Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

War

Hiccup was strong now, even more so with the years. He got stronger, faster and perfected his transformation in every possible way. He was the Halfa, the leader. And what he didn´t like were fights. That was the one big problem he would never get rid of – because he was still a Viking. And his village was filled with Vikings. And there were other Vikings. But his tribe was rather peaceful. Additionally, the tribes of the neighborhood wouldn´t dare to try to attack them as long as Hiccup lived. And it looked like he aged slower than the other humans as the years came and went. He tried not to think about that too often – that he would still live and be relatively young when his (human) friends, his family, Astrid would die.

Nevertheless, there were still tribes that didn´t know about Hiccup. There were still tribes that wanted to roll over other tribes, that wanted to rob and murder, even though it were other Vikings they were doing it to. These tribes weren´t acknowledged as Vikings by other tribes. These tribes were hated by every other tribe. The Berserkers had been such a tribe. Until Hiccup crippled (and traumatized) their chief for life. And Hiccup hated it.

Hated that he had done something like this to another human.

Hated that he could do it without a thought.

Hated that he had more than once nearly killed the ones dear to him.

He hated that he could become a monster.

But then, there was that one time when he was 16– a tribe, they didn´t know which it was even, decided to take over Berk. They were confident, they were strong – and they were many.

They came at night, wanted to make a surprise-attack. Of course this doesn´t work when there are dragons at the island. Toothless heard the ships long before they came and woke Hiccup up – he heard it too. The shouting of orders, the creaking of wood under heavy feet. The sound of weapons. He jumped out of his bed, woke his dad and then flew to the big horn to wake the rest of the village.

There was no moonlight for them, it was a new moon. That was an advantage for the Hairy Hooligans, they knew these woods like the back of their hand – the other tribe didn´t. Also they had their dragons – and Hiccup, of course. They, meaning every warrior of the village, were in the great hall, together with the dragons, so that they could warn them if the fiends came too near.

“Son, how many do you think you can take down?” Stoick asked while marking something on a map. Hiccup blinked then bit his lip. He didn´t like where this was going, he really didn´t like it. “Uhm… I´m not so sure, Toothless got six shots, between them we have to wait, but we could throw some of them off a cl- back into the water.” He answered. The others looked confused at him. “But… you two can take them down separately.” Snotlouts father said from where he stood next to Hiccups own dad. Hiccup fidgeted and bit his lip harder. “I would rather… not. If I´m with Toothless it will be enough.” Stoick sighed, he knew this would happen one day.

He knew his son wouldn´t enter a war willingly, he knew he couldn´t kill people. And he knew why – Hiccup had always been just like his mother. She had been against killing the dragons as well, she tried to convince him to talk to the chief of a tribe before they would clear their differences in a fight and she never liked the idea of having to fight herself because she just couldn´t hurt another human. Stoick just knew that his son would be like her in this aspect too, he knew his gentle nature already after all. And he acknowledged it, his son was the last he had, he couldn´t lose him.

“Okay, you two will cover the area here...” he circled an area on the map “… then. Spitelout, you and…” Hiccup didn´t listen any further and went outside instead. Toothless was there as well, so he sat down next to his friend.

On one hand, it was just to escape the war business a little bit longer – and on the other hand, it was to pick up sounds better. He sighed deeply and let his head fall into his hands, the elbows propped on his knees. Toothless nudged him in an attempt to get him to explain and the brunette sighed again. “I really don´t want to do this… it… it reminds me of the time we fought against each other, you know? All the dying, the sadness and the constantly angry people.” when Hiccup looked up he saw that Toothless made a face that clearly said that he didn´t like those times either. Or, at least something along the lines of “Ugh.”. Hiccup was about to answer to that, when he heard something in the dead-silent night, if you ignored the creaking of the big ships. It weren´t the big ships or something similar, it was littler and… came from the other side of the island? He listened closer and then he was sure – yes, there was a littler boat coming to their island – he jumped to his foot and together they stormed into the great hall to inform the others.
When the others were informed that it couldn´t be more than three people, Hiccup and Astrid were send together with their dragons to take care of this.

It didn´t take long to make out the position of the strangers. They docked on the beach that was mostly hidden under a cliff but could be observed from a certain spot. Astrid decided it was best to only watch at first – who knew who it would be. Though Hiccup agreed, he had a bad feeling about this.

When the boat stranded and halted, three men jumped out. Two were big and more than bulky, the third one less, he could be described as slim even – and he was shorter. Hiccup figured he was more one to run fast and be sneaky – well, as sneaky as a Viking could be. They were barely armored and each of them had a rope, a shield and a dagger. Hiccup gripped the saddle so hard his knuckles turned white as soon as he heard what they were talking about. He told Astrid what was going on simultaneously.

#1:“Okay, more children or more women?”

#2:“I think more children, right?”

#3:“No, idiots, children cry, let´s take more women. And remember to gag them before you tie them up this time. Last time that one whore woke up the whole village with her screams. Same with the children.”

#2:“Can´t we just knock them out?”

#1:“Yeah, I´m in for that too.”

#3:“I don´t care, just make sure they stay quiet!”

“That´s enough. I say we just grab them and bring them to the others in the Great Hall.” Hiccup hissed while he glared at the men. “You sure?” Astrid asked, but she liked the idea already. Still, Hiccups behavior was a little bit… off. Maybe it was the pressure, or the fact that those were kidnappers – and he´d had enough experiences with kidnappers, really. “Yeah, we can take one each; we bring them directly to the hall. Make sure you fly high enough, so that they won´t try to struggle free.” He slipped from his saddle and triggered the machinery so that Toothless could fly alone. “Like that time when we stopped you from telling the whole village of Toothless.” He joked, but his grin didn´t reach his eyes. Astrid gave the joke a snort, at the same time four wings spread from Hiccups back.

“I love surprise attacks.” Astrid commented before they took off high into the air.

The winged creatures circled over the three men who had no clue at all. Then they darted down simultaneously and grabbed one man each. With shrieks and shouts of surprise the men were lifted into the air, they saw their feet distance themselves from the ground further and further and soon held onto the claws that held them on their shoulders for dear life. When they heard the strong flapping of the wings and saw those wings appear next to their heads the moment said were thrust downwards, they looked up and suppressed their screams. Not only did they see dragons, but a new creature that would haunt their nightmares soon, if they survived this night, that is. The… the thing that grabbed the third man had four wings and a human face that was littered with scales. When the man in it´s three grasps of hands and a leg looked at it in horror, it snarled at him and showed its impressing dangerous and disturbing teeth that glistened with… whatever that was, but it sure wasn´t normal saliva. The three dragons – wait, one had a human riding on it?! – took the men with them and they began to scream, except for the third man, he couldn´t use his voice out of shock. He couldn´t think of anything other than the ways this beast would kill him, probably even eat him alive and oh mighty Thor why was this happening?!

Though, when they flew to the village and through gates to a hall filled with humans, Vikings, the screams silenced and confusion washed through all three of the captured men. The people in the hall weren´t afraid of the dragons, heck, there were other dragons amongst them. Neither did they look surprised that there were three men carried into the hall. Then it clicked – the dragons and the other beast weren´t going to kill them – they were kidnapping the kidnappers and foiling their plans! Two of the men voiced their anger very quickly. The third did intake a breath, but quickly suppressed his shouts however when claws dug harder into his shoulders than before. An angry rumble from above him made him go stiff.

The dragons let the men down and as soon as they touched the ground they were tied up and gagged. The chief, however, looked surprised at the… the thing.

Stoic was confused when he saw the heavy scowl and the glare on his sons’ more than usually scaly face. No, wait, the scales were spreading more for a while now, he just still wasn´t used to it. Anyways, that… that expression… that really wasn´t something you would see often on Hiccups face.

Suddenly, the thing, which stood on one foot and a fake leg now, lost its scales. No – they were retreating into its skin. The wings disappeared as well and soon a seemingly normal human boy stood were the beast had been standing mere seconds ago. His expression had changed as well – the angry glare was now replaced by a cold and sardonic expression. They suddenly felt really little, weak and helpless, as if they stood in front of a higher being, something they could never even dream of surpassing. His gaze bored into theirs until he simply turned and walked away from them. The tied men were surprised to see that the boy –not even a man, just a boy – was shorter and way thinner than the other boys of his age – he was as slim as a girl. And his clothing was strange too. His whole back was exposed to them, until he disappeared in the mass. The people made space for him when he walked by and closed the gap after he passed – then he was at the other side of the hall.
One of the men could still see him for him being tall enough to look through a gap in the mass of people. He saw the boy walk up to a ring of dragons, where he petted some of the beasts lovingly with a gentle smile on his face. The scaly beasts welcomed the bo – no, the monster in their ring as if he was one of them. They treated him with respect (they held their head lower when he arrived) and affection (they stretched their long necks to receive a small touch or a speck of attention). The man, his name was simply Olaf the old, knew where he had seen such behavior before – he was called the old because maybe he wasn´t the smartest Viking, but he knew many old stories and tales. However, two things clicked in his head, just a little connection – and it caused him to fear the boy even more. He prayed that he wouldn´t participate in the upcoming fight when the rest of their tribe arrived. First of all, he knew the behavior the dragons showed – it was the way you act when someone superior is near, someone you respect and in most cases look up to, someone you adore, but not in a romantic way – anyway, this way of showing respect – it was the subordinate behavior they showed when their chief was near. He was a tyrant, but they tolerated him because he was smart and strong; well, that and they liked it to fight. Still, these beasts weren´t afraid of the boy, he was more than welcome. And that was the other part, the one that made his heart race and his muscles tremble. There was the old, very very old, legend, of a man who was as well a dragon. The dragons accepted him as their leader, and while he brought piece to his folks, he won every war he participated in with a flood of blood. He himself was clad in blood and had his army of dragons to get his back. They never lost; they never had a single man that died – while the others were lucky when they were left alive to tell the tale. And that boy, that dragon-boy who was loved by dragons that much – Olaf was sure that boy was such a creature this man in the legend had been. The moment he realized that he began to pray for his men.

Astrid leaned over to Hiccup from her place on the table to his place on the ground, where he sat surrounded by dragons. Though, because he sat near the bank (where all the other teens sat) there were just some Terrible Terrors piled between them. “Hey, one of them is staring at you.” She informed him and nodded to the tied men. Hiccup looked up and the moment he met eyes with the staring man said averted his eyes. Hiccup let his gaze drop back down to Toothless´ head in his lap, which he continued to stroke. “It´s… it´s okay… he´s just scared. He reeks of fear.” He informed her and shrugged. Astrid turned around a bit more. “Fear?” she asked and peered over to the man, but he still looked at the ground. Hiccup hesitated and bit his lip. “He… he´s scared of me. He thinks I´m a monster.” He mumbled. The Terrors on his side snuggled closer when they felt his uneasiness. He regarded them with a stroke each. Astrid looked quizzically at him. “How would you kno-“, “I know this smell Astrid, I know the waves he gives off and I know the look – the look I saw in the mirror more than once. He was scared since the moment I transformed.” A bit of hissing mixed into his voice and he felt himself panic slightly, but it died down very quickly. He didn´t want his answer to come out this sharp. The steady noise of the nearing ships was making him nervous.

He knew what he had to do. He knew what was going to happen if something went wrong.

And he hated it.

“Hiccup…” she sighed, slipping from the bench to sit down next to him. When she was settled, she positioned a Terror in her lap before she started petting it. “You… we know you can sometimes… lose it. But… it´s okay. We know you don´t want to and that… that it isn´t really you. But you do it to protect us, and that´s why it´s okay.” Hiccup´s hand halted. His thumb stroked over the scar above Toothless´ eye instead. “I didn´t always protect you…” he mumbled. Astrid hit his upper arm. “Ow! What was that for?” he asked while rubbing the sore arm. It didn´t really hurt anymore… but it still stung? Like a stubbed toe. “You know exactly that that wasn´t your fault.”, he sighed defeated. Toothless grumbled his approval to Astrid´s words. “Aw, you too?" Hiccup asked while glaring halfheartedly at his dragon. It sucked when both sided against him. "Okay, yeah, I know. But… but I´m scared okay? Scared it could happen again, that I could hurt you.” He admitted. Astrid shot him a little smile. That was enough of an answer. She trusted him, they all trusted him, even if he didn´t trust himself, but that was okay.

