Hello, trying my hand at writing a How To Train Your Dragon Fanfic. In fact, trying my hand at my first fanfic. Let me know what you guys think of it. Do you love it? Do you hate it? Guess i'll find out.

Enjoy.

The night was lit up by fire. From a distance, the island looked like a gigantic torch, a point of flickering light in the vast ocean of blackness. Still, to the inhabitants, the sight was a common one.

A very common one.

In the village perched on the islands cliffs, people ran this way and that, hoisting weapons of every description as they fought to protect their homes. Swords and axes sang as the tore through the smoke-filled air. Bolas and arrows whirled and whistled as their wielders launched them up into the darkness, sometimes hitting, but many times missing.

This was Berk, an island at war with dragons.

There was hardly a building in the village that was not in flames, or at least about to be. The dragons came in from every angle of attack, lighting up the night with their fiery breath and crushing wooden houses with long, vicious talons. Fortunately, most of the villagers were out fighting, lashing out at the winged beasts as they swooped in low. Everyone else was holed up inside the giant stony structure of the Great Hall, calmly waiting for the fighters to drive off the nuisance. After all, dragon attacks were common enough.

But there was one person who was neither out fighting beside the warriors, nor inside the safety of the Great Hall. The little girl was still inside her house, which was rapidly nearing the point of collapse. She was coughing violently, struggling to look for some escape through eyes that stung so very much. She beyond simple fear at that point. For the first time in short life, the girl realized that she was going to die.

Fate had other ideas.

The girl felt the floor beneath her give way. She felt the heat of the flames begin to bite at her skin. She tried to draw in breath for one last instinctive screams, but she took in a mouthful of smoke instead. And so she fell.

Something wrapped around the girls arms, but she was hardly conscious enough to register the fact. Whatever it was, it was lifting her up….and up, and up, and up! The girl wondered if she was being carried all the way to Valhalla. When she finally regained her senses, however, she realized that her nightmare was not yet over.

It was a dragon. A massive, fire-spitting, man-eating dragon.

It was way too much for the young girl to take in. Her screams pierced the air of the burning village for an instant before she fainted away.

"Where is he?" Valka said to herself. In her years spent living with no one to talk to but dragons, she had developed the habit of speaking her thoughts out loud, just so she could remember that she was human. It was also a comfort for her, a way of holding onto her past.

She was currently wandering through the dragon sanctuary of the Alpha Bewilderbeast, picking her way carefully through the masses of sleeping dragons. Indeed, Valka herself would have been sleeping, but for the fact that one dragon in particular dragon was missing.

Cloudjumper, the Stormcutter whom she preferred to ride on more than any other dragon, was nowhere to be found. Normally, such a thing wouldn't have bothered her, for Cloundjumper would often come and go as he pleased. He was a friend, after all, not a pet.

Still, Valka hadn't seen Cloudjumper all day, and with the recent increase of dragon trappers hunting the icy waters of the Archipelago, she was beginning to think something had happened to him.

No sooner had that thought crossed her mind, however, than she saw the familiar shape of her dragon gliding into the sanctuary. Valka let out a sigh of relief, instantly turning to make for the small cave that the two of them slept in.

She was in for a surprise.

The dragons had finally let up on their attack. As always, the dragons fled as the sun worked it's slow way over the distant horizon. It was only then that the Vikings had a chance to fully regroup, assess their losses, and count their dead.

Standing before the ruins of a blacked husk that had once been her home, a woman, sobbed into her hands, whispering the worlds "my little girl" over and over through the tears. Off to the side, watching his poor wife, was a man, trying to hold back his tears for the sake of his young son, who kept asking his dad where his sister was.

There was not a person on Berk unfamiliar with death. The death of a loved one, the of family, or the death of a friend. Yet accepting those deaths never got any easier. And so the the village gathered around the grieving mother, bowing their heads, praying that the soul of the young girl would be accepted into Valhalla.

As the woman knelt in front of her destroyed home, she clutched something small to her chest. A small necklace, set with a tiny blue gemstone, a gift she had given to her daughter on her ninth birthday, only days before. Clutching it until she feared it might shatter, the woman let wail of grief, screaming at the gods that would so take her little girl from her.

