Welp! Here we are! Chapter 3! A surprisingly difficult chapter to write. I wasn't quite sure where to end it at first.

Lost No More: Chapter 3 - Missing

As the sun set and the evening continued to pass him by, Chief Stoick the Vast was beginning to grow nervous.

His son had left the celebration in the Great Hall somewhere in the early afternoon and it would seem like he hasn't been seen since. It had been thrown in his honour as he was to be this year's champion for dragon training, but no one had stopped him from leaving.

Stoick hadn't been too worried at first. Remembering that Gobber had once told him about how the boy liked to disappear into the forests of Berk during the day to take a break from all of the overwhelming attention, the man had decided to leave him be. He believed Hiccup should get the peace and quiet he wished to have.

Besides, the boy needed to prepare for the exam tomorrow. He knew the Hofferson girl liked to practice with her axe in the forest in solitude, something he had heard from her proud parents a little while back, maybe his son had developed a similar kind of habit.

The Chief had tried to both attend the celebration and tend to his duties as best as he could even with his head in the clouds. The sheer pride in his lanky son, Hiccup, was just indescribable. But now he was home earlier than usual to await the teenager's eventual return to fill him with words of encouragement and wisdom. However, it didn't seem like Hiccup was coming back.

The minutes stretched on and before long turned into hours. The sun sunk lower into the sky until it became too difficult to see outside without lighting the torches spread somewhat evenly throughout the village.

And still there was no sign of Hiccup.

Stoick sat in his great chair, the fingers of his large right hand tapping impatiently on the armrest purely out of worry.

Gobber had once told him to have more faith in Hiccup, to not be so... overbearing and give him the benefit of the doubt. But it was getting quite late now, wasn't it? Surely the boy should've been back already?

Glancing over at where untouched food now sat cold on the table, Stoick decided that it wouldn't be such a bad idea to at least spring by the forge for a moment and see if his son wasn't still working on something there and had simply lost track of time. It had happened before.

Pushing himself up from his seat and grabbing his furred cloak on the way, Stoick quickly disappeared out through the front door.

Hiccup wasn't at the forge.

Stoick had gone there to check first, but all he found was a very drunk blacksmith limping and swaying his way to bed while singing incoherently. He never even noticed the Chief's presence.

Stoick had searched, but even Hiccup's own personal little study remained dark and devoid of life. He didn't seem to notice that some of the boy's things were missing. There was usually always a mess of papers and tools in there.

His concern gradually growing, Stoick had tried to tell himself that there was no need to worry. Perhaps the boy had returned to the feast or had simply gone to find his friends. He'd heard how his son was no longer sitting alone during meals, how the other kids his age sought him out. He was finally fitting in.

Stoick decided to go searching for Hiccup in the Great Hall first, but that yielded no results as the only Vikings still left were either drunk or just leaving. There was no trace of a young, small boy or even the friends he had recently begun associating himself with. And with how little people had remained, they couldn't have hidden amongst the crowd either.

Knowing that there were still other places to look, Stoick left the Great Hall after a quick scan with his gaze to make his way to the Jorgenson household in the hopes of catching his son there. Hiccup and Snotlout were on better terms as off late. It wouldn't be too far-fetched to think he might be there. And if not, he could still check with the Ingermans, the Thorstons, and finally the Hoffersons.

Stoick the Vast didn't get very far before a peculiar conversation between five youngster took his attention away from his urgent search, but only because he had heard his son's name being spoken.

"I don't get why you're all falling for it. Don't you see that everything Hiccup does in the ring makes no sense?!" The high voice of the Hofferson girl reached Stoick's ears and he looked over to see the group of five he had been about to visit hang out not too far away from the Great Hall instead of returning home like they all should've at this hour.

"He doesn't use any weapons, almost always drops his shield, and yet he still wins! He barely even touches them! And none of you think that's weird?!" Usually he would've raised an eyebrow at the distrusting words he heard Astrid speak about his son, but he was more concerned with finding Hiccup.

He could speak to her about it once he found the boy and brought him home.

"Are you saying Hiccup is faking it? How would he even do that, Astrid?! Dragons literally drop before his feet!" Snotlout seemed to be disagreeing with Astrid and passionately defending his cousin, something that the other three were surprised to witness.

Snotlout's unspoken relief that Hiccup was a dragon killer just like him was more obvious than he wanted it to be. Everyone had seen him help Fishlegs put Hiccup on his shoulder to parade him around the Kill Ring after the announcement of earlier today. At least for a little while, Snotlout seemed to hold him in high regard.

"But he never even touches them! So how does he take them down?!" Astrid continued to argue, but the other teens weren't as ready to listen as she had hoped them to be.