“They´re here.” Hiccup informed the others. He had heart the ships halt just a moment ago. It would begin now. He sat on Toothless for a while now and his grip was tight enough to make the leather he had between his fingers make gnashing-sounds. He took a deep breath before they flew off, everyone knew where to go and what to do.

The duo arrived at their dedicated place and stayed hidden in the crone of a big tree. It was quiet – really quiet. Hiccup had to admit it, those guys sure knew how to sneak up on someone. Though, of course they weren´t quiet enough for him. He soon heard the screams of terror and fight, heard the dragons and saw the sky lit up with fire when the intruders started their attack.
And then they came. It was actually was a troop slowly entering the area he had to cover. The men at the front were cautious, they looked around and searched the shadows for movements, their shields were constantly raised. But none of them looked upwards – how foolish of them; you would expect one would look up the moment he knew dragons were near. But maybe they didn´t have to deal with the scaly beings all too often in the past. Hiccup nudged his bud with his knee so that they took off into the sky, barely making a sound. Toothless´ black scales blended in perfectly with the dark sky, the new moon provided perfect conditions for them.
Once Hiccup was in the air, he noticed he had a big problem. This wasn´t just a troop. This was a small army. At least 100, maybe 150. They formed a long mass with 5 men in each row. And Hiccup was the only one allocated to this area, getting help would take too much time as well. He leaned forward while he still scanned the crowd beneath them. Toothless looked around wildly; he didn´t like this either, Hiccup could read it in the waves he gave off. “You think we can handle so many?” Toothless made a sound that definitely and absolutely was a hundred percent not sure.
They were in the woods, and while it wouldn´t be easy for the strangers to navigate in here, Hiccup had to take them down, knock them out or stop them somehow else, he couldn´t just throw all of them into the water or trap them in a cave or something. They didn´t expect the attackers to come this way, because it didn´t make any sense and man, they had to be idiots of they chose this as their main path, or they didn´t check out the island beforehand at all. Hiccup knitted his brows together – probably the latter.
            When there was a particular loud roar, accompanied by fire, he saw more than just a few men flinch and look into the direction the sound came from. He bit his lip and squinted his eyes – so they were scared… He could use that. The duo turned around and headed for the head of the formation. Maybe he could scare them off - to induce terror was one of the specialities of a Nightfury, especially with the given conditions. Hiccup whispered Toothless his plan and they dove down a bit. The searing piping sliced through the silence and the men stopped and looked around. They searched the sky, but of course they didn´t see them. The first shot, only a blue ball of energy for a moment, not even a second, landed in front of the feet of the men at the front. Dirt shot everywhere and the place glowed like coals in a forge. The men had stumbled back when the shot hit and Hiccup heard sounds of fear when they rushed over their heads, mostly gasps though. He heard them talk about retreating, then about changing their direction. This plan was foiled when another shot hit the ground, even closer this time, before they even made the first step into the planned direction. The men stared at the place that was still glowing – how did it know they wanted to change their direction?

            Hiccup grinned – it worked. He liked this way of “fighting”. If his plan worked entirely, he wouldn´t have to hurt anyone! He would´ve cheered but of course he couldn´t make a sound that loud now. When Hiccup nudged Toothless to dive down the third time, everything went to shit. He heard the beginning of a distressed whining from one of the dragons, but before he could strain his ears enough to identify the dragon or the problem, someone below yelled a command. From one to another moment the air around them was filled with arrows. They tried to avoid them, but the suddenness of the attack, including the shock it caused, made their movements sloppy and Hiccup saw a few arrows bore through the skin of Toothless´ wings. Before they crash-landed he had transformed already and wrapped his wings around Toothless – he couldn´t let his friend receive even more damage. Those little holes would heal, though, it would take a while and much care. When they rolled around on the ground, he heard that the sound of new arrows being shot in the air stopped and wrath boiled hot in him already. Toothless… They hurt him. They hurt him.

            Hiccup lied on his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows with a grunt through gritted teeth. Sharp teeth, so very very sharp teeth. His head whipped around to the near whining and the sight he was greated with was the last drop. Toothless wailed and tried to stand up but couldn´t – arrows tuck out of his legs and wings. The main body was okay, but the even in the dim light Hiccup saw blood on the black legs. His head whipped back to the men who stepped back at the abrupt movement.

            The thing on the ground was strange. They were sure it was some kind of humanoid being, but it had wings, four of them, scales and actually faintly glowing eyes that began to burn with pure rage. It bared its teeth – no, its fangs at them and snarled a hiss. The wings lifted too fast for the men to follow the movement, flapped down and created a cloud of dust that rushed to them. When the wind stopped, they found themselves in something that was like thick fog, but was actually only dust – still, they couldn´t see anything. Another gush of wind came with even more dirt and the ones standing at the front heard the flapping of strong wings. This time, though, the moment the wind stopped and their lungs filled with dirt, which made them choke and gurgle and cough violently, a deafening, bloodcurdling and plain horrible roar bored its way into their heads and made their brains hurt. Every inch of them hurt while it felt like their bones would vibrate and shatter any moment. They let their armor and weapons carelessly fall to the ground to cover their ears, but it didn´t help at all. The ones at the front even felt physical pressure from the source of the sound, whatever unearthly being that thing was.
            A few rows back, the men only saw dust (if even) through their squinted, tearing eyes, but suddenly there was dimmed light far at the front, it made the dust glow and it would´ve reminded them of a dream or a fairy tail, if it weren´t for the sounds of fire and painful, terrorized screams of grown men meeting their end. The men began to panic and tried to run away from the thing they couldn´t fight, whatever it was that attacked them, but they just bumped into each other and felt themselves being shoved around by others, because none of them saw where they were going (or trying to). The dust was lit up by another glow, this time it was accompanied by heat for them, new wind came up, this time it was even drier and prickling warm, before they had to close their eyes to not be blinded by the extra mix of dust, dirt and whatever laid on the ground in a forest. One man was sure he saw a wing cut through the dust just now, another saw the silhouette of the thing on top of what he was sure was one of their men, its mouth was ripped wide open and he saw the long and pointy fangs between which the light no - fire emitted. He stumbled back in shock, fell and was soon trampled to death by his own comrades, just like a few others that were lucky enough to fall and die in the same way. He didn´t see the mist of dust lift with one strong flap of wings and thus clear the sight. He didn´t see the Halfa grab one of the men´s head and rip it off without effort, before he, while still sitting on the decapitated man´s shoulders, burnt another man to ash in just two seconds. He didn´t see how it began to jump from man to man to either rip off their heads, slice their throats, pierce or bite them. He didn´t see the detached limbs lying in pools of blood on the ground, the burnt bodies whose faces were turned into black and blank spaces, or all the other ripped, squished, scrunched or otherwise broken bodies. He didn´t see how the being chased each of them before it killed them with its claws, fire or teeth. None could escape from it.

            From above, you saw a big cloud of dust, lit up here and there by a still burning corpse or direct fire shot from a mouth filled with poisonous fangs. You saw shadows and silhouettes rush through it in panic, but you didn´t see the terror, the pure fear on the faces. You heard screams and shouts, you heard them ending in gurgling caused by a ripped throat, or you heard them slowly die down from between flames from a particular bright spot in the dull cloud. You heard less and less screams, cries, footsteps and dull thumbs from things falling to the ground. You would feel the heat rising up into the sky, you would see more and more of the red and black mess while the cloud slowly dissolved and revealed what was beneath. You would soon have an easier time making out that one big shadow that rushed from man to man, accompanied by burning heat and even hotter rage. You wouldn´t see the blank green eyes, you wouldn´t see the light leaving others, normal ones, as it did in the green ones that glowed brighter than ever. You couldn´t see the glazed over gaze of two spring-green eyes that sluggishly followed the big, four-winged shadow from their position near the ground. 

            When it was over, when it was silent, though, you would see some last bits of dust hover around in the air. You would see them deck a little bit of the mix of red blood flooding the ground, black burnt bodies that once had faces, bodies and body parts lying around like pieces of broken dolls and unused weapons blinking out from beneath all the mess. You would see the shadow move slowly to the big and black bulk laying a few steps away from the remains of the massacre that just took place. You could follow the movement of the just moments ago raging being when it pulled out the arrows in the most gentle way with a pained expression on its face.

When it was over, when it was silent, you would see a cocoon of dark wings that were smeared with blood. But you wouldn´t see the curled up body within it, that cried and shook while it clutched itself tightly because it feared it would fall apart.

Chapter Text

Hiccup stood at the edge of the cliff. Even though he was naked, no one would see it because all his scales were out and at that time he well… let´s just say he was genderless at that time. Honestly, that was some sort of relief. Also he was alone.
He had his tail for a while now (the horns even longer) and his wings were thicker, which made them stronger and more resistant. But there was something… new. Again. The tail had been a shock already. There were… fins.  On the outer sides of his thighs. They were still growing and he hoped they wouldn´t get too big. They were as big as his hands - his transformed, clawedhands, not just claw-like nails, but actual claws oh gods- already. Though, since they grew, it was way easier to maintain balance, even when his prosthetic was gone. Still he held himself on his foot foot – his long, transformed, also clawed foot - with his tail right now – that thing sure was handy. He learned to hold things, prop himself up or slap Snotlout in the face when walking by and receiving a dumb comment on whatever. But his tail wasn´t what his focus was on right now. He looked down, past the stone and to the water.
It was a warm day, the sea was calm and it didn´t look like a storm would come up – he could smell it.

He leaned forward and let himself fall down the short distance before he found himself underwater. That had been his goal – trying to swim with his wings. He knew already he could hold his breath much longer than he could before the whole Halfa-thing, but now he wanted to test this out. He was still curious after all. With some problems at first he tried to order his wings, when that was done he flapped them like when he was flying – and immediately catapulted himself out of the water. He somewhat stumbled in the air from the sudden and unexpected change between water and air before he flew steadily in one place. Frowning he cupped his chin in one hand and looked further out to the sea. Come to think of – how did Scauldrons and Thunderdrums swim? He decided to observe how they did it before starting another try.

It didn´t take a long flight before he found a whole heard of Thunderdrums. He watched from above and noticed that their movement was… very slow. Hiccup smacked his forehead – of COURSE. Why didn´t he think of that? Of course he had to move slow underwater – it was just like normal swimming. You just can´t move as fast as you do in the air. He dived down and positioned himself carefully, this time it was way easier. He bit his lip and looked around – some Thunderdrums watched him curious. He wanted to take a deep breath – and then remembered that he couldn´t when there wasn´t air. Instead, he began to move his wings slowly – very slowly - but strong. And then grinned when it worked. Though, he moved them other than when he was in the air – he had to let the big joint go downwards first, then the patagium followed while the joint went back upwards already. Also he had to pay attention that he moved the upper and lower wings always in exact different directions to create a good flow. After that it was a piece of cake to maneuver underwater – it was fun. He let his body move in a wave-like motion for good measure and soon swam as fast as the Thunderdrums with ease – even faster. When he was in it, he could move faster and thus rocketed through the water like it was said Mermaids could.

He made the rolls he did with Toothless, he made loops and the rolls he had done when he was very little, the ones you can do forward and backwards. It was so much fun, he even laughed and it took him some time to notice that he could breath underwater. How amazing was that please?! He had to show Fishlegs. And Toothless and Astrid and all the others of course – but first Fishlegs. He was most interested in everything that concerned Hiccups dragon-half. With that decision, he swam upwards and made a big jump out of the water. After a fast roll, all of the water was gone. It was really handy that it pearled off of his scales. 

Chapter Text

It hurt. Before he opened his eyes, he felt the dull pressure in his head already, as if someone would have his hands around his brains and squeeze. But… it was only at the front. Actually it wasn´t even the inside of his head that was plagued with a headache, his forehead and the vague area above it were what hurt. He grumbled and reached with his fingers for the area, but winced and retreated them the moment he touched it – OW.
            With a scowl and a grumbling noise, Hiccup sat up and wriggled his way out of the tangle of black wings and legs. If he wouldn´t have the steady heat in his chest that spread warmth through his entire body all the time, he would´ve shivered at the sheer cold that met him. Now he just noticed the feeling on his skin. His scaly skin. It felt good to have the scales out constantly – especially around this time, so that the cold wind wouldn´t bite into his cheeks or nose. And he couldn´t suppress the slight giddiness he felt when he saw the envious look of Snotlout but who could be mad at him for that? Yes, maybe it was mean… but it was still funny!
            Slowly he stood up and groaned when the pain on his forehead got worse for the moment. His skin felt… too tight; as if someone would pull it backwards so that it pressed against his skull and it wasn´t a comfortable feeling. Toothless nudged him from behind while he stood up as well to shake himself once. Hiccup sighed. “Just another headache buddy.” he assured his worried friend and waved it off.

