Astrid was overseeing the repair from an accidental damage of a dragon tower from Stormfly's back when the Twins returned.

"Astrid!" Tuffnut's voice called.

She turned as they rode up to her, and Stormfly's head flicked half-towards them.

"The ships!" Ruffnut warned. "A lot of them sailed away from the fleet—they're coming this way!"

"Yeah, like a little mini-fleet—"

"Were you seen?" Astrid asked urgently.

"No!"

"No, of course not!"

Completely incorrect, but said with total confidence.

"Okay," Astrid said, pulling Stormfly's lead to aim her away. "Tell Valka to sound the defensive horns, get our dragons locked down. Meet me at the Great Hall!"

The Twins nodded and pulled Barf and Belch down to swoop towards where Valka lived with Cloudjumper. Astrid steered Stormfly towards where the hatchlings were housed.

The colorfully-painted Hatchling House, built almost like a series of connected silos, was full to the brim, several stories with nooks for babies to sleep in with windows for their parents or older siblings to come poke their heads in to check on them. They were, of course, free to leave whenever they wanted, and there were more than one caretaker making sure they didn't burn the place down unattended.

As the horns sounded, sending a wave of alarm through the Viking village, Astrid caught two burly caretakers who once would have killed a dragon on sight by their chests and shoved them back inside.

"No," she said. "Start making preparations to carry the babies to the Dragons' Nest. I'm going to send you some dragons and people to help get them there. There are ships coming from the Warlords' fleet, and I don't want to take any chances."

They nodded and set to working on it. Astrid leapt nimbly back onto Stormfly and they flew immediately to the Great Hall as Berk underneath them stilled. The dragons crept into pre-prepared hiding places and humans all made their way to the Hall, too. Astrid and Stormfly dropped in from the top and touched down on the table. Stormfly spread her wings for silence, and received it.

The Twins looked up at her as she began to speak, and Valka and Cloudjumper, perched upside down on a column, looked down proudly.

"Is everyone here?" Astrid asked the crowd. They weren't, but she began anyway, raising her voice to reach even those just filtering in. "There's a smaller fleet of ships from the Warlords, coming here now. I need everyone whose job it is, to get to their assigned defensive positions for cases like these. Those of you who are the best Dragon Riders, get your dragons prepared, fed, charge up their fire, in case we need it. Those of you who aren't as good, I need you to help carry and guide all the babies, kids, and hatchlings to the Dragons' Nest Island. Take food with you, and the supplies that we planned to send them today anyway." She took a breath and glanced at Valka.

"There is no guarantee that these ships are coming here to do anything more than intimidate us, but in the case that they mean to launch an attack to see how strong we are, I don't want any casualties. No more occupational hazards. Starting now, we're gonna start playing smart and minimizing damage."

An hour later, Astrid watched again as the last dragons and their riders and hatchlings took off towards the Dragons' Nest. The ships were still not visible yet, but it was only a matter of time. The village was much more still as half of the dragons migrated to safety.

"This is a good plan, right?" she asked Valka. "Splitting us up?"

"From what Eret told us, Grimmel is the only Warlord who uses dragons. And, if he's after Hiccup, then he won't be able to reach them through the fog." Valka chuckled. "You might have forgotten, but it's nearly impossible for a non-dragon to make it alone through a Green Death's fog."

"But—will the fog hold? It's been five years since it died."

"It will hold," Valka said. "Fog around Nests lasts decades after the Queen dies, at least. Sometimes as many as a hundred years. It's meant to hold so that another Queen can come upkeep the nest and rekindle the fog."

"And, then there's that," Astrid said. "Do we need to worry about another Green Death?"

"No, I doubt it. Only five years after the old Queen's death? Word doesn't travel that fast. And if she arrives, the sight of humans on a nest island is sure to drive her off quickly. They'd rather have their nests without competing with humans for it, especially when they're young and haven't had a nest yet."

"So we could maybe get her on our side?"

"Maybe. But if you'd like to keep worrying about it, be my guest. I just think, that should be our first priority." Valka pointed her staff at the ocean horizon, where the ships still had not yet appeared.

"Yeah. You're right."

