Chapter Text
Every year the sun struck down Winter after a long and vicious battle, and every year Winter’s lifeblood flooded the Isle of Berk with the Spring thaw. The island itself was a craggy mess of water and newly-sprouting greenery, with uncountable small rivulets working their way down the mountainside to join together and pour into the sea. Mud, slush, and new beginnings were the order of the day, all throughout Berk’s wilderness and within Berk’s singular village.
This particular year’s new beginnings were of an unusual sort, but they’d taken well. Dragons of all colors flew about the village and the Isle of Berk. Some bore riders. None rained down flaming death.
One sleek black dragon flew above the rest, testing the ever-changing Spring breezes high above Berk’s tallest peak. A fresh red tailfin spread taut against the wind to guide the dragon and his rider into a long, slow turn.
“Yup, there are still dragons hanging around Berk,” Hiccup announced to the empty winds as he looked down at the village. “Might still be in that coma.”
Toothless glanced back at him and churred, unamused.
“I’ll give it another month,” Hiccup joked, though it was less of a joke than he would have liked. He was mostly sure he was awake. The constant soreness in his stump was a good indicator. But he had never expected to be able to have both his village and his dragon. He had always assumed, in the back of his mind, that once everything was said and done he would have to choose. That it had all fallen in a way that allowed both to coexist was ridiculous. Unthinkable. And he hadn’t even been awake to see it happen!
Who cared if being seen as the village hero was taking some getting used to? Who cared if Toothless was a little overprotective sometimes? Who cared if Hiccup needed a prosthetic and had yet to develop the callouses needed to make walking distances not a pain in the leg? He could fly above the village in plain sight with Toothless and no one would stop him. Other Vikings were learning to fly with other dragons. The raids were a thing of the past. Berk had changed for the better. His father was proud of him. Life was great!
"Let’s try a loop!" Hiccup suggested, maneuvering his side of the tailfin to match his words. Toothless took them up and then flung them into several full loops in the air, flipping upside down and back again twice in quick succession. Hiccup yelled his exhilaration to the wind.
The price he had paid was more than fair. Most expensive things cost an arm and a leg, or so it was said. He had gotten everything he ever wanted at half-price.
"-!-"
The clouds had gathered together into an unbroken sheet by the time their morning flight came to an end. The Spring thaw was wet in every way, not just from melting snow and ice, and one morning of sunshine was already more than Hiccup had expected to get. Toothless angled down toward the cove, some distance from the village, but the air was already thick with the smell of oncoming rain. "Not today, buddy," Hiccup corrected lightly, refraining from messing with the tailfin for the moment.
Toothless glanced back at him with an expression that, if Hiccup were to try and interpret, was either disbelief or dismay.
"Just for today," Hiccup reassured him. He didn't usually mind Toothless bringing them in to land at the cove every morning, but the walk back took a while. His prosthetic had begun to squeak after their last trek back through heavy rain. They could land in the village just this once.
Toothless turned away from the wilderness and they headed down to the village. The wonderfully different, colorful, vibrant village. They set down on one of the well-trampled dirt patches off to the side of the stairs leading up to the Great Hall. It had started to drizzle, warm and light. Not the sort of rain to keep anyone indoors when it rained so often in the Spring, but a harbinger of storms to come.
Vikings came and went, up and down the stone stairs. Some of them smiled at Hiccup, which was something he was still getting used to. Others did more than smile. "Hiccup!" A Viking with a peg leg and eyepatch walked up, smiling widely. "Ye got a moment? I wanna run an idea by ya."
Hiccup had a brief, intense surge of deja vu. This was not the first time this had happened. Maybe Toothless was on to something, landing out in the forest. Hiccup slid off of Toothless's back, resigned to listening to another of one-eyed Hoarck's crazy ideas. "Sure, what have you got?"
"Borrowing dragons," Hoarck proclaimed. "See, most of us don't really have a dragon, myself included." He took a step to the side, around Hiccup and toward Toothless, and reached out with his good hand. Toothless growled.
"Can't imagine why," Hiccup muttered. He knew for a fact that Hoarck had almost lost his remaining hand to an aggravated Nadder less than a week ago, but for different reasons than in the past. As it turned out, most of the village either didn't want a dragon or was far too enthusiastic about getting one. Hoarck was one of the latter, and Hiccup could have sworn all of Berk's dragons actively avoided him. Toothless included, as he was even now inching away from the enthusiastic Viking.
