4: Changing Tune

Changing Tune

A bellow thundered across the stone floors of Berk's Meade Hall to shake dust from the rafters and rattle goblets, the likes of which would have loosened the bowls of any Southerner.  For the Vikings of Berk, however, it was no more than a grunt of frustration.

Burnthair drove both fists into the Great Table to call for attention.  "Are yeh mad?  These lands are told tae have the richest soils north of the Outcast Lands!" He swept his hand over the wetlands of the Dragon's Nose. "We have tae go after it!"

"But these," Hashtag slammed a fat finger against the oil-stained map, "these 'ere lands have gold!  Hidden in the grounds, I hear!"

"He 'hears' o' lot," Spitelout grunted to his brother beneath the squabbling scene. "Nae sure how reliable rumors are."

Stoick conceded the point with a subtle nod. "Aye, though Hashtag manages tae find the right rumors more often than nae."

"Eh, I'll give him that..."

"It's the land that's more profitable," Burnthair boomed to the rest of the Hall. "'N' the Visithugs are thinkin' o getting' it!" His argument received several outcries, some in favor, some not.

"Aye, but we could buy that land with the gold," Hashtag countered.

Hiccup stepped back.  He took another step, and another, slinking between thick bodies and thicker beards.  The meeting had been going in circles for the better part of an hour now and his nerves couldn't take much more of it.  The shouting camouflaged the clink of his prosthetic against stone and his slender stature allowed him to move through the crowd without disturbing too many people.  He kept his head ducked and avoided making eye contact until he made it to the door.

Something compelled him to look up just as he braced his palm against the door, and with the horrible timing Hiccup had come to expect in his life, his father happened to be the only Viking to look his way.  Their eyes connected for a breath, then Hiccup stole outside before the chief could give any indication that he must remain.  He skirted around the perpetually ajar door to put the mind-numbing meeting behind him and took a deep breath of sweat-free air.

Another day, another quarrel, another moment of feeling invisible.  He would hear it from his father, of this Hiccup had no doubt, but castigation was so much easier to swallow than the acute sting of uselessness.  At least out here, away from the shackles of propriety and status, he could be proactive.

"Hey," a voice greeted him from his left. "Did they decide?"

Hiccup startled and stumbled by thoughtless reaction.  His head whipped around to face the familiar voice.

Astrid pushed up from her rest against an unlit brazier and approached him.  She had been waiting for him.

Waiting for the decision, he thought harshly to himself, not him; they weren't together anymore.  At least she still had a reason to speak to him, strained as things were.  They had progressed to nods and pleasantries since the first awkward weeks after the break up.  Even now, Astrid gave him a tight smile as she waited for him to answer.

Hiccup coughed and straightened.

"Ah, hey..."

His uneasy greeting tapered off as his attention flittered elsewhere.  Something was different.  Hiccup knew the moment he focused on her.  It could have been his past fixation with her that tipped him off so quickly, how often he used to stare at her, but his eyes were immediately drawn to her forehead where a new headband pressed against her hair—clean and shiny and darker than before.  Her old one had begun to wear, a detail he had noted back when they were together; his fingertips would feel the cracked leather every time he brushed her bangs from her eyes.

Hiccup felt his throat dry out.  He had thought about giving her a new one himself for a time—so many times—but he never got around to it.  He always assumed there would be time for that, that their future was set...

Someone else had beat him to it.

Hiccup had heard the rumors for nearly a week: both Grund and Larklungs now openly asked after Astrid.  One would be seen walking her home from the Meade Hall, another would bring her pumice stones for buffering her Nadder's scales.  Hiccup had no idea how receptive she was to their advances—

His eyes flicked up to the headband.

...Well he did, but he turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to it.

Blind eyes.  Hiccup glanced over his shoulder to the meeting he just walked out on.

Soon, that's what his life would be.  That's what Berk wanted.  They wanted their traditions and their rituals.  They wanted dragons too, but they were less about compromise than Hiccup had hoped for.  Vikings would go on pursuing conflict with their shiny new weapons.  They would go on ignoring the slave rings and the progress outside of the Archipelagoes, and stubbornly continue their barbaric practices until Ragnarök.

