Ok, I admit it. I went on the quest. I was so stupid though. No one ever survives! It was fun though, even if we did get a little beat up. Curse my Viking blood.

Hello, my name is Hiccup. I live on Berk. It is a small island a few miles away from Miserable and Freezing. Hope and Sunshine are to the south. It's not the climate that made my life miserable until now, it's the fact that so many people love to pick on me. I get their point; I'm an easy target for bullies. I'm a skinny, brown-haired, green-eyed, left-handed, dragon-watcher who is (for average people) tallish and likes the prettiest girl in the village (Astrid). Wouldn't you pick on me? Most of the Vikings are hairy and buff. Look at Snotlout for example. He is about five foot six, weighs one hundred twenty pounds, and rides a Monstrous Nightmare. Only recently have I gained respect, riding the only Night Fury in the village, and possibly the only Night Fury ever. And we call him Toothless.

It all started in the Great Hall where we were eating dinner. Fishlegs was adding more information into the Book of Dragons, Ruffnut and Tuffnut were fighting over the last piece of chicken, Snotlout was admiring himself and flirting with Astrid, and I sat quietly in the corner, minding my own business. The Great Hall was dark, as rain was lashing down upon anyone that went outside, and Thor decided to throw the worst lightning down that we've had in over 100 years. The darkness seemed to push its way into my head, making me think of Alvin and his new plans to take over Berk. It seemed less frightening when it was further away, but as it seemed to be getting closer, I began to lose hope in our small village on our small island in the middle of nowhere.

Astrid tapped me on the shoulder, interrupting my thoughts and scaring me. I nearly jumped out of my skin. "What's up? You look nervous or something."

"Oh, it's nothing, only about 500 armed Vikings are about to storm the island and hardly anyone is preparing. They could be on the island taking everyone hostage for all I know!" I said sarcastically at first, and then began to believe my words. "What if they have my dad? What if they are going to burn us up? What would happen if–"

"Hiccup, calm down already. There is no one here to do anything to us. And we wouldn't catch on fire because we are knee-deep in water." Astrid said soothingly. But, I refused to listen to her. I jumped out of my chair and Toothless looked after me, confused. The other kids all looked up too. Fishlegs was frozen with one hand on his pencil and the twins were in mid-blow. Snotlout pointed at me and started to say something along the lines of, "A-a-alv–. "

I turned around and saw... Alvin the Treacherous, just as I had said would be coming soon. He had a giant axe in one hand and a scroll in the other.

"Where's your dad, Hiccup?"
"Why should I tell you, you backstabbing liar?" I said under my breath, and then added louder, "I don't know."

Alvin threw his axe straight above my head and wrenched it out of the wall again. "You want to see it go lower?"

"H-he's off fighting with the Hysterics. Honestly." I said, and the rest of the gang chimed in their agreement. Alvin handed me the parchment and said, "Give it to him as soon as possible. Otherwise..." Alvin stroked his axe lovingly and darted a glance of pure hatred at me.

Toothless growled warningly.

"Easy bud, Alvin's leaving now." I said soothingly, and Toothless's eyes widened.

Alvin threw one last 'hate glance' at everyone and stepped out the door.

Gobber walked in, happily whistling and saw me at the door, angrily glaring after Alvin.

"What's up with all of you guys?"

Snotlout and I both muttered 'Alvin' under our breaths and I said, "Oh, nothing!"

"Just a little rainy day blues, eh?"

"Yes, now bye," Tuffnut said and we pushed Gobber outside.

Fishlegs was now over the top scared. "What if he kills us all instead?"

"Yeah!" Tuffnut yelled. "Wait, what?"

"Death comes eventually." Astrid said and we all stared at her. "Read the scroll."

I opened the scroll. Verrrry sloooowly. It read. (Translated from runes for your convenience)

Dear Stoick the Vast:

I have become aware of a so-called treasure on Berk. If I am not in possession of this treasure by the twenty-ninth, you and all your heirs will die.

Sincerely,

Alvin the Treacherous

The scroll dropped straight out of my hands. "He won't be back until the day before the 29th. He said he would come just before my birthday."

"Oh Hiccup. You would be born on Loki's day and on the weirdest day of the year. You're turning three in five days! Oh, you're such a baby." Snotlout said.

"Shut up Snotlout. You're my cousin, so you, Spitelout, and Shark will all die too."

That shut him up.

"So where's this 'treasure'?" Fishlegs asked. "We should tell Gobber."

"No, it'll only slow us down," Snotlout said, "Gobber is like an old granny dressed in Gobber's clothes."

As disturbing as it was, Snotlout was right.

Then I had a horrible idea. "Bork's map! It's in the Great–"

"Yes, we know, Tuffnut has it."

We all gathered around Tuffnut and the map. Red smears edged the page. Blood. Already a bad start. I lit a candle and held it over the map.

"'Uncharted cave, possible treasure, three men died, five hundred disappeared'." Astrid read and we all felt sick. 503 men had died trying to find this "treasure?"

Toothless growled and thunder rolled across the sky. My candle blew out.

"First thing tomorrow morning. Pack and meet at the dragon academy." I whispered.

Then Gobber walked in seconds later.

"What're you lot doing with Bork's map?" He yelled.

Oops, busted.

Needless to say, we all were grounded, even though I am in charge of all Bork's things. Actually, Gobber claims he is still in ownership of the map, and since my dad was not there to overrule him, we ended up in trouble.

Great. Now we could not go to Bork's cave and get the treasure. This was bad. Super bad. Catastrophically bad. We were going to have to sneak out. Which was also really bad. But, we did anyways.

