Hiccup woke up in the healer's hut, covered snugly in a warm, wool blanket. The very first thing he noticed was that his arms and abdomen were very, very stiff.

Great. More bandages.

"What...the f-"

He swore under his breath, pulling at a bit of gauze that was poking out from under the restrictive bindings around his lower stomach. Dammit. Could these stupid things get any tighter? He swiveled his head to look around.

Something was lying at his side, next to the cot. A pair of huge, green eyes was peering over the edge of the mattress.

"Gah!" the injured viking gave a start, only to realize within the next couple of seconds that the "something" next to him was none other than the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself, snuggled happily by the cot, right by his side.

"Toothless!" he croaked in delight. The night fury widened his mouth into a pink, toothless smile and thrust his snout in Hiccup's face. Hiccup laughed wholeheartedly and made a disgusted noise while he wiped away a string of dragon spit that had found its way to his chin, and Toothless sat back on his hind legs, inspecting his human. The emotions that flooded Hiccup's thoughts were happiness and relief, and Toothless could feel them too.

"Happy to see you're doing okay." Deciding that lying uncomfortably on his side in the cot was only making the pain all over his body worse, Hiccup sat up with a grunt, and examined his surroundings.

He must have been in the exact same place that he'd been put when he first got back from Outcast Island. Same hut, same room, same cot, same boring ceiling with the splintering wooden rafters that he would be forced to look at for hours on end. It was so quiet, too. Almost as if the war never happened.

But of course, it had, and there was so much to take care of. Ignoring the fact that a goddess had just visited him - an actual goddess from he otherworld had visited him - with a message that changed everything for him and his village, for his friends, and for his father. Toothless was not going to be happy about this. And neither was-

"Astrid?"

Hiccup watched the harried girl nudge open the door and step inside the healer's hut. Huffing, sweat beading on her forehead, and wisps of hair flying from her hairband, she fixed her bangs before grabbing a stool from next to the door, dragging it to Hiccup's bedside and unceremoniously plopping down onto the seat.

She looked positively exhausted. But then, so did everyone else. There were reparations going on and the aftermath of the battle had left quite a bit that needed to be fixed, and not just buildings or docks.

Toothless read Hiccup's emotions and decided to exit the hut gracefully, knowing a basket of fish awaited him outside. He gave the Viking in the cot a final nudge and headed out. As soon as the hungry dragon was gone, Astrid let out a sigh and slumped a bit more in her seat.

"How are you?" she asked breathlessly, her shoulders hunched forward as she sat, leaning in towards the cot. As if she was in any condition to be checking on some else's health. Hiccup shrugged, then pulled a grimace when the movement pulled at the bandages wrapped around his shoulders. Astrid winced; It hurt just to watch.

"Just... just say good or bad. Don't hurt yourself." It almost sounded like an order.

Hiccup chuckled. "D'you really have to be yourself right now with all the nagging and the... erm...?" Astrid was giving him a look. Hiccup swallowed the end of his sentence. "Only kidding... And I'm uh, doing okay. The bandages are annoying but other than that, I think the cuts are healing up. My stomach seems a lot better than I expected, I think it was already finished healing by the time the spell was voided. And my chest stings a little but... it's also doing better. I think." He plucked at a strand of gauze with heavy eyes and slightly pursed lips. He continued to fiddle with the end of the gauze wrappings while he talked. "My guess is that all the magic I had in me was focusing on that, more than anything else. Sort of like an instinctive defense mechanism - it focused on the immediate needs, and the rest was put towards things like running and reflexes. Which could be why I was taking longer to get from the beach to mead hall than I should have been." He flicked the loose thread from his fingers and went on to the next loose strand.

Astrid's attention was momentarily lost on Hiccup's face and her eyes fell to his hands, which were absentmindedly trying to pull out all the loose strings from those dumb bandages. Hiccup went on talking. "So... yeah. I just think that all the energy was being put to healing up the injury" he finished lamely.

"Huh," Astrid nodded to herself, tapping a finger on her knee. "Interesting."

