This is it! Seven months of hard work is finally going online! I'm super nervous, but it's been proofread by my brother so it can't be too awful... The chapter titles are all lines from a song. Check out the HTTYD AMV version on youtube by AlbusDragonTrainer, it's really good.

Scarred by my failures

The sun floated milky pale in a cloudy sky, and I was grateful for the small amount of warmth in the air. Winter was getting closer every day, and on my island, Berk, that meant sub-zero temperatures and several feet of snow. I hated winter, and if I didn't already have a blanket, I would have asked for one. My people were expected to tough everything out and keep going no matter the conditions. Climbing a mountain in the middle of winter, barefoot? We were the people tough enough, and stupid enough, to do it. Shivering slightly as I wound my way through the street, I pulled my bearskin vest closer.

If they weren't my distant—hopefully, very distant—ancestors, I would ask the Chief what on Midgard the navigator had been drinking when they sailed to Berk. There was no way a sane person would willingly sail to Berk unless they were hopelessly lost, or more likely, drunk. I caught a glimpse of the dark thick forest through a gap between houses as I turned a corner. Berk the village was pretty small, since Berk the island was mostly smothered in trees and underbrush, and cutting it down wasn't very high on the Chief's to-do list.

My house came into view as I turned another corner, and I sighed in relief. It was slightly higher than the other houses, which was just great—I got to walk further than any other Viking whenever I wanted to go home—but it was quiet and I was glad for the solitude. I lifted my chin determinedly against the doubts crowding my mind. Of course I had the right to call myself a Viking!

The path ahead of me, the large main street, was blocked with people, so I squeezed between two Vikings, sliding easily between their meaty arms. They almost didn't notice me, but I stumbled over my own feet—a depressingly common occurrence—and fell into one of them. Thank Thor, it was Mulch, a decent Viking, and not Uncle Spitelout.

I cringed as he glared at me, his steely eyes making me feel five winters old, terrified of everything and hiding under my bed. His wild black hair hung to his ears, merging with his small beard as he lowered his eyebrows ominously. It was comically short compared to any other beard on the island, and his voice was ridiculously high pitched, but he was the brother of the Chief, and his personality alone was enough to make me run for the hills. Nobody, except the Chief, could scare me like he did.

"S—sorry—" Mulch ignored my stuttered apologies and they walked on, talking to each other courteously. I cringed and changed direction abruptly, jogging down a side street. It would take longer, but there would hopefully be less people to watch the 'village terror' running to fiddle with his 'dangerous inventions' again.

"Ah!" I cried out as my eyes exploded into ferocious itching, a hundred ants crawling and biting the back of my eyeballs, and I groaned in frustration, waiting for it to pass. Ever since my fifteenth winter, I'd had strange episodes like this at the most inconvenient times. I leant against a nearby house and scrubbed at my face, praying it would be over soon.

A few moments later the sensation passed, and I looked around, hoping that no one had seen that. About five startled Vikings stared at me, probably wondering what on earth Hiccup Haddock was doing now. Nothing like a good dose of humiliation to start my morning.

"Just…" What could I say that wouldn't make me sound crazy? "Checking to see if the wall is sturdy?"

The second the words left my mouth, I realised I sounded more insane than ever. I was leaning against one of the middle aged houses, built about a month ago. There was no way it would be anything other than solid! Maybe the Vikings wouldn't realise that? I walked on, trying to act normal.

"Eh, it's just Hiccup."

"Maybe he's finally cracked."

"Just don't let the Chief hear you say that."

"Come on, it's what everyone's thinking."

I kept walking, not letting any of the Vikings know how much their words hurt. I might not have been the strongest, or the fastest, or the bravest, or the most skilled, or a mighty warrior. My inventions might have caused more damage than the Thorston twins put together, but I was still a Berkian. I was still a Viking.

It took forever to reach the forge, a drafty building with a long gap along the front, and despite the chilly air, I was pretty warm when I arrived. It used to be a normal building, until one of my inventions had thrown a rock through the wall and my mentor, Gobber, noticed how useful the hole was for passing weapons out to people. I sighed, lost in memory. Even though the machine had been confiscated and destroyed, I hadn't been punished as much as normal that time.

I stood outside the forge and listened intently for any sign of life, because technically I wasn't supposed to be there.

Silence.

Gobber was probably helping the Chief in the village, never dreaming that his apprentice was working behind his back. If I fixed a few weapons, maybe he wouldn't be too mad. He'd told me to take the day off, and I knew he was dreading when I would finish my next idea.

