The first Epilogue. Please enjoy.

Berkian Eddur - 1

Becoming Lífþrasir

Past

The next time he woke up, his head was throbbing and ringing, but he had no problem remembering what had happened. He did, in fact, wish that he didn't have to, considering his leg, and the mess he'd made with Troll's Peak (they'd have to rename what was left of it now), and … dear gods, Astrid … but eh, it was an occupational hazard. He just hoped he'd be able to find a way to fly with that thing strapped instead of his foot, because there was no way Toothless was going to be grounded again.

Speaking of whom…

"Hey buddy," he said in a whisper, his voice hoarse from sleep as he felt his friend's hot and fishy breath on his face. Toothless's enthusiastic squealing made him wince, but also smile. His heavy eyelids finally gave way, and he still was in the same room - the main room of his childhood hall, he realised - with a fire blazing brightly and light streaming through the windows and cracks in the door. After jumping around the room a little - Hiccup couldn't really stop him, though he tried - the night fury quieted instantly and was by his side in a moment when he tried to rise. It was slow and painful, and he ended up panting more than he cared to, but he was up against the headboard again, on his own.

And this time, he wasn't going to vomit his guts out. There was no way in Hel's rotten boobs that Astrid was going to see that again.

Although if she didn't object to see the rest again under different circumstances …

Oh wow, well ok. His head needed to be screwed back on the right way, apparently. He was turning into Thuggory.

When his breathing was normal again, he opened his eyes, looking around the quiet room. Astrid hadn't run up to help (thankfully!) so he was assuming she wasn't in the room (she wasn't about to stop doing whatever she'd put it in her head to do with him, he knew. She was Astrid, stubborn as they came). A quick feel under the covers told him that he was covered this time, if only in a short pair of string trousers that were loosely tied. There was a large basin with water on a table by the bed, kept warm by the pan of coals under it, and there were two buckets beside it.

Yeah, Astrid. She'd possibly stepped out for a moment or so, and had made sure to leave everything there for him, just right. She hadn't changed in her steadfastness, and a place in his chest that he knew belonged to her alone leapt up and danced to have found her again.

A door to the right he hadn't noticed before opened, and Hiccup stiffened to see Stoick walk out, looking exhausted with bags under his eyes. A quick glance told the back of his mind that the walled up area had been where his father used to sleep behind a curtain, and that the loft upstairs also was now closed off with wood and reeds, making the hall look smaller, and somehow more comfortable and homey. Astrid's doing, no doubt.

The rest of his brain was too shocked to see his dad bend down slightly to get his beard ruffled and huffed at by his beloved dragon while Toothless accepted a chin scratch from Stoick as if it was the highlight of his mornings. Then a nightmare - oh, Fireworm! - poked it's head out of a corner, and uncurled her large body to re-wind it around Stoick, who took the death-clench as if it was a love pat - which it actually was, seeing as Fireworm was purring as she rubbed her head against the large man's bare arm.

"You're up," Stoick finally said, and Hiccup's mouth was dry, so he nodded. He didn't have the helmet on at all. He looked at his father's face carefully, and when he saw that there was only happiness and hope there, he tried a small smile, which developed into a grin when his father smiled back.

"Yeah … sorry to be a bother," he said quickly, and Stoick shook his head, his smile reaching his eyes. With a shrug, he managed to convince Fireworm to unwind herself from him, and she chased Toothless out of the enlarged door. Odin, how was HE supposed to open that door now?

"Never, Hiccup," Stoick said quietly, and he seemed almost skittish to come closer, as if Hiccup was a massive dragon that would eat him whole if he made a misstep. So Hiccup tried to sit up further, maybe swing his legs - leg, or: hey, legs, like Toothless had fins - off the bed to face his father, but his hand slipped on the sheets and he banged his ear on the headboard.

Stoick was there in an instant, large hands holding him - and Hiccup was at least pleased to see that his dad's hands were smaller on his chest now, that he at least COULD see some skin between the man's large fingers as he helped him turn as he wished, now mismatching feet hitting the ground one after the other. Hiccup flung his arm over the headboard to steady himself. Toothless came back in and up on his other side, curling himself impossibly on the bed and tucking one wing behind his rider, keeping his bed-warm back comfortable as the relative chill of the room hit it.

"Thanks, dad," he said without thinking, and then stopped and bit his lip, looking up at the man. "I mean, I … um. Can I call you … that?" he asked quietly, his mouth in a knot as he looked up at his father, his heart beginning to beat faster for reasons other than his physical exertion.

