Hiccup Haddock Imagines

The Sea Calls 3

Walking around Berk for the first time in months, you realize one thing, sure as the very earth beneath your feet: this is good, all of it. There's nothing like it, and even as a goddess who's been around long enough to watch countless regimes fall only to build themselves back again, you have yet to experience something quite like this, the mixture of home and love and pure, utter happiness.

That's what this place means for you, isn't it? You're not sure exactly when Berk outgrew its old place in your mind, stopped being a collection of raggedy hillocks and jagged cliffs, but it has been more for a while now. It means that you get to see one person in particular, and Hiccup has never seemed so happy to see you, or you him.

You've never had a chance to envy the mortals before. Without the blessing of immortality, how would they grow into half the person they were meant to be? They're certain of their deaths, so they fling themselves into relentless growth, falling and skinning their knees as they race towards the end. They built palaces in the blink of a god's eyes, and tore them down just as fast.

Here, walking up the twisting heights of Berk until you can look back down on the houses and streets sprawling beneath you, you can practically sense aeons of history all crumbling beneath your feet. This is a nation of people who fought their way to the brink of death, who built homes for generations of children they'd never get to name. It will span on and on until even the hardiest survivors fall, and you will see it all happen.

The one person who won't see it is the one who's just caught up to your side. Hiccup stands beside you, looking down over his home with a contented happiness you can't quite seem to match. His smile is laced with memories you'll never have, but you don't envy him for it, just hope that you'll be a part of his later thoughts. Maybe, years from now, he'll stand in this same spot and remember when you were there beside him, long after you've gone again. The thought both warms your heart and twists it at the same time.

Hiccup glances from you to Thor, who's talking excitedly with a half dozen villagers up ahead. "You know, I'm used to siblings being nothing alike, but I think I've met a new match with you and your brother."

You arch a brow, although you don't think you could be truly mad at Hiccup if you tried. "What does that mean?"

He shrugs. "Nothing much. You always seem like you're thinking, trying to figure something out. Thor leaps before he looks."

You chuckle. "That's an apt way of putting it. He's always been a little more reckless of the two of us."

Hiccup hums in agreement. "Still, he's not the one who showed up to change all of our lives in one of the most dramatic ways possible. I think you gave a fear of the seas to half the people here."

You smirk. "Maybe that's for the best."

He gives you a look. It's funny to see the change in him as time passes- at first, he was afraid to say the wrong word or pay the wrong compliment lest he offend you and risk incurring the wrath of Odin's daughter, but now he jokes with you as if you've always been friends. Some part of you wishes it could have been that way, that you could have grown up with the mortals, burned your heels running on the hot sands just the same as the rest of them.

You never got that choice, though, so you are content to be just you now. Just you, a goddess, who holds half the world's treasures in sunken ships beneath her seas yet would trade it all for the smile of the boy standing next to her.

You'd like to tell Hiccup as much, yet fear scaring him off, so you're almost glad when Thor nods at you across the clearing.

"How about a fight, sister? I feel like a show today."

You laugh. "I didn't realize you were in the habit of losing in front of a crowd."

Thor's smile drops. "You jest."