This plot was the brainchild of the incomparable psychicsaphie. Wellspring of ideas, sounding board and beta, thank you so much!

Disclaimer: Not mine, no money, no sue.

Thank you for all the reviews! Story master: I'm afraid I have most of this written already (around twenty chapters at this point - hope you're up for a long ride!) though your ideas are fantastic! OmarBarria: Oh, there's going to be lots of Astrid, promise! And she's her usual fierce self, too! Leon Woon & Foxy's Girl: Wonderful to hear from you again, guys! *hugs* Thank you so much for the amazing reviews! The Incredible Puba:Oh, just you wait! There's heaps of action in this thing, Astrid definitely gets the chance to kick butt! crouchbk: It is indeed short for Jormagund, the world serpent, but as she is a female Nightmare (and 'Lout didn't realise until after he'd named her!) he had to shorten it to Jorma, which is gender-neutral. Silly Snotlout! Voldyne: Aw, thanks!

Aaaaand the plot thickens...

Hiccup woke slowly. His head ached, and his stomach was queasy. He really should have known better than to drink green beer. He blinked his sandy eyes and squinted into the bright, harsh light.

"So you're awake then?" came the wry voice. "Thought you were going to miss all the fun."

"Al?" Hiccup croaked, pushing himself from the floor. Rough wooden boards greeted his palms, and he stared at them in bleary astonishment. "What's… what's going on…?"

"See, this is what happens when you take a nap, you skip all the fine details," Alberich started to come into focus as Hiccup looked around. He was in a small, dark, wooden room, barrels and bales heaped to one side. The creaking of the beams and the rocking of the floor made it almost feel like he was…

"We've been made the honoured guests of a bunch of enterprising gentlemen of the waves. Feel flattered."

…at sea.

"Wha…?" Hiccup's head hurt far too much for Al's cleverness. "Where's Toothless?"

"A whole day's sailing that way," Al said sourly, jerking his head.

"What!" Hiccup sat bolt upright, only to have his arms jerk back down painfully. He was shackled by the wrists, and the chains led to a heavy ring set into the cabin floor. "No, no, no!"

"There was something in the beer," Al said heavily. "The whole convocation nodded off. Your dragon wasn't around, and well… we were captured by pirates."

Hiccup's eyes were wide with shock and disbelief. "Pirates…?"

"Pirates," Al said grimly.

"Pirates," Hiccup repeated dumbly. Al tipped his head back in exasperation.

"Oh good, you've grasped the concept."

"Just us?" Hiccup said wildly. "I mean, they didn't get anyone else, did they? Are we alone? On a pirate ship? Great Thor, I've been captured by pirates. Pirates. I'll be home late. Oh gods. Pirates. Astrid's going to kill me."

Al looked bemused. "We're on a pirate ship and you're worried about your wife?

"She's scary!" Hiccup snarled defensively, and started yanking on the chains as hard as he could. Which wasn't very.

"Good luck with that," Al said sardonically.

Hiccup ignored him and the pounding of his head, and kept yanking at the chains.

Al folded his own chained arms, and lay down on the rough floor. "Even if you do get loose, it's not like you'll be able to get very far."

Hiccup scowled. "Oh yeah?"

"One: You're on a ship in the middle of the ocean," said Al pleasantly, "and two: They took your leg."

Hiccup's eyes snapped down. Sure enough, his foot was gone, only the leather sock covering his stump. He felt his teeth grit in fury. How dare they. How dare they.

"You didn't answer the first question," he grated at Al, his breath coming fast, "are we the only prisoners?"

Al shrugged. "I heard one say they only wanted the young men."

Hiccup's brows knit in confusion. "Why? Wouldn't they want valuables, jewels, women…?"

Rolling over, Al eyed Hiccup cautiously. "I think they're holding us for ransom."

Hiccup's breath stopped entirely.

Ransom was no small deal. A village the size of Berk couldn't get much wealth together, and as it was only early Spring, there was no harvest to gather as yet. Besides which, Hiccup was a valuable hostage. His status as next Chief, his knowledge of the dragons and his standing as a hero meant that these pirates would be asking for a huge sum. A sum Berk couldn't afford.

