I had gotten into bed, but I never went to sleep. The firelight tearing its way through Berk kept on replaying itself in my head over and over again. Burning itself into my mind. I watched it in fast-forward, slow-motion and reverse about fifty times every minute. It always ended the exact same way. Dragons carrying our livestock away from Berk. From downstairs, I heard my father and Gobber talking about me.

"What am I going to do, Gobber? I can't just let him stay here and work in the armory forever. That boy has got to change sometime."

"We all want him to. It's about time for him to, anyway," Gobber replied.

"Ever since Hiccup could crawl, he's been…different."

After my father had said the word "different," Gobber choked on his ale that he was drinking from his prosthetic mug. He coughed a few times, and then a ploonk sounded. Gobber had lost his prosthetic tooth in his front lower jaw, spitting it out into his mug. It was a worn-down rock about double the size of a normal tooth. "Great," he mumbled. He tried fishing the rock out with his hand, but it wouldn't fit all the way to the bottom of the mug. Such a problem was a mild inconvenience to a Viking, because Gobber just downed the rest of his drink, catching the rock between his teeth like it was nothing.

"I take him out fishing," my father continued, mindless of Gobber's suffering. "And…and he goes looking for trolls or something."

"Trolls exist!" Gobber said, holding his rock-tooth in his hand. "They steal your socks! But only the left ones. What's with that?" My father rolled his eyes at Gobber as he pushed the rock back into place in his mouth. A light tink-tink-tink sounded as Gobber gently hammered the rock back into place with the bottom of his mug. He checked it experimentally with his tongue.

"What do I do with Hiccup?" my father asked again.

"Put him in dragon training with the others," Gobber replied.

My father stifled a small laugh. "Gobber, I'm being serious."

"So am I."

"No! He'd be killed before you even let the first dragon out."

"Oh, you don't know that," Gobber said, brushing my dad's inference aside.

"Yes, I do know that."

"No, you don't!"

"When I was a boy, my father told me to bang my head on a rock until the rock split," my father started. "And I did it. I thought I was crazy! But I did it. And do you know what happened?"

"You got a headache," Gobber said sarcastically.

"The rock split. Just like my father had said. From that point I knew what I wanted to be and what I was going to become. I was going to be a Viking. I knew after that I could explore new lands, move mountains and tame seas! But Hiccup…he's not that boy. How can I let Hiccup participate in dragon training when I have no idea if he'll even survive the first day?"

"Look Stoick," Gobber said, trying a different approach. "You can't protect him forever."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying you can only prepare him. The sad truth is you won't be around all the time to protect him. He's going to get out there again, you know. And if his 'Night Fury' thing is true, I'd bet he's going to try and find that dragon as soon as we leave."

My father scoffed at Gobber. "There's no way Hiccup could have brought down a Night Fury. They're invisible. He's not strong enough."

"I'm just saying, what if he did? That...thing...he was building on his own time, you know, the one that shoots the snares?" My father nodded at him, knowing full-well what Gobber was talking about. "Well, it wasn't in the armory when everybody returned home. I'm just saying that I think he at least tried to bring down a dragon."

My father thought for a little bit. But he didn't seem concerned that I had shot down a Night Fury. He sighed in exhaustion. "I'll figure out something to do with him. Meanwhile, I've got to get food on everyone's table before winter sets in."

"I can help you with that, Stoick. But remember, dragon training."

A wooden chair scraped across the floor. Gobber was getting up to leave. He opened the door and left, closing it behind him. After about ten minutes, my father got up. I listened to what he was doing. He opened the door, and closed it behind him. I waited, hoping he wasn't shamming. After about ten more minutes, I didn't hear anything else, so I assumed he left. Time to go, just like Gobber had said. I threw on my boots and quietly walked into the upper section of our living area, making sure I was the only one in the house. The skylight was showing daybreak had arrived, and the sun was now rising. Hopefully most of Berk was asleep so I could go out on my one-man search party for the elusive Night Fury.

