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There were hands everywhere.
Grabbing, pulling, scratching, holding Hiccup down, wrenching his arms behind his back, ripping away his prosthetic leg, pressing his legs against the rough wood of the deck. Hands gripping his wrists, forcing them together, wrapping thin, biting cord around them and cinching it tight.
He fought with the desperation of a man facing the gaping, unknown chasm of his own demise, with a raw, primal strength of a Viking twice his size. He bucked, twisted, kicked out, and writhed against the sea of hands, heart pounding in his ears, breath coming in short, panicked bursts, throat tight and eyes burning, terror eating away at his insides like he'd swallowed a vial of Changewing acid.
But even the strength borrowed from the well of adrenaline was not enough to shake off the fingers digging into his flesh, not enough to escape from the weight of the hands, not enough to squirm out of the ropes binding his wrists firmly behind his back. At every point of contact, his skin burned, even through the leather of his armor, the fabric of his clothes.
The hands were invasive, violating, snatching at his hair and his clothing, and there were so many of them. Possibly as many as twenty. Which meant ten burly Dragon Hunters surrounding him, pinning him down, restraining him. Overkill, he thought, but he wasn't surprised. Not given what Viggo had promised the last time Hiccup had narrowly escaped his clutches.
His breath hitched in an aborted sob at the mere thought of what would happen to him if he didn't fight his way to his feet (foot), snap the ropes, somehow rouse his unconscious dragon, and make an impossible escape. And he tried, he tried, but he couldn't: The ropes bit deeply, drawing blood, the hands on his arms and his legs and his back and twined in his hair drew tighter, pressed harder, drawing a pained whine from his aching chest.
How had it come to this? A simple patrol, gone horribly wrong. Toothless shot down, dragon root arrow in his flank, Hiccup pressed to the deck, thoroughly restrained, hands all over him, making his skin crawl and his mind buzz.
Hiccup's breath caught again, horror cascading down his back like ice water, as one of the hands slid slowly, intimately, from his shoulder and down his side, coming to rest on his hip, where it squeezed. Oh, gods — bad enough to be held down by so many unwanted hands, but now one of them was wandering, and he couldn't do a godsdamned thing about it, he just had to lie there, right side of his face pushed flush against the deck, splinters digging into his cheek and humiliating tears blurring his vision, threatening to fall for his enemies to see. And all that was nothing — nothing — compared to what he knew was coming. What Viggo was going to do to him.
He continued to fight, but with less vigor; his entire body ached at the force of his fruitless struggles, from the hands gripping so tightly. His arms and back and shoulders screamed for relief, his stump throbbed where they'd ripped off his prothesis, his scalp burned from the fingers twisted in his hair.
And then he appeared.
Hiccup couldn't see much from his position, but he did see the boots — tall and black and buckled, made of fine leather. He would recognize those boots and the cocky stride they belonged to anywhere. But even if he had been blindfolded, he would have known exactly who now stood before him from the shift in the air alone.
The whole deck went still and silent, the only noises the heavy breathing of the men restraining him and Hiccup's own terrified, pain-tinged panting. Something akin to lightning charged the air around them, setting every abused nerve on edge, calling the hairs on the back of his neck to stark attention, scattering an array of gooseflesh across his arms and down his back.
Viggo.
And then he spoke, his voice rich and deep and so smug that Hiccup seethed, fury momentarily breaking its weary head above the tide of helplessness and fear. "My dear Hiccup. How very nice of you to join us once again."
The hand meshed in Hiccup's hair jerked upwards, and he hissed as his head was yanked up sharply, his neck craned so far back it sent slivers of agony all the way down his spine. Hiccup glared up at the Hunter chief looming over him like an omen of death and torment, hating everything about him — the immaculately trimmed beard, the highly intelligent, slightly amused gleam in his cruel brown eyes, the curve of his jaw and the sharp line of his cheekbones, the mouth pulled into an infuriatingly confident smirk, the ramrod posture and the hands held demurely behind his back. Hiccup grit his teeth against the pain and did his best to keep his voice calm, authoritative, and controlled instead of angry, panicked, and desperate.
