THIS CHAPTER is over four days late. For that, I am terribly sorry - I can't guarantee that the next one will be on time either, but it should be more interesting to write than this one, meaning that it shouldn't take as long.
Aside from that, I'm just going to say - wow. That view count jump between chapters 1 & 2 was HUGE. Thank you all for your continued support, it means more to me than you know.
The style of writing I used changes a little over halfway through this chapter, which I apologize for, but honestly I think it kind of works. Aside from that, I tried to appeal a bit less to the character's emotions and inner thoughts, and more to the actions and events that went on during this segment of the story, which I thought was somewhat necessary. Once again, I hope you all enjoy, and thank you for your continued support!
How To Train Your Dragon is property of DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc.
{Several hours earlier.}
Leaning against Stormfly, Hiccup glanced up at the sun and squinted. A shower had hit the mainland before the storm, and it was cloudy, but the sun was still faintly visible through the gray sky. It had been over two hours, and yet neither Toothless nor Astrid had returned.
Had they found the girl? It didn't seem likely, given that Toothless and her would have brought her back by then. Although, as it tended to be with Astrid, he had a feeling that it would be more complicated than that no matter what. Frowning, he debated his decision of having the two of them work as a team.
Toothless and Astrid had more or less become "friends" since the war had ended. Of course, Hiccup doubted that they would ever be on perfect terms, but they had long since gotten over the "Mortal-enemies-sworn-to-kill-each-other" phase. Often times he couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if the war never ended. Would Vikings still be fighting dragons? Would he still be the biggest failure on Berk? He didn't know. But every day, as terrible as it was, he would swear to himself that shooting Toothless out of the sky was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Sighing, he went back down to his man-made leg. After figuring out what and where the problem was, he was able to (excruciatingly slowly) reduce the pain in his leg, until it became minuscule enough that he thought he could live with it until he could get the attachment off. Of course, he could have taken the leg off entirely, which likely would have taken the pain away almost totally, but he had decided against it, in case Astrid and Toothless came rushing back, and needed to get to Berk in a hurry for some reason. It was unlikely, but he liked to be prepared for any and all possibilities.
Clenching his teeth at the pain, Hiccup pulled desperately at a tiny object stuck in the confines of his leg, before it came flying out, hitting him in the face before it fell to the ground.
Grinning and picking up the slightly bloodied screw, he mentally chest-bumped himself and let loose a "Yeah!" That startled some birds out of a few nearby trees, and caused Stormfly to raise her head and give him a look of concern, before settling back down.
For the past hour, Hiccup had been grappling with a tiny pin that had come out of place and lodged itself in what was left of his foot when he had tumbled out of Toothless's saddle. At first, the pain had seemed unbearable, but as the hours went by, he was able to figure out the source of his torment, and thus slowly but steadily get rid of it.
His grin and excitement dying somewhat, he pushed the pin back into the proper socket in his attachment, promising himself that he would have to rebuild the appendage to avoid that problem from happening again the next time he was in Gobber's workshop.
On the spur of the moment, something nudged him roughly in the back of his head, and he turned to see Stormfly raise her body up, narrow her eyes in the direction of the forest, growl and lift a wing over Hiccup protectively. As abruptly as she had started, her snarl ended, and her expression turned into one of confusion. Seeming to sigh, she dropped her head back down to the ground and retracted her wing, just as Hiccup heard something crash somewhere in the forest, which was a few dozen feet away from him.
Hiccup's head whipped around. There was another crash, then another, before a torrent of leaves and branches snapping could be heard directly in the forest in front of him. Whatever it was, it was getting closer, very, very quickly.
Hesitantly, Hiccup got up and slowly began to move towards the forest. Although he was unarmed and more or less against fighting, Astrid and his father had given him some basic hand-to-hand combat training from time to time, and he felt that he might have been able to hold his own in a fight, assuming whoever he was fighting was much smaller than him, which, on Berk, wasn't very likely. But whatever was coming sounded way too big for any Viking to fight.