I looked around the living area in my house and saw it was empty. Instead of going out the front door, I snuck out the back, intending on taking a roundabout path to where I thought the Night Fury might be. I had three things with me: a knife, a pencil and my handy-dandy notebook. The notebook was a small thing, just large enough to jot down designs (like the initial concept I had for Mangler) and rudimentary maps. The knife was for defense and/or to cut the Night Fury's heart out. I had trekked around that particular area so many times I could run through it with my eyes closed. I knew where every single tree, rock and cliff was. Next stop: north side of Berk. Objective: cut out Night Fury's heart. Reward: unimaginable.

The sun was high enough in the sky to see without any trouble. The forest I was walking in was another story. Every summer morning until just short of midday, fog was always rolling around. But it was no matter. My notebook and my experience told me exactly where everything was, well, except for the dragon. I looked all around where I was standing. I couldn't see Berk from here. That would have given me an excellent idea of where the dragon was. But I could only guess. The trees were too dense to see anything far from here, and the fog was especially soupy this morning. I put an "X" on my map where I was standing. Counting, I had visited eighteen sites that the dragon might have ended up at. I was oh-for-eighteen thus far.

I put the pencil into the crease of my notebook and clapped it shut, sending a sharp pop reverberating through the forest. I heard a bird take off, probably startled by the noise. "Great," I mumbled to myself. "Just great, Hiccup. Some people lose a knife or a mug. Oh no, not me! I had to go and lose an entire dragon!? Why do the gods hate me so much?" A leafy branch was in my way. Out of sheer frustration, I shoved it away. It came right back and smacked me in the face. "OW!" I glared at that branch, telling it with my expression that it didn't stay out of my way. It didn't respond. Stupid branch. I ducked underneath it and continued on.

The terrain was getting a little more hilly, so I figured I was close to the mountain. Whipping out my notebook again, I looked at it, thinking. I had traced a path I thought the Night Fury must have taken when it fell. The only problem was I wasn't sure where I was in relation to that path. I looked around where I was. Somewhere to my left was Berk. I couldn't make out the ravaged watchtower from here. To my right was more forest. I walked out to my left, looking at the sea. Maybe the dragon fell into the ocean? If it had, there was no telling now where it might be. It could have drowned, it could have been moved somewhere by the current. Heck, it could have just as easily snapped the rope and flown off. I looked around in the small bay for a couple of minutes, trying to discern any large black shape that might have been floating around. Nothing. If the dragon was there, it would have been hidden by the fog anyway. I sighed and turned back, heading the other direction, deeper into the forest.

I passed the clearing I had stopped at and faced the mountain. Well, to my left was nothing. What about to the right? I turned and headed away from Berk.

Meandering through the trees, I couldn't find anything. No sign, no nothing. I stopped and placed another "X" where I thought I was standing. "Rrrrrrrgh!" I groaned, scribbling all over the map page of my notebook. I placed the pencil back into the crease and clapped the notebook shut again. "Is it even here?" I wondered aloud. I found a small clearing and turned right, away from the mountain.

I had carved out a small path to walk on over the years wandering around here and followed it. I was busy making sure I didn't collide with tree branches that were head-high, so I was looking straight ahead. Gosh, there were a lot of them. I stepped into a trench, slipped and fell on my backside. It was one of those landings where you're not prepared, and you land directly on your tailbone. My back telescoped, and I collapsed in a heap on my side. Groaning in pain, I slowly stood, trying to work out the jangling in my lower back and obliques. "Didn't remember this being here," I mumbled. That trench had to be recent. It was only about six inches deep, but it was wide enough to just barely jump across at a full-tilt run. I wondered what could have caused this trench to happen. Looking around, I saw to my left for about twenty yards the trees had been snapped in half. The trunks were still in the ground, but the upper halves were toppled to the ground. Something crash-landed here, because the trench started about ten feet to my left and gouged out a straight-on path for a while. To my right, whole trees were cleaved. This definitely didn't happen a year ago. The felled trees were fresh. Like, within-the-last-week fresh. The wood shards were still sharp, and no bugs were infesting the trees. Maybe the trees were cut down within the last day. Maybe last night.

I gulped. THE NIGHT FURY! I quietly followed the trench, noticing it got deeper until it came to large rock. The trench abruptly stopped at the rock, and that was that. The rock (well, it was actually more of a boulder) was taller than me, so I peered around it, and jumped right back behind the rock with a sharp gasp.

