Chapter 3: The parting of ways

Hiccup woke up with a dull shake, he had hardly slept at all. What the morning would bring was more than he could imagine, he had of course a plan. Hiccup was going to show everyone that dragons wasn't bad and that even the Monstrous Nightmare he was set to kill could be tamed.
It truly was a desperate plan, so many things could go wrong and Hiccup had never tried to resonate with any other dragon than Toothless and wasn't sure himself that it would be enough. Hiccup rose from his bed with a yawn and rubbed his eyes, he looked around his room in dazed sort of way. The gap in the woodwork told him it was daybreak. Hiccup yawned again and exited his house, the sky was stricken with blue and a cloud wasn't in sight for miles. He made towards the forge, the ceremony wasn't going to take place until some time, Hiccup figured he would spend the time busying himself with some work.

Hiccup arrived at the quiet forge and began to organize his usual work, he had gotten around to preparing his materials when he got to the forge. Now usually Hiccup would light the forge by hand, with either a tinderbox or using the bellows to rekindle some charcoal that hadn't died properly. Now however, Hiccup could shoot fire from his hands, but Hiccup hesitated. He peered around for anyone, but everything was eerie still and no one was in sight. His heart was beating very hard despite him not doing anything else but standing by himself in the familiar sooty forge. He reached forward and flexed his fingers towards the mouth of the forge, FIRE thought Hiccup in his mind, and this time a small steady jet of fire escaped his fingertips, but it still wasn't enough for a blazing fire.

Hiccup concentrated harder and strained his arms as if to shake his sleeves, and suddenly purly blue flames spewed like a storm out of his hands, within seconds the whole forge was bright with dancing flames. Hiccup drew back at the sudden heat and heard a familiar voice just behind say "Okay, now this is getting to much Hiccup..." and sure enough none other than Astrid Hofferson was standing at the window staring at Hiccup with wild disbelief. "O-oh ehm..." stammered Hiccup, he was going to tell Astrid at some point of course, she had proven trustworthy after all. But that had been whenever there wasn't the prospect of him being forced to kill a dragon was at his mind. "Y-You can firebend?" asked Astrid with reverence in her voice, Hiccup was accustomed to hearing sneering remarks or taunts that he felt slightly elated at the fact that he had slightly impressed Astrid, but curiosity egged him on. "Firebend? What is that?" asked Hiccup confused.

"That is what it's called whenever you can make fire out of nothing, Hiccup. Stories of people from the mainland tells us that they could control fire." explained Astrid.

"Bend fire? What do you mean Astrid?" asked Hiccup again. "I mean that they could use some sort of magical power to cause the elements to move or take different shapes. The elements, you know. Fire, Water, Earth and Wind." said Astrid now her voice was worried. "Oh Hiccup, why didn't you say you could firebend?" she asked sadly.

"I only found yesterday, I accidentally hit one of the rocks in that cove before dragon training and it flew across the cove and smashed into bits" said Hiccup in earnest. "and I also accidentally set myself on fire not long after, that's how I knew I could "Fire bent" or whatever you called it." He told her while she was frowning at him. "How do you know this anyway? I've never even heard of this before" said Hiccup looking at Astrid.

"Johann." said Astrid in a shrug. "He tells everyone his long winded stories whenever he comes around, and I also think he sold a scroll to Fishlegs couple of months back, and of course he couldn't shut up about it" said Astrid casually before turning suddenly worried again "We'll have to worry about this later though, the ceremony is within the hour, do you have a plan?" She looked worried and was it possible? Scared.

"I'm going to show them that dragons aren't dangerous and that we don't need to kill them" said Hiccup. "but how?" asked Astrid still worried. "I'm gonna show it I'm not a threat and hopefully it won't eat me, that's what I did to Toothless anyway" said Hiccup while busying himself with the bellows.

"Alright, I trust you." said Astrid, and before he knew it she had punched him again on the shoulder and said threateningly "You better make it, or else" before storming off towards the direction of the village center. As Hiccup watched her go and he thought privately that if he didn't managed to lose a limb or two then he would've gotten off lucky.

