Do Over

(rough draft)

A DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon fanfic by Raberba girl

Summary: Experimental time travel vignettes.

A/N: I've been playing with several time travel ideas for a few years now, but this is the first one I've attempted to write.

This is NOT planned as a full story; I'm just doing random vignettes with time travel scenarios to help me cope with writer's block.

1 - Vikings looking for Hiccup

Astrid awakened early from habit, but the window frame near her bed was devoid of the cheerful Nadder face she'd grown accustomed to seeing first thing in the morning. Figuring that she'd look for Stormfly outside, Astrid got out of bed, meaning to get dressed, but was distracted by how strange she felt.

She wondered for a second if she was ill, but immediately decided that wasn't the problem. It was more like her muscles didn't fit together or move right, everything was at the wrong eye level, and something about her chest was off- When she checked, she was astonished to find that her boobs had apparently shrunk in the night, though they still seemed healthy.

Whatever. Too bad for Hiccup, but the increased mobility was kind of nice, and she had things to do; she'd worry about the inexplicable boob shrinkage later. She dressed and plaited her hair as quickly as she could, wondering irritably why her mother had decided to re-arrange her room and mess with all her stuff in the middle of the night. (Come to think of it, how had Astrid slept through having her bed moved and her best weapons taken?) The rest of the house, however, was empty (and also re-arranged, as if her parents had had a nostalgia fit and changed everything to look like it had five years ago). Astrid planned to track down her parents later to ask them what they heck they were up to; for now, she simply grabbed a few bites to eat and headed out for her first flight of the day.

Astrid halted after she taken a few steps outside. It wasn't just her bedroom and house...the entire village looked like it had five years ago. It made Astrid's stomach lurch unpleasantly to see none of Hiccup's inventions, as if someone had wanted to erase his accomplishments from existence. Everything seemed so drab and small...and spiky and deadly and hostile...and there were no dragons.

"What is going on here?!" Astrid put her hands to her mouth. "Stormfly!" she called. "Stormfly! Come here, girl!"

There was no reply except for a couple of passing villagers wondering what she was talking about and wishing her good morning.

'I have to find Hiccup.'

However, the first person she met from that household was Stoick, hurrying down the hillside steps toward her. "Astrid!"

"Chief!" Astrid, who had started forward to meet him, paused again in confusion when she saw that something was off with Stoick, too.

Stoick had stopped as well and was staring at her in amazement.

"What's wrong, chief?" His beard! That's what it was; it was all bright red, with no gray in it at all.

"Lass...? You're so - small."

She frowned in confusion. "Is Hiccup up at the house? I need to talk to him."

Stoick shook his head helplessly. "No sign of him or Toothless, either, but something strange is going on here."

"Where are all the dragons?"

"Where are Hiccup's gizmos?" Stoick swept his arm around to indicate the village. "The forge is half the size it should be! The racing arena's gone without a trace, I can't find Skullcrusher anywhere... Astrid, there's no skylight in Hiccup's room."

She stared at him.

"No dragon doodles pinned to his wall, no spare tails piled in the corners... I think something terrible has happened."

"We have to find Hiccup."

Searching the village turned up more questions than answers. Stoick was the only person who seemed sane; everyone else acted like he and Astrid were crazy for implying that dragons were anything less than marauding monsters, and the thinly-veiled scorn in their expressions when Hiccup's name was mentioned was painful for both Astrid and Stoick to see. Even Gobber, grumpily ordering them to let him sleep another hour, didn't seem to know what they were talking about. That could just have been Gobber not being properly awake yet, but lying on a table nearby was his old prosthetic, rather than any of the newer ones Hiccup had made for him over the years.

At a loss, the chief and his future daughter-in-law slowly crossed the village square again. "It's like... It's almost as if we went back," Astrid said slowly. "Back to when the war was still-" She broke off when she heard a distant, distressed cry.

"Meatluuuuug!"

Stoick and Astrid simultaneously broke into a run. They found Fishlegs standing at the edge of a cliff, staring forlornly out over the ocean. "I can't find Meatlug!"

Astrid was staring at him. "Fishlegs... You're so small."

"I knew it!" Stoick exclaimed.

Fishlegs shot Astrid a surprised, pleased look. "Really?" he said, then smiled down at himself and slid his palms down his sides in a 'trim' gesture. "Maybe the new diet's really-"

"I don't mean small as in you lost weight, I mean you look younger, Fishlegs. You look like you're fourteen years old."

Fishlegs peered at her, paying actual attention to her for the first time, then stepped back in surprise. "So do you!"

