Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, be it electronic or physical, own 'How To Train Your Dragon'. Nuff said.

Hi guys! Welcome back! Sorry for the rather long update. So here's chapter 3.

Some notes though, this chapter deals with setting the scene for future chapters. Nothing too interesting in here, except for some Toothless/Stoick, Hiccup/Stoick, Hiccup/Astrid, Hiccup/Toothless moments. There will be NO slash. Just so you know. That is also why this fic is rated 'T' instead of 'M'.

Chapter Three: Calm Before the Storm

Morning

The morning arrived quickly. Soon, the first rays of sunlight broke through the darkness of the night, casting a reddish glow on the underside of the clouds. Slowly but surely, the top of the sun emerged from the horizon. As time progressed, more of the sun became visible, bathing the other half of the Earth with an endless stream of photons while the other side of the Earth is being plunged into darkness. The roosters cuckooed, signalling the start of a new day. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the village of Berk awoke to a cool morning, yawning in the process. Among the inhabitants were the dragons. And they were a rather noisy lot, especially during the day.

"Quiet down, Stormfly!" Astrid hollered.

Astrid's Nadder was making a heck lot of noise as she waded through the wooden house, which had been a frequent occurrence considering the weight of the dragon. If the dragon wasn't making so much noise or running around the house, she would be lying in a corner, preening herself. That was one of the reasons why Astrid's house was the cleanest after the dragons moved in. There wasn't so much a speck of dust in there. And the girl was rather thankful for that. Because it meant that she would not have to do much cleaning up, which can be a hassle if your dragon was scampering about the house, looking for food and playing with you. The situation in Hiccup's house was, however, very much different from that of his girlfriend's.

"Oh, come on, Toothless." Hiccup pleaded.

Said dragon was tracking mud into the house once again. He had a mischievous look plastered on his face. Obviously the dragon had been rolling in the mud.

"Damn it!" Hiccup swore under his breath. He knew that he would be in deep trouble if his father had found out about this. Ever since Toothless had moved in, the house was in serious need of attention, at least where hygiene issues were concerned. There was one time where Toothless had brought in a carcass of a sheep and Stoick had banished him from the house for a week. The chief, however, was forced to bring the dragon back into the house after a few hours due to the fact that the Night Fury had torched an entire patch of grass. That incident had created a firestorm in which two people were injured and three buildings were completely incinerated. Hiccup had to plead with his father in order to persuade him to let Toothless stay, because the chief was planning on banishing Toothless to another island.

"Toothless! Get out of the house before dad comes back!"

The dragon defied the order and continued to trot into the house, leaving mud prints in his wake. He then settled down besides Hiccup's bed, letting out a contented purr. His rider cursed and groaned inwardly. If his father knew, things would turn ugly. He could almost picture that situation in his head.

Since persuasion had failed to get the dragon out, the boy tried a different approach. Slowly taking away Toothless' privileges would work.

However, it was just a hypothesis.

"Toothless." Hiccup said in a sing-song voice. "If you don't get out now, I'll not feed you any fish tonight."

The boy thought that it would work. But the dragon reacted very differently. He shook his head. Hiccup groaned again. This dragon was getting on his nerve. He tried to think of another thing that would surely make the dragon comply.

"How about if I disallow you from sleeping beside my bed?"

The dragon shook his head once again. Frustrated, Hiccup changed his tone.

"Toothless, get out of the house this instance!" he said irritably. The dragon still refused to budge. His dad was going to come home very soon, and if he failed to win over the cooperation of the dragon, they were going to get screwed.

"Toothless, if you don't get out of here, we'd be dead!"

Toothless stayed rooted to the ground, not moving anywhere. His rider decided that it was enough and walked up to the dragon, with the intention of taking away the reptile's prosthetic tail fin.

"Toothless, I warn you one last time. Get out of the house or I will take away your tail fin." the Viking said in a deadpan tone.