The Night Fury was there.

Nature's most dangerous airborne creature was lying in a small clearing, not moving. My heart was moving so fast, I thought it was making more of a hum than it was actually beating. I peered around the rock again. Still there, still not moving. My eyes were as big as the bowls we use for supper.

I knelt down behind the rock, thinking. What should I do next? My mind was frozen. I caught a Night Fury. Now what was I supposed to do with it? As I sat there, frozen in panicked thought, I realized I would need some kind of trophy. I took a deep breath and groaned in displeasure. It didn't help that I was squeamish. I was somewhat comforted by the fact that the dragon wasn't moving. It was dead. Probably killed by the impact with the ground or boulder.

I found my knife tucked away in my belt and ripped it out with some trouble. I looked down. Belt still intact, pants not cut, leg not bleeding. We were in business. Taking a few deep breaths to steel myself, and then taking a few more, because the first few didn't work, I stood up. Ready.

As I snuck around the rock toward the Night Fury, I realized the bola from Mangler was still wound tight around its midsection, knotted and tangled, holding the dragon's wings in place. The one time I used Mangler for something other than testing, it worked like a dream. A one-hundred-percent success rate.

I approached the dragon, knife at the ready, and it was more incredible than we had made it sound. And Vikings were amazingly good at exaggeration. The Night Fury was jet-black, just like we had predicted. It was a medium-sized dragon with four legs and a long tail. I could see two large wings folded on its back with two smaller hind wings just below and behind the main wings. This monster was built…no, it was designed for speed. For stealth. The label "Nature's Most Dangerous Airborne Creature" fit this dragon perfectly. Wow. If I could just convince someone from Berk to come over here…

"Oh, man. Th-this fixes everything! I really did it! I have brought down this mighty beast!" I planted my right foot onto the dragon's foreleg and pushed in a mock show of victory. I heard a low groan and the dragon tried to move. I immediately jumped back, scrambling behind the boulder again, my heart rate returning to a steady hum. The dragon was not dead after all. I'd have to kill it.

Slowly, I walked over to the dragon's front, where I could see its head. Its eyes were open. The Night Fury had deep, yellow-green eyes, like a cat. Its pupils were slits. Its eyes looked cold and calculating, like you would expect a killing machine to be. Its breaths were slow and steady, sounding like the bellows I used in the armory. But the dragon was breathing with a lot of effort. I thought it might have been…nah, dragons are ruthless killing machines. It stared directly at me, wondering what was going to happen. This Night Fury was going to become like any other dragon that met its match from Berk: dead. I was going to kill it, just like I had told my father earlier this morning.

I focused on the dragon and whispered menacingly to it, "I'm gonna kill you, dragon. I'm gonna cut your heart out and take it to my father. I'm gonna show Berk that I'm a Viking. I'm a Viking!" I held the knife in both of my hands with the blade down. I was gonna plunge it into the dragon's chest and cut its heart out, regardless of whether I was squeamish about blood or not. It was time for me to get over that anyway.

The dragon just stared at me. I closed my eyes and raised my knife above my head, ready to plunge the knife to its hilt in the dragon's chest. I heard the dragon's breaths come louder and more quickly. This thing knew what was coming.

I looked again at the dragon and saw a different expression. It looked like it was pleading me not to kill it. After what it had done to Berk, I wasn't going to grant it a reprieve. In fact, I wanted it to suffer psychologically before I killed it. I wanted to feel it give up. I closed my eyes again and raised onto my tip-toes. I heard the dragon moan softly and put its head down on the ground in defeat.

I stayed on my toes for a few seconds, but my arm wouldn't move. No matter how much I thought about killing this creature who had terrorized our village probably since before I was born, I couldn't do it. I wasn't going to kill this dragon.

I thought about what I had just seen. The dragon looking at me, pleading for its life.

It. Looked. Scared. Of me. Of Hiccup. The most scrawny excuse for a Viking Berk had ever seen and would probably ever see. The dragon just continued breathing, exhaling forcefully every few seconds.

