"Something extraordinary, you said," complained Hiccup. "A truly unusualdragon, you said. An animal that would really make me stand out in the crowd."

"Absolutely," agreed Old Wrinkly. "The entrails were undeniable."

"The onlyextraordinary thing about this dragon," continued Hiccup, "is how extraordinarilySMALL it is. In that it issuper-unusual. I'm even more of a laughingstock than ever."

"Oh, dear," said Old Wrinkly, chuckling in a wheezy way over his pipe.

Hiccup looked at him reproachfully. Old Wrinkly hurriedly turned the laugh into a cough.

"Size is all relative, Hiccup," said Old Wrinkly. "ALL of these dragons are super-small compared to a real Sea Dragon. A REAL Sea Dragon is fifty timesas big as that little creature. A real Sea Dragon from the bottom of the ocean can swallow ten large Viking ships in one gulp and not even notice.

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A real Sea Dragon is a cruel, careless mystery like the mighty ocean itself, one moment calm as a scallop, the next raging like an octopus."

"Well, here on Berk," said Hiccup, "where we haven't any Sea Dragons to compare anything with, my dragon is just considerably smaller than everybody else's. You are getting off the point."

"Am I?" asked Old Wrinkly.

"The point is, I just don't see how I am ever going to become a Hero," said Hiccup gloomily. "I am the least Heroic boy in the whole Hooligan Tribe."

"Oh.pshaw,this ridiculous Tribe," fumed Old Wrinkly. "Okay, so you are not what we call a born Hero. You're not big and tough and charismatic like Snotlout. But you're just going to have to work at it. You're going to have to learn how to be a Hero the Hard Way.

"Anyway," said Old Wrinkly, "it might be just what this Tribe needs, a change in leadership style. Because the thing is, times are changing. We can't get away with being bigger and more violent than everybody else any more. IMAGINATION. That's what they need and what you've got. A Hero of the Future is going to have to be clever and cunning, not just a big

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lump with overdeveloped muscles. He's going to have to stop everyone quarreling among themselves and get them to face the enemy together."

"How am I going to persuade anybody to do anything?" asked Hiccup. "They've started calling me HICCUP THE USELESS. That is not a great name for a Military Leader."

"You have to see the bigger picture, Hiccup," continued Old Wrinkly, ignoring him. "You're called a few names. You're not a natural at Bashyball. Who cares? These are very little problems in the grand scheme of things."

"It's all very well for you to say they are little problems," said Hiccup crossly, "but I have a LOT of little problems. I have to train this super-small dragon in time for Thor'sday Thursday or be thrown out of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe forever."

"Ah, yes," said Old Wrinkly, thoughtfully. "There's a book on this subject, isn't there? Remind me, how does the great Professor of Meathead University think you should train a dragon?"

"He thinks you should yell at it," said Hiccup, gloomily chucking stones again. "Show the beast who is Master by the sheer charismatic force of your

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personality that sort of thing. I have about as much charisma as a stranded jellyfish and yelling is just another thing I am useless at."

"Ye-e-es," said Old Wrinkly, "but maybe you'll have to train your dragon the Hard Way. You know a very great deal about dragons, don't you, Hiccup? All that dragon-watching you've been doing over the years?"

"That's a secret," said Hiccup, uncomfortably.

"I've seen you talking to them," said Old Wrinkly.

"That's NOT TRUE," protested Hiccup, going bright red in the face.

"Okay, then," soothed Old Wrinkly, calmly smoking his pipe, "it's not true."

There was silence for a bit.

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"It istrue," admitted Hiccup, "but for Thor's sake don't tell anybody, they wouldn't understand."

"Talking to dragons is a highly unusual skill," said Old Wrinkly. "Maybe," he said, "you can train a dragon better by talking to it than by yelling at it."

"That's sweet," said Hiccup, "and a very touching thought. However, a dragon is not a fluffy creature like a dog or a cat or a pony. A dragon is not going to do what you say just because you ask it pretty please. From what I know about dragons," said Hiccup, "I should say that yelling was a pretty good method."

"But it has its limitations, doesn't it?" Old Wrinkly pointed out. "I would say that yelling was highly effective on any dragon smaller than a sea lion. And positively suicidal if you try it on anything larger. Why don't you come up with some alternative training schemes yourself? You might be able to add something to Professor Yobbish's book. I've often thought that that book needs a little something extra ... I can't quite put my finger on it. . ."

"WORDS," said Hiccup. "That book needs a lot more words."

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Chapter6 MEANWHILE, DEEP IN THE OCEAN...

Meanwhile, deep in the ocean, but not so very far from the Isle of Berk, a real Sea Dragon such as Old Wrinkly had been describing lay sleeping on the sea-bed. He was indescribably large. He had been there so long that he almost seemed to be part of the ocean floor itself, a great underwater mountain, covered in shells and barnacles, some of his limbs half-buried in the sand.

Generation after generation of little hermit crabs had been born and had died in this Dragon's ears. Hundreds and hundreds of years he'd slept, because he'd had rather a large meal. He'd had the luck to catch a Roman Legion camping on a clifftop -- they were completely cut off and he had spent an enjoyable afternoon wolfing down the whole lot of them, from commanding officer to lowliest private. Horses, chariots, shields, and spears, the entire lot went down the ravenous, reptilian gullet. And, while things such as golden chariot wheels are an additional source of fiber to a Dragon's diet, they do take some time to digest.

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The Dragon had crawled down into the depths of the ocean and gone into a Sleep Coma. Dragons can stay in this suspended state for eternity, half-dead, half-alive, buried under fathom after fathom of icy-cold seawater. Not a muscle of this particular Dragon had moved for six or seven centuries.

But the previous week, a Killer Whale who had chased some seals unexpectedly deep was surprised to notice a slight movement in the upper eyelid of the dragon's right eye. An ancestral memory stirred in the whale's brain and he swam away from there as fast as his fins could carry him. And, a week later, the sea around the Dragon Mountain -- which had previously been teeming with crabs and lobsters and shoals and shoals of fish -- was a great, underwater desert. Not a mollusk stirred, not a scallop shimmied.

The only sign of life for miles and miles was the rapid jerking of both the Dragon's eyelids, fluttering up and down as if the Dragon had suddenly gone into a lighter sleep and was dreaming who knows what dark dreams.

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Chapter 7 TOOTHLESS WAKES UP

Toothless woke up about three weeks later. Fishlegs and Hiccup were at Hiccup's house. Everybody else was out, so Hiccup decided to take the opportunity to check on Toothless's basket. He pulled it out from under the bed. A thin plume of bluish gray smoke was drifting out from under the lid.