As Hiccup marched down the hill from his house—their house—it occurred to him that he had no idea where he planned to go or what he intended to do. His only instinct had been to get away, as far away as possible, from the place that still smelled like his father, the place where his new wife and—he had thought—best friend had kneed him in the guts. He was still intensely tired. The few hours of rest they'd gotten last night hadn't erased the sleep debt they'd built up over the last few weeks. Though he hadn't eaten since their wedding meal, the thought of swallowing food made him feel as though he might be sick.
The forge. He had left his wingsuit at the forge to make adjustments. That was a week ago, and he hadn't flown more than the briefest amount necessary to exercise Toothless since then, what with the wedding preparations and the constant demands from the villagers. That was it: he would get his wingsuit and his dragon and escape from Berk for a few hours. For a short time, he'd be free from the awkward attentions of his mother and the bawdy well-wishes of his friends and the painful slaps on the back and exclamations of "that's ma boy" from Gobber.
Berkians approached him at intervals as he descended the hill toward his destination. They weren't expecting to see him out of the house so soon, and they were nonplussed by his gruff and purposeful dismissals. They were accustomed to a cheery and patient young chief. Little did they know how hard he had worked to keep smiling for their benefit, how whenever he thought he had a few seconds alone, he slumped against whatever wall or tree was nearby and covered his eyes as long as he dared.
Hiccup himself didn't know that the day before the wedding, Astrid and the twins had caught him napping inadvertently behind the Mead Hall after the midday meal, and that the girl had threatened them with everything short of banishment to keep them from trying to see how many Terrible Terrors they could stack on top of his head without waking him.
He heard clanging as he came near the forge, and cursed; Gobber was working inside. Well, maybe he'd have his eye shield down and wouldn't see or hear Hiccup as he snuck into his back room to grab the wingsuit. His luck held; he timed the steps of his prosthetic with the blows of the smith's hammer and he was changed and back out in just a couple of minutes.
He crept around the outskirts of the village and reached the training arena where he'd put Toothless in his stall the night before. He hardly ever put him there because the Night Fury hated it, but he hadn't wanted him to get too curious about what might happen inside the house.
"Let's go, bud," he whispered, attaching the saddle and clicking the flight rig into place. The other Academy members' dragons weren't in their stalls, except for Stormfly. He stuck his head outside the arena and scanned the sky for his friends but everything appeared clear. He mounted Toothless and with a few wing flaps they were airborne and soaring above Berk.
"Where shall we go?" he asked. "Itchy Armpit? We never did finish exploring it last time." It was a two-hour flight to the east, just far enough away to let him clear his head. They'd poke around some and be back before the evening meal.
The weather was clear and beautiful as they cruised over the water, coming close enough to the surface to tease the pods of Thunderdrums below. Toothless veered up abruptly and did a few barrel rolls, overjoyed to finally be free of Berk and alone with his beloved rider once again.
Hiccup sat up straight in the saddle and stretched his arms behind his back, taking in deep breaths of the cool salt air. He felt better already. He just needed to fly. That was the ticket. He began to wonder if he hadn't overreacted to Astrid's earlier confession, and guilt started to pull at his insides.
No, he thought; he was still upset with her. She had hovered over him for weeks, when all the while she had been keeping secrets from him, both political and personal. They had been together for so long by now; he thought they were beyond hiding things like that from each other. He'd only just started to come to terms with the shock of discovering the secret kept from him by his own mother—namely, that she was still alive. It seemed as though both of the most important women in his life had hidden things from him that he should have had the right to know about.
It hurt, perhaps more than it would have if sleep deprivation wasn't still pressing on his nerves.
Toothless sensed Hiccup wasn't paying attention to him anymore, and after the neglect of the previous week, the dragon felt offended by his rider's continued disregard. He dove for the water, forcing Hiccup out of his thoughts to flip the foot pedal to compensate for the change in direction.
"Sorry, bud. Even out here, I can't seem to get away from Berk." Hiccup sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. His helmet stayed attached to Toothless's saddle; somehow today he needed to feel as free as possible, with the wind blowing through his hair and the morning sun warming his skin. He patted the dragon's shoulder. "Come on, let's get up high and do some loops, chase some Timberjacks. Okay?"
His scaly companion huffed his approval and together they soared higher, higher, until the wave peaks looked tiny below.
0000
Before long, the misshapen, tree-covered piece of land whimsically titled Itchy Armpit appeared on the horizon. Instead of landing directly, they circled it a few times, getting a better sense of its shape. There was a bare, high spit of land on the edge of it opposite from the place where Hiccup had crash-landed with Toothless—where he had related to Astrid his fateful conversation with his father.
Shoot. Why did I choose to come back here? Oh, well.
