Carried Off, a DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon fanfic by Raberba girl (rough draft)
Astrid's role as the chief was enough of a given by now that the only significant effect her divorce had was on the gossip. Sometimes, though, she felt like the gossip alone was bad enough.
"...had her mewing like a kitten, haha!"
Astrid froze with a bowl of soup in her hands, about to pass the table where the others of her generation were gathered to eat. None of them had noticed her yet.
"I would have paid to see you taking Miss High-And-Mighty down a few notches," Ruffnut cackled.
"Nah, she wasn't that bad," Snotlout responded in what he probably thought was a generous way. "She was like...a little kid. With a fantastic ass and a rock-hard fist."
"You have a thing for little kids?" Tuffnut said, raising an eyebrow.
"Not like that, man! I mean she- I wanted to protect her, you know? I wanted to make her happy." Snotlout thumped his chest. "Seriously, I make, like, the best husband, all that protect and provide stuff."
"Yeah, the best husband," Ruffnut snorted. "Maybe next time you'll last more than three weeks."
"Hey, that wasn't my fault! She just didn't know how to handle a real man. After all, she's never had one before, heh."
"But Hiccup must have been doing something right," Fishlegs pointed out, "since she never actually divorced him- Eep!" The first one to finally notice Astrid, he stared at her, panicked.
Astrid had to say something now that all of their attention was fixed on her. Too mortified to think straight, the only thing she could come up with was, "Hiccup knew how to treat a woman. You should have taken lessons from him before the dragons ruined him, Snotlout." She walked away.
o.o.o.o.o
Hiccup had seen dragons with injuries before, but this was the first time he connected the injuries to human interference.
The small newcomer was howling in pain and anger, lashing his tail, blood staining his hind leg - which was still caught in a trap. The dragon had apparently managed to break the chain, but hadn't been able to free himself from the cruel iron clamped on his flesh.
Hiccup stared, having come along with all the others investigating the newcomer. Some dragons attempted to comfort the injured male, and others tried licking at his wound. Finn crept up to Cloudjumper's back to hide; Valka hurried forward, chirping curiously until she caught a whiff of the blood and was nearly hit by a flailing limb, sending her fleeing to her mother's arms.
Hiccup handed off his daughter to Hen and began to cautiously approach. The injured dragon caught sight of him and went nuts, spitting fire and screaming.
Hiccup instinctively threw up his arms in defense, but Toothless had already jumped in front of him like a living shield, snarling and spreading his wings wide. Many of the other dragons were roaring as well in defense of their little human flockmate.
The injured dragon whimpered in fear and confusion, cringing away from the human he wasn't allowed to threaten. Hiccup dropped to the ground and held out his open hands, showing that they were empty. "I am not a threat."
The dragon growled fearfully.
"Ssshhh, it's okay, I won't hurt you. I just want to look." Hiccup crawled closer and examined the trap without touching it. His jaw tightened as he took in the damage. He had come a long way from his days of thinking that dragons deserved any harm that befell them - now, he felt that anyone who would maim a creature like this was a monster. "I can...I can do this, I need-"
He hurriedly scrambled backward and then up to his feet when he was far enough away from the frightened dragon. "Toothless!" Even as he spoke, he was sliding onto his partner's back and the Night Fury's wings were unfurling. They leaped into the air, followed by their curious troopmates, and Hiccup guided them to the cave he lived in with his dragon family. "Right here, right here, Toothless, just a minute-"
He grabbed the metal bar he needed and hurried back to the injured dragon. "Okay...okay, ssshhh, it's all right...this might hurt a bit but I promise I'm only trying to help you." He set the tip of the bar between the teeth of the trap and tried to pry it open.
No matter how careful he was, he couldn't avoid jostling the injury. The dragon screeched in pain and started to snap at Hiccup, but Cloudjumper caught the dragon and pinned him down with a fierce snarl before those fangs could reach the defenseless human. Shakily, Hiccup tried again, but yelped and stumbled back when the dragon managed to belch a tongue of flame at him.
An ear-splitting roar from the alpha instantly transformed the injured dragon's thrashing rage into quivering silence. Hiccup, his heart aching at the dragon's terror and pain, tried again to pry open the trap, and cursed himself when it became obvious he wasn't strong enough, at least not when he was trying to be delicate and didn't have better tools.
Tentatively, Toothless set both paws on the end of the bar and pushed, just as Hiccup had done. Hiccup hadn't been expecting that, so the bar was at a loose, ineffective angle, and it simply rolled away. Toothless cringed back at his failure.
