1This first fic is the start of a how to train your dragon fic I had laying around. Just looking at it quickly to post it here there are som mager things about the writing I would change but thought I would throw it up for the Lols.
Once my hp fic is finished if there is enough interest I may go back and finish this but please note this was written befor the second film came out and befor Netflix took over the riders of Berk series.
This is Berk. It's twelve days north of hopeless and a few degrees south of freezing to death. It's located solidly on the meridian of misery. It snows nine months out of the year, and hails the other three. Everything that grows here is tough and tasteless, and that includes the people.
But it has its perks. We have fishing, hunting, and you only have to work six months out of the year (though that's due to everything being snowed in for the other six). But the real up side is the pets. You see, a while ago I made a discovery: I learnt that you can train dragons.
A year later, and training the dragons has brought about massive changes. Food stocks are higher than ever, and without the constant attacks people here are happier than they have ever been.
That's not to say it's been all plain sailing after the generations long Dragon War. There was a lot of distrust on both sides. It didn't help that both dragons and Vikings have, well, stubbornness issues. But we are past most of that, and Berk has become a much nicer place to live. Most of the time...
Prologue
"I don't care, Stoic, it's been almost a year," Mogadon pointed out. "Either you fulfil your end of the bargain, or we will have to count Berk as a threat. And you know what that means."
The slightly larger man leaned over the table and stared Mogadon in the eye. "Are you threatening me, Mogadon? I thought you had more sense than that," Stoic curtly replied.
"Stoic, Don't be an ass." Mogadon's voice was beginning to raise as he held Stoic's gaze. "I mean we would have to treat every rider in our territory as a threat, and we both know that in my position you would respond the same."
Though his voice faltered, it also rose to yet higher volumes. "Are you mad? That would lead to a war!" Stoic accused him.
"Why do you think I'm here?" Mogadon began to sound more exasperated than angry "By Odin, our tribes are practically one. Is there anyone on this island that isn't related to a Meat Head by marriage or blood? Because I know of only one family on my islands, and they're new."
It was this bit of information that took the wind temporarily out of Stoic's sails, calming calmed him down. "You let a new family settle with you? That's not like you. What if they're Outcasts?"
"Ha! You wouldn't say that if you knew who it was. You remember that girl your boy and his riders helped a few months back? Saved her family from the Outcasts!"
Stoic was surprised "You mean Heather? You let her family settle among you?"
"Didn't have much choice." Mogadon grumbled, "She was able to calm an injured Monstrous Nightmare enough for us to put the beast out of its misery."
"You're still dragon hunting!" the fire was instantly sprang back into Stoic's voice.
"No, it was severely injured by another dragon, they were fighting in the sky over the island there was nothing we could do." Mogadon replied placatingly.
"And all this is getting off-topic. It's time you shared your dragon secrets with us."
"I keep telling you, it's not that simple. It would take weeks to show anyone how to deal with a dragon, longer to deal with a wild one. We haven't even started training our own young ones to fly them yet!"
A pause. "…That's it! Why don't you have your boy teach both your first class of riders and the Meat Heads at the same time?"
"…That could work, but I warn you now. It is dangerous. These are still dragons, and this is Hiccup we're talking about."
((…A little more… narration of any form would be a big improvement. This is basically anything that isn't dialogue, like actions or description. Right now, what you've got is two shapeless "blobs" speaking in a world of white space. Though readers will probably have an idea of who these characters are and where they may be speaking, you want to flesh things out a bit more. Are they inside or outside? Is this a perfectly calm conversation or are the characters a little edgy or getting angry? Is one character larger than the other? You want to give your readers information.))
Hiccup ((I hate when people put "PoV." Just put bold it. Trust me, that'll be plenty for a section header, especially since you'll be unbolding and deleting all my comments before you plost this. It'll stand out more than it does right now.))
Thud!
Crash!
Smash! ((Sound effects tend to be italicized.))
