Fanfic / Lost Boy

Lost Boy is a How to Train Your Dragon fanfic written by harrypanther.

An impulse decision by Stoick has him rescuing a desperate boy from slavery and shame who bears an uncanny resemblance to his long-dead wife. But will this lost boy be accepted on Berk where some have much to lose?

This fanfic can be read on Fanfiction Dot Net here and Archive of Our Own here

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This fanfic provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents: When Astrid refuses to disassociate herself from Hiccup, her father Ivar resorts to beating her at home. It’s not until Astrid nearly disowns herself and the fact that Snotlout is a cruel, abusive idiot is made obvious to him does he come to his senses, even deciding to trust Hiccup as her friend.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • In the film, Astrid does not officially become anything to Hiccup other than "unrequited crush/apathetic" until she discovers Toothless, and Fishlegs does not officially become his friend until Dragons: Riders of Berk. Here, they become his friends as soon as they meet him, become two of the few people in the village who see him more than just a bed-slave.
  • On-top of the many Pet the Dog moments they give to Hiccup, Stoick and Gobber seem much more willing to listen to him, even finding his uncanny skills at pacifying dragons without hurting them something that could be useful in their war against them. Mulch and Bucket seem to side with them on this as well, rebuking all of Mildew's claims against Hiccup along with Stoick and Gobber.
• Adaptational Villainy: In-canon, Snotlout and Spitelout aren't exactly nice, but they are not nearly as cruel as they are in this story. Spitelout has Hiccup returned to his abusive master despite Stoick making it clear that he wants to take him home, and when Stoick leaves Hiccup in the care of the Jorgenson's household while he sorts out village matters, they go out of their way to make him miserable. After Stoick finds out how cruel they treated him, Spitelout and Snotlout take him out in the forest with the intent of raping him as revenge, a dragon raid interrupting them. When Hiccup one-ups Snotlout by incapacitating the Gronckle on their first day of dragon-training, Snotlout actually takes Astrid's axe with the intent of killing him right then and there. Spitelout even takes the time to try and kill Stoick during the battle with the Red Death, only to be killed when the Red Death literally steps on him because he's not paying attention.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Basically applies to Hiccup bonding with the Night Fury, as he initially encounters the dragon while he's trying to hide from Spitelout and Snotlout in the woods and the dragon just sniffs him and leaves, Hiccup later affirming that the Night Fury is one of the few things on Berk that's never tried to hurt him.
• Born Unlucky: Whenever someone does something nice for Hiccup, there are at least ten other people who would go out of their way to put him down verbally and physically.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Astrid forces her father to recognise how far he's fallen by threatening to disown herself from her family if he can't accept her friendship with Hiccup and her refusal to marry Snotlout.
• Chekhov's Skill: Discussed. Midway through the story when he is training with Astrid, it is revealed that Hiccup is a natural with a sword with his left hand. When Snotlout challenges Hiccup to a duel to reclaim his status as heir, Hiccup manages to win using his right hand. When Astrid asks him why not just take the easier option and fight with his left hand, Hiccup tells her that he knew he would win this way, but he did not want to kill Snotlout and he knew Snotlout would become overconfident and show his true colors.
• Commander Contrarian: Whenever a moral principle is enforced, expect Snotlout, Spitelout and Mildew to show up and contradict it every time.
• Death by Adaptation: Valka died in childbirth, the babe a stillborn. Or so they thought.
• Despair Event Horizon: As bad as his life becomes, Hiccup usually finds something that helps him endure, whether it’s knowing that his aunt and uncle would have wanted him to survive or when he knows that Stoick cares for him. It is not until his friends are forced to ignore him under Berk law due to his Outcast brand and Stoick accusing him of being everything the village says about him after happening upon Snotlout raping him does he cut his own wrists, all hope finally spent from his body.
• Dirty Coward: It’s acknowledged that when Snotlout is not being a Fearless Fool, he will rig a fight through cheating and underhanded tactics to give his opponent no real options.
