Unformatted text is Norse, or narration.

Italicized text is Irish.

Underlined text is Dragonese.

Bold text is used for emphasis (and author's notes).

When Stoick told him to leave the announcement to him (his father had announced his engagement to Valka, after all), Hiccup was initially relieved. He then found himself wishing they had just kept the engagement secret, and had a secret wedding, and moved in secretly, and had secret kids, because he was pretty damn sure he didn't want Meade Hall to look like Ragnarok had begun. Insults were being thrown at him from all directions, and he plastered a completely fake smile on his face as he sarcastically thanked them for their kind words. Try as he might in his attempts to calm the crowd down, Stoick's words didn't seem to be able to overpower the screams from their disgusted tribe members. It wasn't until Toothless burst in through the doors of the great hall and let out an ear-piercing screech that the noise lessened. The night fury leapt to Hiccup's side, curling around him protectively and growling at the Hooligans. There was an unnatural silence, only broken by the fire crackling much too happily in the tense atmosphere.

"You mean to tell me my nephew's a dirty rassragr?" Spitelout's voice broke the quiet.

"Well, I like to think I'm pretty clean actually, I took a bath two days ago." Hiccup shot back, earning a few chuckles.

From across the room, he made eye contact with Snotlout, who seemed oddly panicked. The humor from his comment was short lived, however, and suddenly the insults being thrown around before resumed in full force. Hiccup tapped his foot on the ground, looking down at the floor beneath his feet. He found himself unable to discern any specific words from the cacophony of shouting all around, and it seemed as if everything were blending together. It was still loud, but somehow he felt distant from it. That didn't stop him from noticing the sounds fading away to nothing, and he looked up in surprise to see his cousin of all people shoving his way through the crowd.

"Snotlout? What are you doing? Get over here!"

Snotlout stopped next to Hiccup, turning around and facing the crowd with a challenging look as he ignored his father. He said nothing, because he didn't need to. His fists clenched at his side, and Hiccup thought he saw him shaking slightly. Someone's shoulder bumping against his tore his eyes away from his cousin, and he turned to see Astrid, who shared a fierce look of determination with Snotlout. In fact, all of his friends, his family, stood beside him, albeit not physically (though they did push their way to the front of the crowd). Astrid proudly claimed that she had been with Heather for the better part of two years. Gobber reminded everyone of his own preferences, which were no secret around the village, but everyone tended to pretend he was 'normal' like the rest of them. Valka didn't mention her old girlfriend she'd briefly told Hiccup about, but she did say she and her husband would support their son no matter what. After Snotlout's move to stand beside Hiccup, it seemed the tribe had been split in two as to what to feel about the news of Hiccup's engagement.

The yells resumed in a much more argumentative manner, and Hiccup felt a headache growing. Looking around the great hall, he saw that the stubbornness of his tribe was getting the better of everyone, and clearly not a single person was going to listen to reason. Not seeing the point in staying, Hiccup mounted Toothless and flew over everyone's heads, out of hall. Several people shouted at him as he left, but he paid them no heed. He did, however, have to swerve to avoid hitting someone else as soon as him and Toothless made it out of the doors. Toothless shouted in alarm, and both pairs of dragon and rider tumbled to the ground, onto the grass. Hiccup glanced up to see a familiar head of red hair, though it looked a bit messy from Aran neglecting to tie it up before the flight.

"Aran! Shit, are you- are you okay?" Aran blinked, putting a hand on their lower back and looking at him as Méaróg greeted Toothless with a tackle. Toothless wasn't in the mood.

"Uhh, yeah, I'm fine. Really spooked us though. Nearly gave them a heart attack." They gestured to their pink dragon, who was trying to get Toothless's attention. Toothless was fixated on the door to the great hall, however. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, you just have really, really bad timing." Hiccup also looked to the door. It was swung wide open, and the light poured out from the large doors. People were walking out with torches in one hand, weapons in the other. It would have seemed a bit extreme for the situation if it weren't the norm. "Now I'm starting to think running away might have been a bad idea…" He mumbled, mostly to himself. It certainly wouldn't help his newfound reputation as a coward. Could it even be called newfound? That was what they thought of him before the battle with the Red Death, though he supposed that was for completely different reasons.