Worried, Hiccup began to back away from the forest, slowly receding towards Stormfly, prepared to high-tail it out of there without looking back. He would have to find Astrid later. Whatever this thing was, it didn't sound friendly. But Stormfly didn't seem worried at all - if anything, she seemed rather... annoyed. So why would-
Without warning, something large and black leapt out of the underbrush and tackled Hiccup to the ground. Something encased him, enveloping him in darkness. He felt the enclosure roll over a few times, before finally coming to a stop.
The encasement around him unfolding, Hiccup looked up to see a familiar, ivory-lacking face smiling down at him. Beaming again, Hiccup clambered out of Toothless's wings and stood up, the Night Fury doing likewise. "Hey bud," he told him. Then after seeing no sign of her, asked, "Where's Astrid?"
Just like that, the dragon's smile disappeared, and he turned to Stormfly. He then proceeded to tell her something curt in that strange dragon-language Hiccup so desperately wished he could understand. Without warning, Stormfly's previously laid-back demeanor turned into one of panic, and she flew off over the forest, in the direction Toothless had come from. Hiccup ducked his head just as her claws flew above him, before raising his head back up to stare at the quickly disappearing Nadder. "Hang on, why…"
Hiccup turned his head back around, and saw that Toothless already had his wings out as well, ready to take off as soon as the boy hopped on. "Hang on, Toothless!" He yelled at the dragon. Hiccup limped over to him, his appendage dangling loosely on his leg. "My, uh, leg is broken. We're gonna need to walk until I have time to fix it. Purring, Toothless walked over to Hiccup and sniffed at the attachment with worry, before licking his entire leg, nearly causing Hiccup to fall over. "Woah, Toothless," he smiled down at him. "Come on, let's go find Astrid. She can't be too far from here, if you've left her. "
A few minutes into their trip, Hiccup bent over, tired from walking, as short as the distance was. Although he would go around the village walking on most occasions, he would rarely travel very far on foot, as it was awkward on his mismatched legs and, well, he did have a dragon that could take him almost anywhere.
Toothless looked back at him with alarm for a moment, before rolling his eyes in annoyance and continuing without him. "Sorry bud," Hiccup yelled after him, clutching his hand over a stomach cramp. Speeding up a bit to catch up with him, Hiccup began to hoist himself onto Toothless's saddle. "Hope you don't mind if I-"
Without warning, Toothless suddenly threw his body to the left, causing Hiccup to be jolted off and onto the ground without warning, resulting in a less-than-manly scream from Hiccup, and a rough landing on his side that would doubtless leave a bruise.
Awkwardly pulling himself back up, he looked back at the dragon. "What in Thor's name was that for?"
The Night Fury's eyes seemed cloudy and distant as he stared blindly into the forest, his thoughts obviously elsewhere, before he snapped out of it and turned back to look at Hiccup with concern on his face. Then, with no prior forewarning and one slimy lick, he covered the entirety of Hiccup's body in dragon-saliva, coating him in an warm, apologetic substance that Hiccup knew would never wash out.
Struggling to open his eyes through the stickiness of the spit, he frowned, before laughing a bit and shaking his head. "Dragons," he scoffed, turning it into a sort of curse.
After waiting a moment to recover from his cramp and making sure he wasn't bleeding, Hiccup continued, walking on foot - he wasn't planning on testing Toothless again. Who knew? He was probably just tired from flying for the past few hours with Astrid.
He and Toothless walked for a few minutes more before he saw something metallic in the forest in front of him. Curious, he ran up to it. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be some sort of lever system connecting a shield on the ground to something hidden from view in the tree. A bright, sinister green liquid of some kind seemed to be dripping down from a branch up above, pooling into a small area in front of the shield. Some of it had seemingly burned through a small twig on the ground, and had formed its own sort of bowl in the dirt as well.
Taking a closer look at the device, Hiccup saw that the line going up the tree was nothing more than an old frayed fishing rope, and the small wheels leading the rope into the tree were rusted, and pinned to the bark with nails nearing the point of decay. He could see a larger, out-of-place rock on the ground near the tree, that had probably been used as a makeshift hammer. It was rudimentary, and done with incredibly cheap materials, but nonetheless would serve as an effective trap.
