Disclaimer: I don't own How To Train Your Dragon, and knowing my luck, I probably never will. All rights go to the author of the books, Cressida Cowell and the company that made the much-loved films and series, Dreamworks. This fanfiction is set in the Dragons: Riders of Berk series.

It was a normal day at the dragon training arena. Hiccup was lecturing about dragons, while Fishlegs eagerly took notes. Astrid was staring lovingly at Hiccup as he lectured, craving the sound of his voice. The twins were fighting. Snotlout groaned loudly, making everyone look his way.

"Something you'd like to share, Snotlout?" Hiccup asked dryly.

"Earplugs if I had any," he replied. "Hey, and here's an idea for you. How about you talk a little quieter? Or better yet, don't talk at all."

"How do you expect him to teach us if he can't speak?" Fishlegs asked, incredulous.

"I don't. That's the awesome part," Snotlout explained, as if he'd had a revelation. "No more lectures, no more nerd talk, no more trust exercises! It'll be perfect!"

"Snotlout, there's no way that you mean that," Astrid disputed.

"Oh, I do. Odin almighty, please bless me with the miracle of making Hiccup Haddock never speak again, and I shall worship you forever!" Snotlout screamed, as if the gods would only hear him if he screamed with all the air in his lungs. Hiccup, Astrid, Fishlegs and the twins looked at Snotlout with horror.

"That's a horrible thing to wish on somebody!" Ruffnut told him.

"And you could never make it happen," Tuffnut disputed.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Snotlout dismissed. Hiccup packed up his notes.

"Dragon training is over for today," Hiccup choked out, as he hurried over to Toothless and flew off. Astrid glared at Snotlout.

"Thanks," she said, as she took off on Stormfly. She had a hurt boyfriend to search for, after all.

It didn't take long for them to find Hiccup. He was in the forge pounding on a red-hot piece of metal with all his might, refusing to look at the door. Astrid was the first to spot him, and directed the rest of the gang (minus Snotlout) to him. "We're sorry about Snotlout," Astrid eventually said.

"Don't be," Hiccup dismissed, looking up at her and smiling. "You aren't supposed to be babysitting him."

"Babysit Snotlout?" Astrid repeated, letting out a snort of laughter. "Good one!"

"How would one go about babysitting Snotlout?" Ruffnut asked her brother.

"The same way as any actual baby," Tuffnut answered wisely. "You have to play with him, dress him, give him a cup of yak milk if he wants some and - oh, screw it." With that, every rider in the room collapsed with laughter. It was in that moment that Hiccup had a revelation.

"Wait a minute," he said, shushing the crowd of teenagers. "My dad says that too much of a good thing will make it a bad thing. Let's see if he's right."

"What does that mean?" Fishlegs asked. Hiccup chuckled.

"Well . . ."

The next day as the gang had lunch in the Great Hall, Hiccup talked happily with everyone, as if he'd completely forgotten about yesterday. Clearly, Snotlout couldn't say the same.

"I still say that it would be better if you talked less," Snotlout commented, casually sipping on a mug of ale. "Your voice can be pretty annoying after a little while."

"Takes one to know one," Astrid explained. Ruffnut sniggered.

"I don't understand why my wish wasn't heard. Hiccup should've lost his voice by now," Snotlout moaned. He stared angrily at Hiccup as he calmly ate his mutton, and the more Snotlout watched Hiccup eat, the angrier he got. He couldn't take it anymore. He walked over to Hiccup, and before the one-legged brunette could allow his mouthful to reach his stomach, Snotlout sucker-punched him in the gut. The effect was immediate.

Hiccup, who still had a mouthful of mutton travelling down his throat, started to choke. Astrid gasped and rushed to help her boyfriend, as did a few other concerned Vikings. After Hiccup was successfully saved from choking, Astrid decided to see if he was all right.

"Hiccup, I want you to tell me how many fingers I'm holding up," Astrid said calmly, masking her fear as she held three fingers in front of Hiccup. Hiccup tried to speak, but seemed to be unable to get the words out. The only thing coming out of his mouth was air. That was bad.

