Chapter 2 – Beached
All characters (not including my own) are property of Dreamworks Animation and Anne McCaffrey.
Hiccup slowly regained consciousness under a blazing sun. His first thought was; "Am I dead?" He was soaking wet and had a splitting headache. His second thought was; "I must be alive, I hurt too much to be dead". Hiccup pulled himself into a sitting position, groaning as he did so. He crossed his arms over his knees and gently laid his aching head on them.
Once his headache subsided, Hiccup shaded his eyes until they could adjust to the brighter sunlight. When his eyes were used to the brightness, Hiccup looked around to try and figure out where he was and saw that he was lying just at the edge of the water.
"Okay, I'm on a beach. That sounds about right." He looked around for the cave, but there were only trees at the edge of the sand. "That's odd, how did we get on a different beach?" He also noticed the weather was much warmer than Berk and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. "How long was I out? Did the storm dissipate that quickly? This is getting weirder by the moment. It was just turning spring when we left Berk, how could it be summer already?"
Hiccup felt the need to explore a bit more to try and find some answers. He started to get to his feet, but immediately fell flat on his face. He looked back at his legs and noticed they were tangled in the straps of Toothless's saddle. Hiccup rolled over to untangle his legs and noticed the burned edges of the straps. "How the Hel did THIS happen?" Hiccup thought. Then he remembered the storm and how the lightning bolts were striking closer and closer. "We must have been hit by lightning. That would explain the burned straps but NOT how I wound up in one piece on a strange beach with my dragon nowhere in sight!" Hiccup looked around desperately for any tracks that Toothless may have left behind if he crawled out of the water. There were none to be seen.
"TOOTHLESS!" Hiccup shouted out to the surrounding woods, hoping that Toothless was just beyond the trees. The only sound coming from the woods was the chirping of insects and the wind through the branches.
Hiccup faced the open ocean and tried again. "TOOTHLESS!" There was no answering roar of a Night Fury. The only sounds that reached Hiccup's ears were the gentle lapping of the waves on the shore.
Hiccup rummaged through his backpack and took out the artificial foot he made over the winter and attached it to the bottom of his fake leg. He left the saddle where he was standing and walked up the beach several hundred yards to see if there were any tracks coming out of the water. When he found none, he reversed direction and searched the opposite end of the beach with still no sign of Toothless. Hiccup was starting to fear the worst, but he refused to give up just yet. Returning to the saddle, he laid it out to see if he could figure out just where the lightning bolt hit. When it was completely laid out, Hiccup just stared at it in shock.
Hiccup initially thought the straps were burned off, but looking at them now he could see that they were cut by something extremely hot, as if someone took a white-hot blade to cut them. The back part of the saddle where Hiccup sat was also cut off. He wasn't affected because he was leaning forward to streamline himself so Toothless could fly easier. The pedals were intact, but the metal rings that went around the upper part of Toothless's legs and made the framework to hold the pedals in place were cut away as well. The cuts were just as clean as the ones on the leather straps. "Now what the Hel could cut metal just as quickly, easily, and cleanly as leather and why didn't it affect me?" Hiccup thought.
Hiccup took out his sketchbook and did a quick sketch of the front part of Toothless from memory. He then added the saddle, harness, and all the components of Toothless's flying rig. He then drew himself as if he was flying on Toothless's back and remembered to draw himself leaning forward in the saddle. He then made marks where the saddle and straps were cut and included the angle of the cuts on each one. When the drawing was done, Hiccup looked at it for a minute and thought; "That's weird, all the angles of the cuts suggest that something circular went through them. And if it went through leather and metal like it was nothing, then how did it affect Tooth...no. Oh, no!"
Hiccup dropped his sketchbook in the sand and sank to his knees. Great teardrops splashed onto his leggings when he realized that Toothless would never be coming out of the water.
o0o0o0o
It was late afternoon when Hiccup finished his task. Standing up and brushing the dirt from his legs, he looked at the small memorial he built for Toothless. There was a small grave that contained the only thing remaining that was essentially Toothless, his saddle. Hiccup cleared his throat.
"Well, buddy, I hope you like it. I tried to pick a spot with a nice view." Hiccup had to stop to choke down a sob. "I'm sorry I couldn't get you through this, bud. I'm sorry I shot you down last year, but I'm not sorry about the good times we've had. If I didn't shoot you down and injured your tail, we'd still be at war and you'd still be under the influence of the Red Death. We'd have never met and learned to trust each other and eventually become friends. You're the best friend I've ever had, Toothless. If I ever get to meet another dragon and bond with it, even if it is another Night Fury, I would never feel the same as I feel about you. I miss you already buddy, and I hope you're happy wherever you are."
Hiccup squatted down to place a hand on a large rock marking the gravesite. After bowing his head in farewell, he picked up his backpack, turned around, and walked away without looking back.
A/N: Hi, all. Short chapter, but I wanted to keep events separate. I should have more in a few days. As always, please leave a review after reading. Thanks.
