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aleteia-ff · 5 years

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Chasing the Western Wind | Post-HTTYD3 One-shot

Inspired by the many Hiccstrid-kid drabbles I’ve read throughout the past weeks, here is my own! Instead of focusing on their birth or on them as little kids, this short is about Zephyr turning 18 and how Hiccup deals with that, as her father. And likewise, how Zephyr deals with being next-in-line to the Viking who created peace with the dragons. Spent a lot of time listening to Stoick’s Ship while writing this, and my heart isn’t much better because of it.

Chasing the Western Wind

Out of all the adventures Hiccup had been on throughout the years, being a father was certainly the most difficult and most rewarding one. He still remembered the day on which he first held his new-born daughter in his arms like it was yesterday. It’s the kind of moment that changes your life forever. As chief, he was already very aware that the village depended on him. But this was different. That little girl had nothing but Astrid and him, along with their family and friends, to keep her safe from the dangers of the world. And after many years, in which her and her brother had been his pride and joy, his most dreaded day had finally come. Zephyr had turned eighteen.

Most Viking girls would have spent that day drinking, only to come back out of bed when they really had to. But not her. Not that the party had been a dull affair. On the contrary; he and Nuffink had been busy dragging guests back to their homes until deep into the night, after Astrid’s scolding hadn’t done the trick. Especially Snotlout had gotten so drunk he’d completely blacked out – and Tuffnut had totally been responsible for it. He often wondered if the two were a good influence on his kids, but he figured two guys giving them an example of how not to do things could be just as helpful.

Zephyr herself had been distracted throughout the day however, her eyes often staring into the void in front of her. And it didn’t surprise him that he found her on the day after, just past dawn, sitting in her usual spot, on her favourite cliff. It was a place he would’ve picked himself if his daughter hadn’t pretty much claimed it, as it was absolutely gorgeous. It didn’t provide its visitors with any scenery of New Berk itself, which was a shame as the island’s nature was stunning in its own right. Instead, it gave you a beautiful look at the ocean, spread out in front of you and reaching as far as the human eye could see. He had his own spot just like that; it was the one where he’d said goodbye to Toothless so many years ago. This cliff however, faced the other way and belonged to his daughter.

It was still hard for him to look at Zephyr as the woman she’d become instead of as the little child she’d been for so many years. She was slender and although she was taller than her mother, she still didn’t quite reach her father’s height. Her long auburn hair was neatly braided on her back, its style clearly inspired by her mother’s – she even wore one of Astrid’s leather bands around her head – and its length was close to his own mother’s. Valka was luckily still around to inspire both of her grandchildren, although he did feel like she spoilt them way too much.

Zephyr’s other features were mostly Astrid’s as well. From her round face, to her nose, to the way she dressed, to her beautiful blue eyes which made it almost impossible for him to tell her no. But the look in her eyes had always been his. Astrid had first pointed that out when Zephyr was only fifteen. It was the look she had had to deal with as his friend and fiancé. And the look his dad had undoubtedly had to make peace with as his father. And she felt that, as Zephyr’s parents, they should probably start preparing themselves for the same.

It had taken him a while to see it as well. As much as he loved his children and as much as they had clung to him over the years, Astrid had always been the once to notice those little things first. A combination of a mother’s instincts and the fact that she’d spent so many years looking at Hiccup himself, she’d said. And indeed, as he now watched his only daughter gaze towards the horizon, her eyes fixated on the sea, he understood what Astrid had meant. His daughter was just like him. They had named her after the western wind. And it was calling for her.

“Hey, Zeffie,” he greeted her as he sat down next to her, supressing a groan as he did. His body had started to tell him he was getting old, and his prosthetic certainly wasn’t doing him any favours. Still, he was positive he had many years left in him. He would make it so.

Zephyr heaved her shoulders, rolling her eyes and looking at him with an irritated expression on her face. “Dad, we talked about this. I’m not a child anymore, so you can’t keep calling me Zeffie.”

