Frozen/HTTYD Chapter Sixteen

[afterandalasia]

Chapter Sixteen

Taking off was not quite so traumatic this time around. Hiccup didn’t even complain when Astrid kept rising, so high that they burst through the clouds and into the sunlight again. He had to shade his eyes against the pearl-grey glare of the clouds below them, but it never got old to have the thought of clouds below.

It was cold up here, but a dry cold, easier to handle. The sun was still fairly high above the horizon. “You forget how long the days are sometimes,” said Hiccup. “When the clouds are out.”

Astrid chuckled. “But you did your flying at night, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I’m amazed that I didn’t wear through my windowsill with how often I climbed out.” As Toothless settled into his slower, almost effortless flight, Hiccup released his hold on Astrid’s waist and sat back more comfortably. He would have trusted himself to stay on before, but the strength had gone from his legs and it hurt too much to hold on too tightly anyway. Mercifully, Astrid had not said anything about it. “Most nights we’d go flying for a couple of hours, then sit with Elsa for a while. I’d get back in time to grab a few hours’ sleep before I had to get up for the day.”

“I’m amazed you didn’t fall asleep at the arena.”

Hiccup laughed, but couldn’t quite bring himself to admit that the past few weeks had still been probably the best of his life. Tiredness and bruises had been nothing compared to talking with Elsa and getting to know Toothless and flying, something which he would not sure he would ever find the words for.

“So,” said Astrid, and he heard the slowing in her voice. “You and Elsa...”

“Oh my gods.” He meant to be offended. He honestly thought he was going to be offended. But somehow Hiccup found himself laughing, so hard that he had to clutch at Astrid again and there were tears in his eyes. Only as his laughter subsided a little did Astrid speak again.

“It’s not that weird an idea.”

“No, no, it’s...” he waved a hand vaguely, even though she would have barely been able to see it out of the corner of her eye. “Have you been listening to the twins?”

“No!” Astrid elbowed him lightly in the ribs.

Hiccup snorted with laughter again, but managed to keep himself under control. “Sorry. It’s just, well. Elsa decided last night that she wanted to sleep next to Toothless.”

“Huh.”

“Toothless was in my room.”

He gave it a few heartbeats, then he felt Astrid jolt as she realised it, and turn in her seat to stare at him. Her eyes were huge.

“Not in my bed!” He protested quickly. At least he hadn’t needed to say that to his father, because dropping dead from embarrassment would probably have been preferable to do so. “By Toothless. Across the room.”

“I was going to say,” said Astrid, then started laughing as well. In a more controlled manner than Hiccup, chuckling rather than completely breaking down. “I mean, you guys are just pretty... familiar. I thought I should check.”

He considered pointing out that Astrid had kissed him twice now, and that if there had been anything going on then he would have pointed it out, but couldn’t bring himself to actually say it aloud in case it turned out to have been some ridiculous dream. In any case, there was just something about thinking of Elsa romantically that was the wrong shape for his brain.

“It’s... you know how when you’re a kid, you wish that you had siblings?” Fishlegs griped about his sisters from time to time, of course, and the twins complained about each other on a pretty regular basis, but he was pretty sure that another only child like Astrid would understand. Sure enough, she nodded. “I mean, sometimes I wished I had an older sibling, but usually I wished that I had a younger one.”

An older one to protect him from the other children, notably Snotlout; a younger one for whom he could be the protector, the big brother figure, someone actually worth looking up to. There weren’t many only children around, and it was hardly as if Hiccup could have said anything like this to his father.

“Anyway, it’s... it’s more like that. Like having an older sister. Or maybe a younger. I’m not always sure.”

“And a pet dragon.”

Hiccup glanced down at Toothless, who huffed over his shoulder at them. “Either that, or he’s got a pet human. I’m really not too sure about that.”

They managed a neat landing right behind Hiccup’s house, and Elsa appeared round the corner of it just moments later, crutches in hand.

“Ruffnut didn’t kidnap you, then?” said Hiccup. His foot had gone to sleep, and he tried to kick the air to wake it up before standing up again. Astrid managed to extricate herself from the saddle without knocking him over and stepped aside.

