Author's Note: Hello, everyone! =D Ack, I can't believe it's Sunday. Weekends should be longer. A lot longer.

Anyway, welcome back to mah one-shot collection "Sticks and Stones!" I don't really have much to say this time 'round, so I hope you guys enjoy this one-shot! =D

Summary: After getting into a conversation about scars and bruises, Hiccup tells his kids what happened to his leg. (Post HTTYD: THW.)

Battle Scars

Hiccup had no idea how his family had gotten so deeply into the topic of scars and bruises.

It was a quiet day in the Haddock household, and Hiccup was savoring the peace as much as he could. It was very rare when things were calm and settled at the Haddock hut, and it seemed as if there was always something interesting going on. Whether it was Astrid training Zephyr and Nuffink in combat or the two Haddock siblings creating something new together, the Haddocks were often always in action, and they were never still for very long.

Zephyr was sitting at the table, sketching in her sketchbook while Nuffink sat across from her, frowning petulantly as Astrid tugged and weaved his hair. Nuffink didn't like the braids that Astrid insisted on putting in his hair, but his blonde locks were so scraggly, that putting them in braids was the only way to keep them separated and neat looking.

"Besides, you don't want to look like you have a bird's nest on your head instead of hair, Nuff," Astrid had said, winning the argument instantly.

Hiccup was seated at the table as well, reading over chief papers that he had overlooked and now regretted overlooking. As his green eyes scanned across the pages, he almost missed Nuffink's sudden and rather desultory question.

"What's the biggest injury you've ever had?" he asked, surprising all the Haddocks in that one moment. Zephyr stared at her brother with a slightly irritated frown.

"And why are you asking that?" she asked.

"Because I'm bored sitting here," Nuffink said, wincing as Astrid tugged at his blonde hair. "And I want something interesting to talk about."

"But why injuries?" pressed Zephyr

"Why not injuries?" Nuffink countered her. Zephyr shook her head and went back to doodling.

Astrid paused her braiding briefly. "Well, I think it's an interesting question." She turned to Hiccup. "What is the biggest injury that we've had?"

Hiccup set his papers aside. "Well, there was that one time you went blind."

Zephyr's auburn head snapped upwards from her sketchbook. "Wait, Mom went blind?"

Astrid smiled in amusement. "Yup, but it wasn't for very long."

Nuffink bounced in his chair. "Can you tell us what happened?"

"Stop moving, Nuff, I'm still braiding," Astrid said as she tied another braid into place. Nuffink stopped fidgeting and he waited expectantly.

"Back when your father and I were living on Dragon's Edge with the other Dragon Riders," Astrid began. "There was a huge lightning storm that hit the Edge. I was the storm warden, so I went around making sure that everyone was battening down the hatches. When he headed to the Clubhouse to take shelter, I asked everyone if they had done what they were told. Boarding up their huts, if the dome was closed, and the dragons were safely placed in the stables."

"Fishlegs didn't remember if he had locked the stable doors up, so Astrid set out in the rain to close them before the storm hit," Hiccup said. He looked at Astrid. "I still think you shouldn't have gone out there. It was too dangerous."

"But if I hadn't," the dragons would have been crushed," said Astrid. She continued to tell the story to her children. "I got to the stables, and it was struck by lightning—"

"Whoa!" exclaimed Nuffink. Even Zephyr was wide-eyed.

Astrid nodded. "And the whole building was coming down, so I went inside and opened up all the stable doors, freeing the dragons before they could get hurt. I missed a Night Terror, so I had to run back in to save the little guy. When I ran to leave, a lightning bolt struck the ground right in front of me, and I looked straight into it, and I fell unconscious after that. I woke up in the Clubhouse blind."

The room was silent for a few moments. Zephyr blinked at Astrid, pure shock in her eyes.

"Mom…you almost got struck by lightning?" Zephyr exclaimed. "By Thor?"

Astrid shrugged, completely unfazed talking about her near lighting strike experience. "Yup. But Hiccup helped me handle my blindness." She glanced up at Hiccup, an impish glint in her eyes. "You should be asking your father that question, Zeph. He's the one who took a lightning bolt to the head."

"He, WHAT?!" Zephyr and Nuffink exclaimed. Nuffink jerked his head in Hiccup's direction, causing Astrid to drop the band that she was going to use to tie his small braid. Zephyr stared at Hiccup in complete disbelief, and Hiccup Couldn't help but laugh at his children's reactions.

"What are you laughing about?" asked Astrid, holding in her own laughter. "You could've ended up like Bucket for the rest of your life!"

"Yeah, but I didn't!" said Hiccup.

"Dad, you got struck by lightning?" Nuffink asked in awe.

Hiccup nodded. "Yes, I did," he replied. "But it was a long time ago."

"How old were you?" questioned Zephyr.

"Fifteen," answered Hiccup.

Zephyr nearly dropped her pencil. "F-Fifteen? Dad!"

