A mother never forgets.

This woman was Hiccup's mother. This mysterious woman, who kidnapped Heather and Hiccup and their dragons, was his mother. Hiccup felt a swirl of emotions. First of all, shock, second of all excitement, third of all joy, and fourth of all…

Gah, who were they kidding? They didn't even know what to feel.

In front of her, Hiccup gasped in shock, taking another small step backwards. The woman who claims to be his mother put her hand out towards them, and then, she smiled. "Come," she said.

And just like that, she turned and raced down another corridor. After exchanging glances, Hiccup and Heather chased after her.

But if she's his mother, who was the other rider?

-

Gobber and Stoick flew through a hail storm, the dragon's wings pounding against the cold air. Stoick assessed their surroundings for any sign of his son or daughter in law, but so far, nothing.

"Boar-headed!" Stoick shouted to Gobber. "Just like his mother! Ah, she could never stay put, either!"

"Ah, they're just twenty!" Gobber said. "And they're Vikings and parents, too! I mean, could there be a worse combination? Ha, when I think of how stubborn and senseless you were back in the day…" Gobber paused, his lips curving into a frown. "Well, not much has changed, actually," he mumbled to himself.

Stoick sighed. "You know what he's like," he said. "I expected a little bit more sense coming from Heather, but Hiccup...he won't give up, Gobber. If they find Drago, before we find them…"

"Bah!" Gobber said. "Nothing can hurt them as long as they've got their dragons with them! They're dragons!"

Stoick wasn't listening anymore. He'd caught sight of something floating in a large piece of cracked ice, and Skullcrusher headed downwards to investigate. Stoick grabbed the brown object and held it in his hands.

Hiccup's helmet.

This was bad. Hiccup and Toothless must have crashed, somehow, but where was Heather and Windshear? Stoick put the helmet in front of Skullcrusher's nose. "Find them, Skullcrusher!" he commanded. "Find them."

Skullcrusher roared and surged onwards. Stoick could only hope that if they found Hiccup, they would find Heather as well and stop them from doing anything stupid.

-

"Hold on!" Hiccup called after Valka as they raced through the corridors of the tunnel as Heather followed him closely, as did Toothless and Windshear. "Wait just a minute! I-"

"This way," Valka cut in, turning around to face them briefly before leaping over a stone as if she had done it a gazillion times.

"Wait!" Heather shouted. "Come back here! I have questions!"

"Come," his mother said in reply, maneuvering herself over rocks and between stones, and even under a few more jagged pieces of ice.

"You can't just say something like that," Hiccup went on as they make their way through the small corridor, "and runoff! You're my mother!? I mean, what the…? Do-do you grasp not insane it sounds!?"

"Come! Quickly! There's someone you need to meet!" Valka urged, climbing up a steep rock and disappearing over the side of it. Heather and Windshear jumped up it with ease, but Hiccup struggled, slipping every time he was certain he had a grip.

"I have questions, too!" Hiccup shouted. Heather grabbed his wrist and pulled him up with the help of Toothless, and they continued following his mother, who was still jumping around the rocks like some sort of super squirrel. "Where have you been all this time!? What've you been doing!? They said you were dead! Everyone thinks you and Hala were eaten by…"

Hiccup's voice trailed off as they stepped out of the tunnel and into the light. Heather gasped sharply as she sees the site.

There were dragons everywhere. Everywhere they turned, another dragon came out of no where. They flocked like schools of fish, flying in dozens of different formations, some of them wrestling another dragon to the ground with playful bites and scratches.

Valka and her dragon were hanging from a rocky overhang, and when Hiccup and Heather saw her, they jumped for just a moment before relaxing again.

"This is where you've been, for twenty years?" Hiccup asked. He sounded breathless in awe and shock. Valka nodded. "You've been rescuing them," Hiccup breathed. Valka nodded again, this time, smiling.

Heather breathed in sharply. "Unbelievable," she whispered, shaking her head. Hiccup picked up his dragon traits of his mother all these years.

"You're not upset?" Valka asked.

"What?" Hiccup asked. "No. I mean...I don't know. It's a bit much to get my head around, to be frank. It's not every day you find out your mother is some kind of crazy, feral, vigilante dragon lady."

"Oh," Valka said, and she laughed. Her dragon lowered her to the ground, and she made her way towards Hiccup and Heather. "At least I'm not boring...right?" she said.

"Well," Hiccup began, "I suppose there is that...one...specific...thing."

She looked from Hiccup to Heather again, this time letting her eyes linger on Heather for longer. "Who is this?"