"Again, what's-" They let out a squeak as he pulled them closer for a rushed kiss before pulling them onto Toothless with him. "Hiccup, what are you doing."

"Nothing," Toothless took to the sky. "Just-"

"He's flying away!" Someone shouted from below.

"What's it to you? The boy's allowed to leave, if he wants! You can't take his freedom away!"

"Well, he sure is throwing away his dignity!" Came a third voice.

"Nobody like that should be chief! We'll be the laughingstock of the archipelago!"

"Hiccup…?" Aran was thoroughly confused, and though they strained to hear the 'conversation' happening below them, Toothless had already flown too high up, Méaróg in close pursuit as their sibling had essentially been kidnapped. But by a friend? It was weird.

"So, I may or may not have told my dad about us being engaged, and that I was ready to maybe be chief, and he immediately wanted to have my chiefing ceremony. For some reason I thought it'd be a good idea to have my dad announce our engagement before the chief thing, so now everyone is at each other's throats and you came along right when I decided to leave." He explained.

"... Wow." They looked down, squinting through the clouds to see that people were returning to their houses. "Well, it's not the worst result."

"Oh, really?" Hiccup wasn't completely sure how it could be worse.

"Yeah. You should have seen my village when I made out with the abbot's son. Keep in mind, this is when we were about twelve, and my village wasn't quite what it is today." The conversation was a distraction he was thankful for as he flew towards Aran's house.

"The abbot is a religious leader, right?" Aran nodded, twisting around to peck their fiancé on the lips. They understood why, in the rush of the moment, they'd wound up in front of him instead of behind, but it made their wish to show affection much more difficult. "Wow."

"Ah, I must have a thing for the sons of authority figures." They laughed, but it was cut short when they were suddenly be carried by Hiccup as he dismounted Toothless. "Sorry, I probably shouldn't talk about past relationships with my, uhh…"

"With your fiancé? Yeah, most people would probably tell you not to." Aran mumbled an apology into the general direction of his neck.

"... You know I can walk, right?" They asked as Hiccup went through the effort of entering their house while using both arms to carry them. He didn't bother attempting to light a candle, but Méaróg seemed to take it upon themself to light the fire pit.

"Did you ever listen to me when I said the same thing to you?" Aran huffed, and he deposited them on their bed before sitting on the other side and bending down to remove his foot and boot, using the light from the living room to see.

"Umm…" Hiccup lied down on his side, not seeming to care that the door wasn't fully closed or opened, but Aran knew that actually kind of bothered him so they got up and closed the door before removing their own shoes and lying next to him. "Are you okay?"

"Peachy." He responded, clearly not peachy. Hiccup pulled them into his chest, breathing deeply into their hair, as if trying to inhale their scent. Not that they smelled like anything other than salt (the ocean, more specifically).

"Are we just going to…?"

"Today was fine, but it ended terribly and I'm tired. Can we just… sleep?" Aran gave him a (hopefully) comforting squeeze.

"Yeah… I'm sure everyone will come around. And if they don't, well, sucks for them, they're gonna miss out on our awesome wedding feast." If there was one thing Aran was looking forward to in terms of strange viking wedding traditions, it was the celebratory feast that followed. Hiccup laughed, but it was tired and sort of forced. "Sorry, I'm probably not helping."

"No, no, you're probably right. The village was kind of divided in half about it." That was probably because of Gobber's already known existence, and he would have to thank his pseudo uncle for that sometime. "With time, some of them can probably be… persuaded to be more accepting, but I guess I'll still just… be the chief's… son for a while, and not… the chief." His voice paused more as he spoke, and Aran remembered him claiming to be tired.

"Goodnight, Hiccup." They said, slight amusement lacing their voice. The two of them could talk about things in the morning.

