Happy Halloween!

As before I do not own HTTYD, but I do own this story. Please leave some feedback for this story.

The Dragon Pirate.

Magnus the blacksmith wiped his brow and looked out of the forge's open window to take a look at the sky. It was beginning to get darker, and soon the forge would need to be closed. He turned to face the lads whom he'd hired to help him. The blacksmith, like most Vikings, was a large man with broad shoulders that was indicative of good Viking birth tempered by training and working in the forge.

Unlike others he was clean shaven because, as he always told any of his helpers or those whom he met who were mystified by his lack of a proper Viking beard that he had once seen a kid who was messing about in a forge when he was a boy himself accidentally get set alight when some of the forge's fire accidentally fell into his hair.

The sight of the fool boy's hair catching alight and seeing how the smoke and the sparks from the forge smouldered their mentor's moustache and beard hadn't helped, so the blacksmith's decision to never grow a beard or moustache became pre-ordained.

The blacksmith had dealt with scorn over his decision from many over the years, but he truly didn't care. It was his decision, not theirs.

He gave a shrill whistle and all of his helpers paused. "Okay, that's enough for today. You've done good work, all of yer!" he grinned.

All of his forge hands left the forge, and the blacksmith watched them leave so then he could make sure they were all gone so he could clear up the place and lock up. True he could have made them do that, but he decided to give them a break after all the work they'd done. Sure, the blacksmith was sometimes frustrated with some of the lads since some of them had been passed on to him in order for them to have something worthwhile to do now the dragon war was over, but that was how things were for him now so he'd had to make the best of it.

Not that they'd have many options if the war was still on, he reflected himself. Nadder's point rarely had a dragon raid, maybe once or twice a year, and that was it. So there wasn't much point for the island to have a Kill Ring, but the kids were taken on as "apprentices" to dragon hunters and slayers where they could get the opportunities they'd need.

Not anymore.

Now everyone had to make do.

Magnus himself wasn't sure what to make of the stories and rumours over what had ended the war. A boy riding a dragon? It sounded ridiculous, not just blasphemous, but it wasn't his problem. His problem was making sure his forge kept running. The workload increased every day. The townspeople were lucky; during the war, the dragon raids rarely touched the place, and with the influx of new merchants and travellers, more and more people were allowed to emigrate when even their Viking stubbornness had lost the will to bother fighting against the dragons. Magnus had not blamed them since there was only so much you could take when you were fighting those vile things.

But it wasn't just the townspeople who came to him with their bits that needed mending. It was the travellers, the merchants, and whoever happened to come to Nadder's Point.

The hub island had no allegiance to anyone, and the chief himself didn't truly care who came to the island so long as they didn't bring any grief. Magnus felt pity for the man. The chief had been called away to various meetings over the last few months to speak to the various tribes in the aftermath of the war, though he didn't say what they were about, that was his prerogative.

To be honest, Magnus wasn't bothered with politics though he was curious about what was going to happen now the war was over. Many people who learnt about the successful end to the raids, though the story of how it had happened was still being sent around the archipelago was still vague though everyone knew it was the Hairy Hooligan tribe who were the ones releasing the story, were trying to decide how to cope with the end of the war.

It wasn't some new golden age. Life for the Viking went on, but 300 years had taught the Vikings that dragons were monsters and everyone, including Magnus, believed the dragons would launch attacks against the various islands.

But it hadn't happened. Nadder's Point was a great place to gather news and pass it on so it wasn't out of date to the various islands beyond the Core. There had been no attacks.

There were no new stories of dragons violently attacking the tribes, killing innocents and the elderly, no stories of villages being torn apart and set alight until there was nothing but burnt rubble.

It was almost as though the dragons had disappeared, though they were still sighted flying above various ships, though they didn't seem to care about the humans below. It was like the dragons didn't care. Magnus himself couldn't understand why that was, but he had too much on his hands already to put his mind to the task of working out what was going on. The dragon war ending wouldn't stop his workload from increasing, and it hadn't.

But…. it was just so hard to teach a bunch of kids how to Smith. Some of them had had their hearts set on going out and becoming dragon trappers or killers so then they could do their part in the war, so they had little knowledge of how to Smith.

But then his eyes traced a much shorter boy who was much smaller than the others, and he had to concede that only one kid was good at smithing, though it was evident to the blacksmith the boy had been trained in how to handle being in a forge.

