Chapter Text
4 Ýlir, 1st Year of Exile - Above the Norwegian Sea, 1,500 km south of Berk - Sunset.
Hiccup was doing his very best to focus only on the wind carding through his hair.
During the weeks following his first successful flight with Toothless he had come to love the sensation of the cool breeze that greeted him whenever they took to the skies. He associated it with a sense of fulfillment, triumph and sheer freedom, knowing that his best friend, in the form of the most feared of the dragons, would keep him safe and steady amongst the clouds. The wind up there ruffled his auburn hair in a way reminiscent of that of a father greeting his chi-
“-No.” Hiccup muttered to himself as he shook his head.
Focus on the wind.
His grip tightened around the pommel of the saddle. He wasn’t thinking about the hundreds of scrapes and bruises that littered his frame.
Focus on the wind.
His breathing was quickening. He wasn’t thinking on the bruised ribs the stray hits from his former tribesmen left.
Focus on the wind.
The right side of his face throbbed painfully. He wasn’t thinking in the way the Hairy Hooligans of Berk, people he has known since he’s had use of reason, who had acclaimed and cheered him mere days ago, now called for his head.
Focus on th-
-But he can’t help it, he starts thinking.
He thinks of the lingering dizziness after Spitelout kicked him in the temple during the scuffle.
He thinks of the acidic look of disdain Astrid threw at him while he was being dragged away.
He thinks of the anguished expression on Gobber’s face, so out of place on the usually sarcastic yet cheerful Viking, as he tried to make his way to him through the horde of raging Berkians.
He thinks of the innocent Nightmare that was felled because of him.
He thinks of the curses, stones and arrows sent their way when Toothless blasted through the chains of the Kill Ring.
He thinks of the gaping gash that now graced the right side of his face crossing his right brow and all the way down to his jaw after barely dodging his father’s axe.
He doesn’t think of the voice of Stoick the Vast as he branded his only son as a traitor to Berk.
He doesn’t think of how his father tried to kill him.
In truth, he had always half-expected to get himself disowned.
He’d never been what vikings picture when they think ‘Heir to the Chiefdom’, and his father had even stopped letting him tag along for the annual Althing1 with the rest of the Chiefs of the allied tribes (he missed Cami and Thuggory, they still wrote to each other back and forth but it wasn’t the same, they were always busy with their duties as heirs, so there was usually a good four months between letters, and Hiccup hadn’t seen them in years) or really trying to get him involved whatsoever in his daily duties once he realized he wouldn’t grow up to be like him and decided to dump him on Gobber’s lap at the tender age of seven.
He knew he would never bring any great honor to the Haddock name, or take his father’s place on the Chief’s Throne in the Mead Hall, and he had made his peace with that.
He had thought once he was (officially) disowned he would just move in with Gobber into the tiny room he had been given for his personal (and most potentially destructive) projects back at the smithy, maybe take over it when his mentor decided to retire (or got himself eaten by a Gronckle or something, because it’s Berk and one of the main tourist attractions was the wide variety of ways to get eaten by rampaging dragons) and help the village on his own way, forging weapons and repairing buildings before and after every raid.
Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined just how badly things would turn out. It was, in the lexic Tuffnut would use whenever he thought adults weren’t listening, an absolute shitshow.
After spending the last night previous to his final exam at Toothless’ cove mulling over everything he had been told about dragons and tradition his whole life and comparing it to his own experiences, he was faced with an undeniable truth: He couldn’t face the Nightmare, not in the traditional Viking way. But he could showcase his own way of engaging dragons before the entire village.
Before his father.
He knew he would face resistance from the tribe and that making his father change his mind would be the biggest hurdle to overcome, but he also knew Stoick. He may have his flaws but he was, above all even above being a good father, a good Chief devout to his people. A good chieftain would always put his people first, just not all of them, just the ones who fit in, and therefore, logic dictated he would at least consider an option with less bloodshed and that would see less of his people starving through the harsh winters of the Archipelago.
And the next day during his final exam, for a moment, he allowed himself to believe he had done it.
He had managed to calm down the Monstrous Nightmare by simply laying his weapons and his horned helmet down without spilling a single drop of blood or even raising his voice. Hel2, he had managed to scratch it into a boneless heap of scales and slobber, and not a soul in the Kill Ring spoke.
In hindsight, he had obviously underestimated the depths of his former people’s hatred for dragons, marinated in the blood of seven generations of loved ones taken by the beasts.
The silence that reigned over the arena wasn’t one born out of awe, respect or understanding. No, the truth was much simpler: They hadn’t reacted out of sheer rage. They were paralyzed with fury.
Once the first one amongst them regained his senses (it was Mildew, of course it was Mildew) the chase started. The sheer volume of Berk’s whole population had overwhelmed him and the Nightmare.
The poor beast had tried with all its might to ward off their assaulters but the mob finally got him submitted and one amongst the crowd sliced his neck clean. Hiccup was dragged with more force than strictly necessary (granted, they didn’t need much to begin with) before his father, whose expression might as well have been carved into his face, like those of the stone sentinels that guarded Berk’s docks.
