#the most interesting aspect is the daylight warriors but even those are treated as a flaw of skyclan that is to be shamed and ditched | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

athingofvikings · 7 years

Text

Chapter 10: Whetstones

Previous Chapter | Summary | Table Of Contents Main | Next Chapter

Chapter 10: Whetstones

Perhaps the second most mythologized human figure to come out of the Norse domestication of dragons is the Hero's father, Stoick the Vast, a.k.a. Stoick the Lawgiver, Stoick the Wise, Odin's Spear-carrier, and other such titles. Primary sources from his personal contemporaries are minimal, with most of the surviving sources being from the perspective of his son and others of his generation. While the legends generally agree on the broad strokes of his life, the details are shrouded in mutually exclusive legends and myth. This especially pertains to the periods of his life preceding the ascendance of his son; mythologized and mutually contradictory accounts of his childhood, young adulthood, and ancestry are common. Even specific points that many of these accounts agree on have an odor of myth. For example, it is unknown if he truly did 'pop a dragon's head clean off of its neck' as a toddler, as is claimed by legend. His later accomplishments are known with more certainty, but the blank slate of his life prior to the birth of his son has resulted in endless embellishments of his youth, which makes determining the truth a near impossibility.

This is not helped by the fact that the man had a literally larger-than-life stature; in an era in which the average height of an adult man was sixty-eight-and-one-quarter inches (173.4 cm), Stoick, from modern analysis of his remains and attested from numerous primary sources, is confirmed to have measured eighty-one-and-a-half inches (207 cm) in height, with a build to match.

Additionally, other romanticized aspects of his life are well-substantiated, rendering the sorting of truth from fiction to be more difficult. Perhaps the single most famous example of this is his famous devotion to his wife, Valka. As the cultural expectation of a high ranking Norseman of the era, even on Berk, was to be polygamous, Stoick's attested monogamy has been the subject of significant romanticization…

—The Dragon Millennium, Manna-hata University Press, Ltd.

With an impressed whistle, King Mac Bethad looked at the wooden coffer filled with neatly bagged dragons' teeth. He reached in, picked out a bag at random, and opened the drawstrings. A pile of sharp ivory teeth the length of his hand lay inside the bag.

Lips pursed thoughtfully, he palmed one of the teeth, feeling its dense weight in his hand, and then closed the bag and replaced it in the chest. Playing with the tooth like a worrystone, he looked up at his spymaster, Taskill, and the three men that he'd handpicked to scout the Hooligans' Thaw Festival, Alan, Iain, and Gregor. They'd gone in the guise of merchants, as Mac Bethad had decided against opening formal recognition of the chief with an official envoy.

They'd returned the day before yesterday, having taken their time in returning, having had to lay over on Manau for four days due to spring thunderstorms. Then Taskill, in his habitual suspicion, had taken several precautions against them being noticed entering the citadel, and that had added some more delays.

But now it was time to find out more than hearsay and the growing legends of the Dragon Riders of Berk.

He, his wife Gruoch, and several of his most trusted advisers were currently in his private chambers, with armed guards standing at the doors between them and the outside. Over Taskill's protests, the window shutters had been opened, with curtains to muffle the sound. Privacy was all well-and-good, but nearly a dozen people in the small room would quickly render the space to stifling, and the courtyard below was private. Raghnell, his steward, was taking advantage of the daylight to take notes, which Taskill had grudgingly allowed.

He examined the three spies, who were looking distinctly uncomfortable at having an audience with their king. Pleasantly bland, with nothing noteworthy about their appearances, they were stout sorts who would not stand out on the deck of a ship or in the ranks of an army or crowd. The only aspect of note was that their eyes were alight with intelligence, looking around noting details, even as they sat nervously before him, their sovereign.

He poured a draught of ale for himself and another for his wife from the small cask sitting on the nearby table, sat in the straw-padded chair next to her, and nodded to the men.

"I know that normally Taskill would be the one to direct such questionings and would then report to me. However, under the circumstances, I thought it best that we all be present. I know that I will have questions." He waved to his spymaster. "Taskill, if you would?"

The dour man nodded and looked at the trio. He had been… less than happy when Mac Bethad had leaned on him for this special session, although he understood it, and had reluctantly agreed to it.

"All right then, boys. Let's start with the basics. Tell us about the place itself. Alan, you first."

The spy nodded and said, "Not much to tell. It's up in the Hebrides, north of the kingdom proper. Small village, built into one of the smaller islands. Sheep, cattle, wild boars in the forest, fishing in the sea; pretty much a sleepy fishing village with a few hundred people, except for the dragons."

"Is it defensible?"

The three men looked at each other and nodded. Gregor spoke up. "As much as any place without a wall is defensible. The coast is rocky, mostly cliffs and the like. They've already built into one of the few sheltered harbor spaces, and it's behind a bunch of sea stacks and shoals. If anyone tried to take a big fleet in there, they'd lose ships to collisions and beachings."

"What do they have for defenses?"

"Some catapults, but the dragons did a number on those. Plus I think every adult in the village is a fighter on some level, from what we got. Call it about four or five hundred warriors total." There were looks around the room at that. A formidable force, but nothing that Mac Bethad's own forces couldn't defeat in an afternoon's battle. Presuming, of course, that said battle happened on the ground.

"Every adult? But… how does that work?" Gruoch said, honest puzzlement in her voice. "Or, rather, who does the work, if they don't have carls and thralls to do the labor?"

"Milady Queen, as strange as it sounds, from what we saw and were told, they got rid of the thane, carl, thrall system; as far as we could tell, everyone there is some weird mix of thane and carl—they fight, but they also work. Even the Chieftain."

There were raised eyebrows at this. Mac Bethad found the very idea incomprehensible. Oh, certainly, he owned farms and other lands, but they were worked by serfs and thralls. He himself was too occupied with affairs of state to spend his time on the fields.

"Did you find out more about that?"

"Aye. Turns out what thralls they did have got freed four or five generations ago, if they were willing to fight when the dragon attacks picked up. And they all did. Or, at least, that's what a very drunk Viking told me over some wine that we brought."

