Friday morning I received one of the worst phone calls of my life. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Japan was hit with a huge earthquake, then a tsunami and now the threat of a nuclear disaster. My parents called me that morning to tell me the news, and that they hadn't heard any word from my brother who is currently over in Japan working all over the country on an apprenticeship program. I had been having a horrible week already and the news that my brother could have potentially lost his life really put things into perspective for me.

That Sunday, while I was over at my parents house, my brother finally called. He had been in Utsunomiya at the time working for his company and he had narrowly missed the tsunami disaster. Luckily, he and his team managed to make it down to Tokyo before the nuclear reactor emergency really turned into a fiasco. Last I heard from my brother, he was trying to book transportation to Osaka and get out of the country but so far he has had no luck. I've been a mess of nerves all week and posting this chapter is more of a distraction tactic than anything.

So please, keep an open heart to the victims of this natural disaster. With the threat of a nuclear meltdown on the horizon, I can only hope and pray for my brother.

HORIZONS

Arc 2: Verðandi and the End of All Things

Chapter III

Astrid wasn't sure how long she had been holed up within the tiny confines of what had once been Hiccup's workshop, but if the state of the nearly melted candle in its holder was anything to go by, she guessed that it might have been a while. There had been fifteen notebooks in total lodged in the secret compartment beneath the slanted drawing desk, and though her conscious told her not to snoop around in Hiccup's belongings, she really couldn't help herself. After all, he was the man she was hoping to...like? She shook her head restlessly in a half-hearted attempt to shake away her thoughts. She would admit something to him, anything really, so long as she could chase him down and corner him long enough to tell him.

As she cracked open the well worn spine of the thirtieth notebook in the pile, she couldn't help but swallow uncomfortably. The profoundly intimate look into Hiccup's personal life hadn't exactly been a pleasant one, especially considering that most of the notebooks that had been hidden in the desk's unseen depths were kept long before he became the best thing in Berk since mutton sandwiches.

The first eight books that he had filled with his thoughts and doodles had been startlingly bleak – the lines of his drawings were uncomfortably rigid in a way that did not merely convey a lack of ability. Every once and a while his inner musings would be strewn in scribbles across the corners of the pages, their reflections unnerving and unforgivable; they spoke of infinitely darker days, of times where he was shunned and ignored despite his ever pressing need to shine. In between the blueprints of inventions here and there they told a story of rejection in the eyes of his peers, in the eyes of his father. He was a curse to the village and he knew it – but he had tried to fit in anyway, hopeful that maybe the next time things would be different.

Only once did she see a portrait of herself in those bleaker pages. She was barely recognizable amidst the harsh lines drawn in by his charcoal pencil but there she was nonetheless, scowling over her shoulder in what seemed to be the Great Hall. The depiction was shockingly accurate and it worried her; had she been glaring angrily at him? Did she really look like that when she was disgusted? She was obviously younger in the sketch if the style of her hair was any indication. She had stopped wearing her wavy tresses in double braids back when she was eleven or so and she had settled with tossing her hair into one braid ever since.

The ninth and tenth books were mostly filled with mechanical drafts and outlines of various designs, some of them more practical than others. She recognized a few of the devilish creations and considered the wreckage that had ensued because of them. She shook her head as she flipped the pages; what had he been thinking making all of those contraptions? Had he seriously thought that they would have gained him some sort of approval in the eyes of his tribe? His father?

Unfortunately Astrid already knew the answer.

The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth books were decidedly more interesting. There she finally saw the first few sketches of the most elusive dragon of them all etched onto the pages, first as a simple anatomical outline and then later in various poses and situations. She couldn't help but let a laugh escape her lips at a particular page full of sketches, all of them of the Night Fury's silly facial expressions. One was downright horrified while another one was grinning crookedly, as if trying to imitate his goofy rider's trademark smile. She smiled despondently in response and flipped the pages until she came across another leaf with sketches of herself upon them, ones that were far more delicately drawn.

There was a set of three images splayed across the two open pages of parchment, all three of them within the same general theme. The first one had her holding her axe in one hand above her head, her body tilted sideways as if she were facing her nemesis. The second had her throwing the axe, her body tipped forward as she followed through with the movement while the airborne weapon continued across the page. The third one was of her yanking her axe out of what she quickly recognized as the tree she often chose to practice upon, her foot flat against the trunk as she tugged at the metal embedded in the wood. She let her eyes follow the way her skirt seemed to rise past her upper thighs; the attention to detail was stunning, she couldn't deny that, and the way he seemed to draw her so dexterously, despite all her ferocity, entranced her.

