It Runs in the Family

"Wild adventures of little Valka & Stoick with Gobber dragged along, little Hiccup leading his friends troll hunting, and little Zephyr & Nuffink dragon hunting."

Rated K

5,660 Words

Stalka, Hiccstrid

Gobber, Valka, Zephyr, Stoick, Nuffink, Astrid, Fishlegs, Hiccup, Snotlout, Tuffnut, Ruffnut

Pre-Canon, Post-Canon, OOC

July 31st, 2020

Valka was always a little bit different. She was loud and energetic and, sometimes, too much for even her parents to handle. There was a full-day battle between her and her parents over wearing skirts—pants were far more practical—that ended with things being thrown across the room and a broken door. Valka relented and wore her skirts, though she made sure to keep giving her parents Hel over it.

Viking girls were supposed to learn how to be loving wives and caring mothers. Valka was never good at following instructions. She was always quick to defend herself and others, but she didn't particularly enjoy fighting. Still, she'd rather remain single and become a shieldmaiden than become a boring old housewife. She'd change her mind later but, as a child, she was dead set on it.

Today, Valka was supposed to be with all the other Viking children learning the basics about dragons and what to do if you run into one. Pretty much all the instruction that the little kids got was to run and get an adult or to hide. Valka wasn't one to run or hide. Bored by these lessons, she decided to skip today. She'd rather do something more productive.

Valka snuck off into the woods whilst her teacher was so enthralled in his tall tales that he didn't notice her sudden disappearance. She crept behind the houses, under carts, and between boxes to avoid getting noticed by any of the adults until she was home free.

The woods were quiet, the light trickling in through the trees. Valka loved the peace and calmness of the woods. After a few minutes of taking in the scenery, she started to get bored. Well, now it's time to be productive.

Valka walked through the trees, picking up a few sticks here and there and smacking them against the ground until they broke. It usually took just two or three strikes to send half of the branch flying across the grass. Valka kept breaking sticks until she spotted a promising-looking branch. It looked to be about her height, give or take a couple of inches. It was also much thicker than the twigs she had been picking up. The bark was smooth as Valka clasped it in her hand. One, two, three, four… She thwacked the branch, kinda hard, into the ground. It didn't break. Perfect.

Valka had yet to begin any formal training to become a shieldmaiden and neither of her parents were very formidable fighters. Her father was more of a builder while her mother tended to the old and the ill, assisting the resident healer. Her knowledge was very limited.

Valka took her new staff towards a little spot in the forest where all the trees were really young. It was a circle of short trees and she assumed that a dragon must have burned all the trees in this patch a while ago. She twisted the staff around and twirled, striking the little trees—still a ways bigger than her—as if they were her opponents.

She'd probably been there for an hour, working up a sweat and hunger, when she heard a rustling behind her. Valka immediately rolled into the nearest cover she could find: a bush. For all she knew, there was a hungry dragon looking for a little snack and Valka was definitely little but definitely not a snack.

She stilled in the bush. It was an ability she had picked up over the years, making herself practically invisible. It's how she snuck out of class and how she snuck out of other social events she had no longing to be at. She just needed to make herself unnoticeable.

The rustling got louder and louder until she could hear the tiny thumps of footsteps. Thump. Thump. They weren't very loud so it couldn't have been something too big. They were also going at a pretty leisurely pace. Valka peered through the leaves of the bushes until she saw movement and a very distinct patch of red hair.

"Stoick?" she exclaimed louder than she had intended to. The boy was looking down at his sandwich and jumped at the sound of his name, turning around to try to find who called him.

"Who's there?" He tucked his sandwich into his bag and pulled out a kid-sized sword, waving it around. "As the next-in-line to be chief of Berk, I command that you show yourself." Valka could barely stifle her laugh. She was well aware of his status and his excellency in combat yet, at the moment, he looked so vulnerable. "I have a sword and I'm not afraid to use it."

Valka crawled out of the bush with her hands up. Now she was laughing. "I'm sorry, next-in-line to be chief, but you looked really funny." Stoick scowled at her and Valka straightened her face as well as her body. She dusted off her skirt and knelt down, bowing her head to Stoick. "Sir," she teased, "And what exactly are you doing here? Don't you have class or training or something?"

Stoick rolled his eyes and waved his hands to tell her to stand up. "I was eating." He pulled his sandwich out again. "It's quite a nice spot out here." Stoick sat down on a large rock in the middle of the circle and began eating his sandwich.

"Don't we eat in the great hall?" Valka dusted off a spot and sat next to Stoick, peering over his shoulder to see what sandwich he was eating.

"Sometimes it's nice to get away from all of that." He gestured in the general direction of the building. Valka raised her eyebrow at him and Stoick continued on. "It's a lot, you know, to be chief. I mean, I'm not even chief yet and I have people approaching me left and right about their problems and making demands at me."

Valka shrugged. "I wouldn't know." She dragged her foot through the sand, making squiggly lines. "I'm not someone of that much importance."

Stoick laughed, coughing up a little bit of his sandwich. "Being important isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's a lot of responsibility and being told what to do and doing what people want without question because you're only important when you're useful to them." Stoick looked at his sandwich but put it down before taking another bite. "I'd love to be like you."

"Really?" Valka stopped drawing in the sand so she could read Stoick's face, but he was looking at the ground and not at her.

"Yeah, you're cool." Valka blushed a little, not that Stoick saw. "I mean, look at you. You're putting up fights with your parents and sneaking out of class and just doing whatever you want." Valka wasn't sure if the first two parts of that sentence were meant to be compliments, but she didn't bother to overthink their implications. "I wish I could do what I wanted."

