HOW TO LOVE YOUR DRAGON
Hiccup breathed that word excitedly as he reopens the sizzling door that suffered the wrath of a Monstrous Nightmare, and leapt off of the front porch. He weaved through the erupting mayhem as Vikings pour out of the buildings, ready for a fight. As the Vikings sound the alarm and Viking men and women pour out into the streets, weapons in hand, Hiccup was seen darting through alleys, staying under eaves, making his way through the battle.
Self-described by Hiccup Horrendous the III as "twelve days North of hopeless, and a few degrees South of freezing to death, located solidly on the meridian of misery", Berk was a small village nestled on an outcropping of sea mounts. It was a sturdy village that centered on fishing, hunting, and had a charming view of the sunsets, and it had been around for seven generations, but every single building is new.
No thanks to the pests.
Like most Viking villages, Berk suffered the seasonal dragon infestations, but unlike most Viking villagers who would just leave to less dragon-infested waters, Berk has the most stubborn Vikings you have ever seen and refused to succumb to the dragons' advances and leave the comforts of their own home. They would rather fight to the death and rebuild their homes rather than letting a bunch of fire-breathing reptiles invade and defeat them.
"What are you doing out!"
"Get inside!"
"Get back inside!"
Ignoring everyone who yelled at him, Hiccup weaved his way around the crowd to where he wanted to go. That is until he suddenly felt a yank on his collar from the path of a strafing dragon and held aloft to the crowd.
"Hiccup? What is he doing out again? What are you doing out? Get inside!"
Hiccup frowned at the man who set him down, receiving a scowl behind matted red beard, looking face to face at Stoick the Vast, Chief of the tribe. He was the strongest and largest Viking of all Berk and ruled the village with his vast brute and strength, his title handed down to him from generation to generation, from father to son. Rumour has it that when he was a baby he popped a dragon's head clean off of its shoulders. Hiccup was inclined to believe it, as he watched Stoick grab a wooden cart and hurls it, knocking the strafing dragon out of the sky.
More so, especially when Stoick was also his father.
As Stoick's attention was distracted by another Viking reporting to him about the status of the dragons, Hiccup crossed an open plaza and ducked into an open building with a tall chimney, making his way towards Gobber, the village hooked-hand-one-legged blacksmith, whom he had been an apprentice to since he was a young child of 9. Quickly, he donned his leather apron and starts to put away Gobber's scattered appendages.
"Ah! Nice of you to join the party," Gobber joked as he hacked at a welding sword. "I thought you'd been carried off."
"Who, me?" Hiccup replied humorously, striking a bodybuilder pose. "Nah, come on! I'm way too muscular for their taste. They wouldn't know what to do with all…this."
"Well, they need toothpicks, don't they?"
Hiccup rolled his eyes at his remark and got to work, transferring bent and chipped weapons to the forge as Vikings crowd the counter for replacements. Outside, armed men rush past, flanking others who carry sheep to safety. He watched both in admiration and envy as Stoick followed up the rear as, overhead, a dragon strafed the rooftops with Napalm-like fire. In response, the fire brigade charged through the plaza—four teens, tugging a large wooden cask on wheels. From it, they fill buckets of water to douse the flames. Hiccup recognized them as he leaned out of the stall to watch them. There was Fishlegs, the chubby overweight Viking who obsessed over dragons next himself but had more brains than muscles for it; Snotlout, the resident bully whose family was rumoured to have been the one supposedly next in line for Tribe Chief if it weren't for Snotlout's great-great-great-great grandfather who had a habit of squandering the tribe's wealth for his mead addiction; the twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut, who never seem to see eye to eye on anything; and Astrid, the love of his life.
If only Astrid knew he existed, that is.
It was a no-brainer that Hiccup was the odd one out from his peers. He may have the flaming red hair his father had, but he did not inherit the rest of his father, and from old paintings of his parents' portraits that he saw when he was little, he definitely did not get his robust mother's guise either, except her eyes. Everything his peers and parents were, he wasn't. He was not only the runt in the family, he was the runt of the whole tribe, not to mention the fact that he had a family secret, something that no Viking man would ever have or want, and it was something he couldn't—or wouldn't—tell a living soul.
But that did not mean that he was not willing to try and prove his worth, as he tried to join his peers as they pass. Unfortunately he was hooked by Gobber and hoisted back inside.
"Ah, come on. Let me out, please," Hiccup whined a little. "I need to make my mark."
"Oh, you've made plenty of marks," Gobber replied as he shoved Hiccup lightly with his hooked hand. "All in the wrong places."
"Please, just two minutes. I'll kill a dragon. My life will get infinitely better. I might even get a date."
"Look, you can't lift a hammer. You can't swing an axe…" Gobber said as he grabbed a bola and handed it to a Viking who threw it at a dive-bombing Gronkle. "You can't even throw one of these!"
"Okay fine, but this…" Hiccup rushed to the back corner of the stall and presents a bizarre, wheel barrow-like contraption. "…will throw it for me." He tried to demonstrate by opening the hinged lid of the device to show him what he had, unfortunately the machine decided to hate him by prematurely launching a bola, narrowly missing Gobber and taking out a Viking at the counter.
"You see?" Gobber grumbled. "Now this right here is what I'm talking about!"
"Mild calibration issue…"
"Hiccup. If you ever want to get out there to fight dragons, you need to stop all…" Gobber gestures in Hiccup's whole body. "…this."
"But you just pointed to all of me!"
"Yes! That's it! Stop being all of you."
"Ooohhh…I see where this is going," Hiccup put his best threatening voice. "You, sir, are playing a dangerous game. Keeping this much, raw Vikingness…contained? There will be consequences!"
