The Dragon Sanctuary

The cold night air sent a biting wind over the ice and whipped up a sharp blizzard in the skies. Barely visible against the indigo sky were the silhouettes of two dragons – a Rhumblehorn and a Hotburple – along with their riders.

"Grr...stubborn and boar-headed," Stoick huffed, his beard freezing over in the icy wind. He was referring to Astrid, as per usual. "Just like her parents and Val! She takes more after her than she realises." Honestly, now Stoick thought about it, despite the fact that she wasn't related to his wife by blood, Astrid was startling similar to Valka. "None of 'em could ever stay put, either."

"Eh! She's just twenty," Gobber pointed out from Grump's back. "And a Viking!" he added. "I mean, could there possibly be a worse combination?" he chuckled dryly. "Same with Hiccup. I mean, when I think about how senseless and reckless you, Val and the lass' parents were at that age..." he trailed off. "Eh...thinking about it, not much has changed actually," he muttered in a side note. Stoick sighed and refrained from brushing the snow building up in his moustache.

"You know what Astrid's like, Gobber – she won't give up," he pointed out sadly. "If she and Hiccup find Drago before we find them..."

"Bah! Nothing can hurt those two as long as that Night Fury of Astrid's is with 'em!" Gobber protested cheerily. "It's a Night Fury!"

Gobber was about to say something else when he realised that his friend wasn't listening. Stoick had spotted something on the ocean below, specifically a hole in the ice which had something glinting beside it. He turned Skullcrusher around and led him down to the ice – his breathing stiffened as he spotted something floating in the icy waters.

"Gobber – you grab whatever it is that's on the side of that hole," he ordered, leaning over as much as he dared as he snatched the floating object from the water. A scraping of metal against ice told him that Gobber had somehow managed to snatch up the glinting object that had been lying on the frozen surface. Before Stoick had a chance to examine the object he'd picked up, he already heard a worried intake of breath from his friend.

"Uh...Stoick..." Gobber muttered nervously. Stoick turned around and his eyes widened in horror as he recognised the blade in Gobber's remaining hand – it was Silver Edge...Hiccup's blade. His breathing quickened as he examined the object in his hands – it was a helmet fashioned into a mask made of dark blue and red-brown leather. It was decorated with small spikes and folded back over itself...it was Astrid's.

Stoick cast a look of dread at Gobber who returned it. If these items were floating around in the middle of nowhere, Astrid and Hiccup could be in serious danger...possibly hurt. The hole in the ice suggested that a large object had fallen through...possibly even Toothless. The situation grew increasingly dire so Stoick clasped the helmet in his hands and leaned over so that he held it by Skullcrusher's nose – if there was one thing that Rhumblehorns were famous for, it was their sense of smell and their incredible tracking skills.

"Find her, Skullcrusher!" Stoick instructed. Astrid and Hiccup were nigh inseparable these days – find one and you were likely to find the other. "Find her." Sniffing the helmet a couple of times, Skullcrusher let out a determined roar before changing his course, heading towards the north-eastern icebergs in the distance.

/\

"Whoa...ho...hold on!" Hiccup yelled in frustration as Valka leapt through the rocky tunnels. "Wait just a minute, lady! Come back here!"

"This way!" Valka grinned, leaping through the rocky passages like a Nadder jumping from perch to perch. Astrid struggled to keep up with Hiccup who was almost sprinting ahead. Gods, the number of times she had to remind him about the leg...

"You cannot just say something like that and then run off!" she yelled, trying her best to keep pace but always falling a few steps behind the amazingly-quick-for-fifty woman ahead of her who was also just out of Hiccup's reach, jumping away almost as soon as he neared her.

"You're my mother?!" Hiccup spluttered, scrambling up the rocks after her.

"My foster mother...my...future mother-in-law?!" Astrid panted, jogging after the woman with Toothless right behind her. "I mean...what the...? Do you grasp how insane it sounds?!" she spluttered.