Some day, I'd finally think of everything that could go wrong before building something, and it would work perfectly the first time.

This time, I'd made a few secret shots at night, and I thought I'd identified most of the problems. Today I was going to make a few adjustments, and it would hopefully be ready this evening. Six months of hard work would finally bear fruit. I crept around to the back of the forge and slipped inside, wincing at the creak. I'd have to oil that later.

Besides, what was there to do on Berk if I couldn't work in the forge? I could go fishing and help with the dwindling food supplies, but I normally got pulled into the water with the first fish I caught and scared all the others away. Half the time, the original fish escaped too. Other than that, there was training, but that meant interacting with big strong Vikings who were trying to crush the life out of each other, and I was about four times lighter than they were. Or I could go for a walk in the tangled woods, but I'd explored them often enough to know that they were pretty boring. I dashed over to my workbench and started pulling out tools.

Reaching for the cloth that covered my latest invention, I pulled it off with both hands. The material fell off to reveal a squat log on wheels with a tail. I'd tried to model it on what I was hoping to catch, but it didn't quite work out the way I'd hoped—it was more like a swollen sausage with a tail than a graceful flying creature. Still, it was more than capable of doing the job as long as I finished it in time. I grabbed the edges of the seam on top of the main body and pulled out the firing mechanism. It still needed to be fine tuned or the trigger could be set off with the slightest touch, and I knew Gobber wouldn't be impressed by that.

The body was getting in the way so I bent down and pulled out the vertical crossbows I was using to shoot with. The small catch that held the strings and ammunition was on a pivot, and it was positioned in such a way that it would spring backwards if I pulled the trigger lever. The only problem? It could also spring off if the machine got jolted even slightly because it was balanced so precariously on the taut cords. I needed to find a balance between maximum shooting power and sensitivity.

A hand clapped onto my shoulder from behind and I yelped, completely messing up the tension on the crossbows.

"Hey, Useless!"

It was Snotlout, a miniature copy of Spitelout in every way except for the beard—though that wasn't for lack of trying. He shoved me aside into the basket of weapons, and I grunted as a spiked mace slammed into my ribs, knocking the air from my lungs. That was going to bruise tomorrow.

"Hey, cool!" Snotlout said, prodding the result of weeks of labour. "What is it?"

I answered him automatically. "It's called the Mangler, and it shoots—"

"I just remembered: You're boring and I don't care! Does Gobber have my dad's axe?"

I looked around the shop nervously. If anything was done, it would be out in plain sight. I swallowed anxiously as shelf after shelf presented a complete lack of axes.

"I can't see it, when did your dad—"

I didn't even get to finish my sentence before Snotlout grabbed me by the collar and lifted me into the air. It would have been humiliating—even the shortest Viking my age could lift my feet off the ground without too much trouble—but I was too busy gasping for air to care.

"Well, where is it then?"

"I don't know," I choked, and he dropped me on the floor.

"What a combination!" He rolled his eyes. "Weak and stupid."

"Who?" An iron hook clamped onto Snotlout's shoulder, and he turned around with false bravado.

"Gobber! I was just telling Hiccup to deliver Dad's axe as soon as it's finished," he said, and I nodded dumbly.

He spun around and walked out of the shop, but not before shooting me a glare. Even he knew it was pretty stupid to annoy Gobber, and I'd probably have died before I'd seen seven winters I hadn't been apprenticed to the gruff blacksmith. I turned around and offered a forced smile as he glared at me. "I thought I told you to take the day off."

"Well, I thought about it, but decided that I'd rather not get pounded into mush today. Maybe tomorrow, you know?"

Outwardly, Gobber was still furious, but I could sense that he was smiling internally. I stifled a sigh of relief. He was the only person who appreciated my sarcasm, but it had gotten me out of a few sticky situations before.

"Maybe if you actually worked at blacksmithing, instead of tinkering around with a dainty lady hammer, you might not be so small."

I grinned at Gobber. Even if his words didn't come out the way he wanted them too, he still meant well. That was the difference between him, and—well, pretty much everyone else.

"Melting duty."

"Whhhyyy?" I whined, and he pointed at the forge. His way of punishing me was to put me in charge of melting down scrap metal into storable lumps. The best part of blacksmithing was creating, taking a useless piece of metal and turning it into something useful—or in my case, something that was supposed to be useful. Taking something that had been useful and melting it down into a formless piece of metal was just boring, hard work, and heartbreaking.

