And wait they did.

During the next week, the Naats ate no more fish, but the fish stock in the area was still lower than normal, so the vikings had to be careful not to fish too much because it needed time to recover. Therefore, the food on Berk needed to be rationed.

To Hiccup´s shock, the fact that there were aliens on a nearby islands was leaked on the second day after Hiccup the transmitting station had been finished. No-one knew who it had been that couldn´t keep his mouth shut, but it didn´t matter in the end: Soon, everybody on Berk knew that there were huge, intimidating, alien beasts on a nearby island.

But luckily, the tales that spread around the village were often so frightening that nobody really seemed to be all that curious to find out more about the aliens. Most people actually seemed quite content that their 'fearless' young chief was taking care of this issue - and as it seemed, he had already been quite successful. After all, nobody had starved or had to suffer severe hunger.

But the Naats were still there. Hiccup flew other to their island every few days in hopes of seeing them gone or in the process of leaving, but he was disappointed every single time.

After two weeks, Tarkan finally had something new to tell Hiccup during his visit. He seemed very excited - at least Hiccup thought so - and had already prepared his words on his tablet: 'We - got - signal - from - trading - people - will - land - here - tomorrow - they - take - us - you - can - come - too'.

Hiccup rejoiced at first, but then his enthusiasm dropped in an instant. Tarkan wanted him to come along? Why? He had a place here on Berk! And on top of that, the things Tarkan had told him about what was going on in space didn´t exactly seem inviting.

'Why should I come to space with you?', Hiccup asked, writing in the dirt.

The Naat pushed some buttons, then let the tablet answer for him: 'Good - mind - can - end - war'. Then, the tablet showed a lengthy text that Tarkan had written in viking runes. Hiccup sat down and read it.

Apparently, there was a huge war going on. The Naats were a people of soldiers that were created for the sole purpose of serving and fighting for another species, the so-called Arconides. The was a picture of an Arconide beside the text, they were vaguely humanoid, extremely slender creatures with pale skin. Everything about them radiated pure arrogance. It was easy to guess they hardly did any physical work, instead spending their time sitting in comfy chairs surrounded by holographic images or with a helmet on their head that took their minds to a wholly different place. While Hiccup was kind of curious as to how a species could even become that way, he didn´t exactly fancy meeting an individual that belonged to it.

Their enemies in war were the Maahks. Tarkan didn´t have any actual pictures or holographic depictions of one, just drawings. Those depicted them as large, eerie spider-like beings with black skin that had eight tentacles instead of legs. Hiccup wasn´t exactly looking forward to meeting one of those, either.

But what bothered Hiccup most was that the text didn´t explain how the war had started and what the parties were fighting for. The maahks lived on planets with atmospheres mostly made out of nitrogen and methane, while the arconides lived on planets whose atmospheres contained large amounts of oxygen - like the one the vikings lived on, as Tarkan had told Hiccup earlier.

'So why are you even at war?', Hiccup wrote slowly.

Tarkan didn´t answer for a long time.

Then he wrote: 'Because it has always been this way. But I want to end it.'

Hiccup was completely baffled. He couldn´t comprehend that thousands of lives were ended and unimaginable amounts of resources were wasted - just because it had always been this way? And frankly, he didn´t want to get pulled into it. He just wanted to live a nice live on Berk, exploring the world with Astrid and making his mother proud.

But a nagging inner voice made him fear he wouldn´t be able to do that. He would never be able to just return to his normal, isolated life now that he knew there was so much more out there.

And he would never be able to forgive himself for not taking the chance to try and stop the war that was going on out there.

But did he even have a chance? Wasn´t this a bit too big -even for him? Could he really end this kind of war? When he hardly knew anything about any of the parties, not to mention all the customs he´d have to follow in order to not offend anybody during a negotiation?

Wouldn´t it be better to keep living on Berk, even if he wouldn´t be as content with himself, than to fly to space and get himself killed in an instant?

He needed more time to think about this. Hiccup bid Tarkan farewell and returned to Berk.

After Hiccup had informed Astrid and Valka of the new developments, he took a stroll in the forest of Berk. This was... unexpected. Sudden.