The knife dropped from my hand and landed harmlessly on the ground as I buried my face into my now open hands. "I can't do it," I said to myself. I had tears in my eyes. I turned around and shouted into the forest, "I BROUGHT DOWN A NIGHT FURY, AND NOBODY IS GOING TO BELIEVE ME!" I couldn't kill this dragon, so how was I going to show anyone? Better yet, how in the world was I going to convince the rest of Berk that I had spared a dragon's life? I couldn't do it. I'd be shunned for the rest of time.

Dejected, I slowly walked away, picking up my knife as I went. I turned to look at the dragon once again, still immobile, still with its head down. I looked at what I had done to the dragon. I had shot it with the bola. I had caused it to crash right here. "I did this. I tried to kill a dragon for no reason." I felt the frustration welling up in my chest and throat, and it didn't feel good. Mentally, I was kicking myself for being so stupidly mindless. I had been trying so hard to be like everyone else in Berk, and today I finally got my opportunity. But I couldn't take it.

It was crazy. Here I was, looking at a dragon and feeling sorry for what I did to it. Everyone in Berk knew dragons lived to kill. Everyone in Berk knew dragons lived to steal food. And everyone in Berk knew dragons lived to make our lives difficult. But all I knew was that I didn't feel that way now.

I saw the knife I was holding in my left hand and promised myself not to use it ever again on a dragon, regardless of what it did to us. Even if it threatened me with my life. There was no way I was gonna kill a dragon. Ever.

But I could use the knife for something else: letting the Night Fury go. I walked back over to the dragon and looked for any rope that I could cut. There were two cords around the dragon's midsection, so I sawed back and forth, cutting away from the Night Fury until the first rope snapped in two. I cut the second one off and looked at the dragon. It opened its eyes, realizing what I was doing.

I wished I had more common sense, but I'm a Viking. What can I say? After separating the second rope, the Night Fury sprang up and tackled me with one foreleg. All of this happened in less than a second. One moment, I was cutting away at the rope. The next, I was pinned underneath its right foot. My knife ended up about two feet out of my reach. Its claws, long, deadly and sharp, tightened around my chest. The dragon glared directly into my eyes, daring me to try and escape. Daring me to shoot it down again. This was the last mistake I would ever make, letting a dragon free after I had shot it down. I looked into its eyes, quickly searching for a hint of mercy behind those narrow black slits. Nothing. This dragon was pure, unadulterated malice rolled up into one creature. Unlike me. It pulled its mouth back into a snarl and opened wide, ready to launch a fireball from point-blank range directly at my head. I closed my eyes and tensed, ready to have my head blown off, but all I heard was a deafening roar from just above me. I couldn't cover my ears because my arms were pinned along with my chest. The Night Fury bellowed into my face for a few seconds before wheeling around and launching off, never to return.

Dazed and deaf for the time being, I slowly sat up and tried to relearn how to breathe, watching the dragon crash into a tree and a rock within a second. The bola had probably cramped its wings. It roared in anger as it flew off. I haltingly grabbed my knife, which was slightly behind me and to my left and stood up. I took three steps toward Berk like I was drunk and passed out cold from fear.

In our great hall, which boasted a roaring fire pit sunk into the floor, the rest of Berk was gathered. As usual, the chieftain of our pleasant little tribe of Vikings was heading the meeting.

"This is it!" my father yelled to the hall. "This is the last time those dragons will raid Berk! Let's do one last search for the nest, before the ice sets in. No matter how this war ends, it will end TODAY!" To accent his point, he stabbed his knife into the table in front of him. It only stopped because the hilt wasn't sharp. The rest of the hall shouted in agreement. One thing was for certain about my father: he could get other Vikings riled like nobody's business.

"Now, who's with me!?" he shouted. Nobody stepped forward. They all knew what it meant.

"Those ships never come back," another Viking stated. He was right. In sixteen years, I had only seen a few ships come back. Out of who knows how many. Several. Somehow, every year, we think that we can find the dragons' nest. Last year, it was just a bit of bad luck, but this year, oh, this year was going to be the year. Happens every fall. Somehow, my father was going to have to pull some really good stunt to get anyone to join him.

"We're Vikings, it's an occupational hazard," my father replied. There were a few grumbles, but nobody took charge. "Look, if we find the nest and destroy it, the dragons will move! They'll find another home!" Still, nobody seemed bent on raiding a dragon's nest. It was just too dangerous. "All right," he mused. "Anyone who stays…will look after Hiccup."

