Disclaimer: I don't own HTTYD

A/N: So, yeah. Apologies in advance. I've never posted anything like this before, not sure how it's going to go over, we'll see. Hang on tight, it'll be a bumpy ride.

This story is dedicated to Sarah ;)

Hearts, Broken

Chapter One – Failed Escape

It was dark, very dark. He was lying on something hard and cold, and the acrid metallic scent of blood filled his nose. Hiccup wondered if this was the battlefield that fallen warriors went to after they died, to battle to their hearts content and then drink mead in Valhalla served by amply bosomed wenches.

He'd never understood the appeal of that. The battles or the mead. And he already had a… Note to self, never call Astrid a wench. Valkyrie yes, wench no.

Hiccup felt a cool dry snout nudging at him, a wet tongue sliding over his face. On second thoughts, maybe this wasn't the afterlife. Which of course begged the question, how was he still alive? The last thing he remembered was…

With a great effort, he forced his eyes open, and found Toothless standing over him. The dragon's pupils were blown so wide there was hardly any green iris visible, his mouth curved in a delighted gummy smile.

*You're alive!*

"Did you…did you just…talk?" Hiccup whispered, voice hoarse, eyes wide in shock. He swore he'd just heard a voice coming from his dragon, like he'd heard the dragon's thoughts…what in Thor's name is going on?

Toothless cringed a bit, and licked at his paw, spitting away whatever was on it – blood? – with a tiny bit of flame. Hiccup sat there, panting. He gingerly reached up to his side. His clothes were bloodstained but…the wound was gone. So was the pain. If he couldn't feel the scar, it wouldn't seem like he'd been stabbed at all. Toothless spoke again. *We need to escape.*

Mind reeling, he nodded. With Toothless' help he struggled to his feet and onto the dragon's back. Toothless reared, bracing his front paws against the dirt, and Hiccup climbed up to stand on his shoulders. He reached up to grab the cold metal of the still open hatch and haul himself out.

Once he'd managed to drag himself through the small space, Hiccup knelt at the edge of the pit and struggled with the heavy latch of the larger grate. The rusted green metal was stiff, and rattled when he pulled on it. Hiccup panicked and tugged harder. In the pit below, Toothless craned his neck to stare anxiously up at his human. Then he saw someone behind Hiccup, and shrieked. *Look out!*

Startled, Hiccup's head jerked up to stare at the dragon. A split second later Toothless' words registered, but by then it was too late. Hiccup gasped as a shadow fell over him and tried to roll away, but a meaty hand shot out and grabbed his upper arm in a vice-like grip. Hiccup squirmed and fought the man's hold with all his strength, but he might as well have the strength of a hatchling for all the good it did. "Argh! Let go of me! Toothless!"

*Hiccup!*

Hauke was in his tent, the largest and most lavishly furnished (relatively speaking) of them all. It was big enough for a small desk, upon which he had laid out all of Haddock's personal effects. Leather armour, a compass, small dagger, a sketchbook with maps, a Gronckle iron shield emblazoned with the Night Fury's silhouette…and the item Hauke was currently puzzling over.

It looked like a sword hilt, with a stylised dragon head at one end and a slit on the other. The metal was engraved with small scales for grip. It was beautifully designed, but it didn't actually have a sword…or did it? As Hauke peered into the hollowed part, he could see the glint of metal inside. Curious, he held it up in front of him and pressed a switch on the side.

Instantly, a plume of fire erupted from the hilt, startling him a bit. The flames didn't dissipate, and Hauke realised they were wreathing a collapsible blade. The blade itself was covered in Monstrous Nightmare saliva. "Interesting" he murmured, slowly waving the blade through the air, admiring the way the flames swished around. "You've outdone yourself, Haddock."

There was a commotion outside his tent, and Hauke retracted the sword. "Chief! Chief, you've gotta see this!" a man called to him.

