A/n: Idea from TNTkinetic - via PM. This took absolutely ages to do; every time I tried to save it, the internet cut out.
After the parrot fiasco, Hiccup was slightly reluctant to allow Trader Johan back on Berk. He took precaution, just in case of another parrot, by riding out to meet the man, before he could get to the island, to check his boat for annoying birds.
That meant that he had to listen to the latest of the terribly dull tales of 'adventure', but it was a small price to pay for the dragons' wellbeing.
"Hey Johan," Hiccup greeted, landing on the crowded boat. It was full, as usual, of random objects of varying degrees of usefulness. So full, in fact, that there wasn't any room for him to get off Toothless.
"Oh, hi Hiccup!" Johan smiled back. "I found a new sword I'm sure Snotlout would love - nowhere near as good as yours, of course -"
Hiccup stopped listening as the trader's talk turned to flattery. A brightly coloured object in the corner of the boat caught his attention.
"You actually brought another?" Hiccup said incredulously. The object was, as far as he could tell, a parrot.
"Well, yes," Johan said awkwardly. "I trade with a lot of people, you see, and this place in the south really likes them, so I said I'd bring them another, and it was on the way to here..."
Hiccup tuned out again. A parrot? Really? he thought incredulously.
"Well make sure it stays on the ship," Hiccup warned. With a quick nudge of his leg, Toothless started hovering above the boat. "See you soon."
'Soon' turned out to be 'in a few hours' - the wind was too calm to push the boat forwards much, and Johan had no dragon assistance. Johan arrived, started talking up his goods to the Vikings, and tactfully didn't mention the parrot mixed in with his cargo.
The twins - perceptive at all the wrong moments - noticed that he was hiding something and decided to investigate.
"Check this out!" Tuffnut called, quite quietly, for him, to his sister.
"Cool! A parrot!" Ruffnut grinned. "Make it say something!"
"Uhh... Ruffnut smells."
"..."
"Why isn't it talking?" Ruffnut demanded, thumping her brother hard enough to knock him over.
"Look at its mouth!" Tuffnut called from the floor. "It's all weird!"
"Yeah!" Ruffnut agreed. She took the rope covering the parrot's beak and dropped it. "Now say Tuffnut smells!"
"No, Ruffnut smells!"
"Tuffnut!"
"Ruffnut!"
"Tuffnut!"
"Ruffnut!"
"Smells! Smells!" the parrot squawked. It ruffled its feathers slightly then flew off, nimbly avoiding the twins' grasp as they lunged for it. Their missing resulted in them colliding and landing back on the floor.
"What's going on in here?" Johan asked, choosing that moment to pop his head round the door.
"Uhh..." the twins stared at each other.
"She did it!"
"He did it!"
"Hey!"
It was typical. Absolutely typical, Hiccup decided. Of course the parrot would get out. Of course it would go straight for the nest. Of course that was where all the sanctuary dragons were.
"Just my luck..." he muttered. It was unlikely, of course, that the parrot would even be able to taunt the dragons - he'd checked; the twins had only tried to use petty insults on each other - but he knew that the universe would find a way for it to happen. He was taking Toothless along for moral support, but he and the dragon had split up to search for the parrot.
'Seen a parrot round here?' Hiccup asked the first dragon he came across. It was Lump.
'If you mean the red beast that's been insulting everyone, then yes.'
'Oh.' Hiccup said. 'Oh. Um... Sorry about that. It's a parrot - Trader Johan - the guy with the boat - he brought it here. It... hasn't been saying anything too bad, has it?'
'Depends how you define bad. Does telling Gruff how wonderful the sky looks today and how great it is to be able to appreciate it count as bad?'
Hiccup grimaced. Gruff was particularly sensitive of his lost sight; if someone wasn't tactful about describing views in his presence, chances were it wouldn't end well. How did it even say all that?
'I'll go talk to him.' Hiccup decided.
Hiccup found Gruff a little deeper in the cave, cowering away from the parrot. He scared it off pretty quickly with his sword, hoping that it would bump into Toothless before any other dragons.
'You okay?'
'N...no...' Gruff sniffled. He was always one to be a tad melodramatic, though Hiccup was inclined to play along with it - the parrot had offended him pretty badly, from what he'd been told.
'The parrot?' he guessed, gesturing to where the bird had just flown off before catching himself. 'Whatever it said, don't listen. It... well, I don't know how it managed to -'
'I know what a parrot is!' Gruff snapped. Hiccup fought the urge to sigh; the dragon was easily angered when upset. 'It wouldn't have said that unless someone else did!'
'Um...' Hiccup said helplessly. 'It might've picked it up somewhere else - it was with Trader Johan, who knows where it went before it came here?'
Gruff shook his head, inconsolable. Hiccup lost the battle against sighing.
'Well, I'm off to find it and put a stop to this... Talk to Lump, if I can't help.' he said shortly, aware that he was being insensitive but far too annoyed to care anymore. Gruff, for his part, understood that Hiccup was acting out of irritation, and let the matter drop.
It took more than an hour to find the parrot and take it back to Johan. It was easy enough to track - just follow the line of insulted dragons / Vikings - but hard to catch up to.
The question of where the dragon was getting its insults still remained, but Hiccup was just glad to be seeing the back of the bird.
"Have it back," Hiccup said, forcing the parrot into Johan's arms. The trader spluttered an awkward apology, and started backing onto his boat. The parrot decided to make one last break for it while Johan was busy watching where he was going.
'Oh no you don't,' Toothless muttered, shooting a quick plasma blast. The parrot was instantly incinerated. Hiccup couldn't say that he was too upset, really.
"Would you look at that," Hiccup said casually, nodding towards the pile of ash and singed feathers. "It's dead. What a shame."
"But..." Johan stared at the pile, incredulous, "I had to..."
"Yes, well I'm sure there'll be other parrots." Hiccup wasn't much sympathetic. "But there won't be any on Berk..."
He turned to the gathered villagers, who had been minding their own business and looking for something to buy when the plasma blast was fired. "Parrots are banned on Berk!" he yelled to them. They looked at him, bemused. Someone opened their mouth. "No questions!" he snapped before they could speak. "No more parrots!"
The Vikings of Berk just looked at Hiccup for a moment. Chalking it up to another of his crazy escapades, they shook their heads, tutted, and resumed life as normal.