Enpowera: Finally Dagur is making his appearance. On a random note, I am basing Hiccup's reaction to mead off my own reaction to vodka. We also have a lack of songs in this chapter as I kept thinking of Christmas music.


A few months passed and slowly the dragons integrated into the viking society. The group learned that more dragons than just Toothless could become human, so now it was very common for Stormfly, Hookfang, and Meatlug to be seen walking about in humanoid form, and most surprising was Barf and Belch, who became twins like Ruffnut and Tuffnut. It was now December and near Snoggletog - a time for joyous celebration and gift giving. It was going to be a special one this year with all the new dragons who were as good as family to the vikings. Everyone was taking their time to decorate, as they wanted to show the special and also make a good impression as very special guest were attending this year - The Chief and Heir from the Berserker tribe, along with a few soldiers from their tribe. This meant that everyone was running around making sure everything looked fine, especially when it came to the dragon-related aspects. For all that the other viking tribes knew, the Hairy Hooligans were still at war with dragon kind; Stoick originally wanted to hide the dragons away until after the Berserkers left, but Hiccup managed to persuade him otherwise (with puppy eyes and a promise to make his favorite dessert for the whole season).

Hiccup was taking extra care this season, as she really wanted to make a good impression on Dagur. What she didn't know was that the whole reason they (the Berserkers) were invited was so that Stoick could break the marriage agreement arranged for Dagur and Hiccup in secret. Due to proving that she could handle herself in a way that changed how their very lives function now, thanks to her giving dragons a chance instead of just seeing them as a trophy and/or enemy, she not only gained respect among all Hairy Hooligans (and a title change to Hiccup the Useful) but is now even in charge of training, what she and the other teens coined, Dragon Riders. Though due to the holiday season there was less of battle training and more of showmanship; Hiccup wanted to do an aerial display since this would be the first Snoggletog with the dragons.

Speaking of, right now she was flying with Toothless to get a feel for what tricks she and he might do for the show as a solo routine. On her father's insistence she was wearing a helmet that was apart of her mother's possessions. Hiccup never really knew what happened to her, Stoick wasn't open to talking about it at all, but these days she couldn't help but wonder every now and again… would her mother be proud? Toothless said she would be to help brighten up Hiccup, but the young maiden couldn't help but continue to stew over it when she wasn't focused on something else.

Back in town, the dragons were helping with decoration preparation and a bit of cooking - dragon fire could do wonders to speed up the process as long as it wasn't Gronkle lava (some learned that the hard way, sans Fishlegs due to his intimate knowledge) in the fireplace. Though, just as things were starting to get under way and with the festivities in high spirits, the dragons all stopped… and started flying away for no apparent reason. Many people tried to stop them by any means - from the tactics of yestermonth to ground them to jumping and holding onto their limbs for dear life. Neither tactic worked and everyone was soon in a state of heartbreak.

Hiccup learned of this spontaneous migration the hard way, as she and her bud found themselves flying into the hoard - which ended up with a lost helmet in the process. Toothless was quick to fly back to Berk and explain what happened once Hiccup assessed the damage with her father. There were no burns, scratches or bites but there were many who ended up down in the dumps due to this sudden lack of newfound friendship suddenly shucked away for no good reason.

The only viking who seemed to not be overly upset was Fishlegs, who seemed to be humming a cheerful Snoggletog tune as he carried a basket of fish. Everyone eyed him suspiciously, especially his fellow Dragon Riders. Hiccup let it be for now, distracted by Toothless looking like he wanted to join the dragons in flying away. If it wasn't for his tail fin… Oh, idea!

"Toothless, hold tight! I'll be back soon," Hiccup rushed to the forge and got to work on a surprise for Toothless. A tail attachment to let him fly by himself!

Hiccup worked long into the night until she finished making it, sending Toothless ahead to bed. She gently wrapped it in cloth and headed home to go to bed. Once ice cold bath later and she was off to dreamland, knowing tomorrow would be a very busy day. Which is was. Her father awoke her before dawn so that she could work on getting dressed, as it was the day the Berserkers were set to arrive. Despite Stoick's long time as chief, even he was nervous about the affair of it all.

Hiccup woke up Toothless and pulled out their clothes for the day, also laying out the new tail fin. She focused on dressing herself for the moment, knowing it would take the longest. Hiccup started by dressing in a very elegant leaf green gown with silver thread decorating the sleeves and chest area, followed by putting on her ornate boots. Next had her getting to work on combing her ridiculously long hair (that her father insisted she keep) and styling it to have crown braids with the rest left loose (a luxury she could still do thanks to her age). Last she lined her eyes in kohl, being extremely careful with the rarely used make up.

