Authors Notes: Hey everyone out there! This is your author :) Words cannot describe how happy Josephiroth & MrBgRedD have made me by following/ favoriting this month. Wow, i cant beleive i have actual readers! Lemme just tell you i was so inspired i wrote a total of 9,579 words yesterday. Yes! Ive got a plethera of CHAPTERS just waiting to be published. Lol sorry, a lot of them are Jane and The Dragon Chapters as things on Berk move a little slow until the crossing. So i pumped out a little Hiccup chappie just so we can introduce the last POV i intend on having in the story for a while. That makes it a total of four POV's. Two boys, two girls. Even enough i think, not too hard to follow i hope. Im crossing my fingers for some reviews maybe? hmmm? just maybe? Just to make sure im doing something right, if im doing something wrong tho... TELL ME! Please! Let me know that i totally effed up the timeline or if one part of the chapter was super duper hard to follow. Beleive me, i revise these chapters constantly for you guys! Anyway, i was thinkin i might release another chapter sooner than next sunday if i can get 5+ reviews, or new fav, or new follows. Just holler at me lemme know your out there! Love love love! :)
HICCUP
Hiccup always thought it would feel special to be one of those Vikings that the lady Vikings fought over. He also thought that he would never live to see the day when that would happen to him even though it was a fight that was more about him than it was for him. He rubbed the back of his head in frustration, he wanted to go after Astrid but there was still much more to get done around the island. As much of an instigator as Ruffnut had been known to be, Hiccup knew that she really had toned it down recently. Astrid on the other hand, was usually much more composed under pressure, Hiccup decided that she must have just been in a bad mood, perhaps she was dealing with something personal.
"Ok gang, I think its best we just let her cool off, we still have some tasks to do so-"
"Uh- Uhm Hiccup?" Fishlegs interrupted, "as relieved as I am that we stopped Ruffnut and Astrid from really hurting eachother, that was not the out of hand argument I was talking about." He turned towards the massive doors of The Great Hall.
Turns out, the real problem was in The Great Hall all along. Hiccup paled when he finally noticed the yelling and clashing emminating from inside its great walls. It was a wonder how he had missed it at all. He looked at his friends Fishlegs, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and their dragons; inhailed, exhailed, and entered.
Inside, vikings were not only yelling, but an assortment of furniture, weapons, and body armor was being thrown here and there, they were throwing punches and pulling at each other's beards. He heard random people shouting over one another. Things like:
"It's part of our Viking culture and history!"
"It's offensive and must come down!"
"- but our past!"
"- but the future!"
"Tradition!"
"Revolution!"
Finally Hiccup jumped up onto the main table of the hall and in the center of the room called for everyone's attention. "Okay! Holligans! As we all know my father Stoick the Vast and my Uncle Spitelout are away on an important meet with the other Viking Chieftains. Since their departure I have tried to keep the peace here, as my father has relied on me to do. I don't plan on letting him down so, what is going on here?"
A large mid-twenty-something fisherman to his left pointed up to the ceiling, "It the Gilded Dragon, its distasteful and it contradicts everything Berk now stands for. Peace with the Dragons."
Hiccup regarded the great golden ornament hovering above him. It was a dragon in flight with a terrifying expression on its face no doubt in frozen agony over the sword thrusted up into its belly, forever pinning it to the ceiling above. Hiccup had to admit, he was never fond of the Gilded Dragon, but it had been suspended in the Great Hall for generations.
"Dragon slaying has been a part of our heritage for centuries! Just because we've learned to make peace with the dragons recently, doesn't mean we have to be ashamed of our past!" An old retired viking to Hiccup's right yelled out.
"DRAGON REVOLUTION!" A young blond dragon-rider with twin braids yelled.
"DEATH TO THE DRAGONS!" Another blond with long straight shreiked wearing his toothy grin.
"You guys!" Hiccup looked at Ruffnut and Tuffnut sternly; shrinking back but still snickering to one another they removed themselves from the crowds and returned to stand at Hiccup's side.
"Sorry, "Tuffnut added peevishly, "I didn't mean it! Dragons are awesome!"
"They are riled up enough as it is without you guys instigating," Hiccup scolded. He turned his attention back to the upset people gathered in the Great Hall, "Okay, I'm sure if we all talked it out-"
"Enough talk!" A massive middle-aged farmer viking on the right growled as he raised a mace over his head.
"We should ask the dragons what they think about it!" Another busty female on the left shouted out.
The whole room went silent as attention was set on the dragons when they didn't respond the crowds looked to Hiccup expectantly. "Well, I guess we could give it a shot," Hiccup agreed.
Hiccup approached his night fury first, "Hey toothless, so, what do you think of that there figure up there." He pointed up at the Gilded Dragon, Toothless's eyes narrowed at the sight of it; he bared his teeth and flattened his 'ears'. That was an obvious negative response. As a whole, as they were one by one made aware of the golden figure, the dragons took an obvious disliking to the statue. Ruffnut and Tuffnuts's Zippleback hissed and spit and Fishlegs's Meatlug became instantly upset as she cowered near her Rider.
