He had come here for peace! Well, how would he know that there would be more people here? In the middle of the dense woods, of all places…

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, a wandering outcast, held his back tight against a large tree trunk, trying desperately to go unnoticed by the stranger. He put his fingers up to chapped lips, a sign for his companions to act quiet. Below his chest flapped two acid-green wings, that of a young and fidgety dragon who was quite small and literally toothless. Next to his head, positioned against the tree as well was a much older, browner and wrinkled dragon. High above, hidden in the treetops, a dragon watched in silence. You might stop and think, 'Wait, dragons?' but believe me, this was a normal sight.

Or at least, it had been normal a few months ago. The boy you look at, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, a skinny gangly and ginger barely-Viking of fourteen was the would-be ruler of the Wilder West. Technically, he had succeeded in the sword-fighting competition used to determine the king. But when the person who had made up the rules to this contest didn't like you that much, there wasn't a very good chance you would actually come out on top. And as the rule-maker-upper was a certain witch named Excellinor, it only be fit that her son (a certain man named Alvin the Treacherous) had risen as the king instead. If Hiccup had had his way, dragons accompanying humans would have continued to be a normal sight in the Barbaric Archipelago…But this was unfortunately not so, as within minutes of becoming King of the Wilder West, Alvin had declared war on the dragons.

And what a stupid and pointless war it was! If Hiccup were king, no form of slavery would have been tolerated at all, neither human nor dragon. And if the war was all about the dragons wanting to be free, then THAT could've certainly been avoided.

Even as former heir to the Hairy Hooligans, Hiccup had no real legal power. His cousin Snotface Snotlout had instead become chief of the tribe. According to Viking law, Hiccup himself was a slave, as he had the slavemark given to him by Wanderers (long story). The only hope now was to find the King's Things and take them to the Island of Tomorrow where Hiccup would prove he was the rightful heir to Grimbeard the Ghastly, the former King of the Wilder West. And so now with his three dragons, Toothless, Wodensfang and the Windwalker, Hiccup roamed the Barbaric Archipelago looking for the final object—the Dragon's Jewel.

Hiccup winced as a loud laugh pierced the air. Unable as he was to see the culprit from behind the tree, which seemed to be a man, he could definitely hear his loud voice. Hiccup couldn't help but be slightly irritated at the man's stupidity. Who would ever be so loud and happy in such a world in its current state? It was far too dangerous. There could be thugs that could hear you, vicious Vikings waiting in the treetops to cut out the throat of an unsuspecting traveler…

…Or maybe a frightened teenager hiding in the undergrowth, silently begging for the traveler to travel away. Hiccup prayed to Thor and Woden and Freyja and every Norse god and goddess he had ever heard of that the stranger would leave quickly and without trouble.

Unfortunately, things don't always go well for Hiccup, and they didn't this time. The pair of travelers (YES, there were TWO pairs of footsteps now!) walked over to Hiccup's tree. Hiccup grimaced and crouched down low, as if that would magically make him invisible (it didn't, in case you were wondering).

"Okay, so where are the elephants?" asked a young woman.

"Well…The TARDIS is funny like that. Every time we want to go somewhere important, she takes us somewhere off course. But then, when it's not that important at all and we've got all the time in the world, BAM! We're still off course."

The woman laughed, a high-pitched and happy laugh. "Oh, well! We can still have fun where…wherever we are. But!" she shivered. "It is a bit cold. And I dressed for Africa, mind you."

Pleaseleavepleaseleavepleaseleave, Hiccup thought desperately.

"Let's not plan to leave soon!" shouted the man gleefully. "According to the TARDIS, we've landed in the dark ages! I rarely every come to the dark ages…voluntarily. It's always so…dark and gloomy, ya'know?"

"Yes, nice change of pace," announced the girl. "You promised me adventure in the African Safari, but cold and dark and isolation is nice too."

The overly-cheerful man laughed out loud. "That's where you're wrong, Donna! You see, even though we're on a tiny island off the coast of Scotland, we're not isolated! There's a whole forgotten culture around these parts…Stories of Viking settlements and Celtic kings…I dare go as far and say that dragons could exist here for all we know. I don't know why I never came here before…"

Donna scoffed. "A whole forgotten culture, eh? I don't see and legendary Vikings and dragons right now."