Hiccup made no move to stop Toothless from slinking away; nothing good could come of telling a several-ton dragon to stay and be prodded at by some random Viking. Toothless would be back as soon as Hoarck left.
"Well," Hoarck continued, "I figured that those of us who can't care full-time for a dragon could work together to keep a few between us, so that we have a ride whenever we like for less effort." He’d taken his eyes off of Toothless to give Hiccup the pitch, and just like that Toothless was gone.
Sharing dragons wasn't a terrible idea on the Viking side of things, but Hiccup doubted many dragons would be okay with the arrangement. Also... "That sounds interesting," and at that Hiccup had to hold in a frown; people cared about his opinions now, "but I don't see how that's borrowing them." There was more to this idea. There had to be.
"Oh, that's the best part," Hoarch exclaimed, looking around wildly. "Where did Toothless go? I can demonstrate."
"No idea," Hiccup said truthfully, glad his friend had escaped whatever Hoarck had planned. "Borrowing?"
"I figured once we got that set up, anyone could ride ‘em if they pitched in,” Hoarck explained. “A chicken for a short trip, a yak or sheep for a day, that sort o' thing. It'll be great!"
There it was. Hiccup could see a dozen different flaws in that idea, most centered around safety and lack of trust. From all he had seen, there needed to be a personal connection between rider and dragon. None of Hoarck's ideas took that vital need into account, no matter how many times it was explained to him.
But... Hiccup knew he couldn't just say what he was thinking. Not anymore. People listened now. "That might be complicated," he began, trying to sound encouraging. "Maybe run it by my dad, he would want to weigh in on it..." and hopefully destroy it. Hiccup was all for Vikings embracing dragons, but in ways that wouldn't horribly backfire and hurt those involved. Hoarck's ideas all fell into that category, sadly.
"But you approve?" Hoarck asked eagerly, making Hiccup immensely embarrassed. Having a full-grown Viking asking for his approval was strange; having a full-grown Viking doing his best imitation of a child asking for approval was far worse, especially when, were he to be honest, he would have to say no.
"If my dad helps you hammer out the details, we'll see," he hedged, fully passing off the burden of disapproval to Stoick. That was going to come back to bite him later, but anything was better than this awkwardness. Now, for an exit strategy. "You should also go talk to the carpenters about what kind of wood might work for a communal stable," he suggested. "If the chief lets you build one, of course."
"Stable? Oh, for the dragons." Hoarck looked around wistfully, probably hoping Toothless was somewhere nearby, and after a moment nodded fiercely to himself. “Wood. Right. I’ll be back!” He jogged off, dragging his peg leg through the slowly accumulating mud.
Hiccup let out a large sigh. Why was it so hard to deal with Hoarck? His heart was in the right place, even if his head wasn’t.
The stairs down from the Great Hall were slick and wet, and Hiccup’s prosthetic squeaked with every step. He had to stop and lean on the side of a storehouse at the bottom of the stairs, taking the pressure off of his stump for a moment.
He leaned on a nearby building, taking the pressure off of his stump for a moment.
"I saw you talking to Hoarck." Hiccup turned to see Astrid, lurking in a dark place between huts. “You didn’t tell him off, did you?” she continued.
"I sent him to my dad," Hiccup admitted. "He's got a good disapproving scowl, it would be a shame to let it go to waste. Also, what's with the hiding in the shadows?"
"Okay, maybe I didn't want to be pulled into the conversation," Astrid took a few steps forward, into the open.
Hiccup cracked a tired grin. “You hid all the way down here?” She wouldn’t even have been within earshot… Though he wouldn’t put it past Hoarck to somehow drag Astrid into the conversation anyway.
"Focus, Hiccup," Astrid remarked, smiling just a little, though she tried to hide it. "We were talking about your shirking responsibility."
"That doesn't make me want to focus." Hiccup forced himself to concentrate on something other than Astrid anyway, because he knew he'd get the less tolerant side of her if he pushed too hard. "Where's Stormfly?"
"Somewhere away from Hoarck." Astrid turned in a slow circle. "Very far away. Same as Toothless?"
Hiccup nodded. "They'll find us again."
"In the meantime, we should go to the arena," Astrid said. "I wanted to show you something."
Fine by him. His leg still hurt, but he needed to toughen it up. "Lead the way, then."
They walked down through the village and along the path leading to the arena, which was dug into a sheer cliffside a bridge and a short trek away from Berk. Hiccup tried his best not to get caught staring at Astrid along the way. That got him nowhere, and sometimes a punch to the shoulder if he was too obvious about it. Also a slight blush if he looked closely, which was new, and she didn't hate him anymore...
