A/N - This is an Royal Hiccup AU. Warning - Jerk Hiccup incoming. I'm pumped. Are you pumped? The title is subject to change when I think of a better one. This chapter won't be as long as others because my internet at home is SHIT going through menopause, so I'm at my man's house and using his internet. So I have limited time. I had this chapter longer, but I want each chapter to be as good as I can get it, and not half-done.

I would also like apologize for the amount of back-story in this first chapter. I tried to tone it down, but, whatevs.

Okay - I've noticed that when I've got more than one story going, neither of them is at their full potential. I'm trying to fix that. However, because of that, this story might not get updated as frequently as A Change of Scenery. Just a warning.

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Chapter 1: Prince Hiccup, Berk's Number One Bachelor

The clouds were sweet, golden and pink, and not cold at all. Hiccup could reach out and touch them, feel their silk on his skin, like sunlight woven into thread. He floated through the endless cloud kingdom, pillars rising into the bright heavens, forever reaching upwards. A thunderclap rolled, knocking down the pillars like playing cards. Thunder beat against the clouds and they all came tumbling down.

"Hiccup!"

Hiccup woke with a start and jumped into a sitting position, skewing the silk sheets outward. This motion jarred his stomach and wracked his brain, sending waves of nausea hammering through his limbs, and an unpleasant gurgling up from his gut. He groaned as the insurgence began to unwind itself. He came out of the dream abruptly as the pain subsided and the cloud-world was replaced by his four-poster bed. The curtains were drawn the room on the other side was still dark.

"Hiccup!" his father, Stoick, was beating on the bedroom door.

"It's not locked," Hiccup called as he collapsed back into the sheets, pulling them over his head.

The beating stopped, followed by a short pause, that ended as the door swung open swung and heavy footsteps thundered into his bedroom, muffled only slight by the rug.

"Hiccup, this is no time for your lollygagging," his father roared on the other side of the curtain.

Hiccup heard a swoosh and the bright sunlight that followed stung. Stoick stalked around the bed, to the other window, and repeated the action. The curtains on the bed were next.

"It is a lovely day outside and you are wasting in bed! It's already passed midday!" Stoick roared.

Hiccup, sighing, sat up and tossed the sheets.

"It's a disgrace to waste the day," Stoick thundered, looking out of the newly-opened window, "The first fine day of spring and here you are, sleeping, and where are your pajamas?"

"Hm?" Hiccup glanced down. Not only was he not wearing his pajamas, he wasn't wearing anything, luckily he hadn't thrown the sheets far enough to embarrass himself. He brought a hand up to his bare chest, "I don't know,"

"How can you not know?" Stoick roared, throwing his large hands into the air. "Gah, I don't know what I'm going to do with you! You're twenty years old, Hiccup, far old enough to stop acting like a child. You're too old to need a nursemaid following you around. You can't keep acting like this."

"Like what, now?" Hiccup yawned.

"Like a child!" Stoick spat. "Drinking every night, half the time too drunk to stand up. It's a disgrace to have my son sloshing home at dawn and I'm sick of hearing about these…whores that you find, it's not fitting for a prince! It's not fitting for any young man with self-respect!"

Hiccup shrugged underneath his father's narrowed, disappointed glare.

"You need to grow up, Son." Stoick said, his tone changing.

Hiccup froze, his ears perked, because he knew that change of tone. Something was about to follow t familiar his lecture, something that his father knew that his son wouldn't like to hear. He braced himself, tightening his fists in the sheets. Stoick sighed, and clapped his large hands together, and said nothing at first.

"What?" Hiccup asked.

"Son, you're a grown man, and it's high time that you married."

"What?" Hiccup almost got up to defend himself, however he remembered his nakedness.

"I've already spoken to the council this morning, and you mother and I both agree, that it is high time for you to settle down and stop this childish nonsense."

Hiccup choked on his words, an unfriendly gurgling unsettling in his stomach, "What? You just decided that for me?"

"Yes." Stoick huffed. "Someone had to, you can't seem to make them on your own!"

"No. I don't want to." Hiccup shook his head, gently, as to not disrupt his hangover.

