Chapter 7

How to break a Viking`s heart

Hiccup sat in his room beating his head against the wall. Toothless sat on the floor staring at his friend, unsure of what to do. Meanwhile a similar scene was taking place at in Astrid`s room. The Viking girl sat on her bed staring emptily at the floor. Then she grabbed the necklace Hiccup had given her and angrily threw it across the room. Then she dropped to her knees and began to cry. Thorn flew into the room using the special Dragon door in the ceiling. The Deadly Nadder stared at his rider in confusion. Then using the tip of his tail wiped the tears off Astrid`s face. The dragon then nuzzled her with his snout and purred affectionately as if to say:

"There, there everything is going to be alright." Astrid hugged the dragon, appreciating his company.

Hiccup went over to his bookshelf, and pulled out an old ragged sketch book. Inside were hundreds of drawings, the first few pages showed pictures of Toothless and all the crazy adventures they`d had when learning to fly together. Then about 50 pages into the book, Hiccup began looking at an entire different set of drawings, pictures of Astrid. Some Hiccup had drawn while the two were out on a walk, while others he had drawn after a long day at the forges. Some pictures had just Astrid; others had him and her, while others had her, Toothless and himself. It was extremely painful to even look at the book. Hiccup was tempted to just toss it into the fire pit in the dining room, yet for some strange reason he felt contemplated to keep the book. Hiccup put it back up on the shelf. Then he walked over to his bed, fell face first into the pillow, and began to cry.

The next morning was even worse. Astrid stepped outside to take a brief morning walk. The teen`s eyes were puffy from crying all night, she looked miserable and tired. The weather once again messing with the mood of the village, they`d just suffered a devastating attack that had left over 150 people dead. Hiccup and Astrid had broken up, and the Atlantians were threatening to destroy everything that the citizens of Berk had fought for. Ironically, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, birds flew around the island chirping, and it was the perfect temperature outside. Astrid felt compelled to puke on the spot.

It was a miserable day at the forges. Hiccup and Gobber were working to repair weapons that had been damaged in the previous day`s fighting.

"Bah there are plenty of other fish in the sea, kid." Gobber told Hiccup as he was sharpening a long sword.

"Not any like her." Hiccup grumbled.

"Love is overrated anyway." Gobber said as he lifted a catapult gear onto the repair table.

"What`s wrong with that one?" Hiccup asked putting the long sword back on the weapons rack.

"Looks like some rocks, arrow heads stuff like that, there jammed inside these gear." Gobber replied.

Hiccup trudged over and used a small knife to begin picking the debris out of the gear.

"You can still be friends, right?" Gobber asked the teen.

"Eh… no." Hiccup said with a snort. "Astrid wouldn't come near me if she was on fire and I had the only bucket of water in town, She`d probably just jump off a cliff into the ocean."

"It`s that bad?" Gobber asked with a grin.

Hiccup nodded, pulling a broken arrowhead out of the catapult gear.

"You know Gobber I`d like a different conversation topic." the teen said walking over to the tool rack.

"Well you still got Toothless and your dad." Gobber told him.

"Yeah, I do." Hiccup said as faint grin appeared on his face for a brief second.

"So you, ready to play with some molten steel?" Gobber asked.

"Always." Hiccup replied.

"Besides, her dad was kind of a pain." Hiccup murmured.

"Well he was almost banished by Stoick." Gobber said as he put his gloves on.

Hiccup was grabbing Gobber`s forge hammer when he heard this.

"Why?" Hiccup asked.

"Something about practicing dark magic…making potions and stuff." Gobber replied.

Then Hiccup slowly started putting the pieces together in his head.

"What kind of potions?" Hiccup asked.

While on her morning walk, Astrid had come across the places she'd first met Toothless. Tiny voices echoed in her head as she tried to remember the events of that day. But for some strange reason she couldn't.

"Well that`s weird." She murmured to herself.

Then brief sharp images flashed in her head, images of Toothless and Hiccup when they took her flying. Then an agonizing pain surged through her chest, the images faded. It was probably her heart breaking in two. Then she turned and ran out of the area.

Hiccup and Gobber crept up to Astrid`s house.

"Shirley is gonna kill you if he catches you." Gobber whispered.

"That will just prove my point. Something is going on in that house, and I`m going to find out." Hiccup mumbled

"Find out what?" A voice said from behind them.

The two turned around to see Stoick standing there.

"Hi, Dad." Hiccup murmured.

"Your son here just wanted to find out why Astrid broke up with him." Gobber explained.

"But I explained to him that Astrid left him for Snotlout because… Snotlout is stronger, not as socially awkward. Basically Snotlout is everything that Hiccup isn't." Gobber said with a grin.

"Thank you for summing that up." Hiccup grumbled.

"Well," Stoick said, "I was just coming to find you two because we're having a war meeting in the village hall."

Then the trio made their way up hill to the village hall. Hiccup though took one last look at the house before continuing up hill.

The entire village was gathered around a circular table that wrapped around the fire pit. The Village hall was the biggest structure the people of Berk had ever built. Hiccup remembered reading the dragon manual at the very spot he was sitting at over two months ago. Stoick, Gobber and Shirley examined the map of the known world.

"Hiccup," Gobber asked, "do you remember anything from the Atlantian temple that could lead us to the actual city of Atlantis."

Hiccup though for a second then nodded.

"There was a place called The Labyrinth of the Lunatics." Hiccup announced.

"Oh goody." Ruffnut grumbled.

"I know right," Hiccup said, "insanity...love it."

Stoick coughed in an effort to get the meeting back on track.

"So do you know where this place is?" Tuffnut asked.

"I`ve got a pretty good idea." Hiccup said sheepishly.

"Well it's settled then." Shirley said to the village.

"Hiccup will choose his companions and venture into this Labyrinth and bring back any relevant information on the location of Atlantis."

Everyone nodded in agreement. Hiccup began assembling his team. Toothless and Zoey would obviously be coming. Fishlegs also volunteered to go, but he`d have to ride Zoey since Stella was still recovering from her crash. Ruff and Tuff also wanted to go; they always liked doing extremely dangerous stuff, which meant Billy Bob would be coming as well. Hiccup decided for the sake of ticking off Shirley that he`d invite Snotlout and Astrid to come along as well. Surprisingly they accepted the invitation, though Astrid didn't seem too thrilled about it.

"What did he do to you?" Hiccup murmured as the meeting adjourned.

The Vikings spent the rest of the morning packing their supplies for the trip at hand. Then by midday they were saying farewell to their parents and getting ready to depart. Then after all had been said and done the group took to the skies leaving their home behind.