Hiccup woke up unsure of where he was. It was to light to be in his house, and he hadn't gone there anyways...

The events of the previous night came back in a flash. Hiccup opened his eyes to find Toothless staring down at him, the pupils of his dragon narrowed. Why was his dragon so upset? "What's wr-" Hiccup started to say, to be cut off by a searing pain in his abdomen. He lifted his head a bit from where it was nestled into a bed of pine needles to examine himself. His tunic had been torn into strips and bound to him, holding on some kind of plant matter. Did Toothless really do all of this? Hiccup asked himself. It seemed unlikely that a dragon, even one as smart as his, was capable of basic first-aid, but even more unlikely that anyone had come to his rescue.

Toothless dragged over a sack and nudged it toward Hiccup. Hiccup tried to move his arm, but even such a small movement as that too enormous effort. Seeing his human's trouble, Toothless tried to empty the sack of its contents, but couldn't get his teeth on the corner of the sack without getting hold of the contents as well. He let out a frustrated growl.

"I can do it," Hiccup managed to say. Then, ignoring the pain in his middle, pushed himself up to a sitting position. He reached for the bag, hands shaking, and looked inside. There was an assortment of various fish, cooked. He must have stolen it, Hiccup guessed. The fish were filleted, and there was certainly no dragon that was capable of that. "Thanks buddy," Hiccup said, reaching for a piece of fish. Eating hurt, but at least the arrow head hadn't seemed to puncture anything important.

After consuming half the sack, Hiccup wiped his mouth and managed to stand up. "Come on," he said, pulling himself up onto Toothless'. "We are leaving. Now." As far as Hiccup saw, there was no one in Berk- no Viking- that would help him. He was once again Hiccup the Useless, Hiccup the Betrayer.

Once they got into the sky though, Hiccup rethought his decision. He had been in this situation before, and actually ended up becoming the town hero. But there was no heroism to come out of this. He had screwed up. I can't hide from what I did. I need to face them and tell them the truth.

The only problem: He had nothing to say. Toothless looked back at Hiccup. "I'm okay buddy. Just hold on," Hiccup reassured his reptile. What Hiccup had said to Astrid, there was no taking that back. It was the truth, and no matter what he could say about the misinterpretation, he had told Astrid that she would have been with Snotlout and himself with Flick if he hadn't become a hero. That the only thing holding them together was his fame.

Hiccup knew what would come next. He knew it had already happened, the moment that those words had come out of his mouth. The glue, that fame, was gone. He was now just as he was before dragons had become the villager's companions. And Hiccup and Astrid would be no more. It would just be Astrid. And Hiccup.

But, Hiccup realized, it wouldn't be like before. Because before he hadn't lost anything. And now he had.

An idea, a explanation, an apology was forming in his mind. "Lets go back," Hiccup said to Toothless. "I have to tell them how I feel. Then we can leave. Or whatever." Toothless grunted, content with his human's decision.

"What he did was stupid," Snotlout whispered to her in between kisses. Astrid broke away.

"Why?" She asked. She didn't want to talk about Hiccup, but he was all she could think about. He was why she was doing what she was now. To get revenge. If Hiccup broke her heart, she would break his even more, by making as much as he said true. And in the end she would be happy, while he would be crying in a ditch somewhere. At least that was what she imagined.

But despite her plan, Hiccup still occupied most of her thoughts. She had tried desperatly to to forget about him and what he did. When she woke up that morning, though, he was still there. Or, more accurately, the lack there of. Astrid needed something to fill that hole in her, and had turned to the first person she had thought of.

"Because I could never imagine myself doing something to hurt you," Snotlout answered. He pulled her against him, and Astrid moved her hands under his shirt. Hiccup doesn't have muscles like this, she thought to herself. And, she admitted to herself, she sort of liked it. Maybe she was meant to be with him after all.

The town bell tolled outside, signaling a public meeting. "I wonder that's about," Astrid said, then pulled herself out of Snotlout's arms and peered through the little window of his parent's basement. She could see a crowd of people already gathering at the town center, which was visible from the window. "Maybe we should check it out," she said to Snotlout. They emerged from the hut, fingers laced together, and walked down the steep path together.

DUN DUN DUN DUNNNNN! I'm pretty sure most of you can guess what is going on here. But for those of you who are clueless to the whole ordeal, I promise to have the next chapter up sooner. I had writer's block after writing the last one, and then it was summer, and then I discovered that laziness and procrastination are both virtues... so I haven't written lately.

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Today's disclaimer is brought to you by all the dragonriders of Pern AT ONCE! (for those so unfortunate as to have not read the books, you should read them, or at lease the first three. It is a bit boring in the beginning, when you don't know whats going on, but aren't all books that way?)

Dragonriders: The author, who is unsure of of their pen name because they haven't written in so long *cough cough*, does not own HTTYD or us, though they wish they did, cause dragons are cool!

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