A/N: Hello once again folks! Miss me? Well, I've come 'round with a new chapter for you all, so I hope you enjoy!
(*still trying to stick with other characters and not just Astrid and Toothless in this chapter...oh, and by the way, there should be some actual Rise of the Guardians characters/content/stuff either in the ending of this chapter, or the next one*)
I'm ashamed to say that there will be some jumping around and rushing in this chapter, due to all the lines...but I can't really avoid that at the moment, with so many POVs to fill...
By the way, there are a few episode references form both Riders and Defenders (though those who have seen them will probably be able to identify them ;) )
I apologize in advance for and spelling/grammar/punctuation mistakes.
Hope you enjoy!
"I'm sure they'll turn up soon, there's nothin' to worry abou'. They probably just lost track of time."
"I don't know, Gobber. Hiccup's usually more responsible than this. He should be here by now."
Gobber waved his hand to dismiss the situation. "He always looses his train of thought when he's on Toothless! I've seen it happen me self!" Stoick just grumbled. The two (along with the rest of the village) were in the Great Hall eating dinner. He absent-mindedly looked behind him at the bench a few rows down to where the teens were sitting.
Hiccup nor Astrid were present.
He'd asked some of the villagers if they'd seen the two and their dragons, but those he had asked hadn't seen them since yesterday. This only worried him more. He drummed his fingers on the table waiting for the doors to the Great Hall to be thrown open by Toothless and Hiccup sputter some excuse on why they were late. He tried to focus on the facts; Hiccup always went on a morning flight with Toothless, usually he woke up and they were gone. He didn't know how long they usually took flying, but he suspected a few hours was probably what Hiccup had in mind. Gobber was right though, he did tend to loose himself whenever he was flying, sometimes quite literally. He once saw him jump off of Toothless's back and watched as the two free fell. He shouldn't be this worried.
But then the Hofferson girl went missing as well. Her and her dragon.
Stoick was (most of the time) a logical man, and from the way the situation looked, the two absences were probably connected somehow. He thought for a moment before he came up with 'They probably went flying.'. He'd been told that Astrid usually spent the early mornings from dawn till breakfast training for any upcoming competition. But now since they didn't fight dragons and Thawfest is over, she really had nothing to do in that time. Stoick nodded to himself. 'Yes, that's probably it. She challenged him to flying, and with Hiccup's mind he probably thought he'd win and agreed to it.' He knew his son well - at least he hoped - over the course of the year after the Red Death, and it was probably just the thing he'd do.
Still...gone all day? It didn't seem like him. No note, no comment ahead of time, nothing. Just left.
Stoick was silent a while more before he said, "That's it. I'm getting Thornado and going to look for them." He started to get up from the table when Gobber replied, "No, Stoick. Let him come, he'll learn his lesson." a worried look sketched on his face. "Oh he'll learn his lesson alright." Stoick muttered as he got up from the table and started making his way to the door. He knew Gobber was fond of Hiccup and certainly didn't want to see him get in trouble, but Stoick was a father who was worried about his son. Nothing stood in between that.
Fishlegs casted a worried glance at the door their Chief was just stepping out of. Snotlout let out an exasperated sigh. "You mean they're still not back yet? Doesn't flying get boring after a while?" he commented. Fishlegs said nothing but returned to eating his meal. "Well, you ride Hookfang. I'd suspect it would get boring when he doesn't listen to any of your commands." Ruffnut commented. If there was one thing the twins were good at, it was comebacks. Snotlout glared at her, which only received a snicker.
"Guys, I don't know if you guys realize this, but they might be in big trouble," Fishlegs commented. "Wait, who might be in big trouble?" Tuffnut questioned. Fishlegs just rolled his eyes and replied, "Hiccup and Astrid. They missed Class today! Hiccup never misses Classes! He's the teacher!" he said fretfully. "Well he missed this Class. Besides, it's not like any of us wanted to be there. I'm glad he didn't turn up." Snotlout retorted sarcastically.
Fishlegs just groaned to himself at his 'friends' obliviousness. He picked up his plate, now seemingly having lost his appetite. The twins went back to bickering as he left, their own food still being untouched.
'None of them realize how important this may be! It's almost sunset, and they've disappeared without a trace...and skipped Class!' Fishlegs thought to himself as he walked out of the doors of the Great Hall.
Stoick quickly made his way to his house, hoping Thornado would be well rested enough to go out searching. He sighed; he knew he was taking this too seriously, but he couldn't help it. He'd treated Hiccup terribly after his mother's death, and now he was going to make it up to him.
Walking around the side of the house he stopped to see his Thunderdrum sleeping soundly, his tail wrapped around himself. Stoick smiled for a mere second before patting its head. Thornado gently opened his eyes lazily, looking up to see his rider standing in front of him. With a suppressed yawn, Thornado got up from the ground and sat patiently as Stoick strapped the saddle onto him. He let out a worried grumbled, for his friend seemed to be under some stress. He nudged him with his head, but the only reply was a mutter under Stoick's breath.