No-one knew much about him.

He had just shown up to the island a few weeks ago, looking for work while selling off dragon scales and fangs he'd somehow come across while he managed to get some work at the forge. The blacksmith had taken him on when the boy, who had shown a vast amount of spirit for someone so tiny asked to be given a chance to show off what he could do, and he'd been hired as a result. Magnus had met many Smiths in his time, but this kid was a natural craftsman.

The boy was amazing as a smith, but the blacksmith didn't know too much about him. Not for the first time, he wished when he'd been given the job of the blacksmith at this Hub which led into different parts of the archipelago, that he didn't need to have such an enormous workload so then he could ask the boy question about where he came from.

Shrugging his broad shoulders, the blacksmith turned his back and shut up shop. It would be a short night for him tonight, he would need to account for everything in the forge and he would need to go to the Hall and get some supper and some mead, and then he'd have to come back the next morning and he'd have to work all over again.

But someone had to do it.

Hiccup sighed as he walked away from the forge on his way to the Great Hall for something to eat while he walked behind the boys from the forge. He was tired and he wanted to grab something to eat before he left the town and returned to where he'd left Toothless. He knew as soon as he met the impatient Night Fury he'd be forced to fly whether he liked it or not.

That was one of the problems he had living here at Nadder's Point.

While the island harbour and town was a hub that was close to the edge of the outer Core which led on to distant lands to the south where the Roman Empire and other lands existed and led to more remote tribal islands in each direction and gave Hiccup the time he needed to either purchase maps and listen to news and distant stories to give him some ideas of where he'd probably go in the coming years while working on maintaining the prosthetic for a little bit longer while he could research ways of making a new tail-fin that was more efficient and durable than what the Night Fury had at the moment, he didn't like being here.

He was separated from Toothless most of the time, so he had no idea what was going on on that little heap of rock the Vikings here had just discarded because it was too small to be colonised and there were no wild animals for them to hunt, but that didn't mean some fisherman couldn't stumble across the Night Fury by accident.

Hiccup always had to remind himself Toothless wasn't stupid enough to get caught out like that. The Night Fury had a long memory; he remembered how one minute everything was peaceful in the cove back on Berk while they prepared to leave, and then they were both taken by surprise when Astrid had led them to the cove. He wasn't likely to make the mistake of being out in the open, and even if someone happened to come upon the little camp and found the shed scales and footprints, they'd just think a dragon had landed there during the dead of night and flown away.

Toothless was good at finding hiding spots. They wouldn't find him, though his prosthetic made it hard for him to truly put some distance between him and anyone who went out. Fortunately, no-one had found the camp, but everyday Hiccup was tense someone would find it. That was one reason why Hiccup was always desperate to get out to the camp as often as he could, it wasn't as if he were being watched since people came and went every day, and he would spend the night with his dragon, and sometimes they'd go flying just to experience the freedom of being in the air, away from the mundane life on a Viking island that didn't have anything to offer him anyway, away from listening to the same boasts and laughs that could shake a forest to its roots.

Unfortunately for tonight he was too tired after spending hours working at the forge, but he had needed the money in order to buy the supplies he needed so then he could make it easier for him to leave the archipelago and so he could pay the rent to his extremely small flat that he'd rented so then everyone would think he lived on the island so he wouldn't arouse suspicion.

The Vikings here saw people come and go all the time, but Hiccup had taken that step so then no-one became suspicious even though the town harbour was bustling and extremely busy. It may not have been necessary, but Hiccup had needed the room to store some of the lighter supplies he needed for later. Besides there were times he was too tired to actually go out to the island Toothless was hiding on. The Night Fury may not like it, but Hiccup always assuaged his sadness that they couldn't always be together.

As he walked behind the boys at a slow trot, Hiccup thought about how things had been since the end of the dragon war. It had been six months since he had killed that Dragon Queen and finally cut his ties to the Hairy Hooligans. Now he was out and exploring beyond the confines of Berk, but he had been extremely busy.

It had taken him six months for him to travel to the various islands of the various tribes to free the dragons imprisoned in their Kill Rings. Hiccup blew out an exhausted breath. When he'd started his little crusade to free the dragons, he had underestimated just how large and difficult his self-imposed task would be.

