'This is Berk. It's twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of freezing to death. It's located solemnly on the Meridian of Misery. My village. In a word? Sturdy. 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. See, some places have mice or mosquitoes, we have...'
"Dragons..." A teenaged girl, with bleu eyes and black hair, slams shut the door just as a Monstrous Nightmare blew flames towards her. After making sure the dragon was gone, she tore open the large door and closed it behind her before running towards the square.
'See? Old village, lots and lots of new houses.'
She runs right smack into another scrawny teen, who had auburn hair and forest green eyes. "Sorry!" She called after him as he ran off.
'The toothpick of a girl is me. My name's Nori. The guy I accidentally ran into? That was Hiccup.'
As she got closer and closer to her destination, villagers started yelling to her to get inside. Suddenly, someone grabbed the back of her tunic.
"Nori? What are you- Get inside!" The man screamed, pushing her back towards her destination.
'That's Stoick the Vast. Chief of the Tribe. They say when he was a baby, he popped a dragon's head clean off it's shoulders. Do I believe it?'
Stoick grabbed a nearby cart and threw it at a Deadly Nadder before it crashed down onto the grass.
'Yes I do.'
Nori kept running, and finally arrived at the village elder's home. Gothi peaked her head out of the door in time to see the teen rushing inside.
"Glad you're safe, Nori. Wouldn't want you to get carried off with you being to only one in the village with that gift, now." She said to the black haired girl. Nori nodded.
"I don't know how I keep making it out alive if most days I can't tell the spirits from the living." Nori replied.
'Yeah, that "gift"? I see spirits. Sometimes I can't tell if someone is real or not because spirits look exactly like the living, except they're dead. It's harder to tell who's who then you think.'
Nori heard a loud explosion and ran outside to see what was going on. The Bucket Brigade was fighting to put out a flaming fireball that was once a house.
'See? Old village, lots and lots of new houses. Those teens putting out fires? The husky one with short blond hair is Fishlegs. He's like a walking dragon manual. Then there's the bulky one with black hair. That's Snotlout, the son of the chief's younger brother. After that comes the twins, the rather scrawny teens with overly long blond hair. The male twin is Tuffnut, and his sister is Ruffnut. Finally, there's Astrid. She's a really good fighter, but if anyone is better than her at something, then you better look out. All the guys are into her because she's basically the definition of hot. I don't really like her. Their jobs are cooler than mine though. Even Hiccup's job is cooler, and he's the blacksmith's assistant!'
Nori watched in envy as the teens battled the blazing fires, but then turned and watched some dragons as they continued to raid the village.
'Did I mention the dragons? Around here, killing them is everything. Nadderheads would get you noticed. Gronkles are tough, and taking down one of them would get me at least some friends. Then, there's the Hideous Zippleback. Two heads, twice the status. After that, Monstrous Nightmares. Only the very best take those down, because of their habit of lighting up like a torch. The biggest prize is a dragon no one's ever even seen. We call it the...'
A blue blast of flame, followed by a burst of white fire lit up the watch tower and the result was all the man standing on it, including Stoick, jumping down before they were set ablaze.
"Night Furies!" Someone screamed.
"Get down!" Another warned.
'No one has killed a Night Fury, let alone seen one up close. Here on Berk, we have two who help the other dragons when they raid us, but here's the odd part. They never steal food, never show themselves, and never miss.'
Nori was still standing outside when she saw Gobber leave his shop, followed by a sneaky Hiccup. She decided to follow him to see what he was going to do. Nori may have been told time and time again to stay inside during raids due to the fact that she was useless in battle, but she was great at sneaking around without anyone noticing. Hiccup stopped on a cliff top, and opened his invention, a bola launcher. He got it ready, and when one of the Furies shot a blast at a torch, he aimed at it and shot. There might not have been any people there, but all the spirits near enough watched as the dragon plummeted towards Raven Point. Hiccup started jumping up and down in triumph.
"Yes! I hit it! Did anyone see that?" He asked excitedly. All the spirits either nodded or said yes, and Nori was about to say something, when a Monstrous Nightmare came up the cliff-side and smashed Hiccup's launcher. "Except for you." He said, turning around to face the dragon. The Nightmare started to charge at him and Hiccup ran, screaming as loud as he possibly could. Nori got up from her hiding spot and ran back towards the village also, knowing it wouldn't be long before Gothi went to see what all the commotion was about and would notice the teenaged medium missing. Just as the elder was leaving her home, Nori arrived to help her and they went to the square where Stoick was in the process of giving Hiccup a speech.
'Oh, and one other thing.'
"Sorry, dad..." The teen boy said. His father sighed. "Okay, but I hit a NIght Fury." Hiccup spoke fast. Stoick didn't believe his son for one second. Scrawny little Hiccup the Useless, hit a Night Fury? Impossible. "It's not like the last few times, dad. I mean I really, actually hit it. It went down just off Raven Point. Let's get a search party out before it-" He was cut off by his father's angry voice.
"Stop!" Stoick said, then continued calmer. "Just stop. Every time you step outside, disaster falls. Can you not see that I have bigger problems? Winter is almost here, and I have an entire village to feed!"
"Between you and me, the village could do with a little less feeding, don't you think?" Some of the Vikings looked at themselves in shock.
"This isn't a joke, Hiccup! Why can't you follow the simplest orders?"
"I just can't stop myself. I see a dragon, and I have to just kill it, you know." Hiccup twisted the head off an imaginary dragon to get his point across.
"Oh, you are many things, Hiccup. But a dragon killer is not one of them. Get back to the house. You, make sure he gets there! I have his mess to clean up." Said Stoick, and Gobber led Hiccup off. Nori was about to say something, but someone stood in front of her. Her twin sister's spirit.
"Nor, let it go. It won't help anyway." The ghostly teen said. Nori watched as the other teens made fun of Hiccup.
"I have never seen anyone mess up that badly. That helped." Snotlout said. The other teens snickered.
"Thank you. I was trying, so..." Hiccup said as Gobber walked him towards his home.
"He never listens." Hiccup was ranting to Gobber as he was led towards his home.
"It runs in the family." Gobber replied.
"And when he does, it's always with his disappointed scowl, like someone skimped all the meat in his sandwich. 'Excuse me, bar maid. I believe you brought me the wrong offspring. I ordered an extra large boy with beefy arms, extra guts and glory on the side! This here, this is a talking fishbone!'" He imitated his father's accent.
"Now yer thinkin' about this all wrong. It's not so much what yeh look like, it's what's inside that he can't stand." Gobber said, trying to cheer up the teen.
"Thank you, for summing that up." Hiccup sighed and walked into his home. As soon as he was sure Gobber was gone, he ran out the back door in search of the Night Fury.
AN: New story. I know I already have way too many, but this idea popped into my head while watching an episode of William Shatner's Weird or What. And, when it says 'her twin sister's spirit', it's because Nori's twin sister, in this story, died a bit before the beginning of the story. Her sister also saw spirits, though. So, yeah. R&R.