"Oh, son," Stoick replied in a choked voice, and both Toothless and Hiccup gave a startled yelp as Hiccup was engulfed in his dad's large embrace, disappearing into big arms and chest and scratchy beard. "Oh son, my son. I'm so sorry, so, so sorry. To have made you feel like you … I never meant to make you feel like …"

Hiccup was startled to find his tunic getting wet. He blinked, not quite sure what to do and rather too stiff within his father's embrace to be comfortable. But the tone of his voice broke his heart, making him realise just how much Stoick was feeling right now, and that maybe … Well, Astrid had said that his dad had taken it to heart, that he didn't see him as a …

The view that had been twisted five years ago, the view of Hiccup and his dad inside his heart, where Stoick waited and Hiccup tried and tried and tried again to prove himself the man his father was waiting for, began to untwist and uncurl from its knotted, burnt shape. Hesitantly, Hiccup raised a hand and curled it in his father's fur cloak, too unsure and suddenly afraid to touch him directly, and Stoick began to shake, more tears splashing down his son's shirt. Hiccup's heart gave a lurch, and slowly he buried his face in his father's neck, feeling more than knowing the arms around him tighten fractionally, ever so tender on his aching body.

"Odin," Hiccup whispered, wryly and with a sad chuckle. "I can't do anything right." Stoick moved away slightly, face unashamedly covered in tears as he thumbed his son's face, and Hiccup finally relaxed, closing his eyes and letting his head fall into his father's massive hand. He was five years old again, and his father was making a booboo go away by putting his big hands on it and saying that Hiccup was a man, and could take his scratched up knees. "Sorry dad," he said in a whisper. "I thought I was doing the right thing when I left. I didn't mean to disappoint you, again." And damnit, Hiccup was not going to be ashamed of the tears leaking out of his eyes. If his dad could cry and still be a tree-trunk of a man, then Hiccup could cry too and be manly. Or whatever passed for Manly in the Hiccup Department, anyway. Toothless huffed at them both, nosing at Hiccup's face, and then left the room. Hiccup was sure he'd understood that the two men needed some moments alone.

"You didn't, you could never," Stoick choked, and his head was buried against Hiccup's shoulder again, and this time his son simply put his arms around him and his nose in his dad's neck.

"I'm sure the time when I blew up the chicken coop came close," Hiccup replied, and a blubbering laugh shook his father, who held onto him tightly enough to make him yelp.

"Sorry, son," Stoick said, letting go abruptly, but not moving away from where he was kneeling in front of Hiccup. A hand hesitated for a moment, and came up to hover on his shoulder. Hiccup ducked into it feeling rather sheepish to suddenly let the emotions bubble up inside him in this manner, and truly feeling like he was a small boy again, sitting on his father's knee and wishing to be like him and make him proud more than anything in the world.

"How are you feeling this morning," Stoick said with a swallow, almost sounding fearful as his hand hesitantly rested on his shoulder. Hiccup half-smiled up at him, wanting more than anything in the world to make the guilty, terrified look leave his dad's face. He had a white streak in his hair now, and Hiccup's insides tumbled for a moment as he wondered whether it was due to worrying about the errant son who'd gone traipsing about the archipelago, leaving him behind to worry. Hesitantly, he raised his own hand to finger the streak in his dad's hair, and Stoick went stock still as his eyes looked out of their puffy, tired lids with shining hope.

"This is because of me?" Hiccup asked guiltily. To his surprise, Stoick burst out laughing, in big, wobbly guffaws that shook his chest and echoed in Hiccup's own. Hiccup relaxed instantly, his own mouth twisting upwards as he watched his dad laugh in a way that he hadn't seen in … years. His dad was happy; Stoick the Vast, his dad, was laughing lightheartedly with his son Hiccup. The younger man looked at his father and smiled more, parts of his chest melting away and leaving behind only a sense of relief and lightness.

"THAT is because of the Thorston twins. I hadn't realised how much you kept them under control by giving them your inventions to play with till you left, son. You blew up that chicken coop once, by mistake. They left us with no chickens and no eggs for months when they got ahold of a keg of gunpowder and mixed it with corn-powder, then fed it to them."

"Oh boy," Hiccup said with a dismayed laugh, his chest hurting all over in the best of ways as he tried to contain the mirth at the somehow pitiful but funny image of exploding chickens.

Stoick shook his head in fond reminisce. "Ruffnut's calmed down since she married, but not a moment too soon. Unrepentant they were too. Said it was glorious."

