So I will try to reply to all of your reviews, for those of you who review as guest that means I will post my reply in the beginning of each new chapter. So here we go!
Laidyx: I have to admit that I had to use google translate but I'm so glad you liked the first chapter, hopefully you'll like this as well!
Noctus Fury: So sorry about the misspellings, but I have gotten myself a Beta (yay!) so hopefully they will hurt you a bit less from now on ;D When it comes to Gran Pabb trust me when I say he knows everything, but like all rocks he does not share too much haha. The relationship between Hiccup and Astrid will be discovered somewhat in this chapter so I look forward to see how you will judge it after this chap.
IcyeyesBright99: So glad you like it! I really wanted to show more the kind of role Kristoff could have gotten in a kingdom like Arendelle, but also explore the future relationship between him and Elsa. When it comes to Olaf I actually changed his name to Olof since it is the Scandinavian version of his name. I myself come from Scandinavia so it was just one of those changes where I could not help myself, especially since I have a friend named Olof and he reminds me a bit about Olaf haha.
2.
Hiccup Haddock Horrendous the Third was in the Dragon Pit along with Astrid and the twins where all of them were trying to teach the children of Berk how to best approach a dragon. Hiccup was standing on the sidelines, watching as his friends tried to pass on their knowledge to the younger generation.
Astrid, as always, was doing a wonderful job at intimidating the kids while at the same time teaching her students in the fastest, safest way to approach her Deadly Nadder Stormfly. Hiccuo watched as the children approached a bored looking Stormfly with a mix of respect and curiosity, his eyes landing on Astrid as she kept a close eye on all of them.
The shield maiden was adored by all the younger Vikings for being the embodiment of every trait a Viking should possess. She was courageous, fearless, stubborn and could pretty much take down anyone in the entire village in a matter of seconds. Astrid was also a considered a great beauty with her gold blonde hair and blue eyes.
As his eyes rested on her, Astrid looked over at Hiccup and sent him a warm smile, one he returned with an appreciative nod in the direction of the children. Astrid answered by sending him a smug smile back and Hiccup looked over to see how it went with the twins, what he saw and heard causing him to sigh deeply.
Tuffnut and Ruffnut were hold a mace and a sword respectively and looked at their group of children with menacing grins.
"Now remember, don't let them take a bite of you!" Ruffnut said slamming her hands together in the air imitating a mouth that closed fiercely.
"Yeah! If you don't show respect they will eat you whole! Then they will spit you out!" Tuffnut added.
"It's only you that they spit out since you smell worse than deadly smoke dofus." Ruffnut said throwing Tuff a grin.
"Hey!" Tuddnut said offended before a new smile spread over his face. "But it is true, they do spit me out! Now who wants to be eaten by the dragon?" Tuffnut said to all the young Vikings who were looking at each other with confused faces, trying to figure out if the man was serious or not.
From where he was watching Hiccup decided it was time to step in and drew a deep breath before he left his spot by the wall and walked over to the twins.
"Ruff, Tuff, Gobber is looking for you, something about trying out a new hammer he has invented, I can take over." He called out to the twins who said "Sweet" in perfect unison before jumping up on their two headed dragon Barf and Belch, disappearing from the pit. The group of kids that was left behind looked nervously at Hiccup as he approached them.
"Now I will teach you how to befriend a dragon, without getting eaten." Hiccup said as the group began whispering among themselves. As he began speaking again they all became quite and soaked in every word he had to say as they looked at him with huge eyes.
For them it was a dream come true, for not only was Hiccup their most respected and honorable chief, he was also the Dragon master, the first Viking ever to bond with a dragon. That dragon was not just any dragon, but the mysterious and dangerous Nightfury. The most powerful dragon of them all, though it had turned out that it could be a real softy at times.
Hiccup was also the one who had defeated the Red Death, a tremendously large and terrible dragon who had plagued the island of Berk for decades and he defeated the terrible Drago who had tried to enslave all dragons and conquer all of Berk.
To the children Hiccup was almost in the same league as the Gods.
But to the young chief, life had once been far from what it was now, actually this had only been his life for the last few years.
Born as the chief's son, he had been named Hiccup since he had been just that: a Hiccup. He had always been small and thin. He had never been fearsome in the classical Viking way, which pretty much meant that you knew how to brake a tree in two with one swing from your axe at the age of ten.
Instead Hiccup had had his mind.
From the early years he had always been thinking outside of the old values, inventing new weapons and new constructions to make life in the village easier. Still this had never made him truly accepted, for he had been terrible at doing what any Viking on Berk should excel at: killing dragons.
