12-第十九章：往事以超乎我们想象的方式萦绕在当下......

小嗝嗝一手将龙之宝石高高举起。
照在宝石上的光一下子亮瞎了恶龙的眼睛——它立刻看清了那是什么东西，惊恐地哼了一声，在喷火之前及时关闭了喷火洞。
恶龙尖叫起来，仿佛被一根巨大的长矛击中，眼睛因恐惧而变暗淡。
随后……
【龙之宝石，】它发出一声可怕的叹息，嘶嘶道。
【他找到了……】Wodensfang小声说，眼睛里满是希望和绝望的宽慰。【他找到了！命运终于终于都是站在善良的一边......】
在那一刻，宝石在他的手中，小嗝嗝感觉到了它的力量。
统治龙族的力量，掌握生死的力量。将它们全部灭绝的力量。
【我有宝石，Furious！】小嗝嗝喊道。【而且我知道它的神秘力量！】
恶龙停了下来，愣了一下。
龙族的命运，掌握在人类手中。
【那就用它。】恶龙Furious嘶嘶叫着，它喘着气，眼睛悲痛得发黑。【打破它。终结我们。命运已经站在你这边了。】
【我不需要打破它，】小嗝嗝说。【我们可以谈一谈，我可以保证。我向你保证，现在我是国王，龙族将获得自由。我们可以结束这场战争，我们可以缔造和平，龙族可以重获自由，想飞去哪里都行……】

【但你不会永远活着，】恶龙叹息道。
这条沸腾着的、冒着热气的龙被一种混乱的情绪折磨着：痛苦、恐惧、愤怒。它那庞大的身体颤抖着，脑袋扭来扭去。
小嗝嗝直视着恶龙Furious的眼睛。
这样做很危险，但这是唯一能知道它在想什么的办法。
双方停顿了一下，随后在暴风雨般的黑暗瞳孔深处，又燃起亮得让人眼睛刺痛的火焰。
【终结我们！终结我们！】恶龙催促道。【无论如何，现在必须结束这一切。我不接受你的承诺。我们不能再这样下去。龙族不能再做奴隶了！】
【我不能这样做！】小嗝嗝喊道，眼泪顺着他的脸流了下来。【那样会伤透我的心的！】
【你是位国王！】恶龙Furious尖叫道，它又再次发怒了，火焰又从那双眼睛里喷出来。【国王必须为人民的利益行事。你不能犹豫。你必须杀戮，我们的龙一出生就被这样教导……
【看看我，你在我的尖牙上看到的是人血，你在我的爪子上看到的是人血。我是个怪物，你还不明白吗？明白了，就结束这一切！】
【你不是怪物！】小嗝嗝喊道。【你跟这里的无牙没什么两样......】

【好吧，如果你不结束这一切，那就看看我能变成什么样的怪物吧。】恶龙咆哮着，又吐出一口气。【打破它，否则我就杀了你们，一旦宝石的力量在我手中，我就会遵守我的诺言，杀死你们全人类……】
这是进攻的时刻。
恶龙Furious肚子里的食肉动物知道这一点。现在只有小嗝嗝挡在他和龙族的胜利之间，挡在结束它们受奴役的痛苦之间。
‘猎物，小嗝嗝是猎物，唯一的猎物，先下手为强，再慢慢思考吧……’
恶龙Furious把头往后一仰，喷火洞里已经充满了致命的火焰，它的吸力是如此之大，小嗝嗝的身体被它拖着向前。再过一秒钟，一切就完蛋了……
小嗝嗝张开双臂，右手高举着那颗宝石。就在那一刻，他知道了，就像他一直想的那样，他不会打破宝石，他不会永远消灭龙族，他不会做出一个国王应该做出的决定。
大滴的热泪顺着他的双颊滚落而下。
“我做不到，”小嗝嗝低声说。“我不会这么做的……我不会打碎宝石。”
这不是小嗝嗝的本性，他不可能改变自己。
相反，他转过身来，把龙之宝石远远地扔进海里。然后他转向恶龙Furious。