"Ha! On the contrary, my dearest Donna. There is, in fact, a young boy standing right around that tree over there. He thinks we can't see him, but bright ginger hair kind of gives it away."

Hiccup held his breath and stayed behind the tree.

"Oh come on, lad! We're not going to hurt you."

Hiccup did not move a muscle.

"No, it's okay! We won't bite," added Donna.

"Of all things," commented Hiccup from behind the tree. "Why would you bite? I mean, you're not a dragon or anything so why would you bite? No, I'm much more afraid that you'll run a sword through my body. Biting is the least of my worries. You know, unless you're a Berserker. You're not a Berserker, right?" He peeked his head out, cautiously.

The now visible man shrugged. "'Fraid not. But sometimes if I'm not in a ripe mood—usually on Mondays—I do tend run around with a horned helmet and crash into stuff. I'm the Doctor, BTW, or whatever the Norse equivalent is to 'by the way'. What's your name?"

"Dogsbreath," responded Hiccup quickly, now in front of the tree, but still a safe distance from the strangers. At the Doctor and Donna's odd faces, he said, "Name's supposed to scare off gnomes and trolls. You're going to, um, Africa, I guess. Be on your way."

"No, no! I'd like to stay here for a while, see the sights, maybe tag along with the Vikings and pillage a village…Say that real fast, Donna. Pillage a village. Pillage a village. Pillage a village."

Hiccup closed his eyes. "Actually…" he said softly. "That's not such a good idea. You see, there's this…war around and…it's not too safe, you see."

"Welp, a little war never stopped me—Oh." The strange man fell silent.

"What? What's wrong, Doctor?" Donna asked, slightly irked. "Did you forget something about this place? Is today the day some random planet is supposed to crash into the Earth and wipe out northern Scotland?"

"…Rome. We should go to Rome," the Doctor said quickly. "Anywhere that's not here. We should get as far away from here as possible."

"What's the matter with the dark ages?" asked Donna. "Don't you want to 'pillage a village'?"

"No—it's just that…" he noticed Hiccup staring at him. "Never mind! Donna, we should get back in the TARDIS and we should go to Rome! Ancient Rome, mind you. Have you ever been there, Donna?" Back to his usual happy self, the Doctor took Donna's hand and started to leave the glen.

Hiccup stared at their backs a bit before saying, "Okay then. Uh, if you want to get to Rome, you can ask for their directions at the fort, it's about a day's boat ride down."

"It's okay!" the Doctor yelled back from over his shoulder. "We've got a time-traveling spaceship!" And with that, the strangers disappeared.

Hiccup was left wondering if any of that odd conversation had happened at all. He then told himself to get more sleep and shouted to the three waiting dragons in Dragonese, "All clear! Let's get a move on before anything else weird happens…"

"Hiccup," started the old brown dragon, Wodensfang. "It wasn't wise of you to talk to those people."

"I know but…What was I supposed to do? That man had spotted me. I don't think they were from around here anyways…Did you see how they were dressed?" Indeed, Hiccup had been caught off-guard by the travelers' clothing, especially Donna's lack of.

"And didn't it seem strange that the Doctor was in such a hurry to leave?" added the Windwalker, a large flying dragon.

"You heard what he said—they had to go to Rome for some reason."

The last dragon—the teeny-tiny bright green one—almost dropped from the air. "Y-y-you don't think they're R-r-romans, do you?" He spat 'Romans' as if it were a cursed word. "R-r-romans and their attitude! Look at m-m-me, I'm a Roman! I'm f-f-fat and stupid and get i-i-in the way! P-p-pathetic."

"Well, at least their Norse was spot-on."

xXx

"WAIT, DID YOU SAY ROME?!"

Hiccup drew his sword in defense, quickly, before stopping mid-swoosh when the Doctor waved his arms from a distance away, screaming, "It's OKAY! It's just the Doctor! And Donna!"

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!" Hiccup shrieked back in surprise. "And HOW in Thor's name did you find me?"