Impatient, Hauke swept aside the tent flap and strode out, demanding "What's going on out here?" Then his eyes fell on the figure being manhandled in front of him; someone Hauke was sure he had recently seen dying. "What the…"

Hiccup struggled in his captor's grip, and glared at Hauke. His eyes fell on Inferno resting in his enemy's hand. "That's mine!"

"Hmm? Oh, this" Hauke noted, raising the hilt to eye level. "Yes, it's quite ingenious, but never mind that. What I want to know is", he ignited the sword and held the tip to Hiccup's chin, forcing the young man to jerk his head away. "How can you still be alive?"

"Yeah, your guess is as good as mine" Hiccup retorted. "Look, just let me fix Toothless' tail fin and then we'll be out of your hair. We'll never…you'll never have to see us again" he insisted, trying to keep a pleading note out of his voice.

Hauke just looked at him as if sizing him up – no, as if he was a yak being sold at market. Hiccup really didn't like the way the man was eyeing him. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Unfortunately for you, I'll have to keep you for a while. You could be useful" Hauke said ominously. He barked out orders to his men. "Bind the prisoner and take him aboard ship. You lot, get the Night Fury out of that pit and into a cage, and muzzle it. We are leaving, now."

The hunters wound rope around Hiccup's wrists and threw another loop around his neck, dragging him away from the camp and down towards the sea. The path down into the crumbling fjord was steep, narrow and winding. Hiccup could barely keep his balance with both hands free, let alone with them tied in front of him and someone yanking on a rope around his neck.

To make matters worse, he felt cold – really cold – in his chest, which was tight and pulling back towards the camp. It actually felt as if he was being pulled in two different directions, an icy hand grabbing and tugging at his heart, the all too real rope scratching against his neck. The urge to escape and get back to Toothless made his blood thunder like stampeding Thunderclaws in his ears.

Halfway down he stumbled, prosthetic catching in a crack, and pitched forwards. Reflexively he threw his hands forward to break his fall, and scratched them on a sharp rock jutting out from the side of the cliff. "Aaah!"

"Move it!" the hunter in front of him snarled, yanking on the rope again. Hiccup staggered, just barely regaining his footing. Inwardly he cursed. If he'd only stumbled a moment later, it might have been the ropes that were cut on the rock. Then he could have torn them away, gotten back to the top – past the hunter who kept poking him with a sword, somehow – and gotten to Toothless.

Inspired, Hiccup looked around for something to cut his ropes on. His gaze fell on a thorny bush, devoid of greenery, stubbornly clinging to the sheer rock wall on his left. Desperate, Hiccup lunged towards it. He lifted his hands and frantically tried to catch the ropes on the thorns, to slice through them. A sharp point jabbed him in the ribs, and he instinctively jerked away.

"Would you stop doing that?!" Hiccup yelled, both to the hunter wielding the sword and the hunter dragging him forwards once more.

"Oh, but it's so much fun" the man behind him grinned cruelly.

They forced him to walk onwards until they'd reached the thin strip of beach at the bottom of the cliff, over which the waves were rolling. The sword guy flashed it in the light of the torch he was carrying in his other hand, signalling the ship. Raised voices drifted across the water from the vessel, and a rowboat was lowered down into the sea.

Anxious, Hiccup looked over his shoulder at the harsh path they'd just descended. Near the top, the flaming heads of more torches bobbed in the darkness. He could make out the hunters painstakingly heaving cages, most empty but a few filled with dragons, down to the shore. His first thought was Toothless is in one of those. His second was Did they really pull all those cages up there just to bring them back down again?

He didn't understand what was happening. What did Hauke mean, "I'll have to keep you"? "You could be useful"? Useful for what? As ransom? It was the only thing Hiccup could think of. If Hauke knew who he was (who else knows?) then perhaps the man knew he was Berk's heir. Thoughts of his father invaded Hiccup's mind and he winced. Dad, I'm sorry.

The boat neared shore, and the rope around his neck was tugged hard, jarring Hiccup out of his thoughts. The hunters made him wade the short distance to the boat and climb in, pushing him to his knees. With three extra people in the small vessel, it sat low in the water, and some of the waves lapped across the sides, soaking Hiccup even more. He shivered.

