Prodigal Son 3

Lying on her mat, Astrid tossed and turned. She just could not seem to get comfortable. All around her she could hear her family stirring in their own ragged linens. She was keeping them up, she knew. It was a small home, too small for privacy. Astrid knew she needed sleep; tomorrow was another long day of training, but her racing mind kept her awake. She could not seem to get the Night Fury drawing out of her head.

Hiccup. The lad had been a twig. A runt. How had he managed to get closer to a Night Fury than any Viking before him? Was it all a ploy? A prank discovered nearly a decade too late? As she recalled, the boy had possessed a troublemaker's streak. Yet most of that had been accidental carnage. He had been a walking disaster, and not everyone in the town had been heartbroken when he had vanished. Gobber was hurt, naturally. Stoick himself seemed to close up completely. He barely spoke anymore except to make judgments and give orders. He had been that way for so long that by now most of the children thought it was simply his way. Yet Astrid was old enough to remember a time when he would laugh and drink with the rest of the village. Besides those two, more than a few locals had been rather fond of Hiccup, treating his frequent accidents with the same patience one would use to approach a precocious puppy which had just peed on a carpeted floor. They had kept faith that his Haddock blood would show through eventually, that his awkward incompetence was just a stage.

And Astrid herself? Well she hadn't really made anything of him at all. The boy had nurtured a hopeless crush on her, which she at first failed to recognize, then promptly ignored. He couldn't fight, couldn't alk (at least not to her), couldn't drink, and couldn't contribute. He had been nothing. Nothing at all… until the last few months of his life.

Astrid rolled onto her side and shut her eyes, trying to remember the training itself. At first he had been as ill-fitted to the warrior's role as everyone had expected. He had spent more time talking to Gobber than he had paying attention to the Dragons. In the ring he had been a risk to himself and everyone else, nearly ending both himself and her when they'd faced up against the Nadder.

And then…

And then…

And then he had changed. Almost overnight he was able to deal quickly and efficiently with every beast put against him, quickly surpassing even Astrid herself to become Champion of the ring. And then he had just… vanished.

She punched her pillow into a better shape and rolled onto her back again.

Search parties had been sent out to find him. For weeks they searched. Months, even. Two years passed before Stoick stopped the search. And life went on as it had been, minus a few accidental explosions every week. The village slowly dwindled, suffering a death by a thousand cuts as each dragon raid took a little more out of its citizens than they could recover.

Astrid backtracked and ran through the training days again. Hiccup had been very good at fighting the beasts, towards the end of his life. Come to think of it he hadn't actually fought them at all, had he? Dealt with, yes. But she couldn't recall a moment when he had intentionally hurt one of the beasts-

Astrid's eyes snapped open with the revelation. She stared at the thatched ceiling of her home, brow furrowed as she recalled what she could of those days in the training arena.

No dragon had ever been wounded by Hiccup. Ever. They'd been subdued, but not hurt.

The Shield-Maiden sat up and gathered her furs around her. She had not let go of the Dragon Manual since her pupil's discovery. It was lying on the floor beside her, and she picked it up. She rose, retrieved her boots as quietly as possible, and slipped out into the chilled night air.

The sky above her was clear, and she could make out the brilliant stars. The constellations shone brightly above her head, as did the pale cloud of the Milky Way galaxy. She trudged through the silent town. On the battlements and fortifications, she could see the guards patrolling. Each battlement was armed with a ballista and enough arrows to down a hundred Dragons. The soldiers were well-armed and vigilant. Always watching the skies for the telltale winged shadows.

Clutching the book tightly to her chest, she climbed up the hill a few hundred meters, her breath freezing in the cold air. Her destination was the Thorston household, a larger building, closer to the center of town. The twins were as stupid as Vikings came, yet they were members of one of Berk's wealthier families. Ruff-Nut had made one smart decision in her entire life, and that was marriage to Fishlegs. They had a small child to care for now, and it was pretty much the end of Astrid's association with either of them.

She plodded up to the door and knocked hesitantly. The sound echoed around the village square. Inside the house, the baby began to cry. Astrid cringed, cursing her own thoughtlessness; this could have waited until morning.

The door opened a few seconds later to reveal Fishlegs. The man had grown larger with age, though his fat now had a layer of muscle underneath, lending a sense of strength and physicality which he had lacked in youth. His beard was thick and bushy, but his face still possessed a youthfulness which usually tended to disappear around his age. His eyes belied that, however.

Astrid and Fishlegs had never gotten along very well. Fishlegs was a planner and a thinker. Someone more at home at a table, or perhaps in a political meeting than on the battlefield. Their worlds were as far apart as fish were from birds. Astrid had been more than happy to keep it that way. Yet as she looked into his eyes, she could recognize his intelligence. He was a man who had a hundred thoughts for every word he spoke, when he spoke at all. He was useful to Berk in his own way. He had fine-tuned their farming methods and drawn up proper calendars for future planning. She knew that somewhere he was charting the Dragon attacks as well, looking for a pattern they could use. Fishlegs had weaponised sums, an impressive feat, though one Astrid had trouble appreciating as she couldn't understand most of what he was writing while sitting with his papers and charcoal.

