Embers float like fireflies.

The night is rippling with undulating serpents, the sky a sea for monsters to swim in. The village of Berk is in frenzy to starve the flames and dowse them, but the dragons swarming above the village always relight them—most Vikings wrestle with the fires while fewer are left to guard the livestock. Amidst the roar of both Vikings and dragons, sheep bay pitifully within the talons of Deadly Nadders, Gronkles, and the Hideous Zipplebacks. The few Monstrous Nightmares focus on distracting the Vikings that actually pose a threat and the Terrible Terrors, as always, remain a general nuisance.

While the rest of the village takes up arms, I'm the one who ensures every hand wields a weapon. Sweat lines my furrowed brow; the clattering of the anvil, the sweltering waves of heat from the forge, and the hiss of hot steel doused in water typically provide me comfort, but never the times I'm forced to the sidelines. You're too young, Hiccup—you're too small, too scrawny, too soft, too un-Viking-like—

What kind of Viking can barely lift a sword? An axe?

A shield?

Someone who isn't really a Viking, that's who.

I just need to kill a dragon, I remind myself. Then they'll see me as one of them. You don't really need to be strong to kill one, just smart and quick enough to get away with it. They'll see.

In my peripherals I catch Vikings being burned alive and dragons skewered in a bloody display that never fails to turn my stomach. I force myself to keep watching, knowing that one day I would be in the midst of that regardless of what everyone else thinks.

After all, how could I ever bother to call myself the Chief if I couldn't be out there with my people?

But the people don't want me. . .

I scowl determinedly to myself then, throwing my braid over my shoulder as I press the blade of an axe head harder to the grindstone. Gobber's pegleg taps the flooring as he replaces the handles of weapons that've splintered beyond repair or snapped clean in half. Contrasting the riotous atmosphere outside, the atmosphere within the forge is uncomfortably calm, if you take away the hollering between Gobber and whichever Viking unfortunate enough to be unarmed.

"You good there, lass? Think you've worn the metal down to a wire."

I startle at Gobber's hand bearing down on my shoulder. For a large man like him downed two appendages, he can be surprisingly stealthy—or, that's what I like to think to excuse my frequent inattentiveness. I grimace as I realize the truth of his words, pulling back the metal I was working on to see it considerably thinner than intended but no less deadly. If anything, I think, twisting it over in my hands, it should prove to be much faster while cutting much cleaner.

But what did it matter what I thought? Vikings tend to like things messy.

"Sorry, lost my head there," I reply, setting the axe head to the side more of them lay waiting to be refitted and sent out for further bloodletting. Whoever receives that is sure to complain at its daintiness.

Gobber's forehead wrinkles. "What's the matter?"

I shrug, pulling another tool for killing towards me to be re-sharpened. "Nothing."

"Hiccup. . ."

"Gobber."

I feel his presence over my shoulder, his stare developing into an itch I can't ignore. I huff, turning to look at my mentor before inclining my head to the counter. The doors are open and giving me a clear visual to the bloodshed and the multiple unwarranted arsons going on beyond the shop. "I want to be out there. That's what's wrong."

We both turn our gazes outside. I catch my peers putting out fires with buckets of well water, something I'm not even allowed to participate in since I struggle with the buckets. Snotlout is soaked worse than I am, and I can't tell if it's from him actually working up a sweat or just from him dumping a bucket of water on himself after his pants caught fire. No doubt he'll exaggerate the tale in the morning of how he lost his bottoms. Fishlegs is slow but efficient, dumping the water at the base of the flames while the twins compete over who can put out the most.

And Astrid. . .

My attention lasts the longest on Astrid, who walks with such purpose that I think even mountains would move out of her way. She's a force of nature all on her own, fighting the fires like a flood. Her blonde hair turns to gold from the flames abounding her as she labors away. Each sight of her always steals my breath away. I often feel as though she's a witch in disguise with how spellbound I am when seeing her, but also for how each glimpse of her eventually leads to a sour feeling in my gut.

