Warning - Implied Child Abuse

The Hofferson lass spun, threw, and her axe hit the Nadder's head to the side.

The beast staggered and hit a wooden wall set haphazardly around the arena, where the rest began their fall in turn.

The Thorston girl fell on the boy (though, come to think of it, it might have been the opposite), who narrowly avoided being crushed by tumbling wood. Ingerman kept to the pit walls, half hidden by a weapon rack, and stayed out of the way; the Jorgenson lad had disappeared beneath said walls. He's most likely fine. Thor blessed him with the strength of body, which saves me from an awkward conversation with Spitelout.

Astrid recovered and turned her axe to the downed dragon's neck.

"No! I want it alive for the next few sessions!" She heeded me and backed away slowly, her weapon still drawn in case the beast pulled a fast one. It was a feisty thing and did that often, no need to let her get rid of valuable property just yet.

Bjorg and Bjorn (the twin dragon-keepers) took up their job: forced a muzzle, wing-locks, and paw-locks upon the beast, then dragged it back to our cages.

I pushed between the few onlookers, made sure not to knock over the elder, and answered her implied question. I'm sure Hiccup just got lost in another project and would be, of course, punished for it (I don't allow anyone to skip my lessons, chief sons included).

The dragon was back in its cage and given the few fish required to keep it alive and kicking (well, maybe not kicking, but we keep it alive, at least). Astrid stood at attention when she noticed me while the Twins fought, Fishlegs emerged sheepishly, and Snotlout professed his invincibility emerging from beneath a pile of walls.

I gave up on waiting for them to form an orderly line (having to shout at the twins and carry Snotlout by the scruff of his neck from a group of fans). How does he have fans again?

"Nicely done, Astrid, try to stay in its blind spots longer next time." She nodded sharply, her gaze moving to her watching siblings. "The rest of you need some work. Ruffnut. Tuffnut. Stop fighting each other! Fishlegs get in the fight! And Snotlout, if I must hear one more boast or anything from you, I'll have you clean out the cages for the next year!"

What kind of self-respecting Viking tribe cleans out the dragon cages? The devils could rot there! Either way, the boy bought it, and until Spitelout hears of it, my headache has a chance to cool down.

I did get a certain satisfaction from seeing him lose his stone-etched arrogance, pale, and sputter something about unfairness and how he was threatened and not the twins or Fishlegs (who grated me too, but I'm feeling petty today).

Astrid left the arena to meet her family, presumably and report her success (something I doubt she's done for the past few sessions).

It's always a good idea to occupy the twins before they start their inevitable turn to terrorising the village (today, I drew the short sword at the council meeting). I took the twins by the scruff of the neck and brought them to Bjorg and Bjorn, who ordered them to help put the pile of walls away in the spare cage. I made sure the twins stayed to watch the other twins to make sure.

However long that takes them, the twins have been occupied, something which we've long since accepted to be the first duty of any Berkian. The Hiccup question remains: I assume he didn't just sleep in; he's worked in the forge for seven years, and it never happened once. Not to mention that it's time for fourth breakfast and, knowing him, he'd run down even just to arrive at the end.

"Fishlegs! With me!"

The boy jumped, looked at me for a second, quickly arranged his hammer on the rack and waddled over to me at the top of the arena entrance ramp.

"Did Hiccup tell you anything about why he wouldn't be here?" It was far-fetched, I know, they're friends (or at least used to be, as Hiccup spends all his time in the forest or the forge cupboard now).

"What -? I… err. No. Sorry, Gobber. He's been gone all the time now… I only see him at supper. He skipped third breakfast yesterday! Third breakfast!"

"Okay… You know where he's going?"

"Oh! That's obvious. The forest." So that's common knowledge, is it? Maybe he took my silence as surprise, so he quickly expanded, "He hasn't told me or anything, but it's obvious he's not in the village or around the docks. It's not like he can fly or anything."