  Hiccup: Snotlout - the only time we actually fought, I had you down[.] And you - the coward that you are - had the twins pull me off you and hold me helpless as you beat me up. And then you whined to your parents that we had fought and they beat me as well. You held me helpless with a knife at my throat and assaulted me. You never fight fair! So which of us is the coward, Snotlout? You challenge me now when I am still healing and have only just lost a leg! Are you afraid of me in a fair fight?
• Driven to Suicide: Branded a slave by the Outcasts, unaware that Astrid and Fishlegs have been ordered to distance themselves from him, believing that Toothless died trying to save him from the Outcasts, and certain that Stoick now thinks he's just a bed-slave when Stoick witnessed Snotlout raping him, Hiccup slits his wrists after leaving a suicide note, and is only saved because Stoick found him before he had bled out too much.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Thankfully by the end of the story, this trope applies to Hiccup as he's been made Stoick's heir, won Astrid's heart and Fishlegs' friendship and managed to shed his Dark and Troubled Past in the eyes of the village.
• Everyone Has Standards: While much of Snotlout's more heinous qualities are ignored or covered up, the last straw for everyone was when he turned one of the catapults (a device he has no experience or clearance using) and fires it into the village with claims that he was targeting dragons. Not only did this endanger the people in the village, but it also leaves the Thorstons homeless and the village forge unusable. It’s implied that this was a direct attempt at killing Hiccup by making it look like an accident. Not even his father is on his side this time, and Tuffnut explicitly states that having their homes destroyed by a dragon might have been cool, but Snotlout destroying it for a joke is anything but.
  • The final nail in the coffin was driven when Snotlout threw Hiccup under the bus and had him be held hostage by Alvin when, as heir, it was his duty to the village to step in when Stoick was injured.
• Foster Kid: Spitelout manages to convince Stoick to allow Hiccup into their home as a means of preventing scandal among the village. What follows is Spitelout, his wife Ava and Snotlout forcing him to work every waking hour, giving him half a meal for dinner and forcing him to sleep on the cold hard floor in Snotlout's room, all the while verbally abusing him every chance they get, becoming physically violent when he defends Stoick's honor by hitting Snotlout.
• Groin Attack: Hiccup manages to deliver a particularly painful one when he bites Alvin as the Outcast leader is forcing Hiccup to give him a blowjob.
• Handicapped Badass:
  • Hiccup defeated Snotlout in their final duel despite him still recovering from the recent loss of his leg and the accompanying coma.
  • Toothless actually swam from Outcast Island back to Berk after the Outcasts shot him down while he was trying to save Hiccup.
• Hope Spot: While Hiccup is being held prisoner on Outcast Island, Toothless flies out to help Hiccup on his own accord, managing to do some damage to the Outcasts' defences and give Hiccup a chance to get away... and then the Outcasts manage to shoot Toothless down and cripple his tail, leaving Hiccup to get recaptured while believing that Toothless died trying to save him.
• Irrational Hatred: The Jorgensons have had it out for Hiccup the moment Stoick introduced him to them. Whenever something does not go their way, they try to take it out on Hiccup. Whenever they cannot go after Hiccup directly, they try and rally the village against him. If they cannot do that, they go after Hiccup in-secret. Even when Snotlout does something so stupid that even his parents won't defend him on it, he will try and rationalize it as being Hiccup's fault.
  "You are the only parasite here," [Snotlout] threatened. "And now you're lying about me..." Hiccup backed up a pace and felt the bench hit the back of his thighs.
  "What; making sure people know what you've done is lies?" Hiccup replied, though he could feel his hands trembling. "Boy, you need to learn what the definition of a lie is. Here's a clue; it's something that isn't true! Not something you did but don't want people to learn about! And by the way, I'm working in the forge-or was until you arrived. You're supposed to be on the fire crew; don't see you putting out any fires…and there are plenty to choose from!"
  "I'm the Heir!" Snotlout sneered. "I should be protecting the village!"
• The Jinx: Many of Berk's villagers seem to believe this of Hiccup, his status as a former bed-slave leading many to believe him to be an ill omen, that any weapon he touches would be cursed and that ill-fortune would befall their children if he goes anywhere near them. This especially is not helped by the Jorgensons spreading rumors about him.