Hiccup didn't really know how things were supposed to be between them now, and she didn't seem to either. On the one hand, she had kissed him right after he woke up and came outside. On the other, she was Astrid, and he’d been in a coma for a few months, and everything was changing too quickly for him to keep up with it all.
Their possibly mutual feelings aside, she’d also been a great help catching him up on all of the changes to Berk. The village was still standing, which to him meant that she’d done a fine job as the de-facto dragon expert while he was unconscious, but she insisted that he would be better.
Hiccup wasn’t sure he could do better. He had a good rapport with dragons but he wasn’t great with Vikings, and keeping things peaceful on Berk involved both. Not that he had told her that; she was far too confident in him, and far too helpful. He didn't want to mess that up. Even if it led to her trying to get him to step into the harder parts of being the authority on anything, let alone dragons, such as putting people and their ideas down.
A scaly snout nudged into Hiccup's side, pushing up to ease the weight on his stump. Toothless only did that when he was limping. Hiccup was getting used to his friend showing up with absolutely no warning, so he didn’t even bother wondering how a ground-bound dragon had managed to sneak up on them.
"Hey, I wasn't limping that much... yet..." Hiccup half-heartedly objected, leaning a little more heavily on his suddenly present friend. "Seen Stormfly anywhere?"
Toothless warbled happily. He probably hadn't; Stormfly had the whole of Berk to hide in, and only one Viking to hide from. The odds of them crossing paths were pretty low.
Astrid looked back, smiling slightly. There was another new thing Hiccup still wasn't used to: Astrid Hofferson smiling when she saw him. "Hopefully Stormfly finds us by the time we get to the arena. I need her to show you what we came up with."
That was promising. You have my attention," he said eagerly. What could it be?
"While I have it, you need to talk to the twins." Now her smile was gone, though she was not scowling either. "They've been terrorizing certain villagers again. Using their Zippleback.”
"I'll get right on that," Hiccup promised. "As soon as I find the time."
"You fly all morning, every morning, no matter the weather. You have time."
Toothless snorted indignantly, looking up at Hiccup with narrowed eyes.
"There will be no shortening of our flight time," Hiccup whispered. "I don't want to do that either."
They were passing over the bridge between the village and the arena, now. Hiccup walked just a little more carefully; he was not afraid of heights, but he was afraid of stumbling, all too possible with his prosthetic, falling off, and needing to be caught. He didn't want to push his luck, even if Toothless probably could make it to him in time.
A blur of colorful scales passed underneath them, arced up and around, and landed in front of Astrid, who didn't even stop walking. "Nice of you to show up, girl." Stormfly fell into step beside her, squawking energetically. Of all the dragons, Nadders were the most like birds, both in shape and sound. Some of the noises Stormfly made on a regular basis reminded Hiccup of nothing more than a very large, scaly chicken.
Hiccup tripped on nothing, his foot slipping in the pooling water. It was still drizzling out. Astrid hadn't noticed, too busy walking into the arena, down the path trainees took in times past. Hiccup walked a little quicker once he and Toothless were under the stone arch. Water dripped in steady streams from the chains that made up the arena’s dome.
This trip would be a lot easier and quicker by dragon, but those chains meant everyone had to walk into the arena. They should probably get rid of them if they were going to be using this place.
At that... "Astrid, why are we here?" he asked skeptically. "Not that I don't like stone bowls of death and bad memories, but…."
"It's an open space nobody else goes to now that we don't train to fight dragons," Astrid explained, walking out to the middle of the arena. "And what I taught Stormfly to do looks really, really bad if you don't know what's going on, so I had to find somewhere private to practice it."
So it was something Stormfly could do... that looked bad. "What is it?" he asked.
"Rescue," Astrid commanded, pointing at Hiccup.
Stormfly sprung at Hiccup, totally ignoring Toothless. She seemed to want to grab Hiccup. There was, of course, a Night Fury in the way. Toothless jumped forward and tackled Stormfly right before she got to him, hissing angrily. The two rolled to a stop with Toothless on top, pinning the far less maneuverable dragon beneath him, her wings flapping wildly.
Hiccup wasn't worried; Toothless was just holding her down. "You know, Astrid, you might want to ask first next time."
"Get him off of her!" Astrid yelled, running to the dragons. She skidded to a halt just out of reach of Stormfly's flailing wings and tail. "Toothless, get off!"
Toothless shot her a dry, unamused look, and refused to move.
