RECAP: The search ultimately came to it's demise as nothing was turned up, or that's what Hiccup and everybody else thought. Forgetting that he and Astrid had sent out a group of stoick-like vikings to the forest as a replacement for Snotlout, who was originally pencilled in to search there by himself, Hiccup wouldn't expect that THAT would be the one to bring in Morgan, well, see him at least. As Morgan did all he could to escape the large trio from the cove, he came to the solution to just swim away to a lone island in the middle of the water, essentially stranding himself.
Tuffnut walked up from behind Axel to stand besides him, ba curious as to what he just said. Axel noticed him, and took a few steps to the left, uncertain about whether or not he should be even talking to Tuffnut.
"What'd you say?" Tuffnut asked, as his black eye glared into the eyes of Axel with it's shiny surface.
"Well er...hol' dup a second, am I allowed to be talkin to ya?" Axel asked, pointing his large finger at Tuffnut whilst looking at Hiccup and Astrid.
Astrid looked at Tuffnut as she walked up towards Axel, and as she did, there were growling noises to be heard amongst the hall from the dragons. They knew what Tuffnut really was, but it was Stormfly who was growling the loudest, seeing him close up to her viking.
"He shouldn't even be breathing his oxygen in here, let alone talk" Astrid said, pointing to the door behind Tuffnut. "Tuff, I think you know what's best for us right now, so get gone, will you? nobody really want's to see your face anymore" she added, once again pointing to the door.
Tuffnut was about to walk up to Astrid, but the second he took one foot ahead of his original position, the growls intensified and Stormfly walked over to Astrid's side. This caused him to back off and look around to the dragons.
"Okay, okay.." he said, in a lighter, sarcastic tone, "but can't you blame this on my sis for telling me to come inside here? not that I wanted to come but haha, hey, I've gotta celebrate what I had to do, right?" he said, laughing.
After he laughed, his expression underwent a more serious makeover.
"I swear, what I'm about to do is something to DIE for, haha" he once again laughed, breaking the serious expression he had just now, turning his back to the entire hall as he made his way to the door. He stopped right in front of it to look at Ruffnut, who was still standing besides Barf and Belch.
"You comin, sis?" he asked, as if everything was completely normal, turning his head to her.
"I don't think Ruff even want's to be around you anymore, just get outta here already, jesus" Astrid said, firmly gripping her dominance in the brief deliveries of conversation.
Tuffnut turned back around to the front of the hall where Hiccup was standing with Toothless, and Astrid standing besides Stormfly. The other dragons like Meatlug and Hookfang weren't with their vikings and instead, were scattered amongst the hall once again after they stood between Tuffnut and Hiccup as Hiccup tried to get some attacks on after delivering the punch.
"Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, brings my relatives into the equation, Astrid. You'll find that out soon enough, all of you..." Tuffnut said, slowly sliding his finger across the hall to everybody, including the dragons.
He even kept the finger pointing when it went across the large-viking searchers like Axel, Gim and Jock. They had no idea what this was all about, so they took it with a grain of salt.
"Especially you" Tuffnut added, firmly pointing to Hiccup as he stood with Toothless after the chief heard Axel's declarative about Morgan not being dead.
Hiccup had calmed down, and was breathing more steadier than three minutes ago. Tuffnut slowly opened the door and walked through it; there, he laughed within his breath as he managed to collect a crucial piece of his blue print for what he plans on doing not the day after tomorrow, but at this point, ANY time today or before the five days is up. He closed the door and stepped to the outside, not walking away, but standing right onto the hall door to get his ear onto it to hear everything that'll be thrown around everyone's mouth from the inside of the hall.
"Wots up with him?" Axel asked, scratching his own ear.
Astrid sighed, looking across the hall at everybody, "he just has to go, that's about it really," she said, as she was about to refer back to the statement Axel made.
"What do you mean he isn't dead? are you sure?" she asked, with Toothless and Hiccup's eyes brightened up after initially not hearing Axel's statement about Morgan potentially being alive, and hearing it being mentioned by Astrid just now.
"Well, er, dis kid is quite dah fasty one, isn't he? he was using dis stick and uh...christ, he was busy...drawing lines and that, but den once we tried to get him, he just er...ran off into dah woods, we lost track of him and uh...yah..." Axel said, struggling to explain the events that came about.
Hiccup walked besides Astrid, feeling a slight dip of hyperactive thoughts after Axel's claim.
"You...you actually saw him? where?" Hiccup asked, unaware that Axel had already explained at that point.
