Chapter Text
ᚠᛟᚱᛗᚨᛚᛁ
[1]The chiefs bones were old and weary.
He knew his time was nearing. After living such a long life, longer than most of his friends and family, he was more or less ready for death. He spent decades making up for lost time—he was known far and wide by his name, as an excellent chief, as a diplomat, as a dragon master. He was known for his creations and his words, of the peaceful treaties he forged between tribes back in his youth. He was respected and loved by many, and feared by some as well.
However, his youth was far, far behind him.
His hands and face were saggy, wrinkly, and spotted, his hair and beard a thinning pure white with no trace of that reddish-brown from his youth. His body was thin and frail, every joint knobby beneath weathered skin. His shoulders (never broad to begin with) had rounded with age, giving him a slight stoop. The only things that remained the same were the bright green eyes, a scar on his chin, the same old smile, and a missing left leg.
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was ninety years old.
He’d lived longer than most Vikings, save for Gothi, who’d been ancient and died only maybe twenty years ago. Normally, living to be old was seen as dishonorable, a sign that one didn’t spend their lives fighting for what mattered to them or defending what was theirs to their fullest potential. But almost everyone in the Archipelago knew Hiccup had done exactly that—even if he had brought a more peaceful era to Berk and the islands that surrounded, he’d still fought with all of his heart and soul for dragons, his people, and a future he’d never get to see. He just managed to live through it. His best guess as to why was that the Norns were taunting him.
Hiccup might have looked his age, but he sure didn’t act it. He still had the soul of a young, clever man, eager to explore the world and find new dragons. He carried himself with a youthful gait despite the old, rickety bones, and he cracked jokes with the same sarcastic humor. He’d grown confident over his many decades, but he still retained that awkward charm that Berk seemed to love so dearly. His stubbornness knew no bounds—he could often be found trying to sneak away to fly off into the horizon with Toothless, before being scolded and told that he was too old to fly anymore. A ridiculous statement, he thought. One couldn’t be ‘too old’ to fly when the sky was where they belonged.
But despite this, he was well aware of his own bodies limits. Over the last week, he had slowed down considerably, knowing what was coming—he suspected he had a few days to a week left. No one else knew, and he didn’t exactly know how to tell them. What was he supposed to do, summon a meeting in the Great Hall and be all “hey everyone, guess what, I’m dying!”
Hiccup Haddock had done a lot of stupid things in his life, but that would be the worst, and he refused to go out that way.
So he acted like everything was normal, sitting in the town square of Berk, right in front of an unlit fireplace, and reading a book. He wore a fur cape on his back, connected to a black tunic by two large metal clasps that had a Night Fury’s likeness carved into them, and the chieftain's belt strapped around his waist. There was a soft breeze easing through the village, carrying the laughter of children and of minor Wind spirits. If Hiccup looked up from his book, he would be able to see a nisse[2] scurrying across the clearing, clutching its red cap and narrowly avoiding getting chomped on by a Terrible Terror.
Behind him, Toothless slept, curled up close against Hiccup’s side. While the chief hadn’t told anyone that his time was nearly up, his best friend was very aware. Maybe it was because of how attuned they were to each other after seventy-five years of friendship, and maybe it was that they truly were each others other half. Whatever the case, the dragon knew, and he stayed close by Hiccup’s side the whole time, even refusing to fly on his own or with someone else.
Hiccup worried a bit about how Toothless would take his death. Dragons lived at least twice as long as humans, and he wondered if they’d be able to reunite one day. Hopefully, but Hiccup was sure he was going to Helheim, as he most certainly wasn’t dying a glorious death on the battlefield anytime soon. He hoped Toothless would spend the remaining hundred years of his life happily and freely.
He sighed as he looked at his book. It was a simple legend about magical creatures he had obtained through trading at the Northern Markets at least forty years ago. He’d read it countless times over, but occasionally he’d look through it again, just for the sake of it. It reminded him of someone long gone. “Well, bud,” he managed to say, “I think I’m done reading for the day. What do you say?”
