There are times when things happen quickly, and then there are times when they slow down to a crawl, threads of destiny hanging loose before being picked up again.
"You dress your hatchlings amazing! What is this cloth and where can I get it and why is it th-"
Stormfly was interrupted by Astrid.
"It is called a diaper, Stormfly. And it is there so children don't make a mess before they can control their bowels."
She stopped. For a while. Before smirking as much as a Nadder possibly could.
"Smart humans it is such an amazing amenity three months old Monstrous Nightmare hatchlings no longer making a mess..."
She waited for a painfully long moment for the dragon they were visiting to take the bait.
*B-better kinds need more time to mature! *
"Oh, common, talk in more developed language, or is it too much for your better head?"
He leapt at her, curiously not setting himself on fire, but she just leaped away. "Calm down, young one, we all know your kind are brats well enough."
"Stormfly," Grounded out Astrid, before turning to the seething dragon and remarking in a neutral tone.
"Humans have a way to prompt their hatchlings to stop using diapers; tell them that big dragons don't use them, guess how good of a motivation this will be."
Hookfang considered her, hummed as in thought, of course to not seem as if he agreed instantaneously with someone, and then nodded slowly.
"I will try."
Stormfly meanwhile was chittering and earned an exasperated glance from the human, albeit a fond one. The Deadly Nadder huffed. "Don't look at me like that, young one."
"You behave like you are younger than me, not the other way around."
The dragoness rolled her eyes. "If I am excited, I behave excitedly, if I am giddy, I behave giddily, what is your point?"
"Forget about it." Astrid rubbed her forehead, trying and failing to hold back a smile.
Stormfly saluted with her wing, knocking over a bucket standing on the higher level of the shed. "Ay ay!"
One of the dragonets took this opportunity to crawl out from behind his father and take a closer look at the newcomers, only to be scooped up with a squeak.
"Cutie hatchy, who is cutie hatchy? Yes, you are!"
*Noo! * Squeaked the hatchling and writhed in vain in Astrid's grip, only to be snatched up by his snarling father.
"My hatchling. Find your own."
She huffed but didn't make a move to get the cute dragonet again into her grasp, instead glancing at Stormfly pointedly. The Deadly Nadder sighed. "Fiine, I will just need to bang this male on the head so he doesn't think that I will care for them instead of him. Rrr, I already laid and kept warm eggs, it is his turn to care for them..."
A swirling vortex of snowflakes welcomed them the second they stepped out. Astrid latched onto Stormfly's saddle harness for support against the terrific weather, despite being wrapped in thick furs, she still felt the bite of the cold, and if not for the dragoness' support, she doubted she could make it as safely and easily.
As they closed the double door between the dragon annex and the rest of the longhouse after a prolonged session of cuddling hatchlings, they were met with the raised brow of their patriarch.
"Who were you visiting out there?"
"Hookfang, Stormfly was going there, and I had nothing better to do. He is... less insufferable than other Jorgensons."
"He still isn't their full member."
The trio snickered. Then Astrid's expression froze into a neutral state. It didn't go unnoticed.
"Sit," Bjorn said.
She did so, tersely, and Bjorn dismissed the dragoness with a move of his palm.
"We talked about why I did it."
"Yes, we did," was the curt response.
Her father sighed. "I suppose I don't need to repeat it then."
Astrid broke the neutral attitude and groaned. "Yes, the law-speaker must stay neutral or half of the tribe will be alienated. But you were there as a patriarch, not a law-speaker! No one can expect you to stay neutral all the time! Reputation is one thing, but this-"
"Is too much, you would say. But if I state something, people will remember and think I am biased on this topic. Then they'll start doubting my judgement, and that can't be the case!"
He sighed and shook his head before looking up again.
"Astrid, child, it is of utmost importance. If people doubt the law, it will create conflicts, and we can't afford to be in conflict with each other."
Astrid suddenly looked thoughtful. "Or can we? Dad, the war is over, we don't need to be battle-ready all the time. There will be no more dragon raids in the middle of the night. And even if there will be, we'll be warned, and our dragons will slow down or completely stop the attack."
"Astrid, are you saying that we don't need unity?"
She slumped.
"No. Forget about it."
He smiled a little, leaned forward and placed his hand on her shoulder. "When the time is right, we will call for a Ting relating to this issue, but we can't do it now."
Astrid nodded, her eyes again lighting up. "Yes, it is devastating winter after all."