"I'll take my chances," Gobber replied nonchalantly, tossing him a sword. "Sword. Sharpen. Now."
Hiccup mumbled a little, took the sword begrudgingly and lobs it onto the grinding wheel. As he sharpened the sword, he thought about all the fame, fortune and respect he might get if he were to be out there killing a dragon, which was everything around here in Berk. A Nadder head would probably get him at least noticed, or getting a Gronckle might secure him a girlfriend since Gronckles were tough, or maybe even a Zippelback which might get him twice the status, or probably even the Monstrous Nightmare if it weren't for their nasty habit of setting themselves on fire.
But the ultimate prize was the dragon no one had ever seen. Everyone called it the Night Fury, the dragon that never steals food, never shows itself, and never misses. No one, not even other villages who were known to have some of the toughest Vikings around, had ever killed a Night Fury, and the moment he somehow heard a shot outside and a random Viking yell about it, Hiccup planned to be the first.
He saw his chance when Gobber decided to join in the fray of battling the dragons. Disregarding Gobber's instructions to man the fort and stay in the shop, Hiccup waited until he was ignored long enough before he zoomed out of the shop, pushing his wheeled contraption through a wall of clustered Vikings. He weaved through the ongoing mayhem, as fast as his legs can carry him, waving away everyone's scolding to go back inside.
Hiccup soon reached a cliff overlooking the smoking catapult and dropped the handles to the ground. He cranked several levers, unfolding and then cocking the bowed arms of his contraption. He dropped a bola onto a chamber and then pivoted the weapon on a gimbal head toward the dark sky. He listened, with his eye pressed to the scope, hand poised on the trigger. He thought he heard the Night Fury approaching and turned his aim to the defense tower.
"Come on. Give me something to shoot at, give me something to shoot at," Hiccup muttered as he squinted his eyes to try and get a good look at the dragon which was totally camouflaged by the night sky. For a split second, a blast of fire illuminated the dragon as it blew out the defense tower and reflex made him pull the trigger. The bola soon disappeared into the sky, followed by a muffled whack and a shrill screech, surprising Hiccup.
"Oh, I hit it! Yes, I hit it! Did anybody see that?" Hiccup shouted in excitement, turning around to see if anyone saw his stupendous feat, but unfortunately his victory is short-lived as a Monstrous Nightmare crept up behind him over the lip of the cliff.
"Except for you."
Needless to say Hiccup was soon seen running through the plaza, screaming for help, with the Monstrous Nightmare fast on his heels. Stoick, who caught sight of him, groaned and abandoned the dragons he was catching and ran off to rescue him. After a rather long battle of wits, guts and glory, which included tackling the dragon, tumbling and wrestling with each other and exhausting out his fire shots, Stoick managed to defeat the dragon, send it off its way. Though it cost them a flock of sheep in the freed dragons' tow, some extra damages to the village and a burning brazier pole.
"Sorry…dad," Hiccup mumbled apologetically as he watched the dragons flying away from the raid, clearly winning the invasion this time, and shrank a little from Stoick's accusing glare. "Okay, but I hit a Night Fury…?"
Stoick responded by grabbing Hiccup by the back scruff of his collar and hauled him away, fuming with embarrassment.
"It's not like the last few times, Dad. I mean I really actually hit it!" Hiccup tried to explain as he struggled from his dad's hold in vain. "You guys were busy and I had a very clear shot. It went down, just off Raven Point. Let's get a search party out there, before it—"
"STOP!" Stoick snapped, releasing Hiccup. "Just…stop. Every time you step outside, disaster follows. Can you not see that I have bigger problems? Winter's almost here and I have an entire village to feed!"
"Between you and me, the village could do with a little less feeding, don't ya think?" Hiccup tried to lighten up the mood, but it wasn't working as a few self-conscious villagers glared at him.
"This isn't a joke, Hiccup!" Stoick groaned exasperatedly. "Why can't you follow the simplest orders?"
"I can't stop myself. I see a dragon and I have to just…kill it, you know? It's who I am, Dad"
"Ugh, you are many things, Hiccup," Stoick massaged the bridge of his nose. "But a dragon killer is not one of them. Get back to the house," he turned to Gobber, "and make sure he gets there. I have his mess to clean up."
Gobber took over chaperoning Hiccup, smacking the back of his head gently before leading him back home. They pass the teen fire brigade as they snicker.
"Quite the performance," Tuffnut snorted.
"I've never seen anyone mess up that badly. That helped!" Snotlout exclaimed at him sarcastically.
"Thank you, thank you. I was trying…" Hiccup pretended to play along with him and avoided Astrid's glare and heads up toward his home, which was the largest house in the village, standing prominently on the hill above the others. The moment he was beyond his peers' earshot, he muttered, "I really did hit one."
"Sure, Hiccup," Gobber tried to reply in support.
"He never listens."
"Well, it runs in the family."
"And when he does, it's always with this…disappointed scowl. Like someone skimped on the meat in his sandwich," Hiccup exclaimed as he sarcastically mimicked his dad's accent. "Excuse me, barmaid. I'm afraid you brought me the wrong offspring. I ordered an extra large boy with beefy arms. Extra guts and glory on the side. This here? This is a talking fish bone!"
"Look, you're thinking about this all wrong," Gobber tried to calm him down. "It's not so much what you look like. It's what's inside that he can't stand."
Hiccup felt like he just got staked by a pick-axe from those words, especially when it reminded him of his family secret.
"Thank you for summing that up." Hiccup groaned and turned towards the doorway.
"Look, the point is, stop trying so hard to be something you're not."
Hiccup sighed heavily. He couldn't blame Gobber, since he didn't know of the family secret that made him the mess he was right now.
But he just didn't get it.
"I just want to be one of you guys."
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