Edited.
It had been a long, long, long day.
The first day of an even longer week, really.
A week, at minimum.
They had a lot to do, after all. A whole new normal to get used to.
Turns out the quantity of wounded ones from the Red Death Battle, as people were calling it now, was a small number, though that did nothing to mitigate the confusion of the population of Vikings overflooding tiny, old island of Berk.
Healers were just one of those working full time now, as were constructors and politicians rising to settle the fuss and the questions. Other tribe's Chiefs told their own to go back home at dawn on the very next day, after a quick, deserved rest. Then their neighbors would go off and spread word of what happened, though Artichoke was very sure each had a different version for that day's event. Even if, at least, most would agree that their greatest, unexpected hero was now bedridden, in the care of an old healer. She was feverish. Missing a small piece, too. Unconscious.
Not all dragons stuck around. Not at first. Most left as soon as humans didn't need their help to motorize their boats. An odd number of dragons did stay, specifically, those who were once their prisoners, although these would remain as far as possible from the arena's dome, and who could blame them? At least nobody dared trying to lock them up again. Hiccup had promised them all freedom when she enchanted that group to help them and they fulfilled her wish, though they stood there.
Toothless had also earned a few battle scars, nothing too major, though the dragon did seem crestfallen for the first hours. And, on the first day, Artichoke was the only one to feed their fire-breathing visitors. On the second day, his group of friends unite on the task, seemingly growing even more fond of the reptiles.
The dragons slowly approached the villagers, though they weren't the most well-behaved to leave roaming wild around so many sheep and cattle, and those Vikings in charged with managing the livestock brought up complaints and objections. It seemed as if most villagers were willingly to stop fighting the dragons as long as they weren't raided upon anymore, but to feed them? Keep them? It brought quite a few heated up debates, to say the least.
Luckily and unexpectedly enough, Stoick had sided with dragons, as long as the teens were able to keep them from eating the farm animals. And so Artichoke and his friends, as long as other sympathizers gathered ideas to take care of that. A party was sent to search wild animals to hunt down. Turns out dragons were amazing at hunting their preys, who would've known? Besides, to avoid the sheep's terror and the shepherds' unsatisfaction, they've also decided to create some sort of a corral for their majestically big new friends. Something that didn't resembled a cage and that was larger than the ones they've been stuck in for the last season. Of course, this project would take a while, but seemed to be a found compromise between them.
On the first night after Red Death, Artichoke was exhausted and found himself sleeping amongst the beasts he once sworn to slaughter. He had been the only one to feed the dragons that day, and to nurse for Toothless small cuts and bleedings. It was better than the incessant blood spilling and guttural shouting from the healer's hut when he had happened them cut Hiccup's leg off. He did what was necessary then, following instructions… Then he walked out and vomited his own guts out, doing anything, anything to avoid the memory, too scared to even walk in again, though he'd ask Gothi and her helpers for any sign of recovery whenever possible.
The very least he could do was help Toothless heal her own injuries, though she didn't seem to be missing any more body parts, besides the wing-tail.
And so the young blond warrior had woken up with the blue Nadder's wing shielding him from the cold, although dragons had such warm scales, he was nearly sweating on the second day. A bed could be much better, and as he walked in his own hut, he saw Hiccup's notes scattered across their kitchen table, some near the couch, near the unlit fireplace, as if she was planning to burn them all… Hiccup would know what to do now, was a thought he had way too many times, though she wasn't there and even risked never being there again. Artichoke was no healer, no religious one, no sorcerer and might not be able to do much for his wife's recovery other than pray Freya and put faith in Gothi, he could focus on trying to fix the so many matters left on read.
And so he collected all her papers, all her piles of sketchbooks and notes. He remembered all those dragon tricks she had grabbled about after he found out about Toothless and wonder how much more she knew, specifically, how much of it she had wrote it down, not to count Toothless was still missing half her tail.
So on the third day, he got both Gobber and Fishlegs to help him make sense of all of Hiccup's terribly handwriting to see if any of that knowledge could be useful. His friend had been static with the news, euphoric really, and glad. That boy was a bookworm undoubtedly born to be a scholar, even if all Berkians were taught to be warriors before anything, Fishlegs belonged on a library, if one day they had one. Now Gobber took much more interest in Hiccup's notes and studies on physics and flying. Everyone knew she was an inventor; nobody just never took her seriously for it.
