Chapter 5

Toothless flew North always staying near large mountains. If he was going to find other Night Furies, he needed to search all the caves. He had lost count of how many caves he had checked so far. It had been a while since he left and he still found nothing. Even if he did find an inhabited cave, it was never home to a Night Fury and was often another species of dragon that were not very welcoming to visitors.

The snow was currently falling very hard making it almost impossible to see. Winter was coming for the archipelagos very soon but had already arrived where Toothless was. The cold was getting to him now so he needed to take a break. He may be a fire breather but was still a cold-blooded reptile and could only handle so much. Using his echo screech to find solid objects, Toothless found a ledge on the side of a mountain that had enough overpass to block a lot of the snow. He landed on the ledge and was for once happy to find no traces of another dragon.

After lighting the ground and lying down Toothless started to warm up. The dragon stared out onto the endless snow and started to think about Hiccup. He usually tried to avoid this to keep himself from becoming sad but it was always hard during down time. He wondered how his former rider was doing back on Berk. He hoped he was doing fine and being a great chief to his people. He worried at first that Hiccup would be very upset and maybe even try and look for him, but hopefully the viking realized he would never find him and go back to his life. If all was well he would probably have a new dragon (preferably not that smug Monstrous Nightmare) and not have the constant reminder that his dragon had killed his father.

Although this is was what he wanted for Hiccup, Toothless still really missed him. A part of him kept wishing he would hear Hiccup in the distance calling for him. He had never been this alone in his entire life. He was either going on adventures with his friends or at least with other dragons serving the giant beast. He really hoped he would find other Night Furies soon, he was not exactly enjoying this complete isolation. He thought eventually if he still found nothing he would find a pack of other dragons that may take him in as one of their own.

Toothless sighed and wrapped his tail around himself. Something white caught his eye and he looked at his tail fins. Both were black but the artificial one still had the symbol on it that bonded him with Hiccup. He groaned sadly and decided to try and sleep so he could stop feeling so depressed.

It had been three weeks since Snotlout went home and the search party was really no longer a real team. Throughout those weeks the group became smaller and smaller. No one insulted Hiccup and then were attacked like Snotlout was, but they would try and kindly convince Hiccup to give up. Winter was setting in and it was getting harder and harder to stay warm, fed and confident. The twins were the first to try this and Hiccup did not make them leave but after their attempt he implied he no longer wanted them there so they went home shortly afterwards. Next was Eret who tried to tell Hiccup that he was now only endangering their lives by continuing. Mother Nature was becoming more and more harsh towards them. Finally there was Fishlegs who actually begged Hiccup to at least come back until the end of winter then search again, but the pleas were no use. So he and Meatlug left but not before Fishlegs privately told Astrid to take care of him and herself and try to get Hiccup to change his mind.

Now the team consisted of Hiccup, Astrid and Stormfly and it had been a few days since Fishlegs had departed. Astrid never complained but she was getting more and more worried about Hiccup. Survival was not the only issue for them anymore, she feared that Hiccup was loosing his mind.

Hiccup hardly ever talked to her other than to tell her where to steer Stormfly and he often seemed to not be aware of his surroundings due to him constantly staring off into space. It was like his soul was not completely present and never will be until he found his dragon.

At this point Astrid was pretty angry with Toothless. The stupid dragon caused all this and she still felt that whatever issues Toothless had he could of worked them out with Hiccup instead of leaving and completely destroying him.

There were times when Hiccup would think he saw Toothless but would end up being a pile of boulders in the shadows or a deer heard walking in the woods. Those were the only moments when Astrid saw him truly excited or at least upbeat, that is until the false alarm was confirmed.

The three of them were far from any ocean which made Astrid suspect they were not even on an island anymore. They never encountered any other people which she figured was because of how cold it was. It was rare that they encountered an area that was not covered in snow. Winter was certainly present and finding food was hard. She thanked the gods countless times for Stormfly who had been hunting most of their food. Astrid was so grateful for her Nadder's help that she always let her dragon eat first and because she felt bad that Stormfly had to give up fish.

Astrid was currently asleep wrapped in several blankets in their temporary tent when she was awakened by Hiccup.

"Let's get going," he said to her and left the tent.

Astrid peered outside and sighed to see that it was still dark. But this was not the first time Hiccup wanted to begin their search before dawn. She knew she needed to stop this journey and soon. If not, they could starve or freeze to death. The problem was she did not want to talk to him about it. She had witnessed how that worked out with all their friends. Because of this Astrid was waiting for something to change, something that she could use as a new reason to return to Berk. Searching took way longer than traveling so flying home would take less time.

Astrid crawled out of the tent and helped Hiccup pack it up. She was at least somewhat happy that it was not snowing at the moment. The two then took off on Stormfly with Astrid driving. When it was dark they had to let the Nadder rely on her good hearing and smell since visibility was very limited. They flew just above the treetops in silence before Stormfly squawked in alert. Astrid was about to ask her dragon what was wrong when the two vikings heard an erie whispering.

Trees from behind them started to fall over before something burst from the ground below and roared. Although Hiccup and Astrid could not see it, they knew it was a Whispering Death and he did not sound too happy about them being in his territory.

Astrid made Stormfly fly higher to miss the rings of fire blasted at them. The fire supplied some light for a short time for them to see the Whispering Death gaining on them.

"Hang on Babe!" Astrid yelled as they tried to loose the other dragon. Hiccup wrapped his arms around her since he had no handles. They flew fast and with sharp turns but were still being chased.

Suddenly Stormfly heard the faint whistling of spines shooting towards them. Reacting fast the Deadly Nadder did a barrel roll to dodge them. Unfortunately the two vikings did not hear the incoming spikes and did not know she was going to do that. In the moment they were upside down Hiccup lost hold of Astrid and fell off. The shift in weight threw the dragon off balance and jerked hard to stay airborne. This made Astrid fall too but did not fall far before her dragon caught her in her claws.

Thinking fast Astrid told Stormfly to throw her back on the saddle. Once she landed back on her seat she heard a roar telling her the Whispering Death did not give up. Astrid took out her ax and wrapped a blanket from her bag around the head. Reaching out so Stormfly could light it, the viking now had a large burning torch. She flew her dragon back towards the aggressive dragon and waved the bright fire in his face. Whispering Deaths hated light so he was not too happy about this and screeched before flying away.

Astrid let out a breath of relief and addressed her other problem.

"Hiccup? HICCUP!" she yelled for him but heard nothing.