The Phoenix

Prologue –

This is Berk. It's twelve days north of hopeless and a few degrees south of freezing to death. It's located solidly on the meridian of misery. My village, to describe it in one word, is sturdy. And it's been here for seven generations, but every single building is new. We have fishing, hunting and a charming view of the sunsets. The only problems are the pests. You see, most places have mice or mosquitoes. But, we have…..Dragons! Most people would leave, but not us. We're Vikings. We have big stubbornness issues.

My name is Hiccup. Not a great name, but I've heard worse. Parents believe a hideous name will frighten off gnomes and trolls. I think it has something more to do with our charming Viking demeanour than anything else. But anyhow, back to introducing myself. I'm 15 years old and not what you would call your average Viking. You all are probably imagining me as some big, muscly, ruggedly handsome fellow but in fact I am the exact opposite. I am in reality shorter and skinnier than most Vikings and I wouldn't use the words ruggedly handsome to describe my appearance. In fact I would even use the word cute, as most women in the village do, to describe me if it didn't make me cringe and want to bash my head into a wall every time someone says that. As I said before, I'm short and skinny but I also have these big round emerald green eyes and raven black hair with auburn red streaks that are only seen in the sunlight. Not that many people know that as I'm always wearing a hood. Now you must be thinking why is this kid always wearing a hood? Well to answer your question it's because of all the attention I got because of my face. Unfortunately, unlike most Vikings my age, I have a slim feminine figure along with a cute, feminine face. Let's just say that I got sick of people commenting on this by the time I turned ten, hence the hood. Now let's get one thing straight, I don't actually care what others think or say about me or my appearance but it does tend to get a bit annoying when someone has to comment on it every time I'm seen. Now, I'm guessing you're thinking how does a hood make any difference? Wouldn't you just get more attention being the only one on Berk wearing a hoody? Well, believe it or not, every time I wear this hoody it's like I'm invisible. Really, no one seems to notice me at all. See why I like it so much? So now I wear a pair of long black pants and a sleeveless black hoody with red trimming around the edges. Why am I wearing a sleeveless hoody in a place as freezing as Berk is you ask. Well that would be because I've never really been bothered much by the cold. Really, I'm not just messing with you here. It's like I've got my own inner heating system that always keeps me warm. You must think I'm really weird now. Well guess what? I'm about to get weirder.

I've always been different to other Vikings. I look different, I act differently and my beliefs are different as well. I know that we basically get attacked by dragons everydy and that even a few of us have been killed by them as well, but I don't think that they actually mean any harm to us. Crazy right? Don't get me wrong, I used to think that the dragons were just out to get us. But if you'd seen what I have, you would change your mind on them too. One night I snuck out during a raid, as usual, hoping for the opportunity to slay my own dragon. So, here I am, foolishly running out to join the battle, when I trip over a tree root and land face first on the ground. Ouch, might I say because that had definitely hurt. Anyhow, when I look up I am instantly struck with fear because what I find right in front of me is a ferocious Monstrous Nightmare. I will freely admit to you that I was scared out of my mind thinking this was the end of me. I tried to get up and leave quietly before it noticed me, as it had its' back turned at the time, only to trip over the tree root again. The noise I made when I fell to the ground again caught the attention of the dragon so there was no way I could escape now. But what happened next shocked me to my very core. It came up to me looking all menacing and…..sniffed me. And that's not all, I'm guessing it liked my sent cause next thing it does is nuzzle its' head against my neck, purring, just like a cat would. Freaky as hell right? It's like it was asking to be pet like a cat. And so that was exactly like I did. You're probably thinking, this guy is out of his mind. Well I might well have been but if you had seen how that dragon was acting you couldn't deny it was sort of cute. Yeah well anyway, after I finished petting it the dragon then gave me a huge lick with its' long tongue and flew off to wherever it came from. It was gross and I couldn't wash the saliva from the dragon out of my clothes so I ended up having to burn them. But it wasn't just that dragon that changed my opinion of them. So after that night, I began to watch the other dragons very carefully each raid. And what I saw changed my view on them completely. The dragons weren't going out of their way to attack us at all. Sure they were stealing our crops and sheep but they would only attack us if we attacked them first and they never aimed to kill, just to discourage the Vikings from attacking them. So any Vikings that died due to these conflicts was for purely accidental reasons. I bet you are laughing at this. The other Vikings sure did when I told them but I know what I saw.

