Die you evil beasts with twisted souls! Vikings will forever swim in rivers of your blood!"

For those of you who have seen HTTYD Homecoming, you'll remember that's what Stoick said in that brief flashback of the Snoggletog pageant Hiccup witnessed as a kid. In this chapter, you'll be seeing the extended version that I made up myself of said Snoggletog pageant.

Chapter 22: Snoggletog

Berk

December 12

It was a good thing Hiccup and Gobber had a warm and toasty forge to work in because fall was coming to an end and winter was fast approaching. And Berk's winters were cold enough to give frostbite on one's spleen. In fact, there were already enough piles of snow on the ground for everyone to wade through with their fur-lined boots.

But Berk's winters weren't all that bad. The Berkians celebrated the arrival of winter with their yearly winter holiday, Snoggletog. On Snoggletog, colorful lanterns would hang from the houses and a big tree would stand in the town square. Well, it wasn't actually a tree it was just a big pile of green-painted wood and Viking shields. On the night before Snoggletog morning, families would leave out their helmets and sometimes their boots for Odin to leave them some new toys or tasty treats. But best of all, there was the Snoggletog pageant – a show that told different stories. Some shows told stories of battles that the Berkians' ancestors fought in the past or some successful accomplishments that they made.

"Well, Hiccup, I hope you're all ready for work because you and I have a big, special project ahead of us," Gobber said cheerfully that morning.

"Oh, what are we goann do, Gobber?" Hiccup asked excitedly. "Are we gonna smelt some new swords? Repair some broken shields? Oil the catapults?"

Gobber chuckled and said, "Nope, even better than any of those. We're gonna make the props for the Snoggletog pageant!"

"Oh, boy!" Hiccup cried. "What's this year's pageant gonna be about?"

"This year were gonna reenact the Snoggletog that your strong, brave dad rescued a mother Viking and her newborn daughter from a herd of raiding Gronckles," Gobber answered. "That happened about six years before you were born…or was it seven years before you were born? Oh, well. That's not important. I'll be playing the part of the mother who was almost eaten alive by a particularly hungry Gronckle and your dad will be playing, well, himself. I've even already written the script for it."

He picked up a book from one of his shelves and held it up to show Hiccup.

"Can I look through it, Gobber?" Hiccup asked.

"Sure," Gobber said, handing Hiccup the book.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Hiccup skimmed through the pages of the open book on his lap. He read through a scene where his dad was to face a Gronckle and pull out his sword. Then he would raise the sword and…chop off the dragon's head and…blood would squirt out of the hole where the dragon's head was and drip all over the walls and floors.

"Die you evil beasts with twisted souls! Vikings will forever swim in rivers of your blood!" was what Stoick was to say during that scene.

Hiccup was starting to feel a wee bit squeamish just reading about his dad decapitating a dragon and seeing blood spill all over the place.

"Hey, uh, Gobber?" Hiccup asked slowly.

"Yes, lad?"

"Are you sure we should be showing something as scary as my Dad cutting off a dragon's head?"

"Hmm, scary is not the word I would've chosen. Heroic is more like it."

"Yeah, heroic. But do we really have to include blood and chopped-off dragon heads? I mean, think of the other children."

"Now, now, Hiccup. We won't be showing real blood and chopped-off dragon heads, just fake blood and chopped-off dragon heads."

"I know that."

"And as for the other children, I wouldn't worry about them. Remember, Hiccup, they are the children of Vikings, the greatest warriors of all time. And if they're gonna grow up to be great warriors like their parents, they'll have to learn to get used to seeing blood and chopped-off heads and things like that."

Hiccup considered the blacksmith's words. He was right. They were Vikings. And Vikings were always fighting bloody battles and stabbing their weapons into their opponent's bodies and watching them bleed to death anyway. He looked back up at Gobber and made a tough look.

"You're right, Gobber, we are Vikings," he said importantly. "We never flinch at the sight of blood."