He got headaches for a while now, they weren´t bad but… well, I suppose everyone knows why you wouldn´t want to have them, no matter how slight they were. Especially if they´re that frequently.
            It started harmless. Once a week, a dull ache, something he would ignore and not even notice when it was gone until he was asked if it was still there. But they came more and more often, so that he had them every day now. He thought he needed more sleep maybe, or something with his eating-habit wasn´t okay, but even though he slept longer, drank more and ate normal food (and not just fish like all the other dragons) and tried not to use his brain too much for new inventions (that was the hardest part) it didn´t help. Not. At. All.
Because of that, he was constantly annoyed by the time that it wouldn’t go away anymore, he even had weird dreams and woke up in the middle of the night, but couldn´t remember what he dreamt about for it slipping away the moment he knew he wasn´t sleeping anymore.

But Hiccup was strong. He had stamina in a physical and mental way, he would endure it and it would go away. He wouldn´t be angry all the time. He tried to smile and be polite, to love and yes, to some degree it worked. But the others saw the bags under his eyes, even though he tried to hide it behind the dark green scales that were a lighter green at the edges. They saw how forced most of the small, thin lipped smiles were. They saw how he clenched his jaw when it got really bad for a moment.

Then at one night, it suddenly happened – it was a full moon and everything had been peaceful, nobody was disturbed by the rain. Until pained screaming interrupted the sleep of nearly all villagers, of course.
It didn´t take a minute even for Stoic to get into his sons room, though he was nearly run over by a panicking Toothless. Or rather – his tail. When he dodged another swing and could step around the big reptilian, he felt his insides run cold the moment his step made a wet sound. The scene was shocking. Hiccup clutched his head and screamed and squirmed on the ground and everywhere was blood smeared on the ground, their sleep-place and Hiccup and Toothless. A little puddle of blood was on the ground already and grew slowly but steadily. The blood seeped out of Hiccups head. What Stoic didn´t see at this moment was that the wound was at the part of the head that was in pain all the time.

But headaches don´t explain all the blood. Well, first of all, wounds of the head always bleed a lot, but now the question was – WHAT was the wound?

Soon Gothi shoved Stoic to the side and tried to fix Hiccup on the ground so that she could have a look at what was wrong, but, knowing Hiccups strength, Stoic and Toothless had to help her to at least keep him from moving too much. The screaming intensified when Gothi tried to preach Hiccups scaly hands from his head that clutched it tightly. When she touched something really hard new bolts of pain shot through Hiccups head and entire body and as a self-protect-mechanism his wings came out and he transformed as far as possible, which catapulted the other three persons in the room away from him. Still wailing, wheezing and crying Hiccup flew off unsteadily, far above the village, to the mountains, until he nearly wasn´t heard anymore.

He crash-landed in a cave and even though he could suppress more screams he couldn´t stop wheezing and grunting through gritted teeth. Nor could he stop the salty tears that were caused by the sheer pain in his head. He clutched it tightly as it felt like his skull was breaking apart. However, he felt that there was something moving underneath his fingers. Something hard that soon pressed against them and he preached his hands from his head so he wouldn´t touch whatever was growing on his head more since it send new bolts of pain through his body each time he did, worse than the ones when he had once been hit by lightning.

He eventually couldn´t handle the pain combined with the exhaustion anymore and passed out.

When Hiccup woke up, he was scared and confused for a moment, because he didn´t know how he got into a cave, but then the memories of last night crashed in on him. Though, his head felt fine, it didn´t hurt at all. Hesitantly, and with shaking fingers, he reached up and very gently felt around. He flinched, more out of shock than pain, when his fingers brushed past… a bony stubble. When he palpated more, it was more than just a stubble, though, it felt like… like… “Horns? Seriously!?” he groaned.
Sure enough, he discovered an identical horn on the other side of his head, perfectly mirrored. They were extremely blunt and very little, they probably didn´t even reach through his hair, but still. When he searched the rest of his head, he found two much littler stubbles near the little horns, half behind and half below them. Upon discovering that it were four and not just two horns, he groaned once more.
A rare shiver went through him, so he curled into a ball and wanted to will his wings to curl around him too. It was then, though, that he noticed that he was fully human. Without further thought, he transformed, but a short piercing feeling on his head made his hands fly up to the horns. Slowly, as he curled his wings around him, he felt them shift and grow in length and width. They got pointier, to a point where it would hurt if he pressed his fingertips on the ends. It didn´t hurt as much, though. Actually, the short pinch at the beginning was it, the rest of it was just the feeling of awareness of growth, like it was with his wings or the scales. And just like with the scales and wings, he could control if he wanted them to grow or not, but not how far or much. Thus, he could only wait for the horns to stop growing, which they did after they were big enough to triple the width of his head. The lower ones were significantly smaller than the upper ones. He felt them after they stopped and tried to built a mental image. First, they grew horizontally away from his head, then, half back- and half upwards, diagonally back into the direction of his head, but in a rounding manner, again back- and upwards and, at last, upwards and away from his head. They were edgier than the horns he knew, usually the horns were in smooth curves. His had edges at their turns and even though he could feel indentations as rings around them, the surfaces of the individual parts were rather straight and not really rippled or crooked. The lower ones were just smaller and had one turn less, but other than that they felt just like the bigger ones. Come to think of it, it felt like bone and when he prodded one, he felt the tug on his entire skull… which was a really odd feeling. Just ...super odd.

The skin around the horns was okay, it didn´t hurt or itch, as if the horns had always been there.
Hiccup looked down at himself, light streamed in and with his scales out and the warmth in his chest, he didn´t need to curl into his wings anymore. He wore, as always when he was on Berk, his customized clothing, which left his arms and back bare. He had sewn it himself so he wouldn´t have to take off his shirt every time he wanted to transform. Or would rip it to shreds accidentally. Maybe he could add a hood or something – foreign tribes didn´t respond that well upon seeing a human-dragon-mix without any preparation and or explanation. His trousers and one boot were the same as always. A growing suspicion based on a more and more frequently appearing tug at the end of his spine however, told him he probably would have to change that soon too. Maybe he was imagining it, because he couldn´t see any evidence that confirmed his suspicions, which was why he quickly stuffed them and any related thoughts into a far off corner in his mind and jumped to his feet. Then, he stumbled, because, even if the horns felt light, he still had to adjust to them.

“So. Horns. It could be worse,” he told himself, “I could´ve gotten a whole crown of them like a Nadder, or giant ones like a Nightmare…” he shuddered “…or wart-like stubbles everywhere like a Gronckle.” Not that he thought Gronckles were particularly ugly, but they weren´t the prettiest dragons and Hiccup would´ve looked rather bad than just odd with wart-like stubbles everywhere. He wasn´t one to fuss much over his appearance, but even he had a limit.

Upon stepping into sunlight and stretching his wings (which he couldn´t do in the crammed cave) he discovered that he was nearly at the top of one of the mountains and that he could still see the village. He jumped off the stone-plateau and fell a fair amount of his way down before he spread his wings and easily caught enough air in them to soar upwards.

When he arrived at the village, he sought out his father, who was, accompanied by Toothless, walking over the plaza in the middle of the village at that moment. Toothless run up to Hiccup happily as said landed on the ground, concern and heavy relieve flooded the waves he send out. He licked Hiccups face once and Hiccup shoved him playfully groaning away. Then, still halfway leaning on Hiccup with his forelegs on his shoulders, the black dragon expected the horns with wide and curious, but also happy pupils. The dragon attempted to nibble on them, but Hiccup dodged at the last moment with a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, they´re real.”
When Stoick reached them, Toothless slumped back to his four feet and hurried off, probably informing the other dragons of his humans arrival (even though Hiccup doubted they didn´t notice already). Stoick´s expression remained stern as he inspected the horns, never giving away even a hint of anything. Then his face cleared, he clapped a freckled shoulder with his big hand and shook it with a short, but hearty laugh. “I´m glad you´re okay. Don´t scare me like that again.”

“I won´t.” Hiccup smiled.

“Wow! Horns?!” that was the only warning he got, before he had a twin hanging on each of his horns. He bowed forward and somehow freed himself from the hands.

“Okay, okay, NO pulling at the horns.” he made clear and the twins groaned at the new rule. Then there was a curious prod at the lower left one. Aaaaaand he turned to Fishlegs, who had the book of dragons in his hands. Behind him, Hiccup saw the twins trying to tug on the Horns of Barf and Belch but miserably failing to reach the heads.  “It´s amazing! There aren´t horns in the book even a bit similar to yours, except the curving of course.” explained Fishlegs. “How do they feel?”

Hiccup pulled his brows up. “Actually like an extension of my skull?” something hooked around one horn and he was pulled downwards. Gothi had used the crook of her staff to brin Hiccup down to eye-level. Not that she was looking at his face, his horns caught her attention. She pushed the hair aside and saw the neat change between skin and horn. No angry red skin, no swelling, not bleeding, nothing. With a firm nod she send Hiccup back into an upright position, where he stumbled to regain his balance. Then, she hit him on the back of his head for scaring her before she went her way.

Next thing he knew, he had a three-hour conversation with Fishlegs only about the horns (and later the wings and scales) and then spent another hour sketching them with the help of a mirror for the journal. It had been Fishlegs idea to keep track of his steps of transformation in a journal and it did help… kind of. Though the pictures were a struggle each time. As usual when breeding over a new entry, he fell asleep right after he finished his notes.

Chapter Text

It wasn´t often that Hiccup took a longer flight alone, but sometimes he did. This time, he was visiting another tribe that had asked for help via a Terrible Terror. The little guy had exhausted himself entirely to bring the message to Berk as fast as possible and Hiccup had taken off immediately. It was good he didn´t hesitate, since the situation had worsened in the time it took him to arrive. There had been a group of dragons that had decided to settle on the already populated island, but they wanted to drive said population away. The humans AND the dragons there. As one would expect, it didn´t take long for a relatively violent dispute to break out. When Hiccup arrived, he was greeted with countless injured members of the residents and the newcomers. The resident clan of the island would accept the new dragons without any complains, if they agreed to live peacefully next to them. When Hiccup brought these conditions to the dragons however, they denied. Luckily, Hiccup knew an unpopulated island nearly with the exact same conditions as the island they were on had and was able to persuade the leader of this newly forming nest to move to the unpopulated island. Though, he had to help them to settle which took two days, but at least they parted in peace.

Upon arriving at Berk he didn´t hear the usual cheers (that were heard even when he just flew by) and couldn´t spot a Viking that was running for him, like usually when he had been gone for a few days. It wasn´t like it clouded his mood or anything, he wasn´t an attention-hog, but it puzzled him nonetheless. He didn´t land on the outside of the village (meaning the closest ground to him) but flew higher and to the main plaza. He heard noise from there, so there would be people – including whatever drew enough attention to gather them up there.

He flew high and, with lazily slow but still oh so strong flaps of his wings, in circles, unnoticed by all those beneath him. The villagers built a crowd around an easily spotted Hookfang, but also Snotlout and… Fishlegs? Oh no, those two weren´t fighting again, were they? On the edge of the crowd, apparently also watching, he saw the twins and Astrid, also Barf, Belch and Stormfly. Toothless was nowhere to be seen. He couldn´t pick up any distressed waves from below, only a few, really weak ones further away – he would get to this later.

