Dusk on the Island of Berk was beautiful. The Sun cloaked the village in a mesmerizing orange light. Dusk was also a sign that it was time for dinner, and the thought of dinner excited the villagers.
They excitedly approached the dining hall, but someone was missing in the crowd—Hiccup Horrendous Haddock. Instead of enjoying a hot meal, he locked himself in his hut with Toothless.
Hiccup was in his room, sitting at his desk. Beside him was the Dragon Eye, the artifact he hoped would give him answers about the Light Dragon. When he made it to his hut, Hiccup quickly fixed the leg he swiped from Toothless, so now he finally had something on his stump to help him walk.
The young man wasn't making much progress with his research. He was under a lot of stress, to the point that he felt like crying.
He rested his aching head on his arms and stared into outer space.
Toothless stood beside him. He tried to play with his friend by nudging his shoulder, but Hiccup didn't look at him.
He thought about the argument he had with his father in Gothi's hut, what he and Astrid said that morning at breakfast, and what they told him in the secret chamber:
"I did want you to help me with a few things around the island today, Hiccup, to start your chief training."
"Oh, my gods, Hiccup! You're going to become chief soon!"
"Stoick is right! You cannot survive one simple task without relying on Toothless or me!"
And—
"A chief does not lie to his subjects."
Hiccup struggled to bear arms. He didn't know what to do. Astrid and his father spat anything he tried back in his face. Sure, he had Toothless, but that wasn't enough. Astrid was right. He relied too much on her and his dragon and had to change that.
Once again, Toothless nudged his friend, but Hiccup told him, "Not now, Toothless. Can't you see I'm depressed?"
Toothless gave him a funny look and grumbled. His eyes landed on the Dragon Eye. Wanting to play, he scooped it up in his powerful jaw. The dragon put the artifact on the ground and batted it like a cat chasing after a laser light. However, the strangest thing happened.
Something in Toothless's saddlebag shimmered, and a single yellow dot appeared before him.
As the dot moved around the room, Toothless pounced and unsheathed his claws. He ran in circles and knocked over a few barrels, chairs, and another desk.
"Toothless!" Hiccup yelled, leaping to his feet.
There was Toothless. Half his body was under his friend's bed. It jiggled with his movements.
"What are you doing?" Hiccup asked. He scooped up the Dragon Eye and approached his dragon.
Unfortunately, his voice startled the Night Fury so much that he jumped, and the bed flipped over. It slid to the other end of the room and bounced against the wall.
"Toothless!" Hiccup snapped, but he quickly lost his glare when he saw the guilt in Toothless's face. He didn't mean to flip Hiccup's bed over, but that yellow dot fascinated him.
From where he stood, the young man sighed and apologized. "I'm sorry, bud. I didn't mean to snap. There's just too much going on in my head right now." Returning to his desk, he plopped back down and tossed Toothless the Dragon Eye. He knew he liked to play with it.
As the dragon gently chewed on the artifact, he used his forehead to flip Hiccup's bed back over. Next, he slid it back to where it belonged and used his tail to flick the pillow and covers on. Afterward, he started to play with the Dragon Eye again.
That time, the dragon fell onto his back and used his tongue to shoot it into the air like a catapult, but when it came back down, something shimmered in his saddlebag again. That time, the shimmer hit the Dragon Eye. As soon as it did, it gave off a flash of light.
The light hit Hiccup square in the face, and he yelled, "Whoa!" He was so startled that he toppled out of his chair and landed on the dirt.
Not only did the light hit Hiccup in the face, it also hit Toothless. As soon as it did, he flattened his ears and growled at the Dragon Eye, which now rested before him.
"What was that?" Hiccup asked from where he rested, leaping to his feet. Slowly and carefully, he approached his dragon. "You okay?"
Toothless nodded but continued to growl at the Dragon Eye.
When he saw what he was looking at, a question mark appeared above Hiccup's head. "The Dragon Eye? Did it cause that flash of light?"
Toothless bobbed his head, making Hiccup even more curious.
Approaching the artifact, he picked it up and moved it back and forth to see if it flashed again. Wait a minute. Maybe it wasn't the Dragon Eye that flashed, but—!
"The crystals," Hiccup mumbled.
Toothless allowed him to open his saddlebag, and his friend pulled out the cluster of crystals and the single crystal they found in the underground cave and chamber.
