During the first four days after Horrendous had washed up on Berk, while he slept fitfully, Hiccup hadn't known what to make of the man. Now that the guy was awake, he still was unsure about him.

Hiccup had been the one to spot him. There were no other men, not even ship debri with him, just a man that Hiccup had, at first, thought to be dead. When he'd realized that wasn't the case, he ran back up to the village to get his dad and Gobber, knowing they would know what to do with the man. Stoick had stared at him like he was seeing a ghost, and Gobber had explained to Hiccup a little later that the man had an almost uncanny resemblance to to his mom. Hiccup supposed that was probably why, instead of saddling another household with watching the man, or even just putting him in the Great Hall, Stoick had given him his own bed.

Hiccup had gone in there a few times, staring at the man and trying to figure out what his mom looked like with this random guy being the only clue. He didn't look much like a viking, in an armor that looked more like leather, or, oddly enough, dragon hide. Maybe he was some kind of famous dragon killer, Hiccup had mused, that had come to help with their war for some reason.

The small viking definitely hadn't liked the man when he'd used Hiccup's excuse as a way to get a job.

He'd also definitely felt sorry for the man when he had a panic attack in the forge.

When Dragon Training was over, Hiccup almost dying from a blast from the gronkle, he swung by the forge to see what the man was doing now, but he was nowhere to be seen. Some parts of his armor were sitting around, the parts that looked most like dragon scales, and Hiccup resisted the urge to run his hand across it. No, he shouldn't be touching someone's else's belongings. Instead, he pushed it aside and grabbed his notebook, heading out into the woods.

He followed his self-made map back to where he'd found the night fury (a bit harder to read after he'd scribbled across it in frustration) and examined the remains of his bola.

"If all dragons go for the kill… why didn't you?" Hiccup whispered.

He followed the trail of ruined foliage through the forest. It was unlikely the night fury was still here, but… well, it was a night fury, never before seen until now. He just had to try and get one last look at it.

The path led him to a cove, high cliffs surrounding a small pool of water. It was picturesque, and Hiccup just started to lean out into it when the night fury launched himself up at the cliff side, claws scraping the rock, before falling back down and gliding to a landing, howling in frustration. Hiccup scooted a little closer and pulled out his notebook, sketching the beast out quickly as he watched him continue to charge up the walls, wings beating and lifting him off the ground for a moment before he fell back down.

His charcoal slipped from his hands, clattering to the ground of the cove and Hiccup held his breath as the dragon turned around and looked up at him. He scrambled back through the hole he'd come through, praying the dragon didn't give chase.

The sun was starting to go down, the faint image of it just barely able to seen from behind the clouds, and Hiccup sighed. Right. Dinner. He wasn't looking forward to having to face the other teens after the display today. Still, though, he was hungry, and so he trudged his way back to the village while the sky grew darker and rain began to fall. And it was on his way that he saw Horrendous.

The man looked deep in thought, chin resting on his fist as he made his way towards the village. His limp was far more pronounced than it had been earlier, and Hiccup had almost forgotten the mad a prosthetic foot. He didn't seem to notice Hiccup until the boy was almost right on top of him, and his noticeably flinched when he looked at him.

"Oh, uh, hey Hiccup. What, uh, what were you doing out here? I thought you had Dragon Training?" Horrendous's eyes seemed to continually dart to and away from Hiccup and it made him uneasy. A lot about the guy actually made him easy.

"It ended a bit ago, so I went for a walk. Just a walk, to, uh, see if I could find a dragon. Y'know, kill one early." Hiccup hoped he sounded like he meant it. Horrendous let out a huff of air through his nose, like a small laugh.

"Did you find one?" He asked, a smile tugging on the edge of his mouth.

"No!" Hiccup replied a little too quickly, and this time Horrendous chuckled.

"Okay. Let's get to dinner."

oOo

"Horrendous, you can sit here!"

Horrendous sighed with relief as Gobber called him over. He wouldn't know where else to sit, Gobber and Hiccup being the only ones he had technically met. The other vikings gave him curious and cautious looks as he passed by and he did his best not to let it bother him.

"Gobber, I meant to tell you earlier, but Stoick agreed to let me help out with the forge." Horrendous said as he sat down. He shook his head a bit, flicking some water around.

"Ah, a blacksmith, eh? Well, there's always work to be done!" Gobber accented his statement by lifting his hook-now-tankard hard into the air, spilling some meade on the table, and taking a big swig from it. Horrendous took a small sip of his own just as the younger versions of his friends flocked to the table like a pack of terrible terrors perching on Gothi.

"Hey, it's the dead guy!" Tuffnut cried and pointed at him.

"Careful, you saw that bite! I bet he's a lycanwing." Ruffnut elbowed her twin.

"Well aren't you guys just delightful." Horrendous said, voice dripping with sarcasm but smiling at them. "I'm Horrendous."

"I don't know, I'd say you're pretty gorgeous." Ruffnut waggled her eyebrows at him. Horrendous nearly choked on his meade. Coughing, he set his mug down again.