Terrifying.

He felt a sudden surge of aggression. He wanted to punch something, find an outlet for his anger. It seemed like the world had just didn´t want him to be happy. What did he do to deserve this? For eighteen years, he had tried his very best every single day - and this was what he got for it? A situation where he knew that, no matter which choice he made, he wouldn´t be happy with it? If he left, he would probably never see the people of Berk again. Even if he wouldn´t age as much during interstellar travel, relativity would cause decades to have passed before he came back. He´d have to leave Toothless, and likely Astrid as well. And who would take care of the town? Valka had been able to keep it in a good state for a few days, but Hiccup knew she lacked the experience and training to keep running it all by herself.

Hiccup sat down on a tree stump and buried his head in his hands, trying to make a decision.

No.

He couldn´t do this. The offer was tempting, but he couldn´t just leave Astrid and Toothless alone. Unless... he could take them with him. But he quickly dropped that idea. A spaceship was likely no place for a dragon, and he didn´t even know if Astrid would want to come with him.

With a mix of contentedness and silent sorrow, he stood up and walked back to his and Astrid´s cabin.

Valka and Astrid were waiting for him there, their looks full of worry and compassion. They could only guess what he was going through, but it wasn´t hard to see it wasn´t exactly enjoyable.

Valka stood up, softly stroked his cheek with her hand and smiled at him. Hiccup tried his best to force a smile onto his lips, too. Then Valka pulled him into a long, consoling embrace.

When it was over, they both sat down. 'I don´t know what to do', Hiccup announced after taking a deep breath. 'But I´m sure that´s not news to you. If I stay here, I will never stop dwelling on what could have been and regret that I didn´t take this opportunity. If I leave, I could never forgive myself for abandoning the two of you, Toothless, and Berk. It would be irresponsible.'

For a while, there was silence.

Then, Valka responded slowly, choosing each of her words carefully: 'But you shouldn´t feel obligated to give up your dreams. Don´t let Berk hold you back. Gobber and I will find a new chief eventually, and he has enough experience to help me keep running the town until then.'

'But what about Astrid and Toothless? I can´t leave them alone!', Hiccup exclaimed, struggling to keep his voice steady.

Valka drew in a deep breath, but before she could say anything, Astrid interfered: 'Well... I´d definitely come with you.'

That led to a moment of dumbfounded silence. After Hiccup caught himself, he inquired: 'What?'

'I said I would definitely come with you. I´m not letting you go alone. If you go, I will follow.'

Because Hiccup still didn´t seem to be able to believe his luck, she added: 'I didn´t wait an eternity for you to confess your feelings to me just to let you leave me like this!' and chuckled.

Hiccup´s face lit up. So Astrid would come along! Suddenly, the idea of leaving the planet with the Naats didn´t seem so unrealistic anymore. But what about Toothless? And if Astrid came, they would have to take Stormfly, too! Would there even be space for the two of them in a spaceship? And what would those traders that the Naats had contacted think about extra passengers? Maybe he could offer to give them some viking helmets and weapons to pay for the passage?

Then another issue dawned on him: What about food? What if the traders didn´t have an food that was edible for vikings on board? They´d starve in space!

There really were a lot of things left he needed to check with Tarkan. But now that the decision was made, Hiccup was confident there would be a way.

And there was. By the evening of the same day, Tarkan had dispersed Hiccup´s doubts and worries. Apparently, the traders - they called themselves Mehandor - were used to transporting all different kind of species and therefore had all the technology they could possibly need to make a new species feel at home on their ships. Perhaps they could even build a device that could translate the viking´s language much more fluently! According to Tarkan, it was quite usual for intergalactic travelers to have such devices - but of course, the one the Naats had had with them didn´t know the viking´s language.

The only thing that remained unclear was how willing the Mehandor would be to take extra passengers and what they would demand in return. And what the Naats would actually do once they were back in space. To Caso, Vinar and Resh, it was obvious that the first thing to do would be to contact the Arconides. But Tarkan wasn´t so eager to return to the army. He would much rather accompany Hiccup and Astrid or take up a peaceful job - possibly even on a Mehandor-station.