It had obviously been tripped, and recently, as the acid would likely have stopped by then otherwise. And Toothless had been leading him over there…
His eyes widening, Hiccup rose to his feet, his heart falling to the bottom of his stomach. "Dear Gods…" he whipped his head back around to Toothless. "WHERE IS-" Toothless almost looked as though he was prepared to answer, before one of his ears shot up in the air, and he went sprinting off into a large, grassy clearing near the trap.
Rolling his eyes, Hiccup ran after the dragon.
"Toothless! Where are you going? What happened to…" As he climbed the small, rounded hill in the clearing created by frost over the years, Hiccup's eyes widened, and he stopped and rubbed them to assure he wasn't dreaming.
"... Astrid..."
A large, smokey gray, scaly heap was lying on its side next to a puddle in the glade. It looked roughly the same size as Toothless, with wings to match. Closer up, it seemed as though it was a bit smaller than its black counterpart, but nevertheless was easily definable by the rounded face and signature tail-fins. Its chest steadily rose and fell, its breathing labored, but stabilizing with each exhalation. There were no visible scars on it, but it seemed to be in pain nonetheless. At first sight, anyone on Berk could recognize the breed that claimed it - a Night Fury.
Dropping to his knees, his eyes pinned in disbelief on the creature in front of him, Hiccup muttered something under his breath along the lines of "Can't be possible..." Toothless on the other hand, walked up to the beast and began licking its nose. After a moment, he stopped and raised his head up with a thoughtful expression on his face, considering his actions, but then went back to licking a few seconds later.
Blinking, Hiccup stood back up and ran up to the creature. As he moved toward it, he realized that Stormfly was there as well, worriedly pecking at something on the ground, like a thin chicken searching for corn in the winter. Adjusting his path, he walked over to the dragon and kneeled down in the grass to see what she was looking at.
Whatever it had been, it would serve no purpose anymore. A torn apart pile of blue-green cloth was accompanied by a pair of burnt shoulder pads and a shredded, metal-laced skirt resting nearby. A ripped leather circlet, a pair of boots and a crumbled, arm-length bandage rested in the tall grass a few feet away.
A feeling of dread crept over Hiccup, and he slowly got up and turned around to look at Toothless. "Did it… Eat Astrid?" Looking up from the motionless body in front of the creature and pulling in his tongue, Toothless shook his head back and forth.
Frowning, Hiccup "Then, is Astrid… Alive?" Toothless seemed to consider the question for a moment, and looked back at the grey dragon. Then he nodded his head.
Letting his shoulders relax and exhaling a sigh of relief, Hiccup closed his eyes. Opening them after a moment, he asked,"So… Do you know where she is?" This time, Toothless rolled his eyes, before squeezing his eyelids shut and gripping at his face with his paws, as though trying to remember something desperately. Finally, he shook his head, and nodded at the dragon resting below him.
Frowning in despair, Hiccup brought his hand up to his face and closed his eyes again. "Right, so let me get this straight. When you and Astrid went out looking for the, uh, spy, Something went wrong and… you ended up here. Something or someone, potentially Astrid, sprung the trap. Astrid isn't dead, and this dragon has something to do with the fact that she's not here, but you can't tell me why. Is that right?" Toothless nodded his head up and down solemnly, but approvingly. Hiccup opened his eyes again, letting air seep out of his nostrils slowly. "Right…"
Hiccup flinched and spun on his heels as a resounding boom of thunder broke the air. A torrent of rain began to fall, and there was a flash of lightning off in the distance.
Frowning, Hiccup turned back around, addressing the two dragons. After Stormfly had deemed herself satisfied with the pile of shredded apparel, she had walked back over to sit next to Toothless, and began to clean herself like a house cat. "Do you think you and Stormfly can carry it, Toothless? It doesn't look like it'll be getting up any time soon. I know it's almost as big as you, but we can't just leave it here." At the moment, the dragon was the only lead Hiccup had on wherever Astrid was, and Toothless seemed to think it was important, for some reason.