"Stupid boy," Mildew said, sneering in the darkness. I held up my torch to see him better. Great, I had just been sent back to bed by Gobber, now what was Mildew going to do? I froze, but then decided better of it. I jumped onto Toothless's back and we took off, leaving Mildew in the dust.

By the time I got to the Academy, everyone was there.

"Sorry guys, I got stopped twice," I said. "We'd better hurry."

We flew to where we thought the cave was, but then discovered we were in the wrong place. Suddenly, out from the shadows came... Alvin?

"Oh, hello," I said, trying to recover from the initial shock. I landed at a safe distance (although with Alvin, there is no 'safe distance') 10 feet away. "I guess you'd never have thought we were here. Oh, wait, Mildew must have tipped you off, am I right?"

"Ah, no Hiccup. I came to beat you to the treasure so I could kill you later." Alvin said. "I guess killing you now will have a nice effect."

Then we took off into the air. Turning around, I couldn't resist yelling back, "Forgot we could fly?"

"Oh, no, I remember. Clearly." Alvin clapped and a Whispering Death popped out of the ground. Oh, crap.

"Whoa, you got Toothless's arch enemy as your dragon?" Ruffnut said. Tuffnut bonked her on the head. "Nice job, idiot."

"Oops," Ruffnut said.

"Oh, that's hilarious," Alvin smiled. "When I kill Hiccup, my dragon will kill Toothless."

The Whispering Death somehow looked uglier up close than ever before. His extra spikes bristled, more than Stormfly could ever have in her tail. It's purely white, nearly blind eyes didn't look very nice. In fact, they were more puke-ish than any part of anything I have ever seen. (Except for when Mildew was bit by a Scauldron on the butt.) The teeth on this thing were rotating and multi-layered like a shark's.

"Alvin, your dragon is so ugly!" I yelled. The WD (Whispering Death) and Alvin both looked at me and then Stormfly shot her spikes at them, but the WD ate them!

"Ack!" Astrid punched Snotlout in the arm to get rid of her anger.

"Ow, what did I do?" Snotlout whined, rubbing his arm.

"Set the spikes on fire," I whispered. Stormfly shot more spikes and Snotlout shot a huge plume of fire from Hookfang. I didn't turn back to see what had happened. We just flew for our lives.

We got back around 3'oclock. I knew because dragon poo was all over the streets (long story) and Gobber was singing opera (another long story).

"Time to die, Gobber. You meathead with a peg leg and your stupid little whelp are going down soon. And I will be responsible." A sneering voice said from behind me. I spun around, my heart beating faster in anger and confusion. It was Mildew, his back turned to me. I stood in front of him and burst out my anger as much as I could without attracting attention.

"Mildew, you are so dumb! Why in the world would you say anything like that, much less believe that you could do that?" I said in a whisper so that no one could overhear us. Astrid landed next to me and put an arm around my neck. She glared at Mildew like, whatever you just did, you crossed the line.

"Come on Hiccup." She said in a low tone. I continued to have a staring contest with Mildew. "Come. On!" Astrid tugged on me so hard I fell back into a pile of dragon poo very hard. My back burst into pain. Crap that hurts.

"Ouch," I said and moved onto one side. Mildew glared at us and stalked off. Oh, that hurts. A lot. Astrid looked down at me in horror, as if she had just killed something. I looked up at her and...

*Switch over to Astrid*

Hiccup made the saddest face ever and I wanted to die. His eyes were full of pain, anger, hurt, love, and most of all I saw longing. He wanted to be normal. He wanted to be like one of us, not worrying because he was the son of the chief and was expected so much of, not worrying how strong he had to be, not wondering how to get a girlfriend. I put my hands up to my face in horror. My eyes welled up with tears.

"I–"

*End Astrid*

"–'m sorry! Oh, Thor, I did this, I..." Astrid broke off and started running.

"No, Astrid, it's not your fault!" I called after her. Fishlegs helped me up. My back cracked. "Oh, that feels better. Oh, ouch. ASTRID!"

Dragon poo is really easy to clean, but I had to wear another pair of clothes while the other ones were drying. I finally managed to find a pair of clothes that I wear when it gets warmer, and believe me, it never gets warmer here. I shivered as I ran to find Astrid. It started snowing.

"Astrid?" I yelled throughout the whole village. Some Vikings gave directions, others tried to clean all the dragon poo before it froze onto the ground, and others just ran inside before the storm hit. Dark clouds rumbled overhead. I think that at some point I saw forked lightning hit the ground. That is not going to be good, I thought. Sure enough, about three seconds later, hundreds of Vikings came screaming down the hills. That's when the chaos began.

"Get the bucket brigade!" Spitelout yelled.

"Get down!"

"Astrid!"

"Lightning is everywhere!"

"Astrid!"

"Gather the weapons!"

"Get the children out of the houses!"

"ASTRID!"

I ran to the end of the street and jumped down into the clearing at the beginning of the forest. Crap, I should've brought my jacket, I thought. I plowed on deeper into the forest. "Astrid?"

Someone weakly said, "Hiccup!"

Astrid slammed into me at full force, tackling both of us to the ground. Her arms were wrapped around me so tightly I thought I would die. We sat up, but Astrid continued hugging me.

I was speechless. Astrid looked at me like, what in the world did I just do. Then she socked me in the arm. "Of course." I muttered. "We have to go back, there's a really bad storm coming up right naaaaaa–"

A huge rock tumbled down the cliff and Astrid screamed as some random Viking yelled, "AVALANCHE!"

Wow, my day has just gotten better.