't always be me delivering it."
I looked at her—at my Queen.
"Sometimes," I said, smiling now, "it'll be her."
The dome was silent.
Berk had no words.
Only fear.
And that was exactly how I wanted it.
Elders' Perspective – After the Kill
The moment his hands snapped that boy's neck, the air didn't just go quiet.
It died.
Elder Halvar gripped the stone railing so hard his knuckles turned white. His mouth had fallen open at some point. He didn't remember when.
He hadn't blinked for over a minute.
Beside him, Gobber had gone deathly still, his jaw slack and his eyes filled with something no one had ever seen in him before.
Dread.
Even Gothi had stopped her slow, silent sketching. Her eyes—those ancient, weary eyes—were fixed on the figure in the arena with something like reverence.
Or fear.
"What..." Halvar's voice cracked. "What did we just witness?"
No one answered.
No one could.
Because words didn't belong in the presence of what they had seen.
That wasn't a man.
That wasn't even a dragon.
That was death, wearing skin.
The blood hadn't been the worst part. Not the shattered knees. Not the gurgling screams. Not the crack of bone echoing like thunder beneath the dome.
It was what came before the first blow.
That moment when Hiccup's eyes had gone green—unnaturally bright, glowing like lanterns in the dark.
The moment his shadow stretched across the sand and everything around him turned red.
Not from blood.
From aura.
The world itself had darkened.
The arena stone, the sky above it, the air between them—all of it had taken on a deep, wet crimson glow.
It wasn't metaphor.
It was real.
They had felt it in their bones.
Elder Yrsa still had tears on her cheeks. Not from sorrow.
From the pressure.
From the truth.
"I couldn't move," she whispered. "I couldn't even think. He looked at that man and it felt like—like the ground wanted to swallow me."
Gobber finally spoke. "That wasn't rage."
They turned to him.
He stared down into the pit where Hiccup now stood, surrounded by his strange little family—his queen, his child, and the other one... Astrid, still watching with that same hollow smile.
"That was control," Gobber muttered. "Cold. Precise."
He paused.
"He's killed before."
Yrsa shuddered. "Of course he has."
"No," Gobber said, slowly shaking his head. "I don't mean accidents. I don't mean beasts. I mean—he's done this. Again. And again. And again."
They looked at each other.
And knew it was true.
There had been no hesitation in the kill. No fear. No regret. No mercy.
Only finality.
Halvar swallowed. "When the boy was too weak... did you see his eyes?"
They had.
They remembered.
He had looked bored.
Like he'd expected more.
Like he'd wanted it to last longer.
Gobber exhaled through his nose. "He was disappointed."
Gothi tapped her staff once on the stone.
A sharp knock.
Then she raised her hand and made a simple symbol in the air—a spiral within a circle.
The old rune for judgment from beyond.
Yrsa leaned against the wall, suddenly feeling much older than she had in years. "He doesn't belong to us anymore."
Halvar nodded slowly. "He's not the boy we cast out."
"No," Gobber agreed. "He's the consequence."
They all looked back down.
Luna now stood beside him, the child between them. Astrid lingered off to the side, hands still twitching with restrained desire.
That girl—Freya—had watched it all. And she hadn't flinched once.
Yrsa's voice came out hollow. "The girl smiled."
Halvar stared at the child, her emerald eyes still sharp.
"Not because she was cruel," he said.
"No," Gobber said grimly. "Because it felt like justice."
A silence settled again.
And then Halvar whispered what none of them wanted to say.
"We're not dealing with villagers anymore."
Gobber nodded once, slowly.
"We're looking at monsters."