Hiccup, after tucking Ophelia in, went on two different adventures that night, making sure to give his future wife and mother a wide berth to talk about wedding things. He sure as hell didn't want to be anywhere near to make an awkward comment when his mother explained the wedding night.
He cringed.
For Elsa, it would be akward, but he didn't know people like he did. The people that would watch him were people that he grew up with. And being Chief, he'd already had to awkwardly sit in on a couple weddings. Including Snoutlout's, which gave them a closer bond than before.
Although he'd much rather talk to Fishlegs about wedding things and advice, Fishlegs was only courting a girl, insisting he'd marry for love. His father was in no rush to hurry him, and he wasn't made of particularly important genes to the community, so frankly no one cared. It wasn't the case for a brawny man like Snoutlout, though, who had been a married man for almost a year now. And his house had been impressive.
"Congrats dude." Snoutlout seemed to know that he was going to make an appearance at his house tonight, because he already had a cold drink waiting, "If you hadn't snatched her up, someone else would have." He said, as if that was supposed to comfort him.
Hiccup drew his mouth into a frown, but just shook his head. "I'm actually here to talk to you about building a house. I have no where to start."
"Well my father gave me tips-," Snoutlout said foolishly, but then realized his faux pas, "But I see why you're coming to me…"
Hiccup only wished he could ask his father how the magnificent house he'd called home for so many years was built by his bare hands. But alas, his mother didn't know, and Gobber said he built it all himself so he was stuck asking his second best option.
"I don't even know where to begin! What wood do I use? Where to I build it? How do I know it's not going to crumble?" He cradled his head in his hands, "Odin, what am I going to do."
Snoutlout asked his very pregnant wife to bring them some late night snacks. She was a thick-boned woman with large hands that almost seemed manly, but seemingly was very feminine and girlish, according to Snoutlout. And it had once again been a marriage of convenience, and Snoutlout wasn't going to offer up any romantic details about how he was falling in love or whatnot, so Hiccup tired to be perceptive and notice if their feelings had begun to change. He could not tell, and this made him worry that perhaps even after a whole year (almost with a child) they'd still be at odds.
"Well, my father gave me three options." Snoutlout held up four fingers, "Build from scratch, take a house of a recently deceased elder, or build on another existing structure." He put a finger down with each option, and two down with the last when he realized he'd miscounted.
"A house an elder used to live in?" Hiccup shook his head, "I'm desperate, but not that desperate." He said, to which Snoutlout laughed.
"I had hoped not. Especially for a chief. That'd be a girly way out." He snorted.
"And for existing structures? I wouldn't even know if there are any. At least none close to the village." Hiccup thought about a slice of solitude, and perhaps his younger self would have happily taken the broken down watchtower or something similar, but as a Chief he could not, "And I need to stay in the village anyway." He said grudgingly.
"Then I guess you have one option left." Snoutlout seemed to know that he was going to choose this.
"Then why give me two other options?" Hiccup said, mourning the second option which he could not do.
"So that you picked it yourself so you can't complain." Hiccup was more than slightly surprised. That was almost intelligent.
Snoutlout spent about an hour giving him helpful hints, also little insults to Hiccup the whole time, but in a more friendly way than a disrespectful way. It was a hard rock to swallow that Hiccup- the scrawny kid he'd picked on countless times- was now a respected Chief.
Finally, when Hiccup thought it was almost midnight, he bid his goodbye, because he could tell Snoutlout's wife was getting a little impatient to go to bed. Snoutlout gave her a glance, just a glance of perhaps love, and all of Hiccup's worries vanished.
Next he flew out to Bogs. In his childhood, if he ever had a problem, he'd jump on a boat or take a little canoe and visit Camcazi. She wasn't a great listener, but she was still a blunt friend. Her role had been taken over by Astrid a bit, but it was something more familiar than a little crush he'd only developed after his tenth birthday.
He even thinks that Camacazi wouldn't be up, and realized his mistake half-way there. But he was clearly mistaken, for he saw all the lights on in her house and landed outside the door. Camcacazi's mother, Bertha, was cutting some wood and greeted him like a long last child. I think she secretly always wished that he and Camacazi would become something, even with her boorish attitude and reputation. It was still clear she was very invested in her beautiful daughter.
"Hiccup! It's been years!" She nudged him, nearly causing him to fall, "I heard you're soon to be a married man!"
"News travels fast." He lamented, wondering how it got all the way over to this island within just hours of the elders meeting.
"I guess you're out of the picture for being the father of my granddaughter." She gave a long sigh, "Camacazi's upstairs." She said, pointing upward with her axe. Hiccup was blushing a whole lot more than he usually did, and he ducked his head as he went inside. Even as a best friend, he wasn't sure if that was going past his duties. It probably was, and that's probably why he got a bad feeling about it.
He was about to knock on the door, when the door swung open on it's own accord. It was a man that came out, and Hiccup stood where he was. Once, perhaps he would have hidden out to get his information, but now he looked the man up and down.
"Aye." He said as a greeting, and the man only glared at him.
He entered Camacazi's room, and saw her running her hands along a string of pearls. Hiccup held in a guffaw, "The second son of the chief of Lava Louts? Really?" It wasn't a secret that the Lava Louts and the Hairy Hooligans hated each other passionately, and he secretly wondered if she choose that guy to get back at Hiccup.
"One of many." She shrugged, and set the pearls aside, "I almost have him, though." She said.
"From those pearls, I think you already do." Hiccup said, picking up one pearly bead.
