RECAP: As the second half of the search commenced across Berk, one aspect of it came in the form of a shakeup; Snotlout, instead of searching all by himself in the forest, was sent to join the other dragon riders, and his replacement was a group of larger working vikings who'd typically carry stuff around with them. Distractions, unawareness and underestimations lead to the biggest twist that came in the hands of the changes; three vikings now know that Morgan's alive, and after seeing him at the cove, know where he resides. It's only a matter of time before they inform everybody else on Berk.
Morgan looked up, horrified at what he was seeing. He was enjoying himself just now, until the one thing he hoped wouldn't happen happened. They've found him, and it's all because of his easiness to become distracted on the most tiniest things, something he even realised himself.
"W-WHO ARE YOU?!" Morgan yelled, still shaking at the thought of this entire plan going to waste.
"HOLD ON THERE, WE'RE COMIN DOWN, WE AREN'T HURTIN YE" Axel said, as he and his other two companions made their way around the cove on the surface above the cove, trying to find a way into it.
Morgan's body felt like it was experiencing a heart attack for the simple fact that everything he's worked for, everything that Gustav and Snotlout did for him, was simply put to rest with these three unknown vikings finding him. If he had been more aware then it could have been avoided. Axel and his two friends continued to walk around the cove, struggling to find an actual way inside of it. Morgan wasn't sure whether or not he should just peg it out of here to completely erase his chances of Hiccup and the lot coming here and finding out for themselves what's really happened. Another thing that fueled up this potential solution was Axel and the vikings with him themselves; just look at them, they're large, and they have the width similar to Stoick's one. They could easily make Morgan his ragdoll if they had to resort to dragging Morgan all the way back to the village if he simply refused to go back with them.
"Oh no, oh no, ohh noooo" Morgan repeated, walking back and fourth whilst in the cove, looking around himself.
It clearly wasn't the best time to get this drawing replica done, so Morgan simply turned around to face it and glare at it for a final time. His brain wasn't focused enough for him to be able to think straight. His hands were sent rushing through his hair all the way down onto his cheeks, before feeling a pain sensation on one of his cheeks. "OH" he sounded, after putting pressure onto his small scar on his cheek, forgetting that he had one whilst rushing his hands around his skull. Morgan slowly started to take gradual steps towards the way he came into here, deciding that maybe after all, it wasn't best for him to stay around here when a couple of vikings clearly sent by Hiccup had seen him. He walked away from the boulder in which the lines surrounded it and took off at a quicker pace. He scrambled into various directions, having lost his sight of the way that he came in from.
"Oh god, where do I go again?!" Morgan said to himself. He looked at the top of the mossy stone walls to see no vikings, implying that they could be anywhere close by at this point.
Morgan eventually stopped scrambling in random directions and started scrambling towards the west, having locked his eyes on what he THINKS is the way he came out. Morgan looked at the lake, the waterfall and the lovely sky before fully making his way into the exiting path. His body came to a close distance with it, but as he was about to make a step into it, Axel and his other two companions emerged, walking from the top all the way into this exit path, causing Morgan to not only get a fright, but increase his worries at a severe manner. As his voice echoed around the cove due to his fright with an "OH!", birds from various trees suddenly chirped louder and took off from the surrounding tree branches from the forest above. Morgan looked at Axel and these two unknown vikings, feeling his body shake in worry.
"Ey, everyone thought that you were in dah dead form, haha" Axel laughed, clearly being a good guy, but in Morgan's case, he didn't want to be taken back to the village, so there was a sense of negativity just waiting to be unleashed in side of Morgan.
"M-May I ask, who you a-ar- ahem, sorry, are?" Morgan asked, struggling with his voice.
The other two vikings stepped besides Axel, with both of them resembling the width of Axel himself.
"Over here, dis is Gim," Axel said, pointing to his left, and then he pointed to his right to address the other large viking. "Dis is Jock, although he has a weird name right? ahaa" Axel laughed, with Jock not looking impressed, turning his head to Axel in a manner where his expression showed displeasure. "And I'm Axel, contrary to dah others back up at dat village, we don't really have titles, so um, yeah, haha" he said, repeating his laughing sound twice within the same sentence.