"Ha, ha, that's my boy," Gobber said proudly, clapping his good hand against Hiccup's back which made the boy fall forwards against the book's pages. "Now, come on. Let's get to work."

Gobber rolled an empty barrel into the forge and he and Hiccup filled it up with red-colored beads.

"These beads will act as our dragon's blood," Gobber explained.

"Yeah, I figured that out," Hiccup replied.

After the barrel was all filled up with the red beads, Gobber showed Hiccup how to carve the head for the dragon. Once it was all carved, they painted the eyes, skin and teeth. By the time the head was done, it was looking just like a real dragon's head.

Actually the head looked very real to Hiccup. As he looked at the fake dragon's head, he could've sworn its painted eyes were staring right back at him and the sharp teeth looked like it was glistening in the sunlight with drool and blood dripping from the tips. Then he thought he could hear the familiar growls and roars of the dragons he had learned to recognize from the dragon raids in the past.

Hiccup gasped and ran from the wooden dragon head all the way to his own private workshop and hid under his desk. He placed his hands on top of his head as though expecting a dragon to spew its flames down on him or run its claws along his back.

"Hiccup?" Gobber called.

Hiccup could hear Gobber's footsteps coming into the workshop. But Hiccup was too scared to think that the footsteps belonged to Gobber. It could be a dragon's footsteps for all he knew.

"Hiccup?"

Something landed on Hiccup's shoulders and imagining it was a dragon's foot, Hiccup said, "AAAH!"

"Woah, lad! What's gotten into you?"

Hiccup looked up to see the surprised look on Gobber's face crouched down beside him. Hiccup looked down at his shoulder and saw that it was Gobber's good hand that was touching it and not a dragon's foot.

"Uh, nothing, Gobber," Hiccup said, suddenly feeling embarrassed that he thought he was being attacked by a dragon when there were none around and for thinking that the wooden dragon head was a real one.

"Well, come on out. This is no time for naps. We've got a dragon to complete."

"Yeah," Hiccup said, trying to look brave but not looking forward to building a fake dragon that seemed very real in his eyes.

So Hiccup and Gobber worked together to finish the fake dragon. They glued the head onto one side of the barrel. Then they got to work on the dragon's legs and feet, tail and wings. When they were working on the wings, Hiccup held them against his hips and flapped them, pretending to fly. As scary as dragons were, Hiccup had to admit, they were very lucky creatures to have wings that could carry them anywhere they wanted to go, whenever they wanted to go.

"Look, Gobber, I'm flying! I'm actually flying!" Hiccup laughed.

Even Gobber couldn't' help but laugh. "All right, Hiccup, enough playing around. It's our dragon that needs those wings not you."

"Yeah," Hiccup said feeling a little sad that he had to let go of the wings.

But without complaint, he helped Gobber glue the wings on either side of the hand-crafted dragon.

"Good, it's all ready for the show," Gobber said proudly. "I must admit, Hiccup. We did a pretty good job making this one look like the real thing."

"I think we did too good a job making it look real if you ask me," Hiccup said, looking away from the fake dragon with his hands over his eyes.

"Come on now, Hiccup," Gobber said, pulling the boy's hands away from his eyes. "Save the eye covering for when the real dragons come around and trust me, now that it'll only be a few days until the first official day of winter, they'll be coming around a lot to rob us out of house and home as they always do. Your dad's been working hard all year making sure we have double the amount of food we'll need this winter."

Suddenly there was a loud, rumbling growl in the room.

Hiccup gasped. "Is it the dragons?"

Gobber laughed. "So you silly boy, it was just my stomach. I guess all this talk of having enough food for the winter is making me hungry."

Then there was another growl in the room but it was a much smaller, quieter growl. Hiccup looked down at his own stomach and cracked a smile.

"Correction, Gobber: It's making us both hungry," Hiccup said.

"Well, come along son, let's head back to your place and see if your old dad's got dinner waiting for us," Gobber suggested.

