Becoming Lífþrasir is a How to Train Your Dragon fanfic written by Midoriko-sama
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People often wondered what kept Hiccup going during those early years. When that single, most-treasured thing is taken from him, there is little left to keep him on Berk. The day Stoick returns, and the day before the best recruit is finally chosen, Hiccup leaves Berk; little knowing that he would one day return under ... strange circumstances.
Can be read on FanFiction.Net here. This fanfic is the first of the "Becoming Saga", and would later be followed up by Winter in Líf's Holt and Meeting At Ioavollr..
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Altar Diplomacy: Since Astrid and her family do not like the idea of her being adopted by Stoick to make her his heir, they instead went for a form of engagement between her and Hiccup (in absentia). This way, she would still be a Hofferson, she gets to remain a shield-maiden as she wanted and she would gain the chiefdom when Stoick retires or dies.
- Badass Bookworm: Hiccup leans toward the intellectual side of things, being considered the best smithy in the archipelago, a dragon trainer with no equal, and never losing a single verbal spar. But there are hints throughout that he's fully capable of physical confrontations as well, such as his use of his fiery blade and knocking Snotlout ass over tea kettle. The sequel confirms this.
- Beta Couple:
- Heather and Thuggory
- Fishlegs and Ruffnut
- Beware the Quiet Ones:
- Dogsbreath has rarely seen Hiccup angry, so he was rather impressed that Mildew was able to do it in less than a minute.
- Snotlout thought it would be funny to make Ruffnut slip on ice while she was three months pregnant. Fishlegs then proceeded to have Snotlout strung up by his ankles naked. He refused to let him down until Stoick made him.
- Chick Magnet: Apparently Cattongue is very popular among the Bog Burglars, with one particular Noodle Incident involving a cousin of Camicazi's that won't take no for an answer. Too bad for them he only has eyes for Astrid.
- Class Clown: According to Camicazi, there is always a student in a dragon-taming class that thinks that they have a better method that Hiccup/Cattongue's and generally causes trouble. Hiccup/Cattongue has a method for dealing with every one of them, whether it's Snotlout who he singles out to tame the Monstrous Nightmare (Snotlout forced to go through with it lest he look like a coward) or Gustav forced to carry three heavy buckets of fish for picking on younger students.
- Destroy the Evidence: When Snotlout catches Cattongue and Astrid together with her hair down, Snotlout accuses her of being a whore and drags her into the middle of the village by her hair to publicly shame her. Because he dragged her by the hair, she was able to explain that her hair came loose when he dragged her with the only remaining evidence being his word. Since it's Snotlout making the claim, naturally not that many people believe him over Astrid.
- Drama-Preserving Handicap: While Hiccup and the other Heirs don't kill the Red Death in the first bout, they cause enough damage to its wings that it has to swim to Berk rather than just flying, which gives them time to prepare their defences.
- Dramatic Irony: Hiccup leaves Berk because he becomes convinced that his father really does see him as worthless, even leaving behind his name and adopting a new alias, Cattongue. He returns to save them from the Red Death, but because of his prior treatment, he believes they would never listen to him as Hiccup and so refuses to go by anything other than his alias. Because of this, the various parties on Berk who missed Hiccup the most do their best to reject Cattongue, perceiving him as a threat to Hiccup's place on Berk, with Stoick perceiving "Cattongue's" attempts to help him as plots to gain influence and suspecting anyone who's any friendlier to Cattongue than "grudgingly cooperative" of being a traitor to Hiccup's claim to the chiefdom. At one point, Stoick and his advisors even discuss killing Cattongue. While Hiccup never finds out about the planned assassination, the obvious hostility he receives from the people he loves in his old tribe reinforces Hiccup's belief that he's unwanted, because even in when he's in disguise Astrid is still skeptical of his worth and Stoick still shows nothing but disrespect to all of Hiccup's achievements. This is especially ironic, because they are disrespectful largely because of how competent and valuable Cattongue is.
- Female Gaze: When she suspects there is something going on between Astrid and Hiccup/Cattongue, Astrid's mother is quick to comment on his ass (much to Astrid's disgust).
