Frozen/HTTYD Chapter Twenty-Three

[afterandalasia]

Chapter Twenty-Three

Fishlegs joined him shortly with the fresh book and his own supply of ink, and Elsa not long after with the borrowed copy of the Book of Dragons and some bread and crabapples upon which Stoick had apparently insisted. The crabapples looked rather brown and wrinkled, but still edible, and Hiccup didn’t really taste them anyway as he ate.

They had planned to re-write the introduction from scratch; this was a book to learn about dragons now, and not just how to kill them. Despite his original lack of interest, Hiccup found himself getting drawn into the debate on how much space they should leave for the information which, they were all sure, they still had to learn. To be fair, it was mostly him and Fishlegs doing the debated, while Elsa watched with her steady eyes like she was drinking in the new words that must have been scattered throughout the conversation.

Unless he looked over his shoulder, to where Toothless should have been lying, he could forget that half of himself was locked up in the pens.

As the day wore on, the snow turned to hail, and Astrid joined them red-cheeked and stomping mud off her boots. She was still dripping as she slid into place on the bench beside Elsa and peered over to see what the boys had produced. “Going well then, I see?”

They had reached the seventh page. “At this rate, we’ll get it done some time this decade is out,” said Hiccup. He straightened up, rubbing his eyes with his right hand and stretching out the stiffness in his left. “Want to give us a hand?”

“No, I think Fishlegs’s writing is better than mine,” Astrid replied. She looked at the latest pages, writing on the sixth and a drawing of Toothless curled along the base of the seventh. “And your drawing is, for that matter. Have you been having fun helping them?” she said, raising an eyebrow at Elsa.

Elsa gave her mildest look. “It has been an interesting day.”

“Which means that you’ve been helping break up arguments,” said Astrid. “Glad to hear that someone was.”

“We didn’t argue that much,” Hiccup protested, but Astrid just laughed and kicked his good leg under the table. “All right, maybe we did. Should I ask how gathering the wicker went?”

“We got some before the snow closed in. Looks like it might be a hard winter this year.”

“Talking about the weather is a common Berkian pastime,” said Hiccup, with a faux-conspiratorial look in Elsa’s direction.

She smiled. “I had noticed.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking about the categories,” said Fishlegs, flicking through a few of the pages of Stoick’s copy of the Book. “They’re all based on the combat characteristics, and don’t take into account anything else. Do you really think that they’re all right in the long run?”

“Huh.” Hiccup slumped down, putting his chin in his hand. “You have a point. How else would you arrange them, though? We can’t very well just put all of them in one group.” The very idea of a Mystery Class was, he supposed, proof that the current system did not work very well. Mystery Class dragons were just ones that they did not know enough about - a sort of dumping ground for dragons which were known to exist more securely than just in Bork’s rumours, but for whom even the shot limit was often a mystery.

“We could do it by environment,” Fishlegs suggested.

“It’d be great if we knew how they were related to each other.”

Astrid shook her head, shifted to sit astride the bench, and started unravelling Elsa’s braid. Elsa started slightly, then sat still and allowed Astrid to work. “I think I’d rather be out in the snow,” Astrid muttered.

“Maybe by whether or not they’re trainable; though, we’d have to do research, and it might be hard to find some of the species...”

“Or-” Hiccup did a double-take as Astrid started to re-braid Elsa’s hair, weaving the white-blonde strands over and under each other. “Wait, what?”

“I like braiding hair,” said Astrid, daring him with a look to say anything. Then she gave a slightly feral grin. “Unless you want me to do yours.”

Hiccup’s hair turned into a shaggy mess before it even reached his shoulders, and it was going to need another cut before Snoggletog to make sure that it didn’t turn into a complete catastrophe. “Yeah, good luck with that,” he replied, tugging at a lock to demonstrate how short it still was. It didn’t do anything to quell Astrid’s smile, though, and he felt oddly concerned at the idea.

“Wait till you grow a beard,” Astrid continued. “That’ll be a sight to see.”

“I’ll get back to you in a couple of decades,” said Hiccup, rubbing his chin. Snotlout, of all people, was already starting to get stray hairs on his chin and talk about them proudly, but somehow Hiccup doubted that he was going to manage anything impressive in the beard area for some time. Possibly ever. Gobber had the shaving mirror all to himself in their house. “Unless someone knits me one for Snoggletog, of course.”