"I bet it was, in way," Hiccup said, biting his lip and still lost in the funny scene playing behind his eyes. "One minute you have the silly bird, going around going 'kak-kak-kak', and the next, bam!" He chuckled, hugging his chest for a moment as it hurt, and then he was in his dad's arms again, Stoick holding him tenderly.

"I've missed you, son," he said in a choked voice, and Hiccup almost gasped, relaxing bonelessly into his dad. The place that had begun to be soothed when first Gobber and then Astrid had been happy to see him, and when Gobber had said he'd missed him, finally gave out at the bottom, and the hurt fell away to the natural throbbing of a warm heart. He hugged his dad back as hard as he dared.

"I did too, dad. Every day. I was trying to be … something better. For you and for Berk."

"You're the best thing that has ever happened to Berk, son," Stoick replied, pushing away and putting both hands on Hiccup's shoulders. "And don't you doubt that again. It is no fault but our own that it took us so long to see it. And no fault but …" Stoick looked down, and looked back up at Hiccup shyly and apologetically. "No fault but my own that I didn't see what a good man you are. You never disappointed me, son; not when all you did was try hard, work hard and do whatever you could for Berk and its people. I could not ask for a better son."

Hiccup's shoulders relaxed the rest of the way, and a buoyant feeling overtook his chest as his face finally broke into a relieved smile. The image of Stoick loving him, and loving him, and waiting as Hiccup tried and tried again to prove himself the best son he could be uncurled completely in his chest, reforming from the bent and dented shape it had taken five years ago into a coherent, real, beating thing, alive in his chest.

"I still have a ways to go to be as great a man as you, dad," he said, unable to keep the shy smile off his face. His dad loved him. His dad loved him. His dad loved him. It was the best feeling in the world.

"You're on the road to become a better one," his father said, his own smile wide, and proud. Hiccup's chest felt like it would burst. Maybe he had taken too big a beating and he was going to die from lung failure or something, but for now, it felt like happiness, and Hiccup decided to take it with both hands. "Now come, do you feel up to seeing a bit of sunlight? You can sit on the bench in front of the house, greet people. Gobber's been dying to see what you think about that foot.

Stoick stood, helping Hiccup as he lurched to his feet. The pain in his stump as he put weight on it was sharp and almost paralysing, taking his breath away both with its physical presence and its metaphysical meaning - his foot was gone, his foot was gone - but he put it away for another moment. Right now, his dad was here, looking down at him as proudly as Hiccup had ever dreamed he would. They still had to talk about the dragons, still had to speak about what he'd done in the past five years - both the things he was proud of and those that he was not - and speak about his future. His father seemed to be implying that he could stay. That he could have a home again. If that was the case, then … Hiccup would grasp that with every fibre of his being.

But right now, Hiccup was being helped to the door by his dad, who wasn't looking disappointed at all. The look of pride and satisfied serenity that Hiccup had always sought to put on his father's face was there at last, and as he sat beside him on the bench outside the house, and people began to cheer and come up and gather round and make a proper din, Hiccup had his dad's arm around him, finally the son his father wanted, the valid aid and support he deserved, and the son Hiccup had always wanted to be to his beloved father.

=0=

These two have never really needed many words. In the film a particular thing I adore is how their conversation is stilted in the bad times – but also in the good times. They don't know how to speak to one another, but sometimes, they just don't need to. A few words before Hiccup goes up to fight the massive dragon repair everything that's been broken; a few encouraging comments about the boy's missing dragon puts him in a better mood in GotNF. They fight and they quarrel, but they love each other so much at the end of the day that they are gladder to forgive than to be right. And here, that is why I made sure to outline that what hurt Hiccup the most was not anything his father said, they weren't the words that hurt, but the belief of a young boy that his dad no longer loved him. While on the other end, Stoick was a stressed, worried, over-protective father who had no idea how to speak to his intelligent, inventive, accident prone son. Foxy and I have recently been discussing the significance of Stoick's age in the second film; If Stoick is already fifty when Hiccup is only 19 or 20, then that means that he and his wife probably couldn't have children for a very long time, and when Hiccup finally came, he must have seemed like a tiny miracle, to be swaddled and loved and protected. So now every single thing that Stoick says in the film takes on a new meaning as an over-protective father trying to keep his son tucked in a safe place, while Hiccup is trying to do what all youths try to do; grow up. I love these two. I really, really, do.

Screw romance; the relationship between Hiccup and his dad in HTTYD is one of the sweetest, loveliest examples of human relations that have ever been told in fiction. *gets teary eyed*. Hats off to Sanders, DeBlois and ALL THE TEAM. Here's a toast to an even better film this June.

28/3/14 – remaining to epilogues will be tomorrow and Sunday.