Stoick the Vast, Chief of Berk, was not having very pleasant nights. He was plagued constantly by nightmares that he couldn't remember after awaking, but had the feeling that they all had something in common- Hiccup. Every one of his dreams featured his banished son, and judging by the way he woke up every morning either sweating, on the floor, shouting, or a combination of those, and the uneasy or even frightened feelings they left him with, they were not pleasant ones, to say the least.

He happened to be in the middle of one of these dreams now.

"Hiccup, no! Don't do it!" Stoick's dream self shouted. He was watching an older version of his son who was muscular, fierce, and dressed in armor made primarily of dark red dragon's scales. It was unclear if this color was due to the original hue of the dragon they came from, or if it had a more morbid cause. The boy was standing over a wounded soldier upon a battlefield strewn with many others, and was about to deliver the killing blow to the whimpering man with his cruel, bloodstained longsword. His expression was one of glee, and the chief's dream self knew that his son had killed most, if not all, of the other enemy soldiers on the field.

Hiccup paused for a moment at his father's words before bringing his sword down into the man's chest and twisting it, yanking it back out harshly from a different angle. Stoick cringed at the sickening sounds it made. He had been in battle before, yes, but he had never attacked an already downed man, and certainly hadn't ended another's life in such a horrid manner.

As he wiped the blade clean on the leg of his pants, Hiccup turned on his father, "Why would I? You're the one who wanted me like this," he gestured to himself, mixed emotions of pride, disgust, hate, and anger evident on his face, "You're the one who wanted me to become a killer," Hiccup's last two words were filled with venom, "Like you,"

"No, no! I never wanted this! Look at yourself, you're not Hiccup!" by now, Stoick was partially aware that he was dreaming, but the scene before him was too horrifying for the knowledge to solidify.

A cruel grin came to Hiccup's features as he let out a dark chuckle, "Is that how you feel? You go through all that you did to make me your perfect little warrior of a son, then tell me that I'm still not good enough for you?" his tone became furious, "I killed the dragon! But that wasn't enough for you, was it? Oh, no. You had me hunt down my own dragon and then you killed him in front of me before I could get in a word of protest! But that passed by. You put me through training and sculpted the most glorious fighter in the Archipelago! And here we stand on the field of victory, with you telling me you want me to revert to the puny," he took a step toward his father, "Emotional," he took another step, a dangerous gleam appearing in his eyes, "Pathetic," he came even closer and Stoick found himself unable to back away, "Cowardly child that I used to be?" he took the final step forward and stood over his father with his sword in hand. The two locked eyes for a moment before Hiccup smiled in a way that resembled a Monstrous Nightmare just before taking a shot at someone's head, "I don't think so," he said as he brought the sword down.

Stoick found himself suddenly in a completely different situation. He was on a black sand beach with dark trees on his left and gray ocean on his right. The ground was shaking and he knew that the island was sinking into the sea by the way the waves crept farther and father up the shore without retreating to their normal position. Farther back in the dark forest on his left, he saw smoke rising and knew that there was a huge forest fire creeping its way towards him.

Before him stood Hiccup, an older version but not nearly as warlike as the previous dream had had it. This Hiccup had longer hair that stuck out more, wore black and green, and wore a short sword on his belt. He was looking at his father with pleading eyes and saying, "Please, Dad, you have to come with us. It's not safe here anymore. Everyone else has accepted it, why haven't you?"

"Accepted what? What are you talking about?" Stoick was confused, but relieved that this Hiccup at least wasn't trying to kill him.

"How can you forget- You know what, nevermind. If you're so small minded and stubborn, why do we even try?" this was certainly a change. While Hiccup's demeanor had previously been one of pleading and attempted persuasiveness, now it was resigned and resentful.

"What? What are you trying?" Stoick asked, "What have I not accepted?"

Hiccup shook his head sadly, "I was afraid you'd be like this. You know that if you don't accept it now you'll be left behind. They can't all live here anymore, it's not safe. But if you insist on staying, they say I'll be fine as chief, wherever we end up." He turned and walked until he was about ten feet away before raising his fingers to his mouth and letting out a piercing whistle. An instant later came the sound of large leathery wings and a black dragon with black riding gear came from over the trees to land behind Hiccup. The boy quickly mounted and gave one last, sad glance back at Stoick before lifting off.

As the chief looked up, he saw the clouds part to reveal hundreds of dragons hovering in the air above them, all with riders. Stoick felt a pang as he saw that the people on the dragons were the villagers, every last one, and they were all giving him the same sort of sad look as Hiccup had given him just moments before. One of the women on a dragon called out to Hiccup as he ascended toward the flock, "How did it go?"

He heard Hiccup's reply, "My father will not join us. We have to abandon him,"

"No! Hiccup!" Stoick shouted after them as the dragons and riders all turned and flew away simultaneously, leaving the chief on a sinking, burning island.

