~Winged Away~

Chapter One

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Hope and Heir to the Hairy Hooligans of Berk, pulled his yak-skin cloak tight about his shoulders, trying to hide his ears from the bitter wind. It was always windy in the Barbaric Archipelago, but there were a variety of winds to choose from: freezing winds, gale-force winds, blizzard winds, rainy winds, and occasionally – very occasionally – a warm and gentle wind from the south that promised good weather but never came through on it. The Vikings of Berk similarly did not trust anything southern, be it the food, the music, the fashion, or the people, whom they considered weak-of-will and weak-of-body.

Hiccup rather wished he was down south right now. He heard there were beaches there where people swam for sport and did not fear hypothermia or getting eaten by sea serpents. And he doubted that in the south, he would have ever ended up in the position he was in now.

"You know, Dad," he said, over the chattering of his teeth. "Most fathers take their sons to the Mead Hall on their fourteenth birthday for their first drink."

Hiccup's father, Stoick the Vast, Chief of Berk and the Hairy Hooligans, turned his sea-foam green eyes on his son. "Yeah, well, most fathers aren't the chief of their tribe, nor do they have you for a son."

Now, Vikings were not known widely for their tact, but this was a harsh thing to say even by their standards. What's worse was that Stoick was entirely justified in saying it. Among Vikings – be they the Hooligans, Meatheads, Berserkers, Hysterics, or otherwise – there was no Viking quite like Hiccup, in that Hiccup was not quite like a Viking. While Vikings were supposed to be seven feet tall, bulging with muscles, and sporting ferocious beards (even the women, in some cases), Hiccup at age fourteen hardly stood taller than his father's elbows, and as for muscle… well, Hiccup had been compared to a fishbone on a number of occasions, if that gives you any idea of his stature. All of the other Vikings his age were taller and stronger than him, even the girls.

Maybe Hiccup's entirely un-Viking-like body could be forgiven, if at least he possessed some other Viking qualities. Bloodlust, for instance. Or a yell that could scatter a horde of dragons. Or bravery that bordered on stupidity. Even simple coordination between his hands, feet, and eyes would be acceptable.

Instead, Hiccup was inquisitive and imaginative – two things that usually got one labeled as the village nut-case, if one wasn't the son of the chief, that is. In his spare time he liked to daydream, draw, and explore the Isle of Berk. And though he claimed to want to kill dragons, every attempt of his to help the tribe usually ended in disaster ranging from property damage to bodily harm.

Today was Hiccup's fourteenth birthday. In a matter of years, depending on how long Stoick kept breathing, the boy would become Chief of the Hairy Hooligans. And Stoick would be damned if he left his tribe in the hands of a man who was less a Viking than a… than, well, a hiccup. As the boy's father, it was his responsibility to mould Hiccup into a man worthy of that job. The other Hiccups who had shared the Haddock name, for whom the current Hiccup had been named, had made something of themselves, eventually. They had become great men.

Hiccup the Third would, too. Right?

Stoick took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. "Look, Hiccup. You want to slay dragons, don't you? The way you are now, lad, you don't stand a chance. But-" he continued, before Hiccup could protest, "you do a quest, oh, everything changes! I know these days drinking mead is seen as your comin' of age, but a few generations ago, it was all about questing. You do this, and you'll see. Everyone on Berk will look at you with respect. I'll even let you join dragon training."

"That's – that's great, Dad," said Hiccup in a voice that clearly belied his reservations. "But, stealing a dragon egg… Are you sure that this is the best idea?"

"Course I'm sure."

Hiccup let out a breath and slumped in his seat on the little weathered rock. "I guess the worst thing that could happen is I die. At least that would solve your heir problems."

Stoick leaned forward, resting his massive arms on his knees, brow furrowed. "Hiccup, I want you to be the next chief."

"You want your son to be the next chief. You don't really want me, 'Hiccup the Useless'," he said, putting the title in air quotes, "to be the chief of anything."

"Hiccup the Useless," Stoick muttered under his breath. "Who called you that?"

Hiccup sank further into his skins and blushed furiously. He murmured something unintelligible.

"Hiccup," said Stoick dangerously.

The boy's eyes flitted up and then back down in resignation. "Everyone, okay? Everyone calls me that. Don't tell me you haven't heard them."

Stoick hadn't heard them, but he didn't find it hard to believe. Vikings were good at talking about others behind backs – it was an added bonus of being stealthy. The red-headed chief glowered into their campfire, not sure for whom he was more embarrassed – his son, or himself.

