Together we Map the World is a canon and OC forum that takes place directly after the first film left off, behaving as if the series and second film after never happened. With a wealth of locations, dragons, and characters to choose from, the possibilities are endless. What the tides of storytelling will do with these building blocks is up to you. How far will you go?
In a rare display of concern, Snotlout went bug-eyed at Hiccup when the toothpick of a boy swiveled on his heel and marched out. He sputtered for a moment, torn between recklessness and survival instinct, and eventually opted to glance around, shift his posture, and shoot one last withering look at Hiccup's back before the boy vanished into the falling night.
"...I'll watch the place while you're gone!" he called, words fading. "...stay safe."
Outside of the cave, the encroaching darkness only served to thicken the fog. Some chill wind, perhaps a remnant of the prior storm, had begun to blow, rustling leaves carelessly and painting pictures with mist. Tektite's footsteps blended soundlessly with the silence as they prowled, once again beginning to pick up the skinny human's scent. He was coming closer.
There had been a part of him that hoped, maybe just a little bit, that Snotlout would follow him, that he'd come with him so it wasn't just him and Toothless and whatever else was out there waiting for them. However, he hardly blamed his cousin for his caution, he was smart, with more self preservation than he seemed to have in this moment. Hiccup had always been the cat that curiosity tried to kill though, that was just in his nature.
As if by fate, the entire island seemed to gear up for the creepy atmosphere, and he gave a soft, nervous chuckle as he glanced sidelong at Toothless, "we'll be alright," he said, more so to convince himself of it than the dragon at his side, Toothless wasn't worried, he knew he could get his friend away quickly, but that didn't mean he wanted it to come to that. He couldn't help an annoyed grumble, which cause Hiccup to chuckle nervously.
"We wont go far from the others, bud, I promise," he looked out into the mist with a squint, his breath visible in the chill air, "I just want to see if we can find it sleeping or something, get a better look at it," he was ready to actually see what they were dealing with, see if he could figure out what it might be. He wasn't even considering the danger they might be in, curiosity and the cat and all.
Tektite, upon predicting the direction in which the human would keep walking, settled themselves low to the ground amid a pile of leaves. A few of their spines, brown-black in the moonlight, prickled up from beneath the foliage, but everything else seemed to melt into the surroundings.
Dry leaves crunched underfoot. The human-scent grew stronger. The dragon, ever concerned, watched for enemies in the shade - but failed to glimpse at the ground.
When the human had grown close enough, Tektite flung themselves out of the brush with a flare of their crimson wings, teeth sinking into flesh before there was time to blink.
Hiccup didn't hear the sound of anything approaching, but Toothless did, and his eyes narrowed as he swung his head around, he could feel that same foreboding presence that they'd felt before, but he couldn't pinpoint the exact location, and that made him nervous. The agitated demeanor didn't go unnoticed by his rider as Hiccup put a hand on his head, watching him carefully. His dragon sensed something he didn't, and he'd learned to watch him carefully by now.
But all the preparation and knowing in the world would not have prevented what happened, and when the teeth found their way into his good leg, he let out a startled cry as he was suddenly pulled to the ground, finally getting a good look at what had been hunting them since they'd gotten here.
Toothless was quick to act with tooth and claw, not daring to risk a plasma blast that might take off his rider's other leg as he began to beat at the dragon's face with everything he had, anything to try and get them to let go. He was making deafeningly angry and frantic sounds as he swiped and bit at whatever he could get at, and when he finally got the dragon to let loose he shot several blasts at them, at the ground, trying to ward them off so he could tend to Hiccup.
The boy could do little else but watch his dragon fend off the attacker, somewhere between petrified and amazed at what he was seeing.
Tektite's yellow eyes flashed as they reflected the moonlight. Toothless was on them in an instant, battering, biting, and screeching. Hiccup was dragged several feet through the mud before Tektite finally relented, baring their needle-thin fangs with a hiss before retreating into the darkness. Their face was visible for several seconds: slit pupils, a sunken, skull-like nose, and teeth like syringes. The interaction had only taken moments, but the damage had been done: Lycanwing venom was coursing through Hiccup's veins.
That dragon. That damned dragon was warding off every one of their hunts, and Tektite was sick and tired of it - but there was nothing that could be done about it for now. With any luck, the dragon wouldn't come back, and Tektite would be left to have some peace and quiet. At the very least, they would rest well that night knowing what fate they'd resigned the human to.
Toothless stood over Hiccup in an aggressive stance as he watched the dragon slink back into the shadows, only the glint of their eyes remaining. He was well traveled as far as a young dragon could be, and he didn't know what that was, perhaps if he was a wizened old titan wing, but he was hardly older than Hiccup himself, and his immaturity showed in his lack of knowledge about other dragons.
