New Life Ahead [HTTYD]

Chapter 1: He Who Hesitates...

"I'm gonna kill you dragon," said Hiccup as he raised the knife.

The dragon continued to stare at him with a blank expression, even though it knew that its death would come in just a moment from the hands of this young and underdeveloped Viking.

"I'm gonna cut out your heart and take it to my father. I am a Viking..." Hiccup took a deep breath and exhaled, "I am a VIKING!" He exclaimed with as much force as he could.

To the Night Fury, it looked like the human was trying to convince himself rather than him. It wouldn't matter though...

Hiccup inhaled and raised his knife as he closed his eyes. Before he brought the knife down however, he spared one last look at the Night Fury... and gasped.

The dragon stared up at him with a glazed look its eyes, as if about to cry. It looked so fragile and helpless; one could have mistaken it for a kicked puppy. The dragon gave a low croon of distress as it laid down its head and closed its eyes, accepting its fate.

The self-proclaimed Viking hesitated as the knife in his hands shook, sweat rolling down his head despite the cold weather surrounding him. He grit his teeth together and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to muster up the courage to finally kill the dragon that terrified his village for years.

"Come on!" his inner voice said, "Killing this thing will finally put you in with the rest of the crowd. No more neglect, no more insult, and no more being the world's biggest screw-up in the history of Vikings. You can finally be ONE OF THEM!" He raised the knife...

"I can't do it." the boy sighed.

He let down the knife and looked at the dragon with pity.

"I did this..." he said as he turned to walk away. But his conscience would not let him simply walk away from the fact that this dragon would eventually die from starvation, or from the very unlikely possibility that some other Viking would come across this now-downed dragon.

He sighed once more.

The dragon's eyes snapped open as it heard the rough scraping of knife against rope. It felt the constricting force around it becoming loose to the point where it felt nonexistent.

As the boy cut the last rope, the dragon leapt up immediately to all fours and pushed Hiccup against the rock, the young Viking breathing in and out in short, hurried gasps.

The dragon assessed the boy's face closely with its eyes, the dark slits surrounded by the shiny green outline. Its glare pierced the boys own eyes, eyes that looked up at the dragon with no other emotion than that of fear.

The dragon continued to stare down at the boy with hatred, but after a few moments, its rage-filled countenance softened, the sharp slits becoming that of a round innocence, similar to that of a dog's.

Hiccup's fear eventually gave way to confusion as the dragon continued to do nothing, and looked at him with a face that his own father usually wore whenever Hiccup happened to be around causing trouble; that of one not knowing what to do with something... or someONE.

The dragon closed its eyes in frustration, as if not knowing what to do with this one human boy. It trembled in its own indecisiveness, the boy feeling the claws on his chest extending and contracting.