Mac Bethad cocked his head in thought. "Bizarre, but I can see the thought behind it. But… Vikings without thralls? How strange."

"Our thoughts exactly, sire," the spy Iain said. "Some of the contests we saw were very… well, they weren't for warriors, but for carls and the like, and it was surreal to see Vikings treat the outcome of a contest of carrying sheep with the same weight as a more martial competition."

Mac Bethad took a drink of his ale and absently played with the dragon's tooth in the other hand. After a moment, he nodded. "I can see the thread of it, though. Hmm. Well, continue."

With a nod of acknowledgment, Taskill asked, "How big is the village?"

"A few dozen houses at most. Maybe as many as a hundred or slightly more scattered across the island for the farms. They had to keep rebuilding them because of dragons burning down the houses for generations," Gregor said.

Alan spoke up. "They're built out on this staggered cliff area with some light pasturage immediately around the village; there's a big stone peak in the area, almost a pillar, perhaps a hundred or two hundred feet in height, and they've built their great hall into a cave at the base. They have a dragon-fighting arena from their old days built into another peak nearby. That one also has a hollow at the base that they built into. They used to use it to hone their skills against captured dragons, and train new warriors, but now it's just used as a place to practice riding."

"Interesting…" Taskill made a note. "Anything else on the village?"

"Well, there is one thing that I found of interest—" Iain spoke up, and Gregor shook his head.

"Yes, Iain?" Taskill said. "Gregor, let me be the judge of things of interest."

Gregor nodded, chastened, and Iain said, "Well, two things that I found interesting was that they have a wealth of iron from trade, selling the corpses of the dragons they killed, but they didn't just spend all of their wealth on metal. They also bought dyes and paints and the like." He nodded towards the chest of teeth. "I got that off of the Hero himself when he came to my stall in the festival market, and they were just as interested in the ink as they were the weapons. Actually, regarding the Hero—"

Taskill interrupted. "One thing at a time. We will get to him shortly. But I don't want to get off topic. You mentioned iron and dyes and paints. What did they use those for?"

"Well, the iron was all over the village. Weapons, of course, but also they used it for building—they put bands around the bases of their signal fires to reinforce them—and their fighting arena had a chain net to keep the dragons inside. But… even though the houses were all new, they were all splendidly carved and decorated." He nodded towards a decorative wall hanging on the chamber wall. "That would be normal there in most of the homes. Even the iron banding on the houses and such were decorated. It was actually… quite… pretty."

Mac Bethad raised an eyebrow. "Interesting… but I wonder why you raised the point?"

"Well, sire… I asked about it. Nothing too direct, but when I said that it was an awful deal of work to do when the dragons kept burning down the houses and all of that decoration, one of them told me that that was the point. That they did it because they were stubborn. It might have been easier to stop making beautiful houses… but that would have been an admission of defeat. Of something that they'd had taken away. So they kept carving and painting and decorating, just to shout their defiance in the face of their enemies."

Mac Bethad looked at the tooth that he was still idly playing with, and nodded in acknowledgment. "Aye. That is a good point. Thank you for raising it."

Iain smiled and bowed his head. "Thank you sire."

Taskill let the moment last for a count of three, and then continued. "Anything else about the village itself? I would have preferred that previous point to have been saved for the villagers, but I see the connection."

The three looked at each other and shook their heads. "No, not really. They have no fortifications, no walls of any significance. It's just…" Gregor spread his hands with a questioning look, "it's just a small fishing village with a bunch of hard-headed, hard-drinking Vikings who live off the sea, bow down to pagan idols, and are too stubborn to leave." He gave a helpless shrug. "If not for the dragons, it would be nearly unexceptional. We must have passed a dozen like it on the shores between here and there."

"Well," Taskill said dryly, "we'll get to the dragons in a moment. What about the people, as Iain has already started us on the topic?"

"Well, I talked with a fair few, when I worked the stall." Iain shrugged. "Five major clans—Haddock, Hofferson, Ingerman, Jorgenson, Thorston, each with a clan head. Haddock is the chieftain's clan, and the smallest of the five, due to casualties from the war and sheer rotten luck, from what I heard. There are also a fair number of freedmen and clan outsiders, although I didn't learn too much on how they handle that sort of thing. Call it seven hundred people in total, maybe a hundred and twenty per clan."

"And how are they?"

"They're thick-headed, thick-bodied, ax-swinging Vikings with a weakness for pretty things. Without the dragons, also not that exceptional, all things considered." Iain looked at the other two. "With one… notable exception."

"The Hero," Mac Bethad said in a low, anticipatory voice, leaning in. Now came the truly interesting parts. "Tell us about him."

"Aye, my lord," Alan said, shifting in his chair uncomfortably. "Just… we're telling you truth as best we can, and swear before God that we're not lying. Please understand that."

Mac Bethad gave them a magnanimous wave and said, "Please, continue."

"Well, first thing is, they have some very odd naming traditions there—"

"Which are fortunately dying out," Gregor muttered under his breath.

"—so they give their children… silly names to frighten off monsters."

"Didn't work," observed Iain.

"But you know how traditions can be," Alan said, moving resolutely ahead. "So… the Hero's name is… Hiccup."

The entire other side of the room blinked in unison.

"Repeat that?" Taskill said, regaining his composure first.

"Hiccup Horrendous Haddock, the Third," Gregor said with a mournful look. "Apparently they liked the name so much that they used it twice already."

Mac Bethad looked at the three men, who were looking as if they had been sat down in the dentist's chair against their will, and the man with the bloodstained apron was approaching them with his pulling tongs. They were all serious men, not given to idle jesting, and, well, he needed them. He sighed, and the three men relaxed as one. "You did warn us," he said. "I am not going to kill my messengers. Pray, continue." He paused for a moment. "Continue speaking, that is. Not praying. I will be patient."

"Aye, my lord," Alan said. "Well, he's very much not like the rest of them."

"How so?" Taskill asked.