Hiccup made one last turn on dragonback over the new area, clicked the tail fin into landing position and prepared to jump, to glide to the ground like he had over Eret's dragon-trapping ship. He released the straps for his arm wings in advance. It wasn't that far down; he'd hit the front button on his flight suit to release the fin on his back, spread his arms, and land on the grass-covered projection of earth below. He'd roll if he had to, and Toothless would flap down next to him. There were some trees and rocks further back but the clear area should be big enough for the both of them.
Upon waking several hours later, he would remember that he hadn't ever tried to land that way before. He would also remember that he hadn't really landed on Eret's ship so much as he had grabbed the sail and slid down. He would remember being hit by a sudden gust of wind coming up the cliff, and remember his panic upon hitting the button on his chest and realizing that he hadn't reattached the spring coil to his stabilizing back fin the last time he'd worked on his suit.
But none of those thoughts went through his tired brain at the point in time where they might have been useful.
"Here we go, bud. Watch this!"
He released the safety cable from his saddle, unlocked his feet and pushed off.
0000
Awareness came back to Astrid slowly, as though she were swimming up to consciousness through heavy liquid. Her eyelids opened painfully, the lids tight and crusty and unwilling to release her from her dreamless sleep. She stiffly pushed herself up from the pillow, grimacing as she smeared the remnants of dried drool and tears from her face with her forearm.
Ugh, what happened. Did I fall asleep crying? Where's Hiccup?
The memory of their fight slammed into her brain then and she wished she were asleep again. Hiccup was gone; he was angry with her, and she had no idea what he'd say to her when he got back. She hoped that hiding miscalculated attempts to intimidate insane dragon generals didn't count as grounds for divorce. Besides, Hiccup loved her. He didn't throw the phrase out frequently, not as often as she'd like, really, but when he did say it, he always sounded like he meant it. If he could forgive his own mother for choosing dragons over him and letting him believe she was gone forever, he could forgive Astrid for what she'd hidden from him. She hoped.
She pondered her options for the rest of the day's plans. Number one: she could go after Hiccup, as she often did for various reasons: curiosity, worry, just plain wanting to share something with him without waiting. Not the best choice right now, probably. He said he'd be back later. I'll wait for him to cool off.
Number two: she could hide inside all day and pretend nothing had happened, hope the villagers hadn't seen Hiccup tromping through Berk with a hurricane in his eyes. That idea was rejected as well, on the grounds that she hated being confined and with signs of her husband everywhere in the house, she'd likely become frustrated with rage and boredom and break something. That would be bad, especially since the house was filled with wedding gifts. She could head for the woods, instead, chop down some—no, the forest was probably filled with people doing the same thing, not to blow off steam but to rebuild their houses. And they'd ask questions, questions for which she didn't have an answer or wasn't ready to provide one.
Questions like Where's your sweet husband, lassie?
And Left your beau exhausted in bed, did you? Atta girl.
Or All you all right? You look like you've been crying.
She particularly didn't want to answer that one.
Argh.
She finally decided to clean herself up, get dressed, and go fishing with Stormfly. She poured some water into the washbasin in the corner of the bedroom and splashed her face, cleaning away the signs of her recent exhausted meltdown. She wet her hair, combed her fingers through it, and rebraided it. The new wedding ring felt odd and foreign on her finger as she worked her long blond strands into their usual configuration.
I should put my hair up, I suppose. I'm married now. She hesitated awhile, a bit unwilling to alter the style she'd lived with and been accustomed to ever since her signs of womanhood had appeared several years ago. Finally she reached for some pins and secured the braid in a thick knot at the back of her head. It felt heavy and strange, and the air was cold on her freshly bare neck.
She put on her usual clothes. There was no way in Hel she was going to start wearing long skirts. No one could ride a dragon properly in garb like that. She went downstairs in her stocking feet and opened the door to peer outside.
The sun was high overhead; she must have slept through until near midday. The villagers would soon call off their rebuilding efforts for a noon meal at the Mead Hall.
Her stomach growled and she remembered she hadn't eaten in more than half a day. If Stormfly heard it during their fish foraging expedition, she'd land and cough up a meal for Astrid that would be unpalatable in the extreme. She'd have to turn it down, and she didn't think she could bear disappointing another loved one today. She ducked back into the house and rummaged through the downstairs kitchen area for food. The villagers had been generous; in the days leading up to the wedding, they'd queued up to the house, bearing food as well as gifts, food they likely couldn't afford to part with but that the young couple hadn't the heart to refuse. Some of it they had planned to return in secret to the needier families of Berk.
