CH 2

Hiccup lost sight of Toothless when he hit the water, the wind left him on impact, In spite of this Hiccup fought his way to the surface to find that Toothless had all but vanished, and he could see no clues to where his dragon might have crashed. "TOOTHLESS!" It was of little use; his voice was swallowed up by silence immediately. "If I don't get out of this water quick.." He did not finish this thought. He could not bring himself to finish it. After some struggling Hiccup pulled himself onto an outcropping of rocks at the base of a crumbling precipice, unknown to Hiccup, above him, a Monstrous Nightmare sat having taken an interest in the meager Viking upon hearing his shouting. This Monstrous Nightmare observed him a sinister expression reflecting the thought of a low effort lunch nearby. On the outcropping of rocks, Hiccup coughed repeatedly attempting to clear his lungs of the seawater he'd inhaled while swimming to them.

When He took a breather without the sensation of drowning, he looked up and was relieved to see plenty of potential handholds in the cliff face. The onlooking dragon however, was by now more interested in seeing what the Viking was doing rather than going to the effort of killing him. It took Hiccup much longer to reach the top of the cliff than the Monstrous Nightmare cared to wait, so when Hiccup staggered to his feet at the top to find nothing waiting for him. In fact, Hiccup's only greeting was the pain radiating thru him, except for the areas that were already numb from the cold. A few feet later he stopped to take another breather leaning on a lone sapling before walking into the forest to find his dragon and return to Berk.

Hiccup walked, growing steadily more exhausted and weary with every passing step, after He'd passed what he believed to be the same small clearing for the fifth time he stopped. "where am I? Haven't I passed this clearing before?" Hiccup shrugged these thoughts away as he gathered tinder and small branches for a fire. This process took several minutes, as much of what he found was too wet to burn without dragon fire. Once he'd gotten the fire going, Hiccup slowly started to warm up; Inferno was, as he'd, unfortunately, found out, too soaked to do any good. There was not much Hiccup felt he could do besides sit and add fuel to the fire. He was too exhausted to walk anymore, and he needed to warm up. "Toothless, stay alive bud." Hiccup dearly wanted to sleep, but he could not. Something about the island set him on edge making sleep sound dangerous. He did finally however, succumb to sleep but it was a troubled and tormented sleep not restful and rejuvenating.

He witnessed Toothless crash and fall out of the sky over and over in a repeating nightmare. He remembered the icy water feeling especially cold as it rolled over him, a thousand tiny icy spears jabbed at him pushing him down deeper into the water. He fought madly to break free of the water's grasp, each movement more panicked than the last, just when he was certain his fate was sealed, the nightmare would start again. Hiccup did finally wake up, breaking the cycle and wasn't sure if he'd woken up at for a moment. A low fog blanketed the area; it mingled with the trees and left a thin coating of frozen moisture everywhere. Hiccup looked at his clothes to find tiny ice crystals had formed on them and the semisolid water still trapped inside the leather limited his movements. "well that's just great" he said standing, figuring it must be early morning for the fog to be present. Hiccup picked a direction and began walking wanting to find Toothless as soon as possible. He was careful not to hit a tree in the fog, as it would be both embarrassing and painful.