"Yeah... Interesting. Good word for it." He thought for a minute. "Oh! Speaking of magic, do you by any chance remember what I did with the Grímr? I could've sworn I put it right back in the house after Seljast was sent off, but..." his face fell, "then I checked back in before I went down to the beach and all... that happened," he made a generalized movement with his hands to signify the array of things that had happened between then and now. "So, long story short, couldn't find it. Must've been whisked off by someone. Not that I have much of a use for a magic helmet anymore, but... you know, priceless artifact and all that. Should probably be kept in a safe place."

Astrid shrugged. "I haven't seen it since that lunatic swiped it off your head and threw away back in mead hall. I didn't even realize you'd picked it up afterwards. You think... maybe that was just another part of the deal? You get the Grímr to fight in the war, and afterwards the gods take it back?"

A shrug was her reply, in addition to the response that followed a moment later. "Well it is said to have been a gift from the gods in the first place, so I guess that's a possibility. Every Viking chief who wore that helmet into battle lived to see another day." He grinned to himself, shaking his head in wonder. "Talk about priceless."

"Seems to have worked for you then, huh?"

Hiccup forced a laugh. "Ehhhyep, and look at me now. I lived to see another day. Whoop-dee doo. Hoorah." He threw a fist in the air, a halfhearted show of being just fine and never better.

Astrid would have rolled her eyes, but she looked like she was itching to say something that had been nagging at the back of her mind for a while now. "And... there was something else I really needed to ask about, Hiccup."

"...Oh?" He didn't like the sound of that. Astrid's voice had gone from light and sympathetic to glum and less-than-enthusiastic. She scooted forward in her seat, and the scraping sound against the wood jarred their ears as the near-complete silence was disturbed.

"Hiccup, do you remember what we were talking about, right before the... right before she visited?" It seemed Astrid had taken on quite a dislike for Var, the goddess who'd forced her to watch helplessly as Hiccup was - well, what she thought was - about to be killed. "You remember what I asked you? About what you told Seljast? Is it true that you're going to...?"

Hiccup pushed himself all the way up in bed and sat hunched over, with his arms wrapped around his legs and his head hanging forward over his knees. All he did in response was give the slightest nod.

"No. It can't happen." Astrid insisted, her automatic reaction, of course, being to stubbornly deny what Hiccup had only confirmed. She reached out and grabbed Hiccup's hands, making the man in the cot blink in surprise. To him, it didn't even seem like a treasured display of affection, any more than Seljast's sword was just some gentle nudge in his gut. It was some desperate action, the way Astrid held Hiccup's hands in her own and clasped them so tightly it hurt his own fingers and would surely leave bruises, and the action seemed to physically reflect what Astrid wanted to do - to keep a hold of this numbskulled boy and never let him out of her sight again.

"You're... you're not really dying, right?" She sounded hopeful. Eager. Her underlying words were there, practically spoken aloud. This is all just some big trick. Or it's all just a really bad dream. The goddess lied. It's not real. None of this is real. But she was making the mistake of putting too much hope into something that she simply couldn't prove. "You can't just go and die on us, we only just won - It's not fair!" Hiccup tried not to grimace. But she was partly right. It wasn't fair.

Then she let go of him, almost too gently and too slowly, and let her hands come to a rest in her lap. "Do you really have to, I mean... a-and now? After all you've done for everyone? After you just got back?" The poor girl was on the brink of ripping a section of her skirt in two, one of her hands was clasped so tightly around a fold in the fabric that her knuckles were stark white, still flecked with bits of dirt and blood from the entire ordeal.

Hiccup noticed this and reached out to take her hands again, but Astrid only shrank back, crossing her arms tightly instead.

"Today?" she breathed, shutting her eyes tight to brace herself for the answer that was sure to break her into pieces.

"No," Hiccup answered calmly from his cot, taking his hands back to rest over his own lap. "Not today. Didn't you hear that woman on the beach?"

Astrid's eyes flew wide open. She raised an eyebrow as she looked back around, bewildered by how much better Hiccup appeared to taking this. When had he gotten that kind of self-control?

"Not really... I was sort of swept up in the crowd - that is, until you started coughing up blood and I had to push people out of the way to get to you."

