Chapter Text
The old Norse myths say that two wolves chase the sun and moon around the sky.
They never stop, no matter how tired the horses that pull the sun and moon are - they never relent. Around, and around, and around.
It’s overcast the day Grimbeard the Ghastly’s third son is born. He’s born in the early hours of the morning, when the clouds above seem to be stained with blood.
He’s so small, so very, very tiny - his eyes are a bright blue, and he looks around him as if surprised by everything. Chinhilda holds him close, and Grimbeard sees something in her face that he doesn’t think he’s ever seen before.
Grimbeard had already called for the Naming Dame. Even though he doesn’t have a say in it, he goes over different names in his mind, wondering what she’ll pick. A strong name is always good.
It’s funny how quickly your emotions can change - from happiness to anger, to disappointment, to resignation.
When the Naming Dame arrives, she barely has to take one look at the child before she turns to Grimbeard, a serious expression on her face.
“What is it?” Chinhilda asks, trying to catch the Naming Dame’s eye.
“Your son -” the woman starts, “your son is a runt.”
“What?” Grimbeard whispers. Grimbeard never whispers.
The woman turns and steps back towards Chinhilda, reaching out and placing a finger on the child’s forehead. “I name this child Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Second, and decree that he must be left to the elements, for the gods to decide his fate.”
Chinhilda acts immediately, jerking the boy - Hiccup - away from the touch of the Naming Dame, looking furiously to Grimbeard for support. He’s frozen.
Grimbeard has known, from a young age, that sometimes what you want is overruled by what is necessary. His father taught him that. He’s built his whole life around it. And now, in this moment, he knows what he has to do.
He knows that Chinhilda sees it on his face; he sees her own face settle into a stone-cold determination, and he knows that this won’t be easy.
“Grimbeard,” she says, and there is a chill in her voice that makes Grimbeard tighten his jaw, “under no circumstances are you killing our son.”
He’s not our son, Grimbeard thinks, but he can see that Chinhilda will not be fought on this. He’ll have to find another way.
“Of course not,” he says, not quite meeting her gaze.
In the end, he simply waits for her to fall asleep one night, two weeks later, when she’s too exhausted to stay vigilant. They’ve had a naming ceremony, introduced Hiccup to the town, and Grimbeard has acted as though everything is just as it was with Thugheart and Chucklehead. Chinhilda was not entirely convinced.
Even when sleeping, Chinhilda’s face holds onto a kind of animal determination that has always made Grimbeard uneasy. He stands over her for a moment, holding Hiccup in a bundled fur blanket. The faint light from the coals in the hearth casts her face into a nest of shadows.
“I’m sorry,” Grimbeard breathes out.
He truly believes that he means it.
It’s cold out, and his dragon seems hesitant to leave the ground, hissing and pawing at it. When they do take off into the starless night, the wind-chill is harsh enough to burn.
He flies far, almost getting lost in the snow-covered mountainsides. When he finally lands, he dismounts from his dragon, tying it to a tree, and treads through the snowfall. The stars speckle the sky through the maze of tree branches, the moonlight making the snow glow.
Later, Grimbeard will be ashamed of how fast he left Hiccup there. He barely lingers, doesn’t say goodbye to his son, doesn’t look back. He just leaves him there, tucked under a bush, in the wildest woods of the Wilderwest.
…
The look on Chinhilda’s face, the way her brow is drawn tight across her forehead, the fire burning in her eyes, is a look most people will only ever see on the field of battle, or in their nightmares. It’s a wild rage that will not be spoken to. It is righteous, and brutal, and deadly.
“I want you to explain to me,” she snarls, her sword held level with Grimbeard’s throat, “exactly what you didn’t understand. Because it seems to me -” she has to take a breath, the rattle in her throat the only sign of tears, “it seems to me that I made myself quite clear.”
The Stormblade lies discarded on the ground where she knocked it out of his hand.
“‘Under no circumstances,” she quotes, “are you killing our son.’” Her voice shakes slightly on the last word.
This time, Grimbeard says it out loud.
“He wasn’t our son.”
Slowly, she lowers the sword. Her hand doesn’t shake. Her expression is the same one that shutters across the face of a wolf when it is planning the best line of attack.
“No,” she states coldly, “He’s not your son.”
Turning to leave, she does what Grimbeard did not, and looks back. He stands there, back to the wall, the look on his face one that tells her that he still doesn’t understand.
Grimbeard watches her go, watches her ship fade into the fog.
People saw her, now and again, out in the mountains near a bay; behind Grimbeard’s back, they call it the Bay of The Broken Heart.
She never came back.
She will forever be chasing the light of her son.