"Okay, Toothless! Enough! I need to finish this, then I'll take you flying." The large jet-black dragon fixed the twig of a blacksmith with a stare, then flicked his tail, catching him lightly on the hip. Toothless was being infuriating. He wanted to get out and stretch his wings, and today at least he didn't seem to care how busy Hiccup was.
The young blacksmith was working on a new saddle. Dragons are hard on their saddles, especially Hookfang, and it took a lot of work to keep everything in one piece. Add to that that there was the only guy making them, and you could see why he was a little over worked. ((Keep your tenses the same. You're switching between past and present.))
Not for the first time hiccup thought he could really use an assistant to help him with the saddles, but then he was Gobber's assistant, and who ever heard of an assistant's assistant? But then again, Gobber never did the saddles, and with good resion after his first foray into making them.
"Hey Hiccup! What's taking so long?"
Startled from his thoughts, the stunted Viking turned around to see The living blond-haired haird with her hair typed back in a long plait, bangs in her eyes and a large battle axe slung over her back stood there with a mildly annoyed look on her face. and a massive grin spreads over hiccups face as he saw who was calling him.
"hey Astrid what's wrong?"
"you. You should be at the south cliff face. The one you told everyone to be at five minutes ago."
"Damn!" hiccup had completely forgotten about the meeting. No wonder Toothless had been trying to get his attention. I really needed to start listening to him more. I quickly packed up the saddle I was working on and ran out to join Astrid and Toothless.
Astride her Dragon, a particularly vain Nadder by the name of Stormfly, sat Astrid. As I clamed in to toothless's saddle she called over to me. "Race you!" At that, Astrid and Stormfly shot off at top speed towards the cliff.
"Come on bud," I straighten my left knee a few degrees, adding torque to the assembly attached both to Toothless saddle and to the metal that now had it home in the space that my left foot used to occupy. The resulting flaring out that of the dragon's kite tail from this was all the dragon needed and was off the ground and flying in less time that it took for my hart to finish a beat.
Astrid
I looked behind me and was surprised not to see Hiccup right on my tail. Hiccup must have had some problem with locking his foot in or something, or else he'd have been ahead of me. I knew I should feel worried, but Hiccup and Toothless had been getting a bit full of themselves recently. An easy win for me would be good for them. I angled for a more direct route to the cliff face and urged Stormfly to go faster.
Hiccup
i could see Astrid looking back, trying to spot him and Toothless. The reason she hadn't spotted us, though, was not because we were still on the ground, as she must have thought, but because we were right beneath her. Where Stormfly had gone for height to have a straight line to the finish, Toothless and I had stayed low, trusting in our knowledge of the village layout. We were in fact almost directly below Astrid, weaving in and out of buildings, going for a more complicated but shorter rout to the finish.
Toothless and I cleared the last of the buildings and herd Astrid exclaim above us. Seemingly without even thought I made another adjustment to the rig on our left flaring out Toothless's tail fin I little more granting him greater speed that was held back for the sake of manoeuvrability back going through the village. Toothless sped up as he and storm fly sprinted to the finish line. we were neck and neck but the Night Fury had the edge. And took the sprint by a nose.
Before I could even appreciate my victory or go and congratulate Astrid on closing the gap yet again I was distracted by "about time you two got here I have better things to do than waste my time waiting around for a fish bone" barked Snotlout. I ignored the comment and looked around The rest of riders that were on the cliff top waiting for Astrid and I. Snotlout was oveasly getting bored although that was probably because no one was paying him any attention Fishlegs had his head in a note book he had taken to to keeping over the last few mouths and the twins Tuffnut and Ruffnut appeared to be trying to work out witch of their heads was the hardest buy running in to each other head first. All in all a typical scene among the riders.
