This is Lima.
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; in a word? 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 sunset. The only problems are the pests. You see, most places have mice or mosquitoes. We have…
Dragons.
Most people would leave. Not us, we're Vikings. We have….stubbornness issues. My name's Blæng. Great name, I know. I go by Blaine. But it's not the worst. Parents believe that a hideous name will frighten off gnomes and trolls. Like our charming Viking demeanor wouldn't do that.
Chief of the tribe is Starkad the Vast. He stands tall and broad, a Viking helmet placed firmly on his tiny head. He is the very definition of a Viking. He has a long beard and long hair braided down his back. He also was very strong. They say that when he was a baby he popped a dragon's head clean off of its shoulders. Do I believe it? Yes, I do.
"What have we got?" He asks the men nearby, on the lookout for dragons to attack.
"Gronckles, zippleback, and somebody saw a Monstrous Nightmare." Another Viking nearby answers.
"Any Night Furies?" He says with a little bit of worry. Not too much, though; he is a tough Viking after all.
"None"
"Good." Starkid says with a relieved sigh.
His best friend and right hand man with attitude and interchangeable hands is Vermund. He's the village blacksmith. I've been his apprentice ever since I was little. Well, little-er. "Blaine! Nice of you to show up, I thought a dragon had come by and picked you up!" He says as he's hammering out a damaged weapon. I had just run in after being yelled at by every villager to "GET BACK INSIDE!" Things tend to go wrong when I'm outside.
"Oh I'm too tough. They wouldn't know what to do with all…this" I say back, flexing while throwing on my apron really quickly.
"They need toothpicks, don't they?" Vermund says with a laugh.
Oh and then there's Artie, David. the twins Rachel and Mike and... Kveldulf. (We call him Kurt) They're running around with water buckets putting out all the fires they could. Kurt doing it so…fabulously though. Like he was BORN to be a Viking.
Aw, their job is so much cooler. Putting out fires from all these dragon attacks... While I'm stuck sharpening the weapons and tinkering around. They get to be where the action is; with the other Vikings taking down the dragons and defending our sheep and food.
One day I'll get out there though. Because killing a dragon is everything around here. A Nadderhead is sure to get me at least noticed. Gronckles are tough. Taking down one of those would definitely get me a…date. A Zippleback? Exotic. Two heads, twice the status. Then there's the Monstrous Nightmare. Only the best Vikings go after those. They have this nasty habit of setting themselves on fire. They burn down the majority of our village. But the ultimate prize is the one dragon no one's ever seen. We call it the Night Fury. This thing never steals food, never shows itself and never misses. No one has ever killed a Night Fury. That's why I'm going to be the first. That'll get Kurt to definitely notice me.
I notice during this attack that a Night Fury does show up. While Starkad is battling a Monstrous Nightmare, a Night Fury comes screaming out of the night and fires on our catapult. The villagers just manage to get out of the way before the catapult comes crashing down onto one of our shops.
"I've got to go out there and defend them!" Says Vermund as he hobbles past me, switching his hammer on his arm for an axe. He stops just before the door and turn to me. He says, "Stay. Put. Here. You know what I mean." Then, screaming, he turns and goes after a Gronckle.
I nod and wait until he's completely out of sight before I make my move. I grab my newest invention; it's a machine that fires this string with two rocks on it. It helps to take down dragons in the sky. I haven't gotten it quite perfected yet (the first time I tried it I ended up hitting a villager in the head and knocking him unconscious) but I was determined to make my move and get a dragon. I run outside with it (the chorus of "GET BACK INSIDE!) hitting my ears) and get it set up as fast as I could in an open area. "Come on, give me something to shoot at…" I say to myself, scanning the skies for something, ANYTHING, to take down.
On cue, a Night Fury comes across the sky and hits a tree nearby me. I fire it in it's direction and I hear a scream, and I see it falling into the forest nearby.
"YES! I did it!" I yell and punch my fists in the air, "Did ANYBODY see that?"
I hear a crunch and I whip myself back around to see a Monstrous Nightmare crushing my machine. "Except for you…" I turn and start running away from it, screaming my head off.
As I'm running, I'm praying to the Gods for a small miracle. I go to hide behind one of our pillars, hoping that somehow, he won't see me past the pillar.
That is one smart dragon.
He shoots fire at me and gets the pillar to collapse onto our big nets, freeing the dragons that were already captured and getting all of our sheep in a net in one swoop. Starkad runs up to the Monstrous Nightmare to fight him off, but it just takes off with some of our food.
The pillar then continues to fall and destroy some of our pier and even more buildings. Starkad the Vast comes up behind me and gives me his disappointing look.
Oh and there's one more thing I should mention...
"Sorry…dad." I utter.