"I know, I know," said Hiccup, sending Astrid a glare. The Hofferson shrugged innocently, and lightly told Nuffink to look down so she could properly braid his hair. Nuffink complained quietly, but he obeyed his mother's wishes.

"Back on old Berk," started Hiccup. Zephyr and Nuffink listened intently. "We recently put up metal dragon perches so that the dragons could land and rest on them instead of on people's house roofs. A while after we put them up, however, Berk started to suffer from terrible lighting storms. Buildings were destroyed, a few fires were started. But the worst part was that everyone thought that Toothless was the one causing the lighting."

"But that makes no sense!" Zephyr burst out.

Nuffink nodded vehemently, his hair slipping out of Astrid's grip. The Hofferson sighed. "Toothless wouldn't hurt anyone!"

Hiccup nodded as well. "Toothless was trying to get away from the lighting on the metal perches, and the bolts followed him. So, everyone thought that he was the cause of the storms, and they demanded that he should be shipped off the island."

"But Hiccup managed to convince everyone to give him some time to find a way to stop the lightning storms," said Astrid. "So we along with Snotlout, the twins, and Fishlegs got together and discussed what the cause of the lightning storms could have been."

"We all agreed that Thor was upset, so we all pitched in and made a statue entirely out of metal to placate him," continued Hiccup. "That didn't work, and the statue was destroyed by a bolt of lightning."

"So, what was the cause of all the lightning?" asked Zephyr.

"I'm getting to that," said Hiccup. "After the statue failed, everyone started to demand that Toothless should be shipped off the island after another storm occurred. Toothless and I set off to leave Berk, just until everyone calmed down. It was once we were struck out of the sky by a bolt of lightning that I realized that the lightning wasn't because of Toothless, but because of the metal."

"A lightning bolt struck Toothless' tailfin," explained Astrid. "Which meant that the metal statue and perches—"

"Were the cause of all that lighting, of course!" Zephyr concluded. Hiccup smiled.

"Yup. But the others on Berk didn't know that, and they managed to take Toothless away and got ready to ship him off the island. It was then that I had to show everyone what the lightning was really attracted to."

"So your father thought that standing on top of a ship holding up a metal rod up to Thor was the perfect way to prove Toothless' innocence," said Astrid with a smirk.

"I had no other choice!" Hiccup defended himself. "I don't regret a thing."

"You could've gotten a bucket for a head," Astrid pointed out.

"But I didn't!" Zephyr and Nuffink giggled at their parent's banter, and Hiccup turned to them both.

"Yes, I took a bolt to the head, but I woke up the next day, feeling perfectly fine," he said.

"That still doesn't make the situation any better," commented Astrid.

"Wow, Dad. That's amazing," said Nuffink. "You took a bolt to the head and lived."

"Yeah," said Zephyr. "But going blind is pretty intense too."

"Not as intense as a bolt of lightning," Nuffink said. "From Thor himself!"

Zephyr shrugged. "Both stories are pretty interesting." The auburn-haired girl then quieted, and she thought for a moment before asking slowly, "Hey, Dad?"

"Yes, Zeph?" said Hiccup.

The young girl tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "If you don't mind me asking…How did you lose your leg?"

Astrid looked up at Hiccup, a look that said that he didn't have to tell them if he didn't want to, and Zephyr had the same expression on her freckled face. Nuffink fidgeted in his chair, not even paying attention to the silent debate taking place. Hiccup thought for a moment, but he wasn't going to leave such a question unanswered. His kids deserved to know what had happened.

"Okay, then," said Hiccup after a few moments of silence. He looked at both Zephyr and Nuffink, who were listening just as intently as they had before. "You two remember how I first met Toothless, right?"

Zephyr and Nuffink nodded. Hiccup had told his two children how he had invented the mangler, shooting Toothless down, and eventually setting him free. The Haddock then went on and told them about his many visits to the cove and how he created the prosthetic tailfin, but he ended by saying that he eventually showed everyone that dragons weren't a threat, and then peace ensued between vikings and dragons.

He had skipped the part about the Red Death because his children were young when he had first told them the tale of how he met his dragon and best friend. But now they were older, and they were eventually going to hear the truth if not from him.

"So, after your mother and I went on our flight," said Hiccup. Nuffink made a quiet noise of disgust from where he was sitting, and Astrid batted at his head lightly, causing the blonde-haired boy to giggle innocently. "Toothless started acting strangely. He seemed drawn to this weird buzzing, siren-like sound, and he followed it. Astrid and I soon found ourselves in the middle of a dragon herd, hauling in their prey."

"After a while, we eventually arrived at the Dragon's Nest," continued Astrid. She looked at Hiccup, her face slightly haunted. "I still remember how the place looked to this day."

Hiccup nodded slowly; he still remembered the Nest too. He could never forget the sight of all those dragons packed in the red-hued mountain, hauling in their kill to avoid being killed themselves.

Zephyr scooched toward Hiccup. "What happened next?" she asked.

"Toothless took us in and landed on a ledge," said Hiccup. "We watched as all the dragons just dropped their food down a hole."

