Prologue

Rapunzel:

We all have a moment when we just- get depressed by everything.

It doesn't take a bad thing to depress someone; it can be a good thing and do it.

Like when you know on your 16th birthday, beautiful floating lights will appear outside and that they are meant for you.

Or when your loving mother makes your favorite childhood treat for dinner and you hate to remind her you are not into hazelnuts soup anymore.

Or when the same loving mother locks you up in a tower to protect you from the evil clutches of the world and makes your favorite dish for dinner to make up for it.

I don't know. It's all too complicated. I am depressed by everything right now and I don't see the reason why.

My life is good enough-maybe not perfect, but good enough- and I have many things to be thankful for.

I have a loving mother(mentioned above) who adores me, I live next to a mini waterfall, I have an incredibly cute pet chameleon, and I get to paint my walls.

But now I don't find those things nearly as satisfying as they were before. There's something missing in it on the whole.

I've thought about it, and no, it's not because I can't go outside.

Yes, going outside would definitely help, but it's just not that.

It takes an entirely different something to fix this, and that is why this is all so complicated. I wish I didn't know about that thing in the first place.

Then hope would not have tortured me so.

But what makes me more depressed than ever is that the thing isn't just in my imagination. It exists. And it is not very far away.

It is just outside my grasp, just over my reach.

But I don't know what it looks like or how it will visit me one day.

But I know it is coming.

And that is what makes me hold on just a little longer.

Hiccup:

When you're up at the sky, all you can see is beauty.

Snow-capped mountains, crystal-blue lagoons, forests and hills of breathtaking green.

You can't see the grim things going on inside of it; just the calm, refreshing outside view.

I feel all things should be seen on dragonback, high up in the clouds, where you can see only good things about them and pretend bad things don't exist.

I wish I could see my world that way, far away.

Just someone from outside watching a jolly Viking town where no interspecies war or cliques of teenage brutes exists.

And I wish my world could see myself the same way. Like up here, where no one tries to judge and mock me for my faults.

It is not embarrassing to be alone here, because there is no one else anyway but I.

Somehow that makes me feel a lot better and a lot worse.

The fact that I am the only human in the my world who shares this part of the sky is kind of a lonely thought.

But then again, maybe it's a good thing they aren't here; they wouldn't understand.

Flying over the grounds I know so well is just exhausting and confusing for me.

It shackles me with disturbing thoughts and for the moment, I just want to stop thinking.

So I just leave Berk behind and fly into the unknown.

The wind rushes over my face in an exhilarating sensation of cold air and the smell of the ocean.

I breathe in deeply and look down. Hundreds of feet below, an enormous, breathtakingly beautiful strip of land is stretched out on the sparkling blue.

I see towns of bright colors and airy forests. I swoop down, and the bright rays of the morning sun hit my eyes. I am momentarily blinded.

I hold onto Toothless tighter and his warm, scaly body stirs in surprise. Hands cupped over my eyes, I slowly, slowly tip my head upwards.

And that is when I see the tower.