Hi forgive my long absence I am working on a fanfiction for a contest so this one kind of slipped my mind for a while. Thank you to all my lovely followers and reviewers. Enjoy!
Hiccup walked into the forge and made a beeline to the backroom, but Gobber stopped him. "Hiccup." Hiccup turned his head and saw his mentor holding a half finished sword, a terse smile on his face. The boy nodded his hello, and Gobber continued. "Thought you'd be resting," Hiccup shook his head, "I'm fine, now if you'll." He was cut off, "I need to tell you something." Gobber's smile became even more uncomfortable, and now that Hiccup thought about it Gobber had been acting a little off key, in fact the entire village had been a little tense. Earlier he'd just passed it off as the fact that the Viking weren't as excited for his return as they acted, but could something be wrong? "No one told ya cause they were worried that you were too shocked from your er… adventure." Pause, "You weren't the only one taken that night."
Hiccup stumbled backwards in shock, he had never stopped to wonder whether he'd been the only one taken he had just assumed he was the only one. "Who was it?" Gobber cleared his throat, "Fishlegs an Astrid." Hiccup nodded and walked out, he knew this was rude but he was in no mood for conversation and he had to get away.
The blacksmith stood there watching the receding figure of his apprentice as he disappeared into the woods, Hiccup had changed, something was different. He turned back toward his anvil and started to pound the sword with his hammer prosthesis, and thanked Thor that his apprentice was safe.
Hiccup ran through the woods, his thoughts surrounding him like smoke, smoke that made it hard to think or see. Fishlegs was gone. They had been best friends once and even though Fishlegs had started avoiding him a few years ago, he had never teased Hiccup, unlike Snotlout. And Astrid, the only other person who never made fun of him. But why? Why them, and why now?
He burst into the small cove and Toothless immediately ran up to him. "You came back!" Hiccup smiled half heartily and rubbed the dragon's head, "Course I did." The Nightfury's grin faded, "Something's wrong, what is it."
Hiccup sighed, and lay down in the grass using the Nightfury as a pillow. "Why did you take me?" Toothless visibly flinched then simply said, "The Dragon Queen ordered it." Hiccup sat up, "There's a Dragon Queen?" "Yes, her name is Flare; your kind calls her a Timberjack." The boy nodded. "But why now?" he questioned. The dragon sighed, "Your people imprisoned three of our dragons, a Deadly Nadder, a Monstrous Nightmare and a Gronkle." "How do you know what we call dragon species?" the boy wondered out loud. "Well no one knows for sure, but dragon lore says, that long ago before this three hundred year war there was once a woman and a dragon who were friends, and they could understand each other, and ever since then some dragons have be able to understand human words." Toothless smiled, his teeth retracted, "the legend also says that only true friends of dragons can understand dragonese, they must decide to protect a dragon from all harm, to be granted that power. " "That's a neat tale, but why did the kidnappings only start now, the Vikings have been capturing…. dragons, for ages," Hiccup stumbled through the words, becoming more and more uncomfortable.
The dragon let out a purr to convey to the boy that it was okay, "We only learned about the imprisonment last week, Dragons had been disappearing for decades, but there was no proof it was the Vikings. So when the dragons found out they wanted revenge, and the Queen ordered us to capture three human hatchlings, I'm sure she does not intend to harm them." The boy nodded again, "the two other people taken are sort of my friends."
Toothless snorted, "What do you mean by sort of?" Hiccup threw up his hands, "Fine, you want the truth? You're my only friend. Happy?" "Yes, I am." The boy chuckled, "Speaking of friends, why'd you kidnap me in particular? I'm not exactly the best capture." The dragon threw back its head and laughed loudly. "Hey, what's so funny," Hiccup demanded. "Well, the fact I wasn't even going for you, I was aiming for the Viking hatchling with the curled horns on its head." Hiccup sighed, "Of course, Snotlout." Toothless licked Hiccup's face, "I'm glad I picked you, that Snotlout probably wouldn't have made such a nice friend." "Thanks, but no thanks to the tongue." The dragon let out an offended snort, "it's getting dark, I'd love to have you stay here forever but, it's about time you got going."