"Not for much longer," he said into the flames. "That ends now, Hiccup."

The next day of their quest passed in a similar vein to the first, the only differences being that they had gone higher into the mountains, the weather was colder, the air thinner, and Hiccup was too tired to complain as much as he had the day before. It took all of his energy to focus on putting one foot in front of the other and to not fall tumbling backwards. The pack of provisions he wore on his back and the sword and shield his father had insisted he carry had against all logic doubled in their weight. Hiccup gasped in the thin air and wanted nothing more than to collapse in a heap on the ground. It was his pride alone that kept him moving after his father.

Stoick the Vast's vast shoulders filled Hiccup's vision. He was so focused on them that he barely saw their surroundings – although there was little to see, so this was no great loss. This rocky island was barren of any plant or animal life as far as Hiccup could tell.

They had sailed here two days before, a journey that took an entire day in itself in their little boat. According to Bork the Bold, this island was a prime spot for dragon nesting… except, they had spotted nary a dragon since mooring on the beach.

As the day passed, cold and bleak, they stuck their heads into several caves and saw a whole lot of nothing inside. After the fifth cave, Hiccup once again voiced his doubt to his father – the lot of good it would do.

"You sure this is Bork's island?"

"I'm sure, Hiccup," Stoick grumbled.

"Maybe the dragons migrated? After all, it's been a long time since Bork was here."

"They're here."

"I'm just saying-"

"Hiccup."

The small boy gulped and promptly shut up. Well, there was only so much island to search. Eventually Stoick would give up and take them back to Berk. Time would have to make the argument that Hiccup couldn't.

Two more caves, just as empty as the first five. The sun began to sink into the horizon, dragging what little warmth it had brought with it. Then, Stoick stopped, and Hiccup realized it just in time to not walk into his father's back.

"Dad?" he said.

Stoick stooped and picked up something from the ground. Hiccup walked forward and crouched next to his father, glancing between the man's calculating countenance and the shiny black object in his hand.

"What's that?" asked Hiccup.

"Hiccup, do you know what this is?" asked Stoick, voice hushed and conspiratorial.

"Obviously not. I just asked, 'What's that?'."

"Dragon scale," replied Stoick, as though Hiccup hadn't spoken. It was something Hiccup was used to, being spoken over and in many cases entirely ignored by his father. He got the message loud and clear – Stoick didn't think his opinion was important. That didn't stop Hiccup from trying to give it anyway.

"Uh, do you know what kind?" said Hiccup. Depending on the dragon, his egg plundering could go from 'Terrible Terror' easy to 'Monstrous Nightmare' impossible.

"Not sure," said Stoick, and Hiccup's stomach dropped into his boots. If his dad, who Hiccup was sure had killed every dragon known to man, didn't know, then it couldn't be anything good. "But we'll find out."

"Aaand, maybe we won't!" said Hiccup. He noticed there were several other scales, matching black, lying about on the rocks.

Stoick straightened, thumbing the scale he'd picked up. "It's close."

"Do you mean the dragon, or the cave?" said Hiccup. When Stoick didn't answer, when in fact the chief started to follow the trail of shed dragon bits, Hiccup began to whisper fervent prayers to any god who would listen to a fishbone Viking like him. "Please mean the cave, please mean the cave, please mean the empty, empty cave…"

Stoick halted again behind some boulders and dragged Hiccup by the shoulder to join him. He pointed up the scree-covered hillside to a black hole in the rock. "There. That's our cave. You got your sword?"

"You sure that's our cave?" said Hiccup. "I mean, we can't really know that's the right cave-"

"Hiccup." Stoick's tone was the kind of tone that made nonsense curl up in a ball and cry. "Do you. Have your. Sword."

Hiccup swallowed. He patted his belt, where the too-big sword dangled. "Here."

"Shield?"

Hiccup dumped his pack on the ground and untied the shield from the top. Stoick wrested the shield from him and then threaded Hiccup's arm back through it. "That," said Stoick, pointing at the equipment, "is your most important weapon. Don't put it down for anything. Shield in one hand, sword in the other."

"Uh, what about the egg?"

"What about the egg?"

"Which hand do I use to grab the egg? If one hand has the shield, and one hand has the sword-"

"Well, obviously put down your sword when you grab the egg!" Stoick made a gesture at his temple that looked to Hiccup vaguely like an explosion. Maybe it was to indicate what his veins would do should they bulge any more than they had already. "Do I have to spell everything out for you?"