"Oh no," he whispered.

Al looked at him bitterly. "What are you worried about? Aren't you the golden boy?"

Hiccup flushed. "Stop that."

Closing his eyes and taking a breath, Al slumped back onto the floor. "Sorry."

There was a pause, in which Hiccup tried not to hyperventilate. He attempted to distract himself by studying the young man chained across from him. Al was lying very still, his eyes closed, although his fists were bunched in their shackles and his jaw was tight with tension.

"How about you?" he asked abruptly.

"What?" Alberich's eyes snapped open.

"Well, I've got a choice between panicking, or talking to you," Hiccup said pointedly. "I could always try panicking, but it's cramped enough in here without screaming."

Al's mouth quirked. "There's a good point. What about me?"

"Well, your village, for a start. Where are you from? Can they put a ransom up for you?"

A snort. "Not hardly. I'm from Freezing-to-Death, originally, but my father moved us to Sleet when I was fifteen or so. Sleet's small, and very poor. It's very close to Helheim's Gate, so the dragons stripped us of almost everything. There's nothing there for a ransom at all."

Hiccup gasped softly. With their demands unmet, the pirates would kill Alberich without a second thought. "I'm sorry."

Al grunted. "Yeah, well."

In the awkward silence, Hiccup felt a sense of hopelessness overwhelm him. He pushed it back with hard-headed Viking stubbornness. He wouldn't give in. He hadn't given in before, and it had looked far more hopeless then. Squashing his burgeoning misery, he felt for the pouch at his neck and relaxed infinitesimally when he touched the little bag of felt. It was going to be okay. It would.

It had to.

"So…" Hiccup fiddled with the large iron shackles. They were crude, and the craftsman in him itched to fix them up a bit, as senselessly contradictory as that was. "Why'd you come to Phlock?"

"Convocation," said Al shortly. "Don't know if you heard about it."

"Oh, ha ha ha," Hiccup said sarcastically. "Behold his mighty wit, tremble before his towering intellect and cower before his ironic repartee…"

"Shut up," Al said, his mouth turning up into a small grin.

"So, why'd you come to Phlock?"

"Hello? Did you hear what I mentioned about the dragons stripping Sleet bare?" Al huffed, and rolled over onto his side, looking at Hiccup with amusement. "There was a convocation about dragons. Of course we were going to send a representative."

"Yeah, but doesn't Sleet have a Chief or an Elder?" Hiccup asked, and Al pulled a face.

"Chief Bogbrush went of course, but I volunteered to go along. I wanted to know more about the dragons. Would have helped to know about that massive monster under the mountain – wouldn't have stopped the raids, but at least we'd have known why."

Hiccup winced. "Well, now you know?"

"I guess we do," Al smiled. "Anyway, the raids all stopped a few years ago, and we didn't understand that either. It was just… weird. Don't get me wrong, it was great! But seriously weird. And so it's nice to have an answer to that as well."

"Does that mean the village is getting a bit more prosperous now?" Hiccup brightened. Maybe Al didn't have to die.

"We wish. Centuries of attacks have left their mark, you know." Al stretched as far as the chains allowed, and grimaced when he couldn't stretch further. "There are places on our island that won't grow food anymore – too fire-blasted over time and too full of dragon-gas. No, they're not going to be able to put anything up for my safe return." His face grew dark. "Not that they would."

Hiccup shunted closer to Al, his face creasing in concern. "Why?"

"Remember what I said about being the village screw-up?" Al retorted. "They're not going to care."

"Hey," Hiccup said softly. "I care."

"Thanks," Al said with a twisted smile, "got a fortune in your pocket? That'd really help a guy out of a pinch right now."

"Sorry, all out of fortunes," Hiccup said dryly. "And if it makes you feel any better, this golden boy's in the same boat. Berk's not rich, never has been. Better off than Sleet, it sounds like, but nowhere near as rich as Phlock. These pirates were looking for a rich man's son, and got two poor boys."

"That's what happens when you neglect the fine details," said Al sagely, and the two broke into slightly over-hysterical laughter.