“A Monstrous Nightmare such as this one isn´t worthy to be my dragon, you can keep him. A dragon that is worthy enough to be mine, Thor Bonecrushers, needs to be the strongest, the fiercest and fastest. Its fire needs to be hot enough to burn away even scales. It needs to be unique and feared, one that scares my opponents at sight alone. Only then I will know which of them will be worthy enough to fight against me. All those scared away by a mere dragon, and is it the best of them all, couldn´t bear the fear creeping through them from being confronted with me!” declared Thor Bonecrusher. The crowd around him cheered for him. Astrid sighed annoyed, the twins were unimpressed and bored as well. Since Fishlegs was hypnotized he acted as if he was a demi-god. While he impressed the twins at the start, he didn´t anymore since he wouldn´t destroy anything for them or would let them cause mischief. For Vikings that dedicated their lives to Loki this was the worst punishment. They were bored out of their minds, which was never good. Also, Thor Bonecrusher was acting like a huge jerk around Meatlug, which was, by now, even too depressed to wear her saddle and Thor didn´t even care. >>Fishlegs would…<< thought Astrid and looked up, only so that she wouldn´t have to look at a seemingly lovesick Snotlout anymore. Oh yeah, to top it off, Snotlout was acting like a love-sick puppy around Thor, as soon as he began to pull of his insane stunts. Though, he DID rescue a baby from being overrun by a wheelbarrow. Long story.
When Astrid looked up her face lit up and she nudged Ruffnut hard before she pointed upwards. This, and the big grin on her face, got the attention of the other Vikings and it took exactly three seconds for the mass to recognize the familiar silhouette against the sun and start to cheer. Well, they cheered before, but now, upon seeing that Hiccup arrived back home, they cheered louder and upwards to the sky. When Thor looked upwards, his lips curled into his signature grin while he narrowed his eyes. A four-winged dragon that was already cheered on would make a great ride, wouldn´t it?

Hiccup snickered before he decided to dive down. He wouldn´t understand the situation from up there anyway. He landed in front of Astrid first, meaning his back was turned to Fishlegs Thor as he folded his wings. “I´m back.” he grinned his dorky grin and pulled out a lovely blue flower of one of the pockets that were attached to the belt around his hip. “And I have a wonderful gift for a wonderful woman.” He added in a joking tone while Astrid took the flower snickering (and lightly punching him). Before she could say something, however, the stem of an axe was slung around Hiccups neck from behind and he was pulled backwards with a startled yelp. He flapped his wings frantically, partially to get whatever latched onto him off him, partially to gain balance. Unfortunately though, whatever it was held on tight, then a fleshy but strong hand clasped around his neck and was nearly choking him. Hiccup made one strong flap with his wings and thus catapulted him and his attacker into the air, so that he wouldn´t pull any villagers into the fight. “HA-HA! WHAT IMPRESSIVE WINGS YOU GOT THERE, BUT YOU WON´T GET ME OFF SO EASILY! YOU WILL BE MINE IF YOU WANT TO OR NOT, SO BETTER JUST SURRENDER TO ME, THOR BENOCRUSHER, ALREADY!” shouted Fishlegs of all people from the direction of his back before the grip around his throat tightened even more. Hiccup panicked and tossed and turned around in the air, but the grip wouldn´t loosen a bit. When he began to see black spots appear everywhere, he abandoned all caution, gripped behind him, dug his claws into some piece of cloth and ripped his captivator off his back with all his strength. But since Fishlegs was still really heavy, the action created so much momentum it made the human slip from his grasp. He was catapulted to the ground. Hiccup gulped down air but coughed violently at the same time, which resulted in him nearly choking. Thor landed on his feet and broke into a run towards the slowly downwards slumping but obviously hurting Halfa. Hiccup still gripped his crushed throat when he kneeled on the ground.

Fishlegs crushed his throat.

Fishlegs crushed his throat.

HE CRUSHED. HIS. T̴̴͝HROA̴͜T̴.

The war-cry of Thor Bonecrusher was answered with a furious roar of a fuming Halfa, but he didn´t even slow down. Hiccup took a warning stance and crouched on all four on the ground while his giant wings were high up and spread out. It was a typical dragon technique, which was supposed to make him appear bigger. Hiccup recognized the axe in Fishlegs grip, it was his fathers.

How dare he. How d̸a̷ŗe he.

As soon as he was sure his throat was finished with healing and all the black spots disappeared, he flapped his wings and thus stormed towards Fishlegs. His claws bored deep into the hard earth beneath him as he raced forward and until he slammed into Fishlegs´ stomach. The action ripped Thor from his feet and completely off the earth, because Hiccup held tight unto him and flew higher. His fingers dug deep into the flesh, but the Halfa didn´t care about that at this moment, he just flew higher. Higher and higher, until he was at a point where humans had struggle to breath. Only humans.

Snotlout cried out alarmed when the axe clattered to the ground and a furious Hiccup flew higher and higher with Thor. The villagers couldn´t even see them anymore until the two suddenly rocketed downwards towards the water and disappeared in the waves.

The watchers held their breath and looked around frantically in search of any sign. Some seriously began to panic, fearing he would drown Thor Bonecrusher, but then Hiccup broke out of the water and crashed with Fishlegs back into the plaza. He had let go of the blonde and skidded over the ground to stop himself in the speed he was flying at. His claws dug deep into the ground and left marks before he finally stopped. Dripping, crouching and growling with burning eyes. Thor coughed a bit and fought his way back to his feet after he spit out some seawater. “Noẁ e̴x͞pļain ̨w̵h̛y̕ ̕yo͠u ͝tried ̶t͢o ki̕ll͏ ̶m̢e̴!” roared Hiccup and everyone around him, except Thor, flinched at his voice. The dragons that were near backed off slowly and let their heads sink nearly to the ground to show submission. “Kill? Ha! Maybe you aren´t as feisty as I thought you would be, dragon! I was showing you who is boss! Training!” shouted Thor back at Hiccup arrogantly. The growling got louder, the villagers that stood nearby saw the muscles on Hiccups back and legs stiffen more. “Trai͘nin͟g?́ T̸͡R̛͝A̵̕IN̢̕I͜͜͟N̡͠G̕?!̢͢ Y̸O҉U͜ CR͟US̴HED̷ ͟M͘Y T̀͟H̵͟R̸̕O̵̷̢A͘T͘͢!́ Y̨OU͘ WO͞ULD͡A̸ K̡IL̨LE̛D̡ M̶E I͡F I̴T̶ ̀WA͞S̕N̕´T ̕FÓR҉ M̕Y͜ ͜H̨ÉA̸L͢ING-A̢BB͠ILI̡T́Y!̡” roared Hiccup and crouched more, ready to jump and teach this human a lesson. “Ẁ͡H͏̷AT̕͟´͜͏̸S ̧G̨͡͡ǪT̢̀T͜͏É̸N͝ ̸I̛N̢͟Ţ̵͜Ơ̛͟ ̡͘Y̧̕O͢͝U ̷̴F̴I̛SHL̸͢E͏̴̧GS̢?͝!” he roared. He knew his voice wasn´t human anymore. He wasn´t raging though, he was in full control and could stand up and walk away any second. But the waves from Fishlegs showed pure confidence and something else that was pissing off the dragon in him enormously.
Fishlegs got angry when he was called by his name. “For The last time: I. AM. THOR. BONECRUSHER!” he roared and started another run into Hiccups direction. Said, however, jumped upwards in the last moment, landed behind Fishlegs, jumped towards the other Viking´s back and slammed him into the ground. He sat on his upper back and pinned his arms with his foot and fake-foot down. One of his hands held his head down. “Thor Bonecrusher?” asked Hiccup puzzled.

“You heard that right dragon!” grunted Fishlegs beneath Hiccup and tried to squirm his way out of his position, but there was no escape. Hiccup was still much stronger than Fishlegs. “And once I tamed you, I will not only rule this island full with my admirers, I will also conquer others!” he grunted, but, yeah: no. “Not as long as I´m here.” hissed Hiccup. These goals didn´t just piss off the more dominant thinking dragon in him, but his usually calm human side as well. Fishlegs ruling over Berk with this behavior? Hiccup sure didn´t think so. He pinned Fishlegs´ head down a bit harder to silence him. The crowd around them was mostly silent, except the twins, which cheered quickly, then run off to cause some mischief.

“Hiccup? Are you hurt?” as he turned his head, he saw Astrid jogging over to him, as well as Snotlout. An angry and hurt Hookfang made her way to him as well, but slower. “No… I´m okay now.” He pressed his legs down harder as Thor or Fishlegs or whoever tried to take advantage of the distraction. “But a crushed throat isn´t exactly a pleasant feeling.” added Hiccup grumbling.

“Hey, get off him!” shouted Snotlout and threw his arms in a shooing-motion around. “Huh?” Hiccup leaned away from him because big waves of worry and affection practically seeped out of Snotlout and to be honest, it gave Hiccup the willies. It mostly confused him, though. Astrid rolled her eyes at that. “Okay, long story short: Fishlegs started to sneeze every time he was around Meatlug, and eventually the twins, who seem to be experts at this, found out that he was reacting allergic to Meatlug herself. So we wanted to hypnotize him that he wasn´t allergic to her, but then Snotlout began to talk about messing with Fishlegs so that he would be strong and unstoppable and stuff and as soon as Fishlegs woke up he was >Thor Bonecrusher<”, she made air-quotations with her fingers, “…and now he´s running around like a maniac and pulls all kinds of crazy stunts. That´s why Snotlout kind of fell in love with him. And yeah, I know, urgh. Also, Fishlegs broke Gothi´s staff, so she can´t re-hypnotize him.” Hiccup blinked, then, he sighed deeply. “Is there… any other way to get him to snap out of it?” after saying that, he dug his nails a bit more into Fishlegs´ head-skin as a warning, because he was trying to get out again. He held still after that. He apparently understood that Hiccup could crush his skull if he wanted to do so. Not that he ever would of course, but Thor Bonecrusher didn´t know that. “Gothi said he would have to receive a strong shock, but we couldn´t find anything he is scared of so far. We even had to pull him off of a Scauldrons head as he tried to train it… though, it was more the brutal way.” Hiccup pulled his brows together. “Yeah, I experienced that kind of training.”
There was a pause until Hiccup sighed and leaned downwards, towards Fishlegs´ head. “If you won´t try anything stupid again, I will let you go.” Fishlegs grunted something that sounded like a very grumpy yes, so Hiccup mentioned for Astrid to step back a bit and flew off of Fishlegs, only to land next to Astrid. While Hiccup went back to his human form, they watched how Snotlout tried to help Thor back to his feet but was pushed back. Suddenly, Hookfang dropped to the ground next to Hiccup and puffed angered. Her constant glare hid the hurt she felt and send off perfectly. Except for Hiccup, of course. Said purred questioningly into her direction. After all, she was trying to get his attention with her actions. Monstrous Nightmares were just too proud to run and search help from him in an obvious way, or admit they needed help at all. Hiccup was glad that she went to him with her problems without major trouble, it meant that she really trusted and liked him. When he received the angry answer, however, he glared at Snotlout. His cousin jerked back at that, but quickly followed Thor as said stomped off angrily. “You know what, yes, you can stay with me for a while as his punishment.” Astrid snorted at that. “Wow, good luck with three dragons in your house then.” without any further explanation Astrid went away and left a puzzled Hiccup.

Come to think of it, where was Toothless?

When Hiccup got home with Hookfang, it dawned on him what Astrid meant. And when he stepped inside, his suspicions were confirmed. There was Toothless, comforting a depressed Meatlug, next to his very unhappy father. “Hiccup, it´s good to see you´re back.” gritted Stoick out between gnashed teeth. “Well, it´s good to be back.” Hiccup hesitated. “So, uh, Dad, ever imagined what it would be like to live together with three and a half dragon?” before his father could answer Hookfang bent her head down far enough so that it could be seen from inside the house. Stoick jumped to his feet. “No, NO! I already live with two dragons and a third is my limit, I won´t live with four!” he threw his arms up before he halted in front of his son. “Get those dragons back to their owners. Until then, you stay in the arena.” He jabbed his pointing finger into Hiccup chest a few times while talking, then, he went outside. Hiccup heard him mutter under his breath all the way.
Left with three dragons that stared at him expectantly, he shrugged. “Well, you heard him, the arena it is then.”

Though, while walking there with three dragons as his company, he walked directly into the next dispute. Said dispute was between Thor and his father. Oh boy.

“Give. Me. Back. My. Axe.”

“Oh, you mean my axe? I don´t think so.”

Hiccup sighed.

“Fishlegs.” Stoick drew the name out in a warning tone.

“It´s Thor. Bonecrusher.” answered Thor angrily.

Both looked like they were about to jump at each-other´s throats.

>>How did this become my life…<< thought Hiccup as he sighed again. “That´s the third time they´re having this fight.” informed him Ruffnut, who just appeared next to Hiccup.

Her twin appeared on his other side. “How much do you wanna bet that they ´re gonna fight for real this time?”

