NOTE: This fiction takes place in the HTTYD-esque "Battle of the Grounded Dungeon" roleplay universe, for which information can be found at the Tumblr blog battleofthegroundeddungeon under "Chronicles."

This is the backstory of King Haddock of the Wilderwest.


He always thought that on those days he felt depressed, the weather was supposed to be gloomy, too.

That stormy skies would reflect a stormy soul.

That both raindrops from the clouds and tears on his face would fall as one.

Hel, even a little gust of Odin-damned wind to disturb the leaves on trees' branches could have served to mirror the restlessness currently overtaking his heart.

Yet the weather, if anything, juxtaposed his emotions rather than reflected them. For sunlight cheerily danced on bright aspen leaves, intensifying the burning reds on crap apple trees and verdant greens of grass-cloaked meadows. Carefree clouds scudded smoothly over intense blue skies. Even hares, usually intimidated by a human's approaching footsteps, rested unperturbed in plain view.

It was almost ridiculous, in a sense, how tackily perfect the outdoors seemed. Could something so idealistically idyllic actually exist? It was pure mockery, an absolute travesty – and would have been so on any afternoon, even one less doleful than was today.

Even the stupid weather can't sympathize with me, he thought as he stomped past a cluster of blooming primroses.

But he should have known he would be alone again. All the signs had been there, that this isolation was coming.

Even then, with this longstanding knowledge, it never ceased to baffle him what had occurred over the last few months. The son of a king, thrown aside. Outright outcasted. Unable to return home for three years, else he would be killed on sight.

In a burst of anger he rushed up to punch a perfectly-rounded tree straight in its trunk and then staggered backward as pain shot up his arm.

"Bloody half-Jotun bastard," he cursed under his breath. At the tree, not himself. No, not at himself at all. No reason to curse himself. None. . .

The young man trekked onward through the landscape. The steep incline of tumbling hills and miniature mountains sometimes forced him to paused and puff for breath, yet he never completely halted his journey. No, he wanted to leave his past behind him as quickly as possible. Head to a new world. Someplace better.

Wherever that so happened to be.

It preferably would be the location to a place he had never before read on a map, a name he did not recognize, one that did not even tickle in the back of his mind as somewhere he should have known. For if he lacked complete familiarity with even the location's name, then likewise all the inhabits should not know his own hometown, his own family name.

What used to be his family name.

"Son of a troll-fucked mo…"

No, he wasn't cursing himself right now, either. Just cursing… cursing… the unnaturally immaculate weather. That was all.

Weather like that deserved a few well-targeted swear words.

He began taking devious pleasure noticing the imperfections of the landscape. That one snapped branch on the alder over there. The pine tree's browning needles, insects crawling over its trunk's rough bark. That too-skinny rabbit to his left darting away from him. The flowers he intentionally trampled just to show he still had some control in the world.

Even the egg white clouds were stupid, malformed beasts, if he put his mind to it.

And he did. For pointing out nature's shortcomings made him feel better about himself and all his imperfections. Those imperfections which had landed him here in a beautiful, peaceful, sunny, impossibly green, but nevertheless completely and utterly intolerable Hel.

But…

How else could flowers grow unless someone watered them?

He threw his back up against the tree and began to sob. And the next curses that escaped his lips were all directed at himself.