A small smile crept across the teen's face. "Toothless, I think we may be on to something." He started back toward his desk, and Toothless followed.
"Hiccup?" the dragon seemed to ask.
When he approached his desk, his friend put the crystals down, but he continued to hold the Dragon Eye. He sat his backside in the chair and held it up to his face. Hiccup curiously examined it up and down, from side to side, and gave Toothless an order. "Toothless. Small flame."
Toothless nodded and opened his mouth. A small flame appeared in it, and he used it like a flashlight.
The light sliced through the lens at one side of the artifact and created an image on the wall from the other. The heart of the image showed a dragon. Surrounding it were ancient scriptures and other images.
Hiccup examined the image and thought aloud. He recognized the dragon class it portrayed and identified it for Toothless. "That's the Stoker class." As he said that, he thought about the Light Dragon, the way his dreams portrayed it, and tried to figure out the class to which it belonged. He said no to the Stoker class and flipped the image.
At the end of the Dragon Eye were seven buttons, and each button identified the seven dragon classes: Stoker, Boulder, Sharp, Tidal, Tracker, Mystery, and Strike.
One of the things that fascinated Hiccup about the Light Dragon was that it was bipedal. During all his adventures exploring the archipelago, he never saw a dragon that stood on two legs.
The next class that came to mind, aside from the Stoker class, was the Mystery class, but then Hiccup remembered seeing spikes on the dragon's tail and a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs. Perhaps it belonged to the Sharp class, but just before he set the idea in stone, the terrifying roar Naga used to torment him came to mind. Maybe it wasn't part of the Stoker, Mystery, and Sharp classes, but the Tracker one. Then again, the attack it launched at him and Toothless in the Chamber of Emptiness during his mirage looked like a Strike attack. Hiccup thought it belonged in the Strike class like his dragon friend. He could not figure it out! Why was the Light Dragon so complicated?
After a few minutes of intuitive thinking, Hiccup thought of something. Both his and Toothless's eyes landed on the cluster of crystals. "Toothless, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" the young man asked his dragon.
Toothless responded with a nod. He closed his mouth and pulled away from the Dragon Eye's lens. As soon as he did, the image projected on the wall faded.
Hiccup set everything up. He pulled the cluster of crystals closer and adjusted a few of the Dragon Eye's rings. Afterward, he set it down before his and Toothless's faces. Once ready, he scratched the top of the Night Fury's head and ordered, "All right, boy. Give me another small flame."
Toothless nodded.
For that round of research, something fascinating happened—something the dragon and boy never expected.
Not only did the light from Toothless's flame refract, but it also found its way through the Dragon Eye's lens. As soon as it did, the entire room exploded into an array of shimmering, glowing images, dots, and figures. In the heart of it was an image that showed a bipedal dragon—the Light Dragon.
Hiccup gasped, as did Toothless, and a few dots shimmered on them. Hiccup slowly stood from his seat and approached the image of the bipedal beast. He reached for it and told his dragon friend, "This is it. We've found it. The Light Dragon!" A small smile crept across his face.
Toothless was just as excited. His tail waved back and forth like crazy, but he accidentally knocked down a few barrels again.
Hiccup did not care. He just walked around the decorated room and examined the different images. He stopped before some writing and read it aloud. "'The Light Dragon's powers: physical and psychological damage. It lures its victims into its den by tormenting them psychologically. It gets its power from sunlight. When it feels endangered or drained of power, it uses the sunlight to strengthen it.' Hold on. Psychological damage?'"
An eerie pain entered Hiccup's brain. "The Light Dragon tortures its victims psychologically?" No. He couldn't believe that. That day was just off for him. No way was there a dragon in his head. Or was there? No. That was impossible. However, the thought still haunted the young man.
He distracted himself by saying he would return to normal in the morning. Yeah. He just needed to sleep the day off.
With that in mind, Hiccup did not bother to study the other images. He told Toothless to stop lighting the Dragon Eye and sauntered to his messy bed.
The dragon watched him.
Hiccup fell onto his bed and pulled off his metal leg. He pushed Toothless's muzzle away and said, "Goodnight, Toothless." He fell onto his pillow and pulled his covers over his head.
Poor Toothless was so bewildered. It wasn't even dark out, and Hiccup was already ready for bed? What on Earth was going on with his best friend? Oh well. If Hiccup decided it was time for sleep, perhaps it was time for Toothless, too.
