Chapter Text
In Berk, everyone knew what a true Viking was supposed to be.
Strong. Silent. Ruthless to enemies, loyal to friends.
And, preferably, with arms big enough to split a log in two.
Hiccup... didn’t fit into any of those categories.
“Hiccup, no.”
“Hiccup, you won’t make it.”
“Hiccup, you’ll get hurt.”
“Hiccup, no! Don’t eat it.”
And then, the most famous of all:
“Don’t act like that... or you’ll end up like Hiccup.”
In Berk, that was the perfect phrase to crush a dream before it even began.
A warning. A sentence.
As if being him was something to avoid. To fix.
These were the words the boy heard most often. Every day.
In that village, everyone had unsolicited advice to give him.
Why? Well, he was certainly not a role model.
There was something about him, something that, one way or another, always managed to get him into trouble.
And he tried, really. He had done his best to stay home, good and quiet. But it was impossible.
He had to go out, observe, touch, study every single thing his mind got stuck on at that moment.
But no luck.
There was always something pushing him out the door, chasing questions.
His mind couldn’t stay still. Neither could his hands.
He was curious. Sometimes, too curious.
And in a village where curiosity came after “hit first and ask questions never,” this was a problem.
A big one.
So, what’s so bad about being curious? You might ask.
Nothing... unless your main interest is huge fire-breathing beasts weighing a ton, also known as... dragons.
Cute, right?
Well, to Hiccup, they definitely were. He found them fascinating. Beautiful, even.
The rest of the village? Not so much.
Especially when, besides a sheep, they also took off an arm. Or a leg. Or a foot. Or, well... something very attached to you.
So yeah, Hiccup was well-known to everyone in Berk.
For his decidedly peculiar personality, sure, but also for another little detail: he was the chief’s son.
And, well... he didn’t look like a Viking at all.
With his constant inability to gain a single ounce, his skinny body wasn’t even tempting as a snack for a dragon (thank the gods).
He certainly couldn’t lift a sword or swing an axe. More suited to forging cutlery than wielding a weapon.
His chances of surviving the generations-long war between dragons and humans were dangerously close to zero.
But despite it all, he tried.
Even if he didn’t show it, every comment or jab hurt him.
He was tired of being “the odd one out,” the exception everyone used as a bad example. He just wanted to feel part of the village. Of something bigger, to find that sense of belonging too.
He was always waiting for the perfect moment to prove to everyone that he was a true Viking too.
Strong, bold, brave.
Someone to rely on.
He just wanted one chance. One.
And maybe the gods had heard his prayers, because that moment finally came: he was allowed to join the dragon training.
It seemed like the perfect opportunity.
At least until he met him: a Night Fury, who completely changed his view of the world.
Hiccup had hit him.
He was the first to do it: he’d landed a hit on a Night Fury.
Everyone said it was impossible. Untouchable. Invisible.
Yet, he found him. Tied up. Injured.
Scared.
There he was, with his blade in hand, ready to do his duty... but he couldn’t.
Something inside him-maybe pity, maybe courage, maybe madness-stopped him from killing it.
He freed him.
And came back the next day.
And the next one after that.
And another.
Until that dragon-whom he named Toothless-stopped seeing him as an enemy.
And that was the beginning of everything.
With Toothless, Hiccup discovered a different world.
A world of silence, of trees whispering in the wind, moss underfoot, and the reassuring warmth of a dragon’s side beside the fire.
A world no Viking had ever told about.
And above all... a world of flight.
Flying with Toothless was like grabbing freedom with your bare hands.
Up there, there were no shouts, no orders, no judging eyes.
Just him, the wind, and the only friend who understood him without words.
Toothless didn’t speak, true.
But Hiccup had never known anyone who understood him so deeply.
One look was enough. A flap of wings. A barely audible sound.
It was as if the dragon was training him-to live, to fly, to feel-much more than his masters ever did.
Every day was a discovery:
how dragons communicate, what scares them (okay, eels were still a mystery), what makes them friends, what makes them flee.
The more he knew them, the more he understood: they weren’t monsters.
They were intelligent creatures. They lived, felt, chose.
You just had to... listen.
And as he changed, something began to change in Berk too.
At first, there were just puzzled looks.
Then murmurs.
And finally, amazement.
Hiccup, the walking disaster, had started to pass the training tests.
And he did it with an almost disarming ease.
Nobody understood how. Nobody understood why.
But the “don’t be like Hiccup” was slowly becoming:
“Did you see what Hiccup did?”
People greeted him. Some admired him.
Even Astrid-the cold, proud, unbeatable Astrid-had started looking at him differently.
And his father...
His father finally seemed proud.
After all, seeing a scrawny kid like a stick take down a dragon was a sight no one expected.
He, who could barely hold an axe.
His life had never been better.
No one laughed at him anymore.
Many sought his gaze. Some shook his hand. Others just whispered a quiet “well done.”
Small things that, for Hiccup, meant the world.
Yet, despite everything, nothing matched what he felt when flying with Toothless.
They soared through the skies together, cutting through clouds, climbing higher and higher, almost touching the sun.
They laughed, played, challenged each other in dizzying dives.
And then, when the day faded, they descended toward the beach, where the sky turned orange and the sea mirrored the sunset’s light.
A quick dinner. Some fish. A gentle stroke on the snout.
That was where Hiccup truly felt he belonged.
Not to the village.
But to that bond, born in silence, grown in flight.
Stoick the Vast wasn’t used to being proud of his son.
He was used to sighing, shrugging, saying things like, “he’s not cut out for war,” or “maybe he can be a good blacksmith.”
But now he saw him winning.
He saw him grow.
And for the first time, he really believed: maybe he is a Viking after all. Maybe he just needed a little more time, a late bloom in a spring that came too soon. And who knows, maybe one day he’d even become chief.
While Stoick finally let out a sigh of relief, on the other side Hiccup was restless.
Because the long-awaited moment had come.
He had been granted the honor of killing a dragon.
A rite. A triumph. A dream come true... for everyone but him.
He didn’t want to do it.
He couldn’t.
It had only taken one day next to Toothless to realize how wrong he’d been.
Dragons weren’t monsters. Not really.
They were complex, intelligent creatures, as scared as those who fought them. They had emotions. They felt fear. And they chose, to survive, to respond to violence with more violence.
You just had to look at them with new eyes, shed your prejudices, stay silent and listen... and then the world changed shape.
Hiccup realized everything he thought he knew was just a reflection of other people’s fear.
And behind that fear, there was a whole universe waiting to be discovered.
But how do you explain that to a whole village that built centuries of history on hatred?
He’d gotten himself into quite a mess.
Now everyone was waiting. His father. Astrid. Everyone.
The village was buzzing, and everyone was rushing to prepare for the next day.
After all, such an event was the perfect occasion to celebrate.
And Hiccup? Well... he was packing his bags.
Ready to run away.
Like a coward.
Or maybe, like the only Viking ready to change history.