She should be the future heiress of Berk, not me. I try my hardest to live up to people's expectations yet I'm definitely sure my best effort can't measure up to what she does so effortlessly.

Gobber's face has fallen when I manage to avert my eyes, a sigh building in his shoulders as they rise and then fall. "Lass, y'know you—"

"—can't." I interrupt bitterly. He winces. "Gobber, I know. He doesn't want me out there. None of you think I have the guts or the brawn, but I know I have the brains! Why can't that be enough? I just. . . I want to be one of you guys. How am I supposed to take up the mantle of Chief one day if no one in Berk thinks I can stand with them?"

A roar shatters the air, more a shriek than anything. The earth trembles from the force of the blast as screams of "Night Fury!" echo. The hammers rattle on the wooden counters, deadly morning stars without shafts rolling off the shelves; Gobber kicks one away with his pegleg.

We both fall into a muted silence as the devil of the night sounds out its arrival.

I finally turn away when the cries of wounded fill the air, gritting my teeth. "I know I can help," I insist, thinking of the large bola thrower hidden under the sheet in the corner. "Why won't you let me?"

"Hiccup," Gobber starts, before petering off with another sigh. He begins again, "Hiccup, for all yer brains, you just don't seem to understand that it's not enough. No matter how many schemes you come up with, strange contraptions, it won't matter one wit if you get cornered when you don't have the strength to defend yerself!"

His single remaining hand rubs down his face, as it often does when he finds himself in my company. I immediately feel guilty for the exhaustion I've brought onto him. I can tell the blond in his braid grows grayer with every day he deals with me. I'm grateful he loves me enough to accept the burden of teaching a failure.

If only the Chief could, though.

Eventually, Gobber's weary eyes find mine. ". . . I don't want to be harsh, lass, but each time you've gone out there it's only resulted in more loss because someone has to save you. You're just not cut out for it, like this. You want to be a Viking? You'll have to stop being the opposite."

That hits me in a tender spot. I hunch my shoulders, fighting back the abrupt glistening in my eyes as I turn away. The shame burns me more than working with the forge ever has.

But it's true.

Countless times I've run out, brazen and so sure that my plans would work this time, that I could make my dad proud of me and get the others to stop belittling me.

Each time I've failed.

In the ensuing chase where an enraged dragon races to snap me up or cook me alive, other Vikings or even the Chief have had to come to my aid, often abandoning very important tasks and posts during the raid. There was even that time the distillery burned down due to my screw ups, along with all the spirits inside.

Now, everyone knows drunk Vikings are happy Vikings.

The opposite? Not so happy.

Especially with me.

But they never are. They can't wrap their heads or their hands around the weapons I create, the odd way in which one thing does another, then another, the scope of it too confounding for them to even consider wielding them. They want to be out there in the fray, bringing the weapons down on scaly heads with single-minded simplicity, not from afar, beyond the reach of dragon tails and jaws and claws. A Viking doesn't shy away from the brunt of battle.

But I do.

Because I'm not a Viking.

". . . Lass—"

"Gobber! Thor Almighty, get yer one-legged ox-face self out here!"

I glance at Gobber as he harrumphs, wrinkling his mouth at the frankly rude call for his aid. He gives me a single look that I've learned comes to mean "stay put" before yanking a heavy spiked club off the wall. "We'll talk later, Hiccup. Keep the forge burning."

I stare after him as he hobbles out the doorway, frowning. I pull the sword I'm now working on off the grindstone and see my sullen reflection in its dull sheen. All I can see in the metal is a little girl not fit to bear the title of Chief, now or ever. All I see is a little girl who doesn't belong anywhere but out of sight. My only friends are Gobber and the forge, with all the odd devices I've made and my little workspace shoved into the corner and hidden away by a curtain.

But as I spot the painstakingly put-together bola cannon I crafted pressed against the wall, I have to wonder.