Toothless rolled his eyes and slumped slightly, whereas Stormfly didn't seem to acknowledge anything he had said, too interested in herself. Hiccup looked pleadingly at his best friend, and begged, "Please, Toothless. Just this one time, it looks sick and you seem to think we need it. You wouldn't want to leave a sick one of your own out here, would you? We can find a place to take it for the night, then maybe fly back to the village to get some help from Dad and the others."
Letting out a sigh and raising up his shoulders slightly, Toothless rolled his eyes and began to hoist the dragon up onto his shoulders, before Hiccup ran up and stopped him. "Hang on, Toothless! Let me get your saddle off first." After unclipping the straps and reworking the complicated knots that held the saddle onto the dragon, he moved his arm down to the tail-fin adjuster, before thinking of something that could have been useful later on.
"Toothless,"-the dragon looked down at him- "Do you know if this is a boy or girl? You know, like male or female?" The dragon nodded his head. With a bit more energy, Hiccup continued, "Alright, so… Nod once for male, twice for female."
Toothless, almost over-enthusiastically, nodded twice.
"Wow…" Hiccup replied, finally releasing some of the thoughts that had been cooped up in his mind since he had first seen the beast. "My gods, Toothless - another Night Fury, and female! This is what we've been searching for for years! Think about what this means! We can learn so much more about your kind! Plus, and, I mean I'm not pressuring you or anything… But... You and her could bring back the entire race..."
The boy blushed, but grinned at the dragon through it, before continuing to go on about the discovery. The Night Fury, however, seemed oddly taken aback by this statement, and a horrified look appeared on his face, as though Hiccup had managed to both surprise and offend him at the same time.
His voice trailing off, Hiccup looked up at the dragon, his grin fading to a smirk, and replied, "What? Never had a girlfriend before? Well, I know how that feels, bud. But Astrid and I, well, I think she's kind of into me. You, on the other hand..." At this, the Night Fury's mood changed, and he chuckled his odd, gurgling laugh. Hiccup looked back up at him inquisitively, causing the dragon to stop abruptly and take a sudden interest in his paws. Shaking his head, Hiccup rolled his eyes and went back to removing the tail-fin mechanism.
A few minutes later, Hiccup had completely separated the saddle and tailfin switch from Toothless's back, leaving the fin itself folded up neatly on the end of his tail.
The storm was getting worse, and so Hiccup hugged his arms around his chest, turning to face the Night Fury.
"Alright, bud," he said, assuring himself before he continued. "There's a cove that has some caves in it a few miles from here," -Hiccup pointed south- "just down by the ocean. I saw it when we were on patrol earlier. Can you two carry her that far?" Toothless adapted a look of determination and lowered his head, and Stormfly looked up, finally taking notice of him, but Hiccup couldn't help but have doubts. Though he had at least several times the strength of a Viking, Toothless was made to be small, quick and stealthy - not powerful or meant for hauling cargo, like Gronckles or Nightmares. Stormfly was just as large, but was much taller, making it so the dragon would have to be draped unevenly between the two.
But Toothless had already started heaving the grey dragon over his head, using his hind legs to throw the body over his back like an over-sized towel. He grunted as he adjusted her position on him, and his stance seemed more bowed in the center than was natural - even by his standards, but he still gave a snort of confidence at the end, doing his best to stand up tall. Stormfly did her best to copy his actions,
Shaking his head again, Hiccup bent down and tightened his attached leg as much as he could without it inflicting pain, and stood back up, breathing out a lungful of air.
"Okay, then. We need to get her under cover." There was another boom of thunder, with the lightning flashing just a few seconds later, signaling that the tempest was about to become much worse. "Where did this storm come from, anyways? It shouldn't have passed this far inland for at least a few hours."