He smiled at her. He knew that all too well, but he enjoyed watching the expression on her face as she once again decided that her dad was totally not cool. “Alright, Zeph.”

That was what her friends usually called her, and he had to supress a chuckle as he could see his daughter visibly cringe. She probably thought her dad was outright lame.

Taking in her clearly unamused face with a smile, he continued. “So, did you like your party yesterday?”

“Yeah,” she answered, plucking the grass next to her. “It was nice. Although we should really prevent Uncle Tuff and Uncle Snot from sitting together.”

“Well, you know that the two are basically inseparable,” he agreed. Tuff and Snot were basically like an old married couple at this point.

“They’re great though,” Zephyr smiled, her voice trailing off into the distance. She was still distracted by whatever was weighing on her.

“What’s on your mind?” he prodded, knowing that he usually just had to pull things like this out of her.

“Nothing,” she shrugged, pleading innocence with her blue eyes. He pulled up his eyebrow at her, scolding her with his best dad-look. And soon enough, she caved. “It’s just…” She gestured with her hands, a trait she’d undoubtedly gotten from him. “I’m eighteen, dad.”

“What about it? It’s just a number,” he simply responded.

Annoying Zephyr was usually the best way to get her to talk. “No, dad, that’s not it. It’s not just a number, it’s… I don’t know, everything.” She frowned, crossing her legs and putting her hands in her lap. “I’m an adult, for all I know I could be Chief in a few years, marry, have kids, just… everything.”

“Hey, I don’t plan on dying for a long time. So don’t consider yourself lucky just yet,” he teased, poking her shoulder. Then he turned more serious. “Are you afraid of becoming Chief?”

Zephyr bit her lower lip. “Yes.”

“Why?” He could think of a lot of reasons – he’d had his own when he was her age, after all – but he needed to know hers.

She averted her gaze, looking at her hands instead of at him. “Because of you.”

He frowned. That hadn’t exactly been the answer he’d been expecting. “What do you mean?”

“Because I can never live up to you, dad!” she almost yelled, her sudden outburst taking him by surprise. She had to have been dealing with this for a long time.

As she looked at him again, he could see the tears in her eyes. “You’re Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third. You created peace between dragons and Vikings, you killed the Red Death, you battled I don’t know how many dragon hunters as I have no idea which of Uncle Tuff’s stories are made up and which ones are true.” She scoffed, wildly gesturing as a tear made its way down her cheek. “You saved Berk from Drago, avenged your dad, became chief at twenty. You led everyone here, prevented the dragons from being captured by Grimmel the Grisly, built this place up from the ground and yet you still somehow find the time to look after the Hidden World and the village!”

Zephyr was visibly panting and had outright started sobbing as the words left her mouth. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer as she cried against his chest. He softly stroked her back and her hair as her shoulders shook against him.

“I just don’t know if I can do it, dad,” Zephyr sobbed. “I’m not like you. I’m not as great, or brave, or selfless. I could never live up to your legacy.”

He exhaled audibly, pulling his little girl even closer to his chest. Gods, she was so much like him it almost hurt. It felt like just yesterday that he’d had the same doubts, the same insecurities, the feeling that he’d never be able to live up to his own father. But she’d never seen that. Zephyr didn’t know the journey he’d gone through to get to where he was now.

She’d only known him as her dad, one of the people she looked up to. She’d never seen him as the scrawny boy from Berk, terribly insecure until Toothless gave him some self-worth. How hard it had been for him to lose his dad, having to step up to become chief when he hadn’t been ready yet. The way he’d doubted himself throughout all those years he’d spent on the backs of dragons and how incredibly long it had taken him to get over their separation from them. To this day, he still missed not having Toothless around all the time, even though they now saw each other as often as their duties and middle-aged bodies allowed them to.

But those weren’t the stories people told about him. His friends, his mother, Gobber and especially Astrid knew them, but the hardships they’d all gone through wasn’t what was being carried over to the next generation.

“Hey,” he called, still trying to calm his daughter down. “You don’t have to be like me.”