"D'you think the chief'd mind if we tied this bolas to the rope round 'is neck and shoved 'im overboard?" the rope-tugger wondered aloud, as if Hiccup wasn't even there. "It'd make the boat a sight easier to move."

"Shut up" said sword-poker, jabbing his companion in the shoulder, though not with the sword, which was aimed at Hiccup instead. "The Chief wants him alive. If he wanted him dead, he'd have just stabbed him again. How did you survive?" the hunter asked Hiccup, who could only shrug.

My dragon did something. Toothless did something to me…but what?

As they neared the foreboding vessel, Hiccup tried to distract himself from the uncomfortable position he was in by looking at the ship. He hadn't noticed from the air, but this was one of the largest ships he'd ever seen. More bizarrely still, it was covered in dragon-proof metal, and yet it could float. Embossed on the side was the ship's name, the oh so cheerful BLACK DEATH.

Hiccup had seen ships with metal coats before, but those ships had wood on the outside. Back then, he'd assumed the wood somehow kept the ships above water, even with the extra weight. Maybe the keel is wooden and that's how it floats he pondered. It wouldn't matter if the lowest part of the ship wasn't dragon-proofed – the sea would take care of that.

The boat returned to the side of the ship, and the hunters hauled it up towards the deck. They climbed out, dragging Hiccup with them. The rope-tugger hauled him over to a bollard on the side of the deck and fastened the other end of the rope around Hiccup's neck to it. Then he pulled hard on it and forced the knot further in towards Hiccup's throat. "Just so you don't get any ideas" the man said by way of explanation, before rushing off.

The ship was alive with activity, everyone running around preparing to set sail. Hiccup still didn't know why Hauke was in such a hurry to leave. It didn't seem like the hunters had gotten here long before he did. Unless…is he worried more of us are coming? Hiccup prayed fervently, to any gods that were listening (he'd even take Loki at this point, which was saying something), that this was so.

Right now he was being completely ignored in favour of the preparations, but Hiccup's one attempt made it clear he couldn't tug the rope over his head. Trying not to think about how he'd been tied up like livestock, and how degrading it was, Hiccup turned his eyes skywards. He strained them in search of approaching dragons, his friends, his father, coming to the rescue.

They were coming. They had to be. It wasn't the first time he'd been in a scrape like this, and every time before, the gang had arrived just in the nick of time. Come on, guys. Come on, where are you?

The hunters were bringing cages aboard. Most of them were empty, but there were a couple of Nadders and a juvenile Monstrous Nightmare in three of them. Hiccup searched for a glimpse of tell-tale black scales… *Hiccup!* - He heard Toothless, though it didn't quite register, before he saw him. The Night Fury was muzzled once more, staring at him from between the bars of a cage.

"Toothless!" he cried out, relief at seeing his dragon flooding through his chest, banishing the cold. Instinctively, Hiccup tried to move to him, only to be abruptly and harshly stopped by the rope around his neck. All he could do was call across, "Are you okay?!"

*I'm fine!* Toothless called back. It wasn't entirely true; being in a cage wasn't improving his mood any, and he'd long had a distaste for boats…but he was otherwise unharmed. He didn't want to worry Hiccup, but he couldn't block all his emotions from travelling through their newly formed bond to his other half. He could only hope Hiccup didn't realise.

Anger, fear – Hiccup had felt them before, and now they were amplified. He couldn't escape, no matter how hard he struggled Hiccup couldn't get out of the ropes he was bound in. Heart racing, he searched the skies desperately. The other dragons – he could hear them, talking, the young Nightmare crying out.

*Quiet, youngling, quiet!* the Nadder – female, if her voice was anything to go by – urged the Nightmare, who was whimpering so loud it sounded unsettlingly like a child crying. *You'll just make it worse. Calm down, be quiet, please!*

*I'm scared! I don't like this! I want my dam. Mother!* he shrieked at the top of his lungs, *Mother, help me! Help me!*

The hunters surrounded his cage; he burst into flames and spat fire at them through the bars, roaring *Stay away!* A dragon-root arrow struck his shoulder and he screeched, wobbled, collapsed in a heap. Hiccup's heart went out to him; to all of them. He almost wanted to scream as well. Guys, please, please hurry. I need you. I messed up and I need you!

