"Eleanor! Where are you love!?" Fergus climbed over the half destroyed castle with frantic eyes. He had to find her and the boys! "Boys! Eleanor!"

Pushing over rocks and tripping with his peg leg he tried to make his way by memory toward the last place that he saw them going. They just had to be alive. They had to be!

"Fergus!"

Hearing his wife's voice he stopped and froze. "Where are ya!?" Then gasped when he heard a tapping noise. Following it he pushed rocks and stone and statues out of the way until he reached the door behind the thrones! It was a safe room added on when Merida was born! "Eleanor!"

"In here!"

"The boys?"

"They are in here too. We are fine just need out."

"Stand back." Fergus then turned to his men. "They are over here! Help me move this damned stone bear out the way ta get em out!" Joined by at least then of his men, they were able to push what was a stone pillar away from the door. The second he opened it he caught his wife and three boys in his arms with a relieved sigh. "Thank God you are all alright."

On her feet again, with tears gushing from her eyes, Eleanor looked around. "Our home."

"We can fix the home. However, right now we need to leave."

Grabbing his arm as he turned to walk off her eyes were frantic. "What about when Hiccup brings Merida back to us? If we are not here she will think we….."

"Leave her a message. Somehow. We are going to Stoic. It is the only place I know fer sure that we can be safe if that damn dragon attacks." He then turned and put his hands on his wife's shoulders. "You know yer girl as well as anyone. Think of a way ta let her know we are alright and where we are. Right?"

"Right."

Eleanore watched her son and children walk off and started to go over all the things that she could do as she paced back and forth. She had to figure something out. But she didn't know how to do it. Looking up, she gasped as floating down toward her was the repaired tapestry. The one she had been making for her betrothal since the day she was born!

Reaching up and catching it she let even more tears fall as she half smiled. "She will notice this right off the bat." She then set to work finding a long stick and string. Once she had it fastened to the stick she carefully carved in a code. Once she was done she smiled. "We have gone to the island where on wings you touch the clouds."

"What is that love?"

Standing up as she looked at her husband she whipped her eyes. "I am sure that Merida and Hiccup will figure out we are talking about Berk with this."

"Alright I see." He then glanced down toward the sea. "It is time to go now. There was one ship that didn't get any damage."

"Alright. Stick this somewhere high?"

Both Fergus and Eleanor smiled as the boys grabbed it and climbed up to the highest point they could reach through the rubble and stuck it in the stones. Waving in the air like a flag. "I hope that she is safe. I hate leaving."

"That boy will keep her safe. I saw it in his eyes. He won't let anything happen to her. Now I am going my job as your husband and their father. Keeping the four of you safe until we are all home safe and sound together."

"Right."

X

Hiccup smiled as he checked Embers' wing. "Healing nicely. Four days and it is healing faster than I thought it would. It keeps this up, three days from now we will for sure be able to fly with it fully healed."

"Good."

Looking up at her, Hiccup blinked. She woke up last night scared to death having a panic attack. Said she just felt like something bad happened at home. "You alright?"

Pacing back and forth as she wrung her fingers together she bit her lip. "I don't know. I am telling you I got a bad feeling. That something bad happened at home. I don't want to rush her healing and hurt her. But I wanna get home and see fer myself that everything is fine."

With a sigh, Hiccup half smiled. She needed a distraction and he knew how to give it to her. Without saying a word he winked at Toothless and Embers who both nodded as he walked toward her, grabbing her arm as he passed her. "Come on. You need something to get your mind off things."

"Like walking will help."

"Not walking itself but where we are going." Looking back at her he smiled. "I take Toothless up and fly around the part of the island we are on, making sure no more spikes and to keep him happy right?"

"Yeah."

"Well I saw something that you might like to see in the sea today."

"My father's ship?"

"Sea dragons." Hiccup then stopped and stopped her at the cliff above the camp and pointed down to where Scauldrons were swimming past. Laughing as her eyes went wide and lit up to see them. "They are called scauldrons. There was a guy that lived on Berk named Mildew. He hated the dragons with a passion even after we all made friends with them. He got a flower and brought it to Berk and the pollen from the flower made all the dragons even Toothless sick. The only way to cure it is to get the venom of one of those."

On her knees now as she looked over the edge of the cliff she was all smiles. "So they are like a poisonous snake then?"