There had probably been weirder presents on Berk over the years, after all.

By the time that evening drew around again, they had started writing about Nadders, and Hiccup was trying to draw a picture of Stormfly with her tail arcing around the top of the page while both Fishlegs and Astrid critiqued his efforts. Heavily. All the same, it was fun, trying to draw a dragon by popular consensus while Elsa watched with amusement and the people on the far side of the hall looked over in bewilderment at the occasional vehement comments about spines.

It was always easy to tell when the fishing boats had docked for the day by the rush of the fishermen and -women who entered, bringing with them bowls of stew made from the previous day’s catch and swapping stories among themselves. At first, the tables around Hiccup and the others remained empty, but as the Hall filled up and became warmer, as much from the press of bodies as from the fire, those tables filled as well.

“Working on something?” said a voice behind them, and Hiccup turned to find himself facing Snotlout’s mother, or more precisely her stomach. He quickly adjusted his gaze upwards.

“Mrs. Jorgensen! Yes, we were just, ah,” he gestured to the book. “Putting in some more information.”

Brynnhild the Beauty, she was called by those of her own generation, and even after three children - two surviving - it was possible to see why. Her hair was honey-blonde, some of the longest on the island, and her face comely. She looked over the picture with a critical eye, and nodded appreciatively. “Well, be sure to add in that Thunderdrums will chew through fishing nets to get at the fish inside. Three times this moon I’ve lost nets to the bugger!”

Though Hiccup winced, he was relieved that she did not much seem to hold it against the dragon, as if it were a nuisance and nothing more. A few moons ago, people would have been up in arms with plans to kill the beast. Then again, he supposed that three catches in a moon was little more than an irritation compared to the daily fear of losing everything that they had faced before.

“We’ll make sure to do that, Mrs. Jorgensen,” said Fishlegs dutifully.

She muttered appreciatively and went to sit with some of her fellow fishers. Behind her, Hiccup caught Astrid’s gaze and raised his eyebrows. She shrugged. Well, he supposed there were worse conversations to have.

The evening wore on and, with no small regret, Hiccup bid a good evening to the others and started to head home. The first time that he heard footsteps behind him, he thought for a moment that it was Toothless and turned with an amazed smile, which faltered when he saw Elsa there.

“Sorry,” he said, realising that his fading smile probably looked like he was disappointed to see her. That was only the case compared to his dragon. “Thought you were Toothless for a moment.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

Hiccup had never really needed to slow to let people walk next to him. It was snowing again, thick and soft, though it seemed to swirl a little less in the few feet around Elsa and Hiccup. He didn’t want to upset her by mentioning it, though, and held his tongue. “Sorry. We got very dragon-focused again today.”

That made Elsa chuckle. “I have said that I do not mind. I am happy to hear you talk. Hear your words.”

He smiled fondly. The steps were slippery underfoot, and he had to stick his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on the way down, but he was getting better at them as long as he went down good foot first. “It’s been very... dragons, lately,” he said, as they reached the bottom of the slope. “I’m sorry about that, as well.”

“It is good to see the dragons here,” said Elsa. He had to watch her lips to be sure of the words, so quietly did she speak.

“And you,” said Hiccup. He stepped across, reaching out to take her hand, but she folded her hands in front of her again, one hand wrapping tightly around the other wrist. Her fingers plucked at the trollwort. “I mean it. I’m glad that you’re here. You are...” for a moment he could not bring himself to say it, and the snow getting in his mouth did not help much either. He stopped just outside the door to his house, putting a hand across the doorway so that Elsa could not step straight inside. “Elsa.” She looked around. “You are happy here, aren’t you?”

Elsa paused, eyes on the door, and leant one hand against the wooden frame. “Happier,” she said. Even as he was impressed with how her Northur had developed, he felt a pang at how carefully she spoke. She placed the word precisely between them.

“I... I know we’re not perfect,” he said.

But, surely, they had to be better than the life she had faced before. A bed and food and clothing should not have been so much of an improvement, but it was. A new language, and people who did not fear her... he hoped that those were worth more.

“You might be,” she replied.

The door was pulled open so abruptly that Hiccup almost fell in, and looked up to see Gobber in the doorway and looking rather surprised to see them. “Ah, there you are. Was just wondering if I needed to go up to the Great Hall to find you.”

“No, Elsa and I managed to trek that far,” said Hiccup.

