"3…2…1…Run!"
Hiccup let out a yelp as his sister lunged at him. He took off grinning, glancing back to see Sylvi tearing after him. Facing forward again, he zig-zagged back and forth between buildings currently being resurrected by their owners. He leapt over a replacement beam and headed towards the woods where, hopefully, he would be able to get away from his pursuer.
It wasn't meant to be.
Hiccup tripped over a stick hidden in the grass and was knocked over almost instantly from behind. "I got you!" squealed Sylvi's voice in his ear. "The dragons win again!"
"Nope!" Hiccup said, grabbing a stick lying nearby and sliding it across her chest. Sylvi fell back with a gasp, clutching her chest even though Hiccup knew he hadn't hit her that hard.
"I am dying, oh Great Viking Warrior," she moaned, collapsing to the ground. "I am slain…Ohhh…"
Hiccup, who had gotten up and was dusting himself off, glanced at the prone figure and asked, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, sitting up. He gave her a lopsided grin as he helped her up.
Standing next to each other, only the most unobservant observer would miss how similar the brunette twins were in appearance. Aside from the difference in hair length, they were almost identical: same emerald green eyes, same freckled nose, same slim figure–which, for Hiccup, wasn't the Viking norm. They also, aside from their physical appearance, shared a unique love for inventing, which, unfortunately, often got them in trouble. Hiccup's last invention, for example, was why several houses were still being rebuilt almost a week after the last raid.
"So…" Hiccup asked after a moment, "you wanna play again?"
Sylvi opened her mouth to reply in the affirmative when a rather nasty voice said, "Whacha doing, Useless?"
Hiccup stiffened as Sylvi leaned to the side to glare at the offending speaker. "Nice to see you too, Snotface."
Snotlout, a big, vikingly kid of eight years old whom Sylvi had just insulted, changed his ugly grin to an innocent smile.
"Hi, Sylvi!" he said, totally ignoring the boy he had been verbally bullying only seconds ago. Sylvi could now see all the other kids their age behind him. The other set of twins on Berk, Ruffnut and Tuffnut, were snickering together, probably thinking up their next dastardly exploit. Fishlegs, the only kid who would speak nicely to the Haddock twins, was shifting from one foot to the other, too nervous to leave or to defend Hiccup. And then there was Astrid, Hiccup's crush since, well, forever. She was barely paying attention, fiddling with the axe her father had given her for her birthday.
Sylvi scowled at them before turning her attention back to Snotlout. "What do you want?" she asked, crossing her arms and raising her chin in an attempt to appear taller.
"We're going to the arena to practice our hand-to-hand combat skills," Snotlout replied. "We were wondering if you," he didn't even glance at Hiccup, "would like to come with us."
Sylvi's scowl deepened. She hadn't missed how Snotlout had deliberately slighted her brother.
"Sorry, but Hiccup," she stressed his name, "and I are kind of busy right now."
"Ah, too bad," Snotlout said. "Well, if you ever feel like joining the real Vikings," he flexed his imaginary muscles, "come find us."
With that he turned and started in the direction of the arena. The rest of the group followed, Fishlegs looking guilty, the twins snickering to each other, and Astrid not even bothering to look at them. Sylvi turned back to Hiccup who looked ready to unleash a torrent of sarcastic comments at the next person who even looked at him.
"Sorry," she muttered, shooting death glares at the other kids' retreating backs. Hiccup sighed and released the tension from his shoulders.
"It's not your fault," he pointed out. "Besides, they'll think differently about me once we take down a Night Fury."
Sylvi grinned slightly, thinking about their shared plan: take down one of the most feared dragons in the archipelago and show everyone they really could fight dragons.
Unfortunately, that probably wouldn't happen for a while, considering their luck.
"Hey," she said, nudging him with her shoulder. When his emerald eyes met hers, she suggested, "Why don't we go sketch that weird tree we found yesterday? I have to convince you it looks like Dad's beard!"
"But it doesn't," Hiccup replied with a smirk. "It looks like an angry Thor."
"Beard!"
"Thor!"
"Beard!"
"Thor!"
"Bea–Hey!"
Hiccup took off towards their house. "Last one with their notebook at the tree is a rotten dragon egg!" he called.
"Cheater!" Sylvi cried, chasing her runaway brother, laughing the whole way.
ᛏᚺᛖ ᚾᛁᚷᚺᛏ ᚠᚢᚱᚤ ᚲᚢᚱᛋᛖ
"I still think it looks like Dad's beard," Sylvi said, examining Hiccup's drawing as they headed home. Hiccup, who was examining hers, shook his head. "And I still think it looks like an angry Thor," he replied.
"Oh well," Sylvi sighed, "I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree."
"Unless it's supposed to look like Thor, and now he's going to strike you with one of his lightning bolts for sacrilege,'' Hiccup joked, giving Sylvi an evil smile.
Sylvi opened her mouth to retort when she was interrupted by a loud explosion. The twins looked at each other and grinned. "Raid," they breathed, perfectly synced.
"Should we?" Sylvi asked as Viking warriors' war cries reached their ears.
Hiccup's grin widened. "Why not? It's not like Dad's gonna come out of nowhere and drag us to the forge."