Then came the time to say goodbye. Hiccup had a strange feeling in his heart as he walked towards the cliff he and Astrid would take off from. Had he really seen his last-ever sunset over Berk? Had he really just slept in his bed for the last time?

It felt like all his senses were heightened, eager to notice every detail and burn it into his memory. He could hear waves lapping at the bottom of the cliff, a soft breeze rustling in the trees and ruffling his hair. He could sense the smell of the forest and that of fish, being carried over from the storage building by the wind. He could see the silhouettes of Gobber and Valka standing atop the cliff, still a few hundred meters away from him.

Then, suddenly, he was nearly there with them. Where had the last minute gone? The time was moving by so fast, far too fast, seconds slipping through his fingers like water, he didn´t want to leave Valka yet, he had spent too little time with her, he hadn´t told her how much he loved her! Oh, he had been such an idiot, feeling alone when she had always been there for him! How was he ever going to make this up? A single tear began to form in his right eye.

Valka pulled him into an embrace and patted his back. 'It´s okay', she whispered. 'It´s okay.'

Hiccup rested his cheek on the furry hood of Valka´s clothing, drying his tears. He could feel her warmth, feel her soft skin, hear her calm breaths.

When they separated, Hiccup had lost all feeling for time. He swallowed hard, desperately looking for fitting words. But there were none.

'Thank you... for everything', he finally said. 'You were a great mother. I love you.'

Valka smiled kindly. 'I love you too. But you must go now. You need to live your own life.'

Struggling to suppress a sob, Hiccup gulped again. 'Okay', he said when he finally regained control over his voice, pulling Valka into one last embrace.

Then he mounted his dragon. In the meantime, Valka had laid put both her hands on Astrid´s shoulders. 'Take good care of yourself and my boy, okay?'

'I promise I will', Astrid said, a serious look on her face. Then she too hugged Valka tightly before turning away and mounting her dragon.

After the two young vikings took off, Valka stood on that cliff for a long time, her right had placed on her heart, watching them turn into tiny, black dots on the horizon and ultimately disappearing. She was worried, yes, but mostly she was proud. Hiccup had undergone quite a change since the Naats first landed on Berk. He had grown up. And now her little boy was setting out on a quest for peace - how could she not be proud of him?

After the vikings had brought all their luggage to the island, there was nothing left to do but wait. Hiccup and Astrid stood beside each other, holding hands and staring at the sky, looking for any sign of - well, anything that might be a spaceship - approaching.

Fortunately, it was quite cloudy that day, so staying outside all day was no problem at all.

Then, just after noon had passed, something happened. At first, it was just a distant hiss that grew louder and louder. Then, a cylinder broke through the cloud cover. It was impossible to tell its size at first, but as it got closer, it quickly became clear that it was much larger than Hiccup had imagined. Much, much larger.

As it neared the ground, the engine sounds grew deafening and the wind nearly swept the vikings off their feet, covering the scenery in blown-up dust and dirt.

Hiccup closed his eyes and covered his face, leaning forward in order to stand more securely. Astrid ducked down behind him, using his body as cover.

When the engines finally slowed down and the dust had settled down, the full size of the object became comprehensible.

The cylindrical ship had a diameter of roughly 20 meters and was around 60 meters long. It towered high over the Naats and even some of the trees. To prevent it from rolling, a plethora of landing struts had emerged from its bottom side.

Just as Hiccup wanted to ask what was going to happen next, a curved gangway was lowered. A single creature appeared.

It was mostly covered in a grey, bulky space suit, so Hiccup wasn´t sure what the being looked like. He could only make out a vaguely humanoid shape with an extra pair of arms emerging from the sides.

After letting its gaze drift over the assembled Naats, it began to walk down the gangway lumberingly. When it finally reached the Naats, it seemed to start communicating with them in some way.

'What´s happening?', Astrid whispered, her hands still on Hiccup´s shoulders, ready to duck back down at the slightest impression of danger.

'I´m not sure. I think they´re negotiating.'

