The Great Beyond

-x- Prologue pt. 1/3, The Depature -x-

Hiccup stood, eyes wide and complete and utter horror pumped through his veins.

Gothi had chosen him to kill the dragon. He had been chosen to kill the dragon.

But... he couldn't.

Meet Hiccup Haddock III, the very first Viking in his village's history who couldn't kill a dragon. And, as luck would have it, he was also the one chosen to do it in front of the entire village. Thanks a lot, dragon knowledge.

Gothi's staff still pointed to him, Astrid's gaze burning holes into his tunic, and his father was cheering him on from outside the ring. Hiccup felt all sensation abandon his body as he turned numbly to leave when the Dragon training ended that day, his throat was dry with crippling anxiety. He didn't want to talk to the rest of the teens even as they herded around him, lifting him onto their shoulders and singing his praises.

Dumbstruck, The secret dragon rider pondered just what he would have given for this only a few months ago. To impress his peers, to have a chance to prove himself to his father, to actually be good at something- What he would have given just to belong. But now their praise felt tainted, unwanted even. Not because he was lying to them about dragon training, though granted it felt like he was, but because he wasn't sure if he wanted to belong anymore.

These people had never liked him. They'd barely talked to him, they had never thought of him as anything but the chief's failure of a son, a useless nobody who would only ever grow up to dishonor his family name. They hadn't even acknowledged him for most of his life. Not like this anyway, sure they'd made fun of him, and their words stung almost as much as their fists had. But they had never talked to him like this. Like they were friends. Like he mattered at all.

Not until they thought that he'd make for a good murderer.

He didn't want to be a murderer, he couldn't. Not of dragons, he knew too much now. He knew, that everything they knew, was wrong. He didn't want to fight his father's war - He refused to, he wouldn't end up like the rest of them, he couldn't let himself. Hiccup looked up from his place among the group of teens surrounding him, still on the path down from the dragon training ring. Now decidedly resolute. He had a plan- Well, he had part of a plan. He couldn't stay here.

Tumbling down awkwardly as he got down from their shoulders and regained his footing, Hiccup's excuse came out rushed and mumbled - some about having to help Gobber out back at the smithy. All he needed was to get out, he ignored their confusion as he set out jogging determined on the path to his own house.

"Uh, isn't the forge that way?" One of the twins asked, none of the young Vikings were quite sure which, as they jut their thumb down east. Opposite the direction Hiccup was heading.

"Yeah man what a dummy, who doesn't know where their own job is?" The other- probably Tuffnut- grinned and laughed shamelessly and Snotlout agreed with him. Astrid on the other hand narrowed her eyes and scowled in the scrawny boy's direction, suspicious.

She stood still as the others continued on their path likely to the great hall, continuing to disparage the boy they had only just been congratulating, it was a little pathetic really. She didn't care much, though their petty and fickleness didn't give her high hopes for her future companions on Berk.

Their admiration only lasted as long as whoever was being admired could hear them, luckily for Astrid, their validation was of little consequence to her self-image.

Something that did bother her self-image, however, was that the insufferable Hiccup-the-pathetic was outdoing her, In dragon training. There was absolutely no way that scrawny little screw-up could be doing better than her, she'd been preparing for this her entire life for Thors-sake! And then suddenly he comes along after years of being the absolute worst Viking of them all and just- just is magically amazing? Yeah right, there was no way. She'd put too much of herself into this to lose to him, not now, after she was so close, he was barely even trying! It wasn't fair!