Gobber peered over their shoulders, into the darkening sky and the thickening snow. “Give it much longer and it will be a trek. Come on, let’s get some warm food into the pair of you.”

It took a long time to get settled in his bed, the blankets feeling irrationally cold. Curling his arm underneath his pillow and his knees up to his chest, Hiccup drifted off into an uncomfortable sleep. He dreamt that he was burning, that he could see the flames on his body and feel them eating at his flesh, but the blackness did not wipe them out this time. He dreamt that he was falling, or perhaps that Toothless was, both of them pinwheeling away from each other into silver-grey nothingness.

Pain shot through his leg, and he awoke in darkness clutching at it. For a moment his skin felt burning hot beneath his hands, then the sensation was gone, and only the sweat on his brow and the pounding of his heart remained of the nightmare. Groaning, Hiccup dropped his head to his knee, waiting for the shaking in his hands to go away.

He wanted to call Toothless over, hear his rumble in the darkness and touch his dry, warm skin. But Toothless was far away, sharing his pen with Hookfang, beneath the snow-covered academy walls.

As he became more awake, he realised that there was a faint light still coming from downstairs. Stoick had banked the fire overnight, with the winter starting to roll in. Hiccup wrapped one of his blankets around his shoulders and stood up, clinging to the wall as he hopped over to the doorway and made his way carefully down the stairs.

“Hiccup.”

The sound of his name made him look up sharply, almost at the bottom of the stairs. Elsa was sitting beside the fire, also wrapped in a blanket, her hair loose and tangled over her shoulders.

“Hey,” he said quietly. Between the wall and Stoick’s chair, it wasn’t too hard to hop over to the bench and slide onto it, scooting over to sit next to Elsa. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Elsa shook her head.

“Yeah, me neither.” He hugged the blanket around himself. Above the popping and crackling of the fire, he could hear the gusting wind outside, but he could feel the cold rolling off Elsa and see points of ice scattered through her hair. “It was the Red Death. I think.” Already his dreams were becoming dimmer, fading to the sensation of falling and heat on his skin. “What about you?”

“In the Wildlands, they used to say that you should let go of your dreams. To forget them.” There were shadows beneath Elsa’s eyes again, made darker by the same tricks of the fire that sharpened her cheekbones and made her hair look gold. Her knuckles were white where she clutched at the blanket.

“Here, we say that if you tell a dream, it won’t come true,” Hiccup replied. “Then again, Gobber says that if you feed parsnips to a goat, it can sing, so it might not be worth putting too much stock in Viking stories.”

Elsa smiled sadly. “I was a child again. But the whole island was freezing around me. Snow on the ground and trees covered in ice. There were no people, just icy statues.”

“It didn’t happen,” he promised. “I’m sorry for what did, but... you’re here now.”

Outside, the wind groaned, but the house was solidly built and Hiccup knew that it would be fine. Elsa looked up sharply at the sound, and he suspected that the drop in the temperature around them was her magic instead. “Winter is coming in,” she said quietly.

“Well, it does every year,” said Hiccup. He wished that he knew what he could say to reassure her. “And then spring rolls around afterwards.”

They lapsed into silence again, and Hiccup rubbed at the stump of his left leg. The scar tissue was settling evenly, not knotting up, but the cold was making it ache anyway and this evening was the worst that it had been in a while. Strange, but he couldn’t really remember now what it had felt like when it had burnt. Stranger was the fact that he had dim memories of how it had smelled, like normal meat cooking over the fire.

“Your leg is hurting?” Elsa asked.

When Hiccup nodded, she reached out her hands towards his leg. He allowed her to take hold of it, hands chilly against his skin and almost painful, but soothing after a moment. Propping himself up on his arm, he grimaced as her fingers traced over his skin. “Thank you,” he said.

“It is strange,” said Elsa, looking almost as if she were addressing his leg. “Sometimes the things that are not there... are the things that hurt the most.”

She sounded much older than him, just in that moment, so much older than she was. It struck Hiccup that although Elsa had talked about her time in the Wildlands, she had not spoken much about her time before. “What was it like, in Arendelle?”

Elsa hesitated, before shrugging. “I do not remember much. My parents. My bedroom. A large hall, full of snow and ice. My sister.”

The tenderness in her voice gave it away. The missing piece that hurt the most. “What was she like?” asked Hiccup.

