There were dragons when I was a boy.

You will have to take my word for it…

In Which Hiccup Holes up in a Snowstorm

"I am in a Viking longboat on the side of a mountain. It is an old hulk, it must be older than this coast itself. The waves don't reach this high anymore, even in the fiercest storm. But it made a fine shelter after I filled the cracks with clay and covered the back with earth. It looked like a little hill before winter set in- belly-up and half buried with grass growing over the top.

There is a blizzard blowing outside now. We only settled down when the cold threatened. I was worried, at first, but a small fire is enough to heat the boat, even though the woven branches I used to cover the doorway are drafty. So there's enough firewood and food for now, even if it will be harder to find more later. I'll need to find a way to get fresh fish through the ice too, and store them without attracting Terrible Terrors…

I think the storm is dying down now, the moaning of the wind around the cliffs is not as loud. I wonder if we're snowed in? But it's too dark to see and I'm not leaving the fire to look.

What if we can't dig out? I've never dug up from underneath before, what if the snow is too heavy? Where will I put the snow I move? There must be a way, though. Lots of animals even smaller than me burrow in the winter and have to dig themselves out.

I guess I'll figure it out in the morning."

Hiccup wrote that in his notebook the night of his first blizzard, and he was scared that he'd finally gone too far. He anticipated it for months, debated whether or not he should go back to Berk before winter, then finally prepared to stay and worried over the decision. And when he saw the broiling clouds billowing in from the ocean as those first snowflakes started down, he had been more frightened than when he'd first left Berk, more than when he'd been chased by angry dragons. He dreaded that he'd dared too much after all and would finally face the cold reality of his foolhardy venture.

But the morning after the storm subsided, he discovered that leaving his overturned boat was as easy as shifting his door of thatched branches and standing up. He found the world frozen and fresh- the pines enveloped by blankets of snow, the crags of the rocks smoothed with white, the frozen bay a pristine meadow- perfectly flat. And the sky- the sky- the most shocking, clear and vivid blue he had ever seen. Sunlight glittered off miniscule crystals of ice. All was peaceful and still- so much so that Hiccup let out a disbelieving laugh. Short and hesitant at first, then wild with the joy of triumph.

"I- I did it!" He cried, raising his arms, breath catching in his excitement. In the wake of the storm, everything was different, and he had a whole new world to explore.

"Toothless! Toothless!" He leaned down and stuck his head back into the boat. "C'mon, bud! Let's go!"

Armed with a heavy, woven brown cloak over his winter furs and a giddy laugh, Hiccup dove from the snowbank that had formed in the lee of his shelter. A moment later Toothless, his tamed Nightfury, shot from the boat in a streak of black- and immediately regretted his decision.

The pony-sized black dragon let out a startled reptilian squawk and back peddled as soon as his eyes adjusted to the bright light. But he was going too fast, was too close to the ground, and his wing beats only served to throw him back just far enough that he landed in the deepest part of the snowdrift.

Hiccup laughed himself to tears as the young Nightfury- the bane of mighty Viking warriors, crown prince of the night, unholy offspring of lightning and death itself- floundered piteously in the white powder.

"I'm- ha! No, I'm s-sorry, bud-" Hiccup wiped his eyes on the back of his leather mittens as he tried to catch his breath and stumbled toward his friend.

Toothless finally righted himself, glaring, and might have looked angry or annoyed had his mottled green eyes not been so wide in bewilderment.

"No, I'm serious," Hiccup said, regaining his composure "I'm sorry. This is your first snow, isn't it? You've never seen it piled up before, have you?"

He asked as if the dragon could answer, and assisted in hauling him out of the snowbank with a grin.

"Well, don't worry. Snow is great fun! I mean, as long as you don't have to shovel pathways through it after every storm, but we don't have to worry about that out here…"

Hiccup walked to the edge of the slope and smiled an absent sort of half smile as he looked out over the beauty of the winter wreathed landscape. Toothless sneezed some snow off of his nose and followed with an awkward step, his broad head twisted so he could watch his forelegs shuffle through the snow.

"What do you think?" the young man asked, after the dragon had been still for a moment at his side.

The only response was a soft, oddly musical churr that bubbled up from the back of the Nightfury's throat.

"You know… I bet I could beat you to the sea ice…"

Toothless must have caught his tone because he was on his feet, back arched playfully, the moment Hiccup tensed. The two of them charged down the slope, skidding and tumbling in their haste. Even the dragon was laughing as they hit the coast and promptly slipped on the ice, crashing into one another and ending up a tangled pile of limbs and leathery wings.

It continued like that, the boundless enthusiasm and wonder of the two youths drove them on. Toothless was soon diving in and out of the snow like a weasel and sliding down hillsides with otter-like exuberance. Hiccup introduced him to snowballs and snowforts and the joys of shaking a branchfull of snow down on another's head. They played the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, only retreating to their warm longboat when they were both shivering and damp with melted snow.

Talk about an AU no one wanted! If any clicked on this story with an amount of understanding/anticipation after reading 'My Side of the Mountain AU', then you are A+. High five, friend.

Why, you ask? Aside from the obvious 'My Side of the Mountain is a childhood favorite (with HTTYD a later childhood favorite)' and 'falconry and dragons are perfection', it's because I saw a peregrine falcon yesterday. Not up close, but that silhouette is unmistakable. As a wildlife biology and paleontology enthusiast, the opening of the HTTYD book is lodged in my mind as one of the simplest, most horrifically ominous phrases to ever exist. As I looked up, it struck me again how easy it would have been for that silhouette to be before my time- for all I knew of those wings to be the distantly recalled words of a grandfather- "There were falcons when I was a boy… You'll have to take my word for it…"

Anyhoo~ I am ridiculously excited to write this fic. Hiccup becomes a feral dragon boy (sorta by accident, because he's a dope and takes after his mum) and raises up a baby Nightfury in the wilds of Berk. Despite that opening quote, you may expect fluffity fluff fluff. Oh so much fluff. And jubilant salutes to My Side of the Mountain, of course…

Reviews and constructive criticism always appreciated! Let me know what you think!