Long ago, on the wild and windy isle of Berk, a smallish Viking with a longish name perched in a tree.

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, the Hope and Heir to the Tribe of the Hairy Hooligans, was a very scrawny boy. Not a boy who could make a dragon cower before him with a mere lifting of an eyebrow, nor a boy who seemed like a natural at the heroism business.

No, Hiccup did not seem much like a Viking at all.

But, as Hiccup crouched on his branch, pondering this fact, maybe that wasn't exactly a bad thing. After all, no Viking could climb this tree. It was much too skinny, and most Vikings much too large.

And, he argued to himself, not even a Viking would be able to get this close to a dragon without being seen. Because that's what Hiccup was doing. He was dragon watching.

Well, not exactly. It was more like hide and seek. Or tag.

Suddenly, a great black mass appeared seemingly out of nowhere, launching itself at the base of Hiccup's tree. The black mass, which, on closer inspection, seemed to have wings, teeth, and big green eyes, slammed head first into the pine and bounced off like a spring. Hiccup held onto the branch above him rather tightly as the entire tree shook as the dragon bounced off it, because of course, that's what it was. A dragon.

Hiccup's dragon, to be exact.

Despite Hiccup's people being the dragon-murdering sort, Hiccup himself wasn't very violently-inclined (much to his father's disappointment). When he looked back at the night he'd shot down this big black goofball at the base of his tree, shaking the trunk to try and get him to come down, he cringed in shame and embarrassment at the memory of the device he used.

The weapon he used to maim his best friend, snatching him out of the sky and dropping him into his life. Literally.

And when he'd finally found him, the black mass laying there in the dirt, missing a tailfin and sporting a wounded pride, he couldn't finish it. How could he, when the dragon, the Night Fury, looked so much like him?

Hiccup snapped back to the present as his dragon ran back into the woods. Hiccup idly wondered where he was going, then made an extremely un-Viking-like noise as the dragon launched himself once more at the tree, but this time at the branch where Hiccup was sitting.

The last thing Hiccup saw before he was engulfed in the tackle of his winged friend was two huge green eyes and a big old toothless grin.