So Hiccup and Gobber left the forge together and walked through the snow-covered village. Along the way, they looked up to admire the brightly lit colorful lanterns and holly wreaths hanging from the houses and shops. As they neared the Haddock residence, they found Stoick outside chopping firewood.

"Hiccup, watch this," Gobber whispered.

Gobber scooped up a large handful of snow and called out, "Heads up, Stoick!"

And with that, Gobber threw the snowball right at Stoick. The snowball struck Stoick square in the face and exploded like a Zipplebacks' gassy explosion, covering his face and beard with bits of snow.

"Ah! What in Thor's name?!" Stoick exclaimed, looking up and looking half-surprised, half-angry.

Gobber and Hiccup burst into laughter.

"Gobber, cut that out!" Stoick snapped. "You're going to get icicles to grow on my beard!"

"Ah, lighten up, Stoick," Gobber said. "You've got to learn to have a little fun once in a while."

"Uh, yeah, Dad, learn to have some fun," Hiccup added.

"Running and protecting the village is my idea of fun, thank you very much," Stoick said, wiping the snow off his beard.

Hiccup whispered to Gobber, "I told you he hates snowballs and anything that's fun."

"I heard that," Stoick said.

Hiccup and Gobber looked up at the Chief and smiled shyly.

"Now come inside, you two," Stoick said. "Dinner's on the table."

"I was hoping you'd say that," Gobber said, rubbing his tummy.

"Me too," Hiccup said, also rubbing his tummy.

…

Temporary Island #1

December 12

As he sat in the middle of the meadow, Toothless looked up at the many snowflakes that fell from the sky. He lifted his paw and swatted at them trying to catch them. Of course the snowflakes he caught didn't last very long. They quickly dissolved into tiny droplets of water making his dry scales nice and moist.

Toothless looked all around at the snow-coated meadow. Some of the adult Nadders and Gronckles in the meadow were resting against the cool, moist snow. Some of the babies played in it. They pranced on the powdery snow on their baby feet. Sometimes they swatted at it with their paws or tails.

Toothless felt like having a little fun himself. With his pink tongue hanging out, Toothless pranced all over the meadow and while doing so, pressed his feet as deep into the snow as he possibly could to make nicely shaped footprints. He swished his tail around, spraying snow in all directions.

Some of the snow he swished with his tail sprayed against the babies and their parents.

"Hey!"

"What?!"

The adult and baby dragons looked at him with a bit of annoyance.

"Watch it!"

"Why don't you go play somewhere else?"

Toothless felt himself turn warm with embarrassment. "I guess I've had enough fun for one day."

Toothless had to admit his parents rarely got annoyed when he and his brothers and sisters played together and sometimes woke them up from their naps. His parents loved having fun as much as he and his siblings did. And although the dragons of this island respected his space (except maybe the Terrible Terrors) as much as he respected theirs, they weren't his family.

So Toothless took off from the meadow and flew up until he was at level with the trees. From up there, the meadow looked like a great big white circle of snow with the bodies of the parent and baby Nadders and Gronckles resembling tiny insects. All around him, the trees were coated with snow. Then he looked at the sea surrounding the island. Large icebergs floated about the dark water and the light of the setting sun shimmied on the horizon.

Toothless flew to one of the small mountains in the middle of the island. He landed on a small cliff base of the mountain and stepped inside the small den that he dwelled in. It wasn't as large as the den he and his family shared but it was still warm and comfortable – a perfect shelter for long, cold winters.

Toothless walked in a circle, lightly spewing purple flames against the rocky floor. After dousing the tiny flames with his paws, Toothless lay down facing the entrance to the den. As he waited for sleep to take over his body, he watched the snowflakes fall down from the sky.

…

Berk

December 24th

The day of the Snoggletog pageant finally arrived. A large stage and many seats had been set up in the outskirts of town. As showtime was nearing, everybody hurried as fast as they could before the best seats were taken.

Hiccup looked around at the large crowd. Just about everyone in the village was here…well, almost everyone. There was just one face he didn't see. He turned to the other children.

