Disclaimer: I only own my characters and plot, but not Httyd or characters that may originate from said movie/show/book.

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This is Berk. It's twelve days north of hopeless and a few degrees south of freezing to death. It's located solidly on the meridian of misery. My village. In a word, sturdy. It's been here for several generations, but every single building is new.

It has fishing, hunting, and a charming view of the sunsets, but the one problem is the pests. You see, while most people have mice or mosquitoes, we have dragons.

Most people would leave. Not us. We're vikings, and we have stubbornness issues. It's an occupational hazard.

We have an entire village of people to wage war against the dragons, and yet we lose more sheep, more yaks, and more fish with every single raid.

The entire village of people that are supposed to wage the war? All vikings. Me? Not so much. I'm scrawny. I'm weak. I'm a fishbone, and my father can barely look me in the eyes without the scowls of disappointment stealing the loving glances of a true father.

The only person that relatively likes me on this hell-hole is Gobber, the meat-headed drunk that was more of a father to me than my actual dad. He's our blacksmith, and I've been his apprentice since I was little. Well, little-er, anyway.

There are five teenagers my age: their all true vikings. First there's Snotlout: He's a brute and he's evil, and he's brainless and arrogant. Next, we have Fishlegs: he's okay, he doesn't shove me into walls, punch me, or tell me I'm useless, but he generally ignores me. The guy's basically a talking book of dragons, so he knows more than most of us. Then you have the twins. I don't really know who's more destructive: Ruffnut or Tuffnut, but their both a part of Snotlout's crew and thus hate me.

Finally, we have the Valkryie, Astrid Hofferson. She's the definition of beautiful. She's like Fishlegs though: She ignores me, brushes me off because talking to me is basically social suicide. Like Fishlegs, she actually has a respectable quality: she's a warrior. She fights, trains, and works harder than anyone from her generation. Beauty comes with a bite, and she's no exception.

Their all part of the fire brigade. Their job is so much cooler than mine; while they get to put out fires, I'm stuck cooling metal, sharpening swords, and giving weapons to people who know how to use them better than I do, and probably better than I will ever. I want to get out there, to make my name worthy of a chief, but I'm stuck sharpening other's swords. How pointless, they're going to need sharpening again within a week.

The only way at this point to recover any social standing, for me, would be to kill a dragon. A Deadly Nadder would at least get me noticed. A Gronkle will definitely get me a girlfriend. A Hideous Zippleback? Exotic. Dangerous. Two heads, twice the status. Then there's the Monstrous Nightmare. Only the best vikings get to deal with these dragons. Why? Because they have a coat of saliva on their skin that can be set on fire on command, and a nasty habit of doing so.

But the real prize, is the one that no-one has ever seen before. It's called the Night Fury. I will be the first, not just to see one, but to kill it, and maybe recover some sliver of my social standing, at least enough so that my father can look me in the eyes.

Im going to go after it.

I will kill that dragon. I refuse to be "Hiccup the Useless."

-HHH III

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A gust of wind slammed his journal closed. He looked up, out his window, into the sky. Suddenly, with a thunderous roar and flash of red and black scales, his house burst into flames.