I swear I didn't forget this story, I was thinking about Valkret a lot but I had a bad couple of weeks and fell behind on everything. On we go!
-HTTYD-
He just knew Valka was never going to let him live it down. Of course, if he escaped by himself, Valka wouldn't have to know. There were lots of reasons he could have taken a day or so longer than expected to do this rescue run that weren't him getting captured again.
In his defence, it wasn't the original run he was doing when he got trapped. And it was all Valka's fault Eret was compelled to rescue dragons anyway!
Tripfire had gotten away in time, but she wasn't going to leave without him and he was worried she'd get herself captured trying to get to him. Eret paced around his cell, quite sure the reason he was being watched was because he'd helped build cells just like them before, and could escape if he wanted if left alone.
Because it certainly wasn't for a chat. Ug was adamantly refusing to look at him right now, and it hurt. Valka asking how he'd cope going up against his own family was not actually something he expected to be dealing with. At least... not alone.
They didn't seem to know what to do with him either. Other than keep him away from dragons, in a cage. In a way, Eret couldn't blame them - he had painful first hand experience of Drago's temper, and the scars to show for it. But it seemed just enough family loyalty lingered that they hadn't killed him on site. With Eret gone, he wasn't sure if No-Name (that was a long story) or Teeny would have taken over - Ug couldn't read or write, so it wasn't likely to be him, though he was useful in many other ways, an amazing navigator and the best of them all with a needle and thread.
"Look, if you're not handing me over to Drago, you might as well let me go" Ug wasn't looking at him, but Eret was going to keep trying "otherwise Tripfire is going to keep trying to destroy your fort. And if she doesn't, then more dragons are gonna come."
At least, he was relatively sure Valka would notice he was missing and send more dragons to help. If she tried to come rescue him herself while she was still sick, he would definitely have yelled at her.
"Then we'll capture them too, and sell your rescue party to Drago."
"Yeah, I won't let that happen."
Ug was still refusing to look at him, and if Eret thought he had a minute, he could pop the lock. He and Valka always carried lock picks, and they'd only taken his swords from him. None had seemed to dare touch his dragon-esque armour, and they already knew who he was.
Resuming silence, Ug walked over to the table where his barrel of wine, and as soon as the sound of liquid pouring started, Eret took his chance. He'd just managed to pop the lock when there was an almighty explosion from above. He withdrew his hands just in time for Ug not to see, and his cousin gave Eret a severe look.
"Don't move."
The instant Ug vanished up the stone steps, Eret was behind him, stopping only to retrieve his weapons before he headed up to an entirely predictable scene.
"I warned you!"
Ug scowled as he saw Eret escaping, lifting his helmet to whistle to Tripfire who swooped down and scooped him up. Clambering in to his saddle, he recognised several members of the nest and knew Valka had sent him help, but saw no sign of Cloudjumper and was relieved she was still back home, resting.
He didn't have time to tell them to leave any of the fort itself in any kind of useable shape before they'd torn it apart, his loyalties with the dragons but his Sami roots tugged by watching his bloodline struggle. Eret whistled to Tripfire, who growled but complied and told the other dragons time to go, because she would absolutely stay and kill them if allowed, and Eret didn't have that in him.
"We need to get these injured somewhere to rest, or they're not gonna make it back at all."
They weren't that far, but it had been a couple of days almost solid flight, and with the injured needing help and the exertion of fighting, the dragons just needed a break. So did Eret, really, keen as he was to get back. Tripfire must have been tired, or incredibly worried about Eret to agree, otherwise she would have been much harder to convince not to rush back to the nest, where her children were. Though she had just enough energy to lick Eret a few times first.
They didn't stop on the nearest possible island, but didn't make it much further before the dragons had to take a break. Eret had a few healing supplies in his bag and did what he could, sending a couple more out to catch some fish. Then he pulled off his helmet and armour and curled up against Tripfire's warm scaled belly, as exhausted as he was keen to get home. A few hours was a necessary rest. The dragon help Valka sent found themselves tasked with keeping watch while the others rested, and the sky was dark when Eret roused to the warning sounds.