“Kidnap?”

“Take somewhere else.”

“Ah,” said Elsa, then smiled again. “No, she brought me here. Tuffnut kidnapped the Zippleback.”

Entirely a possibility, but not just at that moment. “Oh, no. Kidnap is take somewhere else without asking. So... you know what, don’t worry about it. Bad word by me.” The ground was soft underfoot, not quite muddy yet but probably heading that way before too long. He had to concentrate to get his balance again, before risking a look to see that Elsa was wearing an expression of complete confusion. “Forget it.”

Elsa shook her head to herself, but fell into step beside him. “You had a good flight?”

They had been out longer than intended, until the sky really did start to darken slightly and they realised that hours must have passed. “Definitely. Is anyone else home at the moment?”

“Just Gobber. He was talking about the Shivering Shores.”

“Sounds interesting. He said that he lived here before he came to Berk?”

She nodded. “We were talking about surnames.”

It might have been a good sign that they were starting to get to words that Hiccup could not easily explain, or it might have been a sign that he wasn’t getting so good at thinking of explanations. The sleet had let off a bit, enough for gaps to appear in the clouds, but now another gust of wind whipped more flakes into Hiccup and sent him staggering sideways into Astrid. She righted him without missing a step and he set his eyes on just getting home without falling on his backside again.

Gobber had already got the fire going inside, and it was wonderfully warm from the moment that Elsa opened the front door. Toothless wormed between them to be the first one in, running over to lick Gobber hello.

“Oh, get down, you slavering fiend.” Gobber pushed Toothless down again, soft-palmed. “I don’t fancy a flammable chin.”

“Did you, er,” Hiccup stood in the doorway and sort of nodded inside, speaking to Astrid. From the corner of his eye, he saw Elsa glance between them and then slip inside without a word. “I mean, did you want to come in for a while? Wait for a gap in the weather?”

“I’m good, thanks.” Astrid took hold of his sleeve and tugged him towards her. Trying to react appropriate this time, Hiccup tilted his face to hers, aiming for a kiss... only for Astrid to punch him lightly in the centre of the chest and back away, laughing. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I can’t win,” said Hiccup to himself, watching her go. He shook his head, then went into the house and gave the door a nudge with one crutch to send it swinging closed once again. It was stuffier inside, certainly, but it was warm and dry and after a while your eyes adjusted to the lower light. “Really, bud?” he asked Toothless, who was nosing around in the fire and making sparks puff out. “Is that necessary?”

“Probably got his nose cold flying,” said Gobber. He gently tucked his hook under Toothless’s chin and raised him out of the flames. “Still can’t believe it. Never seen a dragon without some sort of horn before.”

Toothless murred, and flared his flaps slightly, then shook the cinders off his nose and hopped up to hang from one of the beams. Every time it happened, Hiccup felt his heart in his throat for a moment, half-expecting the house to crash down around them, but apparently the building was made of sterner stuff than that.

“So, Gobber.” Hiccup dropped down onto the bench and set about taking his boot off. At least those were going to be cheaper. “Can we talk prosthetics?”

Gobber sighed. “Look, I remember what it’s like to be frustrated, but this isn’t something for me or even your father. This is Gothi’s rules.”

“No, I know I’ve got another two weeks yet,” he said. It was taking all of his strength of will not to start marking off the days on the wall. “But can I at least start designing it?”

Lifting up his own wooden leg, Gobber rapped it with his knuckles. “If you’ve not noticed, we’re pretty practiced at new legs.”

“I know,” said Hiccup, “but I was wondering... about metal.”

“Too heavy,” said Gobber promptly.

“Not if you slimmed it right down. I’m not worried whether or not it looks like a foot. Everyone knows that I’ve lost one, and once Johann comes round again it’ll be all around the islands. If it isn’t already.” Goodness knew how Johann heard some of the things that he did, but the man was the biggest gossip in the archipelago and couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it. “Besides, if I’m going to be around dragons, wouldn’t metal be a bit more fireproof?”

“I hope you’re not planning on getting yourself burned again,” said Gobber gruffly, but there was a concerned look in his eye.