"Let's find Snotlout and the Thorston twins," Stoick said.

All three were still asleep, but they all looked the same as they had five years before, and when awakened, they were all surprised at everyone's appearances and concerned about their missing dragons.

"We have to find Hiccup," Stoick said. "He may have gone after Toothless alone."

The others all looked at each other, wide-eyed. "You mean...to Dragon Island...?"

"He couldn't have!"

"That idiot would, though."

"Are any of the boats missing?" It turned out that none were. "He can't have gone on foot to an island."

"Unless he went looking for Toothless at the cove instead."

Stoick clapped his hands together to get everyone's attention. "The five of you go see if he's at the cove, and search the woods nearby if you can't find him there. I'll take some people out to search on the other side of Berk, and get a ship ready in case we need to sail out."

"You got it, chief."

The five young adults set out, Astrid leading the way and thinking with a little smile that it was just like everyone to look to Hiccup for explanations during a crisis. He was probably just as clueless about what had happened as they were. It was also just like Hiccup to go straight after his dragon than make any non-Toothless people a priority... Astrid sighed and wondered if Hiccup had at least come to check on her before he'd left.

The cove was empty, but while they were heading back to the village, Tuffnut was the first one to catch sight of a small human figure moving through the trees up ahead. "Yo, Hiccup!"

The boy had been wandering slowly, engrossed in the notebook he was holding, but at Tuffnut's shout, his head jerked up like an animal sensing danger.

"Hiccup~!"

"There you are!" They all gladly broke into a run.

To their astonishment, Hiccup turned and fled.

"Hiccup!"

They pounded after him. Astrid was fastest, and steadily started catching him up, wondering at him even as she pursued. He was so little! She'd forgotten how tiny Hiccup had been before his growth spurt, how...fragile-looking he seemed. Well, he was still a delicate flower that she sometimes forgot to handle with enough care, but the Hiccup she knew was a paragon of manliness next to this wisp of a child. 'Doesn't matter. He's still my Hiccup, no matter what he looks like.'

He really was running for his life, for some reason; Astrid only just barely managed to snag his sleeve. He whipped around with the sudden change in momentum and would have fallen hard if she hadn't caught him in both arms. He made a yelping sound and struggled, which she wasn't expecting. She was obliged to grip his arms like she'd grip a captive of war and push him toward the others, who were panting up to meet them.

Astrid was startled to find Hiccup trembling in her hands, but his voice was fairly steady when he greeted them. "He-ey, what's up, guys. Nice day for hunting, eh?"

"Hiccup!"

"Hiccup, what is happening?"

"I can't find Meatluuuuug!"

Hiccup wasn't breathing quite right, even considering that he'd just been running flat-out. "Take deeper breaths," Astrid advised him. "You'll get your wind back faster."

Hiccup rolled his eyes back toward her in a jittery, panicked sort of way and didn't respond. She released him, wondering if she was freaking him out by the forceful handling, but it didn't seem to help. He took a halfhearted step toward Snotlout and Ruffnut, between which was the biggest opening in the circle of people that enclosed him, but didn't try to run again. His shoulders were hunched in a way that surprised Astrid, because she hadn't seen that sort of body language from him in so long, and his hands fiddled restlessly.

"All the dragons are gone, Hiccup!"

"We're all, like, fifteen again."

"Heh, I forgot how pathetic and nerdy you used to be, Hicc."

"He's still pathetic and nerdy."

"What do we do?" Snotlout demanded.

Hiccup eyed him. "You're asking me?"

"Guys," Astrid said, flapping her hands at them, "back up, give him some space."

Everyone shifted a bit. Hiccup angled himself so that he was more or less facing Astrid, though he was still eyeing her sideways in a tense, cautious way.

"Come on, Hiccup, say something."

"What if Meatlug never comes back?! This isn't like Snoggletog, we'd have heard them leaving!"

Hiccup drew in a careful breath, then exhaled shakily. "Honestly, guys, I don't know how to play along with this one. Can we just skip straight to business and get this over with?"

"Get what over with?"

"You know. Whatever you're...planning to do. To me."

There was a long silence, as it slowly started dawning on people that Hiccup was expecting to get beaten up.

"Of course," Hiccup burst out after no one had said anything for a few moments, his voice even higher than usual, "I'd be totally fine with, you know, just not having any plans, no 'combat training' or toughening up the weakling. We can just sing a rousing chorus of 'Hooligan Pride' and head home. Right? I think that sounds like a good plan. Much better than...whatever you were planning before."

"Guys," Fishlegs finally said, "I don't think this is our Hiccup."