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Toothless was anxious. Maybe not as anxious as Hiccup, but anxious nonetheless.He had always been more intelligent than the average human would give a dragon credit for, and so he could completely understand what was happening. Astrid and Hiccup was about to have a hatchling—only, for humans, the whole process was a lot more complicated. Humans didn’t lay eggs, instead their hatchlings, babies, as they were called, were born alive, which made everything trickier, more dangerous. As from a male’s point of view, laying an egg didn’t seem a big deal, and it didn’t seem to put any strain on female dragons. But humans… Toothless had heard horror stories around the village—of mothers dying in childbirth, of children born dead. And it had been already hours ago that the woman, who came to help Astrid—the midwife, Hiccup called her—banned them from the bedroom, from where Toothless could still hear Astrid’s painful gasps, grunts, and most recently, screams.He glanced up at his human from where he was laying on the floor. Hiccup was sitting in the great armchair next to the fire, his shoulders hunched forward, his head in his hands, his hair falling in front of his eyes. He seemed completely motionless, yet his whole frame was shaking.Toothless put his head on his paws. He hoped it would be over soon.It was more than an hour later that the bedroom door opened. Toothless reacted faster than his rider. He looked up to the midwife and immediately felt his heart sinking; her face showed nothing but sorrow and sympathy. Something must have gone wrong. Something horrible must have happened.By then Hiccup was on his feet too, moving as fast as his prosthetic would let him. He didn’t say a word; there was no need to. By the time Toothless got on his paws, his rider was already in the room. He walked slowly after him, nuzzling the midwife with his head in passing, thanking her for the help she must have done for his rider’s mate. The midwife didn’t follow him to the room, but closed the door behind him.It wasn’t a happy sight inside. Astrid, her hair in disarray, matted with sweat, in her weakest state Toothless had ever seen her in, was weeping. Hiccup sat beside her, holding her close, trying to calm her, but tears were falling from his eyes, too. Seeing the two beings that were the most precious to him in such a state broke his heart; were he able to, Toothless was sure he would have cried along with them.Then something else caught his attention: there was a small basket on the other side of the room, filled with white linens spotted with red. He trotted over to examine it. There in the basket lay, he assumed, Hiccup and Astrid’s offspring.Only it—he could determine the gender—looked nothing like Hiccup or Astrid. It was small, as a hatchling should be, maybe even a little bit smaller than it was supposed to be, and yet, not even completely cleaned from the liquids of birth, it had nothing of that pinkish complexion which seemed to be healthy for humans; instead, it was rather grayish. It was also completely still—its chest did not rise and fall with breaths; not even its fingers twitched.It looked dead.Toothless gently nudged it with his snout—nothing. He tried again, desperately—nothing.He let out a painful wail. No, it wasn’t supposed to be like that, the baby should be moving, should be alive.In his sorrow, he didn’t even know why, he let out a little puff of smoke out of his nose.To his complete surprise, the little thing moved. Just barely, but it moved.Excitement crawling under his skin, he repeated this action again, this time directly aiming at the baby.And then a miracle happened: the babe started sniffing, very quietly, but it did, then it moved, wriggling amongst the linens as its whines slowly became stronger.Toothless let out a loud cry in his delight. The baby was alive! He brought it back, he himself, there was no need to mourn anymore!If the baby’s voice wasn’t enough, Toothless’ cry did it: it caught Hiccup’s attention, who turned to him, then, in absolute disbelief, he let go of Astrid, got to his feet, and walked over to the basket.When he looked at the baby, first he didn’t even believe his own eyes. Then he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He picked up the softly crying little thing, held it in the air for a few moments, then cradling it to his chest stepped back to Astrid, who snatched the baby from him and started crying again, only because of relief this time, not sorrow.The next half an hour went in a blur, which Toothless watched from his spot in the corner.Hiccup called the midwife back, who, much to Astrid’s dismay, took the infant away, examined it, and claimed that it was, despite everything, completely well, then cleaned and wrapped it properly, before handing it back its mother, who seemed not to get enough of it. She cuddled it, pressing it to her chest and kissing its head numerous times, while thanking the gods over and over. Hiccup was hardly doing better, he was just sitting next to his wife, holding her shoulders, staring at the delicate little face speechlessly, occasionally touching the chubby cheeks.It was only after both mother and child fell asleep—next to each other, since Astrid wouldn’t let the baby out of her reach now—that Hiccup went over to his dragon.He knelt slowly next to his enormous friend as he lay on the floor, and wrapped his arms around the thick, black neck.“Thank you” was all he said, his voice coarse from all that crying, but he didn’t need to say anything else. Like during those very first days, dragon and rider understood each other perfectly, without words.
