Chapter Two: Growing Up
Eight winters later, Hiccup was a little less excited for his own future now that he'd seen some of it.
The twig of a boy had grown upward, but not outward. He was now taller than all of his agemates, by at least one palm above each of them, but that didn't matter to anyone. He was smarter than all of his agemates - he could do maths, he could read and write better than almost anyone he'd met, but that didn't matter either. He had a trade - he could ply metal and work it into whatever shapes he liked, but that didn't matter.
A full winter from his last name-day, he'd been forcefully apprenticed to his Godfather, Gobber. The heavy man was Berk's only blacksmith, and he'd never taken on an apprentice. However, some time ago he'd lost a hand in a dragon raid, and had apparently slowed in his work. The smith had never agreed outright, but he'd allowed Hiccup to work alongside him in a temporary capacity.
At least Hiccup had been told it was temporary - a means to gain some muscle that he so sorely lacked. But a full season in he'd given up on ever being anything else. He'd taken to loving forge work - it gave his mind something to focus on. His father told him often he had the attention span of a small bird, and he was inclined to disagree. But, given the choice between something he had to do and something he wanted to, Hiccup always chose what he wanted to do. Even if that typically got him in trouble.
From people thinking he was just a bit small as a boy, he'd hit his teens, and now he was a nuisance. A scrawny runt of the litter. His name seemed to dictate who he'd become, and he often wished he'd been named something better. Gnomes and trolls be damned, being a 'hiccup' named Hiccup was an insurmountable shame for him. Even if it was tradition to name the scrawniest of any offspring, he felt like if he'd been named differently, he'd be a whole other person, and not the Heir who shared a name with some runty livestock. His other nicknames that he'd been so kindly granted by his cousin and his cronies followed a similar line; twig, bowlegs, clumsy-foot, and of course, useless.
Hiccup often hoped his once-friends would go back to how things were, but once they'd all hit their relative growth spurts and their parents began grooming them for the future and it became obvious he wasn't like them, he'd been dropped. He had been cast aside and then out. Where once he'd been invited to homes for winter gatherings, to play skipping stones at the rivers and by the docks, he was now alone. There were no stragglers, either. The younger children were told to avoid him and anyone older looked at him as if he were cursed.
It didn't help that, in his desperate attempts to gain back the little pride anyone had once had in him, he'd only damaged his reputation further.
Once being apprenticed and having learned the basics, his mind had simply exploded - every night he felt he had a hundred new ideas. At first he'd tried to make tools, to make life easier for those around him by virtue of his inventions. He'd succeeded mildly, too, twice. The one notable invention was a cart that allowed them to move captured dragons to the training ring - before this, they had simply wrangled a dragon, beaten it unconscious and dragged it the two-hundred odd ship lengths to the ring they held them in. Which was dangerous during a raid and a lot more work than anyone thought the beasts were worth. It was a cart that had special support bars over top to stop the dragons from flying away, and had special holds to let vikings tie wings and tails down.
This had been to very minor applause or thanks, as most everyone assumed Gobber had created it, and it was now simply integrated into village life and not thought of again. Just like everything else he'd created, fixed and bent back into shape.
So now, Hiccup sat in the small back room Gobber allotted to his permanent apprentice, and scrawled and scribbled on huge sheets of parchment that he bought from traders whenever he could. His latest design was something special, and something especially secret. He'd been slowly building parts whenever he could sneak them in between jobs.
Gobber had grown to watch over him when he worked. Not that he didn't trust him to be safe - Hiccup was actually very nimble and skilled over the forge fire - but he didn't trust him not to make more 'Gods-damned thrice-cursed contraptions' on his time. Of course, he still did it, just not when Gobber was paying attention.
The older man was very clever and still much more skilled with one hand than Hiccup was with two, but he was used to seeing conventional items crafted with metal. Nails and bolts, swords, blades and hilts, hinges. Hiccup wasn't making much that the blacksmith could understand.
Berk didn't really use bows, or crossbows. It wasn't ideal for killing dragons. It turns out, firing a sharp projectile upwards at something that was flying faster than the projectile only meant trouble for another Viking further away, or a house, or a sheep. There were a few who were talented enough, but they didn't use them in battle even so. It was seen as cowardly to fight the scaled beasts from far away, and the idea of being denied entrance to Valhalla for something so easy to avoid when everyone was trained with a sword from a young age was not even entertained.
But Hiccup had found a design from a trader from very far South of a pair of crossbow mechanisms with a tube in the centre for launching a thick metal spear into the water to kill enormous fish, or fired at great walls of stone to tear them down.. He'd purchased it for a handful of Nadder scales and a single silver coin that he'd bartered from Gobber for a full month of work making nails.
He needed to make two crossbow nuts for what he'd been designing the last few days. The idea simply wouldn't leave him, especially now.
