A/N this story is slowly becoming more popular and I have to thank those who reviewed and those who added this story to your story alerts. I will be trying my best to release a new chapter (or two!) every day, with no more than two-three day breaks. I feel like now is a good time to note that I don't own anything associated with HTTYD and that if it seems like something was stolen from someone, it wasn't. I am strongly against plagiarism. And as per suggestion, longer chapters!

Chapter 4

"Corruption? Why would we worry about corruption?" questioned Stoick. "We are too far north to worry about greed and corruption. Everything we do is for the better of the village and we all know that we need each other to survive, especially in the winter.

"We know. That is why we escaped from our home. Stoick you have no idea" responded Alric. "Those overwhelmed with greed and corruption had houses called castles and fortress' as big, or bigger, than this village. Their land would reach as far as the eye could see. They call themselves Kings and Queens. They declare themselves mere steps away from Godhood!" Alric's voice was beginning to rise in anger as he talked about them. This man had a way with words. He had only been on the island for 10 minutes and he already had the vast majority of the crowd hanging on his every word.

"Don't worry Alric. We have some room to spare for you and your daughter on this island" said Stoick as he held out a hand in welcome. Alric shook his hand with such emotion that screamed 'thank you.' "And Alric… be glad you came when you did. If you had shown up a year ago, I would not have welcomed you to our home. We had a 'pest' problem."

"Are you talking about the infamous dragons I've heard so much about? I'd like to battle them myself!" exclaimed Alric. Hiccup knew that if he hadn't of proven dragons to not be a threat, his father would welcome him to the island anyways with that sentence.

"Hah!" Stoick laughed. "While I do enjoy your enthusiasm, we no longer fight them. You see, my son here-" Stoick tried to finish but was quickly interrupted by Alric.

"Your son? I didn't know you had son. I'd very much like to meet him!"

"I've been here the whole time. My name is Hiccup Haddock Horrendous the Third. But please, just Hiccup will do." Hiccup said while holding his hand out in greeting.

"Quite a mouthful! It is my pleasure to meet the heir to the Chief" said Alric. "Sorry I interrupted you Stoick. Go on."

"Yes" started Stoick. "My son here has shown us that the dragons are not what we made them out to be. They are no longer pests to us, more like pets actually. He found and befriended a Night Fury named Toothless." As if being summoned by name, a black dragon appeared on the cliff at the docks and quickly began jumping down the ramps towards Hiccup and his father. "Speaking of, that's him. I knew he'd find you here Hiccup and this is why I didn't want you coming"

"No no Stoick. I've heard plenty of stories about this magnificent beast" assured Alric. "It's fine. I've always wanted to see one in person." Toothless had made his way through the crowd and up to the newcomer. "Oh the stories this beast could tell if he could talk. He'd be the greatest story tell the world has ever seen."

"If you want, Alric, hold your hand out towards him" explained Hiccup. "It's something they do. A way to greet people I guess."

"Alright. He can't do harm to me being toothless and all." Alric said cautiously.

"Oh he has teeth. He can retract them and when I first met, they weren't out. I quickly noticed he had teeth though but I thought the irony would be fantastic" Hiccup told Alric. Alric extended his hand and winced a little as the dragon came closer. Upon his hand touching the beast's nose, Toothless closed his eyes. Within seconds, the dragon's demeanor quickly changed. His teeth were out and he was growling and fidgeting as though he was being presented an eel.

"Toothless! It's fine!" Hiccup assured. But to no avail, the dragon kept backing away until Hiccup jumped on his saddle and took off to the skies before the situation escalated. "I don't know why he's doing this. I'm really sorry!" shouted Hiccup as he left.

"Stoick, I don't think you've met my daughter, Cynwise" Alric said, unnerved by what just happened, as he motioned to his daughter.

"Nice to meet you Cynwise. Pardon my staring but I've never seen a woman as tall as you" Stoick explained as he held a hand out in greeting to the young lady. She was wearing a white shirt with green pants and a brown belt around her waist. Upon her shoulders was a large green cape that extended to her knees. This cape easily hid her size when she was curled up in a ball on the ship.

"No worries, Chief. Where we come from, I am still the tallest woman. Obviously taking after my father's aptitude for height" she explained. "Let me explain what we are a little. My father is a leatherworker and I myself am I hunter. From what we have on us, you must have noticed we left in a hurry. My father confronted the King of our land, Tiberius the Seventh. He was sending our men into a battle he knew they could not win. Upon the confrontation, the king sentenced him to death on the account of treachery. Wasting no time, my father quickly escaped the castle and found me. We took but a day's portion of food and ran. Luckily, we came across a port and stole one their rowboats. We would stop many places on our journey. Food was never an issue with my hunting capabilities. We've been traveling for about 4 months now."

"None of the other Viking islands would take us" interrupted Alric. "We started to hear whispers of Berk and decided that you would be our only chance of finding a home. After asking around, we finally got a heading and made way for here. It was a long and hard travel. As you can see, our boat is in horrible condition." Alric had turned and noticed the boat had sunk within this half hour conversation. "Bout time that thing sank. We were attacked many times on our travels. Dragons, Vikings, you name it, we fought it. Miraculously, the boat made it to our destination."