Hiccup had no doubt that the land they quibbled over in the Meade Hall wouldn't have crossed anyone's mind if they hadn't first heard the Visithugs were after it.  Soon others would be after it too because, in the Viking world, if it was worth interest to anyone, it was worth fighting over.

But Hiccup wouldn't be idle.  Not this time.  They might ignore him when his expressions were unpopular, but he wouldn't be ignored—not beyond the shores of Berk.

He had spoken to Thuggory as Camicazi suggested.  Tracked him down, offered him some flying tips, and breached the subject of the dragon-alliance future.  Thuggory was young enough to bond more strongly with a dragon.  The less experience in the war, the more open humans were to bonding with dragons.  The younger generations would resist the bullheaded aggression of their forbearers if their parents didn't brainwash them first.  Hiccup was sure of it.

'Our time is coming,' he said to the older boy, 'when you and me and the next generation of chiefs will be in charge.  Who says we have to wait for our parents to die or pass it on?  We can start building our world now.'

At the time it was a moment of passion but he drew resolve from his own words.  He was finding his footing once more.  He had shown the village he was capable of competence and it was enough for their confidence in him.  It changed the game for him, it opened opportunities he never before saw as an option.  He wouldn't inherit a broken system.  There were things he was and wasn't willing to do, things that didn't always line up with the Viking code, and he would not compromise his morals.  Tradition could be wrong and it could be changed.  Toothless taught him that.

"Hiccup?"

Hiccup's gaze, which had fallen to a patch of weeds growing between the cracks of the mountain steps, lifted back to Astrid.  That headband was at eye-level with him—bright and mocking.  The power of his resolve, his tentative hope for the future, dissipated in an instant and impetuous conscious took over.

He let her go and now he would have to see her with someone else.

"No decision," he said, and he kept walking.

Hiccup hated the squeamish feeling in his stomach whenever he thought of Astrid with another man, made more so by his own double standards.  He didn't understand it—not when he had kissed another girl (repeatedly) and certainly not when he broke up with her.  The logic wasn't present, but that didn't stop him from feeling a deep dislike for Larklung and Grund.

It served to spur Hiccup into focusing on his extra-curricular projects for a distraction: his saddle designs and dragon research and generational alliances.

Berk was well into spring and the last of the snow had melted days ago.  Hiccup spotted his Night Fury lounged across a patch of yellowed grass with the cloud-filtered sun warming his scales.  The dragon was already saddled in anticipation of a post-meeting flight.  Hiccup hurried his pace down the last steps.

"Hey bud, want to get out of here?" The clank of Hiccup's prosthetic against stone perked Toothless from his rest long before Hiccup spoke.

The dragon danced on the spot—he was thrilled.  Their flights had grown increasingly complex as of late, to where they could be gone for days at a time.  Hiccup would pack his weaved creel and they would fly out to other lands, to other slow-bonding human nests.

"We aren't going too far this time," Hiccup cautioned to Toothless' eagerness. "Just a day, maybe two at most."

Any longer and his father would flay him raw.  Hiccup already faced punishment for walking out of a meeting, even if his father were the only one to notice.

"Hiccup wait!" Astrid called.

Hiccup entertained the bright, illogical thought of sprinting the rest of the way to Toothless, but the idea fizzled as quickly as it came.  She would catch him and he would only look like an idiot.

The young man steeled himself and turned to face his ex.  Astrid had to stumble to a stop, unprepared for Hiccup's abrupt turn.

"I just—," for a breath Astrid appeared at a loss for words, "I—there was no decision?"

"I left early," Hiccup told her.

Astrid's reaction was anticipated.  There it was—that frown.  That disapproving look he had seen his whole life.  As children, Astrid disapproved of what she suspected he did.  When they were together she disapproved of what he actually did, more so towards the end for their relationship when her personal priorities began to clash with his.

"You waked out on the meeting?" she asked, fishing for clarification.

"They won't notice I'm gone," Hiccup said.  He hoped his voice was steady and she could not sense the smidgen of a lie resting in his words.

"Hiccup—" Astrid hesitated for a split second, perhaps debating if she even had the right to scold him.  The moment past quickly enough and she plowed forward. "You're going to be chief—"

The age-old tirade. "Astrid..."

"No," she said, "listen to me.  You're going to be chief—"

"I know I'm going to be chief," Hiccup said, interrupting her for a second time.  This time irritation colored his tone. "Which is why I'm handling things my way."