The dragon obviously took this statement as a threat, because the next moment, he leapt over Hiccup's head, scaring the boy in the process, and landed with a thud on the other side of the room. He then continued scampering away from the boy, causing Hiccup to embark on a wild goose chase.

"Toothless! Get! Back! Here!" Hiccup said between pants. The dragon sure was fast, and Hiccup's prosthetic leg didn't help matters. Leaping over every obstacle in his path, he had an advantage in agility and speed.

"Come on, Toothless. Damn it!"

Hiccup's prosthetic leg was much more of a hinderance than a help. Somehow, the tip of the leg, which was the part that made contact with the ground when walking, got caught in the gaps between the wooden floor, causing Hiccup to trip and fall flat on his face. That was a rather unfortunate thing because his nose absorbed most of the impact. That would mean a broken nose and a visit to the infirmary later on in the day. Hiccup made a mental note to get back at Toothless if he had a chance to do so, because right now, Toothless really deserved it.

"Thang kyou fer noffink, you usseless repile." Hiccup managed to utter out, but failed to articulate them properly thanks to his broken nose. He could feel the warm liquid tricking down the tip of his nose. The boy hoped that his father would be out of the way until he managed to clean up the mess that the dragon had created. Standing up, he surveyed the house and rated it 'very dirty' on the cleanliness scale.

However, 'very dirty' seemed to be a severe understatement.

"Gwait, Tootfless. This is just effing gwait."

The entire residence was covered in muddy paw prints. Chairs were overturned. Essentially, it was a complete mess. And Stoick would definitely strangle the both of them when he comes back. True enough, the front door opened and a huge red-bearded man rushed in.

"Hiccup are you all right? I thought I just heard…" Stoick stopped short his sentence, his green eyes surveying the room. Moist, slick mud was dropping off the wooden support beams, collecting at the bottom, giving the impression of manure. Then, the man looked at Toothless, who was covered in the same moist substance. It did not take long for him to put two and two together.

"Get out of the house! Get out! NOW! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS!" Stoick shouted at Toothless. The dragon cringed but stayed rooted to the spot. Hiccup tried to reason with his father.

"Dad, just give it a rest…" he began.

"HOW CAN I GIVE THIS A REST? THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS! I REFUSE TO HAVE THIS DIRTY OVERGROWN LIZARD BEFOUL MY HOUSE! EVERY DAY HE BRINGS BACK SOMETHING HORRID! I GIVE UP! OUT OF THE HOUSE YOU GO!" he hollered.

Toothless did not take kindly to insults and threats. Therefore, he bared his teeth and narrowed his pupils into silts. Stoick too, did not take kindly to threats, so he extracted his stone mallet and challenged the dragon to a fight. Pushing Hiccup to one side, he advanced on the reptile.

"You want ter fight? Is that what yeh want?"

The dragon answered with a snarl. Stoick took that as a 'yes' and charged, catching Toothless by surprise.

"COME AND GET IT!"

WHACK!

The village chief had delivered a blow of the mallet to the side of Toothless's head. The force of the impact was more than enough to send the dragon off his balance, landing on the ground with a huge thud, shaking the entire house in the process. Hiccup had to rush over to his father's side to stop him from pummelling his dragon to death.

"Father, cool down."

"HOW CAN I COOL DOWN WITH THIS BEA-"

Stoick's sentence was cut short when Toothless slammed into him, full force, causing the both of them to roll off to the side of the house. Stoick's mallet flew out of its owner's hand and landed somewhere else. Meanwhile, the two were wrestling for control. Stoick was having some difficulty in shifting the dragon's snout away. The look on Toothless's face was definite. He was either going to harm Stoick, or get himself harmed. He reared his head and opened his mouth, wide. The persistent hissing was a tell-tale sign that the Night Fury was about to flame Hiccup's father. This reminded Hiccup of something. And that did not bring up happy memories.

"STOB IT! BOTH OF YEW!"

