Author note

There will be no further author notes after this. For anything feel free to send a PM.

English is not my first language and I apologize in advance for any grammatical mistakes.

Story guideline:
- keep the characters as close to original as possible, without rehashing the movie too much.

Disclaimer: I do not own HTTYD.

I hope you enjoy...

It was hot in the forge... which some would say is expected when you work around red hot metal all day. Heck, it is always hot in the forge, but that isn't why I want to get out of here right now.

I mean, I love the forge. The available tools and materials combined with my skills make anything possible... As much to the village's misfortune that is. Today however, everything seemed to work against me. First of all, I was out of ideas. Well there was my self launching bola launcher, but the prototype had been done for some time now, waiting to be tested on the battlefield. Then there was also the line of people waiting outside to get the most boring tasks done, like having their swords sharpened. Why can't people just do that themselves anyway?

Yeah unlike most days, I was just dying to get out of here. And it showed. My work was noticeably more sloppy than usual. Sloppy enough to get Gobber attention.

"Hiccup, yer having a bad day lad?", he said with a somewhat caring voice you'd not expect from any viking his size. "Gobber, can I finish this later?", I replied motioning at the pile of broken melee weapons waiting to be repaired. "I mean, the last raid wasn't that long ago, we have time".

I could see the disapproval on Gobbers face, the bulky shop owner always put his forge first. As I was awaiting Gobbers speech about me not helping enough, I was pleasantly surprised when he actually allowed me to leave early.

"Aight, clean your station and go, but those weapons better be done by tomorrow or I'm locking yer back-room for a week"

As soon as I hung the last sword on the wall, I quickly made it back home. As I opened the large front door I was silently praying for dad to be busy with his chiefing. Today luck seemed on my side, the house I share with my father was cold, a sign that dad had not been here for a while.

Most Viking men in Berk have wives who would keep themselves occupied at home, but I couldn't even remember my mother. Gobber once told him she was taken by a dragon during a raid, but my father would never tell me about her. The only reminder of her existence I had lost, it was a small doll shaped like a nadder. Which according to my dad, she had made for me herself.

I grabbed my notebook and pencils from upstairs and quickly made it out the back door into the forest. I always love to hang out in the forest, I feel at peace in it. No one bothering me, no exhausting work at the forge and the ability to do whatever I feel like without being judged. However, I would never go too far; I am well aware that I'd probably be dead getting lost in some unknown part of the island.

Flying, one of the best things about having wings on your back. I just love to fly endlessly and to let all my troubles slide.

Right now I was flying away from the nest I live in. I hated the place, but it had been my home for many years and the only place I would not have to live alone.

Unlike most of the dragons, I am not controlled by the 'queen' of the nest. Every so often the queen will order the dragons to attack one of the nearby two-legged nests for food and on rare occasions I go with them, but unlike the others, I will not be forced to go. The queen has no control over me.

Most of the other dragons remain on the island during day, but I just love to get away from it all every now and then. After flying for some time and clearing my mind, I saw an island nearby and decided to rest for a little before going home.

I know this island pretty well, it's one of the islands most frequently attacked for it's many resources.

As I was flying over the forest of the isle, I could see a two-legged walk underneath me, now usually I wouldn't care and move on, but something caught my eye. Usually they would carry a metal claw as a weapon, they carry it either on their back or on their side, but this one seemed to be unarmed. Also, this two-legged was really thin compared to others of his kind.

There was something off about this.

The two-legged are such strange creatures, they call themselves Vikings or more specifically humans. And for each other they have something called: 'names', a short praise to refer to each other.

Interested in what the human was up to I decided to land nearby and follow it on foot. My black scales blending in perfectly with the shadows and my movement so silent it was impossible for a human to notice.

Suddenly the human... boy it seemed, stopped and looked around, for a second I thought he might have noticed me, but then he continued over to a nearby boulder and sat down. He took out some of his human tools out and started doing something with them. It bothered me how I could not see what he was doing with them, his body blocking whatever he was holding from my view.

Some time passed and the human still hadn't left. All he was doing is making small movements with his paw and looking down at something in his lap. Every now and then he would look up and then down again.

