CHAPTER 2: DIAGNOSES
Stoick the Vast, Hiccup's father, Chief of the Hairy Hooligans tribe and the Isle of Berk, and Gobber were waiting in anxious anticipation as Gothi carefully examined Hiccup's head paying particular attention to his ears. She used a special highly polished funnel like tube with a piece of specially shaped glass in the end to look in Hiccup's ears. Ironically it was a little invention Hiccup had created for the healer after she had expressed a wish for some kind of tool to help look into the ears of her patients. By turning Hiccup's head to the window the highly polished metal reflected the light into the ear canal allowing a more illuminated view of the ear canal and ear drum. The glass or lens magnified the view for her.
Stoick became extremely concerned by the expression on Gothi's face. A face usually unreadable when she examined her patients.
After putting down her otoscope, Gothi had Hiccup stand. She looked at him and held up two fingers of her left hand. With her right hand she touched near her right eye then pointed to Hiccup and then her left hand fingers. Hiccup understood that Gothi wanted him to look at her fingers. She began to move her left hand back and forth in front of Hiccup's face, and he started to track her fingers, but moving his head at the same time. Gothi quickly grabbed the sides of his head, squeezed and gently shook it. She firmly shook her index finger at Hiccup and again pointed to her eyes. Again Hiccup's clever mind understood to follow her fingers only with his eyes and to keep his head still. This interesting form of communication started to give him some peculiar ideas.
Hiccup's eyes jittered slightly as he tracked Gothi's fingers. This again disturbed her. His eyes should have been smoother in following her fingers. Gothi stepped back and indicated to Hiccup to stand.
As the eldest of the tribe Gothi was a petite woman, but at fifteen winters of age Hiccup did not stand much taller than her. He was maybe a head higher than Gothi at this stage of his growth.
Gothi stood as erect as she could, leaning against her table for support, and held out her hands wide at shoulder height. Then bending her arms at the elbow she began to touch her nose with her index fingers, alternating her arms a couple of times. She then shrugged her arms and hands at Hiccup to do the same.
"Gothi! What is with all this hullabaloo? We'rre not here to learn a chicken dance!" Stoick declared both anxiously and impatiently. Gobber flinched as Gothi's staff swung around faster than could be believed of a frail looking little old lady, and knocked off the Chief's helmet. Then she wrote on her dirt floor with that same staff.
Gobber read aloud for Stoick, "I dinnae tell ye how to run this village, then dinnae tell me how to diagnose my pythons?" WHACK! Gobber took a staff strike in the noggin himself for that blunder. Good thing he had a hard head. "Patients!" He quickly corrected, "Patients."
Stoick sighed and impatiently sat back down indicating for Gothi to continue.
So Gothi looked at Hiccup and once again pointed to him to copy her little exercise. Smiling a little from all the shenanigans, Hiccup didn't have any difficulty in mimicking Gothi's nose touchings. Gothi then pointed to her eyes and repeated the exercise with her eyes closed. So Hiccup did the same, but this time he had much greater difficulty. He swayed back and forth like a drunkard, and couldn't touch his nose once. What on Earth?... Hiccup thought to himself.
Eyes furrowed in concern and braving another reprimand, Stoick inquired, "Gothi, what's wrong with him?"
Morosely, Gothi began to write in the dirt again. "Hiccup's eardrums are badly torn up, and from what I could see of the inner ears, much injury."
Unfortunately at such close proximity, the harmonics of the Night Fury screech, ruptured Hiccup's ear drums and obliterated all the microscopic hairs of his inner ears.
She waved her arm to Hiccup in a come here gesture so he could read her message as well and then added to it. "This is why you have balance problems when your eyes are closed. There is something with the ears that helps us to balance. I believe you will recover your sense of balance once your eardrums heal in a few months." Gothi cleared up an unanswered question before anyone could ask. Telling them the body didn't only rely on the ears for balance but the eyes as well. "So during this time it will be safer for you to stay home during the dark hours." The hardest news to give brought tears to her eyes and it was probably a good thing she was mute or she'd be stuttering and sniffling in the process. "I sorely regret to say you will never be able to hear again"
Because his loss of hearing had been so profound and complete, Hiccup thought he had been prepared to receive this news. Nevertheless he was stunned. Water pooled in his eyes and in a vain attempt to mask his weakness in front of his father, he squeezed his eyes shut. Forgetting the lesson from Gothi's testing, Hiccup became very dizzy and was about to fall over when his bear of a father caught him, and held him in a caring embrace. Feeling the warmth of the arms around him, Hiccup as quietly as he could released the deluge of tears breaking the dam of his eyelids. Even a few sobs escaped him. Stoick was crying as well for his son. Hiccup looked up in shock when he felt drops not his own falling on his face as his head was turned to the side on his father's chest. Hiccup in turn squeezed his father's sides to try and return comfort. Gobber had become a blubbering mess after witnessing all this, scooped up Gothi and turned the whole scene into a group hug.
Sign of the Chapter - Worry: Both hands assume the "B" shape with flattened fingers closed, thumbs tucked in. With both hands about 45 ° to each other tent like, wave them twice alternatingly in front of your face.