"In every way," Gregor said. "He is small, weak, and has no skill at arms."

"Then how did he defeat the Night Fury in the first place?" Mac Bethad asked. "I was given to understand that it was an epic battle, worthy of song."

Alan shook his head. "The boy—and he is a boy, rising sixteen, apparently, and just starting to grow like a weed—apparently made some war machine worthy of Archimedes and shot the dragon out of the sky with it."

"Truly?" Mac Bethad asked, surprised. That hadn't been the tale told.

Alan nodded. "Truly, my lord. And when I say 'worthy of Archimedes,' I mean it. The boy is a genius."

Iain held up his hand and started ticking off on his fingers. "While I was there, I saw riding tack specialized for each breed of dragon. I've had to deal with enough harness- and saddle-makers to know how difficult it is simply to craft new saddles for horses, and at least they have the courtesy of all having the same body shape and size."

Gregor nodded in agreement. "I got a peek inside of his workroom in the village smithy. Lining the shelves and covering the walls were designs and models of war machines and various arcane devices whose functions I could not guess at."

Iain picked back up. "In the practical department, though, he has already devised a method to harness dozens of dragons together to lift heavy objects. I grew up on a farm, and I know what an accomplishment that is, having had to manage the yokes of separate beasts so that they all pull together. From what I saw, his mind is even more dangerous than his pets."

Mac Bethad raised his eyebrow at this. More dangerous than dragons? He'd been expecting a warrior—dangerous, but in a known way—not whatever this boy apparently was, and felt himself shifting as quickly as he could. "That is a bold claim. Do you truly feel that he is that dangerous?"

"Aye, sire," Iain said. "I saw a mind whose intellect shone like the sun at mid-day. In a matter of two weeks, he designed, built and perfected a replacement tail for his dragon that allows it to fly with his aid after its injury. If you knew of a smith who could make a man a metal hand nearly indistinguishable from his flesh and blood, would you not find him a marvel if he were beholden to you, and a danger if he were not?"

"Aye, I suppose I would. What is this about the tail?"

"He injured the dragon with his weapon such that it could not fly, and when it was lamed, managed to tame it and befriend it. The beast is very intelligent itself; I saw that it understood the spoken word clearly, and found myself wishing that my hounds could understand my wishes half as clearly."

"We will get to discussing the beast in a minute," Taskill said testily. "About the boy-hero… he is still a boy. Is he well-favored? Handsome? Young men are susceptible to flattery, no matter how bright they may be. Would he find it suspicious if some outsider woman found him of interest?"

Gregor winced. "You're not going to have much in the way of luck there, sir."

"Why not? Prefers boys?"

"No… not that we could tell, but he has a woman already, from the tribe. A beauty his own age, and the enchantment there is quite mutual. They were quite devoted to each other."

"Feh. Young love. It fades with time. We could remove the girl and put one of our own in her place, he wouldn't notice a difference so long as there's a warm one… or two or three, in his bed," Taskill said dismissively.

The three shared a glance and Iain said hesitantly, "I rather doubt that, my lord. But, as you say…"

"Eh, I suppose. Besides, if it is young love, the best way to turn him against us mercilessly would be to be caught doing the removal." Taskill shrugged. "Let some other fool take that risk, and we'll attempt to move in if there an opportunity." He made another note. "What is the girl's name, at least?"

"Astrid Hákonsdoittor, clan Hofferson. She displayed great prowess during the competitions. I would not want to face her on a field of battle," Gregor said, shuddering. "She reminds me of a shieldmaid I once had to fight. I survived because I fled before she could cut my hamstrings. Potent and vicious."

Iain smirked. "And she has the Damascus knife now, sire," he said to Mac Bethad.

The king quirked an eyebrow and toyed with the dragon's tooth a bit more. "Oh?" He'd once liked that knife, but he'd given it up to flesh out the spies' wares for their cover as merchants. It had been war booty from the clash with his cousin's army last summer; they'd taken it off of one of his cousin's honor guard, whose father had served in the Varangian Guard and had originally brought the blade home with him. Mac Bethad had once coveted the weapon in more peaceful times, but now it just reminded him of his dead kinsman, and had given it up with a will.

"Aye. When they came through the market…" Iain smiled. "Well, to be quite honest, it was rather sweet, seeing the boy and his girl. I offered the jewels, but she was more interested in the weapons." He cocked his head towards the chest that the tooth had come from. "We got interrupted by the boy whose dragon was taken by Adalwin's men, but the Hero came back the next day and bought the entire lot. Paints, inks, parchments and the like for himself, and weapons for his ladylove. While I sold out the entire stock that we brought with us to the tribe in general, all of the teeth there were from him."

Mac Bethad looked at the chest. "That's not everything?"

"No, sire. We have some copper and silver and the like that we're using to pay for other expenses, but—"

"That's a small fortune!" Mac Bethad said, still looking at the innocent-seeming chest. "And he paid that for, what?"

"Fourteen pots of ink, a ream of parchment, some other odds and ends, a quiver of arrows, that yew longbow and the Damascus knife," Iain said, counting off. "Didn't even try to haggle. And then we saw him give them to her, the night after they caught Adalwin's men." He waggled his eyebrows. "She seemed pleased."

Mac Bethad snorted. "Well, may she get more joy from that blade than I did."

Taskill, looking irked, took back the reins of the conversation. "Getting back to the boy, what levers do we have on him?"

"He is devoted to his tribe, that is for certain. You've heard about the attempted theft?"

Mac Bethad and Taskill nodded. "Rumor's already spread, aye."

"Well, I was right there when the boy who was attacked and his dragon stolen came running up to Hiccup and Astrid," Iain said. He snorted. "Name of Fishlegs." He rolled his eyes. "Regardless of the absurdity of his name, he only survived out of sheer luck. While we were waiting on the healer, I managed to pump him for some more information, and he didn't even notice, he was so panicked and pained. But Hiccup proceeded to muster every single dragon rider he could manage and flew out within the hour, and scoured the sea looking for the thieves. And, when they were caught, he forwent vengeance to send a statement."