—

The three Warlords looked upon Berk from the front of their ships as they approached. Led by their fiercest, Griselda the Grievous, a woman who wore silver wings on her helmet and scale-mail armor, they examined the craggy gray and green mountains and the brightly colored village bursting with unusual architecture bubbling out from the houses.

"This?" Griselda asked loudly, her voice like gravel as she worked out to the best of her ability how a chief as fearsome as the Night Fury's rider could live in such a playful place. "This is where the Alpha has made his home?"

"It's so colorful!" Ragnar the Rock exclaimed, rolling his burly shoulders and clapping his arm-guards down on his forearms.

The last Warlord, a slighter man with thin eyes and a quiet stoicism, shoved him painfully in the arm. He was clad in red and gold armor, popular in the far East where he hailed from. "Don't let your guard down," Chaghatai Khan warned. "Remember what they can do."

"It's absurd," Griselda scoffed. "All those colors. What an eye-sore."

"Maybe you shouldn't be the one to do the talking," Chaghatai Khan said. "Vikings don't like being insulted."

"Don't tell me what Vikings do or don't like! Five years ago, no Berkian would have been caught dead riding a dragon. Now? They're—they're—decorating their houses in dragon patterns!"

The island grew larger, and soon they would pass the stone totems carved hundreds of years ago.

"Doesn't it look too still?" Chaghatai Khan gestured to the village. "Where on earth are they keeping our stolen dragons?"

Griselda held up a hand to signal the following ships to drop their anchor as their sizable leading one sailed up to the furthest-reaching open dock. Their men leapt to action, busying themselves with dropping anchor, tying the ship to the dock, setting up the planks for their leaders to walk across, and getting out of the way as Ragnar's sizable body made its way through their ranks. His feet, once on the Berkian-made dock, made the wood shudder. He was soon joined by the other two, and they strode towards land, where a lone blond-haired woman in blue-brown dragon-scale armor was waiting.

She stood, blocking the way up towards the village with Stormfly by her side, eyeing the Warlords sparingly. Astrid's double-bladed axe was in her hand, and she sharpened it with care on her face. Her striking blue eyes flicked up to the three approaching Warlords, unimpressed.

"Well, Warlords," she said offhandedly once they were close enough. "How go your plans to take over the world?"

"Step aside," Ragnar growled.

Astrid Hofferson turned her face fully towards him. In recent years, now that she didn't have to compete with dragons for food, her face was rounder than it had been in her teenage years, her eyes fierce and determined, full of confidence. "No."

Griselda drew her weapon and advanced angrily, and Stormfly's tail spikes immediately raised angrily, ready to be thrown like daggers at the oncoming Warlord, who stopped.

"What can I do for you?" Astrid asked pleasantly.

"We are not here for anything you can do for us," Griselda snarled. The Warlord clad in red stepped forward and brought Griselda back.

"We came to make a deal with whomever is in charge of Berk while its Chief is…away."

"How interesting."

Chaghatai Khan went on, "We have a proposal we think would be—" Astrid loudly drew the whetstone across the blade of her axe, interrupting him. "—mutually beneficial."

"Really? Does the deal involve a lasting peace?" Astrid cut in, "Because you seem not to be committed to the concept the way we on Berk like to be. And I'm inclined to think that a difference that stark could never result in anything mutual."

He laughed. "Please. No truly peaceful people are as good at fighting wars as your people are. Consider how you crushed the army of Drago, and how you steal dragons our men work so hard to collect. And really, our ideas of peace are not as different as you think. At least hear us out." He spread his arms.

Astrid put away her whetstone away and gave her axe a twirl, squashing any hope the Warlords might have had about going further into the island. "Go on, then." She nodded her consent and gestured for him to talk.

"Yes, it's true, we focus our energies on conquering," the Warlord said. "But once we do so, our conquered lands prosper! In defeat, they no longer war amongst themselves, they no longer have petty quarrels over land or trade, no longer must suffer the tyranny of despotic chieftains. They better their own cities, their sons and husbands gain the chance become part of something bigger, and any sacrifice becomes far more meaningful under our rule. What is this, if not peace? You, yourself, won Berk's blissful era of peace from hard-fought war after war with dragon-kind. And once you had a peace which was threatened by our unfortunate former colleague, Drago Bludvist, you recognized the need to crush him to preserve the peace."

