Preface

This story was begun in 2010 when there was just one 'How to Train Your Dragon' movie, and I wanted to read something more substantial related to the film than junior storybooks. Since then, HTTYD as many fans have come to shorthand it, has become a broad and popular franchise that includes two movies and a green-lit third produced by DreamWorks Animation, as well as the original book series by Cressida Cowell, a DreamWorks TV series spanning two seasons so far, and a live arena spectacular co-produced between DreamWorks and Global Creatures.

Although the theme of dragon and human coming together has been the same, the telling of the story has differed significantly between Cowell's books and DreamWorks' productions. Even the live spectacular diverges in some details from the film it is based on. Further, the ancient Scandinavian sagas and poetic edda combined factual lineages with at times fanciful, even fictional exploits. Ultimately, storytelling is perhaps a spectrum where details, time spans and emphases can differ among narratives exploring the same subjects or histories.

So while 'How to Train Your Dragon 2' focuses on epic conflict, the tale and trilogy presented here will take us on a longer journey from the end of the first film more deeply into and through the Medieval lives of a human and a dragon as they seek to tame more than one wild heart, developing a family and even a legacy, still fighting some battles, and discovering much more as they do.

— Norwesterner

FFFOOOOOMMM! we saw and heard as one of the harbour bonfire towers was lit for the night. FFFOOOOOMMM! the second one lit up a short time later.

"Nice work, Snotlout," I sighed loudly, riding Toothless, as Snotlout banked away on his Monstrous Nightmare.

"Yeah, I aced the first one. But the second one could have been better," he replied with unusual self-criticism . . . for him, anyway.

Dragons, it turned out, make quick work of lighting the nighttime bonfires around our village. Problem is that Toothless and I could only watch now — ever since we accidentally destroyed the first bonfire tower we tried to light.

" . . . He can't help it if his blast is worse than his light," I tried to explain afterwards as the other villagers gazed open-mouthed at a pile of rubble in the harbour that had been a bonfire tower which had taken our ancestors years to build, while one of our ships wrecked against it at the same time. Amazing how fast heroes can turn into pariahs, albeit still respected ones, around here.

I could feel Toothless sigh beneath me now as well, as he banked away from watching the lighting of the harbor bonfires and soared out across the moonlit sea for another brief spell of evening flying.

"I gotcha, bud," I assured, patting his black neck. Together several years now, I was still amazed at how well Toothless and I could seem to read each other, especially when we were flying. It was Astrid I couldn't read though — and it felt like I had already spent a lifetime around her growing up . . .

— — — — —

"Don't look now, but they're at it again," I could hear Gobber sighing to himself out loud at the other end of the Blacksmith's shop one night as Astrid and I 'talked'.

"We must attack other tribes and villages!" Astrid insisted. "Otherwise we'll be perceived as weak, and they'll attack us! It's only the fear of dragons around here, and seeing how they used to attack us, that has kept other tribes away until now."

"But I don't want to attack!" I shot back.

"You must!" Astrid forcefully replied. "The dragons are by far our best weapons for raiding and attacking, and convincing others to stay away from us. Dragons can do far more damage, more quickly, with fewer casualties than our ships can."

"Once it was kill dragons," I sighed. "Now it's attack villages."

"We're Vikings," she responded. "Fighting something — it's what we do!"

"Is it?" I challenged. "We eat and drink, too, 'ya know . . . and we actually seem happier doing that, judging by the waistlines around here!"

"You don't get it, do you?" Astrid angrily replied to me.

"Get what?" I asked equally loudly.

"If I'm not a shieldgirl, a warrior . . . I'm a housegirl!" she said emphatically. "Stuck making cheese and butter, drying and smoking meat and fish, cooking and cleaning!"

"That doesn't sound like you," I had to admit.

"Thank you," she said, finally softening.

Astrid came towards me. I braced for her usual brand of 'pay-back' — the first half of which was normally painful in some way. I closed my eyes, wincing, but only felt her lips kiss mine this time.

"That's for agreeing with me," she said, as she then simply flung her arms around me and buried her head against my shoulder.

I stood there frozen in surprise, even shock this time. Something definitely felt different here.

I glanced over at Gobber, who was now rolling his eyes while seeming to make a repeated wrapping motion with his arms. "I trained 'ya about dragons, for Thor's sake! Do I hav'ta train 'ya about the rest of life, too?" he sighed as he then turned and left us alone.

"Ohhh," I said nervously, beginning to catch on . . . sort of, as I now put my arms around Astrid's waist.

"About time," she said, her face still buried against my neck.

"Uhh, sorry," I apologized. "Training dragons just seems to come so much more . . . naturally . . . to me."