Perhaps the boy had been watching her training in the woods the day she had caught him longer than she had initially thought.

She watched with a morbid fascination as the sketches of his everyday life increased – there were drawings of dragons with much more docile expressions than the ones that had been illustrated in their infamous manual. A picture of his father grinning happily appeared in the pages for the very first time, drawn with a weariness that Astrid knew all too well.

It wasn't hard to figure out what night this spree of sketching had come from. Picture after picture of her appeared on the parchment, all of them depicting an emotion on her face that she remembered quite clearly on that fateful night. She paused at one of the drawings in particular, entranced by the softness of the lines, the tranquility of her features. How on earth had he managed to draw her so… Astrid tried to quell the compliments from her thoughts, pushing her anger towards the boy to the very forefront of her mind.

But…

Astrid huffed and kept staring at the piece. Of course it was weird to keep gawking at a picture of herself, especially a picture that her potential significant other had drawn of her, but she couldn't help it. By Frigg, he was good. He was fantastic! How had he managed to keep his talent a secret all this time? Did his father even know he could draw? Or if he had, had he ever even acknowledged it? She didn't want to think poorly of the chieftain, but he had been despicably cruel to his own son nonetheless.

But had she been all that different?

The thought struck a chord deep within her and she felt her heart nearly lurch to a halt. She dropped the book into her lap and recoiled as if the parchment paper had stung her fingers, staring wide eyed as the leaves skipped forward to the very last pages which were completely devoid of anything at all.

She had almost lost him.

Almost.

And now he was out there doing Odin knows what, off on some crazy wanderlust adventure. He had left because he still thought he was worthless, even after all that he had done. Astrid ground her fists into her eyes, screwing them shut in frustration. Why was this happening? What had she done?

She stuffed the final two notebooks into a pocket on the inside of her sleeveless shawl, the same one she had been wearing on the day she had watched him fly away into the sunrise. She piled all of the other books into the secret compartment beneath his desk and sealed the little hatch back up again, making sure that they were all secure inside. The last thing she needed was them falling out all over the place for everyone to see; she had invaded his privacy enough, and who knew what Gobber or Stoic would do if they ever got their hands on them.

She extinguished the virtually liquefied candle and snuck out into the evening, the sun's last rays just peaking over the horizon. She snuck through the relative cover of dusk towards her lodge and slipped past the front door, taking refuge in the barn at the back of her property instead. She inched the door open and snuck in without any trouble, closing the door as quietly as she could behind her.

"Are you still there?" she whispered, fumbling for the candle she usually kept to the left of the doorway on the windowsill. She sighed in relief as a familiar whirr carried through the darkness and Astrid quickly fished a flint from the pack on her hip in order to confirm her estimations. She struck it expertly beside the liquor soaked candlewick in her palms and stood triumphant as the candle ignited and lit the room in a splay of trembling shadows.

She saw her dragon curled in the middle of the large mass of straw that lay strewn inside the wooden barn and smiled, eagerly stepping through the dried stalks with the two final notebooks in hand. She plopped down beside the Nadder and lounged against the dragon's withers, sighing with her thankful smile still gracing her features. She looked up and was immediately swept away by the Nadder's curious gold eyes, wordlessly demanding for an explanation.

"You won't believe what I managed to find," Astrid lifted the two notebooks into the air for the dragon to examine, the Nadder's eyes narrowing for a moment as her blue nosed sniffed the leather bindings. She warbled quietly before nestling closer to her rider, obviously recognizing the scent of the individual who had suddenly become the reason why her hatchling was suffering. Astrid sighed again, this time in a way that was far from comforting, and set the first of the two books on her lap.

The first page was chock full of sketches and phrases and half formed thoughts that had spurred from the tip of his charcoal shortly after his awakening. She saw the runic symbols of her name scattered on the parchment pages more than once, coinciding with drawings of her face or of Toothless or of his father. His father, finally with a genuine smile on his face.

She turned the page and grazed over the full spread, the image taking up the entire length of the little book. It was of Toothless in his entirety with his full gear and prosthetic, staring gleefully up at something that was out of the drawing's bounds. The next page was a familiar scene; she had seen the same exact perspective when she had been sitting upon the boy's porch, idly watching his healer make a salve that had inevitably saved his life. Dragons of various species were perched upon the buildings of the lower village, roosting on rooftops or feasting by the troughs. She ran the pad of her index finger gently over the path to her cabin, its structure hidden by the buildings before it.