Hiccup gave him a look of what he hoped was exasperation, not pleading. “No, I’ve just... I’ve been having ideas again! You know what I’m like for ideas.”

“Well, that’s true,” Gobber said, nodding. “You realise that metal won’t do against your skin, though. Too hard to get the fit right.”

“Maybe we could do a wooden socket, and then the metal for the actual leg,” said Hiccup, starting to warm to his theme. Too many hours in bed had not exactly helped to calm his already over-active imagination. “And I’m going to need some way to use that leg to control Toothless.”

“You can’t swap the mechanics over? Run it to the other foot?”

For a moment, the thought was tempting. It would mean that he and Toothless could fly again, just the two of them, without having to wait for Hiccup’s prosthetic to get sorted out. But he wasn’t sure that it was possible. “I wouldn’t want to run the gears across his tail. Too much risk of hurting him again.”

Gobber surveyed Hiccup for a moment longer, then got to his feet. “All right then. I’ll get you a slate.”

He could have punched the air in victory.

Stoick reappeared at around sunset, so soaked that even his beard was starting to droop. When he took off his boots, he paused on the step to wring them out, and left wet footprints on his way to sit beside the fire.

“And what mischief are you up to now?” he asked warily, eyeing the slate in Hiccup’s hands. Hiccup had automatically clutched it to his chest as if he was secretly working on Toothless’s tail again, and lowered it back to his lap with a sheepish look.

“Just working on a design.”

Gobber emerged from the pantry, unceremoniously dumping a bucket at Elsa’s feet and handing her the basket of sweet chestnuts. “We’ve been talking over that new leg. Thought it might be worth having two minds on it.”

“Oh. Well, that does sound wise.” Stoick leant over to look at Hiccup’s current sketch, which was frankly on the scribbly side just at the moment, and nodded as if he had the faintest clue what Hiccup’s notes about compression characteristics and metal temperatures meant. Unlike other legs with their fixed ankles, Hiccup wanted to build some give into his, a slight flexibility that would hopefully work more naturally and be better on uneven ground. “Looks good.”

Curling up to sit cross-legged, Elsa pulled the basket into her lap and started to shell and peel them. Hiccup was about to apologise for getting distracted by his work again when he remembered that he still had not spoken to her about sleeping beside Toothless, and he almost swore aloud. It probably would have been a better idea to have that conversation at an earlier point in the day, before the house filled up again.

“How did the contract go?” said Hiccup, as Stoick ran his hand over his forehead. “That bad?”

“I hope the Svenson boy knows what he’s getting himself in for, that’s all I can,” replied Stoick. “The Odourgard girl nearly won her year in the arena, after all.” His eyes flicked over to Toothless, still hanging from one of the beams and snoring softly, then embarrassment flooded his features. “I mean, you know...”

“It still means she can handle herself,” said Hiccup. He was trying to figure out how to get a pedal that could be used easily with a metal foot, but which wouldn’t involve being locked in. He couldn’t heel-and-toe the way that he had before, even if he did still have his knee. “And hey, it’ll make the boar hunts seem easier.”

“It’s been a while since we’ve had a good boar hunt,” Gobber said. He grabbed one of the raw sweet chestnuts and popped it into his mouth. “The males’ll be feisty at this time of year, though. Mating season’s always the worst.”

“True, but it means we might get some males with the groups,” pointed out Stoick. “We could do with some good tusks for carving.”

Elsa leant across the bench to talk in an undertone to Hiccup. “Sorry, what is ‘mating’?”

His mouth refused to work. Hiccup stared into the fire, vaguely aware that his father and Gobber were still talking about boars on one side and that Elsa was looking at him curiously from the other, and absolutely unable to find an answer.

“We’ll, uh, how about we talk about that tomorrow,” he said finally. He might have to get Astrid to help him out on this one. There were some words that he really didn’t have to be the one to explain and... well, Elsa hadn’t been here for a full moon yet. He certainly didn’t want to be the one to have those sort of female-specific conversations. “It’s something that animals do.”

Frowning, Elsa sat back and resumed her work on the chestnuts. When Hiccup looked down at his work again, he realised with a sigh that he had drawn a huge line right across the middle of the slate, and licked his thumb to set about rubbing it out again. Ankle was so much easier than this.