Snotlout not content with his moan marched right up to me "Why are we here anyway all I get is a message from the twins telling me you what's us to meet here. Then you are late" snot half ranted half challenged. "hey. I wasn't the one who wanted us to gather here I just passed on the message I got from Gobber"
"And Gobber was delivering the message for me." All of the teens and the dragons turned at the new voice approaching the cliff from behind them, Hiccup groined as he seen his father the chef of Berk stoic the vast along with his dragon Thornadow and Gobber aperig over a small rise that had concealed them.
Before any of them could say anything stoic continues "I had Gobber ask you all here today become well... well there are things we need to talk about. You see, we need you to, well that is to say, you are getting your first group of students for the academy" the 6 teens we suddenly staring at Stoic rapt with attention at this news "Why now dad?"
"Well you wont remember as you were. well.. but after the fight with the dragon queen a year ago the meet head clan chief came by to find out what happened. Once he seen that we were flying dragons now.. Well it was eventually decided, once everything staled that we would train some of the meatheads the same time we tort our own next group of riders. The meat head should be arriving in the next few days...
Hiccup was nervous, nervous and hot. Way to hot. It probably had to do with the clothes he was wearing. He was wearing his best clothes and for Vikings that meant furs. On burk furs were normally a good choose however it was the start of the terribly short summer on berk and only crazy people were wearing furs on a day like today. Well crazy people, him, his father and the rest of the dragon riders.
Hiccup had taken Toothless out earlier that morning doing a loop of berk and some of the smaller surrounding islands. After about an hour he had spied a ship heading for berk from the west. Figuring it to be the meatheads he had told his father when he got home who had insisted on trying to impress the guests. Along with the clothing chose there was to be a feast in the mead hall as well. Now they were all just waiting around at the docks for the meat head boat to dock.
The only saving grace of the wate for Hiccup is that Astrid was talking to him. They were going over plans for how to train the new riders, and it was the only thing keeping Hiccups nervousness from turning in to a full blown panic attack. Training the berk riders was one thing but the entire trity with the meetheads was riding on being able to teach some unknown Vikings how to not get them self killed around giant fire breathing lizards. The more he thought about it the more the sick feeling in his stomach grew worse.
"so Astrid how many terrors did we manage to get?" one of the problems that they had with the academy was traing the students to handle dragons when the academy had no dragons for them to train with. It had been Astrids brain wave the morning before that they should just use terrible terrors the small dragons were all over the island and were relatively easy to come by. The best par was that although the terrors can give you a nasty bite or burn the chases of a terror doing any lasting damage was quite small. This made them the ideal dragon to train the recutes on as nearly all of the teckneeks transfer over to the larger types of dragon. "we have ten we put them in one of the pens at the academy. The only problem is we don't know how many we need all we know there are 7 from berk"
that was another thing that was confusing Hiccup his father had said that there were 7 students from berk yet Hiccup could only think of 5 of the clans kids who were old enough for dragon training. And his father had so fare refused to say who the outer two were. Before Hiccup cold bring this point up with Astrid again, the meathead ship sailed around the the south west cliffs and came in to view and his train of thought was lost in the sudden return of the anxiety he had been warding off.
It took another 10 minits for the boat to make it to the dock and get tyed up. Each minnet filed with Hiccups nervus figeting with Astrid trying to keep him carm yet they were almost untotesd buy the chief and the rest of the riders who were all craing their necks trying to get a glimpse of the new arrives. The first off the ship was someone expected it was Mogadon. Mogadon was the meathead clan chief, usually Hiccup did not have to deal with him, Stoic preferring Hiccup to be else were wile the he and Mogadon were discussing business. Yet this time Hiccup felt he would be the centre of the foreign chiefs attention and he was defiantly not looking forward to it.
