(READ THIS FIRST, It's been a long time hasn't it, I have procrastinated on all my fics, if you go to my profile, you will find an apology for everyone of my readers on the lack of updates, I hope you can accept it, with that said, here's chapter 4)
As Hiccup walked up towards the Great Hall for breakfast, Toothless began to turn back towards his regular self, happily following Hiccup in expectant for morning fish, what-ever had happened to him back there, Hiccup wasn't sure, in fact he hardly put a thought in it, his thoughts traveled mostly to Katherine.
"Katherine" he breathed, " a name so elegant, so regal, so beautiful-she was beautiful", he didn't know why, but he couldn't get her out of his head, her arousing scent of lavender, her crystal blue eyes, filled with such kindness and admiration.
"Unlike Astrid"
Hiccup stopped walking, where'd that thought come from, as if someone just put that idea into his head without him realizing it. Toothless cocked his head at his rider in confusion at his sudden pause. But Hiccup was quick to shrug it off, he looked down to find Toothless staring at him intensely, as if almost waiting for him to say something.
"Don't worry bud I'm fine"
Toothless kept looking at him in concern.
"Really bud, I'm alright. . . . .just tired is all" and continued on his way to breakfast.
Dragon POV
Though Hiccup's usual goofy smile gave him some reassurance, something didn't feel right to the night-fury, first he woke up later than usual, they didn't even get a sunrise flight in, then when he did wake up, he found his rider, but something was. . . . off about him, something didn't smell right, and following was the presence of that thing. He defended his territory, snapping at it to go away, right before Hiccup pulled at him to let go. What-ever it was, it wasn't good, at least not to Toothless, he'd have to talk to the others about this.
Once they had reached the Great Hall, Hiccup went inside while Toothless went towards the Feeding Station, Hiccup invented it last autumn, it was a separate part of machinery near the Great Hall used for dragons to eat, distributing fish for the reptiles. The usual gang was their, Stormfly Hookfang, Meatlug, Barf and Belch and a few other dragons.
"Hey guys" Toothless called out to them.
"Hey Tooth" Stormfly said cheerily, "over here, they got some sea-bass this morning".
"My favorite", but as the others continued gulping down the sea-life, Toothless found his appetite ruined by his train of thought, just staring down at his fish pondering over about Hiccup.
Stormfly pulled her head out of her meal and turned to see her night-fury friend had hardly touched his.
"Toothless what's wrong ?" the nadder asked worried.
"Nothing"
The others had started turning their heads up to see what the issue was.
"Your not eating" Stormfly pointed out.
Toothless shrugged, "guess I'm not all that hungry".
Stormfly eyed him suspiciously, "not hungry ?, You, of all dragons are not hungry ?" she replied clearly not believing his excuse.
"Well if you won't eat them I will" Hookfang volunteered, this earning him a slap from Stormfly's, (luckily not spiked out) tail.
"Ow"
"Next time I'll bring out the spines" Stormfly threatened before turning back to Toothless, "come on we're your friends, tell us what's going on".
Toothless sighed, "your going to think I sound crazy".
Stormfly laughed, "Tooth, two years ago, it'd be crazy to say that I'd one day voluntarily allow aviking with an ax to ride on my back everyday-and yet here we are".
Toothless chuckled, "alright. . . .do. . do you remember that celebration a few nights back".
They nodded.
"and the. . . .incident ?"
They all shuddered at the memory, during the celebration, out of nowhere, a hard pang went into their skulls, like something was clawing at their brains, rattling their heads around, nothing like they had ever felt.
It was scary.
"Have. . . .have any of you felt anything like that since then ?" Toothless asked worried.
"Hmmmm, well now that you mention it, the arena seemed a little off, yesterday" Meatlug pitched.
"Oh yeah, right after that ax hurled got at blonde" Hookfang laughed but quickly shut up once he saw Stormfly engage the spikes on her tell.
"Why do you ask ?" Stormfly said.
"I don't know why, and I don't how. . .but this morning, something. . . didn't seem right, I felt another presence in the room . . .I felt something bad in the room".
"You too" Stormfly said aghast.
"Wait, you felt something wrong"
Stormfly nodded, "just yesterday morning, Astrid opened the window, but the moment I put my head in, I knew something was off, something dreadful. . ., something. . . . something evil".
"Well what did you do" Meatlug asked getting engrossed in her friends stories.
"Well I did what any sensible dragon would do. . . . .pulled her out against her will, and fly off".
The others rolled their eyes but quickly got back on subject once Toothless spoke again.
"Don't you see, something horrible is going on here, something BIG, we all need to keep an extra close eye around here-and for the time being-
"Would you just listen to yourself !" All reptilian eyes turned to Hookfang, "all this talk about "evil spirits"is nothing more than hatchling stories, it's not real !"
"I KNOW WHAT I FELT HOOKFANG" Stormfly persisted, "there's something very wrong on Berk, and I'm not going to risk my rider's safety because of it" she snapped.
"Oh my poor Fishlegs" Meatlug whimpered.
"Don't worry Meatlug, we just need to keep an eye out, no harm will come to your rider" Toothless soothed.