Squinting, he spotted ships on the horizon, barely visible in limited light and swore under his breath.
"Alright, let's get going. I'll be one minute, get everyone ready Tripfire."
He hurried over to a nearby tree, relieved himself and headed back to his dragon, who was helping load the injured on to the carrier dragons. Firing a few fireballs toward the ships for good measure - not close enough to hit, but enough to stir the water and cause a steamy loss of visibility for the sailors - they took off. Tripfire was very glad to have him back, and quite proud to be leading the flight home, which made him smile. Cloudjumper might let Tripfire be the boss of him, but Valka was always their leader. And rightly so, but Tripfire still seemed to be having a little fun.
The ice planes around the nest looked different, he mused, wondering if the Bewilderbeast had been out swimming and knocked them, or perhaps there had been some fallen flights or mid-air fights. Eret planned to ask Valka, but made himself do the responsible thing first - once he was back with his lover, he was liable to do little more than eat and hopefully fall asleep with her, and Tripfire would likely want to curl up with her kids and her mate after several days apart. So they took the injured to the sick bay, patching them up properly and giving them food and water aplenty. Leaving his helmet hooked up on the saddle for a minute, Eret glanced around and nodded to himself that they were done for now.
His heartbeat quickened at the thought of seeing Valka again, hoping she was feeling better so he could cuddle her without getting puked on. Tripfire grumbled, getting his attention as she sniffed at the floor, nudging something with her nose plate toward him. Eret bent down and picked it up.
"Huh. Wonder who this is from."
They didn't have a lot of dragons with dark scales at the minute, and even fewer with jet black. There was an absolute myriad of colours and markings around him though, so Eret supposed it was just chance that a black scale had landed... but why was Tripfire so interested?
"Come on, let's get back to the family girl."
Still seeming a bit on edge, Tripfire followed him. Eret wound his way around towarrd their rooms, and for a second he felt a smile steal across his face as he heard Valka singing. Gods did he love her voice.
"I have no use for rings of gold, I care not for your poetry. I only want your hand to hold..."
Then another voice answered her back.
"I only want you near me."
"How... how can you be here?"
"Nice to see you too Val."
Blinking, Valka shook her head, staff in her hand rattling as her hands shook violently.
"No. I mean... I... I heard you were killed by Drago."
"Ah. He gave it a good go, but I made it out. I was the only one that did..." Stoick was getting closer with every word, his helmet clutched between his hands as he approached her until Valka couldn't back up any further "you're as beautiful as the day I lost you."
His massive hand cradled her jaw as he tilted his head toward her, and Valka felt herself frozen in place as he kissed her. It felt wrong, scratchy beard instead of smooth or stubbled as she was used to, his hand too big, his body not shaped for her arms to wind around.
But now Valka knew all her nights with Eret had been a betrayal of her vows to the gods. Had he lied to her? No. Valka dismissed that thought quickly. Eret had told her that in good faith of its truth. He'd taken her there, helped her honour where she thought her husband had died. Stoick was looking at her strangely, as though sensing her reticence. She couldn't meet his eyes, but when she looked away from him she saw the most heartbreakingly happy smile on Hiccup's face.
She couldn't shatter that joy in her son. Valka had been gone twenty years, and fallen in love with another man. She could at least give them a day.
And perhaps, selfishly, she wasn't ready to risk Hiccup's upset. He looked so incredibly ecstatic to see his father forgiving his absent, runaway wife. Cloudjumper was looking over at them, clearly seeking answers as to the arrival of this man who kissed her. She wondered if either remembered their last encounter, twenty years ago.
But Valka didn't know what she was doing. Life with Eret was only as domestic as it needed to be - they'd spent more time in the sky than on the ground, and spent more time than they should patching up each others wounds and dealing with a few thousand giant, fire breathing lizards. When Valka was Stoick's wife and Hiccup's mother back on Berk, her days had been sewing and breastfeeding and interfering with dragon raids...
Now she was the raider, and Eret wasn't looking for a homely wife type in her, he liked her 'feral' and their children all had wings.
"So... how about a tour?"
