14. Meet our blacksmith

Later on that day...

After the commotion of the spectacle in the arena had slightly settled down, even if the cheers and praise were still coming in droves, Syn took Hiccup to the blacksmith shop. It looked very similar to Berk's own, except it was more rotund in design and a lot bigger; Selardalr had placed blacksmithing in a bit higher regard than the Berk did, of course, all positions were respected here because they all contributed in keeping life going for everyone in their own way. There were still piles of scrap and tools everywhere, just as messy as Gobber would keep his forge, Hiccup thought.

He looked around and eventually his eyes landed on a man in the back who Hiccup assumed was the resident blacksmith. Compared to Gobber, this guy looked kind of young and had Orange hair that had yet to age, and most noticeably, he had all his limbs intact. He was hammering away at an axe blade still extremely hot and soft from the fires of the forge, pounding it into the proper shape while whistling a cheerful tune; all the noise in the room distracted the man as he hardly notice the two come in.

Syn grinned sneakily at Hiccup, drawing him to watch her next move. She picked up the nearest, softest object she could find from a nearby workbench: a small roll of leather. Hiccup got an idea of what she was going to do.

"Wait, Syn, I don't think you should-" Too late. Syn threw the leather at the back of Asmund's head. He let out a sound of pain clutching his head and groaned as he turned around to the source of the unexpected attack.

"Aw, Syn," he said. "I should have guessed that you'd come around here eventually with yar new friend, the local celebrity." Hiccup silently moaned at that description: somehow, someway, it had become Berk all over again. The only good thing about the whole situation was that at least he didn't have to hide his sympathy for the mighty beasts.

"So you noticed," Syn said as the Viking dipped the axe head in a nearby water barrel; the hissing steam filled the room and the water bubbled from the instantaneous heat as he left the weapon walking up to the two teenagers. "Asmund, this is Hiccup. Hiccup, this Asmund, our blacksmith." She introduced.

To the Silent Wolf vikings, the blacksmith was a respectable position, keeping everyone supplied with the equipment they needed to fend off the dragons and enemy tribes. Every occupation was respected on Selardalr, each one assisting to maintain a steady and favorable way of life. On Berk, the only admirable duties aside from the role of chief were those upheld on the battlefield; even the fire brigade that Astrid, Snotlout and the others were a part of had bragging rights. Unless you got in on the action, you may as well have been a rock.

"Hi," Hiccup said politely, even giving a curt wave. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise. Heard about ya from some o' ma customers. Tamed the Skrill, did'ya?" He asked. "Seems Harold was on'ta sumthin' after all…" Hiccup blushed a bit and turned away to rub his arm like it was his most favorite hobby. The reaction and the silence that followed had Asmund confused for a moment.

"So, uh, what are you making, Asmund?" Syn questioned, probably just trying to start a conversation, as she already knew good and well what he was making. By now she picked up on the fact that Hiccup had introverted tendencies and was pretty shy. Even though she could not for the life of her figure out why he didn't revel in his talents and feel any prouder of what was in her and her peoples' eyes the most incredible thing they had ever seen. This boy next to her could do things that no other Viking, no other man on earth could do – the way she saw it, he could get away with being a little less modest.

"Just makin' a few extra axes," Asmund said with a sad smile before sighing.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Syn asked.

"Aw, this place has just lost its zest without my little apprentice. S'not as fun as it used ta be."

"What do you mean?" Hiccup asked.

"His old apprentice died a few weeks ago," Syn whispered in his ear. "Long story, don't ask.".

Long story short, Asmund's apprentice had been carting weapons in the wheelbarrow during a dragon raid and was killed by a dragon, the Skrill that Hiccup had tamed earlier, electrified by its thunder shot. The boy had been Hiccup's age, and like Hiccup was with Gobber, Asmund had considered the boy a son to him. The loss had all but devastated Asmund, but he figured he got his revenge when the Skrillhad been wrestled into submission and captured. In the midst of war, death was an inevitability for everyone, and the mindless violence that came with it wasn't some elixir that could resurrect the dead: that was something all who fought in war knew.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Hiccup said.

Asmund didn't hear Hiccup's apology, as his attention had quickly returned to his work, fitting the now-cooled axe blade onto a handle. He did not even notice Syn's face going temporarily blank before a smile grew across her face and her blue eyes shined mischievously. Hiccup noticed, however, and frankly he was getting a little scared.

