Man, nights are hectic.

What with homework, being bullied, and dancing, my evenings are packed.

My name, as you probably don't know, is Hiccup. I know, right? Hiccup. Such a weird name. But it's certainly not as bad as it could be. Buttface. That'd be a pretty bad name.

In case you didn't figure it out, I am a dancer. One of the best in the country, or so I'm told. But I hate bragging, and I really think that most people are better than me. So I don't really talk about my dancing to anyone. They don't need to know. Plus, I wouldn't feel comfortable if everyone started swarming me.

Alongside dancing, I am the highest scoring Honors student in my grade. All AP classes. You know what that means? Work. Lots of work. On my way home from school, I walk with my body at a right angle because my backpack is so filled with books and papers.

And then there's the bullying. To explain this, I'll have to go into story mode:

Once upon a time, in a time too distant to tell, I was bo-

Scratch that. Let's try something else.

It was a dark and stormy-

No, that's not it! One last try, and we're callin' it quits!

At one point in my life, people didn't hate me.

There, that's better.

I had friends. Sort of. More like acquaintances. We were all very different. They were tough, I was weak. They... weren't the smartest, I was top of the class. They liked sports, I liked art. You get the point.

But then, I got accepted to Falsus Apello Performing Arts School. And so did they.

You would think that that wouldn't change anything. But my "friends" weren't as humble as I am. They became snooty and pretentious, shunning me, thinking, "What has he done to get here?"

The thing is, they've never seen me, Hiccup, actually dance before. Or any of my talents for that matter. Not in front of their judgmental and greedy stares.

And so they ditched me. At that point, I didn't really mind, because they were being so mean to me.

That hasn't stopped, though. All my old friends are now the bullies who torment me every single day.

The funny thing is, though, they're absolutely infatuated with this guy Inermis. He's this wildly popular dancer down at the Cove, the best club in town, and he performs every night in between his homework and being bullied.

Sound familiar?

Yep. I, weak-ole Useless, am the famous Inermis. I dance, I sing, I make girls swoon and clutch their pearls.

All from behind my masquerade.

I wanted to dance in front of an audience, but I didn't want people to know it was me. My mother and I came up with the cover of Inermis. Well, she helped me with the basic idea, but she passed away sadly before we could get a name.

I miss my mother. She's been gone for so long. My father is hardly around anymore, so I have no one at home. She was my only friend, telling me everything would be okay and that we could get ice cream after practice.

Anyways, the word Inermis is Latin for toothless. I decided to call myself this for two reasons: 1.) I love Latin, and I'm pretty good at it. 2.) It's after my dragon, Toothless.

I didn't start this whole operation until a few months ago, right around the time I met Toothless.

Story time!

I was exploring the forest, by myself, to avoid Snotlout (another bad name) and his gang of bullies. There were these fallen and smashed up trees that made a path to a clearing. And in the clearing, lay a large, black, injured Night Fury.

Woah, right? Random Night Fury up for grabs?

I could have- should have- killed it. But... There was something about that dragon. It just reflected me in so many ways. It was frightened by the creature in front of it, as was I. It didn't want to kill, just be left alone. Me too.

Toothless was not the friendliest at first, for when I was finished cleaning and treating the dragon's tail fin, he pounced on me. His deep green eyes narrowed into slits, and he bared his teeth, growling a throaty gurgle. He roared then, a loud screeching thing, and left, bounding away.

"Holy crap!" I thought, trying to walk away, but fainting.

The next day, after a torturous day at school, everyone in my class- Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, Fishlegs, and Astrid (the bullies)- was gathered for a safety class concerning- you guessed it- dragons. How convenient.

"And he bit my arm clean off! Word musta spread because a month later, another one got my leg!" my teacher, Gobber said.

Gobber. An interesting man. His other students call him Mr. Belch, but we, the "lucky" class, get to call him by his first name. He doesn't really teach anything about dancing. More like yelling out instructions. But that's a-okay in my book because then I don't really have to reveal my skills. Well, I revealed them to the administrators and teachers, but that was to get into the school.

Aside from teaching, he also runs a club called the Cove. Yes. I perform at my teacher's dance club.

"Psch! That's nothing! My cousin lost both her arms and her head!" Ruff said.

"Uh, Ruff... She's dead," Tuff murmured in her ear.

"Oh... Doesn't that count?"

"No, Ruffnut, that does not count."

"Big deal! I could have killed that thing without losing any limbs. I'll chop off their legs. With my face!" Snotlout griped.

"Oh, see, that's where you're wrong. It's the wings and tail fins ya want to go for. A downed dragon is a dead dragon. There! That's today's lesson," Gobber said.

This got me thinking. The dragon I had found the day before had lost a tail fin. It couldn't fly. He wouldn't be able to survive.

"Excuse me, Gobber?" I asked.

Everyone turned to me and gave me an annoyed glare.

"Yes, Hiccup?" he replied, his Scottish accent tweaking his words.

"May I be excused?" I said.

He looked surprised, but answered, "Certainly."

I grabbed my green satchel-like messenger bag and sketchbook, and flew out the door. I felt a stare on my back as I left. I flicked my eyes over to see who it was and was surprised to see the culprit was Astrid.

Of course, it wasn't a crush-y stare. It was a suspicious, "What are you doing, Useless?" stare.

Sometimes I walk home. Sometimes I ride the bus. Luckily, today was a day when I brought my bike. I hopped on the black frame and beat it before they could figure out I'd left.

I biked down the street, turning a corner or two, when I reached my house.