"Oh... well, long story short, my life can be, ehh, somewhat extended. There was a loophole in the contract."

Astrid's face immediately lit up. "That's wonderful! So you don't have to... I mean, it doesn't have to happen now?"

"Well..."

The happy expression dropped. "Hiccup?"

Hiccup gave his girlfriend a sad smile. "I... Well, that's not exactly what I meant."

"Not exactly what you..."

"I do still have to... die... relatively young, I suppose. Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Well I don't exactly know, Astrid. But you've gotta admit, I can't expect to have all of this," another generalized hand gesture followed, "to have this war won and to not have lost any of my family or close friends, without giving something up in return. We lost no more than an eighth of our village. Compare that to the losses on the other side - so many..." he trailed off for a minute, thinking about it. "The gods wouldn't like that, they..." he stopped. Astrid's face was hard to read.

"So... what?" she whispered, shaking her head. "When are you going to -"

"-I don't know, she didn't say. It could be a week. Or a year. Or maybe I'll die tomorrow, but after what Var told me, I don't think it'll be that soon. I think I've got some time. I'm just going to make the most of the life I have right now and live it to the fullest. That's what you're supposed to do anyway, right?" He held his smile, hoping Astrid couldn't see the fear he was trying very hard to conceal. The blonde sat up a little straighter, mimicking the show of bravery in the hopes that her own fear wouldn't be as transparent.

For a little while, they sat like that, not speaking, just thinking. About everything.

"It's... a lot to process" she finally remarked.

"I know. But I can't really do anything more about it. What's done is done." Hiccup had always had his own way of handling things. Acceptance had never been a huge method of his for handling problems - he always looked for solutions to the problems. There was always something you could do. Maybe just now, he was coming to terms with the fact that there were no other solutions. Something in him had definitely changed - but maybe that wasn't such a terrible thing for him.

With a sniff, Astrid nodded back. "Okay... I'm not saying I believe this, but say it does happen, and it happens soon... just promise me one thing."

"What's that?"

"Promise me we'll have enough time to get married before it happens?"

Hiccup gave a start, his face painted with shock. Astrid bit back a smile.

But then he grinned - a real, overjoyed grin. "M-married?" he stuttered, completely at a loss for proper words. But he was laughing, and at the same time blushing uncontrollably. Astrid joined in- with both the laughing and the blushing.

"Well yeah... I mean, I sort of knew you were going to ask me, anyway. You did already give me this feather," Astrid dug through a hidden pocket in her skirt and brought out the shining piece of metal. She'd obviously polished it up a bit, it was glinting brightly in the morning sun that poked through the rickety doorway. Light bounced off of the perfect metal, sending rainbow fragments onto the wall behind. "It's gotta count for something, right?" she asked, leaning forward to hit Hiccup on the shoulder. And not lightly, either.

"Heh, right... You're absolutely right." The look Hiccup gave the beautiful girl in front of him was half smitten and half curious that anything so amazing as this could happen to him. He had his father and his friends. And better yet, they were all safe.

"I... I have to go" Astrid cut the conversation short. "There are a lot of people who need my help right now. Damage that needs to be looked after, things like that." She was standing up from the stool. Hiccup nodded understandingly.

"Go ahead. I'll meet you out there - you know, when I can actually stand again." As if to get his point across, he stretched his arms out wide, disturbing the sheet that had been pulled up neatly across his chest, and faked an enormous yawn.

Astrid grinned. "See you out there" she replied. "Oh! And there are some other people who'll be coming by to check on you later today. Once your dad's able to catch a break from chiefing, I'm sure he'll be stopping in to talk to you, along with a couple others." She smiled again before heading out of the hut and giving a small wave over her shoulder. The old wooden boards in the floor creaked beneath her boots. Hiccup smiled as she went.

About twenty minutes after Astrid left, Toothless was still enjoying his lunch outside. A knock sounded at the door.

"Come in" Hiccup called, hoping it was someone there to tell him that he could finally go back to his own house. Hopefully his dad. Gobber would be fine, too. He doubted Astrid was back so soon, though.

So he was wholly unsuspecting, and extremely surprised, to see who opened the door instead.

