I don't own How to Train Your Dragon.
This one-shot is like Leaving Berk, but more focused on Hiccup without any sign of the other characters, just to let you know.
Please let me know what you think.
Nothing Has Changed.
Dawn was starting to appear over Berk. The sun was beginning to rise over the horizon, casting beautiful shades of red, yellow and orange over the sea, casting colours of purple in the water, red and blue in the distance. The village would be waking up soon, but already several Vikings were already up and going about their early morning chores in readiness for the new day. Already the scent of freshly baking bread was in the air, mixing with the salty sea air.
Hiccup didn't see or smell any of that; as a native Berkian and a Hairy Hooligan (although he sometimes felt he was not a part of this tribe, and he had been separated from his true family, despite his best interests), he had woken to these smells in the early morning all of his life. But there was one smell mingling with the rest which Hiccup honestly wished he could just ignore.
The stench of burning wood, mingling with the scent of burning flesh.
Hiccup was sitting on the top of his roof, Toothless was next to him. He and the Night Fury had been sitting on the rooftop throughout most of the night, their ears were still ringing from the argument they'd had with Stoick, but Hiccup had been reeling from the argument he had taken Toothless on a very long night flight.
They were both tired. But while they had both gotten a meagre few hours sleep, really uncomfortable sleep, on the rooftop, Hiccup had woken up ignoring the pain in his joints after waking up on the roof.
For the next few hours Hiccup had looked out over the horizon and on the slowly wakening village. As he did, Hiccup had time to himself, and he had time to think before he made his next move. He didn't care anymore about what the villagers said about him and the Night Fury next to him on the rooftop.
He didn't belong here. For a long time, Hiccup had known that deep down, long before he had shot Toothless down. He was incredibly different from the other Vikings, and while it had been something he had long since given up trying to shake off since he had wanted to fit in with everyone else, he had eventually given up. But he had never been able to shake off his innermost beliefs he did not belong to this tribe or this island.
It was sad, really, wasn't it? Knowing you did not belong somewhere, knowing that you were different. After the end of the war and the defeat of the Red Death on Dragon Island, Hiccup had thought everything would change. And at first, they had; with the war over and the realisations dragon and humans could live together, Hiccup had assumed everything on Berk would be perfect.
But he had been wrong. It was never a nice thing being wrong, and Hiccup hated it even less when he had seen for himself the Vikings turn against their new dragon friends. A lot of the blame fell upon the old prejudices, but there was a lot more to it than that. Mildew had not liked the new regime, and he has liked the thought of the dragons moving on to Berk even less, and so he had hatched a nasty scheme to get rid of them.
Mildew had started small fires in the village, and he had scattered dragon scales on the ground and pointed the blame at them, scattering droplets of dragon gases into the flames so the Vikings would think the dragons had sparked them. The old views against the dragons, depicting them as evil monsters slowly started to return, Mildew, using his uncanny talent for uttering the right words, had transformed the Hairy Hooligans into a mob, armed with axes and spears and hammers.
Hiccup had been reeling from the slow but steady landslide of hostility in his tribe. They saw him as a traitor - again - for defending the dragons when they were destroying their village. Again. He had tried his best, he had tried everything he could to stop it, but in the end, all Hiccup had been able to do was to get the dragons to leave Berk after a pair of Deadly Nadders were attacked, one of them was Stormfly, Astrid's own dragon.
Hiccup grimaced as he thought of the blonde shieldmaiden. What in the name of the Gods had happened there? He still wasn't sure what had happened, but he knew it had happened slightly before the trouble started.
He didn't pay any kind of thought towards the other teenagers. He didn't give a damn about them especially now Barf and Belch had joined the dragon exodus and had fled from the island as Meatlug had done, but he had been hurt by Astrid's slow dismissal of him. He had assumed the pair of them had become friends, especially after that flight on Toothless's back, but…Hiccup had no idea what had happened, but Astrid had suddenly turned cold, her new kindhearted personality giving way to the cold manner she had treated him before. Hiccup hadn't seen her around much, but he had seen her spending more time with the teens as she had before the battle on Dragon Island, but what she was doing nowadays Hiccup didn't know and didn't care.
