Chapter 2: Viking for Hire (Hiccup)

Everybody needs a place in the world. Some people are born into theirs. Some people discover theirs. And some people make a place for themselves. But then the world around them changes, and the place they made is gone.

"Every dragon has his own unique abilities that give it its special place in the world," I informed my friends, who were standing on either side of me, divided into two teams. Reign mindlessly played with her necklace, clearly only half paying attention. "Which dragon makes the best welding torch?"

"Oh! Deadly Nadder." Astrid answered quickly, hoping to get the points before the other team.

"Its magnesium flame burns with the heat of the sun," Fishlegs finished.

"Correct! Point to team Astrid." I scribbled down another tally mark. "The score is now one hundred to ten."

"And you started with ten," Astrid teased.

"Oh yeah? Well the game's not over." Tuffnut had to take a moment to think something over. "Wait, what team am I on?"

"Next question: what is the shot limit of a Hideous Zippleback? Team Snotlout."

"I don't think they can count that high," Astrid snickered.

"Oh really? Let's find out. Barf, Belch!" The Zippleback sat up and fired at the wall until it had reached its limit, startling Reign out of her transfixed state.

"Looks like it's about three."

"Told you we could count that high." I sighed. The twins really weren't helping.

"It's six," I corrected. "You're half right. Five points."

"Yes! We're up to thirty!"

"Oh, my Thor..." Reign mumbled, placing her head in her hands.

"All right, it's our turn. What happens when you shoot fire at the owner of a Deadly Nadder?" Astrid whistled, causing Stormfly to shoot out some of her spines. They thankfully didn't hurt any of the members of the other team, but ended up pinning them to the wall.

"No fair!" Tuffnut protested. "She didn't give us time to answer!" Snotlout hopped down and continued whatever this was that was going on.

"I've got a question: what happens when I sic Hookfang on you?"

"Okay, guys, that's enough training!" I interjected, trying to quickly diffuse the situation. "So, we did some really good work here today." Snotlout, of course, completely ignored me.

"Prepare to face my Monstrous Nightmare!" He tapped the side of Hookfang's face, but he ended up lighting himself on fire while Snotlout was sitting on him. The Viking cried out in pain, then sat in the water trough to put out the fire. "That's the third time this week!" Reign and I walked over to Snotlout to further look into the strange situation.

"Hookfang never flames up when you're riding him." I did a quick glance over the dragon, attempting to figure out if there was something on the outside. "Is he okay?"

"Maybe he just realized who his owner is," the redhead next to me teased.

"There's room in here for two." Disgusted, Reign grabbed Snotlout by his helmet and dunked his face underwater. She then sighed and went back to fiddling with the necklace.

"Hey, everything okay?" She looked up at me with wide eyes, having gone into that transfixed state.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. I'm just still in the habit of messing with it, I guess." I looked at her quizzically for a moment, then let it go.

"Come on. Let's just go for a walk for a little bit."

Her demeanor immediately brightened up, and she nodded. We made our way out of the training academy and to the town, where our attention was immediately drawn to the group crowded around Gobber's Smithy.

"Gather around! Come on, one and all!" Gobber yelled to the crowd. "You may think these dragon-killing weapons have no more use, but think again." He reached behind him and pulled out a sword. "This long sword is now a lovely butter knife." He attempted to spread the butter pat on a piece of bread, but ended up cutting it to pieces instead. "Uh... it's also great for making bread crumbs!" The crowd was unimpressed.

"Well, this is a dark day," a gravelly voice whispered in my ear. Reign and I turned, and our expressions immediately soured when we saw the source was Mildew. "A great dragon slayer peddling his weapons as kitchen utensils. "Mmm..."

"Hush, Mildew," Reign snapped.

"Up next, we have this, uh..." A fly buzzed over Gobber's head and landed next to him. "Handy fly swatter!" He slammed the mace in his hand down, but ended up breaking the entire counter. "Uh huh... also good for getting rid of unwanted tables... Now for the lady of the house!" Gobber gestured to a large catapult. "When the hubby's off pillaging, how are you going to protect yourself from home invaders? No problem when you have Big Bertha." He tapped the metal basket of the catapult, but that ended up setting it off and launching the rock he'd perched inside of it. Fed up, the crowd dispersed, with the exception of Mildew, who seemed bent on driving this in as my fault. "Wait, there's more! Come back! You haven't seen everything yet! I haven't cleared out my collection yet!" Defeated, Gobber sighed and gave up trying to pull people back over.

