Chapter 3, wewt!
For the bunch of you who have reviewed my story:
I cannot express my gratitude for you doing so because, it keeps me motivated to write more frequently (As I am not very disciplined when it comes to writing) and it allows me to understand which areas I need to improve.
Disclaimer: If How to Train your Dragon was mine, I would be in the studio right now, working 24/7 to get the next movie out.
The waves of the ocean against the rocks was ringing in his ears as he began to regain consciousness. Then the feeling of aching pain in every part of his body was felt as he began moving his arms. Hiccup hazily opened his eyes, viewing the cyan blue skies, peppered with puffy white clouds. Hiccup sat up, almost doubling over from the state that his body was in. He had scratches and cuts all over his arms and legs, leaving his clothing tattered, small rips in several places. His head felt like it was just hit with Thor's hammer and his stomach felt as thought he was about to lose his lunch.
He glanced around at his surroundings, couldn't help but noticing a wall of grass in every direction. The young Viking pushed his legs, trying to rise, but tumbled back down onto his back as his leg refused his orders via a message of pain. Hiccup gazed down at his remaining leg and gasped at the sight of a deep laceration on his calf, sealed off by dried blood. He moved his hand over wound, recoiling at the pain. Hiccup inspected his other limb, relieved to see that at least the prosthetic held up better. A wave of fear washed over his mind; the full memory of the crash coming back to him.
"Toothless!" The boy remembering what had just happened. "Toothless! Where are you?"
No response.
Hiccup scrambled to his feet, ignoring the searing pain from his injuries. He put one of his arms in front of him, franticly wading through the grass, the other on his stomach, trying to ease his nauseated stomach.
His mind was clouded with worry and distress; How could he have lost Toothless? The dragon was cocooning him for the crash, there was no way they could've been separated!
The last bunch of grass was waded aside, revealing the edge of the cliff he was on and the wide expanse of an ocean in front of it. Hiccup inched forward to the edge of the cliff, gulping at how high above the ocean he was. The young Viking turned his head, scanning his surroundings to try to spot anything that could be his dragon. The grass to his left was trampled and a line of flattened grass the width of a bed was clearly visible running down the hillside to the beach. On the beach, he noticed a brown spec.
"The saddle!" Hiccup exclaimed as began he racing down the indent in the grassy slope, going as fast as he could, his injuries disagreeing. His mind was racing, trying to understand how only the saddle was left of a full grown dragon. His mind shrouded with worry and anxiety as he got closer to the saddle. The brown spec was more well defined now and Hiccup stopped in front of it, seeing that it wasn't the saddle, but instead the fin. He picked up the artificial fin, examining it. He was shocked at what seemed to be, bite tears on the leather and scratch marks on the iron supports.
"What could've done this?" He thought. "Maybe Toothless was attacked by another creature on the island? Toothless!" The young Viking cried with all his strength. Hearing no response, he drew his attention back to the fin.
The cable was still connected to the saddle, but extremely frayed in many spots, especially where the separation was. He fell to his knees at the sight of the cable, at the realization that this was all his fault. The night that they snuck out to fly, he saw something strange about the cable, but it slipped from his mind as the patroller forced them to take off abruptly. All it took was a little extra pressure on the already overused cable and it snapped like string.
"Oh gods… This is all my fault…" Hiccup covered his face with his hands, sulking at the realization that the crash was because of his blunder. Him and his best friend are stranded on a deserted island and it all happened because of him. He was lost in abstraction until a wet feeling in his lower leg brought him out of his trance. Hiccup glanced at his leg, the cut had reopened and now bright red blood was seeping out of his wound.
Hiccup held up the artificial fin, about to tear off the leather to tie around his leg.
"No, why am tearing the fin up? Toothless is still alive and maybe the fin will still work!" Hiccup rationalized. He put the fin down onto the sand and tore off a part of his pant legging below his calf. He tied it around the wound, help to prevent infected and to slow the bleeding.
Hiccup grabbed fin and stood up, and hobbling off the beach and sat down on the grass, where the trees protected him from the sun.
Hiccup desperately wished that there was anything that could lead him to Toothless. But there were no tracks, no scales on the beach, no roar in the distance from a familiar Night Fury, just the fin.
