Hi, everyone! Thanks for waiting. School is finally out, so I should be able to post more often now. :) Hope you all had a great beginning of June!
This chapter is set pre-HTTYD and I think the next chapter (less angsty) will kind of go with it.
By the way, I completely re-did Chapter 2 (Thanks, logan! :) ) so if you would read the new version I would be most grateful.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Enjoy!
Chapter 7. Unlucky
"Oh, perfect. And while I'm busy, Hiccup can cover the store. Molten steel, razor-sharp blades, lots of time to himself - what could possibly go wrong?"
-HTTYD
Elphin was widely regarded by the clan as the most unlucky youth who ever lived. Nothing he set his hand to flourished, and nothing he ever attempted came to good. Stories about his astonishing bad luck were told from one end of Gwynedd to the other.
-Stephen R. Lawhead, Taliesin
Hiccup knew that Stoick was considerably reluctant to ever leave his son without supervision around hot/sharp/dangerous things. Kind of like Gobber. And the rest of Berk. It was rather humiliating. After all, the boy wasn't that clumsy.
With this thought Hiccup always came to a pause. Well, even if he was, it wasn't his fault! Do you think he tried to set Gobber's shop on fire that once? Certainly not; it was a complete and total accident. And the time he attempted to bring down a dragon- a Monstrous Nightmare, no less- and instead, it brought down the pier? He hadn't quite been bargaining it would be so fast.
It was just a mistake. Everybody made mistakes, but somehow Hiccup's always managed to be worse than everyone else's.
People largely avoided him- 1) because he was not known for being entirely normal and 2) because he tended to cause problems wherever he went.
Oh, it got better as he got older. He figured out when his mouth should stay shut and when to keep his hands off anything that didn't need to be messed with. At least, for the most part; he sort of blurted things out now and then which got him Hiccup, you're so weird glances, and occasionally he slipped up, everything got away from him and BAM he had a disaster to deal with.
Like when he left the storerooms' doors open during a dragon raid and most of the winter supplies got pilfered. Or when he made one of the ships blow up (how on earth had it actually happened? He still didn't have that figured out yet). Or when he was working on a project in the Great Hall and unintentionally sawed one of the tables in half. It could have happened to anyone, he tried to tell his dad every time, but Stoick cut him off. "No, Hiccup. It's always you."
He said he was sorry. He cleaned up after himself, unless his father, infuriated, sent him home and told him to stay in his room till he turned eighty. Hiccup promised over and over he would do better next time; but for Stoick (and most of the other islanders) that was an issue because there eternally was a next time. It was this awful endless cycle.
Whenever (Heaven forbid!) the Viking chief left his son alone for a bit, they had pretty much the same exchange: "Now, Hiccup, why don't you maybe sit and read and not do ANYTHING FOOLISH until I get back?"
"Dad," said Hiccup, who had been through all his books enough times to have them memorized cover-to-cover, "I can't read all my life."
"I know." That's what I'm afraid of. "Just today, okay? And tomorrow I promise we can go fishing together."
"Fishing?" The boy sighed. Better be careful with news like that, he though sarcastically. I might die of excitement. "Fine, all right."
Stoick relaxed, somewhat at least. "I would prefer to come back and find the house in decent shape. Not trashed. Not a pile of ashes."
"I've never burned down a house," Hiccup protested.
Not yet you haven't. "Just use your head a little, son." Please? "I'll be back by supper." He sometimes added, "Good luck."
Because the kid could use it.
Please review!
God bless!
