A/N: After seeing How to Train Your Dragon twice in less than a week, this idea hit me hard upside the head and before I knew it, it was unraveling into a full idea that I knew I could have lots of fun with. I'll be playing fast and loose with the historical accuracy; basically taking the mythologies and true-to-history concepts, and spinning them in a different direction.

Enjoy the finished product.

Disclaimer: Quite unfortunately, I do not own How to Train Your Dragon. That honor belongs to Dreamworks and Cressida Cowell. That does not, however, stop me from wanting to own a Terrible Terror.

Valkyrie

Chapter One: Everything Changes

There was nothing remotely poetic or gradual about the way Hiccup woke up. It was a sudden shot back to consciousness like someone had punched him hard in the stomach. He went from one form of darkness to another as his eyes flew open, staring at the ceiling without seeing it. His heart was beating a hard, painful tattoo under his ribs; so hard he thought it would burst from his chest. He pressed a hand down on his chest, willing his heart to stop pounding so furiously. He could hear it in his ears. It was so loud. So loud and he was sure that someone could hear it. Inept at the parenting lark though he might be, his father would still come rushing in madly if he thought his son was in some kind of danger.

He was uncomfortably short of breath too, but he held it in and listened, praying that he had not woken up screaming or crying or generally making noises that would rouse the other members of the small household.

He listened and heard nothing out of the ordinary.

It wasn't just his pounding heart that sounded so loud. Stoic the Vast snored heartily one room over; his mighty lungs producing a sound that rivaled the intensity of the thunder during many storms. Hiccup was fairly confident that his father would be able to sleep through Ragnarok. Indeed, his snores were rattling the wooden wall that separated his room from Hiccup's. The sound was comforting in its own, irritating way. Many nights he had fought for sleep while listening to that lullaby.

It took him a moment, however, to recognize the sound the rain hammering down on the roof overhead. It was spring and the warm south winds had arrived early, turning much of the potential snow into rain. Buckets and buckets of rain had been pouring over Berk for days. Horrible flying weather until you got above the clouds. Of course, you got drenched along the way so it wasn't much fun.

His heart backing off from its galloping pace, Hiccup closed his eyes again for a brief moment before allowing them to open again. There wasn't much to see as it was still the middle of the night and it was pitch black, but he knew his room very well. Knowing instinctively that nothing was out of place -- that everything was right where he had left it the night before -- and that he was safe in case of trouble -- lent him a small measure of comfort.

But all the familiarity and the knowledge that his family was close at hand couldn't do a thing for easing his nightmares.

It was always the same bad dream every night, though he was hesitant to blatantly give it the title of 'nightmare'. He knew nightmares. He'd had nightmares before. Nightmares about being outcasted from the village and losing what tiny bit of respect the people had for him. More recent were the nightmares about the Queen Dragon and her teeth. Nightmares about his all too close brush with death. Even nightmares (though he was even more hesitant to admit that that he'd had them) in the days following their first meeting; nightmares about Toothless eating him instead of running away.

He never quite remembered the full contents of this new nightmare. He was quite sure that he didn't want to. What he could remember wasn't very pleasant. Lightning-quick flashes of a dark place full of the tang of iron; a sense that this dark place smelled positively foul; a sense that this dark place was bad. He could remember the feelings of being trapped and helpless with certain doom breathing down the back of his neck, ready to sink its teeth into his flesh.

For the life of him, Hiccup could not decipher the meaning of this dream/nightmare. On its first occurrence, he had attributed the trapped and helpless feeling to the frustration he still experienced with his prosthetic foot when it bothered him. After the fifth night of the same dream and the same flashes and feelings, he knew it had nothing do with any external forces. There was something else and he was missing it.

He was a Viking. He was proud, strong (of heart and mind, though not in muscles), determined, and very stubborn. He was determined to figure all this out before he heartily loathed going to bed. It was unbecoming for a Viking to be scared of sleeping, much less being afraid of something that couldn't even scratch you.

The Viking stubbornness that he clearly suffered from prevented him speaking a word to anyone about this new thing that was plaguing his sleep. No one had to know. What would the village say if they found out that the chieftain's son was frightened of closing his eyes at night?

Months had passed since that rather exciting autumn when he had proven that dragons weren't nearly as scary as they Vikings had believed for seven generations or longer. Months since he had lost his foot in a horribly fiery inferno -- since the death of the Queen Dragon; something that qualified as a small landmass in its own right and merited its own posting code. But at times he still felt that the respect he had earned from that courageous and daring and incredibly stupid (when he looked back on it) bid for survival wasn't fully deserved. He still felt that the village still laughed at him, but they just laughed from behind closed doors now. He still felt that they still regarded him as a joke of a Viking. As Hiccup the Useless.

