Hiccup dreamed that night.

A village of faces, vikings and dragons alike, looking at him. A dock without ships and a sea so flat it could have been made of glass, curving on every end as if the world was just a ball, a thin line of ocean to offer blue horizons in any direction and what a trick! For everywhere Hiccup might want to go, he'd keep finding nothing but water until he'd run the world round and all the way back to the tip of the ball, in his fated Berk.

He saw all because fireflies lighted the village with their courting lines drawn in the air, shooting dazzling crowns of shadows from figures around. All of them just a bunch of immobile beings with eyes turning towards Hiccup's every step like a field of Sunflowers having Sól leaving the sky to take a walk among them. He couldn't find Astrid, nor his father and… Toothless. He was out there, wasn't he? In the sky, flying away…

…to save himself.

Hiccup blinked his eyes one too many times and the fireflies everywhere turned to fire, catching like torches. Despair settled in his heart as they dropped flames of molten gold and it burnt, like nothing else. Everyone turned to ashes in a moment, not even dry autumn leaves would ignite so fast. They just… disappeared. His heart sank now with thoughts of his friends, he hadn't seen them but he'd not even looked for them until now. Fishlegs… Tuffnut and… he stopped and tried to remember if he had actually recognized one single stare before the fire, even one face among the hundreds of them. He knew the village whole, by name and ancestry but they always felt so far away.

The fire was a recurring nightmare from his youth, since he had learnt how his mother had gone, since the moment he'd learnt that their war edged on finding the nest, the vikings had dreamed of that day for centuries because it would mean Victory… but Hiccup knew of how games are supposed to be… admitting there can be a victor means you're in for the chance to lose too and, in a war with dragons, he could imagine what end was laying in wait… if he had been awake he might even find it a more comfortable end than the one haunting his childhood, where the blaze hailed in meteorites from the sky and, usually, a clash of metal fangs followed short.

But it was a Dream. The flames were whisked away suddenly from each firefly, one here, one there, leaving for a single moment a glowing bulb of grey light, a tiny moon in their wake. Everywhere he turned more little gleams disappeared, so he looked up and there it was, the real Moon, pale but free, it was an open window from which to escape, full of hope to give and take.

As the darkness blinked in, he felt that same light from the sky was stretching an invisible hand veiled with the thinnest of silks towards him and, before every firefly died, his hand stretched up… the only choice for a drowning man drifting inside a whirlpool to the Abyss.

He tried and tried, outreaching ever more, only to feel but air. And he woke up with his arm forlornly grasping the breeze…

Beseeching…

Hiccup was wide awake, Toothless still a scaly pillow behind his back. His muscles ached, unwilling to comply to his alertness. He didn't remember the dream and his outstretched hand had been forgotten as soon as the sore spot on his shoulder stung from it, but… for some reason, he felt very conscious of the Moon in the sky. For Hiccup the sight meant something, one of the few things in his life that had a meaning beyond its practical use, it meant 'Longing'. He turned away from it and stood up, aching left and right.

The dark felt threatening but only in a matter-of-fact kind of way, his heartbeat remained calm. Yawning and tensing some muscles, he sauntered under the rustic archway to the rooms.

In the inner one he took a bow from the wall and a string from a pouch full of them. He tried to string it but the tiredness of sleep had still a good hold of him so he took it with him the way it was, a good length of wood being better defense than nothing. The thing would not shoot straight half the times anyway and the whole behavior irked him because a stick and a string should shoot where they're aimed at every time but… No-oh! Only the original composite bow they were all based on seemed to fulfill his expectations… he was ready to accept the idea that they just disagreed with their maker on a deeper level so using them as a quarterstaff should teach them some!

He went on its left, circling the clearing where Toothless slept and to a turned shield nailed half way up a tree trunk and three arrows still stuck in its center. He took the arrows from this improvised practicing target, they had been rare shots left there to soothe Hiccup's pride and create the illusion of skill. Truth was they'd been three good shots in a row of forty mediocre ones and he'd left them there for so long that birds had pecked away the fletching. He took them out anyway, in his state of mind anything that nettled him ought to be dealt with. Right now he felt stupid for letting fake pride take hold of the shooting range for weeks. He'd been out hunting, alright, but that didn't mean he should stop practicing. Nonetheless a twinge of the same pride brought in the thought:

Couldn't Astrid come this way and see just how good I 'Might' be with a bow!

He put down the arrows ten feet later and tried again to fit the bow string in both nocks, even using his whole weight on it, but it only broke the bow, one end of it angrily whipping the ground. He threw what remained at a tree and left the disheveled arrows on the ground.

Well, he still had his trusted knife in the left bracer… which he was not wearing. His thoughts had some little gaps like that, it was not just his body that had not fully awoken yet.