"I can tell," she said as she pulled her head back and once again looked at me.

"Sooo . . . this isn't really about using the dragons to attack other villages, is it?" I guessed.

"Everyone pulls their weight in this village," she sighed. "Hiccup, if I can't pull my weight in battle . . . I'll have to pull it in a house. I don't want to do that. I never have."

"Hence the spiked skirt and the shoulder armor," I noted.

"You're cute when you finally see the obvious," she replied. "Help me," she then sighed.

"How?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said as she dropped her arms and looked away. "I haven't known what to do since a future, a life, of warring against dragons disappeared right in front of me. I was hoping the Dragon Master would know."

"Hey, the dragons pretty much take care of themselves," I casually responded, "especially now that we feed them fish, rather than fight them. All I do is craft dragon riding gear, and teach folks how to work with and ride them."

"You don't need . . . help . . . doing that?" she hinted.

"Nope," I said, oblivious at the time. I could so kick myself now though.

"Then maybe I'm needed as a warrior . . . elsewhere," she concluded as she turned and left out of the Blacksmith's shop.

"Astrid . . ." I called after her, but it was no use.

I turned and gave a bewildered look at Toothless, who was lounging on the floor nearby. He just got up, shook his head with a sigh as he narrowed his eyes at me, and left as well.

I wasn't getting anything that was going on that night.

— — — — —

"You feel like looking for her again tonight?" I now asked Toothless as we flew out to sea away from the freshly lit harbour lights as darkness fell now.

I could see him looking back at me briefly. He was torn for some strange reason like I was. Half of us both felt like soaring out across the night to other islands and coastlines in search once more, but the other half of us sensed it would be futile.

I could only drop my head and sigh. Toothless just banked again and took me home, as my iron foot almost unconsciously adjusted his canvas tail flap in concert with his aerial maneuvers. I don't know why, but I trusted his judgment, and his decision, on this.

I could read Toothless. I knew what he would do in flight now most all the time. I no longer had to think about what I had to do, or even consciously push, pull or pivot on the piece of wood and metal at the bottom of what remained of my left leg in order to give Toothless the support in the air he needed, for both of us.

But I could not read or understand what Astrid was trying to tell me that one night. And now, I had lost her.

"What do I do, bud?" I asked him sadly as we landed at the front door of my house, and went inside as quietly as we could.

Toothless raised and turned his head, and looked knowingly at me with his wise eyes. I could almost see him planning or expecting something. But the look and grunt he gave me told me tonight was not the right time. He simply tilted his head slightly and closed his eyes briefly, before looking at me again.

"Okay, sleep," I quietly agreed as I spotted my father, already asleep on his own bed inside the house as Toothless and I climbed the stairs towards my bed and his sleeping slab. Quietly going around one side of Toothless, I undid the straps and relieved him of his saddle rig as he slipped his front legs out of its rings, both of us trying not to make a sound. Toothless just gently took the saddle in his mouth from me and placed it and his tail rig over in a corner near my bed, before turning back and offering me his head, looking at me . . . anticipating how he could be helpful to me. He and I were working together on the ground as we were in the air.

Once again, I was just amazed at this creature . . . this being. I had almost killed him — heck, he could have killed me while he had me pinned, right after I freed him. Now we were helping each other in ways big and little. Ways that each of us had never experienced before. But ways that we each needed, and each seemed to appreciate. Why me? Why him? I would wonder at times. I never got a clear answer back. Just a feeling — and that feeling felt good.

While leaning on Toothless' head, I hopped around and sat myself down on the side of my bed. I untied the straps of my own leg rig, as Toothless gently took that as well in his mouth, and laid it to one side for me out of the way. He then raised his head once he perceived that I was safely sitting, and looked at me with both concern, yet reassurance.

"Do you know something I don't here?" I asked him in a whisper.

Toothless just continued to look at me with his large eyes, seemingly filled with incredible understanding.

"Okay . . . I trust you," I quietly said to him. His very look now brought my buried feelings about Astrid back to the surface. "Help me find her," I asked. "Help me get her back."

Toothless just nudged me with a deep sigh that seemed to signal a reassuring pledge of support. I put my arms around his broad head and hugged him, while trying not to cry myself. He held his head motionless, for as long as I needed him to.

I sighed and finally sat up, then shifting myself into bed. Once he saw I was safely lying down, Toothless just turned his head and blew out the candle on my nightstand with the gentlest of puffs before curling up next to my bed and going to sleep himself.

Astrid was right. Toothless was my best friend . . . like none I'd ever had. It was just one of hundreds of things I now wanted to tell her.