"Aye… Alright, thanks, lad." He took a moment to recognise his dismissal and lingered, when I watched him flatly, he mumbled something and started towards the village. Whatever he said, I can't imagine it being important, especially after his performance today.

What's the next generation coming to, honestly?

I followed him, albeit slower, despite his stature and lack of athletic ability, he was still a good bit faster than me. Aside from Gothi (who simply refuses to die), not many are older than me, and despite my Nightmare count this summer, I'm starting to feel it.

I rounded the arena (already only stragglers remained after the match – the arena isn't the popular socialising spot; the whole caged demons aesthetic isn't very appealing, apparently) and started up the steps; it was a long walk – and an uncomfortable one.

The terrible weather had, over time, transformed the steps from cleanly cut and measured under the excentric guidance of Hamish II to rough, uneven rocks which hurt both my back and leg with every step.

The forge would have to wait today; my current priority was getting it through Hiccup's stubborn head that no one skipped my lessons.

The boy had skipped Dragon Training! Why? He embarrasses himself every raid to get into this, and suddenly, he doesn't come.

I'd like him to have a valid excuse, but knowing him, he probably found a way to fix the bola launcher and forgot to notice that the sun rose.

I'd be more annoyed if he was sick, what kind of Viking allows sickness to get between their axe and a dragon's neck (naturally, the Scourge of Odin doesn't count)? The lad had managed to surprise the village with his very unexpected skills, who would have thought that Hiccup could beat the Hofferson girl.

I love Hiccup and know he is far more talented than everyone realises, but there was no way I thought he could have done that.

And he just… doesn't turn up?

In any case, no matter how good he gets, he can't skip a lesson if Stoick hears about this. He'd just ignore all the good things that came out of this training to focus on the fact that Hiccup doesn't have the honour to show up.

He does tend to get held up on that.

And it's just unlike him, a few years back, he came to the forge in the middle of a snowstorm and an eel pox epidemic. He said that I would feel lonely without his uplifting presence; he made us both sick. Though that's one of my best memories with him; without anyone in the plaza or near the forge, I discovered him truly for the first time since I felt our cohabitation.

I arrived in the village, and a few greeted me on their way to fourth breakfast. I wasn't that full for it this time of year, and I had a misbehaving child to find before Stoick got back.

The expedition would be returning any day now; it was approaching a fortnight. Helheim's Gate was only a five-day trip, and the supplies they took would be running out soon.

The last outpost (a nice name just for a collection of sea-caves where we keep weapons, arrows, clothes, wood and iron required to repair ships) was another day inside, that's where Stoick should have stopped after the initial wave.

Back when I went along with the expeditions, we'd call it the Lighthouse in jest, the last place the Aesir reigned before Hel. No matter how big the expedition was or how many beasts we felled, more appeared, and the fog kept going.

It was early in Stoick's chiefdom after Valka was taken, he'd mounted a force so great village life stopped; anyone over three and ten summers set sail to find the nest. Berserkers and Bog-Burglars doubled our numbers, and even a hundred ships and a thousand fighters, we came up empty-handed.

We passed the last outpost and met no resistance for so long. The only sounds were oars in the sea, the creaking of masts and whispers of instructions. Every so often, nerves would break, and a scream would pierce the fog as someone fought the clouds or threw themselves beneath the waves.

Days later, the fleet emerged in the same place we entered the bog. Our course-setters could not be blamed, thousands of us glimpsed the fog turn us around as we sailed true.

A few days after our return to daily life, I heard rumours that Dagur (Oswald's son, that is, not the old drunken sap) had gained his new name: the Deranged, when he had the Berserker's hired maps flayed alive.

I stopped after that. I believe in what I can see, and that was not natural. Stoick inspired most and kept returning; something just had to be there; this elusive nest was only mentioned a few times in Borg's Papers and in passing by Hiccup I's personal journals. Besides that, the beasts emerge from the northwest from a massive fog which hasn't moved for generations - a logical conclusion, honestly.