It was a new element to an oft-repeated conversation, one that threw Astrid off.

Her lips parted in bemusement. "You—what do you mean, 'your way'?  What are you doing?"

Hiccup didn't know what he was doing. It was the scary and exciting part.  He only knew he couldn't tell her.  She was too close to his father and his council and their ideals.  He didn't want to hear of all that could go wrong, of what traditions or histories he ought not to be meddling in.  He wanted to surge forward, to follow his drive and intuition in the face of history, as he once did with Toothless.

He took a step back and bumped into said dragon.  The Night Fury had given into his impatience, covered the rest of the distance between them, and now nosed Hiccup's riding vest.  "I have to go."

"Hiccup—"

She stepped forward; habit lifted her hand to brush her bangs with her knuckles.  Hiccup saw the headband more clearly.

"Astrid, I can't," he uttered, speaking from the twist in his gut and not his mind.  "I really can't do this right now."

"Do what?" she sounded confused and outraged all at once. "Explain yourself for once?  I mean... come on, Hiccup.  You're acting all secretive again."

Hiccup pressed a hand to the saddle, stuck his foot in the stirrup and hauled his body onto his dragon.  Astrid sat back on her hip, her jaw clenched.

"You're leaving," she noted. "You're actually—" her fingers flexed in a show of her frustration, "you just walked out of a meeting and now you're leaving the village."

Hiccup couldn't listen to her diatribe on respect and duty and growing up.  A part of him understood her disapproval, just as he understood his father's exasperation with his only son, while another part hated that headband and everything it meant.  Hiccup felt aggression in his being that he wasn't comfortable with, most of which was directed at Larklungs and Grund—or whoever gave her that token.  A smaller part was directed at Astrid for wearing it.

Hiccup snapped his prosthetic into the left stirrup and relished in the sharp crack of metal against metal.

"They're not getting anywhere in there," he said. "And, frankly, I don't care what they decide.  It's all bullshit to me."

Astrid's jaw slackened, something Hiccup caught in the corner of his eye.  

"I'm sorry," he muttered, though even as the words passed his lips a stronger part of his mind questioned: 'Sorry for what?  You meant it.' "I'm just...tired." The excuse was every bit as lame as it sounded. "Just...they're almost done.  You should go back there—they should know by now.  Come on, Toothless."

"Wait—Hiccup, wait—!"Astrid found her voice just as Toothless launched into the sky.  Hiccup had to clench his abdomen to keep from looking back.  Had they been together Astrid might have hopped on Sturmflae and hunted him in the skies.  She would have demanded they sit and talk, which would have likely ended in him reluctantly agreeing to sit through the next meeting in its entirety, to apologize to his father, to concede her points with a sullen nod and an empty promise to stop fighting their elders so much...

Astrid wanted consistency.  He wanted change.  Maybe it wasn't enough, what he had done with the dragons.  Maybe he had some sickness that would leave him unsatisfied with anything he accomplished.  Even now he had to keep altering Toothless' tail, his prosthetic, the designs for various saddles...

Then again, Astrid courting one of those brawny, brazen fools was a change he wasn't prepared for.

Hiccup's first instinct was to fly to Camicazi, but Hiccup knew he couldn't use her as a comfort pillow every time his heart hurt.  It wasn't fair to either of them.  They already trespassed onto dangerous grounds with their last couple encounters.

Once was on a Bog ship moored in Hooligan Harbor.  Camicazi pulled him beneath deck to show him her collection of dated dragonbone shields.  The lower hold was dark and dank, the hull groaned in the water's gentle hold, and something about atmosphere matched her intentions.  Instead of words Camicazi tucked her hair behind her ear, which Hiccup began to associate with subsequent kissing, and pulled him into the recess of the hull, where the shadows only heightened their awareness of each other.

The last time Hiccup saw Camicazi was three weeks earlier when they lay together in the grasslands of Tomorrow, long into the night as the stars spun overhead, their kisses growing longer, their hands more bold.  The Summer Current washed them with warm, spring winds and the distance from their respective homes kept the usual pressure to haste their meeting at bay.  It was the first time they truly held one another.