The older blacksmith took the papers related with aerodynamics material, the projects for Toothless' saddle, pedals, and prosthetic… The last one would be something Hiccup would need as well whenever she woke up. If she woke up.
The tension between human and dragon interaction was still palpable by day four, but before he could think on a way to diminish that problem, the blond teen found himself awestruck at seeing Snotlout and the twins, Tuffnut, in particular, guiding the tribe's children as well as their peers from this years' training to touch their dragons. Are these our dragons anyway? He wondered, seeing the same group stick around. Yes, in a way, they are… Artichoke saw his friends guide a child's tiny hand up to the Monstrous Nightmare's middle horn and the sight was too much similar to when Hiccup had guided her cousin's palm to the same spot, although the red dragon appeared to be much more at ease now, as if aware- no, given how smart they had been, definitely he was aware these were just children with both fear and wonder in their eyes.
At the end of that day, more dragons had come to hang out around the villagers, specifically the young ones, which did more to put them at ease about trusting these animals more than anything Artichoke or anyone could have thought about.
The female blue Nadder seemed to have grown found of him in particular. As if accepted him as her friend, her rider more than anyone else. Plus, given her amazing display of bravery and determination under that thunderstorm, when they flew to take Hiccup home, Artichoke had started to call the dragon as Stormfly, since she could clearly fly through a storm. It felt silly, at first, to talk to someone who wouldn't respond, but Stormfly found ways to be rather communicative, and gave no signs of unapproving the name he'd pick out for her.
"Stormfly is cool and all", Ruffnut shrugged when she first heard him talking to his dragon. "But Tuff and I opted for Barf and Belch for ours".
"Yea, cuz of the gas and the lightning thing", Tuffnut added, enthusiastic about his new dragon friend and one of its heads rubbed against his frame, like a cat asking to be petted.
"Ugh, they got that you idiot".
"What? What's wrong with saying it".
"Two names? But isn't this one dragon?", Fishlegs asked, inquisitive towards the Zippleback.
"Well, he does have two heads", Ruffnut explained.
"Yeah, he knows that, stupid", Tuffnut intervene for vengeance, initiating another row of bickering between him and his sister.
"Well, I named the Gronckle as Meatlug!" said Fishlegs, taking the rest of the group's attention from the twins.
"What? Seriously?" Snotlout had a lifted brow and a rather disgust expression painting his face, though Artichoke doubted he found himself much better. "Well, this bad boy's badass name is Hookfang, cause he's a badass dragon", he lowered a hand to pet the Monstruous Nightmare and got it immediately burnt or so it looked. Both Artichoke and Fishlegs laughed at it.
On their fifth night after Red Death, Artichoke and his friends had slept under the stars with their dragons, something they soon would not be able to, due the dragon corral, yes, but due the snow's soon approaching. The elder declared the gods would send a short winter as a gift for this year's event and a promising spring to represent their openness to change but didn't change the fact snow was soon to follow above them.
Once the others were asleep, he had found himself still awake, the same way Snotlout was still very much awake and he couldn't help but toss with discomfort against Stormfly's back, making sure his small axe was in hand. He hated being alert with a friend, but Snotlout hadn't been the most peaceful person lately.
"Chill out, I'm not gonna attack you here", he said, chin inclined towards the hand over the small axe. Artichoke noticed the presence of the word 'here' and didn't trust his words entirely. After a moment of awkward silence, the shorter boy put his hand on the bridge of his nose, saying, after a sigh. "Look, I was envious, ok? I really wanted to be chief".
"Sorry", though Artichoke saw no reason to be sorry for. "Wanted?".
"Yeah, we all saw how I behaved on a real battle", the raven-haired one shrugged "as amazing as I am, I'm not for leadership".
The hand loosened around the axe's handle as half a smile grew in the blond one's face.
"And I am?", he chuckled, remembering how Stoick was still to initiate whatever lessons he had about commanding a whole tribe. His work with the dragons had only been a small portion of all the village had been occupied with since their return. No wonder it'd be late, but still wasn't his greatest wish or whatever.
"She is", Snotlout said, simply and turned to sleep against his own, dragon friend. And Hookfang lifted his long tail to swirl protectively around his frame. A habit most dragons seem to show, apparently. Except for Stormfly, with the pointy tips around her tail, she'd just lean on her wing for affection. A uniqueness of her he enjoyed quite a lot.
They hadn't flown again since the battle day, and Artichoke was actually itching to go up in the winds when the Nadder and other dragons threw themselves in the air, so he decided to try it on the next morning.