"Hiccup, you stay here, I'm gonna go check on Alvis," She said quickly, backing up out of the room before bolting out into the village as quick as if being chased by a pack of Terrible Terrors. The rushed footsteps drew Asmund's focus back to the entrance and soon the two men were alone watching her disappear into the village. As soon as she was out of sight, they turned to each other and stared.

Asmund shook his head and chuckled a bit. "I'm pretty sure she wants ya to help me."

"I couldn't agree with you more," Hiccup smiled and replied

"Eh, might es well get started." Asmund said, leading Hiccup over to his workbench and handing him a few tools to work on the axe heads. Hiccup took off his vest and put on an apron hanging in the corner before shoveling the coal in the back and heating up the fire again.

A few hours had passed and the two ended up crafting several axes together; Asmund had to admit he was highly impressed by Hiccup's skill in smiting. Each axe he created had a level of quality Asmund had rarely seen, both sides of the metal head balanced out and perfectly smoothed from an even amount of pounding. The blades had been sharpened enough to slice hairs in half, and the metal itself was free of any trace of impurities that might have remained from the heating process. Each axe crafted was a work of art, crafted to suit the customers' preferences but also had been modified according to Hiccup's own personal notes and ideas to improve overall performance. Being the artist that he was, he had even made intricate designs along the blades in the form of sea serpents or runic trails. It was clear this kid knew what he was doing.

"So, it's Hiccup, right?" Asmund asked after watching for a while.

"Yeah," Hiccup said; currently he was in front of the fire, pumping the bellows and increasing the temperature for the flames beneath the heated pieces of coal where the shaped iron had been placed. The metal was heated enough to soften and bend, and so Hiccup removed it from the coals, beginning to pound the ends to make the slot for the handle.

"Eh, yur pretty good with yar hands," Asmund noted coming up behind him. "Ya done this before?"

"Actually, yeah," Hiccup said. "I kinda worked in the forge we had back home. If I wasn't running around in the woods with Toothless, I'd be there, pretty much." A few more moments had passed and by now Hiccup was working on the blade of the axe.

Asmund nodded. "So, tell me 'bout yarself, Hiccup," He said. "Harold said that he knew yar father."

Hiccup jolted at this and nearly split the softened metal with the sledge hammer in his franticness. "H-He did?" He never would have guessed that Harold and his father were related, but it may as well have been. With so many similarities it was only a matter of time before actual ties came into play.

"Yep," Asmund said. "Though he said that our two tribes lost touch a long time ago. I came ta the island after Harold got married, so I don' know much 'bout 'him. What was his name again? Stoick? What was he like? I'd imagine yud know, seein as how yur his kid, n all."

Hiccup continued to pound the blade of the axe until it was at just the right thickness before taking it into the fire again. Asmund helped by shoveling more coal into the fire and pumped the bellows with his foot to start it up again. Soon enough, the metal was reheated, and Hiccup took it back to split the edge in two with a smaller hammer and a pick.

"They guy is impossible to please." Hiccup said with an exasperated sigh as the metal was carved open and Asmund took over another shaped piece of steel – the cutting edge, and fit it into the slit.

"He's a chief," Asmund said picking up the heated blades and placed them in the fire, merging them together into a single piece. "He just doesn't want to appear ta be playin' favorites. Harold's pretty much the same way."

"He's covered in that department, believe me." Hiccup walked ahead of Asmund over to the table in his general direction, wiping it clean of any dust or extra tools and setting done a stone mat that was on the floor with visible strain. "I swear, if I hadn't lived in the same house with him for 14 years, I wouldn't have even known he was my father!" Hiccup ducked out of the way before Asmund set the weapon down on the mat rather roughly and took the hammer to combine the pieces into a single blade and regain the first piece's thickness. "Not even if my mother introduced him to me while he was wearing a name tag saying 'Hi, I'm Hiccup's father'."