"Mogadon! Good to see you I trust you had a good trip?"stoic wasted no time in beginning the platitudes that flowed every time the two met. Although the two chiefs weren't enamys you couldn't exaltedly call them friends ether. Ever since they meat as teenagers stoic and Mogadon had had a rivalry going on between them. A rivalry that was helped in no small part by stoic's tendency to win. "Stoic! Not to bad we had a descent wind most of the way."
next off the bout were two people he was surprised to see though one a lot less than the other. Frist and least surprising was Thuggory. Thuggory was Mogadon's son and next in line to be the meathead clan chief. If this had been a diplomatic meeting Hiccup would have expected thuggery but this was a drop off and that can only mean he was expected to train the meat heads next chief. Hiccup would have been braking under the presser except for two things first was that he happened to like thuggery. The two of them often charged with occupying the other during times their fathers had to talk had become not close but firm friends over the years. The second and much more shocking thing happened to be the person walking next to him.
The more surprising of the pair was nun outer than heather. The shock of seeing the raven haired girl pushed worry out of Hiccups mind. the same could not be said for Astrid, on seeing heather, Astrid became so tense that the hand holding Hiccups in an attempt to keep him calm almost dislocated his finger, and would have if he hadn't managed to pull his hand free. Astrid may have some sympathy for heathers motives for what she did last time she was there but another part of her just could never forgive her for taking Stormfly.
Astrids pov
what is she doing here. I couldn't believe it heather was stepping off the boat, that dragon stealing hussy. I immediately felt bad for being so angry I know why she did what she did. I might even do the same thing in her position but it was Stormfly. My Stormfly, my self absorbed narcissistic vain and completely wonderful Stormfly. And she had stolen her like she was some comen boat.
I felt Hiccup pull his hand out of mine. It wasn't until just then that I realised just how titley I had been griping his hand. Stoic was talking with a big guy from the meat heads he apered to know were as Hiccup started to wards heather. I folowed Hiccup a part of me wanting to pull him away from her. I was just about to do it when Hiccup greeted not heather but the guy she was walking with. I took a closer look at him realising he looked fermiller his name was thuggish or something and he had come to berk a few times.
"thuggery good to see you its been a wile" the two of them greeting each outer like old friends "Hiccup good to see you"
"heather" Hiccups tone with heather wile not unfriendly was oveasly at least to Astrids ear not as warm as it has been with thuggery. And as much as I loathed to admit it I felt relief as the small knot of jealousy started to loosen in my stomach.
"Hiccup. Astrid."
"hey thugg this is Astrid my.. girlfriend?" that was typical of Hiccup we had been going out for over a year yet it still sounds like a question when he says it I grab his hand again and pull him closer to me to reashor him.
"you shour there Hiccup? you don't sound very confident. Nice to meat you Astrid"
"like wise and to be fair this is Hiccup we are talking about he isn't shour of anything unless its a dragon or he's inventing it"
"well I know about the inventing but the dragons are new"
we stood around chatting for a few minits heather berly saying anything at all. Evnchely we where introduced to the rest of the meathead would be riders. There were 9 of them including thugg and heather. Most of them seamed nice enough but there were two who looked to be spoiling for a fight one was a guy who seamed to be cut from the same cloth as Snotlout all mussel, no brains and supremely arrogant the outer was a girl her red hair hinted that she had non Viking ancestry probably from the Britannic islands to the south west. They refused to believe that Hiccup was who he said he was
"no way! There is know way a dresd up fish bone like that brought down a night furry!" I felt Hiccup stiffen next to me. Most thought it was a show of anger in the rider, but I know different. He hated being reminded of what he did to Toothless, the first real friend he had ever had and Hiccup had taken the sky from him. That was why Hiccup was always working to improve Toothless's tail. As much as Hiccup loved flying ad spending time with the dragon it was gilt that had him sitting up most knights trying to think of a better tail or to repay the dragon for everything he had don for Hiccup.
I moved closer to Hiccup and put my arm around his shoulder. It was this that saved the Snotlout like boy from having an axe in his face. And it was thuggery who saved them from a plasma bolt. I dont think anyone but me seen the night furry atop the cliff face watching what was happening and I know I was the only one who seen the flash of blue flame that served a marker of just how angry Toothless was.
