Lightning Always Strikes Twice
Prologue
"My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes."
My hometown is Berk. It's situated far to the north on a small island. Here, it snows nine months of the year and hails the other three. The mountains are razor-sharp, the food is hard and often tasteless; the farming is close to impossible. We have lived here for seven generations, but the buildings are all new. It's a tough life, but we are tougher. We are Vikings, and we wouldn't have it any other way.
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III is my name. Not the best name, but far from the worst. And it helps scare off the gnomes and trolls. Sadly, it's the rest of me that constitutes as a failure. At least according to my dad. You see, I'm not the biggest, nor the tallest Viking. I'm not even the strongest Viking. Quite the opposite, unfortunately. I do have a brain larger than an acorn, but intelligence does not mean much around here. No, here it's all about the pests. While other places may have mice or bugs, we have dragons.
Fire-breathing, acid-spewing, winged, clawed monsters. At least, it keeps life interesting. Dragon slaying is everything in Berk. It determines who you are, what girl you can get, where you live and the weight of your opinion. The more you kill the higher up the social ladder you are. Vikings are not complicated creatures.
Around these parts, we typically get a few different types of the beasts. The first is the Terrible Terror. Not too impressive at first glance but they are not to be underestimated. Their speed, accuracy with fire, and pack hunting mentality make them a dangerous adversary. Killing one of them would at least get me noticed.
Then there is the Deadly Nadder. Birdlike and colorful, this dragon has extremely hot fire and even worse, poisonous spines that it launches from its tail. They're fast, dangerous, and great company for a Vikings axe. With one of their heads, I wouldn't be such a failure.
Gronckles are sturdy and tough. Due to their bee-like wings they can fly in any direction making their movement, while slow, unpredictable. And with their pure strength and club-like tails, only the strongest of Vikings are able to wrestle with these creatures. Nailing one would definitely land me a date.
Exotic is the word I would use to describe the Hideous Zippleback. Two heads, one spewing flammable gas, the other with the spark to make it go boom. They have sharp, wicked fangs that they use to inject venom for predigestion. Luckily, two heads on these beasts' means double the status when they die.
Then there is the Monstrous Nightmare. Only the strongest of Vikings can hope to take on one of these. They have this nasty habit of setting themselves on fire before they attack. Taking out one of them would make me an instant celebrity.
But the ultimate prize is the dragon that no one has ever seen. The only proof of its existence is its chilling cry as it blazes across the night sky and the destruction that its plasma shots leave behind. It never misses, and no one has ever survived a close encounter. We call it Night Fury. If I could slay one of them, I would become a legend.
At my age, not killing a dragon is expected. After all, I'm still young, but the date is closing and soon not having slain one will make me a disgrace. I have a year, maybe two, before that happens. Of course, the absence of dragon heads on my wall has nothing to do with lack of effort. Due to my frail stature I have instead tried to use my intelligence to slay one of the monsters. But it never works. In fact, I always seem to make it worse. I have destroyed the Mead Hall, accidentally released dragons from the Kill Ring, crushed livestock, and burned down one of the docks. And that's just the first page of my résumé.
It's not my fault. There are always consequences that I could never have accounted for. Still, it has been more than enough for people to call me Hiccup to Hapless. I am a walking disaster – my intelligence is a curse, according to my dad. He banned me from building any more of my contraptions, but I of course don't listen.
I have to kill a dragon. I want to be like dad.
Stoick is my father and is everything I am not. Big, proud, strong, he's one of the best dragon slayers in the history of our village. It is said that he killed a dragon as a baby by popping its head clean off its body with naught but his hands. Do I believe it? Yes, I do. It's for these reasons that Stoick the Vast is chief of the village. And an extremely good chief at that, but the dragons are getting bolder and raiding the village with alarming frequency. The amount of food the beasts pillage is starting to become of extreme concern. We have enough to last for now, but a few more successful raids and we won't make it through the upcoming winter. At least not without relying on trade, and having to depend on others for our survival is not the Viking way.
Me? I'm not supposed to worry about that. I am supposed to help Gobber in the forge. And, yes while I do indeed do that, I also am building a contraption that I know will help me in my goal. In fact, I just finished it. I will kill a dragon, no matter what. It is in my blood.
This is Berk; we are Vikings, and this is my story.
