Author's Note: This is another part of my Fem Hiccup universe. This also has Male! Astrid (Aka Aster) in it. This could be seen as kind of a prequel to the first movie.
Talks With Gothi
Hiccup was not a well liked child. She was constantly bullied by Snotlout and the twins. Ruffnut wasn't as horrible to her as Tuffnut was because Hiccup was the only other girl her age. Aster had some small respect for her because her father was chief and she and Fishlegs got along better than the rest but the large boy didn't want to be highly associated with the village pariah. She was small and weak, she couldn't lift an axe or handle a war hammer. She wasn't like the other Viking children. No one in the village understood her, no one tried. No one except the oldest woman in the village.
Gothi was a revered figure in the village, she didn't speak but she never really needed to. When Hiccup was a baby her mother had been carried off by a dragon and was never seen again. As Stoic lead the clean-up of the town, hiding his own tears behind a mask of stoicism, Gothi held the babe as she cried. She lightly touched the wound on the young girls chin. It would scar, she could tell. She cradled the baby in her arms knowing that she would have a hard life ahead of her, that this was the first of many scars in a war against the dragons the girl would be forced to fight.
A few years later Gothi spotted Hiccup running through the village crying. The seven year old was clumsy and tripped and fell right outside Gothi's house and sat in the mud sniffling for a moment. Gothi came outside and Hiccup whipped a sleeve across her face trying to rid her cheeks of the tears only succeeding in whipping mud across them.
"S… sorry Gothi. I didn't mean to bother you." Gothi smiled kindly at the young girl and motioned her inside. Hiccup talked while Gothi made tea and listened. The young Viking poured her heart out to the old woman over tea. She talked about how she was always picked on by the others her age, about how alone she felt and about how much she missed her mother. She spoke about how she kept feeling like a disappointment to her father, to the whole village. She had a large burden for one so young, after all she would someday have to lead them all.
"I just don't fit in anywhere. Sometimes I wonder if I ever will." Gothi hugged the wiry young girl and ruffled her shoulder length brown hair. She helped Hiccup clean the mud off her face and braided her hair for good measure.
A year later the young Viking girl was introduced to the son of the Berserker chief. She came away from the meeting bruised with one side of her hair cut shorter than the other side. Gothi shook her head as Hiccup ran between two houses and disappeared from site. That boy was deranged. Hiccup had never really liked her appearance, she was too skinny, not strong enough, not big enough. But she'd been quite proud of her hair, which grew faster than the only other girl her age's hair. But now half her usual braid was gone and no one was even being reprimanded for it. No one but Gobber even looked concerned. Gothi sighed soundlessly and walked off to find the poor girl.
She found her in an alcove in her house that logically should have been impossible to reach but looking around Gothi could see many things for the agile young girl to climb onto to get up to the small space she now occupied. Gothi cleared her throat. Hiccup jumped and slipped out of the hole just catching herself before she fell all the way to the floor. She slipped the rest of the way down the wall and sat down hard, sobbing into her arms. Gothi rested a hand on her shoulder and Hiccup hugged her, still crying. Gothi patted her back, rubbing it calming circles. She pulled Hiccup over to a short stool and had her sit down and explain what had happened. As she did Gothi pulled out her knife and began to even out Hiccup's hair.
In the end the short hairstyle looked good on the girl, it brought out her bright green eyes. Their talks, such as they were became fewer and farther between. Hiccup became Gobber's apprentice and grew up. She didn't fill out much, staying scrawny and shorter than the others. She was still basically the pariah of the village, but she had a job and a place she could go to do what she enjoyed. That usually got her in trouble but she still tried. Gothi smiled slightly as she watched her granddaughter grow up.