"It's hard to watch," Mildew taunted. "Especially for you, eh, Hiccup? The feelings of guilt must be terrible." His words were slowly starting to get to me. Maybe this was all my fault. After all, I had completely flipped things on their side here. I didn't think about how hard it would be for people to adjust. "Tearing at your insides. I mean, you put him out of business with your little peace pact with the dragons. You ruined his life. Bravo."

With that, the old man walked away, leaving me conflicted.

"Hey, wait, I know that look," Reign piped up, pointing straight at me. "Don't for a second think making peace with the dragons wasn't a good thing." She placed a hand on my shoulder, so I forced a smile. Doubt was quickly clouding my mind. "Come on, let's go."

"Thought I would find you here." I looked up to see Reign sitting down beside me, taking a moment to pet Toothless, who purred at her. I couldn't help but smile at least a little. Toothless had really grown to like Reign recently.

"You know Gobber made this leg?" I asked as she shifted around to face me. "He taught me everything I need to know to make Toothless' tail. I have to find some way to help him."

She wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

"Don't blame yourself for this. I mean it. You haven't done anything wrong."

My eyes caught the necklace glimmering in the moonlight. She never took it off, ever. She'd even declared it was the only Earthly possession she wanted to take to Valhalla with her. It made me think back to when I had given it to her. Gobber had taught me how to make that, too, even helped me out with it along the way. He never questioned who it was for, but I think he knew.

I sighed and stood up.

"I need to go talk to my dad about this. I can't just sit here and watch Gobber beg." She sighed.

"Just don't push yourself. Remember to sleep and eat, okay?"

"You know me a little too well..." Reign finally laughed.

"Goodnight, Hiccup." My Night Fury nudged her. "Goodnight to you too, Toothless." Toothless and I made our way back to my father's large home, and I found him just as he was sitting down to relax in front of the fire.

"Tough day of chiefing, dad?"

"I was all over the island," he sighed. "I married the Svenson girl to the Hodegard boy at dawn, then went down to the fields where some kids were tipping over Yaks, then back up to the newlyweds to settle a domestic dispute- I guess that honeymoon was over." I handed him a glass of water I had drawn for him. "Sometimes I wish there were two of me."

An idea suddenly popped into my head.

"Th-There are two of you!" I cried.

"Is that another crack about my weight?" he demanded, causing me to quickly switch into an explanation.

"No, I mean Gobber. He can be the other you." My father's expression changed to one of confusion.

"Gobber? Ah, he's way too busy making all those dragon killing-" He stopped himself. Those weapons weren't necessary anymore, and the problem now presented itself to my father. "Eh, well he used to be. Until you- which is great! Except for Gobber."

"Exactly my point."

"You know, son? That's actually not a bad idea." My father put on his helmet and stood. "I could use a right hand."

"That works out great because that's kinda the only one he has."

My father left to go talk things over with Gobber, while I retreated back to my room, sighing. From my point on my bed, my eyes wandered to the one drawing I adored most out of all the ones I had on my wall: the one Reign had done. It was a little sketch of a flock of dragons in flight, but it was amazing. It made me smile whenever I saw it.

Toothless grumbled from beside me, and I smiled.

"I know, bud. But hopefully, this will solve Gobber's problem." I sighed. "Hopefully..."

"We need to get things in order for tomorrow's lesson," I informed Reign as we entered the training arena. "We need to teach them about calming a riled-up dragon. So, we need to clear out the arena and gather up enough Dragon Root for everyone to use."

"I could go get the Dragon Root... if I had my own dragon."

I sighed. Reign had been bringing that up a lot lately. Admittedly, I felt bad that we hadn't made any progress on that since she'd lost Amethyst, but life had become hectic just in the last couple weeks alone. Granted, we had a whole year before that point, but one thing after another had come up, and honestly, it was a lot harder to find a dragon than we'd initially thought. Not every dragon we'd freed from the nest came along to Berk, and most of those that had found families pretty quickly. She wanted to make sure she had a dragon she'd bond well with, so we of course couldn't just give her a stray dragon and move on. So far, the species on Berk hadn't fit well with her yet.

"Reign, we'll get to it when we can," I assured her. "But we just don't have the time to fly around to different islands and track down a dragon that you get along with."

