CHAPTER 3

Late at night Hiccup walked into his house. Upon closing the door, he turned to see the large silhouette of his father, seated on a thick slice of tree-trunk slouched over the fire-pit, stirring the coals with his axe. Hiccup tried to sneak past him and up the stairs to his room. Except…

"Hiccup." Stoick said in a gruff voice.

Hiccup winced as he paused halfway up the stairs.

"Dad. Uh..." he said as Stoick stood up and turned, taking a deep breath, he continued "I, uh... I have to talk to you, Dad."

"I need to speak with you too, son." Stoick said, rubbing his hands together.

They both straightened up at the same moment.

"I've-"

"I think-"

"-decided-"

"-its time-"

"-I don't want-"

"-you learnt-"

"-to fight dragons." They finished at the same time.

They both paused.

"What?"

"What?"

"You go first." Said Stoick.

"No, you go first." Hiccup said wanting to put off seeing his father's disappointment for as long as possible.

"Alright." Stoick sighed, "You get your wish. Dragon training. You start in the morning."

"Oh man, I should've gone first." Hiccup tried to back pedal, he rubbed the back of his neck, "Uh, 'cause I was thinking, you know we have a...surplus of dragon-fighting Vikings, but do we have enough bread-making Vikings, or small home repair Vikings—"

"-You'll need this." Stoick said as he handed Hiccup a large axe, which caused him to stumble.

"I don't want to fight dragons." Hiccup said recovering his balance.

"Come on. Yes, you do!" said Stoick, turning back towards the fire.

"Rephrase: Dad I can't kill dragons." Hiccup desperately tried to get his father to understand.

"But you will kill dragons," Stoick replied confidently, clearly unaware of his son's discomfort.

"No, I'm really, very, extra sure that I won't," not after this afternoon, he thought.

"It's time Hiccup." Stoick said, looking more severe.

"Can you not hear me?" Hiccup was beginning to get desperate.

"This is serious son!" Stoick forced the axe into Hiccup's hands the right way. His arms drop slowly with its weight again. He looked up to see Stoick under-lit with firelight. Large shadows covered his face, "When you carry this axe... you carry all of us with you. Which means you walk like us." He brought the axe back upright "You talk like us." He straightened Hiccups stance, "You think like us. No more of..." He gestured non-specifically at Hiccup "…this."

"You just gestured to all of me." Hiccup rolled his eyes.

"Deal?"

"This conversation is feeling very one-sided."

"Deal?" he said more forcefully.

Hiccup glanced at the axe in his hands. There was no point in arguing with his father.

"Deal." Hiccup sighed.

Satisfied, Stoick grabbed his helmet and duffel bag and headed for the door.

"Good." Stoick straightened his helmet "Train hard. I'll be back…. Probably."

"And I'll be here…. Maybe."

Stoick heads out the door, leaving Hiccup holding the axe.

Hiccup stood there for a few moments, contemplating what had just happened. His father had finally agreed to let him fight and kill dragons. Something he'd wanted to do ever since he could remember. But now, the last thing Hiccup wanted to do was to even think about them. He was still terrified of them but after his encounter with the Night Fury, Hiccup knew he could never bring himself to kill a dragon. He was too weak.

He let the axe fall to the floor as the walked up the remaining stairs to his room.

Lying in bed, Hiccup imagined if his mother was still here. She'd had been taken by a dragon herself. Would she be endorsing what her husband was saying? Or would she take the time to listen to Hiccups problems, maybe even helping him overcome his weakness.

He eventually fell into a restless sleep, dragons and fire haunting his dreams.


Morning sunlight peaked into the window of the chief's house, landing on Hiccup and, slowly, waking him up.

Eventually, he opened his eyes and stretched. He felt as if he'd slept for days he was so stiff. Hiccup swung his legs off his bed and began slowly walking to the stairs. As he stepped onto the first step, he heard a thud. Looking down, he saw instead of his left foot, a small metal foot protruded from under his pants. He would have yelled out if he hadn't heard a loud huff coming from behind him.

He turned around and what he saw, nearly made him yell out again.

Crouched in the corner, clearly asleep, was the Night Fury he had shot down and released yesterday. Quietly, he descended the stairs and ran outside towards Gobber's shop. Why was it here? Did it come to finish him off for shooting it?

As he ran, he kept tripping over his prosthetic foot.

"Gobber! Help!" He stumbled into the shop and, as usual, found Gobber banging away at a piece of red hot metal "there's a dragon in my room!"