He had begged his father, actually begged him as he was pushed to his knees to hear him out for once in his life, but he wouldn’t budge. His knuckles were white around the axe that dangled in his grip.
He recognized that axe. He had forged it himself as a gift for his father’s 42th birthday, two years ago.
It had taken him two months to get the runes for protection, strength and wisdom engraved along the edge just right without compromising the blade and to treat the wood for the handle in a way that it would withstand his father’s jöttun-like strength without splintering but still be swift and comfortable in his hands without losing his grip and make it able to absorb the recoil of Stoick’s strikes without splintering.
It had been one of the very few times his father looked at him with something akin to pride… for a record time of ten seconds before remembering that the reason his son was so good at forging weapons was because he was hopeless wielding them.
Stoick didn’t yell when he found his voice, instead, his voice was sad, and soft, like a lullaby.
And that made his words hurt even worse.
“Ye’ve thrown yer lot in with ‘em. Yer not a viking... Yer not my son.”
Then Toothless dived in, blasting through the thick chains of the arena to save his rider, landing right beside him and shooting a plasma projectile between Stoick and him, kicking up a cloud of dust and debris.
His father swung his ax through the makeshift smokescreen and he managed to get mostly out of its way by the skin of his teeth. He was trying not to think of the state his eye might be in.
He had faintly heard the belting voices of the Hooligans denouncing him as a traitor to Berk as he flew into the distance.
If he thought about it, he had sealed his own fate the moment his helmet reached the floor. He barely was able to pick it up on his way out.
He was an exile.
Útlagr3.
Óbótamaður4 even.
Now he only had the clothes on his back and the scarce supplies he´d had the foresight to stash away on Toothless’ saddlebag the night before to his name.
He lost his father, his mentor, his tribe, his home, and got an innocent dragon killed all in the span of fifteen minutes.
Maybe… he really was Useless.
A concerned warble pulled him out of his thoughts and refocused his mind enough to notice Toothless looking back at him, his head slightly tilted to the side and green intelligent eyes full of worry. He had taken some hits on their way out, mostly arrow grazes but his hide was thick and the wounds stopped bleeding shortly.
Hiccup forced himself to smile to soothe his friend’s distress. “O-Oh, d-don’t worry, bud. I’m fine! H-Honest!” His poor attempt at a grin must have been pitiful, because Toothless answered by narrowing his eyes into a deadpan look, as if saying ‘Try again’. “Y-Yeah, not even I bought that one. Who am I kidding, right?” he said with a shaky self-deprecating laugh. He receives a reassuring croon in response, whose reverberation warms him to the bones, and that actually manages to get him to smile. It was brittle and short, but it was an honest smile, and Toothless preened with pride a little, giving a gummy smile of his own. “Seriously, though, I’ll be fine.”
Once Hiccup regained full awareness of his surroundings once more he noticed the blue midday sky had given way to the shades of golden and crimson that heralded the dusk, so they must have been flying for around six hours.
Wow, time flies fast when you’re having an existential crisis while riding the fastest dragon known to vikingkind.
He needed to land, both to eat and rest for a moment and to properly mend his wounds. He’d managed to bandage the right side of his face half-decently while in mid-air to keep the gash from getting dirty and to protect it from the air, but he needed to actually wash the wound, rub some of Gothi’s balm on his ribs and eye (Gothi had opted for giving him a monthly supply after the umpteenth time he went to bother her with burns from his work at the smithy, which he had taken to stash in his room), and pray to Eir5 the wound doesn’t fester.
After a few minutes of looking around at the sea beneath them, Hiccup spotted a small island in the distance. After urging Toothless to get closer to a better look, he noticed that there were no dirt roads, docks, farms or any other sign of human occupation, in addition, there was a small fresh water lake near the center of the island.
It was the perfect rest spot. At least for the night. They had to keep moving, he didn’t know if his d-Stoick would spread word of his actions to the neighboring tribes yet but he wasn’t going to risk Toothless’ life on guesswork. Either way they couldn’t keep going forever, he was starting to feel sluggish with fatigue and he needed to stay sharp and plan his next move… besides, if he fell asleep in the saddle both he and Toothless would plummet to their watery death.
“Alright, bud, I don’t know about you but I’m ready to shut some eye. What do you say?” Toothless’ earfins perked up and he barked in agreement. “Well, then let’s touch down over there. It’s been… a long day.”
~~~A.H.T.O.~~~
It was almost nightfall by the time they reached the clear next to the lake. It was peacefully quiet, beautifully lit by the setting sun, with the only sounds around them being provided by the island’s wildlife choir (mainly composed of birds, foxes and badgers, all of them smart enough not to approach a sixteen-hundred pound, fire-breathing predator).
While Toothless busied himself by catching some fish in the nearby lake, Hiccup busied himself by gathering up enough dry wood to build a fire to last through the night and to boil water to clean the wound on his face and bandage it properly, or Gothi would somehow find a way to appear in that small island and whack him in the shins for not caring properly for himself (not that the aged healer needed much of a reason to whack somebody, older than Elli6 she might be but she packed a mean swing).
