Berk Theatre

A/N: So…yeah, this happened. XD This is the first installment of a series of shameless self-insertions. I know self-insertions are kind of frowned upon by the fan fiction community, but these stories are not, repeat NOT supposed to be taken seriously. These are just some light-hearted comedic tales involving myself and two of my very best friends in the whole world. (I am Audun and my two friends are Hillevi and Alva.) The only goals I have are, one: to give you a glimpse of what hanging out with these two wonderful people is like for me, and two, to make you laugh. If I can achieve these two modest objectives, I will consider this collection a success. So I repeat, please don't take these stories seriously! They're just for fun! (Besides, I need something lighthearted to balance out the seriousness of Hiccup the Useless. Seriously.)

Anyway, on with the show!

The entire population of the Isle of Berk showed up for the premier performance of Once Upon a Raid, a play written by Fishlegs and starring the local children. The Great Hall was packed to the brim with Vikings eager to see the kids present this fairy tale on stage. The usual tables had been pushed aside and replaced by rows and rows of benches, and every seat was occupied. An excited murmur filled the hall as its occupants chatted and laughed in anticipation.

At the back of the hall, three friends took an entire bench to themselves. Well…themselves and their dragons. Hillevi the Steady, with her brown hair, oval face, and bright eyes, sat with her red Monstrous Nightmare Daydream and was currently cuddling with the dragon's head. The expression on Daydream's face suggested that she'd been accosted like this before and was resigned to it. On Hillevi's right was her best friend Alva the Gregarious. She had blond hair, though at the moment it was hard to tell, as she was covered in a swarm of Terrible Terrors, all of which she had "rescued." On her other side sat Audun the Scribe, tall, brown-haired, and currently in conversation with Hiccup, who was seated on the row in front of him.

"Is this Fishlegs' first script?" Audun asked, reaching up absently to scratch the chin of his yellow Terrible Terror Sundance, who was perched on his shoulder.

"Yep," Hiccup replied, twisting around in his seat to speak to his friend. "He's really excited about it." He glanced swiftly around before adding in an undertone, "Hasn't shut up about it in weeks, in fact."

Audun chuckled.

"Where's Phantom? I hardly ever see you without that dragon," Hiccup inquired.

"Oh, he's out there with Toothless and the others," Audun said, gesturing vaguely back at the doors to the Great Hall. "Seriously, if we all brought our dragons in here, there'd be no room to breathe!"

Hiccup glanced over at Hillevi, who was still snuggled up against Daydream's face. He opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, but Audun answered before he even got a word out, "There are exceptions to every rule. And if you value your life, you'll make that exception."

Hiccup gulped. "I do value my life, oddly enough," he remarked with a nervous laugh. He then quickly changed the subject. "How's Mojo doing?"

Mojo was Audun's horse, the only horse on Berk, which Audun had brought with him when he, Hillevi, and Alva visited the island just before the battle of the Red Death. The trip had been on the occasion of an inter-tribal wedding and they had been caught up in the whirlwind of events that had followed. When Stoick announced that dragons would be integrated into the Vikings' lives, the three friends decided to make their stay permanent and moved in with the chief's blessing that very week. Mojo, Audun's grumpy old paint gelding, went everywhere with his master and thus became Berk's only equine resident.

"He's being a crotchety old man," Audun now said in response to Hiccup's question. "Does nothing but eat all day and positively glares at me every time I saddle him up to ride."

"So he's doing fine then," Hiccup summarized.

"Never better," Audun returned, and they both laughed.

"What's so funny?" came Alva's muffled voice; there was a Terror perched on her face.

"You know, if you left the horde at home you might actually manage to be a part of things," Hillevi remarked, her eyes never leaving Daydream as she continued to cuddle with the dragon.

Alva shook her face free of the Terror, which promptly scurried up to nestle in her hair. "Leave my babies?" she said, aghast. "I could never do that! Leaving the poor things all alone in that house…" She shuddered as if the very thought made her feel faint.

Hillevi rolled her eyes and didn't reply. Hiccup shot them a questioning look but Audun whispered, "Don't ask," and he thought it best to stay silent.

The show began not long after that and silence fell upon the hall as the kids performed. The story was a cute little fairy tale about two kids who stow away when their parents set out to raid a neighboring village and find themselves on a magical adventure, encountering witches, trolls, and of course a few dragons.

One such dragon was a yellow Terrible Terror that Hiccup had trained himself for this role. He was the witch's minion and spent most of the show perched atop her shoulder.

And then the witch turned her head and said to the little dragon, "Go fetch my broom, Periwinkle."

There was maybe half a beat of absolute silence.

And then Daydream burst into flame.

Audun and Alva (as well as most of the others in the hall) turned to look at Hillevi, whose expression was absolutely blank. But her two friends knew better than to think all was well. They both knew that Daydream was so in tuned to her mistress' thoughts and emotions that she always flamed up whenever Hillevi was angry or upset. They turned to look at each other. Then, without saying a word, they slowly, nervously began to scoot toward the edge of the bench.

