Ashton grunted as he threw the axe at the target. He peeled it off before he jumped over a rock, slamming the blade into the base of a tree. He yelled as he threw the axe as far as he could, watching it sail over the ground until it hit out of sight. He agilely maneuvered his way to the axe, plucked it off the ground, and slammed it to another tree. He growled as he spun the weapon over his head before he let it go again, hearing it slam somewhere in the distance. He gritted his teeth as he made his way deeper into the forest.
That idiot! That tramp! That whore! That bitch went and got herself pregnant, and now not only was she never going to be with him due to breaking Viking law, but she had gone and disappeared with her lover! He thought back to that night a week earlier, the last time he saw Hicca. Her lover, the dark-skinned boy, was definitely not from anywhere in the Archipelago. He had never seen anyone with skin as brown as wood or as dark as the night. He briefly wondered if he was born that way or added something to his skin, but it didn't matter. Hicca was gone and she was pregnant with another boy's baby. Heck, the guy looked older than her! He can be taking advantage of the the naive, idiotic, defenseless girl for all they knew.
Following the path his axe sailed to to vent out more of his anger, he was confused when he came to a rock wall. His axe was lodged in an opening that one couldn't find easily unless they were looking for it. Pulling his axe free, he wished he had a candle or lantern or something to help him see better in the dark. Pulling the foliage out of the way, he briefly wondered who would want to hide this cave wall entrance. The bushes and branches were no doubt put there on purpose, and the crash of his axe seemed to have revealed the entrance.
He raised his weapon in case of an attack and walked instead. He was greeted with a slope that went straight down into a cove. The cove was an elegant thing with grasse, a lake, and a little waterfall. But something else caught his attention. He made his way down the rocky slope, careful to not make a sound. He neared the sleeping figure in the distance and grinned maliciously. Hicca and her lover were sleeping in a nude embrace, her back facing him. Ashton grinned at the opportunity to see Hicca naked, then growled when he realized what they had done only recently.
Quietly making his way to them again, he placed the curve of the axe to the boy's head. He looked younger than he expected, but still no doubt older than Hicca. Ashton raised the axe and readied it to hit his head.
He didn't notice Hicca open her eyes. He didn't notice her gasp. He ignored his cry of horror as he brought the axe down.
. . . . . . . . . .
"TOOTHLESS!"
"Hicca! Hicca!"
Hicca gasped as he sat up, panting for breath and sweating like an ox in heat. The room she was in came into focus as the moonlight and the candle light helped her sight. She was in a simple room with a blanket and a few shelves carrying empty journals. Her desk sat next to the door, fiddled with new tail designs that she had been working on with Toothless for his tail. The bassinet for the baby lay empty to her right, where Toothless was looking at her with a worried expression.
"Toothless?" she gasped out.
The Night Fury pressed his hand to her cheek, using his thumb to wipe her tears away. '"I'm right here, Hicca." He softly pushed her back to the ground, letting her head hit the pillow. He let her curl into his bare chest, or at least as much as she can curl due to the near end of her pregnancy. "It's just us, Hicca. No one's going to hurt us. I promise."
He ran his fingers threw her red hair. It had grown more since they left Berk, and Hicca hated to have it long. Since their stay on this island, in this house, she had let it grow out more. She kept it in its braid and when it got to the point where it was difficult to tie it, she would cut off a section.
Hicca was back to sleep only a minute later. She was still sobbing, kissing Toothless's shoulder unconsciously in her sleep. A knock on the door alerted him of a visited, and carefully and reluctantly, he got off the bed and put a grey tunic on. He opened the door to find Thuggory with his hand raised, poised to knock again.
"I heard her scream," he said.
Toothless nodded, yawning as he rubbed his eyes. "Another nightmare."
Thuggory tapped his foot against the wooden floor. "Those damn Hooligans," he said. "You're lucky you ran away when you did. If you had stayed the same day, they would have put you behind bars for sure."
"You mean like how you did for me?" Toothless accused with a raised eyebrow.
He grunted. "Cut me some slack, Fury. That girl has more balls than the rest of us, setting you free during the raid. I thought she was going to use you to attack us!"
"Instead, we saved your sorry ass," Toothless taunted. As Thuggory left, he kicked said ass and laughed when he stumbled and fell. He chuckled more quietly when the Meathead heir mumbled a few curses as he stood up and left.
