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At first, Hiccup kept his missing limb a secret to keep people from asking questions and to keep his dad from getting more controlling of him. After all, he was sneaking into the woods for hours to even days at a time, to his dragons and later his allies and quests. But he found one expected benefit of hiding the loss nearly a year after the fact.
Alvin the Treacherous went looking for him a few months after their first displeasurable meeting. And he had gotten so, so scarily close to figuring it out, or more accurately, he had, only for his totally still there leg to turn that around. He hadn’t been allowed on the island long, apparently, he was an unofficial foe to his father and was regarded with great suspicion, much to Hiccup’s relief.
He had never seen Hiccup’s face; he had thankfully added a mask to his ensemble after the Red Death, but Alvin still saw his general build and craftsman’s ship in his gear and Toothless’ tail. Hiccup didn’t trade much stuff outside of Berk and very little in Berk to begin with, but Alvin had managed to find one such thing and tracked it to Berk, tracked it to him. Even more damning, he learned that Berk used to have a Nightfury and that Hiccup had claimed multiple times to have shot one down. Including the last time it had appeared, though still no one believed him, thank the gods.
But the Dragon Rider, Dragon Master, Dragon Boy, Demon, whatever they wanted to call him on any given day only had one foot, and when Alvin asked about any amputations outside of Gobber, all he got was an odd look. Relating it to his own recently missing hand. Hiccup also made a well-timed comment about a rock in his shoe to pretend he still had it underneath the fabric and whatnot. So he dismissed the Heir of Berk as his target.
Hiccup also found that his fake foot and prosthetic was a great way to store tools secretly. In the early days. it was so hard to keep it secret, the pain was one of the small points. He’d lie and say it was just a leg cramp when a wince would slip out of him in the forge to Gobber. Meanwhile, he was internally writhing in agony, just wanting to lie down with Toothless and cry. But he couldn’t even favour his remaining foot too much if he didn’t want Gobber to catch on that this was more serious than a simple cramp or sprain.
He also had to hide his work on making himself a prosthetic and the various stages of improvements. Which thankfully, Gobber typically let him do his own thing when it came to projects, so long as his work was done, he didn't ask.
Then, there was dealing with the fake foot part. At first, he tried just sticking his prosthetic in the shoe and then going out. And then it would be constantly about to fall off, and he had to quickly pull it back up before anyone noticed. If it wasn’t falling off, it was twisting in weird ways that he would once again have to adjust before someone noticed it was on backwards. Oh thank fuck he had no friends that would actually pay attention to him…
He was pretty sure that Gobber had talked to his dad about taking him to Gothi as he was starting to pick up that something was seriously wrong. So he disappeared for two weeks, at least during the day; every couple of nights, he’d stop by to quickly catch up on work and leave before anyone saw him. That ended up being a rather common pattern for him.
Caring for his flock and getting into various projects and quests would pull him away from Berk for increasingly longer periods of times. He knew Gobber was getting concerned, there wasn’t much he could do about that. Hiccup had responsibilities outside Berk and the forge now. Responsibilities he couldn’t tell anyone about.
Working in the forge, he needed his chisel to refine the handle he was working on, so, doing a quick check, he removed his shoe. While making modifications to his shoe to keep it from falling off, he realized he could turn it into a discrete tool kit. It actually helped to keep the toe box from collapsing. In his actual prosthetic, he kept a lock pick, a compass, and a small blade he made to slip into its own handle. In his boot, he kept various tools along with a few pieces of boning and snap buttons to keep it on and in place.
Working in the forge was actually rather boring now. Creating the base structures on his own island with the dragons was much more challenging and time-consuming. He mostly just came back here so that it was clear that he was alive while spending the least amount of time here, and so Gobber wouldn’t get overwhelmed with tasks.
Part of the reason he chose to do it at night, where he couldn’t even get Gobber’s company, was so he couldn’t be pulled into anything else. With him being away so long as he so often was, both Gobber and his father were eager to give him something to keep him grounded or to question where and what he was doing.
Hearing someone approaching, he quickly shoved his leg back into his boot, turning to see Astrid. He didn’t have time to properly fasten it, but in the dark, it would do.
“Hey, Astrid, are you needing your axe repaired or anything?” He had gotten more confident as he spent more time with the dragons and Toothless. Astrid was a bit suspicious of him. He had started to do well with dragon training when they suddenly went missing, just after their second lesson with the Nadder, Stormfly. But it hadn’t been long enough for any substantial changes to his social position were made. Though Fishlegs was trying to talk to him again, he stopped doing that when they were preteens.
“The handle is starting to crack. Where have you been?” she asks, passing it over the counter.
“Oh, you know, here and there…” Hiccup took it with much more ease than he would have months ago. Flying, playing, and all the other things he did with the dragons certainly built up plenty of muscle in a short time frame. And it was another detail that Berk had no knowledge of… Astrid was staring at him…
“Is there anything else? It should be ready by morning, and you can just stop by for it,” Hiccup awkwardly says, checking the split handle. He wasn’t used to Astrid paying attention to him.
“No… I don’t think there is,” She walked up, glancing back at him in confusion. When did Hiccup manage to get any muscle mass? Even in the arena, he never had any. So, how did he get muscles now? She wondered for a bit before ultimately letting it go, dismissing it as a non-concern. He was no longer messing up the village every other week, she didn’t care past that.