The next dream was short, but no less terrible. Hiccup, riding his Night Fury with an army of other Night Furies behind him. Stoick was trapped in an arena similar to the dragon-training one, and his son with the army of dragons were all clustered outside, watching him.

Hiccup looked around at all the darkly colored reptiles and they looked back at him, awaiting his orders. The boy nodded at the arena and said, "Go."

The effect was instantaneous. A ripple of movement went through the Night Furies as they swarmed the entrance to the arena, Hiccup atop his own not being jostled or moved in the slightest by the flood of dragons. There was a tense moment as the gate was opened, but in almost no time Stoick was rushed at by angry black dragons. He tried calling out to Hiccup to stop his madness, but was cut off as he was shoved to the ground by a wing swipe and whipped in the face by a tail. He was lost in a swirling vortex of pain, movement, fire, and the occasional glimpse of his son's cold gaze.

There was hardly a pause before the chief's mind supplied him with another scene. He and . . . and Valhallarama, Hiccup's mother and the love of his life, were standing in a room somewhere. There were four chairs by the wall, an empty fireplace, and a long box in the corner farthest from them. Well, it was either a box or an upside down bed, based on the length and width of it. He didn't really know where, as it was all made of wood and could have been any room in the village, but what he did know was that Val was angry at him.

"How could you have done this?" she said, and her voice didn't show much anger, mainly sadness and grief, "How could you?"

He was unsure of why he was apologizing but did not want his wife to feel how she was for any longer, "Val, I'm sorry. I'll try to fix-"

Fire appeared in her beautiful eyes as she cut him off, "Sorry will never cut it! Just look at what you caused and then try to tell me that you can fix anything!" she gestured to the long box in the corner, which suddenly seemed much more ominous than it had a minute before.

Stoick slowly approached the long wooden container, seeing that the top of it was open but covered by a black sheet. He dreaded what he would see as he pulled back the covering. The first thing he recognized was Hiccup, lying down inside with his eyes closed, looking peaceful. The second thing he recognized was exactly what sort of box the boy was in. It was a coffin.

In his next tormenting dream, it wasn't a scene in which he himself was present. Instead, he was watching events unfold as what felt like just a pair of floating eyes. He was watching Hiccup and the Night Fury as they stumbled along the rocky shore of an island somewhere, both looking exhausted and weary and apparently searching for food of some sort.

Hiccup suddenly collapsed, and the dragon pounced to his side, clearly worried. "I . . . I'm okay," came Hiccup's weak voice, "I just . . . need to . . . rest for a little bit," and the boy passed out. The dragon looked down at him with pity and curled his tail around him for warmth.

A few minutes went by, with the dragon stealing glances back at Hiccup every so often, and Stoick was wondering if this would turn out to be such a bad dream, after all, when he saw something change in the
dragon's eyes. The beast had looked back at Hiccup for a longer moment than its other little checks had taken, and its expression was no longer one of worry but of contemplation. There was something unsettling about the way it stared at the chief's son as if he were some inanimate thing and it was deciding what would be best to do with him.

As Hiccup turned in his sleep, the dragon made up its mind. It leaned in closer to the boy, its warm breath tickling his face and making his eyes scrunch up like he was coming back to consciousness, and Stoick could identify what other feeling was in its eyes. Hunger. The chief tried to close his eyes, but he couldn't look away as the dragon opened its mouth for the first bite. Thankfully, that seemed to be enough to shock him awake, as everything was slowing down and fading while he drifted away from the sight of his son being eaten by the dragon.

Stoick shot straight up in his bed, his covers on the ground and his body covered in sweat. He felt like he had just been witness to the most horrible events a father could ever hope not to see. Thinking about his current streak of restless nights, that was very likely. With a jolt, he realized that he could actually remember parts of his most recent ones. Hiccup on a bloodstained battlefield, a fierce, cruel Viking warrior. Being swarmed and attacked by Night Furies. His son in a coffin.

He shook his head to rid himself of such thoughts. It wasn't a good idea to start a day of chiefing thinking about terrible images involving the son that no one spoke of, and who would likely never return. Besides, it wasn't as if any of the things he'd dreamed about would or could ever really happen . . . right?

Indeed, he thought as he got ready for the day, no one seemed to talk about Hiccup anymore. If someone made an accidental side comment about him, the atmosphere would become slightly tense for a moment before the people talking moved on with their conversation as if it hadn't been said. Whenever someone mentioned a Night Fury, the same thing happened. Since Hiccup had left, it had become apparent that his had been the only of its kind, at least in that area. That, at least, was a blessing. Some would say it was good that two of the island's biggest problems had gone at the same time, for the same reason! It must be some sort of good omen.