By the time that they got round to dinner, Stoick was warming to his usual topic of food supplies, alternating between grumbling about how little they had and talking with relief that they were finally building up stores before winter proper started to set in. “Hopefully the weather will hold out long enough,” he added on a regular basis.

Hiccup needed to close the shutter on his window more and more often. He wasn’t too sure.

“So, what did you usually eat in the winter, Elsa?” said Gobber, managing to get everyone at the table to look round to him at the same time. Even Toothless, who had been waiting hopefully next to Hiccup’s chair, popped his head over the edge of the table to see what the fuss was about. “You must know a few tricks.”

“I was alone,” she said cautiously. “I did not feed many.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’d be interested to hear.”

Attention still seemed to discomfort Elsa a little, but other than a pause to take a deep breath she held together well. Hiccup knew that she was happier spending most of her time listening, rather than talking.

“I ate mushrooms,” said Elsa. “Rostopan, aakanteran, esteropan...” she looked across to Hiccup, who just shrugged.

Gobber pushed more bread in her direction. “Don’t fret, we know mushrooms. Next time we find some, we’ll figure out what’s what. “Did you fish?” He mimed casting a rod.

It had taken Hiccup a while to figure out how to explain that fish was both a noun and a verb, but they had actually managed it. Elsa hid a smile behind her hand for a moment. “A little. Sometimes I had a net. I pick lamusan, though.” As if in response to Gobber’s own actions, she mimed opening and closing with her hands. “From river.”

Gobber looked over to Stoick, and shrugged. “We could see to gathering more shellfish this year. We don’t have to worry about defending the beach any more.”

“There’ll be nothing there for a few years,” replied Stoick with a shake of his head. “Even if we did take down the defences, the shellfish won’t come back yet. Besides, just because the dragons are gone doesn’t mean we can forget the people.”

Hiccup, meanwhile, had sketched out a mussel shell on his slate and showed it to Elsa beneath the table. She tilted her head to examine it, shook her head, and held out a hand for the chalk instead. The movements of her hand were a little unsteady, not used to handle a slate and chalk no doubt, but she sketched out a reasonable shell beneath Hiccup’s own attempt.

“Oh,” he said, realisation dawning. “Clams, right? That’s a clam.”

“I mean, we’re not having to feed the dragons at the arena any more, either,” Gobber was saying in the background.

“No, but I’ve seen how much the Night Fury eats,” said Stoick, gesturing to Toothless. Toothless looked at him hopefully at the name of his species. “I can’t imagine the others aren’t getting through just as much.”

“They could catch their own food now,” suggested Hiccup. Both men looked at him in surprise. “I mean, they eat fish, right? I’m sure there would be some way to let them know that they could hunt by themselves.” Having seen the way that they acted around the others, he was even fairly sure that the dragons would actually come back again. “I mean, are they not doing that already?”

“No idea what the Zippleback’s been up to,” said Gobber, “but the others haven’t left the village other than to go with you lot up to the arena. I think they’re sticking close to those friends of yours.”

It was something of a novel feeling to even think of the others as being his friends, but Hiccup couldn’t help feeling warmth at the idea of it. Knowing that they were starting to bond with the dragons - enough that the dragons must presumably feel somewhat safe around them - just made it better.

“Well, maybe that will help matters even more,” he said to his father.

Stoick paused for a moment, then nodded. There was hope yet.

For lack of anything really approaching privacy in the house - his father and Gobber had the downstairs bedroom, the most solid and quiet, while Hiccup’s room was practically open to the downstairs and the workshop had just been partitioned off with a curtain for Elsa - Hiccup waited until Gobber excused himself to the outhouse and Stoick went to fill the bucket from the well before sliding closer to Elsa on the bench again.

“Hey, Elsa, can I have a word?”

She frowned at him. He was going to have to learn to stop with the rhetoric.

“I mean, I need to talk to you. About sleeping next to Toothless. I understand if you want to, so do you want me to try to get him to sleep downstairs or something?” It all came out a little hurriedly, and he paused to let Elsa process before trying again. “I mean, not in my room. You... you can’t sleep in my room.”

