Eleven: You Can Only Try

The clean-up over the next few days after the raid had not been as bad as usual but Hiccup had felt immensely guilty for landing Gobber with all the work on his own-even though the blacksmith had reminded the young man that he had been mending the village's weapons since long before Hiccup was born. But the implication to the young man-that he was currently useless-had meant he had helped as best he could with general labouring in the clean-up...to scant thanks and generous casual abuse. Dejected, he had returned to the forge, pumping the bellows, fetching and carrying and manning the hatch. And feeling even more worthless than he had when he was disowned.

Gobber had tried to cheer the lad up but Hiccup had been quiet for most of the time, answering with grunts and the occasional nod, completely unlike his cheerful and optimistic self. Finally, Gobber had sat him down at the back of the forge as they rested towards lunchtime and stared at him.

"Spit it out, laddie," he had urged the young man and Hiccup had sighed.

"I don't belong here," he said slowly. Gobber gaped.

"What?" he spluttered. "But this is yer home, Hiccup! Yer a Hooligan, the son of the Chief and..."

"No, I'm not," the young man said heavily. "I was disowned by my father and thrown out of my family. My Tribe treats me like dirt and mostly like a thrall. Now I'm not even able to help you with the same things I have done for years. I am just...worthless."

"That's yak dung, laddie, and yer know it!" Gobber scolded him but he shook his head wearily.

"Then what has happened to Snot and the twins?" he asked softly. "I was attacked for doing nothing but the task the Chief set me-and I was almost killed. But the people who attacked me just walk around with no censure. So either I am worthless and not worthy of justice or the Chief doesn't want to face the problem and is just ignoring it." Gobber gaped. It was a bold statement for a young man who had maintained his positive front for years. "And you know, when I was facing Thuggory, he even said he was proud of me...but it was clearly a lie." He shook his head. "I'm still his embarrassment of a former son." Gobber fished out his flask of mead and pressed it into Hiccup's hand. The young man raised an eyebrow.

"You know that doesn't solve anything," he pointed out.

"It does fer a few minutes," Gobber commented.

"And after that, my hand is still broken and I can't smith," Hiccup sighed, taking a small sip. It was Gobber's own home brew, which meant it was very rough and very alcoholic. Gobber nodded.

"Only fer a few weeks," the older man reassured him. "Then yer'll be back tae yer told self..." He paused. "But in the mean time, yer could clean out the back and sort through that junk. Maybe yer could find something that could be recycled or useful. Maybe..." He couldn't bring himself to say it. Maybe even one of yer crazy and dangerous contraptions? But Hiccup nodded absently.

"Okay," he sighed. "But can't guarantee I'm gonna find the answer to all your problems..."

I think I'm already looking at him, Gobber thought as he wearily levered himself up and headed it back.

Once the sounds of clanging and really bad singing were filling the forge once more, Hiccup began to poke around the back of the forge. No one had cleared this area for years, merely adding more stuff haphazardly to the pile. Of course, it was once Hiccup's job but since he had effectively become the blacksmith, he had spent most of his time repairing and making weapons and the rest avoiding Snotlout and just...surviving. It had been almost three years since he had looked at the pile-including his inventions. And about the same amount of time since he had invented, in no part due to Gobber's...discouragement. He sighed. The part of Hiccup that had been the inventor had been shouted at, beaten, ridiculed and had finally given up-not because it didn't exist but because it was safer and less painful not to allow it any consideration.

But seeing a few of the destroyed unsuccessful models, Hiccup felt a sudden flicker of that part of him once more. And he knew it was perilous and Thor, he had more than enough problems but seeing the devices, he found himself wondering if it could be done. He could visualise the designs-now destroyed-and he found a hand trailing proudly over one of the machines which had prematurely fired and blown up one of the store houses. Of course, the outcome had been disastrous because Hiccup fully acknowledged that he had been desperate to impress his father and gain some meagre crumb of acceptance, so he had deployed the device with no trials or any sort of assessment of accuracy. But for some of them, the principle had been good, it was just the execution that had been poor. And that had been down to the desperate boy he had been.

He pulled the covering off and stared at his last device, the one had had planned to use...but never got round to trying. That raid had been Hel and he had never been able to leave the forge to try it out. And of course, they had lost a quarter of the village, the entire Svendson family and Mulch in the catastrophe so when Hiccup had been thrown out of Dragon Training and disowned, it had been forgotten. He crouched down, seeing the device and allowing a small smile to tilt his lips as he ran his hand over the device. He barely managed to duck as it went off, launching a bola hard into the wall a scant yard away. And then he stared: part of the bola had gone straight through the wall of the forge.