It was hard to completely throw off a title that he had spent fourteen years earning, after all.

Hiccup shifted restlessly, hearing the bed squeak under him. He winced and found himself holding his breath again. There was one resident of the house that he didn't particular want awake right now. Toothless the Night Fury; the rarest, fastest, most intelligent and deadliest of all the dragon species.

And at the moment, curled like a cat against the warm stones of the chimney that was one wall of Hiccup's bedroom. The Night Fury growled softly with every exhale and twitched in his slumber, dreaming whatever it is that dragons dreamt about.

Near the tip of the larger dragon's tail was a mostly green Terrible Terror. It was the same one that had accepted a fish from Hiccup after his and Toothless's first successful flight, and now all but adopted the boy and scratched on the walls, to Stoic's unhappiness. In its sleep, it squeaked and snapped its jaws like it was devouring something particularly tasty.

The Terrible Terrors were most populous of all the dragon species. Their life-spans were relatively short compared to other dragons, so they reproduced quick and laid large clutches of eggs. The Vikings had initially worried that the little dragons' population would grow too fast and get out of hand all too quickly. But the Terrors had won their place in the community by proving to be excellent in pest control. Never before had the village of Berk been so free of rats and mice and other vermin. Now there was at least one Terror per house and many more ran "free-range" around the village in packs, occasionally mobbing Tuffnut, whom they seemed to have an unusual attraction to.

Smothering his yawn to the point of silence, Hiccup pushed the blanket aside and leaned over the side of the narrow bed to grab the prosthetic and strap it on. He never quite fell back to true sleep after his little dream/nightmare thing, but it was about time to get up anyways. He was on watchtower duty this month and he had to take over watch from Astrid very shortly. Spring was coming on much quicker this year and its arrival was marked by the strong south winds that pushed warm air against the charming "freezing death" aspect of Berk. The winds typically brought their perennial (human) enemies northwards as well. Being the first Viking tribe to make peace with and make friends with the dragons (something that was simply unheard of in their culture) in ages, it was only natural for them to be wary of dumb-ass glory-seekers who would go as far as to shoot down one of Berk's "domesticated" dragons. Berk had still had visitors over the winter and word got around.

With the prosthetic secured and himself now fully dressed, Hiccup eased off the bed, willing it not to squeak or shudder or make any noise at all. He loved Toothless to bits, but the Night Fury made for the worse sort of guard dog; the really good kind that jumped to attention at even the most innocuous of noises. He also glowered at anyone who looked at the Viking teen cross-eyed and followed Hiccup just about everywhere.

This was very inconvenient during watch-duty.

The tower was small; there was barely room enough for two people let alone Toothless. A fully-grown Night Fury was hardly the largest of the dragon species, but they were nowhere near as small as the Terrible Terrors. And trying to convince Toothless that there was no way he could squeeze into the tower was no mean feat. It had taken promises of fish to get the dragon to back off and the Night Fury had taken up sentry duty at the bottom of the stairs until Hiccup's watch had ended.

Quite fortunately, the bed did not squeak and neither did the Viking's false foot. Hiccup had tinkered with it a lot over the winter and he had succeeded reducing the amount of noise it made every time he walked a step. He was used to wearing it -- it was just as much a part of him now as his flesh and blood foot had been -- but he had developed something of an aversion to hearing his own footsteps.

Keeping an intent eye on the dim outline of the dragon's curled form, Hiccup edged across the floorboards as quietly as he could, taking small steps. The room was as black as pitch and Toothless blended in with the dark just a little too well.

He is a Night Fury. They're sort of meant to do that. The Viking teen thought with a smile, carefully stepping over the dragon's tail and the Terrible Terror, and out the door. He made his way slowly down the narrow stairs. Luckily, he didn't trip like the last couple of times.

It was cold, wet and thoroughly miserable outside. Hiccup groaned when the wind hit him. The north winds and the south wind were busy competing for dominance and at the moment, the north winds had the upper hand. His body went from warm to freezing in the span of a few seconds. He wrapped his arms around himself, ducked his head and set off at a fast walk through the village. He wanted to run for the watchtower, but he had learned never to run on his false foot. A light jog, yes. But a run? No. No way. Whenever he tried to run, he usually ended face first in the mud.

