~Ouroboros~

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1st - 8. Hiccup's Hiccups

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Well, that did not go according to plan… thought Hiccup as he sheepishly watched along with the other Vikings the dragons flying off with almost a tenth of the village's sheep tangled up in nets.

The same nets that only a few moments ago were keeping those same dragons pinned down and ready for slaughter.

"Ok, but I hit a Nightfury"

As Stoick grabbed Hiccup by the scruff of his neck and dragged him off towards Gobber who was currently standing around in stunned disbelief, Hiccup could not help but think that perhaps that was not the best thing to say at this point in time. Especially considering the damage he had just caused. But seriously! All the destruction caused by that torch was nothing but an accident! Could have happened to anyone else who tried to hide from a god damn monstrous Nightmare behind the torch pole. I mean – if they wanted these things to not happen, perhaps they should have plated the pole with metal to prevent it from being incinerated? He stubbornly ignored the fact that they did – just nowhere nearly well enough to withstand a full blast of a Nightmare's flames.

Perhaps throwing himself at his father's feet and begging for forgiveness would have been a better alternative. Then again, being Vikings, that would not exactly help the situation anyway.

Nothing left then but to hope that his father would listen to him for once – after all he had just downed a Nightfury – that simply HAD to count for something.

Right?

Praying to any gods that could possibly be listening at this point in time – There would be at least some; after all, the situation was funny in a cynical sort of way, and the gods probably love those – Hiccup tried to salvage the situation.

"But I really hit one dad – you guys were busy, and I saw it passing by after it shot down that tower. It was just in the perfect position, right between me and the moon – so I had a clear shot. It went down into the forests behind our village – if we can get a search party before it frees itself…"

"Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third – " Stoick's voice slowly ground out each of the words composing his son's name with such force that even the monstrous Nightmare tied up in a net behind them momentarily stopped its useless attempts at breaking out, to say nothing of the surrounding Vikings. Incidentally, it was also enough to quiet down Hiccup. Depositing his son in front of him Stoick ran a hand across his face in exasperation.

"Can't you see that every single time you step outside – disaster happens! Can't you see that I have more than enough problems without you adding on top of them? Winter is almost here and I have the entire village to feed to say nothing of the merchants that should be coming around for their yearly visit within a month or two at most!"

Hiccup felt a pang of guilt pass through him before it was swiftly replaced by indignation.

"Come on dad! Even you have to agree that this time it wasn't my fault! – Sure, there were times when I have caused some MINOR damages to the village… But in this case how could it have possibly been my fault that the damn monstrous Nightmare decided to flame the post holding up the torch!"

"You were hiding right behind it!"

"Well there wasn't much else to duck behind, what else was I supposed to have done!?"

"You were supposed to Stay – At – Gobber's! Not run off like a headless chicken just waiting to be gobbled up by a dragon at their convenience!"

"But then I would not have shot down the Ni-"

"STOP! – Please just stop with all those Nightfury fantasies! You know that you can never be a proper Viking, so at the very least try not to get in the way!"

Hiccup recoiled from his father, feeling as if he had just been slapped. Any response that he might have said died in his throat from his father's words. He had always thought that his father thought that way about him – heck, this wasn't the first time he even heard his father exclaim as much – but as always he felt a pang of betrayal at those words.

All he wanted was for some recognition from his father – something he had never gotten in his life – and even now, after actually succeeding for once, his father still did not accept him. Heck – his father thought he had lied about the Nightfury! Sure he had lied before – anyone who said they never lied was lying then and there; but he had never lied about anything this important!

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Stoick on the other hand was feeling exceptionally awkward. It seemed to him that any time he got into an argument with his son, they always ended the same way – with one of them sticking his foot into his mouth and the other one figuratively throwing up his hands in defeat. It truly galled him that he was usually the one who kept sticking his foot in his mouth after which his son always looked at him with that pained look with a tint of betrayal in his eyes.

