A/N: Yay! Another httyd chapter! I'm probably going to start switching between Httyd and skyrim every other chapter so I can keep the story going more quickly.

Chapter 4: An old friend

Hiccup was waiting on the west side of the island. The small beach was grey as ash but effectively cut off from the village by foot because of the steep cliffs that surrounded it, the only way to approach it was by boat. He and toothless were sitting on the highest rocks, simply eating fish they had caught moments before. It was only two in the afternoon but Hiccup did not expect anyone to come here until dusk and the news of their departure from the smaller island next to the main one would've spread across the village by now, they were probably looking for a certain night fury rather than the missing snow wraith. If any hostiles showed up they could go on a flight and come back later and check if the note was still logged in between the wooden planks of the front door of thuggory's house.

The available time allowed him to clear his head, Berk had treated him like shit since he was 6 years old but it was still his home. His one true friend was in danger and the only reason his dad finally took notice of him was because he was supposedly doing great at hurting other living beings. Ever since the beginning of his friendship with toothless he had called himself a pacifist and would refuse to purposely cause harm, but such morals were not heard of to the villagers or to his father. He would be deemed an outcast if anyone had learned what had been up to. Astrid had been the closest to discovering toothless and followed him into the woods on multiple occasions and had acted out of jealousy and suspicion. True, it had gotten annoying for him to have to hide someplace new for a while before she gave up in rage and left, but he tolerated it.

Toothless curled up around his rider and laid his head on Hiccup's crossed lap. The black dragon still kept his eye on the horizon and been given soft rubs on the top of the head from his human, a soft purr vibrated from his throat and he leaned into hiccup's touch. Hiccups always liked to smile at how the most feared dragon of every viking tribe was truly no more than a flying cat, it gave him a small sliver of hope that vikings will soon realize that dragons are just like large house pets. The chances were still very low as more than 300 years of constant war does not just fade away overnight, lots of small and very risky steps have to be made. Berk will probably be the worst.

The small fire was covered in ashy sand by Toothless sweeping the ground with his tail, and the remnants of hiccups lunch was thrown to the dragon who accepted it gratefully. The two had stayed how they were for about ten more minutes until a rowboat was spotted coming from behind the large cliff separating them from the island, only one large viking controlling it. Toothless emitted a deep growl but was quickly hushed by hiccup by tapping lightly on the night fury's snout, the dragon had already blended nicely into the black rocks of the cliff and it would make no sense to expose themselves to a potential danger. Hiccup quickly stretched out on of toothless' wings and hid under it so was hidden as well, leaving it slightly open enough for him to see their approach. Toothless laid low to the ground, doing his best to remove the still attached saddle, artificial tail-fin, and all the gears attached from sight. Leaving his right eye closed and the left half open.

The boat stopped at the shore and the viking got out to pull it further on the beach to keep it from drifting away. The viking was more on the lean side than normal but still remained very buff, estimating to be about a foot and a half taller than Hiccup. they wore a helmet that had the cut off crest of what would have been a young nightmare, probably would have been only a few years old by the length of the horns. As armor they had a half of brown clay scale-mail torso, each full having the Meathead crest etched into it. The left half was made out of a thin steel plate that only reached to under the chest and only over to the base of their neck. A decent sized iron pauldron rested on the viking's left shoulder while the right lacked one, both arms lack protection and could expose the viking's muscle to burns and melee attacks from dragons. They wore black pants and dark brown fur-lined boots, armed with a sword that rested on the left hip.

Hiccup snuck out from toothless' to get a closer look at the viking but remained close enough to the ground to avoid getting spotted, at least that was the plan until he slipped on wet rock and fell a few feet down onto another rocky surface.

"Hiccup?!" the viking screamed, rushing over to the aching boy.

Toothless was instantly alarmed and jumped down gracefully to protect his rider from the stranger, roaring and flapping to drive away the human. At this point hiccup was already up, ignoring the pain from his aching body and trying to prevent death from either side. He constrained Toothless by holding the night fury back, all his strength wasn't keeping the dragon in place completely as Toothless still kept nudging him softly out of the way but skinny viking refused to let his old friend get torn to pieces…or his new one.

Thuggory drawn his sword and stood confused, the dragon was unlike any he had seen before and hiccup was able to hold back a dragon likely 6 times his size and it was not tearing him into thin strips of human flesh. He took note of the leather saddle resting on the dragon's back.

