This is Berk.

At first glance, you might think it's a peaceful community. We don't start wars for fun, we don't kill dragons, and we don't even do that much hunting. On the surface, it looks like a cheerful, safe, and interesting place to live.

But it's easy to miss what's below the surface. The thoughts and feelings we hide from the world. The anger we feel toward the ones we love and the anger at ourselves for feeling it. The hidden motivations behind the most mean spirited acts. That's what you don't see. Yet it runs rampant no matter how happy everything seems on the outside.

Unfortunately, if enough goes on below the surface, it's inevitably going to come into view. And sometimes when it goes unchecked, it's too late to fix.

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was exhausted. Sleep was something that was becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. And it always seemed to come at the worst moments.

"Up! Get up!"

The piercing voice above his head could only belong to his wife. Astrid Hofferson Haddock wasn't even trying to mask the sounds she was making. It could not be morning already. Hadn't he just fallen asleep? Was she just out to torture him? He groaned and rolled over, putting his pillow over his head.

"What are you... ugh!" Astrid stomped forward and ripped the covers off his back. "I said get up!"

"Mmmmm no." Hiccup moaned, curling up so that his body would remain warm. "Too early."

"It is not too early! You're going to be late to your own meeting if you do not get up this instant. Gods, you're as bad as the kids!" Astrid snapped.

"I'm not getting up if you're just going to nag me all morning." Hiccup retorted, stubbornly clinging to his pillow. "Will you just relax?"

"No, I will not relax! You're a grown man! Act like it!" Astrid smacked him with the blanket she had just confiscated.

"Maybe if you start acting like a lady..."

"You did not just say that!"

"Yeah, I think I did!"

Astrid snarled and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Hiccup wished he could take it as a sign that he had won the argument but he knew from experience that it was only just beginning. And now he was too busy stewing in his anger to go back to sleep.

Hiccup had been chief of the Hooligan tribe for just over two years. And in those two years, he had managed to delegate a lot of tasks among his people so that he wouldn't have too much on his plate each day. Unfortunately for him, breaking up fights was one of the duties he was saddled with thanks to his extensive experience in running the Academy. It also happened to be his most frequent duty. It seemed like he had prevented his people from killing each other eight or nine times a day. And that was a conservative estimate that certainly didn't include the amount of fighting going on under his roof.

Now that he thought about it, the irony of what he was about to do that morning hit him. Fed up with the amount of fights he now had to break up, he had decided to start teaching anger management classes to his fellow Hooligans. It was about time someone taught them how to deal with their own disagreements instead of constantly going to get him. Maybe he'd have time to deal with his own family's issues instead of dealing with everyone in the tribe's.

He waited a few seconds before rolling out of bed and slowly getting dressed. No flight suit today. He had a feeling that the class would last a long time. Perhaps it would be a good idea to wear some armor just in case. As he pulled on a second pair of pants, this one made of more sturdy material that would hopefully protect his stump, he heard loud banging from the hallway.

"Wake up!" Astrid bellowed, sounding even more irritated than before. "Breakfast is in ten minutes and if you are not out of bed and dressed by that time, you can just go hungry."

Hiccup rolled his eyes. Time for the daily struggle to begin. He knew exactly what was going to happen. First, his daughter would technically follow the rules (though somehow manage to tick her mother off anyway) and he would have to wait until Astrid had cooled off a bit to stop her from letting the girl starve. Meanwhile, one of his children would manage to irritate the other and the first of many screaming matches would commence.

This, he reasoned, was exactly why he was teaching his peers how to control their anger. He was far too busy preventing his children from killing each other.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself before facing the inevitable shouting, screaming, and fighting, he walked out of the master bedroom and gently knocked on his daughter's door.

"Addie, honey, just do as your mother says and maybe she won't yell at us." he said through the wood.

"She always yells at us." the girl replied sleepily.

Hiccup sighed. "I know. But at least try this morning, okay?"

The door opened to reveal Adrianna Miracle Haddock, her hair disheveled and her clothes wrinkled and put on at an odd angle. Her bright green eyes were half hidden by her drooping eyelids and she still had flecks of dried drool on her cheek. Hiccup thought he had a beautiful little girl but it took a while for everyone else to see that.