()

Time has a peculiar way of speeding up whenever we dread it, and for Hiccup the ceremony free hour went by like a breath of air, and when Gobber came lumbering down from the hill and said "Hiccup, it's time." Hiccup just nodded, and began walking solemnly towards the direction of the kill ring. Every step took a huge effort, and every person around him either congratulating him or encouraging him fell on deaf ears as Hiccup stiffly continued to walk towards the ring. As Hiccup reached the iron bolted gate that led into the ring he saw the collective numbers of the whole village gathered as spectators. Every elder, every man and every child was there to see the ceremony in which Hiccup was offered the 'honor' to kill the Monstrous Nightmare. Hiccup was led into the entrance of the ring by Gobber who said in a anxious voice "Ye stay here, until we call you out." before limping out of the gate and getting swallowed up by the crowd.

The crowd was making a tremendous amount of ruckus, from children running around causing trouble to men arguing about god only knows what. The ruckus became a loud cheer as a booming voice rang out over the clatter "Well, I can show my face public again!" said Stoick to roars of laughter of the crowd. He continued as the crowd fell silent "If someone had told me that in a few short weeks Hiccup would go from- well, uh, being Hiccup. To placing first in dragon training, well I'd tied him to a mast and shipped him off for fear he'd gone mad!" said Stoick and at this the crowd laughed again. Stoick went on.

"But, here we are. And no one is more surprised or more proud than I am. Today, my boy becomes a Viking. Today, he becomes one of us!" and the crowd cheered again, more loudly this time. Hiccup stood there sadly as the words hit him, how his father was so surprised that Hiccup could've done well in anything. That he had never been considered one of them until today, forced to kill an innocent animal. "Be careful with that dragon." said a voice behind him, he looked around and saw Astrid standing behind him. "It's not the dragon I'm worried about. I have to put an end to this, I have to try." said Hiccup solemnly and then he spoke the words he needed to say "Astrid, if something goes wrong, just make sure they don't find Toothless." said Hiccup in a weak voice.

"I will, just promise me it won't go wrong." said Astrid and before Hiccup could respond Gobber rounded the corner and said "It's time Hiccup, knock 'em dead." Hiccup walked in to the ring and took deep calming breaths, not unlike how a diver prepares for a deep plunge. All around the crowd was chanting his name. Hiccup clearly saw his father among the spectators, he stiffly continued to the wall of weaponry provided for him and took a shield and a small knife, much to the crowds wonder.

He took another deep breath and called out "I'm ready." A moment later and the gate began to vibrate as the locking mechanism was fiddling, the logs that held the gate was being undone. Hiccup waited with bated breath for the dragon to come out, and with a bang the door was slammed open. Out leaped a Monstrous Nightmare, it was covered from head to toe in flames. It was roaring and snapping it's great jaws, until quite suddenly it leapt at the side of the ring and began frantically climbing at the wall trying to find a way to escape. After several moments of frantic movement the Nightmare realized that it was trapped. The dragon peered at Hiccup with it's cat-like eyes and dropped to the floor with a loud thud. Several catcalls and encouraging cheers could be heard from the crowd.

The Nightmare began to stalk and fixed it's big cat-like eyes upon Hiccup. As it stalked closer and closer and Hiccup knew what to do, he dropped both his shield and knife like he did when he meet Toothless, and said soothingly "Hey, it's okay, it's okay." the Nightmare stopped his stalking and slowly became less aggressive, but still wary. Realizing that only one thing would persuade the nightmare to trust him, he took off his helmet and threw it to the ground.

"I'm not one of them." said Hiccup forcefully and now the Nightmare looked at Hiccup with wonder. It's eyes had gone from slits to round as dinner plates as it still approached Hiccup, the crowd gasped and murmured as they didn't understand to what was going on. "Stop the fight." said Stoick loudly, and with the silent crowd the words rang out like thunder. Hiccup didn't often stand up to his father but he said loudly "No! I need you all to see this. They are not what we think they are, we don't have to kill them." said Hiccup while still reaching out his hand.

Even more people was gasping and murmuring at this until Stoick raged "I SAID, STOP THE FIGHT" and slammed his hammer against the bars of the ring successfully denting the metal. The sound of metal denting seemed to aggravate the Nightmare who went from curiously relaxed to scared and dangerous within a second. It attacked Hiccup with a snarl and tried to bite his hand off, Hiccup screamed and began to run. Scolding heat told him that the Nightmare was trying to shoot fire at him.

Everything was chaos, the crowd was in uproar and Hiccup was trying to avoid the rampant Nightmare as much as he could. The dragon was livid, it spewed fire everywhere and tried desperately to get at Hiccup with both fire and claws as if he had been responsible for the loud noise. He was running flat out when he heard Astrids voice "HICCUP!" a dull thud told him that she had thrown something at the Monstrous Nightmare, it changed target at top speed and went after her instead.