The boy groaned, "I'd much prefer to stay with you, goodnight bud." The Nightfury nodded. Then Hiccup turned and climbed his way out of the cove and trudged back through the forest.
Astrid sat in a hole in the ground, it was amazingly symmetrical and smooth for a pit dug by dragons but she suspected Gronkles had something to do with that. She'd been here for four days, or was it five, she had stopped counting long time ago, there was not point. From what Astrid could gather, she and Fishlegs were the only humans that had been kidnapped by the dragons. They had spent an entire day calling out to see if there was anyone else, but came to the conclusion that they were alone, except for the dragons of course. Oddly enough she hadn't been flamed or mauled to death, in fact the dragons had been very kind to her, or as kind as a jail keeper could be. A few times a day they would bring her another raw fish, they didn't seem to understand that she couldn't eat them.
She stared longingly at today's small pile of fish, however Astrid knew that it could kill her, some fish were poisonous if not cooked right. The dragons had also brought her a cracked clay bowl filled to the brim with water each day, where they got the bowl, she had no idea but she was just grateful that she didn't have to go without water too. Her captors never let her get too cold either, in fact every night they light a fire next to her jail. They were not trying to be cruel, but framed against the starry sky she would just see the tips of the flickering flames from her hole in the ground, and it would remind her that if she could just reach it she would be able to eat. About two days or so ago she and Fishlegs had stopped talking, it simply became to exhausting and they needed to reserve their energy.
A dragon screeched, and Astrid didn't even flinch, the first few times she had reached for her missing axe, but now it was a welcome sound in the heavy silence. It also meant, she would either get warmth, water or at worst more useless fish. Well at least the beasts took the fish away every morning, if they hadn't then her prison would have started smelling like rotting fish longtime ago.
A Hideous Zippleback dropped its load of sticks and landed with a thump next to the edge of the hole. A stick rolled off the edge and into the pit. Barf one of the heads of the two headed dragon, tried to retrieve the stick, but no matter how far it stretched it couldn't quite reach the fallen object. Then before either head could react, Barf and Belch who were both pulling too far in opposite directions snapped back together and their heads collided painfully. Belch just snorted and continued his task of lighting a fire for the human, a single spark light the branches and a small fire started up, then very quickly the brisk wind it blew out.
Barf huffed and grabbed the sticks in his mouth and dropped them into the pit, they had been told if it was too windy for fire they would light it in the hole. The Zippleback inched closer to the edge of the stone pit and Belch leaned down and light the wood on fire, then they flew off again, already quarrelling.
Astrid was crouched on the other side of the pit, across from the Zippleback head that lit the sparks, as soon as the head which let out the gas had lifted his head from her prison she had made a mad dash for the stick and ran back across the pit to get as far from the beast as possible. Now she held the stick; which she had sharpened on the stone, in front of her like a sword. Even though none of the dragons had harmed her she was still wary. However she knew the stick was useless, if a dragon were to attack her she knew she wouldn't be able to defend herself even if she had her axe, after four days of no food and fitful sleep she was exhausted.
When one of the heads appeared over the edge of the pit and dropped a pile of sticks in the middle of her prison, she plastered her back against the wall; she had nowhere else to go. Were they going to try to burn her alive? With the sticks in the middle of the hole there was about six feet of space surrounding the pile, while that was more than enough space to avoid a potential fire, she still couldn't be sure. What if they were planning on bringing more branches? A second head appeared over the rim of her stone cage and lowered into the pit, then it paused half a foot from the wood pile and sparks spilled from its mouth and lit a fire. Both of the heads disappeared and Astrid relaxed, the she caught sight of the small stack of raw fish and looked at the stick gripped in her hand, and a smile spread across her face.
Sorry Gobber may have acted a little out of character, but he was really awkward about telling Hiccup about the others. And if you were wondering why Toothless didn't seem too concerned for Hiccup's sort of friends it's because, he knows the dragons won't harm them, and he doesn't see his own dragon clan as a threat.