"No, no, you had the right idea!" Hiccup exclaimed, encouraged by the thought that maybe he didn't have to do this alone. He petted and praised the Night Fury until Toothless looked hopeful again. Then he retrieved the bar, held it lower down its length, and poised a rock on the lip of the trap, using his foot to hold it in place. He indicated the far end of the bar again. "Toothless, push."
This time, he was holding the bar in place and guiding it as Toothless applied his strength. The jaws of the trap were pried open, and as they did, Hiccup quickly shoved with his foot, wedging the rock into the trap's jaws and holding them open. He had intended to extricate the injured leg gently, but the dragon gave a frantic kick. The trap snapped completely closed and fresh blood gushed from the wound, but the cruel piece of metal was skittering away, no longer clamped on flesh.
The dragon flopped to the ground, limp and exhausted, whimpering at the pain. Other dragons crowded back around him, tending to his wound and comforting him. Hiccup exhaled in relief and backed away, temporarily forgotten by all but his family.
And the alpha. "You knew how to help him."
Hiccup was too ashamed to answer at first, but finally managed, "My people, evil cruel monsters, we make these 'traps' these hurting things...we make them, so we know how to loose them..."
He was distracted from his shame by Finn nestling into his arms and purring, as Valka flapped around him, crowing, "Mama is the best~ Mama is the best~"
"Very good to have a not-monster human in my flock again," the king said, his mind-voice tinged with an uncharacteristically crafty tone.
Hiccup stared at him. "...I have a new job now, don't I," he realized, not really sure how to react. "I am your good slave/tool, I will undo these bad human weapons for you and rescue your dragons from them." He absently put out a hand to stroke Toothless as the Night Fury bumped against him, asking for caresses.
"Not a slave, not a lifeless thing. You are my flockling who loves your good flock, you know these things that none of us know, you will love and help and protect your flockmates by doing this thing only you can do."
"Yes..."
"Your mother that you love, this is what she did for us, too."
"What?! Mom?!"
The alpha showed him memories of Valka destroying traps and opening cages and treating inflicted wounds.
"Mom..."
o.o.o.o.o
Astrid had been so frustrated with Finn's anxious sensitivity as an infant that she thought he would continue to be the more troublesome of the twins as they got older. She was surprised to find that it was Valka who became her real trial, far less obedient and more of a troublemaker than her brother.
The first time she felt the need to discipline her children, they were two years old and likely hadn't meant to purposefully cause damage. But that was food they were ruining, precious and irreplaceable food, now mixed with pitch and being smeared around on the floor by two giggling toddlers who had no idea that they had just consigned themselves to a very hungry night.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
Finn cowered immediately; Valka stared up at her mother in wide-eyed confusion. She held up her sticky black hands. "Playing, Mama!"
"Food is NOT for playing with! Do you even understand what you've done?!"
"Sorry, Mama, sorry, Mama, sorry, sorry," Finn begged.
He was so small and terrified that her anger faded, and she breathed deeply to calm herself down. 'Good,' she realized, 'this is good... He wouldn't have wanted me to punish them when I'm angry. I can do this. He thought I couldn't, but I can. I can do this right.' She held out her hands. "Come here."
Finn crept close; Valka trotted.
Their mother held them and looked earnestly into their eyes. "Listen to me. Food is a very precious, important thing. If you play with it and ruin it, it hurts us. We'll be so hungry, but there will be nothing to eat because you ruined it. Do you understand that you can't play with food? You have so many toys, you can play with them as much as you want, but food is only for eating."
"And dragons," Valka added.
"...No, honey. Dragons are thieves. They take our food even though it doesn't belong to them, and then we're hungry and get hurt. They take and take until there's almost nothing left, and then when you take the little there is left and ruin it... That's very bad, Valka. Do you understand?"
"Very bad."
"All right. You have to remember that. That's why I have to punish you, so you'll remember the next time and won't do it again."
Valka's eyes widened as if she had just realized she was still in trouble. Finn, his head hanging silently as if he had already known, whimpered a little and clutched his mother's arm as she gripped the front of his tunic and bent him over. He burst into tears the instant she started spanking him, which startled her because she was taking care to swat him lightly - she wasn't actually hurting him, he had no reason to cry.
"Mama, what are you doing to him?!"
"Next time, you'll know to do the right thing." Hesitantly, she gave him a couple more token swats, then released him. He collapsed in a sobbing heap.
"Finn! Finn! Does your bottom hurt?" his sister cried, crouching down to pat his hair.
"Your turn, Val," Astrid said, reaching for her. Her daughter gave her a shocked, wide-eyed look before suddenly taking off. Astrid gaped after her for a moment, then set off in pursuit. Valka was fast and agile for such a young child, and also screaming bloody murder as she fled. If the weather hadn't been bad enough for them to be trapped inside the house, Astrid was certain her daughter would have run out the door.