As he searched the forest for wood, he gave some thought to what Toothless and he should do next. They couldn’t go back to Berk for obvious reasons, so that left exploring the Archipelago for uninhabited islands, going to other viking islands or leaving the Archipelago entirely.
Exploring for new islands wasn’t feasible at the moment, he didn’t have resources or the safety in numbers or a safe place to fall back and some of those so-called “deserted” islands were actually stops for trading vessels, pirates or dragon hunters that were never added to new maps for obvious reasons, all of which Hiccup wished to avoid.
Traders were wont to spread rumors and news like washerwoman's gossip and by the end of the month he would have Berk's armada hot on his trail, pirates posed a very real risk of ending up auctioned off as a thrall in one of those unsavoury markets, and dragon hunters… that one explains itself. He wasn’t in shape to go swashbuckling against pirates at the moment and Toothless couldn’t look over him every waking moment, so that's one option off the table.
Next.
Heading to viking-inhabited islands… that one was tricky. He couldn’t go to islands he didn’t know or at least had a general notion of the lay of the land, besides, those were islands ruled by tribes of the likes of the Hysterics, Lava-Louts and the Outcasts… hard pass. He may be exiled and tribeless but he wasn’t that desperate. Besides, he couldn't leave Toothless unattended for too long, and hiding him in a viking island he was unfamiliar with was bound to get them caught sooner rather than later.
No, thanks.
Now, viking islands he did know… were also tricky, but for different reasons. The only viking islands he actually knew were the ones he visited with his f-Stoick! when the Althing seat was outside of Berk… so the chieftains of those islands were close allies of his father. The closest one would be Meathead Island to the southwest of Berk, then the Bog-Burglar Islands to the northeast, and Berserker Island to the south.
The craggy and cavernous Meathead Island was way too close to Berk, so it wouldn't take long for the news to reach them, and though he liked Thuggory and regarded him as a friend despite not having seen him in years, and he didn't trust old Chief Mogadon any further than he could throw him… which wasn't very far. He was one of the most overzealous and sadistic dragon killers of the tribe (Thuggory once sent a detailed retailing of his father's prefered methods to gut a Zippleback, and he couldn’t see minced meat without feeling the urge to cry, laugh and puke all at once for two weeks), even more so after his oldest children, Lardass and Hoodlum, were killed by dragons in a search for the Nest almost seven years ago.
He had always looked at Hiccup with naked contempt over his thick braided mustache and hated the fact that Thuggory saw Hiccup as a friend, as if scragginess was contagious and his son could catch it by being too close to him. And moreover, he had heard Mogadon muttering to some of his tribesmen during a diplomatic visit to Berk a few years ago.
“How dare that pitiful muckle o' a Viking draw breath an’ paradin’ ‘imself as a ‘heir’ while mah sons dine in Valhalla wi' ma Da? Stoick should ha' clung tae the old ways an' left 'im in the woods at birth. Let the wolves sort 'im out an’ dust his hands off.”
‘Not in a million years’ Hiccup thought as he threw aside a damp log. Unfortunately, with the right side of his sight momentarily impaired he didn't see the log hitting a nearby tree, bouncing off of it to hit him right on the temple and making him see stars and drop the firewood he had already collected.
“Ouch! Son of a troll, that hurts!”
He took a moment to center himself before crouching down to re-gathering his dropped wood and flinching as he bent down. His thoughts drifted towards Cami and her tribe, the Bog-Burglars, the all-female pilfery-enthusiastic tribe led by the suitably named Big-Boobied Bertha, resident of the heap of tiny islands haphazardly tied together by rope bridges and sheer stubbornness.
Camicazi would be delighted to hide him in the Bogs out of love for chaos alone (he had gone through great lengths to keep the Thorston twins far away from the Bogs’ heiress whenever she visited), and most of the adults sént most of their time either fending off the flocks of Smothering Smokebreaths native to the Bogs that came down on the village to loot them for anything shiny, or sailing off in the sea… looting passing trading and pirate ships for anything shiny.
There’s a lid for every pot.
Now, while the Bogs wouldn’t be ideal to hide Toothless because there wasn’t a single open space big enough to harbour him for over a week, the real problem would be hiding himself. The Bog-Burglars did have men amongst their ranks, but they were outnumbered 30 to 1. He had asked Cami once, when they were younger, how that worked and she just laughed her head off at him for twenty minutes until she turned blue in the face. But now, older and smarter, he understood what she meant back then.
They would eat him alive.
He would stand out like a hen in a fox’s den. And besides, Cami would most likely try to put him on a dress to 'help him blend in' as she would put it and sure as Loki he wasn't going to let that happen. Thor may have done it but he didn't have that level of self-confidence, or the legs, to pull it off. His knees were all knobby.
Besides, while Chiefess Bertha never showed the same disgust for him that Mogadon did, The Burglars were by far the less numerous tribe, and if Berk and the Meatheads joined forces on them, they’d crack the Bogs like a nut. She would never take that risk.