"Dragon root is lethal to Toothless, Viggo," he said. "If you don't give him the antidote, he'll die. And whatever you plan to do to me, I know that you don't want Toothless dead." He choked on the next words. "Think of all the… profit you'd lose."
Viggo hummed good-naturedly, but something of the wolf lurked in the sound, low and dangerous and cunning. "You are quite right, my dear. I would never squander the opportunity to sell what is perhaps the last of a very mysterious, very powerful species of dragon. I would sooner release you safely back to your little friends before I would let your dragon die. My men shall take it below, and then administer the antidote. You have my word."
And although Hiccup trusted Viggo's word about as much as he trusted the twins not to prank him on Loki Day, he knew that Viggo spoke the truth. The man had far too much to gain from a living Toothless. Sickness roiled in his gut; relief and dread mingled in a deadly dance in his chest. Toothless was out of immediate danger, but if they didn't find a way out of this soon, he would be sold at a filthy auction to who-knew-who, for who-knew-what.
And as for Hiccup…
Viggo crouched down before his prisoner, studied his face with something almost reverent. He reached out a large hand and used it to cup Hiccup's face, running the pad of his thumb gently across his cheekbone. Hiccup recoiled at the touch — or at least tried to, but the hands were too many, too tight. He bit back a whine of terror. Viggo's touch was worse than all of the other hands — including the wandering ones — combined.
"Don't touch me," Hiccup spat, but Viggo only quirked an eyebrow and chuckled at the tremor in his voice.
"I told you what would happen if you ever came to be in my possession once more," Viggo said softly, the hand on Hiccup's face gripping his jaw just a little bit harder. Hiccup fought to inhale, but his lungs didn't cooperate. Either they'd been flattened by all the weight on his back, pressing his chest into the deck, or the panic had fully taken hold.
"V-Viggo," Hiccup managed, "don't do this."
Viggo gazed down at him with a mixture of cruel triumph and pity. "Oh, but my darling," he murmured, releasing Hiccup's jaw only to brush his thumb over Hiccup's lips before pinching his chin painfully between his thumb and index finger and tugging his face forward, "I have to."
Every muscle in Hiccup's body coiled like a spring, begging for release, but he was so very aware of all the hands on his body, keeping him still. Hiccup opened his mouth, a desperate please itching on the tip of his tongue, but he clamped his mouth shut around it. This was going to happen no matter what he said or did. At least he could endure it with dignity. Viggo would not get the pleasure of seeing him plead.
A coldness swept across Viggo's features at Hiccup's resolve, but he quickly schooled his expression into his signature smirk. With his free hand, he beckoned to one of his men, someone outside of Hiccup's line of vision, and the next minute, the Hunter passed something long and thin tipped with a metal S to Viggo. The S, Hiccup knew, was studded with hundreds of tiny needle points, each one dipped in dark blue ink. When Viggo pressed that S to his head and the needles pricked his skin, the Slavemark would be permanently tattooed on his flesh. Hiccup's jaw and his hands behind his back clenched at the sight of the horrifying, revolting thing in Viggo's hand, but he kept his mouth shut and stared down his ravaged future with a stoic resolve that would have impressed even Stoick the Vast.
Viggo leaned forward, his lips brushing Hiccup's ear and his beard scratching his neck. "With this mark," he whispered, his breath hot and moist in Hiccup's ear, "I take your future, your throne, your authority, your personhood. With it, I take everything that makes you worth anything to your father and friends. With it — I make you mine. And even if your friends come to rescue you, you will never be able to escape it, never be able to outrun it. Anyone who sees this mark upon your brow will know who you are, what you are, and will drag right back to where you belong."