He threw a large sword at me, and I grunted under the weight. It was bent in a full loop, and I wondered how anyone could bust something so spectacularly. Maybe they'd dropped a boulder on it by accident. The sword would never be used as a sword again, but it was good quality metal, something rare on Berk. Heaving it onto the fire, I jumped and clung to the top of the bellows until they closed with a whoosh of air. The fire sprang up, and the sword started to glow. When it was hot enough, I took out my hammer and banged at the sword until it was roughly square, and lowered it into a bucket of water to cool with a loud hiss. Steam billowed in my face for a few seconds, hot and wet against my skin, and when it cleared I was holding a block of metal in my tongs.

Huffing with exertion, I waddled over to a basket of similarly shaped chunks and dropped it in. When I got back to the bench, there were two more mangled swords resting on my workbench, and a broken shovel. "Gobbeeeer!" I whined, and he ignored me. Sighing, I picked up the shovel and frowned at it. Only the blade and tip were damaged, but the wooden handle was still attached, good for another shovel, and I didn't know how to take it off. It wasn't loose, and though I tried twisting and pulling, even standing on the blade and leaning my entire body weight against the grip, it wouldn't come loose. I swore at the shovel and pushed it to the side, picking up one of the swords. The fire had died down while I was struggling with the shovel, so I swung from the bellows again to get it up to temperature. The two swords were relatively simple, but the heat and smoke stung my eyes, and my arms ached from carrying the heavy metal. I spared a sweaty hand to rub my eyes again, feeling another itch building up, and turned to attend to the shovel.

It was gone. I took it as permission to start some real work again, and reached for the file lying on the workbench.

"Take a break, Hiccup," Gobber called before I could start, and I wandered outside, knowing better than to disobey him twice in a day. The chilly air seemed even colder after the warmth of the forge, and I walked quickly to warm myself up. Other Vikings were all doing something useful, like pushing carts of food from their farms to the storehouse, or hauling catches of fish up from the docks, and it made me feel guilty. I turned abruptly and headed for the forest, trying to escape from people. It took less than ten minutes to weave my way through the busy streets into the relative quiet of the woods.

Bird song twittered around me and the leaves crunched under my feet. I smiled a little, glad to be away from the bustle of my village. The trees were far from quiet, but they weren't loud. The sounds were softer and more ignorable, though if they disappeared the absence was obvious. If the animals suddenly went quiet, I needed to be ready to run from whatever had spooked them, and the few seconds of warning had saved my life a few times before.

It was even colder under the shadows of the trees and I shivered as I entered the forest. There were two tracks in front of me, a clear path leading around to the other side of the island, and a half-overgrown track heading towards the peak of the mountain in the middle of Berk. I slipped along the smaller, hidden track, carefully keeping track of every tree and log. I liked this path. It was clear enough for me to get through easily, but small enough to be overlooked if anyone came looking for me. I kept a mental map secure in my mind so that I could find my way back home in a hurry if I was forced off it.

The path peeled away from the mountain after a while and I sighed, wondering if I should turn back. This was where I'd normally start to feel the pull of my inventions and turn back. It was strange how much hold my tinkering had on me. Sometimes I had more inspiration than I knew what to do with, and at other times it was mind-numbingly dull, but I couldn't stop myself from pulling something out and fiddling with it. Even if I didn't want anything to do with wood or metal, it could always pull me back to the forge, wasting my time on something no one would give a chance.

But the pull didn't come today, so I kept walking and walking, climbing high up the mountain towards the cloud-shrouded sun. It was refreshing, and even when my calves and thighs burned, my lungs dry, I was pulled upwards. Maybe, if I could climb high enough, I could leave my village behind. Should I even go back? Who would miss me if I just left one day and never returned? Logically, I knew I'd never survive on my own, but it was a surprisingly attractive idea. Never see Snotlout again? It was a dream.

A turn came up, the trail starting to double back on itself as it wound round the mountain, and the trees thinned as I approached it. It might have been weak, but I shut my eyes instinctively when the sun shone in my eyes. My feet continued to pedal for a few steps without any way of seeing where I was going—stupid feet—until they trod on a small branch. It was tiny, barely big enough to make an arrow out of, but it was twisted like the swords I had been scrapping earlier, and when my left foot trod on one end, the other end rose up and hit me in the shin. I stumbled, trying to force my right foot through something my left foot was holding secure, and, not surprisingly, fell flat on my face.