"He just said, Hiccup" Astrid said, turning to face him, "they're saying that he uh...he ran away didn't you say?" she asked, with Axel nodding slowly, "and he had a stick to draw lines? I mean, come on Hiccup, it's bound to be him since, to me personally," she pointed at her chest, "I find him an odd one, and drawing lines within the mud is certainly an odd thing to do, something you wouldn't even do, haha" she finished.
Hiccup thought about it for a second, but then wondered how and why he was actually in the forest drawing lines in the first place. Of course, the first part of his curiosity was more important than the one that involved drawing lines, so Hiccup looked at Axel as he prepared to ask him something in relation.
"Was it really him though? how did he get to the forest if it was? he couldn't of swam all that way, surely? uhh, wah?" he said, sounding confused but hopeful.
Toothless raised his neck up so his head was high above the floor as his ears raised up in a realisation to what was just described right now. Somehow, he knew Morgan wasn't dead, but just couldn't follow through with it, so his mind was playing up. It was a guarantee that his senses would start coming back at a more frequent rate at this point though, due to Axel himself saying that he wasn't dead. The biggest problem of all though, was that on Axel's side, he knew that he was stating the truth, yet Hiccup, Fishlegs, Astrid, and Ruffnut as well as the dragons in the hall currently didn't know whether or not that it was the truth. The only exception from this was Snotlout, who was trying extremely hard not to give in into his feelings and confess that he knew Morgan was alive, and how he got to the forest. Snotlout and Gustav formed a 'team' if you will, to safely hide Morgan from the eyes and ears of everyone, with them being close friends and all. It was an unpredictable outcome from Hiccup though, if Snotlout was to truly confess.
"I mean...did a dragon take him?" Astrid asked, as she turned her head to Hiccup, but then consecutively to Axel.
"It coulda been one of des here dragons, possibleh?" Axel said, with the rest of his group still shrugging their shoulders out of uncertainty.
The third group was most likely on their way back, because Axel's group and this other group of three came back to the village after they both agreed that they couldn't be bothered waiting for the third one.
"I mean uh, I wouldn't think Toothless would do this without informing me?" Hiccup said, looking at the Night Fury behind him. Toothless nodded his head left and right as a no sign, with Hiccup looking back at Axel afterwards. "There you go, it'd be unusual if he did it because he'd always let me know on anything, so yeah, uh...what about you Astrid?" he added, facing Astrid.
"Pfft, don't look at Stormfly, you wanna remember what happened that day when she sent Morgan into the air?" Astrid laughed, looking at Stormfly and then back to Hiccup.
Stormfly looked down after Astrid made the comment, looking somewhat guilty-like as her yellow eyeballs and black pupils looked down at the floor as her head lowered.
"Uhh...OH, Fishlegs?" Hiccup said, looking to the corner of the hall, seeing Fishlegs sat there.
The second he heard his name called, Fishlegs rushed up to his feet in a panicked state, "W-WHAT?WHO?UHH,GOT IT?" he rushed, with everyone laughing at his response across the hall.
"Calm down, Fishlegs, do you know if Meatlug's been away for so-"
"Hiccup, stop right there..." Snotlout said, unable to contain his inside feelings any longer.
He stood up from the seat and looked straight ahead at Hiccup as Hookfang and the other dragons placed their attention on him. Axel and the guys also turned to face him.
"Oh so uh, I got up for nothing then? haha?" Fishlegs said, in a silent atmosphere, creating an awkward gust of breeze. Nobody responded as his face turned to a strawberry red.
Everybody turned their heads back around to Snotlout. "Go on Snotlout?" Hiccup said, turning his entire body to his direction.
"Ahem.." he said, rubbing his hand against his mouth.
He rubbed his helmet afterwards, hesitating to open his mouth. His hand then reached down to his dark-brown hair at the sides of his head, rubbing them briefly.
"It goes something like this, ahah...uh...friend takes air, finds target, grabs em up and takes em over there.." he said in a nonsense fashion, smirking and turning his eyes rapidly across the hall.
All that came out of it was a variety of confused faces, one in which made out Snotlout being an absolute weirdo. The rhyming part made him laugh, but he couldn't beat around the bush any longer. He wiped the smirk off his face and looked straight before bursting out into another laugh once the realisation hit him that the rhythm in his hint wasn't intentional. Snotlout laughed out loud, placing his hands onto his knees and looking down at the floor.
"Oh come on Snotlout, you said you had something to say, so SAY it?" Hiccup said, in a regular tone.