Hiccup laughed long after Alberich had finished, his breath shaking into his chest. "Ahaha, oh gods…!" he gasped.

"What? Are you okay?" Al leaned forwards with quick concern.

Hiccup looked back up at him, his sides aching. "Pirates," was all he could say, before doubling over and shaking silently – with laughter or fury or tears, Al couldn't tell.

"Captured by pirates!" Hiccup wheezed.

Al's concern began to mount. "Hey," he began.

"No, no, I'm fine…" Hiccup pulled himself upright, wiping at his reddened face. "Just… watch me if I look like I'm about to go round the twist, okay? Gods, Pirates…" he groaned, and blew out an enormous breath.

At that moment there was a heavy clanking, and the door to the cramped little cabin opened. A thickset man with a dense black beard that began seemingly right under his eyes squeezed into the room, eyed both young men with an incurious, contemptuous expression, and threw down a knot of bread and a water skin. "Food," he grunted, and then stomped over to pull at their shackles, testing their soundness. Satisfied, he stomped back to the door, gave them one last disdainful glance and closed the door with a heavy thump. The rattling of a lock sounded, and his footsteps retreated back into the belly of the longboat.

"What a nice guy," Hiccup murmured into the sullen silence.

Surprised, Al let loose a choked laugh. "Must be a blast at parties."

"You said it," Hiccup leaned back. "Raconteur, poet, ladies' man…"

Al's laugh turned to a guffaw. "Ladies' man?"

"He'd have a sheep in every port," said Hiccup slyly, "but he'd never make honest mutton of 'em."

Al's shoulders shook. "Snazziest dresser I've ever seen."

"Does a great line in monster beards," Hiccup agreed, chuckling.

Al's laughter subsided with a sigh, and he relaxed back against the floor again. "Well, I can't fault his hospitality," he said sarcastically, reaching out casually with one hand and grabbing the loaf. "Here," he tore it in two and tossed one section to Hiccup.

"Oh great, meal-bread," Hiccup regarded it with distaste.

"Always tastes like sawdust," grumbled Al, and he ripped a piece off with his teeth. "Eurgh."

Hiccup sighed, and began to eat the coarse bread, grainhusks scratching at the insides of his mouth and his tongue. "Eaten a lot of meal-bread then?" he asked.

"Mmm," Al swallowed with difficulty, and reached over for the water skin. "My family are merchants – well, that's why we moved from Freezing-to-Death to Sleet. Freezing's just too busy, too much competition. We were middle-tier merchants there, fairly prosperous, but Dad wanted to do one better than everyone else. Remember what I told you? He thinks you've got to be the fastest, sneakiest Viking alive, just to survive. Dad thought the rumours about Sleet were exaggerations, well, you can imagine how pleased he was to be proved wrong. We've lost almost everything thanks to the dragon raids. I've got a shipment of sheepskins and leatherwork somewhere in these waters, and that's it. Our whole mercantile empire, down to sheepskins and a few leather bits and bobs."

"Al, I'm sorry," Hiccup said sympathetically.

Al shrugged again, and took a big gulp of water. His eyes slid away from Hiccup almost regretfully. "Yeah well, the Gods obviously hate me," he said absently.

"I've said that enough times," Hiccup offered with an understanding smile.

"And that's kind of why I never fitted in, too," Al said reflectively. "I'm not a tower of quivering muscle, so I couldn't fit in that way. And my mother is dead, my father's second wife is a pain in the proverbial, and he insists on keeping three mainland concubines to keep up appearances. The villagers hate that, it's a waste of food on mouths that shouldn't even be there – and neither do they want to be! We arrived when I was fifteen, so I didn't really make childhood friends. And my Dad's such a trusting and friendly fellow that they were inclined to hate me on sight."

"I hear you on the tower of quivering muscle thing," Hiccup said, grinning. "but mostly I was just goofing up all the time in every conceivable way. Hey, so did that thing with the well and the lady happen in Freezing-to-Death, then?"

For a moment, Al looked blank, and then his expression cleared and he nodded. "Yeah. No real traders in Sleet after all."

