Hi, guys. Thanks for the amazing feedback for chapter five :)

Since school's starting soon, I'll have less time to update. I may have a chapter up around October, but I'm not making any promises :(.

I will try hard to have another chapter up after this, before I get too busy.

Also, I was thinking of doing a story about Kari (in her point of view), but I'm not sure. It mostly deals with her growing up and it will tie with this story (and I'm likely to jump back and forth with this, so this is definitely not over).

Please review and I do not own HTTYD.


"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."

Albus Dumbledore.


Keeping the Nightmares Away

The sky was darkening with smoke from fires that blared in the distance. The smoke blurred my vision and I could hardly see anything. However, a noise was heard. It sounded like someone was struggling. I waved my hands, hopefully, to dissemble the smoke away.

Then I saw it: Toothless skating his head and growling in pain and angst. He kept stomping the ground and didn't seem to see me.

"Toothless? Toothless, you okay bud? What's going on?" I asked.

A man, all too familiar-looking, stomped his way over to me. His eyes were black as his soul and he wore a drape of dragon skin over his prosthetic arm. In his left hand, he held a staff and had it pointed at Toothless. Behind him, the Bewilderbeast glared down at us.

"Witness true strength of will over others- In the face of it, you are nothing."

Toothless tried to resist looking at the Alpha, but the beast's eyes twitched. The Night Fury continued to shake his head, in order to break from the Alpha's control. Suddenly, he stopped shaking and lifted his head. Slowly, he looked over to me.

"Uhhh... what did he just tell you?" I asked.

Toothless' pupils were thin. Thinner than they have ever been. The thick pupils which were usually focused and fun and adorable... they were gone. Toothless wasn't there anymore.

The Night growled and made his way over to me.

I tried to get Toothless' attention away from the Alpha. "Toothless, c'mon! What's the matter with you?"

The dragon hissed. He showed his retracted fangs, his mouth forming with plasma.

"No, no, no, what are you doing? Knock it off!" I ordered, backing away from him. I knew now what the Alpha ordered to do: kill me. "Stop!"

"Snap out of it!" I pleaded, holding my hand out. How could my best friend do this?

The Night Fury advanced closer to me. I backed away, but found myself up against ice, surrounded and trapped my the Alpha's ice contraption. I was finished.

"Toothless, no!"

The Night Fury opened his mouth, ready to fire.

"Toothless! No-"

"HICCUP!" I heard from the distance.

"STOP!" I ordered once more, hearing the iconic plasma sound firing up.

"SON!"

I looked over and saw an older Viking with a red beard and thick build run toward me. Without thinking, I held out my left hand to him. "Dad, No!" I screeched.

The Night Fury fired and hit it's target.

The scene suddenly changed. I was no longer hidden under ice or plasma blast. I found myself on Berk, the houses burnt to a crisp. Bodies laid all around me, looking dead into the night, no life in their eyes. First, there were my friends and fellow dragon riders: Snotlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Eret. Then, as I walked, Mom laid dead beside Dad. Closer, and I found Astrid looking up at me with a blank look in her eyes.

Toothless laid nearby in a puddle of blood, his saddle and fin broken. His eyes were open, but there were hollow and empty. There was no life, no happiness in them. It took all of my strength to keep myself from collapsing underneath my foot and peg leg. Instead, I kneeled to my best friend.

"Daddy!"

I turned around. Two children were holding hands and appeared scared. One was a girl with red hair, a maroon shirt and fur boots and vest. The other, a boy, with brown hair like mine wore a brown shirt with fur boots.

"It's okay. Daddy's here."

Kari's green eyes lit with fear. "You aren't my Daddy."

"Kiddo, what are you talking about? I am!" I insisted.

"Why would you kill every-won?" Haldor asked, his blue eyes filled with tears.

I looked down. Instead of flesh hands, one hand was sliver, both covered in blood. I felt my heart beat faster. Only one person I knew had a prosthetic arm like this. I turned around and saw that Toothless was gone. The man smirked in triumph.

Drago Bludvist.

"See? Even the great Dragon Master can be kept in control of the Alpha."

The Bewilderbeast pursed his controlling eyes at me. Kill them, he ordered.

No! I won't!

You can never resist me. You are MINE now!

I opened my eyes, dazed and confused. I was no longer surrounded by ice or coldness. Instead, it was dark out and Astrid snored beside me. So that meant I was in bed with Astrid. Astrid was alive. She was here, with her swollen belly, her beautiful hair, her aggressive personality which resulted in most of my daily injuries. She was here, and that was all that mattered.

Once in a while, I have nightmares. Yes, adults get nightmares, too. The only thing is... the same one runs through my head. Over and over. And I end up waking up in the night, not able to fall asleep again.

