The fire crackled.
I sat cross-legged on a fur rug, my prosthetic leg stretched out comfortably while Hiccup crawled around me in circles, occasionally stopping to tug at my magnificent mustache. Thorfinn sat quietly to my right, his small hands working with his carving knife, shaping another dragon.
"Alright lads," I announced, adjusting my position and causing my peg leg to thump against the wooden floor. "How about old Gobber tells you a story?"
Hiccup immediately perked up, his green eyes bright with curiosity as he babbled something that sounded vaguely like story but came out as stowy. He crawled closer to me, pulling himself up to sit against my leg.
Thorfinn glanced up briefly from his carving but said nothing, though I noticed his knife had stilled in his hands.
"Now this," I began, my voice taking on the dramatic tone of a seasoned storyteller, "is the tale of how your uncle Gobber lost his beautiful, magnificent hand to the most vicious Monstrous Nightmare this side of Helheim."
"Nigh-nigh!" Hiccup clapped his tiny hands together.
"That's right, little chief, a nightmare indeed." I chuckled, then let my expression grow serious. "It was about nine years ago."
Thorfinn's carving had stopped entirely now, though he kept his eyes on the wood in his hands.
"Now, Monstrous Nightmares are tricky beasts," I continued, gesturing with my hook. "They have this nasty habit of setting themselves on fire, and this one seemed to enjoy it more than the usual."
Hiccup had settled comfortably against my leg, his small fingers playing with the leather straps of my prosthetic.
I gestured dramatically with my hook. "The first sign of trouble was when young Olaf, he was part of my group, suddenly screamed. We turned, and there was this massive shadow falling toward us. The Nightmare had dropped down, silent as death despite its size."
"How big was it?" Thorfinn leaned forward slightly.
"Massive. Easily one of the biggest I had ever seen, it was over 30 feet in length."
Hiccup had fallen asleep against my leg, his small chest rising and falling peacefully.
"The battle was chaos from the start," I continued, my voice softer now so as not to wake the child. "The Nightmare set itself ablaze. Its entire body became a living torch, flames dancing along its scales like it was born from the fires of Muspelheim itself."
"What happened to the others?" Thorfinn asked.
"Well, poor Olaf took a tail swipe right off the bat, sent him flying into the cliff face. He lived, but spent the next six months drinking his meals through a straw." I chuckled grimly. "Magnus tried to rush it head-on with his war hammer, but the beast caught him with a blast of flame that singed off his eyebrows. They never grew back quite right after that."
"And you?"
"Me? While the beast was focused on Magnus, I circled around behind it. The plan was simple, get close enough to hamstring it, bring it down, then finish it off."
I paused, flexing the fingers of my remaining hand.
"I got closer than anyone expected. Close enough to see the individual scales on its hide, close enough to smell the brimstone on its breath. I raised my hammer, beautiful weapon it was, my father's father's hammer, and brought it down right between the beast's shoulder blades."
"Did you hurt it?"
"Oh, I hurt it alright. But not nearly enough." My expression grew rueful. "The hammer strike knocked it off balance, sent it stumbling forward. But instead of going down like I hoped, it spun around faster than lightning. Before I could even blink, those massive jaws were coming straight for me."
Thorfinn was completely absorbed in the story now, his blue eyes wide.
"I tried to dodge, of course. Threw myself to the side, tried to roll away. But the beast was too quick, for me then, however a dragon always goes for the kill so I knew what to do to keep myself alive, which had unintented consequences, it's teeth sunk into my arm." I raised my stump. "Right above the wrist."
Thorfinn remained quiet, trying to go back to carving. I continued.
"The beast held on for what felt like hours but was probably only seconds. I could feel the bones crushing, could hear them splintering. Then, with one savage twist of its head..." I made a sharp jerking motion with my hook. "Pop. Clean off."
Thorfinn had stopped carving and even though he wasn't looking directly at me, I could tell he was invested.
"It tilted its great head back and swallowed my hand whole. Then, and I swear by Odin's beard this is true, it looked me straight in the eye and licked its lips. And I saw the look on his face, I was delicious." I laughed at my own story, Hiccup following me in kind with laughing babbles.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
Thorfinn on the other hand just looked at my hook where my arm would have been.
"However that wasn't the end of it, oh it most definitely was not, I still had a monstruous nightmare to deal with, so I threw myself of the cliff with the dragon along with it."
"Off the cliff?"
"Aye, but dragons can fly, remember? The Nightmare spread its wings and caught itself about halfway down. I on the other hand," I chuckled. "Well, let's just say I found out that day that Vikings most definitely cannot fly."
Thorfinn nodded.
"But you want to know the strangest part of the whole story?" I continued.
"What?"
"It seems like that one went off and told his friends about me, because not much later another one took, my damn leg!" I laughed.
Thorfinn shook his head. Picking up his carving again.
However he stopped soon after, his head suddenly snapped up, his entire body going rigid. His ears seemed to perk up like a hunting hound's, and his eyes began scanning the room with sharp intensity.
"What's wrong, lad?" I asked, immediately alert.
Thorfinn said nothing, but his grip tightened on his carving knife. His gaze shot upward to the ceiling, the knife following along with it
A moment later, something small and dark dropped from the rafters with a soft thud, landing on the fur rug between us and the fire.
A Terrible Terror.
The small dragon, no bigger than a large cat, looked around with dead eyes. The knife impaled against the dragon's underbelly.
Hiccup immediately woke up at the sound, took one look at the dragon, and began to cry.
"Mua, muah!" he wailed, reaching his little arms toward me.
Before I could react, Thorfinn had already moved. He scooped Hiccup up in his arms and began bouncing him gently up and down, making soft shushing sounds.
"I'm taking Hiccup to his crib," Thorfinn said, his voice steady despite the dragon in the room.
"Aye," I replied, my eyes drifting towards the corpse of the Terrible Terror. It really did seem like the boy was made for killing beasts. I then took out the carving knife putting it on a nearby table, and throwing the corpse of the beast outside of the house.