Hi all. This is a piece of fanfiction that I previously posted on Deviantart. I will be updating this daily.

Note: "How to Protect a Dragon Conqueror" takes place INSTEAD of "Heather Report" and the second half of season one. Thus, Alvin does not know how to ride dragons and is determined to learn.

My name is Hiccup; you may know me as the chief's son who trained dragons, or you might know me as the Dragon Conqueror. You've probably seen my face on a Wanted poster. According to Alvin the Treacherous, a Viking outcast, I'm worth thirty sheep and a shipload of fish. Apparently that's only one sheep more than my dad, Stoick the Vast, who also rides dragons. We Vikings have our priorities straight.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. To put yourself in my shoes, a scrawny teenager with a metal left foot and a playful Night Fury, picture a cloudy day dotted with patches of muddy blue, like some blather-brained idiot had dabbed the sky with thick paint and then left to clean his boots. In doing so he had also dropped his favorite rocks into the ocean, creating the mountains that surround Berk. It was the perfect day for diving into the ocean.

That's what Toothless and I were doing. Toothless is my dragon, an ebony Night Fury with fierce loyalty and a rambunctious sense of sport. He growled contentedly as we surfed through the clouds; I was letting the rush of cold wind jolt me out of lethargy because Toothless had woken me up early, banging on the roof with his tail. I had been up the night before writing records for the Dragon Academy, smudging the papers with my ink-stained hands.

"Go for it, bud," I whispered; Toothless rolled upside-down and let me fall. We had been sky-diving since Devastating Winter, enjoying the sudden drop that had once terrified us on our first flight. The belt tethering me to his saddle came unclipped, and we shot straight for the cold waters below. Toothless nudged me with two legs so that I spun; he also started spinning. A warm-throated laugh started in my throat. It would have emerged as a thrilled chuckle if Toothless's carefree expression hadn't changed.

See, my dragon has big, lemon-colored eyes that dilate in the face of danger. He also has four legs, all of which wrapped around me. I was enveloped in dark, leather skin.

"Toothless!" I tried to turn around, to see what was worrying him. He wrapped his wings tighter, locking me into place. "Bud! What-"

An arrow interrupted my question, narrowly missing Toothless's left wing. He veered to the right as another shower of arrows emerged.

"Son of a half-troll! Only Outcasts use . . ." I stopped talking. Rat-eating mudge bucket.

"We've got you now, Dragon Conqueror!" A familiar, rasping voice called out.

No. Not him. I could not deal with him right now, not when my dragon had decided to act on his instinct to protect his rider. How had Alvin the Treacherous, my dad's worst enemy, known about our morning flights?

"Toothless! You've got to let me go!" My dragon was looking away, possibly eyeing the harsh waters that had not seemed so perilous earlier. "Toothless, we've got to get out of here!"

"No dragon hide can withstand our arrows. Fire at will!" Sinew strings twanged in time as Outcast arrows shot as a wooden brigade.

"TOOTHLESS! NOW!"

Toothless rolled again so that his back took most of the arrows, keeping me enveloped in black leather, not that it would matter when we hit the water. Pain twisted his yellow eyes, but he closed them, undid four of his legs, and used the other two to flip my back onto the saddle. I pushed away whatever arrowheads I could, clicked my metal leg into place and opened my dragon's tail. It took to the breeze like a fan as we reversed directions, heading away from the Outcast ships. I would have stayed to fight, but my dragon needed medical attention. His wings were weighed down from the sharp arrows.

"Hang on, bud," I whispered as he flew into the cliffs that no boat could follow; it was like our first flight, when I had thrown away my cheat sheet and let my foot navigate us past the sharp rocks.

Toothless, as if remembering the times I had crashed him into the cliffs, slapped my cheek with his ears. It was a light slap, though, and reassuring. It told me my dragon wanted to live. Alvin's rasping, angry orders faded as we navigated into the fog.

A harder slap would follow, however, once we had returned to Berk: telling my father about the attack.