"I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another." Erich Maria Remarque in All Quiet On The Western Front
The crying boy did not know where he would go after he left his father crying. But then he remembered the dragon his father had told him about: Toothless.
He has to find the dragon. Maybe with his help he will end the war. But the main reason was that he trusted the animal more than humans.
He never wanted to see his father again. His father killed his mother, he didn't even know his deceased mother.
The boy didn't know where he was going now, but he believed he would find Toothless.
Although his father broke his childish view of the world, he did not take away his faith in hope.
Everything must have an end. And happy endings exist.
But the boy began to struggle with where to get something to eat or drink. He was literally alone in the middle of the war, without any parental care.
He did not know what had happened to the dragon, or whether it was still in the holding of the Empire, but he hoped and believed he would find it.
The boy sighed. Whenever he remembered his dad, he wanted to cry. His father killed his mom. A mother he didn't even know and didn't tell her much about. How could he know if his mother loved him and if she was the same as his father?
The boy missed his deceased mother. He was alone, he was cold and he himself did not know where he was going, because he had absolutely no idea where to find the animal.
The boy missed his mother, but there was still hope in him. He hated his father and hated him. He does not deserve any forgiveness for what he has done.
But the boy was relieved to come across a functioning village. He was thirsty and hungry and needed to warm up again.
The village functioned despite the cruel period that now existed.
There was something special about Jensen being here. When he was small, they did not take him and his classmates much outside the territory of the base and the execution site, which was destroyed eight years ago during the suppressed uprising.
They led him to all sorts of madness, but what kept the boy cool was the stories of the heroic dragon riders protecting the land from the dangers his nanny had secretly told him when he was little. That's why he wanted to become a dragon rider in the army when he will grew up, because they were his child heroes and even though the stories about them contradicted the law.
The boy studied the village as he walked. People here behaved as if there was no war and continued their lives.
Jensen didn't get much attention. He took advantage of this and went to use his agility that he discovered he has at school.
He stole twist from one of the bakers, Viking artisans who, like farmers and butchers, were focused on food production.
Sitting contentedly at one of the cottages, he ate. He had forgotten about his hated father now.
"What are you doing here?"
Jensen froze when he heard the voice of a girl two years younger playing with other children.
"Just eat."
"And where are your parents?" She then asked.
"I'm alone and I hate Dad. I ran away from him."
"Sad," the girl replied "my Mom and Dad wouldn't let me live such a life."
"What kind of work do your parents have?" Jensen asked curiously.
"Dad is a carpenter, Mom is at home with me."
"You have it better than me. They wanted to make me a soldier from childhood."
"Your parents?"
"It's so tangled. Have you heard of those children who have been raised like this since we were little?"
"Dad was a soldier before I was born. He allegedly fought in the terrible war that was eight years ago, which the adults still talk about. Anyway, Dad refuses me to be a warrior one day."
"Too bad I would like to be a dragon rider."
"Did they also tell you and scare you with what allegedly happened then?"
"Like what?" Jensen asked and bit into the pastry.
"People are said to be dying of hunger, they have been killed and they are still the ones who rule over us all, many dads died in the war and many children became orphans. Every time I complain at a meal that I'm fed up, Dad immediately talks about the war, how little it was, and why I should eat it all."
Jensen stood up. He just finished eating.
"Where are you going? Didn't we even meet?" 6 years old girl asked confused as she seen that 8 year old boy is leaving.
"My name is Jensen and I'm looking for a dragon. And I ran away from the school where they wanted to make me a soldier."
"My name is Krystallyn. Too bad you're leaving, I thought I had an older friend."
"However, the friend will be found." Jensen said smiling "Unfortunately I can't play but when I come back I'll be happy to play with you with a wooden sword or maybe hide and seek."
This is how the eight-year-old boy's journey progressed. During his several-day trip, he obtained a notebook and a pencil. He listened intently to the adults. Both ordinary people and warriors to whom he survived, as well as veterans of the previous war. He hoped to find out where Toothless is.
