Chapter 38

The Great Hall was a mess, there were claw marks all over the tables, the pillars and the tapestries were shredded. None of this sat right with me, we were up all night and every dragon was asleep with every pass we made through the village. But Fishlegs wasn't helping things when my Dad asked who could've done it.

"Looks like a dragon to me." He said not realizing he was making it worse.

"We don't know for sure, Fishlegs." I said hoping he'd take a hint.

"Sure we do, look at these claw marks, it was obviously a Monstrous Nightmare. That spacing of the talons is dead on." He said apparently not getting it.

"Once again, thank you Fishlegs." I said feeling very annoyed and worried and Snotlout didn't help in the least once he showed that he obviously had something to tell us. "Okay, what happened Snotlout?" I asked getting a really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"While I was detaining a suspect, who wasn't showing sufficient respect to the sash…"

"I think I show sufficient to a sash that says, DUMB." Gobber said pointing at him.

"We gotta change that name." Astrid sighed.

"Anyways, as I was questioning said suspect, Hookfang may have, and I'm not saying he did, but it is possible he wandered off for a few…"

"Seconds?" Ruff pleaded.

"Minutes?" Tuff pleaded back.

They were clearly as worried about this situation as the rest of us and hoped for just a little good news. No such luck.

"Hours." Came Snotlout's answer.

We all groaned knowing that this didn't look good to begin with and now with Snotlout's story, it only made things worse. And it only got all the more worse when Mildew came in.

"Oh no, it's true, the Great Hall. So many memories, my three weddings, their three funerals. Oh the funerals." He said getting that look on his face that said he enjoyed the funerals more than the weddings. But he was Mildew, that's kind of what you could expect from him.

But I had other things to worry about, like how was I supposed to defend the dragons' innocence when all the damage points to Hookfang.

"A dragon must have gone a rampage. I hate to say it Stoick but you're gonna have to…" Gobber said turning to us.

"I know what has to be done Gobber." My Dad finished.

"So do I." Mildew jumped in.

My Dad turned to me. "Starting tonight and every night, I want all the dragons out in the academy under lock and key." He instructed me and I knew he was talking about Toothless too.

"This just doesn't make any sense. A dragon wouldn't come in here and just destroy the place, I mean, none of the food was even touched." I argued, but I could already tell there was no changing his mind.

H and the others left leaving me and the other riders feeling defeated and hurt, me most of all. Now Toothless was going to have to stay locked up with the other dragons as if nothing we did changed anything. When I told him about it, he could tell I was no happier about it than he was, but there was nothing we could do until we could prove that the dragons were innocent.

"I'm so sorry love, I failed you, I know I did. I won't even ask for you to forgive me, I don't deserve it." I said looking away from too ashamed to look at him.

"It's not your fault, you did everything you could and I'm proud of you for that. We just have to work harder to prove that my people didn't do anything wrong." He said lifting my head to face him with his tail. "We'll get through this my love, I know we will. We always do." He said wrapping his wing around me.

That evening, I rode Toothless to the academy. Normally, we would have been excited to get started on training, but tonight we were not training, we locking the dragons up like nothing changed since the war. Once everyone was at the academy, every one worked getting their dragons settled down for the night. There was a lot of finger pointing and blame going around about whose fault it was, but I didn't think that there was any one in our group to blame. Someone wanted the dragons to take all the blame and make me look like I can't keep them under control.

"I don't think a dragon wrecked the Great Hall, or stole the boots." I said speaking what was on my mind.

"None of us wants to believe it either Hiccup, but you saw the proof." Astrid said.

"What proof? You saw the footprints too, they were supposed to be made by a Zippleback, but they were no deeper than mine. Look at these, I could lie down in them." I argued gesturing to a print in front of me.

Everyone wasn't exactly being supportive.

"Okay well, how do explain the Great Hall?" Astrid asked quizzically.

As if on cue, Hookfang began throwing a temper-tantrum. "Snotlout do something about him please. We're trying to think over here." I sighed. "Snotlout." I sighed again.

"I'm not the boss of him. He always does that when he gets angry." He said matter of factly.

Then it hit. "…or goes on a rampage," I whispered in thought. "That's how I can explain the Great Hall!" I exclaimed jumping into the saddle. "I've got to talk to my Dad about this." I said flying out of the academy.