"Ew, gross, he's like twice your age." Snotlout wrinkled his nose.

"I'm only 21." Horrendous said once his throat was clear again.

"How'd you lose your leg?" Tuffnut asked, pushing his sister aside. "Was it gory?"

"Where are you from?" Astrid asked, arms folded and eyes regarding him warily.

"What happened to your boat?" Even Hiccup seemed curious. Horrendous held up his hands in surrender.

"Whoa, slow down, I'm just one guy. I lost my leg to a dragon, no he didn't bite it off completely, but the damage was irreparable so it was just chopped off. I think it was probably gory? I was unconscious at the time. I'm, uh… from all over! My parents were, uh, traveling merchants. But they're dead now. Yeah. My boat, right. A…. night fury! Yes, a night fury attacked it."

Horrendous prayed he sounded more confident than he felt saying the lie. During his walk earlier he had cobbled together a story, but he was rough on the details. That seemed to satisfy the teens for now, though Ruffnut was still looking at him weirdly and winking every time she thought he was looking. Both Astrid and Hiccup didn't look completely convinced with his story, and he made a mental note to try and polish it up. If he knew these two (and gods knew he did), then they weren't going to just let this drop.

"Alright, enough of that. Now, let's talk about your training today. Where did you Hiccup go wrong?" Gobber wrangled the conversation.

"Uh, he showed up?" Snotlout snorted.

"He wasn't where he's supposed to be." Astrid said, giving a glare at the boy, and Horrendous shot the kid a sympathetic look. Sure he knew things would get better, but these days had been rough.

"Good Astrid!" Gobber praised. "You need to be living and breathing this stuff! And no better way than the book of dragons." Gobber slid the book down the table to where all of the kids were sitting, and Horrendous almost laughed at how thin it looked."It has everything you need to know about the dragons you'll be learning to kill, some of which you won't even be training up against."

"You want us to read?! While we're still alive?!" Ruffnut pulled away from the table like the book was poisonous.

"Do we look like we're all Fishlegs?!" Tuffnut stuck out his tongue

"The best way to learn is to just kill the dragons!" Snotlout declared.

"Oh man, this is one of my favorites!" Fishlegs was practically vibrating in place. "I've read it, like, fifteen times."

"Study up kids." Gobber stood up as a crack of thunder shook the Hall. "No need to worry about raids tonight. No dragon can burn down a village in the middle of a storm. Horrendous, why don't you just stay at Stoick's house for now? We'll worry about something more permanent later."

The thought of not living in his house bothered Horrendous, but he nodded anyway and said a quick 'thank you' as Gobber left, back out into the rain. Horrendous sighed as he was reminded of the stormy weather. He'd known it was coming, the stump of his leg aching, but it had only been about when Hiccup had caught him leaving the forest that he'd put together that it meant there'd be no dragons around. He didn't want to steal one from the Dragon Training. He was the new, unknown, probably shady guy in town, people would probably suspect him first. And anyway, he'd feel like he was stealing from his friends, even if the dragons weren't paired up with their riders yet.

Next to him, Hiccup gave his own sigh as Astrid walked off, leaving just the two of them and the book.

"Hey, Hiccup." The kid flinched, almost falling off of his seat, clearly having forgotten that Horrendous was there.

"Uh, yeah, Horrendous?"

"I traveled around a lot, like I said. I probably know more about dragons than that book of yours there does. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me." Horrendous offered. Hiccup nodded, thoughts clearly somewhere else, and together the two of them got up and headed out into the storm, the tome held close to Hiccup to protect it from the rain.

It was coming down in a torrent, and Horrendous hissed under his breath as he sprinted through it with his younger self, his limp growing more and more pronounced. When they made it to their house, it was all he could do not to collapse where he was. He shook his head again, droplets of water flying through the air, and almost started to head to his bedroom before he caught himself.

Right. Not his room.

He said a quick goodnight to Hiccup and limped into his dad's room, closing the door behind him. He flopped onto the bed, removing his prosthetic quickly and starting to massage the stump in an effort to get it to feel better. Gods above, it didn't usually hurt this bad. Sure, whenever it rained or snowed of hailed - all very often occurrences in Berk - it didn't feel nice, but apparently the stress was getting to it too.

Horrendous lay like that for a while, eyes closed, listening to the thundering, room lit every so often by a flash of lightning, the rain drumming against the roof of his house. Hiccup was no doubt in his own room, leafing through the pages of the book of dragons, eventually reaching the blank night fury page and being bewildered at how little was known about the the 'unholy union of lightning and death'.

He opened his eyes again and sat up, looking over to the wall map. There was a piece of charcoal for writing by it, as well as parchment, and Horrendous hopped over to them, grabbing them and setting to work sketching. Hiccup would be working hard in the workshop soon. That left a small window of time for Horrendous to get his stuff done. He needed a saddle that could work with whatever species of dragon he happened to tame (hopefully) tomorrow.

He was Chief Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III.

He was going to find his dragon and find a way back home.