And who says Vikings are irrational?

Houses and infrastructure had been rebuilt since the last raid, all that remained was an armoury full of metal to reforge. I'll have to get another apprentice for the forge if Hiccup ends up beating that Nightmare.

Slim pickings this time round; that kid, Gustav, looks like a possibility. Once thoroughly cleansed of Snotlout (and his parent's influence, actually), he might be somewhere between not-incapable and below-average.

With a large part of the village in the Hall, the forge was empty of customers, though I wouldn't put it past them to sneak up on me, demanding repairs from their twisted pots, pans or knives I haven't got to yet.

Barely dodging hanging weapons, spiky edges and blades strew haphazardly around the forge, I slammed open the door to Hiccup's room.

A few years back, tired of finding his overdesigned project papers scattered in every knock and cranny of the forge, I gave him a room - where I used to keep Borg's Papers and a scattering of family relics and artefacts (moved to the forge garret since).

He cleared it out, then covered the walls in drawings of a thousand things in every shape I thought existed and then some.

"Hiccup?"

Pinned sketches ruffled the walls, and designs flew from desks and open draws to the floor, but the room remained empty.

I've never been here alone since giving it away. Despite a strange feeling swelling in my stomach (I couldn't pinpoint it, but something like shame and regret), my curiosity got the better of me.

Diagrams, schematics, maps, notes and drawings covered rolls upon rolls of parchment, strewn over every surface and pinned to every wall (some to the ceiling, too – it seems like he was set on ridding himself of every bit of wall.

Used charcoal piled up everywhere, some ran out mid-sentence and been abandoned (possibly because Hiccup started a new project in the time it took him to resupply his chalk), they gave the room a faint smell of dust and dry-stone. With their fore-edges stained black, what appeared to be half of Berk's notebooks sprawled across the desk and protruded from drawers, each crammed with half a dozen parchments bound between the pages.

Everywhere else, pencil pots, screws and corks and what I could only describe as things were stashed in every knock and cranny.

A long roll sprawled over most of the biggest desk where something that could only be described as a very elaborate sail was drawn in far too much detail. Five thin metal rods attached to a leather hitching mechanism; an unrelated drawing showed off a pedal mechanism and a saddle, minuscule annotations, arrows, and notes peppered the page.

Just what was he up to?

Squinting my eyes, I managed to depict his shakily drawn runes. Hiccup's writing had always been strange; he used his vinstri hand, and despite how much Stoick spent with him (or all those lessons with hired quills), he could never manage to write the correct way. I did, however, manage to get some:

Toothless liked it. I think. Scribbled beneath the sail and twice underlined. We need to train. Make position sheet. That part was crossed out beneath an arrow pointing towards said sail: Position 6.

Possibility of ripping apart at high speed. Can't use more metal. Imbalance. Was written at the end of an arrow pointing towards the metal rods of the sail. Measurements littered the page, crossed out, replaced and replaced again, but I couldn't read most of them correctly, and even if I could, they lacked any units (no alens, palms or limje).

It was strange, why is Hiccup working on a sail? What kind of speeds is he expecting where a sail can break?

And most importantly, who is Toothless?

I highly doubt it's a codename of Marvyn No-Teeth (a man so old, he walked into the forest and never returned) or Harald the Toothless (you know, the boy who started a war on the mainland, lost a battle and vanished to the woods like a coward).

"Gobber! I know you're in there! D'ya think the beasts wait for my weapon to sharpen before they attack?"

I swear if it's Annoying Agnar, I'm gonna make him eat his favourite axe and save the beasts a disgusting meal. Either way, I did leave the room, making a point to make my displeasure known through a few well-placed sighs, glares and my generally very pleasant demeanour.

It wasn't Agnar, that's one small mercy for today. He's only marginally better than the twins.

