Chapter Text
He can’t do it. And there’s no way around it. The whole village will be there to witness the carnage, the coming-of-age of their resident hiccup. There would be no way to fake the killing of a Monstrous Nightmare, no matter how many ways he tries to spin the situation. The only option would be to try and show the village the errors of their ways, but getting a tribe of blood-thirsty vikings to take a second to see a world without their swords constantly strapped to their backs is impossible.
He has one choice only. He hopes he doesn’t come to regret it.
At night, when he knows they’ll have the most coverage, the most advantage to not be seen by the others, he and Toothless leap into the sky. Toothless is confused. Hiccup can’t speak dragon, but he can see the question in his partner’s eyes. He doesn’t have a good excuse to tell him, so he simply states the truth. While flying through the cold night air, traveling as north as they can before Toothless collapses from exhaustion, he spills every secret, every lie, every half-truth, every word he wished he would have spoken to his father or Astrid or Gobber or his mother he never got to meet. Toothless is a willing listener, not that he has much choice otherwise, but he’s steady as he flies and lets his rider shout into the wind everything he needs to to calm his racing pulse.
Hiccup can’t lie to himself; he’ll miss the village, miss the quarrels and the fights and the songs they sing together after a successful battle against the dragons. He’ll miss the other kids his age, and he’ll miss the dragons he couldn’t save. Perhaps, when he’s better at this whole dragon riding business, he’ll come back and liberate the dragons from his old tribe. He might even be able to show the village how wrong they were.
For now, he heads north. They fly blind through the dense clouds that surround their little area of the archipelago, but Hiccup has to believe there’s something on the other side of it. There must be more to their little world. He’s determined to seek out everything he can, right alongside his best friend and only the wind as their witness.
Hiccup is not strong. He knows this, the whole village knew it, but it’s never been a problem until now, when trying to build a base of operations—or, even simpler, a small hut to spend the night. His noodle arms and small hands that are good for tinkering with tiny mechanisms are not as great for wood-chopping. Toothless comes in handy, the dragon hangs upside down on a sturdy branch just as he did in the cove all those weeks ago and Hiccup gets wrapped up in the smoldering warmth of dragon skin. His feet rest on Toothless’ front paws and the back paws wrap around his middle. Wings envelop them both, and together they sleep.
For much of these early days, Hiccup and Toothless explore freely. Before he left, Hiccup took the bare necessities with him. He didn’t know what he’d find, and he didn’t know what to prepare for. Turns out, what he prepared for and what he’d need were two very different things. He packed food, which went too fast and had them resort to fishing in the ocean more often than not—trap setting was not his specialty. He packed bedding, but without a roof over his head it was too dangerous to set up camp in the middle of a forest—sleeping within Toothless’ grasp was much more comfortable, anyway. He packed weapons, but a giant fire-breathing dragon was much more efficient than his weak arms swinging a battle mace.
Suffice to say, he was running out of supplies. More specifically, materials for inventing. Hiccup had an idea for new flight armor that would hopefully help better protect from the strong winds while on the back of Toothless.
It was by chance that he stumbled on the Northern Markets.
No, quite literally stumbled. He and Toothless were wandering among a new island, large and dense with trees so much so that scouting from the air was useless. It had a main mountain in the center but tapered off towards the shoreline.
They landed during the night, slept among the trees.
In the morning, they explored. There was nothing of note among the island, a rather plain expanse of fauna and flora, nothing he knew how to use. Having the botany nerdiness of Fishlegs would’ve come in handy here, but he was clueless otherwise. Toothless trotted next to him the entire time, snuffling in the dirt and rustling bushes with his tail. Hiccup was about to tell him to be quiet, just in case they run into something they shouldn’t, when he slipped on a sharp decline hidden by shrubbery.
Toothless made a noise of distress, tumbling down the slope with him.
The sound of voices made them both pause.
Hiccup motioned for them to crouch low, Toothless dragging his belly across the dirt. They didn’t sound as if they spotted them, simply chatter with the occasional laugh or yell. Hiccup had to wonder how they didn’t spot this clearly large encampment sooner.