After he was done with the saddle, he looked out at the sky; gray clouds. "Well this is just perfect." he said angrily. He knew they wouldn't be able to search long, due to a pick up of wind. He was sure it was a snowstorm.
"Well, let's make the best of it then." he said to Thornado, turning around and climbing onto him. Said dragon let out one of his sonic blasts before taking off, trying to steady himself with the wind. Stoick took hold of the reins and yanked them up, forcing the Thunderdrum to fly higher. "We need to see the ground; Hiccup would've probably landed to avoid the storm." he said half to himself, half to his dragon. Thornado cooed, trying to reassure him. He wasn't sure what was going on, only that something was wrong.
As they flew higher, the ground panned out in front of them. Stoick squinted, trying to look for a familiar black shape, or a colorful blue Nadder.
They flew on for minutes more, reaching the base of the island: the mountain. Stoick pulled the reins to the right, making sure he landed on one of cliffs hanging off of the rocky terrain. Looking down he could see the entire village and everything to the west. Climbing off Thornado, he stepped onto the cold rocks, scanning the area. It wasn't easy to look around on a dragon who couldn't hover very well.
With another moment of spotting nothing, he sat down, letting out a sigh. Thornado looked at him before turning to face the open air opposite of the cliff, and let out a roar. Stoick figured he was probably calling for the dragons. It was known that a Thunderdrum's roar could be heard and felt miles away. After a few minutes of waiting for a response, Stoick gave up on the chance.
Stoick was about to get up to go searching again when he felt something cold touch his arm. He turned around and saw another snowflake fall. Realization hit him. 'Great. Now how am I going to look for them in this weather?' he thought to himself as the flurrying storm got stronger as the seconds passed. Thornado snapped him out of his thoughts as he let out yet another roar, as if trying to tell him about the danger.
Stoick sighed; he was right. As the snow fell harder he mounted his dragon and they took off back to the village, praying to the gods that his son and the Hofferson girl were alright...where ever they were.
Meanwhile, the snowstorm was nothing compared to the real cold.
The coldness on the inside.
Toothless and Astrid hadn't moved from their position, even when the wind started to pick up. Astrid just kneeled there, her face looking miserable. She was good at keeping her emotions inside of her, but she could feel them all desperately trying to make there way out in the form of tears, wanting to get away from the cold that had seeped inside her.
Part of her believed that Hiccup wasn't dead. He'd defied death so many times; The Read Death, Alvin, jumping off a cliff, the Scauldron, crashing at least four or five times off of Toothless when they discovered the Screaming Death, almost falling off the cliff face during Thawfest, the list went on and on. That part of her forced itself to believe that when the sink hole was made, the falling earth had opened one of the many tunnels the Whispering Deaths had made, that Hiccup had fallen into on of them, and is currently looking for a way out. Very much alive and well.
But then another part of her conflicted that there was no way he could have made it out; the pressure of the dirt may have just broken most of his bones in his thin body, and the pain alone may have killed him. That and not being able to breath.
The two sides conflicted with each other, and stirred up the cold inside her. He had given his life to save her...and she couldn't even pull herself out of a dip in the ground? She was pathetic, that was already drilled into her mind. But there was something else that had woken inside her, along with the dreaded cold, something that just made the experience even more unbearable. She just couldn't put her finger on it.
Daring to move, she lifted her head slowly, looking up at the dragon above her, daring herself to see, to know just how much pain Toothless was in, having lost his best friend. Toothless seemed...distant. There was something she could see in his eyes that seemed to resemble confidence, but from his expression he didn't seem to have much faith in it. He let out a soft moan, before looking down at her as well. There eyes met for a second, blue against green, each sharing their own pain with just a single look.
She broke.
The dam inside her that had keep in all of her emotions crumbled with just one look. One look of complete pain and sorrow from someone who knew Hiccup better than she ever had. Tears rushed to her eyes, and she didn't even bother to try and stop them when they ran down her face as she buried herself in Toothless's scaled, crying into them.
He lifted his paws and seemed to give her what was an attempt of a hug, and wrapped his wings around her. He gave out a soft roar of hurt as he gently put his own head on top of hers, dragons apparently not being able to cry. 'Just like Vikings shouldn't.' Astrid thought to herself. Disgrace. Disgrace was what she was, to both herself and to her tribe. A Viking crying?
She still did nothing to stop the flow of tears.
Her face was moist from tears that would never stick on a dragon's slippery scales, her breath shuddering. Weak...the word ran through her mind. She was crying for a boy who wouldn't return no matter what either of them did, a boy who was a disgrace to the name Viking as much as she was now. Yet she still did nothing.
Neither of them knew how long they sat there, it may have been hours, only that Toothless opened his eyes as he felt something cold land on his nose. At first he thought it was nothing. Nothing could compare to the cold he felt inside, but then he felt it again...and again...and again. He opened his eyes to find that snowflakes were falling all around them, the start of a blizzard.