Asmund felt bad for Hiccup – he truly did; it was clear even in these few minutes that the boy had an extremely strained relationship with his father. That should have been natural, most boys his age hated their fathers and their guts; it was a matter of pride, a father was a mountain for the son to climb and eventually conquer by reaching the top. That was the relationship between fathers and sons in a nutshell, but between Hiccup and his father, it was obviously something deeper. It might have been possible to say that Hiccup truly did hate his father, not like others who said 'I hate you' which translated to 'I'm gonna be better than you:' Hiccup was more along the lines of 'I never want to see you again.' A burden like that could weigh heavily on a man, so it was really for the best that he get the boy to talk more, get it out of his system. He was plenty okay with conversations, his old apprentice used to talk his ear off over every little thing; he didn't have much experience with more serious conversations, and he barely remembered much about his relationship with his own father. But Hiccup needed this – Asmund would just have to trudge along and hope for the best.

Think of it like a day at the forge: the topic is out there, the metal's heated. The next step was to slam down while it was hot. "Didn't ya ever tell him that?"

"Of course not," Hiccup said. "Our idea of a conversation was grunts, mumbles, and the ever-popular 'see ya'." Hiccup held the merged axe head in place with a metal rod in the hole where the handle would go as Asmund continued to pound the metal into proper shape and size. "I'd be lucky if I got two words in for the whole day, a full sentence would be some kind of miracle; I gave Syn the same story, don't make me do my impression of him." He warned with a pointed finger.

Asmund chuckled at the boy's story: granted it still seemed like a serious matter to him, yet it sounded somewhat familiar. Hiccup just raised an eyebrow at the smith's unusual reaction. "Ah, sorry," he apologized,

"but you wouldn't be the first ta have issues like this. Syn and Harold have a similar relationship, even though it usually ends in arguments that keep us up till dawn the next day."

From his small tirade of resentment, Hiccup honestly didn't want to delve any deeper into what was. "Yeah, speaking of next," Hiccup began sarcastically. "Any chance we could move on to some other topic?" Asmund could see this was going to be a project, getting Hiccup to discuss all these negative feelings inside him and then forget about it all. Lucky for Hiccup, Asmund liked projects, so he left it alone for now. "All right," Logo said putting down the hammer; by now the blade was nearly finished. "Where'd Syn go?"

"She's either arguing with Raoul, or playing with Alvis and Toothless," Hiccup stated shrugging his shoulders. "Probably both."

Asmund laughed and shook his head. "Those two will fight ta the end of time. Don' know why, though. I'd be damned if Raoul doesn't have a crush on her." A smile popped up on his face as it always did when matters of love were discussed. Asmund was quite the gossip in that regard, and so the teenagers would always be sure to keep any romantic affairs aside whenever he was in earshot.

"Not that I'm an expert in the field of romance, but I'll bet he just acts like she gets on his nerves" Hiccup pointed out. It was true that girls were no more of a specialty to him than anything else: he couldn't even look in Astrid's general direction without pouring waterfalls of sweat. When it came to actually going up and talk to her, well, he would have fainted from getting two feet forward. Just one more embarrassment for Berk's little outcast.

"She gets on everybody's nerves: she's a handful, that girl, always givin' a good piece of her mind wether anyone wants it or not. And Raoul, despite any guff a' his utherwise is still just a kid," Asmund explained. "It's prob'ly just his way of getting' her attention, 'course I'd say he had a crush on everybody if that were the case. Whatever it is, though, it ain't workin', an' most've just called it quits on the whole affair and agreed they just drive each uther nuts. Speakin' of whatever, what's up with that baby of yurs anyway? He yur brother or somethin'?"

"My son, actually," Hiccup said. "I found him all alone under a tree in the forest on the other side of the island the day I ran off with Toothless. He needed someone to take care of him, so I took the job and named him Alvis."

Asmund stared for a moment. "That's strange, a baby in the middle o' nowhere. I mean, where in the name of Thor did he come from?"

"Aw, some other tribe probably landed on that side of the island and dumped him there. Maybe by accident, maybe by certain laws," Hiccup mused, spitting out the last two words like they were bile in his mouth, causing Asmund to wince a bit. Alvis had received a fate he himself had probably only been spared from due to Stoick's need to continue the Haddock line, which to many was now seen as his greatest mistake. Had anything been different, Stoick probably would've tossed him into the ocean without giving the matter a second thought. "It doesn't matter now. As much as it shocks people, he's my son now and I'm going to give him the life and the happiness I never had. And now there's Syn, and she acts like a mother to him."

