It seems I have not held up the promise I made earlier. Sorry about that.

I've been trying to get back into updating my stories, as I just recently updated another one of my other stories which I have not touched for months. Hopefully, this is the time the fluctuations stop, but I know now that I can't really promise anything regarding updates.

Hiccup quickly found that the village had been at a standstill for the duration that he was gone. Astrid still acted impulsively, although he could sense a hint of relief in her voice when he spoke with her. Gobber may have looked a bit worse for wear, which was likely from the stress of having to help keep the village in line for a good part of winter. Hiccup gave him a quick apology for what he had, unintentionally, put him through, but Gobber just shrugged it off.

But Hiccup knew he would have to go back and find Hiro; what good was that entire excursion if he wasn't going to do something about it? He knew the future of the village; he knew the place wouldn't last through his lifetime, and he knew that eventually, another archipelago-wide revolt against dragons would occur.

He did not want to wait for that time to come—for all he knew, it might not happen until he's too old to handle it—so his best bet would be to find Hiro and begin jumping around the given timeline in order to find out when the war would occur.

First, though, he would have to find a way to get off the island without raising any suspicions. He was just gone for several months, so the chances that the village would allow their chief to run off again were around zero.

The range was there; the great event was somewhere between the years 1011 and 1056. A 45-year range, though he decided that he could narrow it down to just 40 years by trimming off the back end. He highly doubted that the dragons would be reduced to what was left in 1056 in less than five years.

He was debating on whether he should leave to find out when it would happen, or stay and let everything play out. If he chose the latter, the collapse of the village could be twenty, maybe even thirty years off from now.

But if he chose to leave, then the village would wonder why. Any valid reason Hiccup could think of would only raise more questions. He especially did not want them to ask if they could come along.

Hiccup worried about what might happen to them if they did come along. If they saw the city lights of, if they knew what the world would look like in a thousand years, then he couldn't even comprehend how they might feel.

Would they feel betrayed—betrayed, because he could have come back at any time yet chose to stay in the city for months? Would they panic and lose themselves in the city? No matter the outcome, Hiccup saw himself losing them.

There was no room for him to wait. Work as chief would resume today, and he knew that he would have to start it off with a reason for being gone. Perhaps, then, he could talk everyone into letting him leave again.

First was remembering why he left in the first place: Screaming Death disturbances around the archipelago. By now, he had figured it wasn't real; if the Screaming Death was even the slightest bit relevant anymore, then someone would have told him by now.

"So why were you really gone?" says a voice from behind.

It caught Hiccup off guard, since it was still somewhat early in the morning; he didn't expect Astrid to be awake by now.

"I got sidetracked," says Hiccup, rather pathetically.

"Uh huh. And how do you go missing for months from getting sidetracked? You've disappeared several times before, but those were only for a few hours, a day at most, and that hasn't happened since before you were chief," mentions Astrid. "So what sort of thing is so important that it keeps you away from the village for months?"

Hiccup sighed. "Revolution," he answers. "I can't explain what I saw out there fully. One thing leads to another, and then suddenly, I find myself months detached from the village. But the things I was seeing—Astrid, I think there will be another uprising against dragons."

"So surely, if it took you months to come back, then you found out who was behind all of it, right?"

He knew he would have trouble coming up with an explanation why, but he answered this one as honestly as he could. "No."

Astrid didn't respond, but Hiccup knew she was expecting more.

"I spent a week with my hands tied behind my back in the hull of a ship, trying to get out, and then when I finally managed to escape with Toothless, I found out that they had taken his fin," he explains. "So I'm stuck days away from home, on some random uninhabited island, and Toothless can't fly. I spent a whole month alone trying to find a way to get back. If I could have come back sooner, then I would have."

His voice was shaky the entire time, since he knew that he was lying, and it was not in his nature to lie. But what other option did he have? The truth would be less believable than the fallacy he just told, and even though it could be proven, he was afraid of the effects it might have on the rest of the village; they would see it as some sort of witchcraft.

There was a pause before Astrid responded. "So when do you think they'll be here?"

"I don't know," says Hiccup. That was a truth.

"But if they didn't know before, then they know now that dragon riders exist," he continues. "I don't think they saw me when I left, though, so I'm pretty sure they don't know where we are."

"Okay, so what do you want to do about it?"

Hiccup sighed. "I know you guys won't like it, but I may have to go out there again. Alone, again. I have to be able to track down this guy, whoever he may be. I take one look at this village, and it seems like you're doing just fine without me."

Astrid shook her head. "We haven't though," she says. "We've only been able to hold ourselves together for the time being. The other villages, we wanted to hold off from speaking with them until you returned. I know you've been doing some business with the guys up north, and I'm pretty sure they're concerned about the fact that we haven't contacted them since you left."

"Okay, then. We'll get word out to them that we're doing fine."

He turned to head out of the hall, but Astrid stopped him. "And that would be it?" she says. "Nothing more than just a quick 'How do you do?' and you're out of here again?"

Hiccup sighed again. "I hate to do this. I really do. But if there's someone who wants to disrupt what's here, then I have to stop it before they get here."

"That's exactly what you did when Drago was your concern. Even after that, you're still taking the same approach?"