Now she was running to avoid the heavy leaping bulk of the mad dragon. Hiccup saw someone forcing the entrance of the ring open, it was his father, "This way!" he yelled. Both Hiccup and Astrid made desperate bids for safety. On the account of being faster than Hiccup allowed Astrid to reach the entrance before Hiccup. Hiccup ran towards the two figures of his father and Astrid at the entrance but before he could reach safety of the sloping entrance, fire obstructed his way. He tried to run the opposite way to avoid it and within seconds he found himself pinned to the ground by three massive talons, the massive dragon stared him down and Hiccup knew that it would be the last thing he ever saw as the dragon was preparing for the exhale of fire.

However something momentarily distracted the dragon pinning Hiccup to the ground. That something was a loud noise, a familiar ear-splitting whizzling noise that rent the air. A second later and half of the ring was blasted open as something sped inside, with a shriek that something descended upon the ring.
Hiccup felt the claws pinning him leave him as the Monstrous Nightmare was thrown off. A thick smoke was left over the scene from the explosion and only loud screeching and the sound of two animals fighting was heard over the clamor.

Seconds passed in a haze as they two animals rolled into view, Toothless was biting and fighting off the Nightmare, and with an stupendous effort Toothless managed to throw the Nightmare off himself. Both roared ear-splitting roars at each other while Toothless moved in front of Hiccup better to shield him from attack. The Nightmare tried several times to reach Hiccup but was each time beaten back by Toothless. The Nightmare seemed to come to it's senses because it stopped trying to get at Hiccup and streaked off.

Hiccup got to his feet and ran up to Toothless with alarm in his voice "All right, Toothless, Go! Get out of here." All around the vikings were jumping down from the banisters and rushing into the ring. "Go! GO!" yelled Hiccup to Toothless, Hiccup spotted his father running towards them with an axe in his hands. "NO! Dad, he won't hurt you!" yelled Hiccup but Toothless was growling in defiance, he ran at the advancing vikings. Toothless sent people flying with both wing and tail. Stoick was ready to swing his axe at Toothless when Toothless leapt on top of him and pinned him to the ground. Unable to move Stoick just looked eyes with the great dragon. With a resigned look upon his face Toothless started to inhale as to shoot his fire at Stoick. Hiccup understood what was going on, he screamed in horror "NOOOO."

Toothless closed his mouth abruptly and looked at Hiccup while letting out a tiny warble. And before Hiccup could stop any of them had Toothless been tackled and pinned to the ground by four burly men. Stoick staggered to his feet and looked down at Toothless, "Finish the devil" he said to a unknown viking with hatred lined every wrinkle of his face.
"NO! Don't hurt him!" screamed Hiccup and tried to run forward but he was hindered by Astrids tight grip, some unknown viking took out his axe and began to raise it above his head. "DONT DO IT PLEASE" begged Hiccup with tears in his eyes, Hiccup looked at Toothless terrified face who was pressed hard against the stone.

As the man brought down the axe something extraordinary happened. Before he could connect upon Toothless he found himself being blasted away by sudden wind. The mans body twisted through the air before was he slammed hard against the stone wall behind him. Everyone in the vicinity was sent several meters back as the ring was filled with sudden wind like a tornado. The earth began to crack and the very air was fizzing with electricity from the clouds. Considering it had been quite a cloudless day before but now the whole sky was covered in angry thunder clouds.

Astrid had been holding onto Hiccup, trying to keep him safe when she felt him throw her off with unprecedented strength. Astrid watched in googled eyes as Hiccup was being picked up by the wind and began to float as the wind was carrying him up and up. His eyes was glowing pure white and he looked livid with anger. "Release him!" said Hiccup with an ethereal voice much unlike himself while looking down at the men below him, his voice seemed to seep into every corner of the ring. The vikings all around him was stunned, staring at the floating Hiccup. It didn't occur for them to refuse, the four vikings that held Toothless let go quickly and stepped back in fright. The sounds of thunder rent the air and it began to rain. The wind around them whistled madly as it overtook them with the arrival of the storm clouds.