'He rides the damn thing, both unsettling and cool at the same time.' he thought.

"Hiccup you have two minutes to explain what the hell is going on!"

Hiccup tapped the night fury's snout a few times to tell him to back up a bit, when he did but huffed and seemed very pissed.

"Well.. thats basicly what I wanted to talk to you about, it's a very risky request but now I can't go back home to berk."

Thuggory was now curious but worried about his friend, guessing by the dragon's presence he could assume one of two things. He likely left or was given a chance to leave by his father. He knew how badly Hiccup was treated at berk after he had told him a long time ago and befriending a dragon would definitely give the entire island of Berk a reason to get rid of him.

"Me and toothless need a place to stay for a bit, depending on long berk decides to check their allies for my location."

"Are you in trouble again?"

Toothless sat down next to his rider and begun curling around him protectively.

"No, to everyone I just dissapeared. I was forced into dragon training by my father a few weeks back. I used tricks I learned from Toothless but I ended up beating everyone my age by accident and would've been forced to kill a nightmare."

Thuggory looked back at the black dragon, clearly seeing that the snarling creature obviously had teeth

"Just in case something would go wrong I didn't want to risk him being hurt, so I left."

"Well, i'll support you as long the dragon won't cause any harm to the village but ultimately the decision isn't mine to make, you'll have to speak to my father."

Hiccup sighed, he was hoping that we wouldn't have to speak to Madgaon. The chief's close ties to Stoick would make him very difficult to deal with. He had been somewhat hoping that the rumors were somewhat true.

"Speaking of which.. I heard two of the villagers talking about your dad, is he alright?"

"Yeah, he has something the healer called 'rockjoint' and said it was really rare it only affects how active he is but besides that he's fine. He sent her and her apprentice to Healer's island a two months ago but they still haven't come back."

"What if you go tell your dad i'll go see what happened and bring them back if I can -"

"For exchange of letting you stay on the island? He'll most likely deny or alter the bargain but I will check."

Hiccup nodded and Thuggory grunted in amusement. Hiccup was given Thuggory's small pocket map of all the known archipelago and they said their temporary farewells. Thuggory dragged his small boat back to the ocean and headed for the village port. Very few vikings use the port on a day to day basis, exceptions being patrols and fisherman. Thuggory tied up the rowboat and headed up to the village. Unlike berk, the Meathead village had six different level than three. Below the first was the port, connected to the village by solid stone stairs and large ramps. The first level was the outer defensive weapons to fight off dragon raids and enemy tribe invasions. Second level was mostly farmland but had a few homes. third was most of the homes to the vikings that lived in the village but a few market stalls could be found there. Forth was the main village square, containing most market services. Fifth was the level the the grand hall sat upon, it was made primarily of wood but was fortified by stone. And the final level is where the chieftains house sat alongside the more wealthy and notable clans in the tribe.

He stormed into the grand hall where his father was easily found at one of the long tables hunched over a map with some of his most trusted men.

" I'm telling you chief, the black dragon was a Night Fury! It was heading to the south of the island went it flew off." one of the vikings argued. Another viking, Hallvard only disagreed.

"It must've took off somewhere else then, me and Gunil searched the south beach while looking all over the island for Madgaon's snow wraith."

"SHUT UP, BOTH OF YOU" Madgaon bellowed. Both vikings stopped as part of their chief's command and apologised. Madgaon huffed.

"We have more important thing to worry about" he said sternly "like focusing on the raids or our missing healer and her apprentice"

Thuggory used this as a poor opportunity to discuss Hiccup's request.

"Dad, I need to talk to you in private about something."

Madgaon looked up from the map and dismissed his men, all of them murmuring word to each other when they were barely in hearing range.

"Now what's going on this time?"

"Hiccup had showed up and would like to ask a favor of you. He would like you to let him and a pet dragon of his stay as they cannot return to berk,-"

"A dragon?"

The harsh tone in his father's voice made Thuggory afraid that he had just placed his friend in danger.

"Yes, but he was willing to head to healers island and search for Halldora and that apprentice of hers."

Madgaon only looked at his son with a face full of confusion, anger and distrust.

"I'll have to speak to him myself.. Where is he?"