All the other Vikings in the hall immediately jumped forward, wondering when they would set sail, dragon blood on their minds. "That's more like it," he said underneath the din.

After quieting everyone down, he concluded, "We'll leave at dawn tomorrow." The rest of the hall shouted in consent.

It was semi-comforting to know my awkwardness in Berk had an upside: convincing people to do things they would never do in their wildest dreams.

As the great hall cleared, my father sat down next to Gobber at one of the long bench tables we had in the back half of the hall. "Well, this looks like a rousing success for another long trip," Gobber started. "I'll pack extra undies."

"No, I need you to stay in Berk and train new recruits," my father said.

"Oh, great. Hiccup gets lots of quiet time to himself in the armory, nobody to bother him. Molten iron, razor-sharp swords, and all the supplies for deadly weapons and contraptions you could ever need. What could possibly go wrong?" Gobber asked sarcastically.

"I thought about what you said last night. I'm putting Hiccup in dragon training with the other teenagers."

"Oh, good," Gobber replied. "Are you actually being serious about this now?"

"Gobber, don't make me change my mind."

Gobber cut to the chase immediately. "You made the right choice, Stoick. Even if he doesn't become a great fighter, he'll at least be able to help us defend Berk." My father nodded, got up and left. Gobber soon followed.

I got back to the armory in the early afternoon. Gobber was there, peacefully working away. "You're late," he said. Gobber was normally easygoing when I was working, usually because this was the only place on Berk where I half-belonged. But he didn't like it when I wasn't there to help him in the mornings. "Did you really go search for the 'Night Fury' you brought down this morning?" He slurred the words "Night Fury."

"Yessir," I said, trying not to offend him. "I found the snare, but the dragon was gone. Must've broken free or something." This was a big, fat lie, but if I told the truth, I'd be ridiculed almost to suicide.

"Well, I hope you learned a lesson from all of what went on this morning. Here are today's orders," he said, shoving a sheet of parchment into my face. I scanned it for the saddle that I was working on. Not there.

"Did Hoark ask about his saddle?" I asked, mentioning the angry villager.

"No, probably tending to his house. You can finish it, but I'm not sure if his horse is still here."

I shrugged. I figured I'd finish it anyway, but I wouldn't deliver it to him. I knew that if Jamu had been horse-napped, Hoark would find a way to misconstrue that as an insult to him. But if he came looking for the saddle and it was unfinished, he'd scream his head off at me, demanding to know why the saddle wasn't finished.

I looked around the armory and found the saddle I was working on. It was almost finished. I just needed to sew the leather pieces together. That would take thirty minutes if I was slow. I found a needle and coarse thread and went to work, holding the saddle in my lap as I went. My work today was peacefully quiet, but Gobber was muttering while hammering away at something in the background.

"Hiccup, I'll need your help with a battle axe today," Gobber told me between hammer strikes.

Without thinking, I threw a chunk of scrap iron onto the coals and started with the bellows. Then I stopped after a step and a half, my right foot still in the air. "Why do we need a battle axe now?" I asked.

"For next time, and if you ask a question like that again,…" Gobber trailed off. I figured he wasn't in the best of moods because of last night and my supposed truancy this morning. I got the message pretty quickly. I shrank back into a corner and waited for him to turn back to his work.

After five minutes, the iron was hot enough, so I placed it into a stone beaker and put it into the heat chamber below the coals.

"Ready," I said, wiping sweat off my brow.

"Okay, lemme get the mold." Gobber lurched over to the mold, kept in a back corner with parchment labeling what type of cast-iron piece it would make. We had several molds for different purposes, all sitting in the back corner. All of the molds were rocks cut in two and hinged for opening. Inside was the shape of the part that we could make with the iron.

"RRRRRRRRGH!" he grunted, hefting the mold into the vise nearby. I tightened the vise to make sure the mold wouldn't slip off while we were using it.

Gobber opened the door underneath the coals and reached in with his prosthetic forceps and grabbed the stone beaker. He poured the molten iron into the hole at the top of the mold, where we waited for it to cool before opening the mold and dousing the iron in water.