【就算是你活在我的肚子里，你也不会把宝石打碎的。】小嗝嗝激昂地向恶龙喊道，【我知道你不会这样做。你不是怪物，我相信你不会杀我。作为回报，我保证我会建造一个新世界，一个更美好的世界，一个配得上我们两个物种的世界。不是想我们现在这样的物种，而是我们能够成为的物种。】
小嗝嗝闭上眼睛等待着。
恶龙不敢相信。小嗝嗝的这一完全出乎意料的举动又让它停了下来。它吓了一跳，好像想起了什么事。在迷惑地看着那颗宝石掉进海里之后，它似乎比之前更生气了。
【你在干什么？】恶龙吼道。
维京人们也不敢相信。
“我不信！”Visithug族的万恶不赦吼道，现在轮到他去用那个望远镜般的玩意儿了。“国王把宝石扔了！”
悬崖顶上的维京人发出一声恐怖的呐喊。
“不！不可能！”
然后他们又喊......
“我们死定啦......”
“唱吧，孩子们，唱！”打嗝高伯绝望地咆哮道，仿佛仅凭歌声的力量，他们就能扭转等待着他们的厄运。
一半的维京人跪倒在地，开始歌唱。另外一半则为全面的战争做准备，他们确信在Furious杀死国王后，战争立即就会爆发。

“我跟你说过，”巫婆嘶嘶道。“我跟你说过的！”
当你注定要完蛋而你一直都是正确的时候，还是会有一丝丝满足感的。
【傻瓜。】恶龙愤怒地咆哮道，它恢复了平静。【傻瓜……你那小小的人类手臂把宝石扔得不够远。你这样是不能弄丢它的......】
恶龙巨大的眼睛可以看到宝石像一只浮游生物在海里落下。它伸出爪，用左爪抓起那颗还在下沉的宝石。恶龙得意洋洋地举起宝石，好让它的龙族军队看到宝石在它手上。
【龙之宝石在我们首领手上！】龙族反叛军胜利般地咆哮道。随后恶龙准备杀了那个男孩。但就在那一刻，当恶龙应该做出最后那致命一击的时候，发生了一些状况。
恶龙看见小男孩在它面前张开双臂，毫无防备地祈求着。没有什么比一个毫无反抗之力的人类更加毫无反抗了。
没有尖牙把他刺穿，没有爪子将他抓住，没有闪电将他击穿，也没有火焰将他烤焦。男孩手上没有宝石，湿漉漉的头发在他前额的龙之印记周围竖起。他平静地站在那里，张开双臂，闭着眼睛，一只自私的小龙在他的脑袋周围拍打着翅膀，那是狂乱而又焦虑的无牙。

最终，无牙趴在了小嗝嗝的心脏上，张开了翅膀，用这可怜的方式去保护那个男孩。
小龙的胸膛上有一道伤疤。
就在恶龙准备杀他的那一刻，一个十分十分远古的记忆冒了出来，那是另一个男孩，另一个时代，另一条伤疤。
这个世界出现过三个小嗝嗝：小嗝嗝一世、小嗝嗝二世和小嗝嗝三世。出现过三条海龙：一条老的，一条年轻的，还有一条正处于壮年、誉满天下、大权在握的中年。三个人、三条龙的胸前都有一道伤疤。
恶龙Furious有一次为了救他的人类兄弟——小嗝嗝·霍兰德斯·哈道克二世，带着与无牙同样的恐惧和绝望，纵身一跃，身上也留下了伤疤。在那可怕而绝望的一跃中，暴风刃刺穿了它的胸膛。它受伤了，但没有年轻的自己并没有被杀死，现在的它比那时小得可笑的自己可大得多了。但是，不管它有多大的力量，不管它多么努力，多么反抗，它都拯救不了小嗝嗝·霍兰德斯·哈道克二世。
恶龙Furious以为自己忘却这些事了。
他以为，在一百年的枷锁中，在无法飞翔的孤独中，已经扼杀了当初使他一跃而起的那份爱。但往事从未真正远离我们。