"Then let's go watch!"
The two took off, sprinting towards the sounds of the dragon raid. They slowed as the red from the fires became visible. They halted beside some of the bushes that bordered the forest, and from their hiding place they stared wide eyed at the dragon/Viking battle.
The Vikings of Berk had been at war with dragons for over 300 years. Raids were frequent, which was why, despite the village being over 300 years old, every single building was new. There was a theory as old as the war that if the Vikings could destroy the dragon nest, they would leave and never come back. Unfortunately, no one knew where the nest was, and expeditions to find it were never successful. So the war dragged on.
The twins watched dragons fly past dangerously close to their hiding spot: a small herd of Deadly Nadders, a Gronkle, even an exotic Hideous Zippleback glided past looking for trouble. Sylvi watched in amazement while Hiccup's eyes jumped from one place to another.
Despite having lived all of their eight years on an island almost constantly attacked by dragons, the twins rarely saw wild ones. After their mother was carried away when they were babies, their father had become extra protective of them and forced them to stay with his friend, a burly, one-armed, one-legged Viking named Gobber, at his forge during raids. Well, to protect them and to keep them from causing trouble. Because of this, the twins only ever saw dragons from a distance at the forge, though they had been sneaking out more and more often during raids.
Hiccup nudged his sister. "See any Night Furies?" he whispered. Sylvi shook her head.
"One will probably show up soon, though. They tend to show up when the dragons need the extra help," she pointed out. He nodded and rose from the spot where he had been crouching behind the bushes. Sylvi gave him a look as he pushed the bushes aside, revealing a space he quickly slipped through.
"Where are you going?" she questioned. Hiccup gave her a mischievous smile.
"We should probably head to the forge if we don't want Gobber to come looking for us," he explained. "Plus, if we go now, we might be close enough to actually get a look at the Night Fury when it arrives instead of staring out of a hole in a rock."
Sylvi smiled back, rising to follow him. "It's not like we'd see it any better anyway," she said thoughtfully. "Just a black blur."
"It'd still be cool, though," Hiccup argued, his eyes scanning right and left, keeping an eye out for any more dragons.
He should have looked behind him. He shouldn't have ignored the metallic scraping sound he heard, passing it off as Viking warriors.
Something hard and cold suddenly wrapped itself around Hiccup's middle and yanked him into the air, leaving his stomach somewhere on the ground. He yanked his head around and stared at the metallic dragon that had grabbed him. It was like no dragon he had ever seen before, perfectly silver, but its strange dark purple eyes looked strangely distant. He faintly heard his sister screaming his name, but he forced himself to block her out, looking at his chest where the dragon had caught him. He realized, almost in a daze, that the dragon had wrapped its tail, almost like a Nadder's except for the silver scales, around him.
He glanced back at his sister who was getting smaller with every second. Their father, who had apparently arrived too late to help, had an arm around her shoulders. Tears were trickling down both their cheeks. I'm never going to see them again, Hiccup realized faintly. No one who was taken by dragons was ever seen again. As the dragon turned towards the ocean and out of sight from his family, Hiccup shut his eyes and braced himself for however long the flight would be, and then his inevitable death at the claws of this monster.
So much for killing a Night Fury.
ᛏᚺᛖ ᚾᛁᚷᚺᛏ ᚠᚢᚱᚤ ᚲᚢᚱᛋᛖ
Sylvi couldn't believe it. One moment, Hiccup was right beside her, hurrying through the mostly deserted street, then suddenly he was flying through the air in the grasp of a dragon Sylvi had never seen before.
"Hiccup!" she screamed, starting after her brother. She had only taken two steps before something grabbed her arm. She whipped around, fully expecting another dragon. But it wasn't.
Stoick met her eyes, tears brimming in his own. "It's too late," he whispered. "We can't get him now."
No. This couldn't be happening. It can't be happening. Sylvi allowed her father to pull her close to him and stared after the retreating form of the dragon. Tears were flowing down her cheeks as she watched her brother disappear over the ocean.
Her mother had been taken by a dragon, but Sylvi had been too small to remember her. This was different. That was her brother, her best friend, being carried off. As the dragon twisted out of view, Sylvi turned and buried her face in Stoick's chest and sobbed. Stoick wrapped his arms around her, still staring at the horizon. In the flash of an explosion, a passing Viking would have been shocked to see tears streaking the chef's face.
ᛏᚺᛖ ᚾᛁᚷᚺᛏ ᚠᚢᚱᚤ ᚲᚢᚱᛋᛖ
Hiccup stared at the water under him as the dragon sped along at extreme speeds. He knew he should be panicking, but he just couldn't help enjoying the flight. Despite the fact that the tail felt like metal, its grip wasn't too tight, and the way the wind hit his face soothed him.
That's it, I'm going crazy, Hiccup decided, shaking his head. What respectable Viking, scratch that, what normal human being, would enjoy being carried to his death?
Guess I really am useless.
Hiccup was pulled out of his depressing thoughts as the dragon swooped down. He now saw that it was about to land on a small sea stack that he would have seen had he been paying attention. There were about six of them, huddled together. But what caught Hiccup's attention was that there was a man on the rock his dragon was about to land on.
