This is where I belong ||httyd fanfic||

36. Going on a journey

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Days after that, they had held a funeral for Hiccup; since there was no body tradition dictated that they must use a valued possession. Stoick decided to offer the dented Viking helmet he had given to Hiccup that they had found in the cove, though it was with no shortage of tears that he did. It was like burying both Hiccup and Valka together at once, for the second time. The helmet was all he had left to remember them, all he had to cling onto in those days of pain and grief. And cling onto it he did, in those endless nights when the memories he had of them both comforted and haunted him all at once. But Hiccup, at the very least, should have been honored as a Viking at least in death if not in life, the Vikings argued, and so used the helmet in a traditional pyre boat.

It was around the start of their winter season, on perhaps the coldest, gloomiest day Berk had ever seen, with clouds as dark and grey as they had ever been. The Hooligans had to wonder if it was the Gods' way of offering condolences or shedding sorrow of their own for the loss of such a small child. Snow had just begun to touch the ground, as pale and white was how they imagined Hiccup's corpse to be, making the rest of the world seem darker by comparison.

A biting, chilling wind blew that brought goose bumps to the villagers' exposed skin and left the young ones shivering in their boots. The faces of young and old were painted with sorrow, eyes as dull as the skies above, as Gobber offered his speech, refined for Hiccup personally while a tiny boat sailed quietly away upon the silent waters. The archers lit the coal of their arrowheads and drew their arrows back, waiting in somber silence.

"May the Valkyries offer gentle hands to guide you to Odin's great kingdom. May they sing your name with love and tenderness, so that we might hear it carried upon Valhalla's light from above, and know that you've come home to caring arms. Here we now stand, to honor a life taken before it had even begun: That of a friend. An heir. A son. A Viking."

Hiccup had always been unnerved by the traditional version of the sermon, Stoick remembered, that spoke of wars and anger ever since he was a boy. Some found it laughable that such a timid boy could ever even think of becoming a Viking before remembering such callous thinking had driven him away to begin with. They had hoped with this version, Hiccup could find peace with the mother he never knew at the Gods' table.

Stoick broke down in an instant when the arrows had been drawn back and fired and burned away at the ship that had barely escaped the docks. The horrible image of his son's body being on that ship crossed his mind and threatened to destroy him completely. Gobber had to carry him off while the others, with tears in their eyes, just watched the fire's glow drift further and further away, guilt tearing away and leaving them wondering what could have been done differently, what would have allowed them to escape this cruel fate.

Children who had been threatened by their parents to eat their vegetables in fear that they would become as weak as Hiccup and threw rocks at him for fun cried themselves to sleep for a solid month after. Not to mention they never came outside anymore to play. Adults felt so much guilt and sorrow that they couldn't get a goodnight's sleep for weeks on end, their nightmares filled with the memories of every rotten word they had said behind his back in gossip. They could just imagine Hiccup behind some house, completely shielded from view, hearing everything and sulking away afterwards. Some had called him a curse on the Haddock clan and the whole of Berk for his mother's pacifistic views on dragons. Others had wished outright that he had never been born and accusing him of being a waste of their time and resources. The teens at the academy were no different in the feelings of disgust that were felt when those times came back to mind. To think they called themselves brave and honorable warriors - to do something like that to one of their own, no matter their physical stature, was nothing short of cowardice.