"Oh, gods, the oath worked!" Tuffnut wailed. Everyone turned to look at him.

"What oath, you imbecile?" one Viking woman huffed.

"The oath Snotlout made to Odin! He said if he was blessed with the miracle of Hiccup Haddock never speaking again, he'd worship him forever!" Ruffnut explained. "Because Snotlout wished it, Hiccup will never speak again!" The crowd of Vikings gasped and whispered amongst each other, glaring at Snotlout for wishing such a horrible oath on Hiccup. Snotlout was shocked to find that his pledge to Odin worked. He tried to get to Hiccup, but his path was blocked by the other riders. He tried to get around them, but he was lifted off the ground and was face-to-face with a livid Stoick.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Stoick hissed, seething with rage. "Weren't you ever taught that an oath to the gods shouldn't be squandered with childish wishes like this? Thanks to you, my son will never be able to say a word to anyone again."

"That's not the only thing that I'd like answers to. How do you expect us to learn anything about dragon training if you've made our only teacher mute?" Gobber shouted. Other angry Vikings threw in their own two cents, all of which were against Snotlout. Hiccup had a notebook in his satchel, and he wrote an answer for Gobber.

He said that would be the awesome part. No more lectures, no more nerd talk, no more trust exercises. It would be perfect.

Gobber read the note and wordlessly handed it to Stoick, who had to be restrained by Spitelout, Mulch and Bucket. Spitelout was disappointed and ashamed of his son's actions, Mulch was explaining the situation to a very confused Bucket (as usual), while most of the Vikings in the Great Hall were staring at Snotlout as if they wanted nothing more than to watch Stoick pummel him. Once Stoick had composed himself, he said, "All right, Snotlout, if that's the way you want it. Since Hiccup is now mute, we'll need a new dragon-training teacher. And since you wanted this so badly, then I guess it's your job now."

"What?" Snotlout spluttered. "I can't do that! It should be Hiccup, not me!"

"You should've thought of this before you made a promise to the gods," Stoick told him darkly, before he left the Great Hall a broken man. Hiccup suddenly felt really guilty for not telling his father. They had just started to properly bond and now he'd never be able to look his son in the eye again. He tried to brighten his mood by wondering what a dragon training lesson under Snotlout's tutelage would be like. I guess I'll find out tomorrow, he thought as he flew home on Toothless.

The next day, the teens met at the arena to see how a lesson with Snotlout would go. "I bet Hookfang will set him on fire," Ruffnut whispered excitedly.

"How do we know that he just won't show up?" Tuffnut whispered back.

"Why are you two whispering?" Fishlegs asked, confused.

"We don't know!" the twins muttered.

"I don't care what he does. If he tries flirting with me or insulting Hiccup, I'm out of here," Astrid growled, letting a finger stroke the handle of her beloved axe. "Hiccup, do you have your notebook with you?" Hiccup took a small sketchbook out of his satchel and grinned. "Good. You might need that."

"Why?" Fishlegs asked.

"To take notes, obviously," Snotlout butted in. "Prepare for the dragon training lesson of your lives!" Everyone looked at him with disgust, but Snotlout, obviously, didn't care. "We'll start from the beginning, where you get to bond with your dragon. Feeding time is bonding time, so I brought you all some fish to give to your dragons."

"Hiccup did this with us ages ago," Fishlegs pointed out. Snotlout glared at him, which was enough to make the beefy boy squeak with fear and shut up.

"Well, guess what, Fishface? I'm not Hiccup," Snotlout asserted proudly.

"We can tell," Astrid grumbled. Snotlout frowned.

"Well, what are you waiting for? You need to bond with your dragons!" Snotlout yelled. Sighing, the gang went to the fishing basket loaded with freshly caught salmon. Hiccup was doing pretty well, letting Toothless lie down as he hand-fed him the fish he had got for him. But obviously, the ex-dragon training teacher was doing everything wrong.

