Dragons: Riders Of Berk

Episode 1

How To Start A Dragon Academy

This is Berk. For years it was Viking against dragon. The battles were ferocious...then, one day, everything changed.

A white shadow darted in and out of view above the waves before soaring towards the skies. It was a white dragon sporting a purple left tail fin due to its old one having been torn off months, almost a year, prior to this day. On the dragon's back was a young Viking teenage girl with Nordic hair tied in a thick braid with her bangs held mostly out of the way by a leather headband with a few still falling over her storm blue eyes. Where her left leg should have been, there was a spring-loaded prosthetic leg. It was Astrid Hofferson enjoying a flight with her dragon and best friend in the whole world - Starlight.

I met Starlight and together we've shown people that instead of fighting dragons we can ride them...live with them...even train them.

Astrid adjusted Starlight's tail-fin to fly upwards - the two were so completely in sync with each other it was as if one had read the other's mind moments before. The pair flew up to the top of a nearby rock pillar where four other dragons and five other teens were waiting. It was the Riders of Berk team - the six teenagers who had originally been training to kill dragons until the battle with the Red Death the previous month. On the team was the heir to the Hooligan Tribe of Berk, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III; Snotlout Jorgenson, his cousin; Fishlegs Ingerman; the Thorston twins, Ruffnut and Tuffnut; and, of course, Astrid, the leader of the team. She landed Starlight and turned to the others.

"Okay, guys," she greeted. "Best Trick Competition." The team had been meeting up regularly for these contests for a while and it was one of the highlights of the week for them to just get away from the village for a while, particularly for Hiccup and Astrid. Hiccup because it allowed him to have a break from Chief-training and Astrid because...well...also Chief Training seeing as she had actually been engaged to Hiccup since they were small. "Who's first?"

"Uh..." Fishlegs began hesitantly atop his Gronkle, Meatlug.

"Me!" Snotlout cut in on his Monstrous Nightmare, Hookfang. Fishlegs cast an irritated glance at the boy.

"Actually, I think it's..." he started but Snotlout interrupted again. Before his cousin and friend could start an argument, Hiccup cut in.

"Oh, sweet Baby Thor in a thunderstorm!" he huffed. "Go!"

"Oh, we'll go," Snotlout smirked. "And when we do, Hookfang and I will set the sky on..." Hookfang quickly grew tired of his rider's boastings and took off. "...FIRE!" Snotlout screamed. Astrid couldn't help but snort at the boy's screaming and Hookfang practically torturing him in midair. She glanced over at Hiccup who was also close to stitches, not bothering to hold back his tears of laughter. The teens all just completely lost it when Hookfang took a dive underwater - somehow Snotlout was still screaming when they emerged.

"Remind me to organise these contests more often," Astrid muttered to Hiccup.

"Consider it done," Hiccup grinned back as Hookfang landed back at the top of the cliff.

"I'm alive?" Snotlout panted. "I'm alive!" he crowed with delight - all the teens just stared at him. He tried to make it look as if everything had been on purpose but no one was buying it. "I mean...of course I am!"

"It's our turn," Fishlegs piped up, patting Meatlug fondly. "Ready, Meatlug?" The Gronkle snorted happily in reply. "Here we go!" The pair lifted gently off the cliff top and circled the rest of the team for coming into land. Astrid could tell that a lot of the others were sceptic about this but she knew Fishlegs better than the rest of them - he wasn't one to go for extremely daring tricks like her and the others. Besides, he looked pleased with himself. "Yes!" Fishlegs exclaimed. "New personal best."