Hiccup yawned and kicked autumn leaves on the ground, half the trees on the island shed them, winds and birds had made the whole archipelago a painting of blotched tones in the seasons of change. He got to the edge where a tree stood, albeit standing was not a truly fitting expression in this case. It was half tipped on the edge so that half its roots were probably drilling the cliff's earth instead of the flat ground.

It had surprised Hiccup since the beginning to find out that many feet of earth would stick to rock on most of these islets but, as he reminded himself, the ruins gave the impression that once upon a time there was a continuous big island here and it had split apart or parts of it had sunk under the sea.

The tree branches had grown trying for any spot of light and opened in a wide flat cone still full of needle leaves. They had a funny name for those trees in the village but he forgot it, evidently the wood wasn't useful to build a bow because he lately remembered those ones. Another curious thing was the direction of the bended trunk: It slung exactly towards the spot in the sky where the Moon was and bended the way a great mooring rope would anchor it to the ground.

"Let's call you Moontree, then." He said, wondering the coincidence…

Clickety-Clack.

Hiccup heard –from below?

He went to the edge but below the sea was mostly shadowed by other close-by islets so only some, farther away, glimmered in the moonlight. Other than that only Darkness… the click was fainting away, had the sound accompanied him there? Hiccup decided that rather than peering over the edge of the cliff he'd rather commit to the most probable cause:

Right, it's just the wind pushing branches against the cliff, obviously!

He was now closer to the Moontree, its clustered needles gave a barred view of the Moon, many scratches of charcoal above the pale light. Hiccup found it all the more beautiful and amusing, he did like forests but he didn't care that much for the single trees. This one, though, looked beautiful. He put his feet on the trunk preparing himself to, virtually, walk over the edge. There was a different kind of courage in that, the exhausting bravery of curiosity that always brought him into trouble and let him forget all his fears. He walked a step and then deemed safer to fell on all fours grasping the tree. He kept pushing forward nonetheless, his mouth trying to stifle an insane laugh, the kind that accompany words like 'Why am I doing this, anyway?'.

He was doing it in an illogical attempt to get a closer look at the moon, not that flying to the west for days would make a minimal difference in that pursuit but, for all humans know of what's beyond, falling to his death… that… just might.

'Longing…'

That bright splendor, hard to believe it, held romance in it even for Vikings. In fact, in Hiccup's childhood it was the only sign that his father's heart might, one day, actually bleed. For Stoick the Vast the Moon was an annoying reminder to look at with longing eyes and Hiccup had heard the story only once from his own mouth, a tale told to him just so he would never ask it again.

Before he was born his mother, Valka, had always gone on Quests left and right, every occasion to leave the island was a good enough one. Stoick had known her when they were still kids and she had reached the village stowing away on a pirate ship, her adventurous ways had made the love work for the better as there were no two persons more stubborn on the whole island. Despite the love and all she could not be tied down in one place so they allowed the tiniest bit of romance in their life: they decided that even when all the mountains in the world might be standing between them the moon would be their personal mirror, maybe a thousand knots away but they'll find each other there. Hiccup was sure if you were madly in love you could see the loved one's face just about anywhere you looked for it, if you stared at it for long enough, of course.

In the longing and in his irrational desire to reach the light he remembered parts of the dream. It recoiled in his soul, it said things very loudly that he was not about to voice. And what a strange arrangement of them too.

He could not become Chief… lead the village? That was crazy! Why did they expect such thing from him. To take responsibility for the lives of everyone… how did his father manage to face them and keep being chief when he'd led them all to die in the Nest? Why hadn't Hiccup ever asked that question to Him? Why had it never occur to ask his father all sorts of questions, like how he even lived carrying such a burden for all his life… and Hiccup, how stupid could he have been: he was on route to the same fate and he never cared to take an interest in these things!

I'm doomed. Berk, My father and this nightmare– no! Not the dream, that was just…

…a stupid dream, that's what it was! People don't catch fire like leaves, the Moon doesn't extend a hand to grasp yours and the Earth is not round (although it might have a curvature of sort, he'd admit to that after seeing too many times the horizon shift as he flew higher).

When he was too far up the tree to go any further without starting to climb the branches he looked down, at the bark… the trunk was bigger than him, his hands couldn't meet on the other side, so he just closed his eyes, slowly inhaled air to calm himself and then peeked over his shoulder.

"No, No. No!" he closed his eyes again. Then one opened and trembled back shut.

It was so different than on top of a dragon. For one thing, he could see pointy rocks below.

Why! Why?

The view certainly was sobering him up. His muscles now would have certainly strung the bow, for all his hope they might cut the tree in half by how strongly he was clanging to it.

He pushed back and to change scenery turned on the other side, there the light cleared a greater path of the sea where the shadow didn't reach, he could even see where Breath-Cup island reached the sea and then…

Clickety-Clack…

Is that a–

Clickety-Clack…

–a Viking ship?

