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Prologue

Three months, that is how long till it was Hiccups 16th birthday, but a huge storm took him away before that could happen. Gobber, Stoick, and Astrid had planned what was going to be the biggest celebration in Berks history, and it was all for Hiccup. The party was going to have dragon races, skill based games, strength based games, alcoholic drinks, imported food, and much more. Every man, woman and child was looking forward to the party. Most wanted to celebrate Hiccup's coming of age but some only wanted to go for all the extravagant items that would have been there. This party was a birthday party as well as a coming of age party that would mark Hiccup the marriageable age and he would be able to look for a woman to marry. The woman Hiccup chose he would have to marry then this woman would have bore a child to the heir of the chiefdom of Berk. Everyone already knew who Hiccup would have picked to be his wife, and so did she. The woman he would have taken to be his wife was a girl that every young man on Berk would court if they had been given the chance. This girls name is Astrid Hofferson and everyone on and even some off the island knew that she was being courted by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third , son to the chief of Berk.

None of that ever happened, not the games, dragon races, not the food or drink. All because one longful night where Hiccup had taken a night flight with Toothless and disappeared when a terrible storm appeared out of nowhere. The storms force was so terrible that it ripped tree's out of the ground and houses off of their foundations. Stoic had to gather all the men, women and children together in the great hall for protection against the strong winds. While he was gathering the people he had to battle the rain hitting his skin like flying ice shards and talking over defining thunder, but in his search for people he never could find his one and only son. When the storm ended some villagers said that it was a message for the gods that they had done something wrong or they had upset them. But whether that message was anger or grief because of something man had done they didn't know for sure. The days following the storm Stoic had to focus on rebuilding his village instead of finding the last piece of his broken family, but as soon as the village was livable again he launched a full scale search part for his son. After four months of searching every known island in the barbaric archipelago and finding no trace of Hiccup. Most accepted that he had died in that storm, but some thought that Hiccup might be alive on some forgotten island. They believed this even though it is a very unpopular opinion.

Most who believed that he was dead just accepted that it would be impossible to survive in a storm like that one but some who believed it just didn't want to think about the soon to be man who saved them all and made berk a better place to live. The thought of Hiccup reminded them of a time when life was better, the war had ended, peace, knowledge, and understanding were starting to take its place in their life all because of a single boy who never gave up. But that boy was lost.

Even being a chief has its limits, and when people started to truly believe that Hiccup was dead his want to restore his family was shattered into thousands of tiny unfathomable pieces. Once people started to think that Hiccup was dead they stopped showing up for the search parties. Since the few who still thought the boy to be alive couldn't search for hiccup on there own they was forced to stop searching after almost a year but despite all their inability to search for Hiccup none of them ever gave up hope that he might still be alive.

It's been just over five years since the disappearance of Berks best and brightest in that gods forsaken storm and all of Berk suffered from it. Most of the dragons have left the island some because of the stress of repeated attacks by the outcasts and Berserkers, but most because of old hostilities from the war opening up. Without Hiccup there to manage the emotion on both sides from a 300 year war that had only ended a year before everything went to hell. Most villagers still didn't attack unprovoked though, he had been successful in proving that the dragons don't attack unprovoked so there were very little injuries in the fights that did break out between the dragons and Vikings. The only ones in the village that were tolerated to have dragons around were Astrid, Fishlegs, Snotlout, and the twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut. Astrid has a Deadly Nadder, Stormfly", Fishlegs has Gronckle "Meatlug", Snotlout has a Monstrous Nightmare "Hookfang". The twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut share a Hideous Zippleback "Barf and Belch".

After Hiccups disappearance Stoick chose Astrid for the responsibility taking over the dragon training academy for many reasons, like her ability to maintain order among the five friends and there dragons. She was also chosen, by Stoick, because of her skill, quick thinking, and leadership abilities. When Berk started to get attacked on a regular basis by different enemy forces for what they had done with the dragons it forced Astrid to change what her and her friends did with the dragons. It became the dragon protectorate, a place where the riders would protect Berk with all their resources, skills and their life if necessary. Though they didn't have many members just the five of them they were still able to protect against all forces the wished to do them harm.

With Berk having so many enemies it forced many back into the warrior life that they were brought into and children because of the dragon war. One of the most notable of these people is Astrid. She became a fierce and rigid character to maintain order in their community. Out of the few that still believed Hiccup was still alive Astrid was among them, mostly because that if something did happen to Hiccup and Toothless she would feel it in her soul that something was gone that couldn't be replaced. That's what she truly believed, but when people would occasionally ask her why she told them that if those two were flying and something happened, Toothless would have made sure to take the brunt of the impact and if he needed to die for Hiccup, he would have. At least that's what she told people that asked her why she believed he was still alive. It was really because her heart wouldn't let her accept that he died in the horrific storm. She loved Hiccup for so long and she couldn't just let him go without a fight, that's just not who she was. Astrid loved him for many reasons like his kindness and warmth, that mitigated all the anger she felt, his intelligence and sarcasm, that would always make her laugh and smile, or the he way looked at the world so full of hope that just spread to the people around him, and that warmed her heart. She never told him how she truly felt though and for that she will be eternally regretful and if she ever saw him again she was not going to make that mistake again.

Stoic was never the same after that fateful storm that took his only son and last bit of his family away. Some days villagers would walk by there ageing chief and see him gazing at the horizon with heavy eyes that wished and pleaded for something. Anyone who saw him knew what that something was because they wanted him back too. All Stoic wanted though was to see his son, to hold his son and tell him how much he loved the boy. No one ever disturbed the chief when he was like this, it was like an unspoken rule not to talk about Hiccup near, or to, the chief as to not upset him. Stoick acted completely different after Hiccups loss, now he walked slower and talked with a heavy heart. His shoulders slumped as if he didn't know why he got up in the morning. Over the years the hair on his head and face had aged un proportional to his body, now his beard was mostly gray and his hair had started to raseed. The way he dealt with problems around the village was different to, before he would have people talk it out in a fairly diplomatic way but now if it wasn't a important matter he would usually force a resolve between the arguing parties, and this had started to fracture the integrity of the villages stance towards each other.

More than a few people got truly life affected and changed by Hiccups supposed death, one of these people was Gobber, Hiccup's friend and mentor. He taught Hiccup how to use the forge to craft things from crossbow parts, swords to nails. He thought Hiccup how to sew leather together, and how machines worked. When Hiccup was around Gobber was a funnyish sarcastic character that had a insult ready for every occasion but now the only time when he was like that was when he was extremely drunk. In many ways Gobber felt like a second father to Hiccup and had hoped to see Hiccup do many things like improve in areas like fighting, forging and dragon training, but what he wanted more then anything was see this young man, who was like a son to him, find love get married and have children. That never happened though because the gods had taken that away from him and Stoic. Gobber took another apprentice at the forge two years agter Hiccup vanished much to his protest but it was something that the village needed so he accepted . With the attacks and weather he needed someone to help him with the everyday things like sharpening weapons, and making small things that are extremely mondain. The blacksmiths new apprentices name is Iver Olin and he started at the forge at the age of nine, the boy was well built but short he had proportionate arms and legs with a head of black hair. Gobber trained him hard for months before the kid was even able to pick up the thing he would be working with for the rest of his life. It took almost a year of training before Gobber ler Iver sharpen his first sword and even more time before he let him do it for a customer. Iver was never allowed into the room in the back of the forge. The room was strictly off limits to Iver because it was the last sacred untouched place of Hiccups Gobber had left.