'Look, that thing just pointed at us!', Astrid whispered and ducked deeper behind Hiccup´s shoulders. She was visibly afraid - her expression reminded him of the first time he took her to fly on Toothless. 'Don´t worry', Hiccup whispered back, trying to reassure her. But he could understand her fear. It was always terrifying to be faced with something new, something one did or could not understand, for the first time. Especially when it was this unusual, this strange, this... alien. It was only because Hiccup had been talking to Tarkan quite often that he was now able to contain his fear a bit better.

When the Mehandor and the Tarkan were done doing whatever they had been doing, Tarkan handed his tablet to the Mehandor and the alien took it back into its ship. A minute or so later, the creature came wavering towards hiccup. It was carrying what seemed like a pair of glasses in one of its four hands. As it reached Hiccup, Astrid jumped away, visibly scared - it was obvious she didn´t want to come too close to the Mehandor. Hiccup wanted to do the same, but resisted the urge.

Instead, he allowed the strange creature to put the object on his nose.

When it backed away, there seemed to be a blue-ish box hovering in the air on the top left periphery of his vision. Alienated, Hiccup swung his head around to try and get a better look at it before he understood that it must be part of the glasses.

Suddenly, as the Mehandor began to produce unintelligible sounds, the box filled with text: 'Hello. My name is Erin.'

Baffled, Hiccup didn´t know to respond. When he finally found his voice again, it was still embarrassingly stuttering. 'N-N-Nice to meet you. I´m Hiccup. C-Can you underst-stand me?'

He felt like banging his head against a tree. So much for making a good, self-confident first impression. But who knew whether the Mehandor was even able to tell he was nervous?

Erin 'spoke' again and more text appeared. 'I know who you are. And yes, I can understand you. Tarkan told me the two of you and your... pets want to come visit our station, too. But that won´t be cheap. What have you got to offer?'

Hiccup, who had been standing still up until now, broke into hectic movement, running over to Toothless, rummaging around in one of the bags until he finally produced a polished Viking helmet, which he then presented to Erin. 'We´ve brought some cultural goods from our people...'

The Mehandor began to flail around all four of her its arms wildly while bending forwards and backwards without following any recognizable pattern. Hiccup was confused. Was it angry? Or laughing? And why?

After a while, a 3rd message appeared. 'Very funny, but we have no interest in the cultural goods of some irrelevant, underdeveloped civilization.' Hiccup was tempted to retort that the Mehandor civilization had surely started out as irrelevant sometime in the past too, but he decided that that would only anger his conversational partner.

Instead, he went for a pity-inducing approach, sinking to his knees and hoping the Mehandor would be able to interpret the gesture. 'So what is there that we can do to make you take us with you?'

It seemed to be effective - Erin seemed to be taken aback, shooting a quick glance over to Tarkan as if to ask him how to react. After a few more moments of hesitation, it offered: 'But perhaps you could pay the flight by working for us.'

Hiccup got back up, but stayed cautious. This was a people of traders. He shouldn´t show them how eager he was to accept - it would weaken his own position when it came to the negotiation of the price. 'How long and under what conditions would you expect us to work in exchange for the voyage?'

Erin seemed to think for a moment, then answered: 'You are lucky. My station is still orbiting the planet, so it won´t be all that far. Counting in that we will have to provide you and your...companions with living space and food for the duration of your stay - we are no slave drivers, after all - you will be free after no longer than the amount of time you seem to refer to as 'three months'.'

'Two months and we´ve got a deal', Hiccup stated.

Suddenly, Astrid interrupted the conversation by grabbing Hiccup´s shoulder roughly and turning him to face her. 'Ouch! What was that for?', he whispered.

'Perhaps you should consider asking me first before making a deal with that...thing! What is it asking for, anyways?', Astrid whispered back, visibly agitated.

'We and our dragons can come, but we´ll have to work for the Mehandor for two -'

Another message popped up: 'Three!'

'Three months. Then we are free to go wherever we want. I know that´s a long time, but it seems to be our only chance.'

Astrid stared at him wordlessly for a few seconds, then forced down her anger at being left out and calmly said: 'Okay then. I trust you to know what´s best for us. As I said: Where you go, I will follow.'