"Could this day get any worse?" I yelled at the sky, and yelped as it started to rain, a cloud literally appearing out of nowhere. "That wasn't a challenge!"

My breath hitched in my throat as I realised how far away from the village I'd come. The dirt path, so reliable in dry weather, would become virtually impassable in about half an hour if the rain kept up. Small scrapes on my palms stung as I pushed myself upright and started jogging back along the path, thankful for the trees that kept most of the rain off me. I trod on a protruding root, grasped at a branch to steady myself, it promptly snapped off in my hands and sent me to the ground, and I decided I didn't like trees.

The path got slipperier as I made my way down it, my legs flying out from under me several times, and bruises accumulated on my arms and legs from various falls. I ached all over by the time I got back, wet and covered in mud and even colder than normal, but I'd managed to arrive relatively unharmed. It took longer, but I cut straight through the forest and emerged on the hill leading down to my house, skirting around the probing eyes of my village. Pulling open the door, I stuck my head inside and checked to see if anyone was there. No, the fireplace was dark and cold, and the chair was abandoned by the table. Dad must be working outside. I slipped inside and crept upstairs to my room.

Peeling off my soggy, stained clothes, I dumped them on the floor and decided to deal with them later. Heaving the lid of my clothes chest open, I pulled on an almost identical set of clothes: a green tunic and dark green pants with a brown leather belt. The bearskin vest was the only one I had, the reason why I didn't wear it in the forge, and it was completely caked with mud. Staring at it in dismay, I groaned. My most treasured possession, it came from the same bearskin as my father's cloak, and was probably the only similarity between us. Cleaning it would be a nightmare.

As soon as I was presentable, I exited the house, and wound my way through the village back to the forge, walking. I was too tired to jog anymore, even though I got several strange looks, probably due to the mud I hadn't been able to clean out of my hair. Gobber might have told me to take the day off, but I wanted the Mangler to be ready in case there was a raid tonight, and there wasn't much of the day left. There was maybe one and a half, two hours at the most, until sundown, when Gobber closed the forge and headed for the Great Hall for a cup of mead or five. I could stay after he'd gone, but that normally left me tired and fuzzy headed the next day from sleep deprivation. If Gobber didn't tell me when it was time to stop, I could work halfway into the night without realising it, and it wasn't very pleasant in the mornings.

Stumbling into the forge, I shivered at the welcome warmth from the fire and sprayed water everywhere. The short trip from my house to the forge hadn't quite drenched me from head to toe, but it had done its absolute best, and my clothes clung to me in wet folds. Gobber worked on a sword at his workbench, muttering unhappily to himself as he tried to get the blade shaped just right, his back turned to me.

I unfolded the Mangler and pulled the crossbows out. Maybe if I deepened the groove in the catch holding the strings back it would be harder for it to spring off? It was worth a try, so I pulled out a small file and pulled the catch away from the main body of the crossbow. No longer restrained, the strings sprung away from my hands and slapped my fingers on the way past. Yelping in surprise, I was immensely thankful I hadn't loaded it. A bola flying through the roof would definitely earn me a week of melting duty, after I'd finished mending the hole.

Gobber turned around and jumped in surprise as he saw me.

"Odin's ghost, where did you come from?" He accidentally stuck his hand in the fire and somehow didn't notice. Well, it was a stone prosthetic, but seriously? Wasn't it even slightly hot?

"Gobber—" I tried to warn him, but he brushed me aside.

"What have I told you about creeping in like that?" He stopped, and sniffed the air. "Do you smell something burning?" Realisation crept across his face, and he pulled his hand out of the fire with an unmanly yelp. It was smoking, and a shy flame wrapped around the wooden handle like it was trying to make friends.

"What the—?" Gobber crushed the flame with his other hand, and turned back to the sword he had been working on a moment ago. He threw his hands up in exasperation.

"I'll come back to it tomorrow. Let's go to the Great Hall for a bit of supper, eh, Hiccup?"

There was a cold fireplace and mud stained clothes waiting for me at home, but I wasn't actually that hungry, and once Gobber got drunk, I usually regretted being within fifty metres of him. Still, it was hard to get out of anything once he set his mind to it, so I forced a grin. "I bet you'll have more than a little."

