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The Dragon Eye was once created as a gift from the gods.
It was many years ago, in a period lost to time. Hiccup Haddock found a friend who was as drawn to and fascinated by dragons as he was, who had studied them for years and seemed to understand their worth as Hiccup did. Hiccup made for them both a tool to store their knowledge, to pass it down for many generations, to share with others.
The artifact was made to withstand all manners of heat, cold and concussive blast, each lens forged in the heartfire of the first Night Fury and carved by the dragon god himself, the only artifact in all of midgard to hold all knowledge of dragonkind.
But that friend betrayed him.
When Hiccup returned to the human realm, he discovered the corpses of his brethren, stripped and sold for worthless currency. His friend was using the Dragon Eye to hunt them down.
The rules of the gods dictate that they cannot harm or interfere with humankind. Hiccup cannot burn down his "friend's" village, cannot even harm the man himself for his betrayal. But he can curse them, he can vow that no member of their family, not a single descendant, will be free, not as long as they continue to hunt and harm dragons.
Hiccup vows never to let the House of Grimborn know peace.
xXx
Viggo Grimborn has a peculiar birthmark, like his older brother, their father, and his father before them. The 'mark of Grimborn', they call it with pride, for every member of their family carries it. All except one of Viggo's cousins, who left the family young and pursued a life of literature, who was shamed for never having killed even one dragon in his life.
Some say the mark is a curse, for the direct descendants of Grimborn are destined to die by a dragon. Every single one of them. Only those who die young by illness or accident seem to escape it.
Ryker thinks it's superstitious nonsense, they are hunters who take risks, and those who take risks can fall prey to what they hunt. Viggo doesn't feel much for either side, whether mark of pride or brand of death.
It's there, just beneath the crook of his elbow, and he doesn't think much of it.
The ancient dragon artifact was lost on a hunt of his great-uncle, going down with the ship. Some say a mighty sea dragon swallowed the ship whole in its pursuit of the Grimborn curse, since great-uncle Lars fit the age, but nothing was certain. Not too long after, his grandfather was killed by a Monstrous Nightmare, and Viggo nearly bled out from the jagged claw marks it left in his neck.
He doesn't think the curse is real, but Viggo still doesn't understand how that dragon had managed to appear seemingly out of nowhere.
Years later, his father dies as well. He was out on a hunt, and something got the better of him, specifically him. Cousin Lars thinks it was the curse; Ryker shoved him for it. Viggo didn't say anything. He never liked his father anyway.
xXx
One day, Viggo meets a clever young man with eyes like forests of amber, who rides a night fury and treats it like a companion, who found the artifact and is using it to help dragons. It's almost endearing how naive it is. Viggo manages to get the upper hand and demands it back. The boy seems furious about giving up his new toy, stating it isn't his, and it almost makes Viggo laugh.
The artifact, the Dragon Eye, has belonged to his family for generations! He doesn't deign the boy with an answer—he simply takes what's his.
Later that night, when he's rubbing absent-mindedly at the birthmark that feels like it's burning, he thinks about the boy's expression, and wonders what else had been hidden in those eyes he hadn't seen.
xXx
The boy, Hiccup Haddock, is peculiar. He flies on dragons and treats them as equals, he has startling green eyes that in some lights almost seem to glow, and when he opens his mouth there is a flash of sharpened canines, longer than Viggo has ever seen them on any human before. He is smart, resourceful, and determined to take back the Dragon Eye. Viggo, naturally, doesn't let him.
Another member of the Grimborn Household finds his death by a dragon, months later, dragged to the depths of the ocean. Viggo doesn't believe in the curse, but he wonders if he might have set Ryker up for this when he decided to chain the Shellfire in the first place.
xXx
The day before his brother died, Viggo stood with Hiccup at the cliff's edge of his base and mentioned his family's bane.
Hiccup, uncharacteristically, hadn't replied at all.
xXx
If Krogan and Johann taught him anything, it was that standing beneath a ruthless leader only inspired contempt, and not an ounce of loyalty. He should have known that. Maybe if he had realized that sooner he wouldn't have been in this situation. Maybe he would have still had his brother.
The second thing he realized is that dragons, truly, were magnificent creatures capable of surprising him many times over. The Monstrous Nightmare saved his life when his own allies tried to end it, and Viggo doesn't expect how guilty he feels knowing he wouldn't have done the same if the roles were reversed.
He would now.
He looked the creature in the eye and realized they were truly not so different.
And it seems, as the arrows pierce his back, that the Grimborn curse isn't real after all, unless his sacrifice for a boy and his dragon counts as death by a dragon.
But then he doesn't die. Hiccup saves his life in turn, in a way Viggo isn't able to comprehend, but has come to expect from the enigma named Hiccup Haddock. On their way back, as his thoughts start to drift from the pain, he comments that perhaps it was the curse that saved his life, not allowing him to die unless it is by a dragon. Hiccup, again, for some reason, doesn't say anything.
It's fine. Viggo has long learned that nothing about Hiccup Haddock is even remotely normal.
xXx
Viggo is allowed to recuperate at Dragon's Edge, as Hiccup argues his knowledge of the dragon flyers is invaluable. Viggo knows as well as Hiccup that there is nothing he can give that would be of any real worth to them.
Days later, when Viggo is finally well enough to walk, he meets Hiccup at the cliff, the same one they had stood at the night before the shellfire battle. Some of the cliffs have crumbled under the assault of the dragon flyers from days long past. They stand in silence for a while. Hiccup seems to be deep in thought, quiet, before seemingly coming to a decision and turning his golden-green eyes on Viggo.
Hiccup looks young, but his eyes are beyond age, as vast and ancient as olden oceans.
"I was betrayed, once," Hiccup says then. "And I vowed not to rest until I felt the debt had been repaid."
Revenge. It doesn't sound like something Hiccup would do—but then again, when has Viggo ever known what to expect from the extraordinary?
Hiccup exhales, deeply, as if there was a burden on his shoulders he carried for too long, finally lifted from him. Hiccup looks at him again. "You saved me in those caves, saved Toothless. Your loyalty to the Skrill astounded me. Perhaps it is time for me to let go of the past."
It doesn't sound like Hiccup at all. Viggo opens his mouth to ask, but then Hiccup reaches out and takes his wrist, holding it lightly. It only lasts a few seconds, then Hiccup releases him, his smile woeful in the last light.
"Don't make me regret it," he says, before he turns and walks back to the base.
xXx
That night, as Viggo readies himself for bed, he looks at his arm and halts.
His birthmark is gone.