What the... She's still here? I thought... oh, that was her sister, wasn't it? I suppose she didn't... but why didn't she leave with the others...?

As Hiccup wondered why this person was even on Berk to begin with, a young woman wearing a thick, black cloak over a trailing mauve dress stepped into the hut. Not one floorboard made a sound when her light, fur-lined shoes slid over them. Her silvery blonde tresses fell down her back and lay in the hood of the black fabric, which was left down. The paler-than-normal face was striking against the macabre color scheme. She was still stunning (not staggeringly gorgeous like Var, but arresting all the same). The most noticeable thing was the fact that she looked tired beyond belief. The familiar face with the intelligent eyes made Hiccup tense up on reflex - the last time he'd been in a Bani's presence, he had almost died. On multiple occasions, actually. But the beautiful woman noticed how nervous the younger man looked and she held out her hands with her palms facing up, to prove that there was no weapon there this time. This time.

"May... May I speak with you?" the woman asked.

Swallowing, and then tasting something sour in the back of his throat, Hiccup slowly nodded.

Krista Bani smiled politely and untied the strings at her neck, dropping the cloak on the stool next to her, then turned to carefully close the door behind her.

x

x

The small ship would be miles away from Gildiland shores in just a few short hours. Seljast was taken directly by a stablehand upon his arrival on the island, after a Berkian messenger - sent specifically to deliver the man as an escort - explained that Seljast had been sent to live out the rest of his life carrying out a sentence of hard labor here, for the village blacksmith. The chief of the island, Sten the Softsword, agreed on allowing the man to stay, but "only if he wasn't a parading dragon rider like the last visitor we got here."

Seljast Bani was taken as far as the smithing hill, on which a singular building sat, smoke piping away from the crumbling chimney. Afterwards, he was left to his own devices. He had nowhere else to escape to, anyway, he was on an island, and now every man at the docks knew his face. Not a chance that they would allow him anywhere near a boat. Seljast Bani had no choice but to trudge tiredly up the grassy hill, his boots creating fresh imprints in the expanse of green blades. Spring was on its way. It showed, much more than it would in Askr Ey, which was always grey and overcast, ready for the water and mud and wind, come any season at all. Askr Ey was a place of ashes and smoke and rain.

Here, things were brighter, and warmer. Finally, the man made it to the top of the hill. He reached the doorway of the stone construction and looked up as he stood, feeling wary. He had no weapons and no men at his side.

A sign hung just above the doorway, bearing a single word.

Smithja

It seemed like he was in the right place.

With squared shoulders, the man exhaled slowly and pushed open the door.

Inside was a wonder in and of itself. Looking around curiously, he saw that there was a fire - in an enormous firepit, no less - and bellows, too, along with all sorts of other smithing equipment. A pair of metal tongs and a clean rag were lying on a nearby workbench. All in all, it was deemed in the man's eyes a cozy little place, even with all the metal lying around. No sooner had he entered the establishment that a door banged open and shut in the back of the spacious room. Seljast turned around, and saw a rather old-looking woman shuffling out of the door, clicking it shut on the way out. The poor thing, her weak heart was probably under enough stress without the need for some strange man standing in the middle of her home.

"Oh!" she exclaimed in a flurry, giving a small jump and resting a hand on the door behind her to steady herself. Seljast didn't appear to care too much that he had given this poor woman a decent fright. His tone was disdainful when he explained to her,

"Ex...cuse me, I'm here to see the smith. I wouldn't suppose you would be her, no?" He pointed gracelessly to the woman who was staring at him, disheveled and wide-eyed.

The old woman appeared unable to speak for a moment. Having gotten over her little scare and shuffling on towards the middle of the room, she did a double take at the man and stopped in her tracks.

She stared harder, examining Seljast from top to bottom. Her jaw slackened. Pointing up a scarred, shaking finger, she declared, in a voice no louder than a whisper, "You... I know you."

Seljast looked affronted at such a ridiculous comment. "You? Impossible! How could I...?"

Then the realization dawned on him. This was, in fact, a woman he knew.

