Disclaimer: I do not own the How To Train Your Dragon franchise, which belongs to Dreamworks Animation and Cressida Cowell.
AN: My first HTTYD fanfic EVER, guys. As far as I know, I watched this when I was younger, forgot about it, then remembered the entire thing when the new trailer for the second movie came out and GEEKED. Of course, the trailer just wasn't enough (what trailer is?) so fanfiction's the key to satisfying myself for the time being, obviously.
This is embarrassingly short and not very well-thought-out and probably horrible, yes, but oh well. I've done shorter stories. Oh, and I should really get back to my WIP for HP (though I'm not really inclined to as I have just been hit with a deadly amount of writer's block)...
Pointless
"After Hiccup encounters the Night Fury who (unbeknownst to him) will soon change his life and the lives around him, he can't seem to think – or care - about anything else."
"Is this some kind of a joke to you?" Astrid practically bellows, and all the other kids are suddenly just as quiet as Hiccup is, struck dumb. He knows he did badly; but he really hadn't meant to. He's just… distracted today.
Distracted by, oh, the fact that "the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself" is on the island in the woods just a few minutes' walk from here.
"Our parents' war is about to become ours." Astrid's voice is scornful now, sneering. Hiccup barely notices, though, and that fact sort of startles him. She sticks her axe in front of his face, and he literally has to move back so as not to get bludgeoned. "Figure out which side you're on."
She stalks away, but Hiccup stays on the ground long after she leaves, and for once the thought that Astrid looks beautiful even when angry doesn't even cross his mind. Now, he just thinks that while Astrid is the best-looking and most intelligent girl in all of Berk, she's still also shoulder-deep in the Viking beliefs, her brain stuffed with tradition and culture and everything that's supposed to be natural, and never leaving room for anything else: In other words, the perfect Viking girl, but ridiculously biased and narrow-minded in general (in his humble opinion).
At this moment in time she will never understand him; probably never even want to try.
Well. That isn't his fault, then, surely.
Really, the only reason he's "not taking this seriously" is because none of this even feels real to Hiccup. Why try to fight dragons when he already knew he'll never kill one? How can he feel as apprehensive or excited or focused about facing Gronckles and Nadders as the other teens when a Night Fury has roared in his face and then left him alive?
He gets back on his feet slowly, ignoring how his entire body aches all over. This—dragon training, which he has, ironically, asked for for so long—it all seems so pointless. Tasteless. Uninteresting, even.
(Dragons—uninteresting? Thor, did he really think that?)
Maybe he wouldn't have before he'd encountered that Night Fury. Maybe, if he'd never shot down that dragon, he'd be prancing happily around the arena fighting just as well as the others, just as excited and thrilled and so disgustingly bloodthirsty—but somehow he's glad it happened, this happened, that he feels like this instead.
For one thing, at least now he knows his inventions aren't all useless, not like everyone says they are. He's different, yes, because no one still understands anything of his drawings or the metals and wood he melds together except him, no one else bothers, but then, he's been different since the dawn of time—he can get used to that. And he's the first to have ever seen a Night Fury up close and living through the experience, and after catching it too, though by now the last part revolts him more than anything.
He can't kill dragons.
Paying no attention to the stares of the others—Gobber is sending him a sad, sympathetic glance; Hiccup would have punched the man if he could—he heads out of the arena. Of course, he still has questions, about the Night Fury, about dragons and Vikings in general—hundreds of questions, but if really no one else knows the answers, then he'll have to figure it out by himself. He's sure he can manage it, with time and patience and using his mind if nothing else, and he can do that well enough. Nothing's impossible, right?
He should probably take a fish with him before going back to Raven's Point, especially if he doesn't want it to kill him.
He takes a deep breath.
He has a dragon to see.