There were simply too many islands holding the various annoyingly stubborn tribes Hiccup had heard of over the years. He knew where some of them were of course, and he had instantly flown out to them after he'd left Berk while the Hooligans had nothing but a few meagre ships of what was left of a once large fleet so they couldn't tell anybody about what had happened while their precious village was in a mess. Hiccup sometimes asked himself what his ex-father's reaction was when he was able to meet with the other chiefs only to find out their Kill Rings had been demolished in the same manner as Berks, but he didn't care.

Dragon trappers. Dragonslayers. Dragon collectors. The list went on and on.

When he had first begun to free the dragons from various Vikings, he had not expected to find out just how many people actually collected dragons and mutilated them to provide some form of sick entertainment. Hiccup had heard of the Roman gladiators using exotic animals and people to provide entertainment, but when he had seen for himself what the Vikings did to dragons….

Hiccup shook his head and forced down the bile he could feel building in his stomach. He felt physically sick just thinking about the dragons he'd encountered in those places, some of them no longer able to fly because either their wings had been sawn off, literally sawn off, or their tail-fins had been torn off much like Toothless' own fin.

He closed his eyes and he had to mentally kill the image of what had needed to be done to those dragons who no longer cared about living anymore when he'd found them.

That was one of the reasons why he found living on Nadder's Point to be such a chore because so many of the teenagers who'd participated in the war either by selling their skills like mercenaries came back with awful stories of what they'd done. Hiccup had spent the last few weeks listening to the boasts of some of the older adults who came back like conquering heroes expecting the island to worship them simply because of how many dragons they'd caged or killed, and their stories made him feel really sick. It was only because he needed to gather a few more maps and supplies for the prosthetic that he stayed.

In truth, he knew he could just sneak to a tribe and break into a forge and use that, but he wanted to be self-sufficient enough so then if something happened while they were out there and there wasn't a forge nearby then he would have what he needed instead of being marooned on some island.

He had gathered some of the tools he'd need to build a crude forge, but he didn't want to use them unless he had to, but he didn't want to overload his Night Fury with all kinds of bits and that was why he came here to Nadder's Point. To get a break, gather supplies while working on the prosthetic, and then leave.

Nadder's Point…..

He had heard about the place growing up - the stories of its name varied. One story had it that the island itself had once been the home of a flock of Deadly Nadders who were slaughtered or driven off, while another one had simply had the Vikings who settled on the island to give travellers and merchants the chance to gather supplies, catch up on the gossip and basically rest give it a name to differentiate it from the other Hub islands. There were dozens of them throughout the archipelago and Hiccup had not visited many of them yet.

Truthfully Hiccup didn't really care what had possessed the Vikings to name the place Nadder's Point. To him, this place presented to him the best opportunity to not just gather supplies and basic directions towards other tribes and islands he'd never heard of, never mind encountered before, but to find out what was going on, and while he found living here a chore because the boys and other teenagers furious because even now, six months since the war had ended, many of the dragons had just avoided the various tribes meaning there were fewer opportunities for the kids here to hunt them down, he needed to know what was going on while he gathered supplies and continued looking for dragons who were in trouble with the Vikings.

Doing this on his own….. Hiccup sighed in weary exhaustion. Unfortunately, his sigh was picked up by another Viking boy.

"What are you sighing for, runt?" he sneered.

Hiccup forced himself to look at the boy. Bignose was one of the new hands at the forge, and the moment they'd met the other boy had made it his life's mission to make life as difficult and nearly as unbearable for Hiccup as Snotlout had been. It figured in Hiccup's mind he'd leave Berk, but he would find people who'd be substitutes for the bastards who'd made his life next to unbearable all his life on Berk.

Truthfully, Bignose was a waste of time. He was just another macho Viking boy who was trying to muscle his way to glory, but now the war was over he was trying to find whatever he could to ease his frustrations that he was never going to kill any dragons. Hiccup had often heard the teenager moan about it in the Great Hall to anyone who'd listen, and he had overheard the boy grumbling at the forge. Working as a blacksmith help was not the glorious future Bignose or some of the other teens had expected, it wasn't exactly a substitute for the good ole' rough, tumble, blood and guts and talons, glorious war he had envisioned for himself.

Naturally, Hiccup did not care.