"Astrid…" he said, clearly feeling as bewildered as she did uncomfortable.

"Hi." She said awkwardly. She cleared her throat. "Good morning."

"Usually people wait until morning to say that." The admonishment was gentle but effective.

"I know. I apologize. I was just… look, do you have a minute?" Of the group they'd trained with, Fishlegs had been the closest to Hiccup. Of all of their generation, she knew he would know the most. Besides, he was smarter than she was. Perhaps he'd seen more, even if Hiccup hadn't said anything to him.

The man glanced back into the house. Behind him, Astrid caught Ruff-Nut's silhouette as she rocked her child back to sleep. He turned back to Astrid. "Perhaps we should talk in the Great Hall. I'll meet you there."

They sat across from each other, each with a mug of ale. The Dragon Manual was sitting between them, closed. Their small table was lit by a single candle, already burned nearly to the wick. The flame flickered gently as Fishlegs waited.

"What is this about, Astrid?"

"When was the last time you read the Manual?" she asked.

Fishlegs looked down at the book. He reached out with one hairy hand and gently picked it up, weighing it in his palms. "A long time ago." He admitted. "In the end there's only one lesson I've found it teaches: Kill on Sight."

"Not the Night Fury." She said.

"Run and Hide?" Fishlegs chuckled; a warm sound which made her smile. He said, "I used to categorize them, you know? I'd give them traits and try to measure them. I wanted to gauge the threat of each individual dragon."

"The threat is deadly." Astrid replied blankly. "Always deadly."

He nodded, "That's what I decided in the end as well. I gave up on that project and decided to find something more useful."

She took a sip of her mead, and he followed suit, leaving a little white line of foam in his moustache.

"There's a picture of a Night Fury in there." She said, setting her mug down on the rough wooden surface.

"Really?" Fishlegs frowned. He opened the book and flipped to the Night Fury entry, then a page further. His eyebrows rose as he peered down his nose at the drawing.

"I think Hiccup drew it."

"It looks like one of his." The man agreed, traced the drawing with a thick finger. He turned the page back and read the new addition to the entry. "…Hates Eels…"

"How would he know?"

"Perhaps he tried to feed it one?" Fishlegs suggested in a light tone.

"I'm serious!"

The man frowned and looked back down at the entry. With slow, deliberate movements he flipped back through the dusty pages until he reached the entry on the two-headed Zippleback. Fishlegs read slowly down the entry. He nodded in satisfaction when he reached the end. Smirking, he handed it across to Astrid, his finger resting on a particular passage, again in Hiccup's careful printing.

"Hates eels." She read.

"Do you remember the day we faced the zippleback?" he asked. "It nearly had him and then it backed off. He chased it right back into its pen."

"I remember." Astrid said shortly. Everyone did. The move had left everyone else in the arena stunned, and Hiccup had wandered off in his usual awkward manner.

"The dragon feeders found an Eel in the cage with it when they opened the doors." Fishlegs said quietly. "I remember my father speaking to them about it. They had no idea how it got there. Those dragons were fed fish offal from the butchers. At the time it was simply another unsolved mystery. But now…?"

"You think hiccup put it there?"

"I think Hiccup had it with him the entire time."

"To protect himself?"

Fishlegs smiled at her. "Well he couldn't use a sword, could he?"

Astrid nodded; that much was true. "Why would he write it in the book, though?"

"To pass on his knowledge? That would be my guess." Fishlegs took the book from her and closed it with a snap. He rested it on his knee and stared across the table at her, his mug looking tiny as he held it in his enormous hand, sipping occasionally.

"Why do you care, Astrid? You never bothered about Hiccup."

"I don't care. I just…"

"You woke me up in the middle of the night."

Astrid's mouth shut. She said, "Why did he draw that picture, Fishlegs? How would he know what a Night Fury looks like?"

"I don't know." The man replied. "My guess would be that he saw one. You do realize that Night Furies stopped attacking Berk at the same time he disappeared, right? Perhaps he killed one. Or scared it or something."

Astrid stared. Across the table, Fishlegs guzzled the remainder of his ale. He rose to his feet a little unsteadily, sliding the chair back with a creak. "Regardless, I've a wife to calm and a child to put to bed." He waved the Manual. "I'll be keeping this for a while, if you don't mind."

"Sure." She watched as with heavy steps he headed for the Great Hall's massive door.

"Should I talk to Gobber?" she called.

Fishlegs turned and shrugged his massive shoulders. "If you like. Personally I'd keep training the children. According to my charts the dragons are scheduled back in two days and we've got a lot to prepare for."

Of all the characters, I honestly think Fishlegs would change the most with age. I'll be revisiting him a little later in the story.