"I uhm, yeah. I will. Though I don't think my old clothes will fit me anymore. You'll have to have clothes made for me probably." Hiccup told his father.
"Yeah, I was going to say something about that. You're not such a twig anymore. Finally got some meat on those bones."
"Can't be weak around these guys. Don't know when one's going to decide that they're going to try to take my spot from me, and attack me." Hiccup said as though it was nothing.
"They attack you?" Stoick asked, concerned for his son.
"It hasn't happened in a long time. But from what I know it isn't uncommon. Especially after mating season when you get to choose who you leave with. I don't remember if I told you and the others. But basically when mating season ends all the dragons get to choose what alpha they leave with. Which is how we ended up with so many new dragons here.
But what happens is that some dragons simply choose who to go with based on how easily they think they could beat the alpha and take over. It's usually young males. Though the last one to attack me was a female Nadder, so not all the time. Plus out of the two of us I'm the easier target. I'm a lot smaller and they think I'm a lot weaker than everyone here. But I have my advantages too. Mostly that I'm not a dragon like the rest of them. I have hands firstly. And I'm sure you know that dragons that have horns, have a hard time doing anything when you grab them. You have basically completely cripple a Nightmare by grabbing their horns for instance. Then what they don't realize on top of that is I'm a ton stronger than I look. Like all dragons, size is a good indicator of strength but not all the time. I can compete with a lot of the species here with physical strength. Not all the time, and if I had to be real with myself, I'm maybe as strong or stronger than half of them. Then my biggest advantage is that I'm smart."
"Full of yourself, huh?" Stoick interrupted.
"Not my words." Hiccup held his hands up. "It's what they tell me. They value knowledge, but have no means to make things. So when I make things or draw something they don't really understand. Not that they don't try. Toothless tries to draw stuff on occasion. And it's so interesting what his stuff looks like. His drawings look like they were made by a little kid. So he completely understands what each line is and when I ask him what his drawing is and what's what, he can easily explain what's happening. But to me, it's a bunch of odd shapes and lines that go nowhere. And it must be the same to them more or less. Toothless likes when I draw him because he knows what he looks like for the most part. He's seen his reflection in the water, so he understands what his face looks like at least. So when I draw him he can see that it's him. But when I'm coming up with a new machine or when I was drawing up ideas for that armour I made, he didn't know what I was drawing. He couldn't visualize what I was thinking up.
I think it's their biggest weakness actually."
"Not being able to draw?" Stoick asked sarcastically.
"No." Hiccup rolled his eyes, and Stoick laughed in his throat. "I think their biggest weakness is that they can't apply knowledge to something new. So they struggle to adapt to certain things, or come up with steps to solve a problem. What I mean is that they struggle with far off problems. Having to come up with steps to avoid or mitigate the issue. They know what their end goal is but don't know how to get there, so they tend to dive in head first without much forethought. Which unfortunately gets a lot of them killed. Luckily that's something they easily learn. It's something that basically all of my, generals?, species leaders?, group leaders?, whatever doesn't matter. But like Toothless, Color, Dusty, Care, and all the others in those types of positions they know now how to make a complete plan. It's something that when they come check in with me, and Toothless that we discuss. I make sure that they understand that we have to go through this to get to whatever their end goal is."
"That is interesting. It's good to know that, that big head has a lot in it."
"My head's not that big. Is it?" Hiccup pressed his hands against the sides of his head.
"There's a reason you don't have any brothers and sisters. The first thing your mom said to me after you were born was that unless I figured out a way to make the head smaller she wouldn't have any more kids with me. And well… Given that you're an only child I guess I never figured that out." Stoick smiled.
"Did you want more kids?" Hiccup asked softly.
"Eh, hard to say. Some days sure and others I thank the gods you came alone. But again it wasn't really my decision now was it? Either way it's hard to say what the right decision would have been. Your mother always thought you looked lonely when you were a babe. She thought about another a few times; Give you someone to play with yuh know? But I seriously think that the idea of having to give birth to another kid made her mad at me." He chuckled to himself. "It's hard to say what that kid's life would be like right now anyways." Stoick huffed. "At the time it would be hard to say whether or not that kid would have made friends. Be associated with you… Well kids are mean yeah? And well how, you, are."
"Dad I know I was the weird kid."
"You said it not me. But yes. And even now. When everything here gets resolved and I go home and try to figure out how to tell everyone that we've allied with you, and a hoard of dragons. Well that isn't going to go well. But when we smooth things over then what? That kid gets compared to you again. And who knows what their life is like but it's hard to beat what you've become.
You've accomplished more here, with the guidance of Toothless, than you could have on Berk, with me. We look at the world in different ways, and thank the gods we do. Cause what you want to do and how you look at the world is so far past Berk, that. If you had stayed, you would have been trapped in your own head.
It's obvious now that you were meant to leave us. Even if you hadn't encountered Toothless, you would have cast yourself out to the sea on a dinky little boat and still found your way. Without a doubt."
"You really think that?" Hiccup asked.
"It seems to me that you have the grace of the gods. And at least one of them is keeping an eye on you. I doubt they would have let you fail until you at least got to what you were meant to do here."
"Hmm, maybe. But it hasn't been easy."
"Tests aren't meant to be easy. You're meant to grow from them. And you've done a lot of growing." Stoick complimented Hiccup.