"Lucky search, and what is it with Vikings and swords?" The Doctor groaned before snatching the rusted metal blade out of Hiccup's hands.

"Hey!"

"You could poke an eye out with that thing! Sorry, I don't believe in violence. Look, it isn't even in good condition!" For show, the Doctor presented the now-snapped halves of Hiccup's sword. "What's your name, Dogsbrain or something? Yeah, Dogsbrain, so—no, wait…It's Dogsbreath. So Dogsbreath, what were you saying about Rome a while ago?"

Hiccup stared him point blank confused. "Rome? A while ago? You mean a few days ago?"

The Doctor waved it off. "A few days ago, a few minutes ago, same difference. The point is, you know what Rome is."

Hiccup shoved red bangs from his face so he saw the Doctor eye to eye. "Yeah? So? Everyone does. It's the Roman Empire, for crying out loud."

"No, no, no! Vikings—at least the ones in Northern Scotland—have never encountered the Roman Empire before…So why have you?"

"You're not a Roman…are you? Because that's what my friends think."

"No," started Donna. "We're not Romans, we—"

"Your tribe was never supposed to meet the Romans," the Doctor murmured to himself. "The Empire has fallen by now. Wait—" He paused, then pointed in Hiccup's direction. "Dogsbreath!"

"Yes?" responded Hiccup.

"How's the mighty Roman Empire doing?"

Hiccup shrugged. "Oh, you know. Still mighty. Mighty annoying."

"And may I ask the current century?"

"Eleventh, I think. Although I don't see how that would solve your problem which I don't really know of. I'm a bit confused, in case you were wondering."

"Something that big…" the Doctor rambled to no one in general. "The fall of the great and mighty Roman Empire, something that big and important…I think I would have noticed, ya know? It can't happen any other way, but somehow—somehow—it did. Why hasn't the world ended yet?"

Donna shrugged and patted the distressed Doctor on the shoulder. "I don't know. Maybe you did some of your linear science timey magic stuff and we happen to have not died yet."

"I don't remember doing anything that big with Rome," the Doctor answered. "So!" he said, clapping his hands. "I see only one explanation!" He grinned a manic grin. "We're in an alternative universe."

Donna laughed out loud. "Oh, that's a good one! But knowing you, you probably encounter this stuff all the time."

The Doctor smiled. "Exactly!

Meanwhile, a still very confused Hiccup looked on. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, you wouldn't get it, Dogsbreath," the Doctor said, patting Hiccup's shoulder. "Science-y stuff, way before your time."

Hiccup raised an eyebrow. "Try me."

Donna smiled, "Ohh, clever boy."

Putting his hands in his suit pockets and smirking, the Doctor said, "Okay," and began to explain time physics to a Viking. "You see, Dogsbreath, there is this reality—" he motioned to the forest around them. "—and others. This reality is everything you see here, everything you've ever heard of and everything you haven't. And there's another place, believe it or not, just like this very glen here, but not exact. There's something out of place. Maybe a man lived when he shouldn't, or maybe an entire empire survived. You know, small things like that."

Hiccup nodded vaguely. "And these 'alternate realities'…Where exactly are they?"

"Not here, that's for sure!" The Doctor laughed. "You'll never be able to get there. It's just impossible."

"And how do you know this?"

"Well, I'm from an alternate reality."

"Isn't that…you know, impossible?" Hiccup responded in a matter that could be considered calm, combining with the fact of course that he did not believe this madman one bit.

"Not for me, it isn't!" The Doctor grinned smugly. "Well if that's it, we'll just be off."

Hiccup gave the duo his most skeptical look. "So you're not Romans, then?"

"Only as Roman as the Huns are! Wait," the Doctor said, staring off into space. "You don't know them yet. Never mind."

The on looking boy shook his head. "What are you guys, like time travelers or something?"

"Absolutely. Come one, Donna, off to the TARDIS!"

The two, the Doctor and his companion, sauntered off into another part of the woods, while poor Hiccup was left with a very confused expression on his face. It was a moment or two before he shook his head and shouted to the treetops, "Toothless! Wodensfang! Windwalker! Wait right here and don't move!" Three dragons, the ones Hiccup had named, looked down from the large pine they had clambered in at the first fear of deadly strangers when Hiccup had drawn his sword. Leaving Hiccup, all on his own, to dash after them himself.