They kept to the shadows of the rising sun, and once the sight of merchant tents and shoppers came into view Hiccup couldn’t help but be relieved. Finally, was his only thought. A market! Supplies! Food other than fish! (No hate for Toothless’ fishing skills, of course, but there’s only so much a man can do without the soft, doughy goodness of bread.)
The sun was high with mid-morning light when Hiccup finally stepped foot into the market. Toothless was left in the forest, waiting with all of their stuff as Hiccup went in alone. The dragon was none-too happy with the arrangement, but Hiccup knew there would be no way for the dragon to come with, no matter how many years would pass. He himself had his winter cape draped over his shoulders, hood pulled up to conceal as much of his identity as son of Stoick as possible. He had no idea if these people knew of Berk, but traders had connections everywhere, he knew, and there’s no doubt a few loyal to his father would be on the lookout for his son.
Turns out, this particular market was filled with people hiding who they were. He wasn’t the only one donning a conspicuous cape while shopping. They were mostly lone shoppers, too. And any groups of people all looked to be soldiers of some sort. Hiccup spotted crests he didn’t recognize, and they were all attached to men with brutal scars and harsh voices. Shining axes and swords hung from their hands, and crates of straw (merchandise bought in bulk, he knew) were guarded from passing shoppers.
Many of the vendors sold weapons and armor. A select few sold materials for crafting. Two vendors sold actual food. Hiccup—shamed as he is to admit it—stole money from his father before leaving. Being as isolated as he was, he wasn’t sure if he’d actually ever use it until now. Despite that, it wasn’t a lot. He’d have to prioritize the necessities.
Or would I? Some terrible, awful voice inside of him whispered. There are other ways to get what I need.
Hiccup is not a trouble-maker. Not intentionally. Never has he stolen, never has he pranked. He stayed in his little bubble in the village and never stepped out of line unless he really just absolutely had to. Like the night he shot down Toothless.
So maybe he’s a little bit of a trouble maker. But he’s not a thief.
Until now, he’s never had to be.
He buys food. Not a lot, only enough to get any prying off of him. A stranger lingering in a market without buying anything can only spell bad news. So, he buys bread. And fruit. And seeds. Those, he’ll make sure to get a good use out of. The vendor is nothing special, some old man who looks too grandfatherly to be spending his morning in a shady market, but the large battle ax behind him tells a different story. He doesn’t ask Hiccup anything too prying, and his eyes don’t spark with recognition. Hiccup has certainly never seen this man before around the village ports, so it’s safe to say he doesn’t know Berk.
“Come here with your father, lad?” Is his first real question. Hiccup is now alert, aware he’ll have to think fast to save face.
“Yeah, he’s off buying the largest sword he can find.” He tries to keep it conversational, not defensive. Thankfully, the old man is none the wiser.
“Ah. Typical. First time at the Northern Market?”
“That obvious?”
The man chuckles, “I usually remember faces pretty well, and you look a bit too interesting to miss.”
“Interesting?” Hiccup repeats, shifting his weight with nervous energy. “How?”
“Just don’t get a lot of kids around here, ‘s all.”
Right. How could he be so careless? It's bad enough he has a hood covering his identity, but he's also a small, scrawny Viking. No one will take him seriously, and he'll draw more attention than anyone else here.
He thanks the old man before moving onto different sights. Specifically, the blacksmith to his right.
By the end of his shopping excursion, he has a bag full of different items ranging from food to metal scrap, and his pockets are empty of gold. There’s a constant lingering fear of what he's going to do when he inevitably runs out of supplies, but he has to push the thought aside or it'll consume him. The fear and anxiety will get to be too much.
The sun is hanging low in the sky when Hiccup meets back up with Toothless. The dragon was lying in wait in the nearby shrubbery, tail twitching back and forth in clear sign of agitation and restlessness. Upon seeing Hiccup, he perks up, the frills that are his ears standing up and his pupils dilating. Hiccup can't help the smile that makes its way onto his face at the sight of his friend.