"Presents aren't a show of character. We look for strength here." Camacazi said, "I still need to see out of my choices which is the best likely candidate." She said, priming herself.
"It's all so structured." Hiccup sighed, sinking onto the bed, "Hey…do you know who your father is?"
He'd never asked in the past. It wasn't weird to him because he didn't have a mother, so why should she find it odd that she didn't have a father? And he knew about the Bogs and it just never crossed his mind.
"That's the Bog tradition." Camacazi looked at him, "Only the mothers know. I would never ask Bertha." She said.
"But what if you have a kid with your step-brother or something?" Hiccup said, wincing at the possibility. Camacazi gave a long groan and shook her head.
"Dammit Hiccup, only you would find that problem!" She said, "But because of my body type, I can be fairly confident it's not any of the tribes I've selected from." She said, meaning that perhaps she already had thought this through.
"But you're not here to judge my possible father choices, are you." Camacazi said with a raised eyebrow, "You're here because it's official and that scares you." Camacazi knew him only too well.
"You won't love the men you sleep with to create heirs." Hiccup said, "How do you handle that?" Although Camacazi's tribe didn't have many of the same traditions, because marriage wasn't even an option, she knew of them.
"It's my responsibility." She said with a shrug, "I have to."
The unspoken words passed between them, "It's yours too." It seemed as though that's what she wanted to add.
"But…but…what if I just…can't…do it…" He said, not wanting to be overly crass in front of one of his best friends, but she seemed to get the message just fine.
"If your dragon isn't awake, I hear there's herbs to get it going." She said with a little wink. Hiccup gave a groan, and shook his head.
"But I don't want have it done that way, fake. I want to want to do it." He said. Camacazi paused settling her gift among many others with a tired frown.
"You are overly romantic to be a Viking, Hiccup." She stated, although he couldn't decipher if her words were with a laughing shake of her head, or a disappointed sigh.
"So kill me." He snapped irritably. Camacazi slinked down to where he sat next to her bed, and sighed, crossing her fingers.
"Well…what do you like about her?" She asked. Hiccup contemplated this. He'd had a whole week to begin to look for little things, he told himself. He briefly wondered if someone were to ask Elsa that, what her response would be. But she probably hadn't even begun to think such things, and he reeled his mind back in to Camacazi's question.
"She's intelligent." He begun but Camacazi shook her head.
"Unless you're really weird, intelligence is not going to make you ready during your wedding night. I mean when you look at her, what's attractive to you!" She hit him over the head as if it was obvious what he'd been asking.
"Well I don't know! You're asking me to tell you what I love about a girl I've just only met!" He hissed, and Camacazi raised an eyebrow.
"Did I say love?" She asked, "Okay." She sat on her knees across from him, her hands raised to be used in some sort of speaking demonstration, "I don't love Spitknot of the Lava Louts, but he may give me a daughter, right?" She said. Hiccup nodded carefully.
"Well, I have to be able to go through with my chief ceremony somehow, so I mean, I like his abs." She shrugged, "And his eyes are really a brilliant shade of green." She added. Hiccup narrowed his eyes.
"Not following." He said.
"I don't have to love every part of him, because he's really not all that smart and rather dull to talk to, but I can focus on his abs and his eyes. I can't focus on his battle strategy because we won't be talking about that." She paused, "Or, I hope not."
At Hiccup's disgruntled face, she sighed.
"You can love the rest of her years from now. But you're asking how I should help you with what's coming up this year." She pointed out, "Now- what do you like." She snapped her fingers.
"Her face is a nice shape." Hiccup said, and the deadpanned look Camacazi gave him clearly said that he wasn't trying hard enough.
"If you had to convince someone your future wife was the most beautiful girl on this planet, what would you tell them?" She said, prompting him further.
He scowled, thinking deeper.
"Her eyes are pretty," He said, stealing from Camacazi's example, "I mean, they're sort of deep you know. Perfectly blue, almost like still water. And they hold a thousand emotions in them, swimming all around." Camacazi looked a little more enthused, and motioned for him to continue.
"Her body is not Viking like." He stated, "Which is refreshingly good. It's curved, like this." He made the hour-glass shape with his hands, "If I were talking to a Viking, they would say that she has the perfect hips for children- bearing and resting toddlers on. The shape a mother should be. But it's not just like that for me. It's that she probably keeps herself healthy. She doesn't eat a ton, because sturdy wouldn't look good on her. She is tiny, almost fragile, but Odin can you tell she will sooner send a whole town to contemplate your demise than let you say that she is ever fragile!"
He begun to laugh, and a sort of warm fuzzy feeling bubbled inside of him, if only for the tiniest of minutes. And he cut off abruptly, glaring at Camacazi. If this hadn't been the girl after Astrid, perhaps that feeling wouldn't have been such a betrayal, but Hell, it was.
And Camacazi just laughed.
"Hiccup, I think you'll be okay by the time the wedding comes." She assured, then gathered her jewels, "Now that I've helped you, time to help me."
"Help you decide who is going to father your child?" Hiccup asked, coughing deeply at the absurdity, because once he'd been on that list!
"Best friends do anything for each other, right?" She said, with a sly smirk.
Hiccup groaned, "Fine. I say Spitknot is already out." He stated, "He's a Lava Lout."
"Hiccup," Camacazi shook her head, "You can't take him out just because you don't like his tribe!" She protested.
"Hell I can. I know what's best for my best friend!" He stated a little protectively, and Camcazi punched his arm. It was probably supposed to be a light punch, but instead he was pretty sure it was going to bruise.
"Elsa's a lucky girl."