A noisy din of protesting voices sounded throughout the Great Hall as dawn slowly broke. They managed to salvage whatever they could scrounge up from the wreckage of the invasion and gathered the necessary materials and equipment to fix their broken and burnt houses, as they have always did for generations. Not too much were lost, but it was obvious that the villagers of Berk have had enough of the invasion, and so was Stoick.
"Either we finish them or they'll finish us!" Stoick bellowed as he sank his dagger into the tribe's nautical map where an uncharted corner was. "It's the only way we'll be rid of them! If we find the nest and destroy it, the dragons will leave. They'll find another home," he took a swig from his bull skin pouch and decided, "One more search. Before the ice sets in."
"But those ships never come back," a random Viking voiced out worriedly.
"We're Vikings. It's an occupational hazard," Stoick replied nonchalantly. "Now who's with me?"
No one followed to raise their hands. The crowd shifted in restless silence with head scratches and eyes averted. Some muttered feebly excuses like "Today's not good for me" and "I've gotta do my axe returns" echoed in the Great Hall. Stoick knew just what to say to convince them.
"Alright. Those who stay will look after Hiccup."
The response was immediate.
"To the ships!"
"I'm with you, Stoick!"
Hands jut into the air, volunteers galore. Enthusiastic murmurs of prep and packing filled the room.
"That's more like it."
Stoick watched as the Vikings rushed for the door to prepare for their upcoming voyage. Gobber, the last one remaining, gulped down the last of his mead from his attachment mug on his hooked hand and got up from his seat.
"Alright, I'll pack my undies."
"No, Gobber," Stoick stopped Gobber. "I need you to stay and train some new recruits."
"Oh, perfect. And while I'm busy, Hiccup can cover the stall. Molten steel, razor sharp blades, lots of time to himself…what could possibly go wrong?"
Stoick recognized that tone and sank onto the bench beside Gobber, his brow burdened.
"What am I going to do with him, Gobber?" Stoick sighed.
"Put him in training with the others."
"No, I'm serious."
"So am I."
"He'd be killed before you let the first dragon out of its cage." Stoick turns to him, glaring.
"Oh, you don't know that," Gobber waved his concerns off.
"I do know that, actually."
"No, you don't."
"No, actually I do."
"No, you don't!"
"Listen!" Stoick snapped at Gobber. "I do know what's going to happen, he's cu…" he stopped himself from blurting out when he realized Gobber was looking at him weirdly. He cleared his throat a little and looked away, trying to change the subject. "You know what he's like. From the time he could crawl he's been…different. He doesn't listen. Has the attention span of a sparrow. I take him fishing and he goes hunting for…for trolls!"
"Trolls exist!" Gobber said defensively. "They steal your socks. But only the left ones. What's with that?"
"When I was a boy…" Stoick sighed and started reminiscing.
"Oh, here we go," Gobber grumbled, dreading another flashback on Stoick's part of long-winded good ol' days. But Stoick continued anyway.
"My father told me to bang my head against a rock and I did it. I thought it was crazy, but I didn't question him. And you know what happened?"
"You got a headache."
"That rock split in two. It taught me what a Viking could do, Gobber. He could crush mountains, level forests, tame seas! Even as a boy, I knew what I was, what I had to become," Stoick sighed as he looked beat. "Hiccup is not that boy."
"You can't stop him, Stoick. You can only prepare him," Gobber noticed Stoick did not look convinced and sighed. "Look, I know it seems hopeless. But the truth is you won't always be around to protect him. He's going to get out there again. He's probably out there now."
As much as Stoick did not want to admit it, he knew Gobber's words hit their mark.
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