One of the million and one ways I'm going to try and deal with the emotional trauma in How to Train Your Dragon 2.
Clearly this takes place after the movie so if you haven't seen the sequel then I don't know why you're reading this because you'll be totally spoiled.
But since I doubt we'll get to see Hiccup's post-Stoick mourning in canon (at least the very early stages of it) I decided to just make a good old-fashion "Aftermath" story that deals with Hiccup taking those first shaky steps into being chief, Toothless taking those first awkward steps into being the new alpha over the dragons of Berk, and…well everyone else's aftermath too.
This first part basically happens the same day Drago is defeated, so all that raw…stuff is here, sorry.
Chapter 1: Sadly Rue
The torches cast wrapped the ice broken town in a heated blanket of loss, but the embers floating forth rose a new sunrise of hope just above the dark clouds.
But the night remained, and the loss lingered.
A small stage was set for the new chief to step on and with it the hand of his mother, Valka, stood atop.
Hiccup wasn't told to give a speech, but he didn't see how he couldn't, not when the adrenaline faded and looked around at a battered village and a freshly fought chief.
His breath still winded, flight suit still sticky from sweat Hiccup lead his mother to the stage and took the biggest breath he could, trying to match Stock's powerful voice with his tiny lungs.
"E-everyone," was all he managed to stagger out. He looked around and saw nothing but torch glowing eyes, all on him, all looking for a sign of what to do next. He immediately turned to Valka, searching her for some kind of answer for what to say, but she stood attention, head up and lip bitten.
She was waiting. Waiting for him.
"Everyone." Hiccup cleared his throat. "Today we've won and we've lost. Our chief for four decades over has been…" Hiccup swallowed the lump in his throat, or at least he tried. It remained just as awkwardly as the speech rolled on. "Our chief, Stoick the Vast, was killed in the line of battle to protect our village. He…he gave his life in the most heroic way a chief can, and for that I know he's seated in Valhalla amongst the greatest our chieftains have to offer."
Hiccup's toes curled into the worn insides of his boot. The fabric hard, sweated, and his foot was cold and stiff. But still he straightened up, letting his toes keep biting into the fabric until it was raw.
"I am ready to take the throne, I only hope I can be all that my father wanted me to be." Hiccup finally turned to Valka, reaching out a hand, hers as cold as his. "But I'll have help. Out of the ashes of his situation my mother…Stoick's wife…Valka has returned."
The crowd mingled in gasps of renewed surprised and utter shock. Some knew her, other's didn't.
"We've all been thrust into a new age on Berk. It's unexpected but…we'll make it through, if you'll have me as your chief. I'll…I'll do my best."
A hand squeezed his, Valka's hand, she was there with him, by his side now.
The silence of the crowd lingered for a moment before another roaring applause ruptured, shaking Hiccup's frame, steadily he stood until the applause died down and Gobber stepped in front, giving Hiccup's shoulder a pat.
"Good job, lad." Gobber said. "Take a rest, now." Gobber stood raising his hand. "Alright now, there should be enough furs around here to make suitable sleeping arrangements for everyone tonight. It's too late to start repairs—" Gobber looked around, taking a quick account of how many houses really were destroyed. He gulped when it was nearly all. "—So the stars will be our shield tonight."
Hiccup began to move, Valka tugging him off the stage, Toothless following suit.
"Are you going to be alright?" Valka asked, quietly enough but looking at both Hiccup and Toothless.
Hiccup glanced at Toothless, wishing the night fury could just answer for him. The battle was over, the night was settled, he could be sad now, he could relax now.
"Why don't you two just…take a rest, aye?" Valka suggested.
Hiccup already knew Gobber was taking his reigns for the night, but he still felt odd about starting his first night as chief mourning to himself.
"But, I have to—" Hiccup started though his mother's finger pushed his lips in.
"No, Hiccup, you have to make sure you're okay, you both do." She said, glancing at the night fury. "Both of your duties can wait until tomorrow."
"And, what about you, Mom, you're…"
She shook her head, putting on a smile. "Don't you worry about me, Hiccup." She said, pulling him close to her, a gentle hand smoothing the leather on his flight suit. "I've got a lot of comforting to catch up on."
Gobber continued to initiate the orders and Astrid looked up as she saw Hiccup exit the stage, his walk was slow, exhausted, and his mouth stayed open as breaths kept leaving him quick and heaving as he left his mother's embrace and rounded the corner near the cliff sides.