"That would be the dropping of that ship in King Adalwin's bailey, yes?"

"Aye, milord. They found it funny, back on Berk. They took pride in the fact that they had so overpowered Adalwin's forces that they need not even kill any of them."

"That's not what we've heard. From what Adalwin is claiming, they sacked half of his city."

"No, sire, they didn't. They flew out, dragging the boat behind them to skip across the waves, made the entire crossing from Berk to Vedrarfjord in a day, and then dragged up the ship and placed it neatly in Adalwin's bailey with nary a drop of blood spilled. I had it straight from six that went on the expedition, and they were all laughing at the memory of the expression on Adalwin's face. They were like the seasoned old warrior on the training field—you know, the one who shows the young recruit that old age and experience beats youth and enthusiasm, with a side dish of knocking the blades from their hand and knocking them face-first into the muck." He made a face. Mac Bethad was fairly certain he remembered that old warrior as well, and nodded in acknowledgment. "They had Adalwin dead to rights, and, rather than kill him, they left him there with a ship in his fort, and left saying that next time they wouldn't be so nice."

"Well. If we engage them, we will have to make sure that that is the last time, then, won't we?"

"Aye, milord. The boy is a peacemonger, but his father is still the chief, and he is not."

There were eyebrows raised at this. "The boy truly is a peacemonger? A Viking peacemonger?" Mac Bethad found the very idea absurd. He knew something of the Norse pagan religion, its last vestiges holding on in the north of his kingdom. The closest that the Vikings had to a god of peace was Baldr the Beautiful. And if he recalled correctly, to show exactly what they thought of the idea, the other gods amused themselves by throwing sharp things at him to watch them bounce—until one didn't, and he was sent to their distinctly unpleasant goddess of death for failing to die in battle.

"Well…" Gregor hedged. "As much as one of them could be. Better to say that he has odd philosophical notions regarding life's value, and doesn't think with his ax. Which, as I understand, is why he now rides a dragon."

"I see," Mac Bethad said dryly. "Anything else of significance about him?"

"Well, there's the small bit of the dragon…"

Taskill just gave Iain a stony look. Several people, despite the seriousness of the moment, chuckled.

"No, not really, milord. Not that we saw or heard about. A year ago, he was the village screwup, the pariah. His father could get people to agree with his actions simply by threatening them with having to watch over the boy. Now he's their golden child, and very few would hear anything against him."

"'Very few' implies that there are some," Taskill noted. "Expand."

"Well, there are the village hermits and diehard dragon haters. Apparently the most prominent one is an elder named Mildew, who believes that the only good dragon is a dead one. He's potentially a useful contact for subverting the village from the inside if we need to, and we've already started cultivating him."

"Good, good. Anyone else?"

"There's another clan that's looking to supplant the chief and his son, the Jorgensons. They have a blood tie through the chief's sister, and a boy the same age as Hiccup, named Snotlout." There were a few snorts at that. "Apparently, until last year, the boy and his father considered his future chiefdom to be a certain thing, and now… not so much. So they're doing everything they can to undermine the chief. The boy Snotlout is a proper Viking—dumb, thick, brash, loud, aggressive, easily manipulated. Thinks with his weapon and thews."

"I see. What are his prospects for actually gaining the chiefdom?"

"Now? Low, I'd say. His cousin would have to be both discredited and killed to manage that. He is also just not cunning enough to be able to outsmart his cousin. And there's really no love lost between them. They're allies now, but it reminds me much of how it was between you and your cousin a year ago, my lord. But with the roles reversed."

Mac Bethad considered that for a moment. Matters between him and his royal cousin had been… strained. At best. "Aye. I see. So you are trying to say that we should back the winning horse?"

"Aye, milord," Gregor said, with evident relief.

"All right. But we will also try to to cultivate both horses in this race," Mac Bethad said. "Accidents do happen. Like what happened to my cousin. Battlefields are no respecters of persons, royal or not." His mind drifted back to the Damascus dagger, once coveted as exotic, and then just a reminder of the moment where he had taken it from a dead man's hands, his cousin's body nearby.

"Aye."

"Anyone else of significance in the village?"

"The chief. Stoick the Vast is his moniker. Widower for about fifteen years, according to rumor."

Taskill perked up at this, making Mac Bethad roll his eyes. He had no doubts as to the loyalty of his spymaster, but the man tended towards a few preferred stratagems, a fact that occasionally exasperated the king. "Widower, eh? Any—"

All three spies shook their heads in unison. "Nay, sir," Iain said, "He wears his wife's breastplate for his helmet. Part of the reason he never disowned the boy, despite him being a screwup, was that his son was all that he had left of his wife. Apparently people repeatedly told him to disown the boy and remarry to try again." He shrugged. "He never even took a concubine, even though as a Viking chief it's unusual for him to not have one or two."

Gregor added, "And most of the clan heads have their own concubines, too. The Hofferson clan head apparently has two that have been with him and his wife for so long that people forgot that they're actually concubines and not actually wives, which caused a right bit of confusion when they came to the stall." He rubbed at his chin in thought. "I didn't get any details there on their laws, but I can say that Stoick being a widower for this long is by choice." Another shrug. "So… you could try, but I wouldn't place coin on that horse."

"I see," Taskill said coldly. "Pity." He made a note on the parchment as Mac Bethad hid a chuckle behind a drink from his tankard. "Continue."

"Not much more to say, there. He's a Viking chief. He rules by strength and right of blood, and at least tries to be fair to his own people. And he's got lots of strength to spare. During the festival, he sat himself down for the arm-wrestling contests and didn't lose a single one."

"Broke a table, though," Alan noted.

"Better to say that the table burst because he and his opponent crushed it for leverage," Gregor said, eyes distant with recollection.

Mac Bethad quirked an eyebrow. "Raghnall, make a note. No dueling the Viking chief."

"Aye, sire," said the steward dryly.

"Anything else regarding the chief?" Taskill asked the spies.