"Toothless, I think Stormfly has learned her lesson," Hiccup called out. "Astrid, maybe call her off first?"
There ended up being no need for that; Toothless jumped off with a threatening growl and roared right in Stormfly's face before returning to Hiccup. Stormfly awkwardly stood and shook her head, resettling her wings, before turning to look directly at Hiccup again.
"Never mind, Stormfly," Astrid said angrily, glaring at Toothless. "Somebody doesn't want to participate."
"Maybe don't send your dragon after me and expect him to idly stand by?" Hiccup suggested. "He's overprotective."
"As if I'd do anything to hurt you," Astrid scoffed. “Stormfly was just going to pick you up and bring you back here."
"Great." Hiccup decided to pass over mentioning that Astrid punched him on a regular basis in favor of getting back to the reason they were here. "You taught her to fetch?"
"I taught her to bring people here,” Astrid clarified. “No matter where you or whoever she's saving is. If we were on the other side of the island and I told her to rescue you, she'd take you here, no matter what."
Okay... he could see the use in that. "She carries people with her beak?" he asked, only slightly alarmed by that idea. "I guess that explains why you needed privacy to practice this." A dragon with a Viking dangling from its mouth would be alarming at any time, peace or not.
"Yeah... I think I can get her to carry them in the saddle if they can get on, but the beak is the easiest way for her to do it," Astrid agreed. "But I don't think I want to try and teach her to take people she rescues anywhere else; it might confuse her, because I've already trained her to bring them here."
Hiccup considered that. He wouldn't have any problems teaching Toothless something like that, but Stormfly was not Toothless. It was unfair to compare the two. Astrid would know what her own dragon could handle, especially with months to work with her.
"So we just have to be sure people know that if Stormfly shows up to drop someone off in the arena, they might be injured or something," Hiccup concluded. "Good work, Astrid."
"Thanks. Are you going to teach him?" she asked, pointing to Toothless, who was staring up, out past the iron mesh roof to the clouds beyond.
"Honestly, Astrid, I don't think I need to teach him. The only way he can take anyone anywhere is if I'm with him," Hiccup reminded her. He didn't quite like that fact, but it was a fact, and he couldn’t change it.
Well, he didn't quite know how to change it, anyway. If inspiration struck he wouldn't leave the forge until he had the answer in his hands, but without any idea as to how to give Toothless a tail that would let him fly alone, they were stuck together. Luckily, Toothless didn't seem to mind in the slightest.
Though judging by his body language, Toothless did seem to mind being here in the arena. He probably had nothing but bad memories of this place given what had happened the only time he had ever been here.
"Anything else you want to show me in here?" Hiccup asked. "Because if not, I've got to go... Somewhere." Out of the arena, probably back to the village. He wanted to make a few replacement parts for the tailfin, and he was running out of parchment which warranted a trip to a certain dragon rider who stockpiled the stuff and would sell him some for cheap, and then back into the air with Toothless.
"See you later?" Astrid asked. "You should call all of the dragon riders together at some point.”
"Soon," Hiccup promised, adding that to his mental list of things to postpone. He didn't really want to deal with Snotlout, even if his cousin wasn't nearly as bad as before. He was still annoying and brash, and combined with Hiccup now officially holding some small measure of power over him... That wasn’t going to be enjoyable for either of them. Another part of his new responsibilities he couldn't seem to get used to.
"-!-"
Hiccup whiled away the afternoon in the warmest, driest place on Berk. The constant heat of the hot coals and roaring fires dried out his clothing like nothing else. Let the clouds dither over whether to unleash a downpour or a drizzle for as long as they liked. The rain couldn’t touch him in the forge, and the occasional wet breeze from outside was a refreshing respite from the heat.
Toothless was a newcomer to the forge, so long as Hiccup didn’t count their clandestine nighttime visit while tied together, but he fit in like one more well-oiled gear, curling up in the back where the piles of broken weapons used to be. He had to share the space with one completely blunted spear, and that was all. Broken weapons were becoming a rarity on Berk. There was room for a relatively small dragon to enjoy the constant heat, and he didn’t seem to mind the noise.
Not that Hiccup was making much noise at present. He set down the iron rod he had been inspecting and nodded to himself. It was hard to get the shape and proportions right with every rod, so measuring after forging was essential. With this rod and where it went in the tailfin, being slightly too long or too thin might mean a turn was less of a turn and more of a plummet.