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The women of Berk might be as fierce warriors as their husbands and brothers and sons, but there’s one little thing they do not differ from any other woman in Midgard: they all love a good gossip.And, oddly enough, considering Berk’s size, or maybe exactly because of that, their gossiping tends to run rather wild. Let’s just say, just for illustration, that if a Terrible Terror was to break a pot on one side of the island, it would be reported on the other side that a Monstrous Nightmare had set a whole stable ablaze.Of course, it’s all in good fun, but the thing is, stories running this wild tend to lead to problems sooner or rather. Or, more likely, sooner rather than later.It all happened the spring following the battle against the Green Death, on a rather delightful, sunny and surprisingly warm day. In the early hours of the morning, Ebba Hofferson was on her way to the village market to get, among other stuff, some fresh bread and butter for breakfast. She was in a rather good mood; it wasn’t raining or hailing, her husband had just gotten home from a successful hunting trip, and her eldest son was only an inch from getting engaged. Yes, things were really looking up.Then she heard it.Three women, two around her own age, the third much younger than her, with a toddler balanced on her hip, were standing in front of one of the stalls, deep in conversation.“…Knocked her up, so the fathers are rushing the wedding now,” stated one of the older women solemnly. Ebba almost stopped—after all, she was also a Berkian woman, who liked to know what was going on in the village. But she also had more important things at the moment, so, resisting the temptation, she continued walking—or at least she was about to, but then she heard the other, rather large middle-aged woman speak up.“If I were that scrawny boy, I’d hid in Hel before her brothers send me there!” she barked out a laugh. “I bet Alvar is not so happy right now.”Now, that made Ebba stop in her tracks. There were not so many men named Alvar in Berk, in fact, she couldn’t even recall any other by this name other than her very own husband. But that would mean… no, no, that was impossible. She must have misheard it. She shook her head, was just about to walk away, when the young mother spoke.“Who would have thought?” she sighed. “He used to be such a clumsy, awkward boy. I swear, until last year, I was pretty sure he was going to die a bachelor or married off to some peasant girl, just keep his line alive. And now! And poor Astrid, she used to have such a great reputation…”Ebba dropped the basket she was holding. So she didn’t mishear it; they really were talking about her husband, her daughter, and that Haddock boy. But even then, this couldn’t be true. Or could it?Her staggered mind immediately started to put the pieces together. Alvar had indeed spent the evening in the company of no other but the chief—they could have even gotten to the marriage negotiations behind her back, even though the three of them had previously agreed that the topic wouldn’t be brought up until Astrid turned sixteen. Then there was that secretive air around the two kids in the last few days—intimate glimpses at each other when they thought that no–one was looking, stolen kisses, hand-holding... Not that they hadn’t been doing that and more in the last six months or so, but still! There must have been something more behind it.Not bothering with the bystanders’ curious gazes, Ebba grabbed the fallen basket and, groceries forgotten, jogged back to home. First of all, she find Astrid, and have her contradict what she’d hear at the market, have her daughter laugh at her, saying that this is utter nonsense, but of course, by the time she got home, she only found her three sons around the table, alongside with her very sleepy husband. Her daughter must had left to meet that boyfriend of hers, possibly planning their elopement. Oh, the gods may help her!So, in Astrid’s absence, she turned her rage on her husband.“When did you plan to tell me?!” she bellowed. Her sons promptly fell silent, and Alvar, who even though was used to his wife’s loud voice, but, because of his half-awake state, was unable process what was happening, and could only blink in confusion.“What?”“What, what?! That Astrid is… I mean, that Astrid and Hiccup...” she stammered, unable to say the words out loud.“What’s up with Astrid and Hiccup?” Alvar was absolutely clueless—it was apparent even to his enraged wife, which calmed her a little. She took a deep breath, and asked again.“What were you talking about last night with Stoick?” She could almost see a candle being lit behind Alvar’s eyes.“Why didn’t you ask this first, woman? ‘Bout the trading voyage in the summer, of course. I’ve already told you ‘bout that, haven’t I?” He scratched his chin. “But what does it have to do with Astrid and Hiccup?”