eachdraidh | ( ✈ SEVENTH FLIGHT; video

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( ✈ SEVENTH FLIGHT; video — both courts )

Hi, everyone! Hiccup here, Unseelie Court if that ... matters to you. I was wondering if anybody else felt like getting to know each other. I'm That Guy With The Night Fury, also known as Why Are You Riding A Dragon and Is That Thing Going To Eat Me.

I'll start us off.

I've been talking to Jon about marriages and weddings, stuff like that. You can all settle down, me and Snow aren't getting hitched any time soon — I know you'll all be deeply disappointed to hear that — I'm just wondering how people do things in other lands.

When you're a Viking, you only ever get married if the other person proves their worth to you and it's unheard of for anyone to be pressured into it. You could be a guy or a girl, it doesn't matter. Women and men decide for themselves that that's it, they want to marry, do it, and then sometimes one of them might decide to divorce the other. Is that such a weird concept to a lot of people here? And, uh, on the subject of ... bastards — sorry about the language if that's also a thing for you, as well as the actual meaning — why is it that if one half of a married couple has another child with someone who isn't their spouse, everybody thinks said child is worth less? That seems insane.

[ Hiccup certainly looks confused, and a bit offended on behalf of said illegitimate children. ]

There are lots of cultures clashing in the Drabwurld and I'm finding out new things every day but this is fascinating to me, maybe because it's crazy and I've never explored anywhere far enough away to encounter such a weird way of thinking. Where I come from, no one gets to offer you a serious insult unless you yourself have done something to deserve it. You should be as brave as Thor himself and stand up for what you want, no matter what anyone else thinks.

Then there's this whole weird attitude about other people bothering to voice their opinions about who you sleep with, as if a guy choosing to bunk with another guy is a huge deal, or girls doing the same. Where does that entitled nosiness even come from? [ Hiccup snorts. ] Surely if you're not there getting down with them, it's not your place to even have an opinion on their bedroom shenanigans. My dad's friend Gobber would put his metal club-hand through the face of anyone who decided to get vocal about his private life.

Jon said that Berkians sound like the Free Folk where he comes from, because we do whatever we want and we keep our honour through our own actions, not the reputations other spin for us.

[ Sitting back against a snoozing Toothless, Hiccup toys with the strings on the neck of his green tunic, armour set aside. ]

Does anyone want to chat about their own lands, their people? I'm ... the only Viking in either court, I think, at least currently. A few of my gods are here — Sif, Loki, and I think Thor might be or was, and I'm still kind of thrilled that Elves and Dwarves and Trolls are real in the Drabwurld. The latter less so, maybe. If you want to ask me anything about my home or our customs, go right ahead! I'm probably going to be bugging people if they respond to this, so fair's fair. Sorry if I already managed to offend you somehow, I guess that's the sort of thing that happens regularly when lots of different people are stuffed into the same place.

I suppose I'm just homesick for that craggy, freezing, rain-soaked rock I call home. [ (Hiccup was always able to sit down and talk to Stoick at night about his day, or he was until this whole Chieftain Handover thing began to crop up.) He pauses as he remembers to ask one more thing before he closes the locket. ] Also, uh. Do you ever think about — about settling down here permanently? In the Drabwurld. With someone ... new? If we get three times our normal lifespan, it's worth it. Isn't it? Building a new life.

Anyway, thanks for listening. I know I go on. Feel free to talk to anyone else in this broadcast if they pique your interest, I don't mind.

[ Threadjack away, bruhs. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

How may I ask did Vikings not end up taking over the world? [This is a serious question.] It's like from there, somehow everybody decided to go on backwards and then go really slowly when they went forwards again.

[Not that the culture rules ever applied to him anyway after a certain point.]

Wow, look at all this flattery! Are there as of yet unplumbed depths to this that I wasn't previously aware of? Please, keep going.

[ LMAO JACK WTF. Except he's actually quite touched, and so must be a shit in return. ]

[Now he's just staring, not appreciating that tone, sir.]