They looked at each other and nodded, and Alan spoke up. "Just a bit. He has some advisers, but his word is still law. His marshal is his brother-in-law, and his steward is the village blacksmith and mentor for his son. If he has a formal privy council, we didn't see evidence of it. There's a pagan priestess, but we didn't see much of her. No chancellor, no spymaster that we saw, no lesser appointments. Just a small, if pretty, village with really… exotic livestock."

"Aye, aye, we can talk about the dragons now," Taskill said irritably. "Get started with the He… the boy Hiccup's dragon."

"Well, it's a Night Fury for certain, first off," said Alan. "I've heard that demon whistle before, so there was no doubting that."

Mac Bethad winced, recalling a dark night filled with the screams of men, and said, "And a vicious, brutal beast I imagine it is, too."

"Uh… not truly, sire. If anything, it's… playful. Like a laphound."

Mac Bethad simply looked at the spy, knowing that skepticism was written on his face. In the back of his mind, long-ago cries of pain and the smell of burned flesh were being recalled unwillingly.

To Alan's credit, he continued resolutely in the face of his monarch's expression. "I saw the beast follow his master like a loyal hound, up to and including following an order to 'stay', and it played pranks on another dragon during the festival. It came, it heeled, it licked the face of its master when they won ribbons together…" he shrugged. "I wish my own dogs were as well-behaved."

"And the dragon certainly looked fearsome enough, which may be a point for that mild temperament," Iain spoke up. "Much like how the biggest dogs may have the mildest dispositions. They know that they have nothing to prove to the yapping puppies at their feet. And it had a sense of humor." He snorted. "The lad was trading teeth with me for my wares, and tells me that he has a tooth from a dragon named Toothless. I looked at the dragon, and it didn't have any teeth—until it popped them right out of the gums, grabbed the fish like a striking snake, ate it, and then smirked at me."

The king looked at them and said in as even a tone as he could muster, "The dragon's name is Toothless."

"Aye, sire," Iain said. "And a right playful temperament it has."

"I recall being under attack by one once. That fire is not a mild temperament," Mac Bethad said, still in the same forced-even tone.

"Aye, sire, but that may be exactly the point. Who barks louder? The inexperienced little pup, or the wise old hound?"

Mac Bethad considered and then said, "I take your point. Continue."

Gregor nodded. "Well, the beast is loyal, and very smart. It understands the speech of man fairly clearly, and it and its rider work together as only the best horsemen and mounts can. I watched their racing and acrobatics at the Festival, and they could… move as one. Every obstacle dodged with deceptive ease. It was… magnificent."

Mac Bethad gave a nod. His men did sound impressed, and he would have to ask Taskill later on how much of a departure this was from their normal temperament. "I see. But one dragon rider is still only one man, regardless of his skill. How many dragons does the village have, both with riders and unmounted?"

The three spies looked at each for a moment and then looked back. "Probably a good two thirds to three quarters of the villagers have their own mounts at this point," Gregor stated, "if not somewhat more. Call it five hundred mounts, at the least."

"Five hundred!?" his marshal burst out in shock. Mac Bethad was also stunned, his mind's eye imagining a flock of five hundred Viking-ridden dragons descending on his lands.

"Aye, milord. From what I gathered, the biggest bottleneck is that Hiccup and his mentor and perhaps a handful of others are the only saddle-makers in the village, or near enough as to make no difference, so most are still going with rope halters. But, likely by this time next year, each member of the village that wants to ride a dragon will be able to."

"I see. And how many dragons without riders do they have?"

"Of the ones that can be ridden? At the very least, another three or four thousand, milord."

This caused an uproar. Everyone in the room started talking at once, and it took Mac Bethad a solid minute to restore order.

"That is more dragons than Harthacnut has Thingmen in his army. How can they afford to feed them all?" The current King of England had inherited his father's and half-brother's standing army of three thousand Norse warriors, and the heregeld tax needed to pay them was slowly draining England dry.

Gregor looked miserable, as did the other two. "No idea, sire, but we counted the flock as it roosted on the island peaks. Unless they were somehow engaging in a deception to inflate the numbers, there are at least that many. Possibly more, and that's not counting the smaller beasts." He grimaced. "And, officially, they're the possessions of Stoick and Hiccup, as the chieftain's family. As the attempted poachers found out."

"I see," said Mac Bethad coldly. "Well. Anything else?"

"No, my lord."

"Good. You have done well. You are not to blame for the news you have brought. We are indebted to you, and will have more work for you shortly. You are dismissed. Keep yourselves near at hand in case there are further questions."

The three spies rose from their chairs and fled the room, his chamberlain escorting them to a room elsewhere in the fort where they could refresh themselves, as the King of Alba and his council began to discuss the information brought by the spies and debate what to do next.

###

Stoick looked around the empty house. Thornado was burbling behind the back of the house, enjoying his fish dinner, but other than that, his home was empty. Hiccup and Toothless were off somewhere, and every creak of the wooden walls seemed to echo.

Stoick was known as the Vast. But in the here and now, after days of his boy and the cacophony that surrounded him being gone, he felt very small, and very alone.

The last seven months had, in many ways, been the happiest of his life since his wife had passed all those years before. He had connected with his son. His people were at peace, and were safe and growing prosperous. The old ways of fighting could be put safely away, like an old warrior's ax and shield on the wall, ready to be taken up again, but gathering dust until needed.

His son had even found love, and Stoick felt his face soften at the memory of walking in and seeing the two of them staring into each other's eyes, so taken up by each other that he had gone unnoticed. He had just stood there and committed the sight to memory, placing it alongside other treasured memories of his own time when he had been the subject of such adoration.

And now, with them gone on his son's mission of peace…

It was so very quiet.

He took another draught of ale and sighed.

From the time he was a boy, he had known who he was, and who he had to become. He had grown and changed himself to fit that mold. Stoick the Vast, Chieftain of Berk, seventh of his line, the shield and bulwark between his people and the hostile world, the one to make the hard choices and face the responsibility, so that others need not.

