Music.
That was the first thing he heard when he was brought into the world. Not a healer ordering someone to cut his umbilical cord or the pain-filled moans of his mother. Instead, the soft tones of a gentle woman's voice filtered into his ears as she sang words he did not understand but lulled him to sleep.
"The sky is dark and the hills are white
As the storm-king speeds from the north to-night;
And this is the song the storm-king sings,
As over the world his cloak he flings:
'Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;'
He rustles his wings and gruffly sings:
'Sleep, little one, sleep.' "
Later, when he would wake up after his first peaceful sleep in this world, he would hear the first words ever spoken to him, when the same voice who had sang to him said, lovingly:
"Your name is Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third. You may be called a hiccup, little one, but you shall grow to be above all others when you are a man."
And a gruff, manly voice added, "You'll be the strongest of them all, son."
Three years later, he would watch wide-eyed as his father knelt again at his mother's side and proclaimed his undying love for her, and the two spun each other around in a frenzy as they sang their hearts out to each other.
"I'll swim and sail on savage seas
With ne'er a fear of drowning,
And gladly ride the waves of life
If you will marry me…"
The next year, however, he would discover that the world was not entirely filled with the joy and happiness that had nurtured him since birth. Neighbors' eyes would follow him when he stepped outside and then avert in disgust, their condescending voices reaching his young ears and filling his heart with shame. He would run home after the same children he used to play with now taunted him about his size, crying in the arms of his mother.
"Hush, Hiccup," his mother soothed him. "Perhaps you aren't as big and strong as other people want you to be. But that is their mistake. It is your heart that is the strongest part of you, and one day, your true strength will be revealed to the world. It is what's inside that matters most, son."
And as his sobs gradually transitioned into sniffles, his mother sang her lullaby to him, rocking him back and forth until he fell into a quiet sleep.
"On yonder mountain-side a vine
Clings at the foot of a mother pine;
Te tree bends over the trembling thing,
And only the vine can hear her sing:
'Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;
What shall you fear when I am here?
Sleep, little one, sleep.' "
He would hear that lullaby repeated many times as the mocking voices of his village increased in number and tone. One year later, though, those voices forgot their mockery and suddenly began clamoring at night, screaming war cries as beasts' roars filled the darkness.
"Dragons," his father said. "Foul beasts who know no mercy. One day, son, you must learn to kill them if you wish to survive."
His mother said nothing about dragons, but his intelligent mind knew that she saw differently.
Five nights later the dragons' screeches had reached their peak, and from that point on, he began to awaken from his troubled rests, screaming from the nightmares that terrorized him nightly. His mother clutched him tightly as she sang again, her voice shaking in fear as they listened to the clanging of metal surrounding them.
"The king may sing in his bitter flight,
The pine may croon to the vine to-night,
But the little snowflake at my breast
Liketh the song I sing the best –
'Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;
Weary thou art, anext my heart;
Sleep, little one, sleep.' "
When he awoke that morning, he found that he was by himself, his home empty. Terror gripped his heart as he rushed outside to see gray clouds replace the clear, bright blue skies with the sun that had always shone for as long as he could remember. The village was deserted, and he began to wail as he wandered through the streets, looking for his parents.
His feet found their way to the beach where he spied a crowd lined up by the shoreline. He frantically pushed his way through their legs until he broke out into the front and witnessed his father stringing a flaming arrow to a bow, and shooting it at a distant boat.
He stood there, not comprehending the situation. When his father stood unmoving, never taking his eyes off the burning ship in the distance, a man with a long mustache finally came up to the boy and gently said:
"I'm sorry, laddie. Your mother's gone."
Hours later, as thundering rain poured down and soaked his clothes, Hiccup clutched a pine tree in the middle of the forest, tears streaming down his face as he mourned for his mother, and for the first time in his life, sang out loud to himself.
"But the little snowflake at my breast
Liketh the song I sing the best –
'Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;
Weary thou art, anext my heart;
Sleep, little one, sleep."
It hurt me badly when I wrote this. To have to actually write about Hiccup losing his beloved mother tore my heart apart more than you know.
Although this could alternatively serve as a one-shot, I have actually written this as a prologue to a larger story that follows Hiccup through an AU of the HTTYD movies as he journeys to find his true identity. This time, however, in addition to his bond with Toothless, I plan to focus on how music influences his life as he struggles to survive in a world that despises him.
The lullaby Valka sings to Hiccup is actually a poem titled "Norse Lullaby" written by Eugene Field, who lived from 1850 to 1895. It is not a genuine lullaby that Vikings would sing, but I fell in love with the lyrics and immediately wanted to have Valka sing this to her son as she raised him for five short years from his birth. And obviously, the short stanza that Stoick and Valka sing to each other is from "For the Dancing and the Dreaming" from HTTYD2. I'd like to have included more of this, but I wanted the focus of this prologue to be firmly on Valka and Hiccup's bond through music.
Note: I do not have an official cover image for this story yet as I am not an artist, so the current cover is only temporary. I do not mind if readers who are professional artists submit a piece of fan art for consideration. PM me for my email if you would like to submit something.
Thank you for reading, and please leave a review.
~NotOfThisWorld4GM