(Hello and welcome back, this was a request, but what really inspired me was watching clips from the movie Frozen (great movie by the way) )
Request from Changeforgood- Hiccup thinking of how lucky his kids are to have a family, a mother, and a father. How it was different than when he was little and Stoick never paid attention and Valka was not there.
Prompt- Basically the request
NOTE- An Estimate on how old they are, give or take a year -Halden is 6 Jolene is 4 Cassandra is just a few months old
Past and Present
It was a cool winter afternoon and the Haddock family was all together sitting by the fire. Snoggletog was tomorrow and luckily, Hiccup and Astrid hid the presents well. Little Halden was trying to board Toothless, his younger sister Jolene was playing with her dolls, Astrid was humming a lullaby to baby Cassie and Hiccup just stood watching in the corner. Hiccup smiled at the picture, how when Toothless shook the child off his back, Halden was so determined to get right back on him, how dramatic Jolene was, flapping her arms around with her dolls, clearly getting invested in what she had the toys do, and how Astrid softly rocked their third child to sleep, Cassie's blue eyes closing to the sound of her mother's voice.
This was a sight to see, and yet the more he thought about it, Hiccup's smile faded into a frown as a memory stirred in his subconscious.
It was Snoggletog eve and a little 7 year old Hiccup looked outside his window, the snow was falling down as he waited for his fathers return. Soon enough Stoick did come home, tired and stressed from the preparations for Snoggletog, add to the dragon raids that had been appearing, the reptiles trying to get as much as they could from the villagers before winter became to harsh to take.
Opening the door to be greeted by the small face of his young son, "hey dad", his father gave him a small glance as response and sat down at the table.
"Hey dad ?"
"*sigh* yes Hiccup"
"Look what I made", Hiccup was going to show him a drawing of one of his inventions, he had worked on the idea for a week and it took him all day to draw it, the idea of it was that it could strike down a dragon in four different directions using four pulley systems, similar to a multi-task slingshot.
"Not right now Hiccup". The little boy looked down at the answer, but his eyes quickly fell to the window with falling snow outside, "hey dad ?"
"Yes Hiccup" he said in a more annoyed tone,
"do you wanna build a snowman ?"
"Not right now Hiccup"
"Please"
"No"
"Please" the child urged
"No !"
"It doesn't have to be a snowman"
"I SAID NO HICCUP", the outburst made the child whimper back in fear, seeing his son expression, Stoick sighed, rose from the chair and walked off towards his room, leaving little Hiccup alone.
The 7 year old walked to the fire-place and sat beside it, hoping the heat could give comfort, sometimes he would even try and pretend the heat radiating off the flame to him, was really his mother giving him a hug, he never met his mom, but sometimes he would try and imagine the sweep of her hair or the color of her eyes, but then he would open back his own eyes and know it wasn't real.
Little Hiccup took out his invention picture, "who do I think I'm fooling", and with that he crumbled it up and threw it into the flames, watching another little dream die.
"Daddy ?" "Daddy !" Hiccup woke up from the sad memories back to reality, little Jolene was pulling at her father's leg, "yes sweetie ?"
She waved her arms up to him, "up, up" she giggled, Hiccup obliged and picked her up and set her on his lap, "hey daddy ?"
"Yes ?"
The little girl looked up at the window, "do you wanna build a snowman ?"
Hiccup paused for a second then chuckled, "only if we can build a snow-dragon too".
Jolene's green eyes brightened as she quickly dashed for the door.
"Not so fast young lady" Astrid said, "wear your cloak".
"Ugh, do I have to" she wined making her father laugh, "if you want to go outside you do" Hiccup took her little cloak, placed it over her shoulders and clicked it in place, "there you go".
"Hey, wait for me" Halden said eagerly towards the rest of the family, giving Toothless a break.
They stayed outside until the stars came out, they played, Hiccup allowing his children to pummel him in snowballs, Astrid helped the two how to skate, and they even got to pry a large icicle off Toothless's tongue. They even had a contest on who made the best snow dragon, Astrid and Halden or Hiccup and Jolene.
At the end of the day, when tucking his daughter in, Hiccup smiled at her sleeping form, he grew up without a mother, and a man who frankly could hardly be considered a father, but Hiccup wanted more for them, he promised himself that night, whatever misfortune or sadness befalls him, he would always be there for his wife and children.
And that was a promise he was willing to keep.
(I might go into more detail about their snow-day in a separate one-shot, sorry if it seemed rushed or forced, I'm still getting the hang of this one-shot thing, requests are welcomed, read and review and this is Moonlight Snowflake signing off)
