fishbone-fiction

Hiccup can hear rain falling outside. He can hear logs crumbling in the hearth. He can hear murmurs coming from beyond the closed doors. There is a certainty to all of them, an inescapable presence. As he stands in the dim, drafty pit of the all too large room, eyes gazing blindly at the floor, he is aware of one thing above all else, and that is that he cannot breathe. He keeps trying. He keeps trying to gather air in his chest, to steal it from the suffocating emptiness that surrounds him, but he can't. He can only blink every now and then and wonder, raggedly, distantly, what is happening, and why it is happening to him. The mantle on

When Fishlegs had woken up this morning, being knocked unconscious had been the very last thing he'd expected to wind up doing. Leave it to Ruffnut to yank up his plans and shake the change out of their pockets. The events leading up to it had been, in a word, innocuous; just another fight between the Thorston twins over something trivial like whose hair was longer or who had more freckles. He'd been watching it with his usual degree of helplessness, maybe poking up a finger and starting a sentence every now and then before giving up on it. But then things got, at least in his eyes, a bit ugly. "Just because I'm the only girl still lef

Astrid had been screaming when the explosion died down. She was ashamed to say it now, to think of it – of herself clawing at Snotlout's arms as he held her back from the inferno, of his shouts at her to stay calm while she shrieked Hiccup's name over and over, watching him fall through the swells of flames. It was a disgusting thing, she thought, for a girl – woman – of her emotional caliber to unravel so seamlessly in front of those who had seen her as a rock against the current. She was not the type to care about things like this. In all honesty, she had expected that she would perhaps bow her head in respect in the wak

If I kill a dragon, then my life will get infinitely better. If I kill a dragon, then my dad might look me in the eye. If I kill a dragon, then I… then I might just be one of you guys. – This is it. If I kill a Night Fury, then I'll be a hero. Dad will… fall down blubbering from pride, or whatever. I'll have friends. It'll be easy. Just stab it and cut out its heart. No problem. Easy. Easy. No. If I kill this dragon, then it'd be just like what that Whispering Death did to Mom. Merciless. No excuse. It's still… If I kill it, then I'll never forgive myself. It looks so scared. I know scared. Don't look at me like

"Congratulations, Stoick! Everyone is so relieved!" "Out with the old and in with the new, right?" "No one'll miss that old nuisance!" "The village is throwing a party to celebrate!" Stoick turned to Gobber, looking horrified. "He's gone?" Gobber shifted his gaze elsewhere, nodding solemnly. "'Fraid so, Stoick. I didn' want ter have ter be the one to tell yeh, but it looks like the wee fishbone's packed his bags and left." Stoick dropped his sack and it landed on the brittle surface of the dock with a crack. "L-Left?" "Quicker than I could blink an eye."

Fishlegs had the epiphany in the middle of supper. "Great gods!" he yelped, dropping his wooden spoon with a noisy clatter, startling both of his parents. "Mom, Dad, I've got it!" "Got what, Fishy?" his mother, Bertha, exclaimed, slamming the table in mock excitement, staring at her son with wide blue eyes. "The plague?" "No," Fishlegs said exasperatedly. "Then why's it important?" his father grunted, his tongue protruding from between his teeth as he concentrated on his knitting. "Because I'm going to ask Ruffnut to marry me!" Fishlegs proclaimed, leaping to his feet,

Hiccup had been searching for a way to cheer up Astrid for the past four hours and had come up with an absolutely incredible nothing. When he had seen the crestfallen look on her face as her father waved good-bye from his retreating ship to the Dragon's Nest, Hiccup had known that he had to fix it. He wasn't entirely sure how yet, but he would. Since her father's departure, she had been in a considerably moody snit, tossing her axe at unsuspecting barrels and driving a fist into Snotlout's face whenever he so much as uttered a syllable. Hiccup, like nearly everyone else in the village, had known to give her a wide berth. That had been yest

Astrid's footsteps were silent as she walked toward the altar. The studs on her headdress glinted in the bright glitter of the sun overhead. The fog had scattered that morning, and the breezes that skirted over the treetops were balmy. The grass swayed verdantly around the train of her snowy gown, pushing her on. She looked beautiful, Hiccup thought. The vows were made as a flock of seagulls swept over the ceremony, and Astrid's thickly braided bun rested at the nape of her neck and shone like a sunset. As Hiccup stood in the crowd and watched the marriage, he felt nothing. Just before they ceremoniously kissed, both Snotlout and Astrid'

Hiccup's hand was up Astrid's skirt. He didn't know how it had gotten there, exactly. One second his fingers had been stiff and stinging from the cold air around them, and the next they were resting between the fur inside her skirt and the woolen surface of her leggings. It was amazingly warm up there, on her buttocks. The feeling was starting to come back to his fingers. To his vague astonishment, she didn't draw away from him or knee him in the groin or smack him upside the head. Instead he felt a smile come across her lips in his, and her nose and cheeks were a shiny pink and steamy breath spilled from her nostrils. Hiccup was surprised

The storm came with a fury and Hiccup swore the world was shattering. Lightning struck and broke the sky into pieces; the ocean swelled and roared and bursts of foamy white broke off into the night; rain tumbled in torrents and drenched the roofs until they caved in; thunder bellowed and shook the earth; gusts of unforgiving wind ripped the treetops apart. Then the flood came. The waves of the sea were reaching for somewhere beyond the sky, their rage pulling them to fearsome heights. When the first of the many to follow tore up past the cliffs the village hid behind and smashed its watery fist into the ground, it was a wonder anyone survi