Chapter Seven: A State of Affairs
Hiccup heaved a sigh of relief – dang, Astrid was way too smart. She could see past every lie and cover up – it was a talent that had served her well in the past and if she suspected someone of lying or being suspicious she stuck by that feeling, even if no one else believed her. He had seen the looks of doubt that had crossed her face as well as his Dad's Heather's and Gobber's. As suspected, Fishlegs had been too excited at the prospect of discovering a new dragon to take too much notice at the time but there was no doubt he'd pick up on things later. Hiccup knew it wasn't going to be easy but he hadn't expected it to be that hard.
"Why, Odin, did you have to make it so that I can't tell anyone?" he muttered under his breath. Honestly, the gods made no sense sometimes.
He jogged behind Gobber obediently as the man led him to the forge – Hiccup recoiled slightly from the heat when he entered but at the same time, it was a nice feeling to know what this place was like again. Three years away from his second favourite place of Berk (the favourite being the Cove) was too long.
"Alright," Gobber huffed. "There're swords that need sharpening and a few axes that need rebalancing. Oh, and also those arrowheads that Kyra wanted done. Get to it." Hiccup feigned surprise.
"Wait, you mean just figure it out by myself?" he spluttered.
"Either learn on the job or go elsewhere," Gobber replied sharply, leaving Hiccup to his own devices. Smiling in mild amusement, Hiccup slung the old apron over his now-patched-up-multiple-times-with-seaweed tunic and set to work sharpening blades. Within minutes he felt himself getting back into the swing of things – he felt as if he belonged in the forge; as if it had been waiting for his return. Kyra soon came in to see how he was getting along.
"How're things?" she asked, leaning against the workbench.
"Doing okay," Hiccup replied, finishing the third sword and quickly testing it on a nearby log of wood – the blade cut clean through.
"Nice going on the cover up, by the way," Kyra congratulated in an undertone quickly, making sure no one was looking. "But...seriously, 'Draco'?"
"You try thinking up of a name when you're put on the spot," Hiccup hissed, making a start on the next sword. "First thing I thought of, alright?" Kyra shrugged in reply.
"I was just talking to Fishlegs, by the way," she grimaced. "He spotted it too – he wants to know why this new dragon looks like Hiccup. Why couldn't you have sprouted horns or something?" she groaned for the second time that morning. "It would have made the whole 'they're-not-supposed-to-know-exactly-who-you-are' thing so much easier." Hiccup was about to retaliate when Astrid entered carrying her double-bladed axe.
"Oh, hi, As...uh, Ma'am," he stammered. "Can I...help?" Astrid shoved her axe in his face.
"This needs sharpening," she replied bluntly. Hiccup cautiously took the axe and brought it over to the grinding wheel. "Be careful – my fiancé made that for me."
"Okay, one razor-sharp axe coming right up," Hiccup nodded, recognising the axe – it was indeed one that he'd made for Astrid. It had been the one he'd made as a birthday present shortly after the Battle with the Red Death. Astrid was about to turn away when she froze – she'd heard Hiccup say those exact same words once before when she'd taken he mother's axe here for him to sharpen and that had been before Hiccup had trained Toothless. She turned back.
"What did you say?" she asked. Hiccup winced – oops. Kyra bit her lip and looked away.
"Uh...that I would get to sharpening your axe right now," he replied. "Why?" Astrid's glare had gone – now just plain curiosity filled her face.
"Nothing," she replied. "Just that...my fiancé once said that." She sighed. "You said dragons like you had human counterparts?"
"Uh-huh," Hiccup nodded, finishing one blade and moving onto the next. "Your fiancé was mine, I guess – that's why we're so similar." He couldn't help but sigh and take a brief glance at his fiancée – to his relief and joy, the diamond and sapphire studded ring was still on her finger.
"Yeah," Astrid sighed, turning away but not before she spotted a band of gold on Hiccup's finger. She hadn't noticed it before. "Hey – where'd you get that?" she asked. Hiccup winced.
"Uh...it's nothing. Some hatchlings get given a dragon-gold ring when they're born," he excused himself, hiding his left hand from view grateful that without seeing the dragon etching inside, his wedding ring just looked like a plain band of gold. He was just thankful she hadn't seen the mark – that might have given the game away. Astrid made a face. "The skin grows over it after a time..." he muttered. Astrid still didn't look as if she was buying it but she didn't make any notion to get anything else out of him. Kyra cast a sideways glance at Hiccup to say 'too close!' when her father called from nearby. Hiccup didn't quite make out what he said afterwards over the screech of metal being sharpened but Kyra certainly did as her face lit up.
"Got to go," she said quickly. "I've got a meeting to attend."