Toothless warbled softly, gently nudging Hiccup’s back with his wing.
“Yeah, we can stay right here. Watch the sun set. It’s beautiful today.”
It was beautiful out—there was a nice chill hanging in the air, and it was almost evening. He’d already eaten dinner, leaving him with nothing to do but enjoy the quiet end of the day. It was the kind of evening Hiccup loved most.
Not the grand ones filled with celebrations or dragon races or speeches from the chief. Just quiet evenings, the sort where Berk carried on around him without needing anything from him at all. A change from his youth, where he had loved nothing more than the celebrations full of drunken laughter and cheers and noise. Once upon a time, there’d been a boy who’d sat beside him for evenings, cracking jokes and nudging Hiccup in the ribcage.
Hiccup lowered the book into his lap and watched the village through half-lidded eyes. A pair of teenagers hurried past carrying fishing nets, someone laughing from their house. Far overhead, a flock of dragons wheeled through the orange-and-gold sky, their silhouettes cutting across the sinking sun and painting long shadows onto the ground. He could see his house from where he sat, the one he’d stubbornly rebuilt time after time again.
For all that had changed over the last several decades, the village of Berk remained stubbornly itself. People worked, dragons flew, the sun set and rose again.
Berk was doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing: living.
That thought brought a small smile to his face.
For most of his life, he’d been terrified of leaving things unfinished. There had always been another problem to solve, another mystery to chase, another disaster waiting just over the horizon. He’d traveled a lot and seen countless things go wrong. But now, watching the village bustle around him, he realized there was very little left that needed him. Very little. There was still one promise he’d never quite managed to let go of—seventy years of waiting should have been enough time to stop expecting the impossible, but Hiccup was stubborn.
There was still a lot that needed to be done, but Hiccup wouldn’t be able to be around for that. At least Hiccup started what he had left for him.
Toothless let out a soft rumbling sigh beside him, and Hiccup absently scratched beneath the dragon’s jaw. The old Night Fury immediately leaned into the touch, practically melting against him.
“Still needy after all these years, huh?” Hiccup murmured.
Toothless responded with an indignant snort and a whack of his tail against Hiccup’s head, and Hiccup chuckled.
The sound had barely left him when a distant shout echoed across the square. At first, he paid it no mind. Berk was never quiet for long.
Then the shout was joined by another. And another. And suddenly there was the unmistakable sound of dozens of pounding feet.
“CHIEF!”
Hiccup sighed in defeat as a flood of children came barreling toward him across the town square, heading right towards him with no signs of stopping.
“Chief! Chief! Chief!”
The cries overlapped into one loud and excited blur as kids swarmed him before he could even straighten from where he’d been sitting hunched over beside Toothless.
“Chief, guess what—”
“We found something—”
“In the Hall!”
“You have to come see—”
“No, we brought it!”
“Hey, tell him the other part first!”
Hiccup blinked at the whirlwind surrounding him, momentarily overwhelmed, the book in his hands entirely forgotten. Toothless’s ear nubs perked in amusement and the dragon made a low rumbling sound—laughing at Hiccup, of course.
“Oh, don’t you start,” Hiccup muttered toward him before turning back to his young crowd. He set his book down to the floor.
The children continued circling him, voices piling over one another so quickly he could barely pick out individual words. One of the younger boys was hopping in place from excitement, and another much younger child (maybe three years old) had somehow ended up hanging halfway off Hiccup’s arm like a scarf.
Hiccup couldn’t help the smile tugging at his face.
Oh, kids. He’d never been especially good with them—Fishlegs had always been the patient one, the one who could answer endless questions about dragons without looking ready to collapse halfway through. Hiccup, meanwhile, had spent most of his younger years awkwardly avoiding children entirely and stumbling around explanations that the kids normally couldn’t understand.