"Hiccup, are you interested in dragon training?" Gobber asked out of the blue.

"Uh, possibly," I said. I didn't want to offend him, but I wasn't really interested in killing a dragon, especially after I had made that promise to myself this morning.

"Well, you can't just keep building contraptions to shoot dragons down. It takes too much time and supplies."

"What are you saying?" I asked.

"I'm saying you can learn how to throw a snare, and you wouldn't have to shoot it."

"Oh, yeah. Like I can actually do that. You said last night that I couldn't even throw one."

"Well, it beats having to move your contraption around. By the way, what happened to that thing?"

"A Monstrous Nightmare happened to it last night," I said, suddenly not liking where this conversation was going.

"What do you mean, the dragon happened to it?"

"I mean the dragon stomped on it."

"Ah. So that's how you managed to let Berk's livestock get taken."

"Sure. Whatever you say. I wasn't trying to ruin the night for everyone. I just wanted to bring down a dragon, just like everyone else."

"Well, you can learn to do that with dragon training. But you can't just keep building those…things."

"Okay?" I asked, waiting.

"Look, Hiccup. There's the Viking way to do something and then there's your way. And your way makes grown men…uncomfortable," Gobber said, dancing around the word "uncomfortable."

I stared at him blankly, processing his badvice. "Speaking of 'uncomfortable,' I'd like a new conversation please."

"All right. How's it going with the ladies?" Gobber asked like he was a womanizer.

"Geez, way to get the mood back," I said sarcastically.

"Oh, come on. I've seen the way you look at Astrid."

It was true. I wished Astrid respected me more, because I thought she was amazing. But it wasn't a two-way exchange between us. "Oh, puh-leeze! Astrid wouldn't come near me if she was on fire and I had the only bucket of water around."

"Maybe not," Gobber started. "Not yet. But I think she likes you. Just doesn't realize it."

I had to stifle a laugh. Turned it into a fake cough. "Yeah, the next time she shows up here, watch how she looks at me."

As if on cue, a tomboyish girl's voice rang loud and clear into the armory. "Hello? Uh, Gobber. I need this axe sharpened." Astrid completely ignored me. Looked at Gobber the entire time.

Both of us turned simultaneously as I wrenched my face back to somewhat normal from the look of flabbergasted surprise I was wearing. After a long silence, Gobber invited Astrid into the armory and turned to face both of us. "So…yeah…I'm…uh…just gonna…go and, uh,…check on some…things," he stuttered. As quickly as his peg leg would carry him, he rushed out of the armory, leaving me and Astrid standing there, not quite looking at each other. We stood around for a little bit.

"So, uh, you need a new axe?" I asked after an awkward silence, completely forgetting she had only wanted the axe she was carrying with her oh-so-conspicuously sharpened.

"Hiccup, I only need this sharpened. Why can't you listen?" she said, staring right through me. Astrid hadn't even been here a minute and this exchange was already going bad. "Here," she said, dropping the axe into my arms. I nearly collapsed under its weight and my surprise. "Be careful with it. It's my mother's."

"Okay. Uh, one razor-sharp battle axe, coming right up," I said.

I waddled over to the sharpening wheel and placed the axe in the rack. I got the stone going with the foot pedal I had designed last year and picked the axe back up. The sharpening stone would run at a good clip for about ten minutes because I designed the center of the wheel with ball bearings and centered the shaft to minimize friction. Getting the sharpening stone back up to speed if it slowed down was no problem either. I started whetting the blade, getting into a rhythm, waiting for the noise to die down so that I could move to another portion of the blade. The axe was a single blade, which halved the work time for sharpening.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Astrid approach the furnace and bellows. She caught my attention like she always did. I watched her as she blew the bellows into the furnace. Generally, people weren't allowed in the armory unless they're named Gobber or Hiccup. But Astrid had been here many a time, so we weren't too concerned that she'd break anything. But, man. Watching her flex on the bellows was just a show. I couldn't take my eyes off of her.

But my ears did it for me. I heard a sharp chink and felt a jarring vibration in my hands. Crud. I looked down, knowing what I would see, but hoping it wouldn't be there. A shard of the axe had been taken out of the blade because I left it too long on that spot. Right in the middle of the blade, too. Couldn't have found a worse possible spot. But I couldn't show her the blade that I had just broken. I had to think of a diversion, and quick. Luckily for me, Astrid had already unintentionally done that.

