Another Big Four Story
Chapter 9
: How to hurt a Hiccup's feelings
Summary: Odd, an older Viking in the Village, is spooked by a potential new species of dragon, and he isn't afraid to turn everything against the Chief's son because of it.


Jack could barely get a look at Hiccup's reaction before the young viking was charging out the door and calling Toothless to his side. Rapunzel and Merida both looked at each other, then the spirit and then Astrid. She was just slipping out the door after the tamer, so they too got to their feet and decided to follow. Jack had no choice but to tag along too if he wanted to know what was going on. He figured the people on Berk loved the dragons? Why on Earth would one of them wish for them to leave all of a sudden?

They all walked down the path and more into town, one by one finding a group of Viking villagers gathered in front of one of the houses. Jack flew up close to his friend and gave him a concerned look. "This isn't normal is it?" He asked, sincerely worried about the situation. He didn't like the dragons much, but if this meant Toothless was going to leave too, then it could be serious.

"It used to be normal when Mildew was still around." Hiccup mumbled quietly, resting a hand on his dragon friend's head as they walked. "But if it's Odd saying he wants the dragons gone... it's a little weird."

"Mildew?" Jack asked him. He straightened out a little and came to a stop just as Astrid caught up to the boy. By then Hiccup had already found the crowd of Vikings so he couldn't say anything more to the winter spirit anyway. So Jack drifted up to sit on one of the posts holding the building together and he looked down to find where the center of all attention was. A large but old looking viking with a gold and white beard sat on a wooden bench in front of the house with a little girl beside him. Hiccup approached from the thick crowd of people and immediately the man was on his feet.

"I-I want them out of here boy! All of them! Get them off the island before they decide to betray us! All of them! They will, I swear it! The Night Terrors told me! My Daughter too!"

"Whoa, slow down Odd, slow down!" Hiccup held his hands up in hopes that the aging man would step back. He did, after great hesitation, and he sat himself back down on the bench. Jack noticed then, Merida, Rapunzel, Toothless and a few other teenaged Vikings other than Astrid stepped forward beside the original dragon tamer. "Now will you tell me what this...Night Terror is?"

"A dragon of course!" Odd replied with a loud yelp. Hiccup jumped back, but was caught by Toothless's head for balance. He leaned on his dragon for a moment before stepping forward again, questioning Odd's words. "I'm tellin' ya! Its a black beast that crawls into 'yer home at night and plagues your dreams! It's been botherin' me n' Catnip fer' weeks now. It's been tellin' us that the dragons will betray us! They don't really want to be here! The Night Terrors say that they'll suck us dry of food and trust and throw it all away like nothing!"

"That...sounds ridiculous." Hiccup mumbled, glancing over to one of the larger teens nearby. By this time, Jack wanted a closer look, and he jumped down to stand nearby and listen. "There isn't a Night Terror in the Dragon Manual is there, Fishlegs?"

The chubby Viking shook his head quickly. "N-No! I've never read about anything like it."

Hiccup turned back around but this time he didn't look at Odd, he was looking at Jack. He was quiet but his expression said everything. It must have been the dragon he noticed earlier in the evening crawling into the building. To make sure, Jack gave the Viking's home a second look. There was a carving of a green looking dragon on top...it was very familiar, indeed. "...This is the house Hic." He looked back at him. "I saw it here."

Hiccup nodded slowly before turning back to Fishlegs. "Do you have our Book of Dragons?" He then asked, biting down on his lip slightly. "We should probably record this. It's a new species for all we know." The other teen fumbled with a bag he had hanging on his shoulder and pulled a book to flip to a certain page. From where Jack stood, he could see that it was empty. "Now, Odd, tell me more about it. Maybe we can hunt it down and see-"

"There's no time for that!" Odd shouted. "We need to get the dragons off of Berk before they hurt us!"

"Then we will hurt them!" A voice boomed over the crowd and everyone turned to see Stoick and another Viking with a hammer for a hand by his side. "We're Vikings. We've fought with them before and succeeded. Why would we lose this time?"

"We've become soft." Odd replied. "We've given the beasts all of our trust and they can easily turn their backs against us-"

"You really think your dragon would do that to you?" Hiccup asked, his tone sounding offended. He held a hand out, gesturing to the carving of the dragon head on his house. "Your dragon? You've lived with, cared for, and loved it for months and you really think after all of that, it's going to betray you? You're starting to sound like Mildew!"