I once again caught the glimmer of her necklace as I readied Toothless to fly to the other side of Berk. "Do you... want to talk about what else has been on your mind lately?" She almost seemed to know what sparked my interest, as her hand gently touched the silver piece.

"I still need some time to think some things over. But I'll talk about it when I'm ready, okay?" Toothless nudged her again, sensing another change in her mood. "We should get going. It'll be good to have this set up before the next training session." My gaze lingered on her just a bit longer before I climbed up onto Toothless.

My father held two ice blocks against his head. It had- apparently- been a bit of a rough day with Gobber. I handed him another mug of water.

"Here you go, Dad." He took it with a miffed expression and downed it. "Wow, a two-block headache. You know, Dad, I think you're being... a wee bit rough on Gobber. It was his first day. Tomorrow will be way better."

"Oh, it will be for me... because it won't involve Gobber." I could feel mild anger rise in me.

"What do you mean?"

"I tried to fit a square peg in a round hole and it sunk a ship, and named a baby girl Magnus. And let's say she did look like a Magnus! But try telling that to her parents."

"I can't believe you let him go." I let out a sigh of frustration. "Well, we've gotta help him."

"We don't have to do anything. You, on the other hand, are going to be busy finding a job for Gobber."

I gulped. That was a task near impossible, which is why I thought I'd struck gold when I was able to pass him off to my dad. Frustrated, I walked out of the house and into the night air. I had to think of somewhere that Gobber could work. No one would take him, not after how horribly today went.

My eyes wandered to the academy, causing an idea to creep in. It was a really awful idea, and would probably end in disaster, but it was at least worth a shot...

"You're bringing Gobber... here?" Fishlegs questioned, looking slightly wary. In fact, everyone seemed a bit on edge at my declaration.

"He's gonna be... great," I attempted to reason. "Nobody knows dragons like old Gobber. He's spent a lifetime, you know... studying them."

"So that he could kill them," Reign shot back.

"If we can tap into that," I shot her a glare that silenced her, "we'll all be better dragon trainers." Just as I finished saying that, the gate flew open, and Gobber entered with a cart of weapons.

Of course...

"I'm back! Did'ja miss me?"

The rest of the group's dragons snarled.

"First of all, welcome. Uh... and second, tiny question- why did you bring your, you know..."

"Killing things?" He tapped a sword with his hook, then began to pull a few weapons out. "I thought maybe we could train them by threatening to kill them. That's how my daddy taught me to swim." The presentation of weapons caused the dragons to screech once again. Gobber slammed a mace on the ground. "School's in session!" The dragons fled out of fear, flying off as soon as they were out of the arena. "Eh. I never liked school either."

"Great..." Reign sighed. "Now we need to go wrangle up the dragons."

The group ran off and chased down each of the dragons, coming back much later. Everyone was completely worn out by the time they brought them back.

"What's wrong with you guys?" I asked, noticing Reign holding one side of her head.

"We've been riding the dragons for four hours. It took forever to chase them down after Gobber scared them away," she complained.

"Yeah, sorry about that. I just don't know what to do with him." My attention was diverted to Ruffnut, who was kicking Tuffnut while he was down, quite literally. "Do you guys always have to fight?"

"It's okay. I asked her to do that." His twin kicked him once again. "I'm just trying to get the feeling back."

"You going to return the favor or what?" He sighed and began kicking Ruff back as Reign made her way over to me.

"We've flown for hours on Toothless, and we've never had a problem," I observed.

"That's because we have saddles," she reminded me.

That's when it hit me. The saddles!

"Saddles!" She raised an eyebrow at me.

"What?" Without thinking, I hugged her tight.

"Thank you, Reign! You're a genius!"

"I didn't... do... anything." I let go and grabbed my saddle designs, then raced into town, finding Gobber looking defeated at his smithy.

"Gobber! I have a job you can do!"

"Well, out with it then." He seemed so down.

"You can make dragon saddles!"

Thankfully, he appeared to like that idea.

"Saddles? I love it! I've got so many ideas!" He took the papers from me before throwing them onto the ground. "But none like these. Good ones."

"I'm glad you're excited." I stooped down and picked up my plans. "But I still think there are some things in my designs that you could use. I mean, you did teach me everything I know."

