Greetings! See the bottom of the page for a decently lengthy author's note.
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Prologue the First
The morning after the dragons took his wife, the Chief of Berk lifted his shrieking son from his cradle and wrapped him up clumsily in swaddling blankets. Tucking the babe into the crook of his arm, he started down the hill into the village, picking his way carefully down the path, avoiding slick patches of ice and chunks of charred debris.
The place was a mess, as was typical after a dragon attack. Most of the houses sported gaping holes, scorch marks, trampled gates and outbuildings, or any combination of the above. Villagers jogged to and fro, carrying tools and shingles or chasing escaped livestock. The rebuilding wouldn't take too long—the horrid weather mandated speed, and years of dragon attacks had resulted in a system for dealing with the damage that was both rapid and effective. Such adaptation had been necessary; the other option was to leave.
Scarcely a single inhabitant of Berk considered that second idea anymore, though, and if they did, they kept it to themselves. The very thought was cowardly, a betrayal of the efforts of all the generations past. If rebuilding was good enough for their forefathers, it was good enough for them. So they stayed, year after year, and roundly cursed the dragons to each other as they hiked into the forest to chop down more trees.
Stoick took a deep breath and knocked on the door of the Ingerman cottage. It had been relatively undamaged in the raid, and he was glad. It made him feel less guilty about the request he was about to make. The door was soon opened by the mistress of the house. She was a large, blond, buxom lass, with a friendly round face and a wide, smiling mouth, and she had a large, blond baby son of her own, born in the same season as Stoick's. As she pulled the door open wider, he saw the baby balanced on her hip, drooling and chewing with enthusiasm on a stuffed toy that looked as if it had once resembled a Gronckle. Though born a month after Stoick's son, he was already nearly twice as big.
"Chief!" said the girl. She appeared surprised that he was there, but then she noticed the tiny, squalling bundle in his possession and her smile of greeting flattened into a grim, sympathetic line. "Come in. Sorry the house is so untidy," she said.
She needn't have worried herself. Stoick didn't notice much of anything out of order, save perhaps the baby blanket and wooden rattle on the floor. From the iron pot over the fire wafted the smell of bubbling stew. His nostrils detected the sharp tang of onion, underlying the mouth-watering aroma of mutton and savory herbs.
Fishbane Ingerman had picked well, Stoick thought to himself. The girl was pretty—not Stoick's type, but she had a certain plump charm that many Viking men found appealing—she'd given her husband a fine healthy son already, and she could cook. The man must continually bless the gods for the storm that had swept his fishing boat out to sea and landed him on her tribal shore.
"Can I get you anything, Chief? Some ale, perhaps? Sit down, sit down…"
Stoick located a nearby stool and lowered himself down carefully. He jiggled the baby in his arms, hoping to calm him. It would be hard to talk to the girl with his son screaming bloody murder like this.
"No ale, thank you, Termagant," he said. "As much as I'd like to drink myself senseless today…" the words choked him and he didn't continue.
"Of course I understand," the girl said kindly. "I'm going to make herbal tea. You're welcome to have some. And call me Mag."
She sat her cheerful, chubby son down in a pen in the corner; the good humor quickly left his face and he started to howl. Between the two upset infants, the noise in the cottage was deafening. The boy was handed a piece of sweetbread to gnaw on and he shut up immediately.
"That's a good lad, Fishy," she said. "Now keep quiet while I talk to the chief."
"Is he weaned already?" asked Stoick. This could be a problem.
"No, no," said Mag. "He's taken to solids just fine, but he's always hungry so I let him nurse still. My mother always said to give them the breast as long as they'll take it; it makes them big and strong."
"Good," said Stoick. He looked down at his own ginger-haired offspring: he'd arrived several weeks before he was expected, weighing no more than a starving kitten and crying just as feebly. The elders had come up to the house two days after the birth, to inspect the wee lad—one of them had possessed the gall to bring up burial preferences, and at Valka's first desperate sob Stoick had dismissed them all with thinly veiled threats to their safety.
It had, perhaps, not been his most diplomatic moment so far as Chief of Berk. But what could you do?
Eventually they had gotten the baby to take to the breast ("His name is Hiccup," his wife had insisted to the elders, despite their warning not to name him so soon), but it had still been touch and go for a long while. He had spit up constantly and refused to gain weight, and in his fourth week of life he'd caught some kind of infection, Valka staying up night after night rocking him by the fire while he wheezed and struggled in her arms.
