I don't own How to Train Your Dragon.

Please let me know what you think. It's been a while.

A downed dragon is a dead dragon.

Hiccup sat away from the other teens in the tower while Gobber held the entire scene. The triple amputee blacksmith had the other teens spellbound with his stories, technically he should have been giving them all a pep talk, but nobody really cared. Hiccup himself didn't really give a damn since he didn't want to think about Dragon training.

It was just… Hiccup just wished Gobber had something better to talk about, but he knew he couldn't tell Gobber to change the subject, even if it was simply because he didn't want to listen to the same boring stories over and over again; while he loved the old blacksmith since Gobber had been there for him and was more a father than Stoick had ever been, Hiccup wished he didn't have to sit and listen to the stories of how Gobber had lost his limbs. Most of them were embellished by Gobber anyway, but the other teens were listening to the tales with awe.

But it had another effect. Hiccup could tell, whenever he actually bothered to pay attention when he wasn't thinking about the Night Fury he had…befriended, the other teens looked hungry and eager to get involved with the fighting. Hiccup could already tell just by looking at Ruffnut and Tuffnut, the stories were having an effect.

The Thorston twins were insane, reckless, and more than a little bloodthirsty mixed with brutally adventurous. To them, losing an arm was a joy, although how that could be, Hiccup had no idea, and if he were honest with himself, he didn't care, in all honesty. What scared Hiccup the most was a few months ago, he knew if he had been allowed to take part in dragon training and was listening to these stories, even though he had heard them all before, he would have wanted to take part on the battlefield.

But now…

He just couldn't go through with fighting in the war, not after what he had just learnt. When he had tracked down the Night Fury after he'd shot the most feared dragon in the Barbaric Archipelago, and looked into the dragons' eyes as he held it at his mercy, Hiccup had realised he just could not kill the dragon. It hadn't made sense to Hiccup at the time; all of his knowledge of dragons, everything he had seen growing up on Berk over the years even if everyone looked down at him with disdain and gave his father looks of sympathy for having the runt of the new generation of Berkians - he might be slight and skinny, but Hiccup was not ignorant; he had seen everything that was going on, was screaming at him to kill the dragon.

It would have taken just one blow, one stab with his dagger and the Night Fury would have been dead. He would have been a hero, but he had looked into the dragons' eyes, and he had seen something he had not expected.

Fear.

All of his life Hiccup had heard how dragons were emotionless demons, but what he had seen in the Night Fury's eyes had proven that wrong, to say nothing of when he had taken that Night Fury a fish. Hiccup frowned as he thought of how the Fury had taken the fish, and regurgitated it back into his lap (he would not think of the sensation of the cold fish covered in dragon spit going down his throat; it had been disgusting just doing it!), but what amazed him the most was….Hiccup had managed to touch the dragon!

Did that mean…they were friends? Hiccup had never really had a friend before. Yes, he had Gobber, and he'd had once had Fishlegs and Astrid before they both moved on, Astrid because she didn't want to be seen with him although he was infatuated with her, Hiccup was sure that was a teen thing. Fishlegs had left because he had wanted to hang out with the other kids, and not get beaten up. He might have a Viking bulk, but he was a coward.

"….look on his face. I was delicious!" Hiccup came out of his reverie when he heard Gobber reach the climax of his story, and uttered the last three words with a flourish. Gobber liked that story the most, he often used it on Hiccup at the forge so then his young, skinny apprentice showed him respect. But the blacksmith need not have worried about that, Hiccup held more respect and affection for Gobber than any Viking in the village, including his own father. He didn't need to utter those stories.

He also knew Gobber was not finished with his story. "He must have passed the word because it wasn't a month before another one of them took my leg."

The other teens oohed and aahed, but Hiccup didn't. Gobber wasn't demanding his attention, so he didn't need to worry. He went back to his thoughts. Now that he had made friends with the Night Fury, Hiccup knew he had so much to learn about the dragon. His fascination with Night Furies, long since sparked off when he had made up his plans to use the Mangler to down one, had blossomed into a flame. There was just so much he wanted to learn about the dragon, and after seeing the fear in the Night Fury's eyes, Hiccup wanted to find out more about the war.

He knew there was more to it than what met the eye, and what the other Vikings for the past 300 years claimed…

"Isn't it weird to think your hand was inside a dragon? Like if your mind was still in control of it, you could have killed the dragon from the inside by crushing his heart, or something," Fishlegs said, using the large chicken legs in his hands to mime the action. Hiccup snorted to himself quietly; while his knowledge of medicine and healing was shaky, he knew enough to know that was impossible. Perhaps Fishlegs had earned his place among the other teens. Only the Nut twins would utter something as crazy as that.

"I swear, I'm so angry right now. I'll avenge your beautiful hand and your beautiful foot. I'll chop off the legs of every dragon I fight, with my face!" Snotlout growled through his teeth, posturing to the others, including Astrid who was unimpressed.

Hiccup didn't know how or why, but Gobber seemed amused and even happy by the promise even if the blacksmith likely thought it was impossible to attack dragons like that.

"Un-uhh! No, it's the wings and the tails you really want. If it can't fly, it can't get away. A downed dragon is a dead dragon!" Gobber said through a mouthful of chicken, but Hiccup gasped under his breath as he realised what Gobber had said. He didn't pay any more attention to what the blacksmith said, something about the big boys, which likely meant the larger, more dangerous dragons. Hiccup stood up, abandoning the single fish he had been cooking by the fire (it hadn't been cooking and he wasn't feeling very hungry anyway), and he rushed towards the forge as subtly as he could; with the teens so drawn into their own boasts about how they were going to be the one to take out the Monstrous Nightmare at the end, he doubted any of them had noticed him leave.

X

While the loss of the cheat sheet to help him with his control of the foot pedal controlling the prosthetic was annoying, Hiccup had to admit flying on the restored Toothless' back was a thrill; okay granted, Hiccup knew he would need to practice with Toothless a lot more later on, but he knew that the Night Fury was not downed anymore.