Berserker Island…
No. Just… no… Maybe as a last resort?
So that left abandoning the Archipelago altogether…
Maybe he should talk it over with Toothless in the morning, after they had eaten something, slept and gotten rid of the killer megrim that was making his already poor decision making somehow even worse than usual.
~~~A.H.T.O.~~~
Once he returned to their chosen camping spot, he started piling the logs and pieces of fallen branches to build a campfire next to Toothless’ napping shape and a pile of freshly caught fish, and used some of the longest and sturdiest to set up a spit from which to hang his small kettle until the water boiled. Once he circled the pile of wood with stones to keep the fire from spreading, he started rummaging into the pockets of his tunic looking for his flintstones, but they weren't there.
“Great, just what I needed” He sighed and started patting himself down in search of them. “Toothless, did you see where I put my flint stones?” Toothless looked at him through a half-lidded eye without moving an inch from his comfy perch, making Hiccup huff. “Bud, I’m serious, I need to get this-woah!”
His speech was cut short when he barely dodged a concentrated thin stream of blue plasma that hit the pile of wood, promptly catching fire. Hiccup threw Toothless a look torn between reproachful and humored.
“Thank you, Bud” Hiccup mumbled with a frown. Toothless let out a laugh-like warble. Hiccup couldn't keep a straight face much longer and breathed out a quiet laugh. “Yeah, I guess I won't be needing flint anytime soon, eh, Bud?” Toothless snorted in response and held his head high proudly, as if to say ‘I’m so much better than those puny pebbles could ever hope to be!’ making Hiccup laugh again.
“Careful there, O’ lord of the flames. If your ego gets any bigger, someone is going to mistake you for a Nadder!” That made Toothless narrow his eyes and snort indignantly and swiped Hiccup from under his feet with his tail in retribution.
“Uhff!”
Hiccup’s laughs were replaced with coughs and pained moans as his tender and battered ribs impacted the ground, making him curl up. Toothless' playful attitude changed into worry and rapidly stood up to inspect Hiccup, lightly nudging him with his snout.
“I-it’s alright, Bud, I'm fine.” One again his friend didn't buy it and, carefully hoisting him up with his head as he helped him stand on his feet while crooning apologetically. “Hey, I'm alright” Hiccup said, patting Toothless in the head and trying to keep his pain from showing. “But that does remind me, I really should get going with those ointments”
He hung the kettle from the spit above the fishes roasting gently and decided to tend to his other wounds before addressing the one on his face. He walked up to the saddlebag he had taken off Toothless (he had left the saddle and the tailfin on, just in case they needed to make a quick getaway in the middle of the night) and reached into it to pull out the clay jar lidded with a piece of linen tied secured to the rim with a cord he had been looking for, along with fresh bandages and a clean rag. He removed his vest and grabbed his tunic by the hem and flung it above his head.
Normally he would be a lot more self-conscious about his skinny frame, but there was no one on that island besides him and Toothless, and his companion wouldn't judge him, so he felt safe.
He observed the tessellation of reds, purples and blues that now covered the skin around his ribcage and couldn't help but hiss at the sight. He hadn't thought it would be that bad, but then again, he had been running mostly on adrenaline the last hours, so he had been a bit distracted, but now it was all catching up to him and he could feel every single strike hitting at once.
The throb on the right side of his face now burned like touched with a red hot iron and the bandages had become bloody and it had dried into a crust that clung the cloth painfully to the wound, and breathing stung as if Gobber had lined the inner face of his ribs with wicked nails that dug deeper into his lungs with every breath. Examining his tunic once again he found that it was splattered with dried blood stains, sooth marks and tears all over the fabric. Well, at least he’d had the foresight to bring a few spares with him.
He opened the jar and recoiled violently at the stench of the balm. “Argh! I still don't know why it’s supposed to reek that way,” he said for himself, wheezing while trying not to inhale the vile stink emanating from the container. “Maybe Gothi lost her sense of smell along with her speech. Gods, what in Niflheim7 does she put in this stuff?”
Without further ado, he started to gently apply the ointment on his chest, ribs and what he could reach of his back, wincing and hissing every time he touched a tender spot.
Too bad almost everything from his chin down to his waist was tender spots.
He grabbed a spare tunic to put on once the ointment dried up enough not to stain it.
He was about to leave the saddlebag for the moment, when his right eye throbbed and, almost on a whim, he pulled out a flask that contained a curved needle with a long thread of catgut tied to its eye, all submersed into a special concoction to keep it from going stiff.
He walked shirtless back to the fire to watch over his kettle with the ruined garment still balled in one hand and the clean one along with the bandages on the other, tossing the bandages carelessly into the kettle to boil them before placing the lid back in place.
Once he entered Toothless' visual field again, his friend closed up to sniff at his bruises and briefly let out a quiet but deep growl, snarling as he unsheathed his teeth and his pupils contracted into slits, only to divert the view and whimper sadly before returning to his makeshift charred nest curling up into a ball. This sullen attitude confused Hiccup, so he walked up to him to face him but his draconic friend turned away again.