"Hiccup? You're awake? Oh that's brilliant!" he scooped Hiccup into a bone-crushing hug and patted his back, "ye had us all worried and ye fathers been frettin' about you for the last few days."

"He has?" that didn't sound like him.

"Oh yes, very worried" Gobber looked around on the bench for something, "you might want to head up to the arena though, you'll be wanted there too."

"Oh yeah, dragon training right?" Hiccup said remembering he was supposed to be learning how to kill dragons with Gobber today.

"I think so" finding a small nail, he examined it for a second before throwing it away again.

"What time are we meeting?" Hiccup asked. His father had failed to mention it before he left last night.

"How should I know? Just get up there, everyone will come soon enough," with that Gobber turned around and resumed his hammering.

Slightly confused, Hiccup slowly made his way to the arena, too deep in thought to pay attention to anything around him.

He was dreading dragon training. Most of the kids around here would brag about how close they'd been to dragons. Snotlout was always saying that he'd in fact managed to shoot down a Deadly Nadder once, but no one completely believed it. Even Astrid never seemed afraid during raids on Berk, she even seemed to enjoy the thrill of it. Fishlegs knew everything there was to know about Dragons and the twins, well, when they really wanted to, they could be a force to be reckoned with.

Hiccup was the only Viking in three hundred years who couldn't bring himself to kill a dragon. A Night Fury too. The dragon that nobody has ever seen, the one that scares even his father.

That thought brought him back to the sight of the dragon in his room. The best he could do was hope that it would be gone by the time he got back.

When he arrived at the arena, no one was there and so Hiccup waited just outside until the others arrived.

While he was waiting, he looked around inside the arena. Hiccup had never actually been in the arena before, just watched from the sidelines as older Vikings had fighting contests between each other or a dragon. Off to the side of the arena, several doors were spaced out keeping dragon cages behind them for training or sport. Usually you could hear the growls of the animals even from outside. Today though, Hiccup couldn't hear anything. Perhaps Gobber had moved them because of training.

Soon, he heard voices coming from around the corner and Snotlout, the twins and Fishlegs walked up with Astrid following behind. Unfortunately, Gobber didn't seem to be there. Great, Hiccup thought.

"Hiccup?" Astrid called evidently not seeing him from where she was.

"Yeah?" Hiccup said as he stood up and stepped out from behind the wall.

All five teens spun around at the sound of his voice, identical shocked expressions on their faces.

Astrid was first to relax, rushing up to him with a huge smile on her face and hugging him tightly.

Her sudden movement startled Hiccup and knocked him off balance. Regaining himself, he realised that Astrid, the one he'd had a crush on for years now, was hugging him.

"Astrid?" he squeaked, wondering what was going on. He could feel his face begin to burn so he cleared his throat and asked, "Uh, what's going on?"

"We've all been so worried about you" Astrid said releasing Hiccup and taking a step back.

"Well she has, I knew you were fine," Snotlout said seemingly indifferent.

"We are kinda glad you're awake though," Ruffnut added, "things have been getting a little freaky around here."

"Yeah, Astrid's been angrier than usual," said Tuffnut, rubbing his shoulder from where Astrid had punched him the day before. She sent him a glare, "What? You hurt!"

"So she's been taking out her frustration on us."

"It's terrifying."

"Guys, she's barely been here!" Fishlegs pointed out.

"Yeah but if she were, she'd be taking it out on us!" Tuffnut said pointing at himself.

"Anyway," Astrid interjected, glaring at Tuffnut before turning back to Hiccup "why're you here? Gobber said he sent you here after you came to see him. He also said you looked a little confused."

"Uh, 'little' probably isn't the word I'd use. More like 'severely', or 'extremely'. Why are you even talking to me?" Hiccup asked, "I mean, you've never spoken to me before."

"What?" said Fishlegs.

"What are you talking about? She always talks to you." Snotlout said.

"Yeah, you're like best friends now." Said Fishlegs.

"What?" Hiccup was really confused now.

A loud roar from behind caught the group's attention.

A Zippleback and a Monstrous Nightmare were in a squabble over something and Snotlout and the twins began cheering.

"Get 'em Hookfang!" Snotlout shouted punching the air.

"Barf! Belch! You can't take that lying down!" yelled Tuffnut.

"What's wrong with you?" Ruffnut said as Hookfang shot a small fireball at the Zippleback.

"Both of you get your dragons to cut it out!" Astrid yelled "Hiccup! A little help? Hiccup?"

Astrid turned around but Hiccup was nowhere to be seen.