Running through the maze of trees and shrubs, Hiccup fought his way deeper into the forest, following the crushed and trampled ground betraying their path. He heard them, laughing and talking, up ahead, and the boy slowed to a walk in an attempt to remain unnoticed. Unarmed and totally unprepared, Hiccup rounded the bend.

There was a box. A blue box. A great, blue box that the Doctor and Donna had disappeared into. Snugged between two trees, and doors wide open, Hiccup was left puzzled as to how this brilliant box ended up in the middle of the forest.

"Care to do some explaining?" asked Donna, from inside the blue box.

"Simple," the Doctor explained. "The TARDIS got too close to the edge of the time vortex. About to fall out, she attempted to get back on track. Then, in the confusion of it all, we latched onto a different time stream. But…" he trailed off. "I do wonder what set us off course. The TARDIS doesn't usually do that, she's usually pretty sturdy."

"What?" exclaimed Donna. "I thought you said it was a fairly difficult task, traveling to different dimensions."

"Well, in a way, it is. First off, it's very dangerous near the edge of the time vortex, we're very lucky that the TARDIS was fast to rewire. Second, there's usually a force pushing all things in the time vortex to the center. It's usually so hard to get off, actually…I don't know how we got off track, it's usually radiating with time, er, TARDIS-pushiness…"

"What do you think could push us off?"

The Doctor paused, to ponder Donna's question. "That is a very good question, because frankly, I don't know."

"…Oh." Then to ease the tension, she said, "Well that's a first!"

"We're not dead, and that's good. Let's just go. Oh, hullo Dogsbreath, how long have you been spying on us?"

Hiccup lurched back behind the box's doors. Pacing himself, he tried to step backwards as quietly as possible in hopes that the Doctor and Donna would ignore him. It was obvious that they were not Vikings, that they were not Romans, but that didn't mean that they were not dangerous.

"We know you're there, you don't have to hide! Come on in!"

Hiccup, seeing no reason why not to, followed the Doctor's instructions and hopped through the threshold of the box. Eyes wide, he looked around at was a tiny little box on the outside. Key words 'on the outside'. The inside was totally different. The inside…the inside…

It was beautiful. There were no lanterns, but the walls seemed to emit a golden light of their own. And it was so big and wide, perhaps even as large as the Great Hall! Pillars that were not pillars hung from the ceiling and tapered themselves down to the floor, creating the perfect sitting place. But the most absolutely wonderful and incredibly interesting part of it all was the centerpiece. It was tall and blue, with little whirring bits inside a glass tube. Panels of some exotic metal layered the sides, with buttons and dials and levers and trinkets that were just so fascinating that you could toy with them forever even if you never ever figured out what they did. Everything looked alien and strange, like complete and utter nonsense, and you'd never find out what it was supposed to mean, what is was meant, but you'd never want to stop looking at it.

And Hiccup was curious. You can't blame him, not really, for forgetting the world outside him and wandering around to the panel, where the strangers were standing. Wouldn't you?

The Doctor just smiled. Hiccup could tell that he was all too familiar with this reaction. Donna gave him a knowing look, and he knew instantly that she had once been like him and had not understood this room one bit, and still didn't completely. "Dogsbreath," the Doctor said. "Welcome to the TARDIS."

xXx

"It's Time And Relative Dimensions In Space," the Doctor explained. "That's what TARDIS stands for, if you were wondering. Now the doors have snapped shut and we are going somewhere. Would you like to know where we are going, Dogsbreath?"

Hiccup murmured, "Actually…I left some folks back there—friends, actually." He held on tight to a strange contraption that he had never seen before as the TARDIS wobbled like an angry bull. "Won't they notice that I'm gone?"

The Doctor glanced at Hiccup, made a face, and then said, "Nah. The TARDIS is a time machine, if you haven't noticed. You'll be back faster than you can say—DEAR GALLIFREY, WHAT WAS THAT?!"