"Has anyone seen Astrid?" Hiccup asked.

"She's not coming," Fishlegs answered sadly.

"She's not?" Hiccup asked, surprised.

Fishlegs shook his head. "Nope. Too bad. She's gonna miss the fun."

Hiccup also nodded sadly. "She's been missing a lot of fun lately."

"And who can blame her?" Snotlout piped up. "After all, it is freezing cold outside tonight and she's probably afraid she'll freeze to death the minute she steps out the door just like her poor old uncle."

Suddenly something stomped on Snotlout's foot.

"OW!" Snotlout complained.

Turns out the thing that stomped on Snotlout's foot was Gobber's peg leg.

"Let's leave you out here to freeze to death tonight and see how you like it," Gobber said disapprovingly. He turned to the other children. "You youngsters better take your seats. Show starts in ten minutes. Which reminds me, I'd better get my costume on before the Chief spills my guts for making everyone wait.

" Yes, Gobber," the children replied.

As Gobber walked away in the other direction, Hiccup and the other children took their seats which were closest to the stage.

About ten minutes later, a fanfare played from the show's small orchestra and Stoick made his way onto the stage and faced the audience.

"Good evening, everyone," he announced.

"Good evening, Stoick," the audience greeted.

"Good evening, Dad," Hiccup greeted.

"I want to thank you all for coming to witness our annual Snoggletog pageant and for all the hard work you helped put in to make it all possible," Stoick said. "And now without further ado, let the show begin!"

The crowd applauded and the orchestra played rousing music. Stoick walked to the right side of the stage and stood there as he signaled for the curtains to be opened.

And the curtains pulled back to reveal…

…Gobber sitting in a rocking chair and dressed in women's clothing. A blonde wig that was tied in two long pigtails hung on his head and a doll wrapped in a blanket was cradled in his arms – good arm and hooked arm.

The whole audience erupted with laughter.

"Shhh!" Stoick shushed from his spot offstage. "Quiet down everyone!"

Most of the people stopped laughing and all was quiet. Well, not all quiet. The only person in the audience who was still giggling was…

"Hiccup!" Stoick hissed.

At the sound of his dad's sharp whisper, Hiccup stopped laughing and remained quiet. Now the only sounds that could be heard in the whole show was the creaking sound the rocking chair made as Gobber rocked back and forth.

"Oh, this truly is the best Snoggletog ever," Gobber said in a high-pitched voice which made half of the audience snicker again.

"Shush!" Stoick snapped.

Everyone shushed.

"There's a fresh layer of snow on the ground, the lanterns are lit, the tree is decorated and tonight, Odin will visit every household in Berk and leave special goodies for the families. But none of those gifts that the great god of war will bring other families will not be as special as you my darling little dumpling."

Gobber held up the bundled up doll and gave its cheek several kisses. Some people in the audience oohed and awwed while others gagged and groaned. A horn from the orchestra blared loudly causing everyone to cover their ears. Even Gobber dropped his doll to cover his own ears.

"Ow!" Gobber complained as his hook poked the inside of his ear.

"Gobber!" Stoick whispered sharply.

"What?" Gobber asked his friend.

Stoick sighed exasperatedly and pointed to the fallen doll.

"Oh, right," Gobber said, picking up the doll. "Oh, sugar pie, I'm so sorry I dropped you. I was just startled by the unexpected sounds of those horns."

Hiccup covered his mouth to keep himself from laughing again. What Gobber was doing and saying right now was definitely not in the script.

"Oh, yes, and we musn't forget your blanket, sweetie cakes. We wouldn't want you catching your death of cold now, would we?" Gobber continued, picking up the blanket with his hook and awkwardly trying to wrap it around the doll without success.

Stoick facepalmed and groaned again before whispering sharply, "Gobber, your lines!"