“As if I ever could,” Zephyr remarked sarcastically, her voice hoarse from the tears she’d shed. “You spent six years flying around on a fire-breathing dragon.”

He laughed softly. “That’s not what I mean. Yes, I flew a dragon. So what? So did everyone else on Berk.”

“But you were the first,” she pointed out, looking at him with those blue eyes he loved so much.

“Ruffnut and Tuffnut were the first to try stacking fifty yaks on top of one another. Doesn’t necessarily mean they were good at it,” he smiled.

That arguably terrible joke did get him a chuckle from his daughter. But her face soon clouded again. “But you were. Even mom says you were better than she was.”

“But that doesn’t have anything to do with you,” he told her. “Yes, I flew a Night Fury, but the time of Berkians flying around on the backs of dragons has passed. It allowed me to do things you will simply never get the chance to. And that’s not your fault, and it doesn’t have anything to do with who you are. So don’t compare yourself to me. It’s not fair.”

Zephyr sulked, not completely accepting his words. He put his finger under her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Look at me, okay?” He waited until she slightly nodded before continuing. “You are brave. And you are selfless. You are stubborn, strong-willed, and full of perseverance. And you will become great. In your own way. But that doesn’t happen just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “It takes years. It took me years to get to where I am now. I have been a teenager too, and I have been insecure too, feeling like I could never live up to your grandpa.” He’d told her enough stories about the great Stoick the Vast for her to understand how much he’d meant to him. And to all of Berk. “But you will find your own way to be great. And no matter how you do that, your mother and I will always be incredibly proud of you.”

A smile appeared on Zephyr’s face, and she started to wipe away the tears that were still on her cheeks. “You might be right,” she finally conceded.

“Come on,” he told her, getting up and dragging her to her feet. “I’ve got something for you.”

“But we already did presents yesterday,” Zephyr frowned before following him to the forge. He had a small room there, where he could usually be found if he wasn’t at home or out chiefing.

He looked through his drawers, eventually finding what he was looking for. He put the little brown sketchbook on his desk, carefully opening it and folding out the papers, which had become more fragile throughout the years. It was the map he’d been working on throughout his years with Toothless. He’d completed it to show the location of New Berk and the few islands close to it, but had left the location of the Hidden World undocumented on purpose. Only those who needed to know knew where it was, and they’d share that secret with those who were worthy.

He’d made several copies tidied up copies of the map to aid New Berk’s sailors and traders, but this version had always stayed with him. Since they’d settled on New Berk, he’d only ever used it to illustrate the stories he’d told Zephyr and Nuffink about the time they’d spent on Dragon’s Edge. Especially Zephyr had always loved those tales. So had Fin, but he was more like his mother, practical and focused on what was right in front of him.

Zephyr had, just like Hiccup himself, always looked beyond that, finding herself trapped in the pitfall of overthinking things. The two siblings balanced each other out nicely in that sense; Fin was always quick to pull Zephyr back to earth when she had another outlandish idea about fixing one of the island’s issues that honestly didn’t need any fixing.

“What are you pulling that out for?” Zephyr wondered as she came to stand next to him, dragging her fingers across the decades old map.

“I’m giving it to you,” he told her with utter confidence and pride.

Her eyes visibly grew bigger as she looked from the map to her father. “But why, I –”

He gave her a gentle smile. “It’s up to you to decide what to do with it. It’s still not finished, after all.”

“But Berk, the dragons, you, mom, Fin –” Zephyr stuttered.

“Will always be here,” he reassured her. “Although I can’t speak for your brother of course.”

What appeared on Zephyr’s face then had been the happiest and most determined smile he’d seen from her in ages. She hugged him, squeezing him tightly. “Thanks, dad.”

The two months that passed from that day onwards had been some of the hardest Hiccup had had to live through thus far. He’d suspected for a while that things were going to unfold like this, and Astrid had seen it for years. Which did not mean that she hadn’t scolded him for sort-of convincing Zephyr to go through with it, but he knew her well enough not to take that personal. They both had to deal with it in their own way, after all.