The two wrestlers stopped whatever they were doing and looked in Hiccup's direction. Toothless swallowed back his fire in a strangled yelp while Stoick turned around, both of them were momentarily stunned. The entire situation looked like a parody of when both of them had met. Perhaps it was because Hiccup rarely shouted, because he got full attention this time round. And that was saying something.

"Just stob." Hiccup sighed exasperatedly. "Every time yew meet each other, disaster follows! Can't yew two quit fighthing? Breakfast is almost here and I have an entire house to clean!"

Toothless and Stoick continued to stare in a dumbfounded fashion at Hiccup. Stoick had long resigned to believing that his son was not able to shout in anger because his son usually swallowed insults and rarely retorted. Toothless, on the other hand, had never seen the angry side of his rider before, and was equally stunned.

"Okay? Are we done? Because I've gobt some things I need to… yeb, I'll see yew… see yew later."

Hiccup cleaned his bloody nose on the sleeve of his shirt before disappearing into the upper floor of the house through the staircase. As he went into his room and settled down on his bed, Hiccup sighed in frustration.

Dang, he thought. Why do they always have to fight over such trivial matters? And why does Toothless always have to dirty the place?

If his dragon and father were to coexist harmoniously, Toothless would have to be more obedient than he is now and Stoick would have to be more patient and not as hot-headed. If this went on, the house would probably be destroyed one day. Hiccup would almost imagine Stoick wreaking the house with his mallet in pursuit of the dragon or Toothless setting the house on fire in a desperate attempt to protect himself. Either way, it wasn't going to end nicely. A deathly silence settled over the house and Hiccup wondered what was going on down there. Had they stopped fighting? There was a distinct creaking noise of the wooden floorboard coming from outside the door which told the boy that someone was coming up. It would either be his father, dragon or both. The door slowly opened, revealing the heavily bearded face of a man whose arms were as big as barrels.

"Dad." Hiccup muttered. Said Viking replied with a low grunt and walked over to the bed, settling down beside his son. He placed a huge palm over Hiccup's back and petted him.

"Look, son. I am sorry for just now…" Stoick began. Hiccup cut across his father's sentence.

"It's okay. I don't really mimb it."

Stoick sighed. "If you wish Toothless to stay in this house, he's gotta follow the rules. I cannot stand having an animal tracking mud into my house."

Hiccup was absolutely appalled at his father's remark about Toothless being an animal.

"Tootfless is NOT an animal. He saved me dewing the…" Hiccup stopped short, realising what he had just mentioned. He had not been bringing up the incident of him falling into the firestorm after the Red Death had been defeated. Tears brimmed his eyes and he put his forehead onto his hand. Stoick knew how much the boy had hated to bring up the incident and changed the subject.

"How's your nose? Are yeh all right?" he asked, voice tinged with concern.

Hiccup wasn't paying any attention to whatever his father was saying. He was lost in his own thoughts. The pain. The horror. The moment he was unseated from the saddle.

Twang!

The artificial tail fin had broken off the tail. The high tension ropes snapped in the process, ripping the gears apart. Something sharp had embedded itself into Hiccup's left leg. The pain had been excruciating. Coupled with the unbearable heat from the searing blast furnace below them, they could have been in hell. All Hiccup could do now is to pray that the thermodynamic current would carry them further up, away from hell. Pain was all he could feel. His vision was blurring. He felt giddy. He could feel the warm liquid running down the length of his leg. Higher and higher they soared. Soon, they had cleared the distance of half the tail. Yes! They were going to make it.

Then, the gigantic club tail shattered Hiccup's hopes of escape.

The feeling of dread. Of horror. Of panic. That was all he knew. Fear engulfed him, and he instinctively tried to steer Toothless in the other direction, horse-riding style. But no, it failed. With the artificial tail fin gone, they were helpless.

"No."