His body took advantage of the distraction to speed up the retreat. In his travels to the moon he had gained about nine feet over the edge, like nothing. That's such a long way back…

He stopped before the sight would disappear below the edge. The sails were cut, ruined, it was a relict, it had to have drifted a long way but… it couldn't have been here more than days, the archipelago was full of wrecked ships but "wrecked" was the price of admission. The tides and waves made fast work of them, mincing them to bits and leaving parts hanging from rocks. They won't leave them floating around… for long, that is.

He then saw something interesting, more exciting than anything he noticed so far: Booty!

The ship had things in it, loads of it judging by the size of the tarps and how deep was the draught on the back. There was no sparkling inside so the hull was probably dry and not compromised… all the more reason to be happy. It had been days without rain but the wind had been strong and Hiccup wasn't an expert on sailing currents so the thing could have come from anywhere, finding brief safe harbor in the archipelago until the next storm… which would grind in its keel and bones the sort of fate a boat should really expect in this haven.

But a whole ship full of loot…

Now that is luck, isn't it!

"Yes!" he whispered through gritted teeth feeling earth under his foot again and rushed to Toothless with as much speed as he felt to give his trembling legs and hands.

"Toothless!" he pushed him on the shoulders.

"Toothless!" he tried to roll him over, fat chance.

"Oh, come on! You're awake! You're no no good at playing dead! You've never heard the way you breathe when you really sleep, you know?" it was hardly convincing and this time he sat on his head and tried to open the lids by pulling on the scales where eyebrows should be…

Just how damn strong can your eye-muscles be?

"Alright! Your laziness might overpower me but you can't outsmart yourself! Aha!"

Not a flinch.

Hiccup found a stone among the leaves, it could have be mistaken for a chicken egg if not for the roughness of its surface. He bounced it in the hand "Ready…" and threw it in a slow arch in front of Toothless snout but ten feet up in the air "Shoot!"

Toothless reacted like he always did, one single eyelid shot open and then an opening the size of a human's mouth appeared between his lips and a small flare beamed out and exploded the stone, showering it to pieces in the direction where the nano-plasma bolt had been aimed at.

"Damn, aren't you amazing!" said Hiccup unamused even though Toothless had become incredibly good at it. They had even taken to play 'Shoot' in Hiccup's room with crumpled pages of the sketchbook, the ones that clustered the size of his desk… of course in that case the plasma bolts were even smaller and it only made for a lot of ash on the floor and some yells from his father if it happened late at night.

"Hello…" Hiccup smiled upside-down from over Toothless' head with a smug smile.

Toothless got up slowly but inexorably like Hiccup's weight didn't matter and the rider fell on his face tumbling over the dragon's head.

It took some while to convince him but then both flew over the forest and down to the sea and slowly found their way back to where the ship was. They landed after a small assessment that there was space and buoyancy sufficient to hold them. The ship was big, in a very uncharted sense of the word because these kind of ships didn't come to Berk… they didn't come even close to it, nor to their nearby tribes. Hiccup was fairly sure he never saw a boat this big and it was so flat it gave a sense of slowness and leisure apt to much calmer seas. How far had this ship traveled?

The emblem on the sails was unknown to Hiccup and it looked like three serpents entangled around a Broadax. As his imagination stared at all the possible silhouettes under the big blankets tied to the back, his eyes fell on the wounds. From the look of it the ship had been attacked by… by– Everything?!

The sails were full of cuts, sliced by talons, Hiccup would guess… all the lacerations appeared in groups of three or four and all parallel to one another. The yard had been burnt at one end but the sails and ropes held strong. Actually, so many things on the boat were charred… hard to believe the thing didn't burn completely, the wood must have been quite wet to hold such big patches of fire or maybe someone extinguished it. There were arrows here and there, shot by someone attacking in numbers because the sides were riddled with many still struck above the waterline and there were signs of more hitting below… they'd probably been washed away or scratched out by the rocks. The building of the ship was sturdy enough that even an axe had been stuck on the low part of the hull without making it leak. A sword, definitely viking too, pierced the ridge at the front where the dragon-shaped prow looked rather foreign to Hiccup: On the long neck the head curved down and then up again with a wide mouth, giving it the semblance of a serpent more than a dragon.

Where does this thing come from? I'd have bet dragons attacked it if it wasn't for all the weapons… maybe dragons were all over it and people from some other ship tried fighting back with arrows? Or maybe it survived the dragons only to meet pirates later on? Or vice-versa?

Hiccup realized then how far along the edge it had moved from where he had first spotted it. He took one of the two oars still clinging to the side and, using it as a pole, started pushing against the rocky bottom of the sea to drag it against his islet. He might as well try to push the island into their path so he looked at Toothless who had started sniffing every bit of the place.

"Hey, a little help?"

Toothless cocked his head.

"Go up the yard, there! Where the sail is attached? Ah, Right! Sorry!" he went to put the tail fin in the auto-stir gear and Toothless leapt, rocking the whole boat, and got on the mast which tilted under the weight with ominous creaks.