"Hiccup, what's in here?" she asked. I knew where she was without looking. My little area, full of designs for contraptions like Mangler. Full of plans I wanted to keep secret because the other Vikings would burn them if they found out. Now I had two problems: the axe and keeping her away from my collection of designs. I figured the axe was more important.

"Uh, that's private. Stuff that's upper-level research and development. Can't let you in there," I said quickly, while placing the broken axe into a vise and wrenching the handle out. I had to get a new single blade on quickly. But before I could find it, I heard the leather hang brush back, letting Astrid have a full view of the mess of designs, plans and notes I had collected for the last few years.

"Looks like chicken scratches," she observed. "You're, uh, certainly putting your time to good use," she said sarcastically.

"Yeah," I said back as I found the blade I wanted. I removed the broken blade from the vise and placed the new one in, wrenching the original handle into the blade. I wasn't thinking about her revealing my ideas to the rest of Berk. I was only thinking that if she caught me breaking her axe, then she'd break me too. I glanced to figure out where she was as I removed the axe from the vise and made my way back over to the sharpening stone. But Astrid was a good fifteen feet away from me, so I didn't have to worry. I got the sharpening stone back up to speed and went to town again. This blade was already sharp because we had made it just a few days ago, but no one had claimed the axe. So it was just sitting in the armory collecting dust. I figured Astrid would put it to better use than decoration.

"Mangler," she said, apparently reading one of my plans. "What is it?"

"Uh," I said over the din of the sharpening wheel at work. "It's a launch for snares. You don't have to throw one with Mangler."

"Oh. Okay," she said. She had that tone of voice that told me she didn't care. "Can't wait for tomorrow," Astrid said excitedly, changing the subject. She was ambling my way.

"What happens tomorrow?"

"Ya didn't hear?" she asked. I shrugged and looked at her blankly. "All the men are leaving to find the dragons' nest."

"Okay, and you're excited because you like to…wave goodbye?" I guessed. I had no idea where she was going with this.

"No, stupid. We're gonna get the chance to show everyone what we can do."

"What do you mean?"

"Dragon training. We start tomorrow morning."

I wondered who was going to be teaching. All the men were going to be away, so who was left? I wasn't sure any of the women knew how to fight dragons. I didn't see any of them fighting last night, just trying to round the livestock up. "Oh," I said. "Well, have a good time. Don't get, you know, fried or anything like that."

Astrid shrugged and said, "Yeah, well, it's fun only if you get a scar out of it."

"Yeah, no kidding, right?" I replied. "Pain. Love it." I shuddered on the inside.

"Don't try to weasel your way out of this one, Hiccup. You're coming tomorrow too."

My stomach dropped. I felt the color drain out of my lips. Me? Learning how to kill dragons? Not good. "Uh, yeah, okay. Did my dad put me into this?" She nodded. "Uh, okay," I mumbled, completely out of words. I was planning on playing ignorant, but I heard my father last night talking to Gobber about this exact topic.

Astrid must have caught onto my sudden lack of words and quickly changed the subject. "How's the axe coming?" she asked. Inside, I was thanking her for not asking about the Night Fury.

"Good," I lied. "Almost done." She came over, and I offered her the axe.

Astrid waited for a beat and asked, "So, Hiccup. I've gotta know. Did you really shoot down a Night Fury?"

I had my hands outstretched with an axe in them, hoping Astrid would take it away from me and walk off. But she had to let me suffer. She had to ask about the Night Fury when I thought she wouldn't. "Uh," I started, racing through different ideas. "Well, I think I did." My arms had gotten tired, so I let the axe fall down to my side. Astrid didn't notice.

"What do you mean, you think you did?"

"I, uh, found the snare, but no dragon. The rope was snapped, so it must've flown off."

"Did you even see it?"

"What? The snare?"

"No, stupid. The dragon."

"Oh. Nope," I said.

Astrid waited for an awkward silence, then asked, "Can I have my axe back?"

"Oh-yeah-here," I said, way too quickly.