"But you are... Could it really be..." he gaped. "Hildi? Is that you?" Only then did he feel the guilt stirring in his stomach as he remembered, vividly, why this old woman had come to leave his island in the first place.

"You... you banished me. I was your daughters' nursemaid-!"

"-Now now...-"

"-And you banished me!"

It was all beginning to come back to him. "...Until I... found you in the island's forge one day..." he winced at the memory, "forging yourself a sword-"

"-Which was forbidden by you. 'No woman shall ever be permitted to own, forge, or wield a sword as long as I, Seljast Bani, am chief of Askr Ey.' That was what you said, the same day you sent me away. How your wife would have been ashamed for you. Banishing her daughters' nursemaid just for being in a forge."

"And look at you now, it seems you've made yourself a fine position as this island's sole blacksmith... You must be proud." The words were sincere enough, and the man's face was ridden with the guilt of his mistake. "And look at me now, no longer the chief of Askr Ey."

Hildi's eyebrows began to make their descent back down. Her frown only grew deeper.

"It seems... you would be permitted to return to the island, if you so wished, m'am."

His head hung in self-loathing and shame, and his hands clenched and unclenched by his sides, replaying the events of almost a decade ago in his mind's eye. He had made so many errors, so many mistakes, taken so many lives. His past was filled with so many of his own faults. So many. Too many. "I realize I... I made a terrible mistake. I am here to work for you now." His head fell a little lower. "Of course, I know that it could never make up for..." Hildi's shaking finger was lowered; she looked like she was calming down from her bout of anger.

With a stern expression, she took one stride forward, then another. Seljast looked down at the floor, ready to receive whatever strike awaited him. But when he looked up, there was Hildi, old Hildi, smiling back at him. It looked as if her grudges and angry memories had all but melted away.

It was the biggest shock he could have gotten.

"I'll tell you what, you absolute ass of a man." Seljast winced. The woman was still tough as nails. "I'm not going to hold it against you... too much" She said evenly. "It's all passed, I can't change what happened years ago. You will work for me now, and that is your repayment. It's in the past... I only hope you've changed for the better." With a firm look, she held out both scarred hands and took Seljast's hands in hers.

"And you'd better call me Aunt Hildi. It's what your daughters used to call me."

x

x

With the door closed, the hut was so silent that when one wasn't speaking, one could hear a grain of sand hit the ground. Hiccup was explaining a particularly touchy subject at the moment, and the silence was no help in between his pauses. An hour had passed, and he found he was still talking. The woman in front of him listened attentively to everything. Every once in a while, her eyes would wander to the bandages wrapped around Hiccup's chest. Then her cheeks would flush a slight shade of pink, and she would force herself to look elsewhere as the young man continued to tell her about the course of events leading up to his return to Berk, the ensuing battle, and how he'd finally ended up here. Krista heard both herself and her father mentioned more than once.

"He's been sent to Gildiland, where he'll spend the rest of his life working to earn his keep. I thought it would be a little more fair than... well erm, y'know. Death." Hiccup absentmindedly rubbed the back of his neck, not quite knowing how to make that not come out awkwardly. But Krista looked only intrigued.

"Gildiland? Really?" It appeared she'd completely ignored the bit about her father's sentence and the involvement of a lifetime of hard labor. "My old nursemaid was sent there after Sjenna got too old for her! My father told me it was time for me to care for her myself. Well, there was that, and she was also caught secretly working in the Ask Ey forge. Women aren't allowed to be blacksmiths on Askr Ey." Hiccup frowned, disapproving. But as it turned out, Krista had the exact same mindset. "I think I'll get rid of that law, now that I'm the chief" she decided aloud, expression stern and proud. That wiped the frown from the Haddock man's face.

"Great idea" he agreed. "So, your old nursemaid was a blacksmith?"

"Yes. Just secretly though. She was a very sweet woman, but she was never really very good with names. Always called me Krystal or Kirsten, things like that. Her name was Hildi. But we called her our Aunt Hildi."

Hiccup's mouth fell open. "H-Hildi? You know her?"

Krista looked at him funny. "Yes... why?"