"Push it towards the Moontree! –I mean, towards the moon."

Toothless seeing the problem in Hiccup's plan instead fished for one of the ropes to the sail and bit it with his drawn fangs, then flew feeling the weight below being dragged behind. It was a very annoying task, the rope often pulled back because of rocks holding the ship from below the keel or even on the sides. The ship was getting wounded more and more but Hiccup was trying to use the Oar to keep it away from rocks the best he could. Not that he could do a good job at it, the dragon's Might was dragging a boulder by raw power alone, frail arms with sore pain could barely keep the oar straight in the rushing water, let alone steering the ship. They reached the Moontree with Toothless starting to pull the ship away from the islet so Hiccup yelled at him to use the rope to tie it to the tree above, hoping the weight wouldn't haul it down on his head.

The moving had caused leaks where before there were none. Nothing too serious, the ship was just getting wet but laws of a sinking ship was to hurry out even if it was filling one drop at a time. Hiccup started uncovering sacks full of stuff, he could even spot a box or two and many things were just strapped to the thwarts. He couldn't be sure what everything was so he gave precedence to the ones in sacks because they were easier to carry out. Then he tasked Toothless with the vexing unloading ad he started flying up and down with more and more stuff, each departure and touchdown tuning the wood in a more constant creaking. By the end Hiccup was sweating from having to wrap all the loose stuff in the tarps and blankets with any rope he could find, a task that lasted around half an hour with the ship never stopping to rock back and forth and Hiccup collecting more bruises than sacks. His hands had felt mostly cloths but their weight and some solid surface to the touch revealed metal detailing, buttons, pins and all sorts of things Hiccup could find more interesting than money. He didn't know what was in the sacks he'd sent up without opening but those weighted a bit more and one that had been slashed showed thick leather of a different quality from the ones Berkians were familiar with. What remained then were only four huge boxes stuck between thwarts and he was looking at them in an ever dimming light. The shadows had finally caught up to them and stronger winds whistling from above brought big clouds that covered the moon completely.

"Can you cut the sail from the yard? We'll use it as a big sack." The remaining tarps were too small and the sail was all slashed but… together… it might just work.

"Yeah, Cut them were they latch, see there? The knots, then! Well, don't look at me like that, I didn't design your teeth to be completely useless to cut rope!" Hiccup by instinct avoided a nano-plasma spit shot at his footing and fell on a thwart. Toothless growled a laugh.

"Ouch! Oh, No!" the small precise projectile was never meant to hit Hiccup, just close enough to scare him into falling, but it had hit something… a plank of wood that barely held as it was. Having the pillow of water on the other side had avoided it from just splintering away but it was already failing under the water pressure, a constant rivulet already coming in… the ship had regained a foot of waterline by the weight loss but it had been battered more and more against the rocks by Toothless' movements and by the waves…

Damn, it won't hold much longer.

"Alright, I'm coming up!" Hiccup said, ready to cut the sails himself, just to notice he wasn't wearing the bracer with the knife on it…

"Wait!" He went to the prow and tried to take the sword out of the wood, he couldn't pull too strongly because it'd just fling him in the waters on the other side the moment the sword was freed. He could barely see as it was and behind him, in the water, there could be only sharp edged rocks for all he knew.

He cursed his un-vikingness and, annoyed, kicked the planks only to open another dripping crack in the side.

"I'm an idiot!" he yelled and then went for the covered boxes and searched in them, the first was almost empty but had a bunch of apples, rotten and putrid and crawling with worms. The second had only scraps of cheese and thick mold was growing out of it…

Well, at least the sailors left with their bellies full.

The third and fourth boxes made a small wall before the last thwart and the stern of the ship. He heard firstly a faint noise… but he'd not gotten to the back of the ship yet so maybe it was just settling to his weight. He uncovered the single tarp that was on both boxes pushing it on a pile of other blankets he had not noticed before, they occupied the ending triangle of the ship and…

"Eureka!" said Hiccup, not totally sure what the recently-imported world meant but quite familiar with the context in which to use it.

One box had clothes, very fancy stuff and probably very valuable, but the other had many blades, of knives and small swords that some called saxes, all stripped of their hilt and with the bare tang… the best possible treasure to find for any blacksmith in a practical world.

He had not much to enjoy the finding as Toothless had found further use for his flaming tongue than loll it around. The sudden increase in light over the scene had in fact come from Toothless licking with flames the lining of the sails and then scratching at the weakened spots with his tails and round talons. When Hiccup had his yell of joy the sails had just remembered their long due contract with gravity over winds and they fell enveloping the ship and darkening the world once more.