Such was the cost of war.

Valka was stunned to the point of speechlessness. After she reunited with Cloudjumper, she was shocked to find out that he had not come back from his little escapade empty handed, or rather empty clawed. She had seen that he was carrying something in his claws when she had entered the cave in which they slept, but she had assumed it was just something he had brought back to the nest to eat.

Instead, he brought back a human girl.

Valka studied the unconscious girl, who was now sprawled out across the floor of the small, rocky enclosure. She couldn't have been more than ten years old, though it was hard to make out much of her through the layers of soot and ash that covered her. Her hair was a soft golden colour, and she was of rather slender build. Beneath the covering of ashes, the skin of her face was pale, and her breath was raspy and uneven.

It took a moment for Valka to begin to react at all, though when she did she moved quickly. Valka picked up the small girl and placed her on her on her own bed, which was really no more than a collection of furs stacked on top of each other. Then she ran over to a deeper part of the cave and fetched a few dry leaves that had been stored their earlier. With practiced motions, she began mashing up the leaves in a small bowl of water, then brought that bowl over to the sleeping girl. In tiny, tiny sips, for Valka did not wish to chock the girl, she poured the mixture into the gir'ls mouth, a few drops at a time. The girl was able to swallow, mostly on reflex, and by the time the bowl was empty, she seemed to be breathing a little bit easier.

That done, Valka turned back to Cloundjumper.

"Where did you find her?" Valka asked, speaking in a soft whisper.

The dragon walked over to the makeshift stone table near the wall of the cave and began scratching at it with one of his claws.

Valka followed him over. On that table, Valka had carved out a rough map of the area that surrounded the dragon sanctuary. Names of a dozen or so islands were scrawled along the surface, and the one that Cloudjumper indicated was familiar indeed to Valka.

"Berk" she said softly. That one word brought back a host of memories for the woman. Memories of what she once was, what she was before…

She looked back at the girl.

Before she was kidnapped by a dragon.

Valka's first instinct was that she had to take the girl back to her family, but she discarded that idea before it came to fruition. A girl who is supposedly killed in a raid, then mysteriously comes back to life? Doing that would raise to many questions, and the girl would probably be in more danger from her fellow Vikings than any kind of dragon attack.

Valka thought of perhaps taking her to another village, somewhere where she could start over, where less would be known about her, and where hopefully, less questions would be asked. After she thought that over, though, she discarded that idea as well. The people of Berk might take someone in if they asked, but other Viking tribes were not nearly as friendly, from what Valka had observed. They would hardly be quick to accept a lost boy out of the goodness of their hearts, much less a girl. To them, such a child would only be another mouth to feed, and in a part of the world where food was less than bountiful as it was.

That left one option open to Valka, unless she wanted to simply abandon the girl in the wilderness, which she wouldn't do.

Valka could raise the girl herself.

At first, the idea sounded ludicrous to the dragon rider. Yes, she had lived here by herself for just over a decade, but it was no place to raise a child. Moreover, could this child even live with dragons? Would she paralyzed by her fear for them? Would she every be able to change?

Honestly, Valka didn't know. She had seen on Berk that Vikings were not people who changed their ways. Over and over, she had asked to stop the fighting. Over and over, she had been rebuffed. Despite the horror and loss of war, the people would not stop and look for a better answer. The dragon problem could only be solved with swords and axes, so they believed.

Yet, could one of the younger ones be taught different? Valka wondered. At this age, she probably was filled more with fear of dragons than hatred, but could Valka change that?

A part of her, a very large part of her, hoped that the answer would be yes.

"So be it" she said quietly. She turned back to look at the girl in the bed. "Tomorrow, we will see if you are different."

With that, she laid back against Cloudjumper, who had curled up and fallen asleep. Leaning against his warm scales, Valka drifted off into slumber.

Wow, I was able to do that all in one sitting. Yay! I'll see how often I'll be able to update. The next one will hopefully be up by Monday of next week, but I am making no promises. Anyway, thanks for reading, and have a nice day!