Disclaimer: HTTYD is not mine. No profit is being made.
Summary: A series of snapshots from Hiccup's early years. What childhood influences make a Hiccup? Add one boyhood crush, a tablespoon of Gobber's mentoring, two cups of childhood loneliness and ostracization, and a heaping helping of fatherly disapproval. Stir vigorously. Bake for fifteen years, then leave to cool in the brisk Berk climate.
Author's notes: Some of the writing in this chapter comes from my RP with the fabulous astridhofferson on LJ, and is being used with her permission. Just giving credit where credit is due.
Catching the Sun
By Saphie
Part 2
When they were eight, they played together by choice, but then all the young Vikings in the village did whenever they could escape their daily chores. Scrawny and already acknowledged to be on the strange side with all the odd questions he asked and the strange observations he made, Hiccup was always ending up underfoot during the times it was most inconvenient to the adults, but it wasn't yet apparent that he would grow up to be the nuisance and weakling that would become the butt of all the village jokes. He was Stoick's son, after all. He was small for an eight-year-old, but surely he was due for a growth spurt or two, and perhaps some of those odd thoughts of his would leave his head and he'd think like a proper Viking.
That was what the adults thought, at least. The other kids were merciless.
They played athletic games Hiccup was never good at, like a game Ruffnut and Tuffnut both claimed to have invented (and fought over credit for) called "bashyball" which mostly consisted of bashing a ball made of leathers into each other's faces. (Hiccup hated it). They talked about adult things they didn't understand as if they did. (Hiccup was better at this, because he actually understood what the grownups were talking about sometimes, but no one ever listened to him.) They also slayed imaginary dragons. (Hiccup was the best at this, because he could come up with fantastical imaginary scenarios, but they never let him have any of the good parts.)
His favorite times were when he could play with Astrid by himself. When she tired of Snotlout's endless bragging, of Tuff and Ruff's continual squabbling, and of Fishleg's endless spouting of random facts, she sometimes arranged to meet up with Hiccup alone in a field somewhere, while the others traipsed around the village.
"Late!" she said in a haughty voice, arms crossed as he arrived in the field they'd planned to play in one day. "This calls for punishment, just so you know. Be prepared for the consequences!"
"Sorry! I'm sorry, Astrid. Dad was mad at me for-"
Actually, Hiccup wasn't sure why his dad was mad at him, but it had something to do with a rock and his head and he didn't really understand what his dad had been getting it, but hitting his head on things generally seemed like a bad idea.
"-well, never mind, because I'm not actually sure why he was mad at me, but I'm here!" Hiccup said, holding up his arms in a placating fashion, hoping to avoid the inevitable noogies or pinching that were to come.
He got a rather merciful-by Astrid standards-smack on his shoulder for his lateness. "Ow. There we go. I'm punished, right? Goood and punished."
"Not enough! I waited for an hour!"
Being the victor of all their games, and the one among them that could take all the others in a fight, Astrid was generally used to getting her way. She crossed her wiry, little arms and lifted her chin imperiously at him. Then a wicked grin slowly spread across her face.
"How about I braid your haaair? Maybe I'll ask Ruffnut for help since you have a loooot of hair. I can't braid it by myself and I don't think I'm as good as mom."
Astrid's fiendish manner made it clear that she thought HE WOULD LOOK SO FABULOUS.
Hiccup's shoulders sagged, and his hands went up to his head to cover his hair.
Braids weren't particularly embarrassing. After all, many of the men in the village sported them in their hair and beards. And it generally wasn't looked down on by any of the kids when any of the others played "house" things, like hair-braiding. Both the girls and boys liked it as an occasional alternative to all the imaginary adventuring when they needed a breather. In fact, among their little gaggle of playmates, it was actually Snotlout that had the greatest predilection towards playing at domesticity, especially with dolls. What was wrong with pretending to take care of babies? All the mothers and fathers in the village took their turns at caring for their children, and caring for children and the rest of your tribe was Vikingly. Usually any games of house that they play-pretended culminated in a very heroic defense of the doll-children from imaginary dragons, anyway.
Astrid and Ruffnut actually played "house" type things more rarely than the boys, and they tended more towards making "armor" which was really code for jewelry and other ornamentation (usually made out of bobbins and string and shiny stones and any small animal skulls they could find). But as they were the only ones with hair long enough to braid, they tended to be the ones that preferred rigorous bouts of hair-braiding the most. Hiccup often braided their hair without their asking, because he was usually very fidgety and liked doing things with his hands, but he hated, hated, absolutely hated when they wanted to braid his. While the other boys, who had hair that was too short to braid, wandered off to do something interesting, he had to sit still the entire time. For someone with his attention span, it was torture on par with the blood eagle.
This was something that both girls knew which was why they sometimes did it. They loved to torture him. Astrid more so than Ruffnut, sometimes, and for the life of him, Hiccup couldn't figure out why she liked to see him squirm. Though come to think of it, sometimes when she was playing with his hair on the sides, he'd tilt his head just enough to peek at her and she'd have this strangely thoughtful look on her face, as if she found playing with his hair soothing or something. For all people acted like he was a little strange, she was the one that was a weird girl sometimes, in Hiccup's opinion.