In the few minutes to sharpen the required sword (in exchange for a pittance, by the way), half the village had turned up and wanted another thousand things. That's the blacksmithing business: always in high demand. I like it most of the time: I always have something to do, but today just wasn't the day for it.

I made sure to add in a couple extra insults.

I've been giving Hiccup his afternoons recently, and despite his absence, I could already hear his (probably demeaning) remarks about Vikingness.

The Haddock home overlooks the village on the highest terrace east of the Great Hall. It's said that the house stands where Hiccup the first once planted his sword in the grass and proclaimed Berk.

I don't get in there much anymore, yet when I do, there's a certain separation. Stoick had everything organised; his favourite axe hung at the exact right angle, each utensil set perfectly on the shelf and pot or pan stacked beside the fire.

All the while, Hiccup hides his walls and surfaces behind piles of discarded papers and forgotten ideas from one day to the next. Parchments find their way everywhere – from under his bed to out his window.

I didn't bother knocking. Not working on new outlandish projects (something I've only known him to do in the forge) meant either sickness or injury for him, and if he didn't try to get to the arena anyway. Whatever it is, it's worse than your average hurt.

The door wheezed, and the house was silent. Instead of an overactive teenager, only the ghost of a days-old fire remained.

Across the hall, Stoick's door was half open, his bed was made, and his window was slightly ajar above his headboard. Its Hiccup escapes the house when Stoick locks the door; he squeezes through the bars and sprints to the forest border.

The fact I never told him about it seems suddenly less funny.

A few burnt logs lay over dying embers. An unclean goblet, plate and crossed utensils lay on the table, and a pot with lukewarm leftovers hung from a crane. From the looks of it, it was likely someone's breakfast – if that someone was Hiccup, however, I'd bet that it was his dinner.

I ducked beneath a hanging poker and avoided knocking shields and weapons from their wall hangings as I climbed the stairs.

"Hiccup, lad?"

If I was hoping for a pale child huddled under furs, cradling a warmed wineskin and wishing for anyone. I was disappointed.

The room, like the rest of the house, was empty of Norse. And Vikingness, for that matter; more so than the forge cupboard, parchment covered the walls and piles of notes threatened to crush the desk.

A single book caught my attention, however. A leatherbound simple little thing almost everyone in the village would have ignored in favour of the innumerable designs, sketches, drawings, and dragon écrochés strew around.

But I know Hiccup better than he does himself. He has a very specific style; a normal Viking would grab the closest sword, roar and charge. Hiccup, though, will invite you to drink Scauldron venom-laced mead but still kill the village cat with a miscalibrated bola-launcher.

A boring book, half covered by parchment surrounded by all this, is exactly what he would do.

It was filled to the brim with runes; these were drawn well, better than our career quills. It started as in any book (using paragraphs and indentation), then writings crept into margins and between line spacings: sideways, up or down.

This is Berk; it's twelve days north of hopeless and a few degrees south of freezing to death. It's located solidly on the meridian of misery. Sorry you ended up here, all year round, you'll get the wonderful combination of snow, storms and clouds.

In terms of socialisation, you and I are stuck with Vikings. A rare breed of oversized person who hates all outsiders and those who can't axe a dragon out of the sky.

Unlike the mainland (where Johann probably got you), I must warn you that we do, in fact, have a speciality here (aside from our notorious hospitality and sunny days). Where you come from, you probably had boring pests like rats and mice and mosquitos, no, we have (coming to you straight from Helheim's Gate) completely out of control, fire-breathing, flying reptiles – dragons.

Pretty cool if it wasn't for the whole… killing people thing.

I caught myself chuckling, and at the same moment, my stomach knotted itself up a dozen times over. Here I was reading this while the boy was missing! I flipped through a few more pages; Johann came by months ago.

It described mostly routine days, and I noticed a certain lack of anything. He would get up before Stoick to avoid conversation, go to the forge and then home again to disappear in his room and work on whatever all this was.