"Yeah, so? Hiccup's always been weird," It was an odd thing for Tuffnut, of all people, to say.

"He probably just as a weird way of dealing with dragons." His sister, Ruffnut, finished for him.

Astrid was getting nowhere as she voiced her suspicions and it only served to frustrate her further, her temper not too fond of being tested to begin with.

That Fishlegs was remaining completely quiet wasn't helping either. And he was the only one who seemed torn between siding with Hiccup or backing Astrid up. He, too, had noticed how the heir's way of taking down the training dragons was a little... unorthodox.

A frustrated sigh left the Hofferson girl. She didn't see the Chief coming their way, but Fishlegs did.

"All I'm saying is that something doesn't make sense. I don't know how Hiccup cheated, but I'm gonna prove-"

"Astrid!"

Fishlegs warned Astrid to quiet herself before the five teenagers looked over to see their Chief and Hiccup's father storming over, though it didn't look like it was anger that drove him, relieving Astrid as she had feared the man heard her slandering words.

In fact, he seemed more worried than anything.

"Have any of you seen, Hiccup?" Rather than asking why these kids were still outside this late, all Stoick wanted to know were the whereabouts of his son and nothing more.

Astrid tried not to let her displeasure show as she crossed her arms and cast her look down to the grassy ground and away from their leader. As for the remaining four, they all stared at eachother in question. It was pretty clear that they had only one answer to give him.

"The last time we saw him was when he left the Great Hall hours ago, Sir." Fishlegs answered timidly and three of them seemed to agree, nodding in agreement. That was the last time any of them had seen him.

Their Chief's worried expression grew when he realized no one had seen Hiccup for hours and it unnerved them instantly.

It was also what urged Astrid to speak up, feeling guilt nag at her heart as this father was genuinely concerned for his only son's safety.

"I saw Hiccup go into the forest after he left the feast." Astrid pointed into the exact direction she had seen him disappear into, but that answer did little to help ease the father's worried mind.

Already all sorts of worst case scenarios started to fill his head, plaguing the overprotective parent's mind with whatever fate his only child could be suffering at this very moment or had suffered hours ago without anyone even knowing.

There were so many dangers in the forests ouside of the village of Berk. The wild boars roaming in the woods, they could be pretty aggressive and especially unforgiving to a boy as small as Hiccup. Bears lived there and they were the kind that would tower even over someone as enormous as Stoick the Vast. Even the occasional dragon was sometimes seen out there in the wild.

Hiccup might have proven himself a capable dragon killer, but could he truly handle all those dangers by himself? Stoick gave himself a resounding 'no' to that question, though he had never said it out loud.

Even besides the wildlife, there were other dangers on the island of Berk. There were the wild rivers that could've swept him away and drowned him. Steep cliffs weren't an uncommon thing either and one unfortunate misstep is all that it took to send even a seasoned Viking to meet with a brutal fall. There were also poisonous berries and other deceptively innocent plant life, though Stoick knew his boy was too smart to be tricked by that.

Hiccup had proved to be capable of taking care of himself and he had been frequenting the forests outside of the village for years, he even before he was allowed to. He might even know it better than anyone else on this entire island. Still Stoick felt that overprotective part of him win.

He had to find his son. He had to.

After leaving the five kids behind to wallow in worry over their missing friend, Stoick the Vast gathered every able man and woman he could find.

Unfortunately, after the celebratory feast held earlier that same day, that meant not many were still up to the task of finding a small lost boy so late in the evening. Vikings were known for their drinking. Well, the Hooligans were at least. Many were too drunk to be of much help, if any.

"My son was last seen entering the forest outside of the village this afternoon, so that is where we will start our search." The Chief's booming voice shouted to reach every Berkian man and woman present in the Great Hall for this emergency meeting.

They had all gathered around the large fire burning in a great circle in the middle of the hall and listened intently. Their Chief had all eyes on him as he stood at one side of the circular table build around the large pit. Every single one of them wore a grave expression. Not because Hiccup was the one missing, but simply because one of their own had not come back home.

A Hooligan was never abandoned, no matter who they were. That Hiccup was their heir mattered little. Even Mildew would be searched after if he was the one who had vanished.

"We don't know where my son spends his time during the day and we don't know where exactly he has gone off to. So I ask of you now, look beneath every rock and tree, don't pass up a single cave, check every cliff. My boy disappeared hours ago. He may be out there somewhere in need of our help." Stoick tried desperately to keep it together, tried to keep being the strong Chief his people knew him to be.

But knowing that he had no idea where his son was weighed heavily on him and all the fears plaguing his mind did little to sooth him. Yet panicking would not help Hiccup in the slightest.