"Come, quickly!" Valka called, leaping up a steep incline. Hiccup shot up with relative ease whilst Astrid tried (major emphasis on 'tried') to climb up after her but couldn't quite get a grip and kept slipping back down the incline.

"Get back here! I've got questions!" Hiccup shouted.

"Hey! Bit of help, sweetheart?!" Astrid snapped irritably, scrambling to grab a hold. Hiccup turned back and grabbed her hand to help her up whilst shouting over his shoulder to Valka.

"Where have you been all this time?" he grunted as Toothless pushed Astrid up and over the tiny ledge at the top, sending her tumbling onto Hiccup. "OOFF!" The pair both scrambled quickly to their feet and continued the chase.

"What have you been doing?!" Astrid added, brushing her fringe out of her eyes. "They...they told us you were dead!" she yelled.

"Everyone thinks you were eaten by..." Hiccup trailed off as they entered a brightly lit cavern. The light was filtered through gigantic walls of ice and rocks columns were covered in moss and...

Astrid could only exhale in amazement. Never before had she seen so many dragons in one place. The Nest at Helheim's Gate had been one thing but this...this was another level entirely. There were dragons of all shapes and sizes, even babies from what Astrid could see (upon seeing the baby Gronkles, she chuckled at the memory of the first Snoggletog the dragons had spent with the Vikings back on Berk – Hiccup, on the other hand, flushed furiously. That was one memory he wanted to keep suppressed).

The place itself was awe-inspiring to say the least. Walls of ice seemed to act like a greenhouse, creating a warm and humid mini-climate away from the frozen wastelands outside. Ferns and mosses grew over the rocks and slowly melting ice trickled into waterfalls which fed springs and lakes. The sheer size alone made it a paradise nest for dragons and Astrid was stunned silent by the beauty of it.

Toothless suddenly growled next to Astrid and she and Hiccup looked up to a nearby rock face where the dragon Valka had been riding earlier was hanging like a bat. Valka was peeking out of his wings with a small smile on her face. The two Vikings could only stare at her with a whole range of emotions rushing through them. Astrid was amazed that Valka was still alive and stunned by the revelation that she'd been living among dragons for the past decade and a half but also, and she was ashamed to admit it, angry that the woman had never once gotten word back to Berk that she was alive, nor had she ever returned. Hiccup secretly shared the same emotions but also felt confused – he'd been so close to his mother when he was a child so he felt that he should be overjoyed but at the same time he felt betrayed that the only person he'd acted his age around when he was small had given him no indication that she wasn't dead.

"This is where you've been for fifteen years?" Astrid realised. Valka nodded ever so slightly from her perch. Astrid glanced at the scene around her – behind the Vikings, Toothless was awkwardly trying to avoid some of the other dragons who were trying to acquaint themselves with him. "You've been rescuing them?" Astrid added curiously. Valka nodded again, this time her smile widening. Hiccup bit his lip as his eyes narrowed.

"Unbelievable..." he breathed, although it was more in awe than frustration. This time Valka spoke up.

"You...you're not upset?" she asked with a slight wince. Hiccup grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck

"Well, I don't know...it's kinda hard to wrap my head around if I'm being perfectly frank," he admitted bluntly.

"Yeah, same," Astrid agreed. "I mean, it's not every day that you find out the mother figure of your life is some kind of crazy...feral...vigilante...dragon lady," she huffed, once again making multiple hand gestures to accentuate her point and making Hiccup chuckle because of it. At that Valka laughed slightly and let her dragon lower her onto the floor, hanging off one of his claws using her staff.

"Well, at least I'm not boring," she smiled. "Right?" Astrid couldn't stop a smirk crossing her face and she shrugged. True enough. Having a Crazy Dragon Lady as a future mother-in-law was hardly dull.

"Well...I guess there is that...one specific thing," she smirked, petting a dragon as it came to nudge her shoulder. Hiccup, on the other hand, seemed far less happy.

"I guess," he mumbled, barely scratching the dragon's chin. Valka walked over slowly, still bent as she'd been before but far less threateningly this time. Her face had broken into a wide smile that made her face shine with excitement – the two Vikings she'd called her children, even if one was technically adopted, were here in her dragon sanctuary.

