Chapter Text
It was coming close to four years since Hiccup’s self exile.
The people of Berk had assumed that with him gone so was his unluckiness. As for many other things, they were wrong. If any thing the state of things had only gotten worse. The raids more frequent, the losses more brutal, the misery all encompassing.
Over recent months new whispers had started emerging from many different places, though mostly from the chief of the Beserker clan and the new trader taking Johan’s place, although they were really from any one with ears and a mouth.
Hiccup was alive.
Chief Stoic didn’t know what to make of it. For almost four entire years he had attempted to convince himself he had no son. That 18 years ago a dragon had taken his wife and child, so that he’d be left with nothing.
It had worked at first, however as the whispers grew louder, so did his buried memories.
Snotlout on the other hand wasn’t as relived at the news of his cousin being alive and well. All the talk of Hiccup being an amazing leader and such a great strategist, was starting to get on his last nerve. People were finally beginning to take him seriously and there went Hiccup the slip up, ruining everything again like a vengeful ghost, he was haunting Berk.
First it started by him ruining dragon training, then the yearly expedition to find the nest got canceled because of some note he left.
He was sick of always hearing his name. Snotlout was the future chief to be, not that dragon lover.
He didn’t want to dwell on the thought too much so he instead when to visit Astrid in the forge, as he often did.
Astrid promptly chased him out of the forge with a swing of her bolars, as she so often did.
Being friends with Ruffnut the village gossiper, she too had heard her fair share of rumors. She was curious to know what had been one of him, though she’d never admit it. It was hard not to be curious, especially in her position, when it came to rumors about Hiccup it was like she was in the eye of the storm. Even without the mention of her best friend, there was her mentor Gobber.
It didn't take long for Astrid to grow bored of Berk's usual antics after dragon training, at least she could join in the battles now instead of being in the fire brigade, still she liked to move fast so she craved for a new challenge. Luckily Gobber was also in need of something new, a new apprentice that is, she had over heard him mumbling to himself about how slow things were in the forge without one. She had thought it over, a new domain to beat Hiccup in, a good way to stay fit, endless weapons at her disposal. It was perfect.
Well if it weren't for Gobber's never ending praise of Hiccup, that or the never ending criticisms of the mess he left behind.
A new image of Hiccup started to slowly creep inside her mind, she no longer thought of him as the clumsy village fishbone, instead he was the boy who managed to tame a night fury and along with it all of Berk. There was an unspoken respect, for his endeavors, for his partial craziness, for being brave enough to leave every thing behind.
Astrid thought of Hiccup almost like a character in a story book, who lived in a different universe and that wasn't completely real, subsequently it had come to a surprise to her and the rest of the villagers when he stepped out of their minds and back onto Berk.