And talk about things in the morning they did. After properly filling Aran in on everything that had happened in the time they'd been gone, they shared a moment of quiet thought. Both of them agreed it would probably be best to go about business as usual, as a way to show that literally nothing was different about them. Hiccup was still the dragon loving nerd he had been for the past five years, and Aran was still the social crowd pleaser they had always been. The only real difference in their behaviour was that Aran made no effort to hold back their affections due to the entire town knowing about their engagement. Hiccup still wasn't the most comfortable returning such affections in public, but he didn't push them away, and it was weirdly satisfying to have Aran lean up to give him a quick peck on the cheek before they spoke to him. Their friends were now free to openly tease the couple, and Astrid made it a personal goal of hers to keep Hiccup in a state of eternal embarrassment.

Several of the tribe members who had previously been against their relationship swayed upon seeing them act, well, completely normal. For them, that was enough. By the time Aran's twenty-second birthday came around, it seemed only a quarter of the village was still against their engagement. About half of them were eager to see the chief's son married, and the other quarter were more or less indifferent. Preparations for the ceremony were underway, and the location had taken only moments to decide upon. Obviously, it had to be outside (how else would the entire village be present?), and Hiccup and Aran simultaneously stated they should hold it in the cove Hiccup had first met Toothless. Gobber, as promised, had searched out Berk's finest goat as a sacrifice for Thórr. With the help of Mulch and Bucket, he also found a sow for Freyja, as well as a boar for Freyr. Aran wasn't completely sure which animal's blood they would be sprinkled with, but they were pretty sure all three of them would be used for the following feast.

The date of the wedding had been decided to be sometime in late fall, when food would be plentiful and mead in ready supply. They needed to have enough of the honey based alcohol to share for a full moon cycle, after all. It was after everything needed for the wedding was accounted for that Aran made their own proposal to Hiccup, one that was ridiculously romantic in comparison to Hiccup's, though that wasn't really saying much if we're being honest here. It had involved a scavenger hunt, various locations and objects that held significance to both of them, and more riddles than he'd been expecting that day. In the end, he managed to be lead back to where he'd started- the cove he'd met Toothless in. Aran was there, looking nervous as they fiddled with something in their pocket. Hiccup walked over, eyebrow raised.

"Alright, what's this all about?" Aran laughed nervously, cheeks flushing red as they reached out to grasp both of his hands.

"This might be a stupid thing to do, all things considered, but…" Normally one to maintain eye contact whenever possible, they suddenly found themself focused on Hiccup's hands, rubbing their thumbs over them in meaningless patterns. "You robbed me of my opportunity, so I'm pretending that didn't happen."

"Aran, what are you talking about?" Hiccup raised a brow, not sure what they were trying to say at all.

"I'm proposing to you, you idiot." Aran snapped out, then immediately regretted it and groaned, leaning forward to bump their head against his chest. "Fuck, I did the scavenger hunt and everything and had this sappy speech all ready for you but you just looked at me with your pretty green eyes and everything flew out the window." Hiccup blinked, sure that a blush was forming on his own face.

"Oh. Pretend I didn't- didn't say anything." He gave Aran a moment to collect themself. Seeing as they were already engaged, he didn't see the point of proposing, but he could tell it meant a lot to Aran and he wasn't about to deprive them of this.

"..." Aran took a deep breath before raising their head to look up at him. Hiccup was startled by the eye contact, and he had to hold back a laugh when Aran immediately lost the nerve to look him in the eye, shifting their gaze to the scar on his chin. "Hiccup Horren- actually scratch that, I'm not going to say your full name because you kind of hate it." They mentally berated themself, wondering why they hadn't thought of that before.

"That's-" He paused. "That's true." Aran smiled, getting some of their confidence back.

