"Oh, the gods hate me" moaned a teenage auburn-haired viking, named Hiccup,"some people lose a knife or a mug, no not me, I manage to lose an ENTIRE DRAGON!" He yelled in frustration, not nearly so jubilant as when he'd shot down said dragon only hours before. The countless emerald leaves on the trees around him whispered together in their thousands, painfully reminding Hiccup of the constant talking behind his back of the fellow townspeople back at the village. He laboriously trudged through the forest of his home island, Berk, looking for the elusive prize of an even more elusive dragon, the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself, the mighty NIght fury, whose defeat would win the young viking much craved respect and prestige among his peers.

Meanwhile, Hiccup slapped a tree branch in his mounting frustration, only to it to bounce back painfully into his freckled face, just his luck, but then his green eyes fell on a deep gouge in the dry earth. Vicious claw marks littering the rocks and roots around its rim. Hiccup crouched down and shuffled forward to a small rise and peeked up, and then shot back down for it was there! Laying in a crater, wrapped up in a net, lifeless and still. The Night fury, long, sleek and streamlined, scales as black as its namesake. Hiccup suddenly strode forwards filled with elation at his victory over such an infamous and feared creature of the night.

"Yes, this fixes everything, for I have brought down this mighty beast!" But as he put one boot on the dragon's arm it jerked hard, sending it's captor's scrawny form flying and began panting heavily within its binds. Okay then, not so lifeless after all. So it wasn't already dead, so Hiccup would have to kill it himself, no biggie. He edged warily closer. He needed to do this, he had to do this, then everyone back home would finally appreciate him, finally love him. He raised his knife, the dragon's eye snapped open, and the young viking stared into it. It was a large glittering green orb of...fear? Dragons aren't supposed to feel fear, they aren't supposed to be able to feel anything, they're mindless killers, beasts. Only people like Hiccup felt things, right? Yet he still couldn't kill the terrible night fury with eyes of fear, so much like his own. So his knife then bit. Bot into dragon flesh, but the ropes that bound it, the dragon was free.

It pounced! Now the tables turned. Now it was HIccup trapped at his captors mercy. Vulnerable and weak.

The dragon however had noticed something familiar about the boy, although it couldn't think what. Nevertheless his anger cooled, and he shifted his clawed paw away from the boys neck and onto his chest

.

Then it happened. Blue light shot up from the boy's chest and up the dragons arm, it shrieked in shock and horror and the same light exploded out from its chest, and shot back down into the body of the teenager before him, and both were engulfed in blue fire.

The last Hiccup saw of the black beast, were its green eyes, slitted and wide in pure terror, as it became one huge fireball, the boy, a smaller one beside it. Then the flaming silhouettes of the dragon's wings rose, and the beast fled. Both fires dying as it flew. It only made it so so far however, before it crashed back down out of sight.

Hiccup tried in vain to stand up and run back to the village, but then two steps later, he too crashed back to earth, his vision now as black, as the scales of the dragon, he spared.

Later that night, Hiccup stumbled back to Berk, the mysterious fire from earlier having somehow not burnt him at all. A village built and rebuilt throughout the dragon war, its residents no different, a history you would not have guessed from the gentle sounds and snores of peaceful slumber, echoing from many of the houses. The people that made them however were far from gentle, they were all tough born and bred dragon killers, well most of them. Just another of the many ways Hiccup was always the odd one out. He headed home to the Chief's hut, scratching his suddenly extremely itchy back and neck, where the chief himself, Hiccup's father, Stoick the Vast, sat at the table, polishing a battle-axe.

Like all vikings, he was a giant of a man, a solid wall of armoured muscle, with a huge beard like wildfire, but with an intellect not at all to match, the complete opposite of his small bony, but genius son. Who tried in vain to sneak past him. "Hiccup!" he rumbled gruffly.

"Dad, uh...I have to talk to you." was the nervous reply.

"I have to speak with you too son." Despite their differences, both men manage to say at the exact same time,

"I think it's time you learn/ I've decided that I don't want/ to fight dragons. What?"

Both do a double take, but after some squabbling over who goes first, Stoick elaborates,

"You get you wish, dragon training, you start in the morning."

"Oh man I should've gone first, you know we have a surplus of dragon fighting vikings, but do we have enough bread making vikings, or small home repair vikings-" Hiccup frantically replies, before Stoick cuts him off and more squabbling ensues. The conversation ends with Hiccup being dragged down, by the axe in his hands, and his father's blind expectations on his shoulders. As the mighty chief of Berk left once more on his ceaseless quest to find the dragons nest and vengeance, vanquishing the beasts once and for all. While his not so mighty son, hung the axe upon the wall, and watched him go before heading back up to his room.

But when he got there, the young heir did a double take, how in helheim had he just lifted that axe up so easily, but he only pondered for a moment before the itching of his back came again. In his frustration, he ripped off his shirt and vest and stood back against the mirror, expecting to see a rash or bites, but not expecting what he did see. The young man stared in horror, at the very familiar pitch black scales covering his back and neck, spines running down the centre. He looked at his own terrified face in the mirror and his blood ran cold. His eyes were now inhuman, reptilian toxic green and slitted. The same eyes that made him spare the Night fury, What the hell had that damn dragon done to him? What was that mysterious fire that engulfed them both? Despite the questions, Hiccup knew one thing for certain, no-one could know about these new mutations, or he would be killed. Frantically donning his shirt once more, he scrambled into bed and scrunched his cat like eyes shut, hoping this was all a nightmare. It wasn't.

Night had fallen, and the black dragon that shared its name was beginning to stir. As he woke, aching nerves reported scrapes, cuts, rope burns and bruises all over; but nothing seemed broken or missing. Bleary green eyes opened, and glanced down at their body and snapped open wide in shock. For his body was no longer sleek and scaled, but lanky and alien. His wings, tail and spines remained but everything else was just wrong! He scrambled backwards in instinctual shock, and pulled himself up onto two feet, using a nearby boulder and movements no dragon could replicate, yet he could do without even thinking. Now he stood alone, completely stunned into silence. Confusion his only emotion. How could being so indragon seem so wrong, yet feel so right...and familiar?