How To Train Your Dragon: Chasing Storms

Chasing Storms

On the Isle of Berk, there is an old building carved into the face of a giant rock called the Great Hall. This hall was made in honor of the greatest heroes of the Hairy Hooligan tribe; whose ancestors now use for war meetings, celebration, dining and for the occasional indoor dragon lessons if the weather was harsher than usual. It was the heart of the village, built to hold the entire tribe with a fire pit resting in the middle of a round tabled which was so large that it could keep not only the people sitting around it warm but also those who sat on the smaller wooden tables littered about. Amongst all of these tables, wooden pillars, scattered weaponry, carvings of dragons and mighty Gods, there is a single stone wall with round shields place on straight paths, acting like a timeline of all the great chieftains and their sons painted on the aged wood.

These shields are put there to show off the strong heritage of the Hairy Hooligans tribe and to put a face to the grand legends that are spoken around warm fires throughout the small, cold, rainy isle. Legends filled with proof of the chieftain's ability to breed strong, sturdy, rugged men who could move a mountain with a single head-butt, and each one had a grand tale to tell. For instance, Grimbeard the Ghastly was one of the world's greatest pirates, Stoick the Vast, oh hear his name and tremble ugh, ugh, was seen as one of the greatest dragon slayers of his time and was said to have killed a dragon by popping the head off its mighty shoulders when he was an infant; but the greatest of them all, was Stoick the Vast's son.

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III; who, at fifteen, was able to stop the war that had been raging between dragons and the Vikings of Berk since the tribe had first settled there. Hiccup was able to do this not by using the strength of his body but his mind. The young teen befriended the unholy offspring of lightning and death, the Night Fury, one of the most elusive and deadliest dragons known the Vikings at the time. With trust, courage and Toothless by his side, he led a young group of dragon trainees into battle to protect the people of his village against the Great Death and to set free any dragon under its control. With the defeat of the Great Death, both dragons and Vikings were finally able to exist in peace with each other for the first time in known history.

The young boy grew up to create even grander stories to be told by establishing a legendary team named The Defenders of Berk who have protected the Isle for many years until they grew into a small army consisting of the best riders the island and to offer. Hiccup used that team to defeat Drago Bludvist, defend the island from a number of deadly dragons, and even to bring peace between several of the different tribes littered across the Meridian of Misery in the Barbaric Archipelago. What had impressed people the most when hearing his tales was that, this great boy who grew to be a mighty chief, is a Hiccup. A runt. Those with the name Hiccup were considered to be unsuitable for the life of a Viking, for they were small, skinny, and inadequate for battle. However, they had their wits, and Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III used those wits to win nearly every battle he came across, or stumbled into.

But this story isn't about Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III. his legions have already been made and told. This story is about the young boy standing in the most recent chief-and-son portrait hanging up in the Great Hall. This adolescent boy, with shaggy brown hair, a stick like stature, wide green eyes, and a face littered with dark specks; was also a runt and stood in the shadow of his tall and strong father. That boy's name is Hakon Horrendous Haddock. It was said that Hiccup chose to the name the small boy Hakon, which meant high son, in hopes of stopping the tradition of naming a runt Hiccup, and start a new name for them in order to showcase the greatness of what someone considered a "Hiccup" could be. Although the chief had raised all his children to believe that they were going to become great Viking heroes by being who they were in their hearts and not by how they appear to others, Hakon still felt the inadequacy similar to what his father had felt when he was young. Sure, Hakon may seem to act like any other Viking lad; he is rather reckless, but brave and seemingly confident with a fierce demeanor about him despite his small stature; but he didn't truly feel that way. Hakon felt as though he would never step out of his father's shadow and become the legend his father had; simply because there was no way he could outdo his stories no matter how hard he tried.