Disclaimer: Lettin' ya'll in on a lil' secret... *whispers* I don't own HTTYD! Better believe it.

Chapter 1

This is Home and That was Berk

The First and the Only.

Hiccup thought it was a ridiculous title but, sadly, he had no say in it. Someone had coined the term and it caught on like a wildfire. Hiccup wished he knew who it was. Then he could arrest whoever-it-was for their crime against creativity. Its only redeeming quality was that it made sense. The first dragon rider and the only night fury.

Hiccup sighed and watched the sun peek up from behind the horizon, slowly illuminating the island. He still wished they could have come up with something more... epic. Something dramatic that would make his enemies tremble and make history exaggerate his greatness.

"Well, Toothless," Hiccup said, slumping against the dragon's shoulder. "This is it. The one year mark."

Toothless lifted his head from his paws and looked at Hiccup inquisitively.

"Since we left," Hiccup explained. "One year since we left Berk for good."

Toothless grunted and dropped his head back onto his paws. Hiccup imagined he was saying, and good riddance.

Hiccup chuckled. "You got that right, buddy. I think we've come a long way since then."

Twisting away from the sunrise, Hiccup looked behind them at their little earth-and-stone village. Most people were still asleep, savoring their day to sleep in since Hiccup hadn't planned any exercises for today. He had decided last night to let everyone have the day to play with their dragons, sleep, and just generally relax. They deserved it. None of them had seriously complained (they jokingly complained all the time) about the rigorous and slightly excessive training regimes Hiccup put them through every day. Hiccup was proud of them.

"So," Hiccup said, returning his gaze to the flaming red and pomegranate sunrise as he addressed his best friend. "What do you want to do today, Toothless? It's just you and me."

Toothless perked up, his ear sensors straight up as he wiggled in place.

"You're absolutely right, pal," Hiccup agreed. "We should go flying."

Like it had even been a question in the first place.

They didn't have a whole lot of time to themselves now that they had taken in more vikings and more dragons. Hiccup spent a lot of time organizing and teaching the vikings, as well as working their smithy to make saddles. Thankfully, Drott had come along a few months ago with enough blacksmithing skill to pick up leather work and saddle-making pretty quickly, which took a load off Hiccup's shoulders; but he still had many, many other things to do.

Toothless himself had work cut out for him as well. The Night Fury was a sort of dragon-viking liason, in his own way. Whenever wild dragons strayed their way, Toothless was there to either fight them off or calm them down, which of course, Hiccup was required to assist him in doing. Toothless worked to assure those dragons that his vikings, by example of Hiccup, were safe for them. Not only that, Toothless tried to keep them from following the host of dragons carrying food to the Red Death back on the nest, because Hiccup wasn't ready to face that dragon yet. He hadn't even sent anyone but himself as a scout to see if it had any weaknesses. He wanted his little rag-tag group of dragons and riders to be as ready as humanly and dragonly possible before they faced it.

Hiccup and Toothless quietly watched the sunrise for another few minutes until the sun had completely cleared the horizon and the brilliant hues of reds, oranges, and purples had faded to a myriad of blues. Then the twosome headed over to their great hall, which was really just a huge, circular pavilion with a fire pit in the center and tables sitting haphazardly around it. Breakfast was already out on the table courtesy of Aesa, their resident cook.

By the time Hiccup had started eating his breakfast and Toothless had dug into the feeding station full of fish, a few vikings and their dragons were creeping out of their little stone houses. Obviously the dragons were far more cheery and awake than the vikings.

Hall Onundrson sat down with a plop next to Hiccup, eyes half-closed and his Nadder bouncing cheerily behind him over to Toothless. He set his food and drink on the wooden table and yawned.

"Good—" Hall yawned again mid-sentence. "G'morning, Hiccup."

Hiccup smiled. Hall was almost impossible to wake up in the mornings. If it weren't for his Nadder, Brighteyes, Hall would probably never get up in the mornings. That dragon deserved a medal.

Drott was working on it.

"Good morning, Hall," Hiccup returned, twisting his wooden cup in his hands.

Hall plunked his dirty parchment papers, soon to be filled with the patrol schedule, onto the table next to his plate. The charcoal pencil on top bounced off the papers following it's dramatic plop and rolled under the lip of Hiccup's plate. Unconcerned, Hall dove into his food with fervor that matched a dragon's and didn't say anything else to Hiccup.

Shaking his head, Hiccup smiled. Some things never change. He slid the papers over and checked yesterday's patrol schedule to see who was next.

"Torfi has morning patrol," Hiccup said aloud, though Hall probably wasn't listening, and retrieved the pencil from under his plate. "Lodin has afternoon. Arni has evening, and I have midnight to sunrise."

Hiccup scribbled that down on the paper and glanced up as Aesa slid onto the bench across from him and Hall. "Are Tofa and Firescales back from their patrol yet?"

Aesa nodded and took a bite of her food. "She went straight to bed. About an hour ago. Who has this morning?"

"Torfi," Hiccup responded. "I'll tell him."

Hall finished off his plate and licked his fingers clean. "Sounds good. Brighteyes and I are heading to Bardikk with a few others."

