AN: So this thing is turning into a bigger project that I'd first intended, but I hope you'll tag along for the ride. I'm having a world of fun writing it, and as always, your feedback really boosts my inspiration.


part 4.

When he woke the sun was still up, and for a moment it threw him off, before he could gather his mind enough to remember why he'd gone to bed early in the first place. A snort to his right drew his attention, before a set of eyes entered his field of vision, and there was a fond word at the tip of his tongue–

–when another, lolling tongue slapped against his face, and the greeting dissolved into a surprised noise of discontent. "Urgh – Toothless!"

Wiping at his face, Hiccup pushed himself up, and attempted a half-convincing glare that only seemed to bounce off his partner's hide. Toothless tossed his head, motioning for the door, but Hiccup didn't feel very inclined to get out of bed, much less the house.

The dragon grumbled, eyes narrowing as he sensed his reluctance. Hiccup grimaced. "Just go talk to him, huh? It's that easy?"

Going by the answering growl, it was. With a sigh, he fell back against the furs, eyes finding the familiar lines of the ceiling beams he'd mapped out through the years. Toothless made a keening noise of complaint at his lack of response, before he shoved his nose into his rider's shoulder.

Angling his head, Hiccup offered a smile. "What do you say, bud? You ready for this adventure?"

Toothless gurgled in response – an affirmative sound, but then he hadn't seemed to have had any issues with his old man coming back. Hiccup sighed. "Yeah, well, that makes one of us." But off the bed he was, rolling his shoulders to work out the kinks that seemed to have taken up permanent residence since he'd taken up his new post as chief.

Making his way down the stairs to the hearth-room, he called out, "Mom? Are you home?" He hesitated. Then, "Dad? Oh man, that's weird." But there was no response, and he found the room empty when he descended, the hearth cold, and there didn't seem to have been anyone in the house since he'd gone back to take a nap.

"They're probably in the forge with Gobber," he said to Toothless, who responded with a rolling purr. He snorted. "Yeah, overwork runs in the family," he muttered as he made for the front door.

He hadn't been asleep long, judging by the sun's position in the sky, steadily sinking towards the horizon in the distance. The light cast a warm glow over the usually cold, grey waters around Berk, and he took a moment to watch the sprawl of sunlight across the curved rooftops, before he began his descent towards the village centre. A round of greetings followed in his wake as he made his trek between the houses, and he offered a few waves, mind too caught up with where he was heading to make much of his surroundings. A nose pushed into the hand dangling at his side, and he ran his palm along the ridge on Toothless' head in wordless response.

Coming in sight of the forge, he spotted Gobber on his way out, a pair of clippers in one prosthetic hand and a hammer in the other. "There y'are," the smith greeted, catching sight of him. "Was wondrin' if yeh'd plans to sleep through the whole day." He was given a look. "Better be well rested now, or yer dear ol' mother'll drag yeh back ta bed hersel'."

"I'm fine," he defended. "I'm rested. See?" He spread his arms, as if to gesture to his general person, but Gobber didn't look very convinced.

"If yeh say so," he said, nodding his head towards the construction at his back. "They're in the forge, if it's Stoick yer after."

Hiccup breathed out, "Yeah. Thanks, Gobber."

The blacksmith waved over his shoulder as he limped away, Grump lumbering at his heels like a small mountain, before he turned and with a, "And what d'you think yer doin, yeh overgrown ball o' lard? Who's to keep the fire burnin' if yer followin' me? Back to the forge with yeh!", sent the dragon trudging back. Hiccup patted its nose as it passed, and it purred low in its belly.

"Yeah, I feel you, buddy – he's always ordering me around, too." With a scratch behind one ear, he made to follow the dragon, but the greeting at the tip of his tongue faltered as he stepped inside the forge.

He heard the laughter before anything else – his father's rolling thunder, but overlapped by the soft trill he'd come to know as his mother's mirth, gentle and clear as the glasswork Gobber pretended to be too refined for a true blacksmith. There was a tune in the air, too– not the one he'd heard before, the one that told of savage seas and golden rings, but another, almost nonsensical thing, light and merry from his mother's lungs. And there were words woven with the song, telling of an endless sea of clouds and the freedom of the sky.