"Whoa, you must have been young," Hiccup choked down the rest of his meal-bread and reached for the water-skin.

"Fourteen," Al shrugged.

"That trader leapt to some pretty crazy conclusions," Hiccup shook his head, uncorking the skin and swigging from it. The water tasted unclean, and he grimaced.

"He was an old man with a young wife," Al grinned. "Crazy conclusions go with the territory."

"Wife," Hiccup repeated, and then sighed mournfully. "Gods, she is going to kill me with a rusty spoon."

"Because you're so obviously enjoying yourself, larking about like this," said Al dryly.

Hiccup pulled the pouch around his neck where he could see it. "Okay, poke fun all you like. I'm guessing you're not married." He touched the circular lock of pale blonde hair with a gentle forefinger.

"I've never been that crazy," Al retorted. "Come on, take your mind off things. Tell me about the dragons."

"Dragons?" Hiccup blinked, looking over to the other man.

"You told us how you met Toothless, but how did you gain his trust? I would have sworn a dragon would kill a human outright and not give them a single chance."

"That's what we were taught," Hiccup said slowly, "but it's not true. After I brought Toothless down with my bola-cannon, I had the chance to kill him. I couldn't, so I set him free. He leapt onto me, and tightened his claws around my neck, and I was sure I was as dead as Baldur. But he just roared in my face and disappeared. Dragons will afford humans the same chances as a human affords them."

Al nodded thoughtfully. "So the weapons thing?"

"Is sort of tied to that," Hiccup conceded. "I know they get around fully armed all the time, but weapons to a dragon mean death, not protection. If you're holding a weapon, the dragon thinks you mean to kill it. Simple as that."

"I get it," Al said with more enthusiasm. "But how did you gain his trust? I mean, you'd shot him out of the sky, and taken off his tail-fin. He must have hated you."

Hiccup didn't move for a long moment, then he began regretfully. "I think he did, at first. He knew it was me, of course, who built that bola-cannon. They've got amazing senses of smell. But I just kept coming back and watching him, letting him see that I meant no harm."

"And that's all?" Al was sceptical.

"Well, no," Hiccup shifted and wished for a window, a light, anything to relieve the gloom. "Eventually I offered him a fish. Just one – I had no idea how much he ate at that point. When he came sniffing at me wanting some more, I told him I didn't have any. And he regurgitated half of the fish back up right there in my lap."

"Gross," opined Al, his nose wrinkling.

"You're telling me. And this is the worst bit: I had to bite it." Hiccup shuddered. "It's a sort of getting-to-know-you thing they do. Like a gift. Toothless had obviously forgiven me at that point, though he was still wary. That's sort of what the gift was about. Oh, and since I was so scrawny, maybe he thought I needed feeding up," Hiccup smiled at the memory.

"Wow," Al said, leaning forward onto his elbows, his face fascinated. "Tell me more."

Astrid hung the fur over the stretched line and beat it with a stout stick.

It made her feel somewhat better.

He'd been away for just over two weeks. Around sixteen days. That wasn't that long, really, and he might be home in another two weeks, and then she could stop feeling like she was going to explode with the news.

The Haddock lodge was huge and drafty and empty without Stoick clomping and bellowing in the lower quarters and Hiccup tinkering constantly at his desk. She missed the way when Stoick fell asleep in front of the hearth downstairs, his snores made the small table beside her bed rattle. She missed Toothless bounding up to her as she brought the water from the village well, causing her to narrowly miss spilling it everywhere and repeating the awful chore. She missed the spats the Night Fury had with Spike. She missed Hiccup.

Frigga and Freya, she missed Hiccup.

Spike had taken to sleeping up in the loft with her, curled into a neat, iridescent ball at the end of their pallet. It helped, but the cold yawning gap on the left side of the bed still drew her attention far too readily. The furs had almost stopped smelling like him. How dare the furs stop smelling like him.

Irritated, she had dragged one outside and thrown it over the line, proceeding to beat it into submission. If anyone asked, she was getting the dust out.

