"If I used them on you, you wouldn't forget how deadly they were!" Stoick yelled. And then he stormed off, muttering angrily. Bewildered and uncertain, Hiccup watched his father retreat, pace quickened by irritation, until he had nearly vanished from view. Figuring it was safe, Hiccup ducked out from behind the catapult.
"Hiccup!" The shout startled Hiccup, who whirled around to find Sven approaching. But this yelling was altogether different from Stoick's. While the chief's tone had been clipped and harsh, there was no denying the palpable relief that was coming off of Sven in waves. Indeed, Sven was approaching Hiccup with a hand reached out, wordlessly asking for Hiccup's help with his temperamental father. "Thank Thor you're here!" Sven continued animatedly. "You've got to help us! Your father has become unbearable!"
"Well, to be fair, Sven, you did have the weapons out of order," Hiccup interjected reasonably.
"That's because yesterday he told me to arrange them by length!" Sven defended immediately. "The day before, it was by pointiness! And the day before that, it was by name!" With every word, Sven was becoming more and more agitated, and it was painfully obvious to Hiccup that his father's temper had put all of Berk on edge. "Did you know he gave each weapon its own nickname?"
"Well, I have to admit, that is really weird." Hiccup conceded, feeling a sudden stab of pity for the Berkians stuck with a volatile and headstrong chief. "Uh, all right, I'll go talk to him," Hiccup placated, starting towards the direction his father had gone. Toothless bounded several paces ahead of him as Sven's exasperated muttering tapered off into silence.
"Oh, wait!" Sven called. Hiccup stopped, and turned to find Sven approaching him yet again, arm stretched out in an attempt to stay the younger viking. Hiccup stood obediently still, waiting patiently as Sven caught up to him.
"Has he done something else?" Hiccup asked, unable to keep the note of weariness out of his voice. Surely his father had done many irritating things; even Gobber had sailed all the way to Dragon's Edge to escape him.
"Ah, no," Sven said kindly, although it was an obvious lie. "I just wanted to say thank you," the older viking told him, smiling. "We really appreciate you coming all the way here to help out." His words were drenched in deep, honest gratitude, and Hiccup blinked back at him, surprised. Sven accompanied his words with an affectionate gesture, reaching out and placing a warm hand atop Hiccup's shoulder. And in that precise moment, the memory hit him like a slap in the face.
Darkness, and fire. The roars and rumbles of antagonistic dragons, competing against the shouted orders and battle cries of the vikings. Smoke in the air. Blood on the ground. Metal and scales and leather and teeth in every direction. And death.
Narrowly dodging a stray blast of dragon fire, Hiccup continued scampering through the lethal obstacle course the village had become. His thin frame, even smaller back then, allowed him to duck out of harm's way with surprising success.
"Hey!" a passing viking shouted at him, the order "get inside!" left unsaid. Hiccup ignored this; the entire village was out here fighting for their home, and didn't he have the right to do the same? A loud crack reached Hiccup's ears, and he looked up for the source of the noise, startled. The nearest watch tower was tilting precariously, leaning ominously in Hiccup's precise direction. The young boy backtracked quickly - too quickly. He fumbled over his own two feet, dropping towards the ground right in the path of the now-collapsing tower. He had only a moment to feel truly frightened, and then he was in the air. Someone had gripped his shirt from behind and lifted him easily out of the way at the last second.
The watch tower slammed into the hard earth, the resulting rumble sounding as menacing as the fiercest dragon. A cloud of dirt and dust erupted around it, thickening the air. Hiccup's unknown savior pulled him further back, into cleaner air, and then shoved him under the cover of a nearby building, a strong, restraining hand on his shoulder. Blinking away the dust, the viking boy looked up to see Silent Sven's stern expression, features hardened in annoyance and exasperation.
The very same hand rested on Hiccup's shoulder now - the same weight, the same pressure. But there was no animosity in Sven's face now, no hint of anger or displeasure at all. His light eyes were not silently scolding, but were glinting with appreciation. The smile that adorned his features was slowly beginning to slip off though, replaced with growing curiosity and concern.
Hiccup could still see the disapproving face glowering down at him. Another viking, who had seen the whole thing, appeared beside Sven, with an equally unpleasant scowl.
"Hiccup!" the viking berated, teeth clenched in frustration.
"Hiccup!" Sven called softly, trying to regain the dragon rider's attention.
"Are you all right?" the nameless viking snapped. There was no kindness at all in his voice; this was pure business. He was only asking because Hiccup happened to be the chief's son, and any disregard of his wellbeing was sure to draw Stoick's ire.
"Are you all right?" Sven asked, surprisingly gently. This was genuine concern. Some part of Hiccup's bombarded mind recognized that Sven was becoming increasingly worried, and was waiting for an answer. But the normally sharp-witted viking could hardly string two words together under the staggering weight of his unanticipated epiphany. Hiccup had always known, logically speaking, that his relationship with the people of Berk was different now - that it had been different, from the moment the dragon riders flew into battle with a rogue plan to take down the Red Death. But until this very moment, he hadn't noticed the extent to which things had changed.
The villagers no longer looked down on him, nor did they exude annoyance and exasperation. Hiccup was no longer the troublesome nuisance that had to be kept an eye on. Now, he was someone to come to. The people of Berk approached him eagerly, sought out his help and advice. They acknowledged him, listened to him, respected him.
"Hiccup, I asked if you're feeling all right." The viking in question heard Sven's words as if from a great distance. It took a moment before they registered, and in the next instant, Hiccup remembered to respond.
"Yeah," he muttered distractedly, still lost in the swirl of past and present.
"Are you sure?" The follow-up question that others had never bothered with before brought Hiccup firmly back to the present. Sven's brows were drawn together, his light green eyes narrowed slightly in doubt. As Hiccup watched, Sven's suspicious gaze flicked up and down the length of Hiccup's slender form, obviously checking for evidence of injury or illness. Feeling the blood rush to his face, Hiccup shifted awkwardly under the unusual scrutiny, half embarrassed at the attention, and half touched by the show of concern.
"I just got a bit lost in thought. I'm fine, Sven," he reassured the older viking, throwing in a grin for good measure. "Great, actually," he amended. The doubt on Sven's features melted away until he was left smiling pleasantly.
"Good," he said. A quiet, impatient rumble came from behind Hiccup, and Toothless moved forward until he had reached his rider's side.
"Hey, bud," Hiccup laughed. The night fury nudged him in response, shoving the young viking pointedly in the direction Stoick had gone. "Okay, okay, we're going," Hiccup relented, heading off with his dragon and waving goodbye to Sven.
"Good to see you, Hiccup," Sven nodded, and Hiccup could tell that he meant it.
"You, too, Sven," Hiccup grinned. "You, too."