"What lines?" Gobber asked. "Oh, right. Oh, no! The horns are blaring! That could only mean one thing, my pride and joy: Dragons! Oh, dear. Looks like a herd of Gronckles tonight. They maybe fat and lazy but they can get pretty mean when they're hungry. But don't you worry, sweetums, we're safe and sound in our warm, secure house."

At that moment, the wooden dragon that Hiccup and Gobber constructed together was lowered.

"Oh no! One Gronckle has used its strength to burst through my house! What will we do, babycakes?! Oh, wait! Look, sweetheart! It's our brave and mighty chief, Stoick the Vast! He will save us!"

Stoick ran from his spot and straight to Gobber and shooed him away.

"Get your baby somewhere safe, madam and leave the Gronckle to me!" Stoick declared.

"Right-o!" Gobber said, running off the stage with the doll.

After Gobber left, Stoick glared at the model dragon and with a yell, began to punch it with his bare hands, knocking the model back and forth.

Suddenly, Hiccup didn't find the show so amusing anymore. Although it was a fake dragon Stoick was fighting, his dad was treating it like the real deal. And once again, the dragon was starting to look real in his own eyes. Even though it was his imagination that was deceiving him, Hiccup was certain that the wooden dragon was coming to life and was glaring at his father with its angry yellow eyes and was snarling at him, revealing blood-stained sharp teeth.

On the stage, Stoick pulled his sword from his sheath and shouted, "Die you evil beasts with twisted souls!"

And with that, Stoick brought his sword down upon the fake dragon's head, chopping it off. The red beads that Gobber and Hiccup filled the barrel with poured out all over the stage. But in Hiccup's eyes, they weren't beads anymore. They were real drops of blood. And he could've sworn he could see the fake dragon's head morph into a real one, its pink tongue hanging out between its filthy teeth and its eyes twitching as life drained out of them. Hiccup looked up with horrified eyes just in time to watch his father turn to the audience with a fierce, Stoick-the-Vast-like expression on his face.

"Vikings will forever swim in rivers of your blood!"

As the other children surrounding him clapped and cheered for their chief, Hiccup sat in his seat practically frozen like a statue in fear. Now he knew just how Fearless Finn Hofferson felt after facing the Flightmare.

…

Astrid watched the show from her bedroom window. Although the stage was a little far from her house she could still see Gobber and Stoick act out their parts of the story and hear their loud voices and the cheers of the people. She shook her head and rolled her eyes when Gobber acted out his part and recited some lines that she was certain wasn't in the original script he had written.

But when the audience applauded during the scene where Stoick sliced off the head of the dragon model with his sword, Astrid couldn't stand it anymore. Shaking with fury, she slammed her window shutters shut and stomped over to her desk. Sitting down on the chair, she glared down at a drawing of the Flightmare that she drew herself.

"So the whole village cheers for Stoick the Vast when he sneezes but when Fearless Finn Hofferson tries to protect them from certain doom, they laugh in his face," she muttered.

They could've at least honored Finn for at least trying to stop the Flightmare. After all, even when a Viking ends up dying at the hands of an intruder or the claws of a dragon, he is still praised by his people and they did whatever they could to carry out his legacy. But for Fearless Finn Hofferson? Noooo! They had to deem him a coward and whisper about it behind her back.

Astrid picked up the knife she had gotten from Trader Johann the previous summer and moved the tip right towards the head of the Flightmare drawing before she lifted it and stabbed it through the paper and the top of the desk. What she wouldn't give to see blood pour out of the cavity where the Flightmare's head used to be once she chopped it off ten years from now.

"Someday, Uncle Finn, I'll finish what you started," she vowed to herself. "Just wait and see."

….

Temporary Island #1

December 24

Toothless and his mother, Sapphire were flying over their island and then over the sea that surrounded it. Toothless let out a call and dove nose down towards the water.

"Toothless!" he could hear Sapphire calling.

Once he was close enough to the water, Toothless tilted himself and glided with the tip of his left wing ripping through the water like a dorsal fin. Then he tilted himself in the opposite side and the tip of his right wing was now streaking through the water.