Hiccup was sitting up a little straighter now. "Just before I left for Francium, I visited Gildiland to resolve some silly dispute that was going on there and I-"

"-Oh! You met her?" Krista interrupted excitedly. "You mean she's still there?"

Hiccup nodded slowly. "I can't believe it... huh. Imagine that. You know, your old nursemaid is now the greatest blacksmith on that island. The only blacksmith on that island, actually. And you're right about her being bad with names. I think she got mine wrong around eight or nine times during my visit. Granted, I was barely there for two days."

"Really?" Krista held back a smile just thinking about that, feeling her memories resurface from years ago. "So she's still around then... And I'm so happy she could finally follow her calling as a blacksmith. That's... that's wonderful. I'd love it if she could come back to Askr Ey and be the smithy there."

Hiccup looked doubtful. "I dunno... I think she sort of likes where she is right now. But I'm sure she'd be more than happy if you visited."

Krista smiled, looking down at her feet. "I think I'd like that too. And... you know, I didn't just come in here to talk about my father."

"You didn't..."

The woman shook her head, sending a few wisps of silvery blonde over her shoulder. "Of course not. You think I'm going to leave Berk without at least an apology? I'd anticipated you wouldn't doubt my honor as much." Her smile was playful, reminding Hiccup of... oh. Right. So that's what she wanted to apologize for.

With no clue as to how to reply to this, Hiccup only said, "Ohh," a crease forming in his brow.

"So..." the Bani woman went on. "I am very sorry that this had to happen... And... ehm, sorry for, you know... stabbing you in the heart - literally." She gave a sheepish look and fiddled with a belt loop. Her complexion darkened to a faint shade of red. The confidence that she'd been holding onto for so many years was dwindling, with embarrassment beginning to take its place. She deserved it. She knew she did. "I'm truly sorry, Hiccup."

"Hey, you sure you don't still wanna call me 'chief's boy'?"

Krista flushed a deep red, but she rolled her eyes. "I was only doing what I had to-"

Hiccup waved a hand up, interrupting her. "It's fine, I get it. No hard feelings. And I'm sorry about your sister," he responded gently when he saw the pained look on her face. "You seemed like you two were good friends, last time I saw you here."

Shaking her head, Krista turned to face away from the young man, releasing a bitter laugh. "Actually, we hadn't been very good friends for years," she answered. "We were close when we were very small children, but after out mother..." Hiccup nodded in understanding, and Krista turned back around to look Hiccup in the eye. "But I did try sometimes - I tried to be kind to her. She just accepts... accepted kindness in... odd ways. Not a very a affectionate girl, Sjenna. But I know she wanted to change..." She brushed a little bit of wetness away from her cheek and went back to fiddling with one of the loops on her belt. Finally, the silence that followed became unbearable. "Thank you for sparing my father's life" she noted carefully. "And thank... you for ending this war. You saved more people than I could ever count."

"No problem" Hiccup replied. But the mess of gauze and bandages wrapped around his torso sort of nixed that comment. No problem, ha.

"You know what they're calling it now, right?"

"Uhhh, it?" Hiccup gave her a questioning look.

"You know. The war."

"Ahh, which one?"

Krista narrowed her eyes. She wasn't used to Hiccup's deadpan sense of humor. "The one that just ended" she snapped back.

"Okay, okay" Hiccup knocked it off with the sarcasm for once. "No, I haven't heard anything about that. What are they calling it?"

"Well I only heard it from two or three people, but it sounds like this battle will go down in history as the 'War of the Risen Rider.'"

This idea seemed to amuse Hiccup.

"Well I didn't come up with it, I swear!" Krista held up her hands defensively. "But hey, you'll be famous for centuries to come, so there's that. It was the shortest war between Vikings that's ever been known to us - and that's all because of you."

"Huh..." Hiccup mulled the idea over. The War of the Risen Rider. So now I'm the Risen Rider, huh? It does have a nice ring to it...

"It's funny, I almost don't want to go back." Krista was changing the subject again.

"Go back?" Hiccup brought himself out of his daze to focus on what the Bani woman was saying to him.

"To Askr Ey. I said, I almost feel like I don't want to go back."

"Really? How come?"

