He was resisting, pulling away and more or less being dragged, his lanky, skinny shape no match for the shorter but far stockier and stronger shape of his Uncle. "You know, boy-I really thought he was exaggerating when he said you were a disaster and a shame upon the family name...but now, I see he was underestimating your capacity for chaos!" Writhing and pulling against the grip, Hiccup felt his heart sink, knowing his father had undermined him before all his relatives-if not all the other personnel on the base.

"Please, Uncle," he begged. "You-you know this is wrong, don't you?"

"I've been given an order!" Spitelout told him. "Maybe something you ought to learn..."

"I'm a seventeen year old civilian!" Hiccup protested. "You-you can't lock me up in the brig. It's..."

"General's orders!" Spitelout told him brutally, dragging the boy in. Still struggling, Hiccup could feel apprehension rise as he was dragged through to the cells and literally thrown into the nearest one, slamming to the floor as the door clanged shut behind him. He looked up through the bars...to see his Uncle walking away and closing the door to the main detention area. Hiccup stood at the bars, his hands grasping the metal and eyes staring at disbelief at the closed door. He felt his throat thicken and breathing grow ragged: he really didn't deserve this.

But as hours passed, he realised no one was coming. No one cared that he was under age. No one cared that he wasn't even a soldier. No one cared that he was scared. And no one cared that he was hungry and thirsty and alone. So he sat on the bed, his knees drawn up to his chest, his face buried in his knees and despair tightening his chest. Without a watch, without a com and in unrelenting artificial light, he had no idea of the passage of time save the gnawing in his belly and the pressure in his bladder. Finally, he lifted his head.

"HEY!" he shouted. "I-er-I need to go! Please...I...I..." The door slammed open and a guard stomped in, his face hostile and the young prisoner cringed. "Please...I need..."

"Bucket!" the guards sneered, gesturing to the object. His eyes flicked to the bucket and then back to the smirking guard and he shook his head.

"Please..." he begged.

"You want me come in there and hold it for you?" the guard sneered. Hiccup shook his head. The guard smirked, then reached for the door and unlocked it. Eyes wide in sudden fear, he pressed back against the wall as the guard walked slowly towards him. In an instant, a large hand fisted his scruffy auburn hair and he was wrenched to his feet, hissing in pain. The guard forced him to his knees and almost forced his face into the bucket. The teen had to brace his arms against the ferocious pressure on his shoulders and use all his strength to prevent his face being pushed into the noisome depths. "Learn your place, you runt!" the guard sneered. "You use the bucket or you piss your pants like the baby you are!" And then he let the boy go, slamming the door behind him. Hiccup sat back on his heels, shaking hard. He felt utter despair well in his chest: they were never going to let him out.

Come morning, he was curled on his side on the bed, his arms wrapped around his body. The bucket was firmly in the furthest corner of the cell, well away from the despairing teen. He had been left some water but no food the previous evening and when the door opened in the morning, he saw the guard had nothing in his hands. He sighed and stiffly sat up. "No menu?" he asked. The guards scowled ferociously and grabbed his arm, hauling him from the cell, dragging him down to the Security Office, to face the stern and unfriendly shape of his Uncle.

"Have you learned your lesson?" Spitelout asked him sharply and the boy swept a hand over his face tiredly.

"Um...what lesson was I supposed to learn, Uncle?" he asked directly.

"To hand over the dragon!" Spitelout growled at him. "Gods, boy-can't you be anything but a disappointment?" Tired, hungry and miserable, Hiccup flicked his bright green gaze up to inspect his Uncle and sighed.

"Maybe if a single member of my family cared about me, if one of them bothered to support and help me, then I wouldn't be so disappointing!" he shot back. "But he...and you...and Snot all hate me so what fucking chance do I have?"

"SHUT UP!" Spitelout shouted and he cringed back. "Now you're going to that Pen and we'll persuade that dragon to choose another rider!" Hiccup shook his head but the guard was back, grabbing his skinny arm. He yelped because the guard's fierce grip dug hard into the bruises he had from the previous day but he found himself hauled along like a rag doll and eventually held firm at the door of the pen where he had dropped little Toothless. Spitelout gave nasty scowl as the General walked up and Hiccup stared steadfastly at the door. The metal cracked apart and the men dragged their prisoner in. Hiccup was thrust forward and he glanced miserably at the scowling shape of his father, but all that met him was an expression verging on hatred. He shivered and turned back as two more men walked in behind him: Snotlout and Dagur.

The door slammed and there was a small roar. Despite his night in the cells, his hunger and thirst and severe apprehension, Hiccup walked forward as the little black shape bounded towards him. His face twitched into a smile, his eyes brightening with delight as the dragon bounced up to him and gave a happy croon.

"BUD!" he greeted the dragon, capering round as the dragon bounced and warbled excitedly. The dragon jumped and knocked him down, bouncing on his chest and licking his face and neck repeatedly. "Bud! I don't think that's gonna wash out!" But his voice was laughing as he stroked and hugged the dragon.

"Now hand him over, Useless!" Snotlout sneered, his expression covetous. His father mirrored the expression-cruel and unrelenting as he glared at the teen.