It is sort of strange how many times I'm mentioned, every joke or quip I've said is mentioned and reiterated exactly, underlined and sometimes overanalysed for what was a simple joke.

No, Hiccup, I didn't say that because the earlier client had me slightly annoyed or because I wasn't over a dragon destroying my new catapult in a raid ten months ago.

Despite everything, it's endearing.

Finally, I flipped to the last few pages, where I recognised the same sail as design as in the forge. Six rough drawings of different positions filled the paper with minuscule notes (written too tightly, the chalk having overspilled over itself). If he can read them, it's just a matter of a few summers until he'll have trouble reading his things.

I flipped the page, and another few drawings littered it, they looked to be slight variations of each of the previous positions.

I need a way to control it; I can't see any way to replicate movement on the artificial one from the real one in an appropriate timeframe.

He generally makes six different shapes when he tries to leave the cove, so I should be able to make a workable replica with that.

I don't know enough about how the real one is controlled, and even if I did, the fin needs to be solid enough to survive years and all kinds of weather.

And fire. That too.

The bottom of the page was baren of drawings and annotations, he had written in a much bigger script, circled half a dozen times and underlined in red three times for good measure: Together.

What?

I flipped the page; there were no more entries. I looked around the room, half hoping to see him, but of course, there was nothing.

It suddenly hit me. If Hiccup was here to see me do this, he'd never look at me again, let alone smile or talk. I can't believe I've done this, invading the boy's privacy twice in a day. Something I told Stoick to give him for years.

I put the journal down and left the room much faster than I arrived.

Well done, Gobber. You lost a child and violated him on the same day. Something you wouldn't do to the Thorston twins, you did to Hiccup.

I don't know what I expected, but when I descended the steps, there was nothing. No seething boy or brooding chief.

Simply nothing. I left the house without fanfare.

I'd never admit it, but I sometimes like it when Dad goes on the expeditions – it gives me a break.

After what I've done, you can add me to the list now, too, Hiccup.

I made the recruits wait until the twins lost interest in fighting each other and complaining (which was admittedly less than an hour) when Hiccup didn't show up.

"Alright! That's it." I waved them away and turned to leave "Go home to your parents! No point in another lesson without all of you."

Fishlegs looked relieved while the twins were busy already doing – well, something those twins would do.

"I want to find him. He hasn't been at any meals since Thor's Day. We're mounting a search party."

Viking honour is a good thing, something the mainlanders couldn't understand. Anyone looking in would have thought Astrid was the least likely to look for him, but if you won Dragon Training without competition, well, there's no glory in it.

Whatever she thinks, she's helping – it's something.

Before I had a chance to tell her what to do, however, Snotlout approached as well. He didn't say it, but that look - I hate it.

It reminds me too much of Stoick in the days after Valka was taken.

"Snotlout, tell your father that Hiccup's vanished for at least a day. We're going on a search. Ruffnut, Tuffnut, Fishlegs; gather as many people as you can." The twins lit up the order, so I threw them a bone. "Yes, you can threaten them if they don't do it."

Something I appreciate about the Jorgenson lad is his sense of when not to fool around. He stowed his weapon, nodded and half-ran out of the arena to find Spitelout.

The twins jumped up and ran off to terrify half the village – I couldn't find any pity for them. Despite their differences, Stoick would exile them without a second thought if he found out they even hesitated to find his son.

"You've noticed he's gone most afternoons?" Astrid asked as she followed me out of the arena and up the cliff face.

"So were you. Before." Back before training started, she would disappear in that forest for hours, from second breakfast to dinner. She would hack at tree after tree and come to the forge with a battered and bruised axe I didn't ask questions about. "D'you know where he could be?"

"…No." She lowered her eyes. "I only saw him a few times in passing since Training started. I never bothered to follow him."

Well, that's a lie. What kind of Viking doesn't investigate Hiccup's ridiculous rise to stardom when served a chance on a sharpened axe?

