Everything hurt, your head pounded and your joins ached. You felt an insatiable pit in your stomach, it yearned for food. Although somehow, you felt a bit more hydrated... and warm?

It took a moment to gather up the strength to open your eyes, but when you did you were almost blinded by the sight of a lit fire in a fire place beside you. You squinted and turned away from it, blinking a few times to adjust to the sights around you. This wasn't the ship? From the support beams above you, it was the inside of a house. Weakly and slowly with pain, you sat up. You found yourself wrapped up in a blanket with a shirt a little too big for you on, from the slight cold against your back, there'd been holes cut into it for your wings.

Looking around you found yourself most definitely in a house, set up in some blankets and a pillow by the fireplace. Across the room was a table and chairs, countertop, staircase leading to another floor and a door to another room. On the walls, shields and swords along with some art. The light from the window told you it was daytime, and the sound of people walking around chatting outside told you this was a populated area.

Someone had picked you up and freed you. Why? Who?

A sudden poke at the back of your head made you jump, and when you turned you almost had a heart attack. You were met face to face with a dragon. Not just any, a night fury. You gasped, too weak to scream and merely tried to scramble away. But the dragon didn't growl or attack, it simply sniffed. After a moment of panic passed, you quickly realised this dragon wasn't trying to eat you or anything. And actually, if it was inside a house it must be tame. The night fury trilled at you, sounding a little like a cat vocalising as it sniffed you down and inspected you. Carefully and hesitantly, you held up a hand for it to sniff. He did so, pressing his nose into it and nudging it like he wanted you to pet him. And so, you did.

The fear of being face to face with a night fury quickly vanished and replaced with amusement, for what they say to be the most fierce dragon he was rather friendly. As his tail swayed in response to your touch, you noticed a flash of red against the black, a prosthetic fin connected to the end of his tail with the gears running up it. Clearly this was a pet dragon, and if you were in the same house as a friendly night fury that could only mean one thing.

This was Berk.

Most people in the archipelago knew of the island with the pet dragons. Some found them amazing for managing to tame dragons, some despised them for it. Apparently if a hunter ship was attacked it was almost definitely the riders of Berk come to free the trapped dragons. Being so known and so controversial around the archipelago must make you quite the target. You were amazed the Berserkers had lasted this long with their dragon friends when everyone seemed to be out to get them.

"Toothless!"

The sudden voice made you jump again, someone calling from inside the house. The dragon quickly responded to his name, one you found kind of funny. He made a little 'rr-oow', as if telling his rider where he was.

"Here I got your old fin fixed up"

From down the stairs, a shaggy headed boy walked. Limped actually, he was missing a leg. In his arms was what looked like another prosthetic fin, but stitched up and lacking the metal rods that held its shape. Toothless wagged his tail excitedly, and when he opened his mouth to smile you realised why he was called Toothless. No teeth.

The boy looked up, perking up when he noticed you. Quickly he put the fin aside and approached.

"Toothless you better not have been harassing them too much, good to see you're awake. I was worried we'd loose you there" he said, running his hand over his dragons head on the way over.

He ducked down to your level, allowing you a better look at him. His hair was brown, two little braids stuck in it behind his ear. Eyes were green, and nose and cheeks littered with freckles. He was half suited with armour, like he'd been getting ready to go out but got sidetracked halfway. Only having the shoulder plates and knee pads on. His prosthetic was clearly custom and made to fit into the gears on the prosthetic of Toothless, meaning without each other, neither of them could fly.

"Please don't be afraid or anything, we found you in the wreck of the hunter ship, only one left caged. You're in Berk, we've had a healer treat you but you definitely need to eat something or you'll just get worse. At the very least something soft and light on the stomach. And drink some water too, we could only do so much with water while you were out cold" the boy explained.

You weren't sure what to say, still drowsy and in a lot of pain. You definitely weren't all there mentally right now, the shock of a new place and being so close to death making it hard to form coherent thought.

"Y-you... can understand me right?" He asked.

You nodded, rubbing your eyes and sitting up properly.

"Oh good. I'm Hiccup, that's Toothless. He's friendly, although if he was sticking his nose in your face the second you woke up I'm sure you've already figured that out..." Hiccup said.

You snickered weakly, the dragon was pretty social you'd give him that.

"He's cute" you managed to choke out.

Hiccup cracked a slight smile finally hearing your voice. It told him you were going to be ok, if you were coherent enough to talk and you could understand him.

"He gets that a lot, don't you bud?" Hiccup chuckled, reaching out to give Toothless a scratch.

The dragon growled happily, tilting his head into Hiccups hand for a better scratch angle.

"He's been rather interested in you actually, always watching you and trying to figure out your scent. Must be the half and half thing, he's never seen someone like you before. None of us have. But we can talk about that later, you need food and water" Hiccup said.

He got up, leaving Toothless without ear scratches so he could get you some food. The dragon groaned at him, in complaint of no more scratches.

"Oh you baby, you can live without attention for two minutes" Hiccup said.

Only for Toothless to glare at him and huff. This dragon had sass, you liked it.

"Thank you... for not killing me" you spoke up.

"I'd never, no one deserves being locked up like that. Your injuries are concerning, clearly the hunters weren't kind to you" Hiccup replied, gathering some food off the counter.

He knew that malnutrition was a tricky thing, you had to reintroduce food slowly. Eating too much right after starving for weeks on end will only make you throw up and feel worse. He he bought you a very simple and quite small bowl of soup and some bread with a cup of water. Enough nutrients to keep you alive but not heavy enough to throw your body into shock. Even though it was simple, you were so hungry it tasted like the best thing in the world. A plain mushroom soup and bread had suddenly become a five star meal to you.

"As long as you don't eat too much too fast and get back to moving around slowly, you should heal up. Take a few weeks to build up your food tolerance and weight again before going off running around or flying ok?" Hiccup instructed.

You nodded in understanding, invested in your plain food that was so incredibly filling to you right now.

Hiccup watched you for a moment, the way your wings swayed slightly as you breathed, the twitch of the horned-ear parts on your head every so often. He had so many questions, but he didn't want to treat you like a science experiment. Especially not right after waking up from the brink of death. But he wondered a lot, like how much of your mind was human and how much was dragon. Could you spit fire like a dragon? Was your eyesight or hearing better than a humans? How was your kind made? Did you hatch from a egg like a dragon or were you a live birth like a human? You could speak his language so where did you come from? Could you understand dragon vocalisations or make them yourself?

So, so many questions.

But there was one he could ask right now, one he forgot to ask beforehand.

"Oh yeah, what's your name?" He spoke up. 

"(Y/n)" you replied, between spoonfuls of soup.

"(Y/n)..." he repeated, like he'd never heard a name like that before.

Vikings and the Norse tended to have rather out there names. His own name was Hiccup for Thors sake. You were either named after a god or creature from their religion, an old ancestral name, or a vicious one that strikes fear if you were from a family of warriors. His own name ironically meant 'runt of the litter' because he was so small when he was born, there were other Hiccups in his family tree too. A family tradition to name anyone born prematurely or very small 'Hiccup'. He'd grown into a much taller person though, making his name quite ironic.

Your name however, it seemed very different to the names of the archipelago. Maybe you were from beyond it, perhaps names like yours were normal where you were from.

Whatever the backstory or meaning, (y/n) was a nice name. It suited you. You looked like a (y/n), Hiccup thought to himself.