In the muffled hiding Hiccup firstly felt the need to yell "Toothless! What the darn!" but then he felt the more immediate need to survive the knife thrust at him in the confusion under the sail. He had heard the slosh rustling of the blades fall on the hull, one foot too many sloshing in the pond of water and he had dodged instinctively what his hand felt was a small and lean hand. As always at disadvantage over uneven or frictionless ground Hiccup reeled against the rim of the ledge of the ship and found the hem of the sails with his fingers. He pulled it off but as his head found again the night a weight slung the whole boat like a see-saw and he was rocked unto the prow. Toothless had landed as soon as he had perceived his friend being in danger but the idea had only shot the whole ship on its side and flung it against the rocks, under the shadow of the big island in its shape of a cup. Now Hiccup could see nothing at all, only having the clarity of thought to yell some well-thought warnings:

"Toothless! Don't light any fires and don't shoot! Don't even move! If the ship rocks or sinks any more there's a whole floor of sharp stones that could cut steel under us! We might cut ourself just by trying to take flight and you never know what's gonna get cut… might even be my throat!" even the armor that would have protected his torso and neck was still in the forge…

Damn! And I've given away my position thoroughly by giving a lecture!

In the darkness he stood still, would any movement of feet even be heard with the boat creaking all over? But there was water under… if feet walked on it… easy to avoid by walking on the thwarts or on the fallen sails. Had the assailant freed himself from that blanket?

Hiccup decided that he might as well be ready to risk doing something stupid. Yes, he might ask Toothless to light his mouth and show a bit around but that would just give anyone else the initiative to attack Hiccup who, by the way, was not armed while the other one was. So…

It's a risk I'm quite comfortable with… if it's worth my life anyway…

He took out the sword and drew it, there was no reaction from the shadows to the sound of drawing metal.

Alright, fairer odds than I would have had this morning, at least… unless I managed to ruin it by fixing it. Nope, can't think like that! Not now!

Hiccup gave it the click and then waited a shorter moment than he would have done otherwise and let the small trigger come back lighting the flame. The Sword was working Per-Fect-Ly, the flames came out just about enough not to burn Hiccup and as they sizzled from bottom to top the Dragon saliva gurgled up the small paths, pushed by the pressured gas in the lower chamber. It worked and the holder could not even take a moment to enjoy himself because he could now get a very good view of his enemy and it was… definitely not what he was expecting.

It was a girl, two long braids in a disheveled dress and, by the looks, she was probably between eight or ten years old. And she was so scared that Hiccup felt incredibly guilty of putting her through such fear. She was terrorized, her eyes so wide the white in them made perfect glinting rings in the sword's light, her teeth chattering to the point of grinding themselves against each other, even the orange flame could not paint over the paleness of her skin…

Hiccup tried to distance the sword from her and even trying to telepathically make Toothless back away. The first time he had brandished his weapon, live and healthy and ready to battle assassins…

…and this is the fight I get? The Gods and their humor…

…albeit Hiccup didn't believe Gods had anything to do with humans and their stupid misfortunes. That didn't stop him from blaming them from time to time, the kind of thing you feel entailed to when you follow the observances of the Religion anyway.

He lowered the sword only to learn that fire has a preferred direction and it might just coincide with your arm if it stands higher than the hilt, the sword sprung back up scaring the girl who held up her knife in response.

"Wait, calm down! Please!"

What a great situation! If I lower the weapon… in a place like this she might actually get a good swing of the knife before I fall down on my ass… a peg leg on a rocking boat full of water! Now, that's no fun at all! I'll get my own Saga for how stupidly I died at the hands of a kid.

The situation was rather delicate and 'handling it' meant to have a plan, a good one preferably. The girl was looking at the Sword and at the Dragon, in turn, giving Hiccup the smallest awareness. Hiccup slowly moved his right hand under the sail and whispered Toothless to light his mouth.

The Dragon's mouth lighted a bright blue tone which looked very dim once Hiccup turned off the sword. He lowered it on the boat where the wood smoldered… better the hull than the sails, the blade was probably still hot enough to light the dry parts of such fabric. Then he smiled confident of the fact that his harmless face had secured him a bullied childhood. Even the girl would have to admit that Hiccup missed out on having the ruthless attitude forged on their cheeks, jaws and eyes, like any other Viking had. Sadly, in a tenuous blue side-light everyone looks scary and she launched herself over the sails ready for a frontal assault, trying to take advantage of the moment when the man with the flaming sword was unarmed.

Hiccup reacted a bit more promptly than he hoped he had to… the sails moved under her feet and Hiccup wrapped one end like a whip and started rolling it around the girl, at the best of his footing. A tearing sound of knife on cloth still came from inside and Hiccup took a piece of rope and tied at one end then pointed at the other.

"Grab that and let's get out!"

They flew away as the ship recoiled by imploding a couple of planks under the strain of the fast and heavy departure. They leapt through the air and let the furled sail on the grass near the Moontree.

