I would like everyone who's reading this story to know that the first half of this chapter will be inspired by parts two-seven from the seven-part Mericcup comic "How We Met" which was created by an incredible artist named Redhead-K, and you'll be able to find it on Deviantart. I suggest that you take a look at the comic, because it's such a wonderful work of art.


Stranger In The Forest

It had been officially a few hours or maybe even more than that since Hiccup had left Berk, but he still couldn't help but think about what his father would be doing as soon he read the letter that Hiccup left for him at the house. Would Stoick, with the help of Skullcrusher, his Rumblehorn, immediately leave the village looking for him on his own, or would he get the whole village together and lead out a search party with the use of both ships and dragons to find him? None of those thoughts weren't really much of a concern to Hiccup, but he was hoping that his father might possibly understand that this trip was actually going to help both of them, but he knew that there wasn't anything more he could do from this point.

Hiccup's mind eventually went from his father to Astrid, and he instantly started to feel awful about how he didn't say goodbye to her, at least, not to her face. The dragon trainer also realized that this trip would be sending the wrong message for Astrid too by making her believe that it was her fault with saying that she loved him, and she would think that's the reason why he took off from the island. Once again, there still wasn't something that Hiccup could do to change the situation anyway, but his thoughts were soon interrupted when he heard Toothless gave a exhausted noise which caused Hiccup to wonder if something was wrong.

"What is it, bud? Are you getting tired? If that's the case, I promise that we'll have ourselves back on solid ground as soon as we find land, and. . . wait a second, I think that I'm starting to see something right now." Hiccup said.

He squinted his eyes to get a better look through the misty sky, and luckily, Hiccup could actually see a incredibly large amount of land in the far distance up ahead of them, and Toothless instantly flapped his wings to have them at a faster speed. As they flew closer to the land, it became much more visible, so by the time when they came over an open and clear spot near the forest, Toothless quickly landed and that's when Hiccup realized why his dragon had been so tired and worn out. It wasn't because of the flying he did which went on for hours, it was also having his friend's heavily packed basket on his back, which Hiccup took off to his relief, and slung it over his shoulder again, and Toothless let out a few deep breaths.

"Sorry about that, Toothless, but you don't have to worry about the basket anymore, because the next time it needs to be carried while we're flying, it's going to be on my shoulder the whole time, so that will give you seven whole days without anything heavy on your back." Hiccup informed.

Toothless suddenly jumped up, and almost knocked Hiccup down on his back to the ground when he laid both of his front paws on Hiccup's shoulders, as if he was trying to give him a hug, since he was so relieved to hear what his human friend just said to him.

"Alright, buddy, I get it, now please take it easy, and get yourself off of me, but there's one more thing that we have to do at this point, which is for us to go into the forest and find some shelter, because we'll want ourselves to be safe and protected if a storm comes." Hiccup reminded.

With both of them by each other's side, Toothless and Hiccup's walk through the woods wasn't really so dangerous and scary, even though it was awfully silent, because they've taken many walks through the forests of Berk, especially without flying to get them around. Although there was a heavy gray mist that surrounded the land, just like there was up in the sky, it wasn't new to either Hiccup or Toothless, who had seen it a few times, especially when they discovered the Dragon's Nest for the very first time. They came to a instant stop when something not so far away caught their attention, and it happened to be something that they've never seen in any part of Berk before, which was a circle made up of huge, tall stones, and they walked closer to it get a better look for themselves.

"Wow, it'll be great to see this from up in the sky when we go flying, and I wonder if there's more of these stone circles throughout this land, but why did they made, and who was it that created them? Toothless, please don't get so close to these stones, they probably might be dangerous." Hiccup reminded.

Toothless didn't hear the rest of what Hiccup had told him not do with the stone circles when he noticed a glowing blue light which was flickering between two of the stones, and the Night Fury slowly crawled closer to the light before leaping at the ground to catch it, but the light disappeared. Just a few seconds had passed before another blue light appeared right in front of him, and Toothless leapt up and pounced towards the light again, only to disappear just before he could touch it, and Hiccup eventually turned his attention from the stones to see where his friend was.

"Hey, Toothless, what are you doing? Is there something that you've found?" Hiccup asked, but his dragon still wasn't listening, as Toothless was only focused on the mysterious blue light, which reappeared before his eyes, but this time, it was outside of the stone circle.

To his surprise, the blue light was suddenly joined by a line of more tiny lights behind it, and because Toothless couldn't take this little game of hide-and seek these lights were apparently playing with him, he chased after them, with Hiccup trying his best to catch up with his friend.

