[You were laughed at and looked down on. Weak. Always weak, always falling short no matter how hard you tried. You remember it was better in the beginning. When you were young, it was okay that you were small, and your father--your father was a broken man for a while after your mother died. But you gave him comfort. You were a piece of the wife he'd lost and you were going to grow up to be big and strong and make him proud at every turn.
Only you didn't. You were the village weakling and you asked too many questions and prodded at too many things and got into too much trouble. You needed too much saving and too much looking after when your curiosity got you into trouble. You messed up so many times, machines you built going wrong, even accidentally blowing up the village brewery one particularly dragon-attack-filled summer. You never brought a dragon down, not for the longest time.
And every time you failed, you tried all that much harder to prove yourself to all of them, to make him proud, never giving up despite the laughter and the ridicule, dipping into reserves of inner strength and determination that should have made them admire you, that you didn't even realize gave you value all on their own.
You kept trying. When once they tolerated you, the kids your age stopped letting you hang out with them, unless they wanted you around for a laugh. You got abandoned whenever they got bored of laughing at you, you got headlocked and wedgied, sometimes shoved in the mud, and on one memorable occasion toppled into the river by Snotlout.
Always she watched, not participating but not stopping them--only interceding when things got too cruel, and you longed for the days when she let you make crowns of daisies to wear in her hair. She'd been the one to talk to you the longest, to be the kindest, until her father died and she decided you weren't being serious enough about the war with the dragons, that you were holding her back.
There was awkward silence in your house, a father that didn't understand you and probably didn't like you, a mother whose absence was almost palpable because of the space that all the would have beens and should have beens took up.
Then there was that moment that no one saw, when you finally took one down. You tracked him down in the woods, you held up your dagger and you said:
"I'm gonna kill you, dragon... I'm gonna, I'm gonna cut out your heart and take it to my father. I'm a Viking... I'M A VIKING!" ]
3 - Part 1 lol
Only you didn't. You were the village weakling and you asked too many questions and prodded at too many things and got into too much trouble. You needed too much saving and too much looking after when your curiosity got you into trouble. You messed up so many times, machines you built going wrong, even accidentally blowing up the village brewery one particularly dragon-attack-filled summer. You never brought a dragon down, not for the longest time.
And every time you failed, you tried all that much harder to prove yourself to all of them, to make him proud, never giving up despite the laughter and the ridicule, dipping into reserves of inner strength and determination that should have made them admire you, that you didn't even realize gave you value all on their own.
You kept trying. When once they tolerated you, the kids your age stopped letting you hang out with them, unless they wanted you around for a laugh. You got abandoned whenever they got bored of laughing at you, you got headlocked and wedgied, sometimes shoved in the mud, and on one memorable occasion toppled into the river by Snotlout.
Always she watched, not participating but not stopping them--only interceding when things got too cruel, and you longed for the days when she let you make crowns of daisies to wear in her hair. She'd been the one to talk to you the longest, to be the kindest, until her father died and she decided you weren't being serious enough about the war with the dragons, that you were holding her back.
There was awkward silence in your house, a father that didn't understand you and probably didn't like you, a mother whose absence was almost palpable because of the space that all the would have beens and should have beens took up.
Then there was that moment that no one saw, when you finally took one down. You tracked him down in the woods, you held up your dagger and you said:
"I'm gonna kill you, dragon... I'm gonna, I'm gonna cut out your heart and take it to my father. I'm a Viking... I'M A VIKING!" ]