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There was once a notorious pirate who sailed the Norwegian Sea. He had a crew so vast that he had to split them up into twenty different magnificent ships that helped him rule over the salty shores with an iron fist. They plundered merchant ships and buried enough treasure to become legendary. The notorious pirate garnered a reputation for strength and might—his body was said to be as big as a bear and his voice boomed like thunder. His might was enough to make all 500 of his men swear obedience to him.
That pirate… is not the hero of our tale.
No, this story is about the son of the infamous pirate Stoick the Vast. A scrawny young man who’s nasally voice and lanky build made him the subject of ridicule throughout his life. However, although he was neither big nor strong, he had the mind of a scholar and inventor. He learned new skills quickly and did them well. He could navigate and strategize better than any sailor on his father’s crew and he dreamed that, one day, he could be a part of that self-same crew. He thought of glory and riches and proving his worth—he mused the idea of ruling the seas himself and exploring the world beyond the Baltic Ocean. He even had a fake leg—he was already pirate material!
This young man’s name was Hiccup, and he was about to get his wish.
Young Hiccup was seventeen when his father finally agreed to let him be an official part of the crew, figuring it was time for him to gain the respect of the people he would one day lead. Many disagreed with the captain. After all, Hiccup was tiny and thin for a pirate in Stoick the Vast’s crew. He had freckles that covered his entire body and a chubby round face paired almost laughably well with a large round nose. He had large green eyes like a child and liked to keep clean. He read all day and worked all night and almost never joined the others for a hearty drink—he stuck out like a sore thumb. Nevertheless, he was written into the books as an honorary crew member one day, and the ship he would be commanding, the Night Fury, was set to depart the following afternoon.
Although excited and ready to make his mark, Hiccup could not help but feel nervous. After all, the tales of the seas’ horror and disaster outnumbered those tales of heroism and greatness. There were loads of things that could happen—they could be defeated in battle, the ship could capsize in a storm, they could be attacked by giant sea monsters—the possibilities were endless.
However, oddly enough, what the young to-be pirate was most afraid of were merpeople.
After all, merpeople are creatures shrouded in mystery. Hiccup had heard so many people tell him over and over that they were not real, but he had also heard legends of the most powerful pirates being doomed by a mermaid’s song and their own lust and that was a fate that young Hiccup never wanted to endure.
And so, the day before he was set to go on his first official journey, Hiccup had come to the dock at sunset, sat down with his legs dangling above the calm waves, and read a story. He had figured rather innocently that, as mysterious creatures of the sea, merpeople must be bored with their monotonous view of slimy fish and rugged, rotten sailors, and, ever since he was a lonely young child, Hiccup had known that some of the best company was a good tale.
So Hiccup the to-be pirate read tales from a book, regaling story after story until the moon reflected clearly on the waters and he could no longer decipher the words. Before he left, Hiccup stood atop the dock, staring at the water and asked any available merperson for a safe journey.
When the next day came and went, Hiccup had joined the crew amongst some wary sideways glances and a few rude whispers. However, those who knew the boy’s skills well banded with him and showed him the ropes around the Night Fury.
For the rest of the journey, it was smooth sailing—there were neither imminent storms on the horizon nor any songs luring the men and women of the Night Fury to their deaths. Hiccup had even convinced Gobber, acting captain of the Night Fury to adopt the large black cat that had wandered onto the ship while they had been docked (Hiccup promptly named this cat Toothless).
The young pirate was so thankful for his good fortune that, every time he returned to his home port, he went to the dock and read book after book, promising that he’d read another story if he came back safe. It was a tradition that Hiccup had carried for years even after he was no longer naïve enough to believe in merpeople and sirens and trolls.
However, what Hiccup did not know was that merpeople, sirens, and trolls did exist. In fact, there was a particular merman, one with white hair, icy blue eyes, pale skin, who happened to be at the dock the day Hiccup had read a tale on day one.
Merpeople were rare, especially in something as vast as the ocean and the white-haired merman did not encounter many of them. It was a lonely life, but he had gotten by playing tricks on unknowing sailors and flipping over sharks for fun (well, his fun). And so, when he had been wandering near the shore, he had seen the freckled pirate sitting at the dock, reading from a large book, he had been curious and swam under the dock to listen.
And although the young merman knew that these storytelling sessions were not specifically for him, and though he had found it laughable when the pirate had asked the merpeople for a safe trip as if they had the power to control the raging seas, the merman had appreciated the company of five years that the green-eyed pirate had given him. And so, after five years of story time and admiration, the curious merman decided it was about time he introduced himself.
“Hello,” he had begun when he leapt onto the dock, his arms hoisting him up so that he was just inches away from Hiccup’s face. “I’m Jack and I wanted to say thanks for reading your books to me.”
Granted, his message did not come across clearly the first time, for Hiccup was busy yelping in surprise, almost dropping his book in the process (it was saved by Jack quickly flicking his tail before the book hit the water and letting it hop right back onto dock). However, after a bit of spluttering and stuttering (“W-wait,” Hiccup had said, his green eyes darting back and forth between Jack’s face and his blue fish tail, “Are you telling me that merpeople are real?”), they began talking. Questions were exchanged and lives were spoken of.