Hiccup had fallen asleep among the thistles and bluestem, and when he awoke to the predawn grey, wet with dew, she was gone.

As was his pouch of ore scraps.

In a way Hiccup was thankful—it was her reminder to him of who they were.  She was a Bog Buglar, destined to sail the seven seas as a free woman, and he was a Hooligan, destined to marry and continue a line of legitimate heirs.  They were friends—close friends—they shared childhood adventures together and were just starting to view the other in a more developed light.  It was a new and temporary experience they shared; a higher stage in their friendship as they matured, nothing more.

That he needed a reminder is what scared Hiccup.  Camicazi was a Bog more than anything else; it came before her hormones, her whims, and especially before him.  He had to respect her culture, lest he lose her entirely.

It was Camicazi had given him the idea to take control again.  He wasn't okay with the regime and he wouldn't stand by it, and he needed a friend to tell him as much.

Toothless rose above the first whips of low-hanging clouds and Hiccup swallowed in the sterling air like a drowning man.  He felt...better these days.  His future was more uncertain than ever, but for the first time in months he had something to work towards.  Goals.  Where before he watched his village formulate a new order, helpless, voiceless, and forced to watch his vision of community mutate into a parasitic relationship, now he had his own projects again.  His own time and company.

He told his father he was on camping trips, survival trips, as it was the only way Stoick would let him travel alone.  His breakup with Astrid left things awkward enough between them that she wouldn't follow him.  It also served, as he anticipated, as a wedge between him and his peers—though nowhere near as painful as he feared.  Snotlout seemed permanently stuck in coarse, yet strangely protective, behavior towards Hiccup—snarking at his failings and then bashing Wartihog, who liked to jab sticks through the apertures of his metal leg.  Though 'Lout still preferred to hang out with Astrid to his strange cousin.  The twins were also loyal to Astrid, though they would seek him out for the odd prank idea (or victim).  Fishlegs, on the other hand, was openly comfortably with speaking to him and would sometimes choose to spend a couple hours in Hiccup's company over the gangs', which was a huge improvement to a year ago when such a decision would be social suicide.

His standing in the village may have taken a hit, but Hiccup had shaken a substantial amount of attention he once found suffocating.  He had time and obscurity that could be used to reach out to the corners of the Archipelagoes, not to conquer but to unify.  Hiccup knew plan was unorthodox, raw and recklessly open-ended, it was slow and uncertain, but it made him feel useful once again.  That, and the vertigo of flight, was all he wanted to feel.

######## #######

Hiccup flew directly over the Swallowing Sands of Swallow and banked left at the perimeter of Grimbod Territory.  Not so close that someone could see him—not that anyone else rode a Night Fury—but close enough to catch at least one person's attention.  Word would spread that a Night Fury passed overhead and the right set of ears receiving the news would know where to go.  It was a system Hiccup was starting to adopt, one that his "contacts"—as he had taken to calling them—learned to recognize.

Little by little, clan-by-clan, Hiccup was re-connecting with the someday-heirs of the Barbaric Archipelagoes.   He kept the list short for the moment—sticking to the more neutral and Berk-friendly(ish) tribes, but it was progress.  Slow, savory progress.   In a few more weeks of deepening trust he would try to expand his reach even further.  He would connect through the contacts he had made.  Thuggory already promised to speak to Very Vicious, as the vicious lad still made Hiccup inordinately uncomfortable.

"Hi Grizzly," Hiccup greeted when the Grimbod heir landed heavily before him on one of the Swallow's less visited lands.  It used to be completely unapproachable for the sinking sands that surrounded it, but dragons helped cross that bridge.

Toothless hardly stirred from his curled nap; he opened one eye, glared at the Devilish Dervish reproachfully, and slapped his tail over his face.

Grizzly grunted his own greeting and jumped from the Dervish's shoulders.  He looked much like his father, with wiry black hair, a small forehead, and arms too long for his body.  He was taller than Hiccup, but younger, and quite a sight less intelligent too.  Usually the combination would only serve to frustrate the Hooligan, but Hiccup was learning, slowly, that the right words could get him what he needed.  Often more than fists could.

"What do ya' want?" the boy asked.  He wiped his nose on his sleeve, which had gone runny from the short flight.

"How is your village holding up with the dragons?" Hiccup politely inquired.  "You seem comfortable enough flying."