"How do I look?" Hiccup questioned Toothless.

"As lovely as Deadly Nadder scales." He meant she was pretty.

"Thanks you~. Now for you to get ready," Hiccup pointed to the nice clothes she'd laid out for him.

"Fine, fine…" Toothless grumbled a bit and worked on putting the clothes on. He slipped on a nice blue tunic and black pants with dark brown boots on his feet (which he wasn't too happy about), nothing too ornate but still nice to wear and look at. "This fabric feels odd, why?" Probably because it's the good stuff and not for daily wear. Hopefully he won't tear at it by the day's end in a desperate attempt to be comfortable.

"It's finer quality than our usual clothes," Hiccup explained, "we have to look our best for the Berserker Chief and Dagur…" No she did not swoon thinking about Dagur.

"How come? Isn't a bath enough?" Toothless asked, still confused about some human customs - like this one, for example.

"We want to show off how well off we are. It's like dragons showing off their colours to show who is the dominate male, now turn around so I can attempt to tame that crazy hair of yours," Hiccup wielded a brush.

Toothless gulped a little and just figured to get this over with so that it could be done sooner over later, "Have at my hair then." he sat on a nearby stool with a slump in his shoulders, wings and ears.

Hiccup did so, skillfully brushing and braiding his hair to look more like a traditional viking.

"Tell me again why my hair needs to be braided?" Toothless sighed and winced just a little in pain, "It looks better when down."

"For tradition. It's just one of those things we do. Do you think I wanna wear a dress and do my makeup?" Hiccup lectured. Though if it caught Dagur's attention…. "All done~."

Toothless jumped to his feet and stretched a little, "So do we go now or do they come up to the den?"

"We'll head there. Now I have one more thing for you to put on. A new tail you can use by yourself," Hiccup showed him the gift.

Toothless's bright green eyes widened, "S-Seriously?" he muttered while taking it from her, handling it as though it was made of glass.

"Yes. That way after meeting Chief Oswald and Dagur you can go join the other dragons."

Toothless looked down at his new fin and back up to her a few times, "I've gotta do a thing, okay thanks bye!" He stated quickly while putting on the tail as quickly as his fingers could, turning into his dragon form after opening the front door and flew off who knows where. Well, explaining this to Stoick should be fun…

"...I'm gonna be late!" Hiccup realized, rushing to leave. She would deal with Toothless later. All that work to make him decent and he took off on her! The poor girl barely remembered to grab her warm dragonscale cloak before taking off.

Stoick was waiting at the docks for his daughter and kind of son to arrive, his own attire altered to a very chiefly-looking red and gold tunic, beard done up in nicer braids and also wearing green pants that were a similar color to Hiccup's dress. Where are those two? He kept thinking.

Hiccup arrived by herself, panting slightly and face flushed from the run. She straightened out her dress and stood by her father's side, trying to look as regal as possible, not knowing how much her change in appearance would surprise Stoick, given how much she'd matured these past few months.

"Where's Toothless?" Stoick whispered to her while giving a quick glance around, "You were the one who said to not hide the dragons."

"He left," Hiccup responded sadly. She perked up though at the horns announcing the arrival of the Berserker ships.

Stoick would have asked but had to go into allied chief mode, "Oswald the Agreeable! So wonderful to see you again." He bellowed as he walked over to the more elderly chief and clasp hands.

"It's wonderful to see you as well," Oswald smiled cheerfully. He was older than Stoick by at least 10 years, red hair and beard tinged with a noticeable amount of gray and an all around more mellow-looking person compared to his strapping son, Dagur the Deranged. One could also mistaken him as Santa Claus, just with color still present in his hair and beard and in viking chief garb. "I see Hiccup is here too, you've grown these past few months since The Thing."

"Aye, that she has. She's shown herself to be more than just bride material as well." Stoick nodded in agreement, really hoping Oswald got the hint in his praise.

"Do share," Oswald stated, "she looks like the perfect maiden to me," It was meant 100% as a complement.

Hiccup was blushing quite a bit, not used to the attention. She resisted the urge to peek around Oswald to see if she could see Dagur.

"Well you see, it all started a few months back…" Stoick walked away with Oswald as he explained how Hiccup learned how to train dragons, leaving her alone with Dagur. He'd assumed Snotlout was nearby to do his job as Hiccup's chaperone.

Dagur was...interesting, even by viking standards. He looked out of place due to his fancy yellow with gold accents attire, but it was the blue, claw-like face paint across his left eye that threw the look off. That, and that little gleam in his green eyes that was a subtle key to him being a touch crazy if something triggered his rage.