Astrid usually helped me, by sitting and talking with me. The only problem was that she was six months pregnant with twins and needed her sleep. Gothi insisted Astrid get as much sleep as possible before the twins were born, because taking care of twins would be twice the trouble. Even Siv agreed it would benefit in the future (although she doesn't have twins herself).

Trying to control my breathing, I allowed myself to calm down. It was hard: the images of Drago, the dead bodies and the Bewilderbeast kept entering my mind. Every breath was harder than the last; I felt like I ran around the entire island. My chest hurt the most. Not just my lungs, but in my beating heart.

My legs moved before I could think. I found myself getting off the bed and throwing on a loose shirt. My hair... covered in my sweat. Was I turning in my sleep? I couldn't tell. Once I pulled my shirt over my head, I creeped down the stairs quietly. I couldn't risk waking Astrid, Haldor or Kari. Even worse, the dragons.

The winter air blew in my face like the wind while flying. It stabbed my face with little knives, but it was refreshing for my heated body. I sat myself on the front step and looked over Berk. Night was silent, not including the whistling in the trees and the fear trolls were watching your every move.

Okay. Maybe not trolls, but fear did lurk around every corner, waiting for your weakest moment and ready to pounce at you. The feeling you'll never be happy again. Nightmares were like that, I guess. The Gods' form of punishment by making you relive your worst memories, your worst fears. Your worst decisions.

The night was a good representation of nightmares. You feel... secluded from the world. Well, I was always secluded from the rest of Berk, simply because I was different. So, in a way, my night was in the day. It followed me everywhere.

My thoughts prevented me to use my senses to notice I was joined by another. Someone came and sat beside me, trying to stay quiet. It worked, I guess; I hardly noticed they were beside me until I heard:

"Daddy, are you okay?"

I knew who the voice belonged to before even thinking twice: Kari, my five-year old daughter. Her vocabulary increased significantly over the past couple of years, including her intuitive nature. Which makes it harder for Astrid and I to keep her in the dark of certain subjects of discussions. For example, she immediately caught on four months ago that Astrid and I were trying to keep the pregnancy on the "down low" until we figured out how to tell her and Haldor.

I didn't look at Kari. I couldn't dare to. I didn't want her to see me like this. She didn't deserve it.

"Daddy's..." I couldn't even say one word without crying. My voice was breaking. "Daddy's okay." It sounded pitiful. It didn't help some tears fell down my cheeks.

Kari grabbed my hand, forcing me to look up at her. Her red hair was tied in a braid, as usual, and was wearing her sleeping attire, which was maroon red. Shadow sat beside her, always following her. Kari probably saw the tears on my face, and the redness in my eyes. Oh Gods, what would Kari think of me? She thought I was this brave man who could overcome anything. I knew because she told me.

"Why are you crying, Daddy?" she asked, innocently.

I wiped my tears. "No reason, Kari. Go back to sleep."

Kari merely sat beside me. Shadow purred against her. "I have bad dreams about the bad man, too."

"Bad man?" I asked.

"He is big and tall and scary. He is mean to dragons and makes them do bad things."

I could not dare to confirm her nightmare. She described the monster perfectly. The monster who controlled and abused dragons. The monster who was the cause of my father's death and my best friend's actions. The fact that a man like that could turn a dragon, especially an intelligent one like Toothless, into a monster scared me.

"He seems like a bad person," I muttered.

Kari nodded. "He tells me he's going to take Shadow away from me." She looked at Shadow. "Then I wake up and go to your bed."

I smiled. It was true, when she had nightmares, she would just crawl into bed without a word. She only explained her nightmares when she wanted to. Rarely did she have nightmares, but when she did, they weren't childish nightmares. They were almost like memories of the past and visions of the future.

"The bad man has an arm like your leg."

"He does?" I asked. For a moment, I was nervous she would see the similarities between Drago and I: we both lost a limb to a dragon, we trained dragons, and we had loved ones taken from us.

"Yea. It's not real." Kari smiled. "But I like yours better."

My smile grew a bit. Her innocence and intelligence did baffle me sometimes.

"Did the bad man take away your daddy?" Kari asked.

I tried to swallow, but it was hard. What could I say? How could I explain to my five-year old daughter I was still devastated about Dad's death? That I still cry myself to sleep?

I could only nod in response.

Kari reached over and grabbed my other hand and pulled. Without thinking, I let her guide me... to wherever she was taking me. The late night prevented me from seeing properly, and I was sure I would bump or trip over anything. I decided to rely on Kari's guidance and judgement, along with my hearing, in order to overcome my loss of sight.

Shadow thumped her head against my legs, to get me to move. She had some weight to her, so she pushed me with some force. Deciding not to anger the dragon, I followed Kari through the house and up the stairs.

