Did Anybody See That? Chapter 11
The end of the hearing was a mere formality. Hiccup was deemed to have met his obligations to the tribe, and all charges against him were dropped. Astrid's name was also cleared. Time passed, and the dragons didn't come back, except to occasionally fish offshore. Berk prospered.
The only remaining question was, what to do with Hiccup?
There was an initial time of adulation and celebration, even hero worship. He enjoyed it with some embarrassment, without letting it go to his head. But as time went by and village life returned to normal, it became increasingly obvious that he still didn't fit in.
He refused to take part in dragon training, except to tell Astrid how to handle an angry dragon without resorting to weapons. She used his information to pacify a charging Nadder by tickling its neck. After that, she dropped out of dragon training as well. "I just don't want to fight them any more" was all she'd tell anyone. Snotlout wound up winning the dragon-training competition, but it was a hollow victory. There would be no Monstrous Nightmare waiting in the ring for him. The village had lost interest in killing dragons for sport. As soon as the winner was announced, the doors to the training ring were opened and all the dragons were set free.
Hiccup tried to return to the obscurity of the forge, sharpening garden tools and hammering out pulley brackets for fishing boats. It was important work that the village needed, but it was tame stuff for someone who rode a dragon and had fought in the sky. His mind tended to wander, and that was when the "incidents" happened. Sometimes he just burned his fingers; sometimes he ruined what he was working on, and had to start over; twice, he almost burned down the forge. Even Gobber was beginning to lose patience with him. No one could fault his workmanship, but they deeply mistrusted his work in progress.
Worst of all, no one really felt comfortable around him. They knew he'd officially redeemed himself, but when they looked at him, they couldn't forget the word "traitor." No one would sit with him at meal times in the Mead Hall. Few would look him in the eye when they met him in the streets of town. The fact that he rode a dragon and talked to it only made him more strange to them. Some of the warriors even blamed him for ending the dragon wars and taking away their chances for glory. Most of the other teens did their best to pretend he didn't exist.
The bonds that tie a person into his culture are not strong like forged iron. They are easily broken and can be hard to mend, especially among those who commit the unpardonable sin of non-conformity. Individual Vikings were willing to forgive Hiccup for what he had done. The community as a whole, couldn't. Wouldn't.
He took to spending large amounts of time flying around with Toothless. With the exceptions of Gobber and Astrid, no one noticed he was gone. It was just like the days when he was on the run, except now he wasn't an escaped criminal, so no one had any reason to go looking for him.
Astrid asked to fly with him whenever she saw him preparing to take off. He never invited her, but he never refused her, either. He usually didn't say much in the air. She was content with that; the view from one mile up was breathtaking, and she was happy just to see it and share it with him. She'd wrap her arms around him from behind, and although he never said anything, she knew he liked it.
One afternoon, he waited for her outside the Mead Hall and asked her to join him in the air. He'd never done that before. She accepted, told her parents she'd be away for the rest of the day, and joined him and Toothless on the hilltop near Stoick's house. Once again they rode off into the sky; she never got tired of that.
They flew out to sea for about an hour, then spiraled down and landed on a small island in the middle of the ocean. It had a beach, some trees, and one good hill. Set into that hill was a fine cave, with a tiny freshwater creek flowing out of it. Hiccup dismounted and sat near the cave mouth; Astrid joined him.
"This would have been a great place for you, when you were hiding," she commented.
"It would have," he said. "It will make an even better place for me now." His words hit her like a whip, but she forced herself to not react. She waited for him to continue. He hugged his knees and looked out to sea.
"You know those stories they tell, about the Norse villages that are threatened by renegade Vikings, so they bring in a few powerful warriors-for-hire to protect them? When the fighting is done and the village is saved, the first thing they do is get rid of the warriors who saved them."
"Is that how you feel? You saved the village, but they still turned their backs on you?" she asked. She already knew the answer.
"They turned their backs on me a long, long time ago," he went on. "They just made it official at the first hearing. Even my dad isn't so proud of me, now that I'm acting like Hiccup the Useless again. I'll never be anything but a misfit and a criminal in that town, no matter what I do." He picked up a rock and flicked it into the cave, then looked out to sea again.
"Toothless and I are happy together. He accepts me for who I am, faults and all, and we've already proven that we can make it on our own. This place is perfect for a guy and his dragon. Except for a passing fishing boat now and then, I won't be reminded..." His voice trailed off.
He glanced back at Astrid, and was shocked to see her fighting back tears. "Astrid, I'm not including you with all of them! Sure, you were a little rough on me at first, but you risked a lot for me, and you don't treat me like all the others do. Sometimes I think you even like me. When I say stuff like that, it's not aimed at you."
She struggled to keep control over herself. She didn't start to talk until she was sure she could speak without breaking down. It took her a minute.