"Addie, come on. You can't go downstairs looking like that." the young father got to work smoothing out his daughter's shirt and tugging at half of her skirt so that it would be even instead of completely lopsided. He licked his thumb and wiped off the drool from her cheek. "For once, let's actually look like we didn't roll out of bed five minutes ago."

"But I did roll out of bed five minutes ago." Adrianna retorted, looking distinctly grumpy.

"Yes but let's pretend you didn't." Hiccup replied without missing a beat. "Where is your hairbrush?"

"I think I saw a hairbrush back there." Adrianna pointed to a corner of her incredibly messy room.

Hiccup strode forward. "You're going to have to be more specific." he said, digging through the pile of clothes in the corner. "Are these clean?"

"I don't remember." Adrianna shrugged. "There it is." she pointed to the hairbrush embedded in a wad of socks.

Hiccup picked it up and immediately got to work on his daughter's tangled locks. He had no idea how her hair always managed to look so terrible each morning when she looked just fine before bed. Once he had finally managed to remove the worst of the knots, Astrid had decided that they'd waited long enough.

"Breakfast is ready and if you don't come downstairs this instant, you're not getting any!" she yelled up the stairs.

"Better go." Hiccup nudged his daughter forward.

The girl scowled but led her father down the stairs and into the main room. Astrid had only set two plates at the table. This wasn't altogether surprising since Adrianna was almost always late and Hiccup would run out of the house without breakfast most days (partially because he had a lot of work to do but mostly to avoid her glaring at him from across the table).

"Well..." Astrid took one look at Adrianna and was suddenly struck with the inability to criticize anything. She looked up at Hiccup and felt the same. "There's a nice change of pace."

"Thank you for the confidence boost." Hiccup deadpanned, picking up two plates from the open cupboard.

Astrid glared at him but didn't say a word as she sat down in front of the bread and porridge. Without the usual morning fussing about Adrianna's appearance, she found herself at a loss for words. In fact, the meal was uncomfortably quiet until a very excited voice shattered the silence.

"I could do six chin-ups this morning!" Fearless Finn Haddock burst out like he had been waiting for the best opportunity to share this information. "Yesterday I could only do five but I'm doing better now. I have muscles, see?" he flexed his arm.

"That's great, buddy." Hiccup said, only glancing upward at his son.

"How many can you do, dad?" Finn asked, his spoon suspended over his porrige and his blue eyes fixed on his father's forehead.

"I don't know. I guess I'll have to give it a try sometime." Hiccup gave the boy a half smile.

"Well I was practicing yesterday and I could do a whole bunch of them." Astrid shot her husband a look before turning to her son. "When you can do ten, we can go on a flight. What do you think?"

Finn's eyes widened. "Ten?"

"Ten. You've got to prove your strength as a Viking warrior." Astrid nudged the boy's shoulder. "That goes for you too, Anna."

Adrianna sighed. "I don't think I can."

"You haven't tried. Come on, we can practice after the meeting." Astrid coaxed. "I bet you can do at least two."

"I don't want to." Adrianna mumbled, her eyes fixed on her own porrige.

"It's good exercise, Anna. Just for half an hour." Astrid wheedled, her eyes fixed on the top of her daughter's head which, was shaking back and forth in response. "Half an hour and then we'll be done. It'll be over before you know it."

"She doesn't want to, Astrid." Hiccup said in a low voice.

"Well sometimes kids have to do stuff they don't want to do. It's good for her." Astrid's eyes flitted to her husband, who didn't look up.

"Yeah when it's important. They're just chin-ups. She gets plenty of exercise running around outside." Hiccup finally met her gaze and narrowed his eyes slightly.

Astrid pursed her lips, unwilling to argue with her husband in front of her children. The house became extremely quiet again.

Hiccup sighed and stared into his food much like the rest of his family. Tensions in the Haddock house had been building for several weeks. Astrid had become steadily more snippy with him and he wasn't altogether certain why. He had tried to ask her what was wrong but she would shake her head and put off the conversation. He had a feeling that it would lead to a fight and he wasn't eager to start one.