At least Gobber found my jokes funny. If it had been a different Viking, I would have been on the floor with a black eye within two seconds. He moved to put the fire out, then walked ahead of me to the Great Hall, easily pulling the door open, and I slipped inside before it shut again. I couldn't even open the doors on my own, not without considerable effort, but there was normally someone in front of me who could open it, and I'd slip through the gap before it closed.

The noise hit me like a physical wave, every Viking bellowing something to his neighbour, while listening and understanding five other conversations at once. It was a gift, one that I'd half inherited. I could easily keep track of several things at once, otherwise I'd never have survived in the forge, but actually talking to people? I was too quiet to be heard over the general babble, and even if I said something, people would look at me strangely and I'd realise that I'd either said something sarcastic they didn't understand, or said something sarcastic that offended them in some way.

I timidly followed Gobber to an empty space and squeezed between him and Bucket. The large Viking had never been the same since his skull cracked, but I thought it was an improvement. He was like a small child, innocent and lacking the characteristic hit-a-problem-until-it-goes-away Viking mindset, even if that was only because he didn't realise there was a problem. I listened with interest to a lesson Mulch, his self-appointed guardian, was treating him to, on the subject of farm animals.

"So, which one gives us eggs?"

"Um… the fishing nets?" I shook my head and smiled genuinely for the first time that day.

Gobber returned with two plates absolutely piled with food, and I jumped. It must have been all those late nights working on the Mangler, but I hadn't even noticed that he'd left. As soon as the plate landed in front of my nose, I pushed most of the food onto his precarious stack. There was no way I could eat as much as he put on that plate! Already engaged in a debate about whether swords or axes were better weapons ("Definitely axes,") a conversation about fishing ("I agree, you need water to fish in,") and a discussion about the dwindling food supplies ("We're Vikings, we'll tough it out,") Gobber didn't even notice. Picking at my chicken leg, I ate a few mouthfuls before I saw him reach for his tankard of ale. I knew I could go now;he'd be too absorbed in drinking for the rest of the night to miss me. I slipped off the bench and walked down the aisle, dodging elbows and Vikings who'd stood up to get seconds.

A breeze washed over me as I reached the door, wafting away the smell of unwashed Viking, and I groaned as I realised the rain had stopped. There might be a raid and I'd never managed to fine tune the Mangler! I still had to clean my vest, which meant drawing water from the village well, heating it up in front of the fire, and swirling the vest inside it until the water was dirty and the vest was clean. My arms felt heavy just thinking about it.

I stamped up the hill to my house and collected our large washbucket, hauling it down to the well in the middle of the village. I dropped the smaller well bucket down into the well with a distant splash, and heaved on the heavy handle until the bucket emerged again, tipping the water into the washbucket.

The full washbucket was extremely heavy when I picked it up, and for a moment I contemplated making two trips with a half full bucket each time, but decided that climbing the hill twice wasn't worth it. The hill was still slightly slippery from the rain earlier, but—for once—I didn't trip over my own feet. It took considerable skill to choke on air, fall up stairs and hills, and trip over nothing, but unfortunately I had that skill. I leant backwards against the handle of the bucket and it slid a few inches towards me, fighting gravity.

When I finally made it up to my house, trying not to spill the water, I pulled the door open just enough to let me through and hauled the bucket through before slumping against the wall. The cold fireplace was dark and fireless, so I dropped my vest into the water without heating it. Warming the water would take at least an hour, and I wanted to have time to sleep.

It was a nightmare cleaning the vest. To start with, it sucked up water like a greedy yak, and barely left any in the bucket to clean with. Second, the washbucket wasn't that big, and whenever I swirled the vest around, freezing water slopped over the side. Eventually, my hands numb with cold, I hauled the dripping vest upstairs, wondering how something so small could absorb so much water. I spread it neatly on the back of my chair and flopped down on my bed without bothering to take my shoes off.

Crash! There was a wordless yell of rage from downstairs, and I winced. Dad must have slipped on the water I hadn't mopped up yet. He muttered something, took a deep breath, and must have decided to make me deal with it tomorrow. Oh joy, just what I needed.

Praying there wouldn't be a raid tonight, I shivered myself to sleep.

Well? Is this a promising start? I'm already working on a sequel ;) This isn't going to be a normal retelling of HTTYD, I promise. The first sign is already showing itself...

About posting: I really liked Tim2060's idea of alternating. One week this, the next week a short story. What do you think? Do you want to find out what happens next, or do you want one of the stories listed at the end of Crash? I can't read minds, so you'll have to PM or review.

~JustAnotherRandomPoster