"Good to know that we reached an agreement. Now, will you help with preparing dinner?"
Astrid blinked in surprise but nodded shortly after. It seemed that they had spent more time there than she had thought.
"Where are you going, boy-o?"
Snotlout froze just short of opening the door. "Ah, hi dad, I was just going to visit Hooky."
The man shook his head with distaste. "You shouldn't be visiting him; he should be hoping to be allowed to visit you. He isn't even a full member of the Jorgensen clan, and you are my son, the patriarch's son. Do you understand?"
Snotlout nodded hastily. "Yes dad, when do you want to bring him in fully anyway?"
The Jorgensen patriarch scoffed. "When he will perform an honourable deed."
"Dad, um, you know of course but he was-"
"Fighting the Red Death? He didn't even fight, he just flew up to the thing, got disoriented by you making noise, and then got knocked out while you were beating the monster in the eyes."
Snotlout cringed. He never thought of it like that. "Riiight, but when there could be an opportunity? We aren't raided by dragons constantly anymore."
Spitelout folded his arms and smirked. "I am sure that other tribes will be less... enthusiastic about dragons, and our little heir that got his head blown up by success is not gonna let that slide."
Hiccup would never do that.
"Sure thing dad."
Snotlout tried not to slump. What could he do now, in these boring, lonely winter nights? Who could he hang out with? Who would want to hang out with him?
There weren't many answers to those questions.
Two pairs of circular blue eyes stared intensely at another two pairs of bulging yellow ones, completely ignoring several other much smaller sets peeking from nooks and corners of the Thorston's longhouse.
"Now, student Barf, pay attention." The right head neared her and made sparks.
"You too, student Belch." The left head neared him and breathed a little gas at him. They all grinned.
The twins failed to realise that their necks were criss-crossed.
"This, is a skull. S-k-u-llll."
"It is not how you pronounce it, dear sister."
"It is how you pronounce it when you teach someone to pronounce it, duh."
"So you teach them to pronounce it wrong? That is not nice."
"Yes? Yes?"
"Yes, yes, indeed."
"You know nothing about language lessons!"
"You too!"
The right head sent sparks into their faces with a mischievous expression. Tuffnut rolled his eyes and shooed the dragon away.
"Shut up, Belch."
"Exactly, shut up, Barf."
The twins stopped and looked each other in the eyes, then said in unison.
"This was a good one."
The Zippleback heads nodded. "What you sssaid." "What he sssaid."
The twins blinked, then laughed.
"You totally got us! We didn't even know you could speak! Never saying a word, sneaky ass."
"It is not how you say it."
"It is how I said it."
"Boooring." Came from the dragon and the twins were promptly snatched up. They didn't protest, instead trying to kick each other, and the Zippleback had fun with keeping them away from each other only to occasionally bump them together.
"Ruffnut-Tuffnut! Come here." Came a voice from below, interrupting them.
"Whyyyy?"
B&B threw them down the stairs, laughing in unison with the children surrounding them.
"Here, Tuffnut clean those plates, Ruffnut help me cook."
"Hey! I am a better cook than her!"
"And if I let you cook, you would ignore me and make some random... stuff."
"Stuff!? Those were traditional Middle-Eastern European dishes!"
"...What is Middle-Eastern Europe?" Asked Ruffnut, bewildered. Their mother facepalmed.
"Just do it. I have enough on my head already."
They instantly straightened and saluted, with Ruffnut elbowing Tuffnut and muttering "not this hand", and Tuffnut changing hand only to realise he was tricked into using the wrong one and changing it back while elbowing his sister.
As they finished the chore and sat down to lunch, they were met by a pointed stare.
"Wht?" Muttered Tuffnut from behind the food he started stuffing his mouth with.
Ruffnut just raised an eyebrow.
Their mother sighed.
"What are you planning to do?"
Tuffnut swallowed everything down and listed it.
"Eat lunch, question Barf and Belch on from who they learned Islandic Norse from, wash the dishes with Sighnut, help Ruffnut with her saga or however it is called..."
"Novel, you moron!"
Tuffnut nodded, completely unoffended, and then shrugged.
Sighnut gave justice to her name. "I didn't mean that. What do you want to do with your life?"
The twins just blinked.
"What. Do. You. Want. To. Do. Long. Term."
"Well, serving our dear celestial patron of course by performing mischief. And helping you, mom," said Tuffnut.
Ruffnut continued on where he left it. "We can... I dunno, sell my novels when those are ready? Sounds like a plan to me."