Should I finally put away my oddities? My only hope of keeping up with those superior to me in every other way? Give up achieving the one thing I've always wanted, to make it easier for everyone else to ignore my existence, if not scorn it?

I feel on the edge of something—something life-altering as I stare at the proof of my strangeness. Letting it go would be like losing a piece of me.

Would I really surrender a part of who I am just to try and fit in?

I think of the Chief, who so often has criticism and very little support, struggling to be a father with an embarrassment of a daughter. I think of Gobber, who offered to teach me his trade in order to provide me some kind of purpose, a way to distract me from the fact that I fail to connect with my peers in every avenue I've attempted until I learned to just take a step back instead of forward. I think of Berk, the village I am to inherit, whether I feel I'm fit for it or not.

"A good chief puts his people first."

A saying, one of the few things the Chieftain tried to teach me that actually stuck, right before he put me on the back burner to focus on Berk. I was too odd for him to handle, too small and fragile for him to risk training, and too awkward for him to speak to outside of official matters—it was just easier to put me aside as a lost cause and focus on what he knew best.

The metal plip-plops with my tears.

Fine. Okay. I'll do it your way.

I put the sword to the grindstone and my heart away.

Not even ten seconds later I hear a whistle.

The cry of the Night Fury whips the air like a clap of thunder and—

The forge explodes.

Gothi wrote to the Chief that I was lucky.

Feeling for my eye, I rub instead the bandages that hide it. I know I shouldn't but it's a ferocious type of pain that can't be ignored. I don't have a voice to protest the agony. I think I'm in shock, and that's what's staying my tongue. I can't bear to look in mirrors yet.

I'm told the flames of the Night Fury had seared away my eyelid until there was no seam to be seen, no eye beneath save for the melted mess it surely became. There're smatterings of burns across my cheek and jaw like splotches of paint. I can feel the sticky salve beneath the bandages, some futile attempt at minimizing the scarring and easing the burns.

What's the point when nobody cares to look at me anyways?

The same burns travel down the side of my neck to my shoulder blade. Infrequently there are streaks down my arm that I can feel pulling when I rub at my face.

To sum it up, I probably look both poorly cooked and overly burned.

"Hiccup. . ."

I hear the Chieftain say my name but I don't bother to look up. I can't bear to see the disappointment that surely blankets his face like a funeral shroud. I can hardly hold back my own—even when I do what he wants, I still manage to screw up. How can I get in trouble by staying put like I'm meant to?

My throat closes up. A terrible, burning feeling that have nothing to do with the wounds I received from the Night Fury twists at my heart. My fingers pick at the blanket, though the arm that's sticky with the ointment has trouble. Self-loathing claws at my insides until I want to rip open my own ribcage just to save it the trouble of tearing me up inside.

Can I never do anything right?

I can't even die properly.

The bed creaks threateningly as the Chieftain's weight falls upon it. He sits next to me, his shadow dwarfing me.

Slowly, he reaches out.

When my father grabs my hand, I bawl from the only eye I have left.

"I'm sorry," I cry. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't know why this—I don't know how—"

There's my voice, hoarse and cracking. I flinch when my head is gently pulled forward. My forehead presses against his stocky chest, his draping beard getting soaked with my tears. "Shh, Hiccup," I hear him say, and his voice is thick and wet, "It's not your fault baby girl, I'm so sorry."

"Dad. . . I'm sorry. . ."

"It's okay, it's going to be okay."

I twist my head so my unburnt cheek is pressed against him, disbelieving his words. My sole eye stares out the window. A shadow moves away from the glass to blend in with the rest of this tragic night, but I don't care to pay attention to it.

I don't care at all anymore.

I'm clumsier now. I bump into things that I've known for years were always there, trip over roots and steps that I once knew to approach carefully. No one laughs at me—yet. I don't know what faces they make at me and I don't look up from my feet to find out. Life was miserable before. It's nigh unlivable now.

But I'll adapt. One day.