Hillevi spoke. Her voice was calm, toneless, and gave no warning or indication that she was upset. But both Audun and Alva knew that this exact tone was her most dangerous and began to scoot a little faster away from her.

"They named it…"

Scoot.

"…Periwinkle…"

Scoot, scoot.

"…and…"

Scoot, scoot, scoot.

"…it's…YELLOW?!"

Several things happened in such rapid succession that no one could ever say afterward what exactly occurred or in what order. Audun and Alva scooted right up to the edge of the bench. Alva accidentally shoved Audun off the seat entirely, and he fell to the floor with a yelp. At almost the same instant, the bench leg snapped and the end collapsed, sending Alva and her horde of Terrors toppling on top of him. Hillevi, now seated on a slanted surface, slid rapidly down the slick wooden board with a startled "Eep!" She landed on the pile of humans and dragons, and Alva's Terrors all took off, flapping and squawking indignantly as the three friends struggled to extricate themselves from each other. Then, all at once, the little dragons descended and landed atop them, completely concealing them in a mass of moving, multicolored scales.

All this took about five seconds.

Another three seconds of absolute silence followed, in which the other Vikings all stared dumbfounded down at the mass of Terrors.

And then the mountain erupted like a volcano, and Hillevi lunged to her feet with a wild, "BUT…IT'S…YELLOW!"

"Oh gods, here we go," Audun moaned under his breath, and then added to Alva, "Do you think you could possibly get off me? I can't breathe!"

Alva opened her mouth to reply, but her words were drowned out by Hillevi yelling, "FISHLEGS!"

The stout playwright squeaked in terror and trembled in his seat near the front of the hall. Hillevi marched toward him, her still-flaming dragon following close behind. "It's yellow?!" she cried. "Yellow?! And you named it Periwinkle?!"

"Y-yes," Fishlegs stammered. "W-we couldn't find a b-blue dragon and train it in t-time for the show…s-so we had to make d-do with the yellow T-Terror."

Hillevi's nostrils flared. "But…it's…YELLOW!"

"Should I try to stop her…?" Hiccup asked uncertainly.

"Not unless you want to lose your other foot," Audun grunted, struggling to an upright position. Sundance returned to his shoulder with a disgruntled grumble.

"Uh…" Hiccup glanced down at his feet. "No, I'd really rather not." He looked back up to see that Hillevi was chasing Fishlegs all over the hall. The sight was garnering a few laughs from the crowd, and truth be told it was rather amusing to watch. "Why exactly is she named 'Hillevi the Steady' again?" Hiccup asked. "This doesn't exactly scream 'steady' to me."

"Well, the name 'Hillevi' does mean 'happy in war,' so…" Audun shrugged.

Hiccup raised his eyebrows. "Oh…that explains a lot, actually."

"You have no idea," Alva muttered. Her voice was slightly muffled, for her horde of Terrors had settled all over her once again.

It took several minutes to calm Hillevi down, though she continued to fume to herself as the show continued. Her eyes narrowed dangerously every time a character mentioned the name "Periwinkle."

Act One drew to a close and was followed by an intermission. Audun noticed that everyone seemed to be giving Hillevi and Daydream a wide berth. "You know, it's not that big a deal," Alva began, but she fell abruptly silent when Hillevi shot a glare her way.

Act Two began, and it seemed as though everything would turn out okay.

That is, until the witch stepped on stage again.

With a blue dragon perched on her shoulder.

This time, Audun and Alva didn't wait for Daydream to flare up. They shot to their feet and bolted for the doors, throwing them open and hurtling out into the night. From behind them they heard Hillevi scream, "WHAT?! WHAT?! NO! YOU CANNOT JUST CHANGE THE COLOR OF THE DRAGON AND EXPECT US TO GO ALONG WITH IT! IT'S CALLED CONTINUITY, DAMMIT!"

"Phantom!" Audun called, and immediately a blue Deadly Nadder swooped in from the sky, squawking a greeting to his rider.

"River!" Alva trilled (her voice still muffled by the Terror on her face), and her own Nadder, also blue, approached. Toothless gazed after the two departing dragons, his head cocked to the side in confusion.

"Don't worry, Toothless," Audun said to the bewildered Night Fury. "I'm sure Hiccup will explain everything."

"If he survives Hillevi's rage," Alva added.

Toothless merely blinked, puzzled, but neither Audun nor Alva paused to explain further. They both climbed onto their dragons' backs and took off into the night, leaving the echoes of their friend's fury behind them.

"Think she'll calm down by morning?" Audun asked over the sound of the wind rushing past their ears.

"Maybe," Alva replied, shaking her head to free her lips from Terror feet. "If she doesn't burn the Great Hall down first."

Audun chuckled. "Well I guess Fishlegs will learn his lesson from all this. Never under any circumstances name a dragon by a color if its scales are not of that particular color."

"And never change the color of a dragon; it disrupts continuity," Alva added with a nod.

"Of course," Audun said after a moment's thought, "it may not matter either way. Somehow I doubt that Fishlegs will ever write a play again after all this…"

A/N: And yes, Mojo is really the name of my horse. I figured if I was really going to do this self-insertion thing, I might as well include him in it.