"Right right, Okay, so uh, to put it simply to you..." Snotlout said, not feeling as pressured after making himself laugh, "I've known about Morgan's uh...what do you wanna call it? state from day one of this entire search, wanna know why I took that rope, Astrid? it was because I took it to where Morgan was at, the forest, to give him the training you were intending on giving him on climbing. And uh, I had a friend of mine help me out, and he was the one who took Morgan to the forest. Make a guess, Larson. So there, I knew all along, Gustav knew all along, because we wanted to hide him so Tuff back there thought he was dead, which would provide Morgan with an advantage over him when they uh...go to duel I guess? because Tuff would have thought Morgan's dead and as a result, wouldn't need to train, whereas Morgan was secretly still alive and I at one point went over there to tr-"
"Woah woah .WOAAAAAH.." Hiccup said, moving away from Astrid closer to Snotlout.
The atmosphere just got a lot more intense.
"So...you've seen him whilst we've been wasting our time here busting our butts off trying to find him, and what? for NOTHING? what gives, Snotlout? are you gonna be like Tuff now?" Hiccup asked, clearly looking furious as well as Astrid and everyone else.
"No, not at all Hiccup, but you s-" Hiccup placed a palm upwards facing Snotlout, stopping his speech.
"So you're meaning to tell me...all of our dragons here, spent the entirety of the day looking for Morgan, including yesterday, yet you STILL didn't tell us when we were at the docks? and since when did Gustav arrive? I thought he was at the edge?" Hiccup said, not giving Snotlout a single chance to respond.
"Hiccup, he'-" Snotlout said, once again trying to respond.
"Enough, jesus Snotlout, I thought you were higher than that? Astrid, just take care of him, I can't bare a second of this anymore.." Hiccup said, rushing out towards the door as his footsteps climbed to a higher volume on every step.
He walked past Axel and his group to get to the door. Astrid looked at Snotlout disgustingly, before following Hiccup outside.
"What on earth are you doing?" she said to Snotlout, subsequently rushing over to Hiccup.
As they approached the door, everyone else in the hall, including all the dragons AND Hookfang, his OWN dragon, stared at him like he was crazy. Axel and his group were still not informed on what was actually going on, as in the backstory of this mess that just occured in the hall, so they looked normal and started talking amongst themselves.
Tuffnut heard the footsteps approaching after sticking his ear on the door for the duration of the inside conversation, and was quick to run out of the way to a spot where he couldn't be seen yet could still hear what was happening. He rushed over to the left side of the outside of the hall to hide himself away from the sights of everyone. He heard a slam on the door as it was opened quickly, also hearing footsteps amongst the path leading to the door from the outside. He leaned in closer, listening in on what was going to be said.
"Astrid, can you believe this?" Hiccup said, pacing up and down at the front of the hall.
"All this time, he's known? what kind of person is he? since when was Gustav ever apart of this?" he said, gradually increasing his volume in his voice.
Astrid replied to Hiccup, "I know, Hiccup, what Snotlout's done is a truly dumb thing, making us waste the time of our dragons and ourselves, you know, I took Stormfly for a super long journey...and plus, Snotlout took that rope without letting me know, and he's secretly been training him? honestly, I knew Snotlout was dodgy, but he's ten times as dodgy as he once was, I'm telling ya" she laughed.
Snotlout slowly sneaked out of the doors to confront Hiccup and Astrid, wanting to reassure them.
"Listen guys," he said, as Astrid turned around to face him as Hiccup was in shock, looking to the ground with his hands over his face.
"He's in the forest RIGHT NOW, we can get him and then this can all end? I'm really sorry, and on Gustav's behalf, I-I'm also sorry?" he said, rushing his words.
"On-On his behalf?" Hiccup said, turning around to face Snotlout from looking at the ground, "Gustav's dragon may have took him to that forest, Snotlout, as you've implied, but don't pit him into this, you're the one who's kept it hidden this ENTIRE time, why man? just why? I've been stressing and stressing and cracking stone after stone, just for you to tell us that you've been lying?" Hiccup said, before turning back to Astrid.
"Astrid, you go and tell those lot to find him, If anybody in there has a slight caring in their hearts, they'll go and see for themselves if Morgan's there at that place, and if not, then Snotlout would have lied to us for a second time, and for the record, Snotlout, if Morgan is truly alive and is found when somebody eventually goes to the forest to find him, maybe I'll forget about it, but this...this has really hurt me, and I hope you feel ashamed, man, oh, hang on a second" Hiccup said, giving into the temptation to just tell them all himself to check the forests for Morgan.