爱永不消逝，正如红心之石告诉小嗝嗝的那样，即使是暴风刃也扼杀不了那份爱。
一日之情，终身难忘，即使流过血的伤口已经结痂，即使枷锁将它百年禁锢，即使令人窒息的森林里那野蛮生长的荆棘将它缠绕。一扇门在恶龙的心中打开了，这扇门是恶龙多年来一直试图关闭的，这样它就可以实现它的反叛计划了。那扇门终于被打开了，是突然以一种力量就像小嗝嗝在威力蓄须王城堡废墟中恢复记忆一样的力量打开的。而现在已经被打开了，哪怕只有一条裂缝，也不可能再关上了。
心灵是一个奇怪的宇宙。在那珍贵的一瞬间，在明日岛的一瞬间，在人类和龙族的未来悬而未决的一瞬间，遥远的往事就像针尖一样新鲜地涌进恶龙Furious的脑海里，过去的事仿佛就发生在当下，就发生在这一刻……它无法下手。
恶龙哼了一声，摇了摇头，试图强迫自己，让那些闪电喷发出来……但就是出不来。恶龙对着自己发怒，又试了一次……
【不！！！】恶龙Furious吼道。【我必须这么做！我必须履行我的诺言！】
可是，不管它怎么努力，怎么生气地甩着尾巴，它就是办不到。

远处，大块头牛逼佬、十个未婚夫、没脾气、沃尔卡和更多的维京人们，都跪在地上，闭着眼睛，唱着一首老维京曲，声音非常...非常微弱，在雨、烟与火中穿透：
“我曾真心喜爱，雷神啊，而我心已付出代价，
'Once I loved Truly, Thor, and mu heart paid the price,
让我真心喜爱，雷神啊，让我再次相爱！”
Let me love Truly, Thor, let me love TWICE!'
Wodensfang颤抖着睁开了它的眼睛。它也一直在等待恶龙闪电，以及最后的那灼热火焰的剧痛。
但是这些都没有到来。
“我唯一的真爱消失了，那一天我的心都碎了，”远处传来动人而轻柔的维京歌声。
‘My one True Love vanished, and my heart broke that day'
“一旦你真心爱过，雷神啊，你就知道该怎么做了！”

'But once you've loved Truly, Thor, then you know the way!'
19. AND IT HAUNTS THE PRESENT IN MORE WAYS THAN WE THINK… Hiccup held aloft the Dragon Jewel in one fist. The Dragon was blinded for a second by the ray of light hitting the Jewel – saw immediately what it was and, giving a snort of pure terror, he closed up his fireholes in the nick of time, before those bolts of flame could be released. The Dragon screamed, as if he had been hit by a gigantic spear, eyes turned black in horror. And then…

‘The Dragon Jewel,’ he hissed with a terrible sigh. ‘The real Dragon Jewel…’ ‘He’s found it…’ whispered the Wodensfang, his eyes alight with hope and desperate relief. ‘He’s found it! Fate is on the side of the good after all…’ In that second the Jewel was in his hand, Hiccup could feel its power. The power to rule over the dragons, the power of life and death. The power to destroy them completely. ‘I have the Jewel, Furious!’ Hiccup shouted. ‘And I know its secret power!’