The trip through the forest wasn't an experience Hiccup wanted to revisit. It had taken them a few different tries to find a good way for the two dragons to drape the Night Fury across the two, and each time Hiccup would find himself having to run up and push one of her legs back onto Stormfly, or curl up her tail somewhat when it unravelled itself and dragged on the ground, adding friction to the already straining weight of the creature. Even then, they had to make four stops throughout the trip, only starting up again when the rain got worse, or when a flash of lightning jumped the Nadder back up to her feet.
When they finally arrived at the cove almost an hour after he had expected, Hiccup was positive that it had to have been the worst thunderstorm Berk had experienced in decades, likely sent as punishment to some evil soul by Thor himself. Hiccup could only wonder who that soul was.
Bringing his arm up to block the wind, Hiccup did his best to survey the cove through the whirlwind. It was small, likely less than a quarter of a mile in width but had a large beach going far inland. The forest rose towards the back, creating a 50-foot tall cliff face, before it cascaded back down to even out with the beach as it circled to the ocean. The waves in the sea were wild and erratic, crashing against stones in the bay that were impossible to see through the storm. On a quieter day, the scenery would likely be picturesque, but the windstorm made the cove appear to be the very gateway of Helheim itself.
A sudden, fierce wind made Hiccup fall backwards, Toothless catching him at the last moment, but nearly dropping the grey Night Fury's head in turn. Rushing around him, Hiccup pushed all of his weight against the thing, wishing that he had taken more training classes with Astrid, like his father had suggested. After a moment, with a lot of effort, Hiccup finally pushed its head back up onto Toothless's back, the black Night Fury giving a grunt of discomfort after having retaken the weight.
Frowning, Hiccup turned back to the cove. Facing the ocean, they had been fortunate enough to come out on the east side of it, as the slope on that side was much more gradual and easy to traverse. The face of the cliff in the cove had some caves and crevices in it, some of which would likely fit at least two of the dragons in. However, the wind was far too strong to even consider resting in any of them, never mind building a fire or find a suitably place for their sick dragon there.
Squinting through the storm, Hiccup thought he could make out something he had been hoping he had seen earlier. He could only pray that he was right. Briskly gesturing at the two reptiles to follow him, he began a slow trudge down the slope, the wind pushing him back with every step he took. He thought he could hear a tree falling somewhere in the woods, but it was impossible to tell through the wind.
Gasping for breath, Hiccup jumped off of the short ledge onto the beach, the two dragons stepping down behind him in as much synchronization as they could possibly manage. He turned his head back to the two, trying to muster a smile, and spoke through small breaks in the wind.
"Alright, bud… We've almost… Made-"
All of a sudden, a stray branch flew at Hiccup's face, hitting him square in the jaw, before flying off somewhere behind him, luckily missing the dragons. He stumbled back, grabbing his jaw instinctively. Toothless nearly lurched ahead in concern as well, but Hiccup was able to stop him, reassuring him that he would be fine. An iron-like taste filled his mouth, and he could feel a wet liquid dripping down the left side of his face, though he was unsure whether it was tears or blood. Based on how he felt, he would survive, but likely also have a noticeable scar by the next morning, and a sore in his jawbone. He had suffered enough punches from Snotlout when he was younger to know that much.
Shaking himself out of his frozen stance, he proceeded his walk to the cave ahead of him, praying it was as he thought he'd seen from the cliff.
Luckily, it was. Several huge boulders shielded a small cave against the wind from the ocean, a blessing in cases like this. The cave itself didn't look as though it went in more than a dozen or so feet, and was just a bit higher, though he could have been wrong - the shadows played with his eyes, making some things seem smaller or larger than they really were.
It didn't matter - it would have to suffice. Hugging his arms around his chest, he instructed the dragons to lay her down as far into the cave as they possibly could. With some relief, both dragons made their way into the the cave, turning to look at each other before setting the Night Fury on the stone as gently as they could manage. Toothless, after having checked that Hiccup was alright, warranting another one-lick bathing, went to check on the grey Night Fury, circling around her a few times to assure it hadn't gotten any worse. From what Hiccup could see, her breathing had stabilized at a normal rate, and she didn't seem to be convulsing or spitting fire haphazardly, which was always a good sign.
