How to Train your Dragon is owned by Dreamworks Animation. This story is owned by me.

My own deleted episode of Riders of Berk

"However, if you're flying into a low pressure zone, it should create some updrafts, so you'll need to drag the tail a bit to achieve level flying. Now, if there's a crosswind-"

A fireball flew over Hiccup's shoulder and scorched the chalkboard he was writing on. He let out a defeated sigh, turned around and asked for what seemed like the hundredth time, "Okay, who was it this time?"

He was greeted by a disinterested looking Snotlout, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut far too intently studying the ground, their shoes, or fingernails. Hiccup had expected as much, so he turned to his right toward the deadly nadder and her sleeping rider, "Astrid, who was that-Oh, come on, you too?"

Astrid was jerking awake from the nap she had apparently been taking during Hiccup's lesson, "Wha? Me what? I'm awake, I'm good," she said hastily, rubbing her eyes.

Fishlegs piped up with a raised finger, "Uh, it was Snotlout, Hiccup."

Snotlout scowled and went back to inspecting the dirt. "Teacher's pet," he grumbled.

"Guys, this is serious," Hiccup pleaded, "You wanna crash into a rock pillar at 60 miles an hour?"

"Puh, YEAH!" cheered Ruff, "That sounds awesome!" She and her brother clashed helmets, like they always did when they remotely approved of anything.

"Besides," Tuffnut added, "why are we learning all this boring windy, airy stuff anyway? It's Barf and Belch's job to know all that stuff, and they're on top of it, right guys?" He asked his dragon, who were both inspecting a spot on the back of their wing that they had apparently never noticed before.

Astrid yawned, "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I agree with Tuffnut."

"Ha!" Tuffnut accused, "Typical, you'll agree with Hiccup on anyth-wait, what?"

Hiccup looked genuinely suspicious, "Who are you and what have you done with my-...what have you done with Astrid?" Well, that wasn't awkward at all.

Astrid frowned and pushed herself up with her ax, "Look, all this stuff about air currents and temperatures and how to angle the wings, the dragons already know that," she finished proudly, patting Stormfly on the nose, "the dragons know how to handle themselves more than we ever will, we're supposed to direct them where to fly, now how to fly."

"Yeah," agreed Snotlout with a smirk, "Don't forget, Hiccup, most of us have whole dragons, we don't have to do half the flying for them-OW!" Snotlout was knocked face first into the dirt from behind by Toothless's tail, showing him just how "handicapped" it was.

"Yes, dragons have all the natural instincts of flight," Hiccup admitted, "but there will be some unforeseen situations where instinct won't cover it and you'll have to think things through on the fly. What we bring the dragons is higher intelligence and critical thinking."

Toothless perked up and growled, vaguely recognizing the insult.

"Oh, pipe down," Hiccup scoffed, "You can be insulted by that when you stop thinking your shadow is a female Night Fury."

Astrid raised that sardonic eyebrow that she had perfected, "You're honestly telling me that a dragon's honed instincts is augmented by that?" she gestured to the twins naming their dragon's toes for the 12th time that day. They could never agree on names for very long.

"It's not just that," said Fishlegs, coming to Hiccup's defense, "It's also good to know the abilities of each kind of dragon, so we can fly any one in a pinch. I wish I would have had this lesson before I had to fly Toothless that one time." He shuddered as he remembered how little Toothless had skimped on the "fury" part of his name. "For instance," he began smugly, as he always did when he showed off his dragon knowledge, "the Monstrous Nightmare's broad wings give it a +7 endurance for long distance flights, but gives it a critical weakness to erratic winds. The Deadly Nadder's aerodynamic shape gives it a +3 speed boost, but its lack of forward limbs limit where it can land-"

Snotlout let out a groan, "Who else could take all the wonder and excitement of flying freakin' dragons and turn it into a dull board game? Yeah, Fishlegs, we get it, Nightmares are cool and awesome, Gronkles are fat and useless."

Meatlug whimpered, her feelings hurt. "He doesn't know what he's talking about, girl," Fishlegs cooed, stroking her snout before glaring at Snotlout, "That's not true, Snotlout. Gronkles top the charts in terms of maneuverability, and can lift exceptionally heavy loads."

