Dragon's Heart ~ Hiccstrid

Chapter 4

"What the hell are you doing, Hiccup? You wanted to get away from here, not back into it!" Hiccup scolded himself as he reached for a little button in his pocket, which he had found just before the dragon races.

Shadows from the torch nearby bended and flickered as he threw the button, distracting the guards and giving him just enough time to dart to the next wall, grumbling to himself as he trotted off down the hallway.

"Alright, Whispering Deaths, Gronckles, and.... oh! Nadders!" Hiccup slipped behind the marked door, one out of a hundred of neatly marked with the class, and type of dragon. As he shut the door behind him, he heard the Nadders start to arouse, twitching their heads and trilling as the unknown young man walked in cautiously.

"Hey, guys!" Hiccup smiled awkwardly, waving at the rows of caged Nadders, as if expecting a response.

"Let's just make this easy, alright? I give you some fish that I so graciously stole for you, and you fly me back to Berk to get the team and go after Toothless! How's that sound?" Hiccup held out the fish cautiously, watching as the defensive Nadders' eyes widened, as they sniffed and tried to reach the fish.

"They haven't been treating you right, have they?" Hiccup mumbled as he walked past hungry dragon after dragon. "No food, no care.." He stopped as he passed a cage where the dragon was not begging for food. Instead, it was still, laying on the ground and trembling with pain. 

Hiccup grimaced as he noticed the deep scar that ran down its back and onto its wing, obviously fresh.

"I mean, there was Viggo, but this?" Hiccup gestured wildly to the rows of starving and injured dragons. "This is so much worse.. It's as if it's a mass production, dragon after dragon, each of them more worthless than the next!" Hiccup's eyes flared with anger as his voice raised. "And you're just Nadders! There were so many more rooms, so many more dragons! How many of you have had to suffer!?" He banged his fists against the solid bars of the cage, scaring all of the dragons back and dropping the fish in the process.

Hiccup sighed, realizing he had just lost most of their trust. Tossing the fish to the injured dragon, he angrily stormed towards the door, Inferno in hand, and ready to kill the leader of this horrible plan.

But he didn't need to go far to find him.

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"Hiccup Haddock. So we meet again." Hiccup grimaced at the deep voice behind him, once again in the dark with the only light on him.

"It appears so." Hiccup muttered, willing himself to hold strong against the much bigger man.

"It seems you were making quite a racket among the dragons. It attracted my guards, Haddock. You must have been infuriated to have risked making such noise." The shadow's shoulders bounced as he chuckled at Hiccup. 

"What you're doing," Hiccup panted, "is inhumane."

"Oh. Is it?" The man turned back to him. "I'm surprised you don't know how it is to be treated wrongly. People themselves, are inhumane." The man hissed into Hiccup's ears, as Hiccup attempted to lean away from him. "You of all people should know, Hiccup. You seem like the kind to get picked on. Scrawny, weak, too trusting..."

"Well, at least I have a heart!" Hiccup snapped back as the anger bubbled up inside of him. "You do it all for the money!" The figure turned to face Hiccup and placed his hands on his hips.

"The more you have, the more people like you." The man stated gruffly. "But it isn't human affection I crave anymore, Hiccup. People like you appear kind and forgiving, but you would be surprised how much pain they can cause." He broke his stance, beginning to walk slowly around Hiccup again. "Power, is the key to everything, Hiccup." He held out his hand. "I can see the leader in you, Hiccup, you are stubborn and openminded. Join me, and you will have everything you have ever wanted, or needed." 

Hiccup looked at the extended hand, and then sneered,

"Never. You may have everything you could want, but you'll never have what you need."

"Oh? And what is that?" The man growled at Hiccup.

"You'll never have anyone to care for, or anyone to love you back. You're a selfish, greedy man." Hiccup spat, expecting to be hit by the man. But nothing happened. 

"Have him whipped. He attempted escape and then tried to free the shipments." Hiccup cringed as Bludvic labeled the dragons as merely, 'shipments'.

"Yes sir." He heard a guard behind him say. "We can arrange for tomorrow." The guards grabbed Hiccup, but were stopped by their master,

"No! He will have to wait for his pain. He will have time to reflect and realize what a mistake he made. Maybe then he'll be sorry." The man sneered as the guards began to drag an infuriated Hiccup away, as he yelled,

"You're a monster, with rocks for a heart!"

"You know, Hiccup, this sword isn't so plain after all. I think I should like to keep it." The man taunted Hiccup as he waggled the Inferno, watching him being dragged away to a windowless cell, to await his whipping. 

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                                                     4 DAYS LATER

The waves along Berk were silent as the young woman sped by. Stars shone bright as tears ran down her porcelain cheeks, clouding her azure eyes. Astrid didn't know what she was running towards, or what the purpose was, but the tears blinding her reminded of her motivation:                                 

Keep on pressing. Never stop. Never stop.

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AAH! Sorry for not posting yesterday, but there was a huge book report to take care of, and this chapter was really hard to write :3 This is by far, my favorite chapter so far, and I hope you guys liked it too! (also, some people might have been confused by this, but the 'piercing mystery class dragon symbol on his back' was meant to be a tattoo of the mystery class dragon symbol.) love you guys! bai!

~Emmathepug