Taming Hearts

Chapter One: Once Upon a Time

This is Berk.

Everyone here is completely different, from the kinds of dragons they fly to their preferences for tea. It's what makes life interesting around here.

But if there's one thing almost everyone has in common, it's a love for competition. Life, in some ways, is a big competition so it's good to start it out learning about how to get ahead.

The one thing people tend to neglect or forget is the person who always falls behind. The person who simply can't offer the right skills to have a hope of clawing their way to the top.

But is there hope for that person? Well, with enough intelligence and cunning, anything is possible.

Fearless Finn Haddock seemed to have found another skill at which he excelled. At nearly ten years old, he was finally allowed to participate in some of the heavier, more strenuous manual labor and he found himself enjoying it immensely. Carrying logs back to the village for firewood, repairing roofs, and digging wells were all difficult jobs but Finn relished the challenges they presented. He would return home covered in sweat (and sometimes dirt) but feeling very accomplished.

This was why people thought it was odd for a boy that driven to be close friends with a man far too old to join him. But Finn and Benen, for nearly three years, had kindled a friendship that defied all logic. The elderly man was introspective, quiet, and calm. The boy was a natural leader; he could bark out orders and grown men would find themselves obeying until they realized that Finn wasn't their boss. A boy so forceful and a man so laid back didn't seem to be a good pair. But the oddest thing about the two of them was that, despite Finn's need for control, he hung onto Benen's every word and followed his advice to the letter. Benen never had to raise his voice or give orders, he could merely suggest something and, to Finn, his word was law.

The old man was a frequent visitor to the Haddocks' house, which was just outside the village and closer to the arena. Now that his friend's tenth birthday was rapidly approaching, he had been enlisted to help build a frame for the dragon pen that would very soon be necessary. Finn stuck around to help the man with his measurements. He didn't know the kind of dragon he would be getting but he did know that it would be big, because a chief's dragon has to be big. When he'd told Benen this fact, he chuckled and expanded the measurements to accommodate the boy's predictions.

A bright day in early summer found the pair smoothing out the dirt next to the Haddock house so that it was a good foundation. Benen measured wooden logs and handed them to Finn, who would saw them to the length they were supposed to be so that the pen would be proportional.

As he measured out the logs, he noticed the boy sawing them with a ferocity that certainly didn't match his demeanor. For a moment, the man stopped and watched the boy's movements. It almost looked like each log had deeply offended him. His thick eyebrows were furrowed, his face almost as red as his hair, and his freckles were sticking out like someone had painted them on with dirt.

"What's on your mind?" he asked in a gentle tone, his voice barely audible over the racket Finn was making.

Finn looked up at him, wiping his brow with the back of an equally freckled arm. "Nothing."

"Well then why are you overexerting yourself? You're going to be worn out well before all the work is done." Benen sat down on the ground and crossed his fingers in his lap, fixing a serene gaze upon the frazzled boy.

"I'm just... tired." Finn admitted, picking up the saw and attempting to distract himself with the noise.

"Tired... you don't look tired, Finn." Benen breathed a laugh and patted the ground in front of him. "Sit down, take a break."