The Dragon paused. A moment caught out of time. The destiny of dragons, caught up in a human hand. ‘Then use it,’ hissed the Dragon Furious, panting, his eyes black with pain. ‘Break it. End it. Fate has landed on your side.’ ‘We do not need to break it,’ said Hiccup. ‘We can bargain, I can promise. I promise you that now I am King, dragons will be free. We can end this War, we can make a peace, and dragons can be free again to fly wherever they will…

’
‘But you will not live forever,’ sighed the Dragon. The boiling, steaming Dragon was racked with a confusion of emotion: distress, fear, anger. His great body shivered, his head twisted from side to side. Hiccup looked the Dragon Furious in the eye. It was dangerous, but it was the only way to see what he was thinking. There was a pause, and then within the stormy black depths, the pupils flickered and went pinprick bright with flame once more. ‘End it! End it!’ urged the Dragon. ‘Whatever way, this must end now. I will not take your promise. We cannot go on like this. Dragons cannot be slaves again!’ ‘I cannot end it!’ yelled Hiccup, tears streaming down his face. ‘It would break my heart!’ ‘You are a KING!’ screamed the Dragon Furious, angry once more, flames shooting out of those eyes again. ‘A KING must act in the interests of his people. You cannot hesitate. You have to make the kill, that is what we teach our dragon young from the very start…

‘Look at me, that is human blood that you
see here on my fangs, those are human rags you see dripping from my claws. I am a MONSTER, can you not see that? See that, and end it!’ ‘You are not a monster!’ cried Hiccup. ‘You are no more a monster than Toothless here…’ ‘Well if you will not end it, then see what a monster I can be,’ roared the Dragon, and he exhaled again. ‘Break it, or I kill you, and once I have the Jewel in my power, I will keep my promise and I will kill the whole human lot of you…

’ This was the moment for striking. The carnivore in the Dragon Furious knew it. Only Hiccup now stood between him and victory for the dragons, an end to their misery of enslavement. Prey, Hiccup was prey, only prey, strike first, and think afterwards… The Dragon Furious threw back his head, the fire holes already filling with the deadly flames, his intake of breath so huge that Hiccup’s body was dragged forward in the wind of it. One more second and it would be over…

Hiccup’s arms were wide, the Jewel held aloft in his right hand. In that instant he knew, as he had always known, that he would not break the Jewel, he would not kill the dragons for all time, he would not make the
decision that a King ought to make. Great hot tears rolled down his cheeks. ‘I can’t do it,’ whispered Hiccup. ‘I will not do this… I will not break the Jewel.’
It was not in Hiccup’s nature, and he could not be anything other than the boy he was. Instead, he turned right around and flung the Dragon Jewel as far as he could way, way out into the sea. And then he turned to the Dragon Furious. ‘You would not break the Jewel, either, if you were living in my skin,’ shouted Hiccup passionately to the Dragon. ‘I know you would not do it. You are not a monster, and I trust you not to kill me. And I promise you in return that I will build a new world, a better world, a world worthy of both our species. Not our species as they are, but as they could be.’ Hiccup shut his eyes and waited.

The Dragon could not believe it. The sheer unexpectedness of this action on the part of Hiccup made him halt once more. He started in shock, as if he was reminded of something, and after watching in confusion as the Jewel dropped into the ocean, he seemed to grow angrier than ever. ‘What are you DOING?’ roared the Dragon. The Vikings could not believe it either. ‘I DON’T BELIEVE IT!’ roared Very-Vicious the Visithug, who was having his turn with the telescope-thingy. ‘THE KING HAS THROWN THE JEWEL AWAY!’ There was a cry of horror from the Vikings watching on the clifftops. ‘NO! NOT POSSIBLE!’ And then a groan…