Hiccup tired of the effort felt his tone slide into threatening and evil:

"You feel the ground under you? You're on the edge of the Cliff! Move too much and you'll fall two-hundred feet into pointy rocks!"

The movement inside stopped but a more patient tearing of fabric could still be heard. In truth she was quite far from the edge and the islet rose maybe forty feet above the sea on that point but Hiccup felt venomous. The girl had arisen all the piety he might ever find in himself but he wasn't forgetting that not two minutes had passed from her last attempt on his life and from the sound of it she wasn't giving up a next attempt.

Hiccup led Toothless back to the edge and down to the ship, trying to retrieve the small treasure but there were no more blankets on the ship, the girl must have been the pile of tarps he'd seen in the ship's back… if she was using one to cover herself she must have flung it off boat or maybe they'd thrown it off boat with their ascending maneuver. Hiccup quickly fished maybe ten blades out of the freezing chaos underfoot, full aware of the fact that the box might have contained even fifty of them, and put them all in the clothes from the other box which were much thinner than he thought they would be and only half a dozen overall, probably left there with all the air and space they could occupy to avoid folds on such fine work… and Hiccup was using them to hold dirty sharped blades…

Toothless gave Hiccup gummy bites as his paws were already deep in water, Hiccup sighed and agreed. He move to him and fell between thwarts, completely underwater in the chilling night. Any possible residual desire to sleep was instantly killed. He shoot up and climbed in the saddle giving a pat to Toothless's head as a silent sign to make a cautious departure, not trusting his tongue to speak between chattering teeth. They flapped away more slowly but the slow start was even worse as the ship fell three times below the waterline, one for each flap, embarking buckets of water every time, and when Toothless' paws had left any ground the ship was already burbling down, probably on a short journey to a shallow bottom.

Maybe I can come back another day and fish them out… or even better, if Astrid tells on me I'll just invite the others and Fishlegs and Snotlout will gladly do it for me if Ruffnut is here too.

They landed once again near the sail which, to Hiccup's surprise, had covered half the distance to the edge. He stamped on the less tangled end stopping it from moving any further and took out one of the knives out of the ones in the clothes, letting the whole pile fall on the side. He was going to slice open that textile prison when he noticed that another point of blade was showing through a good slice vertical to the roll.

"Well… since you're so good at it!"

He put the knife in his belt and pushed the rolled mass back towards the center of the island and strode towards the Moontree.

The rope is there… and the tree… It's still holding! Wow!

He stepped slowly and cautiously over the trunk, Toothless this time spectator to the bravery of his rider. Hiccup crawled down immediately as he realized how slippery it was with only one foot in a sloshing boot and the other… well. After all he did crawl last time too and he was dry back then. His left hand took out the knife again, stretched and started sawing the rope that Toothless had wrapped around the tree in five loops. Then took courage and looked down while the knife kept hacking at it and he saw that only the mast was out of the water and the tied knots of the rope were sliding up to the yard. They had probably done short work of the nails he'd seen in the mast, the full weight of a boat filled with water and the strength of the Moontree had strung the whole thing to such tension that Hiccup should have guessed the nails or the rope would break long before the tree did. As the rope snapped down and the mast sank Hiccup clang with closed eyes in the slow swing the elasticity of the tree allowed. Then he went back on the cliff ignoring the length of rope still wrapped around the tree… he might cut it out at some point to keep the island stealthy and all but… not today.

Maybe the next storm will see to it…

He sloshed back, still dripping water from everywhere but now a bit happier. As he reached the sail he saw the girl's head trying to crawl out of it.

Sleep and cold water seemed to have cured his sore spots because he crouched down keeping the smile he had.

"Hi little girl."

She hissed at him with forewarning but her eyes still betrayed some fear. Hiccup took the length of the sails without ropes, where apparently were the girl's feet and dragged it for very few feet before Toothless took over for his hand and followed the squelching steps to the clearing pulling the thing. Every now and then the steps and the clanging of stolen metal stopped and a small cursing started but they reached the immediate ground in front of the hideout.

Toothless stopped there while Hiccup went to one side of the ruins, there he had a lot of chopped wood stashed and fairly dry, protected by the fallen roof of the former second floor which had allowed a cover of moss to grow on its exposed side. He had made the pile when he first started fixing the place on the island, only to never use it. He didn't live in the place, after all, and he could make due with the warmth of the forging hearth or the outside furnace. He threw some logs of wood on a bare surface of stone, that had been a favorite spot for Toothless's naps so nothing grew there for long.

Toothless without being asked blew a continuous slow burning flame on the logs that caught slowly, starting the small popping sound of wet wood. The girl had stopped flinching as this scene took place but Hiccup had decided to ignore her completely to let her nervousness and fear settle down. Seeing him not arming her might work better than telling her he wasn't gonna. And since doing that might just set her off it felt like the right approach. After all she had ignored him up until he had reached the end of the ship and she must have been there during the whole looting enterprise, right?

