Once There Were Dragons is a How to Train Your Dragon fanfic written by Areias
.
Set after the events of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. Every midsummer, the Haddocks made their way across the Great North Sea, back to the Hidden World where they could meet their dragons again. But as kings and empires rose in the East, and news spread about the wonders of the Archipelago, men sought after beasts of fire made flesh, for fire was power. The fate of the Archipelago now rests on one family.
This fanfic can be read on Fanfiction Dot Net here and Archive of Our Own here.
Story has not been updated since April 2019 and is presumably abandoned.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Adaptational Sexuality: Apparently Eret and Tuffnut are officially a couple, have been a married couple in all but official ceremony. This is apparently an Open Secret and no-one on New Berk is bothered by this.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Whenever Nuffink's accomplishments come up in conversation (one of them being sailing through the Maw solo), Hiccup loves to embellish them. Nuffink is not amused at this at all.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: When Sigfrid tells Finn that she is a lesbian and that she has been dating Zephyr in secret, he shrugs off the fact that she is gay and becomes offended by the fact that his sister had kept it a secret from him, citing "sibling betrayal."
- Doting Parent: Hiccup has a habit of embellishing Finn's accomplishments - like sailing through the Maw near Berserker Island - to anyone that hears them much to his son's embarrassment.Nuffink: Er, why don’t you ask Eirik? I mean he's sailed the Maw before, righ—Leif: Eirik didn't do it by himself. He had help from Dad.Nuffink: I had help from mine…Leif: Your Dad said you didn't! On the honor of your Clan!Nuffink: …yeah I really wish he didn't do that.
- Freudian Excuse: Sigfrid acts abrasive towards Nuffink when he is visiting her, acting as though she resents him greatly because his sister wanted to end their Long-Distance Relationship. After some prodding from Finn, she realizes that it was unfair to him and explains the situation properly.
- Incompatible Orientation: Sigfrid and Finn were betrothed together by their parents as a means of uniting their tribes, unaware that Sigfrid has secretly been dating Finn's older sister Zephyr in a Long-Distance Relationship.
- Like Father, Like Son: Leif has a habit of referring to Finn as his brother, much like how his father Dagur does with Hiccup.
- Loose Lips: While Hiccup and Astrid have asked the others if they wish to come with them to visit their dragons on their yearly visit to the Hidden World, they kindly decline knowing that the fewer people know the location of the Hidden World, the better kept the safety of their dragons are. It is reasoned that even though no one on New Berk would willingly betray the dragons, there is always the likelihood of a Berkian being captured and tortured into confessing or Saying Too Much after a kegger, fears that have been confirmed when Snotlout inadvertently confirms the existence of the Hidden World to the Oathbreaker Tribe by mistake.
- My Greatest Failure: Snotlout feels great shame for when he told the mother of his children - a merchant's daughter that he had regularly visited - about the Hidden World. The chain of events eventually led to the birth of his children, but it also led to the death of her, his father Spitelout and endangered New Berk and the Hidden World in the process.
- Reformed Bully: While Snotlout had been an entitled brat and Commander Contrarian most of his life, it was not until he inadvertently kicked off the Oathbreaker War by telling Helga of the Oathbreaker Tribe about the Hidden World, endangering New Berk and the dragons and killing both Helga and his father as causalties is Snotlout permanently humbled.
- Someone to Remember Him By: In a one-shot connected to Once There Were Dragons, Nuffink was intended to be this for Hiccup when Astrid was dying from childbirth complications.
- Villain of Another Story: Downplayed. In the saga of the Oathbreaker War, the last war New Berk had faced, the "tricked Berkian" and the "cunning Oathbreaker" that had both started the war in the first place was Snotlout and his lover (and the mother of his children) Helga. While nobody blames Snotlout for any of it, Hiccup still appointing him as Master of Trade, Snotlout still harbors heavy remorse for it all.