"Where d'ya see him?"

"Past Ýmir's Gap, heading just south of Raven's Point." Wonderful, the furthest and most dangerous part of the island. "I know the area better than most. I can guide a team there."

"I'll lead some there, and you can take some to the Caves." I don't care much for Viking honour, but some things are just not done, including giving the child a harder mission. "You don't need to lie to me, lass. You're doing this for honour and duty, and that's good enough."

She didn't reply, and the rest of the climb was substantially more awkward.

To my surprise, by the time we got to the village, half of it had turned up (having abandoned their jobs to find the chief's son). Would they have turned up if Hiccup was still the screw-up or the twins' threats?

If I were them, I probably wouldn't have. Either way, we have a lot of people.

Olaf Hofferson and Astrid led a group of them to the caves on the north side of the island. Spitelout, who arrived right after us, led some to the beaches and sea-caves on the east side, and I took the rest (including the twins, unfortunately) to the forest and Raven's Point.

The last of them returned well after the sun had set and notably empty-handed.

I greeted some from the table where I sat alone, waiting in case one returned victorious. Deep down, I knew it was in vain, and by the early hours of the morning, most of them had left.

The other trainees had been brought away by their parents despite protest, most notably Snotlout, who shouted and argued until Astrid was the one to tell him to leave.

As I said, Snotlout had almost looked haunted in a way. This morning, he had come down to the arena, chest puffed and ego as big as the island. Now, he walked head bowed, shoulders hunched over, a drink at the mouth and a familiar anger simmering below the surface.

You see it a lot after raids; parents and children alike watching nothing and lashing out. Hoping beyond hope that the gods would return their parents who died burnt alive or children from the claws of the beasts who took them.

Snotlout's expedition returned last, and from what I heard, he was the one to threaten (and then go through with), beating those who tried to leave early to the brink of death.

When returning, he got his cup of mead and watched the fire - hours passed until his parents tried to pull him away and, thus, their very public argument.

I've seen it before, and it reminded me far too much of Stoick.

I've always assumed Hiccup and his cousin would fix their differences one day and would both benefit when he became chief. It seemed to be so close to coming true when he started winning in Dragon Training, but now Snotlout has lost his first blood relation and stands to become chief.

Ironically, he's become just like Hiccup, thrown alone into the shadow of great men.

On the far west wall, below a series of stalagmites and around a couple of puddles, stood a wall of barrels piled one on the other to the top of the hall.

We moved the barrels here a few years ago after the beasts got an appetite for them, we couldn't have that, so a large part of the cave system which used to house the common kitchens became a massive booze storage. After all, what was a Viking village without booze?

Spitelout entered the hall, grabbed an abandoned goblet and filled it from said wall. He crossed the hall, clasped some on the shoulder and exchanged a few words with others, but he ended up falling onto the bench opposite me.

"Everyone's back now?" I went at my drink. I had finished others tonight, but I can't remember how many.

"Yea. Only stragglers left – go home, Gobber. Not much point staying here anymore."

"What's the point? I won't sleep. At least here, I've got someone to keep up with me" I raised my glass at him and smiled grimly.

"A little dramatic, don't you think?" Spitelout drank, too. "We're taking a few hours. I've got a team heading off at first light. Some of the best."

"I'll come along then. Where you sending them?"

"Across Ýmir's Gap. The Hofferson lass says that's where he was heading when she saw him." He drank more. "God knows what they do in those woods. Made sure Snotlout never went there, just causes trouble."

Spitelout hits his kid, and it is common knowledge. A lot of people agree with him, and whenever he brings it up to Stoick to "Vikingize" Hiccup, I remind him of that period.

"But Gobber. Gotta tell you." He drank again and hiccupped. "If he found a beast in those woods, not many would get away anyway – and, well, he certainly wouldn't survive a dragon."