The rest of the crowd stood rooted to the spot, they stared blankly at the still angry floating figure of Hiccup. Toothless got his feet with a toss of his great head and ruffled his wings angrily, he looked up at Hiccup too. Many eyes found Toothless and someone in the viking crowd called "But there is a dragon! Kill it!" The call was echoed all around by the crowd "Kill it!" and "Cut it's head off!". The calls seemed to jog everyone's mind, and they all started to draw their weapons and advanced towards Toothless. Before they could take more than a couple steps however they were stopped by something they had not expected. Fire appear out of nowhere and flung itself like a whip towards the advancing vikings, many leapt backwards and screamed in alarm. The fire reformed into a circle, it's boundaries licking the ground and causing red marks to appear all over.

Hiccup meanwhile was still floating in the air, his eyes had stopped glowing and he was floating slowly down towards the ground that was being currently encircled by bright hot flames. In the circle was Toothless, Stoick and a frightened looking Astrid. He landed softly and ran to Toothless, leaping on top of the saddle, he clicked his foot into the pedal and turned to the both of them. "I'm sorry..." said Hiccup in a pained voice. Astrid leapt forward and tried to mount Toothless as well but Hiccup said quickly "I'm sorry Astrid, you're needed here. I've chosen my path and it's time you choose yours." and without another word he urged Toothless into the lightning filled sky. Hiccup caught the look on his father before leaping into the air, he saw Stoick's stunned and angry face before steering Toothless towards the hole he had made in the metal netting earlier. They swept out of the ring with a great flurry of wings from Toothless.

But before they reached more than a hundred meters into the sky however, a bellow could be heard from the ground, which was undoubtedly his fathers. None but Stoick the Vast had such a carrying voice. "YOU'VE THROWN YOUR LOT IN WITH THEM! YOU ARE NOT ONE OF US! YOU ARE NOT MY SON! " Stoick bellowed over the crackling of the lightning filled sky and the sudden whizzing wind. Hiccup had tears in his eyes, which had nothing to do with the sudden rain. It was over, he was never coming back.

()

Stoick had been so happy, finally his son had grown out of his shell. Hiccup had finally showed that sort of aptitude in which Stoick had been dreaming about for almost a decade, for him to stop this mad inventing habit and start showing some prowess at the viking way. But now, it was all in ruins. His only son was disappearing out of his life, hauntingly like how he had lost his wife. Stoick watched as the figures of Hiccup and his dragon going from quite large in life to a speck on the horizon. Stoick stood rooted to the spot, fixed on to the horizon that had held the last figure of his last family member. For a moment that felt like several days he wrenched his gaze from the horizon and saw that everyone around was looking at him. Many of them held frightened looks and some looked dumbfounded, this was not what they had been expecting at all.

"What do we do now chief?" called someone from the crowd. Stoick ignored him and exited the ring with a flourish of his bear skin cloak. He was dazed, he had just banished his only son. But a righteous anger swelled over him, it had been the dragons all over again. They had taken his wife, and now they had led his son astray. Stoick would wipe them all out if it was his very last conscious act, and with his new found anger he slammed the door to his house with a resounding bang.

Several sunless days followed, which seemed to taunt Stoick's mood like a thin metal poker, it seemed to remind him in every step that he had just banished his only remaining family member to him, his only son. Stoick went on with business like any other day, and no one mentioned Hiccups name in his company for a long time. But whispers ran throughout the rest of the village like a pair of snakes hissing, words like "Freak" or "Witch" was most common. Many questioned how the boy had done those feats of clear magic or "bending" as people like Fishlegs inquired.

Astrid however was strangely empty on the inside, it felt like a familiar thing had been ripped out of her life. She had been so used to Hiccup's appearance at the forge, or occasionally see him doing business around the village, that it felt like a new chapter in her life had been roughly declared without any time to adjust. Every time she walked past the Forge a week into Hiccup's departure it had been eerie silent, someone other than Astrid herself was clearly unhappy with Hiccup leaving. She hadn't seen Gobber all week, neither in the great hall or anywhere in the village. Astrid knew that Hiccup and Gobber had been close. She wondered if Gobber was blaming Hiccup for what happened or was he genuinely unhappy that Hiccup had left.

Throughout the week she had been also forced to endure endless remarks from Snotlout about Hiccup, he evidently wasn't unhappy with Hiccup's banishment.

"So the useless finally left!" said Snotlout with drawl. "I knew that destiny meant me to become the chief instead of Hiccup, the weak little freak!" he said with disdain. Astrid had to muster up all self-control to not hit him on these occasions, but sometimes when Snotlout got carried away she couldn't hold it in. About a week and half in to Hiccup's leave had Snotlout clutching his ribs in pain as Astrid had kicked him around the village after he had commented on Hiccup again.

