Chapter 12: Snoggletog

As the Clan and Toothless helped to watch over the eggs, Hiccup returned one day with an axe and a hammer in his mouth.

"What have you got those for?" Slagathor asked.

"Snoggletog's coming up, I wanted to get something for Dad and Gobber… it would probably break the ice nicely before we tell them about the eggs." Hiccup replied. Then he took his position to look over the nest of six eggs

As the night closed in, the dragons were startled were spooked when they saw Loki suddenly appear.

"Loki, what are you doing here?!" Bladeshine exclaimed.

"Oh, don't mind me, I'm just here to see the eggs hatch." He replied.

It was then that they heard a sharp 'CRACK' as the eggs started hatching. Hiccup and Astrid exchanged looks as a strange dragon crawled out of the first broken shell. It looked predominantly like a Night Fury, but it was blue with black markings, looking more like a Skrill's color pattern. The membrane of their wings stretched continuously down their tails and fanned out into fins. Their wings did look more like a Skrill's on the account of a large claw on them, but these claws weren't as heavy as that of a typical Skrill. Rather than Night Fury plates on their spines, they had spikes, but they kept a Night Fury shape overall.

The remaining eggs hatched, an even mix of daughters and sons. The daughters were named: Stormstryke, Shadeswrath, and Onyx, the first two were blue while Onyx was black as night. The sons were: Zephyr, Wraith, and Omen, only Omen was black and he had red eyes. Zephyr was a dark grey-purple with black markings, Wraith was slate colored with black markings too.

"They're beautiful." Loki stated. He picked Omen up and examined him; he turned to Loki and gave him a fierce hiss. Loki smirked and stated: "Ha, this one's feisty."

Toothless sniffed them and looked them over: "They are a handsome hybrid, very powerful too."

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It didn't take very long for the hatchlings Hiccup landed and dropped an axe at Stoick's feet and wrote in the snow: Happy Snoggletog.

Stoick looked the axe over and it was a descent weapon for something that a dragon could scavenge.

"Well, thank you, Hiccup, and I must say that I wasn't expecting to see you at all this holiday." Stoick replied. Hiccup shrugged and looked inside the house, he could smell the feast that Stoick and Gobber had prepared.

May I go inside? Hiccup asked.

"Go on, the food must smell good." Stoick replied. Hiccup stepped inside and saw Gobber dishing himself some chicken Snoggletog stew. The stew was topped with bread biscuits, almost made the dish a potpie.

"Whoah, hello Hiccup, uh… I see that you're no longer a toothpick for dragons." Gobber jested. He looked Hiccup up and down and spoke again: "So, that's what a Night Fury looks like, no wonder no one's ever seen one."

Hiccup let out a trilling sound, and then turned to the table, he took a couple of yak steaks and ate them.

"I wonder how Astrid's doing," Stoick stated. It was at that moment when six little dragons shot through the door and fluttered about the room. Hiccup let out a yelp of panic as the hatchlings swarmed around Stoick and Gobber, but he quickly regained enough composure to roar and the hatchlings gathered around him.

Stoick and Gobber looked to the hatchlings and saw that half of them looked to be more like Skrills and the other half were Night Furies. There were however a few differences, the Skrill hatchlings had finning on the sides of their tails, the membrane for them started at the wings and continued down the sides of their tails at a fairly consistent width, but the fins flared out more to a greater degree at the tip of their tails; the Night Fury hatchlings had protrusions on their spines that looked more like spikes rather than plates and they had claws on their wings that didn't show up on typical Night Fury wings.

It had suddenly dawned on Stoick that these hatchlings were dragon hybrids of a Skrill and a Night Fury… Hiccup is a Night Fury with affections for Astrid… and Astrid was a Skrill.

Stoick's eyes grew wide as he told Gobber that Astrid had been cursed to become a Skrill. Stoick slowly approached Hiccup as he was trying to get the hatchlings to settle down, and he asked Hiccup in a slow, quiet, but firm voice: "Hiccup, these little dragons… Are they, technically… my… grandchildren?"

Before meeting his father's eyes, Hiccup cringed, he looked up to Stoick, clamped his eyes shut, and gave him a big nod 'yes'. What followed was the sound of a massive Viking chief hitting the floor after he had passed out and the whole room shook!

Hiccup and Gobber teamed up to sit Stoick on his favorite chair until he came to.

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The chief wasn't out long, once he was awake again, he motioned Hiccup to follow him outside.

"So, you and Astrid…?"

Hiccup wrote in the snow: 'Yes, we're mates.'

"Hiccup, how did this happen?"

'What do you think happened?'

"This is serious, Hiccup! I have a responsibility to the tribe while also trying to break this curse, and now you have a responsibility to those dragons as well as Astrid… Should I even work to break this curse now?"

'The friends I've made, The Clan of the Cursed Axe, they've placed their hopes on us. We shouldn't let them down."

"Alright, we'll keep working on breaking this curse, but now you need to figure out what you're going to do with these hatchlings." Stoick replied.

Hiccup gave him a nod and took flight back to his friends with that in mind.

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I know it's been a wait, but I hope you enjoyed this!

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