As it was, Astrid had to chase her for several minutes, and was furious by the time she caught the little girl. She stormed over to the table, shoved her still shrieking daughter facedown onto it, and slapped her palm hard against the child's squirming backside.
"I HATE YOU, MAMA, I HATE YOU!" Val screamed, dry-eyed and as furious as her mother.
Astrid came back to herself as she was raising her hand for the third or fourth strike. A tremor went through her as she realized what she was doing.
Shakily, Astrid tugged down the child's leggings, dreading what she would find. She didn't know what she expected, but was relieved to see that the girl's bottom was only a little red. It wouldn't bruise, there was no injury, she hadn't abused her own child...
Uneasily, Astrid pulled the leggings back up and spanked her daughter once more, calmly and almost gently this time as if to prove to herself that she could, then set the child on her feet.
"I hate you, Mama!" Val cried furiously. "You're a BAD MAMA!"
"Shut up," Astrid snapped. "You were bad, too, for ruining food, that's the whole reason I had to spank you in the first place."
"You HURT ME!"
"Then be good next time, and I won't have to do it again." She looked up and saw Finn by the stairs, staring at her, looking frightened and still tearful. She reached out a hand to him. "Come here, Finn."
"Please, Mama, please, Mama, please-!"
"I'm not going to hurt you! That's finished now. Come here, I won't hurt you."
He crept to her and tried to burrow into her for comfort; it was difficult to pry him off and get him to stand on his feet. "Listen. You did a good job, Finn. A real man owns up to his mistakes and takes the punishment he deserves. Good job." He went quiet, staring at her hopefully. Astrid next looked at her daughter, frowning. "You, on the other hand, have disappointed me."
Valka stuck her tongue out.
Astrid gritted her teeth and went on, "Finn's punishment is over, but you have earned extra, for running away from me and being a coward, and now for disrespecting me."
"You can spank me and spank me, I won't cry like Finn," Valka declared, crossing her arms defiantly. "He's a baby; I'm a girl, I never cry!"
"I never said I was going to spank you again," Astrid snapped. "You're grounded. You are staying in my room until I say you can come out again, so that you learn to be brave and not a coward, and you're not allowed to talk to your brother."
Valka gasped, horrified, and struggled frantically in her mother's hands as Astrid dragged her over to the bedroom and shut her inside. "No, Mama, no, Mama, no, I'll be good, noooooooo...!"
When the door was shut and barred, Valka spent some time screaming and pounding on it, then eventually dissolved into sobs. Astrid, hating being trapped inside as they waited out the weather, struggled to mend some of the children's clothes to kill time. She looked up at one point to see Finn very quietly climbing onto the stool that he had somehow moved all the way to the bedroom door without her noticing. He would probably be high enough to reach the door handle.
"FINN BLACKMOLD HICCUPSON, GET AWAY FROM THAT DOOR."
Finn instantly scurried away, but Astrid did not immediately return to her work. She had called her child 'Hiccupson.' Legally, the children's surname was now their mother's, since their father had been disgraced and exiled, but... 'They are Hiccup's children,' she thought. 'He was a traitor and a dragon-lover, but...he still loved them, and he will always be their father.' If the children themselves wanted to change their name when they got old enough, she would let them - she didn't want them to be shamed by it, and she herself would still avoid using 'Hiccupson' in public. But for now, when they were too young to really understand what their father had done wrong...
By the time the weather let up long enough for Astrid's mother to make it back to the house, it was evening. Both children were cranky and whiny from hunger. Astrid's mother had already gone to the larder before Astrid could tell her what had happened. "Did you eat supper without me?"
"No, Mother," Astrid said, grabbing both her children so they would pay attention. Valka, still upset about being punished earlier, jerked fiercely, trying to get away; Finn cried for the hundredth time that he was hungryyyyyyy. "No," Astrid said more loudly, "we did not eat supper, and we aren't going to eat supper tonight, because the food we were supposed to eat for that meal has already been used up."
Her mother stared. Finn was now just crying wordlessly, and Valka was screaming louder than ever.
"Which means," Astrid snapped, giving both children a shake in a vain effort to shut them up, "the only one who gets to eat tonight is Grandma, because there is only enough food left for ONE PERSON, and you two already used up your food."
"I can-" Mrs. Hofferson started, but broke off when her daughter glared meaningfully at her.
Astrid made her children sit and watch their grandmother eat her meal, which Mrs. Hofferson did rather uncomfortably. "This is what happens when you waste food - there is not enough to go around. This is not a punishment, this is a consequence of your actions," Astrid lectured.