"But you said I couldn't put it down for anything!"

"Your shield. You don't put down your shield."

"Oh. I, uh, I knew that…"

Stoick sighed, looking his son over from head to foot – a rather short journey for his eyes. "Here," he said gruffly. Suddenly something heavy, metal, and bitterly cold landed on Hiccup's head. He reached up his fingers to touch it, and discovered it was a helmet. "To protect you."

Hiccup wasn't sure the helmet would make much difference, but he wouldn't tell his dad that. "Thanks, Dad."

"I can't go with you, Hiccup," said Stoick. He grabbed Hiccup's shoulders, his meaty hands dwarfing the knobby bones, and looked his boy sternly in the eye. "You've got to use your head. Pay attention to your surroundings. Tread lightly – don't make a sound. You have your sword and your shield, but if you do this right, you won't even need them. This is a task of stealth, understand?"

"Sure, Dad…"

"I said, do you understand?"

Hiccup straightened, swallowed again, and looked his dad squarely in the eyes. "I understand."

Stoick clapped Hiccup on the shoulder, nearly bowling the boy over in the process. "Good. Be careful. And, well, good luck."

"Right." Hiccup turned to the cave. He took a deep breath, straightened his helmet, hefted his sword and shield, and began the steep trek up the hill. "Gods know I'll need it," he murmured once his dad was out of earshot.

"Alright Hiccup, this is it, you can do this." Hiccup crouched at the edge of the cave, murmuring words of encouragement to the part of him that thought rolling back down the hill as fast as gravity allowed would be the best course of action. "You do this, and everything changes! You do this, and you're a Viking! You'll join dragon training, you'll have friends, you'll get a girlfriend, your dad will respect you, and no one will call you 'useless' again. So, you lose a leg? You've got a spare. That's why the gods gave us two, right? Heck, I've seen a Viking with two pegs and no legs. Clearly they're expendable." Hiccup glanced at his own legs and decided he was still rather attached to them, in more ways than one.

He also decided he was wasting time. He took another deep breath. "It's now or never."

Slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, Hiccup peeked around the rock wall into the mouth of the cave. The sun cast bleak, thin light inside. What Hiccup saw was this:

Rocks.

No dragon, and more importantly – though that was arguable – no dragon eggs. Hiccup's shoulders drooped. He couldn't decide whether he was more relieved or disappointed. On the one hand, he wouldn't be eaten, not today at least. On the other hand, he had felt so ready just a second ago, and now there was all of this adrenaline rolling around inside of him with nowhere to go.

He glanced over his shoulder at his dad down the hill, hidden rather poorly behind a boulder only half his size, who made an encouraging if somewhat impatient hand gesture. Hiccup smiled and waved and turned back to the cave.

The smile dropped off of his face. "Now what?" Hiccup frowned into the cave, at the rocks and general lack of dragon eggs. He realized that if he didn't steal an egg from this cave, he'd be forced to spend another day on this godsforsaken island, wind-battered and freezing to death. Because there was no way Stoick would give up this quest. He was a Viking, and Vikings did not give up anything, be it a quest or the last drumstick at the Snoggletog feast.

No matter how hard Hiccup glared at the cave, no dragon eggs appeared. Not exactly surprising, but disappointing nonetheless. He sighed, and was just turning to break the news to his father, when out of the corner of his eye he spotted some black specks on the floor of the cave. He paused. Dragon scales.

Hiccup readjusted his grip on his sword, raised his shield, and crept into the cave in what he hoped to be a very stealthy manner. Just as he had thought, in the middle of the cave floor was a spattering of the same black, glossy dragon scales they had found at the bottom of the hill. Looking about himself more carefully, Hiccup noticed that the cave floor and even some places on the wall were scorched black. A dragon definitely lived in this cave, something that couldn't be said for the other caves Hiccup and his dad had visited.

There, at the back of the cave, Hiccup saw an alcove, formed behind a wall of rock that made it completely invisible from the entrance. And in the alcove –

Dragon eggs.

Hiccup's sword slipped in his surprise, and the tip of it clanged brightly, and loudly, against the rocky floor. In his efforts to right the sword, he fumbled and dropped the entire weapon onto the ground. When it landed, it didn't just land. No, instead the sword bounced several times from handle to blade, handle to blade, and then sat on the floor and quivered, ringing. The noise echoed inside of the cavern and inside of Hiccup's ears. Horrified, he just stood and stared at it, cringing and wincing at every clatter.