Hiccup had been disappointed to find out that mermaids, in fact, did not control the sea, but was glad to know that do not they attack ships recklessly or unless someone crossed their path on the wrong day.. As a pirate, Hiccup felt that this was something he could relate to. He also found out that the songs of merpeople did not affect those who were in love.
Jack, on the other hand, had come to a few conclusions of his own: Hiccup did not seem to be like those other pirates who littered the sea with bodies and waste and shipwrecks. He was a curious young man with an eye for adventure—something that Jack himself found charming. He also found out that Jack himself was beginning to find the bubbling excitement and his oddly nasally voice… adorable.
And so, after a year had passed, Hiccup and Jack met up when Hiccup returned. Hiccup would read Jack a story on the dock and Jack would listen, his head resting on the pirate’s bony shoulder, a black ship’s cat resting on Hiccup’s lap, pawing curiously at the giant fishtail.
Slowly, but surely, the pirate and the merman began to fall in love.
It was a simple romance, filled with gentle touches and hands brushing. Their fingers seemed to linger near each other and Hiccup enjoyed the smell of ocean water that clung to Jack’s body as he napped on him. However, there were no words spoken—no confession, no magical first kiss—nothing except faltering speech and three simple, yet frightening words that lingered on both of their lips.
One day, when the once-young pirate had reached the age of twenty-seven, something amazing happened—the scrawny Hiccup who had thought his only treasure was his mind discovered he was a sword fighter.
He began to conquer other ships at the command of his father, plundering crew after crew and taking treasures for his own. He began to become just as infamous as his father and people showered him with respect and fear. Hiccup began to like it.
No. He loved it.
However, Jack was displeased. Bodies and skulls littered the seafloor and merpeople from all over had gathered and rioted. They demanded for the body of the pirate who littered their homes with the useless remains of humans and Jack knew they could get it if they wanted to.
So, when Jack went to meet Hiccup again, he demanded that the young pirate calm down before he got hurt. Hiccup, who had once been so calm and level-headed, became angry with the merman’s claim. He thought it was a threat and lashed out, even pointing his sword in the face of the merman, who looked at the tip of the blade, unflinching.
“You don’t understand,” Hiccup growled. “I have everything I want now—people respect me. I can do everything I’ve ever imagined. And if you’re going to stop me, then you’re better off dead.”
And at that point, Jack’s eyes widened in horror. Nothing else had frightened him so—not the sword nor the imminent threat of his death. The fact that Hiccup had no longer liked him was enough to stop his heart from beating and steal the breath out of his gills. So the two parted, Hiccup proceeding as usual, unfaltering, and Jack looking back at the dock and the Night Fury every step of the way.
Hiccup had not returned to the dock for two years when, one day, while sailing the Night Fury, the crew heard the hum of a distant song.
A chill crawled up Hiccup’s spine like a spider as he remembered Jack’s warning. He shouted to his crew to pay the song no heed, but they had been too entranced by their lust and the merpeople’s call. They sailed over despite his protests and futile attempts to take control of the ship. His crew began to spring into the water like fish, leaping to their horrible murky depths as the ship began to run into the rocks.
Even Hiccup the infamous, sword-fighting pirate, who had neither felt the draw of the merpeople’s song nor forgot about Jack for a moment in the past two years they were apart, found himself in the grasp of the icy sea. The waves rocked him back and forth and his gear weighed him down.
Hiccup’s flailing and bobbing had been for nothing, for soon, he found himself underwater, the surface far from his grasp, his green eyes meeting those of a blue-eyed mermaid for the first time in two years.
The pirate’s gaze hardened, he opened his mouth to accuse the merman. “This is what you wanted isn’t it?” he tried to say, only to have bubbles escape from his lungs and his strength failing him with each moment.
What he did not see was the worried and heartbroken look in the merman’s eyes. Jack cupped Hiccup’s face in his hands and shook his head before pressing his lips to the pirate’s.
Had their first kiss happened in another time, maybe when Hiccup was still reading tales at the dock and Jack did not have a heavy burden weighing at his merman heart, it would have been magical. Maybe things would have been different and maybe they could have been happy.
Nevertheless, the fact of the matter was that Hiccup had been drowning and his legs were beginning to turn into one large, green fish tail while Jack’s blue tail began to part into two pale, bare legs.
Hiccup could breathe again and he could see clearly. And the only thing he could see was the sad look in Jack’s eyes, his cheeks puffing up with air as he tried to hold his breath.
Jack opened his mouth, the words he had always wanted to say pouring out of his mouth, but only forming bubbles in the salty ocean. His eyes rolled back and his new lungs filled with water and the once-merman fell limp in Hiccup’s arms.
Thus, our tale ends with a merman lying in the clutch of a pirate turned merman, whose tears only dissolved in the waters as he wept over his lost love. The pirate had learned a lesson, much too late, and his only legacy became one for the books.—just another story for a young to-be pirate to read to the sea before he departed for the first time.