Chapter 22: Homeward Bound

This feels like the quickest and longest update. Quick because the actually writing time wasn't that much. And long because I just haven't had enough freetime to type out the damn thing. But the important thing it here!

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Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Balto or How to Train your Dragon. They both belong to their respective owners and this is just for fun, NOT for profit.

(Hiccup POV)

If dealing with the Wolf Queen wasn't as her minions tailing us wasn't any better.

As we tried to collect ourselves, a few wolves tracked us as we tried to go back to Berk. Toothless did his best to throw them off our trail with laying false scent paths and trails. But they kept popping up and wouldn't leave us get away until we broke one of their limbs. As much as Snotlout would talk about his battle prowess, he kept up well with us in beat the wolves off our trail without killing them. And all with hitting on Astrid! But then again, having a brush with starving to death in a Wolf Den would sort anyone out.

We were a day away from Berk, but Toothless was too tired to go further. Despite his tired panting, he dug up a pile of snow to make a quinzhee (*1). Once the snow was packed in and partly frozen from his breath, he collapsed into a snoring ball of fur curled around the sleds to "watch over them" as he phrased it. After he shifted Spitlout close to the small fire, Snotlout was the second one to pass out. Leaving me and Astrid to be the last ones to still be up. I guess nerves about tomorrow isn't just me.

"We should be in Berk by tomorrow." Astrid thought aloud.

"Yeah." I muttered.

"They're going to see Toothless."

"We can't. We'll be lucky if their distracted enough by the anti-toxin to not kill Toothless on sight."

There was a pause before Astrid turned to look at me and spoke again.

"Then what do we do?"

"I'll figure something out." I could feel her look away; a tad apprehensive perhaps. "Hey." I said placing a hand on her shoulder. "We're going to make it, okay?" As she looked at me, I gave am a manageable clip to the arm.

"After all the crap you put us through, we better."

She pulled up her furs as she called in a night. I slumped into my furs too, but still had some trouble falling sleep with a question buzzing in my head. It was a question of if they would get the anti-town in town on time, it was how long before they try to kill Toothless when they get there. As I stared at the snowy ceiling, I felt a hand shift onto my arm. I let out a sigh before I felt sleep slowly creeping in while I thought of what to do.

When I opened my eyes instead of seeing the quinzhee, I saw the familiar swirl of blue cloudy fog. Toothless hobbled back and forth in what I could only call pacing and muttering to himself.

"What did I get myself into? I am a wolf for howling sake."

"Reality hitting you too, huh buddy?" I said slumping to a sitting position.

"Reality? You're walking a wolf into your village." Toothless huffed and puffed. "When I agreed to this, I thought there would be some dogs you humans to sled into town with. But of course not! Astrid's dogs were killed by that bear and those Louts were lost when they went into the Cave. What are we going to do, Hiccup?" Toothless ended with a little of a scared growl.

"I don't know. You could bring us in close and we walk the rest of the way by pulling and pushing the sled. But I doubt we would have the energy to move the fully loaded sled from that distance without wasting another day." I looked him in the eyes as I continued. "And I'm not willing to risk that."

Toothless' face started to drop as he turned away and sat behind me, back to back.

"But no matter what Toothless" I glanced at him. "I'm not going to risk them hurting you either."

"So, what's the plan?"

"We'll ride in with a some why to show we mean not harm. We'll hunch you from the sled and take off into the woods."

"That plan sucks."

"Hey! Whatever happens to you, then they'll just do to me too."

Toothless fully laid down with a sigh as he curled his body around me. When I slowly reached to pet his head, he didn't shove me off, but he continued to softly mutter to himself and catching him give an amused huff while saying.

"Stupid Ilaxtal "

The next morning, I woke up to hugging Astrid's arm and thankfully scrambled off before anyone woke up. Well anyone but Toothless, who was somehow giving a smirk

"And what are you looking at?" said with my cheeks feeling warm and Toothless huffed out a chuckle.

After a quick breakfast and refastening supplies to the sled, we were off to Berk. As we closer to Berk, the Queen's wolves attacked less and less. By the time the town was on the horizon dusk started to settle. As we approached the silent town, a horn sounded from the watch tower making the town gradually stir to life the closer we got there.

As we got closer Snotlout tied his father's bearskin cape to a branch that we grabbed before he departed. The cape had the Lout crest on it, and we hoped that seeing the familiar crest would calm the townspeople. If the fact that they didn't charge at us once we were within the town territory line, then it's a sign at it was working.

As we were getting in range, I could see everyone at the edge of town cautious with their dogs at ready, but weapons either dropped or lowered. We pulled toward the road heading closest to the clinic at angle so that they could get to the antitoxin with the least interaction with Toothless as we got close.

Many people took up a defensive flinch at seeing such a big black wolf approach, and probably would have attacked if they didn't see the familiar faces. Toothless slowed down but didn't stop. Astrid used her ax to cut the harness to the still moving sled from Toothless' saddle. Most the crowd moved to catch the sled and the Louts and antitoxin in it to make sure nothing broke.

Like we feared, the few people that weren't paying attention to the sled tried to chase after us but were met with Astrid's ax as she jumped off from behind me.

I shifted Toothless to slow down. "Astrid? Wha-"

"Just go!" Astrid took a defensive stance and making our pursuers pause. "You two can go faster without me and I'll give you some more time."

As Toothless and I veered toward the woods for cover, something descended and caught us. A bola net. The net wrapped around Toothless' hind-legs, tangling the saddle's mechanism. I got off the saddle and reached for my jaw club to try to saw the rope with the wolf teeth on its edge. As a got a couple cut, another net was through thrown at me with one of the weights hitting my square in the side or my head. The last thing that I remember was seeing the shuffle feet, hearing Astrid and Snotlout trying to explain something to the other Berkians.

(*1) Quinzhee or quinzee is snow shelter made with paced in snow

Other Atkan Aleut Translations used:

ilaxtal = another word for (closer) friend

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