“Er, nothing, I mean, I hope nothing…” she mumbled, then, without another word, she turned around and left the house, leaving the empty basket on the table. Alvar looked after her, dumbfounded.“Hey, and where is our breakfast?” he called after her, but got no answer. That was when their sons started laughing.Alright, so Alvar might did not know about this whole ordeal, but that didn’t mean that there was no truth in what she’d heard at the market, Ebba was thinking as she was, once again, on her way to the center of the village. And there was only one way to find out if a gossip was true or not—the source had to be found.She had quick luck finding the first woman she heard talking; but of course, she wasn’t hard to find: Ebba was sure that this woman had the widest hips in whole Berk. She was exactly where she was earlier that morning, but alone this time; her partners must have gone to do their household chores, and now she was looking for others to talk—to gossip, reall. And apparently, she seemed to be quite happy to see Ebba.“Good morning, Mrs. Hofferson!” she called from a good twenty steps. Ebba returned the greeting, but didn’t have the time to propose the topic she wanted to talk about, because, without any polite lead-in chit-chat, the woman asked,“Is it true? The news about your daughter, I mean. That you’re going to be a grandma soon.” She was actually smiling. Ebba suppressed the urge to hit the woman.“I most sincerely hope not.” The excitement immediately washed from the other woman’s face; so much for a good gossip. “But I actually wanted to have a word with you about the very same topic.” A spark of hope reappeared in the large woman’s eyes. Ebba just sighed in exasperation. “Don’t you get your hopes up that much. I just wanted to ask who did your hear this from?”The other woman responded without any hesitation.“From Gittan, of courses” She said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Hearing this, Ebba waved a quick goodbye to the woman—she didn’t want to appear to be rude, after all—and went to locate Gittan.And so, her morning quest began in earnest. Thanks to the size of the island, many had already heard the rumor, and many of them even believed it to be true. Ebba went from person to person, trying to find the one who started it all; Gittan, the wife of the engraver pointed to Agot, the head chef of the Mead Hall, who heard from Gry, the vegetable vendor, to whom the story was told by Dagfinn—even some men took part in the gossip-chain—, one of the best hunters in the village, who picked it up from his wife, Ase, who heard it from Grete, who heard it from Carina… and the list went on and on.In the end, Ebba located a very unlikely person as the source of this particular gossip.Gobber the Belch.The blacksmith was deep in work in the smithy, humming a cheerful tone, a sleeping Terror at his feet, with Hiccup nowhere to be found—Ebba took this as a bad sign. As she reached the counter, Gobber looked up from what he was working on and flashed a wide grin at her.“’Morning, Ebba!” A mischievous glint appeared in his eyes. “Don’t tell me that that charming daughter of yours broke her axe again.” He had every reason to be merry about it—he, or most likely Hiccup, had to repair Astrid’s axe at least a dozen times it the last year alone.“No, it’s not the case right now, thank Thor.” She sighed. “I just wanted to ask if you knew anything about Astrid and Hiccup I might not?” She asked hesitantly. Gobber seemed to think about it for a moment, then said:“No, I don’t think so. Why’d you ask?”“There’s been a word in the village. Some people said…”“Oh, I get it! Some people said this, some people said that—Ebba, I thought you knew you ought not believe a word of that madness.” With that, he turned back to his work.“Oh.” Ebba said, feeling a little relieved. “Oh. If you’re so sure that there’s nothing going on between them…”“Well, I didn’t say that.” His mouth pulled into a smirk. “Those two kids, they remind me so of myself when I was their age! Swear, these two are cuter than a baby Terror!” He laughed. “Even this morning—I walked in on them stealin’ kisses. No need to say, they broke apart the moment they saw me. Hiccup, of course, was redder than a Nightmare, and couldn’t stutter out a proper sentence, you know how he is. I told them to go, enjoy this great weather—no need to keep these lovesick teenagers apart.” He shrugged. “But I told the first customer right away how funny they looked, those two kids in love.” He chuckled to himself, not noticing Ebba’s bewilderment.See, remember what I told you about the pot the Terror broke and the stable the Nightmare burned down? Gossip really runs wild in Berk.But Ebba decided that she’d make sure to start those marriage negotiations, the sooner the better. Just to be safe.
