Here's 4! This is where it starts to really get away from the movie, and hopefully I've manged to convey the emotions and themes well.
In other words - start here if you don't like reading scenes you already know about! =D
Reviews;
Toothless-the-nightfury - yeah, I was slightly aware of that as I was writing chapter 2, but if I'm honest I just wanted to blat my way through that and get to the bits where I was starting to change things. Chapter 3 does contain a bit of Toothless-Hiccup bonding that wasn't in the movie - not sure if you;ve yet read that chapter!
Portgas D. Nikky - thanks so much! Glad to hear you're enjoying where it's going!
Timore Nocturnus Caelum - thanks! I did really enjoy writing that scene, I could start going a bit OTT with all the gushy language etc =P
Anyhoo, here we are;
Chapter 4
Angry, Cold and Spiteful
It was late. The sky was dark and the village stood out as a pinprick of light in a cauldron of blackness.
It was two weeks later, and practically all of Hiccup's time was now divided between flights on Toothless, which he loved, and dragon training, which he hated. Initially, he'd simply hated it because he wasn't any good at it. Now he hated it because all the time he was there he felt like he was being fed lies, about dragons and humans. To be the only one to know the truth is a lonely calling.
Now though, Hiccup could forget about that. He'd been riding Toothless all day, and the sights he'd seen were beyond comprehension. It seemed he had been to the doors of Valhalla itself. And to have seen the sunset from altitude…he'd never seen anything more beautiful.
Not even Astrid.
She was physically beautiful, but she basically hated Hiccup, or at the very least, didn't care about him. That made her words to him – when there were any forthcoming - ugly, curt and condescending.
Hiccup had long since confined his juvenile crush on Astrid to the sidelines, forcing himself to forget her. Now, nature was far more beautiful to him. Nature didn't hate him.
He knew he hadn't been seen in the village all day. Despite the fact that he guessed most of Berk's inhabitants would only have noticed his absence, if at all, by the lack of chaos and things being broken – and would have been rather thankful of the fact – he felt it was time to return, at least for a night. The way things were going, he'd be out and away again at the crack of dawn the next day, and nobody would even be any the wiser.
He guided Toothless in towards the cove. Softly, silently, they landed, and Hiccup removed Toothless' and his own flying harness and stowed them in their usual spot – underneath a substantial rock outcrop, to prevent them getting rained on and consequently rusting. The sheer volume, complexity and intricacy of the design as a whole now meant that there was no way he could take it back to the village with him and have any hope of keeping it successfully hidden for night after night.
He bade his dragon farewell, and as he left, he glanced over his shoulder and saw Toothless curling up protectively next to his riding gear. Few things were more precious to a dragon than their power of flight - although Hiccup seemed to be held at the pinnacle of Toothless' affections, the dragon seemed in his own mind to have symbolised his rejuvenated power of flight within that harness, and valued it highly indeed.
The walk back to the village was relatively short, and in the time it took, Hiccup wondered what would happen if Toothless was ever discovered by his contemporaries. It didn't take much imagination. The dragon would be immediately killed – Hiccup's heart skipped a beat at the thought – and Hiccup himself would either be outcast or killed as well.
This was a troubling thought on which to enter the place that was supposed to be his home. It seemed that nowadays whenever he was out of the village he was in a good mood, and whenever he was in the village he was depressed and angry.
Still, it made a twisted sort of sense. If you grow up in a place where everyone considers you a nuisance, you will likely grow to dislike that place. Certainly, Hiccup knew that he would now feel no qualms about simply leaving. The only thing that held him back was the feeling that he didn't really know where he'd go.
This was not something that he felt would hold him back if he grew to resent the village and its inhabitants any more than he already did, however.
He trudged wearily up the hill to his house. Reaching out his hand to turn the handle on the door and let himself in, he paused. He heard voices coming from inside.
He was about to let himself in anyway, but then a single word stopped him dead.
He heard his own name.
Curiosity piqued, he quietly padded round to the side of the house and crouched down by one of the shuttered windows. He listened, and first heard his father's voice.
"We don't see him much these days".
"No, thank Odin". This voice he recognised as belonging to Ansgar Hofferson, father of Astrid. Clearly this was some sort of small social gathering at his house.
He wondered if it was still them they were talking about. He suspected so.
A voice he didn't recognise was next. "That boy really is a nuisance".
Now he was certain this was him they were talking about.
"Whoever heard of a Viking who couldn't kill a Terrible Terror with no wings?"
"I know, shocking isn't it?"