"Right so uh, what exactly are you, um," there was a gulp in Morgan's mouth before he continued on, "doing here? I didn't get a clear stance you see..."
Axel looked around the cove to see the magnificent scenery of the green grass mixed in with the lake as well as the waterfall followed by the surrounding walls.
"What's dat?" Axel said, pointing to the two boulders with the shield stuck in between it.
Morgan simply shrugged his shoulders, unable to talk fully at the moment. Axel had never been here before, and to see a place that was lowered down in the middle of the forest made it feel like it was an entirely different place on an entirely different island to him.
"To answer your question," Jock said, interrupting Axel just as he was about to speak. He shrugged his big large shoulders as he explained their intentions to Morgan, "our chief sent us to search here, and we acquired success, clearly, right?" he said, laughing in his vikingly tone. It was like a laugh that you'd hear at the bar from within a group of friends.
"Oh, uh, listen, I don't wanna go back there" Morgan said, before remembering Snotlout all of a sudden, "and what happened to uh...Snotlout?" Morgan said.
At the pace of a slug, Morgan started taking steps backwards away from the large vikings, feeling threatened at them. It was that slow that they didn't even notice Morgan doing so.
"Oh, uh, Snotlout?" Axel said, stepping further away from the group closer to Morgan, "Hiccup, he got dat one to join those other vikings, with their dragons, so uh, we were kinda made to be put here, ya know?" he replied, sending a shiver down Morgan's spine, because now it made sense; Morgan was expecting Snotlout to arrive back, but he didn't, and now these guys were here, so it clicked onto his mind like a key unlocking the chest; Hiccup replaced Snotlout with these guys.
"But listen you guys," Morgan said, raising both his palms up at the trio, "I can't, I simply cannot risk going back there at the moment, do you know what happens if Tuff knows I'm here? he wants me to USE A SWORD, and I simply CAN'T DO IT!" Morgan pledged, looking upwards at the trees briefly.
Axel, Jock, and Gim looked at each other, confused with his resistance due to them not having a clue on the backstory of the search they were asked to do here.
"I promise ya, it'll be alright, ya can get warm, and we can secure ya safe and sound" Axel said, walking closer to Morgan, raising his big hand out, intending on putting it on Morgan's shoulder. Morgan simply skipped backwards, not willing to cooperate, and as a result, Axel's big hand missed his shoulder.
"You're not understanding me, are you?" Morgan said, feeling more confident, which was obvious by his tone. "You and whoever else is searching for me can search search search, because honestly, I'm not willing to get penetrated in by a sword from the guy who thought I was dead, and if I show up, he'll want me dead not by the day after tomorrow, but NOW, so you can buckle off, with all due respect" he sighed after his sentence.
Axel raised an eyebrow, slowly losing his patience with Morgan.
"Now look, we'll get ya a thing or two back on the main village, but you've gotta come with us, yaknow? all the dragons are searchin for ya, how do you think they and their vikings feel, huh?" he added.
Morgan turned his head swiftly to the lake, feeling panicked at the fact that he could potentially be dragged back to the village by force.
"I'll just go back to where I came from then, I'll leave this island, I thought I was a viking, but I'm not, I'm a kid from an entirely different world than this, I'm...I'm just Morgan" he said, looking all across the cove.
The furry vests of these large vikings certainly didn't represent their personalities because it looked as if they had a short patience aspect of their personality.
"If you do not come, we shall go and tell Hiccup ourselves den? how bout dat?" Axel said, trying to sound more peaceful again.
"No, nononnonooooooo!" Morgan said, sounding as if he was about to cry as he was gradually losing it under all this pressure.
"Hold on hold on..." Gim said, walking nearer to Axel, "This Tuffnut...he's trying to kill ya?" he asked, looking at Morgan.
Morgan simply rubbed his pants after getting dirt stains on his knees from laying on them on the grass before whilst he was drawing. A couple of birds in the trees above kept their eyes locked onto the four figures within the cove.
"Well, yeah?" Morgan said, looking over to Gim.
"Ya didn't hear?" Gim added, slightly nudging Axel to inform him that he's about to tell a lie to calm Morgan down. "Tuff...he uh, he apologised, he said he'd visit ya one day to make peace with ya...I'd take that offer if I could?" Gim said.
