A/N: Augh, I write too many Hiccup one-shots :P

He stood taller.

He held his head up higher.

He spoke louder.

He laughed more.

His smiles were genuine, and happier.

No doubt the battle with the Green Death had changed Hiccup in many ways, and Stoick, as well as the other residents of Berk, puzzled for awhile.

How could a simple battle change this young man so much?

Astrid answered this question when Stoick pointed it out to her and Gobber one morning in the forge.

She'd come to get her axe sharpened and Hiccup, who had been chatting idly to Gobber, volunteered happily.

He limped over to the wheel and began sharpening it and Stoick eyed his son curiously.

"I don't understand it, Gobber," he worried, stroking his beard. "I mean…Hiccup is a completely different person to what he once was. He used to be so awkward. I couldn't take him with me anywhere…and now he's…"

"Confident," Gobber supplied.

Stoick snapped his fingers. "Yes! Confident! But how could a battle with a dragon change my son so much?"

"It wasn't the battle that changed him, it's the way we treat him now," Astrid pointed out. "We're nicer to him, and no one bullies him anymore. He doesn't feel like an outcast anymore, he feels accepted."

Stoick considered the matter. "You have a point." He couldn't ignore the fact that the people of Berk had been horrible to Hiccup, and he had done nothing to stop it.

As a matter of fact, he had made it worse by ignoring his own son, all because the boy didn't fit in.

And then after Val died, Hiccup, so like her in his way of thinking, in his bearing, made it harder for Stoick, and so he purposely avoided the boy.

And now, now that they'd finally settled things and Hiccup had heard the words he'd desperately, secretly craved to hear for years – "I'm proud of you" – his relationship with his father was completely different, as was the boy himself in his demeanor.

Where once he had been shy and awkward, he was now outspoken and comfortable in his own skin.

Hiccup walked back over to them, tripping on his prosthetic leg and falling to his knees, sending the axe spinning out of his grip onto the floor.

And where at one point, his father would have rolled his eyes at such a show of clumsiness, and Hiccup would dropped his head, blushing a little and forced himself up, and Astrid would have picked up her axe and left the shop…

Why, just a few short months later Astrid went for Hiccup first and extended a hand for his and he pulled himself up.

She went to retrieve her axe, held it firmly by the hilt and said, "Be careful on your leg, Hiccup."

Hiccup smiled and nodded, giving a small, joking salute. "Right, officer."

Stoick watched Hiccup turn back to Gobber and casually strike up the conversation they'd just been having, and realized Astrid and Gobber were absolutely right: Hiccup DID have something he hadn't before.

Hiccup had confidence.