Day 29 - Life Lessons
"Dad, I'm not sure about this," ten-year-old Hiccup apprehensively admitted to his father. The heavy rock that tired his arms with every second hung low by his knees as he struggled to maintain his grip on it.
"Don't question me, Hiccup," Stoick scolded him. "My father taught me this lesson when I was your age. It's time yeh learned." The burly viking stood over his son with a stern expression and folded arms. He'd been looking at him like that since Hiccup nearly burned down the forge trying to tinker with the furnace. Sometimes living with Stoick the Vast made his son immune to his frightening stature, but the way he grimly frowned beneath dark, unyielding brows intimidated him.
"What lesson?" the boy retorted under his breath, eyeing the jagged point of the rock's edge with trepidation. "How to give yourself a concussion?"
"For once in your life, would yeh just listen to me?" Stoick snarled exasperatedly. He gestured a meaty hand toward the stone. "Hit your head against the rock, Hiccup!"
Sobered by his father's booming command, the boy stared at the heavy rock for a moment longer before screwing his eyes shut and slamming his forehead into the middle. Pain splintered through his brain, making him drop the rock and fall backwards onto his butt. "Ahh!" he cried, lifting his fingers to his crown to tenderly feel the lump already forming there.
The heavy stone sat unscathed at the chief's feet.
"I don't get it," Stoick mumbled to himself. He tugged on his beard thoughtfully as he knelt to inspect it. "Worked when I was a boy. Split in two." He seemed more perplexed by the conundrum of the solid rock than the bruise blossoming across his son's forehead.
Hiccup half-glared up at his father, gently testing the lump with probing fingers. "Dad. You weren't by chance wearing your helmet when Pop told you to hit your head against the rock, were you?"
"Ah!" Stoick exclaimed with a slap across his knee, nodding and grinning. His expression quickly morphed into one of realization and guilt. "Oh."
"Uh-huh. Oh."