He crawled back into bed, not bothering to disrobe again. They may not be as far north as they were, but that didn't mean it wouldn't get cold at times. His hand drifted to her bloated stomach, something he reminded himself constantly of to never call her again. "I promise we'll take care of you," he whispered before he closed his eyes.
When Hicca woke up the next morning, it was to an empty bed. This was strange since Toothless tended to act like a child and stay in sleep until noon but figured that he left to take care of something. She sat up with some difficulty, the bulging stomach of her child issuing said problem. She sighed as she placed a hand over her abdomen, just imaging what kind of child it would take to bring humans and dragons together. Heck, even Thuggory and his dragon, Cameo, acted as close as brothers would. The Chief Magadon did not have a dragon, and Hicca did not lecture him into it. Not everyone was meant to ride a dragon.
She sat up and decided to spend the day overlooking her sketches for the baby dragon nursery she had in mind. She briefly thought back to her Snoggletog adventure in which all the dragons disappeared. Toothless did too, for some reason, and Hicca thought he would have preferred a dragon mate despite their promise for life. He returned the same Hicca day brought the dragons back with Hicca's old Deadly Nadder toy. He knew that they missed it the night Ashton cut Hicca's cheek, and the reason she wanted it was not only because it was the only remnant she had of her mother, but because she wanted their child to play with it.
As she looked over the sketches of the nursery, her eyes drifted over the self-operating tail that she made Toothless for Snoggletog. He had ultimately destroyed the tail, and Hicca secretly made another one in the event he would ever want to fly again. What with her pregnancy going along, she was too big to fit in her riding vest and fly. Thuggory and Heather offered to take him for a ride, but Toothless was dead set on his resolution: he he can't ride with his mate and the mother of his child, he won't ride at all.
Still, Hicca felt guilty that her mate was grounded until the baby arrived, and even then she would need to be put on bedrest to recover from childbirth. That damn Night Fury was as stubborn as she was.
. . . . . . . . . .
Toothless let his head hit the table repeatedly as Magadon went on about the ways of being a chief. Next to him, Thuggory looked like he was about to fall asleep.
". . . and remember that when two opposing parties on the island have a conflict, the chief must be solely responsible for resolving the issue that does not and will not impede any injury to an unknown third party."
"Why am I even here?" Toothless said, turning to face the older boy.
"Because!" Magadon slammed his fist on the table, causing the both of them to jump in their seats. He turned to the dragon and pointed at him with the hilt of his sword. "You may not be my biological son, but you're still my son. As your father, it's my job to teach you how to be chief in the event that something happens to Thuggory when I step down from the position. Got it, boy?"
Toothless let his head hit the table again. "Why the Hel did I agree to this adoption?"
Thuggory patted his shoulder as Magadon continued the lesson. "Because your mate wants you to get used to human society."
His head hit the table again. A moment later, Heather came bursting into the room, panting for breath. "There you are!" she cried. "I've been looking for you for over an hour! Why didn't you tell anyone you were at my house with Magadon? Seriously, you'd think that someone with your type of skin color would be easy to find in this village."
Realizing that she was talking to him, Toothless raised an eyebrow in confusion. "I don't know whether to be offended by that or not."
Heather grunted. "Ugh! Come on, let's go!" She grabbed his arm and began to pull him out the door before Magadon reaches out and stopped her.
"Wait just a moment, lass!" The towering man pulled them away from the door, looking at the girl. "Now what's happened that needs my son's attention, hm?"
"Hicca's in labor!"
"What?!" Turning into a dragon, Toothless bounded outside and across the village, flapping his wings furiously to gain altitude and at the least hover to the house.
. . . . . . . . . .
When Hicca was a little girl, she once wandered into the forge, ignoring her father's orders of staying near him. She had burned her arm on a piece of heated metal. The searing pain hurt very much for a little girl, and it did not match up even close to the pain of going through labor.
When Hicca first felt a tingle in her abdomen, she brushed it off as a kick from the baby. Heather was with her at the time, and she began to worry and asked if she should get the midwife and Toothless.
"No, the baby's just kicking," she said. "He's going to be a fighter."
"Or she," Heather pointed out.