"We would need to write each volume."
"Oh, good point. So you will copy and I will make new ones."
"It is not a good deal!"
"What isss the deal? Why do you want this 'money' anyway?"
Barf butted in, and gained an incredulous look from the twins.
"For everything! You exchange money for whatever you want and need, food, clothes, home, furniture-"
Belch interrupted. "You already have it all. And we can always share fish with you. You don't eat that much and making boooom let you gather a lot of fish easily, so we don't have to do anything extra. Besidess, you can always hold the net, this way it is even fasster and eassier."
"And from where would we get this net?" Challenged Tuffnut. B&B tilted their heads.
"...We just get it?"
"It is not how the economy works, dear unacquainted with civilisation friend. People do stuff and since they do it, they don't give it away for free. Not everyone is of such good heart."
"We can steal," Ruffnut muttered, but got ignored.
"You could give someone fish for something else, but they may not be hungry or may have a lot of fish already conserved. But money...money, you see, can be exchanged for everything, because everyone agrees to take money for their products and services. That is why it is so important."
B&B were nodding hard enough to bump their heads into the ground, which they did. But they shook themselves off in seconds and inquired: "You give usss money for the net, we give you it back when we exchange fisssh for money."
Ruffnut grinned and nodded, but Tuffnut shook his head.
"That is a bad idea. Not only when you lend money to someone you want them to give back more than you gave-"
"Why? That doesn't make sense."
Tuffnut waved his finger at them and yanked it back when the dragon tried to bite it playfully.
"It is not how a market economy works. Nothing is for free. Unless you are friends with someone. But why would a complete stranger give you money? What would he or she get out of it? More money is the best outcome, of course."
Barf was eating while Belch shook his head in confusion. "So why would we burrow money if we have to give back more than we lent?"
Ruffnut groaned. "You don't have any money now, so if you want to buy something, you need to get money somehow. And on this example with the net you would earn faster, so it would give you a jumpstart!"
Belch nodded, then nipped at Barf's neck and they switched positions. Tuffnut scratched his head.
"We have one stomach, but we have two tongues. And the taste of this food is good."
"Aha, anyway, here is the thing. The more needed and less available something is, the more money it costs. There is a lot of fish around now, but there are little to no fishing nets, so to earn money for a net from fish would take you a long, long time."
Ruffnut knocked him on the head. He wailed. "What was that for?!"
"For false information, you moron." She scoffed, and turned to B&B, both heads at attention. "More nets were made during this little economic crisis, and no one fishes with the ice covering the ocean and will not fish even a while after it starts thawing. Floes are nasty things for ships. So-"
Tuffnut pushed her from the bench and then kicked. "The net while costing more than usual won't cost impossibly much, and fresh fish while everyone has only smoked ones will make them worth-" He was kicked to the ground by his sister.
"More than usual!" Managed to say Ruffnut while inside a brawl.
B&B separated them, each neck coiling around each twin. "Ssso, can we burrow sssome money from you, friends?"
They shook their heads. "Sorry, we don't have much money. It all went to repair this storehouse we blew up. Ask the Ingermans."
"Ingermans!? No way. Don't do that!" Exclaimed Sighnut, before explaining. "The Ingermans will want you to give them back half more than you lent, and will try to trick you into giving them even more."
B&B chittered between themselves before speaking up. "Who else can lend usss money?"
Sighnut sighed. "You can ask Stoick, he has quite a lot, accepts even mediocre offers, and won't try to trick you."
The two dragons — or one dragon, no-one really knew — said farewell and went away, leaving the twins to wonder what had happened with the food on their plates.
All three Haddocks stood stiffly in the cold outside. There weren't any storms now, the sky was clear, safe for a turbulent dark wall of clouds far on the horizon. Stoick had his usual heavy cloak, Hiccup was wrapped in thick furs so much that he had issues with walking, and Toothless donned a scarf made out of a patchwork of at least a dozen smaller ones.
One human and one Night Fury strode towards them. One pair of green, slitted pupils latched onto the collar of the dragoness, and the pair of said dragoness eyes were meekly lowered to the ground. A pair of green, pained eyes looked at Fishvoice Ingerman's morose form. Yet another pair of eyes, placed higher than any other, overlooked everything.
"Here she is. Now, payment?"
Stoick handed him the sack, and Fishvoice started counting the money within, often looking at a piece of parchment, presumably checking the amount to pay.