The Ingermans were doing fine, though, and Fishlegs' mother had brought them some of her famous bread. She pulled a hunk of it from a wrapped loaf and broke off a piece of yak cheese from the yellow round stored in the icebox. Still chewing, she exited the Chief's cottage and wound her way through the village up to the dragon stalls at the Training ring, doing her best to avoid the areas where she'd be noticed. As she filled her stomach, slowly sauntering across the grass in the sun, she began to feel more hopeful. They'd be okay. Hiccup would come back, having worked off the edge of his anger; they'd talk things out, really talk, as they often wanted to but never seemed to be able to find the time for, and everything would be great. They could make love again. She'd figure out a better way to manage that first position they'd tried. It would be fun, and this time they'd just cuddle and fall asleep without arguing.
The Deadly Nadder greeted her with a delighted squawk as she approached her stall at the back of the arena. The heavy, solidly opaque barred doors of the dragons' enclosures had been replaced with lighter ones, with a lattice of openings that the dragons could see through. It made them much more willing to be penned in when necessary.
"Hey, girl! Sorry I'm late. I bet you're hungry." She stroked the Nadder's nose through the openings and hauled open the door. The birdlike blue-and-gold reptile hopped forward, bumping Astrid's face and torso gently and repeatedly with her huge head.
"I know, I know. I want to get out of here, too." Astrid retrieved Stormfly's tack from the storage area and buckled it on. Once they were free of the training ring, the dragon took off like a rocket toward the open water surrounding Berk, making her petite rider hold on for dear life.
They swooped and dove over the ocean, Stormfly gleefully collecting fish in her huge mouth and gulping them down whole. Astrid often tried to make a game out of it, seeing if she could spot the biggest, juiciest fish before the dragon could; she usually lost badly. There was no comparison between the dragon's sense of smell and hers, let alone in their respective abilities to differentiate the movement of the silvery fish from that of the ocean waves.
She spied a familiar speck in the distance. As it came closer, her stomach twisted a little in distaste. It was Valka, riding Cloudjumper. Apparently Astrid wasn't the only one on Berk to forgo the busy midday meal gathering.
The small blond girl shoved back the temptation to fly away before being hailed. They could probably escape relatively easily—Stormfly was one of the fastest dragons on Berk. But she didn't really want to start off her marriage to Hiccup by being overtly rude to his mother, even though the older woman's unveiled eagerness to reconnect with Hiccup sometimes gave Astrid the creeps. I don't mind that you want to talk to him, but do you have to touch his hair all the time like that? Bleh.
She resigned herself to endure at least one of the awkward conversations she'd been trying to avoid.
"Good day, Astrid!" Valka called in her still slightly uncomfortable-sounding brogue. In the first days after returning to Berk to stay, she had been frequently tongue-tied, as though twenty years of living primarily with dragons had locked away many of the words she used to know. The first time Astrid had heard her communicate with her own dragon vocally, her jaw had dropped nearly to the ground in surprise; she hadn't known human beings could make sounds like that. Though she had found her fiancé's mother's presence disconcerting, she hadn't been able to avoid asking the woman to teach her some Nadder sounds. Astrid was always hungry for any advantage over her friends' training methods and she had been desperate to find something the two women could bond over besides their shared preoccupation with Berk's kind-hearted young chief.
"Fair day for a fish catch, isn't it," Astrid returned brightly, projecting her voice over the sound of the waves and the breeze that was starting to blow.
"For sure. Cloudjumper loves the cod that swim through this area." Valka put her hand up to shade her eyes and scanned the horizon behind Astrid. "Where's Hiccup? We weren't actually expecting you two out today at all."
"He's…off somewhere," Astrid said vaguely. "He said he'd be back later."
Valka frowned. "He what? Who leaves their newly wedded wife behind, the day after the wedding?" She squinted across the distance between her and Astrid. The girl looked down into the water, pretending to be looking for Thunderdrums.
"Something happened, didn't it." Astrid didn't say anything in response, but the way her eyes shifted back and forth must have betrayed her, because Valka whispered something to Cloudjumper and then called, "May I come aboard?"
Astrid gave her a confused look. What on earth was she planning? Before she could open her mouth to clarify, Valka sailed Cloudjumper over Astrid's head, and ever so nimbly jumped off, landing on Stormfly's back behind her and pushing her forward in the saddle.
"Easy, girl!" Astrid braced herself for Stormfly to panic and throw them both into the sea, but the dragon just chirped a bit and kept up her fish search, not appearing to care a whit that a relatively strange person had just mounted her in midair without her rider's explicit permission. She glared at the back of her blue friend's head. Traitor. Valka's a real dragon witch, isn't she.
"All right," said Valka. "Why are you two separated, so soon after your ceremony? You should be at home, stuffing yourselves silly on seed cakes and getting tipsy on mead. And practicing for making a future heir of Berk."