"Do...do you like it?" she asked almost timidly but with her eyes flashing with excitement.

"I don't have the words," Astrid replied in amazement – even Hiccup couldn't help but smile in wonder at the dragon utopia around him. Valka's gaze flickered between the two Vikings for a moment.

"I see you two appear to be getting along now," she noted. Astrid let out a breath of awkward laughter.

"I know – miracles do happen," she remarked. Hiccup smirked at her and nudged her playfully in the ribs.

"How...what happened?" Valka asked with a small smile as she straightened up – yep, two inches taller than her son. That made Astrid feel slightly better for her situation of now being shorter than Hiccup (damn those growth spurts of his – at least he wasn't taller than his mother). An irritated growl snapped the conversation short but Hiccup smirked and indicated with his head a very irritated Night Fury behind them – Toothless was growling at some dragons who evidently had no concept whatsoever of personal space.

"Long story short – he happened," he replied dryly. Valka chuckled at the sight of the dragon and glanced at Astrid with a curious look on her face.

"May I?" she requested. Astrid stepped aside and nodded as the woman knelt down by the dragon. Toothless cooed and began purring as Valka examined him. "Oh, he's beautiful!" Valka smiled in adoration, stroking the black scales of the dragon. He circled her affectionately and rolled onto his back as Astrid giggled nearby. Hiccup always watched but with little more than a sad smile on his face – he wasn't quite ready to feel overly happy that he'd found his long-thought-to-be-dead mother.

"Incredible!" Valka exclaimed as Toothless nuzzled her upside-down. "You know, I think he might very well be the last of his kind." Astrid felt a pang of pain in her heart – okay, she knew that Toothless was a unique dragon but she didn't want him to be lonely. Valka's eyes widened as she counted the flaps along his chin. "And look! He's your age – he's twenty!" she pointed out excitedly.

"Really?" Astrid grinned, astounded by how affectionate her dragon was towards the woman. Like herself, Valka seemed to have a way with the beasts.

"No wonder you two get along so well with him," Valka remarked as Toothless righted himself and began making glugging noises whilst nodding his head up and down. Valka mimicked him until he retracted his teeth into his gums, making her almost squeal in amazement. "Retractable teeth?" she gasped, examining the gums before glancing back at the two Vikings behind her. "How in Odin's name did you two manage..."

"Well, it had nothing to do with me," Hiccup quickly admitted, a bit sharper than he meant. "It was all Astrid, really."

"Yeah, I...uh...I found him in the woods," Astrid explained with a grimace. "He was...shot down and wounded." Valka paused in her movements before standing to face the Vikings. She gazed at them with a sympathetic wince before heading to show them some of the dragons she'd rescued, many sporting their own injuries. She turned first to one that looked a lot like one of the ones who'd snatched Astrid and Hiccup off Toothless earlier – Astrid winced when she saw one of its legs had been reduced to a stump.

"This Snafflefang lost one of his legs to one of Drago Bludvist's iron traps," Valka explained, her voice spiked with hate. She moved to another dragon, this one similar to her own but with only one set of wings instead of two. "This Raincutter had her wing sliced by razor netting." Finally she walked over to a dragon that had no wings and was perhaps a little smaller than Stormfly. Hiccup inhaled sharply when he saw that its eyes were milky white. "And this poor Hobblegrunt was blinded by a tree snare then left to die alone and scared," Valka continued, her voice soothing and gentle as she carefully petted the blinded Hobblegrunt without scaring him. Her soft gaze hardened again when she spotted the red prosthetic fin on Toothless' tail. "And what of this?" she hissed spitefully. "Did Drago or his trappers do this, too?" she asked.

The two Vikings let out a nervous laugh.

"Uh...I'm...gonna let mi'lady explain this one," Hiccup said awkwardly, moving Astrid so that she was standing right next to Toothless.

"What? Why?" Valka frowned. Astrid let out a nervous giggle.

