Everyone on Berk knew Hiccup's limitations - knew them better than Hiccup himself did, probably. If you had talked to any one of the vikings of Berk, they would have told you all about "Hiccup the Useless". You'd have heard about his faults. His unfortunate scrawniness. His decided lack of muscles and viking-like aggression. They'd have told you about his weaknesses, about his lack of competitive behavior. His woeful clumsiness, his stumbling, and his general ineptitude. Hiccup, a real viking? They'd have laughed.
And as for Toothless… Well, even the smallest of vikings knew that a downed dragon was a dead dragon. It was just a fact of life. And that night fury - he was definitely down. They all saw it, and Fishlegs remembered it clearly. If not for its missing tail fin, it would have flown away from the vikings and their weapons without a backward glance. It could have evaded them easily. But it hadn't. It was down. That missing tail fin should have been its death sentence.
But it hadn't been. Oh, how it hadn't been.
Because somehow, nearly the entire village of Berk found themselves in a scenario they would never have thought possible. They were all there, at the fiercely-sought-after dragon's nest… But they weren't fighting dragons. In fact, all the dragons had fled. All except for one. One. Monstrous. Dragon. It could have killed them all. It would have killed them all… if not for Hiccup. A strange thought, that.
And so the vikings stood on the rocky island ground with their eyes raised to the heavens. Probably nothing had held their attention like this in years. But of course, it was a sight like no other. Scrawny little un-viking-like Hiccup atop a night fury with a missing tail fin. With that description, it would sound almost laughable. It would sound like a mess up, a failure, a hiccup. But that couldn't be any more inaccurate.
Separated, Hiccup and Toothless had their limits. But together… together, they were unbound. They were limitless. Unstoppable.
They flew expertly through the sky, black as night and swift as lightning. They flew as one, and like that, their faults fell away. Hiccup was not clumsy up in the air. He was never afraid. He was not unsure or uncertain. Never hesitant or embarrassed. He knew what he was doing. It was as simple and innate as taking a breath. And Toothless… Well, the dragon wasn't dead, and he certainly wasn't down. In fact, Fishlegs doubted he had ever seen anything so far from "down".
A chill ran down his spine, goosebumps rippled across his skin, and suddenly he understood how truly great his chief would be. He remembered his mother telling him stories of Stoick's certainty in his son, even when he had been born early and wasn't expected to make it through the winter. And suddenly Fishlegs understood this, too. And quite as suddenly, "Hiccup the Useless" was a laughable thought. There was nothing further from "useless" than what they were watching now. They were watching something extraordinary. They were watching history being made. They were watching a complete paradigm shift in the viking way of life. The gravity of it all weighed him down, and he didn't move a muscle. Only watched, as the chief's son and his dragon fought for the people who would have exiled one and killed the other.
Hiccup is useless. A downed dragon is a dead dragon.
Gods, had they been wrong.