Hiccup didn't understand what people kept trying to explain to him. His mother wasn't gone. She was lying in the next room, surrounded by burned-down candles and an unnatural silence that Hiccup couldn't bear. His mother was cold and still, but she was there.
His father's pain was palpable. Hiccup sat quietly in the corner as his father paced like a caged beast, refusing comfort from anyone who attempted to offer it. Hiccup was afraid of the lost expression in Stoick's eyes. He had never seen his father look anything but strong, but now there was a somewhat mad look in the great man's gaze, and Hiccup didn't know how to fix it or what to do.
Over the next few days, Hiccup didn't say a word. As unusual as this was for the six-year-old boy, no one seemed to acknowledge the sudden change. Stoick worked ceaselessly on a fantastic wooden ship behind the house, stopping only when his battle brother, Gobber the Belch, would pull him away gently and steer him into the house for a brief, restless sleep.
Hiccup remained silent as his mother, dressed in her favorite clothes, was laid to rest upon the deck of the buried ship. The child's forest green eyes roved over the goods set around her, and he hungrily memorized the look of each one. He wanted to look at anything besides the odd-colored, solemn face of his mother. She had always worn a smile when she gazed upon her only son, and Hiccup couldn't wrap his mind around the thought of never being embraced by her grin again.
His mother's sword and shield were closest to her, marking her status as a great skjoldmo. She was decorated in her finest jewelry, including the wedding ring Stoick had made for her, with a great stone of amber prominent and proud. Bright beads decorated her comely neck, and her hair was braided with a comb carved from an antler.
Around her waist were the keys to the supply chests. She had worn them every day since her marriage to Stoick the Vast, and Hiccup recalled the pleasant ringing noise they had made when she walked or laughed or danced or played or…
Hiccup felt a heavy weight on his shoulder and started. He turned his eyes upward, and realized his father had been saying something to him.
"It's time to say goodbye, son," Stoick the Vast rumbled, his voice sounding oddly thick. Hiccup blinked.
Goodbye?
His father pushed him forward gently. Approaching the ship cautiously on his knobby little knees, Hiccup pulled a chain from around his neck. Attached to it was the little charm of Thor's Hammer that he had been given for good luck at his birth. He didn't understand where his mother was going, but she was in a ship and he was being instructed to say goodbye, so he figured she was going on a trip. Hiccup knew that for Vikings, journeys were dangerous. He figured his mother could use all the luck she could get.
He set the necklace down beside her. He heard soft sniffling from the women behind him and he glanced up at his father, who had clenched his jaws and was looking straight before him, unable to face his young son.
Hiccup's hand grazed his mother's cheek and he gasped as his tiny fingers felt the clammy, unnatural cold of her skin. His mother did not react in any way to her son's touch, and Hiccup felt a wave of dread and tremendous grief wash over him.
Breathing heavily, he retreated backwards clumsily to take his place beside his father again.
It wasn't until Stoick, Gobber, and Spitelout shoveled the first pile of dirt onto her body that Hiccup ran.
Hiccup ran through the trees faster than he had ever run before. The branches struck and slit his skin, but he couldn't stop. Whatever was happening in the clearing behind him would catch up to him if he stopped.
In a sadly predictable moment of gracelessness, Hiccup's small foot caught on something on the ground. The small boy went tumbling headfirst into the undergrowth, and there he settled.
The tears washed over him, as powerfully and uncontrollably as a wave from the mighty sea that raged and roared beyond the cliffs. Though he couldn't understand why, Hiccup knew his mother would never again hold him tight against her in a hug that conveyed her love. She would never again play with his hair as she tucked him in, or hum to him as he recovered from a nightmare between she and his father in the middle of the night.
He cried for hours. He cried until his chest ached and his face was raw. The sun was setting before he heard a distant voice calling through the woods.
"Hiccup! Hiccup, are you out here?" the voice shouted. It sounded concerned and slightly frantic, but Hiccup couldn't bring himself to stand up and face his father. He just wanted to lie in the bushes until nothing hurt anymore. As he was contemplating doing exactly this, he felt a soft breeze brush against his freckled cheek like a warm hand. The gesture brought an aching love to his heart, and stirred up memories that made him smile sadly through his tears.
Hiccup wiped his nose across his sleeve as he crawled out onto the path. His father stood before him, facing away toward the trees. His hands were shaking and raw from pushing away thistly bushes, and Hiccup knew his father had been searching for quite some time.
"Daddy, I'm right here," he said quietly. His father turned to him, and the anger in his eyes was so intense that Hiccup winced away from him, ready to be shouted at.
Stoick gathered the boy against his broad chest and squeezed him tight enough to cause Hiccup to lose his breath.
"Ya can't just run away like that, Hiccup! What if you had hurt yourself or run into a dragon or something out here?" Stoick accused once he had freed his son, running his hands through Hiccup's hair to check for injury.
"I'm sorry, Daddy," whispered the boy. "I just…" Hiccup looked down at the forest floor, unable to finish his sentence. Stoick's eyes softened, and he hugged his son again in a parental, loving grasp.
Hiccup rested his head on his dad's shoulder and smiled a little as he was carried back to the village. The familiar warmth of a hug given to a child by a parent who loves them unconditionally put Hiccup into a deep, exhausted sleep.
Author's Note: I wanted to describe Valhallarama's funeral through the eyes of a child too young to understand death or how final it is. But, because I am warmed by the father/son relationship of Stoick and Hiccup, I wanted to end on the note that Valhallarama wouldn't leave Hiccup alone with a parent who didn't love them to distraction.