"After you braid my hair, can we play?"
Astrid thought about this carefully. "Weeell, I don't know where Ruffnut is, so it'll have to wait. But you're not off the hook! I'll get you back later. We can play now in the meantime."
Hiccup bounced up and down.
"I have a new idea for a-for a something we can play," he said. "It's about a warrior queen and-and her her loyal vassal. Only he's, uh, he's secretly a prince, but neither of them know it."
He dithered about awkwardly for a second. Even though he was the one that usually came up with the pretend scenarios, he was never allowed to give himself any roles that were any fun or he got picked on. If he tried to be a chief or a king or a god or a powerful warrior, the others usually laughed at him and made him take on the part of, well, the sidekick. The person that carried the weapons, the poor sod that had to be rescued from slavery, that sort of thing. Somebody had to be the damsel, and the other boys never wanted to be, and no one on the face of the earth could make the girls do it.
But today he had time with just Astrid. Maybe him being a princely warrior would be okay with her. When he asked to be something cool, she never made fun of him.
"They have to fight the hordes of evil barbarians that are charging into their lands, and they're led by a warlord that rides-he rides a giant lizard that shoots spikes like a Nadder," Hiccup said, gesticulating wildly with his hands. "They have to get a magic axe first for the queen to use to defeat the warlord."
For a moment, Astrid just stared at him hard, and he withered slightly under her gaze.
"No good?" he asked sheepishly. "I can think of something else."
But boy, that would be difficult, as he'd spent all morning ignoring his father talking at him and coming up with that instead.
"I..." Astrid suddenly grabbed his shoulders and shook him excitedly. "I LOVE IT! Where should we start?"
Hiccup grinned wildly despite the shaking. Astrid was hard to impress and when he did impress her, it had a way of leaving a strange, warm feeling pooling in the pit of his stomach.
"We need weapons first, my queen!" After she let go of him, he ran over a nearby copse of trees and picked up two sticks from the ground and tossed her the heftier one. "Look! Barbarian scouts just ahead! We must stop them and question them for information about their master!"
Astrid caught the stick, twirling it with obvious skill (she'd already started to learn to fight from her mother and father) and pointed the "weapon" heroically at... several lone stacks of hay. Those poor lifeless stacks of hay had no clue what was coming to them.
"Excellent work, Madguts! Ha, do those fools dare think they can invade my kingdom? Taking me for some prissy, helpless queen, do they? They forget I'm a Viking!" Astrid shouldered the stick, lifting her hand and releasing a haughty laugh behind it, "Ohohohoho! We shall make them squeal out everything they know!"
"They'll quake in fear of the might of Madguts the Murderous and Queen Ironfists the Irate. The fools should've known that we were even more barbaric than they!" He smacked a haystack with his "sword." "Talk! Tell us where your master is hiding!"
"They're not telling us anything!" Of course, it was just hay, which wasn't the most talkative in general. Astrid flailed, with faux fury that was intimidating to Hiccup even in its obvious falseness. "They mock ME?"
She speared the nearest haystack with her imaginary sword and dove in, hay flying everywhere.
Bursting free from the mess, "Queen Ironfists" laughed manically, tearing at it and lifting a fistful of straw. Apparently that "barbarian" had his insides ripped out. Lovely. So much for information from that one.
Hiccup winced sympathetically at the haystack, his imagination as overactive as ever, and for a moment, caught himself looking at Astrid as she posed imperiously, her teeth bared in a ferocious little grin, particles of hay drifting around her in the air and catching the sun. It was the same color as her hair.
Then he shook himself out of it and turned to the other haystack, yelling, "TALK! My queen is not a patient person. Talk or you'll end up like your friend! Where is your master? Where is Warlord Skunknuts?"
Hiccup mimicked an evil thug voice. "'In the valley! He's in the valley next to the mountains! Please, let me live! I beg for your mercy.'"
"Fool!" Hiccup declared in his own voice again. "We're Vikings! We don't know the meaning of mercy!"
He stabbed the minion in his hay-filled guts. "You can finish him, oh, Queen!"
Snarling, Astrid added the finishing touch, stabbing the coward in the "head". She then tore out that hay stack's innards before flinging it away and turning to Hic-Madguts, grinning proudly.
"That was impressive skill, my minion. When we return to the castle after we've slain their dumb lord, I will reward you with your pick of some of the finest lands and sheeps in my kingdom."
The day was wiled away with the attack of various minions, fighting a horde of dragons, crossing a moat, and navigating a maze full of deadly traps. In the maze, they listened to an oracle that revealed Hiccup's princeliness and that was destined for tragedy, and that Astrid was destined for greatness. Finally, armed with her magic axe, Astrid got to take on Warlord Skunknuts. After Hiccup tragically sacrificed himself to take a spike shot by his giant lizard meant for Astrid and chopped the death-lizard's head off, he lay there, half-dead, as Astrid defeated the warlord handily.
