A/N: This is my first HTTYD story, and I'm hoping it goes well. I got the idea from the ending of Breakneck Bog, when Stoick said Hiccup was afraid of dragons when he was little, and the idea stuck, until I decided to write it. So here's the first chapter of Younger Days.

Disclaimer: I'm only saying this once, I don't own HTTYD

In a house in the remote village of Berk, a young boy sat up suddenly, breathing heavily. At the same time, in the distance a cry echoed faintly around the island Berk was situated on. Immediately the boy flung the blanket that had been covering him off, and was half way down the stairs by the time it touched the floor.

"Dad!" The boy called this out as he leapt down, skipping over the last few steps of the stairs. "Dragon attack, coming from the east this time." He ran over to where his father was getting out of bed, awoken by the boy's footsteps down the stairs.

"Thank you Hiccup, now you need to get to Gobber's forge as soon as you can. –" Whatever else Hiccup's father was going to say was cut off by a noise the boy had never heard before, but the boy's father froze at. "No, I thought those had gone extinct."

Before Hiccup could as what his father meant, his father raced out the door, pulling his bear skin cape on as he did so. The heavy wooden door closed with a thud, and Hiccup let out a sigh. He didn't want to go to the forge that would mean he would have to go outside right now.

Taking a deep breath, he stared at the door for a moment, planning on going full sprint to the forge, and cowering when he got there. That was when he noticed it hanging on its peg by the door, his father's hammer, he never fought without it.

Hiccup was trying to think about what to do about it, when heard the same noise that had seemed to scare his father again. A few seconds later, an explosion seemed to come from behind the house, and Hiccup immediately raced towards the door.

He threw his entire weight against the door to open it, and was in a dead on sprint towards the forge. The young boy didn't dare to look back over his shoulder, absolutely terrified of what he knew had to be coming from that behind him.

Despite the fact that he was a Viking, not to mention the son of the chief, Hiccup had always been terrified of dragons. He was supposed to want to kill them, not run from them, yet ever since he was a tiny baby he'd been terrified beyond reasoning of even a dragon's roar

He'd always wake up at even the faintest cry that nobody else heard. Hiccup's father had never understood his son's fear, but was always thankful for the slight warning of impending dragon attacks. Regardless of the warnings his son gave him, Hiccup's father was still adamantly trying to help his son get over his irrational fear of dragons.

That was why Hiccup was currently running towards the forge. Hiccup was more than happy to help out in the forge at any time, unless it was during a dragon attack. His father's idea that having him be more active during the dragon attacks would help him over his fear, wasn't working.

He'd started his apprenticeship with Gobber, when he was eight, and two years of sharpening and repairing weapons during the attacks had done nothing to quiet his fears. When he arrived at the forge Gobber gave him half a glance as he raced in, and then bent over resting his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

"Nice of you to show up, I was worried you might have gotten hauled off." At this Hiccup's head shot up in horror, looking at Gobber. The blacksmith rolled his eyes and laughed, earning a glare from the boy. Hiccup had never told anyone, but his greatest fear was being carried off by one of the attacking dragons. "Get your apron on, and get ready for orders."

Hiccup obeyed Gobber's order, reaching for the slightly too long apron he had for him in the forge, as he threw open the doors to the stall, a line of Vikings already waiting. He had barely finished tying the apron, when he had a sword that needed to be sharpened dumped into his arms. The boy had just started to sharpen it, when the blacksmith's voice caught his attention.

"Stoick, what do you need?" He looked up, to see his father, half way leaning into the stall through the window where orders were taken, and given out.

"Is my hammer here?" When Gobber didn't answer him immediately, he shook his head. "Never mind, there isn't time. Give me an axe." Gobber complied, reaching with his good hand, taking an axe down and giving it to Stoick, who left immediately.

Hiccup, worried about his father, knowing he didn't like fighting without his hammer, quickly finished sharpening the sword he had in his arms. He then did something he never thought he would do, purposefully run out of the forge during a dragon attack.

By the time Gobber called after the boy, he was nearly half way home, fueled by his own fear of the dragons who were nearly everywhere around the town, and the need to try and help his father. It took longer to get to his house than it did to get to the forge, having to run up hill to get back home.

Hiccup pulled the giant door open as fast as he could, and quickly grabbed, or at least attempted to grab, his father's hammer from its peg on the wall. Being laughably scrawny, and being nothing but bones, made it difficult for him to properly carry any sort of semi heavy weapon, that all Vikings carried.

Hiccup had to use both hands to carry it by the hammer part, rather than the handle. The hammer severely slowed him down, and he could hear his own heart pounding in his chest as he hesitated by the front door.

When the back half of the house suddenly collapsed, revealing a Monstrous Nightmare, Hiccup immediately used his back to push the door open. As he did this he met the dragon's gaze. It stared at him for a moment, before snarling, and doing what Monstrous Nightmares were known for. It lit itself on fire.

Hiccup let out an unviking like scream, as he tried to run away from the flaming beast as fast as he could, while clutching his father's hammer. The boy tried not to think of the dragon behind him, and looked desperately around for his father.

Stoick wasn't that far away, and had heard his son's scream. Quickly he punched the Gronkle he was tussling with away from him, turning around to see where his son's cry had come from.

