Hiya!

Don't own anything HTTYD related.

Enjoy Chapter 5!

-Mitti

- - § - -

Maybe they should turn back. Maybe this whole thing was just a myth, and the UnderIce dragon species never existed, or became extinct. Hiccup usually didn't think negatively, but today . . .

They were lost in fog. What do you expect.

"Hey, bud?"

Toothless growled in response, but it wasn't an angry growl. It sounded more as if he was saying, 'Yep. Listening, but also flying, so not looking at you.'

"Do you think maybe we -"

But after a surprised cry and the screeching of a Night Fury, the question would never be finished.

- - § - -

Eyes, either dragon or human; the question was undecipherable, watched as the black figure fell from the sky. Those particular eyes widened when a small shape detached from the previous one, and quickly fell down toward the bay.

A smaller splash was followed by a large one.

The body of the eyes quickly began making its way toward the shoreline, but stopped cold when another figure jumped in. Those two figures had been at war for years, and now that they were to save the mysterious fallers, might be an even worse clash. One could swim better than the other.

Maybe.

Without another thought, the figure jumped into the sea.

- - § - -

Ringing. Loud ringing. And pain.

Oh gods, there was a lot of pain.

The ringing noises that bounced around in his ears seemed loud enough to make him deaf, until finally it slowly began fading away.

Hiccup's vision was foggy and disillusioned, and when he tried to sit up he coughed and began spitting up salt water that burned his throat and mouth. His head felt as if it would explode at any minute, from pressure or a direct hit he wasn't sure. Half of his body ached, especially his legs and feet.

Wait a minute.

Despite having barely any vision, Hiccup knew where his legs were. His left leg instinctively bent and curled up to his chest (sending a jolt of pain with it) and his hands, shaking as they were, felt for his prothetic foot.

It wasn't there.

Oh gods.

So now he only had one foot.

Groaning, Hiccup rubbed his eyes until they began less foggy. His head still throbbed, but that seemed by now that he had gotten hit. The left side of his ribcage and torso in general hurt, but that was from turning sideways before hitting the mountain.

Hiccup felt a shudder down his spine as he remembered. The leaning mountain had come up so abruptly from the fog that the duo had zero time to swerve away.

The duo.

Toothless.

Hiccup bolted up (and swayed afterwards from dizziness) and suddenly was aware that there was no dragon near. "Toothless?" he called, turning around. There was only the choppy ocean.

"Toothless!"

Fear began growing in Hiccup's chest as he slowly and awkwardly limped/walked around the beach, trying to get a sense of where he was and where Toothless was.

"Bud! Toothless!"

No growls, no Night Fury calls.

Nothing.

Eyes wide, the brown-haired boy began jogging strangely toward the mountain that he had hit. Fog wasn't so stuffy down here, and he could see the base quickly shooting upward into a very leaning-to-the-right mountain.

"TOOTHLESS!"

If he had stepped a certain step with his left leg, he never would have tripped.

But he took a step with his right.

And then he fell flat on the sandy beach.

Surprise turned into shock quickly, and no pain was felt except for a few scared nerves. Hiccup slowly sat up, shaking sand out of his hair and spitting it out of his mouth, as he turned to the rock he had tripped over.

This rock was weird.

The teen Viking grabbed it with his no-longer shaking hands, and read the very badly incrusted writing in the rock. Squinting, Hiccup realized that it had been molded, carved into, then hardened.

But how could this rock, looking rather fresh and new despite being next to the eroding ocean, end up here?

Had someone left it?

Had something?

Hiccup scoffed. "Dragon's can't write," he muttered to himself. He inspected the words closely, bringing it up close to his face. The words weren't exactly in his favor, being so sloppy, but he was able to make them out.

If only he had realized that those words would traumatize him even more, despite already losing his prothetic foot and dragon.

GO AWAY.

"Okay," Hiccup said, with his voice slowly descending from any happiness whatsoever. Did something want him gone?

Someone?

Well, wasn't that a great example of paranoia. Already Hiccup felt that repetitive urge to look over his shoulder, but in the still-logic part of his mind that wasn't slightly glazed over with fear told him there was only the ocean.

Which might not have been exactly true.

Hiccup decided to forget the rock. Maybe the fog was playing tricks on him, or he was still sleeping. The latter he hoped, because then Toothless might still be there.

Standing up, unbalanced all the while, Hiccup looked to the left of him, then his right, and then at the towering and intimidating mountain which had crashed the two friends. It wasn't exactly a happy memory, and it had been the last before he had blacked out from the impact.

"Toothless!" Hiccup called, before muttering, "Toothless, where are you." His black-scaled friend was no where to be seen, and after stubbing his toes on the rock both legs were stinging a little more. After his left leg (what was left of it) had begun very annoying and wincing pain, Hiccup decided to look for water and something to wrap up his foot, so he wouldn't be throwing all his weight on it when he walked his lurching gait.

After calling for his friend one more time, and silence answering his desperate plea, Hiccup began searching and listening for water. Before really looking too hard, however, he felt a small tinge of doubt.

He was alone.

On an island.

Toothless was gone.

No one knew where he was.

Something wants him gone.

Despite everything Hiccup had been prepared for on his searching for an UnderIce dragon, he was not ready for this.

That was the scary part.

- - § - -

Toothless growled as something poked his side. It was far too big to be Hiccup, and that was what made him finally arouse and look up with dizzy eyes. He saw a cave ceiling.

Jolting awake in fear, Toothless jumped to his feet, his irises slimming to slits and his teeth bared. His claws dug into the ground as he turned around slowly, looking for a dragon or something to get him out of the cave.