But while he was optimistic with a child's view of the world on the way to find a lost night fury, his father had not it as so optimistic as he had it.
Hiccup began to sink again as he struggled to find his fugitive son back to memories of the previous war. Thus, the war only revived his suppressed trauma, but this time it had different effects on him.
Whenever he was close to a fight, instead of becoming a weeping knot of misfortune, he began to behave like a wild animal.
He found out when he accidentally found himself on the battlefield between the rebels and the army in an attempt to find Jensen, and as a result he forcibly killed 3 men only after hearing the sounds of fireballs spitting by domesticated dragons causing an explosion when they hit the ground.
When he was 18, he was still dealing with violence, at the age of twenty, it was clear that what he experienced at eighteen had to sign up on him because he had anti-war stances. And then, two years later, the real trauma came.
Yes, the first year of work was hard, the second year only increased and so he was stressed. It never occurred to him then that he would like to return it all.
If they hadn't brainwashed him, he'd probably have committed suicide because he wouldn't be able to get over all, with the trauma and knowledge that he had failed to live in everything despite thst he had a wife and was suppossed to be a Daddy soon.
Now he was once again wandering in a war-torn wasteland, but in an effort to find his offspring.
Where could only Jensen wander? After all, he himself did not know where his son had escaped and is now heading.
He once came across a ruined village during his journey to find a boy. Out of curiosity, he decided to search it. He tried not to ignore the massacre here, because it evoked in him the memories he hated so much.
He found several supplies that he took with him. Depending on what it looked like, part of the population survived and fled the village.
He felt quite uncomfortable here. What if his home ended like this and that was why he came across his former teacher in the lazareth?
But then he stopped when he came across a written letter which apparently one of the inhabitants did not manage to finish before he was killed.
He felt uncomfortable again as he began to tell the story of the deceased man. A man who didn't even have time to finish the letter.
It was written there:
Honey, I'll write to you again soon. The state army wants to recruit me, and people have revolted here. You did well to run away with the children, because blood is already flowing here and I see my friends dying right in front of my eyes. Have you heard that those bastards from that damn so-called internal security, or whatever it's called, it wouldn't even invent Loki himself, they have a new boss? There is literally a declared witch hunt on him. If caught, he should be executed immediately for being traitor. I don't even know what to think anymore, I'm not even surprised that Drago executes his subordinates when they do something. He hasn't wanted to be called the King for a long time, now there's a new term in the course of how the fucking lunatic wants to be addressed. Leader or dictator. Did you read it? Yes, a dictator. I don't know where he came up with the word, but I think it means he dictates to everyone. Love, love, it's coming here, I don't know if you'll see my lines, I'll probably die now, my friends, my friends ... our whole gang is dead, they killed them like hunted animals, I want to tell you, this is the worst war ever in this territory, yes, this war gives hope that there will be prosperity, freedom and peace again, but people have been poor since the last war, many of them have died, it is not allowed to leave the country without inspection and permission .. battlefields are even worse since what people domesticated dragons .. this is no longer the viking fight that I experienced as a boy at a time when people had to defend themselves against these animals .. now they can easily burn you alive with them, destroy your lungs with their gas, fry you with electricity .. love, love, I wish the animals went back to where they came from and never returned to humans ... And the madman still calls them our superior species! They are approaching me, I have to finish, I love you and our daughters.
Hiccup realized that tears were flowing from his eyes as he finished reading the letter. He knew very well how the dead man felt. But then he heard a lizard whining. He immediately wiped away his tears and turned around the room.
At the body of the slain lay a domesticated terrible terror. The animal, apparently trained for postal delivery, lay beside its dead owner's body, whining.
Hiccup decided to pull out one raw fish he had found here at the supply and tried to get closer to the frightened animal.
The lone individual was even more frightened when he saw him, and the animal did not even try to spit fire on him. It hissed and hid in a hole in the wall.
