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As soon as Astrid had finished talking to her newly formed team, Stoick walked over to his son. Hiccup was staring at Astrid with a proud smile on his face, but his brow was furrowed, his expression one of uneasy concentration. The Chief did a quick once-over of his son, and was more than surprised to find the broken shaft of an arrow protruding from Hiccup’s right shoulder.
“Hiccup…!” Stoick started, shock in his voice.
Hiccup’s expression hardened, and for a moment, Stoick caught another glimpse of the Chief that his son would one day be.
“Leave it. I know,” Hiccup replied in a hushed tone.
Stoick watched as his son turned to Astrid with a soft smile.
“Go rest up, Astrid. You’ve earned it,” Hiccup said before turning to Snotlout. “You too, Snotlout. I think we all need to take a day. I’m just going to show my father some of the new maps. Go and settle in, tell the others to do the same. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Hiccup waited until both Riders were heading back up towards their homes before turning to Stoick. “Do you have a moment, dad? I might need your help.”
Stoick looked dumfounded. “With…” he gestured towards the young not-Viking’s shoulder.
Hiccup let out a small laugh, uninjured arm moving up so his leather-clad hand covered his mouth. “It’s in an awkward place. I’d usually take care of it myself, but I can’t see what I’m stitching.”
The Chief frowned. “Hiccup, why didn’t you let Gothi take care of it?”
“Gothi doesn’t stitch, dad,” Hiccup said, looking back at his father as they walked. “She packs wounds and she burns them shut, but she doesn’t stitch. I have enough… Nevermind, it’s just easier to stitch, less painful too. And the wound will heal well.”
“Hiccup,” Stoick said in warning, knowing his son was keeping something from him.
“Don’t worry about it, dad,” Hiccup smiled. “C’mon, I don’t think you’ve ever been inside mine and Toothless’ hut.”
Toothless purred beside Hiccup, nudging at his friend’s leg. The Night Fury nodded his head at Hiccup’s arm, and the Rider smiled, kneeling down on one leg to scratch under his dragon’s chin.
“I’m alright, Toothless, you know me. I’ll be good as new in a few days,” he reassured.
Hiccup mounted Toothless, and waited to Stoick to saddle-up before flying off into the rose-swirled sky. The journey to Hiccup’s hut wasn’t long on their dragons, and Stoick happily admired the workmanship of the Edge along the way, asking questions about each new contraption he saw. They soon landed at Hiccup’s hut, placed high on the Edge, close enough to see danger, but far enough away that he could have some semblance of quiet.
Stoick marvelled at Hiccup’s hut for a moment, taking in the mechanical features with a sense of awe. Hiccup raised the door, and waited for his father and Toothless to go inside before he did. Stoick’s dragon stood outside the hut, keeping watch. Hiccup shut the door behind them, the chain clinking.
The large room they were in was simple, but it was filled with papers of designs that were cast across the desk and floor. Pieces of metal and tools littered what Stoick believed to be a workstation, and the oddest flat, black stone adjacent to Hiccup’s bed.
“That’s Toothless’ bed. He likes to heat up the place he sleeps,” Hiccup explained, untying his arm-guards as he walked through the room.
Stoick leafed through some of his son’s work while Hiccup pulled his armor off, piece by piece. The shoulder seemed the most difficult, and he almost went forward to help, but Hiccup had the leather piece off before he could take a step. Toothless walked forward and handed Hiccup a piece of woollen cloth.
“Thanks, bud,” he smiled, unclasping the torso of his armor in preparation, and placing a corner of the cloth between his teeth.
The green-eyed not-Viking clenched his right hand, reached over his right shoulder with his left, and yanked the broken arrow out of his skin. Stoick could see every pained line of his son’s face come to life in the light of the setting sun. It was a shock to his system, and it pulled forward the memory of holding his son through the amputation of his leg and the fevered nights that followed. It seemed so long ago now.
Hiccup threw the arrow to the ground where Toothless growled at it. His armor followed soon after, laying in a heap on the floor. Toothless followed his Rider over to the desk chair, where the brunet said down heavily, straddling the chair backwards. He pushed the cloth to his wound, hissing at the feel of the fabric. Toothless lay his head on Hiccup’s leg: a welcome distraction. The Rider smoothed his hand over the Night Fury’s crown and ears, eliciting a purr from the dragon.
Stoick watched all of this in silence, eyeing his son’s every move, and waiting for some voiced words of help. Hiccup only continued what seemed to be a routine; moving to pull a bucket of water from by the desk, dipping the cloth into it and dabbing at his wound. He touched the cut with a clean and dry side of the cloth, and noted the lesser amount of blood on its surface.
“Yeah, that’ll work,” he murmured to himself, pulling open a draw to his left and retrieving a box.
Hiccup opened the box, and fetched a needle and some thread from its confines, looking at Stoick expectantly.
“I know you remember how to sew, so, y’know, if you would?” He gestured uncomfortably to his shoulder.
Stoick came forward and inspected Hiccup’s shoulder, seeing that his son had made the tear bigger so he could see the wound, but it was awkward. Hiccup sensed his hesitation.