"Uh, hello, Hiccup." Dagur cleared his throat a bit and walked over to her in a tentative manner, "You're...uh…what my dad said!" Smooth. Not.

"Thank you...It's very nice to see you again…" Hiccup's face matched her hair. Chaperone where are you?

"How has defending the village from dragons been?" Dagur relaxed at least a little on the subject of wanting to hear how killing dragons went. Boy won't this be awkward!

"About that...you see it started when I had to face the Monstrous Nightmare in the dragon slaying training…" Hiccup began to tell the tale as she led him towards the village.

~~~Elsewhere with Hiccup's Chaperone~~~

"So I'm thinking I should start trying to woo Ruffnut, as she is the most available girl on the island…" Snotlout was chitchatting with a few of his guy friends to distract himself from missing Hookfang.

Snotlout saying he was gonna court Ruffnut resulted in uproarious laughter from said friends.

"Ruffnut?"

"Wow, talk about bottom of the barrel!"

"You'd be better off with a girl dra...gon…" And awkward silence due to there being no dragons now.

"I feel like drowning my sorrows now," Ari commented, missing Stormfly.

There were murmurs of agreement from many a person.

"Hey, isn't that Hiccup with Dagur?! Alone? Shouldn't someone be watching her?"

Whoops! Snotlout winced, debating sneaking off as he did not want Dagur to see him (as Dagur used him as target practice).

"Isn't it usually family that watches each other's back?" One person commented, which caused all eyes present to turn to Snotlout.

"I...have to go!" Snotlout ran for the hills.

Hiccup blinked as he ran by, "Snotlout!" I give up. Let the pregnancy rumors spread again.

"Wasn't that Snotlout?" Dagur questioned.

"Yes...he was supposed to chaperone us, since he's old enough this year."

Dagur snorted, "Clearly, he takes the job seriously."

"Yes. Clearly," Hiccup sighed, "Let's just continue our walk. I really don't need a chaperone anyway…"

"What makes ya say that?" Dagur questioned with a raised brow.

"Can't you tell by looking at me? No guy would…" Ignoring that the last time they saw each other Dagur had kissed her.

Dagur bit his tongue on the comment that popped into his head, "They're just stupid, you're plenty fine!" He paused for a moment, "You're fun to talk to, that's what I meant!" He was great with weapons but not words.

"Right…" Hiccup was still unsure.

"If anyone is talking bad about you, I'll have their head on a pike!" Dagur revealed how he got his title.

"Ok-okay…"

And so their walk continued.

"Do you think you can come to the Berserker Isles to teach us how to train dragons?"

"Maybe, you are our allies," Hiccup would have an awful time convincing her father to let her visit though.

"I can see it now...Hiccup, the dragon maiden, taming all dragons across the seas!" He smiled and laughed a bit. "It would certainly be a sight!"

Hiccup smiled at the thought, "It would be fun to do that..."

"And if you managed to find a whole island uninhabited by humans or dragons, you could have a whole academy there! Academy Isle." Dagur was getting very excited and worked up at the thought, his arms moving in grand gestures.

"But...I'm not sure I'd have the time to teach people...or even explore…" Hiccup deflated a little bit. Dagur's ideas seemed so exciting.

"You never know. You're young and have plenty of time,"

"'I'm not that young...I'll be married in a year or two and on top of that I will start training to be a chieftess," Hiccup was longing for a sense of freedom.

Dagur gave pause to think of that, "If I were your husband I'd be fine if you went out adventuring, so long as I could join you in any epic battles."

Hiccup blushed grealy at the thought, recalling her and Ruffnut's conversation what seemed like ages ago. "We….we should head back to the Mead Hall..."

Dagur nodded and the duo headed back towards the Mead Hall, entering together, which drew some attention. Stoick in particular noticed. Looks like I cancelled the betrothal contract in vain.

Everyone ate, drank, and made merry the best they could without their beloved dragons. Soon songs were starting up, stories being shared, and fights starting. Hiccup, herself, was leaning on Dagur a bit as the mead affected her system. Realizing she'd better get home while she still could, she stood to leave. Sadly her body had different thoughts and she tumbled onto the closest person- Dagur.

"Easy there, why don't I help you home," he offered, a slur to his voice. The alcohol was affecting his system too, along with everyone else.

"Sure~" Her voice had a flirty/playful tone to it.

Dagur scooped her up to help with getting her home and in what seemed like a blink of an eye they were in her bed making out, teen hormones and the mead kicking in. He felt himself losing more and more inhibition as the kisses became more and more heated, Hiccup cuddling close.