Fire and the Thud [Hiccup x Reader]

Joining The Dots

Two years have passed since I made the decision to remain on Berk, against my mother's original choice. Within them, a life I couldn't have asked better of began to surround me, with its growing friendships and comforting routines that gave me a sense of belonging.

Astrid and I have been getting along so well, it's hard to believe that not much long ago we weren't the fondest of one another. Though Hiccup will always be my best friend, it's just nice to have another girl to talk to. Some things are better shared with those who understand on a personal level. Of course, she's still as strong-headed and stubborn as she's always been, but I've noticed her mature incredibly. I've also grown closer with the others, though none as much as Astrid. Fishlegs and I fell back into a casual friendship, nothing as intense as our childhood one was, but a friendship nonetheless. We're an eclectic group of friends, but I couldn't imagine anything else.

I went through several different jobs at the hand of Hiccup over the past years, everything from cleaning up at the arena to assisting at the blacksmith's. A lot of his inventions have started gaining popularity, including the fire extinguishing bucket he had shown me one day. I had spent some time assisting with refilling the buckets and resetting them whenever they were used as one of my jobs. I even attempted to help my aunt out with her cooking (something she does as a 'casual job' for the villagers, since she does make quite the dessert) but I don't think I'll ever be able to properly handle soup. Regardless, my aunt has filled in the role of my mother around here, trying to teach me the ways of an adult, as well as shouting at me for leaving anything on the floor. I could definitely see the resemblance between the sisters.

"(Y/N)! How are you supposed to raise a child when you can't even remember to pick up your clothes off the floor?" my aunt shouted.

"I'm sorry, since when are we discussing me having children? I still feel about 13," I called back up the stairs, crossing my arms.

"I can tell, seeing as you've left everything on the floor like a teenager," she muttered as she bounded down the steps, my clothing in her hold. I walked over as she reached the ground, taking the pile.

"Put it with the others," she gestured towards the small mountain of shirts and undergarments waiting to be washed. I sighed with a nod, tossing mine with the rest before giving my aunt a cheeky grin. She only shook her head in response.

I'd been spending a lot of my free time drawing. I'd gone through about four journals over the course of the passed time, improvement visible if you sat and flipped through them. Which, of course, was hypothetical because nobody except me would ever touch those books. Apart from Hiccup, whom had been helping me out with the drawings, especially when they were of the dragons inhabiting the island. It started out with him making a few casual remarks about an incorrect number of horns or a straight line that should have been further curved, but soon escalated into us spending several hours next to one another, comparing and challenging.

"Shouldn't that be longer?" I gestured towards a wing on his page. He looked at me from the side of his eye before suppressing a smile, rubbing out the markings with the side of his palm.

"Someone's learning," he murmured, sketching the bit over. I shrugged a shoulder, glancing at him with a proud smirk.

"Seems like I'm getting better than you," I said in a teasing voice.

"8 spikes."

"What?"

"It's 8 spikes," he said simply, not even looking up from his journal. I furrowed my eyebrows before looking down at my own, mentally counting the spikes I had drawn before sighing.

"Damnit."

Our relationship in general has grown so much that it makes my heart swell when I think about it, sometimes overwhelmingly so. It's almost embarrassing to think about, but I don't know how I'd have been able to really enjoy staying here had we not ended up together. Perhaps I'm shallow, or perhaps I'm helplessly attached. Either way, despite the incredibly sappy moments and the incredibly pointless arguments, I wouldn't ask for anything else.

One thing I would possibly change would have to be the fact that I still did not have my dragon after two years. It was partially my fault, because I was so picky when it came to trying to find one. Hiccup had offered countless times to find me a Deadly Nadder or a Monstrous Nightmare had I wanted one, but I didn't. It was most definitely a shallow decision but I didn't want a dragon that everybody already had. Besides, not having a dragon allowed me to become really close to Toothless, and if that wasn't a dangerous thing for me to do, I'm not sure what else would be. Growing attached to a dragon who wasn't yours made it especially difficult to try and find a different one.

Speaking of finding dragons, Stoick recently managed to train a Rumblehorn whom he calls Skullcrusher. The best part is that they found the dragon on the exact island that I almost ended up crushed to death by a mother Rumblehorn. In my mind, Skullcrusher is my almost-murderer's boyfriend. It adds imaginary family drama.

All in all, Berk has been an endlessly amazing experience, and I wouldn't change anything. And naturally that meant that it would soon be changing against my will.