She shook her head, picks up her pencil and adding another detail to her sketch. "Nah, it's a boy. Toothless thinks it's a girl, but I think he just wants another little lady in his life to protect."
"Not that you're exactly ladylike in the first place," Heather joked.
Hicca's shoulders shook as she laughed. "True. Gods, I can't believe that in a few days Toothless and I are gonna be parents."
Heather waited until her friend took a drink of water before saying, "You think it's possible you'll give birth to an egg?" She smirked as Hicca spit the water out and was about to assure her she was joking when she suddenly gasped out in surprise and doubled over on her seat. "Hicca? Oh my gods, are you alright?"
"I-I think you were right…"
She was about to question of Hicca knew what she was giving birth to when she added, "The baby's coming!"
Laying her back in bed, Heather ran off to get the midwife, who also happened to be the elder and her granddaughter, then went off in search for Toothless to deliver the news.
Albora helped Hicca sit up in the bed as her granddaughter, Whim, began to make her a tea.
"You'll be just fine, dear," Albora said, comfortingly rubbing her shoulder. "You're strong, you can handle giving life to this little one."
"Th-thank you, Al," Hicca gasped out. She cringed as another ring of pain shot through her body. "Gods, how long is this going to take?"
"I'm afraid it may take a few hours, miss." Though Whim was roughly a few months older than Hicca, she always spoke formal to just about everyone she met. "May take up to twelve hours, at least."
"Twelve hours?! What the hell makes you think I'm going to stay here in this writhing pain?!" Hicca shouted as loud as she could, then breathes heavily as her head hit the pillows. "Gods, I hate this!"
"It'll all be worth it in the end, I promise. Here, drink." Albora passed the tea to Hicca, and she quickly drank it before she could spill any of it on her bed. "Just calm down. Getting angry will not help."
Hicca gritted her teeth. "Gods, where's Toothless?"
. . . . . . . . . .
"B-b-but Whim! I need to–"
"Need to, nothing!" Whim said, pushing the older boy down the stairs. "You would know that no man is allowed while the woman is giving birth, even the father! I promise you'll see the child once it's born, but you have to stay here until then!"
Toothless stumbled, catching himself before he could fall down the rest of the way. "Okay, okay! Fine! I'll stay down here! I want to hold the baby and I can't do that if you break my arm!"
"Good. Now stay!" Whim huffed as she went back up the stairs. At the foot of them, Toothless bit in his fingernail as he heard Hicca give out another yell of pain.
"You're doing it again," Thuggory said, coming into the room.
"What?"
He closed the door of the house and say on the chair by the fireplace. "Your nails. You're biting them again. You only do that when you're about to freak out."
Toothless let go of his fingers and wiped the saliva off on his shirt. "What? Since when?"
"I'm guessing since you two found out Hicca was pregnant." He put his feet up on the box that was used as a recliner and leaned back, slouching. "Whether you agreed to it or not, we're brothers now. And as your older brother, I have a bit of advice for you: you need to stop treating Hicca like a fragile plate of glass."
Toothless groaned and put his head in his hands, sitting on the couch across from the fire. "I know, I know! But I can't help it! Dragons have this basic instinct to protect their mates and hatchlings. It's stronger in our human forms, I think."
Before Thuggory can say anything, the door opened again and a thin man came in. He wore a green vest, exposing his chest and arms, and wore black trousers and no shoes. His forest-green hair reached to his shoulders and he panted for breathe as he walked into the room.
"Gods, sorry I . . . took so long . . . I was trying to—and—when—they—" He paused and fell to the floor, utterly exhausted.
"What did Cameo get himself into now?" Toothless asked, kicking lightly at the man who fell.
"Hel if I know. Help me get him on the couch."
. . . . . . . . . .
More than twelve hours had already passed. All day Toothless stayed inside the house, occasionally going up in attempt to see Hicca. He would be turned down by a very not-formal Whim, be threatened with his child losing his father before he was born, then the door would slam in his face. He knew that she would never actually do such a thing. At least, he hoped she knew.
Past sunset, it was almost midnight. It was about noon when Hicca first went into labor, and it was an antagonizing moment for Toothless. He was worried that the baby wouldn't survive; it was a hybrid of a human and a dragon, something that had never been made before!