Toothless's pov
Toothless was thinking about what Hiccup had said before he left the house. Hiccup had wanted him to stay in house today wile there were some new humans on the island. I had shown him I didn't like the idea but he had insisted and once he left I had ignored him. Every time Hiccup is left alone with new humans something bad happens there was no way I was letting him out of my site if there were new humans here.
It was all to easy to slip out through the opening at the back of the wooden cave and slip in to the trees without being seen. I run around the out side of the wooden caves making shour I wasent seen then made my way to one of the cliffs were I could see the place they keep the floating land. I could see my rider down at the water edge standing with his father and mate. Human matteing was confusing to Toothless the to of them oveasly wanted to be together yet there seamed to be a lot of rules about what they could do and were.
As the sun reached its peak a bit of flouting land I did not recognise approached the waters edge. I was surprised to see the girl who was staying with us a few sessions ago. I liked the girl she was nise to the dragons. It was a pitty she had left after we had rescued her parents, but I think Hiccups mate was happier with her gone.
After a wile more strange humans got off the boat. They were all talking togeter when I heard 2 of them whispering to each outher
"there is no way that runt can control a dragon"
"I know what you mean they must be trying to pull a fast one"
"but what can we do about it"
"I say we call them on it that runt will cave in seconds"
the more I herd from them the more I felt like burning them. My Hiccup may be small but he is strong. When all the bigger hairy men are running away he is often running towards the challenge. " no way! There is know way a dresd up fish bone like that brought down a night furry" that was it I was about to shoot a plasma bolt at the feet of the offensive humans, but the human how had been talking to Hiccup moved next to them. I herd him wispering to them "that is an old friend of mine and the son of the berk chief. If you don't stop now I will kell you my self befor you start a war."
nothing more interesting than the humans standing around doing a lot of talking happened after that. They evenchely moved to the largest of their caves and I found a spot were I could wait and watch for Hiccup to return
Astrid's pov
After the greetings and speeches we all made our way up to the meed hall. Hiccup and thuggery were dragged off to sit with the two cheif's leaving me standing with heather. I was about to go find ruff when heather trend to me
"we should talk"
"why?"
"cos you look like you are considering my head as a wall onriment and I wanted to thank you again." she bit her lip nervously.
I relaxed a little I may not like what she did but I do know why she did it. "look I get why you did it so I'm not going to attack you for it." I could see heather visibly relax a little now she knew I wasn't out for blood. "how are your perents anyway? how did you end up with the meat heads?"
"they are fine. They are back on the meathead island. We got calt in a storm nouthing to bad but our sail was damiged we stoped at the meat head island meaning to fix our ship and move on. But on our second day there a monstrous nightmare and a dragon I didn't recognise got in to a fight over the village. The nightmare was hert realy bad no one could get near it. I was able to calm it enough so that thugg could sneak up and put the poor thing out of its misery. After that they asked us to stay" Astrid looked shocked
"you helped them kill a dragon?" the anger in her voice barely contained.
"the dragon was to badly heart Astrid after I was hear last I could never heart a dragon. But this one was in pain it was.. better off.." I could hear the pain in her voice. It had hert her to help them stop the dragon she really wishes she could have done something. Befor I could say anything she continued.
"so as I was saying after that Mogadon was questioning how I was able to calm the dragon. My perents said about me lerning it here. Next thing I know Mogadon is asking us to stay. Turned out he wanted me tell him about training dragons. He was a little upset that I couldn't relay train any of the wild ones. Shour I can calm some of them down but I can't get them to trust me enough to ride them."
By the time she had said all this we had gotten some food and mead then had sat at one of the smaller tables. "so he only wanted you to stay so you whould train dragons for him?"