Maybe.

Dad tries to say I will, but I know better.

The other kids look at me like—like—I don't know. Something they'd rather not look at. Snotlout hasn't said a word to me in the past week, nor has he made any effort to make my life harder, but I think at this point it's already reached max difficulty. Fishlegs is the only one that's never looked at me like scum on the bottom of his shoe but now he can't seem to meet me in the eyes even if we're two feet apart. The twins? They haven't caused a catastrophe from some hair-brained idea since, and no ill-natured joke's been played on me in the same amount of time.

And forget Astrid; I duck out of sight at the slightest hint of her presence. I don't ever want her to see me like this. Call me stupid but even trauma hasn't gotten rid of my desire to look good in front of my crush.

Even if I'll never look good for the rest of my life. Sigh.

Scorn and pity are without end, on every tongue and in every fleeting glance. I was used to the seething looks before but adding sympathy into the equation just hurt in a different way. I don't want people to feel bad for me. I don't want them to think that now, even if I tried, I could never amount to anything.

I hide my face. Part of my hair is now, always, left out of my braids, drawing over the place devoid of an eye. The Chief goes to a tailor and has a vest with a hood made for me, for the sole purpose of hiding what my hair can't.

He tries to say I don't have to hide. In reply, my single eye stares blankly at him, opposite of the raw, still yet healed burns, long enough that he averts his eyes in discomfort. That's how I get him to concede.

If my own father can't stand to look at me for too long then how can I subject others to the sight of me?

Gobber's shop is remade in record time, though far sturdier than before. The stairs don't sag anymore from even my weight and it's not as open as before. A crucial part of Viking lives, getting our blacksmith back to work in a suitable building is too important to wait. This past raid has devastated Berk in morale more than any other because the Chief has yet to leave on another hunt, waiting for me to fully recover.

Still, from what I can tell, most of the warriors are secretly relieved for the reprieve.

The Chieftain worries for me returning to work. I tell him there's nothing else for me to do, no other person besides Gobber who can stand to be around me when I now look like the leper people treat me as. No manner of reassurance changes my decision. He lets me go with only the promise to be cautious.

In contrast, Gobber welcomes me back easily enough, though even he has issues with hiding his feelings. He watches me when he thinks I can't see him, treats me more gingerly. Each time he tries to bring up our conversation from before. I know it's from misplaced guilt at not being there. Each time I switch the topic but this last time I told him—

"You were right, Gobber. I'm just not meant for it. I never will be, now."

He drops it for good after that.

From then on, I'm either at the shop, at Gothi's for pain management, or in my own home. I don't take my time traipsing through Berk, I don't greet anyone I pass, and I avoid the popular roads. I've essentially become a ghost in my own village. It suits me just fine—is what I'd like to say, but if before I had minimal contact with people, now it's down to zero.

It's . . . lonely. I don't know how hermits do it.

In order to ignore the sad state my life has been reduced to, I sleep more than I stay awake. It's easier to ignore the pain and hunger that way, too. Food is hard to down, even if that might be because of how the burns pull when I open my mouth. Even if it didn't, I lose my appetite at the sight of charred meat. Let it be known that Stoick isn't the best cook, too busy protecting our food source to learn how to properly prepare meals from it.

My days pass by both sluggishly and in a blink, and another raid happens a fortnight later.

I hear thunder without lightning.

I can't stop the reflexive flinch. Before the loss of my eye, I could hear the telltale screech of the Night Fury anytime without feeling as though I'd be the target of its next attack. Now? Gobber's features are etched in worry as I tremble, struggling to untangle bolas for use in the defense of Berk.

"Lass. . ."

"I'm fine."

Just like that, I ignore him. I rearm Vikings who focus on their repaired or replacement weapons rather than me and studiously pretend I don't hear the devils outside.