"Aw, Syn loves kids," Asmund said. "Not your average girl, but I know she's gonna make some lucky man really happy." He replied before turning to Hiccup with one eyebrow raised. "What do you think of Syn, anyway?"

The question seemed simple enough, just an honest opinion of the girl who'd been his guide to this new yet uncannily familiar world, and so Hiccup thought nothing of it and answered. "Well, she's not bad. She really nice and cool and-" And that's when hormones kicked his common sense into high gear and Hiccup realized the true idea behind the question. Turning back to face Asmund, he narrowed his eyes and sighed. "Oh, I see where you're going with this. Way to get the mood back on track, pal."

"Aw, come on," Asmund urged in exasperation. Other villagers had heard his cries and raised an ear themselves to the conversation, eager to learn the answer as to the relationship between the chief's daughter and the wayward dragon tamer for themselves. "I've seen the way you two have been lookin' at each other for the past few days."

"Oh, please, it would never work," Hiccup said. "Syn is really nice, but no girl would ever look at me that way. Girls and me are like honey and eels: they don't go together, and you'd have to have yak dung for brains to think they would!"

"Hiccup, yar doubtin' yarself too much," Asmund pointed out. "Syn's not like otha Viking girls. Sure she's nosy an' a little out there, but she's pretty understandin'. Plus you two are already friends."

"Harold would never approve," Hiccup said flatly.

"Don't make this 'bout Harold," Asmund said. "The way I see it, parents have no say in who their children choose to marry. Besides, I'd say with all tha's happened today, Harold thinks he can trust you enough to stay here-"

"But not yet enough to take care of his daughter," Hiccup interrupted. By now the metal had been heated and shaped enough for the final touches. Hiccup placed it back in the heat one more time, making it a little hotter than before, allowing for the more delicate process of creating the special designs. Once that was done, Hiccup placed it in the barrel of water to cool it instantly, and fitted the carved wooden handle in the hoop between the blades. The axe was now completed, and like all the others, the workmanship of the item was purely stunning; Hiccup took it to lay it down with the pile of all the others resting in the corner.

"No, not yet," Asmund said. "Ya just have ta earn that trust, and given time, yu will. Now, I know it's uncomfortable-"

"Speaking of uncomfortable, can we please stop talking about this?" Hiccup asked, almost begging.

"Suit yurself," Asmund thought for a minute. "Hey, uh…" he started rather awkwardly, scratching the back of his head "why are ya so willin' ta trust me? I almost killed yar dragon, ya know. In another time n place; in another time and place, a might 'ave gotten awey with it."

"It was just a misunderstanding," Hiccup said without a single stutter or even turning around to face the man, already fully aware of Asmund and Toothless's encounter right after he was shot out of the sky. "You didn't mean it. Besides, if nothing else, it feels good getting back on familiar ground." Hiccup recalled back to those long days when he was in the forge with Gobber, sharpening some sword, polishing some mace, or making one of his strange contraptions. Gobber was always there to talk to, and deep down, Hiccup missed the old, crippled smith dearly, as he was practically the only thing that made Berk at least a little bearable. But one man alone next to a village full of mean-spirited, hot-aired brutes was not enough of a reason to stay, Hiccup reasoned, his friendship with Toothless and his safety taking priority to the boy. As sad as Gobber most likely would have been, he's eventually move on. Like Asmund had.

"I see," Asmund said as Hiccup grabbed the broom on the side of the wall and stated sweeping up the floor of any coal pieces or stray metal bits that might have slipped to the floor during the metal making process. A few hours later Syn appeared with Alvis and Toothless, having already led the latter with fish that she admittedly stole from the docks in order to avoid a hungry dragon's wrath after some pressuring from Asmund. She quickly dragged Hiccup out as she noticed Alvis was reaching out for and grabbing every interesting thing, or every thing, he could see. Asmund couldn't help but shake his head in fondness at the two 'love birds.' Seeing them walk out hand in hand had rather reminded him of Harold and his wife, who had always been holding hands themselves as they strolled everywhere.

Hiccup couldn't help but reflect on all he had seen, all he had done, and most importantly, all he had met today. The different people and the skrill, they all seemed so familiar, so like his home, but also in a different way that seemed much more special. It gave him a glimpse of something that surprised him especially, something he never thought existed.

Without a doubt, the one most special person he had met today… was himself. His true self...

TO BE CONTINUED......