And then his father's gruff voice, picking up the words to weave the promise of a warm hearth-room and a fire always lit, to guide a restless rider home. And he wondered if they were making it up as they went, and if this was one of the many things he'd never known about the man who'd raised him.

There was a sudden clanking sound, and the hiss of fire in water followed by a burst of laughter, belly-deep and warm like the forge-room. Then his mother's voice, "Oh, careful you'll drop it–", another peal of laughter, then, "Stoick, ye'll set the forge on fire. Or your beard – would yeh– oh no, keep it 'way from me!" She shrieked, but her laughter followed close at its heels, wild and free – the kind he hadn't heard since they'd gone flying together.

Hiccup lingered awkwardly in the doorway, unwilling, suddenly, to end the moment, thoughts caught and held by the memory of the short-lived joy of having both his parents back, before Drago's army of dragons had descended on them all.

"Hiccup!"

He started, eyes focusing, to find his mother's smiling face before him, eyes bright and soot smudging the skin along her jaw and cheeks, flushed from the warmth of the fire. At the back of the forge loomed his father, rising tall as the ceiling, his beard aglow in the firelight.

He tried a grin. "Gobber making you two pick up the slack?" He glanced towards the back, and met his father's gaze. "Didn't you retire?"

Stoick's answering smile was a quick flash in the dim firelight. "Oh aye, but the perks of retirin' is more time in the forge, less grey hairs from dealing with runnin' the village."

"Yeah, thanks for that," Hiccup deadpanned, but there was a smile there, lurking at the corner of his mouth.

A mountain of unresolved things rested in the air between them, but Valka was the first to break the silence. "I'll go get cleaned up," she said, hand lingering against his cheek as she passed. She turned to look at Stoick. "I'll see you back at the house?"

He nodded, and she left on quick feet, a hand squeezing Hiccup's before she was out of the forge, leaving him with Stoick. Another long lull of silence descended over the room, thick like the smoke drifting out between the rafters.

"So...uh." Hiccup scratched the back of his head, fingers restless. "Here I am."

His father nodded, the gesture a little stiff. "So y'are."

Hiccup clenched his hands, then loosened them. "So," he began again, and wondered why he was having such a hard time breaching the subject. They'd never really been ones for talking, but it had never been this hard, even before Toothless had come into the picture.

He took a long look at him then – the man who was his father returned from the dead, standing in the forge like he'd never left, like he hadn't been gone from their lives the whole turn of a moon and like he hadn't turned to ash before their very eyes.

"How's it like?" he blurted then, before he could stop himself. "Being...back," he finished lamely.

Stoick snorted as he grabbed a rag to wipe his hands. "Alive yeh mean?"

Hiccup grimaced at his own lack of tact. "Yeah. That."

Stoick paused, idly tracing the furrows in an unfinished breastplate that Gobber had been working on. And his eyes seemed far away for a second – like he was looking at something else, or somewhere else. Something cold raced down Hiccup's spine, but he shook the feeling off, and took a step closer – to remind himself, maybe, that the towering bulk wouldn't vanish if he made any sudden movements.

He tried again, "So...you remember things, then? From...over there." He winced at his own inability to say it like it was, to speak the word that seemed stuck to the back of his throat, but he was still having problems wrapping his head around the concept of different realms and living, meddling gods.

He was given a look. "I was gone a month, not the blink of an eye. That's a long time in the Æsir realm." Stoick paused. Then, "It sure felt like a long time, anyhow."

"Well," Hiccup coughed, and tried a faltering smile. "If it helps, it's only been a month here. I mean, it's been pretty hectic with the rebuilding and– and the chief thing, but other than that you haven't missed much."

His father looked at him then, and for a moment Hiccup felt strangely exposed. "I wouldn't say that," Stoick said, and there was a world behind that remark – nine worlds, and a whole lot of things in between.

"I'm sorry."

Stoick looked up, a frown pulling his thick brows together, and Hiccup swallowed. "I'm...sorry," he repeated. "For everything. For...you dying. If I hadn't insisted on going after Drago–"

"You wouldn't have found yer mother."