Just as he was doing at this very moment…

It was obviously time to change the topic, so clearing his throat to get rid of the awkward silence and turning around to Gobber, Stoick continued. "Gobber – I told you to watch him!"

"Ye, and I told him to watch the forge while I went out – merciful Odin, I had almost fallen to my knees to beg him to just stay inside this one time."

"Couldn't you have just stayed with him this one time…"

"Come on Stoick – you know as well as I do that I am still one of the best Vikings you've got. I am still among the few capable of taking on multiple dragons at the same time without help – they needed me out there; the raid would have gone lot worse if I haven't"

"Can't quite see how much worse it could have gone, what with Hiccup's blunder… "

"Stoick…"

Stoick waved for his friend to be quiet and continued. He did know that Gobber was right about getting in the fight after all, and there was no point in taking out his exasperation on him.

"No, you're right – there aint a reason to argue – I know you did right to get out there. Even with Hiccup's 'help' we only lost some sheep and did not manage to kill as many dragons as we could have, while knowing you – you probably saved some of the younger Vikings from passing on before their time…"

The two of them didn't say anything else and silence reigned for a few seconds before being broken by Hiccup.

"Look dad – I know we don't have quite the kind of um… relationship between us as you might wish – but I am not lying about this! I really… did…"

Halfway through Hiccup's rant Stoick turned to face his son and glared at him with enough intensity to cause Hiccup to gradually shrink in on himself and trail off before he finished. By the end he could do little but stand in front of his father with his eyes downcast and his shoulders hanging down in defeat.

Should have known that nothing I would say would get through to him – after all it never did, so why should that change now… Both father and son thought dejectedly.

With his son sufficiently cowered before him, Stoick pushed Hiccup towards Gobber who caught him with an outstretched hand – his other one nothing more than a splintered wooden handle after he had broken the attached hammer over the neck of a Nadder.

"Take him back home – and make sure he at least gets there without starting another fire or endangering half the village this time…"

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What a mess… At least I can finally begin training the current batch of younglings – way past time for that, but we just haven't had luck the past two raids. Fortunate indeed that Stoick managed to capture one this time… Adjusting his helmet with its foot long horns, Gobber put his only hand across Hiccup's shoulders and gently patted one in an attempt at consoling him before pushing Hiccup in the direction of the chief's house. Behind them he could hear Stoick conversing with the remaining Vikings.

If Gobber knew his friend well – and he did – Stoick was likely asking for a damage report and ordering the others to put out the fires, drag the Nightmare off to be locked up in the kill-ring, put away the sheep, take care of the dead, dismember the dead dragons, and salvage what they could from the wreckage – probably in that order.

Focusing on the path they were walking Gobber barely prevented himself from groaning out loud, but could not stop himself from rolling his eyes. The other younglings have already gathered just off their path in front of them. If everything went the same way as it always did, their pitiful attempts at ridiculing Hiccup would begin right around now.

"Quite the performance" Tuffnut's words came first with his twin Ruffnut flashing up her two thumbs and a smile in agreement. They must really be reveling in the midst of Hiccup's accident, as the two skinny twins who were actually barely stronger than Hiccup (though a lot less disaster prone) were usually to be found baiting each other or downright tearing at each other's throats.

"I've never seen anyone mess up that badly – definitely better than your last one!" Snotlout was next, and to Gobber that comment perfectly summed him up – It was after all quite hard to come up with witty comments when you barely had enough brain cells to count to ten without resorting to using fingers. At least the gods have gifted him with a strong body… And it was true – Snotlout was most definitely the most… sculptured… out of all the younglings.

"Thank you! Thank you – I was trying… So…"

And there was the expected sarcastic comment from Hiccup, although strangely enough it seemed more strained than usual, with the last word almost dripping with dejection – Gobber really hoped that Hiccup would not take this latest failure too hard, or at least not harder than usual. He had always considered Hiccup to be a good kid – just quite unlucky and a slight bit… overzealous… at his attempts to prove himself – quite a bad combination really.

