Chapter 4
Yeah, sorry about the last chapter; I kind of rushed it… But this one is better, I promise!
Disclaimer: Same crappy old crap crap.
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Hiccup sluggishly opened his eyes after a long nap, the mental image of Toothless still vividly present in his mind. The sun was about half way from the apex of the sky to the horizon indicating he still had a few hours of sunlight left. He sat up, his back not letting him forget about his injuries. Hiccup brought his hand over his leg wound, glad to see that the bleeding has stopped and no signs of infection had shown.
Hiccup stood up gently, cautious to not open the wound on his leg again. He knew that he still had to find Toothless. Normally, an urge to sleep like that wouldn't control him, but he had no choice; his body basically ordered him to lay down on the grass and close his eyes. Now that was over, finding Toothless was his top priority. As he carried the fin, he noticed a stick on the ground near the trunk of a pine tree and walked to its direction to retrieve it. He needed some sort of hiking stick that would take some of the load off his injured leg, and this stick seemed perfect for just that; It was as thick as about a steel rod he used for the fin, and the stick came up to his waist, a well sized stick for him.
Hiccup stripped away some of the dirty bark off the stick when he caught a glimpse of a lone scale on the fallen leaves. The boy ran to it, not even using the stick in the excitement. Hiccup bent down and brought the scale close to his face, hoping to Thor that this was his from Toothless and he was walking in direction of him. The scale was jet black, and had a glossy shine to it, no doubt from a Night Fury.
He looked around for anymore clues leading to his dragon and there in front of him, was a large rounded paw print heavily indented into the mud.
"Yes! Toothless, you're alive! I knew it!" Hiccup clearing all doubts from his mind that his best friend hadn't survived the crash. He scanned his surroundings, searching for more paw prints leading to Toothless. He eventually followed a trail of paw prints that led further, and further inland. Luckily, by this time of year, the ground was a big muddy mess, leaving indents in the mud easily seen and perfectly preserved.
"Toothless! Where are you bud? Toothless!" Hiccup called. He felt slightly less panicky as he walked further and further into the forest. To Hiccup, the woods was a kind of sanctuary, all the different plants and animal sounds were familiar to him as he spent a lot of time in it during his earlier childhood. There was no one to judge him, no one to tell him that he was a screw-up, and no one to tell him that he needed to be a great Viking and leader like his father. It was just him and the tranquility of nature.
After an hour of hiking through thick bush, he heard a growl emanating from his stomach, demanding food from Hiccup. He hadn't eaten since dinner the other day and now he was famished and his legs wanted to give out. But he wasn't going to deter from his mission from finding his best friend. He cleared away a few branches and walked forward into a large clearing in the center of the forest. The ground was covered in inch deep moss over gigantic boulders, and sure enough, in the center of the clearing was a napping black pile of scales; Toothless.
"Oh my gods! Bud, I've found you!" Hiccup cheered in a loud voice, dropping the artificial fin and waking up the sleeping dragon. Hiccup stepped closer, enthralled that he was reunited with his best friend after such a horrible ordeal.
"Toothless, bud! I'm so happy to se-" Hiccup interrupted but the sudden motion of his Night Fury.
Toothless leapt out of his sleeping position and into a defensive stance, his head low, and his teeth barring. The Night Fury growled at Hiccup intensely, his eyes now black slits.
"Toothless?" Hiccup questioned as he walked forward. Toothless cautiously stepped back, his snout flaring and growled at the boy as though he didn't know who he was. This dragon had a saddle on it, and half his tail was missing too, so it couldn't be any other Night Fury. But on the right side of Toothless head, just above his eye, and he saw a large bloody gash, with dirt and other debris stuck to it.
"Oh my gods, Toothless did you get that in the crash?" The young Viking taking another step towards the dragon. Toothless, now feeling extremely threatened about the boy stepping closer, sprung forward with lightning speed and swiped his claw at Hiccup in the chest. The claw broke through his autumn jacket, now dyeing red around the laceration. Hiccup stumbled backwards and fell onto the ground, one hand holding the new wound, while the other in front of him, trying to protect himself from his own dragon.
"T-Toothless! It's me Hiccup! Don't you remember who I am?" Hiccup pleading his dragon to remember.
Toothless leapt back, glaring at Hiccup, as if saying that it was just a warning for getting too close. The Night Fury bolted into the darkness of the woods, leaving Hiccup with a new injury on the ground.
Hiccup was horrified; why would his dragon attack him? The boy laid there, trying to comprehend what had caused his dragon to take such an action. Did Toothless hate him now because he caused him to crash two times now?
"Toothless… Why-Why would you do this?" Hiccup almost in tears at the thought that his best friend attacked him.