But he had learnt from experience to keep away from kids like Bignose, especially Bignose who was always spoiling for a fight.

"Just sighing 'cause of work, that's all," Hiccup replied, hoping the other teen didn't make a big deal out of it though he knew the other boy was spoiling for a fight.

Bignose chuckled, showing his crooked teeth. Hiccup wondered what on Midgard the guy had done to make his teeth so hideous - there was no way someone's mouth could be that crooked, it simply had to be self-inflicted.

"Yeah, about that," Bignose's raspy voice brought him back to the present. "Where're yer from? We ain't seen you 'round 'ere 'fore. Yet yer comes here just a few weeks ago, and expect our blacksmith to give yer a job."

Hiccup wondered what the teenager's point was. His arrival to the island wasn't some major event and he had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure no-one in authority really knew he was here. It would have been virtually impossible for him to do that with the smaller tribes like the Meatheads of the Berserkers, but here it was easy to slip into the crowd.

Besides, the chief didn't care. He had enough problems as it was, and he couldn't keep tabs on who came here. Hiccup had been keeping a low profile on Nadder's Point and as long as he was here it was going to stay that. He didn't care about breaking into Kill Rings, the story of those cases would tie up the archipelago and make enough noise for the Hairy Hooligans and the others to send out hunting parties when the tribes tried looking for him. The story of a boy riding a dragon had gotten out months ago, and even though people laughed there was quite a bit of proof to back it up.

Hiccup had sometimes flown close to different ships so then the crews got a good look at him, though not good enough to get a good look at his features. He wanted people to know he existed because it created noise and even if someone hunted him down, they wouldn't know where to look while he could hide on hub like this.

"What's your point?" He knew it was dangerous and extremely reckless to provoke or antagonise a Viking teen who was built like a Gronckle, but Hiccup was extremely bored of this. Bignose and some of his friends had been forced to mooch around the island for the last six months once word reached them the war was over, looking for something meaningful to do with their lives now their career choices had been washed away.

Bignose's face was thrust really close to Hiccup's. The smaller boy needed to call up every ounce of confidence and courage he had gained over the last few months to just keep standing in the same spot to avoid the overpowering stench of the other teen's body odour. "The point is we don't know who you are."

"You could be a spy for one of our enemies," another boy, a friend of Bignose's who had a name that sounded like Trollshoulder, or something like that, spoke up.

"If I was then why would be working in a blacksmith's forge?" Hiccup asked, feeling that they were trying to clutch for straws. "Wouldn't it make more sense for me to be close to the chief of this island?"

The two Viking teens looked at each other with bewildered expressions on their ugly faces, and Hiccup just sighed wearily. Pointing out logical thoughts to some Viking teenagers was like pulling out teeth. But before anyone could say anything else, Magnus the blacksmith lumbered up to the group.

"C'mon lads, time to eat," he said, clapping his hands on the backs of Bignose and on Hiccup. It took all of the shorter boy's willpower to not wince at the impact, but it was a near thing while Bignose didn't even grimace since he had muscles to absorb the clap.

The Great Hall of Nadder's Point was much larger and more ornate than the Halls he'd seen during his time with the Hairy Hooligan tribe. Although Stoick had made it a point to not take him to many of the Things despite how against protocol it was and how many of the other Vikings laughed at Hiccup's short stature, the young dragon rider had seen his fair share of Halls.

This one was far larger and there were more places where visitors and travellers, as well as the people who actually lived on Nadder's Point, could sit and eat and enjoy themselves. After grabbing some food for himself, Hiccup walked over to a fairly uninhabited part of the hall, making sure to keep away from the rest of the crowd, though there were a couple of travellers that he had seen land from a ship a few days ago. He had seen them enjoy two nights to themselves, but then they had begun to mingle with the other travellers, swapping stories and basically making trades, so Hiccup didn't feel bad about interrupting them tonight. He wanted to leave soon, and the more he learnt tonight, the better.

It was obvious they were a married couple. The man was as large as a regular Viking, but he lacked the typical helmet, but he was armed and he had a large sword that was more like a woodcutter's axe. The woman was smaller than the man but much larger than Hiccup in terms of height and build, with long brown almost black hair.

"Do you mind if I sit with you?" Hiccup asked as he approached. "I'd like to know more about your travels."