"Yes it did. We don't have a spare house, so if you wouldn't mind sharing a house with someone, we can get you a bed made out in time for nightfall. Any volunteers?" Stoick asked the crowd.

"We will!" shouted someone in the middle of the crowd.

"All right then. You will be joining the Hofferson's for the time being. The man that just called out is Harald. He has a wife, Sefa, and a beautiful daughter named Astrid" Stoick told them as they started to make their way up the docks.

Later that day, as the sun was but a few minutes from touching the ocean, Hiccup had found Harald in the village square. Harald was of average height with medium length dirty blond hair. He didn't sport any facial hair thanks to Sefa. Astrid got her blue eyes from her father, but the depths of his didn't come close to Astrid's.

"Harald. I need to speak to you. About your daughter and I" Hiccup said as he initiated the conversation.

"No Hiccup. I've told you once and I'll tell you again. You are not fit to marry my daughter. You can't kill anything. How do you expect to feed a family? You ruin everything, dragons exempt, just by touching it. How can you expect to have a relationship with anyone if you ruin everything?" explained Harald. "Just because you defeated the Green Death doesn't mean you can have my daughter. Besides, your dragon won that battle, you were just there to help him fly."

"You have no idea what you're talking about Harald. I just can't kill dragons. I may be no warrior, but I can get food in more ways than one. And if I ruin everything I touch, then I can't ruin love. Love isn't something you touch, it is something you feel and embrace" retorted Hiccup. "And I'm not even going to acknowledge the second part of your explanation if you're that blind to think that."

The conversation rose above a comfortable level as time went on. Each change of words and the noise level increased. Eventually, the two were standing inches apart yelling in each other's faces. The villagers were stunned that Hiccup could produce such volumes.

"Hiccup you are still as worthless as you'll ever be! Nothing has changed! Nothing!" screamed Harald.

"You're right! Nothing has changed! But I was never useless! You were too brain dead to notice anything. You still are! Shouted hiccup right back.

"You are unfit to be chief. Without your dragon to back you up, you can't do anything. Nothing! You can't kill, you can't chop down a tree, and you can't love my daughter!" screamed Harald as his voice got a little louder. Then, as if summoning a great power lurking in his body, Hiccup produced a yell that would easily rival that of his own father. The sound and shock that came with it cause three people in the audience to faint.

"I HAVE LOVED HER MORE THAN YOU EVER COULD. AND IF YOU WONT LET ME HAVE HER, I'LL TAKE HER FROM YOU WHEN I'M CHIEF!" boomed Hiccup. This obviously exhausted him and he knew it. He can take much more of this argument. "I'm sorry it had to come down to this Harald but I love her too much to let something get in my way, even her own father. This was my last resort, I promise. I did not want it to come down to this."

Harald couldn't move. He was ousted in a shouting match by Hiccup Haddock Horrendous the Third. He had only just begun to see how much Hiccup loved his daughter, and he hated him for it.

Hiccup hadn't realized Astrid had witnessed the whole thing from atop her Deadly Nadder. She couldn't believe what she just watched. She felt torn up inside. She felt hate and love for how both of them acted. She hadn't fully realized how much Hiccup had loved her until then. But watching him lose his temper like that was one of the few things that scared her in the world. And she understood why her father was acting the way he did but she hated how blind he could be at times. She was sitting on the edge of the cliff a ways off from the village. It was her favorite spot and Hiccup knew it too. He would arrive here soon looking for her.

Then another thing came across her mind, the newcomers earlier today. She couldn't help but think about them. In fact, most of the village couldn't help but think about them either. They had this way of receding into your mind and popping up at odd and unpredictable moments. Then her heart was crossed. She had just watched Hiccup announce his undying love for her but she saw the way he looked at Cynwise. She gasped at the thought. Could the Astrid, the mighty Viking, be feeling jealousy?

Hiccup was flying towards her favorite spot. He wasn't able to find her in the village and realized she must have seen the shouting match and ran. He looked down at toothless as they were flying. The dragon looked back with a less than pleased look. He too, had witnessed the event and was none too happy about it. Hiccup knew he lost his temper and it seemed to have bothered everyone. And then, like everyone else, Alric and Cynwise crossed his mind.

He thought about their tales of corruption in the south. He was thinking about everything the two had been through just to get to Berk. Looking back at toothless, he wondered why his best friend acted like that towards this man. He never treated anyone like that. As Hiccup got deeper into thinking about the newcomers, he slowly began to realize that no one would have escaped a fortress from the throne room, or that there were days between islands by boat, and if some of the villages treated him badly, a row boat couldn't escape a Viking vessel of the ships this king should of have. He slowly began to realize just how wrong Alric's story was.

A/N if it wasn't for cliffhangers, I couldn't keep you guys coming back. FYI the story may seem to be slow but like any good story, it starts off slow and only gets better after that. Morale of the AN: review!