Odd stood up and approached the boy with an intimidating stare. "...and the more I sit here and think on it, the less crazy that old man's motives are to me and the more I begin to doubt everything you've done." Ouch. Jack could see it clear in Hiccup's expression, that the man's words had hurt him. Something about it even hurt Jack as well. He could see that the Chief's son was distraught and it pained the winter spirit to know that he couldn't step forward to defend him. He couldn't do anything. He couldn't help Hiccup at all.

"That's enough!" Merida shouted, stepping between Hiccup and the older Viking. Odd stepped back, but Hiccup only looked away. Jack noticed Rapunzel and Astrid both try to go to his side but neither of them managed to get there for two unknown but different reasons. "You sit down right now n' explain ta' us what happened, ya' understand!?" Odd sneered at her and she held her finger out to poke at his chest. "I am Princess Merida DunBroch. You better listen ta' me or else I'll-"

"Fine!" Odd stepped back all the way to sit down. "Fine." His grey eyes wandered to the ground near his feet and he took in a deep breath. "The beast was at least half the size of the Night Fury." As he started, Merida shot a look towards Fishlegs so he would start writing these things down. She then moved to stand next to Hiccup instead of in front of him. "It was black but it's skin wasn't smooth...it was rough...like sand!" Jack shot the old man a look. "It moved swiftly with the wind, and it has no flame. All it does is change your dreams into nightmares!"

Sand? Dreams? Nightmares?

This all sounded way too queer to be a dragon…and strangely familiar too.

"This sounds familiar." Merida took the words right out of Jack's mouth as she held a hand to her chin. "It's like the strange wisps I've noticed around tha' castle." Hiccup and the others looked toward her with questionable gazes. "Will o' the Wisps are normally blue spirits but lately I have noticed black ones, in my brothers' room...they looked like sand."

"So this dragon can change it's shape?" Fishlegs asked nervously.

Hiccup shook his head. "No this...this probably isn't even a dragon." He gestured to the princess but kept his gaze on Odd. "If what Merida says is true then this is probably something completely different! If we can prove to you that this isn't a dragon then will you trust to have the dragons here?"

Odd crossed his arms. "I highly doubt this could be anything else."

Hiccup dropped his arm to his side and shot Jack a look. It was a look that asked 'you can help me, right' and Jack didn't hesitate to nod. In fact, with all the talk about sand and dreams, he remembered what he had noticed on the side of the house. It was something dark sitting in the snow. He motioned to Hiccup that he'd be back in a moment, and he shot himself up into the air and landed on the opposite side of the house. He stepped over under where the window was and knelt down to grab a handful of the white powder. There, sitting between the crystals of ice were tiny grains of black sand. He stood quickly, went back to where everyone was and landed in front of Hiccup, nearly surprising him and the others who could see him.

"I think I've got this figured out." He said. "I just need to talk to the Sandman tonight."


Jack waited that night for as long as he could. He wasn't the only one who was awake in the Haddock house, however, and it was proving an issue. The Sandman never usually came to a location himself if there were too many people out and about...or that was what he had gathered these past few years. He sat on the windowsill upstairs near Hiccup's bed. He held his staff between his legs and stared up at the sky, watching and waiting for the golden lights to appear in the clouds above. In the room behind him, Merida was pacing, Hiccup was sitting at his desk looking through the dragon manual and some other books and Rapunzel was downstairs doing who knows what. It didn't matter...He just kept his eyes on the sky.

"How are you so sure the Sandman will know what's going on?" It was Merida who asked him this. Jack glanced over his shoulder and watched as she climbed over the sill to sit with him. The window was wide enough to fit a Night Fury, so it wasn't a tight fit at all.

"Well, he's...the Sandman." Jack mentioned, shrugging his shoulders. He looked back towards the darkening sky and sighed. "He controls dreams...with sand...and this Night Terror thing...is supposedly covered in sand and turns dreams into nightmares? Sandman's sand is gold, not black, but I figured he would know someone with similar powers as him. I haven't met all the spirits and guardians in person yet so I wouldn't know." He gripped his staff tightly and looked over his shoulder towards Hiccup. "Whatever this thing is...it's managed to hurt a friend of mine. So I'll do whatever it takes to figure this out."