Astrid already had a couple of problems with the way this was worded, which she kept to herself. Hiccup had given Drago many opportunities to repent his ways, even after Stoick had been killed. And, even then—he had been one man, and he had attacked them. Going after the whole world, with all its civilizations, was not the same as the threat by one. But she let him go on.

"Of course, you recognize us as threats, too, which is why you focus yourselves on taking our dragons" —Stormfly rattled her scales in anger— "without considering what we wanted to find the dragons for. The way I see it, even your dragons on your island of peace flourish to their greatest extent when they are put to war-faring ways. They are built to fly, and to fight, and to eat. They are predators. We only meant to provide them with food, and places to run wild."

"You wanted to use them to destroy villages," Astrid finally shot back.

"Please, please," Chaghatai Khan raised his hands. "Allow me to finish."

An indignant fire flared up in Astrid's chest and her battle axe was at the Warlord's throat in the time that it took to blink. "No!" she snapped. Stormfly's tail spikes flared out again with excitement. "You think I haven't heard all of this before? You think I don't know that you're no different from Drago Bludvist? You think I don't see the amount of warships you brought with you? All you people want to do is use innocent dragons as war machines. We could not be more different from you, and no way that you twist words around will change that."

Griselda drew a sword and brought it down on Astrid's axe, pushing it away from Chaghatai's neck. Stormfly crowed angrily and lowered her face, throwing her wings out like she was about to spit fire. Astrid stopped her with one hand, signaling her to hold back as Griselda attacked, swinging her sword at Astrid's side. Astrid blocked with the reinforced handle of her axe and kicked the female Warlord in the chest. She staggered back.

Ragnar, on Chaghatai's other side, held two heavy metal balls connected by a chain, like a bola, and one came flying at Astrid's face. She swung the flat of her axe again to deflect it, knocking the Warlord off-balance as the heavy weapon's momentum dragged him in a different direction than he had expected.

Astrid popped open a can of Zippleback gas, drawing it in a line between she and the three Warlords before lighting a spark and igniting the barrier instantly, flames eating the air between them and causing them to take several steps back.

"Calm yourselves," Chaghatai Khan hissed at his friends, and then, to Astrid, "Now, are these the skills your peaceful island trains you in? Why is combat necessary for peace?" Astrid glowered at him. "Please, our proposal is only this: join us in uniting the world of humans. You keep your dragons. We care not for dragon-kind; do what you will with them—rescue them all, house them all. But you will need more than this small island for all of them. There are a great deal of dragons in the world, and eventually, you will run out of space."

He detected the slightest change in Astrid's face. They had already run into this problem, he realized. Which begged the question: if the island was so still now, where were all of their overpopulation?

"All we ask of you is intimidation. Your islanders are the best of the best Dragon-riders in all the realms, and with you by our side, there will be no need for war at all. We present a force great enough, then we can be guaranteed peace without need for conflict beforehand. This is what you want. We will not ask you to fight except to defend yourself, and we can find more land for Berkians on which to build more of your Utopias. We have no interest in fighting with Berk. Please think on it. How much unnecessary bloodshed we can prevent, together."

Astrid straightened up with dignity. She glanced at Berk, her home of so many generations. She thought about the Dragon's Nest island, so barren of life. It would be incredibly difficult to build anything lasting there without successful fields. And if another Queen showed up…

She thought about the Warlords, the things they had done and the dragons they had killed. About Grimmel, who had killed so many Night Furies, who was so clearly in league with these people and their army. They must have some kind of plan.

She thought about what might happen if she let them out of her sight for too long, and how many people might suffer if they turned their attention away from Berk.

She thought about Hiccup, who was still not back. Ultimately, she still was not Chief. He was. And she could not make a permanent decision like this, especially not this.

The blue-eyed Dragon-rider held Chaghatai's eyes evenly as she chose her answer.

"Allow us to think it over," she said. "I know where to find you when I have an answer."