Hiccup watched as the dragons all flew off with their catches. He slowly turned towards his father, pointing over his shoulder at the departing dragons as if saying okay despite that... "Okay but I hit a Night Fury."
Stoick didn't answer; he simply grabbed the back of Hiccup's vest and dragged him along.
"It's not like the last few times, Dad!" Hiccup insisted. "I mean I really actually hit it! You guys were busy and I had a very clear shot. It went down just off Raven Point. Let's get a search party out there before it--"
"STOP!" Stoick yelled, releasing Hiccup and stopping in his tracks. Hiccup shut up immediately, looking up at his father with wide green eyes and sucked-in lips. Kara and Lyrhia watched from Gobber's sides; Kara with her arms crossed and looking 100% done with the whole thing, Lyrhia with her hands pressed together and resting against her mouth, as if she was simultaneously praying and keeping herself from saying anything.
"Just... stop," Stoick continued. "Every time you step outside, disaster falls! Can you not see that I have bigger problems? Winter is almost here and I have an entire village to feed!"
"Well between you and me the village could do with a little less feeding, don't you think?" Hiccup snarked.
"This isn't a joke, Hiccup!" Stoick sighed. "Why can't you follow the simplest orders?"
"I-I can't stop myself!" Hiccup said. "I see a dragon and I have to just... kill it, you know? It's who I am, Dad."
"Oh you are many things, Hiccup. But a dragon killer is not one of them. Get back to the house." Stoick looked up at Gobber. "Make sure he gets there. I have his mess to clean up." Stoick walked away as Gobber and his girls walked forward, the blacksmith slapping the back of Hiccup's head lightly to get him moving. Lyrhia gently squeezed Hiccup's hand, giving him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. Kara, never really one for physical contact, just walked alongside him, showing her support just by being there as they walked past the other teens.
"Quite the performance," Tuffnut said.
"I've never seen anyone mess up that badly," Snotlout teased. "That helped!"
"Thank you," Hiccup replied, sarcasm lacing his tone like venom on a snake's tongue, "thank you, I was trying, so..." He kept walking, Lyrhia and Gobber following him, while Kara hung back a bit to punch Snotlout in the gut and shove his face, pushing him back into the boulder Astrid was sitting on as she sharpened her axe.
"I really did hit one," Hiccup said as they ascended the stairs to his house, Kara now trailing behind Gobber.
"Sure you did," Gobber said.
"He never listens."
"Runs in the family."
"And when he does it's always with this... disappointed scowl, like someone skimped on the meat in his sandwich." He stopped at the front door and imitated his father's voice and accent. "Excuse me barmaid! I'm afraid you brought me the wrong offspring! I ordered and extra-large boy with beefy arms, extra guts and glory on the side! This here, this is a talking fishbone!"
Lyrhia giggled softly, her hand over her mouth to keep from making too much noise. Kara simply rolled her eyes; she hated how some things were on Berk, but it was infinitely better than how she'd been treated on Outcast Island.
"Now, you're thinking about this all wrong," Gobber said. "It's not so much what you look like, it's what's inside that he can't stand."
Hiccup just looked at him like he was crazy. "Thank you for summing that up." He turned to go inside but stopped when Gobber spoke again.
"Look the point is, stop trying so hard to be something you're not."
"I just wanna be one of you guys," Hiccup said solemnly as he opened the door to his house and slipped inside. He ran out the back door immediately afterwards.
Gobber sighed, turning to his girls. "Lyrhia, keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."
Lyrhia scoffed. "Good luck with that one." Regardless, she followed Hiccup inside and managed to catch up to him before he disappeared into the woods.
Gobber looked at Kara. "Kara, you get back to the shop. I'll be by after the village is cleaned up. I have a feeling Stoick will want my help." With that, he walked away, leaving Kara standing there glaring after him. She turned to go back to the shop, but noticed the Vikings heading into the Great Hall for a meeting. Kara looked back at Gobber before running towards the Hall.
**********
"Either we finish them or they'll finish us!" Stoick said from the table around the firepit in the center of the Hall. "It's the only way we'll be rid of them! If we find the nest and destroy it, the dragons will leave. They'll find another home!" He stabbed his knife into the map that lay on the table, right over the clouds marked as Hellheim's Gate. "One more search, before the ice sets in."
"Those ships never come back," Hoark said from across the table. Many of the other Vikings murmured in agreement.
"We're Vikings, it's an occupational hazard. Now who's with me?"
No one answered, either murmuring excuses or just staying quiet.
"Alright," Stoick stood up straight. "Those who stay will look after Hiccup."
Every hand shot into the air, all voicing agreements of "To the ships!" and "I'm with you, Stoick!"
"That's more like it," Stoick said, and with a wave of his hand he dismissed the assembly. He walked over to Gobber, who had been sitting at a table with a mug of ale attached to his stump arm.
"Right," Gobber said, turning to Stoick. "I'll pack my undies."
Kara snickered softly from up on the rafters. She lay on her stomach, watching both the meeting and the conversation that started between Gobber and Stoick.
"No, I need you to stay and train some new recruits," Stoick said, walking around the table to where Gobber sat and sitting beside him.
"Oh perfect, yeah and while I'm busy, Hiccup can cover the stall. Molten steel, razor-sharp blades, lots of time to himself, alone with my girls... what could possibly go wrong?" He took a sip form his mug.
Stoick sighed as the door to the Hall closed, leaving the two men alone at their table as everyone else had left. "What am I gonna do with him, Gobber?"
"Put him in training with the others," Gobber said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Kara grimaced. She knew what went on in Dragon Training; sometimes people didn't even come out alive.