“They aren´t, because I´m going to stop them before they can.” interfered Hiccup and walked over to the two bulky Vikings. Both were bigger than him, had more muscles than him and yes – but the funny part was, that he was still the strongest of the three.
He stepped up to them with his hands raised in a calming manner. “Okay, Thor? Why don´t you give that old, used Axe back and get yourself a shiny new one? Maybe one that´s even stronger? I´m sure a guy like you would like things that… fit to him?” okay, maybe he should´ve thought this to the end before making his move.
Fishlegs – no – Thor turned to Hiccup with a grin that was too confident, too smug and too not-nice to fit on Fishlegs´ face. And boy did it piss off Hiccups inner dragon. His father send him warning glare at how his son spoke about his favorite axe, but Hiccup ignored that for the moment.
“While you may be right about me only deserving the best and most fitting, I like the feeling of this axe much more. All the slaughter – as if it clings to it and sends it back to me.  Want to see how well I can handle it, dragon?” Thor looked him up and down, before he pulled his brows together. He turned to Hiccup completely and thus blatantly ignored his chief, who was silently fuming about the disrespect. But he knew his son would handle this. Said made a little motion with his hand, merely more than a twitch – though it reached two spring-green eyes as intended. “You look like the dragon – but you´re clearly not like him at all. Are you brothers?” Hiccup remembered that Fishlegs had already turned away before Hiccup had transformed back to his human form – okay, well, he could use this. “Uh – yes! My brother is uh probably around here somewhere. I usually stay in the house and uh make… bread.” The dragons behind him puffed. They didn´t like it that their leader had to hide his position. It was a proud position - he was the leader of the dragons! He shouldn´t have to hide from anything! Though, they didn´t rumble further, already used to this knack of hiding. Thor squinted at him. “Then what are the dragons doing with you?” Hiccup bit his lip and made another movement with his fingers. Two out of three now. “Oh, I am in charge of the dragons when my brother is uh busy.”
>>I should definitely improve my bluffing-skills<<. He stepped to the side as Thor moved the arm with the axe into the perfect position. “NOW!” Hiccup shouted. Toothless, already waiting for the command, rushed forward. Hiccup jumped, landed on Toothless, the axe was snatched away from Fishlegs and both, human and dragon, soared into the sky. Well, at least now his father and Thor didn´t have a reason to fight anymore… technically. Hookfang slowly followed her leader, as did Meatlug, though she stayed a few seconds longer to whine into the direction of her human. Said just turned and stomped off. Depressed the Gronckle flew off as well.

Chapter Text

„And it´s really okay?“

Astrid rolled her eyes. It was a week until Snoggletog and the dragons were about to leave for the little island further south, where it was warm and they laid their eggs (and began to raise their hatchlings). And the dragons wanted Hiccup to come with them – he wanted to go there as well, it was a strange tugging feeling in his gut that told him where to go, but he wasn´t sure if he could leave the village just like that.

“Yes, just like the last hundred times I told you.” Astrid smiled with a soft sigh. Hiccup was always such a worrywart around this time of the year. He sighed, he still didn´t like it but… “Okay.” He pecked her cheek, waved and soon after they took off.

The fly to the island was relaxing, also kind of refreshing - he hasn´t been able to fly in the last few days that often because he was busy with lifting heavy things while the preparations for Snoggletog were running. It was good to feel some air fill his wings and fly around lazily – and not weighted down by heavy stuff. Funny thing was, that no matter how slow he flew, the other dragons were set on flying always a bit behind him. He stopped once just as a test and really – they stopped and waited for him to continue. He snorted – sometimes the dragons slightly overdid it with letting him be their leader. Sometimes it was freaking him out, sometimes it was just funny and sometimes he didn´t even know what to think of their behavior. After his little test he flew all the way to the island in a normal pace, because he really didn´t want to upset the dragons. He knew their instincts screamed louder at them then his at him.

            When they arrived at the island, there were some dragons already, otherwise than the year before. Or… ever before. Probably because he took so long to set off this year. When they landed, the foreign dragons craned their necks to get a look at Hiccup, stared, stared longer, somewhat bowed and went back to their business after he nodded back to them. Same as always, then.

It took only a day for all dragons to arrive. Hiccup was mostly in the loose circle the dragons of the gang made. They were at the same place as they were every year, a little platform that lied higher than the rest of the island, only slightly though. At the second day, however, he noticed that something had to be wrong, or, at least, not right. He felt uneasiness radiate off of some of the dragons, as if something was troubling but not frightening or annoying them. It was… weird. Later that day, maybe around noon, he noticed something else – they avoided a certain spot on the island he couldn´t see because there was a platform and hidden behind it was the lower basis which was avoided. He didn´t deem it important though, maybe there was just another dragon that was a bit overprotective or not well-liked by his nest.

            At the third day, however, when the dragons sorted themselves by breeds because it was about time the hatchlings hatched, and the Gronckles, which included Meatlug, wanted to bring their eggs to the certain spot from the day before, he felt hesitation, uneasiness and uncertainty around the whole island - from every Gronckle, to be exactly. Okay, more than just weird. He stood up and said he was going to check this out, whatever it was. With the knowledge that her leader would and could protect her, Meatlug snatched all her three eggs in a hurry and flew over to the Gronckle-hatching-spot as Hiccup called it and let her eggs drop into one of the with water filled holes just a second before they exploded. When Hiccup arrived (he flew slowly and lazily, it was the warmth) the little hatchlings were out of the water already, but instead of a proud or happy feeling, Hiccup noticed the distress of Meatlug. Then he saw why. Her hatchlings were playing with something white and the moment he landed, he saw that it was another hatchling, and that it wasn´t completely white. Meatlug hesitated before she rushed forward and grabbed her hatchlings to bring them back to the rest of the gang´s dragons. The little white something was a little white dragon and Hiccup stared at it with eyes so wide they looked as if they would fall out.
The little something sat on the ground and stared back with big and happy crystal-blue eyes. Its ears flopped and flicked around in an excited manner. Hiccup couldn´t stop to stare. He just couldn´t. Eventually he shut his mouth with a silent click from his teeth (he didn´t notice it hang open) and gulped. The hatchling looked… looked like a white version of Toothless. It licked its upper lip and Hiccup noticed its tongue was bluer than Toothless´ was. Then he noticed more differences. The form of the ears was different; they were longer, pointier at the end and had little rounded excesses (for the lack of better word) on the outer sides of the ears each, two on the big ones, one on the littler ones. The eyes were relatively bigger, but that was probably because it was a hatchling – but the form was… different. The lower edge was… well… edgier. And there was a light blue fleck of color around its left eye, which was on the right from where Hiccup looked. The patagium was a dark blue and there were strange light blue groups of bigger scales on his big ears (they were located higher on the left one, closer to the head on the right one) and on two of its leg (front left, right hind leg). Also the “tooth” on the hind legs were… more, and there were some on its front legs, but at the front, not at the back. Its tail seemed longer and the things between its four patagium were like spikes, the same things on the fins at the sites (where the hip would be) were more numerous. It looked like Toothless… but at the same time it didn´t. BUT it was utterly adorable. And, seemingly, highly thrilled by Hiccup. He had around five seconds to scan it and mark the differences, before it jumped to its legs and half fluttered and half run over to him. Huh – its wings were relatively bigger than Toothless´. It jumped and flopped against Hiccups chest, from where it climbed onto his shoulders, already purring, then over his back and Hiccup felt little (too sharp for a hatchlings) claws dug into his scaled skin before it seemingly turned and returned to his shoulders. It settled, purred harder and nibbled at his collarbone, before it licked his cheek. He chuckled, grabbed the little dragon and held it at arm’s length. It grinned happily at him with… with a mouth full of already pointy teeth. Dragon teeth weren´t that pointy. Especially not when they´re hatchlings. But this one was just as jumpy, overly happy and had flipping feelings radiating off of it as the other hatchlings had – it just had to be a hatchling.
Okay, so it was a hatchling with surprisingly sharp teeth. Nothing to worry about… hopefully. Then, it retracted its teeth just like Toothless and Hiccup nearly dropped it. Okay. Okay.

            Hiccup looked around to maybe find a parent, but there wasn´t a single dragon that looked alike. He sniffed closer at the dragon and jerked his head back in surprise – that didn´t smell like a dragon – more like ice, snow or just… winter. “What the…” he whispered and scanned the seemingly normal hatchling again. Oh, it was a he. Okay.

…

WAIT.

Was that… was that maybe another Nightfury?!

He had to show Toothless.

So he tucked the hatchling firmly with its chest against his chest as if he would cuddle with his cushion and flew back to the others.

Obviously, the other dragons didn´t like the hatchling in Hiccups arms. They leaned back and shooed their own hatchlings under their wings while glaring at the still happy white hatchling. It had somehow turned around so that it faced the other dragons and not Hiccups throat. Toothless came closer, but his eyes were squinted and he was close to crouching. Hiccup saw and heard him sniffing and just as Hiccup did, Toothless jerked back – jumped back. “Toothless? What´s up? Hey, I thought, because you look so similar, think it´s another Nightfury?” Toothless looked at him as if he was offended, but then quickly and heavily shook his head. Hiccup felt his shoulders slump. He caused a shift in the atmosphere around him with this, which caught the attention of the dragons that were around. “You sure? I mean, I know he smells… kinda weird.” Toothless deadpanned at him and Hiccup rolled his eyes. “Okay, he smells really weird, but look at him! You could be brothers.” Toothless gave an unpleased puffed snort and turned his head away. Hiccup felt the waves that came from Toothless, which were the impressions of slight anger, annoyance and… Hiccup frowned… “Are you… are you seriously jealous?” he asked flabbergasted because wow. That was… new. Toothless turned his head further away, so that he had to crane his neck in a way that looked painful. Hiccup felt a twinge of guilt.
He knew it was a touchy subject for Toothless. Hiccup sighed, put the little dragon down and walked over to Toothless to cuddle his big stubborn head. After a few seconds, he let go of it, but put his hands at its sides so that Toothless was looking at him. In the same second he let his wings form a cocoon around them for some privacy and now leaned his forehead against Toothless´.
“You know, I would and could never replace you. You´re my best friend, my mate in the soul and you know that too. The side of me that is human will be your human as long as I live and your scent is the one prominent on me. You come first whatever happens, so… will you trust me with this when I say we should… just try?” Toothless just stared back. Hiccup could nearly see the thoughts trash around behind these spring-green eyes.

Toothless didn´t like the thought of his human being near this… this thing. It didn´t smell like a dragon, it was odd and why did it have to look like Toothless?! He was the Nightfury, the thought of being just a Nightfury suddenly displeased him. Though he trusted his human to hold his word… what if something happened to Toothless? What if he died? The thought his human could bind himself to another dragon that was just as good, as powerful, as intelligent as him, maybe even better than him made him sick. It made him as sick as the thought his human could bind himself additionally to another dragon that was younger than him, that would live longer. When his human sighed, he searched his forest green eyes with his. He saw sincerity mixed with a speck of sympathy and sadness. Nostalgia? His human let his gaze drop down and the weight on his forehead increased, which meant his human leaned further to him.
“There are no parents. I don´t want him to get hurt if they´re just away for a while. And if there are no parents at all, I want… I would want him to get a family. I know how it feels to grow up when you feel alone all the time.” He whispered. Toothless felt the heavy waves in front of him and made a noise that would be a defeated sigh if he was human, before he nudged the freckled head.