"prity much sums it up. The man is infuriating. No matter what I tell him or show him, he still thinks you need to show a dragon who's boss. If it wasn't for thugg I would have tried to get my parents to leave"
"speaking of thuggery spill the to of you looked cosy together" I watched as heather blushed at my comment
"um... well... that is" she was squirming in her seat an oveas mix of embarrassment and discomfort "we are getting married"
Hiccups pov
Hiccup never thought he would mis being Hiccup the useless so much. Just over a year ago he whould have been shunted to one side and left alown. Not now, now everyone wanted to talk to him. After greating thuggery and heather whitch had been awkward enough given Astrid's discomfort at being around heather, but meating the outher whould be riders was a chore. There were nine of them in total including thuggery and heather. Of the ones who dident know him most looked at him in aww talking amounst them self about the dragon slayer they had herd about. two of them however had flat out refused to believe a "dresd up fish bone like that" could be the 'dragon slayer' they had herd about. And had only stopped mocking him when thuggery went over and spoke to them so Hiccup couldn't hear him. No one herd what thuggery said to them however the sudden change in their skin tone to resemble old yak milk hinted that it was probably better no one overheard.
But far worse than the riders had been Mogadon. After the greetings and speeches were dun with everyone had made their way up to the mead hall were there was an entire wild bore roasting over the central fire pit and one of the islands better barrels of mead had been rolled out. Hiccup had been forced to sit with the two chiefs and thuggery at the head table wile Mogadon had been questioning Hiccup so much it bordered on an interrogation.
Questions like "so Hiccup just how did you manage to force such a wild best to listen to you" and "what do you use to punish the beast when it get out of line" had dun nutting to ender the man to Hiccup who was growing gladder by the minute that the man was leaving the island tonight. The only real upside that Hiccup could see was that both stoic and thuggery were almost as unhappy with the comments as he was. In fact thuggery looked on the verge of exploding at his father on a number of occasion. However befor tempers became to frayed the time came for the meat heads who weren't staying to leave.
Toothless's pov
I could see them returning from the docs. Hiccup his farther and a lot of the new arrivals had gonee back down to the docks not long after night had fallen. I watched as most of them had goten back on to the flouting land they had brought with them. One had stayed with Hiccup and his father and I know a few had stayed in the large cave. I watched as Hiccup walked back up to the wooden caves with the other two humans. The three of them were enjoying talking to each other enough that the new human must be a friend. I no sooner made that desisen then I was off. I bounded threw the dark towards Hiccup, unable to fly I was incapable of being truly stealthy but my approach was not knowtesed by the laughing humans, using the last of my predator instincts I pounced on Hiccup...
Hiccups pov
"by thors hammer that man is infuriating" Hiccup, Stoic and thuggery were walking back from the docks after seeing the meatheads off they had gotten over half way back to the village before thuggery's outburst. "heather already told him you don't beat the dragons in to submission but did he listen. hel no!"
stoic stood there in shock. He had never spent much time around the thuggery boy over the years but what he had seen had given him the impression of a quiet and respectful son. Hiccup on the other hand who was more fermiller with his counterpart just gaford with laughter "dam thugg I thought you were going to explode back there"
"you can talk you looked like you were going to hit him at least twice." "Speaking of witch when did you develop a back bone last time I seen you you were trying to avoid snotface now your the big ass dragon slayer"
"that's dragon tamer not slayer I don't kill dragons"
"unless they are the size of a small mountain?"
"uh.. that was... well.. a special case"
just as Hiccup was about to explain was was knocked to the ground by an over exited night furry. Thugg who was taken by supris at the sight of a dragon apparently attacking his friend drew a sword and was about to attack the dragon when stoic who had seen his reaction court his arm and held him back. Hiccup who was completely unawere of thuggs reaction now trying to stop Toothless from licking every inch of Hiccup he could reach "Toothless! no... bad dragon.." at this it was Stoics tern to larf his head off wile still holding on to thuggery. Thuggery slowly came to realise that Hiccup was in no danger and just steard at the pair rolling on the flaw with awe. This was the terrifying night furry he remembered hushed stories told around the fire while he was a child and later the devastating accuracy from the occasional dragon raid. He just couldn't reconcile the to view points the ferocious monster that people almost feared to speak of and the sight in front of him. Just how wrong had they been...