His mouth snapped shut, and Stoick pressed on, "You can't predict the future, Hiccup. You've got to do what feels right. It's what'll make yeh a great chief." He smiled, and reached out to wipe a smudge off his son's forehead. "Once you get used to th' rhythm. And the late hours."

There was a lump in his throat, and he tried to swallow past it. He'd spent so many nights in the forge wondering if his father had been disappointed when he'd died, saving him from a direct result of his own mistake, of trying to talk sense into a man who'd been long past saving. Now that he'd been given another chance, and had his father returned and looking proud as he'd ever seen him, it all felt a little overwhelming.

"I'm going to ask Astrid to marry me!"

The moment the words left his tongue, he felt like clapping a hand over his face – he'd meant to change the subject to something a little less morbid than death and a little less emotionally draining than his own guilt, but without sounding like he was one egg short of a nest.

The burst of laughter surprised him, and when he looked up Stoick was grinning. "Well it's about time!"

Hiccup did a double-take. "Wh-what do you mean it's about time?"

He was rewarded with a snort. "Kept 'er waiting five years – young or no', that's a while fer any lass, even one as patient as Astrid. I asked yer mother the year after I met 'er, you know."

Hiccup shifted his weight. "Yeah, well...I've had a lot on my mind, okay? And...it hasn't been the right time."

"Yer overthinking it."

"I'm not–" he pressed his mouth to a determined line. "I'm not overthinking it, I'm just...planning. I've got a plan. Sort of." When all that met his excuses was a raised brow, he sighed, and raked a restless hand through his hair. His fingers lingered on the braids by his ear. "I just...she deserves something special. Like your song. She deserves something like that."

Stoick crossed his arms over his chest. "Astrid the type who'd appreciate you singin'?" Going by his tone, he found the idea somewhat dubious.

Hiccup didn't hesitate. "She'd choke on her own laughter."

His father laughed. "Then that's yer answer." He poked Hiccup's chest. "You've got to make it personal."

"Yeah, easy for you to say – you've done it already. Twice," he added, thinking of the day in the cave, and the look on his mother's face.

"Aye – charmed her boots off, too," his father retorted with a proud puff of his chest. He grinned. "Hard t' resist the Haddock charm."

Hiccup rubbed at his brow. "I don't think that's going to be enough this time, dad. I mean it's not like I can just pop the–"

"Gobber, have you seen–oh, hey, babe, what are you doing up?"

He had to swallow the word from escaping as Astrid ducked into the forge-room, and sweat broke out across his back and shoulders at his near reveal. "Astrid! Hey, I, uh– couldn't sleep any...more. I'm awake. As you can...see." He felt like hitting himself for his lack of foresight, practically screaming his intentions for the whole village to hear. Of course she'd be around this time of day – Gobber probably had her running errands.

But she didn't seem to have heard anything incriminating, and greeted his father as she came to stand beside Hiccup. "Did you at least get some rest?" she asked, looking into his eyes the way his mother had.

Before he could open his mouth, Stoick clapped him on the back, humour at his son's expense bright in his eyes. "That's my cue ta leave," he declared, and with a tip of his head to Astrid, made for the door. "Listen to the lass, son, and don't stay out too late – yer mother'll worry."

Then he was gone, and Hiccup felt like digging himself a hole. He'd tell his mother, no doubt, and then there'd be even more people waiting for it to happen than there already was, and–

"What was that all about?"

He whipped around to face her. "W-what was what all about?"

She frowned. "That look he just gave you." She peered into his face. "Why are you sweating?"

He laughed nervously, "Ah, it's a little stifling in here. Don't you think it's a little stifling in here?" He wiped at his brow. "Whew. Gotta give Grump some credit for that molten fire, huh?"

She looked doubtful, but didn't push the matter, and Hiccup breathed a sigh of relief when she moved to douse the fire, running a hand over Grump's nose as she passed. Toothless lifted his head from where he'd settled, clever eyes narrowed knowingly, and Hiccup made a cutting motion with his hand.

"You're acting...weird. Are you sure you're okay?"