The little white dragon, an absolute new species as all the dragons had assured him, quickly grew attached to Hiccup. It tried to be near him all the time, so that even the other dragons of the gang had no other choice than to accept him near them and their hatchlings. Comes out, they even grew attached to it a little bit too, and they got used to it to be around them. Of course, they still synchronized every day (it was great with so many dragons, though nothing Hiccup would want forever), and the little white guy would resist to let his place in Hiccup´s lap get taken from him. Hiccup didn´t mind it, he sat cross-legged all the time anyway, at home it would be a Terrible Terror in his lap, and the little guy wasn´t that much heavier. Hiccup knew the hatchlings didn´t skip in on the synchronization for the first weeks, but, apparently, whatever breed he was, the little guy was ahead of his fellow hatchlings. He skipped in. Sure, he wasn´t loud or hit the right tone, but he tried and that wasn´t anything that would be worrying Hiccup too much, but made him even more curious. He studied the white dragon. When they got home, he wanted to go through the book of dragons again to make sure this new breed was a new breed after all, but he was sure he was. Somehow, he wanted to name this breed Nattfari. It could be translated as someone walking through dreams, “dreamwalker” for short, and that had a special reason. Every time the little guy slept cuddled up next to Hiccup, he would have strange dreams with a singing voice in it. It wasn´t bothering him, he heard of much stranger dragons and –look at him! A dragon causing a voice that sang in dreams wasn´t something Hiccup thought was worth worrying over.
            Anyway, as said, the little Nattfari followed Hiccup around, but it was more a stumbling half-flying-jumping-walking mix than anything else and it was as awkwardly clumsy and adorable as it was with every other hatchling. It wasn´t that big of a surprise when he stumbled, but, around the fourth day, when the dragons began to experiment with fire for the first time and sneezed out little flames, the Nattfari stumbled and a second later, the ground in front of him was covered in a thin layer of sky-blue ice with streaks of white frost. It sat up, remained on its butt and wriggled its nose (with a cross-eyed look at said) and Hiccup couldn´t resist to lift it up. He nearly dropped it. It was… it was freezing cold. Again, he held the Nattfari at arm´s length and eyed it up and down. It was still focused on its nose and mouth before it sneezed (with the same adorable small noise the other hatchlings made). Some white dusk flew out of its mouth instead of a small flame and a second later, Hiccup felt frost settle on his face and hair. He shook his head and it disappeared. “Wow…” he breathed “An ice-spitter. Well, that´s something new.”

On the fifth day, Hiccup made a decision Toothless wasn´t so happy to hear about. His human wanted to… wanted to keep this other dragon. Hiccup said there weren´t any parents or other dragons showing concern about the little guy and Hiccup couldn´t just leave him. For Hiccup, it felt like the right thing to do, it was nearly instinctual.

Hiccup sits cross-legged next to Toothless, who lied in his usual pose. The black dragon glared at the white one as his human played with the little paws. The white dragon obviously enjoyed himself and Hiccup chuckled at the way happiness literally bubbled out of the little being in an uncoordinated way.

“You know, you two look even more alike when you smile. If you ignore the colors, you could be brothers.” Toothless glared more and sneered at the littler dragon before he turned his head away. Hiccup sighed at that, again. The Nattfari looked back and forth between Halfa and Nightfury, before he made his unsteady way over to the other dragon and nuzzled his front with his cold head. Toothless tried his hardest to ignore the hatchling, but it didn´t take long for his glare to soften and fall before he nuzzled the littler one back. Maybe he could find him at least a bit cute. The hatchling purred happily, then struggled his way back into Hiccups lap to take a nap. Toothless closed his eyes in defeat and lied his head down as well. Before he fell asleep as well, he felt the light sensation of two wings settle over him in an affectionate manner.
Hiccup leaned back against the warm rock with his wings around his own private little dragon family. It felt as right as flying.

When the dragons returned to Berk, they were welcomed with happy cheers and loads of fish. The fest could begin.

In the crowd of humans and dragons, Hiccup searched Astrid – the Nattfari, newly dubbed Jokul, clung to his back. He developed that handy habit not long before they set off to Berk. When he found the blonde, they hugged each other briefly. Before neither could say something, however, Astrid saw a white head pop up on top of Hiccups, little hind legs stood on his shoulder, the front legs clung at the brunet head. Hiccup grinned sheepishly. “Look who I found.” He stated and waited for Astrid to say something, anything, but she just stared at the white dragon.

“He looks a lot like Toothless, is he…?” Hiccup shook his head, which looked funny because the head on top of his shook with it.

“No, he smells entirely different and the other dragons say it´s a breed they wouldn´t know as well.”

While he spoke, Astrid stared up to the white dragon, which stared right back at her. That was, until it grinned with a mouth full of too pointy teeth. The eyes squinted in a too dorky and adorable way to let the action seem harmful, however. Astrid decided they would keep it.

The dragon retracted its teeth and let a small, blu-ish purple-ish tongue hang out instead. Okay, she thought, they would definitely keep it.

“Also, he spits ice. I think it´s an entirely undiscovered species, right Jokul?” there was a strong nodding sensation on his head and Hiccup was sure the pointy ears whipped with the head.

Astrid made a mental note to kick Hiccup out of the house if he wouldn´t let her keep it.

She just had to keep it.

“And, you see, I couldn´t find any parents… and the other dragons didn´t know about him either, so… can we keep him?” Hiccup made his best expression of sheepish puppy-dog eyes and after a second of looking down, the white dragon hurried to copy the expression. Astrid smirked. Little Jack-Ass huh?

“Thought you would never ask.”

Chapter Text

Three.

When Hiccup woke up, he immediately threw his covers off and jumped out of bed with a wide grin. Another day on Berk with the sun shining. He quickly flopped to the ground next to his fur-boots and pulled them on. There were scratches all over them, along with dirt and green stains from the forest. Loudly he raced downwards. His father told him they would do some stuff together today, so he was even more filled with energy than usually. Hiccup jumped the last two steps down and looked around in the house. His father wasn´t there, and it was silent. “He must be sleeping!” Hiccup concluded and ran to his father´s bedroom. Ha had been right, the man was still asleep. His helmet was on a nightstand next to him and Hiccup marveled at the horns for a few moments. Then at the pictures that were carved into his axe. After that, the boy quickly, though a bit clumsily, climbed onto the bed. When he found a good spot, he tensed his muscles and jumped. The landing on his father was as hard as expected, but he didn´t come as far as he wanted. It also just made his father grunt and shift a bit. Hiccup pulled his brows together in determination and climbed further up, so that he was able to straddle Stoick´s big form. Hiccups little feet didn´t even reach halfway around his father. He patted his big and hairy arm with his hands before he shook it. “Wake up wake up wake up!” he called. No reaction. Hiccup huffed. Changing his tactic, he slid down from his father and crawled up to his head, or rather, his beard. Carefully, so not to hurt him, he yanked at it. “Dad! Dad wake up!” he called again, finally waking his father. Stoick shot up alarmed, nearly throwing his son to the floor. “Is there an attack?” he asked and reached for his axe. “No Dad, no attack, just me!” Hiccup called from where he clang to the cover at the edge of the bed so he wouldn´t fall down. Stoick sighed and lifted his giggling son back onto his belly. “Don´t scare me like that.” Stoick scolded, but his voice was light. “Ok dad!”

“Where have you been? I was looking everywhere for you!” Hiccups smile dropped a bit, but only until he held up a pretty, light blue flower with yellow speckles. “Found a flower when I was looking for trolls.” He said.
They were at a pond in the forest, fishing. Hiccup wasn´t so fond of fishing, he couldn´t sit still so long, so, at one point, he sneaked off unnoticed as his father rambled about the different kinds of fishes. Stoick sighed, but took the flower as he sat down. “Don´t scare me like that, just tell me when you leave, yes?” Hiccup nodded hard, which made his head dizzy for a moment. He climbed onto one of his fathers´ legs and, while Stoick resumed to fishing, made a few braids into the big red beard.

Four.

With a little grunt, Hiccup succeeded at climbing onto his stool and onto the blog of wood on top of it. Now he was able to look over the edge of the table and start eating. Everything in this house was so big. The furniture, the weapons and, of course, his father. The only things that matched Hiccups´ size were his clothes –though even those were a bit big on him- and the stuff he made himself. He had recently gotten his hands onto some bows of paper and Gobber showed him how to make a book from them. Hiccup found he liked drawing things and when he had to wear the fur-west because it was getting colder, he carried the book around in a little pocket he made for it. His cousin made fun of Hiccup when Snotlout caught him drawing into the book, so Hiccup tried to do it only when he was alone, in the smith, or at home. Drawing at home though, sometimes made his father pull a sad face, but Hiccup didn´t understand why that was so. He avoided drawing in the main rooms though and did it in his room instead. Because of his new habit to draw everything he found pretty or interesting, his room was soon littered with drawings.

When he finished his meal, he went outside. The sun was still shining, though it got colder. Hiccup actually liked the chillier weather, it always made him feel strangely warm inside of his chest. Of course, he kept this as his secret, if only for the thrill of having a secret. He walked through the village with a jump in his step, talked to some villagers, observed the rebuilding of a house that got burned down at the last raid and finally reached a little plaza. When he saw the other kids however, he jumped behind a corner. His cousin Snotlout was with them and he always picked on Hiccup and called him names. Hiccups father was chief and Hiccup new he should fight back, because he was the heir, but he didn´t like fighting. And he didn´t know what to say back. His cousin was stronger and bigger than him – as soon as Hiccup fought back he received a punch to his arm or, sometimes, the abdomen. His cousin always had the Thorston-twins at his sides, which were taller and stronger as well, so it was always at least one against three, he just couldn´t win. Today, Fishlegs was there too. He was taller than the others, but also heavier. Hiccup wasn´t sure what he should think of him, Fishlegs wasn´t mean to Hiccup, but he also didn´t help him. And then, there was Astrid. Hiccup thought she had nice hair and she was really brave, but also a bit rough. She always punched him on his shoulder. Hiccup peeked around the corner and saw them laughing together. He decided he would rather play in front of his house then, instead on the plaza – at least he could retreat fast that way if the other kids his age would walk by or the dragons would attack.

When his little jumping-game became boring, Hiccup went into the house, up to his room. With a little struggle, he climbed onto the bank that was in front of his window so he could look out through it. With his sketchbook in hand, he checked the charcoal and looked for something he could draw. Drawing people was harder than drawing flowers or other plants, but he tried nonetheless – though it didn´t really look just like the villagers. He liked to draw his father with the many braids in his beard, or Gobber with his missing limbs. Sometimes, he felt bad for Gobber, it sure hurt when he lost his limbs, but he was always so cheery and had funny comebacks when they talked so Hiccup figured Gobber, while missing having his limbs, wasn´t that sad about it. He found a practical use in his missing hand after all. Hiccup had to help him carry stuff sometimes though, because it was small and required two hands to carry.
The little boy was startled out of his daydreams when a quiet screech made its way to him. He jerked into a straighter position and looked around wildly. He spotted a Terrible Terror that sat in a tree not far away from him. Quickly, with a gasp, Hiccup ducked and hid behind the frame of the window. When nothing happened, he dared to peek over the frame. The Terror was still in the same spot and tilted its head in a curious way. It just looked at him but didn´t do anything else. As Hiccup continued to stare at it in awe, it settled on the branch it stood on and seemingly decided to take a nap. Hiccup wondered why it didn´t attack him, but he guessed it didn´t because it was alone. He searched the sky for other dragons, but there weren´t any. They usually only came at night or in the late evenings...
What was he doing? This was his chance! Quickly, he grabbed his charcoal and the sketchbook and sketched the sleeping dragon on the branch. He was always interested in dragons, no matter how scary they were. After all, they could spit fire and fly. Hiccup wanted to know how it worked, but he didn´t dare to ask. The adults got always so angry when it came to dragons. When the boy looked up again to check how the horns were curved, he jerked back with a shriek. The dragon had gotten up and climbed into his direction. His shriek, however, alarmed a villager who was quick to throw a rock at the dragon. It hissed angrily, but flew away when a second rock was thrown at it. “Are you okay Hiccup?!” shouted the villager up to him. “Yes, I´m fine.”

But was he? He felt sick to his stomach.

Five.

When Hiccup woke up, it was with a start and a scream. A nightmare. Tears made his eyes burn, but he quickly wiped them away. Vikings don´t cry just because they had a nightmare. When his skin began to burn upon making contact with the salty droplets, he looked down at his arm. The color drained out of his face. There were little wounds all over his arm, in a perfect pattern. The picture of scales that dug through skin flashed through his mind.

That wasn´t a nightmare. That really happened.

When the little wounds suddenly began to move rapidly, Hiccup held his breath – but released it with a shudder when they finished with closing. Not a scratch was left, no scars, nothing but his normal, smooth and freckled skin. Carefully he brushed over the skin with his fingertips, but it felt normal.

Then, the panic settled in.