Gobber's voice broke the increasingly tense silence, and Valka took the excuse to turn away, nodding.
"Of course. This way."
Stoick reached to take her hand, and Valka played not noticing and shifted her staff to that hand to stop him trying again. After a few steps, she realised there were new steps, new dragons. Turning around, Valka saw two more wearing saddles - a large green Rumblehorn and a mud-brown Hotburple.
"Are they..."
"That's Skullcrusher, and over there is Grump. Aye, our son got us all riding dragons back on Berk. I think we did well wi' this one."
Valka bit back a pained whimper. She hadn't done anything for Hiccup. She hadn't been there!
When it was just she and Hiccup, it had felt more like they might understand each other, that he was willing to join her out in the wild to save dragons. With Stoick there, Valka was fighting not to shake under the weight of guilt, and she feared that her... husband was envisioning Valka going back to Berk to be a housewife again.
"What's through there?"
"The sick dragons. They'll be resting, let's not disturb them."
If she trusted Hiccup, and he trusted Stoick and Gobber, and their dragons were content and peaceful so close to the Alpha... then she supposed it ought to be safe to show them the true scale of her time away. Clambering up over some rocks, Valka twitched with the barely-restrained need to go out and find Eret, to bring he and Tripfire home. Those thoughts grew stronger when Storm and Junior tumbled over to her, nuzzling Valka's legs and chirping up at their papa Cloudjumper.
Valka tried to find anything to distract her, to ground her, feeling naked and vulnerable without armour between she and Stoick. He kept trying to edge closer to her, and when she led them back to her room so they could watch the nest without unsettling too many of the dragons, Valka felt a little bit cornered. When Stoick laid his hands on her shoulders she all but jumped out of her skin, and Cloudjumper naturally swooped in to 'clean up' the dropped fish. Skewers and all... he was definitely worse behaved when Tripfire wasn't around. Hiccup, sweet as he was, immediately came in to help her out and took the next tray from her, still waxing poetic about how much Berk had changed, how much they did just for dragons now.
"Aye, your son's changed Berk for the better Val."
Valka nodded, though she didn't think she had much claim to how Hiccup had turned out. She didn't miss small mannerisms though; Hiccup moved when his fathers arms spread wide, as though ducking or dodging him. He was quite jumpy altogether, actually. More so with humans than dragons. He hadn't told her everything about the twenty years, and Valka didn't feel as though she could ask, but now her mind was turning over, fretting that Stoick had... struggled to raise their son alone. Gobber was exactly as she remembered, unwed and almost too friendly, but definitely with that same sarcastic way that had made he and Stoick such firm friends to begin with.
Hiccup was clearly a forgiving person, as proved by him being willing to even listen to Valka in the first place. How much forgiveness had he had to offer before now?
"And when you move back in, with all your dragons-"
She swallowed thickly. Now Hiccup was talking about her moving back to Berk? Gods, she wasn't equipped to handle it all. Gripping a pot in her hands, she moved to the glacial water trickle to get water for the cooking pot, struggling not to just curl in on herself. She really wasn't good at people anymore; Mala and Atali accepted that, and Eret had worked tirelessly for the last three years to be someone she could get used to. Hiccup was... a lot like her, and they seemed to bond over that.
But Stoick... Stoick seemed to forget all the fighting, the arguments, the time apart, as though he could snap his fingers and everything would wind back twenty years and everything would be fine.
When he started that damned whistling, Valka felt her hands tighten around the vase. He wasn't...
"Ah, I love this one."
Gobber recognised the melody as much as she did. It was one of the few memories Valka had of a time she and Stoick had really worked together; an attack by the Berserkers on Berk, humans on humans. He'd complimented her fighting prowess, and as an awkward teenager who didn't hear many compliments other than her mother insisting she was so pretty, even though she was tall Valka had been a little taken in by it all. That damned song came after the fight, and it was when Stoick proposed they actually wed, and he'd had 'their song' played again at the wedding.
When Stoick took her hand again, Valka almost pulled away and told him there and then - it was long over, they couldn't just go back.
"If you will promise me your heart, and..."