Merida smiled softly at him before looking up at the sky as well. "That's good spirit." She then said quietly while Jack watched Rapunzel make her way up stairs with a pot and a few mugs on a shield posing as a platter. Toothless was resting on a stone slab near Hiccup's desk, and from where he was, he managed to get to her in seconds, sniffing the contents of the pot curiously. Jack watched her smile, balance the shield on one hand and pat his head before she walked over to where Hiccup sat to whisper something to him.

"Your Father helped me find some things to make tea...would you like a mug?" She set the stuff down and he gave a weak nod. Jack's response was that he turned back to the night sky with an angry expression while she went ahead and poured the boy some.

"You said the black wisps were in their room? Your brothers'?" Jack asked quietly, bringing conversation between him and Merida back. She looked back at him and with a soft nod to confirm, he continued. "Have they...been complaining of nightmares at all?"

Merida let out a bitter laugh. "They rarely complain about anythin' unless its dinner." Jack looked her way again as her fingers pulled at a piece of bright red hair. "They don' like it when I talk about th'wisps anymore though. They seem frightened when I joke about seeing one when we go out n' practice with th'archery. So I assume that's what the black wisps are doin'."

"Because these things are definitely not dragons." Jack said to her. "The Sandman is sure to know what's going on."

"How do you know he will come?" Came Hiccup's voice. Jack and Merida looked back into the room while he sat with the mug in his lap. Toothless seemed concerned for his rider and nudged his shoulder while he spoke. "I don't think I've ever seen the Sandman around here before..."

Jack moved to crouch on the windowsill instead of sit and he gestured to the sky with his staff. "He only comes if there aren't a lot of people awake. So it's probably best if you all rest for the night." His eyes were caught by the lovely greens of Rapunzel's as she stared at him from the end of Hiccup's bed. "...I'll make sure these Night Terror things don't get in here to ruin your dreams either."

Rapunzel gave a small nod before turning to go take the tea back downstairs. Merida was on her feet again soon after and looked back up at Jack, pointing."Come back immediately and tell us what he says. Wake us up if ya have to."

Jack smiled weakly, shaking his head. "Once the Sandman is around you'll be in deep sleep, dreaming of shooting arrows at hundreds of different targets. I wouldn't want to disturb that, now would I Princess?" Her cheeks inflated with a pout in response to his teasing, and she turned to walk downstairs after the blonde calling out to have some of that tea. Then, Jack looked over to Hiccup, who still looked pained from the situation out in front of Odd's house. "I'll figure it out Hic. Don't worry."

Hiccup looked up to say something in protest, but Jack's presence had been replaced with a lonely winter breeze and nothing more.


Writer notes:
IF YOU HAVN'T THE SLIGHTEST CLUE AS TO WHO MILDEW IS...he is a Viking from the TV series who didn't like the dragons and he was constantly trying to get the dragons off of berk through out the show and he was a poopoo head. yay okay i hate this chapter because hiccup is my favorite and i hate bashing his feelings ughh

LOOK GUYS A PLOT

WizardScat: yeAH IM TRYING TO UPDATE SUPER FAST AM I DOING OKAY? also yes mysterious dragon is the plot twist mhm yes you were right. P.S i love cliff hangers mwahahah

Crescenta: hey you! you probably read the chapter on tumblr already but here ya go go go gooo also thank you very much im glad you notice the little hints i put in there every once in awhile trust me they will never stop mwahah

Comet Moon: your reviews are making me crack up i love it. thank you sjfiuhreg

SupaCrazee: thank you im glad you like it :'D Astrid is cray

gamerkid137: ooOOOOOOoOOooOOooOoooooohhh

brooklynnmeyer9: yes good i love it when the awk seeps into your soul

Daniella Violet Moon: he's as crazy as mildew was like wow Mildew plz dragons are a part of tha community

Meggiestarxx: OH MY GOSH YES ARE YOU STILL EXCITED ABOUT THIS CHAPTER AND THE NEXT THAT'S SOON TO COME? BECAUSE NOW IM REALLY EXCITED THAT YOU'RE REALLY EXCITED

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