“What’s wrong?” the younger man asked.
“I’ve not got steady sewing hands, Hiccup, you know that.”
“Can’t you get to it like that?” Hiccup questioned, a frown pulling at his lips.
“Son! Just take your shirt off, I’ve seen it all before,” Stoick said, rolling his eyes.
Instead of complaining more, or becoming embarrassed like Stoick thought Hiccup would, his son suddenly looked downcast.
“Not in a few years, dad,” the Dragon Rider said, pulling off his red shirt, the last layer of clothing keeping his body hidden.
Stoick couldn’t hold in the gasp that left his lips. Hiccup’s sun-kissed skin was strewn with scars. He looked past the well-defined muscles on his son’s lithe body, and saw wounds only a warrior could properly identify. Arrow marks and burns, pink and white lines of erratic thickness from varying weapons. Hiccup held out his left arm and inspected it, a faded red burn raking over his once-perfect skin. Still healing, one wound among many.
“Occupational Hazard,” Hiccup said, a self-deprecating laugh in his voice as he echoed his own words to his father. “The price of protection.”
Dragon Rider to Chief, they stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, and Stoick understood. The price to protect their own was always themselves. A Chief protects his lands, his people, and his loved ones, and that’s exactly what Hiccup had been doing all these years. He’d protected them all.
Stoick couldn’t help visualising the tiny freckled boy he’d once held in his arms, and comparing him to the man that sat before him now; grown, passionate, a Chief in his own right. A Dragon Rider. The first Dragon Rider. And he couldn’t have been more proud.
Hiccup smiled at the look on his father’s face, the look of pride, and turned back around to face Toothless. Giving the dragon a warm smile before placing his arms on the back on the chair. The injured not-Viking rested his chin on top of his wrist, and noticeably relaxed his shoulders, strong chest rising and falling with a deep breath. Hiccup waved his father on.
Stoick made quick work of the small, but deep, wound. Threading the needle through his son’s skin with only a minor amount of instability in his sewing technique. Hiccup grimaced at the final pull of the thread.
“Do you have anything to cut this with?” Stoick asked, staring at his son’s shoulder.
Hiccup reached down into his boot, swiftly withdrawing a dagger, and tossing it in the air to flip it around. He caught it with a practised ease, and passed it to Stoick over his shoulder, handle-first. The Chief stared in shock for a moment before taking the blade from his son, and slicing through the thin thread.
Toothless bounded away as Hiccup stood, opening a draw near their beds and pulling out another shirt with his teeth. He walked back over to Hiccup and sat in front of him on his hind legs, eyes wide, gaze flicking towards the cloth in his mouth.
“Thanks, bud,” Hiccup smiled, affectionately scratching under the Night Fury’s chin.
The green-eyed teen quickly pulled his shirt on, almost inaudibly hissing when his stitches pulled. It was red, just a shade or two deeper than the fin Hiccup had created for Toothless. Stoick wondered for a moment if Hiccup new how well red hid blood stains. The Chief watched as his son picked up his other shirt, inspecting the tear in the material.
“Lucky shot, right under the shoulder pad,” he muttered with a frown, looking to Toothless. “Looks like it’s back to the drawing board, huh, bud?”
Toothless growled at the broken arrow on the floor. Hiccup held out his hands in a calming stance. “Alright, alright, it’s okay. It’s out now,” he said, picking up the arrow and opening a draw. “Let me just put this away, we’ll need to study the head and design later.”
The black dragon glared at draw Hiccup placed the arrow in, making a low, angry sound in his throat. Hiccup placed a hand on his head.
“It’s alright, I’m okay.”
Toothless looked at Hiccup with wide green eyes, and the teen scratched his softly-pointed ear as he looked to his father.
“He gets like this,” the Dragon Rider smiled, but his expression shifted to one of unease in mere seconds. "Thanks for… Uhh… Y’know.”
Stoick coughed, uncomfortably. “Yes, well, it wasn’t a problem,” the Viking Chief shifted on his feet. “I should, well, I should be going.”
Hiccup walked over to his father. “Let me raise the door for you, I keep it shut to keep the others out of my house,” he laughed, awkwardly.
He went over to the door mechanism, and the heavy wood slowly rose from the floor. Stoick walked to the doorway, and stopped, turning to face his son.
“Hiccup… I am proud of you,” Stoick said, his voice soft.
The Chief placed one hand on his son’s shoulder, and slowly placed the other on the right side of his face. Hiccup leaned into the touch, a soft smile lighting up his face.
“I know. Thanks, dad,” the teen replied.
Stoick dropped his hands after a few moments, and coughed. “Well, I better be off, should I come back to…?” He trailed off.
Hiccup nodded. “Please, I’ll send you a dragon when they need to come out. Bye, dad.”
“Goodbye, son,” Stoick said, and mounted his dragon to fly back to Berk.
Hiccup rested his hand on Toothless’ head as they watched the unlikely pair fly away.
“C’mon, bud, I think we’ve earned an early night,” the Rider said to his best friend, walking back inside their home.