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In the forest, there were a few ground rules (or as the tougher creatures liked to call them: “friendly suggestions”) that everyone followed in order to live a peaceful and happy life. Some were rather obvious and dictated by the powers of the forest (don’t steal someone’s stuff, don’t destroy someone, don’t sit on a porcupine, etc). However, there were a few of them that everyone followed mostly out of convenience: one of which was to never fall in love with the nymphs.
This was not for any mysterious or foreboding reason. Those who fell in love with nymphs did not drown or become cursed to live their lives as trees—nymphs were not merpeople or sirens and had neither the will nor ability to doom the pathetic and weak. Their only problem was their unmistakable beauty and charm. Those who were unfortunate enough to seek a place in the heart of the nymphs were fated to suffer from a severe heartbreak like no other and pining after the elusive creatures were known to make some even waste away to nothing.
Of course, as fate would have it, Hiccup had fallen in love with the most beautiful river nymph boy that he had ever laid his eyes upon.
He cursed Cupid’s cruel arrow thousands of times, sulking under the shade of a tree by the river bank, his hands drawing the white-haired nymph absentmindedly on a sheet of leaves. As a deertaur, Hiccup already hardly stood a chance in the competition for mates within his species, let alone a nymph. He was tiny and lanky compared to the other stags. He still had his spots and freckles and his antlers were so tiny that he might as well have been a fawn. Even that aside, it was common knowledge that, in the eyes of any of the forest creatures, Hiccup was a sitting duck.
Hiccup heaved a sigh, getting up to his feet and kicking his leaf sketches aside in frustration and throwing his bark to the ground. If he was going to do anything at all, he thought as he trot away, he was going to get some help.
And so the young deertaur went home to his deertaur den in the deertaur village. He sought out help from his friends. After some of them poked at poor, lovestruck Hiccup and laughed at his misfortune, they began to address Hiccup’s problem.
"I don’t see what the problem is," said Astrid, a powerful doe whose glare silenced the group, "if you want to get his attention, just be yourself."
Snotlout, a bulky stag with large antlers and a confident gait laughed out loud. “With all due respect, Astrid,” he began, “that’s not gonna help a runt like Hiccup.” Snotlout flexed his arms showily and gave the group a haughty grin. “If you want to impress a nymph, you show them your power!”
There was a moment of silence before the twins, Ruffnut and Tuffnut, two deertaurs who knew the face of trouble and mischief like no other, dissolved into raucous laughter (Hiccup suddenly felt like this conversation was becoming less helpful and more detrimental to his confidence by the second).
“Hiccup? Show off his strength?” Tuffnut said. “What’s he gonna do, flex his tiny arms and show off his little antlers?”
“If you really want to get his attention,” said Ruffnut, “Break things, ram into rocks and trees, throw them into the river.”
“I don’t think that’s the attention he’s looking for,” Astrid pointed out. The twins shrugged.
“That’s very creative of you and all,” Fishlegs, a chubby stag with a taste for knowledge and talent for memorization, finally chimed in, “but the best way to romance a nymph would be to shower them with gifts—they love pretty things, so why not get him beautiful shell?”
The young stag took all of his friends’ suggestions into account, figuring that he had no others anyway. And so, the next day, Hiccup scoured the river banks for hours on end searching for the perfect shell, only taking breaks to draw the wondrous scenery of the riverbanks. And, at the end of the day when dusk came over the forest, the lanky deertaur had found the perfect river shell that shone in the light. And so, Hiccup returned to his den that night, his hooves and legs aching, but his heart content as he set aside his shell for tomorrow.
When the sun rose and tomorrow came, young Hiccup set off for the riverbanks, his heart beating madly and his face feverish. When he had gotten there, he realized he had gotten ahead of himself and was too early for anyone to be out, let alone a handsome, laid-back nymph, so Hiccup curled up in the shade of a tree and drew picture after picture until he had calmed himself down.
However, when the morning sun’s beams came near Hiccup’s resting place and began to warm the fur on his body, it became clear that he had calmed himself down a bit too much as he began to nod away. After he had closed his eyes, he was sure it had only been a second when he opened them again to see the light of afternoon shining on the grass and the sparkling river and showering a rather beautiful, white-haired nymph boy in its light as he played by the riverbank.
