"~Come on, Buddy. Let's do this!~" Hiccup called. The dragon grinned, putting on a burst of speed as they soared upwards in tight spirals before falling backwards.
In the three years since they had left Berk, Hiccup had learned the language of dragons. He'd done a lot of things, actually, but that was one of his more impressive feats.
Toothless screamed in joy as they spun in and out of the clouds, Hiccup yelling alongside him.
He'd built himself a home, a forge, a sheep pen for the sheep he'd taken one night... (The sheep, as it turned out, had been Gobber's. Hiccup had laughed as they flew off with it, listening to Gobber screaming about trolls.) Hiccup had carefully camoflauged everything so the dragons wouldn't raid him.
"~Hey, Bud. Do you wanna freefall today?~" Hiccup asked playfully.
Hiccup had gotten tired of getting singed clothing whenever Toothless felt like flying through his own fire, and sewed Toothless's discarded scales into a sort of armor. Now, when he wore it, he and Toothless blended seamlessly together as if they were literally one being.
"~Always!~" Toothless replied enthusiastically, as the two hurdled upwards.
He'd used the same technique, sewing scales onto leather, on Toothless's prosthetic tailfin after a wild Nightmare decided he wanted to burn them to a crisp.
"~This is amazing!~" Hiccup yelled as they tore through the air.
Hiccup didn't regret leaving at all. Sure, he missed some things about Berk- That had been inevitable. But he felt that his life was so much better than it ever could have been in the village.
"~Ready?~" Toothless asked as he leveled off well above the clouds.
He knew Berk was still being raided. He knew why, too, but there was nothing to be done about that. He only went back to the village during the chaos of a dragon raid, or under the cover of night, to steal leather and scrap metal he couldn't get anywhere else. He'd seen Astrid the last time he went there. She was beautiful. Snotlout was still hitting on her, as far as Hiccup knew. She ws probably still disgusted by him.
Hiccup's answer was to push the lever that gave Toothless control of his tail, then slide off of his back.
The twins still fought. They'd almost caught him once, but got into a fight over who saw the shadowy figure first. Hiccup got away, relieved.
"~Hey, wait for me!~" Toothless called, diving after his rider. If he'd taken a second longer, he might have seen a rare Stormcutter flying high above them. As it was, he didn't, and neither the Stormcutter nor his rider were looking down.
Gobber hadn't taken another apprentice yet. Hiccup thought he was waiting for one of the Viking children to get old enough. Hiccup's dad seemed alright, still giving orders and killing dragons.
Hiccup grinned, whooping in exhilaration, as he and Toothless fell, spinning occasionally, toward the ocean far below.
Astrid carefully packed everything she was going to need for the upcoming camping trip. Gobber was taking them to one of the nearby islands, a place the Vikings didn't often visit. Apparently they needed to "Learn how teh survive outside o' civilization."
She rolled her eyes at that. They were Vikings, they weren't civilized. Moreover, they could take care of themselves. She was going because Gobber was scheduled to take the other teens, and Astrid would not be upstaged by them. And there was always the chance of finding the dragon that took Hiccup, a thought she'd become obsessed with for no obvious reason. Really, she had no idea why.
She touched the black disc that hung around her neck and murmured. "I'm gonna kill you, dragon."
"Okay. I'm ready." She said to herself, closing the pack. She swung it over her shoulder and made her way down to the harbour.
She was the first teen there by a few minutes. Gobber was busy making sure their ship wouldn't sink or anything, so she stashed her bag under one of the benches in the boat and waited. Fishlegs got there next. No surprise there, he'd been looking forward to this trip for months. Then Snotlout sauntered in, claiming he'd been held up by adoring fans. The twins got there last, arguing and shoving each other as always.
"A'right! Everybody on th' ship!" Gobber shouted when he'd made sure the boat was seaworthy. The other teens stowed their bags under the seats as they sat down.
For the next two days, Astrid tried to ignore the bickering twins and Snotlout's piteous attempts to woe her, because if she didn't she would have to murder somebody, and focused on rowing. The highlight of those two days was the time Ruff shoved her brother into Snotlout, who tumbled overboard.
In other words, sailing was boring as Hel and Astrid wished there were a better way to travel. It was too bad Vikings didn't have wings or something insane like that. Unfortunately, Vikings didn't have wings, unlike dragons, so Vikings built boats and rowed until their arms were being pulled out of their sockets.
She was the first on land when they finally reached their destination, glad for the chance to stretch. She looked around, noticing how different the terrain here was compared to that on Berk. The beach they'd landed on was hard and rocky, not unlike Berk's beaches. But while Berk was fairly mountainous, there were rolling hills there to break it up. Here, the trees grew right off the cliffs in places. This place seemed almost forbidding, with rock spires reaching up toward the sky all around, trees growing wherever their roots could grip.
Gobber set them marching inland as soon as he'd gotten the ship moored securely, so she didn't really have much time to admire the scenery.
Hiccup would have liked it here, Astrid thought randomly as they walked. Hadn't he'd loved wandering through the trees for hours, immersed in his thoughts? Or maybe he'd simply been avoiding the village. Astrid didn't know.
"Are we there yet?" Tuffnut whined, barely five minutes into their hike.
"No," Gobber informed him.
Five minutes later, it was Ruffnut's turn. "Are we there yet?"
"No," Gobber repeated.
"Are we there yet?" Tuffnut asked, five minutes after Ruffnut.
"No," Gobber said.
Five minutes after that, Ruffnut moaned, "Are we there yet?"
"No," Gobber told her patiently. He had practice with this, Hiccup had done the same thing when he was little. Gobber frowned to himself, thinking of his poor apprentice.