“Bud? What’s the matter?” Hiccup asked gently as he kneeled to his friend’s eyeline. After a minute, Toothless’ forest-green eyes find Hiccup´s. The dragon's eyes were filled with pain and regret, and Hiccup caught up with his friend’s thought process. “Oh...” Hiccup’s eyes widened in understanding. Now it was his turn to avert the view, he took a few deep breaths and forced himself to swallow the uncomfortable lump in his throat. He scratched the underside of Toothless’ earfins earring a pleased thrill in response before he spoke. “Oh… Toothless, It wasn’t your fault.” Toothless snorted dismissively.
[I should have been faster] Hiccup felt Toothless’ thoughts through their bond, their tether, like they reverberated from within his soul. [I should have been there with you] Toothless’ scowl deepened with a growl. [I should have flown you out of that cursed island the second we got back on the air! I never should have let you go back into that nest! You were not safe there. This I knew. And yet, I let you go back in there. Alone.]
His ability to understand Toothless was one of the most unexpected and cherished gifts he had ever received, discovered right after that exhilarating first flight, while lazing around a bit on the sea stacks near Berk and gorging themselves on the local sea life. It had startled the shit out of both of them, but it had also brought him even closer to understanding his best friend.
Toothless had no prior knowledge of such bonds and Hiccup didn’t find anything on the sagas and legends of his people so they were driving a blank on that front. As far as they knew it could be an attribute innate to the Night Furies or it could be some kind of magic at play.
Maybe it was a boon from Loki, Father of Jörmungandr the World Serpent, from which all dragons descended. Hiccup had long learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth, so if a god had smiled at him, he was going to take it and run with it. Even if it was the Sly One.
“Bud, I’m serious,” Hiccup laughed mirthlessly. “Like, what did I think would happen after befriending a dragon in front of a whole tribe of dragon-hating vikings! I-It was just so fucking stupid!” Hiccup was laughing in earnest now, but there was such sadness and hollowness to his laugh that put Toothless on edge. He was still getting the hang of soft-skin vocalizations, but he was pretty sure the ‘laughter’ sound was meant to convey happiness and merriment.
There was no happiness in the boy’s laugh.
Hiccup stood up gesticulating violently. “I-It was a moment of such monumental stupidity t-that I kinda took myself aback! What did I think Stoick would say?!” He had started hyperventilating mid-rant but he didn’t care. “Oi, son! Ah'm mighty proud o' ye roight now!” He snarkly mimicked Stoick the Vast’s Alban accent. “Ye somehow managed tae shit on the graves o' all our ancestors at ance! Aye, we won't be killin' dragons nae mair, let’s chat it o’er a pint o’ ale! Oi, ye! The straplin' Night Fury o'er there! Ah ken yer kind's slain enough o' my tribesmen tae rebuild the village thrice o’er wi' their charred bones, but how 'bout we just hug it oot?!!!”
Hiccup felt lightheaded and panted heavily as he finished his rant. He bowed his head and felt a tear slowly slide down his cheek, and it wasn’t long before the rest started to pour in silent procession. The adrenaline of the day finally left him, and his knees failed him.
“So yeah, it’s my fault. The Nightmare would still be alive if not for me. We wouldn’t be outlaws if not for me. You wouldn’t have gotten exposed if not for me.”
Toothless stood up and padded over to sit next to his friend just close enough so he knew he supported him without crowding him. He was facing away from the fire, so his face was half-shrouded in shadows, but he didn’t want to get on his face yet. He needed some space.
[Cleverpaws… Hic-cup, you did all you could. None of this is your fault.]
“How can you say that with a straight face?” Hiccup whipped to face him so fast his bandages loosened a little. “How can you even stand to look at me?! It’s my fault that you’re crippled! You’re literally saddled with me because I had the great idea of shooting you down all because I wanted some head pats and a thumbs up from people who never even really cared about me to begin with!” He covered his face with his trembling hands, as if that could hide his shame from the world. “I-I chose to do what I thought was the right thing and all I did was to get myself banished and disowned, got you exposed to Berk and I got an innocent dragon murdered! Every single time I try to help I just end up making things worse… but then again, what else is new?” He finished dryly. “Dad was right… I’m not a viking.”
The two of them stayed silent for a while, with the crackling of the campfire in the background.
The Night Fury then turned to face the young man. [You are right. You did ground me. You did choose to shoot me out of the sky. And yet, in my most vulnerable moment… You chose to spare me] he finished with a soft voice, and his bonded soft-skin lowered his hands and turned to look at him while still glistening green eyes.
[That night you found me bound and crippled in that forest. You looked into my eyes and you saw past the scourge of your people, or the savage beasts you had been taught to fear. You saw me. My fear. My pain. You chose mercy.] He moved to stand behind his friend and curl around him, still looking him dead in the eye. [You chose to spare me, just like I chose to spare you.]