Kari stopped at the top of the stairs. She looked up to me and held a finger to her lips. At least, I thought she did. It was quite difficult to see in the dark. I nodded back, as I heard Astrid snoring loudly. We were definitely at the door to Astrid and I's bedroom. Kari pulled me again and we walked a few meters, trying hard not to squeak the old boards beneath us.

She walked over to her bed and backed me to it. I didn't know if she could see the look on my face, but I gave her a look of confusion and disbelief.

"Your bed is a little tiny."

I mean, I was longer than the bed. I would have had both legs sticking out.

Kari whispered, "I don't want to wake up Mommy and Hal."

I sighed. I couldn't exactly argue with her. So I crouched myself in her bed, and found I was right: my feet did stick out at the end. Not to mention the wood frame was uncomfortable. There was no way I was sleeping well that night. I ended up just looking at the ceiling, and Kari snuggled closer to me, my left arm wrapped around her.

"It's okay, kiddo."

We didn't speak for a few minutes. The winter wind blew in the night sky, rustling the trees and blowing against the mountains. It was calming; we Hairy Hooligans grew up listening to those sounds all our lives. It was a sign Odin was protecting us from the frost giants.

Kari shifted slightly. "Daddy, did your Dad sleep with you when you had bad dreams?" She asked.

I shrugged. "More when I was little. As I got older, he stopped."

"Why?" she pushed.

That stumped me for a moment. "I don't think fathers do things like that with their sons." I wasn't sure if that was the answer she was looking for, but I honestly didn't know. Dad did stop offering me into his bed when I had nightmares as I got older. I think I was ten when he officially stopped.

I felt Kari move her head, as to nod in understanding. "Oh."

We were both quiet, for a while. Shadow's snoring could be heard from beside Kari's bed on the floor. How Kari managed to sleep through her snoring, and vice versa, I don't know. Even Toothless doesn't snore as loudly as Shadow, but I guess snoring depends on the dragon.

"Daddy?" Kari whispered.

"Yea?"

"Was Grandpa Stoick brave?"

I smiled in the darkness. "The braviest man I ever knew, Kari."

"Is that why Hal was named after him?"

Come to think of it, Astrid and I named him Haldor Stoick because... he was born on Dad's birthday. Man, that day was painful; naming him after Dad helped with the pain, though. "Maybe. It also sounds good with Haldor."

It drew my attention that Kari was speaking positive about Stoick. Well, she was asking questions about Dad, which were positive. I smiled. Dad truly was the bravest man I ever knew. He sacrificed his life for me, even though he found Mom again merely an hour before. He was brave, fearless, compassionate... qualities I hope Kari and Haldor will inherit; or, at least try. That's what I do.

"Yea." Kari shifted slightly. "Dad?"

I chuckled. "Yes?"

"Do dragons have bad dreams?"

"Toothless does." Sometimes, my best friend kicks in the night and once almost plasma blasted the entire house down in flames. I think he dreamt of Stoick's death, too, and had to relive waking up suddenly and realizing what he did. Not that I blame him, of course, but I was still angry at him at that moment. Now... I know there are people out there who will control dragons out of fear, and have them commit terrible crimes.

"Do you help him?" she asked. Man, she was inquisit tonight, wasn't she?

"Once or twice." I tell him that everything was going to be okay, and that there was always light in the dark. I had to be there for him, to keep his nightmares away. If I didn't, who would?

Kari yawned. "It's sad he doesn't have a daddy to scare his bad dreams away."

"Yea."

"Is Toothless happy there is another Night Fury?"

"I think he is."

"Okay." Kari yawned once more. "Dad?"

"Yes, Kari?"

"I love you."

I kissed Kari's head gently. "I love you too, kiddo."

I slept well for the rest of the night, although Kari kept me up most of the time with her constant questions and Shadow's obnoxious snores. The dark winter night blew its chilling winds against the trees, but I was warm in the tiny bed I laid in beside my daughter. In a way, I was grateful; she distracted me from my nightmares.

When she was younger, she did have nightmares. She would always crawl into Astrid and I's bed and just sleep between us. Sometimes, I asked her what she dreamt about, but I never got an answer. So, I told her what Dad told me: there is always light in the dark. Whether that light was a single person or a glimmer of hope, there will always be light.

Berk is our home. Now, it's not much; it's beat up from hundred of battles and distastful food. The Vikings who live there are even more so. The vast lands are covered in ice and snow for most of the year and covered in hail for the rest. We grow up alongside dragons, the beasts of Hel from our bedtime stories. There is much darkness in the winters and long nights, and loved ones we lose along the way. We hold onto hope for a better future. We hold onto hope to fight off our fears and nightmares.

It was good to know I have a daughter who was good at keeping the nightmares away.

To be continued...