Chapter Text
Hiccup wakes up in pain. He gasps and grips at his chest as the nightmare fades. He blinks at the dark room. The fire is dim, burnt down to embers. He shifts out of bed and freezes at the unusual clunk noise that greets his ears. He looks down and sees that his left leg is gone. He blinks and then shoves a fist into his mouth as a scream builds in his lungs and tears flood his eyes. His leg is gone. His foot to his knee is gone. He had lost a part of himself and now it is replaced with cold metal. Cold icy metal where flesh should be. Could he even walk? Could he run?
He rises and falls forward as pain arches across his nerves in the stump and spirals up his spine. He bites harder into his fist, muffling himself as he lays curled on the floor. No one comes running at the sound of his body creating an almighty thump against the floor so Hiccup has time to recenter and rise again. It is hard, but no harder than walking normally with the bruises and breaks from his village decorating his skin.
He slowly walks to his desk and collapses into his chair. He hides his face in his hands and mourns himself. If they had not thought him useless before… And look how they left him! No one was there when he awoke. Surely a sign… He finds himself dry of tears soon, eyes burning with dryness and throat aching with forced-down screams. He looks across his desk and sees a stack of letters, crudely opened and tossed aside. He sees his brother’s hand and wipes at his wet face and reaches. This is not how he recalls storing his letters…
Oh.
These are new. He had missed weeks of his brother desperately reaching out to him, begging. And then saying he was coming. There is even a letter in plain text addressed to Hiccup’s father, begging for answers. And then Hiccup finds a second of these, handwriting messier than before, asking the same thing, though it has a secret note for Hiccup’s eyes, swearing that he was taking sail at the new moon. If the weather was good that would mean that Dagur would be here when the moon was in its first quarter. Hiccup looks out the window and curses the cloud cover.
Hiccup takes a steading breath, and starts moving things. Most of his prized possessions were already in the cove. Just not his clothing or most recent sketches or notebook. Hiccup is careful to make it look like he has just straightened up rather than preparing to run. He is still on the edge but is leaning towards fleeing as Dagur seems to be asking. He heads downstairs and finds his father absent. He stumbles a bit on the stairs but he keeps going. The small heir takes all the medicine that he can find and tucks it into his room, squirreled away into a bag with his clothing. He hears the door open and shakily makes his way downstairs, movements now a little more sure from an hour of moving around the hut.
His father looks up at the clunk-thud that is now the sound of Hiccup’s footsteps.
“Ah, good to see you awake. We weren't sure it wasn't going to be a few more days. Come sit down at the table. You must be hungry.”
Hiccup sits down quietly, breathing through his pain. He picks at the meal as his father sits quietly and seems to stew over what to say.
“Look… I'm sorry that you lost your leg son. But I've been telling you to stay out of the way during dragon raids for this exact reason.”
Hiccup feels a fiery anger spark through his heart and soul.
“It wasn’t my fault.”
He whispers. His father looks at him.
“You should have known better than to be trapped in a net-”
“That net was put there by the twins! Why lecture me? I was doing my duty of going to the forge along a safe route that they booby-trapped!”
Hiccup then bites his lip. He had just interrupted and yelled at his father. Stoick face gets stormy and a hand raises to signal for silence.
“Hiccup, they have already been spoken to and had to clean out the animal pens for a week.”
“A-a week? I lost my leg! Because of them!”
Hiccup feels like a dragon, spewing fire as his claws dig into the table. He flashes his teeth. The frown deepens.
“Are you questioning my decisions as chief? A mistake is a mistake.”
“I'm questioning your choices, yes!! Would you be so ambivalent if it was another in my place?”
Stoick’s face grows red.
“They had no intent of harming you. And you should have been indoors. Do not question me Hiccup.”
“Why not? You went through my letters while I lay prone!”
Hiccup finds the fire sparking and roaring, drowning out the pain and boiling any tears before they have the chance to wet his eyes. He feels the wood giving way to his fingernails. Stoick’s face twists.
“It is abnormal for allies to write each other so often, and getting nothing in return should have been a signal for him to stop.”
Hiccup snarls ferally.
“It should have been a signal for you to write him back and tell him what happened!”
“And alert Beserk that my heir was hurt?”
“Berserk is our ally! And Dagur is my brother! Hed never-”
Stoick rises and interrupts.
“That is just about enough Hiccup. To your room. Your injury is making you unreasonable.”
Hiccup almost gawks at his father but instead pushes himself to his feet and storms up the stairs, false leg catching and sending spikes of pain that he denies himself the right to scream over. He would leave and hide in the cove. He would wait for his father to be asleep and then make his escape.
Berk had lost her one chance.