“Did I wake you? I am sorry, I did not mean to.”

He almost said that if she had, it would have been easier, but then he found himself wondering how exactly he would have dealt with that in the middle of the night. He wasn’t sure that he would have done too well, to be fair. “No, it’s not that. It’s...” he groaned to himself. Without really thinking about it, his hand crept down to rub at his left knee, where the remaining burns were starting to fade to smoother scarring now. “It’s not really appropriate for you to be in my room.”

“Appropriate means... good? Wise?”

“Well, sort of, I suppose.” At least explaining words was easier than explaining why his father was fussing so. “If something is appropriate, then if other people know they’d think it’s a good thing. If it’s inappropriate...”

“If people knew, they would think it is a bad thing,” finished Elsa. She glanced aside for a moment, then her eyes widened and she looked round sharply enough that he was pretty sure she had just worked it out. “Your father thinks...?”

“Probably.”

“So he is worried about my unholy wildling charms,” she said.

Hiccup choked and started coughing. Concern on her face, Elsa reached out to pat him on the back, but he waved her away and tried to regain his composure. “Wh-“ for a moment, he could not even say it. “Who - who taught you that phrase?”

Words like breakfast and sorry might have been easy enough to slip by, but Hiccup was pretty sure that he would have remembered saying that.

“Ruffnut,” replied Elsa. Her tone was innocent, but the corner of her mouth twitched just slightly. Starting to suspect that she knew more than she was letting on about the term, Hiccup narrowed his eyes slightly. “Actually, she was asking me to teach them to her.”

“Oh, gods...” Hiccup put one hand to his face, and wasn’t even sure or not it was a good thing that the door opened and Gobber reappeared just at that particular moment. “That’s... no, Elsa. No. Let’s not say that.”

“Everything all right?” said Gobber.

“Fine!” replied Hiccup, too fast and too loud and unable to do anything else. “We’re fine. We’re just... fine, yes.” He took a deep breath, and tried to smile at Elsa. She was smiling now, just enough for him to suspect that she knew full well what she had just said. Or at least enough to know why Hiccup was still trying not to choke. “So, do you want me to get Toothless to sleep downstairs?”

“No, it is fine,” said Elsa. The smile slipped away again. “I just had... how do you say it?” she waved a hand at head-height. “When I sleep, I see bad things.”

“Nightmares?”

Her lips moved as she shaped the words, then she nodded. “Paanijan. I think so.”

Hiccup winced. “Sorry.”

Once again, Elsa shrugged, reaching up to push stray hair out of her face, and looked across into the embers of the fire. “It happens. Not your wrong.”

Part of him wanted to promise that he would stop the nightmares, but he knew it was something that he could not say. He just wished that he could. The best that Hiccup could do was reach over and rest his hand on hers gently, until she smiled a little again. And decide that if he did find Elsa in his room again, he’d just make sure that his father didn’t find out about it.

Not everyone liked the dragons, but it was fast becoming apparent that most people were willing to give them a chance. Sometimes, like when Hookfang stretched his wings and yawned widely, people would jump aside and reach for weapons, but they would catch themselves again and remember that there was peace now, and no reason for them to attack these dragons.

If the adult dragons were friendly with Hiccup and his friends, and calm around everyone else, the babies were the darlings of the town. They were getting a little big to sit on Fishlegs’s shoulders but tried to do so anyway, and he took them everywhere with him. People rapidly became used to them, and even started giving them scraps or fish that were too small to be of worth. Hiccup watched from the top of the steep paths that led down to the docks, and smiled.

Three days after the village meeting, Bloodbreath demanded the right to leave the island. It was not unheard of for people to want to leave, usually after one loss too many, one too many hard winters when hunger gnawed at your stomach, but nobody doubted what this was about.

“You may go,” said Stoick, in what Hiccup couldn’t help but think of as his declarations voice, down on the docks with most of the fishing folk around and even children running around, half the village within hearing range. “But you cannot speak of this place. Of the peace with the dragons.”

“You don’t want me spreading your message?” said Bloodbeard, with a sneer that Hiccup could hear even from up on the cliffs.