“Hey, bud. Did'ya miss me?” He asks, to Toothless’ overeager response. The dragon is bouncing up and down, chuffing a pleased noise. “I got us some items, but nothing too crazy. Might have to wait for any five star luxuries.”
Toothless makes no indication that he's listening at all, too wrapped up in his joy of seeing his other half after hours of being apart.
Hiccup huffs out a laugh, “I know, I know, I missed you, too.”
A sound, close-by. Deep voices and shuffling feet.
“But maybe let's get out of here.”
Hiccup stores his purchases in Toothless’ saddlebag, putting the larger objects in the woven basket that used to house the previously mentioned useless items like weapons and bedding. Slinging the basket onto his back, he climbs onto Toothless’ saddle and they race off into the forest. The trees are dense, they need to find an opening before they can take off. And with the sun still up, taking off too close to the Market would only spell trouble. Hiccup knows Toothless has gone his whole life without being spotted by Vikings, he's not about to ruin that hard work by being a careless rider.
They find a clearing, a meadow of overgrown grasses and a rock formation in the center. Wildlife scatters as they pounce into the clearing. Toothless croons as he eyes the running rabbits. As they bound into the undergrowth and are once again out of sight, Hiccup once again laments his inability to properly lay traps. His stomach growls with the promise of meat other than cooked fish, but he also knows he brought this upon himself the moment he decided to run away. He has to learn how to fend for himself, or spend the rest of his life eating fish.
Toothless sees the open sky and wastes no time, opening his wings and giving one big push off the ground. Hiccup clenches onto the saddle—he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the sudden takeoffs of dragons.
Once they’re in the air, Hiccup finds himself relaxing. He didn’t realize how stressed he was sneaking around with a giant dragon in broad daylight, but being up in the air eases all of his worries of being spotted. And once they’re off the island and over the ocean, there will be no one around for miles.
As Toothless steadies his pace in the sky, Hiccup reaches into his pocket and unfolds a large piece of parchment—a map. Nicked from an unsuspecting stranger at the pub in the Market, Hiccup overrules his feelings of guilt with the knowledge that they need as much information about the archipelago as possible if they’re going to be traveling its skies. The wind rushing past makes it mildly difficult to view the map’s contents, but with some well-placed hands, he manages to get it to lie as flat as possible, stretching it over Toothless’ broad neck.
The island he and Toothless have been calling home base is apparently known as Sleipnir Island. Hiccup hasn’t noticed anything eight-legged about the island, but decides that he couldn’t care less about the meaning behind the island’s name.
The Northern Markets make up the epicenter of the map, unlike Berk’s maps where Berk is at the center. There’s a twinge in Hiccup’s chest when he sees the crude outline of Berk’s island shape just south of center. He can’t say for certain, but he feels it must have been about a month now since his leave from his home, and the days haven’t gotten any easier. Toothless makes the decision worth it though—every day spent with his friend further cements the idea that he couldn’t have stayed on Berk where the very idea of a Viking loving a dragon would’ve had you tied up for insanity.
Hiccup refolds the map, planning to pour over it further once they get back to the little cave they’ve been calling home. As soon as Hiccup spotted it during a scouting trip around the island, he hasn’t gone back to hanging from trees since. Toothless doesn’t seem to mind the change in sleeping patterns—he’s content to curl up in the corner while Hiccup throws himself over the warm dragon like a lizard on a rock.
When they finally land at the mouth of their cave, the sun has set and darkness is falling quickly. Toothless is barely an outline of black in the darkness, and Hiccup follows him blindly through the cave entrance. During their time in the cave, Hiccup has learned that Toothless has an exceptional skill of seeing well in dark places.
There’s a campfire in the center of the large cavern the cave opens up to, built with some difficulty by Hiccup. He’s used pre-chopped wood to start the fire back at the house, but going over and finding raw materials to build a campfire was not part of his skillset. Toothless helped break apart sizable trees and branches to use as the base, while Hiccup foraged twigs and dried leaves for kindling. It turned out to be another useless act, because as soon as Toothless blew a small blast into the center the whole thing came to light instantly.