She missed his goofy smile and the way he had of raising his eyebrows when she was being particularly fierce. She missed the warm dry gentleness of his scarred hands, the press of his lips against the side of her head when he awoke first in the mornings (and he always awoke first in the mornings), and the look of still-startled delight when she pushed him against a wall and kissed him senseless. She missed kissing him senseless.

She missed the comforting click-thump of him pottering around their loft, and the mess he left his shelves in, and the absent way he abandoned his dishes in the most unlikely of places. She missed the sound of his humming, the way his tongue poked out of his mouth when he worked on a project, the rhythmic rasp of a saw on wood. She missed him so much she felt like screaming.

Her mother had helped somewhat. Gerda had stayed with Astrid for a night and a day, just to ease the loneliness. Spike was being extra-solicitous, even by possessive Nadder standards.

"Astrid?"

It was Ruffnut, her bow over her shoulder, her usual unimpressed expression tinged with a hint of worry. Astrid whacked the fur one last time, and threw her stick with unerring accuracy into the haypile behind the lodge. "Hi, Ruff."

"You… all right there?" Ruff raised an eyebrow. They'd had their differences before Astrid's marriage – Hiccup's new appearance had elicited a kind of madness in them both – but that was in the past, mostly. Aside from a lingering tension, the two young women were back to being friends of a sort, commiserating over the unique hardships any young Viking woman had to deal with. Ruff was due to marry Fishlegs in a few months time, and she'd taken to asking Astrid about married life.

"Fine," Astrid said shortly, and Spike made a chirping noise of concern.

"Shyeah. You don't look so fine, y'know," Ruff said pointedly. "You're white as a sheet. You need to sit down."

"Sit down," scoffed Astrid. "Ridiculous. I'm perfectly fine, thank you very…oooh." She broke off as the nausea swept over her again.

"Fine?" Ruffnut shook her head. "You are more stubborn than any ten Vikings on this island. Knew I was friends with you for a reason. What's wrong? Are you sick?"

Astrid glared weakly at her.

"What?" Ruff grabbed Astrid's arm and tugged her over to the bench behind the lodge. Spike followed, crooning worriedly. "If you're sick, you need to go see the Elder. Want me to go run?"

"NO! No, I mean…" Astrid sighed and looked down at her hands. "I'm sick, but I think I'm meant to be. At least, that's what all the women always said when we were growing up…"

"So, Astrid, you planning on making any sense today?" Ruff drawled.

She tipped her head back, closing her eyes in the warm spring air. "I think… I think I'm pregnant."

Ruffnut's eyes widened a little, before she let out a breath. "Whoa. So there's like, a tiny Haddock in there?" she prodded a finger at Astrid's belly. Astrid batted her away irritably.

"Stop that, it's not funny. And you make me sound like a fishing basket."

Ruff smirked. "Well, you landed him at the right moment, didn't you? So, you're feeling sick, then?"

Astrid nodded reluctantly. "In the morning and in late afternoon. Sometimes even in the middle of the night! And over the last two days, well, my chest has been really sore. I heard the women gossip while I was growing up, same as you. That's almost all of them."

"Have your courses come?" Ruffnut tipped her head, and Astrid winced, biting her lip.

"No."

Ruffnut nodded. "Then yeah, congrats then, I guess."

"I'm just… he's not here, Ruff, and I'm all over the place right now… I need him home. Now." Astrid took a deep breath and hardened her jaw. "Did you ever hear anything about how to stop the sick feeling?"

Ruffnut smoothed her skirt and stood. "I am so not the person to be asking this. Look, Astrid, go see the Elder. She'll know something to help you."

Ruffnut then checked that the coast was clear before leaning in to Astrid and asking in an undertone, "you'll tell mewhen it's my turn, won't you?"

Astrid forced a smile. "Sure."

"Awesome, see you later," Ruff shouldered her bow and sauntered off towards the woods.

Astrid sighed and touched a finger to her stomach where Ruffnut had prodded her. A tiny Haddock in there.

"Hey Astrid? Chill, would you? Just think how happy Hiccup's going to be!" Ruff called back.

Astrid waved to her once, and then went to fetch another fur to beat.