Chapter 24

The next morning, as they said, Hiccup and Toothless got up before sunrise with Hiccup's saddle bag fully packed and were both ready to go. The duo stood at the cliff that Berk sits on with Toothless perched on Hiccup's back as they plan to leave as soon as dawn hits.

However, their silence was interrupted when they heard a familiar female voice saying, "Hey, aren't you two forgetting something?"

They turn around and see Stormfly and Stoick standing there. Hiccup asks, "What did we forget."

Stormfly smiles and says, "To say goodbye." Hiccup smiles in relief before Toothless hops off and they walk over to give both of them big hugs.

While they were hugging, Stoick says to Hiccup, "I will miss you, son. And I will miss you too, Toothless."

Toothless replies, "We'll miss you guys too. Here." He plucks a piece of his black hair off of his head and wraps it in a cloth which he gives to Stormfly. He adds, "In case you need to find us."

Stormfly nods. "Thank you, Toothless."

They break from the hug and Toothless gets back onto Hiccup's saddle. Hiccup then sighs and says, "I guess this is goodbye."

Stormfly shakes her blue haired head. "Don't think of this as goodbye. Think of this as 'see you later'."

Hiccup smiles at that very familiar comment. "Thank you, Stormfly. You always know what to say. Dad, tell everyone else…see you later."

The red Rumblehorn nods. "Of course. You two be safe out there."

Toothless chuckles to that. "Given our track record, we can't exactly make too many promises for that."

Stoick chuckles. "Fair enough. Just…try not to die."

"We will." Hiccup replies. He looks back to Toothless before saying, "Ready, babe?"

Toothless kisses Hiccup on the top of the head before saying, "Ready as I'll ever be." Hiccup gives one last nod to Stormfly and Stoick before spreading his wings and taking off towards the south, without a single clue as to where he was actually going. Also, by the time he did so, sunlight was already starting to peak up from the horizon.

Stormfly and Stoick stood there as they flew off, waiting until they were just a black dot in the sky before turning to each other, sighing and walking back into the village.

For the next few hours, Hiccup and Toothless flew. And flew. And flew. Without a care in the world as to where they were actually going. As long as they were away from Berk and possibly Astrid, then they were fine.

One thing that Hiccup didn't mention at the meeting yesterday was the reason he chose to go that direction is that it's the opposite direction from Berk to Berzerker Island, and since that's where Astrid was last seen it was the best bet for escaping from her.

If this was a normal day of flying, Hiccup would probably be practicing a few tricks that he's been teaching himself over the past few months, but at the moment he just wasn't feeling up to it so it was pretty much just straight flying, nothing else to it.

After about 2 hours of nonstop flying, Hiccup sighs and says, "So this is what it's like to be on the run."

Toothless adds, "Yep. Pretty much."

"This is a first for me. You?"

Toothless thinks. "Well, before I became associated with the Red Death I was on the move a lot in an attempt to find the man that killed my family but no, never ran away from anything."

Hiccup raises a brow to that. "What about running away from me after you first met me?"

Toothless chuckles to that. "That was more just me wanting to get out of there because I knew I'd get an earful from the Red Death otherwise. Of course, at the time, I didn't realize just yet that my tail fin was gone and I couldn't fly."

Hiccup nods. "Yeah, I think I said it before but sorry about the whole shooting you down thing."

Toothless shakes his head. "Nah, you don't have anything to apologize for. You shooting me down turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to both of us. Before the transformation, of course."

"Right, right." Hiccup shifts his wings a little bit. "You mind if we stop in a little bit? My wings are starting to get tired."

Toothless chuckles. "That's interesting because I was able to go for much longer without needing a break."

Hiccup looks back and says, "Like you said, you have much more experience with being on the move than me."

Toothless chuckles even more. "Fair enough. Yeah, we can stop. I think I see an island up ahead."

The island in question was filled with lots of red and orange leaved trees, and had a fairly large sea-stack in front of it. Hiccup sets down on the island and flops his wings down to the ground. Toothless hops off and grabs his water bottle from Hiccup's saddle bag to take a few sips. Toothless looks around and says, "This Island is pretty nice. Look, there's a valley up ahead."

