Broken Prophecy: How to Train Your Dragon

THE BROKEN PROPHECY Chapter 5

This is a fanfic and I make no money from this. Original copyrights belong to Dreamworks and Cresedia Cowell

Chapter 5

Gobber the Belch was looking worse than usual. The blacksmiths eyes were sunken pools inside dark sockets. His bushy mustache now held even more tangles and knots. His work in the forge was beginning to backup, and he had not had a good night sleep in close to a week. 

His best friend, and Chief, had taken all the able-bodied warriors to hunt for the dragon's nest past Helheim's Gate. Gobber was quickly becoming, in a word, frantic.  When everything seemed to be stacked against the blacksmith, he had finally had a break.  Most of the week had ended with rains and wind, but the previous two nights felt like Thor's vengeance was being meted out against the small island itself, and made a good portion of the island waterlogged and inaccessible. But with his promise to find Hiccup and bring him home before the expedition returned, looming over in his head, Gobber had decided that rather than start the teens on their dragon training, he would use them, some more reluctantly than others, in search parties for his missing apprentice. Even after nearly a week, no sign of Hiccup could be found anywhere. While Gobber took the lack of fire and blood near where Hiccup's dagger had been found as a good sign, time was running short. He knew that each day Hiccup wasn't found meant it was that much more unlikely he ever would be.

"All right! Snotlout, Fishlegs you two search the east end of the forest. Ruffnut, Tuffnut you search the west. Astrid, you and I will search the north." With assignments handed out, the three group disperse into the woodland covering a large portion of the island.

"Gobber?" The normally outspoken girl stops, and turns to look at the blacksmith. "Do you really think Hiccup is out here somewhere? I mean, it has been a week since the last raid, and nobody's seen him anywhere."

"Astrid, I know ya' and Hiccup weren't friends. But I need ya' all to help search for him," the older Viking looks at her with a deep, pleading sorrow. Gobber, in his youth, had been the target for ridicule for the village because of his particular eccentricities. If not for the support and friendship of Stoick, he would have been outcast himself from Berk a long time ago, and he knew Hiccup deserved better treatment than that. He had tried to befriend the boy as well as mentor him, and despite being the only son to the chief and being incredibly clever, he knew the boy had no friends his own age.

Astrid looks hurt by Gobber's comment, but turns away knowing he isn't completely wrong. The others, with the exception of Fishlegs, had always had a great deal of fun tormenting Hiccup. They were faster, stronger and in general more popular than he was. Even so, Astrid had always held back, not actively teasing or tormenting the boy, but neither did she do anything to stop it. Now that he was missing, she was beginning to feel a little guilty for not treating him a little bit better.

Looking back, she could see how Ruff, Tuff and Snotlout could become fast friends, they most likely shared a brain between the three of them. Fishlegs had a mind like a steel trap, but could become too focused on the minutiae of his vast knowledge. She, herself, worked hard to restore her family name to honor, working to be faster, stronger and smarter than any other Viking. Except Hiccup... Hiccup was always more clever, and at first it infuriated the young woman. Rather than act like a proper Viking, He would design and build elaborate devices to aid him where he was lacking. He compensated for his physical inadequacies with his brilliant imagination, even if things didn't always work out. But when his inventions did work, his humble nature kept him from gloating despite doing something incredible. And often, he would take the responsibility for Snotlout or the twins, getting himself in trouble when he was woefully ill equipped to control those three forces of chaos. In the end, Astrid realized those were the traits she liked in him, his intelligence, honor and humility.

They spend the rest of their morning in near silence, moving deeper and deeper into the foreboding gloom of the northern forest. Gobber would occasionally need to stop, as dense patches of peat moss and mud seemed to take an unhealthy liking to his wooden leg. Astrid, taking the time to check the map and taking a bearing, while Gobber wrestles with his stuck leg, notices something.

"Gobber?"

"Aye... Lass?" A wet squelch, a moment later, "Oy, Odin's beard... This is never gonna wash off", Gobber bounces on his good foot, finding an old overturned tree to rest against so he can reattach the wooden prosthetic.

"What do you make of that?" She points towards the far north. "They look like wind damaged trees from the storms, but don't those THERE," she points at a cluster of trees further off in the distance, "seem to be bent in the wrong direction?"

Gobber hobbles to where she is, looking carefully over her shoulder he finds what she is pointing at. Squinting hard, then standing straight and looking over his shoulder, and back again to the odd trees. He takes the map and makes some quick scribbles, "No, he... He couldn'a done it. Could he? I mean this is Hiccup after all, but did that contraption...?"

"Gobber?" Astrid asks, looking completely confused by the blacksmith's sudden change in mood.

"Hiccup, built a gizmo to shoot down dragons. Those trees look ta' be almost in direct line to each other," he passes the map back to her.

She glances down, seeing a line Gobber sketched in from the point where Hiccup's device was found, across a small northern bay, and pointing in the direction of the fallen trees. "Do you think?"

An excited grin begins replacing the utter desperation he had been carrying for the last several days. "Did you bring any food, water, bandages? If Hiccup is alright, he is probably out here starving and exhausted."

With a nod, the two Vikings move with renewed vigor and purpose, off toward the unusual signs of destruction. Having a direction to travel in, the pair cover a lot of ground in a short time.