The woman and the man were slightly surprised by the statement. "Sure," the man replied, seeming okay with the thought of speaking to a villager even if Hiccup wasn't a villager.

Hiccup smiled and he sat down and began to eat. "We get so many travellers here, it's hard to keep track. But it's good to know more about what's out there."

He had learnt that flattery was sometimes the best means of getting answers. Usually, it worked but sometimes it didn't, the trick was just going into it with his eyes open and just find out.

"This place is great for it," the woman said. "But if you've lived here all of your life, you must've heard it all?"

"I have, but that doesn't mean someone hasn't got anything new to say," Hiccup said smoothly, not bothering to tell the woman that her assumption he'd lived here all his life was wrong. A large part of him wished he had, but if that had happened he'd never have met Toothless.

Between the time it took for Hiccup to sit down and for when the travellers decided to retire, there was a lot of talk between them both. Hiccup had told them both he had travelled around for a bit with his merchant parents, and he had used the places he had seen during the past six months as a template for his own stories so then the travellers wouldn't feel like they were being interviewed. They were nonetheless surprised and intrigued that a boy working in a forge was seemingly well travelled, even if it was around the major homelands of some of the major tribes, though Hiccup had told them a bit about tribes he had encountered who were much further away from the Core.

In return, Hiccup learnt a lot more about the lands they'd visited. He also learnt the woman was a former member of the Bog-Burglar tribe (when he'd heard that, he prayed to Thor and Odin alike she did not know Camicazi; the last thing he needed was for anyone whom he knew from any of the other tribes finding out where he was, and taking clues but luckily she didn't), and Hiccup learnt she had become tired of the never-ending dragon wars and the way life never seemed to progress.

She had petitioned the chieftess of the tribe to let her go, and let her see the world. She had travelled for years in a single boat, and while she always tried to visit her former tribe when she could, it had been years since she had seen anyone from the Bog-Burglars.

During her travels, she met and later married her husband who was a merchant himself, but he was also a bit of a rogue. It was that which had attracted him to her, and together they either explored parts of the sea and the surrounding lands and had encountered the Romans and had travelled all the way to Asia, or they had plundered it as a pirate duo.

Hiccup was intrigued when he heard about Asia. He remembered Gobber the Belch's tales about those lands that the old triple amputee had visited in his youth when he'd wanted to see the world as well before returning to Berk to help his tribe, he also remembered how much trouble it had been to get that crude translation from Trader Johann who knew some characters of Chinese so he could make his own gunpowder. Johann had shown him as much as he could during that brief visit, but it had almost not been enough to help Hiccup make gunpowder, and it had been a nightmare to find the right ingredient though the ones he had already given him more than enough clues and Johann had been more than helpful.

As he spoke to the travellers, Hiccup learnt a great deal about them as people. He learnt they were preparing to head out for Bog-Burglar territory to settle down briefly and have the time to raise a family; Hiccup wished them luck.

In return, Hiccup told them he planned to leave Nadder's Point in the future and travel around on his own. He was telling the truth. The only thing he didn't tell them was how long it would be before he made his move.

When the meeting was over, Hiccup left with a few crudely drawn maps to places distant of Nadder's Point, and he had a good idea of where to go next.

After leaving the hall, Hiccup headed out to the dock and walked towards a fairly small jetty where a tiny sailboat was waiting for him. After dumping his supplies in the small basket, Hiccup untied the mooring rope and used a small oar to push the boat away from the jetty and then he began to slowly row the boat away from the town.

Unlike Berk which was surrounded by the sea with nothing to protect the island itself from the rough waves and tremendous storms, Nadder's Point was surrounded by smaller islands that were too small for the uses of the Vikings living on the main island except for additional supplies of wood, and there were was a large and rocky reef that was difficult to navigate. But it was the combination of the small islands and the reef that protected the Viking island harbour from the worst of the storms that frequently rocked the rest of the archipelago.

Ignoring the ache in his arms as he pulled the oars towards one of the islands, Hiccup took his time as he rowed out, knowing from recent experience it was not a good idea to waste his energy. When he finally arrived after an hour's rowing, Hiccup used the momentum of the boat's speed to beach his tiny boat. He braced himself and flinched as the impact shook his bones, just like it always did.

