Later at home I was busy doing whatever and inspecting my sword before my parents walked in. "Hey." I greeted before putting my sword away back into its walking stick sheath. "Hey son." My father said. "We need to speak with you for a moment." I shrugged and gestured for them to sit down on the bench.
"We've been wondering if you could possibly, stop being with Hiccup so much." I frowned and leaned back, showing my displeasure.
"And why should I do that?" I questioned.
My mom spoke up. "Well, you know how he is. He keeps on destroying part of the village every raid, and he always messes up in something! He's putting you in a bad light, you know that."
I snorted. "Well it isn't through a lack of trying. He always tries to come up with clever inventions and other things just to please his dad, but the most he gets is a nod or plain ignorance."
"But those 'things' he make always end up wrecking something. He can't even swing an axe!" Dad argued.
"And I can't see. Your point?" I retort.
He sighs in exasperation. "Why don't you hang out more with the rest of the kids, like Snotlout and Astrid?"
I laughed dryly. "The only thing Snotlout does is talk about how great he is and how he and Astrid are the "perfect" couple. He can't even count past 15." I paused for a moment. "Fishlegs is cool though. He's smart and curious about many things. And he also was once friends with Hiccup, so he understands him a little bit."
My dad sighed again in frustration. "Being friends with Hiccup just isn't good for you Aaron. You need to stop it."
The way he said it like it was a fact made me angry. "Look Dad. I can choose who I want to or don't want to hang out with in my own time. Hiccup is a good kid with more intelligence than the rest of our generation out together, and that's final." I grabbed my stick and stormed out the door, with my parents yelling at me to come back.
I stopped by the Great Hall to get some lunch. As I was eating I heard the other kids walking in, with Snotlout in the twins laughing about Hiccup's recent failure in the raid. I rolled my eyes in annoyance at their comments and continued to eat while they sat at the table. I was in the middle, so Snotlout and the twins sat at the very end to stay away from me. Good. Astrid and Fishlegs are completely fine with me, so they don't bother to try and avoid me like a plague. Fishlegs enjoys my insight and smarts, while Astrid respects me for the fighter that I am, being able to hold my own against her fairly well.
"Hi Aaron," Fishlegs greets me.
"Hey Fish. How's life?" I ask him.
He shrugs a little bit. "The usual, but tomorrow we're all going to start our Dragon Training!" he says excitedly. I'm a little surprised.
"Really? I haven't heard of that from my parents yet," I admit. Although that's probably due to the fact I stormed off after they attempted to persuade me to stop hanging out with Hiccup.
"Gobber told us after the war meeting in the Great Hall." Astrid says. I nod in understanding.
"Well, guess I better get ready for it," I respond.
"You have to get ready?" Snotlout asks with a laugh. "I was born ready! Those beasts won't know what hit them!" he exclaims, smugness and superiority oozing from him.
"Everyone has to prepare for something." I tell him. "You think I got so skilled the first day?" I ask rhetorically.
"Well I'm ready for some damage! Imagine the epic ness of fighting a dragon!" Tuffnut exclaims eagerly. Ruffnut lets off a cackle.
"Epic when you get burned to a crisp!" she tells her twin, and they engage in another arguing match. The rest of us ignore them, long passed used to it by now.
"How did you get so good at it?" Fishlegs asks in interest. I shrugged.
"Well, sometimes I had help from Gothi in moving around. I just have to use my other senses besides sight in order to 'see' in a sense." I explain.
"That's stupid. If you can't even see that how should you expect to be able to fight someone so well?" Snotlout asks condescendingly. I hear somebody whack him, and correctly assume it to be Astrid.
"He's a good fighter! Better than you," she retorts.
"But he can't see!" Snotlout responds angrily.
I manage a small grin. "No I can't. But that doesn't keeping me from realizing that the twins just placed a mouse on your tunic," I tell him with a smirk.
Moments later Snotlout screams and jumps up, swatting at his back while the twins cackle in delight, giving each other high fives. Astrid and Fishlegs let off a small snicker and I just sit here calmly, continuing to eat my food.
"You'll all regret this!" Snotlout shouts angrily, storming out of the Great Hall.
"Oh, my, THOR! That was amazing!" Tuffnut laughs in delight. "One of our best pranks ever! He was so mad!"
"Absolutely bro! Thorston genius strikes again!" Ruffnut says.
I shake my head in amusement and finish up my lunch before checking my pocket for a small portable timer. Hiccup's genius idea came up with a way for me to tell the time using a small device which constantly clicks, generating a different pattern for each hour. I don't know how he made it, but I absolutely love it. I don't have to rely on anyone to tell me the position of the sun, I just let he little device do it for me.
"Well, I've got to go see Gothi. Later," I tell them.
Fishlegs and Astrid offer me a goodbye, and I grab my walking stick, heading out the doors of the Great Hall.