"Exactly! That's why you should let Gobber do what Gobber does best. I've been making saddles since you were in diapers. In fact, I made your diapers." I was slightly disturbed by that.

"I know you know what you're doing, but keep in mind every dragon is different. So you need to adjust the-"

"Hiccup."

"But-"

"Hiccup."

"But I just think-"

"Hiccup. I may have taught you everything you know, but I haven't taught you everything I know." I sighed and shook my head, then left his work station to be greeted by Reign and Toothless.

"Rough conversation?" she asked, her face wrinkling with sympathy.

"You have no idea."

"I've got my ax, and I've got my mace, and I love my wife with the ugly face! I'm a Viking through and through!" Gobber's singing voice came out loud and strong from inside his smithy.

"You know, he doesn't sing that song unless he's actually very happy," I observed. "I think we did a good thing."

"We? That was all you, Hiccup."

"Well, you're the one that gave me the idea." She shook her head vigorously.

"Still..." She started messing with the necklace again.

What could possibly be bothering her this much?

The next morning, we all met at the academy, waiting for Gobber to reveal the saddles he'd created into the deep hours of the night.

"All right. This is an exciting day for all of us. Gobber has been working hard to-" I felt him shove me aside.

"I think they might want to hear from the artist himself." I stepped back and let him have the floor. "I've made a lot of saddles in my day- horse, donkey, and now, dragon. But these saddles are special. They're like my children. That is, if you strapped your child to a flaming reptile and rolled it." I noticed Reign cringe at that visual. So, without further ado..." He pulled away the tarp back to reveal... armed saddles.

"Wow..."

"Whoa..."

"Wow, Gobber. This is certainly... not what I imagined."

"How could it be? I'm Gobber! Nobody knows what it's like to live in here." He tapped his head with the hammer attachment on his hook.

"That I can believe," Reign muttered. I looked back at the saddles and sighed.

"Is that-"

"Yup. Flamethrower." He turned the nob on the device, causing it to shoot out fire. "Didn't see that one coming, did ya?"

"Uh, no. Not- not for dragons. They come with one built in, actually." I looked at the redhead on my left, who shrugged.

"I know. But can you really ever have too much firepower?"

Ruff and Tuff had already put their saddles on Barf and Belch, which unfortunately came with catapults that they decided to test out. However, as soon as they were launched, Barf and Belch collapsed.

"How-?"

"Uh, catapults for the twins? Not such a good idea..." Reign trailed off, biting down on her thumb nervously.

Fishlegs desperately attempted to get Meatlug off the ground with all of the maces on her saddle. But they weighed her down too much.

"Come on, girl," he encouraged. "You can do it. Think light." The poor Gronkle collapsed.

"Come on!" Gobber protested. "You can't tell me my saddle is heavier than Fishlegs."

"My mom says I'm just husky..." Fishlegs whined, his hands patting his stomach self-consciously.

Hookfang was clearly not a fan of his saddle, as the moment Snotlout put it on him, he shot a blast of fire and roared.

"Come on, Hookfang. What's wrong with you?" Snotlout attempted to comfort his dragon, but Hookfang wouldn't have any of it. "That's it. Someone's trading with me."

"Yeah, sure. I'll trade my perfect dragon for an angry oven," Tuff deadpanned. Stormfly and Astrid returned from their test flight, and she had a big smile on her face.

"This saddle's actually pretty good."

"Wait 'till you try the horn!" Astrid nodded and blew into the horn in front, which expanded and scared Stormfly to the point of shooting spines.

"So anyway, I-I think we're really going to need to make a few-"

"Changes." I was shocked Gobber and I were on the same page. "I'm way ahead of you. I've got so many ideas. It's getting crowded up here." He tapped his helmet once again.

I shook my head, a little afraid of what he would come up with next. Gobber rounded up all the saddles and I allowed everyone to go back home and let their dragons rest, leaving Reign and I to clean up. There was so much going through my mind as I swept up the dust from the ground. Reign watched me intently, clearly not sure what to say. The sun was beginning to set when my father entered the academy.

"My Odin!" he exclaimed. "This place looked better when we were killing dragons here."

"Yeah, we sort of got Gobbered." Reign and Toothless moved over to the side, giving my dad and I some space.

"You know Gobber. He means well." At least my dad had come back around on Gobber again. "He just... doesn't always do well. So, what are you gonna do about him?"