He knew this wasn't going to help them at all. He looked down at Astrid and found that her tears had run dry, and she was leaning against him ready to fall asleep with exhaustion from crying, her face twisted into an expression of sorrow. Sucking up all the strength he had left the the pain of loosing Hiccup had taken from him, he got back down to all four paws, Astrid dropping to the ground.
Suddenly a squawking noise echoed in the clearing, and he turned to see Stormfly fly forward to them. He held out a wing as a gesture to stop, which she reluctantly did. Looking around, she became confused, another coo echoing her thoughts. Toothless confirmed them with a hoarse cry of his own, and her gaze averted to Astrid's limp figure, now passed out on the ground. She was about to fly to her and pick her up, but Toothless growled at her to stop. No, him and Astrid were in this this together. He was the closest thing to Hiccup she had left, and she was Hiccup's closest human friend. He was going to make sure she got home ok.
He warbled his thoughts to the Nadder, who looked worriedly at her rider before reluctantly and slowly flying away back to the village. Toothless waited until she was gone beofre turning around to face the girl. The snow was falling harder now, and through the dense white blurr he could tell that even while sleeping she was shivering a bit. He slowly made his way forward, his heart breaking with each step.
Hiccup was gone. He was really gone. No last minute escapes, nothing. Gone. Gone to live out eternity in Vahalla with his mother. He would never again feel the joy of flying with him, and hear the clicking of the prosthetic while making a turn. He'd never again see his bright smiling face whenever he managed to make an improvement on his tail fin, or on his shield. He'd never again let out a purr when he scratched him behind his ears or under his chin. His little Hiccup was gone.
He reached down and nudged Astrid softly, over and over again until she slowly opened her eyes. At this point her skin was pale and cold, her lips a faint blue. Toothless would never understand the reason on why these humans chose to wear sleeveless clothing to block out the cold that always struck the isalnd. She took in a shuddering breath before Toothless bowed his head to let her climb onto his back. She would need to see Gothi when they returned home, and once that was done she'd have to tell them about what had happened.
As for Toothless...well, he wasn't sure. He'd probably stay near the island if Gobber gave him his own working prosthetic that his little Hiccup had designed, but he'd rarely fly. It was meaningless to him now. Plus Astrid needed him. He recognised he really was the closest thing to Hiccup at the time being, and he'd hate to make her cry again.
He knew she never did it often.
Astrid slowly climbed onto his back, and Toothless forced himself into a trot. It was as fast as he could go at the moment, but they'd make it home. Together.
Cold is what he felt. Cold and a darkness he'd never known or felt before.
He was trapped, that's what he was. Trapped in something all around him. He didn't know what to do. Fear raced through him and he didn't open his eyes, worried that something terrifying had trapped him.
But, somewhere through all this worry and fear, he left light. A bright light. A light that seeped through him and seemed to give him some strength. Suddenly he was pulled upwards, whatever trapped him was being shoved away by the light. He could feel his head bust through the earth, and he took a deep breath of air that had been deprived of him. The rest of him was pulled out of his captor, and he finally let his eyes open, to see whatever light that had saved him from the cold and darkness.
What he saw was the moon.
It shown bright in the sky, and all of the fear inside him vanished. He looked down to see that he was slightly floating above a messed up patch of dirt, like something had terribly disrupted the earth and thrown it around the place. He was slowly set back down on the ground that had been his captor, and when both his feet touched the ground, the part where he had come up slowly placed itself back together.
He looked around him, and saw white. A soft white substance that was snow had covered the area except where he stood. He took a step forward...and the snow melted. His eyes widened in shock as he did it again with his other foot, the snow melting at his touch. Still completely fascinated, he looked up from the ground and scanned the clearing he seemed to be in. Everything was covered in the snow, nothing but white showing.
It annoyed him. Color should shine through, not just a plain white! He stepped towards a small bush nearby, and slowly reached his hand out. When his hand touched the leaves, the snow melted and turned to water, forming a puddle at his feet which he promptly ignored. He let out a breath of surprise at the fact that the snow had melted. He saw that the bush was covered in small buds, flowers waiting to bloom. An idea formulated in his mind and he tapped one of the flowers, trying to test it out. As he predicted, the flower bud he had tapped blossomed, a bright blue flower slowly evolving from the stem. He watched in amazement as it kept growing until it had reached its full size.
He tried to take a step forward, but one of his boots that he was wearing splashed in the puddle that had formed. He looked down and saw his reflection. A boy stared back at him with auburn hair and freckles, soft green eyes wide with surprise.
Suddenly he took a step back. This was becoming too much to take in at once. He looked up at the moon again, hoping for answers. There was only one thing that it told him, and it was good enough for now. He looked around again, his new mission was to get rid of all this white. As he did so, the answer that he had received flew through his mind, as he tried to remember things.
He couldn't remember anything except what the moon had told him. His name was Hiccup Horrendous Haddock. That's all.