And then she saw Hiccup's face. That longing, wistful smile, as though seeing his parents reunite was all his dreams come true. Painfully glad for just a minute that Eret wasn't there, Valka dug deep to remember her lines.
"And love me for eternity...
My dearest one, my darling dear"
Valka hadn't sung those words in two decades, felt them heavy on her tongue as she fought to smile, to make her limbs move the way Stoick seemed to be leading her to. almost tripping over him in her clumsy motions
"And gladly ride the waves of life if you will marry me."
Stoick dropped to one knee while Hiccup elbowed Gobber, who was still holding that last note (quite badly). Valka's heart leapt up in her throat as he looked up at her, Hiccup edging closer with that same damned smile on her face that Valka knew would guilt her into agreeing to whatever Stoick said.
"Will ye be my wife once again? We can be a family! What do ye say?"
Valka was saved the trouble of forcing a convincing answer out by an unexpected interruption in the form of a very angry dragon storming in, roaring at the new humans in her room.
"Tripfire!"
Wait. If Tripfire was there, then where was...
"Tripfire, calm down! It's ok. They're friends."
Tripfire flared her fins, wings rising up as she sought to look threatening. Stoick stepped forward but Valka held her hand out, shaking her head.
"She's not a big fan of people, especially strangers. Even me. Let me deal with her."
Gobber tugged on Stoick's arm, Hiccup's eyes on Tripfire staying fixed on the saddle straps around her neck. Seeing that Valka was not about to let her attack the new people, Tripfire turned and stormed out, roaring unhappily as Cloudjumper watched after his mate, his face pained.
"Let me just... please wait here."
Both utterly relieved he was back and terribly guilty for everything else, Valka headed out and saw Eret standing there, the look on his face clear as day. He'd heard enough.
"Eret, I..."
He hushed her, wrapping her hands in his own and when Valka managed to meet his eye again, his face was softer.
"It's ok. I get it. That's your family. I'm truly happy you found them again."
His face didn't match his voice; Valka knew what Eret sounded like when he was in pain, and the shaking in his hands betrayed him. And still he didn't verbalise it, leaning forward to press a kiss to her hair that brought tears to her eyes.
"Don't..."
"Valka, it's fine. Go on. They're waiting. I'll go... settle Tripfire."
No, no, no. Valka couldn't just turn away from Eret now and pretend she was capable of going back to Berk, of being Stoick's wife when she loved Eret, couldn't pretend to be the person she was before.
"Eret, I..."
Before either of them could say more, the ground beneath them shuddered. In all her years, Valka had never felt anything like it. Even when the ground below had quaked in anger and cracked the earth around them, or when great waves crashed into the mountain she called her home.
Something was wrong. Eret, still holding her hands, looked toward the door of her rooms and Valka followed his eye, saw all the dragons stirring, taking flight in agitation.
"Go. Tripfire, get the kids, we need to get all the hatchlings to the nursery. Just in case."
The Stormcutter's anger had vanished, replaced by panic for her hatchlings safety. Valka nodded, and though it was the worst time for them to have to seperate when she had so much to explain, if dragons were in danger then it wasn't about them, and neither she or Eret would ever put themselves or their relationship over the dragons.
Tripfire's roar summoned her children to her, Cloudjumper's head peering anxiously out of the doorway.
"Mom! Something's happening!"
She saw Eret's face then, caught the agony in his eyes as he was reminded of what he was sending Valka back to. But because he was good and kind and far stronger than Valka could ever hope to be, he forced a smile on his face as he took his helmet from his saddle.
"I think you're needed elsewhere."
And with that, Eret turned away from her and followed his dragon. Choking back her tears, Valka steeled herself, forced her mind to make sense for a minute and ran for the icy shard they used as a vantage point sometimes.
And was struck with horror at what she saw.
-HTTYD-
I didn't mean for this to come across as Stoick-bashing, specifically, but I have many feelings about the Stalka relationship and none of them are good.
(I know realistically, Eret ought to have noticed the oncoming fleet, but since ships in HTTYD move at the speed of plot ((looking at you HTTYD3)) and he was very very tired, we'll give our boy a pass)