Hiccup reached out with the fish and slowly began to show the fish to the animal.
"Don't be scared from me buddy, I have fresh salmon for you, I won't hurt you."
Dragon looked at him frightened at first. The animal showed signs of trauma and for Hiccup it was proof that not only humans are traumatized from the war, but both, domesticated dragons and not domesticated dragons as well.
The animal whimpered once more at the sight of it before squeezing the food.
"Don't be afraid of me, I'm not one of those who killed yours owner."
The little dragon finally decided to climb out of his hiding place. The animal was slowly approaching the thirty-year-old man, and the animal was still whining in places.
Eventually, he settled in with his discoverer and kept whining about the trauma and the loss of the owner, who was the little dragon's human best friend.
Hiccup laid the fish on the ground and sat down. The little dragon slowly began to eat, and Hiccup began stroking the pet to calm the frightened individual.
The animal eventually began to roar as it stroked, and Hiccup felt like he was a fifteen-year-old boy when he fed the little dragons after a test flight with Toothless. Just with the difference that now he was a thirty-year-old widowed man who was the father of 2 children, carrying trauma and burnout, without Toothless, and with the difference that there was only one terrible terror here and that the animal was as traumatized as he was.
"Would you like to bury your owner?" Hiccup asked the animal, but the small dragon only showed that he doesn't want to leave his owner's dead body.
The animal was purring like a cat in his presence, and Hiccup decided on a crazy idea at that moment.
"Should I send the letter to his wife and children?"
The terrible terror immediately looked at him.
"Don't they have a right to know what happened to him? I know it will hurt them, but at least you will be with them and you will not wait for death at your owner's body."
The dragon made no sound in response, he continued to hum.
Hiccup decided to write down his part to the letter so that the family would know what had happened and not wait unnecessarily in stress for the next letter. He started writing:
I'm sorry to write under your husband and dad's message. I am a man who wandered through this ravaged landscape and then came across your village. I was searching the supplies until I came across your house, this letter, and your dragon, which is as scared as I am. The village is ruined, there are dead, and I was looking for supplies for my own survival and the survival of my little son, whom I am now looking for in the middle of this slaughterhouse.
Hiccup continued with dejected feelings.
Your man .. your man .. they killed him. When I came here, I came across your terrible terror whining at his body. I am sorry and with this report I have decided to relieve you of the stress and fear of him. Let your husband rest in Vallhalla.
Hiccup wanted to cry after he had written the message in the same letter, but in the end he made a clear decision. He gave Dragon another fish and stroked it. Terrible terror wore a letter harness and Hiccup inserted the letter.
"I'll take you out and deliver the letter to your owner's family and stay with them."
Hiccup in the meantime, carried the little dragon out of the house in his arms and covered the animal's gaze so that it would not see the massacre. Eventually, he released the calmed dragon to fly out of the village. Terrible terror flew where he had.
"Perhaps nothing happened to Jensen.." Hiccup asked watching the terrible terror flying.
But eight-year-old Jensen had it very optimistic. And also that he was very close to finding the legendary night fury.
The boy finally learned from everything he heard that the dragon, which had served as a weapon for a few years, had finally escaped and was now roaming the Barbaric Archipelago and, of course, as an alpha, influencing the movement of dragons, including the course of the current war on both warring sides which had domesticated dragons.
The boy collected the necessary things so that he would not be attacked by the alpha, among them was a fish.
The journey eventually led him to a ruined, seemingly inconspicuous sanctuary, which could be an absolute paradise for people who experienced both wars, because there was the same even more exotic nature and fauna that was here in the Barbaric Archipelago before the fateful war eight years ago when Jensen was just born in the middle of that war.
For Jensen, it was a completely different environment than the one in which he grew up.
Birds sang here, there were also mammal species that kept the local ecosystem in balance, and dragons obviously lived with them as equals.
It was no war-torn wasteland. There were forests that used to be all over the Barbaric Archipelago before the terrible war that destroyed the country and made it a wasteland. Even more evolutionarily ahead.