Eyes drifting to the fire, Elsa smiled gently. “She was younger than me. Always wanted to play. To build snowmen. She wanted to learn to ride a horse, and to box. She used to take my clothes, even though they were too big for her, and pretend to be me.”

“Sounds like she got you into trouble.”

The twins always blamed each other, and Fishlegs despaired of Froglegs and Piglegs for bickering with each other and trying to compete. But as Elsa thought of her sister, her face softened, her smile finally reaching her eyes and hair falling loosely around her cheeks. “We both did. One time, we took swords to fight with. They were so heavy we could barely lift them.”

“Sounds like me nowadays,” said Hiccup flippantly. A cheap joke, but Elsa chuckled all the same. He could picture two young girls with Arendellen swords - longer, thinner, more pointed than Viking ones - trying to swordfight in the flourishing way that Arendellen duellists did. He wondered if Elsa’s younger sister shared her striking hair.

In an instant, though, Elsa’s smile crumbled, and she turned her face away from Hiccup. He pushed himself upright and shifted closer, putting his arm around her to stop her from sliding away. Her breath caught, and he saw the glitter of tears on her cheek, but she kept looking to the side as if she were trying to hide her tears from him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to...”

Elsa shook her head. “It was not you. The woman who found me...” she took a deep breath. “She said it was better to forget. That it was no use to remember. But I don’t want to forget my sister.”

Finally she looked round, and there were tracks of tears down her face and redness around her eyes. Lips trembling, Elsa looked at Hiccup almost beseechingly, and he felt like he was sliding from the younger sibling to the older in a heartbeat. Impulsively, he grabbed Elsa and hugged her tightly; she stiffened at first, with a strangled sound deep in her throat, then her head came to rest on his shoulder and her arms wrapped around him in return.

It had been meant to be comforting, but he realised that he was clinging to her in return. Ice stung on his cheek, then melted away, and Hiccup shifted his weight so that it was less uncomfortable against his left leg.

“You know,” he mumbled into Elsa’s hair, “my father would probably lock me in my room if he saw this.”

With a breathless laugh, Elsa pulled away and sat up again, tucking her hair back behind her cheek. Her blanket had fallen around her, draping on the floor. Hiccup had goosebumps on his arms, but he just tugged his own blanket a little tighter around him and glanced over at the fire to make sure it was still going strongly. It would still be a few hours until daylight.

“He means well,” she said.

“I think he’s trying to protect my virtue,” said Hiccup. It put him in mind of Arendelle again, of the way that some of its young women were treated like china dolls, prim and proper and possessions. It was very southern, Stoick had said, although it had taken Hiccup many years to understand that southern meant more than just being on the southern end of the island which it shared with Berk. It meant different clothes and swords and music and food, and clinging to concepts like virtue rather than trusting the young people to whom they were being applied. “Maybe he should put me in a tower and get a dragon to protect me.”

“Ah,” Elsa replied, “but what type of dragon?”

Hiccup laughed, and the buffeting wind outside seemed less overwhelming for a moment. “Hopefully a friendly one. It would get boring in the tower otherwise.”

“I don’t remember any stories where the princess made friends with the dragon.”

“Maybe we should write that in the new Book. New dragon fairy tales. Odin knows we’ve got a lot of new stories to tell.”

Hiccup woke up with the sun in his eyes, cold air slipping under his blanket, and Gobber poking him with his wooden hand. Blinking sleep from his eyes, he rolled over onto his back, and promptly slithered down onto the floor in a tangle of blankets.

“Gobber,” he said, making it sound a little bit like a curse. He tried to extricate his legs from the blanket, or at least kick it off, but mostly succeeded in looking like a fish on a beach instead.

Shaking his head, Gobber reached down and grabbed Hiccup under the armpits, pulling him up and depositing him back on the bench again. “Good morning to you too. Care to explain what you’re doing down here?”

He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Came downstairs. Couldn’t be bothered to hop back up again.”

Apparently it was enough of an explanation for Gobber, who just nodded and walked back towards the kitchen. Hiccup realised that he had managed to acquire a second blanket somewhere during the night. He couldn’t even remember falling asleep, though he might have been leaning on Elsa’s shoulder when he did so. “Where’s Dad?”

“Well’s frozen. He and Jorgensen are trying to work out how to break the ice.”