"He's a liability. If I were you, Stoick, I'd look for an excuse – any – to get rid of him. Exile him, I mean". This was Ansgar again.
"Hmm…" His father's voice.
"What do you think, Astrid?"
Hiccup's hand, which had been resting lightly on the windowsill, clenched suddenly tight. He drew breath sharply. Surely she wasn't there as well…?
"I agree with all of you".
She was.
"In dragon training, he just won't attack. He spends his time cowering away like a hatchling" Astrid went on. "Frankly I don't consider him a Viking".
This was too much for Hiccup. His eyes welled with tears. His father, his contemporaries and others, discussing him as if he were some distant object of irritation and amusement. His own father.
He steadied himself. He knew now what he was going to do.
He stood up slowly, fists clenched, and walked back round towards the front door.
He again heard snorts and raucous laughter emanating from inside. He could distinctly pick out Astrid amongst them.
He clenched his teeth in anger, grasped the door handle, and flung it open.
The door slammed violently against the wall behind it, and Hiccup stepped inside.
The ground floor of their house consisted of basically one room. It was in this room that they all were sat, on chairs, in a circle. A number of empty tankards lay discarded around the place, and a fire burned warmly in the hearth, in sharp contradiction to the way Hiccup felt.
He guessed someone had been about to make another snide little comment or joke, but now everyone's attention was solely on him. He didn't make eye contact with any of them, instead pacing towards the stairs and beginning to climb them. Halfway up, he stopped, and glanced back.
They were all still watching him, looking a mixture of stunned and extremely awkward.
"It's alright, carry on". Hiccup feigned nonchalance, though there was a bitter undercurrent in his voice. "I heard everything anyway".
With that, he climbed the rest of the stairs and vanished into his room.
Astrid was utterly speechless. She sat watching the staircase, mouth slightly agape in bewilderment and shock.
She wasn't alone. The whole room was silent.
She saw guilt on some faces, worry on others. On Stoick's face she saw confusion. He was a great Viking leader, but he was the first to admit he was a dreadful father, and would have been even if he'd had a boy like Snotlout – the model adolescent, dunderheaded Viking - for a son.
Plainly, the chief simply didn't know how to react.
Truthfully, none of them had ever seen Hiccup that angry or bitter. It was enough to unnerve anyone.
There was no noise from the floor above. All was silent save the crackling of the fire to remind them all this was real, and not some collective hallucination.
Her thoughts whirled within her head. At the time, she'd meant what she'd said about Hiccup.
But those bright green eyes of his had carried such hurt with him through that door and up those stairs.
Time passed. People fidgeted. Hoark and Phlegma excused themselves, saying they had things they needed to do. Astrid suspected they merely wanted an excuse to leave.
Finally, she sighed and stood up. This was doing nobody any good.
"I'll go talk to him" she said.
Nobody else seemed to want to. She heard small noises of agreement as she paced towards the staircase.
Hiccup sat at his desk, littered with sketches, rough and detailed, of dragons, and Toothless' flying harness.
He felt unwanted.
Alone.
He'd felt like this for much of his life, but never this acute.
He picked up a quill and, with trembling hands but a heart set in stone and cold as the Arctic wind that blew outside, he began to write.
Astrid slowly paced up the steps, and knocked gently at the door that she presumed to be Hiccup's.
"Can I come in?"
Normally Astrid wouldn't have bothered with this formality, and would have just walked in, but Hiccup was quite unlike anyone else in the tribe, and in fairness, he'd just been deeply insulted by several people she knew he looked up to, herself included.
She thought it best to knock.
She heard nothing by way of a response, though. Astrid waited a moment, frowning. Then, giving up on her sensitive approach, she pushed the door open.
There was nobody there.
A single candle flickered on the desk. A scrap of paper fluttered there, held down at one corner. Placed deliberately in the middle of the desk. As if it had been intended to be seen by someone else.
She paced over, confused. Where else could he have gone, if not to his own room?
She saw writing on the paper, and the ink still looked wet.
Her frown deepened. She began to read.
To whoever reads this.
I'm leaving. You probably know why. I doubt you'll care and I doubt you'll miss me, therefore I don't see much point in saying goodbye.
Hiccup
The tone was curt and hurried, as if he'd jotted it down in a matter of a few seconds.
He must have left moments ago, thought Astrid
A knot tightened and curled in the pit of her stomach. As much as she disliked the boy, she didn't want to be responsible for driving him out entirely.
She hurried to the window. There in the murky blackness, lit only by the thinnest of crescent moons, she could just make out a figure stalking away, carrying nothing but the weight of the world on his shoulders.
That's him.