He had led from the front, facing every danger, shirking no responsibility so that his tribe would be safe. The glory had been only secondary, when it mattered at all. For what glory could a leader claim when his people starved, their homes burned around them?

For a time, it had all been so clear. Vikings. Dragons. Mortal enemies to the last, no retreat, no surrender, just death on all sides.

He had killed hundreds, possibly thousands of dragons over his life. They blurred before his eyes. Nadders. Whispering Deaths. Thunderdrums. Gronckles. Monstrous Nightmares. Zipplebacks.

He had been so proud. Each foe felled was another beast that could not threaten his people. Each carcass had been transmuted into coin that could buy food and supplies. Berk had possessed thirty longboats at this time last year, a veritable fleet, built on the bodies of dead dragons. He, a chieftain of a small village, had possessed more ships than the King of England's Thingmen, because of the dragons.

And then the Green Death had burned them all.

With a grunt, he stood from his chair and poured himself a fresh flagon of ale.

As he drank, he stewed on his own lack of knowledge, his thoughts rambling through unhappy pastures. Specifically… the knowledge that the dragons he had killed had been every bit as much victims as his own people had, had been thralls in nearly every way, with the threat of steal or die hanging over their heads…

He had hated them his entire life, loathed them since Valka's death… and now… they were his friends. But… even that… the knowledge that they had been enthralled, and that he had been killing not warriors… but frightened slaves… He was disgusted with himself. Even though such a self-indictment was unfair, and he knew that it was unfair.

Despite the upheavals and changes they brought… despite the demands of a lifetime fighting them… he would not… could not hate them any longer. Not hardly. The seething fury he'd once felt upon seeing a dragon had dwindled, guttered, and gone out in the face of other knowledge. The old ways there were dead and buried… and good riddance to them.

He looked at his flagon and sighed. Then downed the rest.

It was too quiet here. A man should not be alone with either his thoughts or a barrel of ale, and here he was with both. He got to his feet. While someone would almost certain pester him with some minor problem if he so much as set one foot into the mead hall, at least there would be people there, and sound, and life.

Here there were just memories and quiet.

###

King Henry of the Franks, third of his royal house of Capet, stared aghast at the report that his spymaster had marked as important.

Of course things couldn't be going well. No, that would make his work too easy.

No, clearly, just to make things more difficult, the Vikings had managed to tame dragons. And they were using them in raids, including one that reportedly had ended with them dropping an entire longship in the middle of one of the Eire kings' forts a few weeks back, shortly after Easter. That story was spreading like wildfire, according to his spymaster, who had it confirmed from no less than nine distinct sources. And they had looted the fort at Brycgstow and burned it to the ground with dragonfire, killing half of the garrison. Harthacnut was reportedly furious.

And, of course, if the Normans in the north of his ostensible kingdom decided to appeal to their distant kin for fire-breathing mounts of their own, they might very well get them. Which would spell the end of the Capet dynasty's God-granted mandate over the Kingdom of Francia.

On the other hand… if the Vikings could be induced to raid those self-same kin in the Duchy of Normandy, or others of his supposed vassals… it could perhaps even the odds a bit for him, here in his own (admittedly somewhat pitiful) stronghold holdings. His most significant issue was extending his authority over his fractious vassals, who had armies and castles of their own. He had a piece of paper that said that he had authority over them, while their arms and holdings gave them a dissenting opinion.

But if those assets were to be taken off of the board… perhaps he could finally assert his authority.

Yes. That could be so very helpful.

He scrawled a response note on the piece of paper to his spymaster. His orders were to find who had control over the dragons—as, according to the rumors, only a single dynasty had discovered the secret of controlling the beasts—and to see if they were willing to do a spot of mercenary work…

###

Astrid blinked awake as Stormfly nuzzled at her sleeping furs. "I'm awake, girl, I'm awake," she said, stretching and yawning, grateful to be awaken from near-nightmares. They were fading rapidly, but the image of Hiccup looking at her with a contemptuous expression and walking away from her probably wasn't going to fade that quickly.

She sat up and looked around as she stretched. The dragon riders had found a small loch yesterday and had decided to land then rather than fly onward. Making camp had been pretty easy; Meatlug had just eaten some rocks and spat out the glowing stones that they had roasted their fish on, and the riders had just unfurled their sleeping furs on the ground near the warmth, with their dragons curled up next to them. A net and some dragon-assisted fishing took care of the food situation. Some leather tents were available against rain, if needed. They had gotten it down to a pretty good arrangement by now, over the last few outings, although most of those had been to the Dragon Nest.

Of course, from Astrid's perspective, there were two things currently wrong with it.

Toothless and Hiccup had settled down on the opposite side of the fire, rather than next to her and Stormfly.

She scowled at herself and made a fist, and almost pounded it into her other hand, but managed to remember the splints on her fingers in time. Of course, she had handled the argument yesterday poorly too. He'd felt like she was attacking him, and, of course, he hadn't listened to what she was trying to say.

It was just so frustrating. Hiccup's ideals were wonderful, and she loved him for them. The more she got to know him, the more she was impressed at not just how good of a man he was for her, but how good of a person he was for the world. He reminded her of Baldr, god of peace… and wondered if she'd end up being his mistletoe. He had been so right before, when he accused her of thinking with her ax. Peace was not her way… but it was the way that Stoick had endorsed, the way that she had fought Snotlout for. And wasn't that ironic?

She scowled at her thoughts as she hopped to her feet and started working out the kinks in her back and legs with some stretches. At times like this, when they had some argument or other… well, tact wasn't her calling. Peacemongering, likewise. She was a shieldmaid, consecrated to Freyja and Sif. Her way was that of the battlefield, the shield and ax.

And… well, now… and last night, in between her thoughts as she'd been trying to think and fall asleep… she was fighting off the thought of wondering why he wanted her. Why her peaceful boyfriend wanted a violence-prone shieldmaiden like herself.

Last night, even as she had laid awake in her bedroll, thinking to herself, her mind had treated her to a litany of unwelcome memories.