Hiccup wanted to scream. He wanted to jump off Toothless. The tail loomed closer. And Hiccup knew they were dead. He made one last ditch attempt to steer Toothless to the right… before the tail came crashing down on them.

"NO!"

CRACK!

There was an explosion of pain in Hiccup's left leg. His vision went haywire. Spots started to appear. He must have been flung off Toothless in the process. He felt himself flying through the air. For a moment, he thought that he was in Valhalla, then, he felt the heat bombarding his back. He was falling into the furnace. Toothless appeared, diving downwards, roaring in frustration as he tried to reach for the boy. Hiccup's vision faded, and Toothless was reduced to a fuzzy black dot.

Toothless, he had thought, before the flames engulfed him.

Darkness ensued.

"AHHHH!"

"HICCUP!"

Said Viking was screaming at the top of his lungs. After a while, his body went limp and he dropped to the floor with a loud thud. Stoick the Vast was staring at his son's body, and was paralysed with fear. What just happened? It took a while before Stoick was able to react to the situation.

"Hiccup." the Viking said, shaking Hiccup's body. That action garnered no response. Determined, Stoick repeated the process several times, until he was on the verge of tears.

"Hiccup! Damn!"

He had to get to the infirmary, fast. He did not know how serious Hiccup's condition was. Stoick knew that his son had been having headaches again, bit still could not get the idea of his son being possessed by some demon.

Hang in there, Hiccup.

"Hiccup." a voice said. It sounded like it was from a faraway place. Someone was slapping his cheek. For what reason, the boy did not know. He just wanted to die. He wanted his agony to end. He wanted to get engulfed by the flames. To die in the flames. Just as Toothless had done so to save him.

The only thing that was out of place was that there was no pain.

Did he die? Was he in Valhalla? Was the person slapping him in the cheeks a god? He wanted to know so badly. He wanted to open those eyes of his. There was a loud clanging noise that seemed to emanate from somewhere nearby. Then someone shouted.

"Get that dragon of his to shut up!"

There was a shout of 'yes, sir' and some scurrying of footsteps. So, he had done it! He was dead. And this was Valhalla. Excitement coursed through his veins and that gave him the strength to open his eyes. He had expected the place to look odd.

What he did not expect was to see his father's face looming above him.

"What in the name of Odin…" Hiccup breathed out. However, before he could ask any questions, Stoick started blabbering.

"Oh, Hiccup. You don't know how worried I was. Are yeh feeling all right? Do yeh need the doctor? Are yeh feeling dry? Do yeh need some wa-"

"Stop!" Hiccup exhaled. His mind was in a mess right now. What had happened? One moment he was in his room. The next moment he was battling the Red Death. Then, following that, he was lying on a bed in the infirmary, with his father's head looming above him and slapping his cheeks. And his nose felt better than it had in the last minute. Or is it?

"What happened?" was the first thing Hiccup had asked after he had cleared his mind. Stoick looked at his son and wondered if he should tell. Hiccup stared at his father's eyes and Stoick did the same. They probably locked eyes for about a minute before Stoick spoke.

"Yeh passed out." he said, before adding, "Suddenly."

Hiccup contemplated the plausibility of the situation. How could he just inexplicably pass out like that? It did not make sense. And how could he suddenly be transported into the dragons' nest without even moving an inch and the Red Death gets reincarnated? Hiccup reached out his hand and touched his father's face to confirm that this wasn't a hallucination. It felt warm and solid. No hallucination could be that real. So the boy came to the conclusion that his mind isn't playing tricks on him.

"Okay. But this seems so surreal."

It was surreal. He passed out for no reason. That was not something you'd experience everyday. Ut took Hiccup a while to process the information and come up with a deduction of what was happening. The 'battle' with the Red Death must have been a dream. It must have. There was no other plausible explanation. But what sort of dream could have the power to make him collapse? Perhaps it was not a normal dream. A very powerful dream of sorts.