But Stoick stared him down. “I don’t trust you to speak the truth. I won’t stop you from leaving, Bloodbeard. You, nor anybody else,” he added, looking around him to make sure the message was clear. By evening, it would probably be all around the village. “But for all of the years that you called yourself a Berkian, I will ask for your silence.”

It surprised Hiccup that Bloodbeard agreed at all, even if it was with poor grace.

The first ships out sailed the next morning, but of the hundreds of people on the island only a handful wished to go. Hiccup just hoped that they would be the last people that the island lost to dragons.

A punch in the arm bought him back to the moment as he watched the sails move off, and he jumped. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to see Astrid standing next to him. “You were miles away,” she said.

“Yeah, sorry. Just... thinking. Where’s Elsa?”

“Gobber was talking about trying to set up an icehouse. He’s trying to talk Elsa into it.”

Hiccup grimaced. It was good that people didn’t see Elsa’s power as dangerous, but she didn’t seem to want to acknowledge it more than was necessary, and he was happier respecting that. He hoped that Gobber didn’t get too pushy about trying to get her to help. “He does realise he’s on Berk, right? Our houses are icehouses come the winter.”

“Maybe having dragons will warm them up a bit.”

“Keep saying that, and you might talk people round.” Turning his back on the distant sails, Hiccup started back towards the village. Astrid fell into step beside him. “Have Frog and Pig finally named those Gronckles, then?”

“Yes, and they want to tell you themselves.”

“Why do I need to know?” He went to gesture with his hands, but caught himself just in time. Crutches might be doing to replace his leg, but they were doing so at the cost of both arms, which did not help in the slightest. “And don’t you dare use the words Dragon Master.”

No matter what he tried to do or so, the phrase had taken root and was now growing pretty solidly. Some of the children in the village even had a new game called dragon master, which involved one of them being Hiccup and the other ones being dragons that he had to tame. Apparently there were arguments over who got to be the Night Fury.

Astrid just looked at him pointedly. He wasn’t even sure whether he wanted to laugh or not. “All right, fine. I’ll come and find out what the names of the hatchlings are.”

The village had finished rebuilding now, even the roof of the Great Hall mostly finished where they had stripped out the dragon skins and replaced it with wood and tar . Stoick had been concerned about how flammable the combination was, but Hiccup promised that he would get the others to keep their dragons away from it until it had cured and set, and they could look towards getting slates on for the real snows of the winter. While there was still food to be gathered or hunted or fished, the village had more pressing matters to attend to. They could see to the roof even during the winter.

“I feel bad leaving Elsa with Gobber so much. I mean, not because it’s Gobber, just because it’s always Gobber,” he added quickly. “But you know what everyone was like.” They would not stop asking questions, even when Elsa became visibly uncomfortable with the twins asking her to do ‘the awesome ice thing’ again and Fishlegs starting to get interested in her magic in general.

“Maybe you should ask them to back off.”

“Yeah, that’ll work,” said Hiccup. It sounded more like a grand way to get them to ask more questions, if he was quite honest.

Astrid stepped in front of him so sharply that he almost bumped into her. “Or,” she said, crossing her arms. “You could talk to Elsa about whether she wants to answer the questions.”

“I could see that she didn’t.”

“But why? Because they were all asking at the same time? Because there were so many of them? She felt comfortable enough talking to you,” said Astrid. Hiccup tried to go around her, but she just sidestepped back into his way again. “So why not us?”

“Well, maybe I don’t bombard her with multiple questions in a row,” replied Hiccup pointedly. Astrid looked unimpressed, and this time he feinted to the right before dodging left and around her.

“Hey!”

“Look,” he sighed. “I’ll talk to Elsa, all right? And maybe she will be all right talking to you one at a time. But people have tried to kill her over her magic. Since she was eight. I don’t blame her for not wanting to talk about it.”

Astrid fell back into step beside him. “But...?”