Thankfully, I already had a quick answer prepared. It wasn't much, but it was necessary after the messy events of the day.

"I'm gonna clean up his messes and redo his work."

"Look, Gobber's like family." I was reaching my breaking point. I threw the broom down in frustration.

"Yeah, I know he is! That's why I can't say anything to him."

"No, son. That's why you have to. It's not fair to you, and it's not fair to Gobber."

"Why do I have to say something to him? You didn't. You just passed him off to me."

"That's what the chief does. He delegates." My father sighed and tried to shift the tone of the conversation. "Look, I gave you this academy because it's the best thing for Berk. Now you have to do what's best for the academy. And I'm sorry son, but what's best is very rarely what's easy." My father began to walk me out, so Toothless and Reign stood, following at a respectable distance. "What about him?" He pointed to Snotlout, still pinned to the wall thanks to Stormfly.

"Leave him. He's going for a record."

"You don't say." My father looked back and noticed Reign once again fiddling with the necklace. Toothless was looking at her with big, sad eyes, knowing something was wrong. "What about her? She's been very quiet lately."

"I've tried to talk to her, but she said she's not ready to talk about it yet. So I'll wait until she is. I don't want to push her into anything uncomfortable for her."

"She doesn't know where she came from. Maybe she's been trying to imagine home lately..."

I looked back at her again. She'd mentioned that before... it was certainly possible that could be bothering her.

The clouds were lifted from my mind as my father broke off, leaving the three of us to approach Gobber. The light was on in his smithy, and I could hear him hard at work.

"You never know, bud. Maybe Gobber looked at my plans and is actually making the saddles better."

"I hope so," Reign sighed. "The dragons just need simple saddles." There was a sudden explosion from inside.

"Or not..." We made our way to his workplace and quietly entered. "Gobber?" I was startled as he turned around with a crossbow in his hands. "Don't shoot!"

"I would never shoot you, Hiccup. Unless I absolutely have to." At this current moment, I couldn't tell whether that was a joke or not. I laughed nervously.

"Still, if you could please put the crossbow down, I know I would feel better." He complied.

"You know, about the weapons. Maybe the catapults were a bit much for some of the dragons. So I've gone a different way. Gotten rid of the two big ones."

"Gobber, that's great!"

"And replaced them with six little ones!" I sighed. Never mind...

"Yeah... Um, Gobber we need to talk. I think it might be time for you to take a little break."

"Hmph... In case you haven't noticed, the only time a Viking takes a break is to die."

"Maybe, uh, 'break' is the wrong word. What I mean is, I'm not sure things are working out." He paused his hammering for a moment.

"Well, get back to me when you're sure."

"Okay, I'm sure. Gobber, I'm gonna need to take you off the saddle project."

He stopped hammering as realization set in.

"Are you getting rid of me, Hiccup? Well, I see why you had me put down the crossbow."

"It's just the saddles. We'll find something else for you." That didn't go over as well as I hoped it would.

"I don't need your pity. I've lost an arm and a leg. I think I'll survive losing a job."

"I'm really sorry, Gobber." I turned to leave and Reign placed a hand on my back in support. "Well, that was awful. I don't know what could be worse than that." Right at that moment, fire shot out from the middle of the village. "Okay, looks like I'm about to find out." We raced toward the commotion to find Hookfang angrily chasing Snotlout.

"I never... thought... I'd say this..." Snotlout panted, "but Hiccup... help!" Hookfang had gone on a complete rampage. Reign, Snotlout, Toothless, and I rushed to try and stop him.

"I don't know what happened. I was just trying to pat his head. He usually loves that. But this time, he went crazy." We met up with the others and my father. "My dragon hates me..." He landed and roared at all of us. Something was clearly upsetting him. He kept rubbing his face on the ground...

"They do say a pet starts to take on the characteristics of its owner," Fishlegs observed. "I think that's what's happening here."

"Hey!" Snotlout elbowed him in the gut.

"Yeah, I rest my gaze." I carefully stepped closer to Hookfang, trying to see what the cause of the problem was.

"When was the last time he ate?"

"Not for days," Snotlout answered worriedly.

The pieces started to fall into place. I snatched up a fish and held it out toward Hookfang, waiting to see what would happen. Under normal circumstances, Hookfang wouldn't even need a prompt to take the food from my hand, but that time, he hesitated for a second.

