What if-

Chapter 1

It was early in the morning, and all was silent on the isle of Berk. Hiccup groaned as she got up, not liking at all the way she was woken. Toothless was jumping around over her bed, the huge black beast leaping from the rafters before landing next to her bed. He licked her face, before letting out a chortle that could wake the dead.

"I'm up! I'm up bud!" She put her hands up in defense, accepting the fact that she wouldn't be getting any more sleep.

Toothless laughed at her, a deep resonating sound filling the house. She looked at him fondly, loving the way her dragon looked in the lowlight. His black scales reflected almost blue against the morning sky, emerald-green eyes glowing with life and intelligence.

She could still remember the sorrow of her life before Toothless, the constant rejection she felt every day until she found him. Her mind drifted back to the time before she had Toothless, and the first month or two of having him.

Hiccup ran out of the forge, not paying any mind to Gobber's orders. She wheeled her contraption around the many warriors, turning away from where she could see her father fighting a group of Deadly Nadders. She was going to shoot down a dragon, and her whole life would change. She would get a marriage offer, hopefully marry before she was fifteen, and gain the respect of the village.

She set up the contraption pulling the levers into place on the green grassy slope that overlooked the ocean.

"Give me something to shoot at, give me something to shoot at." Hiccup turned it to the right, seeing a black shape move against the sky. Night Fury! She aimed and fired, her eyes closing as she shot and her small frame immediately thrown back due to the kick of the slingshot.

A roar filled the night air, and she saw a bundle of blackness shoot across the sky and crash somewhere in the forest.

She gasped. She had done it! She had taken down a Night Fury! The one dragon no viking had ever seen.

No one had respected her, but that one small act had changed her life forever.

The other villagers had scoffed at her tale, calling her a fool and naturally, a hiccup. That's what she had been, a waste of space and a mess up in Stoic the Vast's life, But now, her father could say that she was his daughter with pride.

After many tries, she had found Toothless in the forest, and unable to kill him she had set him free. She was rewarded with a small amount of trust and knowledge of the Night Fury no one would have ever hoped to gain.

Hiccup had shredded his tail fin, and he couldn't fly without it, so she made him a temporary tail fin and had trained him and herself to fly together.

When her father found out about Toothless and the fact that Hiccup knew where the huge dragon nest was, he went into a rage. Locking toothless into a sort of transportable cage before setting off for dragon island to try to kill all the dragons.

Hiccup had tried to stop him, but when he didn't listen she had gathered the rest of the younger vikings left on Berk and convinced the that dragons could be trained.

As soon as she could she had set off after Toothless and her tribe, wanting nothing more than to stop the destruction that was bound to happen.

A Red Death resided inside of the volcano on Dragon Island, and if her father angered it or disturbed the nest it would kill them all.

Flying behind Astrid Hofferson on the back of a Deadly Nadder was odd, but it was far quicker than taking a boat. They got there to see the mass destruction already caused by the raging monster. It roared in rage when Astrid had Stormfly blast it with her blaring hot flame.

The whole dock was aflame, and to Hiccup's horror she saw Toothless struggling against his bonds on one her father's ship. The boat, already weakened by the flame eating away at it, had pretty much disintegrated into nothing but a few boards after she jumped onto it. She was pulled into the water by a stray board and saw Toothless struggling to get to the air. She swam down to him, tearing off his muzzle and pulling at the chains. Her head had gotten foggy, and she remembered being thrown out f the water by her father, who then proceeded to free Toothless. She had stood there with Toothless, halfway onto her dragon's back.

"I'm sorry... For everything." Her father's words have given her strength, and using her ingenuity and cleverness she had destroyed the Red Death. But at a heavy cost. She had lost her left foot in the ensuing explosion that killed the Red Death.

After that, life on Berk had become amazing. No longer did they all kill dragons, instead, they trained them. And had a pretty hard keeping it secret from other tribes. Not even five months ago the Berserkers had come to sign the annual peace treaty. It hadn't gone well to say the least considering that Dagur the Deranged had take his father's place as chief, and he certainly lived up to his name. But they had tricked Dagur into believing that they still killed dragons by faking a dragon attack that involved little other than a few well placed blasts and bites.