Stormfly, on the other hand, collapsed right where she stood, falling asleep without any warning whatsoever.
As Hiccup had expected, the wind, whilst still present, was significantly less intense than it had been before, possibly growing calm enough to start a fire.
With newfound energy, Hiccup gathered a few branches that had fallen in the lack of wind near the boulders together, and brought them back to the cave, building a small teepee with them, as his father had taught him to do years before.
"Toothless, would you mind, bud?" The dragon looked up from his sleeping grey counterpart, before focusing on the small pile of wood in front of him. He opened his mouth, and reared back his head slightly, and then… Nothing.
With a frown, Hiccup crawled over to the dragon, and rested his hand on his head. As he had feared, Toothless's head was soaked from the storm, making it so that they would have to wait until he dried off in order to start a fire, or start their own by hand.
After a few unsuccessful attempts to create a fire by rubbing sticks together - he had no flint OR iron - he decided to simply curl up in the natural curve of Toothless's body, his body heat the only thing that would dry him off. It was almost an hour later that Hiccup was finally beginning to fall asleep, when out of nowhere, a plasma blast set the small group of by then dry twigs on fire.
Getting up, Hiccup rubbed his eyes to clear his vision. In his enthusiasm, Toothless had shot just a bit too powerful of a blast, sending most of the twigs and branches flying out of the teepee, collapsing it and only setting a few branches on fire.
Hiccup sighed and turned back to the oversized reptile, who had a sheepish grin on his face.
"Alright, bud. This fire won't last very long if we don't have any more fuel - thanks for that - so I'm going to get some more outside. It looks like the wind's died down a bit, anyways. I'll be back in a moment." He waved a hand at the dragon before moving towards the front of the cave. Bracing himself, he stepped out of the cave, bracing himself for the wind, surprised to find that it had died down even more than he had thought. The rain was still pouring heavily, and the starless sky was pitch black, making it impossible to see more than a few feet in front of him. Nonetheless, he continued out to pick up whatever sticks he could, evaluating his situation while he did.
The wind and storm had made it impossible for them to even think about flying back to the village that night, and it would force them to leave the grey Night Fury behind as well. As excited as he was about finding a new Night Fury, finding Astrid was his top priority, though luckily the Night Fury seemed to be connected to her, somehow. They had left behind the pile of torn clothes in the forest, but Hiccup wanted to go back and investigate the trap later on, anyways.
After gathering up what he believed was a sufficient amount of sticks and twigs, Hiccup dragged himself back to the cave, to find the grey dragon with its head up, staring sleepily at Toothless. Hiccup's eyes widened, and the sticks fell out of his hands.
"My gods, Toothless, she's awake!"
But before he could get to the beast in time, its head had already descended back to the floor, and it was asleep once again.
Disheartened, Hiccup bent down to pick up the sticks. Toothless hadn't even seemed to notice he had come back, and was still staring worriedly at the grey reptile.
Building another teepee as the remaining embers of the other broken one finally burnt out completely, Hiccup couldn't help but stare at the creature as well, two questions resonating in his mind: where the hell did this dragon come from, and what did it have to do with Astrid?
Ooh, an ending note, this is new!
For those of you thinking Hiccup is pretty stupid for not figuring out what happened, remember that this sort of thing never happens in Berk, as "magic" is more or less limited to that which the dragons and people like Gothi possess, which isn't seen very often, unless you count their ability to breathe fire (Not Gothi... Or can she?). Aside from that, most other HTTYD fanfics I've seen where someone turns into something else make it so that everyone just figures it out or knows immediately, and the rest of the story is just the protagonist adapting to living as a dragon/human on Berk until some stereotypical bad guy comes along and they have to save the day. This, for me, is really kind of awkward and shuts down a lot of interesting and entertaining plot points you could expand upon (like the ones in this chapter) that involve very few people being 'in-the-know'. Don't worry, though - I'm sure Hiccup will figure it out eventually...