“DAD!” he shouted and ran searching for him. After nearly falling down the stares in his haste, he arrived in the main room just in time to see his father burst through the door, fully prepared to strike. Hiccup flung himself at the big belly of his father and hid his face in the red beard the moment he was lifted up. His father didn´t scold him for scaring him, nor did he ask questions. He didn´t even tell Hiccup that Vikings don´t cry when he sobbed into the beard.
By the time his crying reduced to hiccups, he was set down on his stool. With a last sniffle, he watched his father leave the room.
The moment he was alone, he looked under his shirt, but there weren´t any traces either. After a close inspection of his fingernails, he found nothing that was out of the ordinary. But he didn´t just dream this, the hole in the room at the opposite wall was proof of it. The boy swallowed, but there was still a lump in his throat. What if his father saw it? What happened wasn´t normal, Hiccup was sure of that. And usually Vikings didn´t react well to things that were new and possibly harmful, or simply strange. And if they knew of Hiccup, of…of what happened to him… Hiccup felt his face go cold as the color drained from it.

They can´t ever know.

Never. Ever.

Stoick halted before he entered the room. When he found his son in the night and carried him up to his room, there were cuts all over him. But now… there wasn´t even a single one! He tried and tried to find an explanation, but after over-thinking it several times, he concluded that he must have imagined it. The fire threw so many shadows everywhere and he was still on edge from the fight. Yeah, just his imagination. Anything else wasn´t even possible anyways.

Five, two weeks later.

“GIVE IT BACK SNOTLOUT!” Snotlout halted at the sudden shout of his cousin. Hiccup never shouted at him. Hiccup wasn’t one to glare at him so darkly. Why was he so over-reacting, it was just a dumb book. “Yeesh, relax, here, have your stupid book.” Hiccup snatched it away from Snotlouts bigger hand and pressed it to his chest. He looked like he wanted to run, but he hesitated. “Did – did you look into it?” he demanded, but Snotlout could clearly hear that he was afraid. Snotlout snorted. “Why should I? Books are dumb and boring.” Hiccup still hesitated, but then turned on his heels and ran back to the house.

At home, he ran into his father. “Ah, Heccup! Did you…. Did you make some new sketches today?” Stoick asked with a pointed look at the book his son still pressed to his chest. He tried a casual tone, but didn´t quite succeed. The boy hesitated. “Yes.” Stoick expected Hiccup to show him the new sketches, but his son made no move to do so. “Wouldn´t you like to show me?” he asked quizzically, after all, his son always did. Most of the time he couldn´t wait to show Stoick his pictures and burst into meetings and the like. Hiccup bit his lip. “…No.” he said before running up to his room.
Up there, he listened for footsteps for the case his father would follow him, but he heard nothing. Hiccup sighed, slumped to the floor and opened the book. There were newer sketches of dragons and, even though it was smudged and hastily drawn, one of an arm with scales. The others would ask questions if they saw it. They would be angry if they knew of Hiccups interest in dragons.

Eight.

Hiccup sighed. His head rested on his arms that were crossed on the windowsill. The sun outside was shining, a few rays were warm and comfortable on his skin. When he lifted his gaze from the glittering ocean and let it glide over what he could see of the village, he found the group of the other kids that were his age and shrank a bit back. His cousin Snotlout, still bigger, still much stronger and still meaner than him. The twins that appeared dumb from what he saw of them. Fishlegs, who was still the largest of them, in height and in width. And, of course, Astrid. Her braid was longer and she wore a leather-band around her head since last week. Hiccup was quick to observe that she took the lead of the group. >>Like some kind of… alpha…<< Hiccup thought. Didn´t he read something about that just a few days ago? He jumped from the bank in front of the window, searched around his room and, after finding the book, flopped back down on the bank so that he leaned next to the window with his back against the wall.
He was right, the Alphas were the ones who took the lead, then, there was Beta, second in command. Omega was the lowest position. Hiccup read further.

If there were newborns, that were deemed to be too weak to survive or were too out of the ordinary, the mothers would leave the newborns behind, which leads to early death. Sometimes, apparently, even without a reason.

Hiccup let the book sink to his tights and leaned his head against the wall behind him. He had observed this behavior among humans too. If there was anyone who acted strange, or had opinions that clashed with the mass, others didn´t want to interact with them. He looked down at his hands. Human. Normal human hands.

Not ever. Never ever.

Nine.

Hiccup stared at his hands. Human. Completely human. No scales, no green or yellow, blue or red. Many freckles, but human. Maybe it had been just a dream. Maybe it was silly to think it really happened. But the pain… and the hole in the house… he couldn´t have imagined the pain could he?

Ten.

“Stay. Inside.” His father was angry, but he had other things to deal with than his son. His son who snuck out during the raid. Who had nearly been killed. Who was, currently, lying in his bed and having a panic attack. His body trembled and he couldn´t breath – no matter how much air he sucked in, his lungs didn´t feel full. His head was dizzy and there was a burning in his chest, his insides felt twisted from the fear. He barely heard the crashing, roaring and shouting from outside as the blood rushed in his ears and his heartbeat ached in his chest, pounding painfully in his head. Then his limbs, chest, face and back tingled, before they hurt. Knives, hundreds of little knives dug through his skin. He cried and whimpered; the pain that shot through him was blinding. Or maybe he had his eyes closed, he wasn´t sure. He clawed at his bed, tried to somehow ease the aching, but it wouldn´t stop. The burning in his chest got hotter and hotter as his panic only grew. And he screamed.

Twelve.

Hiccup sat on his stool, only with a folded blanket underneath so he was at a comfortable height. He and his father had their usual dinner with smoked fish. “How was your day, what did you do?” Hiccup halted his movement and looked up. He saw that his father felt uneasy. “Uhm… not much… I drew a bit…” he mumbled before he resumed eating. “Gobber told me you are doing good work at the smith.” At that, Hiccup perked up a bit.

“Did he?” Stoick was eager to answer, finally having an actual talk.

“Yes yes, he said you improved your grinding.” That got Stoick a little smile from his son.

“It´s uhm… fun.”

“That´s uh – that´s good to hear.” Hiccup let his gaze drop back to his plate, silently continuing eating. Silence resumed. So much for an actual talk.

After a few moments, Stoick made another attempt. “Did you go out for a walk the past days?” Stoick tried to ignore the way Hiccups´ shoulders stiffened at that.

“No… I heard Bucket say he saw a pack of Terrors in the woods. I drew instead.” Hiccup was tempted to just say he wasn´t hungry and escape this situation, but he didn´t want to hurt his father.

“What did you draw?”

“People… plants… little animals…” dragons, lots of dragons. “We had a mouse, so I put it outside.” Not really though. When Hiccup attempted to go near the mouse, it run out on its own accord in panic.

“Any…new…inventions?” Gobber had shown him a machine that his son had built the other day in the smith. Stoick knew his son liked to craft a bit, but he didn´t know that he was that inventive – it was quite an impressing thing too. For his age, that is.

With furrowed brows Hiccup looked up at him. He wasn´t quite shocked, rather surprised and a bit confused. “Inventions?” he asked.

“Well, Gobber showed me the… the thing… that you built. It was impressive.”

“It was?” Hiccup blinked at him with wide eyes. “The thing” was a new attachment for Gobbers hand-stump. It was a little round metal-net with an identical top part that he could close or let snap open, so that he wouldn´t have the trouble of carrying littler pieces anymore.

“Sure… do you… like to invent things?”

Hiccup shrugged. Did he?

It had been fun to think of it and it was quite refreshing to have a little project.

“I guess so.” Finally, he finished his meal.

Up in his room, on his bed, he lifted the thin cloth that was the only barricade between him and the planks of woods. He only looked at the deep scratch-marks for a second, just to check if they were there, if he really didn´t just imagine it. Of course they were there. Of course he didn´t imagine it.

Of course.

Chapter Text

 Mannerism

Dragons showed similar behavior when it came to some things. Like the little funny shiny thing that run around on the ground or walls and could never be caught but was fun to chase. Or the cozy support-beams. Or eating regurgitated fish.

Humans showed similar behavior when it came to certain things as well. They were angry when you stole their food. They were disgusted by regurgitated fish – or regurgitated anything. They liked to laugh and tell jokes and funny stories. Most liked to compete.

Now when it came to showing some of those mannerisms it was natural and normal, it wasn´t questioned. As long as dragons did what dragons did and humans did what humans did.

Thus, it was a very odd sight to see those things mix up between breed and mannerism.

“Hiccup? Hiccup! Where are you?” called Stoick after entering the house. “I´m here dad!” confused, Stoick looked upwards. On one of the highest support-beams sat his 9 year old son with a book in his lap, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Which… it was not. Not even the Thorston-twins climbed that high yet and they built up a reputation to climb up as far as they dared to in the silliest places.  

Stoick squinted at his son. “How did you get up there?” he asked.

Hiccup shrugged. “I climbed up.”

“Okay, yes, but… why?” his son seemed to be confused by the question.

“I looked for a comfortable place.” Stoick sighed at that. His son was always a… well, a hiccup, but, sometimes… he was just so odd. This was one of those times.

“Why don´t you come down here? I have dinner.” Stoick held a basket with fish in his hands, which made it look tiny in comparison. His son pulled a face.

“Fish again?”

“Yes!” Stoick cheered.

“Smoked fish?”, “Yes of course.” Hiccup sighed. They always ate smoked fish. And it never tasted really good.

When Hiccup was eight, he really liked to lie in the sun. Its rays were so warm and comfortable. He could just lie down for hours on a warm rock and let the sun shine on him. So, one day, he did just that.
It was rare for him to be in the forest lately, but on sunny days like this, he liked to wander through the green.

“Hiccup?” Hiccups head jerked upwards, that was his father calling him. Just after the shout, Hiccup heard small crashing sounds, crackles of twigs and the rustling of leaves. It stopped when a Terrible Terror stumbled out of a near bush. It stared at Hiccup while Hiccup stared back. It cocked its head to the side, blinked and crawled a bit closer. Last time he saw a Terror that close a rock was thrown at it to shoo it away.
Hiccup saw the nostrils blow wide in deep sniffs and the dragon made an oddly nice and friendly sound until Hiccups father nearly literally crashed into the clearing. The Terror jumped at the sight of the Viking and was quick to fly away before Stoick could get it. Alarmed, Stoick turned to his son – but said was okay and still sat on the flat rock. The sun hit Hiccups hair in a way that made it seem redder than usually and his freckles stood out. His green eyes were wide in excitement, but Stoick interpreted it as fear. Hiccup was just a little boy, all by himself, with a dragon – of course he would be scared.

That´s what Stoick thought, that is.

“What are you doing out here all alone?” Stoick asked while sitting down on the stone as well. It was warm, from the sun. Stoick didn´t even wear his fur today, it was too warm for that.

“I… I lied in the sun.”

“All day?”

Hiccup hesitated. “Yes?” he wrung his hands. He knew he wasn´t allowed to wander so far into the woods all alone. But this was just his perfect spot to lie in the sun and there was no noise from the village. “The sun is so warm and feels good on my skin… so…” his gaze dropped to the ground and he let the sentence slide. His father placed one rough and giant hand on his tiny shoulder, halfway cupping his back in the process as well.

“Nothing happened, so I will let it slide today. But promise me you won´t go out that far when you are alone again.” Hiccup nodded, though he didn´t like it.

Well, he would just have to enjoy the sun from his windowsill then.

Stoick laughed silently as he watched his son. He was still a toddler, crawling around on all four around the whole house. It was a few days back that Stoick learned that Hiccup liked to chase the reflection of something shiny on the ground were it made a circle of light. It was fun to let his son crawl after the light, he was so full of glee and laughter bubbled out of him.

It was when Hiccup was eleven that he surprised his father again. When Stoick announced he got fish again for dinner, his son perked up with his whole body and a smile spread on his face. “Fish?” he asked, growing excited.

Stoick was confused for a moment – his son didn´t like fish that much, he learned that over the years.

“Yes…” he answered slowly, still puzzled. It confused him even more when Hiccup gobbled his fish down like nothing later when they ate dinner. He even asked if he could have a second one.

“Hiccup? What the heck are you doing up there?” asked Astrid as she stood in her hip. Her head was craned back to look up to the ceiling - where Hiccup sat comfortably slouched on one of the support-beams. His fake leg dangled over the edge of the thin beam, the other stood angled on the wood. Hiccup leaned against a vertical beam; he held up the book he had in his hands. “Reading?” he asked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, confused what could be wrong. Astrid shifted her weight from one to the other leg and crossed her arms. “I see that – but why are you doing it up there?” it wasn´t like there weren´t any free seats in the hall – it was half-way empty. Hiccup was silent for a moment.