"Heh...well, you see, the crazy thing is..." she trailed off, hoping that the woman wouldn't suddenly hate her. "I'm actually the one who shot him down," she explained with a grimace. Valka's eyes widened in confused shock so Astrid continued before she had a chance to have a go at her. "Hey! It's okay, though – he got me back," she smiled playfully, turning to Toothless and rubbing his cheeks and making him gurgle happily. "Right, pal?" she chuckled. "You couldn't save all of me, could you? You just had to make it even! So..." she paused and leant on Toothless' shoulder for support before sticking out her prosthetic limb. "Peg-leg!" she finished in a sing song voice – Hiccup chuckled lightly as Toothless launched Astrid onto his shoulders but Valka suddenly let out a sharp gasp. Okay, she hadn't exactly been paying much attention to the Vikings' appearances themselves so to realise that her foster daughter was missing a limb...

"What happened?" she asked sharply. Astrid paused in her playing with Toothless and stared blankly at her foster-mother for a moment. Toothless' eyes widened and Hiccup gulped...whoops... "What. Happened?" Valka demanded when no answer came, her aquamarine eyes narrowing in insistence. Astrid glanced at Hiccup.

"Uh...she's got a point," she grimaced. "What did happen to my leg?" she asked. Valka coughed, as if irritated that the young woman was skipping the question so Astrid adjusted herself on the saddle and leant on Toothless' head and shrugged. "Hey, last thing I remember was flying out of control towards the tail of a giant tyrannical dragon we'd just been fighting then blackout," she explained. Valka's eyes didn't change from their pressing narrowed state as she shot a glance at her son.

"Look, even I don't know exactly what happened, okay?" Hiccup protested. "Astrid, your leg was messed up really bad after fighting that thing – there was no other option." He clammed up after that – Hiccup couldn't remember being as fearful for Astrid's life as he had been in those weeks she'd spent in a coma after the battle with the Red Death. To be frank, he didn't want to remember it either.

"What was this 'tyrannical dragon'?" Valka asked.

"Head...Hiccup called it a Queen...of the Helheim's Gate Nest," Astrid explained quickly. "Ate any dragon that didn't bring enough food." Valka's hard expression softened ever so slightly as she petted Toothless on the nose. She decided to change the subject.

"So, what did Stoick think of your Night Fury friend, then?" she inquired, her voice stinging with bitterness and a touch of regret. Hiccup winced and scratched Toothless behind the ear more out of self-comfort than anything else. Astrid did the same.

"Let's just say neither of them left the best first impressions on each other," Hiccup grimaced. Toothless grunted at him. "What?" Astrid stepped in before things got too awkward.

"But then...he changed," she smiled. "Everyone did. Pretty soon, everyone back home had dragons of their own!" she explained. Valka scoffed in disbelief.

"If only it were possible," she sighed. Hiccup bristled slightly.

"No, really!" Astrid protested. "I..."

"Believe me, kids – I tried as well but people aren't capable of change," Valka interrupted. Astrid and Hiccup were stunned silent for a moment. Valka...had tried to bring peace between dragons and Vikings? Now that they thought about it, the woman never carried a weapon during the dragon raids and didn't lecture them about dragons being dangerous creatures the way Stoick did. In fact, she'd made Hiccup a toy dragon when he was small (granted he'd been terrified of it for a time and had thrown it into the ocean after Valka had vanished).

"Aren't capable of...?" Hiccup repeated incredulously. "Mom, I don't know what you're thinking here but things have...!"

"Some people were just born different," Valka interrupted again.

WHY IS THIS SEGMENT SO LONG?! THIS IS ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH!

Anyway, double update today because RACE TO THE EDGE IS NOW OUT! By the way, I haven't watched all of the episodes yet so refrain from spoilers.

Side note...why are the Haddocks such a stubborn family? Also, why didn't Valka question her son's missing leg in the movie?! Granted, Hiccup's a Viking and losing a limb is an occupational hazard but I for one would be pretty horrified if I found out that someone in my family have suffered such a massive injury.