She continued through the first book until she reached the last ten pages or so, stopping dead at the stark contrast of illustrations in comparison to the gentle drawings at the start. She found herself staring face to face with the very thing her intuition had been stewing over since he had first mentioned it; the black, savage slit-like eyes of Jörmungand bore right through the confines of the parchment and seemed to lift from the page, its venomous fangs drawing ever nearer. She tried to quell her pounding heart but had a hard time as she fought to tear her eyes away, the realistic portrayal of the deadliest sea serpent in all of the Norse legends stirring up unwelcome feelings of fear deep inside her.

She overturned the page and flipped it again and again until she at last closed the leather casing with a thud. The rest of the images shouldn't have scared her as much as they did; sketches of cascading waterfalls, churning whirlpools and forked tongues seemed to have completely taken over his mind. She quickly tossed the book to the side and pulled the next one into her lap, hoping desperately for a change in perspective.

The fifteenth and final notebook was decidedly different than the others had been. Where the others had been chock full of portraits and sketches of scenes from everyday life, this one was almost entirely occupied with projects and lists. She found the blueprint of the terrible bow catapult thing that had nearly taken his eye out, along with various other little crafts. She sifted through lists of things written in haphazard patterns, all of which had to deal with his imminent departure, though in his descriptions he still seemed unsure of when. This changed shortly after the last appearance of her portrait; it was of a scene she could still remember quite vividly in her mind, of when he had up and left her on the beach with no explanation as to why. She knew why now of course and hated him for it, but it still didn't keep her from staring at the detail of the drawing. It appeared as if he had spent hours, days even, working on the sketch if the changes in charcoal were anything to go by.

She tried to ignore the water stain on the page, fooling herself that it was simply a fault in the parchment.

The lists started to become much more urgent and specific after that, narrowing down on the simplest of things. There were no more drawings – only runes and reminders marred the toffee coloured pages. She flipped through them as fast as her eyes would let her, her inability to see past his cryptic scrawl beginning to irritate her. She was nearing the end of the book and though she had a good idea of where he might be headed, she still had no concrete clues within her grasp as to why. She knew it had to do with his insecurities about his handicap but that couldn't be the only reason. Hiccup was a lot more complex than that, she knew from clear experience.

She had to figure it out and at last she came across the space where three pieces had clearly been ripped from the spines of the leather. She ran her fingers across the zigzagged remains and tried as hard as she could to imagine what on earth Hiccup had been thinking as he had written those three letters. Eagerness perhaps? Guilt? She was well aware of Hiccup's wanderlust but she knew that couldn't have been the reason for his departure either. There was something else, something she was missing.

And with that, she flipped to the very last page of the notebook and stared with wide eyes, mouth parted in realization. The final remnants, his last thoughts before he had left had been of a woman she didn't recognize, but if the semblances in complexion were anything to go by, she didn't have the slightest doubt about whom she was. She was smiling, her hair partially covering her brow as it was swept up into what Astrid could only imagine to be a decorative comb somewhere hidden behind her head. Her cheeks were speckled with pale freckles, accentuated by the gentle blush on her features. Every stroke had been given such fluidity, such smoothness that Astrid had no trouble in finally comprehending the real motivation for his departure once and for all.

Valhallarama.

"Yeh cannae tell meh anythin' else?"

The Elder Gothi harrumphed quietly and shifted in her seat, her eyes innately shrewd in a way that Gobber wasn't sure he could take for much longer, "In time perhaps. What's important is that our bait goes out and catches the only person who can derive any resolve from this."

"Are yeh sure he'll go through with it?" Gobber's sceptical nature did not go unnoticed by the old seer and she was far too old and hoary to stop the patronizing scoff that passed through her lips.

"You'd be best to waste your thoughts on the more pressing issues at hand."

Gobber sighed and glanced over his shoulder, eyes grazing over towards the long passed out chieftain, drooling all over the ale ridden table, "I'll see what I 'ave. There's probably somethin' I can get together before then."

"You won't have long," Gothi replied, running her fingers along the smooth shaft of her walking cane balanced across her thighs.

"And how long is not long?"

"A matter of days I imagine. She's inept, reckless. But she can be smart despite her impulse to leap without looking. She'll need help if she's going to survive on her own."

"Which is where I come in, I'm guessin'."

