Ch.8
Hiccup quickly broke the Stalagmites and stepped out of his shelter into the new day. He turned around taking in the view. Frost1 coated everything. The decomposing dragon didn't look so tortured when covered with a thin frost layer at least. Hiccup took a step and found himself looking up at the sky forgetting that ice created more hazards to avoid. While he was looking up at the sky, Hiccup noticed the storm and the rest of the clouds had moved on. Standing up, careful to avoid any ice patches he set off in a direction he hadn't explored yet. "Toothless!" Hiccup doubted shouting for Toothless would do anything, but he tried anyway, he was getting desperate. After walking in the brisk morning air for an hour or so Hiccup came across what used to be a tree, It had been violently uprooted and crushed to bits. It appeared to have been quite recent judging by the charred areas and freshly exposed wood. This snagged Hiccup's curiosity as he looked around for clues to what lead to the destruction of the tree. Instead of finding answers he found more questions.
Several trees had been severely burned or damaged, all recently. "I bet the noises I heard last night came from right around here." However, when Hiccup stopped talking, he noticed how still everything felt. Not just quiet, but dead, the air was motionless and hung heavy, and the surrounding trees looked tense as if trying to have him leave by force of will. Turning around Hiccup found a potential reason the surrounding area had gone silent and fearful. A Monstrous Nightmare was staring him down. Fright was delighted to see the Viking who had thwarted his efforts to have a Viking supper. Hiccup noted that this Monstrous Nightmare was missing the same horn from his head as the Monstrous Nightmare that'd made a move to kill him days prior. Hiccup wanted to run. He dearly wanted to escape into the trees and be rid of the dragon. Not willing to chance turning his back on the volatile dragon, even for a second, he remained where he was; rooted staring down a dragon with a nasty disposition.
Fright smirked before advancing on the Viking. Hiccup quickly began to back up into the tree line, he could see where this was going and wanted out. This did not go unnoticed, and Fright lunged forward snapping his jaws where Hiccup should've been. Hiccup had dodged to one side and was concealing himself behind a pair of small bushes. Fright roared in frustration and blasted the area around him with a thick coating of fire. Hiccup's eyes burned with the smoke created by the fires. Luckily his hiding place was not within the oozy fire slime's reach. "WHERE DID THAT HORRID VIKING GO!" Fright roared and madly swung his head side to side scanning the area and yet, somehow, neglected to look down. Hiccup's eyes felt on fire, and his lungs felt ready to burst, but he kept quiet knowing a single utterance would be his death. "AAAAAAA!" Fright screamed at the emptiness, and he flew off in anger having been outsmarted yet again by a puny Viking, Hiccup stood up, wiped his eyes and coughed, repeatedly, until he gaged, and almost lost the contents of his stomach in a violent coughing fit.
Once he'd recovered, He moved away from the fire and proceeded to investigate the area behind a bent and tree with a reddish tinge. Hiccup assumed the dragon had emerged from here without him noticing. Hiccup quickly wished he'd not ventured upon seeing a recently departed Monstrous Nightmare on its side laying just past the bent tree. Its head was crooked in an unnatural and lifeless manner that sent shivers up his spine. There was blood everywhere, The blood covering the length of his body had frozen into spine-chilling blood ice2. Hiccup wanted to look away and purge the sight from his mind, but he couldn't. When Hiccup looked at the Monstrous Nightmare's head, he lurched backward in horror. The eyes were wide open, staring out at him. The dragon was very dead, but the eyes seemed to track him wherever he moved. He quickly looked at the eyes again, but immediately looked away, they looked desperate. Instead of focusing on the eyes, Hiccup looked at the unnatural kink in the dragon's neck. There was not much blood around the dragon's neck, most likely from the speed of death after receiving a broken neck. Hiccup felt his stomach begin to churn, and he raced back out into the burnt clearing trying to escape the gaze of the dead dragon. He looked back for a moment to see the eyes staring right back at him. He ran into the forest desperate to escape. "RUN! NO! Don't look back!" screaming in his head all the while.3
Not wanting to search alone twice, Astrid gathered the dragon riders together at the dragon training academy. "uh, why are we here? Yeah, I was gonna try out this new trick with Barf" Tuffnut said and received a jab from Ruffnut "I was going to teach Belch that!" Astrid arrived a minute later to find Barf and Belch separating Ruffnut and Tuffnut. She rolled her eyes at the two before switching to the task at hand. "Uh, Astrid, in case you forgot… Hiccup is the one who calls the meetings." Fishlegs said nervously checking a book detailing the happenings at the academy. "Yeah, where is Hiccup?" Snotlout said worried, for Hiccup was absent far longer than normal. "Look, something's happened to him or Toothless preventing them from getting back to Berk. We need to go find him" "It's Toothless, he's a Night Fury what could happen?" Tufnut said, having been set back down . "uh, remember when The Outcasts captured Toothless and Hiccup?" Fishlegs replied, "Remember Drago Bludvist?" Astrid said at Tuffnut with an icy stare; he gulped nervously. "Oh yeah, I remember the Outcasts," Tuffnut said eager to change the subject. After some quick preflight explanations from Astrid, the group s took flight to start searching for Hiccup and Toothless.