Though, he had gotten better, thanks to someone.
A memory stirred in the back of his mind, of snow crunching under boots, bright laughter echoing through Berk, frost curling over wooden railings while a reckless idiot taught half the village children how to sled down rooftops.
Hiccup’s smile softened before the memory faded away.
Still, despite everything, like how exhausting children could be, he rather liked them. He could never help but smile at their excitement and barrage of questions, especially when it was about things he liked—for example, dragons.
“Hold on, hold on,” he said, lifting both hands in surrender. He carefully pulled the three-year-old off of himself and placed the kid on the floor. “I can’t understand a single word any of you are saying.” A few of the children snickered. “One at a time, please?”
Some of the kids shuffled sheepishly as they realized how loud they’d been, a few others still vibrating with barely-contained excitement. But the noise did slowly dial down.
Finally, a little girl stepped forward from the middle of the group—Ingrid, Hiccup recalled. She was only six years old, wild fiery red hair put in three braids framing a round face and big blue eyes staring up at her old and rickety chief. Despite apparently being chosen as spokesperson, she looked deeply uncertain about it now that all eyes were on her.
Her hands were tucked behind her back as she rocked nervously on her heels.
“We were in the Great Hall,” she began carefully, “and we found this book.” She glanced behind, as though checking the others approved of her explanation. “A-and we’ve heard the story,” she continued. “Lots of times. But Lark said we should look inside it and—”
“You wrote it!”
The interruption came from an older kid near the back who looked physically incapable of remaining quiet any longer: Lark, a stocky little boy with thick curly blond hair and big front teeth.
“You’re one of the people who wrote it,” he repeated, staring at Hiccup with sparkling brown eyes. “We didn’t know that before! Our parents always just read it to us, but this time we looked at the front and your name was there and—”
“And Fishlegs, he was there too,” said a second. “I mean, not surprised Chief wrote it, he’s in it!”
Ingrid brightened, evidently beyond relieved the burden of speaking was not solely hers alone. She pulled a large book from behind her back with both hands, nearly dropping it from the weight.
“We thought,” she said, beaming now, “that maybe you could read it to us.”
Hiccup reached over and took the book from her small hands.
The leather cover was worn smooth with age. He traced his fingers carefully over the familiar carvings pressed into it—dragons and snowflakes and flowers, the runes that had been stamped faded slightly over the decades from use.
His chest tightened. Gods, this thing was old now.
For a moment, he simply stared at it.
He remembered writing parts of it by lantern light with cramped fingers, remembered arguments over wording. He remembered that boy sitting by Hiccup’s side each night, insisting no, that’s not what I was doing!, and trying to talk about things that were beyond Hiccup’s time, like what ‘Christmas lights’ were and attempting to explain how they worked. ‘Light bulbs’ sounded like magic, but the boy had insisted it wasn’t.
“I…I don’t know,” he started hesitantly.
Immediately, the children groaned.
“Why not?!”
“Come on, Chief!”
“You have to!”
“Please please please please pllleaaaaaseeeeee?!”
Hiccup cringed, turning to look behind at Toothless for support. The dragon stared back at him with wide, innocent eyes: Really? You’re going to say no?
This chief scowled. Traitor.
Hiccup sighed and turned back to the kids. I have enough time for one more story, he decided. Besides, it was a story he held near and dear to his heart.
“Alright,” he conceded. Immediately, the kids started cheering so loudly that a few Hooligans passing by turned to stare at them in confusion. “But,” Hiccup added hastily, “this is a very long story.”
The warning accomplished absolutely nothing.
The children had already scattered in every direction gathering stools, blankets, baskets, and anything else they could sit on. One boy dragged an entire bench halfway across the square with determined grunting while another child attempted to carry a stool bigger than she was. She nearly fell over at least twice, but her dragons kept helping her up.
“We might not finish tonight,” Hiccup tried again. “And are your parents even aware where you all are?”