Maybe, he didn't deserve a dragon and buddy like Toothless, and now the gods are punishing him. Then he remembered the gash above Toothless's eye. Maybe it was related to his memory loss? He could've gotten that from many places, either from branches in the forest, or from another dragon. The beach where Toothless ended up was riddled with large rocks-or boulders rather- that he could've smashed into-
"The crash onto the hillside must've given him a concussion, causing him to lose his memory!" Hiccup deduced, recoiling in the pain as he spoke. His chest laceration reminded him that Toothless is dangerous now, since he doesn't know who he is anymore.
He took off his jacket to check how bad of an injury that was. Hiccup was lucky; the claw mark had just grazed his skin, and if it were just a few inches deeper, it would've either broke a rib, or would cause excessive bleeding. But still, this injury was not to be taken lightly. It could still get infected, like his leg and possibly bring him down with a disease, and in this environment, that would be just as deadly as being killed by his own dragon.
Hiccup slid his jacket back on, feeling the frosty air of the cold autumn day. He was dumbfounded, how could he get Toothless's memory back? Then he noticed the half-chewed up fin beside him. Hiccup guessed that his dragon probably chewed it off. But, looking at the fin, an idea slipped into his head.
"I know! I'll retrain him like we did when we first met, that'll return his memory, right?" Hiccup hoping for the best, not even able to grasp the idea of what to do if it didn't work. He was about to set off in search for Toothless again, when he noticed that evening was approaching. There was no way he was going to be able to find Toothless in the dark, and the hungry forest beasts won't help him in finding his buddy either. He decided to leave this until morning, but the problem now is, where to find shelter? The demand from hunger and thirst was gnawing at him, but for the night, shelter had to be chosen over the latter two.
Hiccup got up with the fin and his hiking stick, now looking for a place to spend the night. It was mid autumn and the everywhere on the ground was crowded with either soggy leaves or mud, Hiccup judging was not the best place to sleep; the cold ground would increase the chances of him getting sick, and not to mention, sleeping on mud is not comfortable.
In the corner of his eye, he spotted an big uprooted tree. The trunk of the tree was resting on a mound of dirt, leaving a depression where the roots used to be planted. The tree seemed to have fallen quite recently, seeing how fewer leaves were in the depression compared to the rest of the forest. Hiccup approximated that the hole could fit three of him, a little too big to retain his body heat, and the depression was a bad place to be during rain since water tends to fill holes. But seeing how night was approaching, he wasn't left with many options.
The young Viking took everything that could be remotely useful from his clothing and placed it in front of him. On the ground was his small knife that he always carried around, -He was amazed at how it stayed on during a crash like that- a charcoal writing utensil, about a foot of string, and-
"Argh, my sketchbook's not here! How did my knife stay on when it was loosely attached to my belt, when my sketchbook was lost when it was in my pocket?" Hiccup said with an exasperated sigh. It wasn't the fact that he lost a sketchbook that he was frustrated about, but the fact that he lost a huge amount of possible tinder, which was a rare find in a moist, damp environment such as this. Hiccup checked the rest of his person, disappointed that he didn't have more resources to accompany the little he had.
Hiccup got up and began to start working on an acceptable shelter before nightfall. He found a few large logs lying around and he laid one end of the log on the vertically lying roots, and the other end, resting on the ground in front the depression, forming a small roof. Hiccup laid about seven logs for his makeshift roof, when he heard a howl in the distant. Wolves don't usually attack humans, but a lone human in the middle of the woods, emitting the smell of fresh blood? Hiccup should really get a fire, but he had no flint to create a spark, nor tinder for the spark to light.
"I will just have to take a chance tonight…" Hiccup not very pleased that there was nothing he could do. The sky now was slightly tinted orange, while most of the sky was night blue. Hiccup used the last bit of light to forage on the forest floor for fallen branches of pine to use as a mattress. He could use it as a roof for the shelter, but looking at the sky, it wasn't probably going to rain. The boy cleared the bottom of his shelter, removing leaves and rocks. The bough of pine he foraged was thrown onto the bottom of the depression, now creating a small makeshift mattress.
He called it a night and crawled into his shelter, which now had the pleasant smell of pine. He brought the fin inside his shelter and laid it next to him, a sort of symbol for him about Toothless. He closed his eyes ignoring the possible threat from the woodland animals. Hiccup fell into a deep sleep, his thoughts clouded with Toothless.
Dun-dun-dun, did you expect this? Well, I know Annabeth the Unicorn and WandaCosmoForever, WHO ARE WONDERFUL PEOPLE, already knew this.
Review, review, review. Like I said, it helps me figure out the bad parts of my writing so I can improve it next chapter.