Krista shrugged. It looked odd on her, shrugging. It just didn't match what Hiccup had come to expect in such a sure-footed, cautious woman like Krista Bani. Her voice grew quieter when she went on to answer the question.

"I... I don't know. It's all happened so fast - I-I'm the chief now. I have all these duties to my own island, and I have absolutely no idea where to begin. I have to look over the returning men from our army, get them back to their families, and I'll have to find someone to advise me now that my father won't be around."

There, Hiccup frowned apologetically. Krista caught the gesture and smiled. "It's fine, you don't need to be sorry about that. I'm glad he's gone."

Hiccup's eyes went wide, but Krista explained.

"He was a terrible father, to be honest. I never had the heart to kill him, though." Hiccup snorted, thinking this a funny way to phrase it. But Krista looked solemn after another minute. "It'll be so different now, without Sjenna or my father around... But I guess there are pros and cons to everything, right?"

Hiccup didn't quite know how to respond to this, so he shrugged, just like Krista had done a minute ago.

"It's really very nice, your island," remarked the woman, ignoring Hiccup's silence. "There's so much more love here, and a much stronger value on family. I witnessed some of the strongest bonds I've ever seen between people."

Hiccup had to smile at that, knowing exactly what she meant. "This island... it feels like a sacred place. This is where my mother passed, where my sister passed. I could sit down there on that beach and look out at the water and just think, all day."

"I know what you mean."

Krista accepted the display of companionship with a half-smile. "A war was fought here. Families were separated here, but some were also saved here. Love was given and returned. That's more than I can say about the majority of my own people. Askr Ey isn't the most nurturing place to grow up in."

This was the most expressive Krista had ever been in front of anyone, excluding when she was with her mother. It had been years since she'd been able to open up to anyone about things like this. Hiccup Haddock, he was different. Krista knew she could trust that he would keep this conversation between them.

"You have a wonderful home here, Hiccup. I know that you'll make an excellent chief. Perhaps our islands can be allies again, hm?"

Hiccup nodded. "Most definitely. Berk welcomes a new friend, any time."

"Hmm.." Krista hummed pensively to herself. "And that's why I hate to leave it," she said quietly. "It... it has a soul."

The young man before her in the cot nodded without realizing what he was doing. He "hmm"ed in agreement. "I know what you mean" he murmured.

"Hm... Well, goodbye." And with that abrupt conversation stopper, Krista Bani turned quietly around, picked up her cloak, and left the hut, leaving Hiccup to think about everything that had just occurred.

What an odd woman. He thought to himself. Just as he was about to situate back himself down on his cot for a nap, Toothless came leaping through the doorway, sending the door swinging into the wall behind with a smack! and throwing poor Hiccup out of his sleepiness.

"Hey Toothless. Thanks for that."

Toothless knew that Hiccup was tired. But he didn't really care at the moment, either.

x

x

Thank the gods, at least he'd gotten a few hours of sleep before his next visitor showed up to pay a visit. This one was less unexpected than Krista Bani, thankfully. Quite welcome actually. Hiccup turned his head to look at the doorway, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

Gobber shifted from foot to wooden leg in the doorway, his own eyes crinkling at the edges when he smiled, looking across the room at his little protege - well, maybe not so little now. Almost eighteen years old. A man, really. Not his little apprentice anymore. This was a future chief - he'd always been a future chief. This was still Hiccup, and Gobber had a look of pride on his face equal to that of any father's.

"Atta boy, lad," he said in a hushed voice, not wanting to ruin the tranquil atmosphere. The smith cracked a toothy grin and stepped into the room, leaving the door open behind him. "Knew ye were made o' tougher stuff" he chuckled. Hiccup could only grin back. Leave it to Gobber to brighten the mood.

"You know, that's what you said the last time I came back" Hiccup pointed out.

"Aye, so it is" the peg-legged smith answered thoughtfully.

"So... I take it you're not still angry about earlier?"

Gobber looked puzzled. "Ayrlier? Whaddya talkin' abou' now?"

