A/N: All right, this was a story born of the ever-popular theory: "What if Hiccup really did leave Berk?" However, I'm taking a little spin on that...if the title doesn't tell you, just wait until the next chapters. Starts like the movie, but deviates dramatically! Enjoy!

Taking Sides

"Leaving. We're leaving. Let's pack up, buddy. Looks like you and me are taking a little vacation…forever…"

Hiccup meandered through the seemingly empty cove, with a basket slung over his shoulder and donning his riding harness. The basket stunk of fish, and Hiccup wrinkled his nose, wondering how much more it would smell after three days at sea. Hopefully they would be able to land somewhere before that happened. He shook his head. How could any of this have happened? Hiccup never imagined leaving Berk, and here he was, abandoning his home for an unknown fate. The prospect almost made him change his mind and stick it out. But on the other hand, if he stayed, he would have to kill a dragon. That was unacceptable now.

"Oh, boy." Hiccup hoisted the basket onto the ground and flipped it open. He stood, tugging on his leather straps, when a scraping sound made him look up.

Oh, gods!

Astrid sat on the boulder next to the basket, sharpening her ax on a whetstone. She did not acknowledge him, but Hiccup leaped backwards in shock. "AAH! What the—" He quickly composed himself and tried to act normal, even though his heart thudded like a drum. "Uh, what are you doing here?"

She dropped the stone next to her, and it clacked as it bounced down to the ground. "No reason." She stood up on the rock, casting a shadow over Hiccup as she glared at him. "Just a certain boy with a lucky streak and a few tricks up his sleeve happens to be humiliating me in front of the entire village…you haven't seen him, have you?"

Hiccup swallowed. "Look, I'm sorry about the ring—"

Astrid laughed. "Sorry? And that'll make everything all right, won't it?" She leaped down, and gave him a little shove. "So, what's the secret, Mister Dragon Tamer?"

Hiccup started to panic. "Secret? Uh…" Astrid's icy blue gaze made it hard to think of an evasive response. "Just…inspiration, I guess."

She rolled her eyes. "Right. Like you could come up with any of that out of thin air." She glanced around the cove. "Do you have a teacher or something?"

He was getting desperate now. "I kind of, um, train myself here—um—" Couldn't he come up with anything better than "um?" He could hear a soft rumbling from behind him, the familiar growl. Just stay down, bud… "There's really nothing else…"

Astrid didn't fall for it. "You have ten seconds," she hissed, "to tell me what you've been doing before I gut you like a fish." She lifted her ax threateningly.

"The truth…" Hiccup wracked his brains. "The truth is…" But before he could make up a story, Astrid gasped. She seized Hiccup by the arm and threw him backwards. "Get back!" Hiccup tripped backwards, falling in the dirt and watching as Astrid charged—

Oh, no.

A black dragon with outstretched wings towered over the girl, snarling and thrashing his tail. "Toothless! Toothless, no!" Hiccup leapt up in vain. His hands closed over Astrid's, clenched on the handle, and steered it away. But not before the blade of the ax carved a gash in Toothless' scaly black hide. He squawked and faltered, hitting the ground.

"NOOO!"

The scream tore out of him without thought at the sight of his friend's blood. He whirled around and faced Astrid, who was watching him with a mixture of confusion and disgust. "How could you!" he cried. Toothless snarled, still trying to get up and defend Hiccup.

"Wha—?" She was speechless. "How could I? What in the name of Thor—?"

Hiccup tuned her out. Tearing a strip from his tunic, he made a makeshift bandage from the cloth. It was quickly soaked. "You—he was—" He could barely talk. He turned to look at her again. A fierce fire flared up inside of him. "You want to know why I got so good?" he shouted. "It was him! We made friends! I shot him down in the woods and I couldn't kill him, so I just—I—I let him go, and you—!"

"You what?"

Again, Hiccup ignored the horror in her voice. "And you can go back and tell everyone that I'm done," he continued. "I'm sick of this. Killing dragons is wrong. I am not a Viking." It both hurt and healed to say the words out loud. He glared at her before saying, "We're going, Toothless."

Astrid closed her mouth and squinted at him. "Going? Going where?"

"Away from here."

She raised her eyebrows. "Good luck with that." Her voice had gone back to its cold indifference. With one last malevolent look over her shoulder, she turned and raced away to the entrance of the cove.

He didn't have much time. Hiccup knelt next to his friend, who had gone from growling to whining. "Toothless, are you all right?" Tears filled his eyes as Toothless met them with big, wide ones.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, bud…" He lifted his eyes and stared after the crunching footfalls leaving the cove. "I'll get her for this," he hissed. "I'll get her for this if it's the last thing I do."

Astrid's puffing breath preceded her appearance in the village. The remnants of the celebration were being cleaned up in the hall as she banged through the doors.

"Stoick!" she gasped. "I have to talk to Stoick!"

The Viking leader turned to see her figure in the doorway. He raised an eyebrow and stepped away from his well-wishers. "What is it?" he said in a low voice.

It took a moment before she could catch her breath. "It's all a trick," she whispered. "Hiccup. He made friends with dragons. He tried to stop me from killing one."

Stoick's face went pale. "What? No, that can't be."

Astrid held up her ax in response, still stained with the dragon's blood. "I got it in the neck before he pushed me back."

The Chief studied the ax. For a minute, he seemed to be in complete denial. Then his face hardened.

"I knew it," he hissed. "All this time…where is he now?"

"He said he was leaving Berk."

Astrid could almost see the battle within Stoick, the fatherly side waging war against the Viking side.