As a result, Hiccup was plenty soaked by the time he found the muddy path that led up to the tower. The rain drove in from all directions and he was effectively blinded in the dark. Without a source of light to be seen, it took time for him to get his bearings. The knees of his trousers were stained from the several times he had slipped in the mud, unable to catch himself quite as quickly with the prosthetic. It had been raining nonstop for the past four days now. Hiccup couldn't remember when he had last seen the sun properly. If the rain kept falling at this rate, Berk might get flooded out.

"Look at it this way." he told himself consolingly through chattering teeth. "All this -- All this could have been snow."

That made him feel better. Winter around these parts were never wonderful. Hiccup had gotten lost in snowdrifts before.

The watchtower was one of four that guarded Berk's ocean-bound borders, each set flush to a cliff-face at uneven intervals. The wooden planks were old and weathered and so gray that they blended in quite well with the perpetually damp stone walls. They were possibly the only structures in Berk that had not been rebuilt since their original construction.

All four towers were equipped with a great brass bell that, when rang, raised an unholy ruckus that was sure to wake the village. The towers were manned at any time of the day or night. They had originally been built with the primary purpose of dragon-watching, but the Vikings knew that all of their enemies came by sea. The dragons were no longer a threat to their lives. Only the seas were left to scan for unfriendly ships.

The worn, creaking steps announced Hiccup's arrival well before he reached the tower. Astrid was ready to assault him with a fur blanket just a second after he had crawled into the low-ceilinged space. Hiccup didn't see her coming. He let out a muffled yell when his vision suddenly went completely black and even though it he knew it was just Astrid, he tried to throw her off anyways.

However, his hand-to-hand left much to be desired. All Viking children had to learn to fight with their fists and their feet before picking up a weapon. Hiccup hadn't so much as learned how to fight as he had learned how to duck and dodge and generally run away from the person who was trying to hurt him. It wasn't his fault, really. He had been repeatedly paired with his cousin Snotlout during training and Snotlout had been quite big for a six-year old.

And in the low-ceilinged space with Astrid having clamped her arms around him, thereby pinning his own arms to his sides, he didn't stand a chance. He flailed his untrapped limbs spectacularly, but ultimately failed to dislodge Astrid from his person.

"You're late." she informed him tartly, deliberately tightening her grip. She wasn't as annoyed as she sounded, though.

"Overslept. Still waking up." Hiccup said apologetically, still squirming a little. He couldn't decide if she was hugging him or trying to break his spine. He opted for the latter as being the more likely. Vikings had a very vague idea of what a hug was. As far as they understood it, it involved wrapping your arms around a person and squeezing them half to death.

"Wimp. You'd think after all the times we had to get up in the middle of the night and defend the village from dragon raids, you'd be used to it." Astrid said, mercifully letting go of him.

"In case you forgot, I was the one who always had to stay indoors during dragon raids." Hiccup reminded her, pushing the heavy fur back so he could breathe properly again. "And have you heard my dad snore? Getting to sleep is a battle."

Astrid looked at him critically a moment and then picked up the waterskin and the cup that had been sitting at her side. She uncorked the skin and tipped a small amount of liquid into the cup. "Here. Drink this."

Even though in the last few months, his peers' opinion of him had changed dramatically, Hiccup was still wary of anything they offered him. He stared at the bare amount of liquid in the cup until Astrid frowned at him and pointedly cleared her throat. With a sense of foreboding, he took a sip. The liquid barely touched his tongue before he spat it back out in a hurry. The taste lingered, unfortunately.

"What is this?! It's disgusting!" He wiped his mouth. It felt as though his tongue had lost all feeling. And he could still taste that awful-- Dear Odin, what was this crap?!

"That is my dad's special 'wake-up' juice. He keeps some of it right by the bed because he's a heavy sleeper." Astrid explained with a positively wicked smirk. After being unfortunate enough to sample it while still very young and spending the rest of the day with her head over a bucket, it was a powerful motivator to never doze off during a watch-shift. Keeping it close at hand carried the threat of being forced to drink it. She had never had to. Not once. "You absolutely do not want to know what's in it. But it'll give you a bad stomachache if you drink too much of it at one time."

Hiccup wiped at his mouth again, thoroughly disgusted. "It tastes like cow piss."

"How do you know what cow-- No, never mind. I think that's one of those things I don't need to know about." Astrid shook her head. Hiccup was probably intimately acquainted with a lot of things that no one should ever be acquainted with.