"Where could Toothless have gone? If he woke up and realized that I wasn't there, he would've gone looking for me… right? Or maybe, maybe he's forgotten about me… No. Toothless wouldn't forget about me, he's probably looking for me right now!" Hiccup began to feel an uncompromising urge to sleep. He laid down on the grass, his head resting on his upper arm. He lost consciousness as he fell sleep, his dreams vividly displaying his thoughts about Toothless.
***LINEBREAK****
Everyone in Berk was called into the Mead Hall, awaiting an unexpected meeting called by their chief, Stoic. The chatter in the hall was deafening, everyone wondering the same thing; what announcement could be so important that their chief halted all regular duties in order to attend?
Stoic was standing at the center-front waiting for everyone to quiet down. He raised his hammer and slammed it against the stone side, the Mead Hall now silent.
"Hiccup has gone missing." The blunt message had revived the Mead Hall's volume of conversation, leaving everyone equally confused.
"How do we kno' that your boy isn't hiding out in the woods like he always does?" One of the men asked. The crowd dying down to a quiet whisper.
"This mornin' I checked his room, and both the devil and Hiccup were gone with their riding gear. I know what ya' going to say, 'how do you know he hasn't gone for a ride with his dragon' but the flying isn't what I am worried about, in fact, I'd be more worried if he walked then flew now. This morning, one of our trading ships returned severely damaged from what the crew reported was from a Skrill." Stoic answered. The Mead Hall was in a quiet murmur from the shocking news that the extremely rare Skrill was the one that attacked the ship.
"A Skrill? Are ya' mad? No one has seen one of those things in over a hundred years!" Another man criticized.
"And a Night Fury hasn't been tamed for a million years either." Stoic shot back. "The point is, the Skrill is the only dragon that, even during the queen's rule, would attack other dragons. Now that all dragons are passive, the Skrill is the only species that would attack our merchant ship, and I'm afraid that Hiccup might be a victim by the same dragon." The room was dead silent now, everyone trying to comprehend the events that their chief had told them.
"Now that you mention it, the boy hasn't been at the forge all day! The kid always shows up to work at the stall on time for his shift. I thought he was playin' hookie!" Gobber spoke out.
"Now, I say that we send a full search party right now; The Vikings with dragons will comb the nearby islands by air, while the boats will be sent out to scan the waters." Stoic ordered. He knew well that there are many islands in this part of the sea, many uncharted, and the chance that Hiccup would somehow drift or land onto an island that they will search would be slim at best. But that wasn't going to discourage the man; he needed to do whatever he could to find his son, and he wasn't planning to quit until he does.
"Now let's find Hiccup!" Stoic announced with a roar of himself and the villagers, now aimed at finding the boy who saved them and drastically improving their lives.
The villagers now poured out of the Mead Hall, going to retrieve their dragons and to prepare the boats.
Astrid stepped out of the Mead Hall, annoyed that Hiccup went on another adventure without her, and probably getting himself killed.
Snotlout took a few large steps forward, now beside Astrid with a smirk on his face. "So, if Hiccup isn't found, do you think that me and you will, you kno-"
"Don't even think about it." Astrid said, infuriated that Snotlout would even try to pull a stunt like that at a moment such as this.
She was furious that Hiccup did another act of stupidity, now getting himself lost and possibly killed, but at the same time, she was deeply worried that he might've gotten himself seriously hurt. Her Deadly Nadder, Spiky lowered herself to allow Astrid mount her, feeling her emotions as whom she doesn't want to mess with. Spiky leapt into the air, now flapping her wings to get to a higher altitude.
Fishlegs and his dragon, HorrorCow were also in the air nearby, now flying closer to Astrid and Spiky. "I just did some calculations and the probability that we will find Hiccup on one of the islands that we search is 1 in 145." Fishlegs grimly reported.
Astrid wasn't too happy that her friend had less than a 1% chance of getting found. "It doesn't matter Fishlegs, we will find him." Astrid assured.
"But the calculations-"
"No Fishlegs, math isn't a factor here. I know it; we will find Hiccup, whether it be me, or some other Viking, he will be found." Cutting Fishlegs off.
I'm sorry for the amount of angst and pain emotions in the beginning of this chapter; I felt it was necessary as Hiccup woke up, realizing Toothless wasn't there.
Read and Review. I haven't written ANYTHING containing much pain before, so I need to know if I'm doing a good job, or my writing is crap and I need to improve. Seriously. Review.
Special thanks to WandaCosmoForever for the idea and Annabeth The Unicorn for giving me the confidence to follow that certain plot idea.