This is Berk
By Tyloric

This story is not historically accurate. Don't point out things; I know they're not time period friendly. Remember: not Earth. 3 Where are the other teenage Vikings, you ask? I… don't want to write them just yet. Maybe next chapter.

Part 2:
Real or Fake?

Hiccup tapped his fake leg against the floor, and a small flare of pain formed where the fake join met his real leg. It was painful, and it hadn't completely healed. It had only been a few weeks since he lost his leg, and this prosthetic still felt so foreign. He sighed, and lay back against his bed.

Had had dreams about the pain, what it would have felt like when it was burned away. He would wake up and it would feel like his leg was there, when he knew it wasn't. It was an unsettling feeling. He hoped the dreams stopped soon.

That night, however, the dreams continued.

This dream was different though, much different. In this dream there was fire; Berk was burning, and he was in the middle of a burning build. He was burning too, but there was no pain. How could there be? It was a dream. Still, he woke up screaming.

This is Berk

Astrid came to see him in the morning. She walked in to his room just after he had woken up, so he was only wearing shorts and he was sure his hair could look better. He decided not to tell her about his nightmare.

"Astrid, what are you doing here?" He said, fighting the urge to cover himself with a sheet. He was shy, what could he say?

"It's your birthday," She said with a smile on her face.

Hiccup blinked, "What?"

"It. Is. Your… Birthday. Did you forget?"

"Um, yeah, I did. Wow… My birthday… already?" His sixteenth birthday, no less.

"Yeah," Astrid said, and for the first time Hiccup noticed she was holding a box. She looked a bit sheepish, which was really unlike her, "So, uh," she extended her the box towards him, "Happy birthday."

Hiccup took it after a second, setting it in his lap. It was a simple, non-descript wooden box. The only distinguishing characteristic was a small crack across the top, marking the box had seen use before. Slowly, he lifted the lid.

Inside were two things. The first was a serrated knife, gleaming with perfection. It was about six inches long, and a leather wrapped hilt. The leather itself was unmarked and shiny, meaning it had been recently tanned.

The second object was a forge hammer, used for metal works and construction. It too was made of new-gleaming iron. It took up the majority of the box and was a good foot long.

"Astrid…" he said, taken back.

"Do you like them?"

"I love them." He said, giving her his best smile. Brand new crafting tools, how could he not be happy? He stood up and took a bit of imitative by giving her a small kiss on the cheek. Astrid immediately blushed, and shifted where she stood. Hiccup took this as a good thing.

"Well, good, because I wasn't sure. I found the iron myself, out In the mountains. Gobber said it was the purest he'd ever seen, so I figured it could be made in to some neat stuff…" She stopped as she realized she was rambling.

"Thanks, Astrid. These are perfect," This time, she smiled back.

The mood may have escalated further had screams of terror from outside not interrupted them.

This is Berk

The world was ablaze, an inferno, everything burning. There was no sky as thick black clouds of smoke fumed out of the flames. It was a literal incarnation of hell.

A dragon, unlike any the Vikings had ever seen, sailed through the sky and over the village of Berk. Its scales were golden, tipped with red that became progressively redder as the scales traveled down its tail, the tip of its tail being a vibrant crimson. Two massive horns stood atop its head, curling backwards. Its head was large and pronounced much like a Night Fury's, and boulder, with more definition. Its teeth were serrated, unheard of in other dragons. He was a glorious beast, and he knew it, stretching twenty feet from tip to tail.

The dragon inhaled deeply and let loose another jet of flame that plumed into another inferno. Its breath spread over an enormous radius of fifty feet, incinerating anything and everyone. This was met with the immediate sounds of war, as the Vikings went to arms in the midst of the chaos. They were Vikings after all; war was their natural response to anything.

Hiccup watched this unfold in terrified awe as his village was decreased to ash. Toothless bounded up next to his side, baring his teeth as the golden assailant; the look in the Night Fury's eyes said he wanted to fly, but he needed Hiccup to do so.

Dragons from the nearby dragon perches flew in to the air, either too attack the gold dragon or to flee the conflict entirely. As they charged the dragon, however, the beast proved to be extremely agile for a creature of its size. It twisted and danced in the air, a sight that would have been beautiful if it hadn't been so horrible. The way it moved and slithered through the air just looked… wrong. Like it shouldn't be able to do what it did.

Next to him, Toothless let about a raging fireball into the air, striking the gold dragon on the side. The beast howled in fury rather than pain; as if shocked someone would have the gall to attack it. Its eyes homed in on Toothless almost immediately and it let out another howl, but this one was different. The sound cut through the air like an axe would through flesh. It was a loud ringing that caused every other dragon near it to drop out of the sky, disoriented. Both Hiccup and Astrid covered their ears in pain.

"What is that thing?" Astrid yelled over the commotion.