Hiccup waited until the blonde Viking had stashed that waterskin of foul, vile, god-cursed -- stuff -- out of sight before he lowered his guard and shifted around to make himself comfortable. His knee bumped into Astrid's and he pulled it away quickly. He was very aware of how close to each other they were sitting. He told himself it was just circumstance -- the tower was very small. But her shift was up, it was his turn now, and she was still here.

"Astrid, shouldn't you be going now?" Hiccup wondered, though admittedly he was not eager to see her leave. He kind of wanted her to stick around for a bit so they could talk.

"I -- wanted to talk to you." Astrid admitted. "I've barely seen you all winter."

"Well, the snowdrifts have been up to my neck all winter." Hiccup pointed out jokingly. She punched him in the shoulder. "Ow!"

"You've been busy re-educating the village about dragons and I got suckered into teaching hand-to-hand combat training to the little kids. We haven't said more than ten words to each other all winter." Astrid said, a hand quickly brushing over her hair.

That was true. Winter didn't lend itself particularly well to socializing. If you weren't huddled indoors in front of the fire, then you were wrapped up in so many layers of fur that it was nearly impossible to distinguish one person from another. And equally difficult to move.

"So... What do you want to talk about?" Hiccup asked slowly.

Astrid took a long time to answer. It was too dark to see her expression, but they were jammed up right next to each other. Hiccup couldn't avoid feeling the sudden tension taking up residence in the muscles of the blonde Viking's arm. He tried not to flinch. He couldn't go around flinching every time he realized that Astrid was tense or his arm would be permanently black and blue.

In the time it took her to answer, Hiccup's mind ran through a number of possible replies, all of them revolving around the same topic. What did Astrid think of him?

Sure, she had kissed him on several occasions. Quick kisses, like she was trying to sneak them in before he noticed them and then pretending they never happened. Typical Viking modus operandi. Confuse the bejeezus out of them by pretending that physical affection didn't exist. But it had happened often enough that he knew it was no fluke. Other than that... He didn't know.

Come to think of it, Hiccup knew next to nothing about her -- or really any of the other people he had come to call his friends. Snotlout was annoying and something of a bully, but determined to be a model Viking. Fishlegs could analyze a dragon's strengths and weaknesses after several seconds of observation, but he was a little socially-challenged. Ruffnut and Tuffnut fought with each other a great deal over the most trivial of things, but when they put their mind to working as a team, they managed it wonderfully. Astrid was a fierce, proud warrior, but between that whole punching/kissing thing, Hiccup was still confused about her feelings towards him.

He could make no assumptions about where he stood with Astrid except to say that they had a comfortable friendship.

"Y'know..." Astrid shrugged. "Just-- Just stuff. How's your leg?"

"Leg?" Hiccup repeated, completely bewildered for a split-second. "Oh, my leg's fine. Um, you know, I've gotten used to it. It's not bothering me anymore."

This was not what he had been hoping to talk about.

"That's good." Astrid nodded, her lips pulling back in a brief smile. "You're still limping. though."

"Yeah, I'm probably never going to get rid of that." Hiccup said, unconsciously rubbing his lower leg that was encased inside the socket. He had accepted the perpetual limp just as much as he had accepted the prosthetic foot.

"Are you looking forward to the gather this year?" Astrid wondered curiously.

"You mean that annual pissing contest between all the Viking tribes?" Hiccup grumbled, bad memories of past gathers resurfacing. Yes, the gathers were a good chance to strengthen alliances between tribes, but it was also a good way to get your butt kicked and make a fool of yourself in front of more than half the population of Vikings in the world.

Berk was hosting this year. They had not been hosts for a while now and already the village was looking better than he remembered. Stoic was bound and determined to prove that Berk was flourishing in spite of the frequent dragon raids. Which, of course, had now stopped.

Not that Berk didn't still show some bite marks from when the dragons had been swiping livestock for their queen. The Terrible Terrors liked to sharpen their teeth on any wooden beams that stuck out and the Gronckles tended used the Terrors as target practice. The Monstrous Nightmares weren't overly fond of the Nadders and the Zipplebacks were territorial at the worst possible moments. Everyone had become very fast at putting out fires.

What was worse, Hiccup had a good feeling that he was going to the main attraction this year. He just knew that word had reached the other Viking tribes about his killing of the Queen Dragon. Other tribes had dealt with dragon raids in past years and early in the winter, a message had come from their sister tribe asking if Berk had noticed a sudden drop in raids of draconian variety. Stoic's response had been several pages long (amazing that his father could be so chatty on paper) and Hiccup had proof-read it for spelling and accuracy of events. Half the letter was Stoic shamelessly bragging about his son.

