The Thunder and Lightning Riders

Chapter 10: I Meant Every Word I Said

Stoick's POV

My son had just said that Berk isn't his home. I know that my son had yelled at me yesterday, but it was probably because he hit his head hard on the ground.
"What do you mean, Berk isn't your home?" I asked him.

He threw his head back and laughed, not a genuine happy laugh, and almost evil, angry laugh. "Gods, you are dense!" He said. Astrid looked sort of angry behind next to him. "Why would this helheim be our home?
You all treated me like trash! I was only treated like an actual person when I was winning dragon training, and even then, it wasn't about me. It was about what I had achieved. You only liked me because you all thought I was becoming a super dragon killer or something!" His forest green eyes, that when he was fifteen showed how nervous he was, now showed a deep, raging fire. A fire that had tried to be hidden, and even now wasn't at full flame. "So, even if I lived here for fifteen years, doesn't mean that this place is my home, or I have any family here. Yes, Stoick is my dad, and Snotlout is my cousin, but they both treated me like dragon sh-" he was going to say something before he noticed younger people and said, "Dung. Dragon dung. Gobber was the only person who treated me like a human being."

A little while after someone timidly raised their hand.
It was Fishlegs Ingerman! "I have a question." He said to Hiccup. Hiccup nodded and Fishlegs continued.
"Yesterday, you said that we had hurt your family, who are they?" He asked.

"Well Fishlegs, this is my family." He said gesturing to the people behind him. "This is Eret," he said while showing them a man with dark hair pulled into a ponytail at the back. "And this is Heather, who you have severely damaged by throwing a net at us, thank  you so much for doing that." He says the last part a little too sarcastically for my taste. Heather was a short girl with black hair pulled into a braid, she had green eyes like Hiccup. She was leaning on to Eret and now scrunched her eyes closed and rubbed her temples.

"We need to take her to a healer Hiccup. She can't wait any longer," Eret seemed to plead him.

Hiccup nodded in agreement, "yes, yes you're right Eret. Take her to the healer." Eret starts to protest then Hiccup holds his hand up and says, "me and Astrid will be fine Eret."

"I can take you to her." Someone offered. It was...
Ruffnut?!? Eret gratefully nodded and picked Heather up like she was his bride and went with Ruffnut.
Fishlegs quickly continued with his questions. "But if you aren't related, how can you be family??"
Hiccup shook his head and smiled, "A family doesn't have to be related, Fishlegs. They just have to be ready to fight for each other. Yes, I'm not fully related to Heather or Eret or the rest of my family back home, but we all are alike somehow."

"Heathers whole village died from an attack and she survived. She had been fighting for survival when we found her. (A/N not sure if this is actually her backstory or not.)"

"Eret was a hunter, A trapper. His family disowned him, so he joined the dragon trappers at 15 years old.
He realized how wrong his work was and joined us."

"I left because I could never be accepted. No matter how hard I tried. I knew that there would always, always, be something that my village found wrong about me."

"And Astrid came with me. So, we built up a new life. Outside of the archipelago, with a new home, and a new family. We tried to forget about Berk, about the people who couldn't accept us. Every time we thought that we could try and change your minds, there was always some memory that reminded us that Berkians are too stubborn to change."

"And the world has moved on without you all. Whilst you kill dragons, we convince people to help dragons.
But just because the world has changed, doesn't mean that everyone will. Especially Berkians."

What he said sat hard with us all. Hiccup was right. I had heard of villages who nursed dragons back to health and set them free of trappers.

"My son?" I asked. "You must come back. You are the rightful heir to Berk."

His face that had gone soft while talking went stone cold and icy. "I am not your son Stoick. If everything from yesterday hadn't sunk in then, it should have by now. I meant every word that I said, but if that wasn't enough, I'll try again. I won't come back. I have a life, I have my own people to take care of. I am not the heir to Berk, as I haven't been since I left. No one cared for me when I was a scrawny boy, who could barely pick up a dagger, but when I come back, 7 years later, after I become a known man in and outside of the archipelago, I suddenly am the heir to Berk. What kind of logic is this? And on top of all of this, you shoot down my dragon, which means I can't get Toothless up for a month, then you hurt Heather, which means she can't do anything like flying her dragon, which means she is also probably down for a month. And I bet you think that I hit my head yesterday which is why I said all those things? No. I meant every word I said and that still stands. I maybe once was your son Stoick, but from this point onward, you are nothing to me but the chief of Berk." His words sounded as venomous as they had been before, but this time I knew this really was what he was saying.

"Hiccup," Astrid started. Hiccup turned his head to look at her and she said, "We should go check up on Heather, you know. Then we should get started on training. You also need to build Toothless's tail up again."
"Alright. Let's go." Hiccup told her. "May we use the kill ring?" He asked. I slowly nodded. I needed to build up my relationship with him again. But how?

Hiccups POV

I sighed as we got out of the great hall. I started down the steps and Astrid grabbed my arm and pulled me behind them. "Why are you lying to me?" She asked.
"What do you mean?" I asked, trying to sound casual.
"I mean, you always say that you don't care about the Berkians anymore, you don't care about what they did to you, and how the past is in the past, but there you exploded at Stoick? Hiccup, I know that there is something you aren't telling me, or you're lying to me."

Astrid was like a lie detector. It was extremely hard to plan surprises for her. "Alright. I do blame Stoick for making my life here a living helheim. I was starting to get over it, then he knocks us out of the sky! Now, Toothless won't be up in the air for a little while and Heather is hurt." I told her. She nodded her head and we walked the rest of the way to Gothi's hut in silence.
While we were climbing up the stair, man were there a lot of stairs, I was thinking. Why does Stoick keep calling me son? I know he heard me yesterday, so why isn't it sinking in? Also, can we teach Berk a better life? Maybe Gobber and Fishlegs, but everyone else will need Stoick's approval. Stupid Vikings. Can't think for themselves and need their leaders to do all the thinking for them. My train of thought was erupted as I banged my forehead into a door. "Ow." I murmured and I rubbed my forehead. I opened the door and we both walked in. We saw Heather on a bed and Eret beside her. Gothi was mixing something in a cauldron in the corner.

"Hello." Astrid said to Gothi. She looked up and nodded her head at Astrid, and then went back to her cauldron.

Gobber came in and said, "Ah! 'Ello Hiccup and Astrid!
Nice to see ya." At that moment Gothi started scribbling in a sand pit on the ground next to her. "Oh uh she says, 'The girl is getting a lot beggar' beggar? Why would — Aye! Lady! You're writin' ain't wha' it used to be," but when Goth threatened him with her staff he said, "but your swing, strong as ever. She says that the girl is getting better. Not beggar."

I smiled. It was good to see that some things never changed, no matter which years you could compare them to. Gobber promptly came over and gave me a bone crushing hug. I would never admit it, but Thor had I missed those. "Gobber! Can't...Breathe.suffocating... Going...to...die!" When Gobber finally let go I engulfed as much air as I could.

"Aye Lass. It's just so good to see ya." He walked over to Astrid and gave her a hug as well. We stayed in the room with Gobber and told him some of our adventures to pass the time it would take Heather to wake up. He asked questions, and we gave answers and vice versa. We confirmed that we were the ones that saved them 2 years ago.

Late in the night I looked at him and said, "Gobber, out of everyone in Berk, I missed you the most."

Hello peeps! I'm in shooting for 5 chapter copy and pasted during my break. I'm writing the 24th chapter as well, which I will post after all of them.

Sammy