Astrid took the axe from my hands and hefted it a few times. "This feels different. You do something else to my axe?" she asked daringly.

"Oh, uh, kinda," I lied again. "I balanced it, pured the handle, finessed it, you know, that kind of stuff. We're a full-service outfit here."

She paused. I was hoping she'd get out of here before I blurted out that her axe was broken. "Oh. Well, thanks," she said quietly. I wasn't sure if she had caught onto it, but she didn't seem to mind. Yet.

"Oh, uh, sure. Anytime," I said. She walked out without another word, never even glancing at me. I heaved a sigh of relief.

Some of the local teenagers met up with her outside of the armory, chatting excitedly about dragon training tomorrow. I heard things like, "Man, I hope I get some serious scars across my face, you know, like my right cheek or around my eye!" or "I hope I get a burn mark on my arm so I can finally fit in!" I touched my right arm to make sure it wasn't burned. This was not going to be good. At all. No chance for me to be "conveniently absent" tomorrow morning because there would be nobody else around. I'd be too easy to find. I'd have to force myself to show up, hope that I could just barely get by without being noticed and then return to the armory. For once in my life, I wanted to be ignored.

The more I thought about it, though, the more it made sense. Lots of people would be gone from the village. Nobody to bother us with duties. For me, less responsibility at the armory. My father probably had the idea that we would hone our skills at fighting and killing dragons, and then they'd come back to us ready to fight. Sarcastically, I wondered if that was even necessary. I mean, they'd just take out the dragons' nest before we could use those skills, right?

I went home early that night preoccupied about tomorrow. About my father leaving me. About having to learn to fight dragons. I walked in the doorway while he was sitting at his usual spot, facing away from the door, eating his supper. I closed the door quietly and tried to sneak upstairs so he wouldn't notice me. But I stepped on the fifth step. The one that creaks. Most of the time I made sure to skip it because there have been times when it makes more of an explosive report than a creak. But tonight, I was too preoccupied with what I had been through to realize I had stepped there.

He noticed the sound and turned to face me. "Hiccup, I need to speak with you."

"Dad! Uh, yeah, I need to talk to you too."

We stared at each other for a moment. Took the same deep breath. And said what was on our minds at exactly the same time. I tried to tell him, "I don't think I wanna fight dragons."

"What?" we asked simultaneously.

"You go first," my father said.

Out of respect for my father, I said, "No, you go first."

"All right, then. You get your wish. Dragon training. You start in the morning."

My stomach dropped for the billionth time today. "Oh, man! I shoulda gone first! Because, you know, we seem to have this kind of surplus of dragon-fighting Vikings. But do we have enough bread-making Vikings? Or small-home-repair Vikings?" I was trying my hardest to wriggle out of this argument and go upstairs. If nothing else, I could play ignorant when someone came to fetch me for dragon training tomorrow.

Without paying attention to a word I had told him, he reached to the wall near me and grabbed an axe. "You'll need this," he said, dropping it into my arms. I grunted, barely catching the axe.

"I, uh, don't think I can fight dragons."

He laughed a little. "Yes you do! You've wanted to do this since you were little! Well, little-er."

Inside, I rolled my eyes at his badvice. "Dad, rephrase: I can't fight dragons."

"But you will fight dragons. It's everybody's dream here to be able to kill a dragon."

"Can you not hear me? I'm very extra-sure that I won't kill a dragon." I almost blabbed about the Night Fury, but stopped myself. It would be a waste of time because he wouldn't believe me anyway.

"Hiccup. It's time for you to become a real Viking." He started correcting my posture, straightening my back up and placing the axe "correctly" in my hands. "That means you walk like us, you talk like us and you think like us." Which is not at all, I mused in my head. "When you carry this axe, you carry all of us. No more…this," he said, motioning to my general area.

"You just gestured to all of me!"

"Deal?"

"This conversation seems very one-sided," I observed.

"Deal?"

I sighed. "Deal."

"Good. I'm leaving tomorrow morning. Study hard, fight harder. I'll be back. Probably."

"And I'll be here. Maybe…" I watched as he went off to bed. I put the axe back onto its hook in the wall next to me and clambered off to my bed.

I got into bed, but hardly slept that night.