In Lieu Of A Tail

2. Something's Up

[The next morning, Berk]

"Hiccup!" Stoick called as he climbed the stairs. He opened the door and was shocked to see that his son wasn't there. "Hiccup? Where are you? Stop messing around!".

There was no answer, this was strange, Hiccup had an answer for everything.

'Perhaps he's in the forge', Stoick thought to himself, completely missing the letters on the desk addressed to him and Gobber.

Stoick headed to the forge, looking around for his son as he did, he arrived to the sound of Gobber singing and hammering at a sword. "I've got my axe, and I've got my mace, and I love my wife with the ugly face! I'm a viking through and through—"

"Gobber!" The Chief yelled, cutting off his oldest friend.

"Stoick! What can I do for you?" Asked Gobber, abandoning his work to speak with the Chief.

"Have you seen Hiccup? He isn't in his room." Stoick replied.

"No, I haven't seen the lad this morning." Gobber replied, before noticing the worry growing on Stoick's face. "Don't worry Chief, he's probably in the forest again – training, I'd wager – he's been doing that a lot recently, y'know."

Stoick sighed, "I know, Gobber, I just worry about him. He has a horrible habit of getting himself into trouble and–"

"Stoick, don't worry. He's killing the Monstrous Nightmare this afternoon – he can fend for himself. He'll be fine."

"But what if he runs into trouble he can't handle?! Or–"

"Stoick!" Gobber yelled, startling Stoick into silence. "He will be fine, he has brains enough to avoid anything dangerous. Besides, he's known that forest like the back of his hand for years."

"I just want to make sure he isn't late to the fight in the ring – I want to watch him kill his first dragon, watch my boy become a real Viking–"

"Chief, don't worry. He won't miss killing his first dragon, not after how hard he's worked for it." Gobber reassured him, before turning back to his work.

"Maybe you're right." Stoick muttered, beginning to walk back towards the village, pushing thoughts of his son to the back of his mind – he had a village to serve.

**********

Her axe buried itself in the tree with a THUNK! She wrenched it from the trunk and aimed at another, imagining the skinny tree as a skinny person, with familiar green eyes and auburn locks.

"Aaaagggghhh!" She yelled, hurling the axe with all her might. The image of the Chief's son disappeared as the axe once again dug into wood.

"I hate him." She spat, as she gasped for breath. Her hair stuck out every which way as she began to stretch out. She looked at the sky and realised it was almost noon. Readjusting her braid and kransen, she walked towards the mutilated tree and pulled her axe out of the destroyed wood.

She started back towards the village – she may hate Hiccup right now, but she had to admit that she was pretty impressed with his improvement in dragon training, even if it was a bit fishy. She didn't want to miss the fishbone's fight, especially since if he chickened out, she would get to kill the dragon – as the first runner-up. It was bad enough that Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third (or Hiccup the Useless) had beaten Fearless Astrid Hofferson, and there was no way in Helheim that Astrid was going to risk an accusation of being a sore loser to sully her honour as well.

**********

Hiccup was nowhere to be seen in the Great Hall come noontime, but nobody was worried. They knew he had developed a habit of disappearing almost all day in the forest.

Stoick was nervous, not about his son being nowhere to be found, he was worried about the fast-approaching fight his son would be a part of, he prayed to Thor and Freja and any God who may have been listening that Hiccup would be safe.

Astrid was irritated, she had finally decided not to hold Hiccup's victory against him and now the boy was nowhere to be found! Why is it that when I don't want to see him he is constantly underfoot, but when I'm actually looking for him he disappears!

In all fairness to Hiccup, he has been on the receiving end of Astrid's anger many times, and he would definitely agree that while Astrid is Fearless, he most definitely was not. Anyone could understand him avoiding her with everything he had.

She consoled herself with the realisation that, if he was avoiding her – it at least meant that she was a terrifying warrior.

**********

About an hour after noon, the fight was due to begin – and Hiccup was missing.

They waited an hour for him, and he still didn't show. Stoick became agitated and ordered the village to form search parties for his son, the village obeyed – many of them had begun to like Hiccup. Astrid commandeered the teens she and Hiccup had been training with, and the village began their search. Astrid, Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut and Tuffnut headed towards where Astrid had seen Hiccup last- when she had tried to follow him.

A couple hours later, most of the village had given up and returned home. Stoick and Gobber were still searching – and so were the teens. Tuffnut managed to trip and fall, taking Snotlout with him, down the almost-path into the cove.

"Tuffnut! I'm gonna kill you!" Snotlout screeched, picking himself up and throwing himself at Tuffnut, starting what promised to be a devastating brawl.

"Hey!" Ruffnut yelled. "If anyone is gonna kill my brother, it's gonna be me!" She joined in the brawl with an evil smirk on her face.

"Yeah! Wait, wha—" Tuffnut screamed.

"Enough!" Astrid ordered, screwing up her face in anger. "All of you shut up and look for clues! Hiccup is still missing and you can kill each other when we find him!"

"Uh, I think I know where he went." Tuffnut said.

"And where might that be?!" Astrid muttered, annoyed.

"A dragon carried him off, duh." His sister replied, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"What makes you say that?" Snotlout snapped.

Fishlegs gasped, finally breaking his silence.

"Care to share, Fishface?" Snotlout called.

"Dragon tracks, and scales! I've never seen any like this before, I wonder if it's a new species, that would be amazing I—"

"Fishlegs!" Astrid shouted, stopping him from getting too excited. "Lay it out in simple words."

"I, I think Ruffnut and Tuffnut are right." He replied, lowering his head in dismay.

"Fine, we have to tell the Chief. Snotlout, grab those scales. Fishlegs, sketch those tracks, we need to be able to identify them. Ruffnut, Tuffnut – see if you can find anything of Hiccup's. Let's get to it!" She commanded, her face an emotionless mask. She started towards the lake, silently admiring the sheer beauty of this place while looking for any clues about the kind of dragon it could have been.

She stopped at the water's edge, scanning for anything. A glint caught her eyes and she reached down into the water. She picked up a beautifully crafted dagger. It had magnificently elaborate carvings on the handle and a silvery blade that was still perfectly sharp, despite being in the water. There was an inscription on the hilt: 'HHHIII'. Hiccup's dagger. She ran her finger along the flat of the blade, thinking. It was obviously Hiccup's handiwork, no one else would have made a dagger with such precision. It hit her like a rock from a catapult, he was gone. She would never see that lopsided grin as he worked on a crazy project in the forge again; never hear his witty, sarcastic comebacks to anything his father said. Oh gods, did she love this boy? She missed him, but she hated him! Oh gods, she did love him, and she would never tell him.

She wanted to cry, but she wouldn't, not while other people were around, perhaps later, when she was alone.
Right now she had to report back to her Chief, she could mourn later.