There was a hatch in the deck and a crane of some kind, which must have been how they got the dragons in and out of the ship. One by one the cages were wheeled over to the crane, hooked up, and lifted to be lowered into the belly of the ship. Toothless' cage was the last one they came to. The dragon was more frantic than Hiccup had ever seen him, slamming his weight against the door as if trying to knock the latch undone.

Pain burst through Hiccup's shoulder and side, and he winced. Toothless snarled and threw himself against the cage door again. Another aching jolt went through Hiccup's shoulder at the exact same moment. He had no time to question why this would be so; a hunter was aiming a dragon root arrow at Toothless. "Don't shoot!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "It's poison!" He was ignored, of course, but Toothless heard him and the dragon drew his wings up as best he could in the cramped space to shield himself.

The hunter was seconds away from loosing the arrow when the order rang out – "Hold fire!" Caught off guard, he moved the bow and his fingers slipped from the taut string. The arrow shot forwards and ricocheted off one of the bars, prompting the hunter to bite back a curse. All eyes turned to Hauke, who had shouted the order, and then to Hiccup, whom Hauke was staring at.

"What?" Hiccup demanded, hunching his shoulders defensively.

Hauke questioned, "What do you mean, poison?"

That wasn't what he'd expected. "I, uh…the dragon root, it's not…Night Furies react differently. It won't knock him out like other dragons, it hurts him, it might kill him. And…and you need him alive" Hiccup replied. After all, Toothless was a Night Fury, one of the rarest dragons, and Hauke was a dragon hunter. To him, Toothless would be worth more alive than dead, surely.

Hauke nodded thoughtfully. "True…Well then, dragon master. Tame the beast so we can put it below" he commanded.

He's not a beast! Hiccup wanted to spit at him. What he actually said aloud was "How am I supposed to do that from over here?"

With a very obvious eye roll, Hauke gestured for one of his men to bring Hiccup over. The hunter didn't bother untying him from the bollard, but merely cut through the thick rope with one cleave of a dagger and tugged him forwards. A mad idea flashed into Hiccup's head, of pretending to fail in taming Toothless so Hauke would think them worthless and let them go. That's never going to work.

He tried it anyway, clutching at straws. "Listen you, dragon!" Hiccup mock-glared at Toothless, trying to sound imperious and arrogant. Just gotta be like Snotlout…I can't believe I thought that. "I am your master! So behave, and be quiet, or else…or else!" He tried to say it with conviction, unable to think of, or bring himself to say, any kind of threat.

Fortunately, Toothless caught on quick. He kept growling at Hiccup, even as he said *I'm guessing you don't really want me to behave.*

Hiccup caught himself before he could nod in reply. "Bad dragon! Stop growling or I'll…I'll put an eel in your dinner!" Toothless growled even louder at that. *I know you're joking, but try that and I'll drown you in slobber.*

The hunters were starting to mutter – some were sniggering. "Look, I can't tame him" Hiccup told Hauke, who was watching impatiently. "That's what you want me for, right? Guess I'm no use to you after all. You should just let us go."

"Well, if you can't tame the dragon, perhaps a different means of persuasion is in order" Hauke commented. He nodded subtly to the thug holding the other end of the rope around Hiccup's neck. The man grabbed Hiccup more firmly, wrapping one arm over his chest and the other hand placing the dagger to his throat. Hiccup struggled to no avail.

"You are a terrible liar" Hauke remarked. "Do you take me for a fool, Haddock? The fact that you rode the Night Fury here is proof that you tamed it, that you can tame dragons. And I know how you care for the beast. My men told me how you almost cracked when they so much as spoke of hurting your precious…what was it? Oh, yes. Toothless" he said mockingly.