Even his newfound camaraderie with Stoick had died as well, and that was before he took into account what the old Viking chief had done to him. Hiccup wasn't sure if it was because he just wasn't interested in what Stoick wanted from him, or if it was just down to their differences. It was hard to speak to a man who just refused point-blank to listen and had a nasty habit of speaking over you. In the end, whatever relationship Hiccup and Stoick had tentatively developed in the last few months had just died, and last night had not helped. Last night Stoick had fully returned to his dragon killing ways, and he certainly believed the dragons were responsible for the deaths of three small children. Hiccup had tried to argue it was not them - he still did not understand how Mildew had managed that, but it didn't matter; Stoick and the rest of the tribe were fully certain the dragons were killing them off, that they had pretended to form friendships with the Hairy Hooligans, with the ultimate plan to wipe them out.
It never caused to amaze Hiccup with just how stupid the Hairy Hooligans were. The dragons had been as relieved as they had been the way was over; like the Hairy Hooligans, the dragons had suffered for decades under the control of the Red Death. All they had wanted was peace, and Hiccup had seen the proof of that with his own eyes, and if any of the Vikings had even bothered to see the dragons' reactions to the accusations they'd realise Mildew, the star witness who had seen it all while he had imitated dragon roars, was lying.
But then again nobody ever said the Hooligans had brains.
For the last few days, the dragons had been driven off the island in droves. There weren't that many of them left, actually four including Toothless was a really pathetic number.
Hiccup sighed, wincing from the aches in his back and along the length of his body from where he had been lying on the roof, but mostly from the bruise to his face from where Stoick had hit him. If he had ever needed proof of how bad his relationship with Stoick had become, he had physical proof. Stoick had hit him in the face when Hiccup had argued or tried to argue with him the dragons were innocent. Stoick had countered that by saying he was a traitor of the tribe, and then Hiccup had made two mistakes.
Now, sitting on the rooftop, Hiccup realised he had made them at all. But at the time he had been so angry that he had let his mouth flap open. First, he had challenged Stoick to admit it was suspicious nobody else had seen the dragons swarming around the village, insulting the intelligence of the tribe at the same time. Stoick had not liked that.
Unfortunately, the second mistake was even worse. He had questioned how Stoick could be anyone's father…and he had been smacked in the face so hard, he had sailed out of the window. Toothless had been on the rooftop, camouflaged by the black sky. Hiccup had told the Night Fury to come if he called, but otherwise, the dragon was to stay out of the argument. When he had gone flying out of the window, Hiccup had grabbed the Night Fury and flown away to calm down.
But he was calm now, and he had one thing on his mind.
Escape.
He had thought about leaving just after Gothi had selected him over Astrid in the Kill Ring for the final test in Dragon Training, but the flight with her had changed his mind, and he had been too badly injured in the battle with the Red Death to escape. But now he had recovered, and he was clear-headed enough to make his mind up.
He rubbed his face thoughtfully, wondering how he could pull it off. Thanks to Mildew's rabble raising and Stoick's loud displeasure and his desire to protect the dragons, Hiccup was not very popular here. He couldn't take the necessary things he needed as supplies, but he knew he could get them on other islands.
"C'mon bud," Hiccup said to Toothless, getting ready to stand up.
The Night Fury crooned curiously.
"It's time we moved on from Berk," Hiccup told the Night Fury with a smile (he ignored the pain in his face). "Come on. Let's go."
Toothless crooned eagerly, and he would have bounced on the roof if Hiccup hadn't stopped him. Hiccup swung his legs over the Night Fury's body, and he hooked himself into the safety harness on Toothless' back before taking off. Hiccup guided Toothless over the island so he could make sure the dragons still there saw him, and he waved at them.
As one they took off.
Never to be seen again. Hiccup didn't know how the tribe would take his departure, but he did not care. All he knew was he wasn't coming back here ever again.