The other two younglings with the group were just standing around and watching the proceedings. Fishlegs was just barely on the inside fringe of being accepted into their group, and even though he usually got along well with Hiccup, he just couldn't risk ostracising himself by defending Hiccup in these situations.

Truly, Fishlegs was very much like his father, from what Gobber remembered. Beeflegs was one of the 'wider' Vikings, but also one who would shy away from anything to do with killing – dragons included – and it looked like he had passed those characteristics to his son. If so, Fishlegs was more than likely to carry on his father's profession as a woodworker after gaining enough dragon kills to be considered a veteran, and do everything from chopping down trees to repairing or building homes burnt down during the raids. Out of all the non-killing professions within the village, smithing and woodworking were highly unlikely to ever stop being in high demand – what with the dragon raids and everything…

Gobber momentarily moved his eyes to the last youngling of the group – Astrid. To him, she was very much like a young Valhalarama – extremely talented, almost as strong as Snotlout (and really, out of all the Vikings, only Stoick was stronger when he was at that age), enough brains to plan out an attack instead of blindingly rushing forward, and last but most certainly not least was quite well endowed in the looks department. Although Val was never really that… high-n-mighty from what he could remember of her, and she would never participate in belittling any other younglings.

Astrid didn't participate either, but to Gobber it looked like her decision to stay out of it had more to do with wanting to look like she was too far above the rest to bother with making fun of those below her instead of out of any kind of feelings, respect, or even common courtesy towards Hiccup.

Gobber sighed and barely restrained himself from rubbing at his eyes in frustration. During days like this he truly hated those words the elder spoke about Hiccup's 'destiny' when he was born. 'This boy will never become a Viking…' – that more than anything truly smashed any chances he could have had for a normal childhood…

"Look on the bright side – you wanted to leave a mark, and now ya did! You can now sleep peacefully knowing that ye have actually managed to cause the same amount of destruction in one go as the Nightfury did when it first came to Berk. What with half the village in flames from that rolling fire chalice…"

"I keep telling you – it was an accident!"

"Sure it was – after all, even without yer help that Nightmare would have attacked the torches"

Hiccup turned slightly red in embracement.

"Well, maybe it would not have, but if I had stayed inside I would have never had a chance to shoot down that Nightfury!"

"Sure Hiccup"

Here we go… At the very least it's less than a minutes' walk to the chief's house – hopefully not long enough for him to truly get going…

"I mean I really did hit one."

"Of course you did"

"It's just that he never listens…"

"Runs in yer family – just look at you…"

Hiccup continued from where he left off without even noticing that Gobber was adding comments to his tirade. Whenever his apprentice really got going like this, the similarities between father and son became readily visible. Gobber could not even count the number of times he had been subjected to similar tirades from his old friend.

"… And when he does, it's always with that look in his face – you know; THAT one… He always looks at me like that… like I am a failure – a mistake… I mean just look at my name! Hiccup! And sometimes, that's exactly what I feel like… like I am nothing but a hitch his life, a problem for him to take care of… nothing but a hiccup"

Gobber was feeling slightly floored from the direction this conversation was heading. It was quite rare for Hiccup to open up like this – his apprentice would usually just burry all of his feelings of dejection and inadequacy behind a nigh impenetrable façade of cynicism. He was never really good with these situations – just like all Vikings his general answer to any emotional trauma was to 'buck up and wait for it to pass' – which was unsurprisingly inadequate to console others when they experienced a loss, or in this case bring Hiccup's mood back up.

Well, he had to at least try and hope for the best…

"Don't be too down about that Hiccup – I'm quite sure you aint the only one with whom Stoick uses 'that' voice with."

"Oh but of course! After all I can't be the only one causing situations WORTHY of bringing out THAT voice - Right? Although perhaps he would bring it out if the barmaid brought him milk instead of ale in that pint mug of his. Still, I am pretty sure I would have to be involved somehow… In fact I can just about hear him now – "

Gobber almost smiled as Hiccup dropped the pitch of his voice and did an exceptionally good imitation of his father. "Excuse me barmaid – I'm afraid you brought me the wrong offspring! I ordered…a…"

Hiccup's impression of his father slowed down as he froze on the spot barely a few feet in front of Gobber causing them to nearly crash. Frowning Gobber turned to look at what had caught his apprentice's attention.