After years of complaining, Stoic finally had a reason to be really, truly proud of his only offspring.

Hiccup feared that he would get no privacy during the gather.

"Don't be so crude." Astrid reprimanded him, following it up with a swift but light punch to his shoulder.

"What else do you call a bunch of big strong manly men getting together and showing off how strong they are?" Hiccup asked, flexing his non-existent muscles and puffing out his thin chest. "'My son can shoot down an elk at one hundred paces!'" he said, effecting a fair imitation of the accent used by their more southern cousins before switching to one that sounded very much like his father. "'Well, my son killed a dragon that bigger than five longboats! I'll show you the carcass!'" He groaned and out his head in his hands. "Thor have mercy, I'm going to be slaughtered this year."

The blonde Viking rolled her eyes. "No you won't."

"Yes I will! My cousins are huge! You've seen them, right? I get creamed by them every time! And my leg!" He gestured to the peg-leg. "I've had this thing for months now and I still slip in every patch of mud that gets in my way! I can't even run! My evil cousins are going to take me down in a heartbeat! I still have bruises from the last pissing contest!"

"Don't be such a baby." Astrid said, pulling herself into a low crouch and beginning to maneuver around him so she could leave. "You're the mighty Queen Dragon slayer. No one can touch you."

"Hah!" Hiccup let out a mocking laugh. His evil cousins had nothing on the Queen Dragon. Nothing. "Say that again when my cousins have smothered me to death and they're holding my funeral!" he called after her.

"Good night Hiccup." Astrid's farewell was both teasing and sly. Her boots thudded lightly on the wooden steps outside and then faded into the rain.

In the absence of the second body, Hiccup wrapped the fur blanket tighter around his shoulders and scooted closer to the front of the tower. He picked up the spyglass and peered out through the slats to the black ocean beyond. Sitting about in the cold weather was a pain and he was here until an hour after the sun rose, but he liked watch-duty. It had always been one of the few things that he couldn't screw up (unless he fell asleep).

He grinned.

This time last year, Astrid would only have given him a coldly superior look and walked away. She definitely would not have indulged in pointless banter and her teasing him about his small stature would have been condescending rather than light and friendly.

This time last year, Hiccup had been doing everything he could think of to make Astrid think that he was worth her time and attention. This time last year, Astrid had been doing everything in her power to continue ignoring him.

And to think, he had originally believed that the key to getting Astrid's attention was by killing a dragon.

As it turned out, the key had certainly lain with the dragons, but not with killing one. No, not with killing one. He had instead formed a friendship with not just any dragon, but a Night Fury.

Hiccup had changed the whole village.

He was humble about it when eyes were on him. He mumbled that it was no big deal; it was really just a side-effect of killing the Queen Dragon. Which he had done because it meant that the dragons wouldn't have to raid their livestock anymore and the Vikings wouldn't have to kill the oversized lizards and they could all go back to living peacefully. No big deal.

Late at night when he was certain that no one was watching him, he grinned like a maniac. It was a big deal. Shooting Toothless down with the bola cannon had indeed changed everything. More importantly, Hiccup had followed the change through; doing what no Viking had done for centuries. Probably what no Viking had ever thought about doing in a million years.

When no one was looking at him, he felt accomplished. He had done something -- enormous. Something that was so earth-shaking that the world was likely to never been the same again. He would never be quite the same again, either, and not just in a physical way. He had done something immensely important. It had been worth sacrificing his foot for it. At least now, no one had an excuse to call him 'Hiccup the Useless'--

What's that?

There was movement on the water. There was something out there, but it was so indistinct that he wasn't sure if he was just imagining it. He pressed the spyglass tighter to his eye, as though it would help him to pierce the darkness and the rolling waves.

Then it vanished.

Hiccup blinked and pulled back from the spyglass, a bewildered frown on his face. It was there and gone so quickly he wasn't sure if he had just imagined it. Sometimes the wind and the waves and the night could play tricks on the eyes.

Wait! There is was again! There was something moving out there! The rain was making it very difficult to actually see what it was, but it looked sort of-- boat-shaped. Oh great, one of their boats had gotten loose from its moorings again. He should have expected that. This wasn't the worst storm Berk had ever had, but any rainstorm where it didn't start hailing, one of the boats always decided that it wanted to do a little solo exploration and drifted off.