"Are yeh sure yeh all right, son? Yeh were screaming before yeh passed out." his father said.

Then Hiccup remembered something. His dragon. Where was he?

"I think that I will get some water fer yeh." Stoick suggested, but was stopped by his son. "What is it?"

"Toothless. Where's Toothless?"

His father looked at him. He was debating whether or not he should tell his son the truth. Finally, after a moment of complete silence, he decided that he would go ahead.

"Er, yeh've got ter know, son. That the dragon… the dragon went berserk when he saw me carrying yeh down the steps."

What? Toothless went berserk? So where is he?

"You haven't answered my question yet. Where is he?"

"We've got ter… got ter lock 'im up."

"WHAT!"

"We had to do it. If not he would 'ave set the entire village on fire."

"Toothless hates confinement!"

"It's fer the village's own good. We've done nothing to hurt 'im. No one dared to go within fifty meters of the cage."

"He'd blow up the entire mountain!"

"We didn't know what ter do! We were waiting fer yeh to wake up such that yeh could calm 'im down!"

A loud roar and an explosion broke the conversation. Hiccup looked in the direction of the noise, which seemed to be entering the infirmary through the open window. Squinting his eyes, he could see that a pillar of smoke was rising up from beyond the forest. He deduced that that was where Toothless was being kept under arrest.

"Bring me to see him." Hiccup decided.

Before Stoick could open his mouth to utter out a single word, a Viking burst into the infirmary, covered from head to toe in black soot.

"Chief! We 'ave trouble! The dragon has set fire to the warehouse!"

"Go get the fire brigade!"

The Viking complied almost immediately, sprinting out through the door and into the distance.

"Dad, I'll go with them." Hiccup said,

"No. It is to dangerous fer yeh. You'll get killed."

"No. He is my dragon. He'll listen to me." Hiccup said, determined.

Stoick stood there, contemplating the options. He could let Hiccup out and the beast would be tamed, but he'll run the risk of getting his son killed. Or he could leave Hiccup here and try in vain to control the beast, and run the risk of getting more people injured. After a while, another explosion was heard and screams pierced the air.

"Please, dad. Just let me get to him. He'll understand."

That was more than enough to spur Stoick to get Hiccup out of the bed and bring him to where that blasted dragon was.

"Come." said the chief, extending a hand to help Hiccup out of the bed.

Hiccup and Stoick were silent as they made their way to the cage. The sky was clear and the sun was scorching the ground. Hiccup thought that if he could successfully get Toothless to calm down, they would go for a flight around Berk.

As they neared the enclosure, the first thing Hiccup noticed was the heat. The trees were burning and some Vikings were busy putting out the fire that was engulfing the warehouse. Then he saw it. The bolted steel gate that was meant for holding a full grown Monstrous Nightmare. It was already red-hot and smoke was billowing out of the cage through the tiny gaps. The gates were rattling on its bolts and Hiccup doubted that it would hold much longer against Toothless's relentless assault. There was a flash of blue light and the metal rod that was keeping the cast-iron gates together fractured, spraying the floor with hot metallic shrapnels. Looking upwards, the boy saw that the wooden beam that was supposed to lock the door had long since been burnt into an unrecognisable mess of charcoal that was scattered all over the floor. In its place was a large piece of cast-iron that was slowly melting away. The entire gate was sagging, slowly turning into liquid.

"Open the gates!" Stoick commanded.

"Are yeh mad?" Spitelout shouted from behind them.

"Just open them. Hiccup's here."

"Yeh sure?"

"Yes."

"What if something happens?"

"Nothing will happen. I am sure of that." Stoick reassured.

Spitelout stared at Stoick as if he had grown an extra head. He finally relented and ordered, "Open the gates!"

A group of reluctant Vikings approached the release lever carefully, taking small steps at a time. Hiccup couldn't blame them, approaching a cage that housed a mad Night Fury proves to be a very bad idea. After all that battering, the boy doubted that the gate would even be functional at all.