She didn't appear out of thin air, that's for sure.

As she looked at Toothless, taken by the sight of the dragon all curled up like a kitten, he took a glance of her face. She looked a bit emaciated or was it the paleness that gave that effect? Had she survived off that rotten food on the ship?

He was worried of the story that had brought her to live alone in a vessel adrift, did anyone die on the ship? Must have… who would leave a girl so young to the care of winds and waves? Were her parents on board when whatever happened? She had not left even when she was in sight of an island. She was too young to realize, perhaps, but her ride would have sunk and she would have died in the freezing water. Maybe she had kept herself under the blankets the whole time… What had she drunk in all those days.

Maybe nothing…

Realization dawned on him and he moved a bit faster than before towards the archway and inside, soon his hands roaming hastily through his provisions. He had a barrel of rainwater that collected inside directly from the yew tree above. Most of the water above the roof went in his handmade drainpipes and the water in those was Filthy, this instead came down quite naturally and was as clear as molten ice. He brought a whole tankard of it and left it in front of her, out of reach of her knife's blade. He noticed she had freed herself a bit more when he'd gone inside. She looked at it apprehensively, giving a uncertain look at Hiccup, both angry and miserable. He left her more space and she crawled at it, drinking the water avidly.

"You'll feel sick if you drink it all in one go."

She kept looking at him over the big mug without any attitude but manifestly ignoring his words.

Maybe she speaks a different dialect or a whole other language?

"Do you want something to eat?"

A drop of water fell from the mug and she flinched. She lowered the mug but only to stare at him, slowly acquiring a frown of defiance.

She does understand…

"Right. What luck that I have some food here with me…" he unstrapped a sack from his shoulder and took out several forms wrapped in cloth, putting them where he had left the full tankard before. He started by proffering a waterskin he untied from his belt.

"Here I have some fresh sheep's milk from this morning, yesterday's bread, smoked salmon, some salted cod, sheep's cheese– ah, sorry, I saw on the boat… I'll put this back, then. This one is lamb's meat treated to last a long time so, you might find it a bit sour. This… you shouldn't eat. I caught this and I'm not sure I smoked it right, maybe rabbits' meat is not meant to be smoked at all. Not that it's easy to know, I can tell you, there's only one island that has them so it's not like there are any recipes for them in my village…"

He was trying to make her accustomed to his voice but she was just eying everything, she didn't seem to care much about names and descriptions. Maybe that was for the best because it meant she was letting her guard down, there had to be some sort of trust involved in such a shuffle of priorities.

Or, Maybe, she is just starving to death…

The sight of her, eating, was like watching Dragons at a trough…

How long since she's last eaten something? –something edible anyway…

He sighed and got closer. He handed her the sheep's meat which she was eying the most after she'd finished both cod and salmon.

"I think you should come to my village, there you'll have clothes and foo– Ouch! Are you mad?" She'd bit into his hand, pulled away by the other hand pushing on her nose. The teeth had drawn blood.

He faced her with a stare as angry as she held it defiant.

"Alright. I Will Drag You to the village, willingly or not. I can't deal with a annoying-grouchy-darn–little-brat like you! And you Bit me!"

The village… the dream…

Oh! Who cares! I don't have time to start thinking about that!

He stood up and with a short step and a well calculated kick with his peg leg he sent her knife too far for her to retrieve it. She started yelping out of despair again, like a lost dog eyeing a lost hope. Hiccup's compassion had short-fused over the bite, he knew the bite would disappear in a couple of days with his callous hands hardened by smithery but still… her teeth had sunk stronger over the nail of his little finger and it hurt like someone had left an iron spike through it. He strode back again to the room and came out later having changed his clothes back to another leather suit fit for flying and, lucky for him, he caught her biting her way out of the last of the sail as she freed her foot.

He ran between her and the knife and this time took out his knife on the left bracer without trying to look negotiable. He threw her a bundle of clothes and told her to change or put them on the clothes she was already wearing. She just stuck her tongue out…

"Plan B, then."

He took a rope and, using a rediscovered agility on steady dry ground he tied her hands and her feet, dodging her teething mouth. His agility had actually surprised her enough that she she had her hands tied before she could even make a sensible movement to help her situation. The yelling started and grew in the glade. Hiccup tired of the whole night, dragged her by the ropes and threw her gently in Toothless' lap, as the soft weight's thump left the dragon completely unfazed and with closed eyes. Being there was enough to froze her with fear nonetheless.

"I've got a Dragon and I might just set it on you."

Toothless' snort of derision at the statement had the unintended effect to terrorize her some more.