"You're the only one who isn't running in circles like a mad dog."

The two Vikings stole another glimpse towards the fallen chief, now snoring softly beneath his helmet. Gobber tore his eyes away and sighed, not liking the situation he had suddenly been thrust into unceremoniously and without warning, "I dinnae like hidin' things from 'im."

Gothi rolled her lips together, carefully considering her words, "Of course you don't. But some things simply must be done."

"Nothin' happens on this island without 'im knowin' about it," Gobber replied morosely, knowing that no matter what he said, he wasn't getting out of this conversation unburdened.

"Which is why you're the best man for the job."

"But—"

"—Simply finish what I've asked you to do and then hide all the evidence. His mind is in shambles, he won't know the difference."

Gobber heaved another sigh and tugged at his moustache uneasily, pointedly avoiding the elder's stare, "For the record, I'm doin' this against meh will, yeh know that?"

Gothi smirked, sending shivers down the weary blacksmith's spine, "You have four days."

"But I thought yeh said yeh didnae know how many da—"

Gothi silenced him with a wave of her hand, "Trust me. Now help this old woman to her feet."

Gobber pushed himself upright without even registering what he was doing and reached out to the elder with his good arm, cupping her shoulder in his huge grasp. He supported her as she raised herself slowly to her feet, hobbling with her cane as she managed to get her footing. Once she was totally upright, the Elder Gothi beckoned him away with a flick of her wrist and bid him goodnight, shuffling slowly but surely on and out the door.

Gobber sighed and returned to his seat on the bench, the wood having already lost its warmth in the cooling air. He rested his chin in his good hand and stared blankly at the other, his pronged accessory still attached to the stub of his arm. He had forgotten what it felt like, having had lived with it for so long. It was almost fifteen years ago when he lost his arm in April only to lose his leg in May. He tried to think back to the days after his recovery, to the times when he was just learning how to walk, how to function again. Had he been that affected?

The old blacksmith shook his head; no one on this island was anything remotely like the chieftain's son.

He lifted his head and watched as the last wisps of smoke disappeared through the smoke hole and into the dead of night. He was tired and he knew that he had to rise early the next day if he wanted to get any sort of furtive start on his given objective.

"Yah!"

Hiccup lunged forwards, his left arm raised in front of him, sword in hand. He stepped back as quickly as he had come, mock parrying before ducking and lunging forwards once again. He swiped the blade upwards, hypothetically slicing a bloody gash into his imaginary enemy. He stepped back and let his sword hang limply at his side, breathing a little heavier than he would have liked.

Try as he might, Hiccup couldn't shake the relentless feeling of horror that continued to rack his bones regardless of how he tried to distract himself. He had been practicing his swordsmanship skills for nearly an hour now, attempting to replicate some of the drills he had often watched from afar as a young boy. They had studied blocks, parries, swipes, stabs...Hiccup tried to remember all of the advice the instructors had given to the trainees. He took a few steps back and sat down heavily upon his sleeping furs, the muscles in his thighs and arms burning with exertion.

He grasped the pommel of the sword in his other hand, the one that wasn't threatening to fall off of his torso, and admired it in the bright firelight. Tongues of errant flame threw the angles of the blade into sharp relief, and Hiccup couldn't help but feel a little awe inspired as he stared at his work. It was a slender edge, pretty measly by Viking standards, but he wasn't really all that concerned with their particular ideals. Judging a book by its cover had been many a Viking's downfall. This sword was strong; the way it had barely trembled when Hiccup had lobbed it into a tree in frustration not twenty minutes ago had been proof enough of that.

He wrapped the sword in its protective leather casing and placed it on his left, hoisting himself up towards the wicker tub of salt. He bent down onto his haunches and made a start to resume his half-finished job. Hiccup had found a substantial number of salt basins shortly after the discovery of the whale that had seemed to be sucked clean off its skeleton. Hiccup sighed and tried to clear his head, but no matter how much he focused on packing the venison in salt he still couldn't stop thinking. What in all of Midgard could have seemingly consumed such a humongous creature as if it had been gulped down through a straw? Hiccup shuddered forcefully; it had taken Toothless nearly fifty seconds to soar over the skeletal remains from skull to tail.

Unfortunately for Hiccup, Toothless seemed to have a pretty good idea of what could have indulged in such a gigantic body, not that the dragon could have told him.