"I don't know!" He didn't have time to think. He jumped on Toothless' back, locking his prosthetic leg into the mechanism that worked the Night Fury's tail. "Let's fly."

Toothless beat his wings and they took to the air, letting loose a quick flurry of fire balls at the gold dragon. Now that the larger dragon had them in its sights, it performed another insane maneuver, twisting and dodging the fireballs as they came its way. How is it doing that? Hiccup wondered. Toothless moved with the speed only a Night Fury can obtain. If there was one thing Hiccup was confident of, it was that they were the faster party.

The gold dragon let looses another plume of fire that covered their entire advance. The radius of the fire was so huge there was no way to miss it at their current speed, so Hiccup ducked, intending to go straight through the inferno.

It worked.

They came out the other side with only the tips of his hair smoldering. The golden dragon eyes followed them as they zoomed across and behind it, pulling off another in-air spin to face them. It let out another piercing cry, intending to debilitate Toothless as it had the other dragons. But Hiccup knew Toothless well enough to know the Night Fury would be able to fight through it, regardless of the pain. He knew he would; that was the kind of guy Toothless was.

Toothless let out another burst of speed, shooting fireballs towards the dragon, this time in a spread out volley. The gold dragon's cry immediately halted as it twisted and turned in the air, but Toothless was much too clever for that. In their golden foes haste to avoid the volley, it didn't have time to react to the rapidly approaching Night Fury, and the moment Toothless was upon the dragon he fired another volley of fire balls.

Two of them struck the dragon on the side, another clipped one of its massive wings. But the money shot came from the one that hit it square in the face. The dragon tensed in mid-air, and a moment later fell to the ground.

The battle was over in the same minute it had begun, the way Hiccup had known it would. This gold dragon was impressive, but no one could out match Toothless when it came to speed and power, of this, both human and dragons were sure.

They landed near Astrid, who didn't even turn to look at them, "Did you kill it?"

Hiccup shook his head, dismounting, "I doubt it. More than likely just knocked it out. I've never seen a dragon like this before."

Astrid thought for a moment before turning to look at him, "We need to get these fires out."

"Yeah," Hiccup agreed.

The Vikings had set out to contain the fires, flinging water and sand on to them. The next few hours were familiar territory. This dragon has taken them by surprise, but past dragon attacks always had. The gold dragon's raw power had shocked them, but it was nothing compared to a full swarm of dragons that were intent on destroying everything.

And that's what saddened Hiccup the most. He'd thought they were past this, dragon attacks. But he never had considered the fact that maybe some of the dragons had the same point of a view as the Vikings that now dwelled in the forest… maybe not everyone was so happy with change.

Eventually the fires were put out, and everyone set out their tasks of rebuilding. It was only mid day, but Hiccup was already exhausted enough to go back to sleep.

"Let's check the manual," Astrid said, "Maybe it's in there."

"We've both read it, though." Hiccup said, "And I don't' remember reading about… that."

Astrid frowned at that, "Yeah… you're right. But I guess it makes sense we don't know about all the dragons."

"Maybe," Hiccup remained unconvinced. They were near the dragon perches, which were now deserted. The dragons had fled when they awoke. Hiccup wasn't sure how to feel about that.

Toothless was resting on the floor, lounging lazily. Next to him lay the gold dragon, who was indeed dead. The fireball that struck its face had led to a gruesome death. The blast had struck an eyeball, incinerating the eye and the brain inside the skull, a gruesome death to be sure; a one in a million shot.

They had moved the body here to keep it out of the way while the Vikings worked. They would dispose of it when there were more Vikings to lend a hand.

Hiccup looked up at the sky now that it was finally clear of smoke. "I've got bad feeling about all of this."

This is Berk

Xiro watched the Vikings from the tree line of their village, high up in one of said trees. He had traded in his crimson robe for some leather garb and fit his body nicely; red didn't blend in with nature too well.

He had watched the gold dragon assault the village with interest, but had not intervened because, honestly, what would he have been able to do? He simply watched and assessed. It the elders were already sending their favorite pets out to play, then that means they wanted Hiccup dead much more than he had originally anticipated.

This led him to a conclusion; Hiccup was important for some reason. Why just kill him, after all? It's not like the other Vikings would simply vanish with his the boy was important, though, eluded him. Sure, he had slain Beheerit, but when you think about it that's not all the great an accomplishment. Beheerit had been old, very old. It had existed since before the first Vikings had landed on the island.

Hiccup had gotten lucky with killing the old dragon, as well. Well, that's what Xiro had originally thought. But he and his dragon had halted Ouro, the gold dragon, so easily… Maybe the boy had talent after all. If Hiccup had been born in the catacombs, Xiro was sure they would have been great friends.

Fate, however, is not usually so kind.

-TBC-