The cave was like a tunnel. It was lit by strange crystallite gems that glowed an eerie silver color, making the tunnel illuminated in a silvery-blue. The walls had what looked like previously loose stones with dirt and mud filling in the cracks, rendering them stiff, while the ceiling was partially made up of dirt and the floor was a covered in stone-dust, tiny pebbles, and solid stone beneath. Underground had never exactly been Toothless's strong suit, and the claustrophobic-inducing tunnel certainly wasn't helping. He was a dragon, and despite not being able to fly on his own, he liked the feeling of simply "open air" if it made sense.

Growling, Toothless realized that whatever had prodded him awake was no longer here. It had been much to big to be Hiccup's hand or leg, and it had felt like some sort of larger limb, such as a dragon's leg. If there was a dragon, it might have been a Changewing, a dragon that can blend in. There was no sign of any lifeforms in the tunnel whatsoever.

Suddenly wary of the invisible dragon, Toothless opened his mouth and blasted white-and-blue hot fire down at the wall. In response, instead of there being a dragon's annoyed or pained hiss, there was just the creaking of the wall as it protested Toothless's treatment.

Would the tunnels hold?

Toothless's mind clouded in fear. He certainly didn't want to be trapped down here. And, with the realization minutes ago that Hiccup was no where to be seen, the black-scaled Night Fury realized that they were separated, and probably couldn't get away with one another.

Just another thing the duo had in common.

Toothless half-shrieked and half-roared; it was the average "Night Fury" call, as to see if his rider could hear him, or anyone else. Only his voice, which echoed off of the silvery walls, responded.

Freezing his limbs for a second, Toothless pricked his ears for his magnified hearing. He heard a few stones jittering together, and if he had his active imagination going the dragon could hear waves from the ocean, lapping up against a mysterious and lost shore.

That shore, exactly that shore, was where Toothless planned to go.

In a half-second, the dragon broke free of his mimicry of stone and bolted down the tunnel. His feet thumping against the ground, reinforced by his claws scraping off any earth that was not packed in, might as well have been a gong ringing in Toothless's ears. Either way, the sound was loud and intensified, and rather spooky.

The dragon's thoughts were muddled with his attempt to escape the tunnels, but one thought prevailed and ruled his mind at the moment.

Find rider.

Find Hiccup.

- - § - -

Hiccup had successfully found water and a very rough yet working "bandage". It was just a simple grass-woven covering, but nonetheless it worked. However, it could not change any way that he walked. He would be limping until he found his prothetic foot.

He had found something, though. His backpack, which was scattered open and had his books open, while the spines of those particular books didn't look picture-perfect. That was where they had obviously fallen.

The other items Hiccup had packed were gone. They had probably slipped out of his rucksack, much to his dismay. They were nowhere to be seen.

Now the bag was slung over his shoulder, but weariness made it seem as if it was full of dragon eggs. Hiccup's shoulder ached, as did his chest, his legs hurt, and he was getting hungry. There may had been some edible foods that Hiccup had passed, but he would refuse to try them until he was sure they wouldn't kill him.

The brown-haired boy had also given up calling for Toothless, at least during this particular minute. His throat was becoming raw and sore, despite him drinking his fill when he found a small pool of water at the base of the looming mountain. The Night Fury, if he was not unconscious, would have heard him by now.

That "paranoia" feeling had never exactly left him in peace. Hiccup often glanced to the side, or up into the sky, looking for something that he wasn't sure of what it was. Dragons?

Well, he was looking for a specific dragon that couldn't fly without him. Toothless wouldn't be in the sky.

On top of that, it was getting dark.

It wasn't how Hiccup was used to it. Normally the sky preformed one last act; the brilliant sunset. The sky seemed brighter than ever, as the sun slowly went in peace from this side of the world.

This time it was different. There was no sun, no breathtaking array of colors that stood out against the green-and-brown landscape, just the light gray fog slowly disintegrating into dark gray fog, then black fog. Hiccup would need to rest soon; he could already feel exhaustion pushing his mind into dizziness.

This next moment, just before Hiccup laid down for sleep, may have also been a chance, just how finding the rock with the crudely-engraved words was a chance because he stepped forward with a particular foot. However, this chance didn't have anything to do with his feet (or, rather, foot).

Just before Hiccup fell down to sleep in a grassy area, he once again searched around him, looking for Toothless or . . . Well, anything.

This time, this one time, his wish was granted.

Not in the way he wanted, of course.

A small white blade cut through Hiccup's vision. It was a streak, moving fast on the outskirts of the island. It moved in and out of his vision, due to the darkness, but Hiccup knew it was there.

Breathing fast, shallow, and . . . Possibly excited, Hiccup thought with a pounding in his heart that it was an UnderIce. It wasn't common for a dragon to be a full white color.

With his sense of triumph, Hiccup thought to himself about what could happen if he returned as the streaking white moved out of his vision. He suddenly and bizarrely thought of what Astrid was thinking, and if she was worried or angry.

I'll be back soon, he promised silently in his head, laying down for the night. The grass whispered in the wind, helping him drift in and out of consciousness, thinking about Toothless, Berk, and yes, Astrid.

Yet Toothless was still lost in the dark tunnels, but luckily the dragon's keen nose had scented salt. It would be long, however, before he and Hiccup met once more.

Because as Hiccup dozed peacefully, he did not notice the figure in the water, slowly uprising from the quiet waves.

There were two very peculiar things about this figure.

One; it had strange ice-blue eyes.

Two; the figure was holding a mirror shard that glittered, despite there being no moon or stars.

The shard resembled a knife.

- - § - -

Isn't this ominous. Don't worry, no characters will die.

Please review;

They are greatly appreciated!

-Mitti