Wow, he thought, staring at the device. Serious hair trigger. Hmm. Really got some calibration issues...but maybe I can sort those out, seeing I'm not much use for anything else. And then he sighed. But after I've completed what Gobber asked me to do. He may be being nice now but when he's meaded up and I screw up again, I don't fancy facing him accusing me of neglecting my work and then... He couldn't think about it because he loved Gobber, who was the only person who had cared for him throughout his pretty harsh childhood...but it had been terrifying and almost shattering when Gobber had forbidden him to develop or try any more dragon-fighting inventions-and when Hiccup had protested about the ban... He shivered. It had been the first time Gobber had raised his hand...and as really the only person who hadn't torn Hiccup down before, the beating-and it had been a beating-had broken Hiccup's spirit. And worse, Gobber, consistently drunken following Mulch's horrific death, had been grimly proud that he had achieved what Stoick couldn't: he had stopped Hiccup wasting time and destroying the village. And only at the cost of breaking Hiccup's heart.

He shook himself, blinking against the mist in his vision. He hadn't thought about that for years, schooled himself against that betrayal that was almost the worst of the lot...but his eyes drifted back to the device and unconsciously, he reached in and adjusted the spring tension, frowning as he tried to calculate the angle and distance he would need to bring down a Night Fury.

"HICCUP?"

He almost jumped out of his skin, hearing Gobber closer than he had expected. Urgently, he threw the covering over the device and hauled it against the wall, to the back and out of sight, then knelt by another of his disasters-now in pieces, as the blacksmith arrived.

"What in Odin's name is happenin' and why is there a hole in meh wall?" he demanded as Hiccup stared guiltily up.

"Um...one of my old contraptions went off and launched a bola," he said truthfully. "Just missed me, in fact. It's dealt with now. I'll fix it, I promise!" There was a pause and Gobber nodded, his anger damped down by the sight of the young man hunched submissively. He didn't like to see Hiccup so defeated and he had to shamefully admit he was partly to blame. He sighed.

"This place is draughty enough without any new holes in the wall," he admitted. "Hammer a board over it, will yer?" Hiccup nodded gratefully as Gobber looked around the space. There was a difference already and he nodded. "Keep it up, lad. Yer doin' grand." And then he left, never seeing the young man sag in relief. He still had a lot of tidying to do-but his mind was already swinging back to how and when he would run some tests on the device to see if it could actually work...

oOo

Snotlout stamped angrily into the Dragon Training arena, his sister and Phlegma's niece, Hilde, trailing behind him.

"What exactly does Useless think he's doing?" he growled, grabbing an axe and throwing it full at the target. Of course, it split the centre and stuck deep into the wood. "I mean, why hasn't he just jumped off a cliff or-or died? Instead, Uncle has bought him new clothes and he's shacked up with my Princess!" Else shook her head.

"Brother, you know we've gone over this," she sighed. "You can't marry Astrid. She's poor and has no worth or influence!"

"She was worth enough for Thuggory to challenge 'the Heir' for her," the young man growled, grabbing the axe, wrenching it from the target and stomping back to his mark. He threw with his other hand-but with the same result. "And anyway, she should be Promised to me. She said she chose the Heir..."

"She chose Hiccup," Hilde reminded him. She was ferocious and Astrid had been one of her heroes-though she was disappointed that the young woman had chosen the most despised man in the village as her Promised. Not that she had any choice, she acknowledged silently. Though I would have leapt off Odin's Leap before selling myself to that scrawny...loser.

"But he used Heir's Privilege," Snotlout insisted. "And I'm the Heir..."

"At the time, he was," Else sighed. "And the Chief allowed it." She shook her head. "What worries me more is how she got away with attacking him and..." Hilde glared at the girl.

"Else," she said steadily, "your brother and the twins are the ones who nearly killed Hiccup." The other girl stared at her and then turned on her brother.

"You WHAT?" she shouted. Completely unworried, Snotlout fetched his axe and threw again.

"Hey, he needed a lesson," he said calmly. "He was getting ideas above his station. People were even starting to think he wasn't completely hopeless. So he needed to be disposed of..." Hilde stared in shock at the declaration-completely devoid of any remorse or even insight that what he had done was a terrible crime. And though Else was her friend, she inspected the stocky young man once more and wondered for the first time what the village would be like under a man who casually spoke of 'disposing' of a perceived rival whose only crime was to be better at acting the Heir to Berk than the current holder of that title.

"You IDIOT!" Else raged. "You could be imprisoned or Outcast for a crime like that!" Snotlout finally looked at her, his blue eyes mocking.

"Please! We are talking about Useless here!" he scoffed. "I should be being awarded a medal for putting him in his place." Hilde shook her head, struck again by his self-absorption and complete lack of insight.

"Brother-half the village was impressed by his performance in the arena," she said in an exasperated voice.

"And the other half?" He sneered.

"Were very impressed," she finished. He scowled.