My house is, like every other house on Berk, ridiculously dangerous. In our age of technology, we still have completely wooden houses and we fight with dragons. Construction companies adore our island because we always need something rebuilt.

My dad, being the mayor, was not home. I ran in without worry, found some fish leftover from dinner, and ran to the forest behind my house.

I quickly located where I'd found the Night Fury the other day, and followed the path of his tracks.

The trees opened into a giant expanse of cove. There were humongous tree roots draped along the sides of the rock walls. I saw a large lake on the floor of the whatever-it-is as I climbed down on rock ledges.

There, hanging from a tree branch, was something along the lines of a mammoth-sized bat. So a Night Fury.

"Hey, bud. Remember me? From yesterday?" I called out.

I stood with my back to a large rock, holding the fish out in front of me. There was scraping behind me.

"Aah!" I shouted. Out of the corner of my eye, BOOM, there he was!

I backed up out of fear, and it came closer.

He growled and looked at my abdomen. Could dragons smell metal? I dug in my pocket and pulled out my Swiss Army knife. As soon as he saw it, he hunched down and growled harder.

My brain made the connection: Dragons do not want to die; knives cause death.

I dropped it, and when that wasn't enough, I picked it up with my foot and tossed it into the lake.

With the only thing I had to protect myself gone, the dragon sat down on its haunches like a dog and looked at me expectantly.

The fish! I had nearly forgotten in my mental panic. I extended it out toward him and his mouth came toward it in a slithering motion.

His mouth opened and revealed his-

Gums? "Huh... I could have sworn you had-"

Teeth sprang out of his gums immediately and sunk into the fish. He yanked it away from my hand and swallowed it whole, turning then to observe my reaction.

"Teeth," I near murmured.

Then his eyes went cross-eyed and he started- don't you DARE laugh at this- hiccuping.

And then he barfed a half-eaten fish onto my lap.

"Eew."

He looked at me as if to say, "You gonna eat it or what?"

"Oh, what, you want- ugh, fine."

I hesitantly raised the uncooked, half-eaten fish to my mouth, hoping that the dragon would decide that I'd proven myself. He didn't.

I bit into the rubbery-ness of uncooked fish. Gagging, I held out the rest of the fish and said, "Mmm!"

But that wasn't good enough for the rotten reptile.

"Oh, come on!" I shouted through the fish.

His look didn't change, so I forced myself to swallow it. Shuddering, I nearly threw up.

His ears perked up as his eyes asked, "Well?"

I smiled and nodded as a response. He looked quizzical, but then his mouth started to twitch and raise, almost as if he were smiling...

I felt compelled to touch him suddenly. Reaching out my hand, his smile dropped and he ran to the other side of the cove.

That went well. After chasing him over and trying again, he ran off and did his bat-like thing. Wondering what to do, I sat down and picked up a stick.

One of my talents is drawing. So I sketched him, Toothless. Toothless. An ironic name, but that is just what I decided to call him. In a way, both of our names are adjectives describing a part of ourselves. Toothless described his soft side. Hiccup described my awkward side.

I felt a presence behind me. I glanced to my right and saw Toothless looking over my shoulder at my drawing. He seemed pleased.

Continuing drawing, I felt him leave. I glanced over my shoulder to see where he'd gone. To my surprise, he was ripping a tree from the ground. Staggering under its wait, Toothless went over to the dirt and placed the end of the stem on the ground. He began twirling it around, dragging it across the dirt like a brush or pen.

Like a pen! He was... He was drawing! Remarkable!

Toothless swirled the tree around me, creating a circle. Lines crossed over previous lines, creating a tangle of angles.

Toothless dropped the tree trunk and looked at me expectantly. "Well," he seemed to say, "you like it?"

I tried to step forward, but Toothless growled. I looked down to see that I'd stepped on one of his lines. I warily raised my foot from the line.

Toothless's expression lightened again. I had an idea, and I decided to test it.

I put my foot down again. His expression was meaner than the first time. I raised my foot. Happiness and easy-going-ness replaced his look of hatred.

I tried it two more times. His reactions were exaggerated each time. Until finally I stepped in the empty space on the other side of the line. He pulled his head back as a symbol that he was pleased.

I continued to put my feet in the blank spaces of dirt, almost making a dance of it. Then I felt a huffing presence behind me. There, behind, my back, was Toothless. He stared at me as if that had been his plan all along. I reached out my hand. He pulled back and growled. Finally, I decided to take a leap of faith. I closed my eyes, turned my head, and stuck my hand out fully.

Hot breath encircled my palm, and then a scaly pressure pushed my hand. I glanced up at Toothless, then hid my face farther in relief.

The pressure left my hand. Toothless snorted, then left.

Woah, I thought.

From then on, I've been making equipment that will help him fly. As we test, we've become the best of friends, although I'm sure that we're the only friends the each of us have.

And so now, I'm the dancing, singing, heart-stopping, drawing, and, most of all, flying boy who keeps it all a secret.

Cool, right?

So... You understand my relationship with Toothless, the bullies, and my mother. Two more to go.

My father. As said before, he is the mayor of our village-town-thing. He's always been very passive about my dancing. Never really cared. He hasn't told me to stop, but he has never told me he's proud. After my mom died, though... He's hardly ever home, and when he does, he doesn't look at me, hardly speaks. It's awful.

And finally, Astrid. The girl of my dreams. She's smart, she's an extremely good dancer, she's tough, and she's beautiful. She's amazing.

Lot to take in. But that's the life of Inermis.