Of course, his marital problems weren't the only conflicts in the house. For the last two years, Astrid had gotten to work teaching her children how to read. Finn had mastered it within a year but Adrianna had a strange aversion to her studies and no amount of prodding from Astrid could get her to focus. At age seven, she still couldn't read even the most basic words. What Hiccup didn't know was that Astrid specifically timed her lessons so that he wouldn't be in the house. These lessons were more like screaming matches that often ended with Adrianna in tears.

But things were beginning to come to an unavoidable boiling point now that three quarters of the family took issue with each other. Finn, who was beginning to feel like a bit of an outsider, had taken to spending as much time away from the house as he could when everyone was home. So far, there hadn't been a blowup. But it was only a matter of time. Hiccup hoped that the anger management class he was going to attempt to teach would help his family deal with their own issues as well. And perhaps he could have a civilized conversation with his wife. It was worth a shot.

Xxx

Since becoming chief, Hiccup had learned quite a few little tricks when it came to dealing with people. For example, being calm in a crisis was definitely an underrated skill. He also learned that no amount of pleading would get anyone to listen to him so he had to be firm and unwavering in his convictions. But the trick he most commonly used was one he learned from a singer to prevent his throat from going hoarse after a day of shouting so that everyone could hear him, whether it was over two fighting children or a room full of whispering Vikings. In order to get the most volume and avoid straining his voice, he learned to breathe with his diaphragm before speaking. The first time he had done this, he had caught himself off guard with the sound bursting from his throat but he had since learned how to use it to his advantage.

Of course, proper breathing techniques could only get him so far. And an entire arena full of grumpy Vikings of all ages was already going to be hard enough. Trying to talk over them would be next to impossible. Hiccup thought irritably that perhaps he should have considered this before insisting that everyone attend.

"Umm... guys!" he called as loudly as he could. "Can you all just settle down? We could get this over a lot faster if... guys... everyone... hey!" he bounced a bit as he attempted to make himself look a bit taller but it was to no avail. "Come on! Just a few minutes of your-"

"SHUT UP!" Ruffnut hollered quite suddenly.

A hush fell over the crowd. Hiccup beamed at her.

"Thank you, Ruff. So umm... right!" the Hooligan chief straightened up and began to pace in front of the chalkboard he used at the academy, fiddling with fresh chalk in his left hand. "As you know, there are a lot of disagreements on Berk. Daily, actually. More like every few hours." he cleared his throat and licked his lips, beginning to regret not having rehearsed his speech the night before. "But that's all going to change. With a few tips on anger management, you'll be able to handle your own disputes."

Astrid turned her derisive laugh into a coughing fit. Unabashed, Hiccup continued.

"So the first thing I was thinking about teaching you all is proper breathing techniques." he announced, ceasing his pacing and standing in front of the crowd.

"We're breathing wrong? I didn't know there was a wrong way to breathe!" Tuffnut called from toward the back of the arena.

"Not what I meant. I mean you need to breathe... different... when you're upset. Here, stand up straight, shoulders back." there were loud scraping noises as his people reluctantly rose from their seats. "Now take a deep breath, hold it, and then release."

"This is stupid." said Snotlout rather loudly rather than actually obey. "How will we ever use this in a conflict?"

"Easy! We could breathe in and blow our opponent ever! Is that what you're going to teach us?" Ruffnut leaned forward a bit, suddenly eager.

"No! That's not... no, come on." Hiccup rolled his eyes. "This is about managing your anger so you can channel it constructively and not need me to come break up fights."

"Wait! You mean you're not teaching us how to fight with each other?" Tuffnut looked scandalized.

"Of course not, why would I teach you that? Your fighting is why I'm here! It's about time someone put a stop to it!" Hiccup sighed, his breathing techniques forgotten.

The crowd was beginning to murmur amongst themselves. Apparently Hiccup hadn't explained what he meant by anger management classes in a clear enough fashion. He growled in frustration. Two years as chief and he still made incredibly stupid mistakes. However, this now meant he had two years of experience talking himself out of embarrassing situations.

"All right, I can see there's been a bit of a miscommunication!" he called over the muttering, which was steadily rising in volume. "I'm teaching you all how to manage your anger so that when you are in conflict, you can solve it yourselves. This will be really helpful in the long run and hopefully prevent a lot of avoidable accidents and injuries."