"Well, it gives us multiple chances to stop a threat. Take it out before it's too late, I say."

The winter was over, but the darkness had not ceased—the dry air was still freezing, nipping at their skin with no remorse. It still felt like the winter could go on for the next several months.

That wouldn't be possible though. No, their current supply won't last them another week. They've already lost substantial numbers in the most recent raid, and they weren't sure how much longer they would be able to survive in the frigid weather.

Life was unforgiving. It was well agreed among the village that freezing to death in one's own house was the worst way to go, but the multitude of options presented by dragons didn't fare well with them either. With dragons, it was mostly a choice between burning, blowing up, or becoming their next meal.

Albin Rask was having none of it. He knew that the cause for all their winter losses were due to the dragons, because the creatures would always continue to steal everything they needed to survive the harshest months.

Every raid, he wanted to contribute, yet every time he was turned down for his stature. As a mere spectator during raids, he could watch the battles unfold from a safe place, where he could analyze and infer what the best move was for either side. Every raid, he would watch as the dragons would approach at dawn, pillage half of their produce, and then flee to the south.

In a way, he had become a tactician. His words of advice to the warriors between raids rarely ever went ignored, since he was able to see things that they couldn't. It had been proven that the strategies he developed saved a lot of their fighters, and it had earned him a respectable association with the chief when dealing with more intellectual affairs.

Albin was also aware of what was to the south. A day of travelling in that direction would lead them to the only village in the archipelago known to ally themselves with dragons—oh, what a fool his village had been to trust them, knowing how dangerously close their two villages were!

He knew what they had compared to his village. He knew that while they flourished, his people were just struggling to find a way to stay fed.

But were they not just like him? They were people too, and he envied them for what they had. Why should Berk be allowed to celebrate in the winter, while his village had to huddle around a single fire in hopes of surviving?

It didn't take long for him to infer why they lived so luxuriously while his own village simply struggled to survive. The dragons that raided them came from the same direction as Berk; they must have somehow compelled the dragons into raiding their village under the guise of an ordinary dragon raid.

Another correlation that further verified his presumption was the fact that in the past year alone, there were two major events that shook the atmosphere surrounding Berk. The first of which was the induction of a new chief toward the end of summer; the second was the complete breakage of any contact with his village during the winter. That breakage of contact also lined up with the beginning of the raids on his village.

Was that their dirty plan? To build trust with other villages, before suddenly turning at the perfect moment, when they could deal the greatest damage? And then what? Steal the valuables for their own luxury? He wondered if they had done this before, with any other tribes.

Albin was outside because the chief had sent for him. A reason why, he could not infer, but the conclusion of the winter season may possibly provide new opportunities, some time to recover and better prepare for fend off raids.

Chief Haren was already in the Great Hall waiting for him, studying a large map of the archipelago that had been unfolded atop the table in the middle of the hall.

"Chief," Albin greeted. "You wanted to see me?"

The chief nodded. "Berk has spoken."

Finding a time to run off into the forest was a pain. Having been gone so long, there was always something to keep him busy; there was always someone watching him, so he wasn't able to leave until it was night. And even in the dead of night, when there was nothing apart from the moon to brighten the area around him, he continued to check behind himself to make sure he and Toothless weren't being followed.

He reached the cove; quiet and uninteresting as usual, aside from the sight of Hiro and Baymax settled near the pond. Unsure if Hiro was awake, he first approached quietly.

"Thought you'd find me earlier," said Hiro. "Thought this visit would just be a quick 'What's up? By the way, I'm fine,' and then we'd be on our way." He shook his head, slightly frustrated at Hiccup's inconvenient timing. "It's fine. What's been going on around here since you left?"

"Well, they apparently cut all communication with neighbor tribes," says Hiccup. "Operations within the village have been fine. I'm not too concerned with what they're doing, though I do feel I may have ended up freaking them out a bit with all these 'uprising' rumors I used as an excuse to leave."

"So you should be fine with leaving again."

Hiccup frowned. "Yeah, sort of. I'm tempted a bit to stay just because I've been gone for so long. The whole reason I left was because of some rumors about the Screaming Death going rogue. We know that's not true. But now, I'm leaving because of rumors less than a day after getting back."

"How long do you think you want to stay?"

Sitting down, Hiccup shook his head. "I don't know," he says. "Could be a couple days, maybe weeks depending on how everything plays out."

"That's too long. Baymax can't last that long here. We were supposed to look for the thing that caused the last revolution against dragons—the one that drove them supposedly 'extinct.'"

Hiccup was at a loss. Perhaps he shouldn't have come back to begin with. That way, he wouldn't feel so guilty for leaving again. But if he wanted to save them, he would have to leave them. "You know what? I'll stay. Just for a bit. Hope that's not an issue. A week, maybe, if you're good with that."

Hiro stopped to do the math; a little over a day in the past was about ten minutes in the present. "And in San Fransokyo time, that would be… a little over an hour," he says. "I think I can wait an hour at home. It's not enough time for me to start jumping around with the thing, anyway."

"Good that you can handle that. I'll see you in a week, then."

"And I'll see you in a few hours."