Found again (HTTYD FF)

★29★

After a moment of silence, when no one in the room moved, Hiccup allowed Valka to embrace him. It was a strange feeling, just standing there as she gave him a tight hug. Just the mere fact that anyone - a human at that - was hugging him at all was strange. The fear hadn't completely left him, though, so he didn't return the hug. He silently hoped it didn't hurt Valka (he had a soft heart, but he never wanted to fully admit it).

Several moments passed before Valka released him from her tight grip. Hiccup looked up to meet the eyes of Stoick, who was still standing on his original spot. It was clear on his face that he was struggling with his own feelings and thoughts. Eventually a happy smile, or at least something resembling a smile, gradually began to spread across his face as he finally accepted that Hiccup had returned, that something had happened that neither of them had expected, something seemingly impossible.

Hiccup himself didn't quite believe it yet. The fear of waking up from one of his craziest dreams was growing by the second, but he pushed it aside. It wasn't something he should be dealing with right now. Right now his main focus should be on reuniting with his parents. On a fresh start in his life, on a potentially better part of his life. He had no reason to think that a life with his real family wouldn't be better than the one he had been living; after all, he had other people on his side now, even if there were only three of them so far.

"You must be tired," Valka guessed.

She was right - Hiccup would prefer to sleep until the next day, which was long, considering it was only morning. He had no idea how Valka had guessed that. Had she seen inside his head? Or was it because she was his mother, and mothers knew such things internally? He didn't know if it worked that way in humans, but it was commonplace in dragons, part of their parental instincts.

He nodded - afraid of what would come out of his mouth if he spoke now. The unease of being around other humans still clung to him like a tick, it didn't want to leave him alone. Hiccup didn't particularly want this unease to go away, it kept his senses sharpened to the max. He didn't want to get rid of it... for now. He needed to be sure first.

"Do you want to rest?" She asked. Hiccup answered her again with an unsure nod.

He hadn't slept since he'd started working on his prosthetic - not much anyway. And that was quite a few days ago. While he shared the dragons' endurance, he couldn't match them. After so many sleepless days, sleep seemed more and more appealing. 

"I still don't trust them. What if they attack us while you sleep?" Toothless growled softly. "We'd better get out of here before something bad happens. We shouldn't have come here."

"What? It was your idea! Why do you suddenly not like it?" Hiccup protested. He hadn't expected Toothless to suggest such a thing. After all, he was the one who had arranged all this, so why had he suddenly decided it was a bad idea?

"It doesn't matter who thought of this. It doesn't matter if these people have a reason or not, people very often do things for no reason - I thought you knew that already. When was the last time you saw a person do something for a compelling reason? Never forget how unpredictable people are - never." Hiccup thought Toothless had finished speaking and so was about to reply, but the Night Fury was quicker. "If they really didn't want to attack, why would the bigger one have the axe, hmm?"

That was the first moment Hiccup noticed the axe by Stoick's side. Suddenly, he had nothing to object to Toothless. Why did Stoick have a weapon if he was really harmless?

"What are you two talking about?"

"N-nothing," Hiccup stammered, suddenly unable to tear his gaze away from the sharp weapon, the deadly thing he feared so much when it was in human hands - when it was too close. And this was too close. He backed away, unsure whether he should try his luck and stay or rather disappear.