"I really should have killed him," he growled, "and..."

"ENOUGH!" All three teens looked up to see Spitelout walk into the Arena, his face locked in a sneer. "I didn't think I raised a son to be so stupid!" he commented. Snotlout turned to face him.

"A Jorgensen takes what he wants!" he shot back. "And I wanted Useless gone. You made sure Uncle Stoick made me Heir-I was just making sure there was no chance he would change his mind." Spitelout walked up and tapped his finger painfully against his son's forehead.

"Think, boyo!" he snapped. "We're talking about your cousin here! Apart from the fact that Odin really takes a dim view of that sort of thing, it's Hiccup we're talking about! If you leave him a few days, he'll screw up on his own with no help from anyone and things will just go back to how they were before." He folded his arms aggressively. "So we have to do some damage limitation." He paused. "How much do you like those twins?"

"Um, Dad-they're really good friends..." Snotlout began but Spitelout shook his head.

"They're crazy manipulative violent lunatics!" he corrected Snotlout. "You hang with them because you always have but you're becoming increasingly worried about their erraticness and their violence. They suggested the attack and captured Hiccup, didn't they?"

"Erm..."

"Yes," Else prompted her brother.

"Didn't they?"

"Yeah, I remember it like it was yesterday..."

"It was five days ago, mutton-head!" Spitelout sighed. "And they got you drunk with their home-made Akvavit..." Snotlout immediately looked guilty. Of course, everyone on the island knew the Thorstons brewed the most lethal liquor in the Archipelago but it was officially a secret from the Chief. Though Stoick certainly knew, not only because he made it his business to know everything on Berk but because his generation had gotten their Akvavit from Bluffnut, the twins' father.

"Okay, so I drink some of their liquor occasionally," Snotlout said defensively. His father groaned and hit him upside his head.

"No-you were drunk or you would never have dreamed of making such a vicious attack on Hiccup, let alone leaving him to die on the cliffs..." he growled. "And the twins destroyed his belongings, didn't they?" Snotlout nodded slowly, light beginning to dawn in his cunning but not very bright brain.

"It was all their idea," he said. "I'm feeling really broken up about..."

"Don't overdo it," Else snapped. "No one would believe it. Say...you were jealous and were moaning to the twins-which you were, we all heard you-and they got you drunk and then they hatched up this stupid plan and you went along because you were drunk but you regret hurting him so badly. That's all. No false platitudes or exaggeration. People will believe that...and others will take the real blame."

"I can see where the family brains went," Spitelout noted. "Look, your sister is correct. And I know Stoick is struggling to find a way to tackle this that won't reflect badly on him as a Chief and leader. So go up and confess. Apologise for lying about Astrid-say you were drunken and it was all part of the twins' plan! Say you regret the attack and that you would never wish to kill or hurt Hiccup like that...though you have disagreements like all...people."

"But I do want to hurt Hiccup," Snotlout said in a low voice. His father clapped him on the shoulder, his smile very cruel.

"You only have to say the words, not mean them," he reminded his son. "And in a few weeks or months, this will all have blown over and no one will care. And if the odd fist or kick heads his way...who is going to worry?" His smile widened. "And, of course, when Stoick is dead, what you do with the weakest, almost-outcast villager is the decision of the Chief."

Snotlout smiled.

oOo

Astrid found Hiccup grimy and tired, piling up the last of the scrap and feeding the last few shreds of useless rope and leather into the forge to burn away. The area was tidy now and even Gobber had been impressed at the transformation. But the last device-Hiccup's Mangler (the name had come back to him when he accidentally ran over his foot with it while moving it to a more secure position)-was carefully concealed and a few stray scraps of wire, rope and leather were secreted as well, ready for him to tinker when he had a moment-though he hadn't been able to resist and had already had a small fiddle with the main cable.

"Hey," she said, staring at his sweaty shape. Offering a weary smile, he turned to face her-and found a canteen of fresh water handed to him.

"Afternoon, Milady," he smirked before he took a well-needed drink. She smiled, glancing around the space.

"You've been busy," she complimented him but he dipped his head and his expression fell a little.

"Anyone could have done this," he muttered, favouring his painful left hand. "All I did was sort through this pile of stuff." She frowned, folding her arms.

"Can't you just say something positive?" she asked him in a slightly impatient voice.

"I'm positively sure anyone could have done this-while I should be smithing with Gobber...except Snotlout stamped on my hand and broke it," he sighed. "Look, everyone calls me 'Useless' anyway but just now...really feeling it."

"He confessed, you know," she told him and his head snapped up.

"What?"

"That's what I came to tell you," she explained. "Snotlout confessed. Said it was all the twins' idea and that he was drunk and it sounded like a good idea at the time. The Council have just finished meeting and they sentenced him to two weeks in jail-while the twins have ben exiled to Eel Island for two months."