"It would do the world a favor if the 'Useless' was laying in some ditch somewhere, dead" Snotlout had said with a laugh to the Twins who was sauntering right next to him, but before he could give another snort of laughter he would hear a yell of rage as Astrid rushed him. Several minutes later and Snotlout was sporting a bloody nose and several broken ribs, he moaned as he laid beaten on the ground. Astrid turned to leave, breathing heavily as her knuckles were tender from the beating. As she turned around she was met with the huge bulk of none other than Gobber. She jumped and looked at him apprehensively, she knew she was in big trouble. But to Astrid astonishment he gently walked past her and lifted Snotlout to his knees.

"Yer better go to gothi Snotlout, those wounds look nasty." said Gobber unconcerned voice. Snotlout shot Astrid a frightened look before limping off towards the direction of Gothi's hut. Gobber looked at Astrid with ill-disguised pride and said merrily "Knowing Snotlout he's likely not gonna stop in a hurry despite your intervention." He chuckled to himself, and then he suddenly looked very serious. "Lass, I'd like to speak to you privately before turning in." and he motioned for her to follow him. Astrid was relieved that she wasn't punished for her lack of restraint and didn't object to the summons.

Astrid followed Gobber to the forge, it's fire unlit and everything was eerie silent. Astrid wondered if people avoided the place since it was usually where Hiccup had worked for so long. Probably and didn't want to be affiliated with the place. A strong feeling of hatred rushed over her, If they only knew how brave Hiccup had been. They would never understand thought Astrid savagely. They went inside and still there was no one about or in within sight. Gobber turned and looked at Astrid.

"I was wondering what Hiccup told you about where he was going?" said Gobber in a surprisingly gentle voice. Astrid started, she had not been expecting that. "He didn't tell me anything, in fact I never thought he would leave." said Astrid in earnest. Astrid knew that she was safe, Gobber wouldn't tell on her. She knew that he missed Hiccup, why else would he have asked her about his whereabouts? "I tried to help him, I tried to save him in there." said Astrid.

"And save him you did lass, I saw you in there. You protected him." said Gobber, he leaned against one of the pillars and indicated for Astrid to sit down. "Can you explain what happened? How Hiccup is suddenly floating in midair and can shoot fire?" asked Gobber curiously. Astrid sighed and she began to explain all things that had happened before the ceremony.

"And he trained a night fury?" asked Gobber in awe. "Yes, he also built a saddle to ride it. Along with some fin mechanism, because it was injured" said Astrid. "So he was speaking the truth..." said Gobber. He let the sentence go on thoughtfully, and then he formed a satisfied smile.

"All my life of fighting dragons I've always thought that they always kill. But that is evidently not true is it? How else would've Hiccup trained the Night fury?" inquired Gobber. Astrid nodded and Gobber went on. "Well... now he's not gonna be back for long while." He hung his head slightly. In all the time that Astrid had explained had the evening crept upon them. The sun was setting, it's long bright remnants colored the distant horizon pink and indigo. Gobber looked at the far horizon. "Lass?" said Gobber absentmindedly, he was still looking at the far horizon with a shrewd expression.

"Gobber?" asked Astrid, now also looking at the horizon. She could see something that looked like a cloud of something moving towards them. That could only mean one thing. Dragon raid. "Astrid sound the alarm!" said Gobber while rummaging in his forge frantically. He drew a large drum and placed it in front of the forge. He drummed a hard beat that seemed to echo throughout the village.

On the whole thought Astrid as she began to run up the village yelling "Dragon attack!" Not the best week.

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Summary: Hiccup has now been banished, his bending powers rescued him from the sticky situation that would've possibly been the end for Hiccup and Toothless both. He's now on his own, in the wide open world. How will he survive? Hopefully next chapter ought to explain that more thoroughly.
Astrid story is now staying safely at Berk, but it's definitely not the end for her or Berk. Hiccup is now on his way to figure out his newly found powers, and to discover himself.

(Disclaimer) I try to entice as much story as possible into these chapters, but on the whole I'm slightly anxious to get forward. If you'd like me to go slightly slower, than I can try to write longer chapters. Many things had to be cut in order for the story to progress. I hope you understand, and thank you Dear Reader.

Reviews: I will try to answer each and everyone of the reviews in this paragraph, anyone who is kind enough to lend me a couple of words of either encouragement or helpful criticism is a saint, thank you.

D73W: I appreciate the review, it does wonders to know someone is enjoying my story, especially when it's my first. Thank you!