• Karmic Jackpot: Astrid has been living with a very real possibility of being forced into an unwanted marriage with Snotlout. After she saves Stoick's life during the rescue mission to save Hiccup from the Outcasts, Stoick declares her a shield maiden and thus she is free to marry whoever she wants if she so chooses to get married.
• Laser-Guided Karma: While Snotlout is too stupid and egotistical to actually learn anything, he is often duly punished when he does something especially callous.
  • When Snotlout tries to kill Hiccup when he beats him on their first day of dragon-training, Gobber has him expelled, meaning that he won't be able to enter dragon-training until the next generation is trained. While Hiccup agrees to forgive him and allow him back into dragon-training to prevent Astrid from her losing her place with him, he immediately gets expelled again when he forced Hiccup into the open within line of sight with the Deadly Nadder to save himself.
  • Snotlout turns a catapult (a device he has no experience or authority to use) around into the village, destroying the forge and the Thorston household. He is thoroughly reprimanded by everyone (including his father), loses Ruffnut and Tuffnut's respect and even leads Stoick to openly question his decision to let Snotlout be his heir when he sees that Snotlout does not regret his actions in the slightest.
  • When Snotlout gives Hiccup to Alvin to be his hostage, he loses what little respect anyone else had for him. Not only was it something he as heir was obligated to do for the good of the tribe, but it was made abundantly clear that he would have been treated far better than Hiccup would have. Astrid even points out that he could be banished for this level of betrayal.
• Loophole Abuse: When Snotlout challenges Hiccup for his position as heir, Hiccup asks if they are allowed to choose their own weapons.
  Hiccup: As you have issued the challenge, I have the right to choose the weapons.
  Mulch: That is correct.
  Snotlout: Then what are you choosing, bitch? You can barely lift an axe or a hammer. Maybe a belt knife? Or a toothpick? Or a...
  Hiccup: I choose dragons.
• Made a Slave: Not having been Born into Slavery, Hiccup was sold by his village as a tiff for peace against an invading tribe after his aunt and uncle die, where he is passed from village to village before he wound up in the whorehouse Stoick found him in.
• Make It Look Like an Accident:
  • Snotlout tries to kill Hiccup by pointing a catapult at the forge while he was still in it. When questioned, he insisted that he was aiming for dragons attacking the village and that it would have been a bonus if he got rid of Hiccup.
  • During the Battle of Helheim's Gate, Spitelout tries to kill Stoick as a means of making Snotlout chief, hoping to make it look like Stock died from a dragon attack.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: When Stoick tells Gobber that he "met someone" the previous night, Gobber assumes that he means a woman, happy that Stoick had finally moved on from Valka's death. Then Stoick clarifies that it was a young boy, this gets a shocked reaction from Gobber, forcing Stoick to be more specific with the situation. This trope has become a sort of morose Running Gag with everyone falling under the assumption that Stoick is keeping Hiccup as a bed-slave when he returns to Berk.
• Mythology Gag: When Astrid is teaching Hiccup how to handle a sword, he is clumsy and utterly hopeless... that is until he accidentally starts using his left hand before he easily curb-stomps Astrid without warning, much like in the original book series.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: When Hiccup defends an incapacitated Stoick when the Outcasts invade, Snotlout takes his chance and gives Hiccup to them as a hostage. His moment of heroism has him repeatedly abused, raped and branded an Outcast by Alvin. By the time Stoick and the others mount their rescue, it is already too late. Everyone, including Stoick, Astrid and Fishlegs, is forced to ignore him under accordance to Viking Law due to the Outcast-brand and Stoick ends up believing that Hiccup really is the whore that the Jorgensons claim him to be. It takes a thorough chewing out by Gobber and a very thorough examination of the law for Stoick to come to his senses only to find that Hiccup had just then attempted to end his life.
• "Not So Different" Remark: One of the reasons why Astrid thinks differently from the "guilt by association" idea that the village seem to think of Hiccup is because her family has already felt this form of scorn after her Uncle Finn Hofferson was frozen and killed by the Flightmare.