There in front of them were the exceptionally well incinerated ruins of what was likely to have once been a Viking house. It looked as if a hideous Zippleback had breathed its entire load of flammable gas into the building and then ignited it. Judging from the complete destruction, it could have even been more than one. Even now the parts of it that had miraculously survived total incineration were slowly burning up into charcoal. If there was anything within the house that was important to either Stoick or Hiccup – they had better hope that it could be replaced, as the destruction was pretty much complete.

With his trained eyes Gobber tried to analyze what exactly caused such complete annihilation of what was once an exceptionally sturdy house. He immediately discarded monstrous Nightmares and deadly Nadders – their flames were primarily for burning things, not explosions. Terrible Terrors were thrown out soon after, as while they could cause such destruction, it would require such a large horde of them that he was sure that some Vikings would have noticed and remarked about it – heck it would require over several hundred of them to cause THIS much damage…

Leaving Hiccup to stand in shock in front of the ruins, Gobber approached to get a closer look. Doesn't quite look like the work of Gronckles – it was more of an explosion than a concentrated barrage of flaming rocks. As to Zipplebacks… while possible, two or more of them would have had to use up all their gas before blowing it up, and the explosion would need to have occurred outside the house from the layout of the debris, whereas Zipplebacks prefer to pour gas inside the house before blowing it up instead…

This naturally left only one culprit – the all forsaken Nightfury. From what Gobber knew, it was the only dragon capable of such destruction. By the looks of it the damn shadow dragon managed to shoot its blast into the side of the building, completely destroying almost half the house, while the remainder burned down naturally from the fiery of the explosion. If it was any consolation, Hiccup's room having been positioned in the back of the house seemed to have burned down from the flames instead of being destroyed completely from the explosion – so it was still possible that SOMETHING could be salvaged…

Turning back he looked at Hiccup's still form and saw the horrified disbelief still present in his apprentice's eyes. With a shake of his head he approached Hiccup and gently patted his cheek to bring him back to the present. When Hiccup flinched from his hand and turned to look at him, Gobber used the same hand to turn his apprentice around and started to walk away with Hiccup forced to follow due to Gobber's hand on his shoulders.

"Come on lad, don't let it get ye down. It happens to all of us – heck, my own forge has burned down no less than seven times – though I have to say that one of them was partially yer fault eh?"

Apparently he had chosen just the right words to bring Hiccup out of his depression from losing everything he kept in his room, since Hiccup's responded in his usual partly exasperated, partly cynical way.

"I keep telling you that was not my fault! Still, you're probably right. After all, it's not like I kept any of my irreplaceable journals there…"

"It happens lad – nothing you can do about it. At least ye kept most of yer recent journals with me in the forge. You can cradle them and softly speak of your undying love for them once we get there."

"Oh, ha ha – very funny. You know that is not what I meant – I put a lot of work into some of the stuff in them."

"I know lad, I know. Just don't let this keep you down."

There really was nothing more to say, so both of them just continued to walk down to Gobber's forge in silence. Hiccup was lost in his thoughts trying to list everything irreplaceable that he had lost with this latest stroke of bad luck while Gobber was in deep thought himself trying to imagine how Stoick would take the loss of his home. Gobber had decided the moment he saw the ruins to allow Hiccup and Stoick to stay with him in the rooms above the forge until a new house could be built – after all Hiccup already had a small room to himself there so he could keep his drawings and whatnot else, so all that was left was to make room for Stoick – probably clean out one of the stock rooms or just throw in another bed in an open space somewhere. Heck, Stoick being… well, Stoick – he could possibly just fall asleep on the floor or leaning against the wall and still wake up as well rested as ever. Long hunting or fishing expeditions did wonders to lower a person's need for comfort, but Stoick took it just a tad further than most.