Not that far from Berk, the Vikings regrouped. "Snotlout, you and Hookfang search Dragon Isle and the nearby islands, Ruffnut, Tuffnut…" Astrid paused considering; "You two go and search around the dragon sanctuary." The twins scrunched their faces at the idea, "what about Meatlug and I? Fishlegs asked flying up alongside Stormfly. "Fishlegs, I want you to see if there is anything at sea level. We'll meet back at Berk to see what we've found." The group separated heading off in different directions to search. By early afternoon, Astrid landed back on Berk having found nothing. She found Snotlout and the Twins in the Great hall in the midst of an insult contest. When Astrid sat down to listen, they stopped. "I didn't find any trace of Hiccup. " "yeah, neither did—if we have to go back to that island I'm not going," Ruffnut said beating Tuffnut by a second. "Where is Fishlegs? I thought you'd be the last one back" Snotlout asked. As if on cue Fishlegs burst thru the door panting, the fear plain as day on his face.
"You were right Astrid!" "SHHH, the entire hall will hear you," the small group said in unison. Fishlegs whispered, "I found this washed up on an island." He held out Hiccup's facemask that he wore when flying. The small group stared at it for a long moment before Astrid found her words. "Fishlegs you have to show me where you found this." "Let me get a few things and I'll then we can go" He knew the moment he revealed the mask to Astrid, she'd want to leave immediately to find Hiccup. Astrid only had to wait a few minutes for Fishlegs to appear. When Fishlegs did show up, he had a leather pouch over one shoulder containing the dragon manual. "I'm ready." Astrid kept quiet while flying not wanting Fishlegs to become disoriented. "It should be just ahead." Astrid felt her shoulders relax, which startled her. The island Fishlegs spoke of was more a sandbar than an island. "We flew for hours to get here only to see a sandbar Hiccup and Toothless are not at!?" Astrid said her calm exterior gone. "Maybe if we search the surrounding islands where I found this we'll have better luck." Fishlegs held up the facemask, Astrid stopped, "He's right; Hiccup might be on a nearby island" she thought "maybe I was too on edge." Fishlegs was curious why Astrid had stopped but was glad all the same, he needed the rest. "Let's start searching." Astrid said, "Hiccup, you are so getting it," she thought before prompting Stormfly to take off once more.
Back on the island Eletra's patience had all but worn out. This stemmed from her lack of progress in trying to wake Toothless. She was, however, proud of herself for managing to get a majority of the damage on the larger Night Fury's body healed, or at the very least showing significant improvement. "What did this Night Fury do that would merit this much damage?" she thought while lounging on the ledge in front of her cave. She was reflecting on how he'd looked when she discovered the Night Fury. "Gorgeous" She immediately glanced into the cave to ensure the unconscious dragon hadn't heard that slip out. "He's just a Night Fury, I've been around lots of Night Furies, he's just another Night Fury." She knew this Night Fury was not just any Night Fury though, and it puzzled her how he could've had such an impact on her—without even being awake. "If he doesn't wake up today, he will wake up tomorrow!' She said confident that he would be waking up, one way or another. Eletra woke up sometime later, still on the ledge, to see the sky around her turning pink and realized it was sunset. Thoughts of her mother faded as she shook off the unplanned nap when movement near the island on a sandbar caught her attention. Four shadowy figures appeared to be looking at the island. Not wanting to be seen, Eletra darted back into her cave hoping they hadn't noticed her. "That was close," she thought.