Blame it on the drink, but when I put my mug-arm down again and found my voice after a light burp, I decided to abandon all pretence.

"I don't doubt if he found you in the woods, he wouldn't survive your ambition."

Spitelout's somewhat drunken sympathetic smile vanished, his eyes sharpened, and his booze-induced haze evaporated. He leaned over the table and well into my personal space (because despite what Hiccup says, we Vikings do know what that is), I smelt the alcohol he had drunk: it's the same stuff Johann sells at a premium that Stoick drinks.

"You have a problem with me, old man? I had nothing to do with the little brat's disappearance." He smelt strongly of sweat, metal and charcoal, too. "Go on, accuse your betters of kinslaying if that's all you can think of to get the stories to remember you as anything other than Stoick's little pet!"

How generous of him. I know the Eddas won't mention me – or only in the lightest of details.

"That's right, I'm a massive angry dog." I grabbed him by the back of the head and pulled him closer. "Make sure you're not on my owner's property, or I'll rip your throat out."

He ripped his head away and jumped up; the bench clattered behind him, and he swayed slightly. His drink spattered around.

"He's probably dead! You can look and look until your last limbs give up, and all you'll find is his mauled corpse!" He shouted, ignored the curious looks he got from the last stragglers, and turned to leave me alone.

I forwent Viking honour and jumped up in a swift motion. I was over the table, and my arm wrapped around his throat. He cried out, which I ignored as I withered his hits to my ribs and sides. Spitelout soon fell to his knees, wheezing.

I released my hold, and he fell to the floor, I wood-legged him in the stomach and then in the face. Again, and again. I picked him up with my good hand and sent him spinning with my mug-arm.

He was black and blue, and blood ran from his nose and mouth. He wretched loudly, and out came today's food, a mixture of half-digested bread and a few loose teeth

I raised my mug to hit him again but accidentally let my gaze wander. I felt the stares from all over the hall: judgemental and horrified. The grind of my iron pulled and turned against me, blood rushed through my ears, and my heartbeat rang out like a war-horn.

Then it was over. The voices disappeared. Spitelout had crossed the hall, joined his drinking mates, and taken another drink. No steel had been pulled.

I couldn't form coherent thought; the world made a fake world. My own body betrayed me.

Is this what going insane is?

I stumbled over the bench I just sat on, and my drink splashed over me and the floor. I knocked past someone; I slurred an apology. I felt my leg disobey and sway to the side; I fell onto the table where someone might have been sitting, either way, I didn't say anything but push myself off it.

The doors of the Great Hall were slightly ajar, and I squeezed through. The fresh air sharpened me. I collapsed against the wall; the drumming fell away, and my ear slowed their ringing. My shaking hands calmed, and my senses returned to me.

Hiccup. Where are you?

I arrived back at the house a while later.

It's a small shack beside the forge (about half the size of your average place, I don't need much place; I never married or bred). Like the smithy fungi clung to the roof, it looked suspiciously old. We had placed it away from all kinds of food and animal storage to keep weapon creation constant.

I'll sleep with the east window open, join up with the morning expedition and head back to the western forests.

It'll be three days then. Even lower chances of him still being alive.

No. If I end up thinking like that, we'll give up before really trying. Not that we didn't try today.

I entered the house and locked it behind me. Not because I didn't trust my fellow Vikings but because having drunks stumble inside at night (probably demanding weapons) isn't something I want to deal with tonight.

I detached my prosthetic arm and dropped it in the doorway. I do have a storage system, but I can't be bothered. Honestly, I'll just put it back on tomorrow morning. The stump cut me off at the elbow and ended in a patch of skin tied in a knot by a little string; it looked not unlike a bag of sand.

I lit this morning's half-used candle with weak embers and used it to guide me.

The house itself had a fireplace in the middle (like every other home on the island) but no second floor. My table, which was covered with pots, pans, and utensils, stood on the left and worked as my kitchen. Bars and railing lined the walls to help me move around when I took the leg off.

