I do not own or claim to own any HTTYD characters or other components of the property mentioned.
Rated T
(Set at the same time as HTTYD 1 starts)
Stoick the Vast slammed shut the colossal doors to the great hall after the panicked throng of people had run in. He leant back against the doors, out of breath from running around the village, herding everyone inside the hall.
"Hiccup!" He bellowed, looking up.
"Here dad", came the much quieter reply. A small runt of a boy came tottering over, weaving through the gathered crowd. The tumultuous crowd's hollering was briefly drowned out by a monstrous roar from outside the thick wooden doors.
"That was the roar of a Monstrous Nightmare", came from a large boy sitting at a table nearby after the roar had subsided. "Attack 15, Speed 16, Armour 12, Fire Power 15, Shot limit 10, Stea..."
"Yes ok Fishlegs", Stoick boomed "I think we get the general gist of it don'tcha think?"
"Sorry chief", came the slightly disgruntled reply as he stacked his cards up from off the knotted tabletop.
"Well", Stoick said turning back to his son, "As I was sayin', now you don't go running off tryin' to be a hero, you stay 'ere where it's safe for ya."
"Ok dad", Hiccup huffed.
"Well son, we all know what happened the last time ye went off a heroin', don't we?" To the murmured assent from some nearby villagers.
"It was a good plan", Pouted Hiccup.
"That it was lad", Stoick said in as soothing a voice as he could manage, "Ye just chose the store house to have that Zippleback chase you into then blow up, meanin' we were runnin' on rations for a month till the next harvest. I'm sorry son, but I think it's best for the prosperity of Berk if you sit out of these raids."
At this Hiccup trudged off through the crowd to go sulk by the fireplace. Stoick breathed a large sigh of relief, he had expected a much harder fight from his remarkably stubborn son.
As different to the rest of them in stature and general behaviour he was, he still had a truly Viking tenacity. One that could keep him hammering away at a sword, honing it to perfection in Gobber's smithy all night with hardly a break.
Now gathered around the main long table were the men, now bored listening to Spitelout outline his 7th plan. Surprisingly, this one actually had some promise. "This one is a lot better than his previous ones", Stoick mused, "Though, the last few all involved either sacrifices to the gods or making him the chief."
His plan was now as follows:
-One group sneaks out and find as many catapults and ballistae that are still in working condition
-Another group collects up as many bolas and nets as possible
-Try and bring down as many dragons as possible to then cage for arena fights
-Try not to get killed
-For his brilliant plan and bravery Spitelout should then be made chief
Stoick slapped his own face, "Really Spitelout? I was just about to commend you on your plan making."
"Ah, sorry chief, I must've got a wee bit carried away there."
"Anyway, so other than Spitelouts last addition to the plan, everyone in agreement?" Stoick said wearily.
"I think the last part of the plan was an amazing addition dad", Snotlout could be heard piping up.
Ignoring him, Stoick said "Ok then, so who's volunteering to got in the first group?"
After sorting out everyone into the two respective groups, everyone that wanted to go slowly and quietly start to parade out into the rapidly darkening evening.
Everyone, apart from Astrid.
"Why won't you let me go?" she fumed, "I'm as good and as ready as anyone else."
"Very true Astrid" Stoick reasoned "But what if a dragon manages to get in here while we are all gone? Who would defend the rest of the village? And who would protect my Hiccup?"
To which Astrid reluctantly agreed, though still made it clear she'd much rather be outside fighting dragons than cooped up in the hall.
A cry of "Hey! I don't need protecting!" Arose from somewhere near the back of the room.
"Yes you do", chorused everyone still in the room almost unthinkingly. For the past year or so it had been a regular routine in the village: if you see Hiccup during a dragon attack, shove him into the closest - not burning - building and get back to what you were doing.
Stoick followed the last of the party out into the dark, lit by the occasional bright flares of dragon fire seen throughout the village.