"No I'm serious," Stoick said.
"So am I."
"He'd be killed before you let the first dragon out of its cage." Apparently Stoick voiced Kara's thoughts for her.
"Oh you don't know that." Gobber simply waved him off.
"I do know that."
"No you don't."
"No actually, I do."
"No you don't!"
"Listen, you know what he's like." Stoick stood up and started pacing behind Gobber. "From the time he could crawl, he's been... different."
"So has Lyrhia," Gobber said. "Can't say quite the same for Kara."
"Yes you can," Kara said softly, unheard from the ground floor.
Stoick went right on, not even hearing Gobber. "He doesn't listen, he has the attention span of a sparrow... I take him fishing and he goes hunting for... for trolls!"
"Trolls exist!" Gobber cut in. "They steal your socks. But only the left ones. What's with that?"
Kara knew exactly what Lyrhia would have said, had she been there: "Because you only have a left foot, you muttonhead."
"When I was a boy," Stoick started, Gobber muttering "Oh here we go" as the chief spoke, "my father told me to bang my head against a rock and I did it. I thought I was crazy, but I didn't question him. And you know what happened?"
"You got a headache."
"That rock split in two." Stoick paused for a moment as Gobber hammered his rock tooth back into place. "It taught me what a Viking can do, Gobber he can... he can crush mountains, level forests, tame seas!" He sat beside his friend on the bench again. "Even as a boy I knew what I was, what I had to become... Hiccup is not that boy."
"You can't stop him, Stoick," Gobber said, "you can only prepare him. I know it seems hopeless, but the truth is you won't always be around to protect him. He's going to get out there again. He's probably out there now."
And if he's out there, Kara thought to herself, then that means my sister is too.
**********
Hiccup and Lyrhia walked through the woods near Raven Point, Hiccup angrily scribbling on the map in his notebook after they failed to locate the Night Fury again. He snapped it shut and stowed it away in his vest. "Oh the gods hate me. Some people lose their knife or their mug. No not me, I manage to lose an entire dragon!"
"Relax, Hiccup," Lyrhia reassured him. "We'll find it. It can not have landed too far from here."
"We've checked every possible place," Hiccup said. "And still nothing. Figures. The one time I actually shoot down a Night Fury and we can't even find the Thor-forsaken thing!" He slapped a stick out of his way, only to have it come back and hit him in the face. Lyrhia promptly snickered.
Hiccup glared at her, about to shoot back with some snide comment, but stopped when he noticed the tree that stood next to them. Lyrhia looked at it as well, following his gaze. The large tree had been completely split down the middle, a trench in the ground leading over the hill. Hiccup motioned for Lyrhia to follow him, and the two slowly made their way down through the trench towards the hill. Hiccup took notice of four claw marks in the tree root. The second they reached the top of the hill, both gasped and ducked back down, seeing what lay beyond. Once the shock settled down, they peeked over the hill again and stared at the oddly still black dragon that lay tangled in ropes, its wings spread as if it had gone down mid-flight.
"The Night Fury!" Lyrhia whispered in astonishment. "Wow..."
"Stay here," Hiccup whispered back. "This is my victory to claim. You stay here. If I need you I'll yell."
Lyrhia nodded. "Okay. Be careful, though."
Hiccup nodded back at her and drew his knife, slowly making his way over the hill towards the dragon. He hid behind a boulder at first, then peeked around and came out of hiding when the dragon didn't move. "Oh wow," he said to himself. "I-I did it. Oh, I did it, this fixes everything! Yes!" He set his foot on the dragon's foreleg. "I have brought down this mighty bea--" Suddenly the dragon moved beneath him, growling, and Hiccup leapt away, backing up against the boulder he'd previously hid behind. Back on the hill, Lyrhia's eyes widened and her mouth fell open.
The dragon was breathing. It was alive.
Hiccup slowly approached it, knife pointed threateningly at the dragon. Lyrhia watched from her hill with her hand on the hilt of her dagger, sheathed at her side. As Hiccup got closer, one reptilian green eye opened, staring intently at Hiccup. The two maintained eye contact for a few heartbeats before Hiccup looked away, taking a deep breath.
"I'm gonna kill you, dragon," he said. "I'm gonna... I'm gonna cut out your heart and take it to my father. I'm a Viking. I am a Viking!" He raised his knife over his head, looking at the dragon one last time. They held eye contact once more before Hiccup shut his eyes, ready to drive his knife into the dragon's heart. The dragon moaned pathetically, closing its eye and dropping its head back on the ground. Lyrhia held her breath, using every ounce of her willpower to stay put and not run to Hiccup's aid.
But Hiccup couldn't do it. With an exasperated grunt, he dropped his arms back to his sides, looking at the ropes wrapped around the dragon, rendering it motionless aside from its breathing. "I did this," Hiccup said as he turned away, thinking about just leaving. He looked up at Lyrhia, perched on the hill, then back at the dragon.
The dragon's eyes snapped open as Hiccup began cutting the ropes. He cut three ropes before the dragon was on him, pinning him to the ground.
"Hiccup!" Lyrhia yelled. If either boy or dragon heard her, neither acknowledged her. The blonde drew her white lightning bolt-shaped dagger and slowly made her way towards the Night Fury, careful to stay out of its line of sight.
Before she could get any closer, however, the dragon reared up on its hind legs then roared in Hiccup's face, causing Lyrhia to cover her ears from the intensity. It then flew off, but it flew lopsidedly, screeching all the while. Lyrhia stood there in shock, at a loss of what to think. Hiccup got to his feet then started to walk back to Lyrhia, only to collapse on his stomach after less than three steps.