This is where I belong ||httyd fanfic||

23. The reason for the raids

Hiccup and Toothless had been flying for an hour or so, nothing but the open sea surrounding them. By now they were somewhere in between Selardalr and Helheim's Gate, where the nest was lying in wait. Hiccup didn't show it, but the fatigue from several nights of work on his meager arsenal was starting to wear down on him, and he could barely keep his eyes open. Every so often, his grip on the saddle loosened a bit, and he wobbled slightly, before snapping back to reality. As if Toothless wasn't worried enough, here Hiccup was about to fight some unseen enemy and he looked like he would keel over at any second.

Toothless growled: if Hiccup was going to risk his life on some fool's errand, he should at least be fully awake for it. He swooped down to the ocean, just inches above the ice cold seawater, and quick as an arrow, he swiped his tail over it, narrowly missing his face as he splashed the water in his face. Hiccup spat and sputtered, now wide awake as a result. He shook his head free of any remaining water and glared at his draconic steed.

"Toothless, what are you-" But a lecturing stare back from the dragon's turned head and a slight smirk on his face told him everything. Hiccup's glare melted away and a small smile formed on his lips.

Hiccup gave Toothless a hard pet on the head, managing to get a small wince from the Night Fury. "Thanks, but you know I'm gonna get you back for that, bud." The smirk on Toothless's face just remained, if not grew larger. 'I'd like to see you try, fishbone,' His still rather warm look jokingly said.

The boy's smile soon faded. "Toothless, I'm not crazy, am I?" Toothless gave a disbelieving look at Hiccup's sudden question. "Okay, yeah, I am, but... am I crazy to think that there's something there at the nest? I want to believe more than anything that dragons don't attack us without a reason. They call you mindless beasts, but I know that's not true. There must be some giant, evil... thing... forcing you to do this; I know it."

Toothless frowned – Hiccup didn't know how right he was, and he had yet to see the answer for himself. A small coo reassured Hiccup in some way, and he pet Toothless head again, this time more gently.

"Thanks bud. I don't know where I'd be without you." Hiccup smiled sadly. Such comforts from his friends only made him guiltier about the fact that he still kept the thing with the Monstrous Nightmare a secret. That was it then, Hiccup thought, no more secrets – as soon as this was over, he would force himself to tell Toothless what would happen. If Toothless got angry, so be it, he deserved as much for hiding it for so long. At the very least though, he wanted Toothless to know his feelings on the matter; a faint hope, but maybe it would lessen Toothless's possible anger.

Toothless saw that Hiccup was debating something within himself – his boy seemed to be doing that a lot lately. And frankly, he was getting tired of it; he thought wanting to find the nest was the end of it, but how could he forget the hesitance he showed when they first met Syn? Whatever kind of secrets Hiccup was hiding, Toothless figured it was about time to get them out, though he knew with Hiccup, it was best, preferred by both, to get them out as gently as possible.

'Hiccup-"

But suddenly a strange sound reached his ears, a low hypnotic hum that seemed alien in nature; it reached out into his head and started to take hold of every one of his senses. Toothless's ear plates lifted up in response and his pupils thinned to slits in response to the sound. He turned his head left and right, forced to hone on the din's call pulling on him more and more.

"Toothless, bud, what's happening?" Hiccup asked, suddenly worried.

But the Night Fury's only answer came in the form of an abrupt dive into a thick cover of fog that appeared out of nowhere. Hiccup looked all around and saw nothing but the thick clouds all around him, the morning sunrise completely blocked from view. In the back of his mind, Hiccup felt the strange familiarity of the setting, the recounted tales for surviving sailors of the thick fog where seafaring vessels encountered their dooms. A sudden feeling of apprehension bubbled up from the pit of his chest: Hiccup knew the danger started now.