This particular rod was good, and it was the last of the backup pieces he intended to keep with Toothless’s saddle in case he needed them. He still needed to sew a pouch onto the saddle somewhere out of the way but secure. If the tailfin began to break anywhere on Berk he could always return to the forge to fix it, but what if something cracked or bent while they were anywhere else in the world?
The pile of gears and rods of various sizes was his answer to that lingering danger. He would have to remember to replace the pieces as he used them, but he didn’t expect to use them very quickly. How often was Toothless tailfin likely to break, anyway?
Hiccup set the final rod on the pile and began organizing it. He didn’t have the pouch to keep them in, but he could lay out the parts and figure out what size that pouch needed to be. Too much empty space and they’d get tossed around in flight, too little and the metal pieces would grind against each other. He might even go to the effort of padding the pouch–
"Son, we need to talk."
Hiccup jumped, dropping two gears and a connecting rod. He was just lucky he hadn't been holding anything else, like a hammer or red-hot iron. Stoick was standing just inside the forge, looking directly at him, and probably had been for some time. "Dad!" Hiccup belatedly exclaimed. “Sorry, I was busy. Didn’t see you there.”
“I know,” Stoick said. "You sent Hoarck to me. Again."
"Oh, that?” Hiccup said. He’d really hoped he’d heard the last of Hoarck’s idea. “He, uh, already got around to talking to you?” he asked weakly.
"At length,” Stoick said gravely. “In the rain. Through a downpour, in fact.”
"Sorry, dad. It won't happen again." Next time, he'd just... Well, to be honest, probably pass Hoarck on to somebody else. Maybe Astrid could scare some sense into him? Snotlout? The twins would egg him on, Fishlegs would get bogged down in the details… There weren’t many good options.
“Hoarck’s a hard man to tell off,” his father said seriously. “Well-meaning, but that only makes it harder. It doesn’t help that I barely know enough about the beasts to guess at why his latest ideas are liable to get him killed.”
“It’s all about trust,” Hiccup said, but his father waved him off.
“Not the point.” Stoick reached over and pulled out a stool from under one of the workbenches, before thinking better of it and putting it back again. He clasped his hands behind his back. “Hiccup, you’re going to be dealing with Hoarcks for the rest o’ your life. Maybe not him, specifically, but others like him. Every chief does. A solid ‘no’ won’t stop him from thinking up more ideas, but it’d be a start.”
“I’m not chief–” Hiccup objected.
“Yet,” Stoick retorted, as solid and unmoving as a mountain. “Which is why ye’ve got to get some experience while the stakes are low. Righ’ now, it’s just the dragons who’re counting on you. Someday it’ll be all of Berk.”
Hiccup wasn’t sure if that was right; he wouldn’t have said the dragons were counting on him for anything. They’d gotten along well enough in the months he was in a coma. The peace between them and Berk, though? That might be his responsibility. Either way, his father was right. “I’ll work on it,” Hiccup promised.
“That’s all I ask,” Stoick said. “Find ways to lead. Make it work. Make your mistakes now. Thor knows there’ll probably be a lot!”
“That fills me with enthusiasm,” Hiccup drawled.
“Good. Good talk!” Stoick left the forge, breaking a sudden sheet of driving rain with his face. “Would it kill Thor to make up his mind already?” he complained. The splashing of his boots in puddles quickly faded away underneath the relentless patter of the rain.
"Good pep talk," Hiccup muttered. "You got it, dad. Just… be a leader. Easy. Why didn’t I think of that?” He put the rest of his spare parts in order on the workbench, but his heart wasn’t in it. When the rain let up a little while later, he was ready to go. Toothless rose from his spot in the corner to follow him out.
He needed to find opportunities to lead, and to tell Hoarck no. Leading in ambiguous circumstances might be easier.
Hiccup wandered down toward the docks, thinking about what his father had said. The truth was that he did want to live up to his father’s expectations. He always had, but now it seemed a lot more possible.
Looking out at the horizon, past the last few rows of huts and over the docks, he saw a few ragged sails. "What's going on over there?"
"Incoming ship, looks like," a passing villager answered, squinting down at the docks. "Not a trader. No flag."
Okay, that was weird. Something was going on. And actually, now that he thought about it... "Is this the first ship since the fight with the Red Death?"
"None over the Winter, so yes," the woman replied. She sounded as concerned as he was by that fact. "This might get interestin’."
Interesting, indeed. This definitely involved dragons, and therefore was partly Hiccup's responsibility. He needed to be down at the docks by the time the ship put in. This was hopefully meant to be a peaceful visit, and he would do his best to keep it that way.