"I'm Heather." Heather greets her now mother-in-law.

"We met about six years ago. She was alone, had nowhere to go and we've been together since." Hiccup explains to her. "She's my wife."

"Oh!" Valka sees and looks to the ring on her hand. Valka turned from her daughter-in-law to her son, and then back to her. "Well, you two will have to tell me about that whole story sometime," she said.

She looked desperately like she wanted to pull Hiccup and Heather both into an embrace, but she was refraining, for whatever reason. Maybe she was nervous. Making sense. Learning your son is here, married, and she doesn't even know everything else. Like the fact she's a grandmother now.

"We do," Hiccup agreed.

Valka scanned their surroundings once more and looked back at her children, now young adults. "Do you like it?" she asked nervously.

"I don't have the words," Hiccup said in awe, while at the same time, Heather said, "I don't know what to say."

They then hear a similar screech roaring through the air and they see the second rider and hear someone cheer.

"There is someone who's been wanting to meet you for a while." Valka says to Hiccup as the second Night Fury comes in and lands and the second rider, who has a Terrible Terror on her left shoulder that seems to be covered as a post for the Terror, removing her helmet she looks to Hiccup.

"Is that...?" Heather starts and looks to see Hiccup is just as shocked as the girl is.

"Hala?" Hiccup asks looking at her.

The girl walks up to Hiccup and looks over his face as if looking for something when she grabs his leg and lifts it up, causing him to almost slip. "Whoa! Okay, that's my leg." She starts look over Hiccup like some dragon would be checking someone out.

"I like her already." Heather chuckles as she looks over his peg leg and it's mechanics. The Terrible Terror with her started to sniff his leg.

"Hiccup?" Hala asks as she drops his leg.

"Is this really happening?" Hiccup asks when they turn to their Night Furies who sniff each other as if they should know each other and they start tackling one another.

"That's unexpected." Heather comments when Valka looks over Toothless.

"Scarlett, what are you doing?" Hala asks her dragon.

"Who's this little guy?" Heather asks looking to the Terror.

"Oh, this is Shortstuff. I found him when he was just an egg and I was about five. When he hatched, I was the first thing he saw and he grew a bond with me." Hala explains while letting the dragon. "And you are...?"

"I'm Heather...Your sister in law." Heather tells her and Hala is shocked and look to Hiccup.

"My brother is married?!" Hala asks.

"Oh, he's beautiful!" Valka said in amazement to Toothless as he rubbed against her hand, his tongue flopping out of his mouth. "Oh, incredible!" Valka said. Toothless pressed against her and rolled over on his back, his head in her lap. "Oh, and look!" Valka said, excitedly. "They're both the same age as you two!"

Hiccup laughed softly, as did Heather beside him. He put his hand on her shoulder, she looked up at him, and they both smiled.

This was his mother, and sister, and they were just as much of a dragon lover as he and his wife were.

"Ha, no wonder you get along so well," Valka continued. "They could possibly be from the same nest!" She said, practically implying that the brother and sister are riding dragons that are also brother and sister. "How did you manage to…" Her voice trailed off, and Hiccup spoke.

"I found him in the woods." Hiccup said. "He was...um...shot down, and wounded." Hiccup put his hands behind his back and nodded as if trying to reassure himself.

Valka looked up at him and stepped away from Toothless, towards another dragon Heather had noticed when they walked in. "This Snafflefang lost his leg to one of Drago Bludvist's iron traps," she said sadly. Without waiting for Hiccup to respond, she walked towards another maimed dragon. "This Raincutter had her wing sliced open by razor netting," she said.

They couldn't imagine something like that happening to their dragons, but they've had a few cases like that back at the Edge. The thought was almost too horrifying. Heather beckoned to her dragon, and Windshear licked her cheek. Heather never wanted anything to happen to her dragon.

Hala walked towards one last dragon. This particular dragon's eyes were clouded over and foggy. "And this poor Hobblegrunt was blindedby a tree snare, and then left to die alone, and scared."

Valka knelt beside Toothless' tail fin and held it up. "And what of this?" she asked as even Scarlett too notice and sniffed her brother's tail. "Did Drago or his trappers do this, too?"

Hiccup then laughed awkwardly at the story he has to explain. "Heh, well, crazy thing is...I'mactually the one who shot him down. Hey, it's...it's okay, though!" he promised when he saw Valka and Hala's confused expression. "He got me back. Right, bud?" Toothless cooed in agreement. "You couldn't save all of me, could you?" Hiccup said. "You just had to make it even! So…peg leg!" Hiccup lifted his leg off the ground, his prosthetic in full-view.

