A Birthday to Remember

Chapter 1: Imagine

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Imagine that you were born in the Dark Ages, during an age infested with barbaric Vikings and savage Dragons — both being wild and untamed species in their own right — in an isolated, yet large Archipelago that the world won't ever discover for an indefinite length of time.

Imagine that you were born in the Hairy Hooligan Tribe of Berk, a tribe of unruly, smelly, thuggish, brutal, dense, strong, loud, rude, uncivilized… well, Hooligans… who think "might is right" and "only the strong belong", and look down on anything that they either can't understand or view as weak and un-Viking-ly. (I'm afraid that Vikings are rather prejudiced and superstitious people during this time period.)

Now imagine that you, having been born, are a runt — a scrawny, twiggy, fishbone-y, fragile, tiny, vulnerable little prawn-of-a-thing, barely big enough to fit the entirety of a certain red-haired mountain-of-a-chieftain with a beard as wild and untamed as a sea of fire.

Now, not only are you a Viking baby born in a Tribe of uncivilized (and not really bright) Hooligans, living in the most inhospitable, frigid, drenched, and tree-and-rock-infested place in the known medieval world, and were born a runt, but there is one thing more that you must imagine…

Something so incredibly and freakishly odd that you end up being teased and mocked (and everything else equally unpleasant) for being birthed during this extremely odd phenomenon….

You must imagine being born on the 29th of February — a leap year, occurring only once every four years.

So you can probably imagine that the birthdays were a bit… awkward, to put it mildly. Do you celebrate every year like everyone else, or every four years?

This is what it was like to be Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, Hope and Heir to the Hooligan Tribe, who was about as odd and average and extraordinary as one could get.

One would assume that, being the Chief's Son, being born on such an extraordinary and unique day — one that occurs every four years — would surely be a good omen (being set apart by the gods and all that), and would've been seen as something to be PROUD OF! Something that only a Chief's SON could pull off and that in itself was surely a sign from the gods in Valhalla that he would accomplish GREAT and HEROIC things.

However, as I've stated previously, Vikings are, unfortunately, a prejudiced and superstitious people; and while WE in the MODERN AGE would view it as a "cool" or "neat" fact that distinguishes one as an individual, those in the DARK AGES had a completely reverse (and closed-minded, too, I'm afraid) view on the matter. Hiccup, having been born a runt, and average-looking, and scrawny, and, in short, nothing like a Viking at all, being born on a Leap Year would've been viewed as just further proof that he was in no way a Viking. In fact, some would even argue that the 29th of February was a bad omen promising doom to whoever was born on that day — even to those who lived with him.

If they were a logical people, they would have

But they weren't a logical people. And that would be ridiculous.

But this year? This year was different.

And Hiccup couldn't believe just how different it was. His Twelfth birthday — though, technically speaking, it was his THIRD birthday (like I said, awkward) — was the most eventful Birthday that he had ever had YET!

Not only did Toothless, his naughty little Common-and-Garden Dragon, destroyed and ate his Father's new throne AND the How To Train Your Dragon book by Professor Yobbish (both of these acts, in fact, almost doomed his birthday to a terrible fate), but he stole a Secret Weapon belonging to Madguts the Murderous (which was stolen before by Bertha, so, technically, Hiccup stole from BOTH of them), infiltrated the Meathead "Public" Library (which wasn't so public and HATED intruders), killed a Driller Dragon (because "knocked out" was a gross understatement), narrowly avoided being stuck on the end of one of the Hairy Scary Librarian's Heart-Slicers like a mutton kabob, he'd been lost in a dark and dusty Labyrinth, discovered the Dragon Whisperer's Way (quite by accident and just in time before getting skewered to death by Driller Dragons), dealt with an entire nest of Piffleworms (which kindly dealt with said Driller Dragons), rescued his father from death by Northbow (via Enraged-and-Humiliated-Hairy-Scary-Librarian), and Big-Boobied Bertha from being sent to the Uglithug Slavelands (courtesy of Madguts the Murderous).

Plus he stole another copy of How To Train Your Dragon and unintentionally helped his Father win the bet with Big-Boobied Bertha, had yet ANOTHER hairy-scary, adrenaline-pumping adventure with his two best friends and their dragons, and he prevented a terrible and bloody war from erupting between the Murderous Tribe and the Hooligan and Bog-Burglar Tribes.

AND he managed to persuade his Father Stoick to convince the Vikings at the Thing to reopen the Library and unban books for his Birthday — something Hiccup never thought he'd be able to do after his tirade about Hiccup reading and writing books.

All-in-all, it was probably the best Birthday that he'd had in… well… EVER, probably.

And the day wasn't even over yet!

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Author's Note:

Well met, my fellow Dragonmarkers! Welcome to another fanfic! This was intended to be ready by Hiccup's birthday, but I unfortunately wasn't able to finish it before then. I probably should've posted this part on the 29th, but I didn't really think of that until just now! So now I'm deciding to post this as a birthday present to myself.

Happy Birthday to me!

So if you guys like this chapter, please stick around and click the "follow" button, so that you can get the next chapter when I post it after I finish writing it. And please "favorite" it as a way of wishing Hiccup a happy birthday, or if you liked this story.

If you have any story suggestions, please let me know either through a PM or a review.

Long Live the Wilderwest! Long Live Hiccup the Third!

— Companion of the Dragonmark.