"No, no, no! You have to make them work for it!" Snotlout scolded. "I don't know why I didn't do this sooner, because you all really need this lesson! Hookfang, eat!" Snotlout threw a salmon at his sleeping Monstrous Nightmare, who was hit in the face and woke up. Snarling, he set Snotlout on fire, who screamed as he ran around the arena, only emitting a sigh of relief when he sat in a trough of water. Hiccup scribbled down a few notes as his friends laughed.

"Anything else we need to learn?" Astrid asked. With those words, Snotlout seemed to regain his arrogant composure.

"Yes, there is, actually," he told her. "You will also need to establish some commands for your dragon to follow so your relationship is strengthened. I'll show you how it's done. Hookfang, annihilate!" he screamed, pointing at four target practice dummies. Hookfang yawned and went back to sleep. Ruffnut and Tuffnut giggled. Fishlegs watched on silently. Astrid huffed and turned her head away. Hiccup took more notes. Despite the fact that Hiccup was the only one who seemed to not be disrespecting his (questionable) teaching methods, Snotlout targeted him. "Hiccup, pay attention!" he shouted.

"How is he not paying attention? He's taking notes!" Fishlegs argued.

"Notes aren't going to help him, Fishface! I need to see him in action! That's what these lessons are for!" Snotlout yelled. "Come on, Hiccup! Don't be scared; I won't bite." Hiccup got up, and motioned to Toothless to do the same. He made a fist by curling his fingers around his thumb, and while his thumb didn't move, the four fingers he had wrapped around it had. He curled and uncurled his fingers several times, and every time he uncurled them, Toothless fired a shot at one of the targets, and continued until all four targets had been hit precisely. Snotlout stared in awe. Hiccup had shown him up again, and he wasn't even the teacher! Clearly, he had earned the respect of the other riders, who were all congratulating him.

"How did you do that?" Fishlegs asked. "Meatlug only responds to verbal commands!"

"You've got to teach me that!" Astrid encouraged.

"Cool!" the twins agreed. Snotlout was thoroughly jealous.

"This is a dragon training lesson, not the Great Hall!" Snotlout interrupted. "I want to see all of you in action, not just Hiccup. Astrid, you're up next."

Astrid sauntered up to the front of the class, taking Stormfly with her. "Stormfly, spine shot!" she ordered, and Stormfly obeyed instantly, firing several shots at each target and hitting the bullseye every time. She sat down once she was done. Snotlout said not a word about her performance.

"Fishface, you're next!" Snotlout boomed. Fishlegs jumped up and, after a few tries, roused Meatlug. She ambled along next to him and only hit three of the targets. One had been missed out by the Gronckle, and Snotlout gleefully pointed it out to Fishlegs, as if he wanted to embarrass him. "Why didn't you hit the last target? It was right there!"

"Thank you for pointing that out, Snotlout. I'll make sure to improve on it in my free time!" Fishlegs chirped cheerily, as he sat down. Snotlout was annoyed, but tried not to show it as he called Ruffnut and Tuffnut to demonstrate their target practice.

"Come on muttonheads, move your lazy butts!" Snotlout yelled. The twins didn't listen, and neither did their dragon, who focused on their riders.

"Barf, gas," Tuffnut ordered.

"Belch, spark," Ruffnut demanded. The dragon fired at the targets, doing even worse that Meatlug and only hitting two targets. Snotlout berated them in an almost joyful manner. This was even more fun than yelling at Fishlegs, in his eyes.

"That's the worst performance I've seen all day!" he spat, disgusted. "Why couldn't you have hit those targets!" The twins looked to each other, then at Snotlout, and grinned.

"We have a different target in mind," Tuffnut grinned.

"And it's really easy to hit!" Ruffnut chimed in.

"Then hit it, if it's so easy!" Snotlout exclaimed with frustration.

"Fine," the twins chorused, as Barf and Belch fired at Snotlout. The explosion threw him across the arena, landing underneath Hiccup's nose. The brunette had tried to help him up, but Snotlout refused any help from the one-legged inventor.

