Chapter Text
Harald Haukrson has always enjoyed working for Viggo Grimborn. Well, ‘enjoyed’ is perhaps a bit of a stretch— but the pay is quite good, and the job quite straightforward if a bit dangerous. Keep your head down, do the job well, stay on the boss’ good side, and you’ll get to go home with quite a lot of gold.
When those pesky dragon riders showed up, it definitely complicated their operations, but Harald’s boss is smart, he kept everything under control as best he could. Though, the dragon riders’ leader is no slouch either in the intelligence department. The job didn’t change much though; keep your head down, do the job well, stay on the boss’ good side, and try to either avoid or capture the dragon riders. Simple enough. The riders’ leader seemed plenty reasonable too, so it was even simpler to deal with him than it otherwise might have been.
Or so Harald had thought.
Given all of that—the good pay, the straightforward nature of his job, the clear instructions from Viggo, and has he mentioned the very good pay?—Harald never thought he’d be doing what he is now. But here he is, on his way to see his boss, uncaring that the man is in a meeting at the moment.
He pushes open the door, and doesn’t hesitate before announcing, very loudly and clearly, in no uncertain terms, “I quit.”
“Pardon?” Viggo glares at him pointedly for interrupting his meeting, but doesn’t comment on Harald’s insolence. “I believe I must have misheard you.”
“No, I quit, sir.” Harald repeats. “I did not sign up to deal with this,” he holds up his bloodied arm.
“A bite mark?” Viggo raises an eyebrow, unimpressed.
“A HUMAN bite mark!” Harald huffs. “That crazy dragon rider did this! The one with the Night Fury! He is insane I’m telling you! There’s not enough gold in the world that would make me deal with him ever again!”
“Hah!” One of the other men in the room lets out a sharp laugh, and that’s when Harald actually looks at who Viggo was meeting with. Ryker is there, and so is the new guy that the two Grimborns had recently partnered with to fight against the dragon riders. Dagur, he thinks? Yes, that sounds right. It’s Dagur who laughed.
“…Hiccup bit you.” Viggo states. He has far too much control of his composure to let Harald see the surprise this fact gives him, but Ryker—who knows his brother quite well—catches onto it, and Dagur—who despite being deranged is actually quite perceptive, though many would never realize this—notices it as well.
“Yes! So, sir,” Harald starts, “it has been an honor to work for you, and I appreciate your business practices but I am done. I quit. And that’s final.”
Harald sets a few papers down on Viggo’s desk, “My report of the last mission. And my complete explanation for why I’m leaving. My apologies for interrupting your meeting, sir.” With that said, Harald turns and leaves the room, the door slamming shut behind him.
Inside the room, Viggo picks up the report and begins to read through it. His eyes widening and eyebrows raising are the only indicators of his shock and confusion, but both Ryker and Dagur see it for what it is.
“Is it actually that bad, then?” Ryker asks.
“Read for yourself,” Viggo passes over the report as he finishes reading it.
“Well then,” Ryker snorts as he too finishes the brief report, “isn’t that unexpected.”
Dagur makes grabby hands at the short stack of papers, “Hey let me read too! I wanna hear what my brother’s been up to.”
Viggo normally pays it no mind when Dagur refers to Hiccup as his brother. The other man is… strange enough that Viggo believed it to be nothing more than an odd nickname of sorts. After reading Harald’s report, he is beginning to think he may need to reconsider that idea.
Dagur shakes his head with a laugh, setting the report down on the table, “This is what has you all surprised? Hah! Puh-lease, this is tame for Hiccup! I mean, only one of your hunters even got bitten,”
“You consider one bite to be… tame?” Viggo asks. “I had rather assumed Hiccup was quite reasonable overall. Even one bite is… out of place for him.”
“Ahaha! Reasonable! What a funny joke! No no no, my baby brother is decidedly unreasonable!” Dagur grins. “In fact, he’s as hazardous as I am deranged and as my sister is unhinged! He used to bite me all the time when we were younger; I still have the scars from some of them,” he smiles fondly, as any saner person might at the memory of, say, holding their newborn child. All soft and proud; an odd look when considering what Dagur is remembering is apparently Hiccup’s tendency to bite hard enough to scar.
“See,” Dagur holds up his arm and starts pointing to some of the scars on it, clearly bite marks now that they’ve been pointed out, “this one here is from when he was, like, three years old. And these two were both when he was five! And then this one is from when he was six, and that just to the side of it is from when he was seven— I think he was trying to bite the same spot again and just missed! But they were all real bloody when it happened, hah, it’s so nice to know some things don’t change,” he smiles.
…Viggo is beginning to think he might need to start giving his hunters higher hazard pay any time they run into the dragon riders. Or even just his dear Hiccup, who is apparently very hazardous.