( ✈ SEVENTH FLIGHT; video — both courts )

[smithwork]

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. ]

Comments

[smithwork]

Oh, I'm ... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry.

[ Even if this guy looks like he gives none of the fucks, Hiccup doesn't want to offend. ]

[bullhorned]

It makes no matter. I didn't know it was him 'til after. What of your father?

[smithwork]

My dad is Stoick the Vast, seven-feet tall and almost as wide. People say he popped the head off a dragon when he was a baby, which I sincerely don't doubt. Basically imagine the exact opposite of me, like a bearded, muscled explosion that ate a boulder. He's chief of Berk.

[bullhorned]

[Seven feet tall is impressive. The Hound had been that tall, or near enough as to make no matter. And a chief besides. It was quite thee parallel in some ways, but Hiccup spoke more fondly of Stoick. Gendry felt not an ounce of fondness for his own father, who was just as legendary in his own land.]

My father was King Robert Baratheon. He fought dragons, only not real ones. He took the throne from the Targaryens - they called themselves dragons. They said he was the strongest warrior back then, when he killed Prince Rhaegar. But when I saw him, he was a fat drunk what could barely control his horse. He nearly ran over me because I was just an urchin in a street, born from some forgotten tavern girl he'd got himself on.

[smithwork]

Like that Danny Nereese woman who used her dragons for warfare? I heard about her a while back.

[ He wasn't impressed with what he heard, tbh. Also, he sucks at remembering complex names on the fly. ]

Maybe being a king just spoiled him, I get the feeling it might do that. Viking warriors gain great honour when they die in battle, some of the tales are incredible, but you wouldn't want them for a king if they survived.

[bullhorned]

[This might have made sense to him, had he known the measure of Robert Baratheon. But he would ever know him as the man whose castle was in Gendry's sight all his life, but had not ever once looked at him. He might act like he didn't care, but there was nothing in all the world that troubled him so much as that.]

... Daenerys Targaryen is her name. She had three dragons. [He didn't defend her, but at the same time, there was clearly a fondness in how he spoke of her. Gendry had been so near to swearing his sword to her, before she vanished. If truth be told, he might have been half in love with her as well. But that was a faded emotion by now.]

Might be you're right about him. He was no decent king, but he weren't an awful one either.

[smithwork]

Daenerys, gotcha.

[ Whereas the other boy sounds fond of her somewhat, Hiccup doesn't bother speaking his mind. It's pointless to insult others who aren't even in the Drabwurld, anyway, and this guy seems nice enough. ]

You're not going to be king after him, then?

[bullhorned]

[He snorts.]

I ain't got no claim on the Throne. I ain't got no interest in it, either.

[smithwork]

I feel like I'm looking into a mirror, here.

[bullhorned]

You don't fancy being a chief?

[He didn't know what that involved, but he supposed it like some kind of lordship of its own.]

[smithwork]

Thor no. All those speeches and planning? That's my dad's thing, he loves it. I'd rather go exploring on my dragon, thanks.

[bullhorned]

[In Gendry's case, there was no choice in the matter. At the very least, he certainly wasn't trained for it.]

Aye and me to my forge. I've no use for highborn games.

[smithwork]

I grew up in a forge. I worked there, I mean, I loved it. What's your speciality, what do you like to work on the most?

[bullhorned]

I was an armoror. I learned to make helmets that looked real as beasts and how to link mail together, plates of armor, and all else. And more besides. What did you make? [It's not often he meets fellow smiths, but he's pleased to meet another craftsman. He'd only too recently met one that had proceeded to insult his work. He was still sour about that.]

[smithwork]

That sounds incredible, I'd like to see something of yours. Vikings don't wear a ton of armour, you see. [ His smile is wry, and then he itches the side of his nose as he shrugs. ] I mostly made my dragon's missing tail-fin, once I got him, and a bunch of dragon saddles, new parts to my pegleg ... basically whatever I needed I had to rustle up on my own by improvising. Before that, I made weapons.

When I first got to the Drabwurld, I hold up in Caer Scima's smithy and made a bunch of daggers just to pass the time.

[bullhorned]

I could show you, sometime. It's better in person than on these fiddly things. [The lockets have images far too small to appreciate detail.] These things you've made, fins and peglegs... are they magicked?

[smithwork]

Oh, no, they're normal. Hold on.

[ He folds his left leg over his lap, showing him how the rotating braces flick down. A curved clet-metal brace for walking, an ice-pick, and a snap-on hook. ]

The one with a hole in it locks onto my dragon's saddle. Toothless has a missing tail-fin, so I control the way the fake leather one that I made moves with my pegleg, and that's how we fly together.

[bullhorned]

[It's certainly clever work. A year ago, Gendry would have been amazed. But he had been learning such mechanical skills from the dwarves and even if he wouldn't have thought of such a thing, he understood it well. He studied it and then scratched at his chin.]

Do you suppose something like that could be made so a cripple could walk again? [He had given it thought for poor Bran, but had not come up with anything practical as of yet.]