But the truth was that the boy still scared me in places, even though the local nature had captivated his sight.
He had never seen anything like it in his life. Where were the grim and damaged forests he had seen on his journey with his father.
He was still a little scared of dragons, even though he wanted to work with the animals as an adult. They were still animals, he didn't know there had been wars with them before, so his fear was understandable.
Nature and animals evoked a desire for a better childhood. In a world like this where both his parents would raise him and play with him, and his mother would be alive.
The complete opposite of war-torn landscapes and industry- cutting off forrests. A meadow with forests like this place hidden in the middle of rocks where butterflies fly, the wind combs the grass, birds sing and dragons coexist with mammals.
Eventually he began to walk on the grass. There were several caves, and he still had his weapon with him from military training at school.
At first glance, there was peace. He saw a hare running around on the grass here.
Eventually he stepped higher. But he was startled when he heard the creaking sound of a lizard. A dragon flew over him.
The frightened boy tried to calm down, and continued walking.
The deeper he went, the more often he noticed dragons variously placed here. Apparently they had unpleasant memories of people, because Jensen could hear him growling and sweat running down his forehead due to fear.
He was now terribly scared that the animals would attack him and burn him in a second or tear him alive into a bloody pile of remains.
But then he heard a growl, and one of the dragons landed beside him with a terrible crunch and such force that it knocked the child to the ground.
The animal looked straight into his eyes and growled. The dragon wanted to kill a child, a human cub from the point of view of that animal..
But then Jensen turned his head when he heard a sound like something gaining hypersonic speed.
An adult dragon landed in front of him. A large adult night fury with green eyes like his father's and who is missing part of his tail. This dragon immediately shouted at the attacker on the child to drive him away.
The assailant flew away and Jensen stood up. He knew immediately who had saved him. It was Toothless!
He immediately hugged the animal, and Toothless himself looked a little confused when the boy hugged him.
"I was looking for you! I was looking for you! And I finally found you! Dad told me about you, they said you were like two brothers!"
He stopped hugging Toothless and threw him the fish he had gotten along the way.
"This is for you."
Night Fury looked at him and tried to suggest something to the child. Jensen didn't understand what Toothless was trying to say to him.
"You don't know what happened to Dad- your rider?" Jensen asked and Toothles growled.
"Dad worked for Drago, but I don't know why. I'm sure I have a little sister I don't know and that he killed my mom. That's why I ran away from him. He was the head of the internal security, he killed people, and now everyone is after him. But I want to forget about him. He killed my mom and I will never forgive him."
But Toothless eventually led him to the local river, took a stick in his mouth and began to draw in the mud. Jensen looked at the drawing.
There was a little man drawn to represent him in the middle of a sanctuary hidden in these rocks and a line that stretched from his figure back out.
"What? I have nothing to do here? Why don't you want to help me even though you already know what happened to Dad?"
Toothles only nodded and he began to show the scars he had all over his body.
In the end, he drew in the clay how they abused him as a weapon, tortured him when he did not want to do what they wanted, and how they carried out cruel experiments on it in an effort to turn even such a powerful dragon into a superweapon and a weapon of mass destruction.
Jensen swallowed.
"So this is why you are no longer interested in my father, despite you two knew each other 7 years and that why you do not want to be any longer be associated with people?"
Toothles nodded.
"And is it true that you are the last of your kind or do you just not want to find a female of your kind and have little dragons with her after all?"
Toothless drew a picture in clay that meant "I'd rather not say" and then drew something that meant "You better go boy now. I know you like it here, but since the last war, this closed community has decided to end all the contact with people and there's a good reason for that. It's like me, me and my fellows are just practically waiting for people to destroy each other, we don't belong in their wars, we're not like them."
Jensen felt literally dissapointed.
When he escaped from his father, did he needlessly seek rescue from his dragon, which eventually kicked him out, saying that he did not want to take part in the war and that the people here had nothing to do? The boy started crying.