The young deertaur suddenly became flustered and feverish, as he watched the white-haired nymph leap into the river from the trees, laughing like a playful fawn and swooping in and out of the river like a flying fish.
Even despite the nymph’s laughter and play, Hiccup found himself absolutely enamored by the way he seemed so graceful and his movements so nimble. The young deertaur was so distracted that, as he trotted over to the nymph, he had caught his hoof in a crack and fell face first into the dirt. His papers flew everywhere and hid shell skid across the clearing and landed just by the river.
The beautiful nymph boy took notice and seemed to glide over to Hiccup with an otherworldly gracefulness in his step. He offered a hand to help the deertaur to his feet and Hiccup noticed, for the first time, that the boy had the most hypnotic blue eyes.
“Are you alright?” asked the boy, his voice gentle, but amused.
The young stag felt his heart pound in his chest as he opened his mouth to answer. However, he found his mouth dry when he realized he did not know how to talk to the beautiful nymph boy at all. So he just nodded, slipping his hand quickly out of the other’s and dusting the dirt off of his speckled coat.
The nymph tilted his head, but shrugged, heading back to the river to play again. As he approached the river, the boy found a shiny shell on the ground and smiled.
“What a nice shell!” he exclaimed. “Woohoo!" he yelped childishly. "What a find!"
Hiccup’s heart swelled with pride as he began to muster the courage to say something.
“This will be number 156 to my collection!” the nymph said.
Hiccup’s jaw dropped as he watched the nymph hop away. He groaned in frustration and tugged his ears. However, despite his terrible odds and misfortune, Hiccup had always been rather persistent. So the young spotted stag returned the next day, determined to show off his strength.
Although unlucky and clumsy, Hiccup was definitely not stupid. He knew that he was not as strong as he should have been and his chances breaking a boulder or uprooting even a sapling were slim to none. So he persuaded Astrid to help him.
She had originally refused, stating that he should just listen to her instead of being an imbecile, but after he begged and pleaded, she begrudgingly agreed.
“This is still ridiculous,” she said pointedly as she replaced a tree she had uprooted slightly on her own. “You’re just lying to him.”
Hiccup, who had been told by Astrid herself that “if you’re going to ask me to do it, I might as well do it myself,” sat by the trees and drew, keeping an eye out for the river nymph.
“I know, I know—I heard you the first time,” he said with his expression dull. All of a sudden he heard a splash in the river and his ears perked up. Hiccup quickly got to his hooves and began to shoo away the (unwillingly) helpful doe. “Wish me luck!” he whispered after her.
“You’re going to mess up,” she replied with a straight face.
“Thank you, Astrid, for your vote of confidence,” he said, frowning as Astrid just waved in reply.
He turned back to the river to see the nymph kicking his feet in its cool waters.
Hiccup took a deep breath. Here goes nothing, he thought, literally.
It was common for stags to attract their mates with a variety of masculine grunts and chest pounding, causing mayhem and destruction to prove their strength to their potential lovers. That always seemed to work rather well and, although it was not his style, Hiccup decided it was worth a shot.
The thin stag roared and pounded his chest like an idiot, running into the pre-smashed boulders that Astrid had set up for him, looking expectantly at the pale-skinned nymph for a response.
The nymph did not even look up from the water.
So Hiccup moved onto the trees, uprooting some of the saplings with his antlers and barely managing to move the larger ones. He grimaced with embarrassment—at least he tried. That had to count for something, right?
The nymph seemed to unknowingly disagree as he continued to pay Hiccup no heed and swung from the vines and dove into the water with fawn-like joy.
Hiccup tried relentlessly to get his attention for what seemed like forever, flexing his tiny arms and kicking things around with his hooves. However, all of his efforts were in vain and reality was starting to catch up with him. And so, after a long time, the young stag gave up and began to gather his papers with slumped shoulders. Miraculously, they did not disappear this time—a feat he would have celebrated if he weren’t so dejected.
However, as the spotted deertaur turned away from the river banks, a familiar voice rang.
“Excuse me, did you draw those?”
Hiccup whirled around to see the nymph boy staring right at him, blue eyes wide with curiosity and head tilted.