He was so distracted in his thoughts of the baby's chances of survival that he almost missed Hicca's piercing scream. Worried that something might have happened, he quickly ran up the stairs. Before he reached the door, he heard Albora say, "Good, Hicca, you're doing well! I can already see its head, one more push should do it."
Toothless paused. Was it already time? He pressed his ear to the door and heard Hicca's scream, Albora's encouragement, Whim's soothing words.
Then a baby crying.
Opening the door, forgetting Whim's threats, he was met with the sight of a sweaty and tired-looking Hicca in bed. She was panting, her stomach was no longer bloated, she she was smiling. Next to her, Albora was carrying something in a wrapped blanket, handing it to her. "Mind her head," she said. Looking up she saw Toothless. She smiled and said, "We'll leave you three alone. You remember what to do if she gets hungry?"
"Yes, of course," Hicca said.
Albora and Whim exited out the room with the latter sending the dragon glare and a co passionate smile.
Dumbfounded and stupified, Toothless took slow and careful steps. Hicca looked up at him and smiled. "Don't just stand there," she laughed, the tire obvious in her voice. "Come meet your daughter."
Taking his place next to her, Toothless looked down at the infant in her arms. It was a baby girl with dark red hair, faded, and tanned skin. Her skin was a little more of a darker shade like her father's, but still there. Her eyes were closed and one of her tiny hands was tightly holding onto her finger. The small creature was whimpering, uncomfortable in this new world she found herself in.
"Toothless?"
"Huh, what?" Toothless looked up and saw Hicca looking at him with an amused smile on her face. "Sorry I . . . I wasn't paying attention."
She giggled. "I can tell. Do you want to hold her?"
"Um . . . Can I?"
"Duh. She's your daughter, too, you know."
Daughter . . . Toothless thought. He had a daughter. And this daughter was also Hicca's. His and Hicca's daughter.
"Mind her head," Hicca said as she handed the swaddled baby to him. She had to use a bit of force to pry the infant's grip off her finger, but once it was managed, Toothless awkwardly held the child in his hands. "Don't act like you can drop her. Hold her tighter. Don't let go."
He did as instructed, sitting on the bed. Hicca occupied most of it at the moment, so while he cannot lie with her, he can still sit. "I won't," he promised. "I get to name her."
Hicca sighed through her nose. She looked she was about to pass out from exhaustion. "Mm, yah. Promise I'll name out next child then, hm?"
Toothless looked up. "Next child?" He smiled when Hicca nodded, then directed his attention to his daughter. "Aurora."
"Mm? Nice name. What's it mean?"
He let his finger graze over the girl's cheek. She fidgeted a little and settled down when she seemed to recognize her father. "I forgot until recently, but it was my mother's name. It means hopeful light in Dragonese." He looked up and saw Hicca already nodding off. Sighing, he leaned back on the bed, feeling rather tired himself. He had woken up early when Thuggory took him to Heather's house for the chiefly lessons, and now it was actually past midnight. Not risking that he might drop the infant in his sleep, he stayed up the extra hours.
Eventually the baby whimpered and Hicca up, saying that she might be hungry. And as she fed her, he cheeks turned as red as her hair when Toothless said that he wouldn't mind being fed by her. He ended up with a hit to his stomach and a whispered lecture that he would have to stop the sexual innuendos and teasers. It was a calm morning when he sun rise, one that of them really wanted to to get up to.
. . . . . . . . . .
Sorry I took so long to add another chapter. My brother had an appendix surgery a few days ago and actually thought it was a worse situation that he was going to die. He's okay now, but he sometimes has a hard time moving. He is taking very good advantage of vein incapacitated at the moment and making me help him get stuff since he can't even bend over without experiencing excruciating pain, and at the moment I'm typing this sentence he's yelling at the TV of the third season finale of Once Upon A Time. That is a good show, and Captain Hook is very fine-looking guy if I do say so myself.
I'm sidetracking here again. Anyway, as his younger brother, I still bother and not him to an extent. Just not as much as I used to anymore.
This chapter was more fun to right because unlike the other ones, I actually but deep thought in it, which is why it took so long. I also tend to upload only on weekends, so at least you know when to expect a new chapter or something.
Land-ho, Captain CoronCrown!
