...and you threw that thing out into the sea!

Hiccup lay in bed and listened to the even pattern of his dragon breathing, his gaze fixed on the ceiling as he waited for sleep. His eyes shifted to the weathered dragon doll hung over his headboard.

His father's words of earlier echoed in his mind in a haunting reverberation.

"One day we were out fishing and you threw that thing out into the sea!"

Hiccup remembered that day.  He did.  He remembered sitting beside his father, remembered the sunless, grey sky, he remembered how the wood of the fishing pole chafed against his palms.

He almost told him just then, just after his father brought it up.  Hiccup almost told his father the truth because they had been so open with each other as of late. Hiccup had held the little dragon in his hands, scouring his mind for the gentlest words needed, but when he oppened his mouth all he said was, "How did you find it?" and the moment had passed.

Hiccup blinked away the memory of an opportunity missed and focused back on his mother's gift.  His father thought he threw that doll in the sea because he was scared of it.

For a moment Hiccup felt like he couldn't get enough air.

He was scared of the doll as a child, he remembered that now, but he hadn't thrown it into the sea out of fear.

He was angry.

Furious.

Hiccup clenched his eyes shut, unable to look at the rescued doll any longer.  Even now, years later, he recalled the muddle state of confusion, hurt, and resentment that led to him chucking that doll into the ocean. 

He was six years old and his mother had missed his birthday, again.  She was weeks late now.  She promised she would be there for this one.  She had promised.  And he was sick of it.  Sick of her absence. Of her broken promises.  Of her selfishness.  Of his father's fumbling attempts to make up for it and how sad he looked sometimes at night, sitting alone in His Chair, safe from the criticisms of the village.  He was sick of her choosing quests over them.

Hiccup remembered sitting next to his father, each with a pole in hand, and feeling a righteous anger build in the pit of his stomach as Stoick—strong, silent Stoick—stared out across the sea with that rare, hollow expression reserved for thoughts of her.

And that was where Hiccup found the courage to throw that doll far into the ocean.  His father never questioned why he brought the thing with them in the first place, that Hiccup intended of getting rid of it in an act of defiance against his mother to begin with.  It wasn't in his father's nature to question things and that was the first time Hiccup truly appreciated it.

The next Hiccup heard of his mother was four days later, when emissaries from the Waterlands returned with her armor.  He remembered watching her bodiless, symbolic pyre burn towards the horizon, following the same path of the toy he discarded.  He remembered how the anguish and remorse and suddenness and stares and pity all built up that Hiccup could just ignore the gnawing of guilt against his gut.

He would never tell his father the truth: that he threw the doll out into the ocean because, in that fleeting, childish moment, he had hated his mother.  He would continue to let Stoick believe it was out of fear, just as he let his father believe he wanted to hunt dragons for so many years—to spare him from the painful truth.

Hiccup shifted to his side, still seeking comfort and sleep amidst uncomfortable thoughts, and decided, with finality, that he would bear the burden of this guilt alone, because he was moving into a time where it was his turn to protect his father and not the other way around.