Hiccup was busy washing his face in a stream when he looked up; he slapped himself to ensure he wasn't hallucinating. Two dragons were coming into view, a Deadly Nadder and a Gronkle. The trees obscured his vision somewhat, but he was sure he'd seen Vikings on those dragons. Hiccup ran into a nearby open space shouting all the while. "STORMFLY! MEATLUG!". "Stormfly did you hear something?" Meatlug asked quietly to Stormfly not wanting to alert Fishlegs falsely. "Yeah I did hear something, It almost sounded like Hiccup." "STORMFLY! MEATLUG!" The two dragons heard it again louder this time, the sheer mass of silence swallowed most of the noise preventing the Vikings from hearing anything "Hiccup?" Both dragons said simultaneously. "You first" Meatlug offered. It took Astrid a moment to get over the shock of Stormfly's sudden move, but when she looked ahead of her dragon, she understood why. Hiccup was waving at her ecstatically. She felt her heart well up until it was inside her throat, a feeling of euphoria swept over her, knowing Hiccup was alive and relatively unharmed. She barely noticed the grime and filth of his clothes. "BEHIND YOU!" Stormfly screamed at Hiccup forgetting he wouldn't understand, for all of Hiccup's shouting allowed fright to locate him with ease. He'd wasted no time in hunting down the pesky Viking.
Hiccup spun around at the panicked squawk to see Fright in mid-jump, claws extended and death written in his eyes. A blast from Stormfly sent the stunned Monstrous Nightmare smashing into a tree and quickly scampering off. Hiccup just stood there stunned, he gulped realizing his excitement at being rescued nearly cost him his life. "Thank you, that dragon has been hunting me for days." "Wow, I've never seen that before," Fishlegs was stunned; he'd never seen a Monstrous Nightmare so enraged that it would want to torture its victim. While Astrid ensured nothing was seriously wrong with Hiccup, Fishlegs was noticing something very wrong with the situation. "Hiccup, where's Toothless?" Hiccup's expression saddened instantly, and he did not reply, he didn't need to. Astrid looked around also becoming aware of Toothless's absence. "You do know where Toothless is, right?" Astrid asked Hiccup unhappily. Both Vikings were amazed how Hiccup could've lost Toothless. "I can explain!" Hiccup said defensibly "It's been four days Hiccup, you should've found Toothless by now." "Thank you for summing that up; I needed to feel worse." Hiccup said looking at Astrid. "Are you two seeing this?" Fishlegs pointed towards the sky. It was growing dark at an alarming rate.
Astrid turned back to Hiccup, "You've been on this island four days. You've found shelter at least, right?" "regrettably… no" Astrid rolled her eyes, "Hiccup where are we supposed to sleep? On the ground outside to be frozen by the gods or roasted by a wild dragon!" "She does have a good point, chances of survival without protection are dismal at best." Hiccup slumped, "this was not what I was expecting," he said quietly. Astrid sighed and offered her hand to Hiccup once she'd remounted Stormfly. He faltered. "Hiccup, get on." Hesitantly he accepted her hand and climbed onto what little saddle was free. In a flash, the island was behind them, and Hiccup panicked, "Wait, Astrid we have to go back, Toothless is still down there somewhere. We can't just leave him." Astrid wasn't having any of it. "Hiccup, without shelter we're as good as dead on that island. We'll come back in the morning and find Toothless. He's been down there four days; he can survive one more night." While Hiccup did not jump off and swim back to the island, he was extremely displeased with Astrid's decision. He quickly wore himself out with protesting and only stopped when he nearly fell off the saddle from exhaustion. "Was that necessary Astrid? Hiccup's been thru a lot it seems since we saw him last." Fishlegs whispered to Astrid after Hiccup dozed off. "I was rough on him, wasn't I? I've just been so worried about him only to find out that not only has he not found Toothless, but he doesn't even have any shelter. What did he do while he was on that island?" Fishlegs nodded, "You're going to have a lot of explaining to do once he's himself again, you know that. Also, how is Hiccup not falling off?" Fishlegs asked, with Hiccup asleep on her saddle. "I think he said something about tying himself to the saddle." With that, the conversation ceased. The remainder of the trip back was spent in silence, letting Hiccup get some much-needed rest.
1Frost—I am aware that ice crystals might not form after a heavy rain, but for the sake of story continuity, it stays put.
2Blood ice—I am NOT referring to "Blood on the ice" by Blood ice, I mean ice that is made of frozen blood.
3 up until digit—Yes, that section went a little darker than I anticipated.