Hiccup was confused for a moment. His eyes darted from the mesmerizing ice-blue irises to his drawings and then right back up, his face as red as a tomato.
For, out of habit and possibly a pinch of lovesickness, Hiccup had drawn the handsome nymph.
The spotted deertaur clutched the leaves to his chest, stammering madly. “W-well, y-yes, but I—uh,” he said, unsure of how to get himself out of his humiliating predicament.
“Could I see them?” the nymph asked, his eyes brimming with eagerness.
Hiccup clutched his drawings protectively. “I-I don’t think you want to,” he said hastily. “They’re not very good.”
“I’m sure they look fine,” the nymph said, leaning in so close that Hiccup had to move his head back when their noses almost collided. “Please? I promise I won’t ruin them!”
The young deertaur wanted to refuse, but there was something so mesmerizing about that insistent gaze that Hiccup words became a lump in his throat as he searched for an answer. The nymph’s face was so close that Hiccup could see every detail of his face—from the faded pale freckles to the chapped lips to the river water that clung to his eyelashes like rain to a leaf. Hiccup gulped. He had wanted the nymph to notice him. Well, he got what he wished for.
“Fine,” he relented, resting his shoulders as the nymph pulled back, hopping on his bare feet with excitement. “Please don’t laugh.”
“Why would I laugh?” the nymph asked. “These are amazing! I’ve been wanting to talk to you ever since I saw your art the other day!”
Hiccup’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened. “W-what?” he said feebly.
“Yeah, remember that one day you had dropped your papers everywhere?” the nymph continued excitedly. “Well, you see, after I put away my shell, I came back and you were gone! I was hoping you’d come back soon and here you are!” At the sight of the deertaur’s confused expression, the nymph blushed and looked away. “Oh, sorry if you don’t remember me—I don’t really have a memorable face for a nymph.”
Hiccup blinked, disagreeing completely in his mind. “N-no, I remember you,” he reassured him quickly. “It’s just… Why didn’t you talk to me earlier? I’ve been here for the longest time.”
The nymph boy looked back at the uplifted trees and crushed rocks and shrugged. “You looked busy,” he answered simply.
Normally, Hiccup would have been eternally frustrated. He would’ve done all this work for nothing and he could almost hear Astrid running through the forest and leaping out of the clearing to say “I told you so.” However, at this point, Hiccup was so ecstatic that all negativity seemed to melt away. So he just shrugged.
“Fair enough.”
“I’m sorry, I was so glad to see you again I had forgotten to introduce myself,” the nymph said, smiling widely. “My name is Jack.”
Hiccup returned the smile. “I-I’m Hiccup.”
Jack tilted his head. “Hiccup, huh?” he repeated, the way his name rolled off of Jack’s tongue making the poor deertaur turn twenty different shades of red. “Talented and adorable! You’re the perfect package!”
At that moment, Hiccup began to notice the sun beginning to sink behind the trees, illuminating Jack’s features with the rays of the sunset.
Jack frowned and handed back Hiccup’s drawings. “It’s getting late—I’ll have to go,” he said. Hiccup could not help but note the clear disappointment in his voice. “You’ll come back tomorrow though, won’t you?” Jack asked, taking Hiccup’s free hand in his, looking at the deertaur with pleading eyes.
“W-well, if you want me to,” Hiccup stammered.
“Of course I want you to! Why wouldn’t I?” Jack said excitedly. “I’ll see you tomorrow then, Hiccup!” Jack let go of his hand and began to turn away. However, after taking a step, Jack paused and looked at Hiccup hesitantly.
Hiccup tilted his head, about to ask Jack if he needed something, when he suddenly felt lips brush against his cheek.
Hiccup’s heart beat madly as Jack popped back in front of him, blue eyes hooded shyly and a small smile on thin lips.
“Thank you for drawing me.”
Hiccup watched the nymph hop away numbly, almost as if he were gliding. The deertaur’s mouth sat agape and his eyes were wide with shock. When he lost sight of the white-haired nymph, his hand lingered on his cheek and he smiled.
And so, life in the forest was miraculous as always as to the surprise of many, the lanky deertaur with fragile antlers and spots of a fawn became lovers with the beautiful icy-eyed river nymph and they lived happily ever after