Dagur had left with his armada after Toothless almost "Killed" him. And the treaty had been pretty much signed.

Toothless nudged Hiccup into the real world, growling and hitting her stomach with his muzzle. She wrapped her arms around his face, smiling at the amazing creature before strapping on his prosthetic tail and saddle. Then without a word they swept out of the house through the cool morning air and into the Berk Dragon Training Academy.

"Yuck, you smell like fish." Tuffnut shoved his sister, Ruffnut, off of her side of their shared zippleback, deserving the good punch to the face he got afterword.

Hiccup sighed, gingerly getting off of Toothless. Today was the day Astrid would be presenting her training exercise to the group, and Hiccup was worried. The last excercise had been labeled 'Tooth to Claw Combat Training'. While Astrid's ideas were useful, they were a little... too much.

Hiccup began the lesson off as usual, and when she stepped back and announced that Astrid would be explaining her training excercise all of the other riders groaned in unison.

"Your excercise suck!" Snotlout yelled, giving Astrid an exasperated look.

"It's not that bad. All we have to do is go from this beach on dragon island," Astrid gestured to the rough map of dragon island she had on the board, "To this cave on the other side."

The other riders nodded, not seeming to have a problem with her idea until she continued. "At night. With no camping gear. And most importantly no dragons." Hiccup smirked, she knew it seemed hard, but for her this would be a piece of cake. She knew more than any other viking about dragons and their habits.

"Why!?" Snotlout and Fishlegs cried in unison.

"To practice our stealth skills and wild dragon knowledge!" Astrid said with gusto.

Hiccup nodded, "Astrid's right, we need to be able to survive on out own if we ever get separated from each other and our dragons."

"It'll be fun!" Astrid said, sounding extremely sure of herself.

The dragon riders landed on dragon island shortly after the sun went down. They all had lanterns and one weopon of choice to protect themselves if something really bad happened. Not that something would happen, they were trained for this.

Toughnut decided to be the one to take the dragons to the cave, making very 'reassuring' remarks about how he may not know where the cave actually was.

Hiccup said her goodbyes to the other members of the group before setting off in a different direction than the rest of them.

She hadn't been walking for even half an hour and had only run into a group of angry gronkles before she spotted of all things a campfire.

Snotlout! "You actually think this is stealthy?" She asked aloud, looking down at the bright blaze from her position atop a mesa. Snotlout was not the sharpest but he wasn't this dumb. Or was he? She had to ask herself again as she made her way down to the fire. She would see if he was still there and if he wasn't would probably have to put out the fire herself.

She walked towards the fire, occasionally glancing down at the floor of the forest to make sure she wouldn't accidentally trip on anything. Her metal leg wasn't even close to as good as her real leg, but it was all she had, and in a way it connected her and Toothless. He was lame too. He couldn't fly. She couldn't walk. And now they both had replacements for both of those things and needed each other to be able to live their lives to the fullest.

She entered what looked like a well-used campground. In the center was the fire she had seen, but scattered around were all sorts of swords and axes. A few maces lay on the ground a ways from her. Snotlout hadn't brought all of this. He'd only brought one sword.

"Hello?" She swung her lantern to the darkest corner of the campground to her left, not getting to do the same with the right side because of a tremendous force that shoved her to her side.

She opened her eyes, trying to catch her breath. She felt the weight lift off of her and heard the one voice she most definitely did not want to hear.

"Hiccup?"

"Dagur?" She looked up at him, not having any clue why he was there. Horror filled her, if he was there she would have to lose him quick if she didn't want to start a war. The Berserker tribe didn't know that the Hooligans rode on the backs of dragons, and Dagur had sworn war last time he had suspected that they had an army of dragons.

"Oh Hiccup you're alive!" He pulled her into a very awkward and rib-cracking hug, before releasing her.

"Last time I checked..." She replied, scratching the back of her head awkwardly. "Um, can I ask you why exactly you're here?"