"You hungry, boy?" He sniffed it for a moment, then allowed me to toss it into his mouth. But the moment he began to chew, he winced and spat it back out... right at my father. "Oh... sorry, dad."

"We've got to bring this dragon under control," he grumbled.

"Don't worry, I can do this." I calmly extended my arm forward I rubbed the space between his nostrils, causing the dragon to settle. "There you go. It's gonna be okay." He finally seemed to be content, when suddenly, his eyes went wide and he ignited himself.

"Hiccup!" I heard Reign scream. "Ah!" I looked back to see Toothless push her to the side and bound toward Hookfang.

"Way ahead of you!" I raced back to stand by her side as Toothless tackled Hookfang to the ground. "Toothless, stop!" I hadn't realized this was what he was going to do. I grabbed my dragon and calmed him.

"I'm sorry, Hiccup. I've seen enough. We tried it your way." My father raced off and Reign turned to me.

"Something's really wrong with Hookfang. Have you noticed-"

"-he keeps rubbing his face on the ground?" She nodded. Hookfang suddenly shot a blast of fire in our direction, and Reign pushed me out of the way. "Come on, guys. Hurry up, think. What haven't we tried?" Snotlout turned around, tricking us into believing he maybe had something. "Snotlout, you have an idea?"

"Gobber!" We followed his finger to see my father coming back with Gobber, who was completely armed.

"Stand back!" he warned. "I came here to do what I do best."

"He's gonna kill my dragon..." Snotlout lamented.

"No, he's not," I shot back, attempting to keep the situation from elevating any further than it needed to.

"Uh, yeah he is." And then there were the twins, who seemed to make it their life mission to take every situation too far.

"You don't use that stuff to butter toast."

"Well, I mean, we would, but you don't." I approached my father.

"Dad, you can't be serious. Hookfang is Snotlout's dragon," I begged.

"I'm sorry, Hiccup, but sometimes you have to fall back on the old ways," Gobber sighed.

The rest of the group chimed in, attempting to save Hookfang in a last-ditch effort.

"But he's a good dragon."

"He's a good dragon!"

"There's probably just something wrong with him."

"There's definitely something wrong with him."

"We have to try to help him. We can't just get rid of him because he's having a bad day."

"A bad day for a dragon can be a disaster for us," my father argued, shutting all of us down immediately. "That's not a risk I'm willing to take. Gobber." On that signal, Gobber advanced toward Hookfang. He swung a couple of binds over his head and slung them, tying together Hookfang's wings and legs. The dragon tried to get out, but had found himself out of fire.

"Ha. You're all out of fire." Gobber pulled out a sword and stepped closer, but I ran and grabbed his arm.

"I can't let you do this."

"There's no choice. It has to be done." Hookfang lunged forward and roared right in Gobber's face, causing him to stop. There was something in his mouth that caught both Gobber and my attentions-- something that wasn't exactly ordinary for the dragon. "Do you see that?"

"I do." We had found the cause of the problem! Gobber put his sword away and took on a different mindset.

"Time to put this beast out of its misery." Reign came up to me.

"Hiccup! What are you doing?" she shouted. I held out a hand to shush her, not wanting sudden noises to put Gobber at risk. Gobber jumped onto Hookfang's face and managed to get his hook into the dragon's mouth, yanking something out before being tossed away. Almost instantly, Hookfang calmed down.

"You didn't kill him!" Snotlout cried in relief.

"For a toothache? What kind of lunatic are you?" Gobber held up the large tooth with a pretty impressive hole in it. Once Hookfang recovered from the temporary pain of having his tooth ripped out, he returned to his old self, bounding up to Snotlout and nuzzled him affectionately. However, in favor of preserving his image, Snotlout ordered the dragon to put him down.

"I don't know where that came from. Can you train that out of him?" I rolled my eyes and we all walked away, having had enough of all of this. I approached Gobber with slightly wariness.

"Thank you, Gobber. A bad tooth... I can't believe I didn't think of that."

"That's because you're not Gobber! I've forgotten more about dragons than most men will ever know. Well, better go put the girls away." He walked back to his cart of weapons, but he seemed oddly content with this. I stood there and thought for a moment.

"Gobber! Not so fast." He turned and looked at me. "How would you like to help care for the dragons?"

His smile told me everything.

When the world around you changes, the good men find a way to change with it. And Gobber is one of those good men. In fact, he's one of the best.

 

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