Astrid watched as the great doors were shut and she sat down heavily at a table. As she sat there, gazing into nothingness, she contemplated what Stoick had told her, "And who would protect my Hiccup?" She called to mind the straggly, weak runt of a boy; but the fact he was intelligent, innovative and frankly cute was not lost on her. But then she scolded herself internally, 'No! Hiccup is not cute! He is just...', but failing to come up with a reason she admitted to herself that 'Ok, fine. Hiccup might be a bit cute. The way his green eyes gleam when he is explaining another one of his contraptions, or the way he totters around the village. And he is only really at home hard at work in the forge hammering away at whatever project he's working on', in which Astrid admitted, he was extremely skilled at.
Astrid recalled a few weeks back when she had last gone to get her axe sharpened and had caught him staring at her as she was walking in. She had seen a brief sketch of her on a scrap of paper on the floor and now she smiled to herself, the skinniest and weakest Viking ever had his eyes on her. But then again, him being the heir to the chiefdom...
She was abruptly snapped out of her thoughts when Snotlout came over and sat next to her.
"What do you want Snotlout?" She asked irritably.
"I just wondered if you needed company", Snotlout said slightly hurt.
Astrid blinked in surprise. 'Snotlout trying to be nice? Since when was this a thing?'
"Ok..." She said slowly, "Thanks for the offer Snot but I've got to go check up on something" and got up, walking away.
"Any time babe", Snotlout called after her.
'And there's our Snotlout again' rolling her eyes. 'Never mind that, where's the useless son of the chief I'm meant to be protecting?'. She scanned around the sparsely populated great hall, but couldn't see him anywhere.
Figuring he'd just gone into one of the back rooms she starts to wonder around looking for him.
After checking all the back rooms she started to worry slightly, 'The chief tasked me to look after his son, what if he's managed to get out and get himself killed?'
So she starts asking around, but to no avail. No one had seen Hiccup for at least twenty minutes, when he was seen walking into the back store rooms Astrid had already checked.
Now Astrid was properly worrying now, 'I've failed the chief! I've lost his son! Oh poor Hiccup...'
But her train of thought stopped suddenly when she tripped over, creating a large echo. "Eurgh, stupid floor", she said getting up but then stopped, her fall had echoed. Why had her fall echoed? There shouldn't be enough space underneath for an echo, yet it definitely had.
She started searching for what had tripped her up, then finding a small metal loop, she turned and pulled it up. A trapdoor! She swung it up and looked down into the pit. A small rickety ladder led down to a tunnel, which looked fairly regularly used.
She jumped down and deftly grabbed her axe, holding it in front of her warily as she started down the tunnel. After around five minutes of tip-toeing through the tunnel, she started to lightly jog. She had concluded that if someone had kidnapped Hiccup, she'd need to be faster to get their to have any chance at stopping it.
Expecting the tunnel to end at the beach, she was surprised when it opened out in a little cove somewhere in the wilderness.
She strained her eyes, trying to see in what little light was left of the late afternoon. Still on the look out for marauders, she started edging around the sheer rock wall that encircled the entire cove. She felt safer and braver with her back to the cliff, knowing no one could come behind her. There was barely any sound save some faint rustlings and chirping as the nocturnal animals took started their shifts.
But then all of her courage vanished in an instant when she heard a low growl pierce the tranquil atmosphere. It was unmistakably a dragon's. She stopped dead in her tracks, ears trying to pinpoint the location of the growl. Simultaneously her mind whirred, searching for what type of dragon made that growl, but it came up blank.
She thought she saw a shape dart past in front of her, so she rapidly swung her axe, but it didn't connect with anything. She then brought it back in front of herself defensively, but no attack came.
By now the ominous growling had ceased, and the tranquil quiet returned. Astrid stepped further into the cove, then spotted a black dragon silhouetted against the moon. It had something on it's back, though Astrid paid little heed and was focused on something else. The skinny, limp figure gripped tightly in it's front claws.
"HICCUP!" She yelled in desperation out at the night sky and began to sob.