The hunters laughed and jeered. *Tell that snake bellied son of an eel that I do have teeth and I'll use them to rip him to shreds if he hurts you!* Toothless snarled. Caged and muzzled, there was nothing he could do, and they both knew it. A tiny part of Hiccup's brain wondered, Did Toothless just swear?!

"Does it go both ways, I wonder? Your choice, dragon. Submit, or your master dies" Hauke challenged Toothless, who kept growling at him. *Hiccup is my brother* he retorted, though it was meant more for his other half, since only Hiccup could understand him.

Struggling, Hiccup protested, "You can't – you need me alive! You went to all this trouble to bring me aboard!"

Hauke stepped closer, staring at him unnervingly. "There's fear in your eyes" he observed, "but why? However you survived the first time, simply do it again."

"But I didn't – I told you, I don't know what happened!"

"Then you will die. Between you and your Night Fury, the dragon is worth its weight in gold, whilst you are…a valuable accessory. I could do without you" Hauke shrugged. He looked back at Toothless, and to his satisfaction, noticed that the dragon had ceased growling. "Put the Night Fury below deck" he ordered. The dragon's eyes never left Hiccup until the last moment.

The dagger was lowered from his throat, and Hiccup felt like he could breathe again, although they still didn't release him. "We're ready to sail, Chief" an older man with a greying beard informed him. "Should we haul anchor?"

"Not yet, Gunnhild" replied Hauke, "There's one more matter to attend to. Where is my thrall?" he demanded of the crew at large. A young man, dressed in dirty brown clothes, stepped forwards. He was about Hiccup's age. Hauke beckoned to him, and he gulped, visibly nervous. Hiccup's blood boiled. He was against slaves of any kind, and to judge by this man's downtrodden, harrowed gaze, Hauke didn't treat his well at all.

The hunters made him and the thrall stand back to back. Hauke observed them and nodded, seeming pleased. "Just as I thought – you're the same height, same build…perfect. Take the prisoner's leg and strip him down to his small-clothes" he instructed, much to Hiccup's bewildered alarm.

"What? Hey! Get off me!" Hiccup struggled – not that he'd get very far being held on a freaking leash. It all happened so fast he almost didn't have time to process it. They restrained him, cut through the ropes, yanked his prosthetic off, his trousers, his tunic, and threw him to the deck. Now clothed only in a thin vest and undershorts, Hiccup shivered in the night chill.

It was like before, when they'd stripped him of his armour the better to beat him. Instinctively Hiccup wrapped his arms around himself, to ward off the cold and any blows they tried to land on him. Try? If they do punch me again the blows'll definitely land he thought, and braced himself. His pulse quickened in fear. He didn't want to be beaten up again. It was bad enough the first time.

"Wash your hands and face thoroughly and put all this on. Quickly!" Hauke instructed, shoving a burlap sack with all of Hiccup's clothes in it at the boy, who rushed below deck. The chief worked his jaw impatiently, searching the sky, grey with predawn, for any sign of dragon riders. He was listening for a shout of "Dragons, ho!" from the crow's nest, but so far…

Turning his gaze from the eastern horizon to the boy at his feet, Hauke curled his lips in contempt. Despite not being able to stand, and being so cold goosebumps had appeared on his skin, Hiccup glared up at him defiantly. "I'm almost disappointed" he remarked. "I had heard such great things. How is it that the boy who vanquished a Red Death, the scourge of dragon hunters throughout the archipelago, the son of a great chieftain…is you?"

Hiccup shrugged. "Guess I'm not what you were expecting" he retorted through gritted teeth, so as to keep from chattering with the cold. He was freezing. A little insulted, too, but also rather glad. It was good that Hauke underestimated him. Almost all of his enemies, and his allies too, had underestimated him at one point or another. Their mistake.

"What do you want with me?" he demanded, since Hauke was there and the one with the answers. He could understand why the hunters would want Toothless, and it wasn't a bad thing that his dragon wasn't being taken away from him…but why was he there? "You said I could be useful. What for?"

