The Thoughtlessness of Vikings.

Looking down at the ground where all the Vikings of the Hairy Hooligan tribe were milling around like ants going about their daily tasks in the forest, Hiccup couldn't help but be grateful he had managed to just get Toothless out of the dive instead of flying up the Dragon Queen's enormous fat body like he'd originally planned but he'd acted on instinct.

Hiccup glanced over his shoulder to see what state the tail-fin was in. The leather membranes which mimicked Toothles's only remaining natural fin was charred and badly burnt, and some of the metallic framework was heavily damaged with one of the bars bent. Hiccup was saddened by the state of the tail-fin, but mostly because he wasn't sure if the mechanism would be strong enough to get him back to Berk. Hopefully, if he travelled slowly home-

Wait. Berk isn't my home anymore, it never was.

The last few weeks since he had made his epiphany about how he had no place among the other Hairy Hooligans…it had been as though Hiccup had woken up from an uneasy sleep, entering a new dawn.

Hiccup sighed under his breath while Toothless crooned up at him, clearly wondering what he was thinking, although the dragon's eyes were sympathetic. Hiccup smiled at the Night Fury, patting him gently on the head. He had told Toothless a great deal about his life on Berk, especially how he had nothing and no-one in the tribe. Gobber was an exception, but Hiccup wasn't sure where he stood with the old blacksmith anymore.

It was just hard for him to believe everything that had happened to change his mind not just about the dragons, but of the Vikings he had lived his entire life with had only happened in a few weeks, and it had only taken place when he had eavesdropped on the crowd inside the Great Hall.

When he had gone into the forest, he had gone in with only a vague idea of where the Night Fury had crashed, but it had still taken him the rest of the night just to find the dragon. He had found the Night Fury on the ground after he'd crashed in the trees.

Hiccup had originally been sure the dragon was dead after the fall, but it hadn't. Hiccup had been prepared to kill the dragon..only to find he couldn't do it, not after he had taken a good long look into the Night Fury's eyes and he saw something he hadn't expected.

Fear.

The dragon was afraid.

For a long time, Vikings throughout the Barbaric archipelago had believed dragons were evil, unfeeling creatures. In fact, Hiccup was willing to bet the reason for that was because of the Queen's influence, but the important thing was dragons did have feelings and they weren't evil.

When he had seen the dragon's eyes, Hiccup had refused to kill the dragon. Instead, he had done something no Viking in history had ever done; he had willingly set the dragon free. The Night Fury had repaid him by knocking him to the ground, but it had screeched into his face before it had flown off.

It was ironic, really; for years he had been begging his father to let him get into dragon training, but now he knew he wasn't a Hooligan he no longer cared about the tribe, and on top of the revelation dragons weren't soulless demons, Hiccup didn't want to be involved with the course.

Unfortunately, he hadn't any alternative. In the end, he had decided to simply take part, not because he wanted to, but because being in the Ring, learning how to dodge, etc would give him the time he needed to decide on how to get out. In any case, Stoick and Gobber both knew he wouldn't be able to excel in the course, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to do his best.

In the end, he'd gone to the Kill Ring to join the other teens, he noticed something about the number of teens in the Ring. The 'Nut twins, Snotlout, Fishlegs, and Astrid, although he never counted himself since he wasn't a Hooligan anymore, and he was never going to be accepted into the tribe ever, but that didn't mean he didn't notice something worrying.

There were only a few teens in the Ring.

Yeah, outside the Ring, there were small children of varying ages, but not many. In the past Gobber and some of the other dragon trainers who had held the same responsibility as Gobber had trained teenagers numbering in the tens. Not anymore. Some of those teens had fought against the dragons, and they'd had children of their own.

But that was a minority.

Hiccup realised as he had cast his mind back over the years, many of the teenagers who had graduated from Gobber's training course had gone off on the quests to find the nest. The result? Many of them had been killed by the dragons before their time, and even before they'd had children themselves. Stupidly enough the other Vikings in the Hooligan tribe didn't even see what they were doing.

Anyway…

Hiccup had done the barest minimum in the Ring's first lesson, and luckily he hadn't been the only one; all the other teens aside from Astrid had messed up in some fashion. Fishlegs had spouted his useless dragon facts, Snotlout just wanted to spend his time flirting with Astrid who wouldn't give him the time of day and no matter how many times she either punched him or kicked him, or derided him, Astrid could not get him away from her.

Hiccup had gone off Astrid very easily since Dragon Training had begun. He'd had a crush on the blonde shield-maiden for a while now, but after the way she treated him the Ring, not once but every time, he had gone off of her. And now after what she had done, he never wanted to see the girl again for as long as he lived.

But how did he reach that step?

The first time had been when they'd ended up standing together as the Gronckle had come towards them. Hiccup might not have wanted anything to do with the training, but he had known with Astrid's help, they might have found a way of dealing with the Gronckle. What did she do? She just abandoned him, the prissy bitch.

He had learnt two things in the Ring that day.

One, everyone was out for themselves and didn't really care.

Two, dragons didn't go for the kill. Not always.

With that in mind, Hiccup had gone out again to where he'd found the Night Fury, and he found the dragon was trying to escape. He realised there the dragon was crippled. Later that night, he went back to the Hall, and he felt himself farther removed from the tribe as the teens went out of their way to play their pathetic games by stopping him from sitting down. In the end, he hadn't bothered. He had just moved to a table where he sat by himself. Something he had been forever. Alone.

Astrid had just walked off when he'd offered to share the Dragon Book with her, and he'd just stopped and let her go, tired of trying to be polite to her.