"NO! YOU'RE LYING! THERE'LL BE NO VISITIN AND THERE CERTAINLY WON'T BE ANY ME BACK AT THAT VILLAGE WHERE I COULD DIE WHILST I SLEEP!" Morgan said, instantly running right through the large vikings to the path behind them, panicking. His speed was quicker than usual due to the old Fight or Flight senses where in panic, you'd run much faster than usual.
Axel, Gim and Jock were quick to turn around after getting caught by surprise from Morgan's quick speed.
"YA NEED TO COME WITH US, GET HIM!" Axel said to Jock and Gim, who both nodded at his word.
Morgan eventually got all the way up to the top surface, entirely exiting the cove before taking another path straight ahead as if fire was emerging from his rapidly-moving feet.
"COME BACK HERE, WE'RE SAVING YOU!" Jock said, as he and Gim were already struggling to keep up, due to their big size stopping them from being as fast as they ideally wanted, which explained why they were still in the middle of the upwards path out of the cove into the forest.
They both breathed heavily as they stopped halfway through the ascending path to put their hands on their knees. Morgan was well away at this point, running through the mixture of regular trees and spine trees of the Berk forest. Axel didn't look amused one bit, failing to capture Morgan when he had the chance right in front of him.
"This is not gonna go down well, dat little one HAS to be reported, you useless two. Come on, stop bein tired and let's act on dis quickly!" Axel said, walking into the path himself as Jim and Jock were still breathing heavily.
Axel had suddenly developed a more commander-like tone. "We've gotta get dah others! come onnn! back to Hiccup with dem others! go go go!" Axel yelled, in a deeper tone than he used against Morgan. They were on their way back to the village to inform Hiccup on their most valuable discovery that'll put all the fears to an end, but that doesn't mean Morgan can't easily find somewhere else to conceal himself.
Morgan continued running like it was nobodies business, and the one thing that he absolutely hated was the sense of being chased. In this case, he felt like he was getting chased by all of those big vikings he just encountered, strangers at that, and god knows what type of danger they pose to Morgan. Morgan kept running past the various branches and sticks on the ground as the sound of snapping sticks made themselves a repetition due to Morgan constantly stepping on them. As he was running, he saw some light amongst the dark-roofed trees of the forest, and he was getting closer and closer to them. Eventually, he found himself at the edge of the forest, but not the same one as the one that Gustav took him to; instead, this one had another body of water that was facing into the middle of nowhere; but within the distance was a noticeable yet small island. Morgan, still feeling a sense of urgency at the thought of vikings catching up to him any second now, didn't even think clearly, and jumped off into the water in his viking CLOTHES. The water was getting deeper and deeper as he felt his feet ascending up and off of the floor as it went lower and lower. He simply splashed his arms forwards to drag his heavy body against the water to reach this island. There was no time to stop, because if the vikings saw him, they'd know that this island would be where Morgan's new 'hiding' place is. It's not even really a hiding place for the simple fact that it's out in the open. Morgan unintentionally sucked up some salt water into his mouth, instantly spitting it out back into the ocean. This island was still a good minute away, so his breath would get even more drawn out. As he swam, his viking clothes were completely and utterly soaked, and the fact that this water was salt water didn't help in the slightest. He'd be sleeping in soggy clothes. The only benefit that would come out of this would be the fact that it was Morgan's first proper 'wash' since coming to Berk, because Berk of course wasn't modern, there were no showers, so presumably, the only way vikings keep themselves clean would be to take a swim in the ocean. Morgan's arms were getting weaker as were his legs, but he kept his eyes closed as he continued swimming in hopes of reaching the island. Suddenly, a surface touched his fingers as his eyes were closed to avoid the salt water splashing into his eyeballs. He opened them at long last to see the island in it's full form; it was like a dot in the middle of the water from Morgan's perspective over there, back at the forest edge, but actually, this was quite medium-sized, so it'll last him. The key thing now would be to just make sure those vikings that Morgan saw at the cove weren't able to see exactly where he ran, meaning that he wouldn't get exposed whilst residing on this island.