"Yeah-to me!" Dagur snapped. Hiccup sat up, an arm protectively around the little Dragon, feeling the warm pressure against his skinny shape.

"No," Hiccup said defiantly.

"You were given an order!" Stoick shouted at him. He flinched, curling closer to the little dragon. Toothless curled his tail around the boy, a little growl in his throat.

"No," Hiccup repeated, his wide green eyes pleading. "He has bonded with me. You can do whatever you want to me...but you can't change his heart, Dad. This is the smartest dragon and he knows his mind. He has made his choice...and your own intelligence tells you that once a dragon is bonded, that bond can't just be dissolved and handed on to another. Toothless had the chance to bond with Snot and Dagur-and he rejected them. He didn't want them. My pushing him away won't make him bond with them...it will just upset him and make him hostile to humans. It may mean he never interacts positively with us...and you know it!"

"Why are you so defiant?" Stoick asked in exasperation. "Why are you such a disappointing runt? Why do you never do anything that would make me proud? Do you go out of your way to humiliate and anger me, boy? Because you're doing that again!"

"Dad...I can't undo this," Hiccup said softly. "And...to be honest...I wouldn't want to. Toothless is the most amazing and special person in BERK...and he has chosen to be a friend to me. My only friend. I can't give that up, Dad. A father wouldn't ask his son to."

"Do you know why you don't stay with me?" Stoick shouted at him. "Because I don't want to see you! I don't want to see your pathetic skinny shape, listen to your irritating reedy voice and be reminded that my wife died leaving me with you as her only reminder! Why couldn't it have been you that died? Then Val and I...we could have had a better son than you to replace you! Instead, I am stuck with...all of this." And he gestured disparagingly at the skinny, lanky shape hugging the dragon.His lip curled in a cruel sneer. "A sulky, pathetic brat who has screwed up the whole BERK project! And all I can do is make you do as you are told now...because that dragon won't abandon you! So we now have to make you part of the Project...and teach you to obey..."

Hiccup stared at him, his heart breaking in his chest. His father's brutal words-shouted at full volume in front of his mentor, his cruel and sneering Uncle, his odious and bullying cousin and the vicious and menacing Dagur-had torn his world in half. He had long since known his father was disappointed at him and largely ignored him...but the words carried real hatred and that had knocked away the foundations of his world. He found he was trembling hard and he hoped and prayed that he wouldn't do anything embarrassing or break before his father left.

"Sir...you're not seriously considering letting this little worm keep the Night Fury?" Dagur asked in an amazed and furious voice. "Sir, let me get my hands on him. I am certain I can persuade him to give up the dragon..." Hiccup flinched and felt Toothless's tail press closer to him. There was a silent growl vibrating in the dragon's chest and Hiccup laid his hand flat on the warm, scaly skin, feeling the sound and allowing the sensation to remind him one person here wanted him.

"But you cannot persuade the dragon to give up him," Stoick said angrily. "Fall out. The thermal imaging suggests a handful more will be hatching within the month and then you will have your dragons." As the two soldiers turned and marched out, casting threatening glares at the young man, Stoick turned away from his son. "Gobber-upgrade his status and ensure he gets Rider training."

"What about his place in IT?" Gobber asked him in a neutral voice. He had a soft spot for the boy and had been shocked when Stoick had ripped his boy to shreds in front of the others.

"He can keep that as well," the General growled. "Boy should do something useful." And then he left without even acknowledging his son was there. The Colonel walked slowly towards the boy, who had curled around his dragon, the face buried against the flattened head and body shaking with sobs. The older man crouched down awkwardly, his bulky shape and missing leg making the whole process very ungainly. But his heart was aching for the young man, clinging to the newly hatched dragon as the only creature he could call a friend.

"Hiccup?" he began softly and the boy stiffened, rigid shoulders still shaking with his grief. The auburn head slowly lifted, revealing tear-streaked cheeks and shining and puffy green eyes. He sniffed pathetically and swiped at his face with his sleeve. Lashes beaded with tears fluttered as the boy took a sighing breath.

"Does he mean it, Gobber?" he asked timidly. "Is that what he truly thinks of me?" For once, the Colonel was lost for words. He doubted Stoick would have screamed the words if he didn't mean or think them...but no man with any shred of heart would ever say that to his son! No man with any shred of common decency would say that to a lonely and vulnerable young man who was being threatened by two older and more fierce soldiers.

Then again, what sort of man would put his seventeen year old son in a cell for the night for getting lost and accidentally ending up in the wrong place?

"He's been under a lot of stress, laddie," he said weakly and watched Hiccup's face crumple. The boy was still school age but he was smart and he could read between the lines better than most.

"I-I understand..." he said quietly. "I-I...I'll just have to try to do better." He took a shuddering breath then finally got to his feet, caressing the dragon gently. The little dragon gave a pathetic whimper and pressed hard against the teen's leg. "It's okay, bud. It's not you...it's me. You really should have gone for one of those others..."

But the dragon's adoring expression said it eloquently enough:

You're the only one I want. My Rider. My human.