We go back to the isle of berk shortly after the riders had left, berk is still doing well but it has suffered setbacks with the riders leaving and stoick hasn't had an easy time since that day.
During the first week the riders leaving, stoick was trying to reassure people that their children wouldn't start to run off with the demons it didn't stop parents from worrying but it did temper it a little. Those contracts that were made with fishlegs, astrid, and the twins did some damage to berks trading capabilities fishlegs not so much since he already had a treaty with the meatheads while shaky he knew that the meatheads were honorable and wouldn't make the first strike. Now astrid and the twins's contracts were to help improve the trade routes seeing as these routes were going to be coming from tribes outside the archipelago. When he saw the teens leave he already knew the talks he was going to go through their parents weren't too happy about this either since with the contracts they were promised quite a bit in the contract but with them leaving the tribes immediately left peace talks and any future trade agreements they left promising no war but stoick wasn't taking chances with those tribes.
Snotlout leaving made the Jorgenson house furious spitelout has yet to stop talking about 'he doesn't understand why his boy would leave with a dragon' it took gobber knocking him out with a hammer to shut him up. Speaking of gobber he hasn't conversed with any other tribesmen since the teens left keeping to himself in the forge saying that with hiccup gone, 'he's gonna have to double his efforts to keep the work from piling up'.
Hiccup leaving probably had the biggest hit to berk since their worst raid during the war. The village lost one of their best blacksmiths and worst of all he lost his heir to chiefdom and there would be no child near the age to train a new heir.
Stoick made his way down to the forge to speak with gobber. He had reached the forge where he heard 3 villagers and gobber having a shouting match he sighs knowing where this is going as he quickens his pace to the forge to break up another fight. The moment he got there he noticed gobber ready to swing screaming at the villagers." I told you time and time again with my apprentice gone I cant get things as fast as I used to I only have one good hand and you chased off the only other good pair I had so you can either wait till I get to it or you can fix it yourselves which I wouldn't recommend" gobber screamed as he threw an axe at the nearest pole. It was this moment the villagers got the message and left not until after they gave him dirty looks. Stoick not long had entered only for gobber to sigh annoyed he had a feeling his old friend was gonna come and visit since the riders departure he had been the one to hear everything with how stoick cant believe his son left and he's starting to have enough." gobber its not a good idea to yell at them all the time you have to admit the repairs are going slower than usual" he tried to reason but gobber immediately retorts" oh ye I wonder why that is" stoick soon remembers why he came to the forge in the first place " gobber the main reason I came is I really think you should train a new apprentice you need the extra hands around here and everyone is complaining about not getting their weapons or tools fixed." Gobber looked over to his old friend" oh ye think so I had the perfect apprentice here already he was a hard, always got things done even faster than me but you all went and chased him off" stoick soon got upset" you know I didn't chase him off I was only going after the dragons" gobber stopped working on his recent tool" oh you mean the dragons that saved our asses on that island from that giant dragon those dragons" gobber didn't finish yet because he was wanting to let his friend know what he was thinking" stoick we known eachother for years and I know the lad I can guarantee better than you but do you really think hiccup was just gonna stand there and let you kill the dragons after he and his friends had spent over a year bonding with them you really think he or his friends will follow through with tradition" it was stoick who had enough with the conversation " well hiccup and his friends should've followed through I'll never understand how they are just fine with leaving everything they know for a couple of flying lizards especially hiccup he had his life planned out for him he was set he had a loving family, he now made good friends he could come to rely on, his birth right was secured he had no reason to leave berk" as he was ranting you could hear a loud hammer clang soon people saw stoick on the floor with gobber shaking his hammer prostetic." If you really think he had no reason to leave berk then you really didn't know your own son I wouldn't be surprised because you left me to take care of him while you were off chiefing" he soon turned around to finish his current repairs." If you got anything that needs repairs leave it on the counter and I'll get to it as soon as I can" he then went silent stoick took this as his time to leave he left his hammer as well just so gobber could realign it.
After leaving the forge he had to meet with the village council which consisted of the teens parents primarily so he made his way to the great hall to hear another argument.
The great hall was in an uproar again the parents never were able to let go of the fact their children left the island and made it clear with stoick upset they were. " why did we even consider that plan we should've seen how they reacted coming" this came from higstor soon spitelout chimed in " because they're Vikings we have traditions that must be upheld" the rest sighed in annoyance before gobber waddled inside" again with the tradition excuse do I got to knock you out again every time you use the same reasoning" spitelout soon shut his mouth when boarlegs spoke up " well we cant just sit here and do nothing, those kids ruined quite the increase in trade with them leaving we're lucky those tribes didn't wage war with berk" stoick spoke up" and what will you have us do boarlegs I've already reached out to our allies and no one has seen the kids we can't just send search parties they are on dragons they are probably miles away from the archipelago by now" luffnut soon chimed in" well what should we do with your heir problem it's clear hiccup is not coming back anytime soon if ever again so we need to figure out what to do for the future of the tribe" stoick hadn't considered this issue if something were to happen berk would be leaderless." I understand your concerns but the next generation is no where near the age for me to choose a new heir" higstor spoke up" then we only have two options either we keep looking for hiccup or stoick will have to remarry and have another child" stoick didn't want to remarry but it seemed he would have no choice but he will do this under his terms "very well higstor seems I don't have many options so here is what we will do we will keep searching for at least 2 years if hiccup has yet to be found I will remarry" the council wasn't pleased at the amount of time but saw they weren't getting anywhere else with stoick. The meeting ended and stoick left quite irritated the fact he made that choice but he has full confidence that he could get hiccup to see sense and get him to be the heir again
Hey everyone thought berk needs a chapter just stoick doesn't seem to be a complete delusional nutcase it seemed a lot of stories makes him insane or abusive I wanted stoick to not be like that if this makes sense I want stoick to think he is in the right but I don't want him to be absolutely insane I hope this is going in that direction. Ialso wanted to show that berk would still be alright without the riders for some reason there were quite a few fictions like that. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter I do apologise for the shorter chapter but I had a bad bit of writers block gonna work more on chapters gonna work on fixing some of the mistakes in previous chapters.