Hiccup went inside and the preparations for the return came with several thuds, some rustling and more cussing. Outside, Toothless had started to open his eyes, he was very familiar with the fracas of tidying up and the boarding of the windows. He knew it all meant they'd be up in the air soon so he started stretching as the weight on his side leaned trembling. In his most doe-eyed way he took notice of her, curious. Toothless looked like a big kitten but vikings were not all too familiar with cats, aside the wild lynx that steal the poultry on bigger islands. She fell to the ground and he sniffed her inquiringly without attempting to touch her. He just made a ring around her with his tail and body as he lay down, chin on the ground.

Minutes later Hiccup was back with another big bundle of rags and ropes. He hopped over the tail, stood in front of her and smiled.

"You didn't want clothes, so…"

The Wind, below.

The morning felt definitely boring compared to what had preceded it and Hiccup indulged himself to some yawning. He had time to think of his dream and he found it less and less interesting or meaningful. Monotony was setting in once again and with it any existential doubt washed away into more practical thoughts, like Breakfast.

Sunrise came on his back and Hiccup still didn't realize he'd spent his first night away from home, not fearing if he'd given his father the scare of a lifetime, not wondering if he'd even notice his absence. He had things occupying his mind right now, like the girl he had strapped to the saddle under his arms. She was bound in a torso leather armor of Hiccup which easily contained her arms too, blocking them from moving. She was still tied hands and feet but he had rolled three blankets around her, a scarf on her neck and two security ropes that would make harder for her to fall than for him. He had done it in ten minutes so it completely lacked style but it didn't matter, even one second less of her shrieking was worth any funny comment the scene would inspire from the Hairy Hooligans Tribe.

To lull and annoy her at the same time he had started talking normally and prolixly, telling stupid tales of the mischievous stuff he did when he was her age and of how, at the time, he only counted Fishlegs as his friend and it was all so much simpler because no one wanted him around "…a bit like you, Miss. I bet people will pay to send you back home as soon as we find out where it is…"

And talked and talked… the dream forgotten. Checking every now and then on his compass on the right bracer as for habit since Toothless knew better than him the way home. To her, he explained that too "… because, you see, we have memories of lands but dragons have memories of sea too. They can find a spot in the sea like we can find a house in our village…"

And then they started flying by a pod of Thunderdrums breaching through the Ocean in their swim. The trio was flying very close to the sea and it seemed to calm the girl, in the beginning… until she realized there were big mouths leaping from the sea and they weren't whales. But the shrieks didn't change their course, they kept following. Toothless knew his rider more than anyone else especially about things Hiccup never explained in words.

Hiccup loved flying in all its forms and aside from the more reckless kind, gliding beside a packs of Thunderdrums was second only to following a flocks of Timberjacks. There were no freer dragons than them out there, one for the utmost heights and the other for the depthless seas, so when the pair were just flying leisurely they liked to stand in the wake of one of those packs and just be a part of it.

"You'll never see them following a Queen's orders, you can bet on that! Eh, bud?"

Hiccup had been obliviously rude to Toothless and the latter reminded him by twirling in the air and under a wing of a Thunderdrum that had just tried his higher jump yet. Hiccup's legs clenched on the saddle, one hand sought some holding while the other grasped the roll of blankets in front of him. The scare had stirred Hiccup but had set off the girl like a wailing teapot.

"You were young, that's all! I think you followed the Queen's whims just because… well, I've never seen another Night Fury, have you? I tried to be a Viking like the old kind too because I had no one else but them to follow as example! They say my mom was all sort of crazy, totally like me but she wasn't there. If I had her I'd probably be sailing the seas and if you had grown up with your family all your choices would be totally different." Then thoughtfully added "I'm we can find other Night Furies if we fly around the world for long enough… maybe even your original pack!"

But as always Hiccup was left to think his own troubles away by asphyxiating them with abstruse reasoning. If Toothless could talk back Hiccup would save himself a lot of headaches.

To the girl still yelping he said "If you keep at it you'll blow your vocal chords and you'll never be able to speak again. Ever." A random thought which magically shut her up for the rest of the day and would push her whole life into a much less scream-worthy direction, although neither of the people present at that moment took any notice of the magnitude of the event. The girl was too scared of about everything and Hiccup's mind was miles away.

"You know, finding a girl on a ship with viking emblems never seen before… someone like dad… he'd see that as a sign… and he believes in that sort of stuff, he'd get with the Gothi and sentence me to travel and find her homeland saying something like maybe you're meant to travel to the far lands she comes from… Ha! ha! Right?"

They left the Thunderdrums for higher altitudes and an island sneaked a peak over the horizon… Berk.

Hiccup checked his compass to see how much they had strayed following the Thunderdrums.

We're further North than usual.

"As I was saying, it might just be a big Sign telling us we ought to fly away on our Journey as soon as we can. Tomorrow even!"

He noticed Toothless shadow as he descended in a steep glide, closer and closer to the waters, it was a long pointed needle. He looked around, water all around them and a needly shadow pointing to Berk. He closed the compass and swallowed a knot.

"Now… Lucky for me I've never believed in signs and suchlike…"