The hatchling's mind seemed to be in a whole different realm as Toothless watched on, his green eyes trying to pick up on every nuance of the human's stiffened body. He could still taste the stench of the sea serpent on his tongue, its fetid rank still clouding his senses. Although closely related in terms of genus, the sea serpent and the dragon had long parted ways and evolved into two entirely different species. Toothless had encountered many of the wayward ocean beasts in his travels but none had ever smelt this ancient, this offensively foul.

He ventured closer to his young rider and settled down closely beside him, hoping to offer some comfort to the boy. As much as he wanted off of this island, Toothless knew that they had to stay and refuel. They had been flying nearly nonstop since their departure from the hatchling's archipelago and even the dragon had to confess that he needed the rest.

And as much as he didn't want to admit it, Toothless wasn't exactly in his prime anymore either. His wings were just as weak as they were when he was kicked out of his nest some hundreds of cycles ago, no thanks to the little creature by his flank. The only plus was that his legs and neck were far stronger than they had ever been in his entire existence, a length of time that was far longer than he cared to think about. The muscles of his wings and chest were aching from the days of overuse and if the serpent's stench wasn't still wafting around their campground, he would have long taken the chance to fallen asleep. He warbled quietly and wrapped his body up around his hatchling, closing his eyes in what he would soon hope to turn into slumber. He shifted his back paws into a more comfortable position and folded his wings into his side, eager for a good, well-earned rest.

Meanwhile, Hiccup had finished wrapping the packed meat in a sheet of leather and sat back against Toothless' resting body. He raked his fingers through his auburn hair and sighed quietly, his eyes never leaving the feeble rays of the dying sun along the horizon.

He thought of her as the two renegades sprawled there in the silence, with nothing but the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs somewhere behind them to break the absence of sound. He hoped that she would understand what he had done and not read into it too much. He hoped she would just accept his inexistence on the island like a regular Viking would.

But he knew better.

Astrid was a lot smarter than one would give her credit for, considering her ostensible obsession with all things to do with warfare and combat. But with the knowledge of war came the ability to unmask even the most enigmatic puzzles like a sleuth, always cunning and vigilant for the next unseen clue. Hiccup couldn't help but acknowledge that he had certainly left her with quite the brainteaser and he knew she wouldn't stop trying to figure out why in Midgard he had left. Unfortunately, he mused, it would be the other things she unearthed in the process that he hadn't intentionally left for her that would be his downfall.

He knew she wasn't stupid enough to go after him. Not only did he leave no clue behind as to where he was going but he had waited until her dragon had fled the island for warmer territory before packing up his bags and leaving. When he had checked the night before his departure there hadn't been a Nadder left on Berk and the barn behind the Hofferson home had been no exception. Without a dragon in her grasps, there would be absolutely no way she would even attempt to go after him, which was both reassuring and bittersweet.

Hiccup shook the thoughts from his mind. What made him even assume that she would go after him in the first place? Their relationship was over – their bonds were obviously broken. He thought he had made that clear enough on the far coast of their island and he knew that she had understood. He sighed and tore his fingers through his hair again, wishing that they were streaming through her blonde locks instead of his own. He imagined how it would feel in his hands as he pulled himself into his sleeping furs, closing his eyes as he thought of how soft her tresses would glide between his palms. He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes as he imagined that she was right there beside him, her beautiful locks of golden hair splayed out like a curtain of silk against her pillow.

Her blue eyes shone in the firelight as if they were illuminated from within, their colour matching that of the ocean waves. Her lips were parted in a half formed smile as she gazed at him, her face only inches away as she leaned closer to wipe out the distance between them.

Her hand coiled around the small of his back and pushed him closer to her body, their lips suddenly intertwined. He lost his fingers in her blonde locks and sighed with pleasure, using his other hand to slowly trace a trail from her collarbone down farther and farther…

Hiccup moaned in his sleep and Toothless wearily opened one eye, his pupil strangely accusatory as he glanced down at the breathless hatchling. A new scent had begun to assault his senses, one that he was beginning to clearly recognize as he spent more and more time with the boy.

The black dragon wrinkled his nose in disgust and tried to tune out the strange panting noises the boy was making in his slumber. Unfortunately for Toothless, it seemed that human hatchlings were always in mating season.

I hoped you enjoyed this chapter. Leave a review if you like, I would love to hear from you. My review count was severely depleted last chapter which really discouraged my writing.

Please keep my brother in your thoughts. Until my brother comes home, I probably won't be writing a great deal. Please excuse my small hiatus for very personal reasons. I hope you will all understand.

Brontë