"Wait up, bud! This is a new land we're in right now, so we have to be careful before we take off anywhere, which means that we need to stay at each other's side while we're here!" Hiccup shouted, as he continued to keep Toothless in his sight, but ultimately failed in doing just that.

"What was he even going after? I didn't even get a chance to see whatever it was for myself! It couldn't have been any light reflected on the ground, because that would require the use of metal, and besides, I should put my helmet into the basket so that I don't end up losing it again." Hiccup thought.

Unfortunately, he put both of his hands up to his head to feel only his hair, and not his helmet, which he believed must have fell over while he was running after Toothless, so Hiccup set his basket down and went back in the path leading him to the stone circle until he found it. When Hiccup came to the basket, and opened it up to put his helmet inside, a slow and steady whisper caught his attention closeby, and he looked up to see a flickering blue light in front of him, and stared at the floating flame in a mixture of both fear and awe.

"So this is what Toothless had been looking at earlier, and maybe if I do the same, I'll be able to find out where he is." Hiccup said, just as more tiny lights appeared right behind the one that was already quite near in his sight, which caused him to form a thin smile.

Hiccup decided to leave his basket where it was, and get back to it once he found Toothless, and the blue lights created an easy path for Hiccup to follow through the dark forest of withered trees covered in hanging moss, and he could soon hear the sound of water running. There was only one last blue light floating in Hiccup's path, until he could eventually see a nearby stream, and he noticed that the light seemed to be beckoning for him to look past the branches, as if there was something important that he needed to see for himself. Hiccup took a long look across the stream, until on the right side, he spotted a moving figure dressed in a black cape, who was holding a bow and arrow, and they aimed the arrow down at the water, until shooting it to catch one of the silvery fish swimming upstream.

He squinted his eyes to get a closer look at the mysterious figure in black, as they grabbed the fish by picking up the arrow from out of the stream, and took off the hood over their head to have a good look at their catch, and Hiccup was shocked with he was seeing. A huge mass of bright red, curly hair came springing out from the hood right when it came off, and Hiccup realized that instead of leading him to Toothless, the tiny blue lights had led the way for him to find a young, red-headed girl, who he could see was a skilled archer. The Viking stayed from behind the bushes, silently watching the girl, as she carefully walked across to the other side of the stream, where a huge horse was laying down on the grass near a tree, and he was shortly approached by the girl showing her catch to him before she went over to a campfire.

She placed the fish on a spit over the fire to have it properly cooked, and turned the arrow around a few times, roasting it when she heard a noise which certainly sounded familiar to Hiccup, and he immediately got a better look of who it was that made the noise. The redheaded girl turned around in horror, while holding the fish in her left hand, to see Toothless sitting on his hind legs, licking his lips, and staring right back at her with large expectant eyes, hoping that the girl would be giving him the fish at any second, but it didn't happen. Instead, the redhead dropped the slightly cooked fish on the ground, took out her bow, placed an arrow in it, got down on one knee, aimed the arrow up at Toothless' face, and was just about to let it go when someone's hand came out, grabbed the arrow, and clenched into a fist to put a film hold on it. The redhead brought down her bow, turned her face over to the left to see who the hand belonged to, and she found herself at a loss for words while staring up at Hiccup's face, while Hiccup felt the exact same way, as a shade of pink came across their cheeks, with both of them still grasping the arrow.


"Hey, Hiccup, come on down! It's time to get to the Great Hall, and talk more about your upcoming marriage, so we wouldn't want to keep your fiancée and her father waiting now, huh?." Stoick called out, before he looked down and spotted a sheet of paper on the dinner table.

The chief picked up the sheet, and he quickly took a seat down on one of the chairs right when he could see that the writing on it was done by Hiccup, but instead of being furious and disappointed to find out that his son left the village, Stoick was actually quite proud. Although he was a little frustrated that Hiccup didn't simply find him and say that he and Toothless would be going away for a while, Stoick was sure that he would have refused to let his son go, and Hiccup would have just packed up a basket and left the village anyway. It was already getting too dark to send out a search party for Hiccup, but it would have been unnecessary to even do that, considering that Hiccup and his dragon weren't secretly kidnapped from the island and taken as hostages by a rival tribe and held for ransom.