Nope. Nevermind, I take it back. You're the worst.

Okay, fine! This is very serious, I get that. A mature discussion is what we're having here, sure.

[ Putting on his Srs Face and straightening out his pleased smile. ]

[He's lucky he and Jack aren't in the same room at this moment. Gonna smack that face up.]

Oh, I don't know. Me and mature? I don't think we make very good friends either way. [Tossing back a teasing smile before he decides to go forward with things anyway.]

But I guess I was just gonna say that, well — you could actually get hanged for saying half of things you're saying if it was from my time. My original time. Or at least, pretty punished, I guess.

Are you serious? [ Whoaaa, there goes all the mirth. ] Why? I thought you said you came from the New World, wasn't it better over there?

Well, sure, things got better eventually, but it all really stated when people ran off from Europe cause the King was a bit of a jerk, plus they wanted to be able to practice their religion freely. But uh, that doesn't exactly mean we had the most open minded people hopping across the ocean.

I'm sorry you had to live amongst people like that, then. I never knew, Jack.

Well, it's not like I ever lived by anybody's rules, you know me. [He shrugs as though it isn't a big deal, but admittedly, there were lines even he couldn't cross back then.]

But hey! At least with time, people stopped getting whipped and branded for having kids with folks they weren't married to or for boys kissing boys. That kind of thing. Even if it took a while.

Whipped and branded?

Yeah, you know all that cool smithing stuff you do? Try getting that hot iron pressed to your body. All cause you fell in love with the wrong person.

Jack, did that happen to you?

No. [Don't worry.] I just saw it happen. You see it enough, you start to know better.

No one will ever do that to people here, I promise. They wouldn't dare, not with a dragon up in their face.

[ You're safe from that. ]

Yeah, I think people might reconsider the thought with Toothless around.

[Thanks, Hic.]

But, it got better, you know. In the time that I last came from, in a lot of places, it's legal to marry pretty much anybody you want now.

Oh, that's good news. I'm sure you and your staff will be very happy together. Congratulations!

Phew. I was really worried about getting your support for it, but now that's a load off my mind.

I could preside over the marriage, technically! I am the son of a chief, I'm sure that means something.

Oh, really? I guess that means I'd have to do things your way, wouldn't I? And how does a Viking wedding go, anyway?

[ ... Aha. Hah. ]

It's a little drawn out, especially for me. [ Technically a Viking prince about to inherit Stoick's throne, etc. ] Both families would settle on a bride-price first, like a dowry and legal exchange of responsibility for the welfare of the other person to me.

Geez, that sounds complicated. Should teach the Vikings about Vegas weddings.

I haven't even begun to get into it yet. What's a Vegas wedding?

People just go to this little chapel, usually pretty drunk off their asses. They're walked down the aisle by a guy in an Elvis costume — famous singer, I'll tell you about him later — and then they're married in minutes. Done.

Wow. I think I'd prefer that.

The bride and groom have to have a super thorough bath — separately, don't get excited — then she's dressed with a sort of flower-crown and the guy has to wear an ancestral sword. A goat gets sacrificed and a bunch of twigs are dipped in its blood, then sprinkled on the couple to confer the blessings of the gods in what I personally think is the grossest way possible, and the groom gives her his sword for their future sons to have handed down to them. Arm-rings are exchanged, or finger-rings if you want something smaller, a bunch of vows are spoken, and hands are tied loosely together.

Then there's a lot of nonsense about escorting her safely over the threshold for the gods to witness the transition into their new life as a couple, putting a ceremonial hammer in her lap so Thor blesses her, a feast for a week ... all that stuff. Oh, and a bunch of witnesses watch them have sex, to make sure the whole deal's been sealed, so to speak.

Vegas sounds more my style, to be honest.

[Should definitely spread the word about Vegas weddings. Even if they don't necessarily have a high success rate, but whatever.]

Some of that doesn't sound so bad. Some, mind you. The whole voyeurism thing seems a little much though. Vikings don't know the word privacy, do they?

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