Heart of a Chief, Soul of a Dragon

Chapter 4

    By the time we landed back on Berk, I was feeling much better, whatever wave passing by a little while before we landed. Still cautious and worried, Hiccup helped me off of Toothless and held onto my hand as we closed in on Gobber's smithy.

"You wanna sit down while I do this?" I shook my head and smiled at him.

"I feel a lot better now, I promise." He raised an eyebrow as he removed his helmet. "It takes more than a little dizziness to knock me down," I teased. He smiled affectionately at me, then leaned down to kiss my temple before pulling me into the smithy.

"The pride of Berk!" Stoick gushed.

"Who finally decided to show up for work." Gobber shot Hiccup a look. "Yay." I giggled and patted his back a couple of times, leaving him to deal with the heat being thrown at him.

"Sorry. Got held up." He turned to his dad as I leaned against the wall. "Hey, Dad, could I have a word?"

"Something you're itching to tell me?" Hiccup looked back at me desperately, trying to douse his father's enthusiasm.

"Not quite the itch you're thinking of, but yes." Stoick handed Hiccup his apron and guided him toward the front, where a large group of people were waiting for their saddles to be made.

"Good man! Now, lesson one. A chief's first duty is to his people, so..." Stoick turned out to the crowd and changed the rune on the placard. "Forty-one? Forty-"

"Could we just talk in private for-"

"-That's me! That's me! I'm next!" The man pushed his way through the rest of the crowd, who retaliated by protesting. "I was ahead of you! Excuse me, I've been here all day!" As he got closer, I recognized him as Starkard. "Okay, I want one of those high seaters, with lots of spikes, and a big stowage compartment."

"Absolutely! You got it, sir!"

I shook my head. Stoick wasn't listening to his son at all, because he was just assuming that Hiccup wanted to tell him that he was ready to become chief.

As Hiccup attempted to get his father to listen to him for more than one second, I looked away from the scene, bringing my attention to pieces of paper pinned against the wooden wall in the back corner. That small section was Hiccup's workplace, buried deep in the smithy so that he could think without worrying about anyone seeing him pacing or muttering to himself. But, that wasn't what made the corner so fond to me. Instead, that honor went to what was on the papers pinned to the wood. While a few different drawings were stuck up to give Hiccup a better look at them, a few remained in a line up at the top, completely untouchable to the outside world. Of course, there were ones of us with our dragons, but right in the center sat the best out of all of them. I hadn't done it, of course, but that didn't make it any less special. It had been done on the day of our impromptu wedding: the two of us stood on the platform that had been built over the water of the cove Hiccup and I often ran to, hands clasped together. A few stray petals and leaves from the flowering trees over our heads drifted down, some gently resting against the glassy surface of the small pond. There were others in the drawing, sure, but even when I stared at the whole thing, it still felt like we were the only two there.

One of the best days of my life, Hiccup always said whenever he caught me looking at it.

"Grump! You let the forge die down again!"

I jumped and turned back to the matter at hand as Grump managed to slug his way around enough to face the forge, then vomited out a large blob of molten lava into it. But it ended up splattering in a few other places, setting some other things on fire. Quickly, I reached out and pulled on the fire extinguisher, putting all of the fires out before they could spread.