He'd survived, though, and for a few months everything had been going more or less all right, though poor Val had never been quite the same since his birth: anxious, her mood unpredictable, and she'd grown more and more obsessed with the impossible idea of making peace between Berk and the dragons that attacked it. And then the unthinkable had happened...
"Here's the tea," said Mag, holding out the steaming mug. Stoick switched the still-wailing Hiccup to his other arm and took it from her.
"Shush," said Stoick at his son, to absolutely no effect.
"Well, he's not a very happy lad, is he?" said the girl. "I bet he's hungry." She took the baby from his father's arm and sat down on another stool next to the hearth. Without so much as blinking, she opened her front, latched him onto her pale breast, and he started to suckle frantically. His tiny hand came up to clutch the fabric of her blouse.
Stoick blushed to his eyeballs but didn't say anything. He didn't want to risk upsetting her, and he was thankful that his son was getting nourishment. Instead he looked down and focused on the mug in his hands. With a wide finger he traced the delicate, foreign design painted onto the ceramic. The lass must have brought it with her when she was married.
He blew on his tea and took a sip. "How's Fishbane?" he asked, over the noise of infant smacking and grunting. From the sound of it, he thought, you'd assume his son had never been fed at all.
"He's well," said Mag. "He's out on the boat, of course. He's planned to be gone for three days; he told me the cod are plentiful for this time of year and he wants to increase our dried reserves. But I'm sure you knew that."
She pried Hiccup's hand loose from its death grip on her blouse and beamed at him.
"You're strong, for such a little mite. Take after your father, eh? Look at those pretty green eyes. You'll be quite the ladykiller when you grow up, won't you?"
Stoick took another sip of tea; it burned on the way down. "You bet your goats he will," he said, his voice rough and painful in his throat. How many times had he assured Valka that their son came from the finest, most hardy stock, as she'd endlessly rocked and cried and prayed?
The big blond girl pulled Hiccup off her breast. She held him upright and patted his back. He burped and she laid him back on her lap and stuck him onto the other breast.
"Chief, you haven't told me why you're here. I think I might be able to guess, though." She felt around the baby's backside and frowned. "You need a change, too, stinky lad."
"You should talk it over with your husband," Stoick offered. "I don't want to burden you. I'll repay you, make sure you have the finest ingredients off the trading ship when it comes—"
"It's fine, it's fine," said the girl, ill at ease for the first time during the visit. "You don't need to—your wife just—"
"Please," said Stoick. "It's the least I can do. I'll bring him by in the mornings, before my first meeting, and get him after supper. I'll make sure you'll have everything you need and then some. It won't be for long, just until he's big enough to wean."
"No hurry," said Mag. "I'll do it for as long as I think he needs it. Poor thing got off to a sad start; he could use a few extra months, probably. Don't worry. I've been making enough milk for two since Fishlegs was born."
"All right," Stoick said, relieved that things had been set up so smoothly. "When shall we begin?"
Mag Ingerman smiled at the Chief of Berk, and gave his son's soft red hair a gentle caress. "I think we've begun already."
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A/N: Hello, readers. Though it doesn't look like it from the prologue, this story will contain Mystery (for the characters, anyway), Romance, and Terrible Terrors as promised. I've been doing exploratory writing related to the basic story concept for the whole summer (shout out to Foxy'sGirl for a lovely long PM convo in which she assured me the idea didn't suck and we discussed various aspects of the Berkian ecosystem...other than that original exchange, I'm writing the story entirely on my own, and anything that is lame is my fault alone), and in exploring my options I decided to add quite a few more point-of-view characters, and at least one more death, than I'd originally envisioned.
I have the first major section of the story written, and will post regularly as long as I can produce new material at a quick enough rate. I'm a pretty slow writer and I edit the daylights out of everything before I post. BTW the character of Fishlegs' mother, while I got her name from the HTTYD wikia, is for all intents and purposes an OC and bears little resemblance to the character in the books. All the other standard disclaimers apply.
I'd love any feedback you can offer on this bad boy, because I'll need the encouragement to push through and tie things together at the end in a way that makes sense. XOXO Freya
UPDATE: It's been pointed out to me by one of my lovely and astute readers that Fishlegs is supposed to be a year younger than Hiccup in the canon. Looking at the character designs, though, I find that almost impossible to believe, even if Hiccup's growth spurt is delayed, and for the purposes of this story I decided they needed to be close to the same age, with Astrid a few months younger. I'm already going a little bit AU in giving Fishlegs' mom such a prominent role in Hiccup's life, so... anyway, in terms of the teens' personalities and relationships I'm going to stay as canon as I can while still getting the story to work. Cheers!