"Where are you going?" Astrid curiously asked Hiccup, who had just finished saddling Toothless.

"I was going to scout some new places south of the Edge. I'm trying to explore the islands we didn't explore because we had to leave," he replied as he mounted Toothless, clicking his prosthetic in place.

"But we already scouted those islands; you're not thinking to go any further, aren't you?" Astrid always worried when Hiccup went off on his own.

"Well, ah…actually I am," Hiccup replied, scratching the back of his neck, "but with Toothless it won't take that long, and I'll go back before next week!"

"You promise?!" Astrid glared at him with her arms crossed. There was no way Hiccup could turn that look down.

"I promise!" He bent down and kissed her a quick peck on the cheek.

"Take care of him!" Astrid said, addressing Toothless. The dragon growled as if to say "don't worry, he's in good hands, or rather, claws".

After Hiccup and Toothless notified Stoick, Hiccup's father and chief of the tribe, of their task, they hit the skies, directly toward the sun, and up on to the unknown horizon. Hiccup took one brief look back over his shoulder at his home before the little rocky island of Berk disappeared into the skyline.

Hiccup and Toothless flew for hours through the clouds and above the endless blue sea. Time to time they encountered some little isolated islands, and sometimes inhabited islands. They frequently changed their course of flight, going higher to avoid any unpleasant surprises. Surprisingly, the people he ran into weren't so savage, and they watched in amazement as Hiccup and Toothless landed on the ground to have an occasional rest from their long flight.

In one of these such rests, the first thing Hiccup did was to stretch his legs. After all, it's a bit painful to sit in one position not moving for hours. Hiccup knew this, but Toothless seemed unaffected. He was a dragon and he was born to fly, unlike the twenty-year-old Hiccup who only discovered the thrill of flying four years ago.

"Argh…my back! A cramp! Toothless, little help!" Hiccup asked for his friend's help, but Toothless just warbled at the young man suffering before helping him. Toothless licked Hiccup's face affectionately.

"That's better…thanks, bud." Toothless growled happily in welcome.

Hiccup took the map out and opened it to check their course. "Well, we were here, and now we should be here…" Hiccup tracked their flight course with his finger, but the island they were on wasn't sketched on the map. Hiccup checked it over and over again to make sure. Toothless sat beside him, trying to figure out what his rider was doing.

"There's nothing wrong, that means one thing…this is a new island." Hiccup said to no one in particular. "Hmm."

He took his wooden pencil and drew the island on the map, before climbing back onto Toothless. They soared into the sky. "Let's see how this island looks from the sky, eh bud?" he said as they hovered above the island examining it carefully.

"Flat island. Small forest. A small river running across the island in the middle. Large sea shores." Hiccup wrote down a jaunty description about the island before filling in the details on the map. He thought that he had gotten everything special about the island. He narrowly missed one thing, though. "...and that's the river…wait, there's something on the river shore. A small viking village!"

Hiccup was surprised, for this was no ordinary Viking village. Actually, he wasn't even sure if it was made by Vikings! First, Vikings live near the sea on the edges of an island, not by a river shore in the middle of one. If you thought about it, Hiccup thought, that was a very smart move. That way they could avoid any angry Vikings wanting a war or just plain raiding. It was away from all the eyes of the world.

"Maybe we should go and say hello bud, don't you think so?" Hiccup suggested and Toothless growled in a low, sharp noise to show his displeasure with Hiccup's decision.

"Come on, Toothless! Why not? They have no visible weapons, no catapults, no watchers, no pots of boiling oil, or any fortresses. Pure heaven, compared to what we've come across before! I bet you they're peaceful!" Hiccup was determined on going, no matter what Toothless thought about it.

They traveled to the village on foot. It was the best they could do, beside from crash landing from the sky and scaring everybody in the town. So, they walked through the bushes until they reached the river.

"Well, there it is, right across the river," Hiccup said but he hesitated . "Maybe I should go alone." Toothless growled, not agreeing with the idea.

"Don't worry bud. If something happens, I'll just call you and we could get out pretty quick." Toothless agreed after Hiccup reasoned with him for a bit, but he still worried about his friend.

He stayed across the river and Hiccup continued to enter the city. From the first look of things, the city was simple, with people walking around the tight alleyways, minding their own business. Hiccup strolled on towards the center of the village. The sights of young children playing, women helping their husbands, and a few men in front of a house noticeably bigger than the others met his eyes.

"Lost your way?" one of those men called to Hiccup. Hiccup turned to look at the man. From a guess, he was still young, in his twenties.

"Yeah, my ship uh.. stopped on your shores, and the rest of my crew asked me to get some wood to light a fire for the night," Hiccup answered.

"But you could collect the wood from the forest entrance. The last time I checked this here village was in the center of the forest, lad."

"Ah…right. I decided to take a walk before hand! The river led me right here! Nice place, by the way," Hiccup said, nervously.

"Who are you? And where are you from, stranger?" the man asked again and Hiccup tried to answer the man's questions without giving away Toothless or the dragons.

"I'm a friend! And I'm from an small island north of here called Berk. Hails nine months out of the year, you know." As Hiccup pronounced the word 'Berk' the man and his friend's eyes widened. His startled expression disappeared in the blink of an eye. Hiccup thought he had imagined it.

"Sorry, my friend, I thought I knew your island for a moment but it turned out that I don't…well, if you're friend, so are we." The man reached out his hand and Hiccup took it, glad that the attention was off of himself. "I don't want to delay you, seeing as the night is near, so I will show you from where we take our wood. Look! Take this path for about five minutes until you find a red big tree. That's where the best wood for fire is. Always dry and ready to burn. Take what you need, friend."

Hiccup thanked the man and went back in the direction he had come from, which was unfortunately the opposite way than the young man had told him to go.

"As I expected!" the man hooted after Hiccup had disappeared behind the dark green tree line.

"What? I didn't see anything wrong with him," one of his companions pointed out. "Just another traveler, like we get occasionally."

"He's not smart as he looks. He can't even tell a lie correctly."

"Huh?"

"He's the man who was riding the black dragon from earlier," the man said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"But how do you know he lied to us?"

"Cutting wood? He doesn't have an ax or even a sword to cut it with, and I doubt he left his tool somewhere. It's too dangerous to just leave something like that. Someone could steal it."

"Well, that makes sense," his companion replied, slowly.

"And he said he's from Berk…I know someone who will pay his life to get his hands on Berkian blood."

"Bryan y-you don't s-suggests to hand him to the Dragon Queen, do you?"

"Let me remind you," Bryan said sternly, "we have a deal with the Dragon Queen. Recall how she saved our village from the dragons who were destroying and killing our people for centuries? Now we have to pay her, and that man will fulfill our tribute.

"Jack, go inform the Dragon Queen that a Berkian is wandering around in the forest. Run as fast as you can if you value your life. Hurry before he flies away!"