How to Tame Wild Dragons (How to Train Your Dragon Fan Fiction)

Chapter 3

The enormity of the task dawned on Hiccup as the vikings filed out of the great hall. Gobber gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder as he left, but it did little to assuage Hiccup’s fears. Even Stoick left without a word, but not before nodding approvingly at Hiccup with trust in his eyes. Somehow, that made it even worse. Hiccup didn’t want to let his father down. He knew exactly how that felt.

The dragon riders sat morosely around the great stone table, avoiding each others eyes. Now that the crowd had gone, the old viking tapestries that festooned the walls were visible once again, depicting the great dragon battles of old. In the flickering torchlight, it almost appeared as if the figures were moving. If Hiccup failed, those images could very well play out in Berk once again, if the dragons refused to leave.

“So guys, what’s the plan here?” Hiccup asked, with confidence he did not feel.

“I thought you had one,” Snotlout blurted, “I was just following your lead!” 

“Same here,” Fishlegs groaned, burying his head in his hands.

“Astrid was the one that started it!” Ruffnut said accusingly, slamming her palms on the table.

“Yeah, Astrid started it,” Tuffnut repeated, glaring at Astrid as if she had personally offended him.

“It was either that or all the dragons being kicked out tonight,” Astrid replied firmly, “You saw the mood in the room. I had no idea how much trouble the dragons were causing everyone. We’ve been so wrapped up in our own dragons we hadn’t even considered what it was like for the others!” 

“We should be ashamed of ourselves,” Hiccup agreed heartily, “We’ve been shirking our responsibilities as dragon riders. It was selfish of us.”

“Yeah yeah, we get it, boo hoo.” Snotlout retorted dispassionately, “We all know what bad little dragon riders we’ve been. Now let’s work out how to fix it, or I’ll have to start building Hookfang a new hut in the woods.”

“Huh, like that would last more than a week before it burned down. Hookfang is almost as bad as the wild dragons for lighting fires,” Tuffnut said in a dismissive voice.

“Say that to my face,” Snotlout growled, standing up from the table.

“I just did,” Tuffnut snapped, squaring up to him until their noses touched.

“Boys…” Ruffnut sighed, picking at a loose fingernail. 

“Yeah, like Barf is any better,” Snotlout said, his eyes still fixed on Tuffnut. 

“What did you say!” Ruffnut yelled, gripping the horns of Tuffnut and Snotlout’s helmets. She crashed their heads together with a clang and the two collapsed back into their chairs.

“I’m hurt, I’m very much hurt!” Tuffnut whined, rubbing his head.

“Serves you both right,” Ruffnut said, sitting back down and turning her attention back to her fingernails. “Insult my dragon again and you’ll get worse.”

“Technically it’s our dragon,” Tuffnut muttered.

The room went silent, other than the occasional whimper from Snotlout as he rubbed his bruised head.

“Right, if you’re all done, can we get back to the matter at hand?” Astrid tutted, rapping the table with her knuckles to get their attention. “What do you guys do to discipline your dragons? We’re going to need to do something to get them under our control.”

“I just hit Hookfang on the nose until he stops. Of course when his nose is on fire it’s kind of hard, so I just hit him afterwards when that happens,” Snotlout suggested hazily, still crosseyed. “It doesn’t work very well.”

“No, that won’t work. We can’t round up every dragon in the village and knock them on the nose, plus we’d have to catch them doing something wrong or it wouldn’t teach them anything,” Hiccup said, deep in thought. The beginnings of an idea were forming.

“I give my dragon a fish when he does something right. I could never hurt my Meatlug,” Fishlegs said, scratching his head. “I guess we can't stop them eating all our food by giving them food when they don’t eat our food…wait…I confused myself.” 

“We just yell at each other until they get confused and stop,” Tuffnut said with pride. “It’s odd, but it works. They hate loud noises by their ears.”

“Very true, but I don’t think vikings like loud noises much either. We can’t start banging and clapping around the village every time we want the dragons to leave, Stoick would probably hate that more than the fires,” Astrid mused, scratching her chin. “The dragons might fly back as soon as we finished anyway. I guess it’s worth a shot. Maybe we could use the bells we used to ring to warn the village when the dragons were raiding us. What about you Hiccup, do you have any special techniques?”

“Well, I usually have to trick Toothless into thinking he wants to do what I’ve asked him,” Hiccup chuckled. “But I think the thing he hates most is when I threaten to feed him eels. For some reason, dragons hate them!”

“Like vikings and vegetables,” Tuffnut said, pulling a disgusted face.

“So…we feed the dragons eels until they go away?” Astrid said slowly, trying to understand. “I think force feeding them eels is going to be even harder than hitting them on the nose.”

“No, it’s much better than that,” Hiccup said, standing up with a sudden boldness. “Just help me get a few dozen eels tonight and I’ll show you.”

Snoutlout wasn’t convinced.

“How in Valhalla are we going to find that many eels at this time of night? Bucket and Mulch haven’t caught any fish in weeks, let alone eels,”

Hiccup gave them a confident grin and tapped his nose knowingly.

“Scauldron Cave!”

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