"Meeting with who?" Hiccup frowned, glancing up from his work briefly. Kyra quickly fished a comb out of her belt pouch (similar to Astrid's) and neatened her dark auburn locks so that they tumbled over her shoulders gracefully rather than the tangled mess they normally were. Okay, odd – Kyra didn't usually pay much attention to her appearance.
"Let's just say Astrid's not the only one facing relationship issues," Kyra shrugged slyly, jogging away. It didn't sink in for a while but as soon as Kyra was gone, Hiccup realised what she said.
"Wait...WHAT?!" he yelped, barely holding onto the axe as it threatened to fly out of his hand in shock.
"What?" Astrid glared, snapping her gaze back into the forge so quickly her hand shot up to her neck moments later.
"Nothing!" Hiccup called. By the gods, Kyra had so much to answer for later! He gently ran his finger along the blades of the axe and swung it at the test log – the piece of wood split clean in two so Hiccup was more than satisfied. He handed it back over to Astrid who fished some coins out of her purse to give to the boy – Hiccup stuffed them into the money jar on the side before moving onto fashioning some arrowheads – Kyra had left some custom designs Hiccup had made for her for her sixteenth seeing as she was one of the few Vikings on Berk who used a legitimate bow and arrow (the other being Hiccup) with many opting for the crossbow.
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"You done this before, lad?" Gobber suddenly asked. Draco was so startled he had to melt the arrowhead he was working on and start again.
"Uh..." Draco struggled briefly to come up with an answer. "Well, kinda – except the forges underwater use hot water vents, not fire," he explained quickly. "If you ask me we might as well get a Scauldron to melt everything down there, the water's so hot from those things," he added, tossing another arrowhead into a nearby basket to make into arrows later.
"You see many sea dragons where you come from?" Gobber asked, hammering a scythe into shape. It was strange how much the dragon resembled his old apprentice – if anything was to go by, his old conversation tactics might get something out of the dragon about who he was. Like Astrid and Stoick, there was something that didn't sit right with Gobber about this Halfling.
"Not too many – we're normally seen as outcasts in the dragon world," Draco excused quickly. (Dang, Loki must really be on my side today, Hiccup thought, impressed at his own suddenly found ability to actually lie and make it sound plausible). "What with the human-counterparts thing and all. Other dragons tend to leave us alone – it's like they don't even know we exist."
"How come's you ran away, anyhow?" Gobber quizzed. "You said you were never really accepted – what did they do?"
"Well, I was more human-like than the rest of them to begin with," Draco replied. "Unlike most, I could speak Norse and my mindset was always more like a human's – might have had something to do with my counterpart or something. The legend of the Dragon Tamer is famous even to us," he added proudly before sighing. "I thought that would make them accept me – if my counterpart could do something like that, maybe they would think I could."
"And they never did," Gobber frowned.
"The elders always had this idea that dragons and humans should remain separate worlds," Draco explained. "The legends of the Dragon Tamer are more of parables – they used the attack from the Darkwing three years ago as an example of what would happen if the worlds merged." (Okay, Loki, I am now in your debt, Hiccup thanked in his mind. His cover-ups were coming far more easily now).
"Darkwing? Is that what it was?" Gobber noted. Draco nodded and added that its full name was the High Diving Darkwing. "Suited it. Never seen a dragon like it in all my years and trust me I've had more than I care to think about." Draco sighed. "So what was life like down there?"
"Uh...dark, murky and wet," Draco replied cynically. Gobber couldn't help but chuckle – if what the Halfling dragon said was true and it was the counterpart of Hiccup, then its behaviour certainly backed that up.
"Nice one, lad," he remarked. "But seriously..."
"What do you wanna know?" Draco groaned, chucking another arrowhead into the basket.
"Oh, I don't know," Gobber shrugged. "Just that it would be nice to get to know ya. We may not have ever seen anything like you before – and we've seen some pretty strange stuff – but even we don't want to make your stay uncomfortable. We're reasonable Vikings." Draco cast Gobber a cynical glare.
"Yeah, speaking of 'uncomfortable', I'd like a new conversation, please," he groaned. Gobber smirked – he already knew how to stick with the subject on hand yet change the conversation. It had happened with Hiccup many times.
"Okay," he snickered. "How'd it go with the ladies?" Draco spluttered and nearly dropped an arrowhead. He abandoned the arrowheads, happy that he'd made enough, and went to fashion some shafts.
"Way to get the mood back on track," he huffed.
"Come on," Gobber chuckled. "I saw how you were looking at Astrid – she reminds you of someone back where you're from, doesn't she?"