Finn couldn't bear to look and kept trying to hide his face against his mother. She alternated between prying him off and readjusting her restraining grip on Valka, who was straining toward the food and kept making angry attempts to break free.
It was while Astrid was focused on Val that she felt Finn burying his face against her again. Perhaps it had started out as comfort, but the familiarity must have reminded him, because now he was squirming to get under his mother's shirt. She froze, her eyes widening.
She'd had to wean her children early, the food shortages were too severe. No matter how legitimate the excuse was, she couldn't look her people in the face while she was getting more food than most of them, so she had stopped claiming the extra rations for nursing mothers. Her breasts had been dry for months now, but her hungry, crying children were instinctively seeking them out again.
Hopelessly, she let them try, but of course there was nothing for them. Valka soon gave up in frustration, giving an angry cry and striking her fist against her mother. Astrid just barely resisted the impulse to slap her; she seized the little girl's face and thundered, "Do not hit me."
"I'm HUNGRY!" Valka screamed.
"SO AM I, BUT I DON'T GO AROUND HITTING PEOPLE JUST BECAUSE I'M HUNGRY." Finn gave up as well, curled still and silent against his mother.
It was all enough of an ordeal to exhaust Astrid, and her patience was long gone by the time she started getting her still-cranky children ready for bed. She ended up spanking Valka again, though not Finn, since the mere threat of the punishment was enough to shut him up and send him rushing to huddle under the blankets.
Astrid, half-asleep, stroked Finn's back trying to lull him to sleep as well, tuning out the bedtime story her mother was telling the children. Valka was exclaiming in delight, but the next thing Astrid knew, the room was dark and silent except for the wind howling outside. And Finn's voice.
"Mama?" he whispered insistently again.
"What, Finn," she mumbled.
"Where's your food?"
"What?"
"Me and Val were bad, no food for us... But Mama wasn't bad. Where's Mama's food?"
She sighed, too tired to deal with this. "There was only enough for one. Grandma didn't do anything wrong, so Grandma got it."
"...Where's Mama's food?"
"Mama doesn't get any food," Astrid snapped. "A good chief eats last, Finn." She didn't know why she was telling him this, since she was planning to name her daughter as her heir rather than her son, but she forgot to follow that line of thought because Finn's little arms were encircling her neck. She instinctively tightened her own embrace around him. Her motherly instincts had been late to develop, but she did have them sometimes, particularly for her less exasperating child.
"I'm sorry, Mama," he whispered. "I won't be bad again. Can we eat tomorrow...?"
"Yes."
"Me AND Val AND Mama? AND Grandma? Eat tomorrow?"
"Yes, Finn. Go to sleep."
"I promise I'll be good tomorrow, Mama."
"Okay. Go to sleep, Finn."
"I love you, Mama."
She kissed his forehead. "I love you, too, Finn. Please go to sleep."
To be continued...
Author's Notes: I looked up the average age when Viking children were weaned. The sources vary; some say about two years old and others say as old as four, though I'm sure it depends on the circumstances.
I guess I'm a moderate when it comes to child discipline. I get mad at the people who beat and abuse their children yet try to minimize it by erroneously calling it "spanking," but I also get mad at the people who apparently think that children are angels who will always have perfect behavior if you just ask them nicely. Speaking from experience, I believe that the most important part of discipline is attitude, not method.
Ftr, Astrid didn't physically hurt Finn with that spanking AT ALL. He was so upset because he's terrified of displeasing authority figures, particularly his mother; the physical aspect of punishment is not an issue for him. (Valka is different, but more on her later.)
Despite a long conversation with my friend Anna about it (speaking of which, I forgot to give her credit for the "dragon slaying as a rite of passage" idea in both Official and the Inadequate re-write! And I think the "captive dragons get killed before every winter" idea here in this story, too), I still haven't figured out a completely satisfactory way to reconcile the HTTYD book names with the DreamWorks ones. X''D The TV show writers in particular just DON'T CARE about name continuity. Writing this story gave me the idea that maybe the HTTYD Vikings all have several names - a real one (like Astrid or Gustav), a troll-warding one (like Hiccup Horrendous Haddock or Snotlout), and a family name (like Hofferson or Thorston). Even though it doesn't fit 100%, I will use that convention from now on unless/until I think of something better...except that I messed up with "Mrs. Hofferson." X'D Anyway, so "Finn" is the kid's real name, "Blackmold" is his troll-warding name, and "Hiccupson" is his surname. I found a chance to use Valka's full name later, I think in the next chapter.