Running as fast as he could back to his house, Hiccup tripped and face planted. Sitting up, he looked at his foot. It had been covered with grass and dirt as he ran and caused him to trip. He hadn't given it much thought since he'd woken up, but now that he looked at it, he thought he was dreaming. How could he go to sleep one night with both feet, and wake up one short? Legs didn't simply fall off and walk away in the night.

"Hiccup!"

A large black animal pounced on Hiccup as he turned at the sound of his father's voice, and began licking him.

"Oh son, you had us all worried!" Stoick came up behind the pair as just as Hiccup registered what was going on.

Hiccup screamed loudly and scrambled out from underneath the Night Fury and again, ran as fast as he could back to his house.

Toothless and Stoick looked at each other in concern as Astrid ran up behind them.

"Sir," she puffed "was that Hiccup?"

"Yes it was." He said.

"Do you know what's wrong with him?" Astrid asked.

"I'm not sure. Why? What happened at the academy? Gobber said he was a bit out of it this morning." Stoick replied.

"He freaked out when he saw the dragons and seemed to think we've never talked to him." Astrid was starting to get a bit worried.

Toothless ran back to the house and jumped up into the window the way he usually did in search of Hiccup. Stoick and Astrid weren't far behind and, from outside, they heard Hiccup yell out again.

Entering the house, they both saw something that they were sure they'd see.

Hiccup was brandishing a poker at Toothless who still clearly wanted to play, but could tell something was wrong with Hiccup. He seemed hurt that Hiccup would threaten him like this.

"Dad! Help!" Hiccup whispered, sounding terrified, eyes darting between his father and the dragon that was blocking his exit.

"What in Odin's name are you doin' son?" Stoick asked as he approached "what's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" Hiccup asked perplexed "there's a dragon in the house and you're not doing anything! What's wrong with you?"

"Well, what do you want me to do?"

"Get rid of it!"

"Toothless?" Stoick was beginning to get worried

"Okay, that's it, what's going on Hiccup?" Astrid had had enough, there was no way Hiccup was fine "you get hit in the head and suddenly, you forget your best friend? That's not right"

"Best friend?" Hiccup said, looking between Astrid and Toothless, "I don't have a best friend, and even if I did, it'd never be a dragon!"

Toothless' ears had been slowly drooping but when Hiccup said that, they fell completely flat and he stepped back. Hiccup straightened up and lowered the poker.

"So?" Astrid insisted.

"So what?" Hiccup asked

"What's going on?" Astrid slowly advanced towards Hiccup.

"What do you mean?"

"Why are you acting weird?"

"I'm not acting weird, everyone else is, last night you tell me I'm going to be in dragon training," Hiccup said, gesturing to Stoick, "and that he's going off to try to find the dragon nest a- wait, why are you here dad?"

"What do you mean son?" Stoick said confused.

"I mean, you're supposed to be looking for the dragon's nest at Hellheim's Gate like you do every year," Stoick never missed a chance to try to find where the dragon's nest was "you left last night."

"We found the nest ages ago" Astrid said.

"Huh?"

"Yeah, we found a Red Death there," Astrid added, "it was controlling the dragons and making them raid Berk to feed it."

"Wait, we?"

"Yeah, you were there, Snotlout the twins and Fishlegs all helped too," Astrid "that's how you lost your leg."

"But I don't remember any of that" Hiccup looked down as his foot as Toothless nudged him, "Ahh! Umm, please, I'd feel much better if he wasn't here."

"He's harmless though," Astrid said, gesturing to the, admittedly, innocent- looking dragon.

"All the same, though," said Hiccup

"OK, come on boy, he just needs some time. You can go with Stormfly, she'll look after you" Astrid said as Toothless walked, shoulders hunched, outside.

Hiccup felt a pang of guilt in his stomach seeing the dragon look so devastated. He seemed genuinely hurt that Hiccup didn't want him around. But, why? Dragons are mindless and will kill anyone without a second thought. His father had always been firm on this point.

But something's changed Hiccup thought; he was relaxed when that Night Fury jumped at you outside and when he wasn't three feet from him just now.

So why did fifteen years of hatred towards dragons, of any shape or size, suddenly shift to Stoick the Vast, the man who decapitated a dragon when he was a baby, standing, completely relaxed, beside a Night Fury. The dragon that had been feared by the people of Berk?

"So, if you don't remember any of that," Stoick said as Astrid re-entered "what do you remember?"


I don't own either the dialogue in italics, nor the characters. Just the description.

Let me know what you think! R&R