Hiccup gave a watery laugh and leaned his back onto the dragon. “Y-yeah, too bad you didn’t spare my eardrums with that scream, Bud.”
[Hey! It was meant to assert dominance. Now quit your sass! I’m trying to be solemn and wise over here.] Toothless grumble-bantered as he slapped him up the back of his head playfully with his earfin, and resumed his speech as the tension diminished. [To this I'm trying to get: At the end of the day, it all comes down to choices.]
[You chose to go after me. You could have just gone back to your nest after cutting me free and leave me to starve and gone on like nothing happened in the first place, the easy path that would have been. But you chose to go after me, and you chose to try to befriend me. You chose to go through great lengths to get me back amongst the clouds. An effort to understand me, even before you could hear me, you chose to make. You chose to trust me. You chose to trail a path forward that didn’t include senseless slaughter… and you tried to share that with your sire and your nesmates.] These last words were enunciated with an acidic snarl that belonged more in the maw of a Changewing.
[It always comes down to choices. You cannot blame yourself for someone else’s choices. Your flockmates chose to set you aside when you did not fit in their mold. You chose to keep giving your all to make their lives a little easier, despite how easy it would have been to give in to apathy. They chose to spurn what way to peace you tried to show them, and there is no worse ignorant than the willful one.] The Night Fury rested his head on his friend’s lap and purred.
[That night, I may have lost the sky… but I gained so much more, more than I could tell you right now. Your sire was right in something. You are not a viking. And you should take pride in it.]
Hiccup considered the dragon’s words carefully, mindlessly tracing the small crest of nubs on his forehead.
“All my life I tried so hard to be one of them. A viking. If I can’t be one of them… then what am I?”
[My best friend… my Brother.]
That made Hiccup’s mind stop dead on its tracks.
The young blacksmith could almost feel the word physically bouncing inside his cranium.
Brother.
Toothless had named him a brother. His brother.
For as long as he could remember, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III had longed for something. As a young lad he couldn't put a name on it, and he had only experienced it scantily and for short spans of time before it was snatched away from him. First with his father when he was little. Then with Astrid until age eight after that fatidic night. After that, for a couple months with Fishlegs at age ten. He felt it with Gobber the most throughout his apprenticeship at his smithy, but there was always a lingering barrier of awkwardness of sorts between them. He felt it faintly with his fellow heirs, but distance and time were enemies hard to outstrip. There was someone who offered it freely, but Hiccup couldn’t bring himself to accept it out of fear.
It was a rainy night at age twelve in the Mead Hall, relegated to eating alone on a table near the far corner of the room while he watched his fellow tribemates feasting and singing around the fire and brawling goodnaturedly with each other, when it hit him.
Belonging.
A sense of belonging is what he had been looking for.
He had dedicated his life to become a part of the tribe, to become one of them. To find that feeling of companionship that everyone in Berk seemingly had. The assuredness that no matter what, your fellow Hooligans would be there to watch your back. All with different degrees of success ranging from ‘outright failure’ to ‘Why haven’t we tossed this guy into the open sea yet?’
And now he had finally found it. And this time, he knew deep in his bones that it wouldn’t be taken from him. He wouldn’t allow it.
And he only had to leave everything he had ever known behind. And he found it totally worth it.
He hugged Toothless’ neck tightly as his frame shook lightly with quiet joyful sobs, basking in the warmth of the dragon’s scales and letting it seep into his bones.
For the first time since Gothi picked him over Astrid, he felt himself relaxing.
“Love you, Bud.” It was just three words, but they conveyed gratefulness, joy and love so deep it fanned Toothless’ soul-flame to burn brighter. “And if I'm not allowed to blame myself for doing my best, then neither are you. Seriously, Bud, you crossed Berk in record time on foot. That 's awesome.”
The dragon puffed his chest in pride. [Yes, I am awesome.] Toothless snarked, eliciting a snort from the human, before enveloping both of them under his wide wings. [Love you too, brother.] He cooed back.
‘Brother, huh?’ The word brought back bittersweet memories of someone else who also had called him so. Ugh, that was going to be a long conversation.
The heartfelt moment was cut short by the sounds of hissing and violent clanking by the campfire along with the acrid smell of smoke.
“The kettle!”
[The fish!]
~~~A.H.T.O.~~~
The fish was saved.
Just barely.
After scrapping it a little with his knife, Hiccup was finally able to eat something for the first time in almost two days. He hadn't been able to stomach anything after being chosen by Gothi, and the next morning he was so nervous before facing the Nightmare that he thought of feeding himself didn’t cross his mind.
It was just an overcooked, unsalted, unspiced perch.
It tasted like glory.
He had put on his tunic, tended to his mangled torso and eaten something. He had also managed to get the kettle out of the fire before the water bubbled over and snuffed it out, and now he was letting the boiled water cool down. He still felt a little dizzy, his left eye was still puffy and red-rimmed for crying so much and the right one hurt something badly. Now he just had one more thing to take care of…
[I do not understand why you do that.] Toothless grumbled. [Lots of delicious fat you are wasting. Cold-season is close, you will need all the fat you can get.] Toothless shaked his head and slurped down a whole perch. The originally sizable pile of fish was down to half its size.