After moving closer to see what he was using his paws for, I finally understood. The human was using a charcoal stick to draw strokes.

I decided to lay down lazily on a large tree branch nearby and observe the human from there, the branch bend slightly under my weight, but not enough to alert the human. As I continued to observe this strange, but fascinating human, I noticed how the at first random lines started to look like the clearing we occupied.

The humans have these really complex paws that can move in the strangest ways. They use their paws for pretty much everything. They make their shelters with them, they carry objects around with them and they seem to have this weird obsession of touching everything around them with their paws.

The sun was starting to set and it seemed that the human had finally finished; the charcoal lines now representing an almost exact replica of the forest clearing we were in. It was really quite beautiful...

As the sun was setting, announcing the dark soon to come. I inwardly cringed... How long had we been here? The others back at the nest must be wondering where I went. It would probably be smart to just return in the morning and pretend I never left the nest.

With that in mind I decided to search for a place to stay the night. Apparently the human had similar thoughts as he packed his things and started on his way back. He was so weird. The other humans that sometimes roamed the forest usually did some form of labor like chopping down trees or hunting, it was like he didn't even come from the viking settlement.

That night I found residence in a small cave located high on the single mountain of the island. I could see the torches burning in the human nest below. A very relaxing sight I must say. Not feeling sleepy, having rested a lot earlier, I decided to just sit there in the mouth of the cave and watch for a while. Just as I started to feel drowsy I could hear a loud draconic screech coming from the direction of village.

So much for sleep…

It was very early in the morning.

Many loud screeches sounded as large swarm dragons could be seen breaking through the clouds above.

It didn't take long for the draconic screeches to be accompanied by the many Viking horns signaling a dragon raid taking place. Within a moment notice all hell burst loose. Vikings came pouring out of their houses weapons in hand and escorts were being organized getting the youngest and oldest of Berk to the great hall where they would wait out the attack.

It actually took Hiccup some time to wake up, maybe he was finally starting to get deaf from having his father yell at him all the time. Waking up went a lot faster when he noticed what was happening outside. It didn't take him long to get his clothes on and run downstairs. As he opened the front door he was welcomed not all too friendly by a monstrous nightmare sending a huge blast of fire his way. He quickly shut the door and ran out the back. The fire brigade would probably extinguish what remained of the front door.

He had actually looked forward to this dragon attack, apart from all the destruction, it meant he could finally test his bola launcher 2.0 on a live target, with the calibration issues of his first version now fixed, he would surely take down a dragon. Maybe even a night fury, but the night furies luckily don't always show up.

As Hiccup was running towards the blacksmith shop he saw the perfect spot on a small hill to place his weapon, now all that was left was getting it there. He had it stored in his small room in the back of Gobber's shop. Oh wait… Gobber, he totally forgot, if Gobber wasn't fighting the dragons he would never allow Hiccup to just run off.

As Hiccup ran inside the smithy he was indeed greeted by the village blacksmith…

"Nice of ye to join the party, I th't ye'd been carried of", he jokingly greeted his apprentice.

"Don't mind me, just passing through", Hiccup replied trying to get past the larger Viking, only to be picked up by his prosthetic hook.

"Oh no, ye don't", he said as he threw a dulled sword in Hiccups arms. "t's time you do yer part. Now get sharpenin".

So much for testing bola launcher 2.0…

Unlike the other dragons I don't really feel like fighting the Vikings, but I still decided to team with my fellow dragons and help out by taking out the Viking's defenses where needed. The Vikings are always very frightened upon hearing my charge build, probably because they would never know what I am aiming at, combined with the fact that they would not be able to see me and can't do anything to stop me.

Truth be told, I don't really mean to hurt the humans. I sometimes even help the ones that can't defend themselves, I do so by keeping the other dragons of their back. However they probably see all dragons as evil and blood-lusty creatures. Although, I never really intent on killing humans, there might have been a couple of unlucky casualties caused by my actions. Which is to be expected when you get shot at by a creature as powerful as a night fury.

I might not be actively trying kill them, but I don't like them either; the Vikings are smelly and loud creatures who for some reason think extremely highly of themselves. Which is laughable when you can kill most of them with just one simple blast.

