AN: Thanks to: bogart, Adm. J. Kirk McGill, Kiyosaisei Ichimaru, Alana-kittychan, ArmoredSoul, Ivan's Kitsune, Victoria Noble, Taisi, al28894, Luciee.x, Adalgisa, and everyone else for their support! I'm blushing real hard right now. XD

This next prompt was given by Kiyosaisei Ichimaru. I hope it's up to your and everyone else's expectations! 'Cause, honestly, I try to write more for my readers than myself sometimes. LOL

Prompt: Night

DISCLAIMER: When you hear of a fanatic breaking into DreamWorks studios to steal HTTYD on the news, only then can you be certain I'm trying; till then, it's just FF for me. XD

Shadows

Morning, noon, and night, my son would wander through our village of Berk, with his ever looming shadow at his shoulder.

If you had told me that I would have a dragon tamer for a son, who, eventually, would become inseparable from his newfound pet and gather more of the creatures to live amongst us, I would've shipped you off on a log and hoped you drowned; and to make sure you did, I'd have poured blood on you for extra measure.

Hiccup had never really been a particular boy of worth: he'd been different since he took his first gulp of air. Seven generations of warriors…and I wound up with a boy who couldn't hurt anything. And if he could, he wouldn't want to.

But now I know it will always be because he won't.

We Vikings had been in the dark for so long; we couldn't remember what it was like to be truly sensitive. Our brutish demeanors simply covered that for us because we understood what a punch or a kick meant—our own way of affection.

Hiccup never did. That boy was too rational; that's why no one—I included—could ever understand what was so difficult to comprehend about our violent manners.

Hiccup, I now see, though, had been the dawn to our endless nights: he cast light over us, illuminating our surroundings with remarkable clarity. And, honestly, I didn't like the shadows that came behind all of us.

It's strange how everything had changed so quickly. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Hiccup had been more of a Viking... Then I watch the beast stride proudly beside Hiccup, and I realize I could not have had a better son to call my own. The Night Fury had done my son a lot of good, as well as for me and the rest of us.

If the dragon hadn't been befriended by Hiccup, the village would still be lost in a world of black, lost to the possibilities of a new day. All we needed to see the world was bring a creature of night into it, and realize how much we resembled it so.

I'm glad the night has ended. Because now, I finally see my son and I feel joy.