Shaking out his head, he approached the hut's fire pit and shot a Plasma Blast to light it up. Before long, a warm light washed over the entire room.
Toothless pranced over to his rock mat. Like in the Chamber of Mystery, he scorched it. Lying down, he put his head on his front legs and peered over to Hiccup's bed. He noticed that the young man shuffled under his covers, but he kept his head covered.
Toothless stayed awake for a good while, but eventually, his eyes drooped, and he yawned. He fell into a deep sleep only a short time later and dreamt about codfish raining from the sky.
***
Hiccup had a rough time falling asleep that night. He worried that he would hear the metal-screeching roar again.
While Toothless slept warm and comfortably on his rock mat, Hiccup shuffled all over the place.
He frustratingly punched his pillow and put it over his head. As he lay there, he thought about the images the crystals gave him and Toothless earlier. He felt like he missed something, something important, because all his attention was on the psychological torture message. What could he have missed, though?
Hiccup stayed awake for a long time but could not take it anymore.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLMOhlsMELt
Sighing, he took the pillow off his head and climbed out of bed. Hiccup exited his hut after picking up the Dragon Eye, crystals, notebook, and charcoal pencil. He left Toothless behind so he could sleep.
The young man went to the Great Hall and sat at one of the tables. Since it was the middle of the night, nobody else was in it.
Hiccup set the Dragon Eye, crystals, notebook and pencil down before him and rested his chin on the tabletop. He stared at the empty room and thought about everything happening to him. Not only did he worry about the Light Dragon, but he also worried about his relationship with Astrid and his father's urge to make him chief soon.
It wasn't long until he heard a huff, and someone approached him from the side.
Toothless woke up not too long ago and noticed his friend was missing, but he knew he liked to come to the Great Hall to think.
Hiccup knew his dragon was beside him and said, "Hey, bud. I'm sorry, but I can't sleep. I don't know what's happening to me."
Toothless knew what was going on. Hiccup was at the stage where he was old enough to become chief but still young enough to go on adventures. Something was in his head, too.
"I don't know what to do," continued the young man. "If I tell my dad, Astrid, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, Fishlegs, and Snotlout about the crystals, I could put them in terrible danger. I can't risk that."
While Toothless understood his friend's concern, Hiccup had to realize that he did not have to fight the battle alone. He wasn't the only hero meant to save Berk and the world from eternal darkness. He had his dragon, friends, and himself—Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III.
"You're not alone, Hiccup," a voice spoke behind him. Astrid.
She, Snotlout, Ruff and Tuff, and Fishlegs followed Toothless to the Great Hall. He got them when he saw Hiccup was missing.
Hiccup gasped at the sight of his friends. "Guys? What are you doing here?" He glanced at Toothless. "Toothless, don't tell me—"
"He did," Astrid answered before he finished his question, sitting beside her friend. "You have to realize you're not the only one concerned about the future of our world."
"Well, I did hear from Toothless that our dear Hiccup found some crystals today," said Tuffnut.
"And he did! Yes!" Snotlout cheered. He scooped up the cluster of crystals and held it to the ceiling. "Ho! Ho! We're rich!"
"Hey, Hiccster. Make sure you share some of your wealth with all of us. I need something to help my baby brother here," Ruffnut said.
"Don't feel guilty, kid," Tuffnut added when he saw Hiccup's upset face. "This day was bound to come. It's not our fault you're about to lose everything you love."
"Thanks, Tuff." Hiccup furrowed his eyebrows. "That makes me feel so much better."
Tuff nodded and gave him a thumbs-up.
"I hate to admit it," said Fishlegs, "but Tuff does have a point, Hiccup. Why didn't you tell us about the crystals?"
"I have a point?" Tuffnut's eyes widened. "Did I get something right for once?" He gasped. "Oh, Thor! Is this accomplishment I feel?"
"Don't get used to it," said Astrid. She met Hiccup's eyes. "Tell us, Hiccup. Why didn't you tell us?"
"Sorry, guys. This is something I must keep to myself," was Hiccup's answer.
"I like this guy," Ruffnut chuckled, grasping Hiccup's shoulder. "Don't worry about those barbarians, kid. You can talk to little old Ruffnut here."
"I already told you," said Hiccup, "this is something I must keep to myself." He removed Ruffnut's hand, and she dropped it to her side.