At this point, no one was paying attention to their chief. Finn and Helga Ingerman, who had been poking each other since the start of the class, had started to argue in hushed tones. Inga Jorgenson and Gunnar Ingerman were having a similar dispute a few rows back. Astrid leaned back and decided to enjoy watching her husband struggle as more and more altercations were beginning to take place all over the arena.

"Now if you could just settle down, I could teach you how to- Finn, for the love of Thor, do not push Helga, she's a lot smaller than you- teach you how to control your- Mulch, Bucket, stop hitting each other- control your anger." Hiccup was beginning to gesture wildly in a vain attempt to restore control. "So after you take your- Ruff, Tuff, this is not a war meeting, put down the daggers- your deep breaths, just tell yourself- Finn, let go of Edgar's shirt- tell yourself to relax and... and stop fuming and... take it... take it..." Hiccup put his head in his hands, balling his fists so tightly that his fingernails came dangerously close to cutting into his palms. "OH FORGET IT!" he suddenly bellowed.

The jarring, unrestrained shout from their leader hushed the Hooligans in a second but Hiccup didn't notice this. Astrid smirked. Here came the show.

"You know what? Fine! Just freak out and hit each other with your maces and axes and whatever else you find lying around because I'm done! I have better things to do than to come and solve every one of your problems!" he threw the chalk down, causing it to snap in half. "I don't know how my dad did it! Why is it my job to make you act like civilized human beings? Well you know what? I'm not doing it anymore!" he was running his fingers through his hair, grabbing clumps of it and pulling so hard he could feel the individual hairs snapping. "I quit! When you need me for an actual chiefly duty that doesn't involve nearly being beaten over the head ten times a day, come and find me!"

With that, he stomped out of the arena, his metal foot making a very loud noise every other step. Toothless, who was waiting outside, cooed in concern but Hiccup shook his head. He had long since learned that flying while angry was something he would do well to avoid when possible. The Night Fury followed his livid rider away from the crowd. Had Hiccup stopped his ragged breathing for even a second, he might have noticed a silence coming from the arena as everyone watched him stomp away until he was out of sight.

For a moment, all was calm and quiet. Astrid looked around in amusement at her fellow Hooligans, most of whom had never seen their chief throw a fit like that. A few months ago, Hiccup might have had a bit more patience before snapping but she had noticed that his tolerance was being stripped away little by little over the last few weeks. She hoped no one would try to talk to her about it.

Finally, Gobber stepped forward to the now vacated spot at the front of the crowd. "You know, Hiccup has a point." he admitted with a shrug. "Perhaps we would all benefit from learning how to not attack each other when conflicts arise."

There was a murmur of assent. Ironically, now that the Hooligans had seen firsthand how ridiculous fits of anger looked to other people, they were beginning to see the point in the lesson.

Xxx

"Well that was just great. Real leadership skills there." Astrid remarked sardonically as she walked into the Haddock home, slamming the door behind her.

Hiccup hummed in an irritated sort of way but did not respond. He had spent a good portion of the morning catching up on a few inventing projects he had been putting off. His charcoal scraped against the parchment as he wrote out some designs for even better and sturdier catapults to replace the ones that had broken. Astrid's interruption was not appreciated.

"Oh okay. Don't bother you. Got it." Astrid rolled her eyes and stomped up the stairs, intending to take a short nap before going back out into the town square. She had spent the morning covering for her husband and thought it was well deserved.

How had Hiccup's life become so full of conflict? A year ago, everything had been fine. His kids were happy, his wife was happy, his dragon was happy and he... well he was becoming a very good actor. But things change when anyone carries around guilt long enough. Even the biggest of smiles can only hide the darkness inside so much. But hadn't he done his best to move on? Hadn't he spent countless nights convincing himself that he had made the right choice?

No, he thought irritably. He had done the right thing. It was only natural to feel guilty. It was Astrid who was being unreasonable, who was becoming grouchy and mean spirited these days. And his children were getting older. Of course their polar opposite personalities would cause more conflict now that they were developing. Surely it wasn't his fault that everything had gone so badly so fast. He was doing the best he could.

He shook his head to clear his mind of his doubts and went back to working on his designs. He would deal with it another day.