"Toothless!"

Toothless glanced over at his mother as she flew behind him. Then he looked over at the sea stacks a little ways from their island and got an idea. Toothless began to pick up the speed to get as far from his mother as he could.

"Wait up!"

But Toothless didn't wait up. He just kept heading for those sea stacks until he arrived in front of one of them and quickly went behind one of them. He could hear his mother catching up to him and once he saw her head and blue eyes pop up from the corner of his side of the stack, he whirled around to the other side.

Just as Sapphire started to follow him around, Toothless hurriedly flew to the other sea stack and hid behind there. His eyes glinting deviously, he peeked around the corner to see his mom confusedly trying to find him. Toothless let out a call which made her look to his direction.

Then he took off again and zig-zagged around the stacks. He glanced behind him to see if Sapphire was still following him. To his surprise, he didn't see her behind him anymore. He paused, his wings still flapping, still looking behind him confusedly.

He could smell something foul nearby. Something dangerous…something…poisonous.

Turning his head back to the front, he yelped and jumped when he saw…

…A RED-AND-BLACK TUSKED DRAGON!

The scorpion-like monster hissed at him, salivia dripping from its curved teeth and tongue and Toothless could smell its disgusting breath.

The poisonous dragon lifted its barbed tail but Toothless dodged it just in time. He began to fly back to the island as fast as he could. But the dragon could fly almost as fast as him.

Toothless dodged as the dragon released green liquid from its mouth which fell into the sea, letting out steam as it hit the water.

Once Toothless got to the island, he headed for the trees and began to zig-zag through the trees in hope that he would confuse his component. He looked around for any signs of his family and called out to them but they were nowhere in sight and nobody answered his calls.

Suddenly, something snared itself around Toothless.

At first, Toothless thought it was one of the tusked dragons but then he realized it was not a dragon. He had flew right into a tangle of tan-colored vines-like things. He struggled to free himself but these tan vines were tight and hard to chew and with every movement he made, two round and reflective objects tied one of the vines banged against each other, producing a clanging sound. The sound disoriented Toothless making it hard for him to escape.

The sound also alerted the tusked dragon because he could hear its roar nearby. Toothless looked up and sure enough he could see this new enemy approaching closer and closer. Now it had him trapped.

There was nothing Toothless could do now but to lie still and brace himself for when the enemy finished him off.

The enemy lifted its tail and brought it down…

Toothless eyes shot open, his pupils constricted in horror as he let out a frightened cry. Scrambling to his feet on top of the floor he had heated with his flames, Toothless looked around and panted heavily.

He was not snared by the tan vines and clanging spheres. He was inside his warm, safe den on the mountainside of his second home. He was not being chased by the poisoned, tusked dragons. There was no sign or scent of them anywhere. If there were any dragons nearby, it would be some of the Gronckles, Nadders and Terrors that dwelled on this island with him.

Toothless sat down, his haunches warmed by the heated floor and sighed. He felt calmer now but the horror and sorrow from the day of his family's killings still lurked in his heart. Some days he didn't think about his family's deaths. But occasionally, when he went to sleep, Toothless would see every single detail of that dreadful day in his mind.

Toothless didn't feel like going back to sleep now. He needed something to make him feel better and he knew just what it was.

The Night Fury stepped out of the entrance of his den and flew off towards the foothills. The winter sky was as dark as his scales and the stars shone brightly. The snow covering the trees and grass gave off a little light all over the island.

Even with snow covering the island, Toothless still knew where to find the field of sweet-smelling grass. He had lived here long enough to know where everything was. Plus, all he had to do was sniff out the plant.

Sure enough, the plant's sweet, soothing scent was nearby and Toothless was feeling a little better already. Letting out a happy roar, Toothless plunged into the tall blades, shaking snow off the tips. The tall, glass-like plant felt much better in winter than it did in spring and summer for the snow had made it extra moist. And with his scales feeling just as moist now, Toothless could just lie there forever.