There was a sudden lurching, as if the TARDIS had hit a bump in the road or something (but of course you shall not find a rock or other obstacle in the time vortex, so this was impossible).

"Is—" Lurch. "Is the TARDIS supposed to do that?" asked Hiccup curiously. Of course whenever someone asks something as innocent as that, there HAS to be something wrong. The TARDIS was actually NOT supposed to do that.

"No," Donna explained. "It—" Lurch. The ginger girl lost her footing and fell to the floor.

"So it's not?" Hiccup yelled over the roaring engines.

"Absolutely not!" the Doctor replied. "I know that this is quite fun and all, but we must land somewhere quickly before—" Lurch. "—it gets out of hand. Dogsbreath, how about we go back to your friends and explain to them why you have left?"

"Fine with—" Lurch. "Fine with me."

The TARDIS let out an odd sound that was very much like a dying squirrel serpent to Hiccup. At the moment, he wished very much for a helmet—any old helmet—as his head bashed itself against the console. 'That's definitely going to leave a mark,' he thought. And as terrifying as it was, riding on this 'TARDIS' was an exciting experience. Maybe not the this-is-so-much-fun-I-cannot-wait-to-do-it-again type of exciting but more along the lines of well-this-is-interesting-and-different. But exciting nonetheless.

Preoccupied with his thoughts, Hiccup did not anticipate the sudden loss of motion as the TARDIS came to a violent stop. He scrambled to his feet, only to be knocked down again and on the floor. Above him, the Doctor and Donna looked down at him—it was obvious they hadn't fallen down, unlike him.

"Next time," Donna suggested politely. "You might want to hold on tighter."

Hiccup turned his head away in embarrassment.

"Sorry for the rough ride, Dogsbreath!" the Doctor chirped. "The TARDIS doesn't usually act like that—"

"Only two out of five times, actually," Donna added.

"—I mean yes you have to hold onto something," the Doctor rambled on. "Yes it does lurch midflight, but it was if we were being tossed in a sack! Like someone put us in a jam jar like a bug and started shaking it." He turned away from Hiccup (who was still on the floor) and started walking towards the console.

"Quite hard," Hiccup admitted.

Not noticing the young Viking, the Doctor went on, examining the TARDIS. "And the landing…She nearly never does that." He turned back to Hiccup, who had by now regained his footing with the help of Donna and was now brushing himself off. "Bad first impression. Want to give it another shot?"

"Uh," Hiccup started. "Not right now. I-I need to go check on something." He started to rush out the wooden doors.

"Ah," the Doctor said, very pleased with himself that he had come to a conclusion. "You'd like to see if your friends are okay. Would they like to see the TARDIS as well? I usually would say that bringing along random people for joy rides through time and space is stupid, but then I'd be a hypocrite."

"No, not at all," Hiccup interjected. "In fact, I might not come back. So you can leave, okay? Okay." He ran out the doors, leaving the TARDIS crew behind.

"Gee, what's got him up in a fit?" Donna asked.

"Well," the Doctor explained. "Seems the kid's just worried for his friends. Sweet, innit?" He walked over to the TARDIS doors and looked out. "He's run far away by now. Vikings can be like, you know. Simple minded. Well!" The Doctor closed the doors. "We better get out of here. Fast. I don't like this place, not one bit."

"Do I dare ask why?"

But the Doctor had already begun twisting knobs and turning dials, the engines whirred happily as if the little fit had never happened—the TARDIS was leaving the forest. "All I can tell you is…You wouldn't stay either."

"Oh?" Donna responded, crossing her arms. "You can tell me more, because right now I would stay, despite how depressing this little island is."

"Well…" the Doctor drawled. "Remember how I said dragons might live here? Well, I wasn't joking."

Donna's mouth fell open. She wanted to say something, to ask more about the dragons—now she really did want to stay, more than ever. But the TARDIS was already in motion.

Disclaimer: I do not own How to Train Your Dragon. That belongs to Cressida Cowell and Dreamworks.

Welp! Finished the first chapter of my first story…Gah! I hope it was enjoyable. And yes, it is taking place in the book!verse. For now. Constructive criticism is appreciated!