Hiccup got out of the boat and pulled out the same rope he'd used to moor the boat to the jetty and tied it to a second rope that was tied around a tree before he grabbed his things and walked away from the beach before he came upon a rock. Reaching behind the rock he pulled out a torch and a couple of flints. It took him a moment but he managed to create the spark needed to light it before he went through the forest. He wasn't frightened of being attacked by any large animals since there weren't any. But the terrain made his journey longer as he clambered over the rocks he was reminded about why he had chosen this particular island in the first place.

After a journey of what seemed like hours, Hiccup came across a small rocky clearing. There was only enough lighting for him to pick out the shadows of the rocks that surrounded the clearing as they mixed with the trees. It reminded him of the cove that he'd used to hide Toothless when he'd managed to partially restore his draconian friend's flight.

Almost as though hearing his thoughts, Loki in an act of his typical sick humour, surprised him.

Hiccup gasped when he felt a familiar scaled mass of muscle knock into him and he collapsed to the ground before he felt a familiar tongue excitedly lick him almost to death which made him gasp for breath even that didn't give him any reprieve since what air he had was a powerful stench of rotten fish.

"Toothless!…. It's…..good to see…..you too, bud," Hiccup managed to get out. "But you know… licking….. I can't wash it out. C'mon Bud, let me up!"

It took a while for Hiccup to get the overjoyed Toothless off of him, but when he did he was practically covered in Night Fury saliva, some of it Hiccup jokingly flicked back at Toothless when the dragon laughed at him. He wasn't laughing when he had some of his own spit flicked back his own way.

After Toothless lit a small fire, Hiccup leaned against the Night Fury. "Not soon now, bud, not soon now. We're gonna leave here soon."

The Night Fury warbled happily. Hiccup usually always took the dragon out on night flights before they returned to the clearing where they could continue to hide, but since he was trying to maintain some cover on Nadder's Point he always made sure Toothless was aware of when he was not going to be around. The Night Fury was smart enough to know when to not attract any attention, and whenever he realised someone else was in the clearing he would always take a deep sniff to make sure it was Hiccup. The dragon was not stupid enough to tempt fate.

Hiccup patted the Night Fury and was relieved he was with his friend and not in that pokey little apartment he was currently renting on Nadder's Point. He slept there as often as he could to maintain the cover he had so no-one really got too suspicious of who he was and what he was really doing on the island. He hadn't done this at first, he had only started because Bignose was asking too many questions.

Tonight, though, he didn't really care.

While he nuzzled into his best friend's form, Hiccup went over the maps he'd managed to buy whenever he was taking a break. Getting hold the damn things had sometimes costed him, but they were worth it. Hiccup lifted his head and looked towards a corner of the clearing that had a few rocks on top.

When he had first started gathering his supplies, Hiccup had nowhere to hide them and keep them safe, so he had simply looked around and he had dug a small hole in the ground and he had covered the supplies in the holes while wrapping them up in protective cloth and then refilled the hole. As he'd continued to gather supplies and maps for his future journeys, Hiccup had simply re-dug the hole and made it larger, wider and deeper and did the same thing.

Among the supplies Hiccup had gathered over the last few weeks, were spare parts for the tail-fin. It hadn't been easy to find the opportunities to make new parts for the tail-fin covertly, so Hiccup had sometimes asked the blacksmith Magnus if he could use the nights to do some work. Hiccup had been Gobber's apprentice for years, so Hiccup had helped ease Magnus's workload a great deal because he was one of the few teenagers in the forge with any expertise.

Getting permission was not difficult, and besides, sometimes Hiccup often worked a few hours even after closing time to ease the load for the coming day so that gave him extra credit where Magnus was concerned. The other teenagers hadn't liked it but because of Hiccup's work, the young rider was well thought of since he didn't just repair any weapon or tool, he made them much better than they had been before. Besides the teenagers knew that Magnus sometimes took the time to work on some of the piles that came in each day with Hiccup, and he had made it clear he would not tolerate messing around. But mostly the teenagers hated working during the day, so they didn't really want anything to do with the forge at night.

It had taken a lot of work to earn that credit, but it was worth it if it made sure Toothless' prosthetic had enough spare parts for months, and the majority of them were buried under the earth in Toothless's saddlebags.

He was almost ready.

What did you think? The chapter where Hiccup will become a dragon pirate is coming up soon.