Hiccup had just spotted his father, when he heard the Monstrous Nightmare's roar almost directly behind him. The boy expected to feel an intense burning on his back, figuring the dragon would try to roast him. He was not expecting to suddenly find himself in the air, claws digging into his shoulders as he was carried away.

Once he realized this was what was happening, Hiccup started to hyperventilate. He dropped his father's hammer and desperately tried to pry the claws off his shoulder to release him. The boy thought he might have heard his father call out to him, but he couldn't be sure, not being able to hear anything but the blood rushing through his ears as fear overwhelmed him.

Around him, things grew dark, as he was carried away from his home, and his father.

He was nervous, but he didn't let it show, all of the others were looking towards him as a leader. Why, he couldn't really say. They all had high expectations for him, because of his parents.

He had personally never known his parents, when he hatched, all that was around him was death and destruction. He never did learn what caused it, but when he hatched, he found himself wrapped in his dead mother's tail, his father dead, closer to the entrance of the cave, as well as smashed eggshells around him.

Why he had been spared, he didn't know. Maybe the attackers had missed his egg wrapped up in his mother's tail? He really couldn't dwell on it much. He'd always been pushed to his limits, ever since he had been found.

The other dragons had constantly trained him, never praising him, or showing him any sort of love, until now. A few days ago, the dragons' entire attitude towards him had changed. They started respecting him, and he didn't like it. The only upside he could see to it, was that they were finally allowing him to join them on their raid of the human settlement.

Why they wanted him to lead them was beyond him, but he couldn't care less. He was more interested in the humans. He'd heard bits and pieces about them, but he was still curious. Unfortunately, he was always curious about everything, something that had gotten him into trouble on more than one occasion.

"Okay, Night Fury, listen and do exactly as I say." The Night Fury's thoughts were interrupted by the Monstrous Nightmare that flew beside him, the real leader of this raid. "When we get there, you need to fire off a few shots, before then pulling up, and going around to those towers on the outside, and destroy them. Got that?" The pitch black dragon nodded. "FOR THE QUEEN!"

The leading Monstrous Nightmare called this over his shoulder to encourage the other dragons that were following, before diving steeply towards the human settlement they were above. When the Night Fury saw the Monstrous Nightmare nod to him, he released one of his signature plasma shots, the air whistling as he charged it.

The shot didn't hit anything, because he wasn't aiming at anything. And after a few more seconds, he released a second shot, before flying around to where the Nightmare had said there were towers.

He wasn't in any hurry to destroy the towers, but he did as he was told, finding it intriguing how the humans seemed to cower anytime they heard one of his shots charging, yet seemed completely fearless of the other dragons. The night colored dragon quickly completed his tasks, each of the towers only taking one shot.

Afterwards he flew up high into the sky, planning on pinpointing the leading Monstrous Nightmare, and asking what he should do next. When he spotted the Nightmare, he was in the middle of wrecking one of the houses.

The Night Fury watched with curiosity, as a small human stumbled out of the house the Nightmare had just dropped into. The human seemed to by struggling to carry something heavy, and he wondered why it didn't just drop it and run. Even from this distance, he could tell that it was terrified out of its simple mind.

That was when the Nightmare grabbed the small human, confusing the young dragon even more. He knew dragons sometimes killed humans on their raids, but the Nightmare didn't seem to be trying to kill it. There also seemed to be no reason to kill it, it was clearly one of the humans' young, and was no threat to them.

"What are you doing with that human?" The Night Fury called this out to the Nightmare, who glared at the younger dragon.

"If you must know, I plan on eating it. But that's none of your concern." The Monstrous Nightmare narrowed his eyes at the Night Fury, and sneered at him.

"Why? It's only a hatchling! It can't be older than I am. He's done nothing wrong!" The Night Fury held the elder dragon's gaze as he said this, trying to understand his intentions.

"He's the chief's son, sooner or later, he'll be the one leading this village in their efforts to stop us. I'll take care of him now, and we won't have to deal with him." The Nightmare obviously thought this was enough of a reason, but he wasn't so sure. When he heard the human let out another terror filled scream, he decided what he had to do.

"I won't let you do that!" The Night Fury yelled this at the elder dragon, before diving at the larger dragon, and snapping his jaws down on the side of his neck. The taste of the other dragon's blood didn't sit well with the Fury, but it achieved his goal of getting the other dragon to drop the human.

It was then that the Fury realized he hadn't saved the human quite yet. While the Nightmare flew away, the human plummeted to the ground. The Night Fury followed him, and managed to grab hold of the human like the Nightmare had.

It was then that he realized he didn't have enough room to pull up. He spread his wings as wide as he could, and managed to slow them down significantly, but they still had a rough landing. During which, the human was torn from his grip.

When he got up, he quickly looked around for the small human, who was lying on the ground a little ways away from him. The Night Fury was immediately nervous when the human didn't get up. Getting closer, he sniffed it, trying to tell if it was still alive or not.

The smell of the human's blood, which was pooling around his leg, made his stomach churn, but he let out a relieved sigh, when he say the human's chest rising and falling. After seeing this, he settled down next to the frail form, and resting his head down on his front paws, fell asleep.

A/N: I'd really love it if you guys tell me what you liked about this, what you didn't like, and most importantly, should I continue this story?