The landing could have been smoother.

Grizzly grimaced. "Why do you care?"

"I just want to make sure the transition is going smoothly," Hiccup said with a shrug.  He did his best to appear as nonthreatening as possible.  Sometimes heirs could be tetchy and itch for conflict.

Grizzly squinted further at Hiccup's easy response.  His eyes were little more than dark slivers on his round, pink face.  "Are you trying to spy?" he asked thickly.

Hiccup gathered all his patience and put conscious effort into keeping his eyes from rolling.  He asked that question the last time Hiccup spoke to him.

"Grizzly, I told you, the dragons are my responsibility.  I'm doing this to make sure the dragons are okay.  I don't want any accidents—not for the dragons or Vikings."

Grizzly stared at him.  It took a moment for Hiccup to realize that Grizzly needed a more direct answer.  This time he couldn't keep all the dryness from his tone.

"No.  Why do you think I'm speaking to you?  You're heir, right?  Right," he answered before Grizzly could. "So by the time humans and dragons are living...comfortably together you'll be in charge."

"Uh, okay..." Grizzly said.  His mistrust had waned in lieu of his attempt to keep up with Hiccup's jargon. The dragon at Grizzly's side jerked with a rumbling cough and snorted some light smoke from its nostrils.

"You have a Dervish," Hiccup noted, fishing for some common grounds while he had the larger boy off-foot.  The first and last time they met Thuggory had been around and there was no time for pleasantries.

Hiccup stepped forward, risking Grizzly's proximity, and reached forward to touch the wrinkled snout.  Hiccup knew to keep his eyes downcast until his hand made contact.  He knew to breath slow and shallow to keep his heartbeat regular, to exude a calming aura in his bold gesture.  The Dervish took in his scent and nosed his palm with a rough nudge, only then did Hiccup lift his gaze to the pale-blue irises.

It could have been his quick approach to the Dervish, but Grizzly did little more than stare on, dumbfounded.

"She's beautiful," Hiccup noted.  She was.  Her scales gleamed red and foggy blue with a luster that spoke of health and pamper. "He must take good care of you," he murmured to the Dervish.  She blinked, her pupils dilated.

Hiccup smiled and looked back at Grizzly.  "She's impressive."

As triggered, Grizzly swelled with pride.

"Biggest of her sort," the boy boasted.  "Hamwise of the Bashiboinks has one half her size and twice her age."

"A good match," Hiccup said by way of agreement.  He chanced a sideways glimpse and saw Grizzly smiled wider, less mean and more sincere.  He pressed his advantage. "Though you might be leaning too much on her neck when you ride her.  I noticed that.  If you sit back more your landings will be smoother."

Grizzly stared dumbly at Hiccup before shifting the look to his dragon.  The Dervish grumbled in an agreeing sort of way, or so Hiccup would like the Grimbod to believe.

"I can help you," Hiccup said, drawing Grizzly's attention back to him.  "I can help you improve your flying—so that you'd be the best dragon-rider in your village," he was quick to add at Grizzly's initial frown. "It's not going to be like with our parents' rule.  We're in a new age here; we need a new skill-set to look up to.  Such as being the best dragon rider."

Grizzly's face had scrunched in thought.  That, or he suddenly smelled something really unpleasant.

"I suppose you're right..." Grizzly said slowly. "So...so you'll help me fly better?"

It was all Hiccup could ask for, and the smile stretched across his face said as much.

"Sure.  In return, I just ask that you keep me up to date on how things are going living with dragons.  If you take on any more, how they're being used...that kind of stuff.  I'll send you a Terror."

Hiccup had a thought the other day to color-code the Terrors he used to communicate with different village heirs.  He already had one in mind for Grizzly.

"Why," Grizzly asked again.  This time he lost all meanness and regarded Hiccup with open curiosity.  He thought he was getting the better deal—skills over information.  "Why do you care how many dragons we take up?  Our fathers never bothered with an alliance.  Our clans are too far."

Because dragons negated the issue of distance, Hiccup could have told him—in smaller words, of course.  Because I broke down the walls of war and I have to care how every village is handling dragons.  Everything that happens to them is on my head.

"Because I think we can do better than our parents," he settled on saying.  He couldn't sum it up any better than that.