Dagur gestured for her to take a seat on a fallen tree she could now see was fashioned into a bench of sorts. "Well it all started last time we saw on Berk. You had told me to run and save myself for my people and I was like, Okay! I'm out of here! But you stayed. So I came here. And I know why you're here so you don't have to explain anything."

She gulped, "You, uh, do?"

"You're here for the same reason I am, to hunt dragons!" He pulled her down close to her. "It's obvious why you're here. Look at you. You're dieing to earn the respect of your tribe!" He let out a wolf-like howl. "Come on Hiccup, it feels good."

"Aooohhh..." She let out, before curling in on herself. Oh no...

He went on for a few more minutes, before relaxing with his back to the tree-bench. "So, Hiccup, did you bring anyone else with you or are you all alone out here?"

"Oh, I'm all alone. Just me..." She scooted farther away from him when he turned his head away from her. One thing was for sure, she didn't want to be alone with Dagur. When she was five and he was eight he had gotten into the habit of using her as a moving or still target. She could still remember the way he would throw multiple knives at once, and more than once he grazed her or cut off a lock of hair with a well placed dagger.

She internally shuddered when he started sharpening his axe, and certainly hoped that now that he was older he wouldn't still find joy in cutting off her hair.

"After I left Berk, I found it hard to stop... thinking about you Hiccup." Dagur glanced over at her, and she could see the tattoos across his left eye, dark black against his skin.

She opened her mouth, not saying anything for a few minutes just because she didn't know how to react. "That's a little awkward... Well... I'm flattered, I guess." She cut a glance at him, hoping that was the answer he wanted.

"Not you just you specifically... You and that Night Fury. It's like you were inside its head, rattling its cage. To tell you the truth that's why I'm here. I want to learn more about dragons. know them. So I hunted them down one by one." Dagur proceeded to tell her a couple of horror stories and thoroughly grossed her out before he stopped.

Seeing him pull out a crossbow she tried to engage in somewhat friendly conversation. "A crossbow?"

"My hunting weapon of choice. You carry... A shield?" They both seemed surprised by their weapon choices. Hiccup had to say it was a little strange that Dagur didn't prefer a sword or something, and he always carried and axe so why not just use that?

"Noticing that he was looking at the shield a little to closely she tilted it in the firelight so that he couldn't see it fully. "Yep, just a plain old shield." She was lieing now. It wasn't old, it was new and had been made with wood and gronkle iron; a mysterious substance made by gronkels when they ate a certain group of rocks. And if she pulled back all of the hidden levers she had on it she could make it into her own crossbow.

"It's very ornate. My sister had one like it." Dagur held his crossbow limply, not seeming very impressed with the shield. "I myself never found he need to hide in battle." He let out a loud battle cry as if to emphasize his point.

"Can I ask you something?" She asked tentatively.

"Maybe..."

She looked down at her shield, "How long have you been out here exactly?"

"Couple days, or weeks. Can't really tell when you're on the hunt. Got to focus Hiccup. Can't relax, just have to hunt... So what exactly happened to that Night Fury Hiccup?" Dagur continued stalking around the campground, crossbow aimed pretty much everywhere he wanted to aim it at.

"Bad news, it got away." She hoped that he didn't get suspicious, and was almost relieved when he wasn't.

"That's great news. Now we can hunt it!"

"We?" She asked, voice dripping with sarcasm. They didn't make a very good team as far as she was concerned. And not that he needed to know this but she was not going to help him kill her dragon.

"It's here Hiccup, I can feel it. You can feel it too can't you?" He got close to her, sitting on the log.

"I feel awkward."

He started laughing, and to her surprise it wasn't the odd laugh that went on for a little longer than everyone else's. "You make me laugh Hiccup, but now, we're going to go get that Night Fury... Together."

Hiccup watched as he left. Together? He had said that words with an underlying tone. Dagur always had a hidden motive for being nice to her, he never did something nice to her just because he wanted to do it. And as she followed the Berserker chief, she wondered aloud what she was going to do.