"'Well it's satisfying to know that all of our food is being dumped down a hole," Astrid said in a high-pitched nasally voice. Hiccup sent her a look and Zephyr and Nuffink laughed.

"Did Dad say that?" asked Nuffink.

Astrid nodded. "Yup. We fly into the creepiest place on earth and his sarcasm is still intact."

Hiccup rolled his eyes. "Anyway, we continued to watch and a Gronkle flew over the pit and dropped the smallest piece of fish into the pit. There was a low grumbling sound and then…"

Hiccup paused briefly. "The Red Death came up and swallowed it whole."

Nuffink blinked, mouth agape while Zephyr's reaction was more mature. Her eyes were wide, but she kept her mouth shut as Hiccup continued.

"We got out of there before the Red Death could capture us," said Hiccup. "But I knew that we would have had to do something to stop it. But the next day was the day I had to slay a dragon, so I came up with a plan to show everyone the truth about dragons."

"Which completely backfired," Astrid said.

Hiccup nodded. "After arguing with my dad, I accidentally revealed how to find the Dragon's Nest to him, so he set off with a group of other vikings to take down the Red Death with Toothless as his guide, but it was a battle that I knew he wouldn't win."

"So what did you do?" asked Nuffink.

"Hiccup rounded me and the other Dragon Riders up and trained the remaining dragons at the Ring and we flew off to save everyone," Astrid said. "When we got there, things were looking really bad for everyone. The Red Death had burned the ships, people running around trying to escape…Everything was chaos."

"The twins distracted the Red Death while Snotlout and Fishlegs found its blind spot," Hiccup continued. "Astrid dropped me onto the ship that Toothless was trapped on, and I had to work fast before the ship burned down. But the Red Death smacked its tail into the ship and Toothless and I sunk into the water. I tried to get to him, but I ran out of air. Dad pulled me out just in time, and he got Toothless out for me."

"Hiccup flew into battle with the rest of us, and he saved me from almost getting eaten by the Red Death. He took the lead from there," Astrid said, sending Hiccup a grateful look.

Hiccup smiled, and he told Zephyr and Nuffink the rest of the tale. "Toothless and I fired at the Red Death's wings, forcing it to fly into the air. Since it was really big, it couldn't fly very fast, so we took that as our advantage and we flew into the clouds, hidden from its sight. Toothless and I fired and fired at the Red Death, damaging its wings so it wouldn't be able to use them when we launched the last part of our plan."

"The Red Death grew agitated and started firing in all directions. Toothless' tailfin caught fire, so we needed to act fast. We dived down toward the island, narrowly escaping the Red Death. It opened its mouth to fire, but I told Toothless to shoot a plasma blast straight into its mouth before it had the chance to throw flames at us."

"Woo-hoo!" Nuffink cheered. "The Red Death deserved that!"

Zephyr agreed, and she looked up at Hiccup expectantly. "And then what? What happened?"

"Well…" Hiccup was quiet for a moment, the images of fire surrounding him and Toothless before everything went black flashed through his mind. "Flames were everywhere, and Toothless' tail was burned to bits. We tried our best to escape, but we were hit by the Red Death's tail."

Both Nuffink and Zephyr gasped. Astrid finally finished braiding Nuffink's hair, and she sat down next to him and listened as Hiccup continued.

"If it weren't for Toothless, I probably wouldn't be here right now. Or I would've lost far more than just my leg," said Hiccup as he gestured to the metal that served as his left leg. "Toothless had to grab me by the leg to yank me close enough to him so he could protect me from the crash, but I hold no hard feelings about it."

"And that's how your father saved all of Berk and lost his leg," concluded Astrid. Nuffink stared at Hiccup in awe.

"Wow," said Nuffink. He looked at Hiccup's leg. "Your leg looks much cooler after telling that story."

Hiccup scoffed playfully. "And my leg didn't look nice before? How dare you!"

Nuffink laughed. "No, it did! It's just…after knowing what happened for you to get it, it kinda looks more…like some kind of trophy, I guess. Or a cool battle scar."

Zephyr nodded. "I don't think Nuffink and I can top you guys' cool scars."

"Well," said Astrid as she stood up and walked into the kitchen. "You don't need a scar to prove you're great. The fact that you strive to do something new or great every day is good enough of an award."

"Astrid's right," said Hiccup. He turned to his two kids. "You don't need a scar to prove anything."

Zephyr and Nuffink nodded, and they both stood up chatting with each other about what their favorite story was out of the three they had been told. Hiccup watched them with a smile, glad to have shared something that was an important part of his life to his kids.

And he wondered if Toothless had told his own dragon kids the same story too.

Author's Note: Nothing like some good old Haddock family. =) Zephyr and Nuffink are amazingggg, Astrid is a wonderful mom, and Hiccup is a great dad. =)

I hope you guys enjoyed this one-shot, and I'll see you in the next one! =D

Until the next chapter!

-BeyondTheMoon1203