But she left him be. There was no telling what was running through his mind all at once. The day had been jarring enough but what was worse was that Astrid couldn't think of a single thing to say that would help him. Her eyes simply followed him as he departed from his mother, only taking Toothless with him.
She felt a nose at her side, Stormfly nudging at her. Normally such a gesture would warrant food, but the dragon's scales shook under her hand as she patted her spikes. Stormfly was still just as shaken as all the dragons were. It wasn't fun, being controlled like that. Though…no dragon suffered more than Toothless.
"Astrid!" Eret called out in the distance and she snapped out of her haze.
Skull Crusher followed behind Eret, a little helplessly at that, and the dragon trapper seemed just as helpless in the matter.
"I um, I think Gobber wants you to help with organizing where everyone will sleep." He reported. Eret's eyes went over her shoulder at Hiccup retreating. "Unless you have other matters you want to attend to."
Astrid followed his eyes and still frowned as the new chief went off to himself and his night fury. She'd go see him…later.
"I'll make sure everyone's taken care of." She told him and Skull Crusher kept nudging at Eret's side.
"Is he—is he hungry?" Eret stumbled.
"No, he's just feeling the loss." Astrid said, giving his neck and scratch. "Just be there for him, that's all you can do right now."
Eret nodded, though there was no shaking the confused determination on his face.
Astrid made her way to Gobber, passing out furs and looking for safe areas amongst the village where there was no threat of ice falling to camp the many of the village whose homes were unable to be slept in that night.
0o0
Hiccup let his back lay against Toothless, the biting cold numbed him that night instead of Toothless's warm skin heated him up, for the night fury was just as cold. They let their company mingle, but their thoughts were kept to their own.
Hiccup wasn't ready to talk, not yet. It was too fresh, too painful. He didn't even really know how to feel. He was sad, he was angry, he was guilty, he was…raw.
The only clear emotion he could pull out of the huddle was a gripping need. A hand that ripped out of his chest and wanted to grab onto as many of what he called his own as he could. Hold it close, keep it in every pocket he owned, and sew it shut as for it to never leave.
Their seclusion was constantly interrupted, though, dragons wandering to the cliff side they sat at, some coming forth with lost looks, other with gratitude. Toothless only gave one groan, and each time it seemed to be just enough to make them all go away.
"Don't come here right now," Hiccup imagined Toothless was telling them, and he leaned further into him, curling his legs into the side of the night fury's stomach and letting his hand rest on his leg. The gentle up and down swell of Toothless's breathing kept him in a lull, his thoughts staying singular and safe while the moon bathed them.
Stay, was the word Hiccup's mind kept uttered. To who and to what he didn't know, but stay kept cycling within him.
Hallow and dry, Hiccup stayed curled up into his night fury, his flight suit still smelling of nervous sweat, and his toes curled to a numb within his boot. He didn't want to change clothes, he didn't even know if his house was still standing.
Though it surprised him when he wished it was gone. He couldn't step foot in that house again with everything still intact, just as he left it before he left. Just as Stoick had left it before he…
"No," Hiccup muttered, waking up slightly from his daze, a little droll crusted in the side of his mouth and his fingernails broken and jagged bit into Toothless's side. The night fury was asleep, but he kept hearing the crinkles and cranking of Toothless's insides, a nervous kick in his leg that not even Hiccup's hand could still.
Hiccup needed to get up, to at least stretch his legs, but his body felt safe in its huddle. Not comfortable whatsoever, but safe.
"Hiccup?" Astrid called out to him.
0o0
Valka had shed her outer armor as soon as the speech was finished. Everyone left her be for the time being, Gobber gratefully taking the lead in making sure everyone had a place to sleep. The ice bitten air seemed to pass over her skin with no reaction, she almost wished for it, for all she felt was Stoick's arms around her.
His hands on her arm, spinning her while a voice that shook mountains sang a sweet love song.
Cloud Jumper took her for a flight, swooping her up as she crawled up to his back, standing and watching the moon sparkle almost beautifully on the ice that broke through Berk.
She had taken to counting the stars each night for twenty years. But the stars over Berk, she had never counted, she had never flown over her own home. It was a new journey for her, though at the moment it was something to do, anything to keep her mind off of the day's events.