Stuck deep in his thoughts, he proceeded to guide Hiccup through the streets towards his forge. His legs knew the way, having walked these streets since birth – and spilt both his own and draconic blood along them for nearly just as long.

Gobber had long since gotten used to this particular smell that was currently permeating the portion of the village they were passing through, so he simply dismissed it without a conscious thought and continued his musings. To Hiccup though, the strong metallic smell of blood along with the nauseating tint of burned flesh was enough to bring him out of his thoughts and cause him to look around.

They were just passing through the upper housing district where most Vikings lived, and from the looks of it this portion of it was hit the hardest during the attack. To his left were the remains of the house that was incinerated by the flame pillar he had seen from Gobber's forge, with the house next to it in a nigh unsalvageable condition as its lone standing wall – furthest from the center of the flame pillar – was still burning. Likely the two houses were too far from the rest to be considered a fire hazard and were just left to burn down. That was not where the smell of death was coming from though, and turning to his right Hiccup felt his teeth clench as he grimaced and attempted to hold down his stomach and all its contents that seemed to want nothing more than to come up his throat.

Noticing Hiccup stiffen under his arm Gobber finally came out of his musings and consciously noticed the smell that was prevalent around them. Looking over to his right he bit back a curse and forcefully turned Hiccup around to bury his apprentice's face in the side of his chest.

"Don't look"

But it was already too late for that – Hiccup's mind had already engraved in horrifying detail what he had seen into his memories.

They were currently in the middle of the main road running through the village with a smaller path branching off to their right. The buildings around were built far enough away from each other to stop fires from spreading, so the small path was still wide enough to provide an unrivaled view of the carnage on it.

There, no more than ten feet down the path, were the remains of a difficult battle. It was actually quite rare to find such a concentration of death – usually it was just single dragon or Viking bodies lying in their own blood around the village. The single large monstrous Nightmare was the closest dragon, and slightly surprisingly, the least mutilated one. It was sprawled on its side on the cobblestones with its body untouched by battle – the scales still in their original slightly metallic red coloring with none of them shattered or lacerated; the wings not even slightly damaged during the fight that must have happened here. Its head was lying on its side providing a good view of the underside of its jaw, but from Gobber's location he was unable to see anything else. He really did not need to though, the large puddle of blood emanating from the head told him everything – whoever had fought this dragon had been skilled – or lucky – enough to have gotten a killing blow directly into its head without requiring any preliminary hits to weaken it first. Probably a single hit that shattered its skull with a war hammer or split it open with an axe – swords were not too good for dealing killing blows, heavy weapons were better for that.

The Nightmare did not go down easily though, as he could see a charred human body lying just barely on the path. From the curled up position it was in, Gobber did not need to think twice about which dragon killed it – only the Nightmares were capable of incinerating a body so thoroughly that it was impossible to even identify whether it was male or female – most so killed were identified when the Viking warriors did not return home… The only end worse than that was to be caught in one of the flame pillars, as there wasn't even a body left – everything caught inside the boundaries was turned to ash. Still, getting caught in a flame pillar was quite rare, whereas Nightmare caused deaths were unfortunately much more common.

That of course, was not all. Further down Gobber was dismayed to discover the bodies of two Vikings nailed to the side of a house with Nadder quills, their blood running down the wall and pooling on the floor beneath them. One had obviously been skewered on the tail, probably when the Nadder swiped at the Viking and he did not have enough to dodge, after which the Nadder must have slammed its tail with its unfortunate load against the side of the house to get rid of the weight upon its tail – resulting in the unfortunate Viking being skewered to the wall, completely run through by three of the seven quills that were left in a straight line along the wall.

