He was on the train when the thought hit him. Home was shrinking in the distance and he craned his neck to see that last, blurred glimpse from a horrible angle through the window.
He was leaving and he wasn't coming back.
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was dying, he realized. Whether he won or not, once he entered the Capitol, HHH the Third would never set foot outside it again. The huge white building looming off in the distance suddenly didn't resemble a seat of government so much as it did a tomb.
He didn't want to die. He wanted to return to his dragging life, to those long days in the dim workshop and the cove where his best friend slept and the awkward silences with his father over their bowls of poorly-made stew.
But he never would because Hiccups didn't win the Hunger Games. A Hiccup could never, not in a million years, be a Victor. If he wanted to get out of this alive, he would have to stop being all…this.
He had tried to 'stop being all this' for fourteen years. It had been a long, painful endeavor for everyone involved, himself, his father, his mentor, his entire district…his best friend.
Especially Toothless.
And he realized that maybe he could face his district as an insane killer, but he would not be able to face Toothless like that. Never. Maybe the district would finally respect him, but that pained look of fear and repulsion coming from glowing, acidic green eyes in a black-as-coal face…never.
It didn't matter that even if he returned, they would never see each other again.
If he returned, he would walk into a new life he wouldn't like as a person he would hate.
His breath caught and it was hard to swallow. Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, dragon friend, clever inventor and gentle fishbone, was going to die.
For a second, he wanted to be a Victor. He wanted to prove to the world that he wasn't useless and that just because he was small, he wasn't hopeless, and march straight across the Districts to the astonished faces of everyone who had doubted him.
He wanted to strangle his Hiccup-ness again and become that walking, uncontrollable disaster that had caused everyone in a ten-mile radius so much grief. Maybe he would die, but he would drag the Gamemakers down with him. Let them rue the day they made him a Tribute! Let them wish the day the Hunger Games began the sun had exploded and saved them all the terror that was Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third!
But most of all, he wanted to be Toothless's friend, more than he wanted anyone else's respect (even his father's) or revenge on the hell-spawn who were forcing him into this. For perhaps the first time in his life, he really, truly wanted to be Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III.
His eyes hardened.
Death was imminent for Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third.
But, he decided then and there as the train entered the Tomb, it would not come by his own hand. The Capitol would have to do the dirty work itself.