A Foreword on: The Heart's Fire
Let me first say: The Heart's Fire is a fanfiction based entirely on the Dreamworks film "How To Train Your Dragon" and not the book written by Cressida Cowell, which it was based on. This story, therefore, takes a great deal of creative license with the fact that to the Vikings, the Night Fury was the rarest breed and virtually nothing was known of it. Even after Toothless was gentled, he seemed to be the only Night Fury around in a world populated by Nadders and Gronkles, Terrors and Nightmares and two headed Zipplebacks. Even after battling the Green Death and living to tell the tale, what did the Viking village of Berk really know about their most fearsome enemy turned ally: the Night Fury and the one and only example of the breed they had ever known? The answer is – not very much.
Set eight years after the Battle of the Green Death, which freed the dragon clans and allied them to the Vikings of Berk. Since I was unable to find an exact age for either Hiccup or Astrid in the movie (if someone knows what age they were supposed to be, please let me know and I'll adjust accordingly) I'm going to take creative license and say they were fourteen at the time of the Battle. This puts the young teen Viking gang from the movie in their early twenties. Adult life is just getting into full swing for the motley crew and Berk is just about ready to see in a new generation that will have never lived without dragons living and working by their sides.
Disclaimer ~ I own none of the canon characters. (Hiccup, Astrid, Toothless, Stoick, Gobber, Snotlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, etc.) I have none of the rights to any aspect of the How To Train Your Dragon story or trademarks (though I wish every night upon a star that I did!)