He hadn’t been surprised either when one day, two weeks in, Ruffnut and Fishlegs had practically burst into the Haddock home. Asking him what exactly his daughter was dragging their oldest son into. But he hadn’t needed to do much explaining. After all, they’d experienced it too. It would only be a matter of time before the inevitable happened. Their spark was their children’s too.

So now he found himself standing in New Berk’s harbour, watching as Zephyr handed out orders to her friends. She would make a great chief one day, if she’d choose to take on the position herself instead of handing it to her brother. Who would be great at it too.

Throughout his years as a father, he had often wondered how his own dad had felt watching him go through life. Only now, years later, he could somewhat begin to understand what his father had gone through. How he might have felt when he’d thought his son had died at the hands of the Red Death, or how worried he’d been during all those years Hiccup had flown through the Archipelago, making both incredible friends and terrible enemies. And now, too, he was watching his child prepare to head into the Great Beyond. And gods, did it hurt. But he could never stop her. And his dad had known the same had been true for him.

He tightened his arm around Astrid, who was keeping an eye on Nuffink in return. The boy had had his own way with dealing with his sister’s impending departure. Somewhere last week, Astrid had pulled him out of the forest after someone had caught him kissing a girl who was distantly related to the Jorgenson family; and Hoffersons mingling with Jorgensons was out of the question. Fin had aptly responded that technically, he was a Haddock, not a Hofferson, which hadn’t exactly appeased his mother. But it had reassured Hiccup once again that he, too, would be fine.

He swallowed away the lump forming in his throat as Zephyr walked up to them, saying goodbye to her grandma before eventually turning to her brother.

“Don’t think you’re going to be chief just because I’m going to be gone for a while, Nuffie,” she teased, ruffling her brother’s blonde mop. She was still taller than him and knew all too well her little brother resented it.

“Just don’t try to become like dad by losing a limb along the way,” Fin bit back, sticking his tongue out at his sister, which earnt him an elbow in his side from Astrid. Of course the two siblings were never going to say they’d miss each other, even though Hiccup was sure they would. Zephyr had even asked her brother to go with her, but he’d decided not to, eager to seize the opportunity to take on the responsibilities his sister had had instead.

Zephyr then turned to her parents, a lopsided smile appearing on her face. “I love you.”

She hugged her mother first, Astrid going over some last-minute practicalities as she hugged Zephyr back. To prevent herself from crying right there and then, Hiccup knew. Lastly, his daughter faced him.

“So west it is, I’ve heard?” he asked, smiling away tears of pride.

She nodded. “Chasing the western wind you named me after. After all, there’s still a lot missing on your map.” She patted the satchel that was flung around her shoulder, Berk’s crest proudly painted on it. Ever since he’d given it to her, she hadn’t let it out of her sight.

She spotted the tears welling up in his eyes as she spoke and she moved up on her toes to hug him, her arms around his neck. “I’m going to be great, dad,” she whispered.

He wrapped his arms around her once more, holding his daughter as tight as he could, not knowing when he would see her again. Just like it’d been with Toothless so many years ago. “I know.”

They separated, smiling at each other once more before Zephyr drew herself away from her family, nodding towards them once more before determinedly walking towards the boat they’d been readying. “Alright guys, let’s get going before we all go crying back to mommy,” she commanded, flashing bright smiles at the friends who’d chosen to go with her. “And yes, Fishnut, I do mean you.”

The teens pushed off, their boat slowly drifting away from New Berk’s docks as the ocean took a hold of it. Hiccup could see Zephyr inhale deeply, closing her eyes as the wind caught her hair, ruffling her bangs. He imagined the way she felt right now was much like how he’d felt flying out on Toothless when they’d first headed out towards the Edge. The world she’d been staring at for so long, finally within her reach.

She held on to one of the boat’s ropes, letting herself hang over the side of the vessel, smiling and waving towards the people who’d gathered to see them leave. She would be fine. Her mother had taught her how to fight, and she had her friends with her. And he, of all people, could never keep this feeling from her. She was an explorer, just like he’d been. So there she went. Into the Great Beyond.

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