- For Want Of A Nail: The catalyst that makes this storyline different from the film? It was Astrid's time of the month during the second day of dragon training and she thus made a particularly cruel comment to Hiccup about Stoick being ashamed of him that inspired him to leave Berk altogether.
- Genius Bruiser: Fishlegs, full stop. Nobody in the village is willing to treat Ruffnut too roughly anymore, not even her brother, because Fishlegs is capable of stripping and stringing up Snotlout, who proves to at least be close enough to Astrid in strength and skill to get the better of her even though he still doesn't want to fight her. But he also figured out who Cattongue was completely on his own, kept an eye on Astrid because he expected her to figure it out (she did), and is praised by Hiccup/Cattongue for how quickly he learns about the dragons.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: By the five year time skip, Hiccup has, in his short life, discovered an entirely new, superior metal alloy; become known as the best smith in the Viking Archipelago; designed and fabricated numerous inventions described in-universe as genius; become so respected his acceptance among the allied tribes and leadership over the (other) tribal heirs is unquestioned; created the art of dragon riding; and already spread his methods of coexistence with the dragons to most of said allied tribes. But because he's internalized the rejection he felt from Berk over all the qualities that made him so different in the first place, Hiccup struggles to take pride in his achievements or even recognize himself as good enough, since he sees these accomplishments as simply extentions of the characteristics Berk didn't like—all the traits Berk wrote off as useless. In practice, this means he appears to suffer from a case of imposter syndrome, as he grew up with the idea that he had to become someone different so the village, especially his father, would be proud of him—and since he has accepted that he can't be who they wanted, he struggles to believe they now sincerely think he's good enough for them anyways. His perspective section outright states that he expects Berk to form a lynch mob if they realize they've been "tricked into following the instructions of Hiccup the Useless.""Now here he was again, on the island where he'd left his childhood and dreams behind, older, wiser, and not at all more worthy, for all of the five more years he'd lived in the world, to be his father's son."
- Improperly Paranoid: Stoick is so afraid of his son losing his place in Berk that he treats the extremely competent Cattongue as an existential threat to Hiccup's future, continuously interpreting Cattongue's actions in the worst possible way and even plotting the younger man's death if it means defending the mere chance for Hiccup to come home and accept his birthright. As Cattongue is his son, none of Stoick's presumptions of Cattongue's secret malicious nature are even close to reality.
- Likes Clark Kent, Hates Superman: Astrid feels guilt for being partially responsible for Hiccup's self-imposed exodus and proudly refers to him as her betrothed, thus finds Cattongue (Hiccup's Secret Identity) incredibly suspicious when he admits to knowing him. This comes as a shock towards Cattongue, who still has lingering feelings towards Astrid (and is played up to a humourous extent later on when Astrid admits that part of the reason for her hostility was that she was trying to hide her attraction to Cattongue from herself).
- Living Lie Detector: Ruffnut could tell Camicazi was lying when she said that she did not know where Cattongue was from. Justified, in that she uses logic learned from her husband to parse it out.
- Meaningful Titles: In Norse Mythology, the two human-beings that survive Götterdämmerung (more commonly known as "Ragnarök") and repopulate the newly restored Midgard are named Líf and Lífþrasir. Here, the title "Becoming Lífþrasir" could represent Hiccup becoming the first man of a new age of Berk, with Astrid, his love interest, being Líf.
- My Greatest Failure: For Stoick, it was not appreciating Hiccup's strengths simply because they weren't the Viking norm. Much like in the movie, Stoick realized how he'd treated his son; however, unlike the film, he only understood when it was too late. This regret sours Stoick's attitude towards Cattongue for most of the fic, as he sees Cattongue as someone who might try and take over the village, and Stoick is determined to keep Berk for Hiccup as the heir. To him, time has stood still since Hiccup left, and he does all he can to keep Berk from moving forward, believing it can't without Hiccup. In a way, he's not wrong.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Goethi talks to Stoick about accepting the future as it happens it really gets his attention, especially since he has rarely ever heard her speak.
- Passing the Torch: In the farewell letters to Stoick and Astrid, Hiccup mentions that he nominates Astrid to replace him as heir of the Hooligan Tribe, feeling that she would make a far better replacement that Snotlout ever would.