But when he had been 15 and he had met his dragon Toothless his life in the village had changed as the view on dragons changed as well. As the years passed he had become the one everyone turned to for solutions and when his father had been killed in the war against Drago three years ago, Hiccup had taken over his role as chief.
It was a position he had never wanted, but had come to both accept and realize he was born to have. Still it kept him from other things he now didn't have the time for, like instructing the kids in the village on how to become dragon riders.
Seeing them approach Toothless with awe and listen to his instructions always made Hiccup miss the simpler life he had lived before since it had at least been less stressful.
"Hey Chief, thought you said Ruff and Tuff could handle one class." Astrid said to Hiccup with a huge smile on her face as she walked over to him after they both had dismissed their classes and the kids were leaving the pit.
"Well, they did manage five minutes without scaring them half to death so it was an improvement despite the obvious failure." Hiccup grinned at her.
"If that's what you call improvement then you must have flown to high and left your head up there." Astrid said raising an eyebrow and crossing her arms over her chest, though she was still smiling.
"Well they didn't hunt them around the pit like last time." Hiccup said and Astrid laughed, both of them remembering the previous lesson which had been about learning to respect your dragon and understand that you always should approach an unknown dragon with caution.
At least the twins had gotten the last part across right.
"You know since you broke in and we finished early, how about a race around the island? It was to long since I had the chance to beat your butts." Astrid said, nudging Hiccup in the side as Toothless looked at her slightly offended.
"You really want to race me Hofferson? For I thought it was the other way around, that you and Stormfly were still recovering from last time." Hiccup said smiling.
"Oh you just wait Chief, you will eat our dust." Astrid said, punching Hiccup hard on the arm to empathize her words and though it hurt Hiccup chuckled at her antics. Meanwhile Toothless snuck up behind them before he pushed in between them and Astrid gave him a pat on the head before she walked over to Stormfly, checking the blue dragons gear.
"What do you say bud, should we change this?" Hiccup asked Toothless, gesturing to the tailfin which the dragon could control by himself. In response Toothless gave Hiccup a huge lick which nearly made him fall over.
"Toothless, do you really have to do this every single time bud?!" He groaned as Toothless merely gave his trademark toothless dragon-grin before eagerly running to get his saddle and other tail, dropping them in front of Hiccup.
"Yeah yeah. I will change it, if you will just stand still you big lizard." Hiccup said with affection as he quickly changed the dragon's tailfin and put on the saddle with ease. Anyone watching could see that this was a ritual which had been done countless of times before.
Since Toothless had become alpha of all dragons, he had reluctantly accepted the tail Hiccup had created for him many years ago. The tailfin allowed him to fly without his rider, but Toothless still preferred to fly with Hiccup, something he had shown his partner plenty of times over the last three years.
After all they were now more one person, than two different individuals.
"Finally! Are you two ready to go?!" Astrid said from her place on Stormfly, her dragon bobbing her head up and down in excitement as Hiccup jumped up on Toothless.
Toothless answered with a small growl, his tail moving back on forth over the ground before he took two long strides, lifting from the ground as Hiccup waved to the couple still on the ground.
"That's not fair play!" Astrid shouted from below them as Hiccup just laughed. Toothless performed a spin in the air so that the seconds they had on the couple behind them evened out.
As they began to pick up speed Hiccup felt how the troubles and the weight on his shoulders eased somewhat. This was his element, this was the only place he felt free and whole.
"I told you that…" He began telling Astrid who had nearly caught up with them when he was interrupted by a loud shout.
"HICCUP!"
They both looked down towards the voice which came from below them, seeing their friend Fishlegs standing outside the Great Hall in the middle of the village along with Valka. Hiccup's mother was waving towards them, telling them to land. Fishlegs was holding something in his hand.
"So much for the ride, bud." Hiccup sighed as Toothless gave a sad cry and Astrid gave him a compassionate look before all of them started to fly down towards the ground.
"I was just looking for you!" Fishlegs said, walking over to the two riders sitting on their dragons. "The ship from Arendelle just came in this afternoon, everything was in order as usual. However they handed over this and said it was utmost important that it was handed over to you since they needed a response to bring back."
Hiccup took the letter Fishlegs was handing to him, breaking the sigil with a huge snowflake, which showed that the letter was from the queen herself, and unfolded the thick paper to read it.