Being the village elder, Gothi is the oldest person in our village, and is kind, albeit terrifying if she'a angry with you. She hasn't spoken in Thor knows how long, but has become my mentor in a way that Gobber is to Hiccup. Once she's gone I have no doubt that I would probably take her place when I'm much older.
I travel up the long and windy path to her hut, used to the far distance and direction of which to go by now from all the times I've been there.
When I reach the wooden stairs that signify the last climb before reaching her hut, I stop for a moment. I listen closely and strain my ears, swearing I heard some sort of roar. Is that a... Night Fury?
The wind blows hard again and I can't determine whether I heard the noise or not, so I continue into Gothi's home, deciding I'll look for Hiccup if he isn't back yet later.
Walking up to the door, I knock on it, and the sound of Gothi's footsteps can be heard when she answers it. She's silent as usual, although she moves away from the entrance once the door is open, so I take it as my que to enter.
"Hi Gothi," I tell her.
"Hello again Aaron," she responds, tapping her stick. She developed and taught me a way of speaking using different taps against the floor or walls, which only she and I can understand. For the others she draws her strange writing on sand, which I can understand as well, but only if I'm touching it with my hands, so she communicates to me using taps instead.
"How was last night's raid?" she asks me.
I let off a sigh. "Oh the usual. This time the dragons got away with a little bit more than usual, and the Night Fury was there tonight."
"I heard that Hiccup caused a conflict within the tribe again," she says.
"It was an accident. A Nightmare shot fire at one of the torches he was hiding behind, causing it to topple over," I tell her with a frustrated sigh. "How can people put the blame on him for something a dragon did? It's like they want something to blame him for!"
She taps on the ground again. "Sometimes we can't see the bigger picture. However it is true that boy is a walking klutz of ill fortune."
It's hard to hear but I know she's right. Wherever Hiccup goes, trouble always seems to follow him, intentional or not. It's one of the reasons why I became his friend, to help keep him out of danger. That and he's funny, kind, and understanding.
"Yeah, I guess," I say in agreement. "So what's up for today?"
"We're going to practice your talents at medicine and herbs this time," she says. I nod in understanding. Another positive from my blindness is that I have a heightened sense of smell, allowing me to identify herbs and other ingredients that Gothi uses. The downside is when I'm in a particularly unpleasant part of the village.
She begins her lessons, showing me how to correctly identify herbs that are very similar to each other, and how to use them in different types of medicine and potions. This session takes up around an hour or two.
Later in the afternoon, I'm heading through the village in search of Hiccup with no luck. I'm about to go look in the woods behind his house when I manage to hear small timid footsteps on the other side of the square. Recognizing those footsteps, I rush up to Hiccup, immediately sensing how tense he feels.
"Hey Hiccup," I greet.
"Ahh!" he yelps, jumping away from me in surprise. I stand there with a raised eyebrow, not exactly looking at him but I cross my arms at his reaction.
"Oh, hey Aaron. Sorry about that," he says sheepishly.
"Alright what happened," I ask him.
"What? What happened?" he asks, feigning confusion.
"Your time in the woods, what happened?" I ask again as we walk down the street, the occasional Viking moving out of our way quickly. We both paid them no mind, used to it by now.
"I.. I don't know what your talking about," he says again.
I sigh in exasperation. You could tell he was lying even if you had the intelligence of Tuffnut he was so obvious.
"Hiccup, why do we do this?" I ask him.
"Uh, do what?" he asks in genuine confusion this time.
"I know you're lying. You know that I know you're lying! So what happened?" I ask again, eliciting a sigh from him.
"I went looking for it..." he mumbles. I nod along.
"When I was on the steps to Gothi's hut, I thought I heard a Night Fury roar. Did you find it?" I ask him.
I feel him stiffen slightly before exhaling to force himself to relax.
"I managed to find where it crashed, but at that point it escaped and flew away. Scared me half to death," he admits.
I'm silent for a moment, sensing truth in his statement, yet also hesitation, as if it's a half-truth. Ah well. I'll interrogate him later tomorrow. I'm tired.
"Alright, well I'm off to bed. See you in the morning Hiccup," I tell him, walking down the correct path, recognizing it as the one my house was on.
"You too Aaron!" he calls out. As we're walking away, I hear him breathe out in absolute relief, and I shake my head again, already knowing how much he was lying about what happened.
To be honest, I rather liked my house. It was at the end of our street of houses, next to the cliff ledge. We didn't have to worry about it falling off because of the firm and really strong rock there, and my parents built a small wooden fence to make sure I wouldn't accidentally fall off the ledge. Sometimes I would sit at the edge of the cliff, enjoying the breeze and smell of seawater far below, and occasionally feel some of the mist if if it was high enough or strong enough.
With these thoughts in mind, I turned in for the night after my parents informed me that they would be heading out for another search tomorrow. I offered to come with and help them find it with my increased senses, but they absolutely refused, and I couldn't argue with them. These searches were very dangerous, and they sometimes didn't come back with the same number of people that left.