Work Text:
Psst! Hiccup looked up from whatever poor parchment was receiving a nasty charcoal slashing. Absentmindedly wiping his brow of grime from the forge, he tried to locate the sound.
It was a particularly busy day for Gobber, but nothing he couldn’t manage. Hiccup knew that the blacksmith was used to a certain little fishbone flopping about the forge, grabbing tools, and etching small Viking carvings into the wooden surfaces of the workbench. Most wooden surfaces, actually, but Hiccup knew that he, fortunately, was one of the few who could fit into the small nooks and crannies full of carvings. Most of which were quick etchings of his father, or his father fighting dragons, dragons themselves, and on occasion, the other Viking kids. There were a couple of Hofferson doodles around the axe repair bench. None of these, Hiccup hoped, would ever make themselves known to his mentor.
But the newest addition to the Hiccup Haddock charcoal sketches, the starboy, was a character not yet grounded enough to gain a spot in the walls of the forge. With nothing but flimsy sketches of maybe glances and fleeting glimpses around the dock, the star boy was a puzzle. And Hiccup knew, if he built the courage to find more tasks to do, he could find the rest of the pieces.
Psst! It was louder now, and Hiccup could only groan, thinking of who the voice could belong to. Slumping and crossing his arms, he advanced the search around the workbench. Lazilly kicking away some past ‘inventions’ that, to his dismay, were nothing more than charcoal thanks to the Terrors that decided that Hiccup was an easy target practice. They were so wrong, he smirked, one of the quirks of a fishbone, I guess. His quiet introspection was quickly interrupted by a clatter of metal towards the back door, prompting a squeak from the boy.
“Snotlout! If that’s you and the Twins again, I’ll, uh,” head in his hands, Hiccup looked around the bench, “you’ll get faces full of coal!”
If the walls could laugh… Hiccup knew they’d bawl at the sight of a small Viking boy armed with a stick of charcoal. He took a deep breath and took a tentative step out of the forge.
No one. Nothing but the forest and some crates left by the previous supply run. With his arms stretched out, charcoal raised like a sword, he made a quick scan before dropping his arms. Huh, maybe the long hours were finally catching up–
“Over here!” Hiccup looked to his left. And up.
Still holding the shepherd's crook, there he sat, cross-legged, on top of what looked like a fortress of crates and baskets. Hiccup remembered seeing the rich blue from the boy’s cloak stand out amongst the dark leathers and faded linens of the market crowd. Flipping off his woolly hood, an uneven toothy smile was framed by spikes of brown and white hair. It was him, the starboy.
He took a quick scan of Hiccup before laughing.
“I think you’re the one with a face full of coal.”
Hiccup, still staring with his mind a little out of kilter, suddenly realized the state he was in. A quick couple of wipes with his sleeves, he could feel his face start to warm. Maybe he could find some more terrors and tell them to take their best shot.
The boy’s laugh, which Hiccup decided in the back of his mind, rang through the air like a bright ringing bell. With his hands covering his soot and coal-covered face, he peeked through to see that the boy had decided to hop off his crate fortress.
A thud in front of him caused Hiccup to step back, a wildness in the boy causing a sense of awe to bloom in his chest, despite the previous embarrassment. He expected some teasing, maybe a comment about his awkward gait, the usual banter from the typical Berkian kid. But the starboy held a warm smile as he righted himself.
“You’re the one I saw in the markets! I’ve been looking everywhere, you know, for the kid with the red hair.”
Hiccup’s hair was a deep brown. To hide his disappointment, Hiccup gave a short, awkward grin.
The boy continued to rant. “So my sister started wandering around that little flea, until eventually we just started to ask around the vendors if they saw where he was headed, and like, five out of six all said the forge, and so I asked, ‘Well then, where’s the forge–’”
The boy recounted the story of his strange adventure through the grandness that was Berk, often getting sidetracked to bother some goats or offer greetings to the townsfolk (something Hiccup knew could be the term Gobber used… enduring). He was a cheerful storyteller, even trying to mimic the gruff and deep voices he must have heard from the townsfolk. Hiccup was surprised to let out some giggles at the starboy’s impressions. Lively swings from his crook punctuated each new direction the boy found himself in. Hiccup just realized the boy’s movements were reflected by the jostling of silver charms and wooden chimes somewhere among his outfit.