He hurriedly pulled his eyes away from the dragon to look back at Astrid, who was watching him like he'd gotten out of bed and put his shirt on inside-out and his boot on his peg leg.

And he thought then, about his parents in the cave, and in the forge just moments ago, singing and dancing after twenty years apart. And he looked at the girl by the forge-fire, blue eyes like the rare cloudless skies Berk only saw a few times a month.

And he found he wanted that – the kind of romance that lasted, past separation and differences of opinion. The kind of romance that defied death, even. He wanted that, but it wasn't something you asked for over breakfast along with 'pass the butter, please'. He wanted to do something she'd remember, twenty years into the future. If not a song and dance, then something else.

The thought made him smile. It looked like he'd have to plan some more, if he wanted to get it right. She wasn't a girl who asked for much, or even one who put much value into those kind of gestures, but she was worth the effort of a damn good proposal – he just needed to figure out what kind.

"I'm great!" he blurted, and watched her brows pull together at the sudden outburst. But his heart felt light in his chest for the first time in a good long while, and the exhaustion that had rested so heavy on his shoulders seemed to have lifted. "I've got the rest of the day off," he said then, fingers curling around hers to tug her closer, and her concern gave way to a single blonde brow raised in amusement. Hiccup grinned.

"So how about a race, milady?"


Freyr's blessing lay over the rise of Berk in the gentle breeze and the cloudless evening, and the sun had dipped a molten ball of flame down into the sea by the time her husband made it home for the night.

Valka had changed for bed and was fussing with the furs when she heard his step in the hearth-room, echoed by the heavy creak of the floorboards and the lazy twitch of Cloudjumper's nose. Turning towards the door, her smile was a gentle thing, though her hands were restless against her braid, still damp from her bath and slung over one shoulder, the moisture soaking into her blouse.

For a moment he just looked at her, looming large and awkward in the doorway, as though unsure of whether or not to step all the way inside.

"Did you have a good talk?"

He seemed to start at the sound of her voice, and she saw his gaze return from somewhere far off, a realm of his own imaginings where she couldn't hope to tread. It brought the worry back, and the thought, however doubtful, that he longed for something the world of the living could not provide. Something she could not provide.

Then he smiled, and the fond crinkle of his eyes chased the ghosts of her thoughts away to remote corners. "We did." And he took a step inside. "Lad had a lot on his mind. He's like you, that way. Always been one fer thought."

Her smile grew. "You used to tease me merciless' about that," she said. "You'd say I did enough thinking fer the whole of Berk."

He grinned. "Aye – you did." He paused. Then, "I missed yer thinkin'." He motioned to her face. "The way you'd worry yer lip 'tween yer teeth."

Her lower lip slipped out from where it had been caught, and he laughed. "Hiccup's the same," he said.

She felt something warm unfurl behind the cage of her ribs at the fondness in his voice, and breathed in deeply. He smelled of forge-smoke and metalwork and the salt of the sea, and it drove it home once again – the realization that he was no apparition but whole and hale and human. He'd been home less than a day, still, but she'd not yet wrapped her mind around it fully.

His gaze found the dragon curled around their bedpost, but Cloudjumper didn't twitch, or open his eyes. Valka reached out a hand, fingers finding the ridges along his spine. "He's been keepin' me company," she said then, answering the unspoken question. She looked at Stoick. "It's been...strange, sleeping here, and after twenty years I've become used to his presence."

Clever eyes opened to meet hers, before the dragon rose, wings tucked close to his great frame as he made for the door, seeming to draw her thoughts from within her. Her hands travelled along his spine, and Stoick stepped out of the way, but didn't take his eyes off the dragon before the swish of his great tail disappeared around the door-frame.

"Shrewd, that one."

Valka glanced up, surprised, but found his smile fond, and her own smile bloomed in turn. "Aye, he is." Her fingers curled around her braid, tugging, and her nervousness roiled like a whirlpool in her belly.

"I don't remember you bein' this nervous, even the night we married," he said then, as he took another step inside, pulling the door shut behind him. "And you were a young thing back then, Val. Fresh off yer mother's apron strings, nearly, but not near so jittery." He gave her a look. "You know, if I remember, you were eager."