• Not What It Looks Like: Hiccup tries to assure Stoick that he and Astrid did not have sex, Astrid simply needing company after she found out her father was going to sell her off to Snotlout. Stoick believes him, but warns him that if anyone saw Astrid sneaking to and from the house, everyone would make that assumption, tarring and feathering their reputations further.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Hiccup is not a virgin and there has not been a single sexual experience that he had any consent in, mainly turned into a bed-slave by Sundby. Snotlout and Spitelout almost did the same to him as revenge for making them look bad for Stoick, that is if a dragon raid hadn't occurred right as they were about to. Alvin then uses him as a sex slave during his incarceration on Outcast Island, with young boys being a particular favorite of his.
• Rule of Symbolism: The burns Hiccup sustains when he is injured by the Red Death also remove the Outcast brand, reinforcing how that battle marked his clean slate in the eyes of the village.
• Rules Lawyer: Basically the reasoning behind Berk justifying the 'loss' of Hiccup's Outcast brand; while it is against the law to remove a brand, Hiccup 'lost' his when he was burned in the battle with the Red Death, which burned the skin where the brand had been inflicted.
• A Scar to Remember: After Hiccup is given to Alvin as a hostage, he is ceremoniously branded with an Outcast brand. This brand made him a criminal in the eyes of Berk law, taking what little place he had in the process. This brand is then thoroughly wiped clean by the burns he sustained in the battle against the Red Death, symbolically representing the clean slate the heroic moment granted him in the eyes of the village.
• Sex Slave: The first chapter opens with Hiccup having no choice but to join a brothel, his body too small and frail to be signed up for manual labor. Even worse, the tyrannical brothel-owner Sundby operates on a form of barter system where the moment he joins, he has to pay if he wants to leave his employ, threatening to hunt him down if he runs. Even worse, he made sure to personally "break him in" himself.
• Shaming the Mob: To a degree; after Alva Jorgenson and Ivar Hofferson rally some of the other villagers to protest Snotlout's exclusion from dragon training, their allies stop being vocal supporters after Gobber points out that letting Snotlout literally get away with murder would set a bad precedent for his future status as chief.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Not one thing has gone right for Hiccup without some serious drawbacks ever since his village sold him as a thrall. It gets especially worse when he is made into a Sex Slave by a cruel and tyrannical brothel-owner.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Snotlout has a particularly large ego being Stoick's heir, believing he has the right to anyone and anything on such grounds alone. The only people who have any real faith in him are his own parents, who go out of their way to bully the rest of the tribe into vilify their son's non-existent prowess. This is even believed to be one of the reasons why Spitelout made a deal with Ivar Hofferson to marry his daughter to Snotlout; because they all know that Astrid is the superior warrior, they try to force her to be his housewife so he would be the next contender for their generation's champion for Berk.
• Speech Impediment: Hiccup tends to stutter when under stress or afraid.
• Stay in the Kitchen: The Jorgenson clan is adamant to have Astrid marry Snotlout as a means to take away her status as shieldmaiden, knowing that if they do not, she could easily beat Snotlout as her generation's best fighter.
• Straw Misogynist: Snotlout makes it glaringly clear that he does not care whether Astrid would want to marry him or not, thinking that as heir to Berk's chiefdom, he is entitled to own her as his property.
• Surprise Incest: Basically applies, considering that Snotlout raped Hiccup before learning that Hiccup is Stoick's son and thus Snotlout's cousin.
• Villain Respect: While she clearly isn't happy about the situation, Alva thanks Hiccup for sparing Snotlout when he had every right to kill him in their duel.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: Here, Stoick's son died still-born, with Hiccup being an unrelated slave he happened upon. Though curiously, Stoick could not help but compare him to Valka, this being the big motivating factor for Stoick to take him back to Berk. Subverted, as Stoick deduces that Hiccup might actually be his supposedly dead son when he finds out that his aunt and uncle were from Berk and the aunt was a midwife at the dead heir's birth.
• Witch Hunt: Mildew knocks out Hiccup and brings him before a trial because he saw Hiccup nearly tame a Nadder that would have otherwise killed a defenseless Astrid. He even taking it a step further and say that he is the reason why the raid is particularly bad. He claims that touching dragons is a crime, only for everyone to point out that such a thing is not actually in Berk's laws - Berkains touching dragons all the time when they wrestle them and kill them - and that Hiccup's intentions in protecting a member of the village only vindicates him.

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