Chapter 1: Prologue
I decided to make Astrid the outcast in this story.
Hiccup was taken with Valka by Cloudjumper to the Dragon Sancrutary 24 years ago, so Hiccup is a lot older then Astrid.
Astrid has an older sister: Asthera, she really plays a big role in the story if you want to know.
Good luck with reading!
Hope you like it!
This, is Berk.
An island 12 miles north from hopeless and a few degrees south of freezing to death.
We are a Viking tribe named the Hairy Hooligans and fitting in is everything in this village.
There are good points, like the beautiful sunsets, the hunting, the fishing and the big forest.
We've lived here for 7 generations, but all buildings are new.
That's all because of the pests, and not just mouses or insects, no.
We have...
...Dragons.
I woke up by the smell of fire.
There was another Dragon Raid going on outside her house.
And the house was on fire.
I ran out of my burning house, towards the smithy on Berk where my mentor Gobber would be.
My name is Astrid Vali Hofferson, the 2nd daughter of Erik Hofferson and Frieda Hofferson néé Stefferson.
I have an older sister named Asthera Valkyrie Hofferson, who would be 21 by now, and a younger brother named Allan Erik Hofferson, he's 16 now.
My older sister is not in the village anymore, that's why I said would be and by now.
She ran away 15 years ago when I was only 2 years old.
I don't know where she is, but she had probably been the only one who would ever understand what I feel.
You see, I am completely not welcome here.
All because I'm an outcast.
I dishonoured my family in the past by letting a dragon just fly away. I was only 7!
And I know, Asthera wouldn't have been proud if I had killed that Monsterous Nightmare.
She would've been really angry with me and never look back at me again.
Asthera was nicknamed 'Asthera the Kind', which really suited her. She'd never hurt any human or dragon. She never judged.
And I am Astrid the Useless, the non-Viking of Berk.
It was just an honour to my lost sister, just to let people remember that we don't have to kill dragons.
I pass the houses where the other teens are putting out fire.
I didn't pay much attention to them, so I'll talk about them later.
As I run into the smithy, I see Gobber.
"Ah, Astrid. What nice from you to join our party!" he called.
"Who? Me? Nah, you know I can't kill 'em." I said back with sarcasm, altough it's the truth very much.
I started to sharp a sword, and I handed it to a Viking warrior, who ran with it into the battlefield.
'There's gonna be a lot of dragon blood split over the village, poor dragons.' I thought, seeing my uncle taking on a Skrill which tried to shoot lightning, but there was no lightning around, so it couldn't shoot.
My uncle, Fearless Finn Hofferson, is a true Viking warrior who fights along side our Chief Stoick the Vast and warrior Viking Spitelout Jorgenson.
Chief Stoick is the perfect Viking in Berk, no one is as perfect as he is.
He really hates dragons, can't blame him much, because they took his wife Valka and his son Hiccup 24 years ago.
They say he popped off a dragon's head when he was a baby.
Do I believe it? Nah, not so much as the other teens.
Anyways, I looked outside at the battlefield, seeing the fire brigade.
There was Allan leading the group, the Thorston twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut, the know-it-all Fishlegs Ingerman the walking Dragon Enclopedia and of course Snotlout Jorgenson and his older sister Heather, Spitelout's children.
Snotlout was the future Chief of Berk since Stoick hadn't remarried or anything like that at all.
I looked at the dragons.
Killing them means a lot in our tribe.
A Nadder's head was enough to get anyone noticed. A Gronckle may be slow, but they're tough, taking one down takes courage. A Monsterous Nightmare is large big and really dangerous, you don't know what will happen, their temper is uncontrolable. A Zippleback had 2 heads, so your status dubbled when you killed one. A Hobblegrunt is rare and doesn't show up much. There's also a dragon with four heads, a Snaptrapper, that one really takes much courage.
But there's one special dragon...
"Night Fury! Get down!" a Viking man called and people started to run away.
A purple blast shot in right in front of my window.
The Night Fury.
It was probably the last of it's kind and it never raided. It always showed up in the dark nights with a black figure on it's back. It looks like it only watched from afar.
I saw a Deathly Nadder in the light of the fire, seeing a tall figure standing on it's back.
I couldn't see the face because of the hood, but it was clearly an adult woman according to the clothes and the figure.
I stepped one foot outside of the door for a better look at the figure.
The female figure waved with an enormous axe, making dragon noises.
All dragons suddenly stopped, dropped the food they held onto the ground and they flew away, following the large black scaled Night Fury with green eyes who was also carrying someone on it's back.
I really couldn't see the figure on the Night Fury, it was way to dark and to far away.
The woman onto the ice blue coloured Nadder was a bit strange.
She had a hood over her head so her face was hidden, her arms were covered in leather gloves filled up with fur, the more-coloured boots were made of yak fur, her shoulders were protected by Gronckle Iron shoulderblades with pins, her solid red shirt with a high neckline was probably made of some material we didn't know, her pants were dark blue and there was a stripped brown leather skirt with pins on it, held up with a belt of Nadder spines.
Once I had a good view of the woman, she pulled the large axe back and the Nadder few in that direction, away from the village.
"Who. Was. That?" I asked myself.
The houses were still burning, but many Vikings were speechless.
"What the hell are we doing! We need to repair our village again!" my uncle called out.
Vikings started to move, back to their houses to put out the fire.
"Those demons are really not to stop aren't they?" my uncle asked the Chief. "And who and what was that one girl?"
"I don't know Finn, but I guess it was a Dragon Rider." the Chief replied.
'Dragon Rider?' I asked myself.
"A Dragon Rider?" my uncle asked.
"Someone who lives with those demons 24/7, day in day out. They're traitors to their tribes." the Chief replied and walked away.
'I really need to find out more about that woman.' I said to myself and went back home, but the house was almost burned down to the ground.