Hiccup had been disgusted with the Dragon Book since it didn't have anything useful. Seriously, what good was a book if it just said kill on sight or something along those lines? Why Fishlegs found it so great, Hiccup would never know. There was also nothing useful about the Night Fury.

Alright, when he had tried to speak to Gobber, it hadn't been a good idea to speak during training, but it was the only opportunity he had. Unfortunately, his attempts to speak to the blacksmith had been a bad idea, and he'd ended up on the ground with Astrid shouting at him, telling him to figure out which side he was on.

Too bad for the Hooligans he'd decided he didn't care about the war anymore.

But that day was another strike against Astrid. Anyway, he had left the village and went back to the cove where the dragon was. He took a shield and a fish with him as a peace offering. It took a while but the two of them became friends, although there had been moments of awkwardness between them, but Hiccup guessed that was natural given how long humans and dragons had been at war.

Gobber inadvertently reminded him that a downed dragon was a dead dragon, and the Night Fury was doomed. Either he would die alone in the cove because he couldn't get his own food, or more likely someone would find him, and kill him when he was helpless.

Hiccup remembered the long weeks he had been working, perfecting the tail-fin from the initial prototype, learning how to control the fin as he'd gone. During that time he'd learnt a great deal about dragons and he had learnt how to bring them down without injuring them with non-lethal methods. For instance, he'd learnt a dragon could be scratched underneath their chin and they'd fall into a virtual coma before they recovered from the pleasure. But he had never shown his newfound skills off to anyone. He had pretended to be the usual Hiccup, the runt of the village. He had continued with his life, already planning on escaping the island and letting the Vikings around the archipelago be locked forever in their endless war.

Unfortunately, Astrid had begun to notice his absences from the village, but at the time Hiccup hadn't known he had interested her.

Anyway, Stoick wasn't happy when he came back and confronted him about his lack of true progress, but Hiccup had let it pass. In the end Astrid received the 'honour' in killing the Nightmare.

Hiccup had decided he would leave that night, anything to escape. However, during the test night of the tail-fin to see if it could hold up to a long-range flight, he had encountered the dragon nest and saw the Queen. He had returned to Berk, shaken by what he had found in the nest and shaken by the truth of the war.

The Vikings were fighting slaves. They weren't fighting soldiers.

The Queen was the cause of the war, she just wanted food and nothing else.

Unfortunately, Hiccup did not know Astrid had informed his father of what he had been doing, at least not until he returned to the Cove. After that, he had been attacked by his so-called father. In short, Hiccup had told his father about the nest and only a dragon could get through.

Stoick, already furious by the 'betrayal' of his 'son' had immediately chained Toothless up to a ship and mobilised the island to war.

Stoick had then angrily told Hiccup he was no longer his son.

Hiccup had been left on Berk, watching the fleet go with contempt. He had then tamed the Monstrous Nightmare much like he had with the other dragons by giving it a pair of fishes, and he went out on it before the teenagers had been able to stop him. He had flown after the fleet…only to discover the Queen had come out of the nest, furious. Hiccup had flown to the ship Toothless was trapped on, and with the Monstrous Nightmare's help, Hiccup had freed his dragon and had gone after the Queen himself.

It had taken a while and he had needed to fly the Queen up into the air where Toothless had aerial supremacy since the Queen was fat; it was a surprise to find a dragon so obese, but the Queen was still powerful and dangerous. Toothless managed to fire a plasma burst into the Queen's mouth, much like he had done with that Terrible Terror.

Her gas had ignited and the damage had spread to her wings, tearing them apart until she crashed. Unfortunately, she had damaged Toothless' tail-fin prosthetic. The damage wasn't too bad, but Hiccup had pulled up out of the dive he'd set Toothless in to lure the furious Queen back down before Toothless fired the blast into her mouth to ignite the gases and other volatile chemicals in her body.

Hiccup had only just managed to pull Toothless out of his dive before the tail-fin was too badly damaged. Hiccup had no idea how long it had left, but he didn't want to stay here for long.

"HICCUP! SON, WHERE ARE YOU?"

Hiccup was startled when he heard his fa-no, Stoick. They were no longer father and son, and to be honest the thought was liberating. Hiccup didn't know what had caused his father's change of heart, and frankly, he didn't care. Hiccup looked down at the ground, wondering if they knew he was there or not. But in the end, he didn't care about that either. But…as he took a look at the ships the Vikings had used to get here he saw none of them were seaworthy anymore.

Hiccup bit his lip. He had already given these people enough, but maybe if he did this, then perhaps he could leave and return to Berk to replace the fin with a replacement.

"Come on bud, we have a ship to find," he whispered and he pulled Toothless away.

It took them a while to find a decent ship which still looked seaworthy enough to return home, although it would be tight. Hiccup grabbed a rope, and with Toothless he took it back to the shore of the island. The Vikings were, understandably, shocked, but Hiccup didn't care as he went back and looked for another ship, feeling a little instability in Toothless' flight.

"Steady, bud," he cautioned the Night Fury.

Toothless crooned worriedly himself, but he was determined to go on.

They managed to retrieve another ship and take it back to the beach before Hiccup left on Toothless' back.

"HICCUP! SON, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" Stoick had yelled behind him, but Hiccup didn't pay his former father any attention.

The thoughtlessness of Vikings had driven him away from Berk.

He had no idea where he and Toothless would travel to, but he hoped to see more of the world since he had nowhere else to go.

After all, he was free.