"Well, what is it?" Astrid asked, when he had finished but didn't say anything,
"It seems that I have been invited to a wedding between Princess Anna and Ice Master Kristoff." Hiccup finally said as his friends both looked a little confused while his mother just met his gaze knowingly.
"No offence, but why would you be invited to a royal wedding in Arendelle? I mean we have only met that Anna and Kristoff one time when they were here to talk trade." Astrid asked him and it was true.
The princess of Arendelle had arrived a little more than a year ago and the meeting had been interesting for both parties. That she had come from a world more refined and not as rough as their own had been extremely obvious, but she had been an easy and outgoing person who had been open to their culture and shown all of them perfect respect.
But most impressively Princess Anna had accepted their dragons with great curiosity and not a sign of fear, unlike the Ice Master who had hidden behind the princess when he first had seen the beasts.
However it had been different on their part as the Vikings had had a hard time knowing how to approach the princess. She had been so very different from the women of Berk. She had been small in frame and it had been obvious she did not work hard on fields, or doing other chores. She had been extremely polite and smart, with a sharp tongue which always held a quick comeback.
Still she had at times become terribly embarrassed around the burly men and women. Princess Anna had also been a beauty in the fairer sense than the other women on Berk and she had therefore caught a lot of attention among the men. The Ice Master however had early on made it clear that the princess was under his protection. Even though the girl had proven herself quite capable of taking care of herself, when Snotlout one evening had whispered something in her ear, and was rewarded with a punch that knocked him out for quite some time.
After that event the relationship between everyone had eased up a little and the Ice master had spent most of his time on Berk in the blacksmith along with Gobber, while Hiccup had spent his time with Princess Anna discussing the agreement.
But once the papers had been singed and the ship from Arendelle had left their shore, almost everyone had felt some kind of relief at not having to house the strangers anymore since, no-one had really known what to make of the strange guests.
Coming back to the present Hiccup heard how Valka answered Astrid's question better than he could have done himself.
"It is not a matter of invite because of friendship, dear. You must understand that customs outside of the High North are very different, it is much moe calculating among their leaders than among ours. There it is custom to invite all those who are important connections to the kingdom, are powerful as allies or simple have a position which demands an invitation to an event like this. Hiccup and Berk are all those things." Valka said.
"So what, they invite people they might not like just because it is custom?!" Astrid sounded slightly offended, but Valka simply chuckled.
"It's called politics, a game which far more difficult to play than anyone can ever imagine. Politics is not a war fought with axes or swords, but with words and cunning. It doesn't fit us Vikings very well, for we like to act and say what we think at once. Not first sway people our way, or try to manipulate them into things they do not want. Of course our way is more effective, should you ask us." Valka said with a smile.
At this Astrid frowned before turning to Hiccup.
"So will you go?" She asked Hiccup who looked at her with a resigned look on his face.
"We are trading partners after all, if we wish to keep up good relations the only right thing to do would be to accept the invitation and the two additional invitations which came alongside my own. Fishlegs, will you deliver my answer to the man who gave you the invitation?"
"Of course Hiccup." Fishlegs said as he took the invitation back and headed
down towards the docks.
"Well before you even ask, I am not going with you. No way will I curtsy or bow to some old people within stone walls. Let's go Stormfly." And with those words Astrid and Stormfly flew from the ground, leaving Valka, Hiccup and Toothless on the ground.
"You are doing the right thing son, it would be an insult not to accept an invitation like this." His mother said giving his shoulder a small squeeze.
"I know mom, doesn't mean I have to like it any more though. Like you said, Vikings act out with swords and axes, or a good punch, we do not usually use words or wit." Hiccup answered causing his mother to smile at him warmly.
"But you do not fight with axes or swords Hiccup, you never have unless you have been forced. You have the mind to move within the lines of these people and to do it quite well I think. After all not just any boy could have tamed a dragon and built up his entire clan as you have."
"I suppose you're right, the only question is who I shall bring with me, who won't bring down the entire kingdom."
"I cannot help you there, but I would really try to swing Astrid around. No matter what the girl says she is smart and she is a Viking through and through."
"You're right mom, besides there is no one else I would trust more to have my back. Catching her now however won't be easy. Although I suppose it will be harder to sway her the longer she has time to think about it. Let's go bud!" He said to Toothless who happily lifted from the ground to chase after Stormfly and her rider. Valka setting her steps towards the blacksmith, she needed to talk to Gobber.
So I think you all can see where this is going... Vikings in Arendelle, yikes! Also do you think Astrid will change her mind? Leave a review and Olaf will give you all warm hugs!