Following his father's death Hiccup is determined to do Stoick proud and fill his shoes in Berk. And he does... by slowly chipping away at himself. Sensitive Toothless knows his boy is getting lost but that's not the only troubling thing happening...
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Scree! Trooper flapped along.
Hookfang fought for the reigns... or in this case horns. The big red dragon was distracted by every passing sight and sound, and had become pretty testy after weeks of doing as he pleased. Hiccup worked his magic slow and sure; eventually calming the Monstrous Nightmare to a point he was willing to listen.
There were plenty of footprints to be seen along the north shores of the river, just not the ones the Berkian was looking for. Deer and wolf and moose. Mimikoo prints, feet side by side, revealed a unique trait in the dragon that Hiccup didn't know- it hopped everywhere it went. And the average distance between each hop was forty feet.
A half hour came and went. Hiccup was just about to turn back when a track caught his eye.
"Let's check it out, Hookfang."
The nightmare rolled his eyes.
They were a very strange set of prints, belonging to a four-legged creature. Forelegs looked like bird talons- only instead of a few inches the distance between back talon and longest forward was about two and a half feet. Hind similar to Nightfurry prints... just twenty times as big or bigger. The tracks circled a very large patch of fur and blood.
"What sort of dragon made these?" Hiccup muttered. Trooper chattered, nervously pacing across his shoulders.
Hookfang rooted around the spot hungrily.
Camicazi's right, He thought as they flew downriver on the south shore. Finding a mindbender is like looking for a Flurry in a Snowstorm... wonder if there'd be a better way to search?
"Anything?" Heather asked as Hiccup flew in, Windshear wrapped gracefully around the crown of a pine. He cued Hookfang to land in a large snag.
"Nothing along the lines of the Mind Bender. I'm guessing none of you had any luck."
"Naw. But I saw a rock that looked like Riker's head." Dagur grinned. "Sleuther blew it's nose off."
"Did you not here the part where I said don't draw attention to yourself?"
"No one was there."
"Hrrr. How about you Camicazi?"
"Diddly squat." She answered short and to the point.
"K. Lets all go over our areas once more, I spent more time working with Hookfang than actually searching and I'd like to be more thorough. Meet again in an hour?"
The second search turned up no more than the first, even though they went twice the distance. It had only been two hours but a feeling in his gut was said this search was going to be for the long haul, and very, very tricky.
"I mean, even when we find it, what if we forgot?? And I don't know anything about its behavior." He told a very attentive Trooper riding on one of Hookfangs horns.