Hiccup looks up and says, "Oh yeah. How about that."

Toothless takes out his map to see if he can spot where they are. He manages to find the island and says, "It's an unmarked island too. Well, what do you think we should call it?"

"I don't know." Hiccup replies. "Hold on, I just need to get something here…" He reaches his head under his left forepaw and scratches it.

Toothless comments with a chuckle, "Itchy Armpit it is." before writing that on the map.

Hiccup stops scratching to say, "Very funny." He then spots a river nearby and scoops up a few fish for both of them.

Toothless takes the fish and says, "Thanks. Although, since I became a human raw fish isn't as appealing to me."

Hiccup nods. "Understood." He produces a low flame to cook the fish.

Toothless smiles at that and says, "Thanks, babe." before eating the fish like he has never seen food before.

Hiccup pretty much did the same thing before noticing some sort of pillar of ice near the horizon. He asks, "What is that?"

Toothless looks up and spots it himself. "I have no idea. Think we should check it out?"

Hiccup shrugs. "Might be worth it. Doesn't seem that far from here so I could probably get us there."

Toothless nods before climbing back on Hiccup's back. "Lead the way, babe." Hiccup spreads his wings, opens up his tail fins, and takes off towards the direction of the ice pillar. Along the way, they noticed that it wasn't just a pillar, but some sort of fortress made of dozens if not hundreds of giant ice spears.

Hiccup comments. "Geez. You ever seen anything like it?"

Toothless shakes his head. "Never. Although I think at one point I heard something about an ice breathing dragon. I think they call it a Bewilderbeast."

Hiccup nods. "Ice breathing dragon, huh? Sounds pretty cool." He could actually feel Toothless groaning at the pun.

Suddenly, Hiccup stops in his tracks as he spots a large figure jump up in front of him. "Whoa!" Toothless says. "What was that?"

Hiccup looks around saying, "I don't know." The figure then reappears, but slightly farther so it could be better seen. It turned out to be a large, orange, four winged dragon. And standing on its back appeared to be a very muscular, tan skinned human male holding some type of blue staff.

Hiccup whispers to Toothless, "What is that thing?"

Toothless replies, "I believe it's a Stormcutter. They're pretty rare too. I've heard of them but have never actually seen one until now."

The Stormcutter stops in front of Hiccup and the human asks, "You there, young man, how did you find this place? Are you working for Drago?"

Toothless stares for a moment before saying, "Uh, no. We're just travelers looking for somewhere to hide. Also, who's Drago?"

He points his staff towards Toothless and says, "Don't play that with me. How can you prove that you're not here to disturb the sanctuary any more than it's already been disturbed? And what do you mean 'looking for somewhere to hide?'"

Hiccup then speaks up and says, "LOOK, if you're talking about the ice fortress, we had no idea that it existed. We're running because there's a crazy dragon out to get us and we needed to get away. We can leave now if you'd like."

The Stormcutter stares into Hiccup's eyes for a second before saying in a low female voice, "What he is saying is true."

The human nods before pulling his staff back. "My apologies. It's just that we've been a bit on the edge since the change."

Hiccup's eyes widen at that last part. "Change?"

The human sighs and says, "Follow us." The Stormcutter turns around and flies towards the ice fortress. Hiccup and Toothless exchange glances before Hiccup follows.

Along the way, the human looks back and asks, "You said you're running away from a crazy dragon, can you tell us a little bit about that?"

Hiccup replies, "All I can tell you is that it's a Deadly Nadder who was locked up for betraying my village and trying to kill my ma-friend. She's already cost him his leg." Toothless holds his metal leg up to prove that point.

The human nods. "I see. Well, if you really do need a place to stay then we can allow you to stay with us. Just as long as you promise not to cause any trouble."

Hiccup shakes his head. "We don't want trouble at all." This seemed to please the human, for now, as he turns back around.

The closer they got to the fortress, the more they noticed that it is much more massive than they thought. It was at least the size of a mountain. There also seemed to be some sort of cave or tunnel opening on the side of the ice. The Stormcutter lands on it and the human hops off before they walk in. Hiccup and Toothless do a similar act.