Stoick knew that as his job of being the chief, he couldn't lie to any villager ever, and it's important to tell Astrid and Alrick the truth about Hiccup's absence, so he made his way out from his house to the Great Hall while still holding Hiccup's letter in one of his hands. When he opened the large double doors, Stoick could already see that the father and daughter pair were sitting together at one of the tables, and the two of them, especially Astrid, also had a smile on their face, which unfortunately, weren't going to last anytime soon.

"Chief, it's so good to see you, but why isn't Hiccup by your side? I thought that he would've been interested to talk about the marriage too." Astrid said, as Stoick went to the other side of the table and sat down, and her smile had vanished when she saw Stoick's face.

"I'm sorry, Astrid, but I'm afraid that any talk about the marriage isn't going to happen, at least, not until Hiccup comes back in the next seven days." Stoick replied, and saw that Astrid had already begun to have a look which was a mix of worry and confusion.

"What do you mean 'in the next seven days'? Why is there going to be a delay with the four of us talking about me and Hiccup getting married at the end of the summer, and finally, where did Hiccup even go, and why would he leave in the first place?" Astrid asked.

"Before my son left, he wrote this letter to me, saying that although he doesn't love you, and isn't even in love with you, he still wants to have those feelings, which is why it's very important for him to have more time, but this doesn't mean that he isn't interested in you at all. It just means that Hiccup cares about you, because he wants you to be with someone who won't ever lie about his feelings until he's ready in spending the rest of his life with you, so he'll be away for at least a week, and I'm sure that once he gets back, he'll be more than happy to marry you." Stoick explained.

"Stoick, how do we know that your son just wants to be with someone else? I mean, when my daughter kissed him in front of the entire village, he didn't get so freaked out that he and his dragon ended up flying out of Berk leaving behind a written note only for you." Alrick assumed.

"Come on, Alrick, what's the worse that could happen while he's out there in the woods? Hiccup meeting a girl who's just as kind, stubborn, beautiful, and headstrong as Astrid, or probably even more, and then wanting to marry her instead and never come back here again? If any of us go and try to find him right now, it will just prove that we still don't respect him enough to give him something he's asking for, which is time to think, so the only thing that the three of us can do is hope that Hiccup will realize that he and Astrid are meant for each other." Stoick assured.

"I guess since Hiccup will have his dragon around to protect him the whole time he's away, we don't have to worry about him getting hurt or anything. Now then, it's late, so we should all get some sleep," Alrick said, before turning to face his daughter. "Come on, Astrid, let's go home."

"Yes, dad," Astrid replied, as she got up from her seat at the table, and turned to say one last thing. "I understand, chief, and thank you for calling me all of these things, it really does make me feel better, good night." She added, before running to catch up with her father.

When the Hofferson family had left, with closing the tall wooden doors behind them, Stoick sat in silence at the table for a little longer before leaving the Great Hall too, going back to his house, and he put Hiccup's letter down on the table, before finding another letter that he received last week. During the time that Hiccup was spending with Astrid in a place he rarely talked about which he knew was somewhere deep in the forest, Stoick was in the Great Hall with her father, Alrick, where he got an unexpected visit from a man who wore a kilt in a blue checker board pattern, and Stoick quickly asked for Alrick to leave.

The chief could obviously tell from the man's uniform that he came all the way from Scotland, so he asked the man what reason did he have to enter Berk, and the man explained that he was a messenger for the kingdom of DunBroch, and he had a message from King Fergus and Queen Elinor. They had a sixteen-year old daughter named Merida, and their parents wanted to find out if Stoick had any sons that she could get to know, but Stoick said that he did have a son, who was already in a serious relationship, and was sure that he wouldn't be interested in meeting anyone new, especially from Scotland.

With hearing that, the messenger left, but not before giving a letter to the chief, just in case Stoick ever changed his mind and wanted to visit DunBroch, with or without his son, but he needed to bring the letter with him as proof, since nobody might not believe that he really had a written invitation. Instead, Stoick went back to his house and hid the letter in a place he thought Hiccup would never want to look: in his beard, before going over to Alrick's house, and asking him if he expected Hiccup was going to propose to her daughter during their date that night, and Alrick didn't think so, but asked why.

Stoick went on to say that his son and Astrid should get married, with the end of the summer being a perfect time for the wedding to happen, and they could all discuss the marriage when the Hoffersons returned from their week-long fishing trip, and Alrick agreed, despite thinking the whole idea was so chief's mind went back to the present time, which was the day that Hiccup left Berk, and he looked at the letter from DunBroch for a short moment before he threw it into the fire, and watched as the letter burned through the flames until it became a pile of dust and ashes.