Tuffnut, though, fought back. "I'll give you the chicken when we return to Dragon's Edge. The chicken has always been interested in you. I almost can say that you could marry the chicken."
Before long, everyone else took the twins' side.
Snotlout punched his palm and cracked his shoulders. "I'll let you fight my father head-on, table boy. He'll show you how a real man fights."
"What are you doing?" Astrid mouthed at her friends, but they ignored her.
Fishlegs jumped into the mix next. "Yeah, and you can walk Meatlug every morning. She likes you quite a lot, too."
"No!" Tuffnut stomped his foot. "The chicken belongs to him, not your overgrown sausage, Fishlegs!"
"Fight all you want, Tuffnut, but I still think Meatlug truly belongs with Hiccup."
"No! It's the chicken!"
"Meatlug."
"The chicken!"
"Meatlug!"
"The chicken!" Tuffnut and Fishlegs slammed their Viking hats together as they continued to fight.
"Everybody shut up!" Hiccup snapped when he couldn't hold his anger in any longer. He leaped to his feet. "This isn't making me feel any better!"
When his friends saw him, they cringed and lost their smiles. Even Astrid was nervous, and she was Astrid.
"Do you want to know the real reason behind all this?" Hiccup annoyingly asked. "Well, here you go! The Light Dragon! The Light Dragon is torturing me! I can't even go five minutes without hearing its metal-screeching roar in my head, and you guys aren't making it any better!" He clenched his fist and punched the tabletop. A searing pain engulfed his fist, but Hiccup ignored it. "Give me a reason why the Light Dragon chose me to torture! Give me a reason why, out of all of us here, I'm the one who had to lose a leg! Give me a reason why Toothless got you when this is something I must figure out myself! Give me a reason!" He glared at his shivering dragon. "Thanks to you, Toothless, you only made this worse! This is not your problem, and it's not theirs! It's mine!"
Terrified, Toothless crouched down and put his head on his paws. Hiccup never snapped at him. Yelling was not like him at all.
"I've had enough of this!" he continued. "If you're just going to cause problems, go somewhere else!" With that, he stormed to another table and plopped down on a bench, facing away from his friends. Hiccup clutched his head with both hands and lowered it.
Ruffnut only said one word: "Whoa."
On the other hand, Astrid glanced at the guilt-stricken Toothless and sighed. She gestured for him and the others to wait while she tried to knock some sense into the stressed-out son of Chief Stoick. Astrid slowly approached him and sat down on the bench as well.
She took his shoulder and said, "Hiccup, listen to me. You are much more than what you make yourself out to be. You are not Hiccup because of Toothless, Ruff, Tuff, Fishlegs, Snotlout, your father, and I. You're Hiccup because you are you. As any chief should be, you're heroic, inventive, creative, cognitive, understanding, and pure-hearted. You have the makings of a great chief one day, but remember that even a chief asks for help when things get rocky. When they do, he looks to his people. His people are always willing to help fight the seemingly impossible battle, which is what we have to do with this Light Dragon. We need to work together."
Hiccup carefully listened to her words and repeated them in his brain:
"Heroic
Inventive
Creative
Cognitive
Understanding
Pure-hearted—"
Which all together spelled "Hiccup".
Astrid was right. Hiccup was not her, his father, Toothless, Ruff, Tuff, Snotlout, and Fishlegs. He was Hiccup, the next heir of Berk—a boy who had seven amazing friends who would risk life and limb to help him through Berk's most stressful times.
One by one, Hiccup's friends approached him.
Fishlegs smiled and said, "I'm in."
"So am I." Astrid also smiled.
"Well, I'd rather not die, but if it will make you and my father proud, I might as well help, too," Snotlout chuckled.
The twins were next in line to approach the young man. "Besides, you may need advice from expert Dragon Riders like us," Ruffnut joked.
"That's right." Tuffnut stood tall and placed his hands on his hips. "I will whip up a huge pot of yak dung tea and dump it on the Light Dragon! That will tell it not to mess around with Tuffnut and his chicken!"
Toothless was the last one to join Hiccup. He set his chin down on the tabletop, grumbling, and the two met eyes.
"So, you see, Hiccup," finished Astrid, "you're not alone. Working together as a team, we will take on the Light Dragon and restore peace, serenity, and prosperity to the world in which we live. You just have to believe."
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