"Well that was already obvious," Ruffnut said to Tuffnut. They both snickered.

Fishlegs got defensive again, "You try staying slim with as good of a cook for a mother as I do."

"He's...actually got a point on that one," Snotlout admitted, "Her crab cakes could tame the Red Death. Anyway, forget all this. Can't we learn all this air stuff by going out in the air? Ya know, doing that "flying" thing that dragons do?"

"Oh, you want to go out in this?" asked Hiccup sarcastically, "Be my guest," and he threw open the doors of the Academy to reveal the thick blanket of fog that had covered Berk and the surrounding islands for the past few weeks. Berk got some fog every spring, but Hiccup never remembered a spring this bad. The only thing that had interrupted it was scattered rain. It wasn't heavy rain, a downpour to get it all over with, just enough to make everything wet and nasty.

Hiccup looked out at his home and sighed, "Berk. Snows 9 months out of the year and rains the other 3."

"Yeah, you keep saying that," said Fishlegs, "But it's really not true. Our average precipitation rate is actually-"

"Oh, he's just being overdramatic like always," Astrid walked up from behind him and "playfully" punched him in the arm.

He rubbed what had become the perpetual bruise in that one specific spot, "Well, it's certainly true today."

He was about to get back to the lecture when he saw a very recognizable silhouette towards the entrance to the Academy. The fog was so thick that Gobber was only 50 feet away from him before he could make out his face. "Hiccup!" Gobber called, "Come down to the docks. Something's gone wrong with the fishing crew."

"What do you need me for? Did they bring back a new dragon?"

"The problem's not with what came back, it's with what didn't."

Hiccup thought it was best to just go and look instead of asking about it.

When he got down to the docks, Hiccup thought that Gobber was pulling his leg. The fishing boat was nowhere to be found. But as he got closer, he discovered what Gobber had meant. Stoick and Gothi were looking over a very waterlogged, barely alive viking. There were other people gathering around, but Stoick had obviously ordered them away to give half drowned man safe. Hiccup recognized the sandy brown beard and shaven head as belonging to Mace Hammerson (his father's name was Hammer. Nobody said vikings were well-rounded).

"Dad, what in Thor's name happened?" Hiccup asked Stoick, "Where's the ship? Where's the rest of the crew? Where's the dragons?" They had started using Terrible Terrors while fishing, sending them in the water to heard the fish into the nets.

"All very excellent questions," Stoick answered, "Only half the Terrors are back, they came in pulling Mace on a splintered piece of driftwood. They were barely alive from the exhaustion. We've taken 'em to the stables already."

Gothi was delicately inspecting Mace, gently putting pressure on various spots of his chest and neck. Then she stood up and, using all her expertise, brought her staff down with a CRACK on Mace's chest.

Water spurted out of his mouth as he started coughing and jerking around, but at least he was moving now. They waited until he opened his eyes so they could talk to him. Before Hiccup was born, a fight with a Thunderdrum had left Mace with almost none of his hearing. He now got by with a mix of shouting, lip reading, and hundreds of repetitions.

"Mace, what in Thor's name happened out there?" asked Stoick

"No thanks, Stoick, I'm not hungry. Could go for a drink, though."

"No, Mace. What happened to the rest of the crew?" Stoick stressed, as Hiccup handed Mace a water skin.

"You're right Stoick, I could go for Gobber's best brew."

"No, you idiot!" Stoick grabbed Mace by the shoulders, "The fishing crew"

"Well, yeah I'm feeling blue." Mace said, shrugging Stoick off, "I just watched my friends lose their minds and crash a boat, that'll put a damper on anybody."

"WHAT!?"

"Dad, allow me," Hiccup cut in, "He probably can't read your lips, since no one's seen your upper lip in decades."

Hiccup over-exaggerated his lip movements, "Mace. What. Hap-penned. To the fish-ing crew?"

Mace's face grew dark as he recalled what happened to his shipmates, "We were fishing off the Isle of Night when we saw a monstrous storm heading our way. We were slow from our holds being so full, so we knew we would never make it back to Berk in time."