He does the same thing now, blowing a small purple blast into the fire pit that only he can see before the cavern alights with yellow flame. Hiccup sighs at the warm temperature change, a bit frozen after the cold flight. He starts unloading his purchases from Toothless’ saddlebags and his own basket backpack, setting the goods in a corner away from the fire.
Looking around, his cave is barren. A campfire at the center, Toothless sleeping in their sleeping corner, a pile of miscellaneous supplies bought from the Markets, and a pile of logs for the fire. Nothing that really screams “home” or “comfort.” It was only recently in their journey that they found this cave, so it makes sense that there’s not a lot to it, but Hiccup still finds it lacking all the same. He can imagine a workbench against the right wall, furs for the colder nights when Toothless’ dragon body heat isn’t enough to keep Hiccup warm, and…
He misses the forge.
If there was one thing from Berk that he absolutely cannot live without, it was full access to the village’s forge at any hour of the day. Being able to make his inventions and have a place all to himself was nice. If he built up a relationship with iron masons at the Northern Markets, he’s sure he could use theirs, but that would require social skills he’s not too confident in.
He could try to build one. It can’t be too hard, right?
“Alright, bud, we have to find a rock quarry. Or a mountain, or something of that sort.”
It’s the morning, and Toothless is already jumping around, anxious to move. While Hiccup knows the dragon can be well-mannered and calm, he does have a rather energetic disposition. Always wanting to be up in the air, or moving around on the ground, never sitting still for too long unless he’s really tired.
Hiccup continues his rant. It’s not necessary for him to relay everything to a dragon that can’t talk back, but Hiccup knows that Toothless likes it when they talk, even if it’s one-sided. “It can’t be off the island—you can’t carry too much weight and flying back and forth from a different island could take all day. So,” he puts his hands on his hips, “let’s go find some rocks.”
He’s explored the island once already, but it wasn’t thorough and he can’t possibly remember where everything is. They’ll be starting from scratch for this expedition. Thankfully, the Gods must be smiling on him because it doesn’t take more than an hour of wandering before he stumbles upon a secluded lagoon with tall rock walls.
He doesn’t know his geology, but running his hands over the rough stone is enough to feel the solid substance and not give way to any chipping. Dust rubs off on his hands, but it takes striking another rock against the wall for anything to give. It should be enough to withstand the heat of a properly-lit forge.
“This should work, but how do I…” He taps a finger against his chin, and Toothless croons next to him. Hiccup looks at his powerful dragon and wonders once again why Vikings would ever do things the hard way when they could work together with dragons instead.
He pulls them further away from the wall, much to Toothless’ confusion. Cowering behind a strong wing, Hiccup points at the wall, “Toothless, fire!”
Toothless has no hesitation, fully trusting his human half. He blasts the wall and rocks shatter and fly in all different directions. He raises his wing further, shielding Hiccup as best as possible from the debris. While the rocks were kept away, Hiccup still feels dust enter his eyes. Blinking it away, he rises from his crouched position and peers at the destruction.
Rocks of all different shapes and sizes are scattered at their feet. They’re not smooth like Hiccup knows they should be, but they’ll work for his purposes. Satisfied, he scratches Toothless behind his frills and gets to work gathering as many as he can.
It does end up taking most of the day, but eventually there’s a rock pile against the far wall of their cave. Up in the ceiling is a hole, an opening that lets in daylight and filters out the smoke of the fire. Hiccup is planning to build the forge directly underneath it, to limit the buildup of dangerous smoke and other airborne materials. It’ll make the forge tough if not impossible to use on rainy days, but it’s necessary to keep the cave as safe to work in as possible.
Now to make the mortar. Hiccup once again heads out to the lagoon, gathering up as much sand and mud as he can in the woven basket. Back in the cave, he mixes it together—three parts sand, one part mud, add water as necessary. Toothless watches curiously but doesn’t get in the way of Hiccup’s work.
By the end of it, he has something resembling a forge. He still needs tools, a grindstone, some sort of anvil, and a trough of water, but it’s a start.
Little by little, Hiccup feels a home start to take shape.