Valka snorted. "If you remember, Stoick the Vast-as-you-please, I'd had quite a bit of ale in me that eve," she quipped, her good humour falling easily from her lips, and the whirlpool stilled, the fjord of her inner being suddenly quiet.

His smile warmed, softened, and when he took another step towards her she didn't flinch. "I remember you being the most beautiful sight I'd e'er seen."

She drew a breath, sudden and sharp, and then she was in the cave again and he was before her, and twenty years had been long and cold and lonely indeed, and she felt tears spring unbidden to her eyes. She laughed – a watery sound. "Oh, look at this. I'm a right mess."

He reached out a hand to catch a tear before it escaped, and she thought about her song in the forge, and his promise solid like the crag of Berk. But he said nothing, and moved then to take off his armour – the gilded plates not wrought by mortal hands but Odin's forge, but he discarded them with little care. Only on his helmet did his hands linger, before he put it down with the rest.

Then he went to the bed to pull the furs aside, and suddenly the twenty years that had passed since they'd last shared one seemed long indeed, and the month she'd spent in the company of her own kin seemed but a moment. And she felt a lass again, the chief's young wife, uncertain in the ways of affection.

He smiled then, knowing her thoughts for what they were. "Sleep, Val," he said, eyes glittering with mischief. "There'll be time enough to be married again in the morn."

She balked, and spluttered – her laughter wild birds in the soft silence, and her nervousness lifted. "Oh, you fiend! Talk as tho' you're a lad!" But her stomach fluttered, the quiet waters rippling with affection, and when he settled in she hesitated only a breath before she followed suit.

The bed seemed smaller, as though by magic, and her breath came a little easier as she tucked the furs about her, the familiar dip of his weight making her roll naturally towards the middle. And her happiness was sudden and violent, a surge in her throat, but her words were stuck to the roof of her mouth and all she could do when he looked towards her, a question in his kind eyes, was rest her hand over the soft rise of his chest. The beat of his heart drummed a hammer-fall against her palm, and curling her fingers around the braids of his beard, she tucked her head under his chin, the movement an ease she'd thought the years had driven out of her.

An arm curved carefully about her shoulders, not a dragon's tail but familiar still, and when she relaxed so did he. A kiss against her hair, still damp and bound to be a right mess in the morn, tugged at heartstrings long dulled – a keen note resonating in the quiet of her soul.

And for the very first night since Berk had called her back beneath its curved and carven rooftops, sleep came on swift hooves to Valka.


"Sweet Gefn, how very gracious you are."

The voice slithered, coiling and soft – the supple leather sheath over cold steel, and eyes flashed bright in the eve's gentle light. Son, brother and father of many he sat, perched like a bird, a great drake against the backdrop of starlit shadow. His mirth ran thrilling rivers through veins of ice and blood, and in his observance his boredom lifted, just a little, from his weary shoulders.

Loki tilted his head, the dark of his hair the soot-black of a raven's wing, stark against his ever-shifting complexion. And he considered her handiwork, the Lady of love and all things fair and sweet. "Such fondness you have for these humanfolk."

He looked upon the crag of Berk, such a tiny little speck in the vast blue realm of Midgard, though these were folk who knew their names, and invoked them in fear and reverence alike, the Allfather's more than any. Loki has not known the same honour. Liesmith they've called him. Thief and Silvertongue.

Mischief maker.

"And as you invoke it, so it shall be," he mused, his wicked smile a snake curling about the length of his clever mouth. His passing was quiet – the shifting of a single shadow, and Berk rested, forever peaceful in its oblivion and its lack of understanding of the great powers roiling like the traitorous waters of the north–

–like great waves to soon crash upon the shore.


AN: Boredom is an inevitable fate amongst gods, and Loki never passes up the opportunity to wreak some havoc.

Freyr: twin brother of Freyja, known as the god of virility and fair weather.

Midgard: one of the nine realms of norse cosmology, and home of humans.

Gefn: another of Freyja's names, pertaining to her as a giver/granter of gifts.