"God, I really need a dragon, woaaaaaaah" he said, collapsing onto his butt as he finally emerged onto dry land.
It was true; a dragon is truly the definition of a journey made ten times easier. Morgan didn't have a lot of options though, where could he find more dragons? As Morgan looked all around his open space on this medium-sized island, he once again wondered what Snotlout said was true about this all being unnecessary, and that this Tuffnut issue has gone on far longer than it should be, but he really couldn't think straight whilst he was covered in salt water a long with his wet hair. At least he got washed, right?
**AXEL, GIM AND JOCK ARE ALL YELLING AMONGST THE FOREST FOR THEIR OTHER TWO GROUPS TO JOIN THEM AS THEY HEAD BACK TO HICCUP**
"WE'VE FOUND HIM!" Axel yelled in the forest, completely clueless as to where the other two groups went.
"Bloody useless, ain't dey?" Gim said, laughing.
"Ehy, no vikin' is useless, remember dat, got it?" Axel replied.
Gim shrugged, surprised by the response that he was just given. It was going to take them absolutely ages to find the other two groups, because they were far into the forests in the directions that Axel himself had said to them.
"Shall we just...go to the front of this place and wait for em there?" Jock asked, rubbing the back of his head carefully, "I mean, it'd make the most sense for them to do that, right Axel?" he asked.
"Dis is crucial information we can't just leave though. We HAVE to tell Hiccup before dah nighttime is upon us, if dey aren't found in dah next five minutes, we're walkin back to dah village ourselves" a determined Axel said.
Jock and Gim really couldn't be bothered negotiating things any further at this point, after their exhausting journey, but the exhaustion was worth it in the end. As they started walking the opposite direction that they came from, a voice emerged from the branches ahead; a similar one at that.
"HELLO?!" a familiar voice said, with Axel recognising it the instant it popped into his ears.
"YA, WE'RE RIGHT HERE! COME ON!" he yelled, realising that this was the other three-viking group that was sent into the forest.
They emerged from within the forest background after following the direction of Axel's voice, and they waved at Axel, Gim and Jock.
"How'd the lot of ya get on?" they said, walking directly in front of the group led by Axel.
"Got some good news to tell ya, we found him, but the child did a runner, so we're off to tell Hiccup, we aren't waitin' around for dah others, because dis is absolutely important now that we get dah message across" Axel said. And off they went, ready to inform Hiccup about the update.
**THE GREAT HALL IS FILLED, WITH HICCUP STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF FILLED TABLES AS THE DRAGONS WERE ALL INSIDE AS WELL**
"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT EVERYONE, JUST CALM DOWN AND UH...LET'S ADDRESS THIS RIGHT NOW..." Hiccup said, as he stood in the centre of the hall with everyone who's helped with the search.
The dragons were all sitting against the walls near the doors, and Astrid was stood next to Hiccup. The hall fell to silence the minute Hiccup's voice emerged, because after about an extra ten minutes of searching and flying, everybody on Berk had covered most possible areas, and they were getting all fussy about the fact that the search wouldn't bring up anything as a result. To give you an idea, they covered a lot of land on the island due to the number of vikings who actually contributed to the search. Add that in with dragons and you have a mission that would usually take hours, but large quantities of numbers decreased it to a task within the minute range.
"Alright, so uh...obviously we've all uh...been trying our hardest today, me and Toothless we uh...we searched the arena about half an hour ago, we didn't find him...you lot over there," Hiccup pointed off to the table which contained one half of the ground searchers, "you've covered a lot of the main land over on this part of Berk, and uh, all you dragon riders there," he moved his pointing finger to the table with Snotlout, Meatlug and Ruffnut and surprisingly, Tuffnut, (only because his sister forced him to do so, otherwise he wouldn't of came at all) "have covered the water, and Astrid, you and Stormfly uh...I think you went for the huts but then you changed it to the steeper areas?" he asked Astrid, facing her direction, in which she nodded with a yes.
"Okay so, after all of this, how do you think we should go about the search now?" Hiccup asked to the numerous amount of vikings.