The duo finds that inside the fortress was some sort of ice tunnel with various turns, crevasses and climbing areas. As they were going along, the Stormcutter says, "At one point, this fortress served as a sanctuary for hundreds of dragons. But then, something happened one day that changed everything."

Before Hiccup or Toothless could ask what that was, they had reached the inner area of the fortress to see a large forest of sorts, but instead of dragons flying around like the dragon said, it was instead…people. People with all sorts of body types and a rainbow of hair colors. What's more is, since they all seemed to enjoy being naked, they could immediately tell that they were hermaphrodites too.

They saw humans that appeared to be male, but they were pregnant, some even breast feeding babies. They saw humans that looked female carelessly pounding their hips into males. They also noticed a lot of fighting and arguing.

The Stormcutter then sighs and says, "We don't know how it happened but, one day all the dragons in the sanctuary were somehow turned into humans. And since these are humans with the previous minds of dragons, they never want to put on clothes, they are almost always bickering, and it's terrible."

Toothless asks, "Let me guess, you were a human too."

The Stormcutter's eyes widen. "Well, yes actually. How did you know that?"

Toothless replies, "Because the exact same thing happened to us. Before a few months ago, I was a Night Fury and he was a human."

The Stormcutter nods. "Wow. That's…interesting. So it really wasn't just my sanctuary that was affected. Do you two have any idea how it happened?"

The truth was that they did know what happened, in that Thor and Artruthium transformed them as a test for the bond between humans and dragons, but Toothless just replies, "No."

The Stormcutter nods. "I see. Well, that's alright. Hopefully we'll figure it out soon enough. Anyway," She gestures to the human. "Cloudjumper and I seem to be the only level headed ones left. Well, us and the king."

Hiccup looks and asks, "The king?"

The Stormcutter nods. "Yes. That's him, down there." She points to the floor of the forest where there sat a very tall, muscular, snow white haired man, wearing some blue clothing, sitting on some sort of throne looking rather displeased.

The human, which seemed to be named Cloudjumper, says, "At one point, he was the almighty king of dragons that everyone looked up to. Now that he's no longer a dragon there's really nothing he can do to stop dragons from carelessly doing whatever they please." This was backed up by a green haired male using an ice pick to carve a picture of a penis into the ice wall.

Hiccup nods. "So, back when they were dragons, what kind of dragon was he?"

Cloudjumper replies, "He was a massive, ice breathing dragon called a Bewilderbeast. Back then, everyone around here would respect his word and his authority. But I guess that, since he's a human, they just stopped seeing any sort of authority in him at all and started doing what they wish."

Toothless nods. "That does suck. Can't help but feel bad for the guy."

Hiccup thinks for a moment before saying, "What this place needs is a leader. A chief. Someone who can give them all direction and order."

The Stormcutter sighs. "If only it was that easy. The king has tried many times, but I guess has given up."

Hiccup nods. "Well, my dad is the chief of the village I'm from. Maybe he could give your guy some pointers."

The Stormcutter gives it some thought. "Could work. If our king could learn how to lead humans properly then we could get things back into order. Alright, we can send your father a message. By the way, what village are you from, anyway?"

Hiccup replies, "We are from Berk."

The Stormcutter's eyes widen upon hearing that. "Wait…your father…is the chief of…Berk?"

Hiccup gets a little confused at hearing that. "Y-yeah. That's right."

The Stormcutter says with a rather shaky voice. "B-by any chance. I-is your name…Hiccup?"

Hiccup's eyes widen. "Well yeah, how did you know that?"

The Stormcutter hangs her mouth open before hugging Hiccup tight. "It's been so long…my Hiccup."

Hiccup tries to strain from the hug while asking, "Uh, what exactly has gotten into you? A-am I supposed to know you?"

The Stormcutter opens her eyes before sighing, locking eyes with Hiccup and saying, "No. Of course not, you were just a boy…but a mother never forgets." She smiles as wide as Hiccup's eyes in that moment.

You know, I think this is the first time bringing Valka into one of my stories so yay for me.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, if you did please let me know.

Take care, stay safe and I will see you when the next chapter is finished.