"What?"

She smirked. "They protested it was all Snotlout-but Else, Hilde, Gustav and Yaklegs all testified that the twins were the ones behind the attack, though Snotlout wasn't let off. Only Tiril protested but then she's their cousin."

"While Else is Snot's sister, Hilde's her best friend and Gustav is Snotlout's entire fan club," Hiccup noted tonelessly. "So he got away with it. Why did no one call me to ask what happened?"

"Snotlout didn't dispute what happened," Astrid said, frowning at his tone. "He accepted the attack and apologised."

"Not to me," Hiccup said tonelessly.

"So he's been sentenced to jail and they get exiled," she finished. "Look-I thought you would be happy?" But as she stared into his pale, battered face, with the horrible fading bruises and the wary emerald eyes, he didn't look happy.

"Snotlout wasn't drunk," Hiccup said quietly. "He was completely in control. He was the one giving the orders. The twins were doing exactly as they were told. It was all Snotlout, Astrid. And he got away with it. And when he becomes Chief, he will kill me."

"Then we have to tell the Chief and..." she began but he cut her off with a brusque chopping motion of his broken hand.

"It's too late," he said harshly. "The Council has ruled and justice has been served. It's too late to go back and get them to listen. He's got away with it."

"The twins are pissed-I know that," Astrid commented, drifting to his side and gently taking his hand, feeling the tension in his muscles. He was taut as a bowstring. "And the Chief and Council are happy they've dealt with it..."

"...without having to change the Heir," Hiccup said tonelessly. "So that's it. I do what they asked, protect the village, Snot beats me almost to death and gets away with it and everyone's happy." He shook his head. Astrid's hand tightened around his. "I'm not-but no one cares anyway," he sighed. Then he shook himself. "Look-I have an idea that I want to try and I wonder if you would let me try it on your house." Her eyes widened abruptly, the legacy of his mixed abilities as an inventor instantly putting her on alert. "Um...you don't have to if you don't want to, by the way," he added, the defeated tone back. "It wasn't going to blow anything up or anything but...yeah, I understand..." She blinked and sighed.

"What was the idea?" she asked gently, seeing his depression. "I trust you, Hiccup...it's just your previous ideas...well, let's say they haven't exactly had a stellar success rate..." He shrugged.

"S'okay," he sighed and retreated back into the little space. He gestured aimlessly. "Um...got a few things left to do, by the way..." Rolling her eyes, she walked forward and took his hands.

"Hiccup," she said sternly, "tell me your idea." Emerald eyes flicked up and there was just the faintest plea, the tiniest shred of hope that made her heart clench painfully for him. He was really feeling horrible for being deprived of the one unique contribution he could make to the village and he was desperate for something that could help regain a little of the self-worth that he had briefly regained during his stint as Acting-Heir...and which had been brutally beaten out of him on the cliffs.

"Um, okay," he said hesitantly.

"Hiccup!" she snapped. "Tell me the Gods-damned idea!" He looked embarrassed.

"Um...itsafirepreventionsystem," he mumbled ashamedly and she stared at him.

"What?" He took a defeated breath.

"It's...a fire prevention system," he admitted. She stared at him. "Okay, forget it. Sorry. Stupid idea. Useless strikes again..."

Her hand found his shoulder, gripping tightly.

"No, it's not," she murmured, eyes shining. "If it works...it could save lives." So no one else would have to die like my parents, trapped in a blazing house that the fire crew got to too late... He stared at her and then his face fell.

"Gods! I am so sorry," he gabbled, his face stricken. "I-I never even thought...so stupid, Hiccup! How could you even mention...?" But she was shaking her head, both hands gripping his shoulders painfully tightly.

"No," she said in a shaky voice. "No, if it works, it's brilliant! Gods...thank you..." And she flung her arms around him, burying her face in his neck. Breathing hard, he wrapped his arms around her hugging her close and feeling the hitch in her breaths she would reveal to no one else. Tenderly, he rested his cheek against her hair, noting it smelled of the fresh air and the pine forest she had been training in until she finally pulled away. Her eyes were red and his tunic was damp but he would never embarrass her by mentioning it.

"If it works," he murmured wryly. "That's the real trick..." She swiped her face and stared up into his self-deprecating expression.

"Hiccup-you're three years older and more experienced in smithing and fixing things," she reminded him. "This isn't something you have to try to develop in secret and use before testing. I'll help with this. And we can get Fishlegs to help as well. If we can make this work...it will change things for the better." For you as well as the village, I think, she added silently. She knew they were all wary of his inventions but this wasn't something destructive and she hoped her trust would be repaid. He smiled.

"You can only try," he sighed and began to explain his idea.

A/N: Think fire prevention measure from HTTYD2! Also...a certain someone features in the next chapter...