"Don't bother, Hiccup! I know damn well you don't have the strength to pull me up in those weedy arms of yours," he snarled, as he dragged himself up from the floor and trudged over to Hookfang. "Lessons are over for today. I'll need you here bright and early tomorrow." He then clambered onto Hookfang and flew off. After today, he badly needed a drink at the Great Hall.

When he got there, he felt out of place and unwelcome, as the stares of hostile Vikings bore a hole into his back. He finally got to the bar and looked for a place to get a drink. He also wanted a place to sit, but that proved to not be a problem. The moment he arrived, the older Vikings took their drinks and left, muttering about how they needed to get away before they lost their voices too. He sat there and waited for a barmaid to serve him. As he waited, he heard laughter from another table, and saw his old friends talking and congratulating Hiccup. Not one of them mentioned his name, which angered Snotlout. They shouldn't have forgotten Snotlout Jorgenson, of the great Jorgensons, that easily! He snatched the mug of ale from the barmaid, paid and stormed over to Hiccup. "Nice job you did of stealing my friends, Haddock," he snarled. "Do you enjoy ruining my reputation?"

"You did that to yourself, Snotlout," Astrid told him calmly, but with an undertone of anger . . . or was that mischief?

"Nobody told you to wish for Hiccup to become mute," Fishlegs smiled innocently. However, the beefy boy Snotlout had always known seemed to be smirking, like he knew something Snotlout didn't.

"This situation is well and truly your fault," Ruffnut sniggered, whispering something in Tuffnut's ear so he'd chuckle to himself. Snotlout studied their faces, the faces that were full of mischief and snarky comebacks and cruel jokes. It seemed the twins were sharing some private joke that nobody else knew about. Then again, the twins were always doing that.

"I still can't believe that you'd all desert me in the space of a day! A day, I tell you!" Snotlout shrieked, a crazy gleam in his eyes. "What is it about him being mute that draws you all towards him, huh? What is it?" That's when Hiccup, Astrid, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Fishlegs lost their collective minds. They slumped over with laughter, attracting the attention of the other villagers. The twins were holding onto each other as they howled with laughter, Hiccup and Astrid were wiping tears of laughter from their eyes and Fishlegs were hammering his fist on the table. Finally, they got enough air into their collective lungs to scream:

"FOOLED YOU!"

Snotlout was shocked. Hiccup pretending to be mute was a prank all along? But he'd honestly believed that he had been rendered mute by the omnipotent powers of the gods! "What the- Why- HOW?" Snotlout eventually spluttered.

"I'd like an answer to that, too," Gobber agreed, though he seemed more impressed than angry. "How'd you pull it off?"

"After Snotlout wished for me to never speak again, I decided to teach him a lesson. I went into the forge to plan the scheme. I wasn't originally going to let Astrid, Fishlegs, Ruff and Tuff in on the plan, but they followed me to the forge," Hiccup admitted. "I told them about it anyway. Firstly, they're my friends, and I've seen Snotlout get punched enough times to know that I don't want death-by-Hofferson. Anyway, I knew I had to convince Snotlout that his promise to Odin had worked by pretending to choke and then being completely unable to speak afterwards. I knew somebody might try to get me to speak, and that's where the twins come in."

"How?" Gobber asked.

"They'd be the ones to tell everyone that it was Snotlout who wanted me to become mute forever, therefore eliminating any ideas from people that it is possible to make me speak. When people think something can be controlled, they'll try to control it. But if they think it's out of their control, they won't try to do anything. So the idea of no control means I have no resistance," Hiccup explained, as everyone stared at him with awe, admiration and fear.

"Hiccup, you may just be a tactical genius!" Gobber breathed. Snotlout still wanted answers to one more thing.

"How did you get Toothless to fire at the targets without saying anything?" he asked. Hiccup grinned.