The Viking side won.

"Get ready, men," he called out. The talking in the hall stopped. "We have a miscreant to catch."

The wind howled in Hiccup's ears. He clutched the saddle tighter, listening to the labored flapping of Toothless' wings. The cove became a distant dot beneath them as they rode higher into the sky. Toothless grunted in pain, and Hiccup felt the wound twinge as if it were his own.

"We're almost there, bud," he told Toothless. "We just need to get over to the rocks…then we can rest." Hiccup didn't want to put his dragon under any stress after Astrid's attack, but they didn't have much of a choice. Leave and risk worsening the cut, or stay and die.

Hiccup chose to leave.

"HICCUP!"

For crying out loud…it was Stoick. Hiccup turned in his seat. A small band of Vikings stood at the edge of the island, watching the two of them fly away. Astrid must have told them what Toothless looked like. As much as he would have liked to ignore them and leave, Hiccup turned Toothless around and brought them closer to the cliff, where he hovered. "What do you want?" Had he changed his mind?

Stoick seemed taken aback at the sight of his son riding a dragon, but he brushed it off. "What do you think you're doing?" he roared over the strong breeze. "Come back here right now!"

Hiccup's heart sank. "No, Dad. I have to do this. I'm through."

"You—how could you do this? You're friends with the devils?"

"They're not devils, Dad!" Hiccup said angrily. Toothless sank lower in the sky, the effort of flapping in one place sapping his strength. "Just look! Would a devil let me do this? Would a devil spare my life after I shot him down?" He spotted Astrid standing behind him, and that only added fuel to his rant. "I'm going," he said with finality. "And there's nothing you can do about it, Dad."

With that, Hiccup turned Toothless back toward the ocean. Toothless was breathing hard now, and it was all Hiccup could do to keep from turning around and landing back on Berk. "Hiccup!" He ignored the shout, and soon his home was a mountain peeking over the horizon. Toothless' claws touched down on the rock pillars dotting the sea, and Hiccup jumped off in a rush. His dragon collapsed with exhaustion.

"Toothless! Toothless, are you OK?" He snorted in response. His skin was hot and sweaty to the touch. Oh, please don't let it get infected. Hiccup had neither the means nor the knowledge to be a doctor right now. He fed Toothless a small fish and sat down next to him.

Now what? They had nowhere to go. Hiding in the forest or the mountains was not an option. Hiccup had not envisioned an injury when he had decided on leaving, but, then again, it hadn't made much of a difference. He wasn't welcome on Berk, and there was no other choice but to go find another island. He had heard of many other Tribes that lived elsewhere, but he didn't have a clue where they were. Unless…no. Hiccup shook the thought away. He had told himself he wouldn't take sides in this war. That was not an option.

A small croaking sounded by his feet. Hiccup looked down at the stone and was surprised to find a Terrible Terror nudging his boot. It peeped and watched him with bulging yellow eyes. It was the same one he had made friends with the day before, after Toothless' test drive. Behind it were three more: red, yellow and green. They looked at Toothless with interest. The Night Fury managed a half-hearted growl of annoyance before flopping his head down. The tiny dragons poked at his chest, chirping, and looked back at Hiccup. The lead one tugged at Hiccup's sleeve with his gums.

"Not now, little guy," he muttered. But the creature was insistent, squeaking and pulling him to his knees. The others licked Toothless' wound and squeaked as well.

Hiccup started to get an inkling of what they wanted him to do. "No," he said. "No, I can't do that. I promised…" But then Toothless moaned, and he was forcibly reminded of the time he had been tied in ropes, his tail fin freshly torn off. He couldn't bear the thought. Hiccup sighed.

"All right. Fine. Let's go."

It took coaxing to get Toothless back up again, but eventually the dragon got to his feet. Then they were in the air, for what Hiccup hoped would be the last time he would have to make him fly while wounded. The Terrible Terrors fluttered in front of him, occasionally glancing back to make sure he was following them. Dread grew in Hiccup's gut with every wingbeat. Soon, a bank of fog loomed overhead. Toothless perked up, his ears flat against his skull. He began to fly faster, and Hiccup struggled to hold on. The group plunged into the mist, and rock pillars jumped out at them from every side. But Toothless dodged them all, and soon Hiccup heard clicking and growling. A tall, dark mountain stabbed into the gray sky, pouring molten rock. It could only be one thing.

The dragons' nest.

Shapes emerged from the fog around them. A Gronckle buzzed on Hiccup's left; a Zippleback on his right. They huffed and growled, and Toothless rumbled back. Hiccup pressed himself against the saddle and prayed that they wouldn't see him. What had he been thinking? Once they saw him, they would just eat him. It would all be in vain. He urged Toothless to turn around, but he shook his head and growled. "Thor help me," Hiccup breathed, panicked.

The dragons seemed to use some sort of instinct to find the way through the maze of rocks. More than once he was nearly thrown off by a sudden turn. Then, Toothless flung himself into a hidden tunnel in the side of the mountain. A blazing heat permeated the stone walls, and an orange light suffused the smoky air as the dragons emerged into a large cavern, apparently filling the entire volcano. Hundreds of dragons, every size, shape, and color, lined the walls of the nest.

When he said he wasn't coming back, Hiccup hadn't been thinking of suicide.

Well, there's the first chapter! I might not update this as frequently as I would like to, with my other stories going, but I'll try my best. Unless you guys want to vote priority...? *raise eyebrow*

As always, please review, and thank you for kicking up the traffic stats meter!