{This is only the first chapter, there will most definitely be more my friends. Even if you don't want it.}
Berk, it rains and hails here, three months of the year. And you know what, it snows the other nine. I can't really take credit for the Rain, thats not really my jurisdiction, but the snow. Oh yeah, that ones on me. I spend nine months a year creating a barrage of constant snow cover and one or two avalanches. Its all in the job description, I guess. The only part that uh...thats not so in the job description, is this kid. No one warned me about him before I picked up the staff ya know? Not that I ever chose that either. He's about, 5''6 I think, brown hair. Hazel eyes. The eyes are the best part too. He's not like everyone else around here, I mean everyone on this Island is huge, brawny, not this one kid though. Actually, he's probably not a kid so much, now I think about it. But he used to be. He's just kind of grown on me, in more ways than one. He's clumsy, man is the kid clumsy, he's got a spattering of freckles, cheek to cheek, over his nose. Like a miniature constellation on his face. I've kinda been watching him for a while now, not in a...a creepy way, its not like that. He's just...interesting.
Heres the kicker though, he can't see me. But hey, lets not put a damper on this, because it has some benefits. I can watch him all day, and he has no idea. I can rain perfect snow flakes down, just for him, and no one ever has to know but us. Heres the thing though, its not really enough anymore. To just talk at him nine months of the year, I have three months to get it together, and then I have to go back. I think thats why the storms are getting worse. Probably, or maybe I just like the town better when the houses are snowed in and covered in white, chimneys forcing smoke in billows as they throw another log in the fire place. Because he's curled up in front of the fire, and I'm looking in through a frosty window.
I'm there now actually, crazy as it might seem, fingers pressed against the glass, but he's not curled up in front of the fire tonight, he's sitting at the window cill. Staring out, staring through me at the night sky that he can actually see right now because I was lazy and didn't put enough energy into my blizzard to make it last. Seventeen years, thats a long time to know somebody, and I mean REALLY know them. And they have no idea you exist, or, they do...but they just don't believe. He's tucking a lock of brown hair behind his ear and I'm trying not to laugh because of how wrinkled his nose is, the furrow in his brow. He doesn't look happy, but I know that in a way he kinda is. He's just grumpy about something.
"Whats the deal Hiccup?" I ask no one, because no one can hear me, but for some reason I seem to think If I talk aloud it might evoke a response. He blows out a frustrated breath and his pale lips form a line. I wait, and I hope that Toothless is going to show up, because he tells that Dragon everything, and I guess me by extension since I am THE single largest eaves dropper in the world. He's not there yet though so I'll just wait, you'd think after all this time I'd be impatient, but not where he's involved, like I said. He's just...interesting. I switch my gaze to his hands, he's drawing again, I narrow my eyes. Because the longer I stand there the thicker the fog on the window builds. I raise my elbow and wipe a circle on the cold glass pain. Only for a sheen of frost to extend from the center, cracking out and seizing the window pain in its wintery grasp. I sigh, letting my hand fall back to my side. But I have a whole other pain and so I just sort of list lazily to the left and peer through it, raising a finger to draw in the condensation thats built on it by my proximity.
I drew a circle, at first thats all it it, its just a circle. Then is a circle with dots peppered across its center, its more angular at the bottom, but still round around the sides. It has two rounded sideward diamonds toward the top, with a cascade of persistent lines falling around them. Locks that I imagine are brown. A rounded flick in the center, below it two thin lips. One corner turned up to the sky and the other straightened. Two hunched shoulders and the curvature of a line to connect them to the circle. I pause, and take a moment to admire my handy work, what can I say? I should sell my stuff, really. Nodding my approval I turn my attention back to Hiccup, Hazel and blue clashed a moment as both of us stare through my drawing. My sketch. Although...now that I look at it, its not really...a sketch. Its more of a portrait. Of a semi-petit Viking. I hadn't really...meant to do that. But now he was staring at me, through me, at himself. I don't think I've ever done something that awkward...nope, never like that. I've never drawn someone on their own window right in front of them.