"I taught him that a few days ago in case we had to go up against the Outcasts again," Hiccup explained. "I was going to teach you about it today, but I got a little sidetracked, what with pretending to be mute and all." Then he grinned. "Unless of course, you're still teaching dragon training?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Snotlout huffed. "The job's all yours! You go back to the front of the class, lecturing the way you always do, while everyone else has a good laugh at my expense! If you want it to last longer, you should've drawn yourselves a picture!"

"What did you think I was doing during your lesson?" Hiccup asked, handing his notebook over to his father. Stoick read through it, clapped a hand over his mouth, and handed the book over to Gobber. Gobber wasn't as subtle as his friend and laughed his ass off. Ruffnut snatched the book from him, passing it to her brother, Astrid and Fishlegs. Nobody could control their laughter, as passing Vikings casually walked over, peeked at Hiccup's sketches, and nearly wet their pants. Snotlout finally saw the sketches and yelled at Hiccup.

"So that's what you were doing!" Snotlout yelled. "Drawing pictures of me with my butt on fire, being thrown into a wall! You even drew the day before yesterday when I was pinned to a wall with Stormfly's spikes! Do you have any respect for me at all?"

"Of course I have respect for you, Snotlout, I'm just doing as my father did before me and showing you a bit of tough love," Hiccup rationalized. "If that promise to Odin had actually worked, then there's no way in Hel you'd be able to survive an entire lifetime of me never speaking again. You've practically lost your mind in the space of a day. So let this be a lesson to you: promises are promises, no matter who we make them to. And promises have to be kept. Bearing that in mind, don't you have an offering to make to Odin?" Snotlout stomped off, swearing under his breath. Hiccup grinned at him, turned to get a mug of ale - and walked into his father, who looked pissed.

"So, I hear you managed to fake being mute and fooled an entire village," Stoick said coolly. Hiccup sighed, looked his father in the eye, and started the apology.

"I'm sorry I scared you, Dad," he apologized. "I hadn't fully thought it through, and I reasoned that if I said something, I'd blow my cover. I'll never scare you like that again." Stoick laughed, and clapped a hand on his son's shoulder.

"I don't think you ever will, Hiccup. Besides, if you and your friends can fool an entire village by keeping your mouths shut, then may you never stop talking, boy!" Stoick joked. "And I thought Ruffnut and Tuffnut were the village pranksters!" The rest of the village laughed. "Son, I have to admire your tactics, since they certainly work for you. But is there any way you can put them to good use?"

Hiccup smirked, as his hyperactive brain whirred with ideas. "Well, now you mention it . . ."

Hiccup's methods were quickly put to good use. When sheep rustlers were found in the village, Hiccup's booby traps of broad-grass caught them in the act, and the thieves were soon being chased around the fields by the sheep they were trying to steal, which proved very entertaining to watch. The supplies from Berk's armoury stopped diminishing once Hiccup's paint bomb trap made sure they were literally caught red-handed and then left to dangle from the ceiling by their ankles. (Hiccup, you cruel little person.) These traps and the earlier prank on Snotlout earned Hiccup the nickname of 'Little Loki' which angered the twins to no end. However, when they tried to mess with his ornate shield as revenge, it exploded and bound them to the wall with a combination of glue, tightly-confined rope and a lot of timing.

"What did you two muttonheads do now?" Gobber asked, admiring the tightness of their sticky bonds. "You've been messing with Hiccup's inventions again, haven't you?"

"How could you tell?" Tuffnut grimaced.

"There's a note stuck next to you that says "Gotcha!". Kinda gives it away, don't you think?" Gobber answered sarcastically. Sure enough, Gobber was telling the truth, and the twins groaned with shame.

"Just get us down!" Ruffnut hissed.

"I want to help you, really I do, but you're too high up. I'll go get someone who can help with this sort of thing," Gobber said, quickly excusing himself as he ran to the Great Hall to tell the entire village. Nobody was going to believe this, he thought. Oh, well, it wasn't like they didn't have it coming.

Yeesh, this took a while for me to write! It was worth it, though! And I've got some news for you - I'm going to have an OC! She'll feature in a later story and I think you'll really like her! FT543 signing out!