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Stoick remembered the day Hiccup was born well. When the midwife gave the babe to him, and he was held his son for the very fist time, he was taken aback how small and delicate he was. The whole thing was no bigger than a loaf of bread; the infant could almost fit into one of his palms. Although he wasn’t an expert in newborns, even he knew that his son was born way too soon, and was supposed to be bigger, stronger.That day, the chief was certain that his firstborn would not live to see his first full moon.This pained him, but he was a Viking, through and through, and so he didn’t show his emotions easily. He didn’t weep. The best he could do was turning his frustration on the first person who entered his house that night—the village elder.It was tradition that after the parents and the midwife, the elder was the first one to see any new addition to the village. After all, it was her job to introduce the babes to the gods and the population of Berk. And even though the elderly woman was well past sixty even then, she was a feisty little thing. Upon arriving, she roughly knocked Stoick’s knee with her walking stick, commanding him to lower the babe so she could get a glimpse at him.She’d seen many infants, and could read them very well, almost being able to read their futures in their still red, wrinkled faces, in their first grimaces. And, oh yes, this one, she knew immediately, this boy was most certainly going to be an interesting lad. A small smile crept to her lips.Stoick openly snorted.“Stop with that now, you!” the elder warned him quietly, but it didn’t lack the sense of authority. There weren’t many people in Berk who would dare to use this tone with the chief, but she was one of them. “The new moon is in three days. We could hold the introduction ceremony then. What do you think?” She added in a much gentler voice. But Stoick was sure the infant wouldn’t last; it was easier in a way—resignation was better than pointless hoping.“I see no point in the whole thing. You know as well as I do that he won’t live long enough for the introducing to matter.” He grumbled. The elder, with one swift motion, hit him in the head with her stick. Even though he wasn’t wearing a helmet, Stoick didn’t even flinch.“Nonsense!” exclaimed the elder. “I’ll tell you now, Stoick The Vast, that this boy is going be a great man one day. Even greater than you. He has a brilliant mind, a brilliant mind indeed, and the soul of a warrior, but by Odin’s name, you are going to have your hands full with him, that’s for sure! Mark my words!”And Stoick remembered.In the end, Hiccup was really introduced to Berk during the next new moon, and the gods most likely were content with the sacrifice, since the little boy, Stoick The Vast’s only heir, as it later turned out, not only lived to see his first full moon, but many more afterwards.As for the elder’s prediction, the second part of it had been proven true soon enough—by destroyed catapults, missing sheep, half-burned houses, and a long list of other things. For the first fifteen years of his life, Hiccup seemed to be doing nothing but causing trouble.Then came the dragon training, then the battle with the Green Death, then the new era with the dragons working alongside with them…And now, looking at his son as he instructed some of the more stubborn Vikings on how to ride a dragon, all calm and so chief-like, pride swelled in Stoick’s chest.And he didn’t need to glance at the village elder to know that she had a rather smug smile on her face.
I told you so.