"If you wanted to aim that stuff at me, you'd have every right to. I treated you just as badly as everyone else there. But that's not what I'm thinking about.
"Living with this dragon has changed you, Hiccup. For the better. When you're with him, you're brave, determined, confident, more clever than usual... he brings things out in you that most people never imagine. I love being around you when you're around him.
"Not only that, but the two of you have changed the village together. You changed it so well that you no longer have a place there. All they want to do now is catch fish and raise sheep. They've got no room for someone like you, someone who imagines new things and finds better ways to do old things. You've become a threat to their way of life, just by being yourself."
He opened his mouth, but she laid a finger across his lips. "Please let me finish. I've gotten to know you pretty well, probably better than you think. I know what you're planning. All that flying around that you two were doing – you were looking for a place like this, weren't you? You're going to bring a few of your favorite things out here, one or two at a time so no one notices. You'll bring some tools and some raw materials to make things and fix things, and you'll bring papers to draw on, and some creature comforts like sleeping furs. And then, one day, you and Toothless will just leave and not come back. It will be easier than trying to say 'goodbye' to a bunch of people who are thinking 'good riddance.' Am I right?"
He nodded slowly. "I brought you out here to show you that I'll be okay. I don't want you to worry about me, because you're the only one who would worry about me. Gobber will miss his apprentice, and Dad will miss the son he thought I could be, but you're the only one who will miss me."
She slid a couple of inches toward him. "I know you don't have a life in Berk. Like you said, it's a local tradition for people to turn their backs on you. I helped them do that a few times, I admit it, and I really messed your life up once or twice. I know you don't owe me anything. But can I ask you something?"
"What do you want from me?" he asked quietly.
"When you go, please take me with you?"
He stared into her soft blue eyes for what seemed like ages.
"Astrid, I can't see you as the cave-dwelling type. You need action and adventure to keep you happy. You're trying to be noble, and I appreciate that, but are you really drawn to me, or are you just feeling sorry for me?"
She shook her head. "Do you think you're the only one who's been changed by everything that's happened? The only action and adventure I've had in the past three months is when I've ridden Toothless with you, and somehow, that's been enough for me. I used to long for fame and glory, but now I see how heroes get treated in real life. There are people there who still look at me like I helped a criminal. And I don't feel sorry for you; I feel sorry for the people who can't appreciate you because you don't fit the mold they made for you.
"Besides, can you see me in Berk in five years? I'd have to marry Snotlout and make a bunch of babies and learn how to cook. How can I be happy with a future like that when I've flown in the clouds?"
He gave her one of his wry grins and gestured at the cave mouth. "Would you rather live here and make babies and learn to cook?"
"Yes," she said immediately, "as long as I can still fly in the clouds sometimes." She reached out and took his hands in hers. "I'm not like you; there's a lot about you that I don't understand. But I probably understand you better than anyone else on earth, except maybe Toothless. It's just not right that someone as wonderful as you should wind up alone and rejected by everyone.
"And I don't want a future that doesn't have you in it. I mean that, Hiccup."
He gazed back at her. "Could you really be happy, living in a cave, away from your family, eating fish six or seven days a week, always riding behind me in the air? Are you sure?"
She smiled. "Actually, I thought maybe you could help me train my own dragon some day, and we could all go flying together. I know I'd never be happy, living with the kind of people who could treat you the way they do. They've rejected you; how can I live with them?
"As for whether I'm sure? I'm sure of this much: living in a cave with you is better than living in a chief's house with anyone else.
"Please, Hiccup. When you go, take me with you."
After a long pause, he asked, "Are you proposing marriage to me?"
"Nope," she answered with a half-smile. "That's your job. I'm just giving you a clue what my answer might be."
He looked down for a few seconds. "I was really hoping you'd say something like that. I wanted to ask you, but... I was afraid." He sighed. "You'd think I'd be used to rejections by now, but if you'd turned me down, I don't know if I could have bounced back from that one."
They looked out to sea. The sun was beginning to set in the west. Toothless was nearly asleep next to them, watching them out of one half-closed eye. They enjoyed the silence for a minute.
"Asking your parents' permission is going to be hard," he finally said.
She brushed her hair out of her eyes. "You could always kidnap me."
"Nahh, I already did that. Let me think of something original."
They sat hand in hand and watched the sun descend into the sea, and enjoyed the feeling that the world was already passing them by.
THE END
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And another story comes to an end. I hope you liked it. To all those who posted favorites, followers, and especially reviews, thank you! This story has gotten nearly 200 of the above, and that's before I posted this final chapter. That's humbling. It also makes me want to write more stuff.
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Since I published this chapter, I've gotten multiple requests for a sequel or an epilogue. I'd meant to close the book on this story, but I'm a sucker for popular demand. It may take me a bit of time to get the story line rolling again, but if you're one of those who asked me for more, it pleases me to announce that I'll try to make you happy.