- See end for Notes -

PROLOGUE

'There, but for the grace of Thor, go I.' thought Hiccup as he sailed away. The young Viking stood with his hands on the ship's guard rails, looking back on Berk. The island of the Hairy Hooligans had been as inhospitable as ever. The people were surly and unwelcoming, the terrain rocky, and unable to sustain more than the hardiest crops. And the weather. Hiccup shivered just remembering it.

Seeing Hiccup shiver, Oswald the Agreeable placed a hand on his son's shoulder. Hiccup leaned into the warm touch. His father was larger than life to Hiccup, both literally and figuratively. Oswald was a mountain of a man, huge in every direction. But it was with his hands that Hiccup had his earliest memories. Large square palms, and fingers as rough as leather.

"Did young Dagur give you too much trouble, lad?" Oswald asked gently. Hiccup had been tasked with keeping Dagur out of trouble while treaty negotiations were ongoing. The Berserker chief knew that it hadn't been an easy time for Hiccup. There was a reason Stoick's son was called Dagur the Deranged.

Hiccup shook his head, but to himself, wondered how much was too much. How much longer would being older than the Hairy Hooligan heir would keep Hiccup safe from him? Already, he was taller than Hiccup. Bigger. Stronger.

The heir to the Berserker tribe felt his face heat up in recollection. While Dagur had been his usual self, taunting Hiccup, trying to drown him as they swam (haha ha), Hiccup had been preoccupied, noticing how the other boy had... grown up. Swimming at the river, as was their "tradition", had been a terrifying affair for Hiccup, an exercise in trying to keep his wandering eyes to himself.

Hiccup was not older by much, only a few years. But at their age, a few years was a lot. It was enough of an age gap that, the few summers that Dagur had spent at the Berserker's Keep, Dagur had dedicated to trying to get the best of Hiccup, to prove himself against the older boy. In a way, the two of them had grown up together, in the same way all the heirs of the different tribes grew up together. But it seemed that the last few years had been kinder to Dagur than they had been to Hiccup. While Hiccup had also grown, there was just...more of Dagur, somehow. Just standing next to him made Hiccup feel small and inadequate (not to mention other things, as well).

Hiccup pet the Terrible Terror on his other shoulder to distract himself, to calm his nerves. Bringing Sharpshot to the peace treaty signings had proven futile, and Hiccup wondered if bringing Toothless would have been better. A Night Fury, unholy offspring of Lightning and Death, would have been more impressive, in Hiccup's opinion. But his father had said that such a fearsome dragon could have been seen as a sign of aggression, maybe started another war. That was the last thing either of them wanted.

At the council, Hiccup had made his case to the elders and chiefs. He'd tried as hard as he could, making argument after argument, stating reasons and facts, bringing up his extensive research. But in the end, it had been futile. Oswald had needed to step in. Hiccup still couldn't understand how his father had done it, but the Berserker chief had wrangled a promise from all the tribes to stop killing the dragons.

To help train Hiccup to be chief one day, at the helm of one of the largest and most powerful Viking tribes, Hiccup thought he and his sister Heather should be the ones making the rounds to the other Tribes. In any case, Hiccup thought he would need to be there in order to ease the process of making peace with the Dragons, and make sure that no one got hurt while the Vikings and the dragons learned to live together.

Oswald, on the other hand, had other ideas. It was still a sore subject for them, that someone else would be making the rounds to the other tribes. But Hiccup had come to accept his father's decision.

In this way, Hiccup was his father's son. More than anything else, he just wanted the killing to stop.

Notes

Basically, it's an AU where Hiccup is Oswald the Agreeable's son, and Dagur is Stoick's son.

So, this fic has been rattling around my head for years now, and I didn't think I'd ever do anything with it. But the last movie is coming out soon, and I wanted to dip my toe into the fandom again.

I thought it would be fun to explore what might have happened if both chiefs had gotten a son that was (superficially) more like their fathers than the sons were in canon.

Please also note that some of the dragons will be speaking in this fic. I say 'some' because there are many species of dragon will make an appearance at some point in this fic, and expecting them all to speak would be a little bit like expecting all mammals to speak.

This probably won't get updated very often, so please be patient with me. I might update the fic on my Ao3 account a little earlier, but not by much. I'm writing under the same name (MulaSaWala) over there as well. :)

And finally, please take note of the fact that the pairings for this work are Eventual Dagur/Hiccup, Astrid/Heather. They happen much later, i just don't want there to be any surprises about what my endgame is. The other characters, such as the other teens who live on Berk, will be major characters in the story also, but will probably appear closer to Chapter 4 or Chapter 5. Some of the characters from the books will appear as well, but well into the story. I haven't hammered down the specifics yet, but they will most likely appear well after Chapter 10.