The thing is, he did it four times, and from his frown, it was possible that he lost count at least once. Toothless fidgeted and grumbled, Stoick huffed, and Hiccup rolled his eyes and waved his hand before Fishvoice's face.
"Hello, Midgard to Fishvoice. Come inside, then you can count it all the time you want, but I am freezing out here."
The man looked up, then around, then froze for another five seconds before replying. "Nope."
Hiccup tilted his head like a dragon. "Why?"
"I would be alone with you, a perfect opportunity to make demands with no onlooker."
Hiccup gawped. "What? Demands? Why would we... Fishvoice, you know me. You know I wouldn't do that."
The man frowned harder. "You... no. But the Night Fury? Yes."
Toothless snickered. "I now demand you to go inside and count it there or I will bite you."
"Toothless!" The dragon grumbled under his nose at Hiccup's scolding.
"You have no reason to believe us, but I will still say that it was not our action." Said Stoick firmly.
Fishvoice looked over the three of them and let his shoulders slump. "Fine."
They went inside, dropped additional clothes (or any, in Toothless's case) and sat in awkward silence. Hiccup searched for a topic of discussion, and just when he was going to give up, he was struck by an idea.
"So, Toothless, your language lessons..."
"I physically can't pronounce it." The dragon replied curtly.
Fishvoice looked from the sack and at him in bewilderment. "All the sounds required to speak in Latin, are applicable in Islandic. Sure, your pronunciation would be a bit weird since you are used to another language, but it is not by any means impossible."
"Iiiine, Iiiing, Iiiiuuuup, oiick, ihoice."
Fishvoice sent the dragon a flat look. "It isn't the worst try I heard."
"It isn't the first try! It is... the dozenth try! See? I can't do it."
Hiccup patted Toothless on the neck. "Sorry to break it for you but... you don't learn a language in ten tries. You learn how to do it in hundreds and thousands of tries."
Toothless gawped. "That would take forever!"
"Oh? You don't have the mental fortitude to do that?" Fishvoice raised an eyebrow mockingly at the dragon. The Night Fury snarled at him, but was ignored. "Hiccup, there must always be a reason for learning a language. For us, it was reading what wasn't available in our own tongue. He doesn't care to communicate with others than you enough, so if you want him speaking Islandic, you must make it key to communicating with you."
Hiccup nodded thoughtfully, and Toothless's pupils narrowed in suspicion.
"Hiccup."
"Sorry, I don't understand Solarian language. Could you please speak in Islandic?"
"Solarian? What? Is it some other group of humans?"
Hiccup stayed silent, with a smirk on his face, and Toothless groaned.
"You can't do that to me. There is no one else I want to talk to."
"Anyway, let's get this muzzle off of you, Pebble. How long have you kept her in it anyway?"
"All the time besides feeding. She tried to fire at us when we whipped her for insubordination for the first time. It was… a pretty underwhelming flame."
"You whipped her!? Fishvoice!"
"Umm, I didn't do that, I wasn't even around. But how else were we supposed to make her obey unconditionally?"
"Obey unconditionally? Are you even hearing yourself?! You made her even more shy than she already was, she is so scared that she won't even take her sight up from the ground!" *Don't fear, we won't hurt you. And you don't need to do anything here. You want some fish?*
She nodded hesitantly and Toothless strode off to the storeroom while the humans continued arguing.
"I mean, Herring ordered it. He is the patriarch. And I wasn't even there. And they went easy on her anyway."
"Whipping is easy? That is far worse than all the bullying I faced combined. Do you seriously think it is justifiable!?"
Fishvoice let his head hang and muttered a silent 'no'.
Toothless dragged an entire basket of smoked fish to her and then spilled it on the ground. She looked at it ravenously but still glanced up for confirmation, at his purring, she started gulping it all down. The male Night Fury glanced at Hiccup with focus when she was occupied.
"You were bullied? You are the alpha offspring, who would be stupid enough to do that?"
"Ahh." Hiccup waved his hand. Toothless's gaze intensified at him.
"I-um, it doesn't matter, it is the past anyway. I just- let it go. Yeah. That is it."
"How were they punished?" The teenager ignored him, but was soon faced with the Night Fury's snout centimeters from his face.
"I don't understand a word of it, heh, yeah."
The dragon head, weighing likely as much as Hiccup himself, leaned on his lap, pinning him in place and drilling a pair of inquisitive green eyes into him.
"No, Toothless. Don't do that. I-I need to get going! You-you know, Mangler... Mangler plans aren't going to finish themselves. Heh. Hehe."
