Hey guys! This is BookLover86, and I am here with my first HTTYD Fanfic. This isn't however, my very first Fanfic. I have been working on quite a few already, just none of them HTTYD. Hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I do not own HTTYD. Parts belong to Cressida Crowell and other parts belong to Dreamworks Animation.

Chapter 1-Prologue

Hiccup was being raised up on the shoulders of the villagers after being declared the person to kill the Monstrous Nightmare.

"Great! I'm so...excited." He said with fake enthusiasm. The mob carried him to the Great Hall, where he got away from his "adoring" fans. He walked to his house, his feet dragging in the dry dirt. He finally got to the grand lodge, and he opened the back door, sneaking into the empty house.

Hiccup landed in his room, and took a deep breath. He grabbed a piece of paper, and wrote his father a note, placing it on his made bed. He grabbed a satchel, and filled it with everything that was important to him. The satchel ended up having his notebook, plenty of extra paper, three charcoal pencils, a compass, a fishing net, and an extra pair of clothes.

Hiccup slung it on his back, and jumped out his window, landing on his feet. He took off running toward the forest where Toothless was hidden. He crawled under the shield which he wedged in between the rocks the second time he approached Toothless.

"Come on bud. We're leaving. We're going on a little vacation...forever." His sleeping dragon uncurled himself from the ball he was in, and groaned. Hiccup smiled and rubbed the Night Fury's head.

"No one understands me here. I feel like I'm nothing without the dragons. I'm scrawny, weak, and can't do anything right." Toothless rested his head in Hiccup's lap, and purred contentedly. Hiccup chuckled as he stroked the black scales on Toothless's head.

"Maybe I'll find out who I'm supposed to be...away from Berk. Away from all the people who criticize me, all the people who hate me, all the people who think of me as nothing more than a piece of food lodged in their throat that they can't get rid of." Hiccup stood up, and slid onto Toothless's back, putting his feet in the stirrups. He adjusting the satchel so it wouldn't fall off when he was flying, and grabbed the reins.

"Let's go bud."

Toothless spread his wings and took off, flying into the bright blue sky with Hiccup on his back.

Stoick was starting to get worried. Hiccup had been chosen to kill the Monstrous Nightmare, but he didn't seem happy that he was chosen for such an honor. He walked to his house, and opened the door. The house seemed strangely empty, due to the fact that Hiccup was last seen going into the house.

"Hiccup!" Stoick yelled, hoping to summon his son, but no one responded to his call. He climbed the stairs that led to his son's room. He opened the door, expecting to see Hiccup, but instead, seeing a room with no other human occupying it.

"Hiccup?" Stoick said, his grand voice sounding pitiful against the emptiness of the house. He began to search the room, not finding anything that suggested Hiccup was in any kind of trouble, until he found a note laying on top of Hiccup's neatly made bed.

It was addressed to him. Stoick picked it up and unfolded it, recognizing Hiccup's familiar writing as he began to read.

Dear Dad,

I'm sorry. If you're reading this, that means you're at least looking for me, but you won't find me. Ever. I'm leaving. This may seem like a cowardly move, but what do you expect me to do? You and everyone else here wants me to kill a dragon, but I can't even fight them.

I'm sorry it had to come to this, but Berk is where everyone hates me, where everyone criticizes me, and where I'm just another disappointment to you and everyone else.

Maybe I'll find a life for myself that doesn't revolve around pleasing people who don't understand who I truly am. Maybe you'll finally see that being different isn't bad. It's how you see the difference in them that influences everything. You saw me as weak, pitiful, and above all, useless.

As my last wish, please promise me that if someone else is different, that you'll make sure that they know that being different isn't bad. It's how you handle it. Promise me that they will never feel out of place due to who they are. Please? For me.

Tell Gobber that I am thankful for all his mentoring and support. Tell Astrid, Snotlout, Fishlegs, and the twins that I don't blame them for hating me, but it would've felt nice to be the least bit accepted before I started to show skill with the dragons. Dad, I want you to know that I'm sorry I couldn't be the son you wanted, but I tried to at least be a son you could be proud of. I hope I succeeded.

Goodbye dad.

Sincerely,

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock lll

Stoick felt his blood freeze in his veins as his heart rate sped up considerably. He read the note again, and again. After the fifth time he read the note, he let the piece of paper slip out of his hands and float gracefully to the floor.

Soon after, Stoick fell to his knees, tears starting to flow down his cheeks and wetting his mane of a beard. Stoick started to sob, his heart breaking off piece by piece as the realization struck him. His only son, his only connection to Valka was gone.

His mind felt like it was walking through quicksand, slow and sluggish until one thought made Stoick jump up as if Thor struck him with lightning: Hiccup was slow, and he wasn't a good sailor. Him sailing off on a ship is the only way off the island, and Hiccup never really learned how to man a ship correctly.

Stoick burst out of his house, and dashed to the blacksmith's where Gobber was whacking away at a sword.

"Gobber!" Stoick cried. "I need your help." Gobber looked up to see the chief and his best friend with tears streaking down his face.

