How a Viking and a Not-Viking Train a Dragon

Chapter 1 Revised

Me no own How to Train Your Dragon.

This is Berk. Everything is pretty normal for a Viking settlement: the fishing is good, the land is fertile. The only problem is that they have a minor pest control issue. Well, a huge one. They have dragons raid the village almost every once a week.

Right now, for example, there was one of those all-too-familiar raids going on. Most of the Vikings were working to fight the dragons, but two Vikings were ordered to remain indoors. Their names were Astrid Hofferson and Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III.

The reason that they were the only ones inside was that Hiccup was, by nature, inventive and made all sorts of weapons. Unfortunately for the gangly redhead, his weapons wound up being misfired and breaking something one too many times. His only friend in the village, Astrid, was there to make sure he didn't leave the house until the raid was over. They had been in a group of kids when they were little, but, as they got older, Hiccup showed no signs of becoming Viking-like, and so the others abandoned him. Astrid couldn't do that to him, however. He had been the agile blonde girl's first friend and they had been inseparable since they could crawl. She had become his only friend other than Gobber the Belch, the blacksmith that he was apprenticed to, despite her being one of the most Viking-like fighters in the tribe. Of course, being the chief's son made his feelings of being a failure of a Viking worse to him, as he was constantly reminded of just how much different from the other Vikings. Right now, he was trying to reason with Astrid in order to get out. This of course was not working.

"Hiccup, you know that you're probably gonna kill everybody if you step outside," Astrid told her friend, rolling her blue eyes and sharpening the curved blade of her axe, which had been hers since her 7th birthday.

"Why are you even keeping me in? You know I'll get out. I always do," Hiccup replied to her, slowly inching toward the window.

"You're not even getting out of my sight this time. Besides, I caught you each time," she retorted smugly, turning to place the whetstone behind her on the table.

She turned around just in time to see him jumping out the window. Feeling angry and amused, she ran after the boy, swinging her axe in a way that would only be construed as a threat by him.

"Hiccup, get back here or I'll chop off your legs!" she shouted half-playfully

Hiccup just ran like a bat out of Hel, heading to the forge.

Uh-oh, Astrid thought, recalling his various devices, he's got all kinds of stuff at that forge.

He kept running until Astrid lost sight of him due to the large crowd.

When she saw him, after having to defeat a couple of Gronkles to get to him, he was firing a bola into the dark from a cannon-like device. She saw it hit a dark dragon shape in the distance. She walked up to Hiccup and began dragging him back to his home by his collar.

Suddenly a Monstrous Nightmare was almost on top of them, its red body flaming. Fortunately, the Chief of Berk and Hiccup's father, Stoick the Vast knocked it down with a hefty war hammer. It flew off, taking 5 sheep in its talons. Stoick turned to the pair, a look of irritation and frustration evident on his face, and thundered, "You two shouldn't be out here!"

"But Hiccup caught…" Astrid began.

"Take him back to the house. That's an order," he said in a calmer, tired tone of voice.

Both children walked off. Every kid except Fishlegs, the major book reader of Berk, was taunting Hiccup as the pair walked to Hiccup's house. Astrid glared at everybody they passed, her arm wrapped protectively around Hiccup's shoulders. When they got into Hiccup's home, Astrid noticed that he was heading for the back door.

"Where are you going?" she asked him, her curiosity piqued.

"I'm gonna find that dragon," he replied, as if it was the only course of action to take.

"Not without me. If I ever left you alone while you were awake, you'd get yourself killed 35 times over," she said, not wanting to find out that Hiccup got hurt while out in the forest.

"Um…okay?" he replied in a slightly nervous voice, "Does this mean that you're not gonna kill me for running away?"

"For now," she teased, flipping her axe around her wrist.

The pair walked through the forest for a while, until they came across the dragon. It was unlike any dragon that they had ever seen. It was a spectacle of varying shades of iridescent blackish-blue. It was still alive.

"Come on Hiccup," Astrid said not wanting to keep the silence in which a feeling of wrongness was brewing, "you know that you've got to kill it."

The dragon looked at him in the eyes, emerald green to emerald green, with a mixture of sorrow and resignation. Neither made a move. Without another thought, Hiccup used his dagger and cut the ropes on the dragon. It lunged at him, fangs bared. Astrid panicked and reached for her axe. The Night Fury, as it must have been, looked her and smirked at her attempt to intimidate it. It looked at Hiccup in the eyes, seeing the resignation in his eyes as he accepted his face. It turned away and flew off in a sort of teetering manner. Hiccup breathed a sigh of relief, until a hand smacked him hard on the back of the head.

"Ow! What was that for?" he asked.

"I stand corrected," Astrid remarked in a slightly sharp tone, "you must have the most dumb luck of anybody in Berk."

"That didn't actually answer my question."

"That was for scaring me. The reason that I stand corrected," she added her tone softening, "is that you could probably do worse if I left you with your hands than if I left you with your legs instead. If you ever do something as impulsively as that again, I'll cut your hands off."

"One of these days I'm going to wake up without any limbs. Aren't I?" he replied sarcastically.

"Yes," she replied.

Wow! That was brutally honest," he said with a slightly nervous tone.

"I think that the Night Fury likes you," she said bluntly.

"Yeah, did you see the fangs? Completely friendly," he remarked, rolling his eyes

"Why didn't it kill you?" she prodded.

"Pity? Contempt? I honestly don't know, but, I am going to find out just what it wants with me, tomorrow. It did let me live," he replied contemplatively.

"If you go, I'm following you. I don't really like the idea of my friend dying in a huge fiery death," she replied honestly.

"Just by axing to death at your hands," he remarked.

"Exactly," she agreed.

Hand in hand, the pair walked back to the village and separated to get to their homes.