Now before you read the rest of this story, there are a few more things you should know about me. The first thing you should know is that I'm not exactly human. Atleast I don't think I am as I'm pretty sure most humans don't have the ability to manipulate fire. That's right I can control fire, whether it is manipulating it or creating my own flames. I can do it anything I imagine with fire. I know you must be either freaking out or shaking your head in disbelief, but I don't really care what you think. I'm just telling you this now so that you're not so confused when it's mentioned later in the story. I guess you are also wondering what my parents must think about all this. Well, not quite sure what my mother thinks about this as she died when I was just a baby. But I know how my father feels about this and that is definitely shame.

My dad is Stoick the Vast. He is the chief of our tribe. They say that when he was a baby he popped a dragon's head right off of its shoulders. Do I believe this? Not at all but then again there's not much I believe about Stoick anymore. If you haven't guessed already, Stoick and I don't really get along at all. Whether it's to do with our views or with how different I am we can never agree on anything. This wasn't always so though. We got along fine till I turned five, when I was still an innocent little kid who looked up to and wanted to be just like his father. But that all changed the day Stoick learned about my powers. We were home one day, in our little shack of a house, when I discovered my abilities. I was filled with wonder and tried to learn to do as much as I could with them. When Stoick arrived home later that evening, I was brimming with excitement at the prospect of showing him what I saw as a gift. So, I showed him my power, expecting him to be proud and to maybe even praise me. Instead he just looked at me in horror before backhanding me across the face damning me to hell, shouting over and over again that I was no son of his. The next day he apologised for his actions against me the previous night and for whatever harmful words he had said, as well as telling me to never use my powers again. That was the moment he lost the right to call himself my father and nothing was ever the same between us again. I mean you can see where I'm coming from, can't you? When you discover your child is different from others the first thing you do is to accept them, not beat the living shit out of them. Well maybe I'm being a little over dramatic as he only just backhanded me, but I didn't have any friends, even back then and Stoick was the one I looked up to and wanted acceptance from the most. Now I could hardly care less about what he thinks about me, but as a kid it is pretty traumatic for your own father to want you to burn in hell. So I guess this makes me the outcast of my village and proud. If not even my own father could accept me then what should I care if the rest of the village does or not?

So, that's basically everything you need to know about me. But one last thing before I let you read the rest of the story, I should probably introduce a few others that may or may not be important to this story. First, there is Gobber. He is the blacksmith of this village, Stoick's best friend and my boss/mentor. He is basically the father that Stoick never was to me. Although I would say he is more like the fun uncle. Then there is Snotlout. He's my cousin and also I lot bigger and musclier than I am. Basically he looks like what most Vikings my age should look like. Next is Fishlegs. He's actually even bigger than Snotlout, bigger than most Vikings our age, even a few adults. He may be a bit of a coward but what he lacks in bravery, he makes up for in his knowledge of dragons. Then there are the twins, Ruffnut and Tuffnut. Despite being twins, they can't seem to stand one another at all. They are also quite annoying so I tend to avoid them. And finally, there is Aster. He's strong, handsome smart and blonde. Basically he's the stereotypical hot guy that all the girls drool over. But seeing as he is the most likely candidate to become champion this year at dragon training, I can't blame them. But anyhow, those last five people I just mentioned, yeah let's just say they don't like me much. A small skinny fellow like me with no strengths, that they know of, heir to become the next chief. I would be jealous too if I were them. Well this is my life and despite all of its downs, I was fine with it really. But all of this was about to change and for the better. Thanks to a series of chains of events that are about to happen, I got to meet the best friend I could ever have and the one who understands and accepts me for who I am. If I haven't convinced you I'm crazy yet, then read on. Cause this is the story of how I first met Toothless and how I became known as the Phoenix.