"OH COME ON HICCUP," one of the ground searchers said, with Hiccup facing towards him as well as all the dragons and the other vikings, "THIS SEARCH SHOULD HAVE ENDED LIKE 5 MINUTES AGO, HE'S CLEARLY NOT ALIVE IS HE?" he blatantly said, and this caused Hiccup to refuse to respond to it.
"Right, uh, ahem, how about-" Astrid grabbed Hiccup's shoulder as he was about to say something with her hand, wanting to place an input as to how she views this whole thing at the moment.
"Hiccup, I uh...I don't know how to say this to you...but uh, I think it's about time we let go? I mean, where else could he possibly be? we've covered everywhere really?" she said, with Hiccup once again refusing to provide a solid answer to that.
"ANYONE ELSE?!" Hiccup said, with a voice crack in his tone.
"END IT, END IT, END IT, END IT" a chant erupted amongst the ground searchers, and all the dragons were shocked at their reactions.
Hiccup looked down at the floor as the chant picked up momentum, not wanting to face the reality that is the death of Morgan. Astrid stepped in front of Hiccup as he rubbed his helmet. Toothless ran over to Hiccup to comfort his viking, with the chant overwhelming the young chief.
"ALRIGHT, EVERYONE, SHUT UP!" Astrid yelled in her high pitched voice.
This caught the attention of everyone, and Stormfly let off a smile, seeing that her viking is able to maintain the attention of everyone.
"There's only one way we can settle this...raise your hand if we should continue the search?" Astrid said, with absolutely no response in terms of any hands raising, except for Fishlegs of course, which generated a couple of laughs amongst the hall. "Right then uh, I think that concludes it then, doesn't it, Hiccup?" Astrid said, realising that the search has been highly rejected by everyone, and after nothing was turned up, felt like it was best to just get rid of the entire project.
Toothless stood up in stability as Hiccup collapsed his head flat onto his dragon's back, with Astrid placing her hands on his shoulders.
"Okay uh, it's probably best if you all just simply go, me and Hiccup need to talk, so go one, get your butts out of this place, GO GO GO!" she yelled, gradually increasing her voice as she mumbled through that sentence.
All the dragons and the dragon riders stayed as the ground searchers, all mixed up together in a large group, opened the door and walked out of the hall with ease. Tuffnut stayed as well, having to pretend that he cared about this entire deal.
"A-Astrid, is is true? has he really...g-gone?" Hiccup asked, as his head was still flat on Toothless's neck.
Stormfly made her way over to Astrid and ducked her head down to Astrid's side, with Astrid rubbing her snout.
"I'm so sorry Hiccup, but you know what? think about it, Morgan's gonna be looking down at us, thinking that we're great people for putting the effort in, you know?" she said, trying to give him reassurance.
"Oh Astrid, I really hope that's the case..." Hiccup replied, lifting his head up to reveal redness around his eyebrows from the emotional state he's in.
Tuffnut suddenly stood up, looking around the hall casually, before informing everyone on what he plans on doing next. "Well this has been an eventful day, I'll see you all around then ehy?" he said, looking at everyone sitting down, as well as the dragons, specifically Barf and Belch.
Hiccup raised his head up from Toothless to turn around slowly to Astrid's direction.
"It's okay, Hiccup, I promise..." she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "You're a good person, you organised all of this, and that's the best Morgan could have ever asked for, trust me" she smiled.
Toothless was also emotional, his lips were tingling as his puppy eyes looked as sad as they have ever looked in a long time. The other dragons, especially Barf and Belch, were incredibly guilty of the fact that one of their vikings were responsible for this entire mess. Snotlout looked across at Hookfang, in which his dragon showed a supportive looking expression, something that was unusual as far as Hookfang goes; he was usually dis-obedient. Hiccup suddenly moved away from Toothless and Astrid to get over to Tuffnut who was stood near the door.
"YOUUUU!" he said, charging up to him and locking up his hand together so his knuckles were sticking out. Out of complete anger, Hiccup sent a fist COLLIDING like a meteorite to the earth into the right eye of Tuffnut, sending Ruffnut's brother down to the floor in a heap. His eye was soaking as it swolled up and turned black. Astrid, Toothless, and Barf and Belch were quick to charge over to the scene to calm things down; Ruffnut stood near her brother as he was sent onto the floor, and there was a mixture of mumblings which repeated the phrases of "NO NO NO" or "RELAX RELAX RELAX" The dragons themselves mumbled sounds that sounded like miniature roars. Tuffnut rubbed his eye as he was laying against the hall floor on his lower back.
