For Milady

FORTY THREE: New Understandings

FORTY THREE: New Understandings

Sometime around midnight, Hiccup had rested his wife down on his old bed upstairs with Valkana's crib at her side while he had remained in the chair, staring at his sleeping father and rolling everything that had happened around in his head. Toothless had managed to curl around his seat and he was aware of the warm bulk of the Night Fury behind him-a dragon that would inspire awe and fear when he was in the skies but which often acted like a giant puppy or kitten when with his master. There was a small rumble as he snored and Hiccup felt a small smile tugging at his lips. Toothless was his best friend, his protector and confidante and had saved his life so many times...and he honestly had no clue what he would do if he ever lost the dragon. But equally, he had no clue how he could ever react if he lost Astrid. The months he had been away from her had been an aeon of torment, every night fractured by nightmares, imagining her hurt or sick or dead, imagining hunters torturing her or her losing the baby...or her hating him...and the guilt had been a constant pain in his chest, eating away at him until he had finally broken, knowing he was out of time and using methods he never would have considered before...and taking lives...

"I am a disgrace," he murmured. "I've betrayed everything you taught me. I didn't just use force to get back what was mine-I used it to intimidate, the terrorise, to make them fear me...and that's not what a Chief does. A Chief should be just and fair, he should be respected for his strength and should stand for the needs of the tribe. But I didn't. I came in blasting, yelling at them to hand Astrid back and terrorising them I sunk their ships, I killed men and I relished in the reputation I had created because I wanted whoever had her to release her. But...none of them did. She was a prisoner on Granite Isle...and I never knew. I could have found her and saved her from having to fight for her life. I failed her on every level."

"Not...quite..." Stoick rasped, his hand tightening around his son's. "You found her when she needed you most. You were there for the birth of your child. I wasn't allowed in the room."

Imagining his enormous father hovering over-protectively over his now-dead mother, Hiccup nodded absently.

"I can see that," he commented. "I mean...not exactly inconspicuous...and I doubt Gothi could get past you to do whatever an actual Healer does at the birth..."

"Always...the cracks 'bout...my weight..." Stoick commented with a small smile.

"Fishbone talking here," Hiccup reminded him. "And I get all the leg jokes as well..."

Stock chuckled and then his hand tightened around his son.

"I used to be called 'Stoick the Vindictive'," he admitted slowly. "And I didn't always behave in a way that my Tribe would have been proud of. There was this man-Reynir Ornssen-from the Burplout Tribe who visited Berk when I was a new Chief. He was a grifter, a chancer, a man who could talk all four legs off a yak and crooked as they come...and he started making advances at Valka-your mother. It was around the time I was starting to court her...though I was about as tongue-tied as you were..."

Rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously, Hiccup nodded. "Gods, I was so pathetic I didn't dare say anything for months and years...because I was so scared she wouldn't feel anything for me...and I was terrified that I would lose her friendship if I said anything. But it took me almost losing her completely...to the Hunters in the ocean, to the Scourge of Odin, to blindness and finally when Viggo held his sword to her throat that I knew...I couldn't live without her. I mean...I told her I loved her when she lost her sight...and I asked her to marry me as soon as I got her in my arms after Viggo died." He stuttered to a halt. "Except somehow he isn't..." Then he looked at his father's amused gaze. "Sorry...rambling..."