"How could I have gained so much yet lost so much?" She asked Cloud Jumper as he banked, a wisp of clouds wet her hair and face, but were only a familiar company to the steady tears falling on her cheeks.
She looked up into the sky, each star mocking her.
"I wonder which one you are, Stoick?" She asked. "At least let me know that much." No star blinked or twinkled any brighter, nothing changed, nothing indicated. And her eyes only welled up more.
"Tears and ice cold weather don't really mix, you know." Valka heard Gobber fly up. Grump wasn't suited for the elevation they were at, but the dragon tugged on.
"Just trying to find him." She sniffled.
"Aye…but he's not there yet. It's a journey he has to take. But he'll be there soon, don't you worry."
Valka could only nod.
"How's Hiccup?"
"He wanted to be alone with his dragon."
"Like mother, like son." Gobber smiled, though Grump let out a groaned, the elevation getting to him. "Alright, alright, hold steady." He nudged the side of Grump's face, pinching the thick skin. "Why don't you land for the night, eh?"
"I'm not going to leave if that's what you're worried about." Valka sighed. "I'm done running…I've run for too long. So long, I guess the Gods wanted to punish me. I just wish they had done it without such a cruel tease."
"No one knows for sure want plans the Gods have. Punishment, tease, or fortune." Gobber began to descend. "I just try and live every day like it's my last. No unspoken words, no regrets."
"I'll give that a try from now on." Valka tried to laugh, but a breathy sigh only came out.
"Atta girl." Gobber still encouraged. "And why don't you sit down? You're making me nervous."
0o0
Hiccup didn't know when the weight of his body against Toothless was lifted and suddenly placed on Astrid's chest and wrapped in the fur blanket she draped around them. Her hands slowly working through his hair, scaling over his scalp, words being whispered that he couldn't make out but sounded soothing. His eyes didn't register anything but a blur of feeling until much later, when the hand in his chest ripped out again and reached for Astrid. Something else to sew into his pocket, to never let go of.
His arms went around her, holding her close and listening to her heart beat gently. She was still there with him.
Astrid, though, still didn't know what to do. She held him close, stroked his hair, let him breath huffs into her chest and hug her tightly, but she couldn't say anything. What could she?
The typical "Are you okay?" seemed like a stupid question. She knew he wasn't. But her heart clenched at the broken chief she held. She kissed the crown of his head, continuing to simply hold him until he finally looked up at her, body limp and eyes wet. He looked exhausted, his clothes soaked through, his flight suit pungent.
"You should change." She blurted out, and immediately wished she had chosen something a little more careful for a first words.
Hiccup's gaze didn't falter, like he didn't even hear her. His eyes only pulled her in, his hand at her back tugged her close to him and in an instant he captured her lips.
It wasn't the harsh kiss she was expecting, the one that would pour out every emotion hidden within him. It was soft, yet encompassing. Slow and on a deliberate mission. He kept sinking into her at each part for breath and each recapture of her mouth, pushing her down gently into the grass beneath them and touched her as if she would break at any harsher pressure.
His flight suit was stiff against her, his shirt and pants still sticking to him in a nervous sweat that filled her nostrils. But she didn't pull away, she couldn't, and she didn't want to. The deeper his hands went, gentle as they ran down her body, stopping at the inside of her thigh before sliding back up, she knew what he was fishing for, whether he was conscious of it or not. It most definitely wasn't the best time for that, but Astrid didn't have it within her to deny him.
His eyes didn't focus on her, he was far away even when their gazes met.
It was only when she was down to nothing, her bare back spiked in the grass the moon and stars watching her, Toothless sleeping too closely by them for her comfort that she felt it was right to at least offer a protest.
Hiccup, are you sure, right here…?" She asked. She had figured they would given the circumstances, though she thought it be after he calmed down, and maybe took a bath.
Her nose wrinkled, at least had finally gotten him out of that flight suit and if they were going to do this than his pants were the next thing to go. But she bit her lip, running a hand up his chest, speckled in hair that felt damp and clammed.
"It's…not like we haven't done it before…" He spoke softly, almost so that Astrid barely heard him.
"I know, just," she curved her palm around his cheek. "You're hurting and—" he silenced her with another kiss.
Hiccup shrugged out of his pants and pulled the blanket over them. He settled into the familiar grooves of her body, keeping winded breaths in her neck while he stopped momentarily, just holding her.
