Chapter Text
Inside of a grim house, isolated from an entire village, was a girl about the age of fourteen. Her name was Aspen, she once lived in the house with her grandfather, a vile old man named Mildew.
Mildew had been married three times, one to a woman with blond hair and two were brunettes, all of his wives were dead, and all were as hideous as he was. She had no idea which one was her grandmother and she could care less. She had red hair and was considered to be very attractive by her male friends - her former friends.
She lost all of her friends, and all because of her grandfather. Her former friends were dragon trainers and riders, which he resented. While she had a fear of dragons for most of her life as many did, she had gotten over it, she now loved dragons.
Mildew came up with every possibility to get rid of the dragons forever, everything from getting the other villagers to be against dragons to framing them for vandalism to making them sick to near death to framing Toothless, the last Night Fury, for the lightning storms striking the village. He often forced her to go along with it and she would try to foil his plans.
Eventually, he got so desperate in his schemes that he decided to take very drastic measures by aligning himself with the Outcast Tribe. Their chief, Alvin the Treacherous was a vengeful and bloodthirsty man, the only one who could fight Berk's chief, Stoick the Vast, head on.
He left her behind when he left for the Outcasts, clearing out the entire house of his belongings, taking his pet sheep, Fungus, with him. She was hiding in the attic while he cleaned out the house, she did not want to go with him.
She thought he would try looking for her, but he never did. To her, it just showed that he thought nothing of her, that she was disposable.
She never did think that he cared about her, and his willingness to abandon her proved it. She always subconsciously knew this, he forced her to work on his cabbage patches, she slept under his bed next to his sheep, and smacked her with his staff if she didn't agree with his ramblings or schemes.
Now, she lived completely alone in a gloomy, barren house. She stayed awake most nights, unable to sleep due to an overwhelming feeling of paranoia that gripped her. The paranoia was caused by the only items Mildew left behind, the mummified dragon heads mounted on the wall. The heads faced the bed, making it seem as though they were looking at her, watching her all the time.
She supported herself by the only thing she was the most familiar with, farming. She harvested cabbages as she had been for as long as she could remember, but also other vegetables such as carrots, onions, and peas. She sold her crops to people in the village and to Trader Johann whenever he came to the island.
Although she had to go into town in order to feed herself, she also dreaded it. Whenever she went into the village, she saw them, the Dragon Riders. Every time she saw them, she hung her head in shame, shame for herself.
She still cared for them and their safety, even if they were not her friends anymore, but she always felt envious seeing them with their dragons. They got to fly high up into the sky and explore the archipelago, while she was stuck on the ground. They had freedom and she didn't.
But that may all change very soon. She was simply unaware of it.
One morning, she woke up as she usually did, feeling as tired as she normally did. She had nothing to eat for her breakfast, so she dressed in her usual gray tunic, gray skirt, and brown pants and boots.
She left the house and the first thing she saw, as she saw every morning, was her vegetable patch. She went to inspect it to see if any of her crops were ready to be picked and cleaned to be taken to the village.
Many of the vegetables had been uprooted and torn to bits, most likely from rabbits and dragons. While she was slightly disappointed, it was something that happened all the time. The remaining vegetables were not ready yet, so she watered them to help them finish their growth.
With that done, she had nothing left to do. There was nothing to take into town and no reason to go there. Mildew always had something for her to do, she often felt more like a servant than a granddaughter. She always had to clean the house and make the food for him and extended family members whenever they were on Berk, none of which even acknowledged her existence.
She rarely had time to herself and had no hobbies to speak of. She used to enjoy walking around the village, but she would never do that now.
Instead, she decided to take a walk in the forest. She got an empty canteen she bought from Trader Johann and filled it with water.
The forest was always a majestic place to be in to her. It was a quiet, peaceful place where wherever one stepped there was something new to see.
After a little while into her walk, she decided to take a short break. There was a cave ahead of where she stood on her path and she decided to rest inside of it for a moment to regain a bit of her energy.
She stepped into the cave and sat on a slightly flattened rock. She pulled the cork off of her canteen and leaned her head back as she tipped it up to drink.
Once she was finished, she decided it was time for her to leave to get back on her walk. Just as she was about to leave the cave, she felt something under her foot. She lifted her foot up and saw a broken piece of wood on the ground.
She picked it up to look at it, looking for anything to its origin, asking herself, "What's this doing here?"
Her plan to leave to go back to the forest was now halted by her curiosity about this discovery. This was cut wood, man-made, it shouldn't have been in the forest, let alone a cave.
She looked further into the cave and saw more wood and even nails. Something was in this cave and she wanted to know what it could be.
She was aware that it could be something potentially dangerous and considered running to the village to have someone look at her findings, but thought against it. If it was something dangerous, what would happen then? Many of the villagers were wary of her because of Mildew, what would they think of her if she told them what she found? She wondered if she would be blamed if she decided to report it.
With no other options for her, she made her decision, she went further into the cave. She just hoped it was something she would get out of in one piece.
The further into the cave she went, the darker it got and the more difficult it was for her to see. She navigated her way by feeling what she stepped on through her boots.
Soon, it began to feel as if she was stepping on what she thought to be wood every time she moved her feet. With all of the wood she was feeling under her feet, she felt she had to be right on top of whatever was there in the cave.
She closed her eyes and started to take in many deep breaths for a couple of moments. When she opened her eyes, she could see better in the darkness, and she was able to see the silhouette of something rounded.
Not knowing what it was and fully aware that it could very well be something very dangerous, she made the decision to pick it up. It was smooth and slightly warm to the touch under on her fingers.
"What is this?" she asked herself.
She wanted to get a better look at it, to see exactly what it was. She began to make her way out of the cave, walking back the way she came.
Eventually, she saw the light from the mouth of the cave, she had been able to find her way out on her own. Finally, she could see exactly what she had found.
She was stunned to see that it was an egg! A large gray egg with darker gray spots peppered all over it. Although she had never seen one, she knew that this was a dragon egg.
She was so shocked by her finding that the egg nearly slipped out of her hands, but she caught it just in time and held it close to herself instinctively. Never in her life could she have imagined that she would such a thing.
She knew she should have put the egg back where she found it before the mother came for it, yet somehow she doubted that would happen. While she may not have been as experienced with dragons as the Dragon Riders, she was aware that most dragons did not make their nests out of wood, especially not if that wood was handled by humans.
She wondered if that meant that this egg was abandoned, left to fend for itself when it hatched. It reminded her of herself, she was abandoned and left to fend for herself with no one.
While the possibility of a mother dragon still lingered in her mind, she knew she had to get this egg somewhere safe. And the only way to do that was to take it back to her house with her.