But then the forge implodes when a stray Viking draws both the ire of a Monstrous Nightmare and Deadly Nadder right in front of the shop. Gobber leaps through the hole, hook catching on the horn of the Monstrous Nightmare before its head can pass through the hole the Deadly Nadder blasted into the front of the forge. It's a battle, then, to bash the Monstrous Nightmare's jaws shut before it can spew its flames.

The Viking that brought them to us struggles with the Deadly Nadder. At the end of the short scuffle, its tail swings and splinters of spines tear into him, sending him both sailing and screaming when the tail impacts with him afterwards. Gobber redirects his attention to the Deadly Nadder once he's bludgeoned the Monstruous Nightmare to the floor, blood streaming betwixt its horns and eyes shut.

I'm again left to fend for myself as he screams after the Deadly Nadder.

It's déjà vu, almost, as I'm left alone. I hear the Night Fury scream and I brace myself, but my surroundings don't burst into flames again.

Instead, I hear a ragged hiss. I watch fearfully as the Monstrous Nightmare rouses, not quite as dead as Gobber had thought, apparently. I press myself against the shelf with the bolas I've been struggling to detangle when it blazes into an inferno. It gets to its feet, scaly lids peeling open and serpentine pupils going razor thin at the sight of me. The fire it bears sends waves of oppressive heat towards me and I can't help but tremble in remembered agony.

Each and every burn on my body feels like a fresh brand, and I clutch the place where an eye used to be as I use the other to watch death approach.

"Of course, it's just my luck," I can't help but choke out as it prowls closer. "surviving a Night Fury but getting roasted again right after . ."

The Monstrous Nightmare opens its jaws—

A whistle—

I see the white-blue-black of the fire that ruined my life, the deafening boom of it leaving my ears ringing as Gobber's forge explodes again. Surprisingly, the only damage I sustain is from the splinters of wood and the bruises that surely bloom on my back when it slams into the shelf. The Monstrous Nightmare is blown clear off its talons, sent rolling to the side and out of the smoldering skeleton that used to be Gobber's shop.

Again I'm reduced wide-eyed staring, this time out of shock as a shadow swoops down amidst the cries of "Night Fury!" and my father roaring my name desperately. The flames flicker, making the dark dragon nothing but a feline silhouette as it snarls at the Monstrous Nightmare struggling to get up until the fire hazard of a dragon extinguishes itself with a squeak.

There's a silent conversation between the two monsters.

Finally, the shadow turns to me. I can't make out anything but the paleness of its eyes, a green catlike gaze that darts to my face when I freeze.

Predator and prey. Monster and victim. Fear and—

There is a moment, then, where my green meets the green of this dragon's, and its pupils blow up as its stare drifts to the side, to the glaring blindspot in my vision that its shadow blends in with like it belongs there. A soft sound emits from the creature shrouded by night before it shakes its head and snarls at the dragon that took its blast. With a powerful roar, the shadow takes off.

I'm at a loss for words.

Did I just see . . . the Night Fury? Did it just. . .?

No. No way did it save me, not after destroying my life. I refuse to even entertain the idea; the Monstrous Nightmare was just in the way. I didn't even register on the Night Fury's radar as a threat, obviously, or it wouldn't have left me alive.

It hits me then that its attacked the forge twice now, and I don't think it's a coincidence.

. . . It's attacking the forge, not me. It's smarter than it looks and must be trying to prevent us from defending ourselves. . .

And it probably didn't even realize or care that I was in it.

But the realization only makes my heart go cold and my blood boil.

Before the Vikings can congregate to rescue me, the Nightmare finally clambers back up and hisses at me. It makes no obvious moves to renew its aggression towards me but, feeling spiteful and refusing to give it the chance, I grab at the heavy bolas behind me that I thankfully managed to untangle.

The Monstrous Nightmare starts but if there's one good thing about me, it's that I'm quick; it has no time to react before I hurl the mess at its head with a strength I typically don't possess. The bolas smack it dead in the head where its skull had taken the brunt of Gobber's bashing. By some stroke of luck, the Monstrous Nightmare stumbles back, dazed, ropes hanging off its horn.