Hiccup had dropped many a weapon in his short time on Midgard, being not only naturally clumsy but also the blacksmith's apprentice – not the best combination, by any means. But, Hiccup could honestly say that in terms of bad timing, critical silences, and dangerous situations, he'd never dropped a weapon in such an awesomely terrible way as he had today.

He waited. Any second, the dragon would emerge from another alcove, one Hiccup had yet to notice, and eat him. Or burn him alive. Or disembowel him. Or decapitate him. Or dismember him. Or poison him. Or spear him. Or suffocate him –

There were many ways to die by dragon. Hiccup had had nightmares about them all.

A minute, two minutes passed, and nothing in the cave moved. The numbing terror fell away from Hiccup, and he remembered what he was in there to do. He cautiously side-stepped the sword, not trusting himself to pick it back up, and approached the nest.

The nest looked just like a bird nest, if birds laid foot-and-a-half-tall, ice-blue eggs and used rocks for lining. Otherwise, exactly like a bird nest. There were five eggs in total, all huge and boulder-like. Hiccup scowled at them when he realized just how big they were and wondered how in Thor's name he was supposed to get one of them down the hill. Or worse – what if his dad made him carry the egg all the way back to their boat?

He also wondered where the mother was. Surely it was unusual for a dragon to leave its nest unguarded for extended periods of time, right? That meant, wherever it was, it would be back soon, and it would almost certainly not be happy to see Hiccup.

"Alright, time to get a move-on," he muttered. He adjusted the drooping, oversized helmet on his head, turned his shield to the least cumbersome position on his arm, and approached the closest egg. After eyeing it for a second, he decided to go for the direct approach. Stooping, he wrapped his arms around the egg, wedged his fingers under it, put all of his strength into his knees, and heaved.

The egg did nothing except to fall onto its side.

Panting, Hiccup glared at it. He considered just rolling the egg from the nest and back down the hill, but with his luck it would smash into a million pieces at the bottom. Or worse, it would smash into a million pieces at the bottom after crashing into his dad. The image of an angry Stoick the Vast dripping with dragon egg yolk quickly drove the idea from Hiccup's mind.

Thankfully, Hiccup was a boy who rarely had just one idea. He removed his shield and placed it on the floor of the cave face-down. After moving the rocks that ringed the nest out of the way, he rolled the egg onto his shield. Next, at the risk of his pants falling off, he removed his belt, looped it through the handle of the shield, and tied the ends in a knot. He now had a makeshift sled on which to pull the egg.

One problem. One problem that immediately presented itself. And that was that dragging a weighted down metal-plated shield over a rock floor is not stealthy at all. It may, in fact, be the exact opposite of stealthy. It scraped, it screeched, it spit sparks, and generally produced such an awful sound that it made Hiccup's teeth ache. Grimacing, Hiccup responded by dragging the shield faster to get out of there as soon as possible.

Once outside of the cave Hiccup looked for his dad, in order to take the straightest and thereby shortest route down the hill, and found the huge Viking dragging a hand over his face, as though having just slapped it seconds earlier. Stoick was also shaking his head. Maybe there was a gnat bothering him, but that probably was not the reason.

And so, making dreadful noise, Hiccup began to stumble down the hill over the loose rocks, doing his best to keep the shield level and the egg from rolling off of it. This worked for several seconds, until Hiccup slipped, fell on his bottom, and dropped the shield. Gravity did the rest.

Luckily for Hiccup, Stoick was watching all of this with sharp eyes and saw the egg begin to bounce and roll down the hill, exactly like a boulder in a rockslide. He jumped out from his hiding place, braced his knees, and caught the runaway egg just as it bounced and slammed into his broad chest. The only sign of discomfort from the chief of Berk was a small 'Oof!' as the air was knocked out of his lungs.

"Sorry, Dad!" Hiccup called, forgetting all about the 'stealth' aspect of this mission. He figured there wasn't much more noise he could make short of setting off an explosion, and since the dragon hadn't heard him yet, he was probably safe.

Hiccup grabbed his shield and scrambled the rest of the way down the hill, slipping and falling twice more and scraping up his hands pretty badly. He was aware of his father's gaze following him to the bottom, and was relieved when the only thing Stoick did to scold him was slap him on the back of the head.

"Yeah, I deserved that," said Hiccup, blushing and not meeting his father's eyes.

"You deserve a lot worse than that," said Stoick. "You deserve to be dead for that – that spectacle."

"I got the egg," the boy pointed out.