"Are we there yet?" Tuffnut asked, right on time.
Astrid gritted her teeth in annoyance as Gobber told him no.
Snotlout started scowling five minutes later, when Ruffnut said, "Are we there yet?"
"No," Gobber replied.
Even Fishlegs looked annoyed, twenty minutes later as they waded through a stream. "Are we there yet?"
"No." Having crossed the stream, the little group resumed their winding path among the trees.
"Are we there yet?" Tuffnut asked as they passed through a small clearing five minutes later.
"Actually... Yes." Gobber informed them gleefully, turning to face them.
"Finally!" Snotlout shouted, throwing his pack down. Fishlegs sighed in relief, and Astrid closed her eyes and let out a long breath. The twins snickered, high-fiving each other.
Gobber chuckled, then said, "Well, wha' are yeh waitin' for, a whistle? Start settin' up."
Twenty minutes later, four tents had been set up. One for the girls to share, one for Tuffnut and Snotlout, and one each for Fishlegs and Gobber. A fire had been built, but not lit. Gobber said it was unwise to waste wood on a fire nobody needed yet.
Fishlegs was the first to go off on his own, saying he wanted to document some of the flora on the island. Astrid didn't know what that meant, but apparently this island's flora was different from Berk's.
The twins wandered away with the intention of finding something to blow up. Hopefully, it wasn't the boat.
Snotlout looked over at her and opened his mouth, but Astrid blurted, "I'm gonna go train," Before he could say anything.
"A'righ', yeh do that, Astrid," Gobber said from inside his tent, unrolling his sleeping roll with a yawn even though it was only just past noon. "I'm gonna have a nap. Don' go too far, don' get lost, an' watch out for dragons, wolves, an' wild boars."
"I will!" She called over her shoulder, already headed into the trees. She didn't actually feel like training just then, but she needed to get away from Snotlout.
She wandered around for a long while, looking at the scenery and enjoying the quiet. Well, quiet if you ignored the distant shouts of the twins, interspersed with what sounded suspisciously like explosions. Astrid really didn't want to know what they were doing.
Then something on the forest floor caught her eye and she knelt down to get a better look. It was black and shiny. Just like... Her hand flew to the scale around her neck. It was a Night Fury scale. Astrid pushed herself to her feet and ran for the camp.
"Gobber! Gobber, WAKE UP!" She shouted impatiently as she skidded to a stop, panting, outside his tent.
Gobber jolted awake, yelling, "Trolls! TROLLS! They're after me socks! Man th' catapults! Get the- Oh, it's you. I though' yeh were off trainin'?" He poked his head out of the tent, pretending he hadn't just been screaming about trolls.
"I found a dragon scale. Black as night." Astrid said breathlessly. She didn't have to say anything else.
"Well, why didn' yah say so, lass?! Let's get th' others t'gether." He climbed out of his tent and yelled, "SNOTLOUT! TWINS! GET YER BUTTS BACK T' CAMP!" Astrid flinched at the sudden volume. "FISHLEGS, YOU TOO!"
Once they were assembled, Snotlout raised a dripping wet hand. "So, why'd you call us back so soon? I was about to kill that dragon, and..." He'd tripped and fallen in the stream, startled, when Gobber called them. He claimed that a dragon chased him in.
"Oh, so yah don't want a chance tae kill an elusive Night Fury?"
Snotlout straightened immediately. "Of- Of course I do!" He paused, thinking hard, then continued in a suspicious voice. "Wait... What does elusive mean?" Fishlegs opened his mouth, but Snotlout cut him off. "And what Night Fury?"
"The one that got Hiccup, you dolt." Ruffnut said, rolling her eyes.
"It's mine," Astrid swore.
"Whoa, so we're going after the dragon that killed Hiccup? Finally! I call killing it!" Snotlout shouted, ignoring Astrid for once.
"No." Gobber shot him down. "He was my apprentice, an' I'll kill th' dragon. Snotlout, Fishlegs, you search over there, twins, yah get t' go over that way, I'll go this way, an' Astrid, you take th' path yeh were followin' earlier," Gobber said, pointing in various directions before stomping over to his pack to find his battle axe attachment.
A/N: I hope you liked the second chapter of Leaving! :D I'm writing this A/N to let you all know that tomorrow, July 11th, is the second anniversary of the day I published my very first story in the Gilligan's Island fandom where I started out. So, this is for two years of writing!
I've also written a special Gilligan's Island oneshot featuring Gilligan's thoughts, which will be published on the 11th, if any of you like Gilligan's Island as much as I do. If you've never heard of it, Gilligan's Island is a great TV show from 1964. The first season is in black and white! (Being that I was born in the late 90's, this is amazing) It features seven castaways stranded on a tropical island and stars clumsy First Mate Gilligan. If you're looking for something to do, I suggest looking it up. You can find the whole show online.
Enough about that, though. :D I've been on quite the writing spree lately, and I'm a little bit ahead of schedule in writing this, or I would be if I had a writing schedule... But anyway, I've gotten ahead enough to see that this is going to be different from Run Away in more ways than I'd thought. So, enjoy!
I appreciate feedback, but I know everyone asks for reviews and I don't want to be like that. The tiny fandom of Gilligan's Island taught me that the amount of reviews isn't necessarily important, it's the quality of them. And so far, I'm very happy with the response I've gotten!
Review or PM me if you want to talk to me about anything! It doesn't have to be about fanfiction at all, it could be a rant over what you think on the little they've released regarding HTTYD 3, (Oh, gods, what they did say, though) or how much you liked The Fault in our Stars (I, personally, loved it.), or a story idea you'd like me to develop. I'm not promising anything there, but I'd love to talk to you!
