"I'd like to ask. What would have happened if he wasn't able to convince his father to come all this way. To take a risk beyond all others?"
"It's hard to say. Generally when Hiccup makes a plan he makes it something near impossible. Things like this or when he and I went to kill the Queen. Our goal was to kill her but we were ready to put out as soon as we could. Had something gone horribly wrong we would have left with our tails between our legs. Having a lofty goal like that is one thing but he's realistic about what's likely to happen. Though he's always trying to prove himself even when no one is asking him to. Mostly to me. Like no matter how much I try to tell him that proving himself to me does nothing, he still tries to impress me with things that, to be fair, can be impressive, it's not like I can love him anymore than I already do. He's marked, we're mated, we're soul mates, we couldn't be more together unless we became one being."
"What would you have done had you not succeeded at killing The Queen?"
"We would have just run away. As far as we could so that I couldn't come under her influence. He's always been able to break through to me when she started to command everyone. Even when I was trapped on Berk I could hear her call. But he could stop it. Anyway we probably would have just found a place we felt was safe and lived out the rest of our days quietly. Our relationship isn't exactly normal and even if our allying with his father works out, there's no chance that he and I would be accepted in their village. It would only take one person berating him about it to make him question our relationship. If it was right, or had we made a mistake."
"That sounds rough to deal with"
"It can be. But that's what happens when everyone tells you that you're useless. So now he can't accept that people accept him. Even now, I don't think that allying with humans is necessary. But he's pushing so hard for it that it makes me wonder if this is his next step for validation. To be able to go back to Berk and prove that they were all wrong about him. If anything I hope that this is what he needs to recover. There's something very dark and sad in him, caused by those who abused him. And yet here he is talking with one of the worst offenders.
"His own father? Really?"
"Hiccup wasn't what Stoick was expecting as a son. He was very much expecting the next chief to be just as hate filled and scared of us as he was. But according to Hiccup he was a spitting image of his mother. Kind to a fault and as uncombative as possible. It's pretty easy to see why he was picked on. But that quickly turned into abuse from all sides. While his father may not have ever hit him, or called him names. He wasn't stopping anyone from doing it, and Stoick's kind of parenting was to basically not be there for him. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of what Hiccup needs. If there's one thing I've learned in my time with him. It's that all he really needs is someone who is proud of him. To actually take a look at him and see all the successes he's had and tell him that he's done well. All he needed was someone just as excited to discover new things, to learn and to appreciate the differences everyone has. Someone who could let him fly but also catch him when he falls out of the air.
I'm proud to say that I think I do that for him."
"But you must have a limit. To be constantly having to deal with something like that. To deal with him constantly doubting himself. Is it not frustrating to hear him speak poorly of himself?"
"Like I said, when you're told over and over that you can't do anything right you don't get the luxury of denying it. No matter how much he crafts, fixes, helps, I doubt it'll ever be enough to reverse the years of trauma."
"But then what do you do? Surely stringing him along from one thing to another isn't going to fix that."
"I'm aware. But I do have a plan. There will come a time when things are slow for us. Where our lives have settled down again and a great many things aren't riding on a knife's edge. That is when I will strike. We'll spend as much time as it takes reminiscing about all the fantastic things we've done, the good and the bad."
"Why the bad too? Isn't that counterproductive to what you want?"
"While normally I would leave the bad out, Hiccup is much too smart not to realize that I was purposely skipping over things that didn't go so well for us. Or things that didn't turn out how we planned. But something that Hiccup does that I don't like is him looking back and wondering what he could have done better. But I think that if I sit down with him and he and I both go over it together, he'll take it more as a lesson than as a failure. I intend to abuse that he likes to learn."
"You seem to know your mate quite well, I'm actually impressed by how much you're able to break down everything about him." The Rumbleback complimented.
"I doubt many would see it that way. Most would probably think that it's disgusting that I would manipulate something like that. But I think that when it comes to Hiccup, something like this will work better than anything else. He's on a path of constant self improvement and I want to help him with that as much as I can. The more he feels better or more accepted, or fits in better with us, the less I have to worry. Plus it'll make him a better leader too, so that's good for everyone.
I'm gonna go rejoin Hiccup now." Toothless looked around. The humans were standing around, looking confused as to what they should be doing, and the group of dragon were now lazily sunbathing together. "Looks like everythings settled down enough for me to, at least."
"Go on. If something does happen I'll deal with it."
Toothless walked up to the pair of humans still talking, and circled around Hiccup's back. Curling himself around his human.
"Alright then Hiccup." Stoick nodded and turned around. He looked at Toothless before walking away.
