32 Epilogue by Hiccup

EPILOGUE BY HICCUP HORRENDOUS HADDOCK III Last night I did not sleep well. I am an old man, and I dreamt I went back to the Amber Slavelands, flying over those windy sands like I was the Deadly Shadow, following a set of footprints across the desert desolation. At first I thought they were the footprints of the Monster. And then I realised they were the footprints of my childhood self. Eventually I caught up with him, a scarecrow of a boy, struggling defiantly across those dreadful sands. And in this dream a great wind had come up, and all around him the blackened, burning remains of Hiccup's past went bowling past– the houses of the Hooligan village where he grew up, the skeletons from the Dragons' Graveyard– all blown away by the winds of the war that Hiccup had begun. But the boy still walked onwards, towards Tomorrow. What was it my mother Valhallarama had said? 'Don't be too hard on yourself, Hiccup, if things do not turn out well in the end…'

I know what awaits Hiccup on Tomorrow, so in my dream I tried to shout to the boy-I-once-was, 'Go back! Do not go to Tomorrow! Stay where you are!' But of course my boyhood self could not hear me. 'STOP!' I shouted in my dream, but how could he hear me above the roaring of the wind that was blowing away the world all around him? And even if he could, it is already too late for him to go back. The winds of the Amber Slavelands have already blown in the Rebellion. They have torched the little Hooligan village where I grew up. No one could live in those black smoky ruins. And even if he could hear me, would I really want him to do anything differently? Would I really want the ticking-thing to stop, for time to stand still, for Hiccup never to grow up, or to be something other than the boy he is? This is all his— sorry, my fault, but if Hiccup had not acted as he did, there would still be slaves in the Amber Slavelands, Eggingarde would never have made it back to the arms of Bear-mama, the Dragon Furious would still be in chains, the world would still be back in the terrible barbaric times of slaves and tyrants and

witches, and monsters with no hearts. You see, it was not only Hiccup who was growing up, it was the entire world around him– and when whole worlds grow up, that can be painful and difficult. Was it all worth the Archipelago in flames? I do not know, you decide. But Hiccup could not be anything other than the boy he was, and so his footsteps do not stop; they walk on. With every step he is a little older than he was before, walking slowly towards me and into Tomorrow. The chapter in my life that Hiccup has just walked through has been a story of three mothers: Valhallarama, Bear-mama and Termagant. Of how even when they are not there, when we cannot see them, when they are parted from us by quests, or by slavery, or even by death itself, they are still watching over us, yearning for us, loving us, though they lurk in the clouds as invisible to our eyes as the Deadly Shadow. Far away by cold campfires they are thinking of us, dreaming of us, loving us long-distance. Fishlegs's mother could not come back to hold him. She had gone behind that glass wall of death. But

still she held up her hand from behind the glass, and pressed it up to Fishlegs's hand and willed him to be alive, to walk, to laugh, to love. As if she could breathe life into him, as if she could be there with him, as if she could pass through the glass with the sheer hopeless longing of her love. And perhaps she was still there to love him. Termagant's eyes had once shone into the six eyes of the Deadly Shadow. The reflection of those eyes now shone back into the eyes of Fishlegs, so it was almost as if, sometimes, she herself were looking back at him. When the Shadow dragon pressed itself protectively against Fishlegs, it was an echo of the embrace that Termagant had given that same Shadow dragon once, long ago. The past never really leaves us. And now I am an old, old man, I hover over my childhood self, as if I were a dead mother, and I am anxious for Hiccup's future, because I already know it, and I want to protect the boy from pain. But I am happy too, because I know the future is a curious mixture of joy and sadness. So suddenly I throw away my fear, and I no longer shout 'Stop!' I am shouting something slightly different now.

Walk on, Hiccup! Have courage! Walk into Tomorrow… And I will meet you there at Hero's End…

THE BOY SHALL NEVER REACH TOMORROW...