“Actually, I don´t know. I just…” he shrugged and made a vague gesture with his hands, the book resting in his lap.

Astrid sighed and let her head hang forward for a second. “You know what? It doesn´t matter – just come down here and help me get the twins out of… well, they are stuck. Between rocks. And no, I do not know how they got there.” Astrid deadpanned. Hiccup closed the book with a slightly worried frown and slid down from the support-beam as if falling. He only fell for a second, though, before his wings caught him and he gently floated to the ground.

“Hiccuuuuup?” asked Fishlegs confused and waved a hand in front of the freckled face. Hiccup was staring past him and followed something with his eyes… totally forgetting that he was talking to Fishlegs. The green, slit-pupiled gaze snapped back to the bigger teen. “What?” he asked, not remembering what Fishlegs said last. “What were you even looking at?” Fishlegs asked and turned around halfway, though there weren´t any people or dragons in sight. Hiccup looked to the ground and blushed just a little bit before he mumbled something incomprehensible for Fishlegs.

“What was that?” the bigger asked. Hiccup cleared his throat. “There… there was a flashy light…” he mumbled, still not looking at Fishlegs. Urgh, this was so embarrassing. He thought he got that habit under control… well, at least he didn´t automatically chase the light anymore. Boy did the twins have their fun with him when they found out about his weakness.

“Ew, what is that on your arm?” Hiccup, confused, looked to his left upper arm that Ruffnut pointed at. There was a bit of slime from a regurgitated fish, probably from the few fishes that were thrown around in the food fight he had to stop earlier.

“Oh, just a bit fish.” Hiccup answered. There others had to watch a slightly too long tongue lick the disgusting slime away from freckled skin. Ew.
Hiccup licking himself clean sometimes rather than washing it off was one of those dragon habits the other Berkians wished he wouldn´t have taken on. At least he still bathed when he got dirty or it was time etc., though he preferred to bath in the sea or lakes now, instead of tubs.

When it was the first winter on Berk with the dragons living there as well, some Berkians attempted to put some sort of footwear on their dragons, fearing they might damage their feet with walking on the frost. Not that any of them was successful. The dragons actually seemed to hate wearing anything on their feet.
Thus, it was no great surprise to see Hiccup walk around barefoot all the time, even in winter. Though, his father managed to bring him to wear at least bandages around the middle of his foot in winter. Not that Hiccup liked it. He explained to the others that he liked to feel the ground beneath his skin and that shoes started to feel kind of restricting instead of protective. Not that his shoe was too small or anything.

Chapter Text

When Hiccup woke up, it was behind bars. The last thing he could remember was beating Dagur. Then… pain. Just pain and rage.
He was confused and his whole body was aching, especially his back. When he looked at it he just saw the markings though.
Hiccup looked around him and quickly discovered that he was in prison… the one on Berk. But – but why…?

A door opened and light flooded in. It was from the reflection of said light that Hiccup noticed the chains on his arms and leg. His father stepped in, his face cold.

“Father, what is the meaning of this? What is going on?” Hiccup asked and tried to stand up, but it was impossible with his body screaming at him in pain.

“Toothless took you home. We all saw you changing.” Hiccup bit his lip und let his head hang down.

“I´m sorry I didn´t tell you, but I was scared myself.” He admitted.

“It doesn´t matter anymore.”

Hiccups head jerked up at that.

“What? But, fa-“

“Don´t call me that!” Stoick interrupted, his red beard flying as he turned his back to his son.

“You are a monster! You are not a Viking.” Stoick started to walk out, but stopped in the door-frame to turn back halfway. “You are not my son.” He left and closed the door shut with a bang.

Hiccup, breaking on the inside, was left alone in complete darkness.

He felt tears stream down his face. Suddenly, he was kicked into the back and fell forward. The rough ground burned in fresh abrasions. “What the-“

“You monster!” another kick, this time into his face, sent him flying again. Was that Astri-

“Liar!” Fishlegs? Someone pulled on his hair hard enough to make him fall onto his back.

“Freak!” those were the twins! He felt two fists box his arms. What was going o-

“Should have known better than trusting you!”, “Snotlou-?” a hand on his throat stopped Hiccup from talking. The faces of his friends appeared around him as Snotlout still held him by the throat. Their faces were contorted in hate and disgust, in betrayal and hurt. Hiccup couldn´t breath, only look around wildly and claw at the hand crushing his throat. The teens continued to kick him, spit painful words at him while felt his lungs burn but his body never give in to the blackness.

There was fire. His human – his human was falling! Falling into the fire! He had to catch him, had to fly faster! Faster! His wings wouldn´t move faster and his human was falling! Falling into the flames, why couldn´t he reach him?! Just a bit more, just a bit faster – he would catch him if he got just a bit closer! “TOOTHLEEEES!” his human screamed, terrified, as he reached out for him. Faster! Faster! Just. A bit. Faster.PLEASE!

He didn´t reach him fast enough.

Stoick apologized to the dragon in front of him. It was the least he could do. He did this. It was his fault. Why didn´t he listen to his son?

The dragon closed his eyes as he opened his wings. He revealed his human to the man. Stoick leaped forward and stroked the hair out of the blank face. Sleeping. Just sleeping. He had to be sleeping.
Carelessly throwing his helmet aside, he pressed an ear to the thin chest. Just in time to hear the last stuttering heartbeat end.

Just why didn´t he listen?

Chapter Text

“Gods, I hate it when people have their hoods up indoors.”

Hiccup halted.

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know just feels like they’re tryin’ ta hide something.”

That was Ben´s voice, talking to Fishlegs. Hiccup had been about to enter the room as well, but stopped dead in his tracks and instead silently leaned on the wall next to the doorframe.
After Ben came to the island and they met each other, they talked a lot at the beginning. Now, they still talked, but less – not that they grew that distant, they just talked at a normal rate, like with every other villager.

When they first met, Hiccup had his wings, his kind-of-claws, his eye and, of course, his scales. But not his horns.

His horns caused another change in his daily clothing – he added a hood. It was not because he was ashamed or anything like that, he actually kind of liked his horns, but he was also out and about and getting to know new people. His horns were out separately from the rest of his dragon part, meaning they were out much more often (as were his slit-pupils), even though the rest remained human. He quickly learned that, if he had either in too long, a slight but frequent headache would built up. When he wore his hood and his horns were out, it looked like he had a helmet under the hood, which was the whole reason for the hood to exist. A pleasant side effect was that it hid his eyes for everyone that didn´t step up close. Some just couldn´t adjust to them, it seemed.
He was flying around often and thus met knew people. They didn´t always react so well to Hiccup being not human. And at first, when he didn´t have the hood and they saw the horns, they went into attack-mode instantly. He learned that, if he explained things calmly, prepared them before showing and revealing what he really was, people reacted better.

So, in short: the hood was there to prevent unnecessary aggression. And it worked.

He grew accustomed to wear it all the time.

“Is this about Hiccup?” Fishlegs voice grew quiet, serious and maybe, if just a bit, threatening.

Hiccup, on the other side of the wall, bit his lip and dug his fingers into the soft but thick fabric around his head, around his horns.

“Hiccup?” Ben asked, then, he was quiet. Hiccups lip started bleeding from how hard he bit into it. It was okay. It would heal in a matter of seconds the moment his teeth left it. That moment wasn´t now.

“It´s… different with Hiccup.”

Green eyes went wide.

He didn´t have many insecurities. But with being not human, it brought the fear of being treated differently with it. He didn´t want to be treated differently, handled only with care, as if he would harm them any second. Behind actions like those lied fear.

He didn´t want the people he liked and loved to fear him.

“What do you mean? Hiccup wouldn´t hide stuff from us.” Fishlegs sounded so sure about that, it caused friendly warmth to spread through the young Halfa.

“Well, I don´t want to say he would hide anything…” Hiccup nearly breathed in relief “… but you never know what´s hidden in the shadow of a hood. I feel like they hide stuff, and you only hide stuff that you either don´t want people to know because it makes you uncomfortable, or it is bad news for other people and they aren´t supposed to know yet. Like plans-of-murder-bad.”

Hiccup felt the memory of a boiling wrath flash through him. Of fever and madness and dark thoughts and feelings.

It made him want to throw up.

There was a slam against wood. Like from a hand that slammed down on a table.

“Hiccup would never hurt us on purpose. He was sick last year – that happens. He was… utterly devastated when he heard what that sickness made him do. And he-“

Fishlegs was interrupted by the sound of scratching against wooden floor and a door being hastily slammed open.

When they looked out of the room and down the short corridor, all they saw was the four-winged silhouette of Hiccup flying away at high speed.

Fishlegs sighed heavily, but also with a streak of nervousness. “Oh Thor… look, he wears the hood so people who don´t know about him yet won´t freak out instantly – it´s kinda a touchy subject…”

Ben looked more than guilty. And saying he felt just guilty would be a giant understatement. “I gotta go talk to him…”

Hiccup just stared. He sat near the pond, hood in slightly clawed hands. He noticed they –and his foot- began to change a bit in structure and built when he transformed, the nails grew thicker, not just longer and pointier and black. The tugging at the end of his spine grew more permanent each day, it dawned on him what it meant a while ago. These things didn´t worry him that much though. He kind of just knew that there would be more changes the older he grew.
He sat just near enough to the pond to see his reflection in the water at the edge of his vision. His scaly, winged, horned reflection. He sighed.

He shouldn´t get that upset over something like that.
So Ben thought that constantly wearing a hood meant he hid things.
So they were friends and there was a little bit of distrust towards Hiccup.
So Hiccup was sitting here, staring at his hood like an idiot.

So what?

He knew from the start this whole Halfa-business wasn´t going to be easy. He knew there would be people that wouldn´t fully trust him at some point.

But… still… it bugged him. More than he thought. Maybe more than it should.

He stiffened and straightened up, however, when he heard the crunching of grass and the gnashing of dirt and little stones. Moments later, he saw Ben trying to find a way into the cave without breaking his neck, which, on the path he tried to take, would be inevitable.
 Hiccup was quick to rush to him when Ben slipped and would have fallen quite the bit if it wasn´t for the Halfa catching him. He held one human arm in both his slightly clawed, scaly hands. His grip was tight, but gentle-natured - Hiccup made sure not to prick Ben with his claw-like nails. When Ben was gently set down on earth, he observed how Hiccup dropped the last meter in favor of drawing his wings in early. The former traveler noticed how his friend retracted his horns as well. “It´s okay, you can leave them out, it doesn´t bother me.” he got a tight smile in return. Hiccup let the horns stay in their tiny form.

Ben sighed. “How much did you… did you hear?”

“Pretty much everything.”

“Oh.” Hiccup´s brows drew together.

“Yeah, oh.”

“Look, Hiccup, I didn´t mean it like that. I didn´t know you wear it for protection.”

“Well, why else would I wear it?” Hiccup flopped to the ground.

Ben sighed deeply before he sat down as well. His knees were drawn to his chest and he slung his arms loosely around his legs.

“You know… where I come from… it´s so different. Dragons are free for hunt, they aren´t as tuff and dangerous as they´re here – where it´s harder to survive. And in the town I lived in? There were many dragons around, it was perfect for hunters. But selling certain parts of certain breeds isn´t allowed. A few breeds aren´t allowed to get hunted either, since they keep other, more aggressive and dangerous beasts away. Hunters were always armored, they were fit to travel and most of them were more than slightly suspicious. Not few were searched for selling and hunting dragons they weren´t allowed to. You never knew if you could trust a stranger, especially not if it was a hunter. And, well, they always hid their faces…”

“So you´re a bitten child?” Hiccup asked.

Ben blinked – “What?”

“A bitten child. Kids sometimes don´t listen to their parents and think they can handle a Terror – until they get bitten. It usually leaves just little scars, depends on the dragon and the situation, but you can be sure those won´t go near a dragon without being highly cautious again. Well, it doesn´t really apply here on Berk anymore, but still.” Hiccup chuckled. “I mean, look at me! I´m half dragon and not even I can go up to every dragon without a care in the world to pet it.”
Ben exhaled through his nose in a weak snort. His gaze was fixed on the ground in front of him. That was, until he felt a warm, leathery and smooth thing settle around his back. He didn´t need to look up to see that it was wing. He closed his eyes and appreciated the gesture.

That was one of the things Ben liked about Hiccup. He was so accepting and open, he listened even when hurt. He was so different from the people back home.