Hence the expression on Hiccups face thats a mix between shock and horror on his perfectly sort of sculpted face as he drew back in his chair, or, falls back. Because I just remember the shift in his expression that went between being utterly surprised and then a mingled sense of impending doom as his arms flail desperately and the wood give out. Tumbling him onto the floor in a mess of limbs and cries of not-so-curse words. I laugh, harder then really I should have considering he could really have hurt himself, but everything he did just seemed to amuse me. He shoots up again anyway, steadying on his...metal leg thingy, the uh, the prosthetic. He's back at the window in a second, staring at my work of art which-why be modest- was a near spitting image.
And I can't really tell whether I want to hit myself hard in the face with something big -probably my staff- for screwing that up so badly, or pat myself on the back. Because It got his attention alright. In fact he's still scrutinizing every inch of it, blowing on the glass trying to get the it to disappear. And it doesn't, and it wont. Because well...I made it. This is the clarifying moment, too, the moment when he's looking, and I'm looking and then he's looking out into the night. And screams, well, yells its kind of a mix between a scream and a yell...he'll probably deny it later.
"What?! WHAT?!" I blow out a breath and look over my shoulder, is there some huge dragon hanging around behind me waiting to develop the sweet morsel of a boy on the other side of the glass? But theres nothing, I'm sort of the only thing hanging in his Perifs so I'm miffed, what's the deal? I turn back with an eyebrow raised at my unseeing companion. And he's staring at me, I don't just mean past down and out to the stars that probably reside somewhere near my midriff.
"Don't move, I've got a chair, a-and I'm not afraid to use it!" He cries, all of a sudden, his hands snatching at the legs of the now wooden implement as though he's going to swing it at me. Its really just a glorified stool now I get a better look at it.
"Really? Hiccup a chair isn't-" Okay so I know its late to be having epiphanies, but It kinda never occurred to me until now I'm the only thing on the other side of the glass. I froze -figuratively- and just sort of stare, my eyes boring into his. He flinches and drops the stool, taking a step back. I probably didn't think through my next moves so much, because my fingers found the window and persuaded it away from the frame with a splinter noise that meant I've broken the ice around the rims. Climbing inside he immediately reached to pick up the stool but something stops him.
"How do you know my name?" His voice cuts through the air like a knife, its wavering and young, and its surprised. This is the first time its ever been directed at me. I would have broken into embracing interpretive dance to explain my emotions but that could come across as weird. Not something you do on a first meeting.
I suddenly want to get all freaky on this kid, reach out and touch his face or something, but I'm not going to, because that would be all kinds of weird and I'd probably scare the living day lights out of him. But I just want to know that he's real, you know? That I'm not just dreaming and that his eyes are on mine, he's not just staring into space, he's not just talking to himself. I'm not imagining things. Who knows, I've been talking to myself for long enough.
"I..." Oops, that was stupid, I realized that I intimately knew him, like in and out. What he likes, what he doesn't. That face he makes when he's confused and the way he pokes his tongue out when he draws. His favorite colour is green, he hates his prosthetic leg but he's getting used to it. He sprawls when he sleeps and he hates when he over sleeps. His best friend is Toothless and he's had a giant crush on this blonde girl, Astrid I think, since he was a kid. Only recently has she shown any interest. He was ecstatic. On the other hand, the hand I really don't' like to play, he didn't know a thing about me, not one thing. Well other then the fact I was drawing pictures of him on his own window, which I had now climbed inside of, and that I was invisible for an immeasurable duration of time while on the other side. And I realize that someone I've known their entire life, knows nothing about me. Its kind of a bitter sweet moment, because while he's been a fascination for me, I've been a figment of fiction for him. "How could I not? Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third." I manage. And then I just sort of touch his nose, I didn't plan too. But I need to know he's real.