Through a door, my bedroom was just a simple thing. A small desk for the occasional letter writing, a bed, my axe-arm, and a water mug to its side.

A single window faced east and would wake me at first light. The sun was long gone by now. It was as dark as the rest of the room.

Too tired to put away my things, I shed my shirt and trousers. Faded scars from claws and your occasional boar, a couple of teeth marks, and a fair bit of burnt skin from my many failures at the forge covered the remaining me.

I placed the Boneknapper bone around my water mug, detached my leg (which was bound in the same way as the arm) and climbed into the bed.

I'm a purebred Berkian, I've slept all my life on our terrible oak beds through roars of distant dragons and the inevitable anxious wait for the war-horns announcing a raid. Tonight, though, I couldn't fall away. Thoughts ran untamed.

Trying to think about nothing made me think of exactly that.

I pulled my duvet to my chin and turned on my side. Like the past few days, Hiccup had all my attention.

Years ago, after Valka was taken, Stoick had thrown himself into his work. He was always there for others, for any task or petty demand, but turned cold and angry at the first look or mention of pity. He became violent in raids (even by our standards); he tore a Nightmare's mandible bare-handed, took a Nadder's sight with its spines and hacked away a Gronckle's tail with his hammer.

Yet even Thor can't compel me to forget when Hiccup, aged no more than five years, clambered through my window. Barefoot, doudou clutched against him and vaguely smelling of drink.

He hid behind me when I entered the Haddock house and found Stoick at the table, unconscious in a pool of his emetic waste and drink.

He roared at the boy when he woke and saw me. He raved about how he betrayed his father and his mother's memory.

Drunk Stoick was hardly a hard fight, I clobbered him and, after, hauled him to his bed (or next to it, at least). Hiccup had curled up in my lap that night, and I had sat there, by the fire, until the early morning when he woke up and demanded I fix his dad.

Do that's what I did, staying there each night afterwards. The boy refused to sleep without me there despite how Stoick tried to get me to go home and assured me all was fine and that he made a mistake.

It was only temporary, a few years later, Hiccup turned eight, and I convinced his Stoick that he could start at the forge. By that time, he was back to his usual self, and despite the amends he tried to make with Hiccup, Stoick's duties always clashed with the father in him.

Realising that, in fact, thinking about this would never make me go to sleep, I turned to my other side, and it was a little better for a little while.

Until my thoughts turned to Stoick again, he's due to return any day now, and when he finds out that his son is missing, it might very well break him more so than Valka.

Yesterday had to have been a fluke, Hiccup probably just fell into another project in some random cave somewhere in that forest. Spitelout can't be right. He isn't.

The fire cackled loudly, someone shouted outside, and an owl hooted in the forest. I gave up on sleeping; I couldn't stop thinking, and it would be morning in a matter of hours anyway.

I swung out of bed, hopped through the door, and collapsed onto a collection of rugs and furs beside the small fire.

I reached behind me, grabbed a log and placed it on the fire. I took my poker-arm to fiddle with the flames and just watched them. If I end up falling asleep here, then I'd have more energy for tomorrow morning, but if I didn't, so what? I'd find the energy to get Hiccup back.

Time passed, and I lay there. Embers cackled, and before I knew it, the dark sky threatened to turn to dawn.

I thought about him: his every feature, how his eyes light up when inspiration strikes him or mumbles incoherently because he thinks faster than he can speak or write. How the world takes second place when he works, how he grows pale and thinner and how I must remind him to eat and live.

I saw him so clearly, yet when he spoke, nothing came. It took me three days, and I'd already forgotten him.

I'm not especially happy with this one but this fic been without an update for quite a while so there you go.

I'm not exactly a fan of these kind of chapters in transformation fics but they're the easiest way to advance a plot but we'll get back to our favorite duo next chapter (not in 4 months I promise).

Have a nice day.

InternetWindBreeze.