After seeing a gronkle get hit by a boulder launched from a large catapult positioned on a stone tower to the side of the village, I decide it had to be dealt with

The massive catapult is one of their most effective weapons against the attacking dragons and they apparently know, even though the catapult has been destroyed countless times, they keep rebuilding it making small improvements. This time they seem to have decided to make the foundation from rocks instead of wood. True, it would resist the fire of most dragons, but it stood no chance against my powerful plasma bolts.

As I let my charge build I could see the expressions on the faces of the Vikings below me turn into that of true terror, and a familiar warning could be heard.

"NIGHT FURY"

"GET DOWN"

As my charge reached its full potential, I took aim at the large catapult and fired.

Although I didn't expect anything else, the catapult didn't survive my fatal blow to its foundation and started collapsing in on itself. This would be one of those moments where my actions would probably lead to a casualty as some of the Vikings on it would now be forced to jump into the icy ocean below with little chance of survival.

Deciding that was probably enough for today, I decided to circle around and observe the battle happening below me.

As I was looking around, I spotted the human boy from earlier. He was running through the crowd with some kind of strange contraption in front of him. I watched him run over to a small hill slightly away from the battlefield and 'deploy' his strange contraption.

After Gobber left the shop to help in the chaos outside, I decided to also abandon my duties and get the weapon I was dying to try. After I pulled it out of my little back-room, I ran outside dodging the massive crowd of fighting Vikings and made it to my designated spot.

Deploying my weapon was easy, I designed it so you would only have to pull one lever and it would be good-to-go. Now all I had to do is aim it and pull the trigger.

"Come on, give me something to shoot at, give me something to shoot at", I muttered to myself while aiming at the now suddenly empty sky, maybe this spot was too isolated from the battle.

Then I saw something, well I didn't really see anything, but something was blocking the stars from view and it started coming this way fast. I aimed slightly in front of it and I pulled the trigger.

The weapon gave a loud snap and pulled to the left making the bola fly towards the fighting crowd, effectively hitting a deadly nadder and effectively trapping it.

I let out a breath I didn't notice I was holding. At least this invention had actually managed to harm a dragon instead of some unfortunate villager, but I would still have to figure out what went wrong firing it. As I turned to look at my weapon, I was greeted by the monstrous nightmare from before.

I let my arms drop to my sides, this was just my luck.

"Oh hey, you again"

I was really disappointed; the human boy I had spent the entire afternoon with, the one human who I thought might be different, just attempted to shoot me out of the sky. Well maybe the human hadn't known of my presence last day, but still it had felt like this one human would be different from the Vikings around and I actually developed a strange interest in him.

I looked back at the human boy whose weapon had managed to get a pitiful nadder stuck in a net. I also saw how a nightmare was advancing on the human. Now usually this would be a perfect example of when I would help a defenseless human, but then again this one had just tried to shoot me down, letting my sadistic side take over I decided to only intervene at the last possible moment, letting the nightmare chase him for a bit. When I felt like the situation had spun out of control I made a low swoop and picked the human up by its fake-skins before taking off again.

"HICCUP", I could hear the village alfa male yell after me.

"DAD", my passenger yelled back while trying to cling on for dear life. Wait... dad? This was the alfa's offspring?

Apparently this huge man who was somehow also this boy's father probably thought I was taking his son back to the nest like the livestock the other dragons stole. While I was actually rescuing his son from certain death by an angry nightmare.

While flying back to the clearing I first found the boy last day, I listened to the constant pleading of my passenger. He had to be absolutely terrified.

Not much later I reached the clearing, from here he would probably find his way back when the sun starts to rise again. Hovering closely above the ground I dropped the boy in the soft grass below.

Just as I turned to leave, I could see the human get to his feet, however it didn't take long for him to faint fall back to the ground.

Deciding it was probably not the safest place for a nap, I dragged him over to the side of the clearing before taking my position in the tree again making sure I didn't help this human just for him to get eaten by a pack of hungry wolves.

Looking after a human was the last way I expected to be spending my time tonight.