Hookfang rolled his eyes, "well while your all worried about "imaginary evil" I'm going to stay in reality and enjoy my breakfast".
Unknown to Toothless or any of the other dragons, they were so busy in their conversation, that the angry boy storming out of the Hall into the woods didn't catch anyone's eye.
Hiccup entered the Great Hall, and as usual his friends were all seated eating their breakfast, and as usual he sat beside of Astrid. Once he was seated down, and Astrid noticed his presence, she became shyer and turned her head away, as if she was embarrassed to see him.
"Look Hiccup, I'm. . .I'm sorry, about yesterday really I am, I don't know what came over me last night"
Hiccup smiled, pleased she apologized. "hey don't worry about it, you had some tension, understandable you had to break out some steam".
"Steam, ha, more like a geyser" Tuffnut joked.
"Okay I don't know whether to hit you, or applaud that you actually know what a geyser is" Astrid replied.
But everyone quickly resumed to eating their breakfast, unlike most vikings, Hiccup wasn't a big meat eater, it wasn't that he didn't like it, but instead of piles of meat put on his plate, he preferred a simple bowl of porridge with maybe a little sausage mixed into it.
Things were going normally until *flunk* Astrid suddenly felt a small, sticky glob hit her cheek. Letting go of her fork and placing three fingers on the wet skin, she wiped the glob off her face and into her hand, showing it as a small bit of white, sticky porridge. Her first instinct was to look over at Snotlout and the twins, but they seemed to be wrapped up in a nice little game of, "who can hit Tuffnut the hardest", and Fishlegs was watching the "game" worriedly. Astrid glanced Hiccup's way, but he wasn't paying attention to the others or her, just staring off into space, daydreaming, humming to himself ? But what got Astrid's main attention was the end of his bowl slightly dripping.
"Alright then Hiccup" Astrid thought, "if that's how you want it". She herself had a small bowl to go with her ham and sausage, putting a little on her fork, she flinged it at Hiccup's cheek. Satisfied she hoped she made her point and continued eating.
At the corner of his eye Hiccup saw Astrid fling the porridge his way, but he quickly swallowed any anger, wiped it off with a napkin and tried to ignore what just happened, "it's just Astrid relieving some stress" he thought, "she'd been through a lot yesterday", and continued eating.
But then Astrid felt a hard kick to her knee, she winced slightly, not a playful kick, it felt like someone was almost trying to break it ! Turning again to Hiccup who just continued with his breakfast, as though nothing had happened.
Astrid already was short on patience and was not in the mood for this, anger rising, she looked down, luckily she was sitting on the right side of the table. Making sure her aim was at the non-metal leg, she rocked her foot back and with as much force she could muster and-
"OW !" Hiccup yelled, it was one thing to fling a little porridge, it was another to try and break a guy's only foot.
"WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM !" Astrid yelled, wanting to know his excuse for this morning.
"WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM !" Hiccup yelled back, he didn't do anything, she was the one who threw the porridge, she was the one who tried to break his leg off and now she's asking what's his problem !
By this time, the yelling had caught the attention of all of the other vikings in the Great Hall, eyes staring at the two, not like either noticed.
Astrid's anger changed into surprise at Hiccup yelling. Hiccup never yells ! Said boy must have noticed her reaction because his features quickly turned back into their soft caring ways.
"Look Astrid, I understand your upset, but you don't have to take it out on all of us-
"NO" she yelled.
Astrid couldn't explain it, but for some reason, her anger began to boil once again, here she was having food hit her, foot kick her, and someone yelling at her, then they say they "understand", well Astrid Hofferson wasn't going to have any of that.
"NO Hiccup you DON'T understand" she continued, causing Hiccup to take a few steps back in surprise of her outburst, "so why don't you just hop on your dragon, work on some stupid contraption, or anything else completely USELESS."
The moment it was said everyone in the room gasped, Astrid clamped both hands on her mouth now in realization and immediate regret, watching Hiccup's eyes widen then darken.
Useless.
That one word that held an entire child-hood of neglect, self-doubt and lack of self-worth, the one word that for 14 years was what everyone said described Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third. Though he didn't show it, those memories of sadness would always cling to Hiccup, he wouldn't dwell on it, but the emotional scars of those days would forever stay with him.
The room was silent for several minutes until Astrid got the courage to break it, " Hiccup I didn't mean t-
But the chief's son just put both his hands up in front of him for silence, "You know what, just forget it, . . . Just. Don't. Bother. That's what your good at."
And with that Hiccup stormed out the Great Hall.
"HICCUP WAIT" Astrid cried out, but the boy shut the large wooden doors behind him. Astrid sunk back down into her seat, head down in her hands.
"What have I done"?
Unknown to all of them a unseen figure smiled at her work, and like a soft breeze in the wind she whispered-
"What have you've done indeed"
(Well it seems that Katherine's presence hasn't gone unnoticed by the dragons, and that she isn't limiting her mischief to dreams and killing attempts, now that she has Hiccup mad at Astrid, what does she plan next, next chapter should be out by the end of the week at latest with that said Read and Review and this is Moonlight Snowflake Signing Off)