'Thank you', Hiccup said, gifted her a quick smile and turned back to the Mehandor.

'We accept your offer.', Hiccup said and held out his hand to seal the deal.

Though apparently not used to using the ritual of shaking hands to validate agreements, Erin took it and encased it with two of its hands. They seemed to be much larger than Hiccups, but it was hard to tell their actual size under the space suit.

Afterwards, all passengers gathered their luggage - the Naats were going to leave the transmitting station turned off, but still standing on the island since it was so bulky even a Naat would have had trouble transporting it - and entered the spaceship. From the inside, it looked much smaller than from the outside - Hiccup guessed that a large part of the volume was taken up by all kinds of machinery. After the gateway had closed, 4 Naat-sized and 3 human-sized chairs emerged from the floor. Everybody but the two dragons sat down and buckled up.

Before they started, Erin seemed to go through some kind of welcome routine, which Hiccup relayed to Astrid by whispering: 'Welcome aboard. Please make sure to put your seatbelts on properly. Despite our usage of the newest in G-Force absorbing technology, strong acceleration or deceleration maneuvers may be perceivable inside the craft. On top of that, large screens on the walls will transmit live images from our outside cameras. None of this is any reason to panic. We guarantee your safety during this flight. Thank you for your attention.'

Then, without further warning, Hiccup was pressed deep into his seat. Fortunately, both Stormfly and Toothless had already been laying on the ground, or else they might have crushed their feet with their bodies. But the acceleration process was short. After no longer than a few seconds, the gravity inside the ship returned to normal. Hiccup looked around and noticed that the walls were now indeed showing images of clouds rushing by at incredible speed. The Naats seemed to be widely unaffected and completely unsurprised by the sudden acceleration - perhaps they had gotten used to it over years of intergalactic traveling?

He turned his head to look at Astrid and put touched her arm with his hand. 'Are you okay?', he whispered.

'Yes... It´s just a little much', she responded, just as quietly.

'I know. Try not to worry too much. It´s going to be okay.'

He leaned back in his chair and enjoyed the view for a few minutes, watching the cloud cover disappear behind them, the way the earth was bent slowly becoming more and more visible until the whole planet was in sight.

Then, as Hiccup felt his body become weightless, another object came into sight. He unstrapped himself from his seat and floated over to the monitor to get a better view. The object was a cylindrical spaceship like the one they were currently traveling in - but far, far bigger! He was about to ask Erin how big exactly it was when his glasses provided him with some additional data. Apparently, the station had about fifteen times the length and ten times the diameter of their ship - making its volume and capacity roughly 1500 times that of their vehicle. Besides that, it was rotating around its center slowly in order to create artificial gravity inside - from space, it almost looked like a symmetric, spinning bottle. A structural diagram popped up: the inside was divided into a plethora of circular floors - much like a sausage would be chopped into many thin slices - each with a slightly different gravity: the ones in the center of the station were suited to shelter creatures that needed lower gravity, the ones at the ends of the cylinder were suited as housing for beings that were used to higher gravities - like the Naats.

While he was reading, Hiccup´s mouth had dropped open further and further. Even he had trouble taking in that there were peoples who had the technology to construct such a monstrous space station. When Astrid worked up the courage to unfasten her seatbelts and float over to him, he did not react at all. There were no words that could describe what he was feeling.

After a few moments of silence, Tarkan joined Astrid and Hiccup. As softly as he could, he put one of his paws on Hiccup´s shoulder. Following his example, Astrid laid her hand on the other shoulder.

Tarkan made a few grunting sounds, and to Hiccup´s surprise, his glasses translated them. 'You´re still so full of awe, full of wonder... That is what most other peoples lack. They just take the wonders of the universe for granted. Never forget to marvel at its beauty.'

Hiccup was slightly taken aback by the depth of these words. It wasn´t hard to tell Tarkan really had high hopes about him... But could he really fulfill them?

They stayed like this for a long time. Three travelers, connected by fate or chance - who could tell? - looking towards an uncertain future.