Omphalos (Hiccelsa)

Chapter 10

"We're going to get married." He said softly, sighing. He realized Toothless probably had no idea what he was saying, but he needed to talk to someone that wasn't going to talk back, "She's great. Really. I think I could fall in love with her. But she's really sad, and I don't know how to fix it. I know why, for once." He shook his head, thinking of the many times he and Astrid had been in a row, and he'd been really confused about what she was yelling about or crying over, "And I feel useless. I'm always so inventive. But I can't even fix the one thing that really matters." He threw himself back into the stream to float. The water was so calming.

Toothless was watching him. "I don't want to be like this, but maybe a baby will make her happier. Give her something to live for, you know?" He asked and Toothless scrutinized him. He looked at him pointedly, and then drew a tiny circle in the dirt, cocking his head.

"Yes, a baby." Hiccup rolled his eyes, "What did you think? I was going to live alone with you forever?" The way he turned his back clearly indicated so, but then he turned back and looked at the little circle. A soft look came. Hiccup fished half his body out of the water to pet Toothless.

"Hey," He said, "You'll always be my best friend. No one, not even Camcazi, can come between that. And a baby is like a little me, so you can't hate it." He pointed out. Toothless rolled his eyes, and even though he couldn't talk, Hiccup was very sure what his opinion on baby dragons were. Nuisances.

"So there won't be any little Toothless?" Hiccup mused, "You know, I've always wondered if during the mating season you don't go because a) you don't have another night fury, but you're still dragons, so I think you can mix-mate. B) you resist the urge or c) Because you're alpha your technically father to all dragons so you just don't?" He asked and Toothless narrowed his wide green eyes, "Any of those three?"

Toothless turned around and choose not to answer, specifically. He chuckled, dried off, and dropped the subject.

Back at the house, Elsa was still sound asleep, along with his mother, and he decided to try to make some breakfast. Toothless attempted to help, but unfortunately set a minor part of the house on fire. That woke everyone up, for sure.

Their wedding was set in two months, giving Hiccup lots of time to really try to fall in love with her, and Elsa a lot of time to run away, he thought with a wry smile. Marriage…what an idea.

About a week passed before Hiccup had a chance to sit down and talk with her again; after it was announced that she would be their future chief's wife, people pulled her out everyday to teach her the ins and outs of being a Viking. Hiccup thought for sure she'd pale when they took her hunting, but instead she came back with a deer to cook.

"You hunt?" He asked, amazed.

"It used to be a sport when my father was still alive. He took me a couple times." She replied primly, and begun prepare it for either storage or dinner tonight.

"That's…" He begun, and was going to say attractive (and quite honestly so, in his opinion) but the glare that she sent his way paused him, "Really useful…" He finished lamely.

"I'm not so sure. With dragons, how useful is hunting, really?" She asked.

"Really, there's a reason they took you out. Dragons are really poor hunters for humans. If they try to bring stuff back, it's scorched or burnt to a crisp. Usually half-eaten too. But we can't just let them go out on their own to hunt, or we'd have no food. That was a pretty common problem pre-integration." He sighed, "So it's part of my job to calculate how much the dragons need, how much we need to stay healthy and live through the rough winters- which Odin are terrible! I also have to calculate how many of a species needs to be left alone so that we still have some come next year. That's a new part; leaving species to thrive. Before that, we nearly killed off the sheep!"