"See? The dragons don't like it, we should destroy it!" Motioned a young mother on the left.
"I'll destroy anyone who plans to deface that relic!" spat a seasoned viking hunter on the right.
Before long everyone in the hall was yelling for the son of the cheif to make a decision on who should get their way. Hiccup tried to tell them it would be better for them to work it out amongst one another. But they wanted a leader, a decision maker; they didn't want to decide for themselves. "You guys want me to decide?" He paused looking a the sea of expectant eyes around him, the pressure mounting, how could he decide there and then? "Fine-" he resolved,"I've decided... for you all to come back tomorrow morning if you still feel strongly about the fate of the Guilded Dragon come back and see what choice I've made."
Most of the crowd urged him to make his statement immediately but Hiccup ignored them. He motioned for his friends to follow behind him and they cut themselves through the crowd as they made their way out of the Great Hall. The Hairy Hooligans did not take a liking to being dismissed in this way, and for a moment instead of being upset at one another the Hall was unified in an uproar about Hiccup's indecisiveness. If that's how it has to be then so be it. Hiccup sighed unhappily.
Fishlegs went back to the docks to resume preparing with his father for their next trip. Hiccup sent the twins and their dragon to a rock quarry to explode big rocks into smaller ones for building materials. Then Hiccup set out to accomplish some of the many tasks on his list before the day was done.
After settling number of domestic disputes that not only included custody battle over a goat but also an intervention with a hoarder Viking who owned so many weapons his kids had no room to sleep in their own house; Hiccup and the twins were contracted to clean away dragon droppings around the cities' dragon perches. And through it all Hiccup knew that the day wouldn't truly be over until he returned to the Great Hall to muse over the fate of the Gilded Dragon.
After eating out late in the Great Hall with the twins and Snotlout, Hiccup dozed off on the table. Most of the vikings eventually left; Tuffnut went to Snotlout's place to exercise, it felt very late when Hiccup woke up again. The Hall was nearly empty but Ruffnut was still sitting accross from him at the table quietly flipping through The Book of Dragons.
"Read about anything interesting?" He asked groggily still slumped over the table.
Ruffnut shrugged, "I've got most of it memorized from you and Fishlegs reading it outloud to me so much, but I still run into words I sometimes can't pronounce or don't understand..."
Ruffnut had admitted to Hiccup that she couldn't read a few months ago. Since then he tried to help her learn when he could. Not that he had too much time on his hands these days, but he was awake now. He came over to sit beside her on the other side of the table and went over the words with her.
He had been tutoring Ruffnut and lending her some of the few writings and books he had. She never wanted to be tutored or be caught reading around the others though. Most of the older more traditional Vikings still couldn't read. Maybe she felt like she was going against tradition by learning. But he could tell that reading had made her confident enough to start becoming her own individual person as opposed to just a mirror of her twin.
Hiccup was thinking about this long after Ruffnut had gone said goodbye and went home. After a while Astrid walked into the emptied Great Hall, she spotted Hiccup immediately; they were the only two people there. She walked directly to his table and sat down, but she didn't make any attempt to start conversation. She just looked up at the great dragon ornament above them.
"Sometimes I don't understand tradition." Hiccup mumbled out loud.
Astrid shot him a dirty look, "What isn't there to understand? Traditions preserve our culture and our heritage."
"Yeah, I know. But what if it's holding us back?" He thought of Ruffnut and the argument in the Hall amongst the Hooligans earlier.
Astrid returned her gaze to the great ornament, "I used to come to the Great Hall with my dad when I was small," Astrid said wistfully, " I remember, he would toss me as high as the dragon and I would imagine that I was the Viking that pierced it there with my sword. I've heard a lot of Viking children have dreamed of that."
"You know, we could as Gobber to change it...It doesn't have to be stabbed with a sword," Hiccup suggested.
"We can't change who we were, Hiccup. Were Vikings! Were conquers. The Gilded Dragon represents our ability to overcome any obstacle, any opponent, no matter how impossible. Don't even think about altering her. When you used to look at her didn't you feel like anything was possible? Like the world was ours for the taking?" Astrid seemed to be speaking from her heart.
For Hiccup the Gilded Dragon was a destiny he knew would never be his. The destiny of a truly fearsome Viking Warrior. Every child was expected to dream that dream, but somehow Hiccup always knew that it wasn't the way for him. Almost as if she could read his thoughts Astrid repeated her position on the matter, "Don't touch her Hiccup. This is not just about dragons anymore, this is about our culture. Our very way of life." She squeezed his shoulder as she used it to stand up from the great bench table, and quietly left.
"We can't change who we were." Hiccup repeated to himself looking up at the belly of the dragon. Then, with more resolve, he later added, "But we can change who we want to become."