"Hiccup Haddock, when I first came to this crazy island full of vikings and dragons, I literally had no idea what the fuck was going on. You were like this scrawny blessing in disguise who I wanted to cherish and protect from the world because damn, it wasn't treating you with all the love you deserve." Aran squeezed his hands when he tried to say he really didn't deserve a significant amount of love. "I was fully expecting to go back home as soon as I'd recovered from my burn, but I knew immediately that I didn't want to leave you all alone. At the time, all I wanted for you was to be more confident in yourself, and I pushed all of my own issues to the side. I sure as hell didn't expect you to go through the most massive growth spurt I've ever seen and suddenly become the most attractive person I knew." Both of them laughed a little at that. "Needless to say, a lot of the issues I helped you with had all but been resolved, and I finally let myself lean on you for support instead of trying to be this ridiculous pillar of strength. God knows I actually kind of really needed it. All of those adventures out on Dragon's Edge were so terrifying, because I thought I would lose you to some stupid dragon hunter." They shook their head. "I don't know what I'd do without you now." Brown eyes finally tore themselves from their joined hands to watch Hiccup's face. He was wide-eyed, quietly taking in everything they were saying. "That's why I pushed you out of the way of Toothless's blast without even caring about what happened to me. I would have been fine with dying, knowing that at least you were okay…" Aran trailed off for a moment before shaking their head. "But we've had so many late-night conversations after having maybe a little too much to drink and talked for hours about starting a family together, and I'm so glad we survived to see the day we can actually chase that dream. You have huge responsibilities, being the new chief, and I want to support you every step of the way, just as I've always tried to do ever since I became a part of your life." They lowered themself to kneel in front of him, still holding onto his left hand as they pulled a small box from their pocket. "I know there's no point in asking, because we're already kind of engaged, but… Hiccup, will you marry me?" They opened the box to reveal a golden ring depicting two hands holding a brown gemstone heart with a crown atop it. It was beautifully simple.

"Aran…" Hiccup had no idea how to reply to such a speech and found himself biting his lower lip. "Gods, no wonder you thought my proposal was the- the worst." He laughed sheepishly, continuing before Aran could say anything. "Yes. I mean, what other answer can I really give? We're kind of already engaged." Aran laughed.

"I still can believe how badly I managed to mess this up." They took the ring out of its small container before putting that back in his pocket, sliding the ring onto Hiccup's left hand, crown facing towards his wrist. "I had everything planned out, too."

"I thought it was nice." Hiccup said sincerely, catching them as they stumbled trying to stand up properly.

"Th-thanks…" They blushed, smiling as they looked at the gemstone in the ring. Hiccup thought it looked strangely warm. "It's a claddagh." They stated, answering a question Hiccup hadn't even thought of yet.

"And I've never heard of that." Aran huffed, taking Hiccup's left hand in theirs and brushing their right hand against his ring.

"It's an Irish thing. The heart, hands, and crown represent love, friendship, and loyalty." They pointed to the different components of the ring.

"Oh! I like that a lot." He smiled. Something occurred to him as he looked into their eyes. "You chose brown." Aran blushed, averting their gaze.

"My mum thought it'd be nice for the gem to remind you of me somehow, and I couldn't think of anything else. Sorry it's kind of lame, I know my eyes aren't that interesting." Hiccup took his hand from theirs and tilted their face up to kiss them.

"I think they're beautiful."

Aran's words got lost somewhere in their throat, and they instead pulled Hiccup into a hug. The two of them swayed slightly, not bothering to move from the cove or the embrace for a long while. Nothing much was said between them, because nothing more really needed to be said. It had grown dark by the time they left the cove, and they made idle conversation about how they planned on expanding Aran's house when they moved in together and had kids. Upon entering town, they said quick goodbyes, parting ways after hugging. Hiccup had moved most of his belongings into Aran's house, excluding his old bed, but his parents had decided he probably shouldn't officially move in until after the wedding. It was just another thing he had to look forward to, he supposed as he drifted to sleep. It was strange to think he'd once been dreading the very idea of marriage, but now the wedding couldn't come soon enough. Things had definitely changed in recent years, and he would say they were for the better.

Word Count: 3,346

This chapter is sooo short wtf... I couldn't really think of much else to write tho? So oh well

I know claddagh rings and shit didn't exist back then but... i don't care. They are a real thing tho so if you want to look up a picture of one, you can totally find one haha. Probably not one of the specific ring I described bc that is of my own invention, but if you use your imagination I'm sure you can picture it uwu

There are only two chapters left... wow... Really tho, please stick around for my final A/N on chapter 40! It will be important

And as always, I hope you enjoyed reading, and I'll see you next time!