Omphalos (Hiccelsa)

Chapter 28

Calder waited in his sparse room until the house was asleep. The creaking of the floorboards nearly lulled him to sleep, but he pinched himself at every chance there was the urge, until his eyes were wide-awake and blinking in the darkness. The room was cool and once was a place he found great comfort in, but as he'd come less and less, things started to disappear into other children's bedrooms, leaving only a mattress and a desk with a few lone papers still scattered about it. Calder could hardly care, he only returned occasionally out of guilt-, which if he had it his way, would be eradicated.

It took much longer for the house to fall silent than he would have hoped. It had seemed everyone had from the village had showed up to see his new dragon last night. Elsa and Hiccup had been entertaining late into the night. He knew of the unrest amongst the villages, but they all pushed it away for a happy little party.

And then Sigrid had returned to sleep over with Hijordis and Ophelia, and the three girls had taken the upstairs loft and kept the widows open and had laughed and giggled into the wee hours. There was no way if he'd left previously they wouldn't have noticed. Now, it seemed that they had grown too exhausted to continue with their idling gossip.

Thank Odin.

He slipped out of his bed, grabbing his bag from where it sat, lying on its side. He drew the drawstring tightly, swinging it over his back. The door made no noise as he gently pushed it open. Only the faintest glimmer of moonlight spilt onto the wood floor from the window against the wall, hardly enough to wake anyone. He looked hungrily to the kitchen, but shook his head. He wasn't going to steal from the people who had taken him in. They'd give him anything he wanted, but that meant sticking around for the morning and that was simply time he couldn't afford to lose.

He tiptoed through the living room and his fingers had just curled around the door handle when he heard a voice in the darkness.

"I really hoped I was wrong about you, Cal." His brother's tired voice floated from the back of the room, where he'd been too preoccupied to notice the slumped figure in an armchair.

"Ull, go back to sleep." Calder sighed, turning.

"I can't believe it. You're not even staying one night? Elsa will be crushed." He said. Calder winced hard at his last words, and Ull grimaced. It had been a low blow, but it had hit the mark well.

"I have a dragon now." Calder breathed out, letting his emotions dissipate from his mind, "I wasn't even planning on coming back around now until the egg grew, so... " Calder rubbed his nose, shrugging.

"It's a baby, Calder. You can't expect to go and ride it now." Ull said, getting up, yawning nevertheless, but pushing himself up to the height of his brother.

"I can train it as we go." Calder said.

"Oh, like you know how to train bewilderbeasts." Ull scoffed, "Remind me when you took that course, again?"

"No one knows how to train one, except Drago." Calder pointed out.

"Drago enslaved it. Valka knows- she'll be crushed if you leave too! This is like the best gift to her since who knows what." Calder turned for the knob again, and Ull gave a moan of frustration, "Where are you always running to, Calder? Tell me that!"

"Not running." Calder said icily, "Searching."

"Ah, for our deadbeat dad." Ull rolled his eyes, "Give it up, already. Please."

Something snapped in Calder's eyes, an Ull saw emotions rolling in rapidly. For as much as Ophelia made jokes about it, his brother's silence and stoic nature scared the hell out of Ull. It was like someone stole his brother and replaced him with a hollowed out man, dead-set on an impossible mission. But now, Calder's fists clenched and he ground his teeth.