Hiccup reached up to give the bell two light taps to signal to the other towers that they had a loose boat, when he noticed something else out there on the sea. Something that started off small but grew larger quite rapidly.

He only identified it as flaming pitch when a huge ball of it slammed into the docks. The fireball smashed through the wood, catching bits on fire here and there. The wood was too saturated by the salt water to really, truly burst into flames, but it was no match for a ton of burning animal crap coated in tar and placed in a ceramic container.

Hiccup all but lunged for the bell cord and gave it a great big yank. The bell produced a sound that deafened him and would ring in his head for hours afterward. It wasn't long after that he heard the other three towers picked up the alarm as well. Big-ass fireballs were awfully hard to miss.

He picked up the spyglass again and nearly poked himself in the eye in his haste. Even without the spyglass, he could see the ship properly now. Lanterns were being lit along the length of it. It had already revealed itself with its catapult (what kind of numbnuts put a catapult on a ship anyways?) and there were men scurrying across the deck, hurriedly reloading the catapult for another go.

Through the rain, Hiccup was able to make out the flag that snapped wetly in the strong wind. He only needed a glimpse of the crest on the flag to identify their attackers.

The Anglo-Saxons.

He swallowed hard. With the dragons permanently off the list, it was the Saxons who stepped up to take the role as their worst enemies. Hiccup had heard all the stories. The adults in the village were very fond of telling them--

*crash!*

This time, Hiccup did poke himself in the eye as he looked around for the source of the new explosion. It wasn't very far away. A second load of pitch had taken out the stairs to the watchtower. Only one thing was different. The Saxons in his line of sight hadn't fired yet.

There was a second ship.

"Oh, c'mon!" Hiccup groaned, rolling his eyes. He glanced down at the village, what he could see of it at this angle. Already mobilizing; he could see the torch lights wavering in and out of sight. He glanced at the stairs, or rather, the lack thereof. Across the harbor, the stairs of the second watchtower was similarly gone. It looked like they were aiming for the towers.

It also looked like the oldest structures in Berk were going to have to get rebuilt after all.

And that meant that Hiccup himself had probably better get the hell out of dodge.

The towers were set flush to cliff faces for a reason. In case of an emergency where there was a lack of stairs, one could slip out the much wider gap in the back and scramble along the top of the cliff. It was a treacherous, rocky path and certainly not one that Hiccup should have been traversing at night, in the rain, on his false foot. But he did it anyways.

It took him a couple of steps to wonder if this was really such a good idea. No, no it wasn't, but he was hurting for other options. The Saxons weren't going to leave unless they got walloped good, or so Hiccup had heard from his father. He hated their weasely black guts with all his might, but Stoic admired one thing about those smelly dogs and that was the fact they didn't give up without a fight. So a good walloping was needed in order to chase them off. And a Night Fury packed one hell of a wallop. All Hiccup had to do was get back down to the village without breaking a limb.

Which was one of those things that was far easier to say than to actually do. He felt horrifically clumsy as he staggered and stumbled across the slippery rocks, trying everything in his power to keep his footing and prevent himself from falling flat on his face. Evidently, everything in his power wasn't quite enough. He could barely see where he was going. One bad misstep later and he did fall flat on his face.

"Ow!" That was all Hiccup allowed himself before pushing himself with his hands, trying to get his feet back under him. It was not a surprise -- unpleasant but not a surprise, when he realized that he was stuck.

His prosthetic was wedged tightly between two rocks and wiggling it around didn't help. His best option would be to take it off and try to get it out without the rest of his leg getting in the way. It might work, but he would lose time...

Below, the Vikings were fighting back in earnest now. There was a hail of arrows being exchanged by both sides, the dragons were flying to defend their adopted home; some with riders, but most without. Seemed that the dragons had already adopted the stubborn Viking mindset and the tendency to act without first thinking.

The village could hold without him and Toothless in the air for a bit longer, but personally, Hiccup didn't want to wait. He fought hard to get his prosthetic free, but it wasn't budging an inch. The rocks were holding it tight and he couldn't see where it was stuck. Dammit, he was going to have to take it off if he wanted to get anywhere soon.

He leaned his weight on his other leg and reached for the straps that held the false appendage in place. His cold fingers fumbled with the knots, almost numb in the freezing rain. The wet leather was slippery and hard to grasp and he cursed some more. This was taking too long!

Then hot pain exploded in the back of his head.

Everything went black.