He opened the door and popped his head inside the hall, with everyone and the dragons turning their attention to him as Snotlout and Astrid stood outside, "IF ANYONE HERE CAN, GO AND SEE IF MORGAN'S THERE, BRING HIM BACK, WE CAN'T LET HIM DIE NOW IF HE'S TRULY ALIVE" he said, closing the door instantly.
Hiccup turned back around and briefly looked at Snotlout to give him a disgusting look before rushing away from the hall building in a speedy walk, having enough of everything around him.
Astrid quickly turned around to Snotlout, "It's probably best for you to just get outta here for now, go on," she said, once again following Hiccup as they both sped through the village, with the former-ground searcher vikings resuming their past positions, with some doing fishing and some carrying stuff around.
They all locked their eyes onto Astrid and Hiccup as they passed, wondering what the entire commotion was about. Snotlout looked on hopelessly, like a small fish in a big pond, before deciding to walk back into the hall. As he did, everyone, including the dragons, were leaving past him. It looked like Axel and his group were staying, though. Fishlegs, Ruffnut, and Toothless as well as the dragons amongst the two vikings inside were leaving. Hookfang hesitated as he approached the door though, looking on at his viking.
"Please help me, I'm lost on what to do, pal.." Snotlout said to Hookfang, in which the dragon simply found it hard to express his emotions.
This was the first time Hookfang had genuinely felt shocked at what Snotlout's actions consisted of, which is really odd for a dragon who's typically dis-obedient.
"Hookfang?" he said, as the dragon walked past Snotlout gently towards the door.
The last remaining dragon had finally left, leaving Snotlout stranded in side the hall, with nobody on his side after confessing. The door shut, leaving Snotlout in a mostly-silent, cold and depressing atmosphere. His eyes were generating tears as he took off his helmet. His lips were shaking in sadness, feeling bad for keeping all of this concealed until the worst possible time. He simply sat on the table to look down at the floor like a statue. Axel, feeling pity for Snotlout, walked over to him as did his group.
"Dis'll all get cleared up, I promise ya" he said to Snotlout, who looked up.
"Nah, it won't, trust me, I've lied and lied and now I'm more of a coward than I've ever called Hiccup, this is a mess I've gotten myself into..." Snotlout replied, with Axel looking at Jock and Gim as they all were uncertain about what to do.
Hookfang and Stormfly all took off into the air, being without their vikings and whatnot. Hookfang had guilt inside him, but the Monstrous Nightmare for once realised that his viking managed to do something so bad that it'd effect the progress of something. Meatlug was the only one to go last, with Fishlegs hugging her before she fully took off to join the other two. Fishlegs walked away afterwards, feeling upset at the possibility of the closest friend he had to be possibly dead. Toothless, meanwhile, looked up at the sky. The Night Fury wasn't going to leave this unchecked, especially after everything he and Hiccup went through. His senses were pointing to the forests this entire time, but as said before, he just couldn't follow through with it. Now, there's a foundation for the Night Fury to put everything back in order to clear up this mess and to ultimately get rid of Tuffnut. Toothless ran before taking off into the air, spreading his wings out wide as his blackness had shown in the sky. The Night Fury was heading for the forest to see for himself if Morgan was there. He let off a roar as he took off into the air at a speedy rate, feeling hopeful that Morgan is there.
Tuffnut looked from the side of the hall to see nobody in his presence, unaware that Snotlout and Axel, Gim and Jock as well as the other group are still inside.
"How interesting...giving me THIS" he said, pointing to his black eye, "is one thing, but nobody brings my sis into this...poor Snotlout, awwww, hahahahah" he laughed, "looks like my work isn't done, and with the forest in occupation, I ought to get my work up to 100% completion, hahahah" Tuffnut said, finally walking from the edge towards his hut. He just dropped a massive hint on what he could potentially do TODAY or tomorrow, which is horrifying.
Bad bad mistake, Snotlout. Some things are best never told, yet Snotlout just confessed that all this time, he's known of Morgan's status. Axel had revealed that he had seen Morgan in his search today, but Snotlout kept it all hidden; he took a rope to train Morgan with, which he didn't confess to until now, and now nobody is willing to work by his side for lying to everyone. Snotlout is no Tuffnut, nobody is, but Tuffnut now has the advantage this time, whereas everyone thought Morgan would have the advantage. Can Snotlout claim forgiveness? What does Tuffnut mean by 'What I'm about to do'? Will Toothless see the truth before him when he sets off into the forest?