“-- so I finally found this place, Em had to point her grubby fingers at the massive dragon chimney for me to even realize we were already here. The crowd was getting a little too rowdy, so the only obvious way in was to climb.” The starboy gave a theatrical bow. “Luckily, I am a master tree-climber, thank you very much.”
It hit Hiccup suddenly that the starboy must have been watching him through the high beams of the forge. He gave an indignant look as the boy leaped off his crate fortress. The boy raised his hands in surrender.
“Hey, I needed a way in! Besides, all my hard work paid off, I mean, we’re finally meeting, right?” he asked, cheekily.
Hiccup, still standing awkwardly with his charcoal in hand, nodded a quiet ‘yes.’ The boy’s smile suddenly softened into something bashful, shifting his weight a couple of times.
“So um… My family and I will be here for a while. Maybe until the first snowfall, but I argued we should stay to see the snow. Mom said the boats might be frozen by then, though.” The starboy tilted his head to match their eye level. “Do you want to meet by the markets sometime?”
Like a fish out of water, Hiccup desperately wanted to utter some form of agreement –yes, sure, I’d love to– but his mouthed shapes made no sound. He breathed deeply and simply nodded his head with one of his own uneven smiles.
If the starboy could glow any brighter, he did.
“Really? That’s great! I can meet you tomorrow, when the sun is low, and there are not many traders there. I’ll show you around our camp and, oh!” The boy halted his excitement momentarily before dashing past Hiccup and behind the crates.
Hiccup, still in place, tried to peek around the corner.
“Found it!” The boy shuffled around some baskets and furs until pulling something out. Wrapped in a thin parchment and tied with the same wrappings as the boy’s crook, he handed Hiccup a parcel.
“You dropped this by the way, when we saw each other last, it fell out of the basket you were holding,” he explained.
Hiccup could only stare. A high-pitched call rang through the air, a little girl a little ways from the forge by the sound of it. The starboy perked up.
“I have to go, ma said we should be back before sundown.” The starboy quickly snatched a satchel and a pack to throw over his shoulder. Crook in hand.
He was already halfway up the crate fortress when he called out, “Tomorrow in the market! By the docks, kay?”
By some miracle, Hiccup found his voice. “Okay.”
He didn’t even know if he could hear himself, but the starboy brightened at that.
And he was gone.
Hiccup, covered head-to-toe in soot and charcoal, stood with a parcel in hand, still staring at the roof. Disbelief settled in as he absentmindedly unwrapped the parchment and absorbed the encounter. The parcel revealed a little wooden Viking figurine; the wood carving Hiccup was supposed to present to his father. He gasped at the possibility of losing this; the months he poured into the figurine could have been all for naught. He grasped the little Viking close to his chest and realized what he had to do next.
With the viking tucked safely in his tunic pocket, Hiccup began to frantically and clumsily climb the crates to the roof. There was fabric spilling out of some and metal in others, his foot almost knocking a basket over and toppling the structure completely. It was a true testament to the starboy’s self-proclaimed expertise in tree-climbing, Hiccup decided. As he reached the first ledge of the slanted roof, most hope that the boy could possibly still be near the forge quickly dissipated. Why did he think he could do this again? Catching his breath, he thought about the goose-chase that was the starboy’s journey to the forge. If he found Hiccup, he could find him.
With a grasp of the rafter, he attempted to pull himself up. Until, of course, his boot caught a crate beneath him. As the crate fortress crumbled, Hiccup attempted to balance himself as he desperately clawed at the beams, hoping to find his grip. Matching groans from boy and beam proved that his struggles were pointless, and he felt himself fall.
Until a set of hands held him up. Barely.
The starboy helped him up onto the roof, allowing for Hiccup to grab onto the crook and hoist himself up. Both panted as matching stares looked at what once was a stable supply tower. There were a couple of hens free somewhere in the woods now.
Starboy heaved a tired laugh as he leaned on his elbows. Hiccup looked at him.
“You… came back?” his voice was small, shaking from the strain in his arms and hands.
The boy’s laugh amped up. “I forgot to tell you my name!”