Forevermore

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III

"For one who chose beast over his own,

Your treachery we will not condone

This will be taken with your dragon that lead you to this destiny

To remind you of your felony

You will live as man and monster for all of the Gods' time

To pay for your heinous crime."

To watch his Elders say such things brought chills to his spine. It was not supposed to end like this. He was supposed to convince his tribe that dragons were not the mindless beasts they once thought him to be. He never should have run that day. He never should have waited five years, after his father was killed... But it was too late. His tribe was scarred, he had no father, and he was cursed.

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III screamed as his skin felt an intense bubbling heat that stretched over his body. It cooled at the tips of his fingers, slowly making its way up his arm. And in the place of the lava-like substance were scales. Shiny black scales. Hiccup stumbled back in panic, tripping over himself in the process. His eyes met with his reflection in the Hall of Mirrors, a likely place for such horrid curses, and what his eyes met with—

Hiccup shot up from his bed in cold sweat, refraining a scream that would wake up his best and only companion who was blissfully sleeping on the floor beside him, and likely the young lady sleeping several 'doors' down. Hiccup fumbled for some matches and a lamp. Several curses later, the lamp was lit.

Shading the lamp, Hiccup carefully tip-toed over the black reptile's sleeping form and made his way towards the back-end of the passageway of tunnels that lead to the small spring. Careful to avoid his reflection, Hiccup splashed water into his face.

He'd had that dream 36,135 times, but never had he ever gotten the to part with the mirrors. The Gods were evil enough to make sure he never got any sleep; the least they could do was to stop the dream before it got to the worst part. Hiccup sighed at his misfortune and sat down, playing with the water half-mindedly.

99 years ago, he was cursed. 100 years ago, his father had died. Just one year to go before this cursed life was reality— forever and ever and ever... Well, the point was thorough enough.

It wasn't until after the lovely mirror part was his 'cure' stated. True love's kiss, just like something out of a stupid romance novel. Well, he doubted the romance novel included the beast-man had a dragon and went around doing good deeds— oh, wait! Hiccup was the only person that really knew it. Well, and Toothless. But that useless reptile wasn't really on board with the let-the-humans-live ordeal. Speaking (ahem, thinking) of letting humans live...

That girl, Astrid he was sure her name was, was another burden on his shoulders. It wasn't that he didn't have any supplies; he had plenty. It was the fact that he had another person to make sure didn't escape, or try and kill him.

Hiccup had to admit, this was the smartest of the plots Berk had to try and kill him. Well, if they wanted him dead, why would they curse him to live forever? Vikings were just like that. Straining his ears, Hiccup heard footsteps that were too light to be Toothless's.

Years and years of hiding allowed Hiccup to slip past Astrid undetected, and he quickly took his place in bed. He wasn't too against letting her see his face, but then was not the time.

,o'

It was still dark out, with the exception of some deep blue light simmering in from the cracks in the stone. Hiccup looked down at the blade that the Vikings had given Astrid to use on him.

He had to admit, the knife would have stunned him to near death, but there was one symbol missing. The one symbol was so encrypted that only Hiccup, a cursed, would know what it was. And, though there were many other insane things Hiccup had not pictured doing in his life, suicide was not one of them.

Toothless, at that point, was up, but barely moving.

"Hey, Bud? Mind blowing this to Valhalla for me?" Hiccup asked.

Toothless groggily took one sniff at the knife and shot Hiccup a look that stated 'gladly'. With that, Hiccup tossed the dagger to the opposite end of the room and let Toothless have his fun. After enough ruckus to awaken the gods, Toothless decided that the blade was demolished enough to go back to sleep. Hiccup would have felt bad for their guest, but he knew she was already awake, for he had not heard any footsteps following back into her room.

It took a moment before footsteps were heard again. When she got close enough, Hiccup, fully armored, pulled on his mask and took several paces out of his room (as to hide where he slept in case she did find a way to kill him in his sleep), and walked in front of the Astrid girl.

"I thought I told I would come to fetch you for breakfast?"

The Astrid girl sucked in a deep breath.

"I went looking for water," she said slowly.

Hiccup wasn't 100% sure whether or not the pace to the Astrid girl's words was set because she was scared to stutter or she found him more beast than man, in turn suppressing need to speak to him like a dog. Likely, it was the latter.

"The spring's that way," Hiccup said, pointing in the direction opposite to which the Astrid girl had come.

"W-w-well," the Astrid girl sputtered, "It wasn't like I knew that."

Hiccup shrugged.

"Considering the fact that your search began several hours ago, I'd say you would have given up a while back."

"I don't give up easily."

"Yeah, no really?" Hiccup muttered under his breath, his tone likely too low to hear, "Well, now that you know, I would prefer it if your wandering is confined to where the spring is."

The Astrid girl obviously did not like the idea of being constricted, but agreed in silence.

"I'll come and get you when the sun is up. I trust you do you need assistance going to and from the springs?" Hiccup asked, trying to keep the evil glee of agitating the girl from entering his voice.

"I'll-be-fine," The Astrid girl said quickly and harshly, as if she believed saying it would be like pulling out a splinter that she had somehow obtained... from all this stone. Hiccup snorted. It was just like him to take his own metaphor seriously.

"What's so funny?" It was official; this Astrid girl was peeved. She, of course, did not growl at him as she would to most people, but he irritation was seeping out of her like wind out of a Whispering Death. Hiccup knew he should stop; he was only trying to anger her because he found the way the Astrid girl viewed him maddening. Which, on an even further down side, proved her views.

"My mind," Hiccup answered, "Now go get your water. We don't need any bodies simply because of dehydration."

Not even he knew what that meant.

A/N: And chapter two. Up. It was shorter, but over 1100 words, so no complaints on length. Welcome to Hiccup's extremely cryptic side of the story. We've got cookies.

Review to get some! XD