Every jesting insult, every snub, every punch, every pinch… every time she had hurt him, even as a joke, had paid a visit, casting themselves in the worst light possible, even as she stubbornly tried to stay focused on how to heal this rift before it grew.

The memories had whispered to her that he would hate her, that he would leave her, that she had spent their entire lives treating him like crap, that he would wake up and realize that he had made a mistake in coming after her that day in the cove…

She tried to ignore those thoughts, but they kept coming.

Intrusive.

Unwanted.

But persistent.

Instead of wallowing in them, though… tempting though it was… she just tried to think of how she could fix this. Maybe the art of persuasion and diplomacy were not hers… but she could damn well try. Maybe she might not be his match in that area, but she wasn't going to give up on him, or herself. This might be their worst argument yet in their relationship… but she wasn't giving up on him… or giving him up without a fight.

She grimaced.

Okay, maybe that wasn't the best way to express that thought at the moment.

But it was who she was.

Maybe on a diplomatic mission like this, she was, perhaps, less than useful…

She blinked away the thought with another grimace. No, that was hardly the case. The villagers the day before had been one over-aggressive or inquisitive dragon away from a panic-driven attack on them, and, if it had come to that, she would have been needed.

She just wished that Hiccup could see that. Well, it would be her job then to open his eyes and help him see. For while Odin had blessed him with a top-notch mind, for certain, he hadn't automatically gotten the wisdom to go with it. She grimaced at the thought as well. On the other hand, given what Odin had had to do in order to get his own wisdom, maybe that was for the best. Giving Hiccup a drink, or two, or more likely three of the Mead of Suttungr was one thing, but she liked her boy with both eyes. He'd lost enough parts already.

Stretches finished, she started rolling up her sleeping furs, lost in her own thoughts, and feeling a bit frustrated with her boyfriend. Which is why she missed his distinctive steps approaching her.

"Astrid?" he said hesitantly behind her.

She turned. Hiccup was a few feet away, his body language being pretty much identical to when he was approaching an untamed dragon. Inwardly, she sighed. On the other hand, she hadn't had to chase him down either. That gave her heart. And it said something that he, a teenaged boy with an appetite currently like that of a bottomless pit, was coming to have what could only be an uncomfortable conversation before they even had breakfast. That could only be a good sign, right? Right?

Muttering a brief prayer to Forsetti, son of Baldr, the mediator, for his blessings, she said simply, "Yes, Hiccup?" and then sat down on her rolled up furs. Thinking that she should try to be conciliatory, she patted the roll next to her. "Here, sit down. We need to talk."

Awkwardly, he sat down next to her, trying not to touch her as he did so.

The silence lengthened, becoming more and more awkward as it grew.

Then both of them spoke up at once.

"Hiccup, I'm sorry for shouting."

"Astrid, I'm sorry for not listening."

There was a pause as both of them looked at each other and they both smiled.

"You go first."

Someone off to the side, which sounded like one of the twins, laughed, and they both glared. Tuffnut just raised his hands in a warding gesture and walked off.

Hiccup smiled weakly at her as they turned back to face each other, and Stormfly and Toothless, sensing the awkwardness of the moment, just curled around the pair and raised their wings, giving the two riders at least the semblance of privacy.

"Astrid, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. You were right. I mean, we have Mildew and other people like him on Berk, and all I had to picture was an entire crowd of people like him, and then I thought about what you had said and remembered how Johann's sailors acted—"

"Hiccup, breathe," she said, smiling slightly.

Inhaling sharply, he looked at her with a sad smile. "I just wanted to say that I was sorry that I didn't listen, because you were right. For every person that was being friendly yesterday, there were ten or twenty more standing back." His smile grew a touch more lopsided. "And I had an idea that might help people get used to the dragons and show that Berk isn't interested in—"

He quieted as she put her hand over his mouth, a smile on her face.

"First. Hiccup, I accept your apology. Do you accept mine? I'm sorry I lost my temper at you."

He nodded.

She gave a happy sigh and hugged him. "Hiccup, of course I want everything to work out. I don't want to trade one war for another one." She broke the embrace and held him by his shoulders, looking at him, her feet tucked underneath her. "But you can't just hope that it'll work out, that you can just show up on dragonback and say 'Hi, this is Toothless the Night Fury! He doesn't blow up siege weapons anymore!' and expect them to believe you. You have to work at it. If you want something, you have to actually spend the time and effort doing it, working towards it." She patted her ax, lying on the ground next to her. "People are like axes, Hiccup."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Come again? Sharp, and you like to throw them into trees?"

"No…" she said, drawing out the word. She had thought of this at length the previous night, trying to find an example to compare that would work for him. She had thought of it as sparring, like how you fought other people to practice and get better. But that comparison wouldn't work on the crafting-minded Hiccup, and she had thought for hours on how to say this to him.

"People are like axes, or like Toothless' riding gear, or anything else you and Gobber make in the smithy." She picked up her ax and presented the flat to Hiccup, the long-ago marks of Gobber's hammer visible even in the polished surface. "Gobber and you had to pound this into shape with fire and hammers. You had to keep going back, working it over again and again, fire, anvil, hammer, fire, anvil, hammer, fire, anvil, hammer, and then, when the shape was right, you then had to sharpen it and get the edge into just the right shape in order to be able to cut things, and then I had to keep it sharp." She placed the weapon back on the ground and put her hand on Hiccup's knee, just above his metal leg.

"My ax, Toothless' harness, your leg… like everything you make in that forge, you have to keep remaking them, keep them in the shape that they're supposed to be. You don't get to do a poor job of knocking it into a 'good enough' shape and expect it to work as well, would you? You wouldn't expect a dull ax that you haven't sharpened to be able to do—," she rose fluidly to her feet while grabbing her ax, and then flung it into a nearby tree, all in the same smooth motion. The ax sunk in with a solid thunk! and held there fast. "—that as well as the one I keep sharp? Would you?" Hiccup just looked at her, his eyes wide, as she sat back down gracefully.

"Hiccup?" she said after a moment, hoping that the ax throw hadn't been a mistake. Stormfly was giving her a look of irritation for the startled moment when the ax had flown.