"I already sent him to the island."

"Then bring him to me when he arrives."

Hiccup studied the map Thuggory had given him, it was poorly drawn. Only quick sketches but still useful enough to plot a route to avoid Berk completely and get there in about one day, do a few laps around the island and search it completely another two , and return to the Meathead tribe and inform Thuggory on the situation… and tell him he needs a better map as this one was barely readable. Toothless seemed very grateful that they were now away from the Meathead village, he might have to deal with the hostility because the place may serve as their home for a while. Hiccup had to keep track of their position on the map and it was likely that Toothless never been to the island before to remember the location, he cannot allow his thoughts to wander back to Berk and how his father only seemed proud of him because of a lie, he had to focus.

The horizon was nothing but sky and ocean, there was a faint sight of land far to the north but according to his map the island was nothing very important. It seemed like a small uninhabited place since it wasn't marked with any tribe crest or labeled as a territory of any kind, possibly a home to local dragons. May be a useful place to learn about the nature of other species. It was dusk when healer's island was in view, likely any human activity would've ceased a while ago. Before they went down to find a shelter for the night they skimmed along the surface of the calm waters of the coast, doing a quick check on the shore before heading inland to look for a place to set up camp. There were very few small plains on the large island, most of it was dense forests that housed the variety of flora used to heal wounds and diseases. From a viking's view it would be foolish to set up camp there and expose one's self to an aerial dragon attack but with Toothless that shouldn't be much of a problem.

They set up camp in one of the larger clearings next to a medium sized lake. Toothless had already begun to try and catch some fish while hiccup was out in the surrounding forest collecting sticks for firewood. Unknown to him a small child was following him, stalking him as he went from branch to branch tearing off smaller ones. When he went back to the bank the child only wondered why he decided to build a camp here out of all places. It took her a few minutes to notice the black dragon at the bank not very far from him, it blended in so well like it was partly invisible.

'Mother of thor..' she thought. 'He's in trouble if that thing notices him!'

She quickly ran up to him yelling a 'watch out'. Hiccup barely registered anything before being pulled away into the cover of the forest by a girl that only seemed half his age. Toothless had heard the girl's approach and turned around to see his rider quickly being dragged away.

"HEY!" Toothless hissed, getting up from his spot on the bank to chase after the two. Hiccup looked back to see the night fury doing his best to keep up as the trees were very close together. Hiccup yanked his arm out of the grasp, unexpectedly causing the poor girl to fall on her behind.

"What are you doing?! That dragon is going to kill you!"

Hiccup held out his hand to help her up to which she reluctantly accepted, she still pulled at him desperately in what seemed to be a small cave but he refused to move. The girl only huffed in defeat.

"He was trying to get me back from you. He sees you as a threat and tried to protect me."

The girl didn't seem convinced. "Protect you?! No dragon ever protects a human, they only burn down our homes, kill vikings without reason, and steal our hard-earned food!"

"If that was true than you would be dead by now."

The child stiffened as warm breath reeking of raw meat and gods know what else was blown onto her head. Slowly looking up, her gaze met that of two green ones bearing a cold stare. The low growl the dragon emitted only made her shiver in fear.

"It okay Toothless, she's not a threat."

The dragon continued to examine the smaller viking to confirm that for himself. The human dragonet seemed awfully afraid of him and appeared to be unarmed, besides that nothing else was important enough to note. He relaxed visibly but still remained weary.

"Toothless? Who names a dragon Toothless?"

Hiccup gestured to the dragon who rolled his eyes them retracted his teeth and opened his maw to show the girl how the human's name for him came to be. The smaller one seemed unsettled by the lack of teeth yet relieved that the dragon would have an a lot harder time trying to eat her.

"Can you tell me your name?" Hiccup asked. The smaller viking nodded.

"My name is Yri, apprentice to Halldora, the healer of the Meathead tribe. Our ship was attacked by a large sea dragon, a scauldron if i remember correctly. Our ship sunk right off the west coast and we had to swim a bit."

"That was easy" Toothless growled himself.

A/N: Next chapter I am going to post a timeline of the events in the story for those who may be struggling to understand. I plan on cleaning it up a little bit so each chapter is like another day or some point in the future so it's in chronological order instead of all over the place. If you guys are having any difficulty please let me know so I can help you understand.