If We Had Wings - A Tuffnut Love Story (HTTYD/RTTE)

20

"Oh my Thor..." Tuffnut huffed in disbelief as he stopped mid-flight at the sight of Dragon's Edge. The island that used to be alive with greenery and dragons had been turned to ash. Whatever fires had been there were out now, and the damage was done.

"Tuffnut!" Astrid called out, flying away from the island with Delta. "Where are the others?" She asked in a sudden panic.

The sand wraith hesitated, still in awe from the scene before him. "Um, they're back further, I raced ahead to find you guys.." He trailed off, "what happened here?"

Delta growled lowly as she stared down at the smoldering hunk of land. "Hunters."

"Hunters did that?" Tuff asked in disbelief.

"Well, we know that that 'Grimmel' uses death grippers," Astrid sighed, "I wouldn't be surprised if they enslaved more dragons."

"And speaking of dragons," Delta added sorrowfully, "they're all gone...everyone you guys rescued."

• • •

The rescuers had all made it back to their island. Everyone landed together on the beaches by the twins' den. Even the sand had been tainted, mixed together with charred wood chips and ashes. "This was definitely the work of dragons," Valka confirmed with a heavy heart as she looked around, "the way everything is scorched to it's core...no hunter could achieve fire like this."

"I can't believe it's all gone," Snotlout mumbled. Even the proud monstrous nightmare's spirit had fallen.

"My garden was just starting to come together, too," Fishlegs whimpered.

Hiccup had been silent since the landing, but it wasn't hard to see that his mind was screaming out. Yet he contained himself; he had to be strong for his pack. "Split up, see if there's anything we can salvage," he ordered.

"What for? We don't have anywhere to go," Snotlout argued, finding it pointless to try to save anything.

"We could go back to Berserker Island," Gustav suggested hopefully, "it's really nice there."

"No, I'm afraid we'd only be putting them in danger," Valka countered.

Hiccup sighed in frustration. "My mom's right," he agreed, "if Grimmel deems himself the 'killer of night furies', they came here looking for us. Anywhere we go, we'll be forsaking those around us."

All of the dragons hung their heads in sadness. Months of rescuing dragons, and now they'd all been re-captured. Or worse. Delta cleared her throat and decided to take initiative. "I'll fly around the island and look for any injured dragons that got left behind."

Hiccup nodded. "Take the twins with you," he added. As Delta, Ruff, and Tuff took off, the alpha night fury lifted his head again and began to dish out orders. "Fishlegs and Astrid, gather as many medicine herbs as you can find. Gustav and Snotlout, catch as much fish as you can and bring it back here."

"Fish? We just had a feist earlier today," Gustav inquired curiously. "I'm not even hungry again yet."

Hiccup took a deep breath and let it out. "Well, we might have a long journey ahead of us; we'll need the extra energy," he groaned.

Valka padded over to her son and peered into his face. "What kind of journey?" She asked.

Hiccup met her eyes, then scanned over his friends. All eyes were on him. "We need to leave this place," he declared, "we need to go somewhere where hunters will never be able to find us again."

"Does a place like that even exist?" Astrid wondered.

Hiccup smiled crookedly and swung his tail to gently fall over Astrid's. "Remember when we were just hatchlings, still learn how to fly? We used to go on adventures all around Berk, looking for a secret hidden world full of dragons."

"Hiccup, we weren't even a year old," Snotlout argued and rolled his eyes, "the place we were looking for is a fantasy; it doesn't exist."

"My dad didn't seem to think so," Hiccup rebuttalled. "I know you remember hearing his stories," he went on, "he told us just to entertain us as kids...but I could tell he truly believed them, too."

Valka nodded slowly. "Stoick used to go on expeditions for the hidden world, before he was a father, before he was even the alpha of Berk," she explained. "He and that crazy armor wing, Gobber, used to disappear for weeks sometimes. But they never found such a place."

The other dragons were shocked to hear this. The stories they'd been told as hatchlings might actually be true? Fear of leaving their home was starting to be replaced with excitement. "Are we gonna go on a crazy expedition, too?" Gustav asked excitedly.

But Hiccup still wasn't sure. Because what if this hidden world didn't exist? He didn't want to lead his pack all over the world for nothing. So for the time being he grumbled, "we'll discuss this more later, when everyone is here. For now, let's just prepare." And with that, the dragons scattered to do as they were told.

• • •

After a couple of hours of searching, Delta managed to find and heal about ten dragons with the help of the twins. And that didn't count all of the possible terrible terrors, night terrors, and fireworms that were hopefully hidden safely in the deep crevices within the island. The dragons they had found, Delta sent them to the shore where they'd left their friends. And once they finished their search, they also flew back.

Night was falling by the time Delta finally was able to sit down and rest. She'd gone to her den, but was saddened to find it in ruins. The cave itself had collapsed in, crushing the few belongings she'd had. She sat outside of the rubble, sniffing and pawing at it half-heartedly.

"Yours too, huh?" Tuffnuts growled in a disheartened tone from behind Delta. The tidal fury turned her head to see her friend approaching her casually. "Yeah, mine and Ruff's den looks just as bad."

Delta felt her heart squeeze. "All of your trinkets..." She whined quietly. Thinking back to her first day on the island, Delta recalled how enthusiastically Tuffnut had showed her his collection. Every little thing he had had some sort of story behind it, even if it seemed small. And now it was all gone. She nuzzled his shoulder to show empathy.

Tuffnut, also saddened by the fact that most of his collection was surely destroyed, sighed. He sat down beside Delta, his tail falling in place against hers. "It's alright..I can always find more cool things anyway," he insisted with a grin.

Suddenly, a familiar cooing came from behind them. The two dragon's craned their necks around to find non either than Chicken waddling happily their way.