“Well, you know, I can think of one way,” said Hiccup. His hair fell into his eyes, and he tried to push it back again only to fail completely. It sprang back into view again. “Dragons are pretty good at melting ice.”

Gobber looked at him pointedly.

“Just saying,” said Hiccup. He looked around for his foot, then remembered that he had not bothered with it the night before. “It could help.”

“Breakfast first,” said Gobber. “Dragons later. You hardly touched the mutton stew last night.”

“I wasn’t that hungry,” Hiccup muttered. The mutton stew was not at its best right before slaughtering season anyway, but not having anyone to throw the gristle to had spoiled it even more. “Just let me get Toothless, and I’ll eat.”

Gobber laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I’m not getting your leg until you eat,” he said firmly, and before Hiccup could protest added: “And I’ll be telling Elsa the same thing. Now make yourself fit to be seen.”

He rapped on the doorframe to the once-workshop and continued back towards the pantry. “We’ve got some honey left, or the last of that quince preserve, if you want.”

“Whatever you’d prefer,” said Hiccup. He chucked Elsa’s blanket back in the vague direction of her room, put the other one over his shoulder, and stood up again. He was still mentally weighing up whether it would be faster to crawl or hop up the stairs when Gobber backtracked into view and looked at him sternly. “Fine, fine.”

He swung over to the table instead and sank down, sitting on his right leg out of habit to make sure that he could reach the surface easily. “I was going to go for another flight today. Scout eastwards some.”

“Don’t go within sight of the other islands,” said Gobber warningly. “Or boats from other islands, for that matter. Things are hard enough here, don’t want to go dragging other islands into it.”

“You’d have to be mad to be out this late in the season.”

“We are Vikings, Hiccup.”

Well, he had a point there. Hiccup made another attempt to flatten his hair, or at least tame it somewhat, but was left with the same rather questionable results. He heard the swish of the curtain to Elsa’s room and looked round in time to see her emerge, already dressed and with her hair pulled back. The bags under her eyes suggested that she had not slept since he had seen her in the middle of the night.

“Good morning,” she said.

Hiccup waved vaguely, in lieu of managing an actual greeting, and leant his elbow on the table. In front of anyone else, it would probably still embarrass him to be seen in just his night shirt, but even Stoick had mostly given up on trying to stop Elsa from being subjected to the sight. Throwing a blanket in Hiccup’s direction was the major concession that he made nowadays.

“Ah, good morning,” said Gobber, returning with a pot of porridge and hanging it over the fire. “Were you planning on going on Hiccup’s little jaunt today as well?”

Elsa paused beside the table, looking from Gobber to Hiccup and back with a questioning expression. “Jaunt?”

“Trip,” Hiccup supplied. “I was going to just... fly, today.”

Yesterday felt like it had been longer than it really had. As if he had spent hours huddled in the cove with Toothless, waiting for Elsa and Astrid to come back with the other half of his solution. He needed to feel the air again, the beat of Toothless’s wings, the whistle of the wind and the bite of the rain. Needed to fly.

Elsa settled delicately into place at the table, averting her eyes again. Her fingers twisted into her bracelets. “I do not think so, thank you.”

Even Gobber gave her a glance as he crossed to the fire again, swapping his poker hand for her a ladle, but he did not speak. Hiccup reached across to look at Elsa’s bracelets, but she drew her hands away abruptly. The trollwort looked more worn than before. When he tried to catch her gaze, Elsa kept her eyes fixed firmly on the table, and eventually Hiccup gave up and sat straight again. “What’s up with those?”

She shrugged. “I do not know. Perhaps it is...”

“Is the magic wearing it away?” he spoke carefully, trying to phrase it in as neutral a way as possible. It didn’t matter, the magic. No more than Astrid’s axes needed re-sharpening more often than most people’s did, or Gobber’s left boot wearing down faster than other peoples’. Elsa flinched slightly beneath the words, though, and gave only a minute nod. “We can make more, if you want. If that would help.”

Bowls of porridge were pushed onto the table in front of them. The temperature of the air dropped a fraction, and Hiccup put the thought aside for the time being to turn sheepishly towards Gobber. “Did everything work out all right, yesterday? The fires?”

“Everything got put out, don’t you worry. Nothing major.”

Considering the amount of damage that Toothless had done back when they had still fought against dragons, that was a good thing. Hiccup wondered whether it had been a struggle to keep his power down to a minimum like that, and felt another pang in his chest. “Good to hear,” he said quietly.