"Yeah. We made mildew come with us, and he had a flower on his butt. Those things eat the flowers he got, they love them. And when it went after the flower it left venom in him." He laughed as he crossed his arms. "Poor Gober had to be the one to get the venom out of his rear to help the dragons. But not only are those poisonous but they don't spit fire like most other dragons do. They are Tidal Class Sea Dragons. When they 'spit fire' it actually comes out as scolding hot water."

"Wow." Sitting back on her feet she looked up at him with a half-smile. "You seem to know everything about dragons. How many different kinds are there?"

With a sigh as he sat next to her, Hiccup kept his eyes out on the sea. "We don't know how many different types of dragons there are. Between me and my mom we got them all covered."

"That sounds wonderful." Falling back to lay in the grass she giggled. "I can't wait ta get to yer island. See all the different dragons." She then looked up at him as she saw the same haunted look in his eyes whenever they talked about his home. Sitting up she looked at him with concerned eyes. "What happened Hiccup?"

Looking at her with an odd look he blinked his eyes. "What? Nothing happened?"

Crossing her arms she half glared at him. "I mean why is it whenever ya talk about yer home you look like someone died. What happened?"

Dropping his head he let out a long sigh. "I really don't want to talk about it. It is a long story and still fresh. I just don't…."

Moving to sit in front of him she glared at him as she smacked his leg. "Don't give me that."

"What?"

Dropping her eyes she sighed. "I know what it is like to have something that hurts. And not talk about it and I nearly learned the hard way that ya can't do that. Ya have to talk. Whether it is to that person or someone else ya have ta talk about it."

Dropping his head again Hiccup sighed. "Let me guess. Just like with going to fight in Berk with me you aren't going to drop it are you?"

"Not a chance."

With a sigh as he laid back on the grass he watched the clouds roll past. "Well. Where do I start? From birth to fifteen I was the social outcast. The screw up. The reject. Then after I made friends with Toothless, and Astrid everything start to turn around for me. Everyone knew who I was. And not for what I broke or who I almost killed. But for using dragons to save the village."

"That doesn't sound so bad."

"The entire time that happened I never knew anything more about my mother other than she was taken away by dragons and her name was Valka." Closing his eyes he took a deep breath and let it out. "But from the time I was fifteen till I was twenty, things were nearly perfect for me. Astrid was my childhood crush. I got Astrid. With her and Storm Fly, her dragon, and the acceptance and acknowledgment of my father my life was finally perfect for me. Last year, we fought with Alpha's father. We won. Toothless becoming the alpha of Berk. Killing Drago. In that time Astrid was there with me when I found my mother and she and my dad made up and she came home. Right after that Astrid and I were planning on getting married."

He then sat up and dropped his head as he clenched fists. "Little over a week ago. The day before I left to come here, so it was exactly eleven days ago I got my mom's ring and was going to ask her to marry me properly. And she told me she was leaving me because of some betrothal contract that her parents signed. I tried to tell her she didn't have to do it, my dad wouldn't let someone do that. She said she was going to honor it." Looking over at her with her downcast eyes and the few drips of tears from his eyes he half smiled. "I jumped on the chance to come out here and help Fergus find you. Even planned on staying around for a while until I felt like I could look at her and not fall apart."

But then he was shocked and his eyes went wide when she jumped up and rushed to him and hugged him from the side. "Merida?"

With a sigh as she let go of him and sat down next to him she kept her eyes down. "I know how that feels. It wasn't exactly like yours. But there was someone once when I was sixteen, not long after the situation with my mum there was a boy that worked in the castle. I thought it was love, but he wanted nothing more than to use me to steal from me father. When I figured it out and confronted him he laughed and told me how hideous I was then fled into the night."

With a small laugh he pulled shocked dazzling blue eyes up to his forest green ones. They were beautiful. Though Astrid also had blue eyes, hers were different. He saw something different in her eyes than Astrid's. "Trust me you are not hideous Merida. Let's get back down to the dragons alright?"

"Right." Merida was following him down the hill with sad eyes. She knew how he felt. But then she looked up and gasped. "Hiccup watch out for the sna….." Then she let out a scream when the snake stuck out and bit him on his foot, and not the fake one either making him tumble down the hill. "Hiccup!"