Of course, they were unaware of the completely different reactions other villages were going to have when they saw the dragon rider, but who could blame them? The oblivious inhabitants of Berk, unconcerned with the events that were happening right then, thousands of miles south of their little island, were concerning themselves with other issues. Namely: dragons, politics, and gossip, the things they had been worrying about since around the time Berk had been founded.

On the subject of dragons: The arena they used to train dragon fighters had lost all of its original dragons, and every time someone managed to capture a new one alive, it managed to escape very quickly after being locked up. They had even reinforced the doors, but nothing could seem to keep the reptiles caged in for much longer than a week. It was perplexing, as the original ones had been kept there for a few years already, with only the Monstrous Nightmares needing to be switched out when they were killed by the top of the class, and the Terrible Terrors, since they seemed to keep flying through the small holes in the cage-like roof. Those were normal occurrences, however.

This recent streak of breakouts had a lot of suspiciousness to it. When the dragons escaped, the doors were left mostly undamaged, other than the fact that they were usually across the arena from where they should be. Claw and fire marks were absolutely minimal, like the dragons had burst out and then calmed down for some inexplicable reason before exiting in a non-rampaging manner through the gate, which also remained relatively intact.

Which brings us to the politics. Snotlout, the new intended heir to chiefdom, had to complete some sort of task to prove himself worthy of the new title, as dictated by their laws. If the chief had no children, or something happened to their children, someone else who was eligible for the title and could complete the task better than any others -should there be any others who tried- was then considered worthy and the only thing left for them to do was hold the ceremony. Snotlout had originally not wanted to do a 'dumb taskey thing', but then it got into his head that successfully doing something big and difficult would impress Astrid, and, well, we all know where it goes from there.

Incidentally, his challenge was to get to the bottom of the dragons' breakouts, figure out the who's, what's, when's, where's, how's, and why's of them. It was mostly just for show, as no one else was allowed to compete with him, anyways. He just wanted something to inflate his ego even more, as if people couldn't already see it from miles away. If he lost, oh, well, he wouldn't be quite as happy when the ceremony came around. If he won, Stoick would have to publicly congratulate him before naming him heir, and the party would be just a tad larger. Plus, it would definitely make Astrid fall madly in love with him if he completed something so challenging.

Which leads us to the third thing - gossip. People knew that Snotlout was going to become heir either way, and that when the time came for him to pick himself a bride, that it would be Astrid. People also knew, however, that Astrid absolutely despised Snotlout, or at least the idea of marrying him. People were also noticing how she had started spending lots of time with Ruffnut and Tuffnut, and this is what a lot of the gossip stemmed from. Everybody knew that unless it was an heir's or chief's choice, a younger person could only get married if they, the intended fiance, the parents of both of them, and the chief approved of it. Grown ups just had to get the chief. Some said that, in order to avoid marrying Snotlout, Astrid and the twins were coming up with a plot to get their parents to allow her to marry Tuffnut before the next heir could make his move.

Of course, others said that that was just silly, as what girl in her right mind would want to marry either of them? Some of them argued that when the three disappeared, they were secretly building a small ship so that the three could run away and become pirates, which of course was called ridiculous by a lot of the gossipers. Some speculated that they were trying to come up with good ways to make Ruffnut Snotlout's preferred choice, because she wanted the power that came with being in a high up position like the chief's wife. One or two thought that they were building a ship not to become pirates, but to go on a search for the chief's son, but these few never voiced their opinions for fear of the possible responses, or lack of response. A few others had considered for a moment- what if the three of them were trying to train dragons like Hiccup had done? But these thoughts were quickly laughed at by their thinkers, who would then begin to consider the other theories or go back to counting livestock like they were supposed to be doing. One of these someones, however, did not think that the idea was so absurd.

This someone was a very large boy with blonde hair, who was arguably one of the most knowledgeable people on the island. He knew there was something fishy about the way Astrid and the twins disappeared so often for such long periods of time. Sure, Astrid and Ruffnut hung out a lot, but they usually didn't include Ruff's brother, and certainly didn't run off somewhere where no one could find them and then not speak a word of what had happened after getting back.

Yes, Fishlegs Ingerman was suspicious. And he knew just how to find out what they kept sneaking off to do . . .

I hope you enjoyed that! Sorry it took so long, I started three different versions of this and scrapped them all before I thought, 'Hey, some of those reviewers wanted to see more of Stoick, Fishlegs, Snotlout, and the others instead of just Astrid and the twins,' then I got the brilliant idea to start it off with Stoick's nightmares! I loved doing those, although I think some of the writing is iffy. I actually had like five more ideas but they were too gruesome for the rating . . .

Also, it only took two days to write this! RECORD! Of course, one of those days was the day I started it, like, two weeks ago and the other day was today, but that still counts! Doesn't it?

ANyways, please review! What did I do wrong, what could I have done better, what was I adequate with, and did I accidentally mention anything that only happens/is only possible in the canon-verse? I don't know, you tell me! (In a review!)