"Don't leave me." Was he managed to get out, and it was all he said as the winter crested grass began to curl with Astrid's movements.
0o0
Valka walked about the village alongside Gobber while he made a headcount, mindlessly trying to take in Berk though realizing it looked just as devastated as when she left, only wrapped in ice than in fire this time.
Gobber stopped her and looked upwards. Their house stabbed with ice, right through the center. The ice had made it all the way to the Great Hall but it seemed almost bitter to everything of Stoick's be crushed in ice.
"Still no different…" Valka let out a sigh, stepping up on the stoop that lead into the door, frozen over, door broken in. "I left this house with a hole in the roof, after all."
"Hiccup will get this place up and running again, he's got a whole new life to build here after all." Gobber nodded, though he wasn't sure if he was talking to Stoick or Valka at the moment.
"T-tell me, Gobber…"
"Aye?"
"Did they have a good life here?"
"As happy as it could be." Gobber let out a laugh. "But you know those two, always bickering about something, those heads never stopped butting."
Valka took another step to the door, letting her hand run over the post, wood cold and ice freckled.
"And I missed it all."
"You're here now for him, Val. And he needs you now—"
"More than ever, I know, but…" She sucked in a breath, a chill going down her throat and carried all the winter that bit into the home, exhaling the fire embers that once coated it as she was carried off. "What if I can't help him, He's lost his father, the parent that raised him the parent that—"
"Stop." Gobber said, softly enough to silence her for the moment. "I'm only gonna let this pity party continue for a little while longer." He turned away, giving her shoulder a pat. "You want to be part of Hiccup's life now, don't ye?"
Valka nodded.
"Well then no more what ifs and what fors." Gobber pointed to the clouds, stars peaking out from the. "And it's not like you won't have help."
"Aye." Valka sat, letting cloud jumper surround her on the steps. Gobber left for a short time, returning with furs to wrap her in before leaving to continue his head count.
0o0
The sun crested over just barely enough to tip the ice and grass with orange.
And Hiccup felt disgusting, comfortable, and miserable all at the same time.
He woke up in Astrid's arms, just as bare as she was, tucked under a blanket and the sun barely cracking into his eyes but it already seemed too bright.
That day was over and a new one was there, but it didn't feel any easier. Astrid let out a sigh, her chest rose against his before she settled back down, grabbing him close in her sleep on impulse. He only vaguely remembered sleeping with her last night, all he could conjure up was the want he had, the steam he had to blow off, an almost primal need to mark her as his own so she wouldn't leave. But he sighed at the fact that it had been impulsive, so much that he barely remembered it. He had to be more careful next time.
The muscles in his neck gave out, and his head flopped on her chest yet again, looking sideways at the cliff side at the sun rise, the fur blanket pulled up to his nose. Toothless was still asleep, and the village seemed quiet even as the sun rose.
It was going to be one of those days, when Berk didn't rise with the sun but only when everyone felt rested enough to get on their feet.
Though he shuttered at someone finding him rolled up in a blanket after having slept with his girlfriend on a cliff side, but he couldn't will himself to even get up, despite him knowing he needed a bath the way his scent mingled.
He felt a body thud against the back of his leg through the fur and turned a little to see a baby zippleback biting at the blanket.
Hiccup heard Toothless let out a groan, yawning while he did so, but the baby dragon kept biting.
Toothless was over by Hiccup the next moment, biting the collar of the zippleback and carrying it away. The night fury returned after a minute or two of casual whining and unforgiving roars, slumping at a spot right next this rider, though both their eyes kept from meeting each other even if their presence was acknowledged.
Hiccup pulled the furs up, not wanting Toothless to see Astrid, but he was sure the night fury could sense the smell a mile away of what they had been doing. Another careless thing he had done, as he always tried to make sure Toothless wasn't there when he slept with Astrid.
"It's just one of those mornings…you know?" Hiccup said, pulling the furs back to his nose when Toothless buried his face in the grass, replying with a ruffling moan that dusted the grass in a bleak morning dew.
I don't have an updating schedule for this one like I do for "A VikingPunk Tale" so but it's only going to be about 4 more chapters after this one, not a very long story, the chapters might be a tad on the longer side later on though…? Maybe like once a week if I can manage since my free time is a bit more…free lately XD
Review and whatnot, it's always good to have feedback. See you all next chapter!
