My old work, a very little tribute to one of the most wonderful and my favorite tales.
Happened (or Not)
It is getting dark over the Cove, fireflies starting to light up the cool evening air like tiny lanterns. Toothless closed his eyes already, and Hiccup is not sure either he fell asleep or still keeps listening with his careful dragon ears to the soft sounds of the night.
He decides to say nothing, though, just in case.
Sitting cross-legged less than a yard from lying Toothless, he raises his head instead to look at the full moon, whole bathed in sapphire mist. The sky gleams brightly that night, its dark blueness like petals of cornflowers and here and there like Astrid's eyes.
Yet Hiccup thinks not so often of Astrid nowadays, or no... He thinks of her differently. He once saw a Nordic goddess in her, mighty and beautiful as golden-haired Sif*, an unobtainable jewel a treasure hunter tries to reach for. And now he thinks she is pretty and smart, and brave, and she charms him still, of course, but she is also someone Hiccup is equal to.
Equal.
What has changed exactly that he now thinks so, though?
He turns his eyes back to Toothless. Navy sparks, the fragile reflections of the sky's glow leap joyfully over the tar black dragon skin like glittering grasshoppers dyed in eldberry. The change has been something Hiccup has been always pondering and hoping for, and sometimes it has been something he has lived for. And now it happened unexpectedly as from time to time a sunray slips between dense branches of a tree crown and brightens up a shadow. Or it didn't?
What has changed exactly? Has anything?
Hiccup remembers the day he came closer to Toothless for the first time, the slithery, cold fish in his hand, and then his mouth, the night, the drawings in the sand, loose and airy reflections of thoughts and hearts. And the moment he touched him, when he was more himself than ever, a freak unwanted and disliked, the one he hated to be, and yet... Less than ever he yearned for change then, a tickling feeling of joy making him flying inwardly like a dragonfly over a lake in summer.
And the feeling repeated itself again and again afterwards as Toothless was near.
Even though Hiccup changed not, and nothing changed. Or it did?
The night comes truly now, crickets announce it, their rustling music spreading over the Cove along with a delicate and dry breath of wind. Hiccup closes his eyes a little.
Perhaps the change is that no change does have to be.
* a goddess from Norse mythology