How to Tame Wild Dragons (How to Train Your Dragon Fan Fiction)

Chapter 2

The great hall was full to the brim with vikings - old ones, small ones, hairy ones. It was as if every viking in the village had dropped what they were doing to attend this meeting. The vast pillars that held up the great roof were adorned with torches, casting a flickering red light around the room.

Hiccup swallowed as they made their way through the crowd to the central table, where his father, Stoick the Vast, waited for him. Gothi the Elder sat beside him, her wizened old face smiling encouragingly, a stark contrast to his father’s stony expression. 

All of his friends were there, even Ruffnut and Tuffnut had made it in time. Astrid gave him a thumbs up, but the worried look on her face did little to assuage his fears. Whatever this meeting was about, it was not good news.

“Now Hiccup has finally arrived, we can begin,” Stoick growled, giving Hiccup an admonishing look. He placed his palms flat on the table and stood, his great horned helm casting twin shadows across the table. 

“Back in the day, when vikings were at war with dragons, we struggled to survive. They ate all of our food and burned our homes. Now, a year later…they eat all of our food, and burn our homes! What has changed?!”

“Everything!” Hiccup said, furious at the suggestion. “How many of us died fighting each year, on both sides? We are finally at peace!”

“Aye, peace. But are our lives really the better for it?” Stoick asked the crowd. The response was mixed, with grumbles of agreement and dismay at his words.

“Whether they mean it or not, the wild dragons that have made their home here are eating us out of house and home,” Stoick continued gravely, avoiding Hiccup’s gaze. “Thor Almighty, there’s just not enough food for the both of us!”

“I have to agree,” A fisher viking named Mulch nodded. “We lost almost all of our ships in the attack on Red Death last year. I can’t feed the whole village and the dragons on top of it all with just my fishing boat. Isn’t that right Bucket?”

“Too right!” A viking with a bucket on his head grumbled in reply. “Mulch and I have to travel half the day before we see any fish, the dragons scare all of the ones near Berk away.”

“They poo everywhere too! I spend half the day cleanin’ dragon dung off my porch. It makes good fertiliser for my vegetable patch, but theres enough in this village for a thousand fields! My helmet gets hit by a hunk of dung every week,” Gobber said, joining in with the complaining. Hiccup shot him a disappointed look.

“Well, it’s true,” Gobber muttered. 

“And don’t get me started on the fires,” Bucket moaned. “Every time a Terrible Terror sneezes, another house goes up in flames. We can’t go on like this!”

Hiccup couldn’t believe his ears. Sure, there had been a few fires…well maybe more than a few. The fire brigades could often be seen sleeping right alongside the Gronkle piles, since they were up all night putting out fires. As for the food, well, he hadn’t really noticed, what with Toothless catching them dinner whenever they went on their long flights. Then again, there did seem to be a lot fewer sheep. Even Gobber had taken to keeping his favourite sheep, Phil, in the house at night. 

“It’s just dragons being dragons,” Hiccup said desperately. “It’s in their nature to eat what they see and blow flames.”

“Well, why don’t we let vikings be vikings and chop a few dragons heads off!” roared a voice from the back. “It’s in our nature to kill dragons when they misbehave!”

“Who said that?” Stoick shouted, slamming his fists on the table.

“It’s only Mildew,” a large female viking named Phlegma replied. “Get back to your hovel Mildew, we’ve no time for dragon haters here.” 

She picked up a cantankerous looking old man by the scruff of his neck and pushed him out of the double doors at the back of the great hall.

Stoick gave a long, deep sigh and sat down, tugging at his thick beard in thought.

“We can’t rebuild our ships because all the trees we chop down are used to repair the houses that the untrained dragons are burning. We don’t have any food because all our sheep are being eaten by wild dragons and there’s no fish for the few ships we do have for the same reason! The dragon dung is just the cherry on the cake. I don’t like it anymore than you Hiccup, but something needs to be done.”

Hiccup’s heart sank, but he couldn’t think of an answer. He had been so wrapped up in his dragon-rider life that he completely missed how the other vikings were feeling. From the expressions on his friends’ faces, they were in the same boat. They looked at him expectantly, but Hiccup’s tongue felt like a frozen fish in his mouth. 

“Nobody is saying that we need to go to war again Hiccup. We’re just saying that maybe they should find their own home. Somewhere perfect for dragons.”

“Berk is a perfect home for dragons,” Hiccup mumbled, under his breath.

Astrid stood and lay her hand on Hiccup’s shoulder.

 “Our dragons don’t cause any of these problems, do they guys?”

Fishlegs, Snotlout and the twins nodded mutely.

“All the wild dragons need is a bit of training, right? It’s like house training a new puppy, you can’t just expect them to learn on their own. It’s a team effort,” Astrid continued, squeezing Hiccup’s shoulder pointedly.

“Yeah…that’s right!” Hiccup said, the ghost of an idea forming in his head. “Give us a chance dad, I know we can fix all of these problems.”

“I’d like to believe you, Hiccup, but there’s thousands of dragons out there,” Stoick said sceptically, raising a bushy red eyebrow. “Do you really think you can train all of them? You’d need to sort out the food problem, help us rebuild our ships, teach the wild dragons to stop setting fires and…ahem…to get them to do a number two outside the village.”

“We can do it, if you’ll only give us a chance!” Hiccup cried. The other dragon-riders stood up.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Snotlout boasted. “If we were badass enough to beat the Red Death, we’re definitely good enough for this!”

“We wont let you down,” Fishlegs stuttered. “Meatlug’s the biggest Gronckle in the village.”

They looked at Stoick pleadingly, waiting for his response. 

“I don’t know…” Stoick began, but was interrupted when Gothi raised her cane in the air. She brought it down on the table with a sharp crack.

The diminutive old lady scratched a symbol on the surface, tracing strange white runes lightly into the stone.

“What is she saying, Gobber?” Stoick asked, deferring to his friend’s understanding of viking scripts.

Gobber stared at the rock, his lips moving soundlessly as he read the message. Then he turned to the others with a grim smile.

 “Aye, you’ll get yer chance. Ye’ve until the next Thor’s Feast, on the first full moon of January!”

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