Stoick returned as they were half-way down their porridge, though Hiccup was spending a lot of time pushing it around the bowl, and could not really taste it. He could not even have said whether Gobber had gone for the honey or the preserve. Still scowling, Stoick closed the door heavily behind him and brushed snow out of his beard, scanning the room grimly.

“Got the well cleared?” said Gobber.

“Aye, just about,” replied Stoick. “We’re hauling up chunks of ice with it, though. Pity we’re not closer to the hot springs.”

Giving up on breakfast, Hiccup pushed his bowl to the centre of the table and considered himself lucky that his father had not noticed his state of underdress. “We do get the fresher water though. Without the sulphur taste.”

Sighing, Stoick removed his helmet and pressed his hand to his temple. “I’d want a block of ice, if it weren’t ice giving me the headache,” he grumbled. Knowing better than to comment, the others were noticeably silent as he wound through the room and disappeared into his bedroom behind. The door clattered closed behind him again.

That would probably be a good time to make an escape. Hiccup wriggled out from behind the table and wound his way to the bottom of the stairs, glancing over his shoulder to see Gobber giving him a disapproving look but not saying anything.

It had seemed too much effort, in the middle of the night, to put on his foot. He had apparently not been thinking about how much work it would be to get upstairs again without it. Cursing Red Deaths and prosthetics and everything in between, Hiccup made his way back up the stairs, reaching the top just as he heard the bedroom door open again and his father emerge.

“Mildew’s up in arms again,” said Stoick.

As quietly as he could, Hiccup slid onto his bed and started putting on his leg, all but holding his breath to listen. Stoick settled heavily into one of his chairs and sighed.

“People angry again?” said Gobber.

“More scared than angry, I think. Gladioli burnt her arm trying to put out one of the fires, though that’s probably the worst of it. A new timber or two needed here and there. It’ll take a couple of days to fix everything properly.”

“Could have been worse. Especially if that’s the only incident in a good couple of moons.”

“I am aware of that, Gobber,” said Stoick sharply. Hiccup flinched at the familiar tone as he started to dress, opting for a warm vest and a raincape. Toothless might enjoy the high flights, but they could get cold and breathless. “But telling people to not mind what has happened is hardly a good way to appease them.”

Gobber said nothing, which was often his way of apologising, but Elsa’s silence worried Hiccup a little more. He flexed his left leg to chase out the stiffness, then stood up again, grabbing his cane and his comb at the same time. Comb between his teeth, he walked more steadily back down the stairs, to see Stoick look round almost guiltily at the sight of him.

“Are you taking the others?” said Gobber, taking the ladle off his left hand and rubbing the join between arm and prosthetic. When Hiccup gave him a look of polite enquiry, he added: “The dragons. And presumably those friends of yours as well.”

“It’d be good to let them stretch their wings as well,” said Hiccup. He glanced over to his father, but Stoick was rubbing his forehead and his expression was unreadable. “If that’s all right?”

“I’d stay away from the village,” said Stoick finally, but it sounded more like advice than an order. “And don’t let the dragons go anywhere without you.”

At least that wasn’t too bad. Hiccup’s anger softened slightly as he reached the bottom of the stairs, leant his cane against the wall and made another attempt to tame his hair. Dragons were easier. “Thanks, Dad,” he said, just softly enough for Stoick to look round and meet his eyes for a moment. He nodded.

The dragons needed him, needed a voice to stand up to Mildew and Mudbreath and the others who were too scared or too set in the old ways to be able to consider letting the dragons into the village. The peace was good for the humans, but it must have been remarkable for the dragons - every time there was an attack, dragons were killed, their carcasses skinned for their hides and defleshed for their bones. Humans had less injury, less lost food; dragons had less death. And somehow, Hiccup of all people had become the one to speak for them, the village’s disappointment with too many thoughts and too little muscle.

After last night, though, he wanted to spend time with Elsa. Berk had been better for her than the cove, a settled life better than running and hiding, but she still shied from strangers, and her magic was still lashing out around her. He wasn’t sure that she had much more of a voice than the dragons did. If this was what chiefing felt like, then he wasn’t sure that he liked that all that much either.

“See you later, Elsa?” said Hiccup carefully.

She gave him a careful smile. “Yes, later. I will be all right.”

He wasn’t sure which of them she was trying to reassure.

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