HTLANF : Gift from a Lover

Chapter 9

A few days had passed by since Kala left. It was odd to see the village without a single dragon milling about nowadays, and yet that is exactly how it had been.

I tried my best to keep from worrying over her, but it seemed harder than expected. I would always wait to hear the jumping on the roof before I got up and around for the day, but after thirty minutes of waiting I just gave up each morning. So, when I heard a rhythmic banging on the roof this morning, my hopes were through the roof.

I jumped out of bed and quickly got dressed, then rushed outside as soon as my prosthetic was on properly.

"Kala! You're finally back–whoa!"

In my rush to get outside, I forgot to look where I was going and slipped on the sheet of ice from earlier this week, and I fell to the frozen ground. I groaned in pain as I slowly sat up and looked at the roof of the hut. It wasn't Kala.

Stoick was up on the roof fixing it up and setting up decorations.

'Well, there goes my hopes of going on a morning flight..' I thought dejectedly as I slowly stood and got clear of the ice.

Stoick looked down and smiled at me.

"Morning, Hiccup!"

"Morning chief." I replied as I whipped snow off of my clothes.

"Glad you're up! I was looking for your helmet."

"M-my helmet? What for?" I asked, tilting my head.

'I don't even have my helmet. It fell into the ocean earlier this week. Hopefully Kala can find it..'

"Odin needs a place to put your goodies." Stoick said happily.

"Y-yeah, right..I'll get on that. Great..." I sighed and kicked some snow.

"Hold on!" Stoick said as I turned to leave, and he slid down the ladder and came over to me. "Alright..come on. What's on your mind? Out with it. I know you don't consider me your father right now, but I can tell when something's botherin' ya. So, what is it?"

"I just..I'm worried about Kala..She's been gone for three days now..I didn't think her season would be as long as the others'.." I explained as I looked at the ground holding my arm.

Stoick rested a hand on my shoulder in comfort.

"I understand. I'm sure she's doing fine. Who knows, maybe she's with the other dragons by now. Playing with the wee ones."

I looked up a bit. "You think so?"

"Of course! Listen..I know what it's like to miss someone you love this time of year. But what do we do when they can't be here for the holiday? We celebrate them! And I imagine that is exactly what Kala would want you to do. Right?"

I thought over what he said and nodded with a small smile.

"You're right. She made me promise to not worry about her the entire time."

"Good! Then go get that helmet! We've had enough disappointment around here." Stoick said as he patted my shoulder, then he went back up to the roof to finish up with the decorations and repairs.

I took a deep breath and decided to help with preparations throughout the village. I made my way down the hill and helped with picking up here and there to make sure the plaza was good to go for Snoggletog.

After a couple hours, all that was left for me to do was take a set of oars back to the docks. As I was walking down the path, I bumped into Fishlegs. He had a large basket of fish for some reason.

'That's odd. Everyone's huts were freshly restocked just a couple days ago. Why does he have that basket?' I thought with a raised brow.

"Hey Fishlegs. You hungry? There's enough fish there to feed a dragon!"