I'm falling, it's a strange feeling, oddly calming, with everything fading to fire around me. All of a sudden large black jaws appear, rush forward and snap around my legs. I gasp and wake with a start and take a second to regain my bearings. 'ok, that dream was different.' Suddenly I feel something moving over my legs, sitting up I have to stop myself from scurrying and possibly agitating the small terror that is sitting on my lap staring up at me.
"Err. Do you want something?" I ask not really expecting a response but when the terror jumps onto my basket and start clawing at the latch I can only stare. 'Did it understand me or was that coincidence.' Annoyed at my lack of action the terror jumps on my lap startling me out of my stupor and runs back to the basket, I take a moment to wonder what it wants before I remember the extra fish.
Reaching over I drag the basket to my side, unlatch it and hold out the smallest fish, the terror sits up and locks eyes with the fish in my hand. 'I wonder how it's going to to eat this, the fish is almost as bit as he is'. Tossing the fish as far as I can the terror chased after it. Glad to be left alone I retrieve another fish and start to cook my breakfast when I hear a strange slurping noise, looking over I see the terror trying to swallow the fish whole. Worried that he might choke I start to stand, only to see the terror bite down cutting the fish in half, dropping the tail and swallowing the head before looking at me smugly. 'Heh Chomp.' Eyes widening and shaking my head, I return to my breakfast, realising I just named him.
When Chomp starts dragging the fishtail back my nervousness creeps back up, I have to remind myself that he has made no threatening actions towards me and to try to remain calm. 'How am I supposed to try reason with a nightmare when I'm scared of a Terror.' This doesn't work and soon chomp becomes aware of my state. Dropping the fish he edges slowly towards me, purring and curling up next to my leg, my nervousness disappears and I can't help but smile "everything we know about you guys is wrong."
The rest of the morning is spent planning how to get enough wood for a shelter, as I doubt just going at it with an axe would work, and getting used to chomp following me everywhere. After multiple attempts at felling a tree, including finding out the axe I took is blunt, it is only when Chomp starts sniffing around the steam engine the idea of attaching the saw to its piston comes to mind.
With the steam powered saw, felling the trees is done quickly, however clearing them of branches and preparing them has to be done by hand and is nowhere near as easy. By the time I have the sections cut down and nailed together for the roof and boards made for the floor, there is no longer enough light to continue working.
Setting a fish to cook by the campfire and settling down to rest after working all day, Chomp looks up from the perch he has taken on the cart and warbles towards the sections of roof. "I'm trying to build a shelter so we can survive the coming winter, if that's what you're asking?" he looks at me and nods. "Wait can you understand me?" he nods again, still not fully believing I set my hands on the ground like I'm leaning back, stare straight ahead and say in a monotone voice, "ok, if you can understand me, bite my right hand."
Chomp just looks at me for a second, seemingly annoyed, before scampering down the cart across my legs and starts nipping at my right hand. "OW, dammit, bad idea, ok I believe you now. You can go back to your perch now." Instead of going to the cart he just curls up on my lap. 'Hmm, perhaps I can ask Chomp if he knows anything about the raids.' "Chomp, can I ask, do you know why dragons attack our villages?" he warbles and shakes his head. "Ok, have you ever seen a village?" he makes the same warble and shakes his head again. "Um, have you even seen another human before?" again he shakes his head. "Then how can you understand me?" he begins a series of warbles clicks and growls while moving his head around. Sighing I make a mental note to try learn his language once I'm set for winter.
Waking up the next morning the first thing I notice is that there is no little dragons begging for a breakfast. 'He's probably of chasing a rabbit or something.' After a quick breakfast I get to work using the carts crane to lower the floor boards into place at the bottom of the pit and set the roof sections in place above.
As I am securing the last piece of the roof I hear a voice, "nice place you've got 'ere." Startled I spin around but only get a glimpse of the one armed blacksmith before losing my footing and falling down the ramp and onto the wooden floor. Thankful that I wasn't injured I stand and make my way back up to greet my visitor.
"Gobber, what are. What are you doing here?"
"More like what are you doing here?"
"Me? I'm just out enjoying the last of this marvelous weather before winter kicks in. Not getting insulted or killed in dragon training"
"C'mon hiccup, what's wrong with learning to defend yourself against a dragon attack?"
"So, this year you're only teaching to survive dragons attack and the final exam won't include the death of a dragon?"
"Well, with the reckless aggression the other teens are showing we may need to put off the nightmare this year"
"Wait, what about Astrid, I thought she was trained to always stay calm in battle."
"She injured her foot in the first lesson. Nothing too bad, just a slight burn and it twisted when she landed. It does make it difficult for her to walk, But that hasn't stopped her from trying to get back into training, been bugging me every day."
"So how is my presence going to help any of that?"
"For one your father won't skin me alive for letting you skip out on training, plus I need a second hand in forge."
"I already made you a several new hands, and I don't care what stoic does, I'm not going back."
At this moment I spotted chomp coming towards us from the forest, Gobber must have seen him as well because he swapped out his hook for his axe prosthetic.
"Hiccup there's a dragon, get away."
"No." I run in between Gobber and chomp and lift him up to my shoulder.
"Hiccup, what are you doing."
"I'm defending an innocent"
"Dragons aren't innocent, they steal our food, attack and kill us."
"And we have made a sport of killing them. Not all dragons are part of those raids, I know chomp here isn't hostile." This gains a pause from Gobber.
"Is it the reason you left Berk?"
"No, he is not the reason I left, however he is a reason I won't return."
"There's more than one?"
"Dragon? No, my other reason to stay is because stoic has never considered my opinion in anything." There is an awkward moment where we both glance around the clearing. I decide to break it, "if there's nothing else, I need to get back to work"
"Right, work, just know your spot in the forge will always be available."
Turning away from the temptation of returning with Gobber I work on stoking my campfire to get a decent bed of embers for working metal on. Going through my pile of stones I select the flattest stone to act as my anvil and pile a few of the others to create a heat shield to protect the portable bellows from the toolkit.
"You know your house design in flawed." I look up to see Gobber is still here looking over the construction.
"What, why are you still here. If you don't leave now you'll be walking in the dark."
"Maybe I want to make sure my apprentice doesn't freeze to death. You're going to have problems when the snow starts, this ramp is going to just fill up and you will be stuck inside."
"I'll be adding a pair of hinged covers over the ramp"
"And when those get covered with snow?"
"I will connect the left cover to a winch that I can operate from inside"
"Was all that planned or did you only just think it up now?"
"Err, a bit of both."
"So, how can I help with your construction project?"
"You really aren't leaving until it's done, are you?"
"Nope, you can't get rid of me that easily."
The rest of the afternoon is spent completing the construction of the house and crafting a few pieces of furniture, a simple bed, a table and a couple of chairs.
Later, over the first supper inside my new house, Gobber is still trying to convince me to return to the village and attend dragon training. "Look until stoic is able to accept that I am unwilling to kill dragons, I will not be setting foot in the village of Berk."
"You know he'll be out here for you as soon as he returns."
"I don't care what he does, unless he willingly supports my plan to commune with dragons, and I have already found they can understand us, I will be staying here."
Movie timeline comparison –
-Hiccup has had first flight attempt, had first win in dragon training and has completed first version of Toothless's saddle
-Hiccup has added hooks and safety lines to the saddle.