"You'd be useful if you learned to hold your tongue, you impertinent brat" Hauke scowled down at him, "it's none of your business. You're as bad as" – but he cut himself off, and stalked away, snapping an order out for the hunters not to speak to the prisoner. Hiccup watched him disappear below deck, shivering violently, praying that rescue was coming, and coming soon.

Suddenly he remembered Sharpshot. His little friend had escaped when he and Toothless were shot down, the Terror had flown off out of sight. Hiccup was sure that Sharpshot would not have abandoned them. If he wasn't here, then he must have followed his training and gone to get help. It was a long way back to Berk, but he would find Astrid and the others if they had followed Hiccup's trail. None of this made sense, and he wanted to go home more and more. I never should have come here.

Soon after he'd been sent away, Hauke's thrall returned dressed in Hiccup's clothes and armour. It was surreal to see, and made Hiccup feel like he was having a dream. More like a nightmare. He wished fervently to wake from it and find he'd never been stupid enough to fly to Myrkr, that he was still safe in his own bed on Berk. Even as he thought it, Hiccup knew it wasn't true.

"You're probably both wondering what this is about" Hauke commented, "but it's quite simple. You're each other's replacements."

Both Hiccup and the thrall stared at him uncomprehendingly; at a signal from their chief, the hunters surrounded the young slave and gagged him, forcing him to his knees over some crates. "What are you doing to him?" Hiccup demanded, "Leave him alone!"

Nobody listened. Two of the hunters grabbed Hiccup under the arms and hauled him between them, towards the hatch that led down below deck. Struggling, he twisted in their grasp just in time to see a hulking thug of a hunter approach the thrall with an axe in his hand. Hiccup's eyes widened in shock. "No!" he cried out, but it was futile. The axe swung up. He flinched and looked away, but he couldn't block out the terrible thud or the muffled scream, cut off far too soon.

"…You killed him" he gasped, as the hunters dragged him through the ship. Apparently the order not to speak to him was still in effect, for they said nothing. Mind reeling, Hiccup forgot to struggle (not that it would do much good) as they went down companionways and ramps, past sleeping quarters and storerooms. In the bowels of the craft were the dragon cages.

The hunters took him past cell after cell, occupied by dragons they must have caught before coming there. There were roars and snarls on all sides, but Hiccup could hear what the captives were saying as well. *Cowards! Eel-eating worms! Let me out of here and face my wrath!*

*Food! Give me food! I'm starving! Is that human prey? Give it to me!*

"Shut up, ya horrible wretched beasts!" one of the hunters yelled.

At last they came to a cage right towards the prow of the ship. Hiccup recognised the dragon in it immediately, and his heart leapt. "Toothless!"

*Hiccup!* he called back, looking relieved. *Thank the Moon you're here, I was so worried about you!*

The hunters unlocked the cage door and shoved Hiccup inside, locking it behind him and walking away. He fell onto Toothless, who'd leapt forward to catch him, and slid off the dragon onto the deck. He was shivering violently, arms wrapped around himself. "They…they killed…his head, they cut…" A hand went to his neck in frightened sympathy. He's dead, and I don't even know his name.

He's dead because of me.

Desperate for answers to at least one of his questions, Hiccup looked up at Toothless. The dragon had made himself small, and looked guilty. "Toothless…" His mouth was dry; he licked his lips to wet them. "What did you… do to me?"

Toothless whined, ear-flaps pinned back against his skull, pupils wide and sad. *We're heart bound* he replied, *I did it to save your life, I didn't even know if it would work, I panicked. But it has, and now…if one of us dies, so will the other* he revealed. *You'll live as long as I will, and Night Furies can live for…three to four hundred years.*

Three to four hundred years. The words echoed in Hiccup's ears like a war drum. After everything that had happened; getting captured, beaten, taken prisoner…that poor man's execution…this was too much to contemplate. Hiccup was exhausted, starving, and frightened; his eyes rolled back in his skull as he fainted, and the last thing he heard before blackness washed over him was Toothless calling his name…