I grab something else—a hefty hammer half as heavy as I am—which isn't much, unless you're me. The fire in me only burns hotter with no end in sight, fueled by the misery of my circumstances. I can't tell if it's because the Night Fury hurt me so irreparably, or because it dared to leave me alive a second time. Buoyed by rage and adrenaline, I'm struck by sudden, uncontrollable recklessness. I dare to scream at the wounded dragon that totters about, bereft of its bearings, "What the Hel are you hissing at, you scaly candle wannabe?! You want a piece of me?! Then come get it! You don't scare me!"

And then I toss the hammer.

The Monstrous Nightmare goes down.

Behind it is my father and a whole entourage of Vikings, all of them gaping at me.

I glare venomously at them all over the still form of the beast, daring them to call me useless now. None of them know what to think, looking up and then down between me, a twig, and the Nightmare, a beast even the strongest of Vikings have to approach carefully. "What are you looking at?"

Of course, no one answers me.

I'm still angry and my head feels floaty with the weightlessness of it as I tremble. The burns along my body feel raw and hot with the heat flooding my veins. My eyes fall to the dragon I defeated—even if Gobber did most of the work, I dealt the final blow. Me. I did.

"You don't scare me," I say again over the Monstrous Nightmare. I'm not sure to who, or what, I'm speaking to anymore. "You can't scare me anymore."

It's an epiphany. It's a fact. It's like learning the sky is blue, or that pain hurts. It's me, realizing that I can hurt whatever hurts me back.

The Chieftain comes closer.

"Hiccup? Did you just. . .?"

The world stops making sense. The next few minutes—or maybe it's an hour—passes in a daze. It's like my mind is so busy and full of thoughts I can't actually think at all, too overwhelmed to address any of them. I'm swallowed by a crowd. I hear praise, I see amazement, but I don't register any of it.

None of it seems real. It can't be real. No one's ever cheered my name before.

Gobber drags the Monstrous Nightmare off as the Chief finally takes me under his arm, raising mine by the wrist, exalting me. Before I can think to protest, he's hollering into the crowd.

"My girl did it! She fought a dragon! Can you believe it?"

"No!" is shouted back, but grins don the faces of every Viking before me.

"I think, with this, she deserves to go into dragon training, don't you all agree?!"

And, unbelievably, they yell—

"Yes!"

"What do you think about that, Hiccup?"

I freeze as heads turn to me, first the Chief and then the rest. A chill crawls down me. Suddenly all that anger inside of me from the Night Fury flees, the adrenaline ebbing. Whatever confidence I had in the face of that Nightmare is suddenly absent when faced with the opposite of disdain from people I've grown used to belittling me. I nervously pat at my bangs to make sure they're covering my burns.

A hush falls over Berk, as though they're just now realizing should've ask my opinion before all of that fanfare, considering everything that's happened to me involving dragons.

The Chief leans down. "Hiccup, do you want to?" he asks lowly, but his voice might as well be the echo of Thor's hammer across the plane of the sky with how quiet the rest of the world is.

Everyone's eyes are on me and this time it isn't because I screwed up.

Do I want to?

I finally process everything. Without the rush that comes from fearing for my life, I'm left with the hollowness that's carved a space within me these past couple of weeks. For the first time, I . . . can't stand it. Can't stand the onset of nervousness and fear that used to be my norm. Despise the hesitation staying my mind and tongue. I ache to feel something other than this emptiness.

I stare after where Gobber taken the Monstrous Nightmare, wishing for him to bring it back. Wake it up. Make it look at me the way it did, so I can feel that strength again, that rage that pushed me to be what I always strove to be. Maybe then I would know the answer without having to brainstorm to get to it.

But—

If I need to be faced with dragons to be brave, to get that rush back, then maybe the answer is still the same as its always been—just with an added incentive.

The Night Fury is going to regret letting me live.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do."

The crowd roars.