"One. Two. Three. Open!"

One of the Vikings pulled down the lever and immediately darted away from the scene. There was silence for a moment, except for the sound of sizzling metal. Then, there was a huge explosion. If not for Stoick's quick reflexes, Hiccup would have been crushed by the cast iron gates that were speeding towards him.

A black blur darted out of the cage, headed straight for Stoick. Hiccup threw himself in the path of the charging Night Fury.

"Hiccup!"

"Toothless! Toothless, calm down." Hiccup said, soothingly. Upon hearing his rider's voice, the dragon stopped abruptly in his tracks, staring at the boy who was currently blocking his path. Hiccup felt that there was a need to comfort the dragon and he moved forward, albeit rather abruptly, causing the dragon to emit a low growl, baring his teeth.

"It's okay. It's me, Toothless. I'm Hiccup. I'm a friend."

Hiccup stretched out both his arms in front of him in an attempt to calm down the dragon.

"Calm down, Toothless."

Hiccup adverted his gaze from Toothless's eyes. It had worked on the dragon once, and it could work again. The boy stretched out his left arm more than his right and waited for the dragon to answer. And he did. The dragon allowed his snout to touch Hiccup's palm. The Viking flinched a little, due to the fact that the dragon was very, very warm. The dragon rider turned to face Toothless and gave him a pat on his snout.

"Look. There's nothing to worry about."

After Stoick was very sure that Hiccup had calmed down the beast, he gave the all clear signal.

"All right. Problem's resolved. Everybody clear out!"

The crowd that had gathered was starting to thin out, leaving only the fire brigade to clean up the mess. Hiccup was busy administering his scratch onto Toothless, who was busy eliciting purrs. Both were so engrossed that they did not notice Astrid and her Nadder sneaking up from behind them.

"Boo!"

"AH!"

The young Viking jumped and turned around to face a laughing Astrid.

"Hey! That wasn't funny!" Hiccup complained. Astrid laughed for a while more before socking Hiccup in his arm.

"That's for scaring me." Astrid said.

"OW! What was that fo…"

Before Hiccup could finish his sentence, Astrid grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him into a kiss. Hiccup's insides dissolved. He had always liked these type of 'That's for so and so, and that's for everything else' sessions with Astrid.

But all good things don't last long. All too soon, Astrid pulled away from Hiccup and left him standing there, blinking his eyes rapidly and swaying from side to side like a drunken man.

"And that's for everything else."

All Hiccup could do was to give her a smile.

"Wanna race?" Astrid suggested, mounting her Nadder,

Normally, Hiccup was not the kind of person who would accept a challenge, especially before the battle against the Red Death. However, he was feeling competitive this time round, so he decide to take up the challenge.

"All right, let's race."

Hiccup mounted Toothless and gave him the blink of his eye. Toothless got the message and replied with a nod of his head. Hiccup could feel Toothless' body tense up as he prepared to spring into the air.

"One. Two. Three. Go!"

And both dragons launched themselves into the air. The ground became a blur underneath Toothless as they soared higher and higher. With the cool wind rustling Hiccup's hair and the feeling of ecstasy as they reached into the cloud, Hiccup felt as if he were in Valhalla, if not, better than Valhalla. Astrid and her Nadder, Stormfly, was starting to lag behind them. Hiccup laughed. He knew that they would not be able to compete against the speed of the Night Fury.

"YEAH!"

He was the happiest Viking in the world at that moment. Looking back, he could see the island that was his home, his birthplace.

Berk.

However, what he did not know is that he would not be returning to Berk later that day.

End of chapter three.

I hoped you enjoyed it as much as I did.

By the way, Hiccup is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, thus the nightmares. The reason why he fainted... I think it is best I don't disclose it right now ;)

Next up, Chapter 4: Incurring the Wrath of Mother Nature.

Please leave a review. I need to know how I had done. Stay tuned.