When the threat was passed, he relaxed and turned to Hiccup, pushing his nose into the boy's face and earning soothing sounds back at him, "I'm alright, it's alright," he said, but he wasn't sure how true that was. He took a breath before he pulled the leg of his pants up to look at the bite, grimacing at the sight of it, "at least I still have it," he tried to joke, but it was with an edge of worry.
Toothless responded with a worried croon as he licked over the place where he'd been bitten a few times. He didn't know the extent of truth in the myth, but his saliva was tick at any rate, and would dry over the place enough to keep it from bleeding too much. Hiccup gave the dragon an anxious smile before he got to his feet, "lets get back to the cave," he mumbled, limping back with some aid from the dragon at his side.
By the time they made it back to the cave, Hiccup was feeling much less okay than he had been before, everything felt uncomfortably hot and itchy, he'd gone visibly pale aside from places where he was clearly breaking out in a rash, along his shoulders and back, and peppered over his face. Toothless looked worried as he pulled the boy in and curled up, letting Hiccup collapse against his side.
"okay...So...Not my best idea..." He mumbled between breaths, clearly worn out from the walk back, or from whatever reaction he was having. He looked over at Snotlout, "but I saw it, and I don't know what it is..." He sounded almost awestruck, something new, something terrifying, something that had attacked him, "but it bit me, whatever it was...I think I'm having a reaction," he mumbled, reaching to scratch feverishly over his shoulder.
Snotlout wasn't sure if the light was playing tricks with him as Hiccup stumbled back into camp. His cousin was pale and red in all the wrong places, and at first, Snotlout was sure it was just the odd lighting and perhaps a bit of cold - but doubt crept in at Hiccup's words. When Hiccup practically fell to the ground next to Toothless, Snotlout pulled himself to his feet and trotted over.
"You okay?" he said, well-aware that it was a rather rhetorical question. "You, uh... you're breaking out in spots, cuz. What happened?"
His eyes floated down to Hiccup's good leg. It seemed that calling it 'good' wasn't exactly fitting anymore, because a series of violent pinpricks tracing the shape of a dragon's jaw were drilled into the flesh, oozing trace amounts of black venom.
Echoing his thoughts aloud, Snotlout muttered, "...what did that...?" He slowly began to regret letting Hiccup go alone as he picked himself up and searched Hookfang's saddlebags for bandages.
Hiccup glanced over as Snotlout came to investigate, still idly scratching at his back, his chest, his shoulders, everything kind of felt unbearably itchy right now. He grumbled softly and rubbed his hands together, as even those were itchy and red, "that dragon that tried to attack us earlier wasn't finished apparently," he mumbled distractedly, it was hard to concentrate when his skin felt like it was on fire and prickling all at once.
"Some kind of reaction I guess," he mused, finally forcing himself to stop as he winced his face up in pain, squeezing at the venom, "don't think I'm dying yet, but it's certainly unpleasant..." He couldn't help the tinge of anxiety in his voice.
"Dunno," he mumbled when Snotlout asked what had bitten him, "I've never seen a dragon like that before, all bristly, it tried to drag me off into the fog," he explained, Toothless grumbled nervously as he nosed his head under Hiccup's arm. His rider wasn't okay, he was alive, but he looked so sick that it scared him.
"Right. Well. Uh," Snotlout said, withdrawing a fistful of bandages, "the cave isn't in the fog, and we've got a campfire, so hopefully... whatever it was won't come back?" He knelt next to Hiccup to cover the bite, shooting his cousin a look that showed more fear than he'd ever admit out loud. "I'll... I'll keep watch tonight. We've got a Night Fury, a Monstrous Nightmare, and my mace to ward that thing off. We'll be fine. And if you're not fine, I'm gonna punch you in the face."
Perhaps Hiccup was rubbing off on him a bit, because he didn't usually try to defuse tension with humor. Still, saying it made him feel a little bit better. He tried to keep himself awake for as long as he could, but soon wound up slipping off into an uneasy sleep.
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Tektite didn't bother trying to go after the human in the cave, and certainly couldn't be bothered to try again when the sun rose into the sky and brought with it clear skies.
The Next Morning Somewhere in the exhaustion of his feverish scratching and the sickness he felt, Hiccup had managed to drift into a fitful sleep aswell. It wasn't restful, but it was better than scratching himself crazy, and it was better than staying away worrying whether or not he was about to die a horrible death via venom from some unknown dragon.