A sob rose in Hiccup's throat, and this time he couldn't quell it. Hiccup felt Viggo's lips curve into a smile before they retreated. Viggo looked at Hiccup with a kind of softness that twisted Hiccup's insides and pulverized his rampaging heart. "It brings me no great pleasure to see you like this, Hiccup," he said, and Thor damn it all, Hiccup could tell that he meant it. "But as much as I admire your pluck and dedication and, yes, even your defiance, you have become too much of a detriment to my bottom line."
He held the inked Slavemark brand in front of Hiccup's eyes. "This will take you out of the picture.” Icy horror and blinding despair chased one another through Hiccup’s body. "Whether that will mean you end up on an auction block like your dragon, or in chains in the Uglithug Slavelands, or here, with me, well… I suppose that shall remain to be seen." Hiccup had a very ugly feeling that if Viggo had his druthers, it would be the latter, and his gut churned at the prospect.
Hiccup glowered up at Viggo, fresh defiance bleeding from every pore. "I will never stop fighting," he warned, surprised at the steely strength permeating his voice. "Even with this mark, I will never stop trying to escape. I will fight for my freedom and the freedom of my dragon to my last breath." Emboldened by his own words, he pressed forward with reckless (and rather unfounded) confidence: "And once I am free, and sit on the throne of Berk, I will not rest until slavery is obliterated from the Barbaric Archipelago once and for all."
Viggo blinked, a faint unease flitting across his face for a fraction of a second, so quick, Hiccup thought he might have imagined it. Viggo smirked, but it seemed colder, more bitter, than before. "Brave words for a slave," he said, then pressed the brand against Hiccup's right temple, imprinting a bold, permanent, inescapable blue S onto Hiccup's flesh.
And with the cold metal flush against his head and the sting of countless pinpricks, and the hands all over his body, restraining him, and Toothless unconscious just out of his sight, all the fervor and confidence drained out of Hiccup. His skin burned like he'd been branded with fire, even though nothing but metal, needles, and ink had touched his flesh. He swore he could feel the very shape of the S, its wicked curves marking him forever as a slave. Despite the fire in his proclamation to Viggo, Hiccup felt something inside of him shatter.
Slave. With that piece of metal in Viggo's hand, his birthright as heir to the Hairy Hooligan tribe — gone. His leadership of the Dragon Riders — gone. His betrothal to Astrid — gone. The freedom of the skies and the clouds and the wind and stars — gone. His very identity, his personhood —
Gone.
And though he'd meant what he'd said — that he'd fight and never stop trying to escape, that he'd put an end to this barbaric practice and find a way to reclaim the throne of Berk — right now, as Viggo had his men drag Hiccup below deck to be chained in a cell (with a pointed glare at the man with the wandering hands and strict orders not to touch the prisoner again without Viggo's express permission), Hiccup couldn't feel anything but numb, but dread, but cold and dark and alone.
Right now, he could only feel the gaping hole where his freedom had once been. Snatched right out of his hands and ground to dust beneath Viggo's boots.
Soon, he would regroup. Soon, he would plan. Soon, he and Toothless would escape, or be rescued. Soon, his friends and his father would rally around him and — Odin willing — help him figure a way around the damning S on his brow.
But for now, he was scared and alone, his whole future pulled from under his feet, with cold, unyielding manacles locked around his wrists, arms chained behind his back and to the back wall of the cell, prosthetic leg stolen right off his body. With an onslaught of horrifying possibilities assaulting his mind — Toothless on the auction block, he and Hiccup separated forever; Hiccup helpless at the hands of Viggo, who was cruel but sometimes terrifyingly gentle, who let his touches linger and looked at Hiccup in a way that made his flesh writhe; never seeing his friends or his father or his people again, sold at auction to the worst kind of man, who saw other living people as property.
For now, he curled his legs up to his chest as best he could, lay his head on his knees, and let the tears flow free, with only the sound of his own wracking sobs and the jangle of his chains to keep him company.