Omphalos (Hiccelsa)

Chapter 4

Elsa sat with Ophelia, who had calmed down and was stuffing cheese in her face, and sighed. In all her history books and lessons, she’d learned Vikings to be savages who raped and pillaged and did much worse things than take care of two wounded females. There had to be a catch here somewhere.

Hiccup seemed perhaps a little earnest, on her re-evaluation. He seemed honestly wiling to keep his mouth shut about the year thing, but she just wanted to get home.

However that was possible.

Hiccup re-entered with his mother.

“Ophelia, would you like to come with me to look around the village?” Valka asked, leaning down for her. Hiccup was glaring at his mother, and it was clear that something had transpired beyond that door.

“But I can’t walk.” Ophelia whined, and Valka lifted her up and placed the little girl on her shoulders. Ophelia smiled, “Daddy does this all the time!” She announced, and Elsa giggled at her simple joy. The once fear of ‘dragons’ vanished because she could see far and wide from her perched view.

Elsa let her go, because she trusted a fellow mother or motherly figure with her niece, and watched them leave. She turned to the plate of food left, and gave a frustrated sigh as she attempted to spear some vegetables with a fork, but her gloved hands made it extremely difficult.

“Why do you wear those? Can’t you take them off to eat?” Hiccup asked, out of curiosity, and Elsa resisted the urge to glare at him.

“I have a thing about dirt.” She said, using the excuse her sister Anna had originally thought came from her covered hands.

Hiccup raised an eyebrow, “Are you saying that we’re dirty?” He chuckled, and Elsa looked down. He left the joke hanging, sighing, “Look. I’m sorry I’m a jerk, but girls like you are different and I don’t know how to deal with that.” He admitted.

“Because I’m a Queen?” She questioned, but he shook his head.

“Because you’re not afraid to fight with me.” He corrected, “Others in the village have, but there’s an underlying respect now that no one would dare go to far to undermine.” He replied. Elsa looked a bit confused.

“So you respect me for disrespecting you?” She blushed a bit, “Admittedly, I suppose I should be apologizing. I acted impishly, and you are being kind and very helpful.”

“Let’s just say we’re even.” He decided.

He noticed that she slipped the glove off, not to eat, but to fish a little stone from her pocket. She ran her fingers across it repetitively, and it seemed that she hardly knew what she was doing. Hiccup saw nothing out of the ordinary about it, until it caught a little flash of light from the window.

He surprised her by jumping across the room to sit directly next to her. “Where did you find that?” He asked.

He took it from her fingers without asking, and was corrected in his assumption it was one of Toothless’ scales.

Elsa jumped, and shoved the glove back on. “Ophelia found one yesterday, apparently in a big hole in my woods. I went to go back to see if it was a danger, and I found a few more just a little bit down. Long story short, it’s the hell hole that landed us here, I think.” She shrugged. She gave a little smile, “Ophelia has such the imagination. It’s pretty, but she thinks it’s a dragon scale.”

“It is.” Hiccup said, and that sent Elsa into a fit of giggles. She paused, when she noticed his face, “Oh, so you were serious about that whole thing?” She asked.

“I can show you the dragon this came from- it’s mine in fact.” He offered. Elsa studied him hard. She didn’t peg him for the completely crazy type, and she felt like getting up. Perhaps she should just humor him.