“It’s fine!” Ingrid called cheerfully while plopping herself down cross-legged onto a blanket. A tiny Terrible Terror immediately curled into her lap. “We told them we’d be with you!”
“That somehow does not reassure me,” Hiccup muttered.
Within minutes the children had assembled themselves in a crooked semicircle around him. Small dragons settled among them in piles of scales and wings, a Gronkle hatchling snoring loudly beside one boy while another child absentmindedly braided flowers into a Deadly Nadder’s tail spines. Hiccup looked at them before glancing at the sky, watching the sun ever so slowly sink into the ocean. He turned to Toothless. “Hey bud, mind lighting the fire for us?”
Toothless cooed before turning his head toward the firepit nearby and releasing a small controlled blast of purple. The bundled wood ignited instantly, crackling as sparks spiraled upward into the cooling evening air.
The children collectively “ooooh’d” despite having seen Toothless do that hundreds of times before.
Another thing Hiccup liked about kids—they were very easily amazed, even by things they’d seen countless times before.
Hiccup looked down at the book again. His old hands trembled slightly as he opened the cover, smiling at the signatures inside. There were four total, two written in runes, the other two in a language unknown to the Hooligans. His fingers lingered over the signature closest to his own.
Finally, Hiccup took a slow breath before straightening (his back protesting weakly) and Toothless purred, nudging Hiccup with his nose. He reached over to one of the satchels attached to Toothless’s saddle and pulled something out—a small, rounded wooden doll no bigger than his pinky finger, painted with blues and whites. He paused for a moment, thumb rubbing over the stylized face and the two ice-like eyes. After so many years of having it, even despite his best efforts, the doll’s paint was fading. He used to repaint it anytime he noticed the wear—he’d spent entire evenings hunched over the little figure, determined to preserve every detail—but Hiccup didn’t trust his shaky hands to do so anymore.
“This story,” he began, a smile forming across his face, “is full of magic and wonder, dragons and people, frost and fire, battles and stupidity and more near-death experiences than anyone involved probably should’ve survived.” A few kids giggled. “It has tragedy, love, friendship, and loss. It’s the story of how the archipelago and Berk itself were saved.”
He set the small doll in front of the kids. They scooted closer to get a better look at it with wide eyes, hissing at each other to not touch it and asking what it was.
Hiccup didn’t answer, simply clearing his throat for dramatic effect and picking up the book. “This is the tale of Jökull Frosti—”
“And Hérimundr!” a boy interrupted from somewhere near the middle. “Don’t forget him!” A few children nodded in fierce agreement.
Hiccup huffed out a quiet laugh. “And Hérimundr,” he agreed. “I was getting to him. Don’t worry, I won’t forget anybody.” It was true. Over the last seventy years, he had told this story so many times he didn't even need the book. He had every line memorized, every dramatic pause down to the tee. Hiccup probably could’ve recited the entire thing in his sleep. But the kids were staring up at him so excitedly, he decided to keep it in his hands and pretend.
Hiccup closed his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath as images flashed through his mind. For just a second, they were so vivid he could almost mistake them for reality: An impish grin sharp with mischief belonging to a face that had long since faded from his memory, with a shepherd’s staff hooked over his shoulder; and a tattooed warrior surrounded by kids, smiling as they climbed all over him.
Laughter and tears, chaos and stillness.
Memories he would forever hold dear until his final breath—those of the boy he loved, and the other of a friend.
A part of him felt silly, still waiting for the smallest chance he’d see that smile again. He’d lived the majority of his adult life on memories of what they’d been, now turned into a story for others to hear—Hiccup would rather be by his side than retelling what remained of the boy he’d lost.
But he’d happily wait more, as long as needed. He’d happily tell this story, for it was all he had left.
“And it begins,” Hiccup said, eyes fluttering open and a gentle, longing smile forming on his lips, “in a distant land that we can only dream of, taking place over a thousand years from now.
“It starts with Winter itself.”