Hay lay scattered all over the ground.
It was over. His reign of terror was through. Their lands were safe at last.
"Queen Ironfists," Hiccup coughed weakly, on the ground, clutching a stick so it looked like it was a spike in his chest. "Is it finished? Did you defeat him?"
Hay in her hair, Astrid stepped over to him and stood over the "fallen warrior" solemnly.
"The warlord is no more. My magic axe has had its thirst for blood quenched. The monsters at my castle will feast on his bones. Nothing shall remain." She knelt and rested a hand on his head, silently offering prayer to the gods. "You've fought well, my vassa-no-my friend, Prince Madguts. I will never forget your brave deeds and most of all your loyalty to your queen. ...Well, for the time when I was your queen. I can no longer call you my servant and you are free now."
Hiccup gasped. "I give to you my kingdom, now that it is reclaimed from Skunknuts and now that I know I am a prince. And I go now to Valhalla, to be with my forefathers. It was an-an honor to fight... beside you... arrrrghlararhgle. Bleh."
There was one last dramatic gasp and then Hiccup "died."
Astrid stood, raising her head to the heavens, calling out, "Your memory will be honored! Everyone will remember your kingdom and name throughout all of history!"
Alas, no tears would fall from her eyes. Tough, awesome, Viking/shield-maiden/queens didn't cry. Yet when Hiccup peeked just a tiny bit through his eyelids he saw a strange look on her face, as if, somewhere deep inside her, she was a little dissatisfied with this kind of ending. Maybe too morose?
Falling out of her pretend role and collapsing on her bottom, she exhaled loudly, "I'm beat! How long have we been going for? That was long, but it was pretty fun!"
Hiccup just lay there, sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth.
"Uh... Hiccup? Game's over."
She took her stick and poked him.
Hiccup laughed, and swatted the stick away.
"Okay, okay, I'm not dead anymore."
Grinning, she relented and dropped the stick. He peeked one eye open at her, and then a thoughtful look came over his face. There was a reason he'd chosen the noble sacrifice as his character's little scenario. He liked that he'd "died" a hero, and that Astrid proclaimed he'd always be remembered.
The others didn't seem to like playing with him much anymore. They teased him and called him "Useless," sometimes, like it was his name now. And he annoyed Gobber by getting things wrong in the stall and not being able to lift anything, he could tell. And the other adults in the village seemed irritated whenever he was around.
Worst of all, his dad siiiighed at him all the time. The look on his father's face from earlier was still stuck inside his head. Playing pretend had distracted him for a while, but now those eyes stared at him in disappointment from behind his eyelids every time he closed his own eyes and it bothered him that he didn't really understand what the cause of that disappointment was. All he knew was that it was there, directed at him.
Blinking both eyes open and looking blankly at the blue sky, he asked, well, a 'Hiccup question,' which was generally regarded in the village to be a question about something no one else tended not to think about and took far too much thinking to answer.
"Hey, Astrid? If I was really gone like that... would you miss me?"
She was picking the hay out of her hair when he asked her that and pondered over her answer for a moment. Then she just chuckled, taking it for a pointless question and answered, "What are you saying? You're the son of Stoick the Vast. And that guy can lop off a dragon's head like it's nothing. You're not going anywhere anytime soon."
Sure, he could be a little... different at times, but surely once he was older he'd be crazy strong like his father and his ancestors before him. In her mind, they'd all be something great one day. Her, Hiccup, Ruffnut and Tuffnut, Snotlout, even Fishlegs. Of course, she would be the best, but they'd all be great.
There was a patch of daisies near them, and Hiccup plucked a few, his hands working to knot them together, as he picked away at the knotty questions crowding his mind, "You didn't answer my question. I mean, if I was gone right now, would you miss me? Like if I got eaten by a dragon or something."
Her eyes flickered to what he was doing, bringing her legs up and wrapping her arms around them. Finally, she shrugged, and said, "I guess I would. You're weird, but this is fun. You know? Training is fun, fishing is fun, and I think I like this, too. And no one does this better than you. It makes me wish I could read better. I know my mom has books with stories like the ones you make up."
Hiccup looked ecstatic to hear it. He didn't say what he was thinking, that he was starting to think she would be the only one who would miss him.
"I have some books that are pretty easy to read. I have to sound everything out first, but the woodcuts help. Dad got 'em trading."
"The others think reading is a waste of time. Except Fishlegs. What's up with that?" She leaned back on her arms. "There are great stories about shieldmaidens and warriors and fighting if the book is good."
Hiccup, finally finished with the crown, sat up, reached over, and plopped it on her head. The daisy-crown sagged, going over her left eye and nearly falling off before she blinked and adjusted it.
"Heeey, what's this for?"
Hiccup just shrugged and smiled at her.
"Just 'cause, I guess. A queen needs a crown, right?"
Astrid grinned back a gap-toothed grin, and to Hiccup it was like the sun rising.
