How To Train Your Dragon 3 - A Tale of Two Tails -

Chapter Nineteen: What happened to you?!

Who knows how long they were trapped in the strange dark limbo. Their worst memories replayed in their minds over and over in a never-ending cycle.

Toothless watched helplessly as vikings piled onto his body as a young teenage Hiccup yelled for his father to stop, before the scene morphed into a torrent of flames that shot up higher than mountains. It engulfed his body as he shot into the heart of the fire, trying to latch onto his best friend by any means. Then, he was standing before the Bewilderbeast, the one that haunted his mind whenever he shut his eyes, and suddenly the dead body of the Stoick the Vast lay in front of him, covered in shards of ice, while smoke left his mouth in wisps from the deadly shot he fired.

It seemed to rewind.

Events played again, slowly and painfully.

He was being beaten.

He was being burnt.

He was a killer.

Oh god, when was this going to end.

•

Hiccup watched the estranged man lying face upwards on his bed with a frown.

He'd been unconscious for so long that the wounds on his skin had long healed. In fact, it had been a long while since Gothi had come in and removed his bandages, the same way she did for the girl downstairs. She'd applied some strange pungent ointment on both their injuries before leaving the chief's house, bashing him on the head with her staff on the way out as she'd caught him complaining that it smelled terrible.

It already smelled bad enough as dragons of all different shapes and sizes were leaving piles of fish outside his windows. He didn't have a clue as to why they chose to do this, but Hiccup could only assume it was some ritual for their Alpha.

But it didn't make any sense.

Toothless wasn't even around.

The chieftain ran a hand across his brown locks. The bags under his eyes were terribly purple as he hadn't slept comfortably in weeks. Sometimes, he even opted to not sleep at all, much to the frustration of his mother and beloved.

Neither stranger had shown any signs of life, aside from the barely visibly rise and fall of their chests, and the air that blew from their noses to occasional twitches of the fingers. Had Hiccup not been observant enough to spot them, he would've assumed he was housing a couple of pale dead bodies.

They just showed up out of nowhere, stark naked in the forest in the very heart of the cove.

Hiccup shuddered at the thought.

And his dragon was still missing. He'd searched the entire island, leaving no stone unturned and sent the best Tracker class dragon riders including Astrid (who led the search party) all across the entire archipelago and none came back with his best friend.

He was beginning to fear the worst...

His overthinking got the best of him as he rested his head in his palms, letting the tears flow freely from his eyes down his tired face. He sobbed from the stress, from the worry, from his regrets, down to the very dread that Toothless was dead. His first friend, and only best friend. Thor, what was he going to do without Toothless? He needed him. There would be no Hiccup without a Toothless.

He shut his eyes, salty tears wetting the corner of his lips.

He heard a deep groan.

Hiccup jumped up from the chair, hurriedly wiping his face with his sleeve.

He watched as the stranger began to scrunch his face up in agony as he rolled his head to the side. He ran a weak hand across the side of his face in a familiar manner, while a whimper left his lips.