It was a few days away from being Haustmánuður . Nearly winter - which meant the ice would come soon, which meant no dragon raids. The dragons seemed unable or unwilling to fly during the freezing cold months that covered the ocean in a sheet of white and promised storms that covered the ground in thick tides of snow. He'd overheard the adults a week ago at an early dagmal in the hall that dragon training would begin soon.
Every Viking teenager of his age group was to be put together into the stone ring at the far end of the village, hanging precariously off a cliffside, and made to fight dragons. To learn the way of the war that gripped Berk and had been fought for three hundred years. He knew he wouldn't be allowed to join, but he so deeply needed to. He had to join, and he had to convince his father that he was capable, and soon.
Hiccup couldn't lift many weapons, or even shields outside of the forge. In the forge he could rest them on something, or have Gobber's assistance hefting them about. He wasn't allowed to wield anything more lethal than the tiny dagger he had been given by the blacksmith two winters past. Of course, back then, he'd hurried into the forest to slash and cut at tree bark, only to manage to get himself horrifically lost and bruised.
The sour memory prompted a sigh as he looked back at the room he was in. It was a little cramped now; it was full of failed attempts and designs half finished. He didn't have the heart to scrap or melt any of it down as it told him he was improving and learning. Turning back and looking at his desk, the slanted wood held a sheet that showed his latest design. He'd nicknamed it the Ripper, because he'd designed it to rip a dragon from the sky.
He thought it sounded witty, at least.
A modified dual crossbow design would allow him to cart it somewhere, fire it and shoot a bola high up into the air and, God's willing, hit a flying firebreather and knock it to the earth. It was currently in pieces, as he'd yet to finish it and test it, but the last part he needed was going to be done soon. Or - he'd buy it soon. A few more days of making things for Gobber to sell, and he would be able to buy the rope he needed specifically. Berk's roper was busy, and was one of the few craftsmen in the village that desired coin instead of barter for his services. This worked for Hiccup however, as he knew the man wouldn't be able to ask him what it was for because he was paying - not that he would care any. The rope he needed would have to be strong enough to fire the Ripper's payload high enough to hit the dragon he desired.
Hiccup knew in his heart that this was his last chance. Once dragon training started, if he wasn't in that arena with his agemates, it was over for him. Nobody had ever outright stated it, or even hinted at it, but he was smart. He was the son of the chief, and if he couldn't defend himself let alone his village, he wasn't even a candidate. Disregarding that he knew how to delegate and lead from his father's lessons, that he could read and write and that he had strategic knowledge from historic scrolls his forefathers had left.
Vikings only saw and understood the strength of body, not mind. He knew this, and had desperately tried for months to have someone train him or teach him - but this was folly. Everyone thought it a 'waste of time' to train him up, seeing as his age mates had been using sharp blades since they were twelve winters or less.
He stared blankly at the paper for a few moments, flicking his charcoal pencil up the old worktable that he drew on. An easel of sorts for his scrawling works. It let him draw them in a bigger size so he could work out proper measurements and dimensions. Hiccup sighed a little and looked outside of the small crack in the cloth that acted as a door to his partition. He chewed on his lower lip for a moment before deciding to take a walk. It was still early and he wanted to get some fresh air before Gobber got up and work began. He'd had a light morning meal of berries and some old dry bread, so he took his journal and pencil before he headed to the forest. The path he took went around the large stone hall they all communally ate and gathered in and towards the backside of the island. There was no real reason for anyone to go there, and it had become Hiccup's solace outside of the village.
When he was eleven years old, he'd been in the forest near to Berk's docks and been followed by the others his age. It had been the first time of many that he'd been physically bullied. It hadn't been the worst he'd experienced - a visiting heir from another island had that particular title - but it had been enough to alter his perception of being around others in the village. He wasn't ever really safe. Safety held different meanings to different people. Some vikings in his village believed safety was a sword, others believed safety was a warm fire and a meal, peace and quiet, a shield.
Hiccup believed safety was in solitude. Being alone meant his father could not scowl down at him, that his agemates would not belittle him, and he could simply be. So, in that way, solitude meant the woods behind Berk. Raven Point and Raven's Perch, and his favourite, Loki's Den. They were all places he was intimately aware of and had explored and drawn many times over the years. They were safe places. Whenever the village was too much (which was more frequent than he would like), he could simply leave. The few times he'd been lost had earned him the ability to just disappear for a day or two, which he did whenever he wasn't needed around. Which accounted for two occasions; his father paying attention to him and his comings and goings, and his mentor needing his help at their place of work.
So, not even two occasions. And with how skilled he was at his craft, he was rarely needed for more than a couple of hours.
Hiccup went around the great hall, humming to himself and walking towards the barely visible trail he'd made through the grass, cutting out of the village proper. He checked over his shoulders twice, and jogged lightly the last few steps until he got into tree cover. He figured he'd waste the day before he was needed again. Stepping off into the forest, he headed towards Raven's Perch and thought further on how he'd perfect the Ripper...
This is the last introductory chapter. Everything after this is going to be more involved with Berk, possibly longer, it will depend on how I split them up.
Thank you for reading.