"Only the strong belong" and variations of this phrase were the building blocks of viking societies. Parents taught their children this constantly. Fishlegs had personally been taught this phrase countless times by his parents. Several examples included when his father consistently bested him in sparring matches - if Fishlegs showed any weakness during or after, he'd hear his father's strength speech at least three times throughout the rest of the day. Another example was when he spent too much time reading the dragon manual instead of practicing fighting, or training with his peers. His father did not believe that reading while you were still alive would help anyone get stronger. The only time Fishlegs' father tolerated reading was if the reader was sick, insane, or really, really old.
The main time he heard this speech was from bullying. Now Fishlegs was a bit of an outsider among the other children of Berk. Thankfully for him though, he wasn't considered too weak or strange, and therefore was accepted into the social circle of his age group. Somehow, the chief's own son, Hiccup, was considered the weirdest and exiled from the group. Fishlegs was happy that he wasn't that much of a social outcast, but even being in the main eight-year-old popular group didn't spare him from Snotlout.
Fishlegs wasn't sure anyone was spared from Snotlout's bullying.
On particularly bad days when Fishlegs would return home, unsure what to do about his peer, his father would break out the phrase again and remind him that bullying was a way to help him grow and that Fishlegs should be thanking Snotlout for the lesson. Needless to say Fishlegs didn't agree that Snotlout needed to be thanked, but after a while of gaining thicker skin, he occasionally thought that if being bullied was his main problem on an island frequently attacked by both dragons and pirates, then maybe his life wasn't so bad.
The Berserker Tribe visited Berk every four to five years to re-sign the peace treaty. This was the second time the Berserker chief brought his son, Dagur along on his visit. The first time they were all too young to remember much about him other than he was a bit wild, but then again all eight year olds were, weren't they? This time though, despite the fact that Dagur was now twelve, it was clear he wasn't much different. After Dagur being there for a total of ten minutes, Fishlegs and Astrid decided to steer completely clear of him. The twins and Snotlout all but worshiped him for parts of the day, but even they didn't spend too much time around Dagur. Something was definitely off about him.
Poor Hiccup had been given the task of keep Dagur busy for their whole visit. Fishlegs felt sympathy for Hiccup. He didn't have any real friends in the tribe, plus he had to hang out around that crazy preteen the whole trip. But as Fishlegs watched Dagur torture poor Hiccup all around the village, he started to understand his father's point of view on bullying. As much as he hated that speech from his father, he realized if you couldn't handle it from your peers, how were you supposed to handle it from other tribes? As bad as Fishlegs felt for Hiccup and as much as he wanted to help the poor kid out, he reminded himself that this would eventually make Hiccup stronger, and who knew? Maybe one day the other kids would see him as an equal and he'd be allowed in their friend circle. So Fishlegs tried to turn the other cheek and focus on his day.
However this didn't go over so well because while walking on the far side of the island by the beach, Dagur and Hiccup almost crashed right into him. Dagur had his arm tight around Hiccup's shoulders and had his standard manic grin on. Hiccup on the other hand, looked nervous and uncomfortable.
"Hello there Fish-head!" Dagur said stopping, but still tightly holding onto Hiccup. "My pal Hiccup and I are going swimming, care to join us?" Fishlegs didn't like the look in Dagur's eyes.
"Ohho! Uhh, well I just remembered I have to go do that important thing… over there!" Fishlegs managed to stammer out, shuffling as far away as he could from him. Dagur merely shrugged and continued to drag Hiccup out to the water, rambling about how he's been learning to use an axe and how he was quite good at it. Fishlegs watched as Hiccup nodded to the story, before heading back up to the rocks. Something made him stop and turn to watch the two heirs go swimming; maybe he wanted to see how Hiccup managed to survive around Dagur all the time.
As he turned around he saw them swimming around like normal kids would. Dagur almost seemed normal swimming innocently in the water. Almost. He began to circle Hiccup predatorily, and with a twisted smile tackled Hiccup under the water. Dagur came up after a moment, but Hiccup didn't. Horrified, Fishlegs realized that Dagur was holding him down. Bullying was one thing, but Dagur was trying to kill Hiccup! Fishlegs started to head out to the beach again, not entirely sure what an eight year old kid was going to do against someone four years older than him but he couldn't just sit there. Before Fishlegs could get close, Hiccup must have kicked Dagur in the right place, because and Dagur let him go and ran cackling manically out of the water leaving Hiccup gasping for air and coughing up seawater.
Fishlegs was worried he would be Dagur's new target, but Dagur continued on into the village looking for something new to do. Meanwhile, Hiccup had almost made it out of the water, caught in the breaking of the waves. Fishlegs waded out and helped Hiccup to the shore, where Hiccup proceeded to cough up a lung full of water on all fours, shivering from more than just the cold water. Fishlegs sat next to him and patted him on the back, hoping to help even a little.
"Thank you," Hiccup rasped.
"Are you ok?" Fishlegs asked concerned. "I can't believe he just tried to drown you."
"I certainly can," Hiccup said flatly which triggered another coughing fit. Fishlegs gave him another tentative pat on the back.
"Something is off about that Dagur kid, nobody likes being around him." Fishlegs added, unsure of what else to say to Hiccup. He wasn't sure he'd ever spoken to the chief's son one on one before and wasn't sure what to talk about.
"I've come to the conclusion that Dagur was either born short a few marbles or was knocked in the head by a wild dragon." Fishlegs smirked at this. Hiccup paused for half a second to sit up and breathe before continuing with his rant. "Had to be something crazy to mess him up, even Snotlout isn't this insane, and everyone knows he runs his head into rocks to - as he puts it - 'strengthen his skull'" Hiccup said the last part in a Snotlout impression that was so accurate, Fishlegs couldn't help but laugh. Who knew Hiccup had a sense of humor? Fishlegs noticed that Hiccup seemed to relax with someone by his side to laugh at this with. He took a breath to say something but was interrupted by Snotlout and the twins calling him over from the village.
Hiccup must have noticed Fishlegs was feeling torn, because he motioned to the town. "Go on," He said his voice finally losing the rasp, "You don't want to lose your place in their circle," Fishlegs looked there and back again.
"Yeah… I guess so" He stood up and turned back to town. "I'm glad you're alright, I'll see you around." He added as he left. Fishlegs had a new respect for Hiccup for being able to put up with Dagur. It wasn't everyone who could walk away from a near death experience and crack jokes. Fishlegs decided that, while they weren't remotely the best of friends, maybe he would help Hiccup out when Dagur came along next time, just to give Hiccup someone to laugh with afterwards.
So four years later, when Hiccup was pinned to a tree by Dagur's new throwing knives and Fishlegs was trapped in a cage, they could at least laugh about how much better Hiccup's reflexes had gotten and how Fishlegs wasn't claustrophobic anymore.
Just because only the strong belonged didn't mean they always had to do it by themselves.