How To Become Your Dragon
"Damn dragons..." The old Viking muttered, his bushy, unkempt eyebrows casting a dark shadow over his eyes as he glared out of his window at the ox-sized lizards flapping about, blocking his view of the otherwise beautiful summer afternoon sky. "Damn their scally hides and damn the young fools who
keep them like pets!" He spat out the window. "And a pox on that no good, misbegotten chief for bringing them here!" He spat again and for good measure stomped his foot as well.
"Chief Hiccup..." The old man turned and began to pace about his small, gloomy hovel. "To think anyone would follow that no good, spoiled little brat into this... Dragon lovin' lifestyle! It ain't right!" He spun to glare at the far wall. "I mean what do people even see in him, Fungus?"
Across the room, an old ram skull stared back at him, giving no clear signs of having an opinion one way or the other.
"Oh right, you're dead..." The Vikings scratched his chin. "Keep forgetting that..."
A knock at the door caused the old man to turn again, flinching as a voice called for him from outside. "Mr Mildew? MR. MILDEW! Package for you sir!"
"Just a minute!" The old man called, grabbing his spear and hobbling towards the door. "Just a minute, I'm comin'! Don't you go running off with my thing!"
"Uh, alright?" The voice called back. "That's not really how the mail works, Mr. Mildew."
"Good!" Mildew snapped, throwing open his door and snatching the package from the confused delivery man with a suspicious glare. "And don't you forget it!" He turned his angry stare toward the fat, bug-eyed dragon the mail carrier had arrived on and spat twice more. "Like you all seem to have forgotten what made the town of Berk great to begin with!"
"Alright?" The delivery man said before Mildew slammed the door back in his face. "Wait! I need your signature!"
"Get out!" Mildew snapped, smacking the door with his spear. "GET!"
"Jerk..." The delivery man muttered, his voice all, but lost behind the door and fully ignored by the old man as he began to eagerly tear away the paper from his package.
"Oh yes, this is it!" Mildew muttered, catching sight of a piece of gleaming black metal. "It's finally here! Just the thing I needed to get rid of that damn dragon-lovin' chief once and for all!"
As the last scraps of packaging fell away, Mildew beamed as he stared down at a heavy, black metal gauntlet that seemed to shine with a strange green light, reflective of nothing in his gloomy hut.
"The Gauntlet of Ultimate Shame..." The old man breathed, gingerly sliding one hand into the opening of the armour piece. "The greatest tool of punishment from the good old days..." He held up his arm, watching in wonder as the gauntlet seemed to shrink to better fit his hand and then grinned. "And it's still got a little juice left in it... Enough for one last sentencing, for the worst crime ever committed by a member of our land's proud lineage of dragon slayers..."
- - -
Hiccup lifted one hand to the side of his mouth, carefully brushing back his beard before filling his lungs and in a deep, booming voice shouted, "TOOTHLESS!"
For a few moments, the man's voice echoed across the glade, bouncing around the cliffs before disappearing into the sea. Then with a roar of wind, a black shape flew into view, hurtling high into the sky before falling back towards the earth with a sharp cry.
For a lesser man or one born in centuries past, the sight of a deadly Night Fury would have either been a cause for panic or at the very least, a final desperate prayer to the gods before preparing for a fight to the death. Yet for Chief Hiccup,