The dragon landed lightly, whipping its tail and sending Hiccup spinning. He barely caught himself before he rolled off the end of the rock. He couldn't help glancing down and felt his stomach drop. Granted, he wasn't as high as he was on the flight here, but he had felt more safe in a dragon's clutches than on a small rock with no handrails.
He carefully rolled over and got his first good look at the man. He wasn't as beefy as most of the Vikings back on Berk, but Hiccup wouldn't call him little. He was tall and imposing, with refined, not bulky, muscles. His gray hair was cut just above the nape of his neck, and his short gray beard was nicely trimmed. All in all, he could have passed as a grandfather with plenty of get-up-and-go left. Until you hit his eyes, that is. They were a cold gray that made Hiccup recoil slightly. There was something in them that whispered Danger! to him.
"So," the man said, breaking the silence. "You are Hiccup Haddock, son of Stoick?" He tapped the staff he was holding with his fingers. Hiccup's eyes were drawn to it for a moment, and he noticed a dark purple gem at the top. It seemed to be pulsing color in the early dawn light.
He quickly pulled his eyes away from it. "Yes. Yes I am."
The man smiled a cold smile. "Well," he said, "since I know who you are, I think it is only right that I introduce myself. I am Tyrann Drage."
"Umm, nice to meet you," Hiccup said, not sure if that was true. "Now can I go home?"
Tyrann shook his head. "I had you brought here for a reason, Stoickson." Hiccup's stomach dropped for the third time that day. He had feared as much. He glanced at the impossibly still dragon. How'd he get it to take him to him?
"You see," Tyrann continued, "your father insulted me many years ago, threw me out of Berk because he said I was 'crazy'." He growled.
"Well, I'm really sorry about that," Hiccup said, getting more nervous, "but what does that have to do with me?"
Tyrann barked out a laugh. "You are Stoick's only son. Wouldn't he be devastated if something happened to you?"
The nervousness in Hiccup's stomach turned to dread as he backed away from the man. He's going to kill me. I won't be killed by dragons like everyone thinks. I'm going to be killed by this man to fill his thirst for revenge.
Tyrann shook his head at Hiccup's useless antics. "Stoick already thinks you're dead," he observed, "but I can't just have you running back to Berk. I think it's time to try a little experiment, Stoickson."
Before Hiccup could do or say anything, Tyrann had pointed his staff at out, gem facing the boy. A ray of dark purple light shot out and hit Hiccup in the chest. He gasped as pain entered every one of his bones. Somehow, through the pain, he heard Tyrann proclaim, "You shall stay in your new form from dawn till dusk, and only from dusk till dawn shall you be allowed to be human again. Nothing can break this spell, with the exception of my death."
The words went straight into Hiccup's ears and cemented themselves in his brain, but he couldn't comprehend them at the moment. His body felt like it was being pulled and bent in a thousand different directions. He screamed, wreathing on the ground in agony. Finally, the pain mercifully subsided. Hiccup just lay there for a moment, breathing in the cool air.
After a moment, he realized something felt off. He sat up, trying to figure out what had changed. As he did, he looked at his hands. Letting out a yelp, he jumped away, but this terrible new reality went with him.
He had black dragon paws.
Panic flooded through him. He hadn't. He couldn't! But as he practically ran in circles trying to look at himself, Hiccup realized that he was no longer human. He was a dragon.
He turned and stared at the magiker in horror. The smile he gave him sent shivers down his spine. "Better get going, little Hiccup," he suggested. "Stay, and I might not be so merciful."
Hiccup snapped out of his daze, turned around, and jumped off the edge of the sea stack. And that's when he realized he didn't know how to fly.
Flipping through the air, he flapped his wings desperately. The water was getting closer and closer, and he was less confident in his swimming ability as a dragon than his flying abilities. In one last attempt to save himself, he snapped his wings straight out and closed his eyes. When he didn't hit the water, he carefully opened one eye. He let out a surprised gasp when he saw what had happened; he was gliding! Excitement zipped through him. He quickly glanced back and saw the sea stack, already pretty far away now. His head turn made his glide waver, and he quickly looked forward again. As he did, he realized, mentally kicking himself for not realizing sooner, that he couldn't glide forever. Already he was much closer to the water than he was when he first looked.
Hesitantly, he flapped his wings once…and almost fell into the water. He quickly held his wings straight again and once more they broke his fall. Hiccup glided for a few more seconds before he tried again. This time, he moved his wings quicker and was rewarded by rising a little in the air. Encouraged, he flapped his wings a little more. When he still remained in the air, he carefully tilted his wings in an attempt to turn. Unlike his first attempt to fly rather than glide, the turn went rather smoothly.
Hiccup let out a relieved breath. He was headed back to Berk. He didn't know what he would do when he got there, but he just knew he had to get back.
Berk was his home. He didn't know where else he could go.
I hope you enjoyed this first chapter! This story is complete so chapters will be uploaded regularly. I am currently planning to upload a chapter every Tuesday. I hope you have a great rest of your day!
For anyone wondering, magiker is the Norwegian word for magician.