"Go now. We may not have much time." Stoick ordered his people and they did not hesitate to leave the Great Hall, muttering amongst themselves words he could not hear as they steadily left.

Without wasting any time did the still fairly large rescue team separate into several different groups of three to four Vikings as agreed upon earlier in the meeting. They each got a section of the forest assigned to them. Grabbing torches and axes, the teams left to their respective areas in the hopes of finding the lost boy.

As they searched, the worried father returned home on advice of some of the women, who suggested someone needed to stay at the Haddock Household in case Hiccup came back by himself.

Besides, even if he were to tag along, with which group would he even go?

Stoick waited in his house for hours on end, pacing restlessly across the room for most of it.

With each passing second he hoped someone would return to him with news of his son. He hoped Hiccup would nonchalantly enter through the front door and have no idea what was wrong or why the village was in such turmoil.

It would've been so much better than to sit there and wonder why the boy wasn't with him right now or if he was even okay.

He was a father who worried often for his son. Hiccup had always been such a small boy. Even as a baby was he smaller than his peers. Danger was drawn to him like moths to a flame and very rarely did he go out of its way. It also did not help that Hiccup was very curious by nature. And as smart as he was, his impulsiveness and want to prove himself had often gotten him into trouble he could've avoided.

It was why Stoick had always been so protective of him, but because Hiccup had been doing so well in Dragon Training, he had let him go for a little bit. Now the boy was missing and Stoick couldn't ignore the nagging feeling that this was somehow his fault.

Hiccup was his son, his responsibility, his to keep safe.

The only report that the Chief had gotten so far that wasn't a blatant 'Hiccup wasn't in this area either, sorry' was about a large cove that had many signs of a considerably sized dragon living in it.

Several scorched spots decorated the grass, lost black scales were strewn all over the place, there were half-eaten fish and the bones of small rodents littering the ground, there were the occasional claw markings on trees and rocks. They were obvious signs that a dragon had been staying in that cove and for a prolonged time too.

It were the black scales that worried him the most.

A black dragon. It was one Stoick didn't know and that made the absence of his young son even worse.

The mysterious dragon, Hiccup's disappearance, it was much too coincidental. Stoick felt a sickening feeling twist his stomach into a painful knot when he connected dots he hoped had nothing to do with eachother.

The cove they found was almost a good half hour away on foot too, a good long walk for a Viking. But if Hiccup screamed, no one would have heard him.

The only comfort Stoick had was that there had been no sign of blood. No signs that a scrawny teenaged boy had been ripped apart in that very place, only fish.

The dragon could've flown off with him, but Stoick tried not to think about that.

"Stoick!" The door burst open to reveal Berk's very own blacksmith hurrying inside, panting and leaning with a hand on top of his knee a he caught his breath.

Stoick had not expected to see him, but one look out the open door revealed that the sun was already rising.

An entire night of searching for Hiccup and they had come up empty.

"Stoick, is it true what everyone is saying? Is 'Iccup missing?!" Gobber had been trying to sleep away his drunken stupor, but upon being awakened by this terrible news, had promptly jumped out of bed to meet with the Chief himself and see just how much of the story hadn't been made-up.

His old friend tried to fight the disappointment he felt as this meant there was still no news.

"Yes, it is Gobber. The Hofferson girl, Astrid, was the last one to see my son and she told me she had seen him run off into the forest. I send a search party to find him. He hasn't returned, Gobber, and no one has told me any news either." The mountain of a man felt impossibly exhausted and he failed at finding the strength to even stand up from his seat at the table.

So tired was he after all the worrying, so paralyzing was the very fact that Hiccup was not with him.

Gobber could see it, of course. How could he not? So he pulled up a chair and sat down in front of the Viking Chief.

"Ye know... For as 'opeless as 'Iccup was, 'e's always been a smart boy, Stoick. I'm sure they'll find 'im safe and sound somewhere. No need to worry." The blacksmith attempted to comfort the man with a reassuring smile, but it didn't seem like Stoick was in a mood to listen.

"It's been an entire night and half a day, Gobber. Something is terribly wrong, I can feel it in my bones." The father's voice betrayed the utter concern he felt and Gobber just noticed the hief had been holding Hiccup's first Viking helmet in his hands.

What could he even say to help this poor man? His very own friend? Nothing would soothe his worries or ease his heart. Nothing, besides seeing Hiccup safe and unharmed with his own two eyes.

It became quiet in the Haddock Household when neither knew what to say, but the silence didn't stay for long when someone burst in through the front door again and this it was one of the Vikings who had left on the search.

He sounded panicked, his eyes were wide in shock, he struggled to catch his breath in order to relay his message to Chief Stoick, and he shouted.

"Chief Stoick! The beach!"