‘WE ARE DOOMED…’ ‘SING, BOYS, SING!’ roared Gobber the Belch, desperately, as if by the mere power of song they could reverse the doom that awaited them. Half of the Vikings fell to their knees and began to sing. The other half prepared for the Total War that they felt sure was now about to happen after Furious killed the King. ‘I told you,’ hissed the Witch. ‘I TOLD YOU!’
When you are doomed, there is still some small satisfaction in having been right all along. ‘Fool,’ snarled the Dragon Furious, recovering himself. ‘Fool… Your puny human arms cannot throw that Jewel far enough. You cannot lose it that way…’ The Dragon’s enormous eye could see the Jewel as it dropped, like a speck of plankton, through the sea. He reached out, and caught up the Jewel with his left paw as if fell through the ocean. The Dragon held up the Jewel victoriously, so his dragon troops could see he had it. ‘Our leader has the Dragon Jewel!’ roared the Dragon Rebellion dragons in triumph. And then the Dragon prepared to kill the boy. But in that second, when the Dragon should have made the final deadly strike, something happened. The Dragon saw the boy in front of him, arms spread wide and defenceless in supplication. There is nothing more defenceless than a defenceless human. No teeth, no talons, no thunderbolts, no fire. No Jewel, the wet hair sticking up around the Dragonmark on his forehead. The boy stood there calmly with his arms wide and his eyes shut, and around his head there flapped a tiny, selfish little dragon, Toothless, who was frantic with anxiety.

Finally, in a pathetic attempt to shield the boy, Toothless settled over Hiccup’s heart and spread wide his wings. On the little dragon’s chest there was a scar. And in that moment in which the Dragon Furious should have taken the kill, an old, old memory intervened, of another boy, another time, another scar. For there had been three Hiccups: Hiccup the First, Hiccup the Second and Hiccup the Third. And here there were three Seadragons: one old, one young, and one in the prime and glory and power of middle life. Every one of the three had a scar upon his chest. The Dragon Furious had got his own scar from when he had once leapt, with the same terror and desperation as Toothless, to try and save his human brother, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Second. The Stormblade pierced his chest in that terrible, hopeless leap. It wounded but did not kill his younger Dragon self, so much larger and grander than this ridiculous little creature. But for all the Dragon’s might, his muscles and his fire, he could not save Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Second from dying. The Dragon Furious thought he had forgotten. He thought that one hundred years in chains, broken and in wingless solitude, had killed the love that

had made him leap. But the past never really leaves us. Love never dies, as the ruby heart’s stone taught Hiccup, and even the Stormblade cannot kill love. Once we love, we cannot forget, though the flesh hardens around the wound that once bled, though it be buried in one hundred years of chains and twisted round with the cruel growing thorns of the choking forest. A door opened in the Dragon’s mind that the Dragon had been trying to keep closed for many long years so that he could carry out his Rebellion. When it finally opened, it did so with the same sudden force with which Hiccup’s memory had returned in the ruins of Grimbeard’s Castle. And now it had opened, even just a crack, it was impossible to shut it once again. The mind is a strange universe. In that precious second, that moment on Tomorrow in which the future of human and dragon hung in the balance, the long distant past of yesterday came back to the Dragon Furious as pin-sharp fresh as if it were right now, this minute…

and he could not make the kill. The Dragon snorted, shook his head, tried to force himself to do it, make those electric lightning bolts come out… but they would not come. The Dragon bellowed with fury at himself, tried again once more…
‘NOOOOO!’ roared the Dragon Furious. ‘I have to do it! I must fulfil my promise!’ But no, however hard he tried, thrashing his tail madly with anger, he could not make himself do it. Far, far in the distance, Humungously Hotshot the Hero, and the Ten Fiancés, and Tantrum the Hero, and Valhallarama and many, many more of the Vikings, were on their knees, eyes closed, singing one of the old Viking songs, and you could just about hear it, very, very faintly, through the rain and the smoke and the fire: ‘Once I loved Truly, Thor, and my heart paid the price, Let me love Truly, Thor, let me love TWICE!’ The Wodensfang, trembling opened his eyes. He, too, had been waiting for the terrible pain of the Dragon’s lightning bolts, the final scorching flames. But they never came. ‘My one True Love vanished, and my heart broke that day,’ sang those beautiful Viking voices, very very softly in the distance. ‘But once you’ve loved Truly, Thor, then you know the way!’