Astrid's growled to herself at the impertinence of the question. It was none of Valka's business what she and Hiccup were or weren't doing, and why. Still, she was trapped here with her mother-in-law, on her own dragon, no less, and she had to say something.
"Let's just say," she suggested, turning in the saddle, "that I found out that some secrets have a date after which they're better off remaining secrets."
Valka's face went deadpan; her eyebrows flattened and she blinked slowly a few times, her long eyelashes brushing her cheeks.
Even after twenty years of hard living, alone with dragons, she was still stunningly beautiful. It was easy to see where Hiccup had gotten some of his looks.
"Yes," she responded finally, "I suppose that's so." There was an awkward beat of silence as the two women regarded each other. "Still," she said, "you might want to go after him. Cloudjumper smelled a storm coming; he let me know this morning, and he's almost never wrong. Did Hiccup take any supplies, in case he got stranded somewhere?"
"No," said Astrid, the first hint of worry tickling the inside of her stomach. "…he'll be fine, I'm sure. He was…very determined to get away for awhile, and I've been around him so much recently, I want to give him some space. He's resourceful and usually observant. I'm sure he'll notice the weather and head back before nightfall."
Valka looked skeptical. "Well, if you're sure. He's seemed very distracted lately, and clumsy. Did you both sleep last night?" Astrid nodded. "Good." She whistled for Cloudjumper and transferred back to her own saddle before Astrid was even quite sure how she'd done it.
"By the way," called Valka before turning back toward Berk, "you're both invited over for supper tonight, if you want to come. I've been staying with Gobber, you know, and he's always said how much he loves my meatballs. I'm making them special for him."
"Um, yeah," Astrid replied, forcing a straight face. "Sure. We'll be there." She waved her mother-in-law off and giggled into her hand. She'd smelled the sheep kebabs Valka had prepared for the wedding feast; the odor she remembered didn't bode well for the upcoming experience of the woman's meatballs. Stoick had absolutely married Hiccup's mom for her looks and her feisty spirit.
"Okay," she pestered Stormfly, "three more fish. Then we're going home. Can't have you putting on weight; Hiccup will start kicking our asses in dragon racing. And my neck's about to sunburn from this stupid new hairdo."
0000
Toothless landed on the grassy cliffside field without incident, the smoothness of his landing belying his panic regarding his rider. Almost as soon as Hiccup jumped, the dragon had known something was terribly wrong; the boy hadn't opened his back fin, and a sudden gust of wind had taken him into the trees at the far side of the open spit.
The Night Fury raced into the forest, looking around wildly for signs of reddish hair or torn leather. He hooted into the silence, hoping desperately to hear a response that would mean his friend was conscious and able to speak. Nothing. Toothless let out a fearful snort and kept looking, breathing in the air of the woods for Hiccup's scent.
Finally he did smell something, but the familiarity of it was most unwelcome. He'd smelled it after the battle with the nasty dragon that ate dragons, and all the way back to Berk afterward. He'd smelled it a few times since then, also, and he'd grown to detest and fear it. It usually meant no flying, and being pushed away from Hiccup by those close to him. It meant—
There. He was crumpled on the ground between a thick tree and a large, moss-covered boulder. Toothless nosed him gently, looking him over. Did he have all his parts still? He appeared to, but he wasn't moving, and Toothless had to listen very carefully to make sure he was breathing.
Not for the first time, the dragon nearly wished he hadn't broken the tail that Hiccup had made him for Snoggletog a few years ago: the tail that let him fly on his own. Of course, he preferred working in tandem with his beloved, skinny companion, but at times like the present he lamented his inability to return to Berk for help. Then again, it was quite far this time, and he wouldn't want to leave Hiccup alone like this. The dragons in heaven only knew what might live on this island, and whether it liked to eat humans.
He curled around his rider protectively, wondering when—and if—help would come. His boy's lady friend often followed them, her dragon's sharp nose always able to discover their whereabouts eventually, but Toothless knew from the way Hiccup had whispered to him in the ring that their departure was supposed to be a secret.
Overhead, clouds formed; the light coming through the trees grew flat.
0000
A/N: I settled on the location and distance of Itchy Armpit based on how long I guessed Hiccup and Toothless might have been gone while Astrid won the dragon race and came after them. They did a lot of messing around in the air, but there was still the impression of a pretty sizable distance between them and Berk. I just replayed the first five minutes clip on Youtube to see if I could get a good look at the map, but I couldn't get a good idea of which cardinal direction they were facing or where Berk was relative to them. If anybody knows, tell me. BTW if you think Hiccup's accident is dumb, it's not. My dad made a seemingly small mistake once in assembling his hang glider; he set the center of gravity three inches too far back and when he took off, he stalled and crashed. Hiccup's lucky to be alive. The movie makes it clear that the wingsuit is a disaster waiting to happen.