23 Epilogue by Hiccup

EPILOGUE BY HICCUP HORRENDOUS HADDOCK THE THIRD, THE LAST OF THE GREAT VIKING HEROES Here I am, back where I started; this all happened such a long, long time ago. But now I come to think of it, if I look around the desk where I am writing now I can see things all around me that remind me of that time. The hook of Alvin the Treacherous hangs on my wall like a golden question mark. By the door rests the shield given to me by the Fat Consul. I have taken that shield into battle with me all my life, much to the amusement of my friends, for instead of being circular like Viking shields it is square in the Roman fashion. But then I have always been somewhat of a square peg in a round hole. Even the quill with which I am writing now is made out of a Roman golden eagle's feather that I found in my cell at Fort Sinister.

I look at these things and I remember, and what I remember most clearly is the moment when the balloon rose out of the jabber and hullabaloo of the prison of Fort Sinister and into the clear blue sky like a perfectly round bubble of happiness, or a balloon of thought. I remember the quiet stillness of that moment, floating free of all care and worry, suspended magically in the endless nothingness of the air below and above us. I remember my child-self looking down over the rim of the basket and seeing my entire world laid out beneath me like a map in a made-up story. For the first time I saw that the place where I lived and struggled and worried was part of an Archipelago of staggering beauty: hundreds of tiny green islands set in a shimmering blue sea. And suddenly I realised with such clearness what pinpricks we were on this ocean universe. What swaggering insects! What posturing amoebas! But size isn't everything, as I am always telling Snotlout. However small we are, we should always fight for what we believe to be right. And I don't mean fight with the power of our fists or the power of

our swords. That has always been the problem with us Vikings. I mean the power of our brains and our thoughts and our dreams. And as small and quiet and unimportant as our fighting may look, perhaps we might all work together like the numberless armies of Ziggerastica, and break out of the prisons of our own making. Perhaps we might be able to keep this fierce and beautiful world of ours as free for all of us as it seemed to be on that blue afternoon of my childhood. Once, my hand held the sword 'Endeavour' so strongly. Now that same hand is as brown and wrinkly as an old salt kipper as it writes these words slowly and shakily across the page. The ink splutters and splodges where once it ran so smoothly. Sometimes I forget what I was doing last Tuesday, let alone sixty- five years ago. But the winds will still blow when I am no longer here. The storms will still rage, and the forces of

Empire and oppression, be they Roman or otherwise, will still be waiting at the corners of the ocean. The fight goes on for the Heroes of the Future.