The dragon didn't budge.
"Does this happen often?" inquired Fishvoice to Stoick.
"When Hiccup doesn't want to talk about something important? Every single time."
"Hey! I am here, you know," said Hiccup, but got ignored. "Dad, some help here maybe?"
Stoick's expression was stern. "I knew that you weren't liked, but you didn't say you were bullied."
"Oh come on, Dad, it is the past. There is no need to excavate it."
Fishvoice rolled his eyes. "Snotlout most of the time. He of course got pranked by teens, but nearly everyone did so he isn't unique in that regard."
His father's and best friend's gazes intensified. "What did he do?"
Fishvoice responded instead of Hiccup, who was too busy babbling nonsense. "I remember that he was bruised sometimes when we met."
"Bruised. He beat you up. Hiccup, why didn't you tell me?"
Stoick was giving justice to his name. Barely. Hiccup averted his sight from him. Toothless nuzzled his cheek gently, crooning. "Please, tell me." The teenager sighed.
"I was afraid that you would be... disappointed."
Stoick's eyes were as wide as they get. "Son, I would have helped you!"
"I know, I knew, but that way I would look weak, unable to care for myself, needing daddy to step up whenever some problem arises-"
Hiccup was startled by Toothless taking a step back, the dragon was eerily calm. Then he lunged at the doors, breaking the hinges with his mass and with an unearthly screech left the house.
"Oh no. Oh no."
Hiccup sprung right after him into the blizzard, ignoring the searing pain in his stump, not even bothering to take additional clothes.
"Toothless! Come back to me!" His only response was the blizzard's unrelenting howl. The wind was so strong that he could barely stand upright, and his legs sank in the snow nearly all the way to the hips, frozen water slipping into his shoe and his prosthetic sinking even deeper into the snow. He pressed on anyway.
"Toothless! Come back! You can't just- aah!" Snow hit him directly in the face when he raised his head, and Hiccup turned around, suddenly fearing that he'd lost his bearing.
He had. He couldn't see more than a step in any direction. But he had to be on the main square, right? The one with all the clans' longhouses. He just needed to go in one direction and he will eventually reach some.
Or...
"Help! Help! I'm lost! I don't know where to go and I'm freezing here!"
It took only a few seconds for a black shape to emerge from the snow and wrap around him tightly, bringing back the heat and affectionately nuzzling. Soon afterwards, the cocoon unfurled just enough for the dragon to walk, with his tail, wings, neck and forepaws placed in such a way to decrease exposure to the elements to an absolute minimum as they walked at pretty much a glacier pace back to the house.
"Hiccup, what were you thinking?" came his father's voice as Toothless unfurled fully, letting him stand upright. Thick furs were handed to him and he promptly wrapped himself up in them.
Hiccup rolled his eyes even as they entered the house.
"Oh, I dunno, avoiding the first inter-clan war in two centuries whilst ours is outnumbered twenty to one?"
Toothless huffed after shaking all the snow from himself. Hiccup glared at him. "And what were you thinking? That you can just go there and attack the son of a clan patriarch?"
Toothless sent him an unimpressed look. "There is a certain thing called a duel, or you humans don't allow resolving conflicts directly?" He shook his head. "It shouldn't be a duel, it is too much of a sign of respect, but I understand that if I just beat him up out of nowhere it would make more problems than solve."
Stoick shook his head. "Duels, Holmgang, have very specific rules, rules that make it impossible for a dragon your size to participate."
Toothless squinted, then nodded. "So I will have to wait until spring."
Hiccup shook his head. "No, you won't. I forgave him already. It. Is. The. Past."
Toothless huffed. Hiccup folded his arms. "You just let him be without any consequences?"
"Sorry, I don't understand this weird Solarian tongue."
Toothless made an indignant glare, but spotted Pebble trying to clear the floor and pushed her away. *Don't do that. You don't have to do anything here. Just relax, maybe sit by the fire-in-the-stone. Let me do it instead.*
Fishvoice hmm-ed. "So I guess that you don't want to drag me through the blizzard." Toothless snorted in agreement. "I guess I will stay here for the night then."
Hiccup sat by his old... maybe not friend, but conversation companion.
"Umm, about... Fishlegs."
The man just shook his head with tightened lips. Hiccup chose not to press it.
"So maybe… Toothless started painting!"
Fishvoice perked up at that and investigated the dragon's paintings.