He didn't die however, instead he slept through the night, up until he felt a frantic nudging and the nervous croons of a clearly very perturbed Toothless. He grumbled and pushed against the dragon's nose as he blearily blinked his eyes open, "nooo go'way...Too early..." He mumbled, only letting out a startled 'oof' when the dragon thwapped him with his tail, gently, but enough to wake him up, "okay okay, I'm up...What's gotten into you?" He stretched, rubbed at his eyes, then gasped.
"Woah!" He looked alarmed as he reached to feel over his face, where there'd been hives seemed to now be tough bumps, "uhhh..." He looked anxious as he peeled off his shirt and vest, feeling over the rest of him, "Snotlout...Uh..." he went to nudge at his cousin, eyes wide and pupils narrowed to constricted slits in his panic, this was bad, this was very bad.
In the interim between night and day, Snotlout was found soundly asleep, propped up against Hookfang's horns, a tiny string of saliva dangling from his lips. The spit danced as Hiccup shoved Snotlout, and was promptly sucked back into Snotlout's mouth as he awoke with a startled yelp.
"Who-what-AUGH! Hiccup!" he cried, flailing for a second as he got his bearings. A moment passed as the prior night's events came flooding back, and he opened his mouth to ask if Hiccup was okay, but the words caught in his throat as his eyes met Hiccup's.
For the first time in a long while, he made no effort to mask his fear. He scooted back slightly from his cousin, managing a small, "What...?" He looked downwards, and noted what unmistakably resembled scales dotting his cousin's body. "You're... Hiccup... what?"
Snotlout's fear only served to heighten his own distress, but he wasn't entirely sure exactly what had scared him so much. Sure, he had weird scaley growths, but Snotlout looked like he'd seen an actual specter of the Helheim right here in front of him, "Snotlout?" he asked, trying not to let his own fear show, something was wrong with him and he didn't know what or why, they were so far from home and all this served to do was make him more afraid.
"Snotlout calm down, it's just me!" He said in a more firm, loud tone, trying to get through to his cousin that whatever he was seeing, he was still Hiccup, or he hoped he was still Hiccup. Toothless came close and nosed over the scales dotting his rider's back with an anxious croon, the smell was familiar and strange all at once, and he couldn't guess as to what was happening.
Hiccup looked down over his hands, which where themselves covered in a thinner set of black scales, biting at his lip, "we need to get home," he said, turning an anxious and fearful expression back on his cousin.
"I AM CALM!" Snotlout shouted, now scrambling to his feet. "CALM. Calm. Calm as anybody can be when they wake up to see that their cousin has scales and slit pupils-"
He let out a neurotic laugh, voice growing higher in pitch with every word. "Just you. Just Hiccup. Right. Because I recall Hiccup with scales and dragon eyes. Right. Absolutely. Definitely Hiccup." He paced in a circle and broke out into another fit of nervous chortling as he looked Hiccup over again. Meanwhile, Hookfang had taken an interest in Hiccup, sniffing the boy curiously. When he withdrew with nothing more than a snort, Snotlout calmed himself slightly.
"Home. Right. Someone back home will probably know more about this. Right?"
Hiccup's eyes widened at Snotlout's outburst and he lifted his hands in a calming, maybe even defensive gesture. Sure, Snotlout had never attacked him before beyond teasing, but he was also clearly terrified and stressed out, "how do you think I feel?!" He said back, voice louder than he meant for it to be, "you think seeing it is a lot?!" he sounded exasperated, "shouting at me isn't helping!" He shouted back, then took a few breaths and put a hand to his head. Relax, just relax, this is fine.
"I am Hiccup, I'm still talking like myself, I still feel like myself!" He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, letting out a release of breath that was long and exasperated, "okay, so we fix Toothless' tail, get back to Berk...And I dunno..." He chewed at his lip, looking agitated, "maybe Gothi or your sister will know what to do..." He ran a hand up over his shoulder, almost wishing he could just pull all these horrible growths off.
Toothless looked between the two boys with a concerned croon, to which Hiccup's eyes softened and he ran a hand over his head, "it's fine, we'll be fine...I'll be fine..." He added, though he wasn't entirely sure on that front. He just kind of wanted to be home now, not in the middle of nowhere feeling like this.
Snotlout let a long breath wheedle through his gritted teeth, clutching Hookfang's snout reassuringly.
"...Hookie trusts you," he finally said, "so I guess you're still you. Probably." He slumped a little at the realization, resigning himself to let his guard down.
He glared at Hiccup's scales, though there was a bit of softness in his expression. He hated being so powerless, so useless. There was nothing he knew he could do to help, and even if there was, he probably wouldn't be able to pull it off, because the only problems he was good at solving were ones where he swung a weapon at things.
He trotted a few steps closer to Hiccup and eased his posture. "Okay... okay. We'll get through this, right? Right. Home. Let's get back to Berk. That sounds like a good plan."