His father sighed. "Aye. That you did, son."

"So… I'm a Viking now, right?"

"Not until you kill your first dragon, you're not."

"But… I am a man now… right?"

Stoick rolled his eyes. "A stupid man, but yeah, if that's what you want to call yourself, no one can stop you."

It wasn't much praise – in fact, it might not have been praise at all – but Hiccup couldn't help but feel a surge of pride. He grinned up at his dad, eyes peeking out from under the rim of his helmet.

Chief Stoick sighed again and chuckled softly. Then he held out the egg for his son.

Hiccup stared at it. "You do realize I can't carry that egg. Why do you think I was dragging it on my shield?"

"I'm not sure why you do many of the things you do, Hiccup. But doesn't it defeat the purpose of the quest if you don't even carry your own egg home?"

"I'm telling you, it's impossible for me to carry that egg, Dad."

"Nonsense!" Stoick knelt and began transferring the majority of Hiccup's provisions into his own sack. He then strapped the pack onto his son's shoulders, opened it with one hand and with the other dropped the egg inside.

Hiccup yelped and fell over, landing painfully on top of the egg. He was forced to wriggle out of the straps of his pack before he was able to stand again.

"Er," said Stoick. "Why don't I carry the egg, son?"

"Probably for the best," said Hiccup, grimacing.

Going back to their boat was easier and faster than getting up to the cave, since they were no longer meanderingly searching for caves and the entire journey was downhill. Even so, it was growing dark, and with a travel partner like Hiccup, traversing treacherous crags in the middle of the night was not the best idea.

So, they were just hunkering down for the night when they heard it – a screech that cracked the air and ripped through the sky. It was the sort of spine-chilling, blood-curdling cry that belonged in Helheim, and it was furious, and it was close.

"Is that…?" whispered Hiccup. He already knew what it was, but he wanted his dad to confirm it.

"Aye," said Stoick. "That's our dragon." He smiled, grimly satisfied that their thievery had been discovered and that the beast they tricked would suffer.

With deft hands, Hiccup's father packed up their supplies, not one movement wasted, not one noise made. If Hiccup weren't so terrified, he might've groaned at the prospect of moving again; every inch of him ached. But if this dragon looked anything like it sounded, and it sounded exactly like a demon, Hiccup didn't want to wait around for it to find them, aches or no aches.

Luckily, it was a foggy night on Bork's island. There was a lot of fog in the Barbaric Archipelago, but only rarely could it be called 'lucky'. That was something Hiccup often wondered about – for a people whose livelihood depended on sailing, his ancestors could not have chosen a worse place to settle. Now, though, with the dragon's cry echoing in the distance, the fog probably saved their lives as it obscured and muffled their movements.

Hiccup, too, was never so happy for his father's presence. He got so caught up in arguing with his dad, that it was rare he realized how safe Stoick made him feel. Which in retrospect was actually pretty strange, what with how often Berk was attacked and its inhabitants placed in peril. Maybe, on Berk there were always other Vikings around who would protect Hiccup. Out here, the only thing standing between Hiccup and death was his father.

They steadily descended, Hiccup trailing Stoick like a baby duckling trails a 300 pound yak, and within two hours reached their boat. At first during their journey, the dragon's cries had surrounded them, at once near and at other times far. Then, it disappeared altogether. The last hour, in fact, passed in complete silence. Hiccup could hardly believe it when they managed to get in their boat and push off from the island with their heads still attached to their shoulders.

Soon, the island was swallowed up in the fog. One last terrible cry rent the night, but it was distant. Stoick grinned proudly at his son, and Hiccup offered a shaky smile in return. They had done it. He had done it. Yet, Hiccup did not feel victorious. He did not feel safe. He felt like his escape had been too easy, and nothing in Hiccup's life was ever this easy.

He felt like he was missing something.

He only hoped that it did not come back to haunt him.

A/N: How to Train Your Dragon is probably my favorite movie of all time. I love everything about it. I've read a ton of HTTYD fics on this site, but this is my first time to write one.

This story is going to incorporate elements from the movie, the television series, and the book series (although admittedly I've only read the first two!). I'll make the same disclaimer as Cressida Cowell did in her books: I'm not going to pretend I know anything about Vikings. Actually, I love her little note, so I'll go ahead and put it here:

"Please note - Any relationship to any historical fact whatsoever is entirely coincidental."

This story starts off light-hearted, but it will get darker and darker the longer it goes, hence the 'T' rating.

Until next time,
T.F.C~