"Oh, please," Draco moaned. "None of the girls back there would come near me with a ten foot piece of driftwood even if they were stung by a Venomous Vorpent and I had the only potato in the entire ocean."
"The lass still reminds you of someone, though." Dammit, why does he have to be so persistent?
"Okay, she does!" Draco admitted. "But like I said – no one would even think of being my mate, okay? Just leave it at that." He sanded down an arrow shaft and attached a few eagle feather fletchings to it before moving onto the next. Gobber finally decided to properly change the topic to the original one.
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"Got to say, lad – you're almost as good as my old apprentice, if not as good," he remarked. Hiccup hid a smirk of pride – it was nice to hear some praise from his mentor even if it wasn't directly straight at him, rather at his alias. "And Astrid's axe earlier – that was some pretty fine work."
"Oh, it was nothing," Hiccup shrugged. "Just...a thorough sharpening, that's all."
"And thorough it was as well – that blade went clean through that oak log," Gobber noted. Hiccup's eyes widened in surprise – that had been oak? Oak was the hardest wood on Berk and it took an extremely sharp blade to cut through a log with the same thickness as a Viking's arm. Unintentionally, Hiccup's mind cast back to something Wavewing had told him soon after he'd been taken into the Weedsnake school. The Elder Weedsnake had mentioned that oak was one of the few things that could kill a sea dragon, Weedsnakes in particular, as it was almost as poisonous to them as the toxin from a Venomous Vorpent was to humans.
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"So you still believe your brother will return?" a young man with jet black hair and hazel brown eyes asked. Kyra was talking to Artair Godrikson – the heir to the Meathead Tribe – just as her father had arranged whilst the two chiefs were talking further along the docks. She hated to admit it but Artair was a very nice guy to talk to and willingly listened to all of her bizarre stories of her life in another world.
"Well, this is Hiccup we're talking about," she replied, brushing a lock of auburn hair out of the way, making sure to keep her dragon eye hidden for now. "You kind of know him a little better than I do."
"I guess," Artair shrugged. "It's hard to think that a kid like him would be able to train a dragon – it's incredible."
"Not something you'd expect from a scrap like him, huh?" Kyra couldn't help but joke. Artair let out a small laugh.
"Not at all," he agreed. "Then again, I never really knew what to expect from him – one time when I came here as a kid he was off hunting gnomes or trolls or something, the next time he was testing out this new weapon he'd made."
"What happened?" Kyra asked, a grin creeping onto her face.
"Let's just say more than a few Meatheads went home with their helmets dented," Artair replied, smirking slightly. Kyra couldn't help but let out a snort – just like Hiccup to get a few people (often himself included) sustaining a few bruises during his weapons tests. "Anyway, I'd better go," he excused himself, standing up and helping Kyra to her feet.
"Uh...sure," Kyra flushed. Dammit, why do I have to get flustered around him? I barely know the guy, she thought to herself. She nervously brushed a lock of her out of her right eye and gently pushed Artair's hand away when he offered to get the bangs away from her left eye. She wasn't sure if she wanted him to see that yet. "Will I...see you again?"
"Course if you want," Artair smiled gently. Kyra smiled nervously (Snap out of it, Kyra!) and nodded. "Then I'll see you again soon – and you have to show me how to fly dragons next time!" he added eagerly. Kyra shrugged.
"I'll see what I can do," she smiled. "Later, then?"
"Later," Artair waved goodbye as he, his father and the other Meatheads set sail back to their home island. Stoick stood by his daughter and couldn't help but grin.
"I see you two were getting along swell," he chuckled. Kyra playfully punched his shoulder.
"We just met!" she protested. "But...yeah, he's a nice guy." Stoick smiled and nodded – this could work out. He patted Kyra's shoulder gently and flew Thornado back home, followed by Kyra and Windwalker.
AN: Figured I'd upload a couple of chapters seeing as I've kept you guys waiting for a while. Anyway, exams have been over for a while but I've just been working on completely finishing this story before uploading it - I'm happy with how it's turned out as a whole so keep an eye out for updates - they should get more frequent now that my holidays have started and the story itself is finished.
Yes, the scene with Astrid, Gobber and Hiccup halfway through the chapter was based on the deleted scene 'An Axe to Grind' from How to Train Your Dragon. Personally, I liked the scene and have often thought about how it could have been worked into the film so I did my best to work it into here.
Thanks to everyone who's reviewed, followed and favourited How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse so far! It's great to see some familiar names such as Ferdoos and Drago829 from How to Speak Dragonese and wonderful to see a lot of new ones as well! I hope you guys continue to enjoy the story.
Reviews and constructive criticism welcome! If anything seems off, point it out to me in PM and I'll try to rectify it as soon as I can.