“Well, Bud,” Hiccup said from his spot lying on the floor with his head leaning on the dislodged saddlebag. “Unlike you I can’t just eat these guys raw,” And he waved his impaled fish. “That’s a great way to make your guts try to up and leave your body. Besides, I could drink the fat of a whole school of salmon and I doubt I’d put on a single pound”, he shrugged. “I'm just not built that way.”
Toothless drooled slightly with the mention of salmon but shook it off and cocked his head inquisitively. [But back at the cove, you ate fish.]
“I was more worried by the fire breathing dragon prowling over me at the moment,” He jested with a chuckle. “I didn’t know if it was rude not to accept it.”
Toothless seemed to consider it, and nodded sagely. [Yes, it would have been rude. But worry not. You were uneducated and savage back then. You know better now.] Toothless warbled magnanimously.
Hiccup raised an eyebrow. “I’m moved beyond words. Thank you kindly, Bud, I feel ever so grateful.” He said sardonically.
Toothless chose to roll with Hiccup’s snark and doubled down on his patronizing. [Think of it not. We shall make a fine wing-scale out of you in no time. It is my duty as your older Brother.]
“Sounds great! I expect my wings to be delivered within five to ten working days, I just hope they get notice of my change of address.” The boy commented, having wings of his own would be pretty sick. “Hey, what’s that of ‘older brother’?” He inquired. “How do you even know you’re older than me?”
[You know how to gauge a wing-scale’s age?]
“Do you know how to gauge a human’s age?” Hiccup retorted skeptically.
…
Hiccup touched his busted lip with the tip of his tongue and scratched the back of his neck mindlessly. “So… jokes aside, how old are you? I feel that’s the kind of stuff a brother should be aware of. Not that I know anything about that.”
Toothless looked up to the full moon and pondered it a few moments before answering. [I should grow my fourth barb by the end of next cold-season.]
“Barb?”
[Yes, barb.] Toothless lifted his head, showcasing his lower jaw to Hiccup, where he found three tiny barbs on either side of his mandible no bigger than the tip of his pinky finger, followed by a much smaller, barely noticeable nub. [Every four cold-seasons I grow a barb. The fourth one should grow mid-cold-season.]
Hiccup gasped. “Really, Bud? Me too. We’re the same age! How cool is that?” He said with a smile.
The Night Fury harrumphed. [I still am the older brother. You are free to challenge me for the title if you wish.] Then Toothless remembered something Hiccup just said and looked at him strangely. [Wait. You had no clutchmates back in your old nest? Not even one?]
That didn’t sound right. It was a fact that many nestlings didn’t make it past their first cold-season, and he didn’t think it was any different for the soft-skins, but to lay only one egg in their lives? Even he, scarce as his kind was, had at least four surviving clutchmates before he drifted apart and got himself caught by the Flock-Master’s Song. And with how many of them fall in raids one would think they would do everything to replenish their numbers. Were they self-sabotaging their nest? What were the soft-skins thinking?
Hiccup stopped mid-bite from his perch, scratching his cheek as he answered. “Well, humans don’t really lay eggs so there’s no clutch so to speak.” Toothless arched the draconic equivalent of a skeptic eyebrow. “Yeah, we don’t come from eggs -and no, I'm not elaborating on that tonight, I’ve already reached my trauma quota for the next year- anyway, we normally have only one child at a time. And my parents only had me. Then my mom...” He shook his head and sighed. He had been sighing an awful lot that night. “Then mom got carried off during a raid.”
That killed the momentary levity of the discussion. Toothless crooned sadly and looked away.
“Hey, we just talked about people's actions being their responsibility only. And we’re the same age, you were barely a hatchling back then.” He took the last bite of his perch and tossed the stick aside. He absently reached into the saddlebag behind his head and pulled out a horned helmet.
“Dad had this made for me. It's made out of her, eh, armor.” He was too tired to go into what a breastplate was. “He never got married again after her, even though it was expected of him, especially with how sickly I was as a child, but he never took another wife. She was the only woman for him… I don’t really remember her, I was just a few months old when she died.”
He stared into the battered reflection of himself on the metal, distorted by the helmet’s irregular surface. If he squinted, he could see someone else in there instead of himself.
Someone bulkier than him. Taller than him. Braver than him.
Someone Stoick the Vast loved.
Someone that didn’t exist.
“Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if she would have had my back… or if I’d just have had another parent to disappoint.” He muttered softly.
[Do not linger on that. We are free now. To none but ourselves we answer. You owe them nothing.]
Hiccup gave him a crooked smile in return and shoved the helmet back into the saddlebag.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. We're free, Bud.”
Toothless nodded and gave an approving trill.
Hiccup turned to the kettle and tentatively dipped a finger in the water. It was still hot, but not scaldingly so. He set up the bandages ready for use and prepared the needle and catgut thread.
It was time to take care of his eye.