"I TELL YOU WHAT TUFF," Hiccup said, being held by Toothless, and Astrid and everyone else.
"HICCUP, IT'S OKAY, IT'S OKAY!" Astrid repeated, as Hiccup tried to communicate with Tuffnut.
"I WANT YOU OFF BERK, YOU HEAR ME? I WANT YOU OFF OF MY ISLAND ONCE AND FOR ALL, YOU UNDERSTAND?" Hiccup yelled, with Hookfang and Meatlug finally stepping in to fill the gap between Hiccup and Tuffnut to stop Hiccup from attacking Tuffnut anymore. Tuffnut simply laughed, and slowly stood up as his eye felt dry and painful as it swelled all around his skin.
"You've just made the biggest mistake of your cowardly life, you hear me?" Tuffnut said, looking down at the floor whilst keeping one hand onto his eye.
"YOU KNOW WH-" the door opened again behind Tuffnut, and the one that emerged from it was none other than Axel and his group of vikings who were sent to search the forests.
"Uh, what's goin on in here?" Axel said, as the rest of his group entered into the hall to see Tuffnut standing up with a black eye, and Hiccup himself being held back with mutliple dragons and Astrid.
"Look" Astrid said, "just wait for a minute guys" she said, referring to Axel, Gim and Jock. "Right, let Hiccup go" she finished, in which she was referring to Toothless, Barf and Belch and Stormfly.
They all released Hiccup from their grasp as the chief calmed down somewhat, still looking at Tuffnut with a fist looking like it's still in punching mode.
"Well uh...we went to dat area you said, and uh...why is she crying?" Axel said, referring to Ruffnut besides her brother. Barf and Belch quickly walked across the hall to stand besides Ruffnut, the two of them placed both their heads in hands reach of Ruffnut, comforting her as the chaos that just spilled within the hall had calmed down to a point.
"Never mind that, what did you want to say?" she asked Axel.
Hiccup and Astrid had completely forgotten about the forest search changes, and although Hiccup was calming down, he was still pretty raged, which was completely out of character for somebody who's usually awkward. Snotlout was battling his insides to stop himself from revealing that all along, he knew of Morgan's true fate. Hiccup breathed heavily as Toothless rubbed his head and purred with Hiccup, calming him down with cuteness and in general with the close friendship they have. Stormfly was stood behind Astrid after holding Hiccup back. Snotlout was trying to combat the temptations after what happened, he felt like what just happened in the hall was all his doing for not spilling the beans with Hiccup earlier. Tuffnut was making his way for the door, vowing to get revenge on Hiccup for doing this to him, whatever it may take. Ruffnut stayed with her dragon, and despite the fact that Tuffnut is her brother, she simply couldn't look up to him as just that anymore, due to what he's done to her after this turn, after everything he's done to Morgan, and everything he's said that he'll be doing in the future. Fishlegs was sitting in the corner, pledging for peace amongst the hall.
"H-He's not dead..." Axel said in a cracking manner...
Somebody eventually wouldn't be able to keep their anger in, and it was Hiccup who unleashed his anger into Tuffnut for everything the former-friend has done; from threatening Berk, from killing Morgan, or that's what everyone thinks, from acting like a jerk in general and (something unknown to everyone else) threatening his own sister, Hiccup has officially given Tuffnut the command to just leave Berk for his actions. A fight nearly broke out between them, but luckily, the dragons and all the vikings were there to put an end to the chances of that. The one aspect of the search that Hiccup and Astrid completely forgot about has turned out to bring in an actual result, something unexpected...the biggest twist might of finally been revealed. Morgan is NOT dead after all, but that's incredibly vague. Now that the truth is out, where will this lead next? Tuffnut has OVERHEARD this, and is surely looking to question Axel about it after he was sure that he killed Morgan. The fire is heating up, but things are now taking a twist. Will the plot behind Morgan's disappearance be revealed?