Hiccup nodded. Bardikk was the closest island with a semblance of a market that somewhat tolerated their presence on Market Day. Today was Market Day, which was why Hiccup chose it as their day off in case anyone wanted to go.

"I'm going," Aesa put in. "And so are Drott and Lodin. I think Tofa was planning to come after she got some sleep."

"Alright, just make sure Lodin's back in time for his shift," Hiccup said, rising from the bench. "Toothless and I will be around."

Hall smiled, shaking his head. "Aren't you always?"

Hiccup shrugged with his own smile and picked up his dishes. "I'll see you around. C'mon, Toothless."

Toothless pulled his head out of the feeding station and trotted happily after Hiccup, occasionally bumping his head against the viking's back to hurry him along.

"I'm going, I'm going!" Hiccup exclaimed, grinning at the dragon.

Once he'd disposed of his plate and cup Hiccup raced his best friend to their house (Toothless won) and pulled out their saddle and harness. As soon as Hiccup had his feet in the pedals Toothless was in the air.

Trader Johan finished selling things to the good people of Berk a few minutes ago, and Tuffnut, for the first time in forever, decided to stay and listen to the news he brought. Why? Well, he was attempting the seemingly impossible. He was going to be... different from Ruffnut.

Yes, he and Ruffnut had gotten into another sibling spat, but a little more serious than usual. The twins did everything together, owned everything together, and practically thought everything together. To be honest, they were both fed up with that so they had agreed somewhat civilly (shocker, I know) to be different. No one thought is would last (it probably wouldn't) but Tuffnut was determined to try.

Tuffnut walked up to the group who had gathered to hear the news; Stoick, random-viking-Tuffnut-didn't-know, Gobber, other unknown viking, Astrid, someone else he didn't know, Fishlegs, another viking, Spitelout and Snotlout, and...

"Ruffnut! What are you doing here?" Tuffnut demanded. "This was my idea."

Ruffnut's face heated up red and she shoved him in the chest. "No, it was my idea first!"

Astrid quickly stepped in. "Guys!" she exclaimed, raising her hands in a placating gesture.

"Fine," Ruffnut growled, nose turned up. "I'm going this way. Don't follow me!"

"I won't!" Tuffnut called after her.

Astrid huffed and rolled her eyes at them before turning back to Johan. "You were saying about Bog Island?"

Tuffnut honestly gave listening a shot... for about 10 seconds. Seriously! Who cared how old Camicazi was, or who had been hit hardest in the last series of storms?

Tuffnut tuned back in when Stoick said, "Thank you, Johan, for bringing us news."

The crowd started to disperse but Johan piped up again, "Actually, there is one other bit of news. It's been circulating as a rumor for a while and I didn't really believe it until I saw it myself."

Rumors? Johan always told rumors, however strange. Why hadn't they heard this before? This sounded remotely interesting, he decided.

"What is it, Johan?" Gobber asked curiously.

"Well..." Johan wrung his hands and said hesitantly, "It seems there's a group of vikings making nice with the dragons."

Absolute silence.

No one moved.

No one said anything.

"What?" Stoick asked quietly, his tone taking a hard edge.

Now it made sense why Johan hadn't told them until he'd confirmed it. Ever since Hiccup had made friends with a Monstrous Nightmare and flown off on it a year ago... well, this would obviously be a sore subject.

"I don't know exactly who they are," Johan said. "I've only seen two of them with one of those Nadders and a Gronckle. They seemed pretty young. Just teens. Nobody knows where they live. Except for one group who apparently attacked their island a couple of months ago. People say they came back from it with burned sails and broken ships. A few of 'em stop by the markets every once in a while, mostly the one on Bardikk. So most people reckon they're somewhere around that area."

No one seemed to know how to respond to that. A few people muttered, "traitors" or "friends with the devils" and so on.

"How many of them are there?" Astrid asked. Her brows were deeply furrowed, but it was hard to tell if she was just curious or plotting their downfall.

"Oh, just a few," Johan said. "A small number. Though apparently they welcome anyone who wants to join 'em. Which isn't that many obviously. I don't know if... Hiccup is with them. I haven't seen. But their leader is a fellow people call The First and he rides a Night Fury they call The Only."

The fact that someone had tamed a Night Fury, or made a deal with the devil or whatever, went in one ear and right out the other. He had stopped listening a few sentences ago. Instead, one thought stood at the forefront of Tuffnut's mind. Anyone could join?

As in... anyone. As in... Tuffnut. It was going to be Market Day on a few islands in four or five days. Yeah, he knew a thing, don't be so surprised. And the one word that danced around his mind was adventure. A half-baked plan formulated in Tuffnut's mind. He could stow away. Ride dragons, who were, by the way, some of the most destructive creatures ever. And to top it off, Ruffnut wouldn't think of it because she wasn't here.

Tuffnut grinned.

Hi, people of the HTTYD fandom. I'm new to here but not to fanfiction. I am, however, an avid HTTYD fan. Any idea how many times I've seen that movie? Too many times to count. And I'm still watching it. As well as all the HTTYD 2 trailers. They make me melt on the inside.

Does anyone think Tuffnut was out of character? I don't like the tv show version of him so I just kinda went with the flow. Did he turn out okay?