Before she'd even thought about it, she vaulted out of the window and landed softly on the ground. She'd thought she'd landed quietly, silently even.
But the boy immediately bolted. He didn't even glance back.
She gave chase, frantically running after him, trying to keep up. Normally she would have easily caught him, but he darted between houses and other obstacles, heading towards the treeline. He was running fast, as only the pain he felt could make him.
Her footsteps, and his, were soundless. The night was quiet and mournful and filled with the whispers of sorrow.
He reached the forests and ran headlong into them.
Without a thought, she followed.
Dark, indistinct shapes flitted past her vision as the boy ran deeper into the woods. She almost lost sight of him entirely, only catching glimpses here and there now of him disappearing behind trees several yards ahead. She ran on stubbornly, but he was losing her.
Suddenly, he turned sharply to the left and disappeared completely from her sight. Astrid, surprised, overshot and came to a halt, panting and out of breath.
She'd seen nothing but a silhouette the whole time.
Slowly, she turned and walked the way she thought she'd seen him go. She wondered what possible reason he could have had for knowing this area of woodland so well. The tribe didn't use it for anything – it was scarcely visited at all, by anyone.
Here and there she saw the occasional fresh footprint. The earth was dark here, as was the air. As was the mood.
Ahead, she could just make out a rocky overhang that it seemed she needed to travel through. The tracks went that way.
She stepped forward again.
Hiccup emerged into the cove, face set in a determined scowl.
First they insult me, then they chase me out.
Is it not plain enough that I'm leaving anyway?
He didn't know who'd been the one following him – he didn't care. Their motive was clear. They wanted him gone.
His eyes sought his dragon. Though Toothless was black, and so was the night, the outline of the Night Fury stood out against the edge of the lagoon. He was stirring fretfully at the sound of Hiccup's laboured breathing and heavy footsteps.
Quickly retrieving the harnesses and tailfin from their hiding place, he ran to Toothless and shook him awake. The dragon began to chirrup happily, but stopped at seeing Hiccup's angry expression. He tilted his head curiously at Hiccup, now silent.
"Come on buddy" Hiccup whispered, "Come with me, quick!"
Toothless knew what a tone of urgency from Hiccup sounded like – it was self evident. The Night Fury followed the boy, silently.
The two of them stole away to a dark corner, on the opposite side of the cove to the entrance. Anyone walking in would not see them here.
They had perhaps a couple of minutes.
Working quicker than he ever had, Hiccup fitted the saddle, attached the tailfin and guiding cable, and fitted the harness around the dragon's chest. He threaded the control cable through the steel ring, and attached it to the stirrup.
Finally, he donned his own harness.
Then, he heard a voice, one he didn't want to hear.
"Hiccup?"
It was Astrid.
"Hiccup?"
Astrid's eyes scanned the cove. The details were indistinct at best and completely hidden at worst. It was the deadest of night and the only sound was the rustle of the pine trees. Many areas were completely hidden and cloaked in shadow.
She stole forward again. "Hiccup?" she repeated.
Hiccup attached the two cables that connected his own harness to Toothless' saddle. He was ready.
Quietly, he hunkered down, and as Toothless did the same, crouching, ready to spring into the air and away to the unknown, Hiccup found he had nothing in his heart but a distant and vague sorrow at what was coming to pass. No anger, really. No spite.
No fear. That surprised him.
He took off.
Astrid felt, rather than saw, something pass close over her head.
Her survival instincts kicked in instantaneously. She ducked low, as for but a moment, a soft yet insistent whoosh filled the air. She saw nothing, but felt the gust of wind, powerful and sudden. Not natural.
She crouched low there, and wondered just what on earth was going on.
Hiccup gazed over his shoulder with stone-set hardened eyes, as he and his friend climbed steadily away into the night.
There was nothing more to be done. He was gone.
Et Voila! Hope I managed to get across Hiccup's emotions properly.
It really confused me as to how to write the character of Astrid here. On the one had she agrees with the rest of the village about Hiccup's general uselessness, and is the talented warrior we all know from the movie etc etc. On the other hand, I never saw her as callous, and I feel pretty certain she would have actually been concerned about Hiccup leaving in the manner described above, if only because he's a member of the same tribe as her.
One other thing...please tell me what you think about the way I've used perspective shifts. My idea was to make them more frequent, and 'rapid-fire', in more dramatic scenes, and less frequent in long and descriptive scenes. I'd like to know if this has helped get the atmosphere across!
As always, please review! I'm getting good feedback on this, and I'm loving it! Thanks so much to all who already have reviewed!