One year later

Valka woke to the insistent nudging of her dragon, Cloudjumper. She opened her eyes slowly, laughing as he head-butted her once again.

"Alright, I'm up," she told him, smiling. She stood and surveyed the rock walls of their cave, scratching a long line next to many others. Valka counted the lines and calculated the day. At first she felt nothing special; it was just another day in the nest. Something felt a little off, though. Something was flapping at her brain. Something important.

Valka frowned but decided she'd worry about it later. She hopped on Cloudjumper's back, and they flew out into the main part of the nest.

They were just in time for breakfast—it was no wonder Cloudjumper had woken her! The great Alpha Bewilderbeast sprayed thousands of fish into the air, and all of the dragons went crazy for them. It always made Valka laugh.

After Cloudjumper ate, they flew over to a small, grassy clearing where a group of baby Gronckles were wrestling. The pure joy that radiated from them reminded her of Hiccup.

Valka reprimanded herself. She tried not to think too much about her son or Stoick, or anything about Berk, for that matter. It just made her sad, and she would rather enjoy the moment.

The Gronckles came over to say hello, and Valka played with them for a while. She was pretty sure this was easier than actual parenting, but there was something she didn't understand. She had only been with Hiccup for a few months, and she'd known the dragons in the nest for almost a year. So why did she always think about him rather than them?

Valka grabbed a stick and started doodling dragons in the dirt to get her mind off of people, but it didn't work. She would always do that back at Berk, and Stoick liked the drawings so much that he let her draw little Thunderdrums in the water on his maps; he said it helped to keep her close when he was out on a voyage with the other men. She remembered him wondering aloud whether Hiccup would be as good of an artist. Valka had commented pointedly that she hoped he would prefer drawing dragons to killing them. Despite her sarcastic tone, that was a genuine hope of hers. Valka wished Hiccup could see her now; she wanted to teach him about dragons. She wanted him to bond with one like she'd bonded with Cloudjumper, and she wanted to go flying with him. She wished she could raise him here, among the dragons.

Valka suddenly bit her lip. That was what she needed to remember—Hiccup would be a year old today. She wanted to punch herself—how could she have forgotten? It was probably all the time spent away from Berk. She picked up one of Cloudjumper's scales that had fallen on the ground and fingered it, hunching herself over and starting to talk. She hoped, somehow, in some fantastical way, Hiccup could hear her.

"I wish I could be with you, son. I would come back to you, I truly would, if I believed it would be better. But your father will keep you safe better than I could, and that's what matters the most. I hope, at least, that you're happy, and even if you believe that I'm...that I'm dead, you know that I love you, because no matter how far apart we are, you will always be my son."

And next to the dragons in the dirt, Valka sketched a handsome young man with his heart in the sky whom she knew could never be.