Toothless flipped Hiccup up in the air so that the boy landed on his back, and Hiccup leaned against Toothless' neck, rubbing his head.

Valka smiled nervously. "What did your father think of your Night Fury friend?" she asked, motioning to Heather's dragon and then to Toothless. "And your dragon loving wife?"

"Well, I didn't tell him at first." Hiccup confessed. "I ran away when I was chosen to kill a dragon, and that's how I met Heather. But over time, he changed. Everyone did. Pretty soon, everyone back home had dragons of their own." He tells her as Valka scratches Toothless' chin.

Valka sighed in clear disappointment. "If only it were possible," she said.

Heather tilted her head sideways. "He's not joking, we were just as surprised." She said.

"Yeah," Hiccup agreed. "Really, I-"

"Believe me," Valka cut in. "I tried as well, but people are not capable of change, Hiccup. Some of us...were just born different."

She sighed and glanced back at the ground, a distant look in her eyes. "Berk was a land of kill or be killed," she said, and in Heather's mind, she imagined what Berk used to be like, back before Hiccup brought peace between vikings and dragons.

"But I believed peace was possible," Valka went on, and she sighed again. "It was a very unpopular opinion," she murmured under her breath. "Then, one night, a dragon broke into our house, finding Hiccup in his cradle."

"I rushed to protect you as I had Hala in my arms," Valka said. "But...what I saw...was proof of everything I believed. This was not a vicious beast, but an intelligent, gentle creature, whose soul reflected my own."

"Your father came running in at that moment," Valka went on. "He told me to run. The dragon tried to defend itself, and...I suppose he saw me as one of their own."

"And he took you two," Hiccup finished.

Valka sighed, and nodded. "Yes," she said. "You, Hala, and your father nearly died that night...all because I couldn't kill a dragon."

Hiccup smiled softly, exhaling through his nose. "Yeah, it runs in the family." He said smoothly.

The comment seemed to go unnoticed. "It broke my heart to stay away, to keep the two of you away from one another," Valka said to Hala and Hiccup, "but I believed you'd both be safer if we did."

The conversation was growing depressing, so Heather decided it was time to change the subject. "How did you two survive?" she asked.

Valka's features brightened. "Oh, Cloudjumper never meant to harm us," she said, walking towards the cliffside. "He thought we belonged here. In the home of the great Bewilderbeast!"

Looking over the side of the cliff they see a huge, monstrous, white dragon rise up. Its tusks were as white as snow, the ends were sharp, but not pointy. They gasped at it, smiles growing even bigger.

This creature was incredible and large. Very large. It had large spikes on its back, and there were more spines on its head that seemed to match that of the jagged ice cave, and Valka's mask.

"The Alpha species," Hala explained as she and her mother walk ahead of the two towards the Dragon. "One of the very last few that still exist."

"Every nest has its queen but this is the king of all the dragons! With his icy breath, this graceful creature built our nest. A safe haven for dragons everywhere." Valka tells them.

"Wait, that's the ice spitter?" Hiccup asked.

"He'sthe oneresponsible for all the destruction?" Heather asks as they make their way towards him.

"He protects us," Valka said, almost defensively. "We all live under his care and his command. All but the babies, of course…"

"What do you mean?" Heather asked.

Hala nodded towards the Bewilderbeast, and when Heather looked, she saw what she was talking about.

Baby dragons were climbing all over him, biting at his horns and sliding down his tusks, growling happily all the while.

"...they listen to no one," Valka finished with a chuckle.

The Bewilderbeast gently blew the baby dragons off his face, and then turned in Heather, Hiccup, Hala, and Valka's direction. He studied them carefully with his old, wise eyes.

"We've lived among them for twenty years," Hala said. "Learning their ways, discovering their secrets."

The Bewilderbeast blew frost towards Hiccup and Heather, and it collected in their hair. Valka ad Hala laughed while Hiccup and Heather desperately tried shaking the snow out of their scalps.

"He likes you two," Valka said.

"Wow," Hiccup breathed.

"Yeah," Heather said for lack of better words. "Wow."

Valka turned back towards their direction. "You two must be hungry," she said.

Heather thought about it, and then, she realized just how hungry she was. "Um, yeah," she said.

"Yeah," Hiccup agreed with a small shrug of his shoulders. "We could eat. I'll have to fix Toothless connection rod before we do, but give me a rock and some dragon fire and it'll take me five minutes."

"Good!" Valka said, almost excitedly. "It's feeding time!" She tells them as Hala whistles for Scarlett.