- Psychological Projection: It's heavily implied that part of the reason Stoick is so afraid of Cattongue becoming an accepted leader-figure in Berk is because he thinks that with the super-competent Cattongue around, no one will appreciate Hiccup or want him to be Chief. It's a pretty blatant exposure of Stoick's own anxieties and regrets over the fact that he himself did not appreciate Hiccup or what Hiccup could do for Berk.
- Put on the Bus: While it is not explicitly stated in the plot,
Word of God confirms that all named dragons are the same as their canon counterparts if they have the same name and are different dragons if they have other names, thus strongly implying that the dragons who would have become known as 'Hookfang' and 'Barf and Belch' respectively are dead (Hiccup explicitly muses at one point that Astrid must have killed the Monstrous Nightmare in his place after he left) - Royals Who Actually Do Something: With the exception of Heather (who even still is technically royalty via marriage to Thuggory), every member of Hiccup's dragon riding team (including Hiccup himself) are heirs to their own respective tribes.
- Rules Lawyer: Gobber helps to ensure Hiccup will face no repercussions from trying to lead the defence against the Red Death while in disguise by observing that he can't demand that service as repayment of a debt as debts are only owed to outsiders, while Hiccup is free to lead as one of the heirs of the tribes while him wearing a mask and going by a false name could just be an elaborate joke.
- Run or Die: Having been completely caught off-guard by the Red Death, the Hooligans are forced to make a Tactical Withdrawal while Cattongue/Hiccup and his dragon riders fend it off.
- Secret Identity: To make sure that nobody that has a vague knowledge of who he is lets Berk know where he is, Hiccup takes on the alias "Cattongue."
- Secret-Keeper: During his time as "Cattongue", only a few people knew who he really was, including Thuggory, Heather and Camicazi. Eventually Gobber catches him without his mask on in his old study at the forge and agrees to keep his secret.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Apparently Fishlegs figured out that Hiccup and Cattongue were the same person at some point and kept it to himself, telling Astrid to not say anything until he is ready just as he did.
- Selective Obliviousness: Stoick is incredibly clever and politically savvy but is in deep denial of the fact that Hiccup's letter indicated he had no intention of returning and was very clearly surrendering both his birth right and his name. Stoick, horrified by the fact that he hadn't provided his son the support he needed, decides to keep the fact that Hiccup had surrendered his status as heir secret and tells everyone that Hiccup has gone off on a voyage to prove himself, defending Hiccup's birthright as long as possible in the hopes that Hiccup will come back despite evidence to the contrary and Stoick can then make up for what he's done. Stoick becomes so protective over this right—which Hiccup himself surrendered—that he becomes extremely paranoid over possible threats to it, increasingly so as Cattongue becomes more involved with Berk and demonstrates how competent he would be as Chief. And, because he's so intent on seeing Cattongue as an enemy, he can't see that Cattongue is Hiccup. Stoick registers that Cattongue is familiar but this familiarity only makes him more hostile and suspicious.
- Self-Deprecation: Hiccup, naturally, occasionally veers into this when trying to release tension during conversations. For example, during his and his father's talk at the end:Hiccup: "Sorry dad... I thought I was doing the right thing when I left. I didn't mean to disappoint you, again."Stoick: "You didn't, you could never."Hiccup: "I'm sure the time when I blew up the chicken coop came close."
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Downplayed. To most, Stoick is normally... well, stoic. However, he becomes sour whenever Cattongue is involved. Stoick refuses to speak of Hiccup, acts disrespectful and hostile towards Cattongue's very existence even when doing so is counter-productive, and resists change as much as reasonably possible. Underneath his sour hostility and paranoia towards Cattongue is Stoick's fear that Cattongue really is as competent, kind, and good as he seems and that Berk won't want him to leave after this is all over—because if Cattongue is here, what place is there for Stoick's beloved son Hiccup? Ultimately Stoick is still deeply in mourning over the loss of his son and fears his world moving on without Hiccup, and so has refused to come to terms with Hiccup's decision to leave and insists that nothing will change until Hiccup returns. This makes Cattongue, the catalyst of change, a natural target of his upset.