"I've already sent out the invitations to the noble houses." Stoick said, matter-of-factly, dismissing the argument. "The traditional Matrimonial Congregation will be assembled by this time next week."

Hiccup rubbed his face, groaning audibly, making his unhappiness known.

"It doesn't matter, Son. I've sent the order." Stoick stomped his foot, his fists clenched, "Now get up, you've already missed lunch. You are a prince, not a derelict, so start acting like it."

And just like that, his father stormed away just as violently as he'd come, thundering all the way, and shaking the frontal lobe in Hiccup's brain with each footfall. The bedroom door slammed and his footsteps echoed in the hallway. Hiccup was left in his sunlit room with only the silk sheets to comfort him, and the banging throb working against his stomach.

Marriage. He wasn't anywhere damn close to wanting to get married. He enjoyed feminine company, sure, but then he wanted them to go away. Marriage meant that she would be there, all the time, and there would be no getting away from her.

Regretfully, he threw the sheets off of himself and trotted to the private bath adjoined to his bedroom. Shouldn't he have someone else to ready his bathwater? It was so tedious.

While the water warmed and the tub filled, Hiccup examined his boney, freckled reflection in the large mirror. His pathetic muscle mass clung tight to his arms, compact he always told girls. His wiry limbs held little muscle, but what use did he have for them when he had a staff of men to carry or life things? Princes hadn't the need for muscles. His brown hair never did anything he wanted, but he'd grew to not care about it.

Where had his pajamas gone? Had he put them on? He couldn't remember. But…why was he so hung-over? He scratched his brain, remembering Snotlout, the twins, and…oh, right, it was Snotlout's birthday, the big one-nine. Hiccup laughed, the night coming back to him. They started drinking before they'd even left the castle, and by the time Hiccup had that brunette on his lap, the room swayed violently, in a good way.

The mirror steame , and Hiccup threw in some of that odd soap-salt that his mother felt so compelled to stock in every bathroom. Whatever. It gave her something to fuss over that wasn't him.

Hiccup was the only son of Stoick the Vast, who ruled the seaside kingdom of Berk with little tolerance for crime or nonsense. He was large and feared, but well respected by his people. Hiccup, on the other hand, was pawned over by the gossip crowds that thrived on his, as his mother said, excursions. He had read the feverish articles of himself, he'd even kept a few of the good ones, that displayed him as some kind of fiendish devil-boy who preys on young women, like some vampire. Comical.

Other than that, Hiccup had few complaints. However, now he had the dreaded the Matrimonial Congregation to worry about. It was such a stupid tradition. But, it was law, and Hiccup had little say in the matter, unless he somehow magically became King in the next week, which wouldn't mean the council would let him change laws.

The Matrimonial Congregation was a kingdom-wide celebration, and pried upon like maggots on rotten meat. It gave the kingdom folk another chance to fret and gossip over the royal family and pretend that their affairs were public fair. It was because Hiccup was the prince, that his future wife was carefully selected, typically by the king and the council, with heavy influences by nobles and coin.

The tradition went that the eligible girls of marrying age would be plucked from the kingdom, daughters of wealthy men, important public figures, and friends of the court. Hiccup would be shoved into the midst of the flock, to pick and choose, and fought over. In theory, being followed around by more women that he had fingers was a dream. Beautiful women would be pawing at him, begging for his attention, yearning for their chance to become queen, and trying to scratch each other's eyes out in the process.

That sounded like a vacation, but it wasn't the women that Hiccup dreaded. It was the entire marriage idea that set him off. He didn't want to.

Just wait until he told Snotlout about the congregation. He'll be envious enough to burst into flames. But, even though Snotlout wasn't a prince, he was Hiccup's first cousin, and still royal, and would go through his own congregation eventually, just a smaller, less extravagant one with lower standards.

Hiccup scratched his hair, raking his nails along his scalp, and let his frustration out in a groan. His reflection blurred in the steam, a fleshy blob. He stepped into the hot water and sank down into the tub. His hand slipped to his groin and worked its way to the wake-up pleasure.

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Okay, that's chapter 1. Leave me a review and tell me what you think. I'll try to update as soon as possible, or at least have the next chapter prepared so that I can update it next Sunday.