Disclaimer: I do not own How To Train Your Dragon. Rights belong to Cressida Cowell and DreamWorks.
A/N: Scandinavian countries, certainly in Viking times, only used '______son' as a surname if the person in question is a male. As Astrid is a female, the correct surname would be 'Hoffersdottir'.
Summary: Mix of Books and Movie. If Astrid hadn't followed Hiccup, then he and Toothless would have escaped. But what would happen after that?

Chapter One

Hiccup was in Trouble.

Oh, he had achieved his lifelong ambition of being allowed to train as a Viking and making his father, Stoik the Vast, proud, but that only made things worse. The culmination of Dragon Training was to have the honour of killing a Monstrous Nightmare.

Hiccup's success thus far was using non-violent tricks to subdue the dragons, but not kill them; tricks learned from the dragon he had saved and befriended, even naming him Toothless. Since Hiccup was still largely useless at actual fighting of any kind, this 'honour' of killing his first dragon in front of his father and the entire tribe was Not A Good Thing.

Hiccup's 'reward' had been announced at the end of the day's training, and Hiccup was now running as fast as he could to the hollow where Toothless was currently living. "We are so leaving! Come on, Toothless, let's go! We need to get out of here, NOW!"

Luckily, Toothless did not pick today to be difficult, and soon they were flying away from Berk at top speed. Just in time, too, as they barely missed hitting a blonde figure as they shot out of the hollow. As they flew, Hiccup chanced a last look back at the Island of Berk, the place he had called home his entire life, but was now rapidly disappearing into the distance.

Dragons are very strong creatures, but even they need to sleep at some point. Humans are less hardy, requiring sleep more often. When a dragon needs a human rider to be awake in order to actually sustain flight, resting at night becomes a requirement.

Hiccup thought that he could fly forever, as long as he and Toothless were flying together. Unfortunately, he couldn't, and the stress of the long day and several nights of very little sleep were swiftly catching up with him.

The only problem was that they were currently flying over miles of empty ocean, with not even a rock in sight, and while Toothless could swim, his ability to float was like that of a shark, which needed to keep moving if it wanted to stay floating. Not to mention the effect that the icy water would have on a creature born of fire.

Finally, just when Hiccup was starting to get desperate, he saw a small group of rocks, jutting high out of the crashing waves. An almost-forgotten Pirating lesson tugged at his memory, telling him that these rocks had some kind of special significance, but right now Hiccup was too tired to care.

One mostly-smooth landing later, Hiccup quickly unharnessed Toothless, who shot a bolt of fire at the rock, creating his own little nest as Hiccup had seen him do many times before, scampering in a circle to put out the flames before settling down with a soft croon. Hiccup had slept on the rock floor of Gobber's forge once or twice before, and the residue warmth from where Toothless dozed easily chased away the cold sea air.

Closing his eyes, Hiccup fell asleep almost instantly. There were plenty of fish in the surrounding waters that he and Toothless could catch, and planning their next move could wait until morning. Perhaps things would be a bit clearer after a good night's sleep.

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A/N: Several parts of this fic will be from the movie, obviously, but I will be throwing in characters, plot-points and other bits and pieces from the books. I strongly recommend reading those, by the way.

This first chapter is a small one, mostly to get a feel for things and to see if I should continue. So please, tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is very welcome, but flames will be ignored. Bonus points if you point out which book characters you want to see.

Thanks, Nat.