"Uh… wow. Thinking."

She grinned at him. "Take your time," she said, and rubbed at his left calf a bit, feeling the tension of the remaining muscle below the scar tissue relax a bit at her touch.

A few moments later, he said in a mildly dazed tone, "Dear gods, I am so lucky to be with you."

She smirked. "And don't you forget it."

"I won't," he said reverently.

"Good." She turned and took his arm. "Hiccup, that was always your biggest problem, back before you met Toothless. You would come up with these grand ideas, and then go out to try to do them, but without thinking! And thinking is your strongest area!" She laughed lightly. "You would be hoping, expecting! that your intentions would make it work, without any help from your brains." She snorted and poked him in the forehead. "Toothless's tail was the first time where you couldn't get away with doing that and leave someone else to clean up the mess, so you had to keep trying until you got it right." She patted Toothless on the chin, and he purred.

Hiccup just slumped into her lap, and she used her other hand to play with his hair. Speaking down to him as he laid there, he said, "Okay, I'm really, really lucky. Wow. Uh…"

She just grinned at him and said, "So, now, you have this other idea. That's great, and I'm not joking. I honestly want to hear every single bit that you've thought of for it." Her grin shifted to a smirk. "And then I'm going to chop it all to pieces. I'm going to keep asking 'what if this happens, or that happens' until it falls apart. And then you're going to put it back together. And we'll keep doing that, until it is the right shape. Your job is to build something that I can't take to pieces or bend out of shape. And then we'll do it. Got it?"

He nodded, looking a trifle dazed.

She bent and gave him a kiss. "Come on. Let's break our fast and get going. We're wasting daylight." She pushed him to his feet and hopped to her own.

As she walked off to the firepit, Stormfly at her side, she heard Hiccup say to Toothless behind her, "Dat da dah, I'm dead," and her grin bloomed.

It soured a moment later as Ruffnut chimed in, "Yeah, you'll actually have to use your brain enough to keep her happy."

Then Tuffnut snorted. "It's probably the only way he can keep her happ—" The sound of a small one of Toothless' fire blasts echoed briefly, as Tuffnut yelped and could be heard running away, shouting, "Oh, I hurt, I very much hurt!"

She turned back to look at Toothless, who was giving an innocent, "Me? Who, me?" wide-eyed expression while Hiccup laughed.

Half an hour later, they had taken flight again. As they took up formation to fly to the next place on their list, Astrid was thinking warmly of those moments, like in the cove a few weeks ago, when Hiccup had proven Tuffnut so very, very wrong.

Hiccup had shown her, during their rare moments of privacy over the last few months, that he paid very close attention to how to make her very happy. And he was very, very good with his hands. And now she really understood some of those stories about Freyja a bit better, because, wow.

And being the competitive kind of person that she was, she had done her best to make him happy, too.

So far, it was working out nice, in every way that she could conceive of, and that was even with not having gone too far. Yet. She smirked. Given how much joy they'd given each other so far… she had to admit that she was looking forward to that. Oh yes…

Watching the mountains and valleys pass below them, she sighed happily to herself. Oh, yes… she was so very happy with him. Even with little… heh, hiccups like their argument.

It didn't help that, during the long winter and some of the cold rainy days in spring, as was unofficial tradition, her mother and her friends gathered together to complain about their husbands as they spun thread and yarn, wove cloth, and made clothing. Even her own father, who she held in high regard, was apparently not totally immune… if better than normal. She remembered growing up and overhearing them complain about men not listening, or not thinking, or being interested in only one thing. And it had shaped her; she'd just shrugged and decided that she wasn't interested, thank you very much; why compete with other women over men when they were all the same? She'd rather just compete with the men and kick their behinds to show them that she was better than them. And that had colored her thinking for years.

And now, with Hiccup in her life… she had felt nothing but pity for the other women as she laid on the floor of her lofted bedroom, listening to the past season's complaints. Because her man wasn't like that. And there was a degree of smug and a degree of pity in it, and a degree of fear and sadness. Smug that she had gotten to him first… and pity because Snotlout was closer to the average. And the fear… Just thinking of how her own sharp focus on her own status and skill had almost cost her this unexpected happiness was enough to bring that one up. She still occasionally thought in disbelief at just how lucky she was, because she had never noticed his attraction to her, and had rejected him as the village pariah. It was a train of thought that occurred to her semi-often in such moments.

That other girl that she could have been. The one that was first ranked in dragon training. Slayer of a Monstrous Nightmare before the assembled eyes of the village. Member of a proud tradition of Hofferson dragonslayers. Respected shieldmaiden, and renowned warrior.

Astrid the dragon rider just looked at that other path and felt… pity for that other girl that she could have been. She would have been content with the path that she had laid out for herself and called it happiness. But she wouldn't have known what she had learned. Learned what it felt like to soar through the clouds. Learned how to fly on dragonback. To see the sun rising above the sea thousands of feet below. To feel the wind streaming through her hair. To race around the sky for the pure joy of it. To move at speeds no human had before imagined. To have a friend that could give you those experiences, and share them with you—and she wasn't sure if she was referring to Hiccup or to Stormfly when she thought of them. In those ways, that other girl… lacked.

But she had her friends now, both human and dragon. And maybe she was second in dragon-riding, after Hiccup, but it was a close second, and she wasn't giving him any room to breath easy there. And she would happily start up a new tradition of Hofferson dragon-riders, and she had her love's respect for her skills and insights. Others would follow if she had anything to say about it.

Didn't mean that she was going to give Hiccup a free pass when he wasn't thinking, though. He was smarter than her, and sometimes she just looked at him after unraveling one of his trains of thought with a small degree of awe. But, just like her, he wasn't going to get to just be lazy. Nope. Not if she had anything to say about it.

And she did.

Previous Chapter | Summary | Table Of Contents Main | Next Chapter

#httyd #httyd fanfiction #httyd fandom #a thing of vikings #how to train your dragon

5 notes · View notes