‘It won’t just go away if I ignore it.’ Hiccup thought. ‘C’mon, Haddock, man up!’
He looked at Toothless, green meeting green. “W-Well… moment of truth, Bud.”
Taking a deep breath he reached to the bandages over his right eye with shaking hands and started to expose the wound.
The bandages started to come off as Hiccup's hands worked their way through them. Finally, Hiccup started to dislodge the last of the bandage, slowly and through pained pants and muttered swears that would have made Gobber blush, as the fabric had seemingly chosen to stubbornly cling to the wound.
The crusted blood had shut the eye closed and just trying to open it stung like a swarm of Fireworms had decided to nest under his right eyelid, so he decided to wash it away first, hoping the warm water would soften the dried blood. Soaking the clean rag he brought with him in the kettle and lightly wringing it out, he started to dab at the right side of his face as gently as he could manage.
He could hear Toothless’ distressed whines but he couldn’t stop now, or he wouldn’t be able to keep going.
By the time he finally felt his face clean of blood and grime he had rinsed the rag so many times the water in the kettle had turned ruby red. He still couldn’t fully open it or see much out of it and what he did make out was all blurry but he chalked it up to the constant tearing and the swelling of the surrounding flesh.
He rummaged frantically in his saddlebag until his fingertips brushed what he was looking for, an old and dented round sheet of bronze he had polished into a plate-sized hand mirror.
He took a deep breath and steeled himself for whatever may greet him in his reflection. He was ready.
He looked into the mirror and sucked in a breath.
He wasn’t ready.
The least worrying part of it was the deep purple tinge the skin around the eye had, that came from the same right hook that had busted his lip prior to his face´s encounter with live steel. Stoich’s hack had sliced a deep slash that seemed to almost jump out of Hiccup’s pale skin like a bright crimson snake slithering out of its nest across fresh-fallen snow. The fact that it hadn’t exposed the bone underneath was nothing short of a miracle.
The frightful wound followed its way down the young man’s face from across the eyebrow, splitting the upper and lower eyelids in asymmetrical halves before going further down marring the skin across his cheek and coming to a stop right before reaching his right jaw.
The worst part was the eye.
Its former color, forest green, had turned to a dimmer and dirtier shade like that of bog water. The sheath had turned cloudy and was bisected by a gaping canyon.
The eye was lost.
'...I'm blind,' Hiccup thought hollowly as he let the bronze hand mirror clatter to the cool blades of grass under him. ‘I’m blind in one eye.’ He wasn’t really assimilating what he was seeing. It was surreal, like seeing it happen to someone else, it just happens that the other person shares your face. Like a nightmare.
He touched the wound with a tremble on his hand.
It stung so much it made him full-body flinch so hard his bruised torso resonated in a painful harmony.
It was no nightmare.
It was real.
He had lost an eye. By hand of the Chief of Berk.
The hand that used to gently rub circles on his back when he woke up from a bad dream for staying up late listening to the bloody stories of the warriors at the Mead Hall.
The hand that placed itself on his shoulder to comfort him as a young child whenever he saw other children walk by with their mothers.
The hand that taught him how to hold the knife safely when he whittled wood.
The hand that pointed animatedly to the portraits of their ancestors hanging proudly on the walls of the Mead Hall, stating that one day, their prtrait would join the rest.
The hand that started to vacillate when it tried to reach out for him, until the point it didn't even try.
The hand that smacked him across the back of his head whenever he messed up.
The hand that covered a shame-filled face whenever he screwed up.
The hand that took to shove him hurriedly toward his house whenever he was caught outside as if that could hide his ineptitude from the village.
The hand of his father.
All at once, every single scrape, cut and bruise across the young man’s body started to sting with searing pain. Hiccup turned to Toothless slowly, as if to confirm the dragon was seeing the same as him. The Night Fury met his eye with a mournful gaze full of sadness, understanding and sympathy.
Not pity, though. Never pity. Toothless respected his bond with Hiccup too much to let something like pity stain it, even on the young soft-skin’s weakest moment.
The dragon advanced until he was eye to eye with Hiccup.
Neither said anything, no words were necessary. No words could verbalize the emotions the pair felt.
Toothless closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against Hiccup’s in silent but heartfelt support and started to croon and purr reassuringly.
Hiccup stood frozen for a full minute before leaning his forehead back against Toothless’. He didn’t cry, not again. He had cried more than enough that night. He had sobbed and screamed and begged and moped.
At that point, he was just tired.
The brothers stood that way for a long time under Máni’s8 watchful eye, with the soft chirpings of the insects around them and the soft murmur of the wind breezing through the leaves of the trees as the only signs that the time had not frozen along them.
For good or ill, Midgard9 kept turning.
And tomorrow, ever relentless, waits for no one.
~~~A.H.T.O.~~~
And I want a moment to be real,
Want to hold things I don't feel,
Want to hold on and feel I belong.
And how can the world want me to change?
Ther're the ones who stay the same.
They can't see me.
But I'm still here...
“I'm Still Here” by Goo Goo Dolls
~~~A.H.T.O.~~~