“But... I wish that she could spend time with you guys as well.” Actually having friends was turning out to be a pretty amazing experience. It wasn’t that Hiccup had been actively ostracised over the years - his on-running fight with Snotlout might have edged close to that category, but didn’t quite make it - but he had never really been one of them. Suddenly, he not only was one of them, but they were acting like he was the leader just because he had some actual experience with a dragon. “It’s got to be pretty lonely, just talking to me or Gobber or my Dad. And you occasionally, but still.”

Still three more people than when she had been in the cove, as well, but it didn’t seem at all fair that Elsa should be restricted like that at all.

“I just... I want her to be able to be normal.”

“Does she want that?”

Some things were more easily explained to some people than to others. Astrid might have known what it was like to be an only child, but Hiccup seriously doubted that she knew what it was like to be even at the edge of your own society, let alone completely excluded from it. “The only people who have never wanted to be normal are those who already are.”

She elbowed him in the ribs. “Deep.”

“Ha ha,” he said. “But, no, not necessarily being normal. I just want her to be able to talk to people without it constantly being about her magic.”

“Like how people can talk to you without it constantly being without dragons?” Hiccup rolled his eyes, but Astrid did not look in the least bit repentant. “What? I’m just saying. They’re just interested, they’re not going to attack her. And maybe if you talk to her then that’ll be clearer.”

“Is this what having a sibling is like?” he asked, as they came into sight of the Ingerman house. “Because it sucks.”

Astrid laughed, and Hiccup shook his head but couldn’t help a smile at the sight of Fishlegs and both of his sisters out front with the Gronckles. Piglegs was holding the purple Gronckle in one arm, while the green one was chasing Froglegs back and forth in figures of eight around her siblings.

“Hey, you guys,” he said. He was never quite sure how to act around children younger than him, because they could usually still beat him up. Something - either the crutches or his peculiar newfound status - was at least protecting him from that nowadays. “I heard that we’ve got some new names around here.”

Froglegs stopped and caught her hatchling from the air, and the girls exchanged a look and a wicked smile. “Yes,” said Piglegs finally. She presented the purple Gronckle with a flourish. “Meet Skyfire.”

“And Silversnap.” Froglegs stepped forwards and thrust her Gronckle only inches from Hiccup’s face, where it dribbled slightly and fluttered its wings.

Names and riders and food that was given, not stolen. For such a little thing, Hiccup found himself grinning widely, and he passed one crutch to the other hand so that he could reach up and scratch Silversnap under the chin. “Well, it’s good to meet you both. Does Meatlug approve of the names?”

“Uh-huh,” said Piglegs seriously. “We asked her.”

Hiccup glanced over to Meatlug, who took the opportunity to eat one of the rocks from the ground beside them. He had only been meaning to tease. “Well, that’s... very good. Always good to have permission.”

“Can we write the names in the Book of Dragons?” said Froglegs. “I’ve been practicing.”

“Me too!”

“Shut up, Pig. Your writing is awful.”

“It’s better than yours.”

“Wait, what?” He looked over to Fishlegs, who was studying the clouds overhead far more intently than they deserved. “Did I miss something?”

“I may have said that since we were going to be working on the Book of Dragons anyway that we could maybe start writing down the dragon names and lineages and that they could maybe write down the names of their dragons,” said Fishlegs, all in one tumultuous breath.

Hiccup winced. “Yeah, about that... so, apparently I took Gobber’s copy with me to Dragon Island. And didn’t bring it back. We might be able to get new parchment from Johann come spring, or get some in the culling season, but even my journal is in the most ridiculously small writing to-”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Fishlegs said. “I’ve already got a blank book set aside for it. I figured that you’d probably want to start almost from scratch, seeing as how there’s so much more to be added in...”

At first, Hiccup just opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, waiting for some intelligent remark to make itself apparent. Gobber hadn’t been angry about the loss of his copy of the Book, more resigned; his great-grandmother had been Bork’s only daughter to survive to adulthood, and the copy he gave her on her wedding was the origin of the tradition. ‘But now we can start a new tradition,’ Gobber had said, clapping Hiccup on the back with his good hand. ‘With new knowledge. Just as long as you do me a new copy once it’s done.’

In the end, he could only think of one response. “Thank you. And... yes, certainly, you can put the names of the dragons in. I suppose it is all about them, after all.”

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