Hiccup's face was apologetic. "When I stormed into the forge, the night before I left for Gildiland. I was... really angry, and I wasn't thinking and I know I snapped at you and it must've come off pretty harsh, I just wanted to make sure-"

Gobber put his hook on the young man's shoulder. Hiccup, startled, looked back up at his mentor. The man with the missing limbs and fake tooth was chortling. "All is forgiven, don' you worry yer pretty head."

"Hey!" Hiccup batted the hook away just as Gobber began to ruffle up his already bed-mussed hair. He was snickering too, though. It made him content to know that this man could pardon any of his mistakes without a second thought. A good man, Gobber.

Just then another knock sounded at the door. Both smith and apprentice turned to see who the visitor was.

"Dad!"

Stoick the Vast, awkwardly trying not to look as vast as he truly was in the tiny doorway, wore a smile underneath his massive beard. When he laughed with relief, his great red beard shook, and it was a proud father that Hiccup saw in the doorway, not the stone-faced chief of Berk. "I knew yeh would be okay" he claimed, squeezing into the little hut.

"Aye, I told ye so, di'n't I?" Gobber chuckled, patting his friend firmly on the back.

"H-how are you? Are they treating you alrigh' in here? Are you getting enough, erm, sleep?" He was playing the fatherly card now. Hiccup fumbled with a loose end on a bandage tied around his wrist. Gods, had he sprained that, too?

"Everything's fine here, dad. I just woke up about an hour ago. Toothless was here to greet me when I did, and Astrid came by for a visit not too long after."

"That reminds me, son, I hear you two are thinking about-"

"Dad please please please I don't want to discuss that right now. Can't we wait to talk about it later?"

Stoick looked like he was thinking hard. "You mean, when you're well enough that you can run off in the middle of the discussion?" he asked, nothing but seriousness for a moment. When his son hesitated, the chief bellowed a laugh, and the sound filled up the small space of the hut. Good thing Hiccup's cot had been walled off from the rest of the rooms.

"So... that's a yes on the 'we'll talk about this later' thing?" Hiccup asked hesitantly.

"Aye, that's a yes on that. So, I think I speak for myself and Gobber when I ask you what happened down there? Down at the beach, I mean. I know that was no ordinary woman down there. Was she a... a Valkyrie, maybe?"

"A goddess, actually."

Stoick's eyebrows shot up. Motioning to Gobber to push the wooden stool over to him, the man took a creaky seat. The legs of the wood whined and crrracked noticeably under the weight. But the stool was made for Vikings, not people with dainty little rears and nonexistent meat on their bones. "A goddess, eh?" Stoick murmured, removing his helmet for a moment to scratch his head. "Must've been something pretty important then, to make a damned goddess show up, and on Berk of all places. Hmph.." His hand fell back to his knee. "Care to explain, son?"

Taking a deep breath, Hiccup nodded, before diving head first into a long-winded explanation about the spell, and about his trip to Scotland, and his newfound powers after he first came back to life, and about the conversation down on the beach with Var. Stoick and Gobber were both on the edge of their seats the entire time- one physically, one metaphorically.

Finished regaling the entire thing, Hiccup looked from his mentor to his father.

"So...?" he began, then thought better of it and closed his mouth. There was a pregnant pause to follow. The chief stroked his beard, deep in thought. Gobber impatiently tapped his hook against the side of his leg, waiting. Finally, Stoick remarked,

"I... hope I never have to be involved in something as complicated as that, ever. Son, I'm just going to put it out there right now: I don't care what it was that gave you that godsforsaken magic. All I care about is that you survived it, that whole ordeal with the.. you know... and that you're here now." He thought for a moment, shaking his head. "And that you're safe."

There seemed to be nothing more to say.

The young man in the cot had a smile on his face that he was very much unable to get rid of. Not that he wanted to stop smiling. It was nice to finally have a good reason to do so again.

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:::::::::::::A/N::::::::::::::

...What?

Oh! You thought I was gonna just leave it there? This is, actually, the end of that part of the story. That's the last you'll be hearing of post-war, angsty, aftermath stuff. But I've got another chapter in the works. It should be up by the 27th at the latest (which will be, coincidentally, the nine month mark since this fic's publication!)

Stay tuned, beautiful readers. Thank you so much!