Mace cast down his eyes, embarrassed about what he said next, "So we tried to save time by cutting between Raven Point and Wrecker's Reef."

Knowing that Mace wouldn't be able to hear the anger in his voice, Stoick grabbed him and spun him around to face him, "You WHAT!?"

The stretch of ocean between the two islands was infamous on Berk. The blanket of fog that currently covered Berk was always present in that area, for reasons no one could figure out. It seemed to be the spot where all the fog in the world came from. Combine that with all the sharp rocks that litter the strait, and all the Vikings made sure to take the long way round.

"We thought you would be mad if we dumped the catch!" Mace said in his defense, "It's spring and we've got a lot of new mouths to feed. We needed every fish on that boat. And we couldn't hold up on one of the islands. One of them is covered in Smokebreaths, the other in Changewings. Our ship would be stripped or melted before we got our feet dry."

"It's okay, Mace," encouraged Hiccup, "Just tell us what happened. Did you run aground?"

"No, if that had been the case, we all could have taken the boat back. We were sailing through the rocks when we saw something off our port side. Another island."

"An island?" asked Hiccup in disbelief, "There's no way there's an entire island that close that we didn't know about."

"I'm deaf, Hiccup, not blind. I know what I saw. We didn't know about it because no ship had passed through the fog before. When we could just make out the outline, the men started acting...funny."

"Funny how?"

"They all started staring at the island, with this big stupid grin on their faces. They kept telling me how unlucky that I couldn't hear it."

"Hear what?"

"Well I don't know, do I? They just said it was the most beautiful sound they had ever heard. And they said they could see something in the direction of the island. Something they couldn't resist."

"eep!" Fishlegs let out a noise somewhere between a mouse and seagull. Hiccup ignored it.

"Before I could do anything," Mace continued, "the helmsman made an abrupt turn toward the island. The closer we got to it, the thicker and sharper the rocks got. I finally tried to take the wheel, and in the fight the ship rammed a rock sharp as a knife at full speed. The last thing I remember is getting thrown overboard."

"Ooooh gods, oh gods oh gods," Fishlegs started to breathe heavily.

"Fishlegs, I know what you're thinking, stop it," Hiccup ordered, "I'm sure there's a perfectly logical reason for this."

"Yeah!" said Fishlegs, "It was logically a siren!"

Snotlout chuckled in the same condescending way he did everything, "Aw, are the scawy monsters gonna come get you? Does the baby need his mommy? Honestly Fishlegs, is there any fairy tale you don't believe in?"

"You fly a dragon, dude."

Snotlout looked confused. "Yeah...so?"

"Think about it! Strange sounds luring sailors to their deaths? All the books point to it."

"HA! Well how are you supposed to prove that they do, since I can't read?" asked Snotlout smugly.

"Both of you shut up and saddle your dragons," ordered Hiccup.

It took a few seconds for Stoick to realize what Hiccup was getting at, "NO! Hiccup, you can't be thinking of going out there. We just lost a dozen men and a whole ship! What makes you think the same won't happen to you? This isn't the time to satisfy your fleeting curiosity."

"It has nothing to do with curiosity, Dad. The other men might still be out there. The Terrors were able to bring Mace all the way back here, and only half the Terrors are accounted for. The others dragons might have helped the other men to the island."

Hiccup started running toward a waiting Toothless. The other dragon riders were already saddling up. Stoick chased after him, "What makes you think you can even get close to the island without being bashed to pieces like the ship?"

"Yeah, the *ship*, Dad. The obsolete vehicle of yesterday. The dragons can navigate the foggy rocks surrounding Dragon Island, they'll manage here."

"Well you're a fool if you think I'm letting my son fly off into the blind by himself. I'm coming too."

"No, Dad, you're not," said Hiccup, trying to sound as stern as possible while looking up at the 300 pounds of muscle that was his father, "You aren't ready for this kind of flying. You can barely get Thornado to not buck you off within a minute of getting on him."

Hiccup climbed onto Toothless and hooked his peg leg into the stirrup, "Besides, you don't have to worry about me falling victim to some Siren song. I don't listen to anyone, remember?"

With that, Toothless kicked off the ground and led the other dragon riders into the fog.