The second one was not nearly as lucky – if you could consider being run through by an array of quills as lucky – but it was still better than the mess the second Viking was. This one was nailed to the same side of the house, but was hanging almost ten feet in the air with a rather large blood splatter behind him from the force with which he must have slammed against the wall, and a line of blood streaking down from him to pool on the cobblestones below. His arm was completely gone, and from the ragged bits of flesh hanging off of the stump it had been ripped off instead of being a clean bite. As if that wasn't enough, his back must have been mangled beyond recognition for it to release enough blood to cause that splatter behind him. He almost looked like a flower actually, in a macabre sort of way, what with the circular bloodstain behind him, the 'stem' of blood rising up towards him, and the three precisely positioned quills stuck in his chest.

Without even trying Gobber's mind recreated the events that have most likely led to that bloody flower of death. The Viking had likely been outnumbered by the two Nadders – possibly after they took care of the other Viking who unluckily for him got caught on one of their tails. Then the two Nadders probably flanked the lone Viking, and one of them managed to tear away at his back. Blind from the pain but still capable of movement the Viking must have tried to turn around to get at the dragon, but unfortunately for him got his hand caught in the Nadder's jaws. It was over after that – the Nadder still biting on his arm must have shaken him violently enough to rip the arm completely off, causing him to fly up while simultaneously resulting in a half-moon splatter of blood on the cobblestones that Gobber could see from his position. The flight path of the Viking must have given enough time for the second Nadder to aim properly and nail him with those three precise quill shots, the force of which launched him backwards towards the wall upon which he was now nailed to, proving once again that unless you was a tried-and-true veteran, you had little chance for survival against multiple dragons.

At the very least, he was most likely already dead or at least unconscious from blood loss before the quills reached him… Not that that would be any conciliation to his family. Gobber was actually quite glad the three corpses were far enough away (or charred enough in the case of the one closest to him) that he could not recognize them. It would have been worse if he knew who they were – and there was no chance that he didn't; after all, their village was nowhere near large enough for him not to know everyone by name and face…

If there was anything he truly hated about dragon raids, it was not the repairs required or loss of food as Stoick had exclaimed to Hiccup; it was the losses accrued amongst the Vikings – the inevitable deaths that meant yet another loss of a mother, brother, husband, or even just close relative or friend…

The two Nadders that have nailed the two Vikings to the wall have paid for that with their lives – for Gobber could see both their carcases further down the path. From the looks of it one got its throat slashed out and quickly bled to death, while the other one had its wing completely destroyed – he could not help but wince at that cacophony of broken bone, wing membrane, and unidentified flesh covered all over with blood. Fortunately for it someone put it out of its misery with a quick thrust to its heart.

Hopefully it suffered before that someone granted it that small mercy – It deserved at least that much Gobber thought viciously before shaking his head to clear it. It was pointless after all – no point in torturing dumb beasts – but at times like this he really hated them. Funny really considering that he was the one in charge of the dragons in the kill ring for training younglings, and had at times grown fond of some of those dragons…

Well most of them – no one could ever get fond of the one winged Devil after all, not with it holding the title for killing not only the most trainees, but his own predecessor as well. The only reason they kept the damn beast instead of killing it was because no matter the losses it was still a better alternative to throwing the trainees into their first dragon raid un-bloodied. In any case, the other four dragons were likable enough – he would kill anyone who quoted him as saying this (mostly because he would never utter these words out loud), but they were almost pet-like in some of their behaviour… just much more deadly as well.

After this though… Knowing myself I will 'forget' to feed them for a day or two, and then hearing the sad pining of the terrible Terror would relent and everything would fall back into how it was before… The same as before except for the slightly destroyed village in need of repairs and several Vikings I will never see again…

Gobber turned away from the bloody carnage before him and instead turned to look with worry at his apprentice who was still buried into his side.

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Hiccup was still shaking from what he had just seen – but had fortunately managed to stabilize his rolling stomach.

It wasn't like he had never seen death before – even now if he concentrated he could see his mother's unnaturally still body lying in the blood red snow with several Nadder quills sticking out of her back; the mutilated corpses of several Nadders and a Nightmare sprawled out almost haphazardly around her. But perhaps in a stroke of luck for him, he had not seen anything like this after that – meaning that for him, this was the second time in his life that he saw the true outcome of this war of attrition.