"What is it Stoick?" "Hiccup's gone." Stoick breathed. Gobber's eyes widened.

"What do you mean he's gone?"

"I mean, he ran away. He left this note." He handed the note to the blacksmith, who read it, then gave it back to Stoick who slipped it into his cape.

"The ships are the only way he could get off the island..." Stoick didn't have to finish before Gobber set down the sword and started running as fast as he could to the docks, with Stoick matching him step for step. They got to the docks, and ran to the viking who was guarding the ships.

"Did anyone come and get a ship?" Stoick asked while breathing heavily. The viking shook his head no.

"Nobody's been here all day." Stoick's eyes widened. The docks was the only place where ships were kept, or sailed from. There was only one place you could sail a ship from on Berk, and that was the docks.

Even if Hiccup made his own boat, he would have to sail it from the docks. That must mean he was still on the island. Stoick and Gobber ran back into the village, yelling for everyone to meet them at the Great Hall.

Ten minutes later, all the villagers were gathered in the Great Hall, talking quietly amongst themselves as to what caused Stoick to call an emergency meeting. Stoick stood and raised his hands for silence, and the hall quieted instantly.

"I have called this meeting to tell you all something very important, and we cannot waste any time. Hiccup is gone." Stoick announced, his eyes watering as he said what he didn't want to believe. The hall erupted in gasps, everyone starting to whisper in shock.

"QUIET DOWN!" Gobber cried. Everyone silenced in the blink of an eye. "He left me a note, that I will read to you all." Stoick read the note out loud, and once he finished, everyone had tears in their eyes.

"I need everyone's help to find him. He didn't get on a ship yet which means that he is still on the island. Split up into groups and search the island. Leave no stone unturned. Go." Everyone burst out of the hall, grabbing weapons and splitting up into groups to search the island.

The teens started to search where Astrid had seen Hiccup walking a few days ago. Astrid tossed her axe from hand to hand, while her eyes were darting back and forth. Snotlout was turning his spear around in his hand and was actually quiet. Fishlegs was tapping his hammer against his palm and his eyes were focused on the ground. The twins weren't arguing for once in their life, and they both had no weapon in sight.

The group continued until they found a secret cove hidden in the woods. As they were contemplating how to get in, they heard Snotlout's voice.

"Hey guys! Come look at this!" As they followed his voice, an opening in the rocks came into view, but it was blocked by a shield. Astrid pushed through the teens, examining the shield.

"It was lodged here by a person. It's too tall to jump over, but there's not much room to slide under." Fishlegs observed. Astrid nodded in agreement, but was still looking at the space underneath the shield.

"Then how do you explain those?" Ruffnut asked, pointing to the ground. There were footprints clearly pressed into the dirt.

"Hiccup came through here." Astrid whispered.

"How do you know it was Hiccup?" Snotlout asked.

"There isn't another viking who is as scrawny as he is and this is close to where I saw him in the woods." She reasoned. She slid under the shield, and sliced it in half with her axe, so everyone else could get through easily.

Once they were all through, they started to search the cove. Astrid found a cave, where she found many burned spots on the ground. Ruffnut and Tuffnut found a pencil floating in the water. Fishlegs found multiple lines engraved in the dirt, faint but still there. Snotlout saw strands of rope sitting next to a rock.

"Hiccup was definitely here." Fishlegs announced.

"We have to tell Stoick." Ruffnut said. Everyone nodded and walked out of the cove.

When they told Stoick what they found, he demanded to see it. After a thorough investigation, he agreed that Hiccup was here, but he was gone. No one else came back with reports of seeing something that indicated Hiccup being there.

After a few days, Hiccup was declared dead by everyone besides Stoick. He refused to think that his only son was gone forever. Stoick cried more the next few weeks than anyone ever saw before. Everyone felt terrible about Hiccup.

No matter how badly everyone felt, no one felt as badly as Stoick. For the first week, he refused to eat, and only drank when he needed to. He became a shell of the man he was when Hiccup was here. Eventually, the problem of a successor came up.

"Who's it gonna be?" Someone asked out loud.

"Snotlout of course!" Spitelout proudly said.

"He is Hiccup's older cousin after all!" Everyone looked to Stoick for him to confirm what everyone knew was logical.

"There will be no new successor," Stoick announced, his voice quiet and hollow. "Hiccup will come back." Spitelout laughed at that.

"I hate to break it to you Stoick, but Hiccup's dead."

"NO!" Stoick cried, standing. No one had heard Stoick yell since Hiccup went missing. "I know my son. He can't survive on his own, and his isn't dumb enough to stay out there and die, He will be back, and until he does, I will chose no successor to replace my son. Understood?"

Spitelout nodded, but narrowed his eyes in disbelief when the chief said that Hiccup would be back. There was no more talk on the subject of a successor.

Everyone on Berk was plunged into a cauldron of guilt and sadness. Life on Berk would never be the same again.

Well, that's chapter one! If you like the story, reviews are always welcome. See you next time.

BookLover86, Out! ;)