Disclaimer: How to Train Your Dragon belongs to Dreamworks, not me.
family headcanon: ...I'll explain at the end.
"Who's my sweet boy, hm?" Valka cooed, tracing her fingertip along the curve of Hiccup's tiny nose. "Who's my sweet boy?" The baby giggled, latching onto her fingertip. Valka adjusted the sling that held him against her breast and smiled at him.
"Morning, Lady," Phlegma called from across the path. Valka waved. "Oh! Is that the baby? Let me take a look at him!"
Valka adjusted the blankets and held Hiccup so Phlegma could see him. "He's five months now," she said proudly.
"What a wee little thing," Phlegma said. "Don't you worry, little one, you'll be a great chief someday. You'll grow up to be a fine strapping dragon slayer like your papa in no time."
Valka felt her smile turn a little forced. She didn't like the idea of her tiny baby becoming a dragon slayer. She'd felt that long before she'd had her son, and she felt it even stronger now.
"Speaking of which, Lady, when're you going to rejoin the raid defenses?" Phlegma asked. "I know the birth was hard on you, but you're all healed up, right? Healed up enough to fight?"
Hiccup fussed a little, mashing a tiny fist into his small mouth, and Valka bounced him gently. "I'm not coming back to the defenses," she said. "I've taken up training with the healers."
Phlegma frowned. "But we've never had a chief's lady who didn't fight," she said, perplexed. "It's not been done."
"That may be so, but it's being done now," a booming voice said behind them. Valka turned to see her husband striding up the path towards them, beaming broadly. "There's my beautiful lass. And my son! Is he awake? Can I hold him?"
"He's awake," Valka reassured him, lifting Hiccup from the sling and handing him over to Stoick.
"Valka's decided she'd like to be trained by the healers, and I don't see why she can't," he said as he took his son easily. "There's always a need for healers on Berk. And she wants to do it."
"Aye, then," Phlegma said, shrugging as she hefted her ax back to her shoulder. "I'd best be off. Good to see you, Chief. Good to see you, Lady."
Stoick waved an absent goodbye, distracted by Hiccup latching onto his beard and trying to stuff it in his mouth. "Oh, look at the little devil," he cooed, ticking Hiccup's small tummy with one large forefinger.
Valka slid her arm through Stoick's. "Thank you for handling that," she said quietly.
Stoick turned and smiled at her. "None of that, my love," he said. He bent to kiss her gently. "Whatever decisions you make, I'll defend till my death." He took a step back, eyeing her carefully. "Are you feeling all right? You look a bit pale."
"I'm fine," she said. She squeezed his arm. "Perfectly fine. I promise."
He still looked concerned, and she understood. Her pregnancy had been difficult, leaving her weak and exhausted, and then Hiccup came two months early after a long, long labor. And even before that, with the babies she had lost, the brother and sister that Hiccup would never know...it sometimes grated her nerves how Stoick treated her like a piece of glass, but she understood.
The baby hiccupped and looked up at Stoick, startled, as if he wasn't entirely sure where that sound came from. Stoick laughed. "Living up to your name, eh, son?" he said. "Here, back to your mama with you."
He kissed Hiccup's forehead and handed the baby back. Valka took him as he started to fuss, tucking him back into the sling and patting his little back to soothe him. "He's such a sweet thing," she said.
"Takes after you," Stoick said. He took her hand and she squeezed his fingers gently as they started the walk back to their home.
There was a raid that night, a bad one, and Valka was relieved that she was a healer and not a fighter. Being a healer meant she could stay in the great hall with the baby strapped safely to her back while she tended to ax wounds and dragon bites. Hiccup slept through most of the ruckus; she kept reaching back to check on him, to make sure he was still there, and every time she felt his tiny warm body she thanked the gods that she could keep her baby safe.
In the earliest hours of the morning, long before the sun came up, Hiccup started to cry- the thin, thready wail that meant he was hungry. She begged off from the healers and took a seat in the great hall to nurse him, leaning heavily against the wall from exhaustion.
"Oh, my little love," she whispered, smoothing his soft downy hair as he nursed, his small nose pressed against her breast. "I don't want this for you."
She held him close, until he was full and sleepy and content, and all she could do was bite back tears at the sight of his sweet little face. She'd wanted him so badly, but she hadn't realized the repercussions of bringing a baby into a world where she herself didn't fully belong.
Author's Notes:
ALL RIGHT SO HERE ARE MY HEADCANONS.
First of all, it frustrates me to no end that we know so little about young!Stalka and how they met and how they fell in love and whatnot. Really frustrates me. All we know for sure is that Valka is ten years younger thank Stoick; originally on the Dreamworks website he was listed as being 50 and she was 40 in the second movie, so if Hiccup is 20, he was born when Valka was only twenty. So she married presumably fairly young- my guess is about seventeen, when Stoick was twenty-seven and already established as chief of Berk. And she married Stoick because she loved him, but she felt incredibly out of place, and not really equipped to be a chieftain's wife on full view of the village. And she didn't like fighting. At all. So the people of Berk (another headcanon: she came from a different island, maybe one with a different culture that wasn't as focused on dragon fighting) liked her well enough, but privately thought that the chief should have picked someone a bit more suitable.
And I've mentioned this a couple of times, but I firmly believe that she had several miscarriages/stillbirths before Hiccup was born, and then Hiccup was born early and so weak that she didn't believe he'd make it. Even without the prior loss of pregnancies, can you imagine being twenty years old, already feeling like a fish out of water, already feeling like everyone is judging you for not being good enough for their chief, already both hating to fight and hating that you're horrible at fighting, and then you give birth to your first baby, and he's tiny and weak and probably not going to survive, and you blame yourself for not being able to carry the pregnancy to full term, and people are whispering about how the chief should have married someone stronger to give him healthy heirs, and you just feel like a terrible mother and a terrible wife and a terrible person?
I firmly believe Valka was dealing with some pretty severe postpartum depression.
I think Stoick tried to help, but she didn't talk to him about her feelings much. She hid them. So he helped where he could, like when she asked if she could train with the healers instead of fight, he was all for it and enthusiastic and shut down anyone who tried to protest that the chief's wife was supposed to be a fighter. And he helped care for Hiccup, and he cared for her, but there was always this sadness that he couldn't quite get to.
So when the dragon took Valka, I think she initially thought about going back to Berk, once her panic wore off. But then she started thinking about how much better Berk would be without her, how Stoick could marry a new wife who could give him strong children to rule after him, how if Hiccup even survived to his first birthday she would be a horrible mother to him...so she stayed with the dragons.
So yes. These are my Valka-related headcanons and now I feel sad.
Luckily, the next drabble is a funny one. But feel free to share your own Valka headcanons, or prompt Valka/Stalka/Hiccup related drabbles on my tumblr!
Next chapter: friendship