Oh he wasn't sheltered from the war – no one was; but in most cases his exposure to death was limited to single dead bodies of dragons around the village, and after seeing the Vikings labouring at dismembering them for their hides and bones he had learned to subconsciously consider them as one would sheep – their deaths were…necessary… in a way for the village to survive, so there was little difference between slaughtering a sheep for food or killing a dragon to prevent it from stealing from you… Well, besides the insane increase in difficulty of the later when compared to the former.

But he just wasn't used to seeing mutilated bodies and knowing that they were all someone he knew.

"Come lad – let's go."

Gobber's voice was no longer jovial as it always was, but slightly subdued instead. Hiccup could relate to him – he wasn't quite feeling up to bantering with the blacksmith either. Not after what they have just seen.

"Ye-" Hiccup's voice cracked through the first word and he quickly swallowed before trying again. "Yes; let's go…"

As they started walking Hiccup kept his gaze facing completely straight along their path so as not to see the scene again.

There were no other surprises on their way to Gobber's forge. Sure they saw some Vikings grunting over a Gronckle's corpse, attempting to remove its scales for use in armours, but there was nothing new or horrifying in that. Even Hiccup had seen the dragons be taken apart often enough for it to be just another part of life – strangely enough there were traders who were quite willing to pay well for dragon bones, dragon skins, dragon claws and teeth, and even those strange indestructible fist sized obsidian orbs that they always found inside each dragon. The meat would naturally be burned outside of town – it caused indigestion to anyone who tried to eat it no matter how it was prepared, and rotted away too quickly to be of any use.

Sometimes the grain and other products traded for the dragon materials were all that kept the village from starving during exceptionally bad winters, or after exceptionally bad dragon raids. The inflow of expensive wines, silks and sometimes jewelry was also a nice boon – a good way to prevent life from becoming too monotonous.

As to the dragon scales for armour, it was found to be stronger than most other materials that they tried, but unfortunately much weaker than when it was on the actual dragon – even worse, it was nowhere near as fireproof. Still, it was not too bad of a material to use for armour, only slightly worse than Gobber's metal plating covered with fur, and quite a bit better than tough leather. Besides which, there were always enough traders willing to buy 'authentic dragon armour' to make its creation worth the effort.

"In ya go lad. I won't tell you to stay inside, since knowing you, anything I say would fly into one ear and out the other – but I would suggest just cleaning out your room from all the drawings ye have scattered around, preparing it for slightly more permanent use, and then getting some rest. Sure its morning, but after that hectic night, we all would be better off with a little rest. As for me, I got to get back to your father – he would be glad to have another hand to count on."

Gently pushing Hiccup into the forge and closing the door behind him, Gobber turned around and hobbled off towards the Meade hall. Even if Stoick was not there at the moment, some of the Vikings there may know where to find him.

Hiccup on the other hand, was left alone and unsupervised in Gobber's forge. Shaking off the last of the bloody images still in his head he turned around and opened the door enough to spot Gobber's rapidly retreating back. A smile crossed his face – knowing his father, he had at least until sundown to do whatever he wanted – and he knew exactly what he needed to do.

Just you all wait – Even you dad will not be able to deny my words when I bring back that dragon. And then… For once in your life… You will all have no choice but to be proud of me…

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A/N

Hope that shows all of you that I am not going to stick perfectly to the original story.

Yes, there is a reason why Hiccup's / Stoick's house burned down.

No, I will not tell you why. Besides which, it will not become apparent until MUCH later. I like to leave plot points such as these to pop back up near the end of the story to tie things neatly together.

Once again, next update will be next Tuesday and be titled 'Eyes so much like mine'.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who had read/reviewed/favourited/followed this story, bringing up the count as of this chapter to 6 favourites, 9 follows, 14 reviews, and 1350 views. There are 10 chapters to go until the first part of cycle 1 is finished, and I am quite interested in seeing how things go.

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Thanks everyone!

Saienai