Valka opened her mouth to interject—to say, 'But you're going to be chief. You get to make the rules. You can do whatever you want.' Stoick didn't need her to.

"Being chief isn't that easy." He leaned back onto the rock, closing his eyes as he faced the sun. "I have a responsibility to my people, not to myself, and their needs come first."

"That doesn't mean you have to give up everything," Valka muttered as she hopped off the rock. It was probably time that she started heading back before her parents sent a search party for her.

"What?" Once again, Valka's voice was louder than she had intended. She didn't mean for Stoick to hear what she said, but she definitely meant it. Valka didn't stop to respond to Stoick's question.

Stoick was always stubborn.

As Valka was hurriedly walking away, he grabbed her shoulder. His grip wasn't strong—she could easily slip away—but it did its job at stopping her.

"You know, no one's ever said that to me." Valka didn't want to turn around. If she had been blushing earlier, her face was thoroughly red now. She didn't move away either. "I've had people say they felt bad for me or that they're sorry or that it sucks, but they never argue the idea that a chief has to give up everything for her people."

Taking a few deep breaths, Valka turned around and hoped that Stoick wouldn't notice her changed complexion. "Well, what's the point of having a chief then if the title's only meant to break them." She groaned and rubbed her head. That wasn't her strongest statement. There are other useful things that people use only to dispose of them when they no longer work. No. She had a better one. "How can you stand as a chief, standing for you people, if you can't stand for yourself?"

The two of them were much closer now, Valka's head to Stoick's chest. Stoick was about to respond to her when they heard something coming from the direction of the village. Realizing how close they were, the two of them stepped back.

"There ye are," Gobber bellowed as he pushed through the shrubbery. "I've been lookin' all o'er for ya'. Your parents want ya' back. Now."

Valka and Stoick each pointed at themselves, not sure who Gobber's command was directed to.

"Both of ya's." Quickly, they followed him back out of the woods, but not before Valka slipped away to grab her staff. She'd definitely come here and use it tomorrow and, if she was lucky, maybe a certain next-in-line to be chief would be there too.

Before Hiccup was the runt of the village, he was just a kid—as were all the other teens.

Hiccup's mom was taken when he was just a wee little baby and his father was busy being chief of Berk so little Hiccup often found himself in the care of uncle Gobber. Gobber was a man of tall tales and fantastical stories.

Dragons were very real and very scary but, in a sense, they were also very boring. Everyone had seen a dragon. Of course, Gobber rambled on about his various encounters with dragons and losing his hands to one, but Hiccup liked his other stories. He especially liked Gobber's stories about trolls.

Little Hiccup was admittedly scared of dragons—they took his mom—but he wasn't yet scared of trolls. Armed with the tiny sword his dad used as a kid and his troll-proof name, Hiccup trudged onwards. Today he was going to catch a troll.

Well, he and the other kids.

Astrid found out about his little pastime first when she caught him snooping around as she was throwing her ax at trees. Fishlegs found out next when he asked Hiccup for his notes on dragons and dragon-related inventions and Hiccup accidentally gave him the troll ones. The twins found out when they followed him for a full day, planning the best time and place to enact their next prank. Snotlout didn't know but, as all the other kids were tagging along with Hiccup, so was he.

Astrid found the whole endeavor laughable. Trolls weren't real and, if they were, the kidified version of weapons they were touting about would be useless against them. She came as an excuse to try and hunt down a dragon—a real threat. Fishlegs was really hoping that trolls weren't real and that they wouldn't find any. The twins took joy in taunting him about it. Once again, Snotlout didn't know.

Hiccup was the one leading them.

"Are you sure you know where we're going?" Astrid turned around herself as they entered a particularly dense part of the woods. The sunlight was effectively blocked out by a thick layer of leaves.

"Don't worry, babe." Snotlout laid his arm around Astrid and on her shoulder only for her to shove it off. Instead of reacting, Snotlout flexed his muscles. "I'll protect you."

Everyone rolled their eyes. If anything, Snotlout was a useless scaredy-cat in a fight and Astrid would end up being the one protecting them. However, Astrid was well aware that she couldn't protect everyone if something were to happen to them in hear; not only because she was just one tiny kid, but also because she couldn't trust these muttonheads not to do something stupid. Oftentimes, a fight with a dragon was one dragon versus several Vikings and the Vikings could still lose. Astrid's ax could barely cut a tree, let alone the scales of a dragon. Their best bet would be to split up, run, and hope they weren't the one that the dragon was going after.

"I don't need your protection." Astrid stomped away from Snotlout and towards Hiccup, trying to snatch his map. "What I do want-," she grunted, -" is to see where exactly it is we're going."

"Let go!" Hiccup swatted Astrid's hands away and she pouted at the boy. "Just trust me. I know what I'm doing." Astrid muttered something in response but Hiccup didn't catch it. "The trees make it darker here and trolls like the dark because it makes it harder for people to see them."

"Wait." Snotlout looked away from his still-flexed muscles and scrunched his nose. "'Trolls'? What are we doing with trolls."

Tuffnut walked up next to Snotlout, shoving him to the other side where his sister took the opportunity to mess up his hair. "What did you think we were doing here, dingus?"

Snotlout shrugged and fixed his hair. "I don't know. I thought we were just avoiding our parents or something."

"That's an added bonus," Hiccup mumbled, though no one was close enough to hear him.

The group carried on, but Astrid lagged behind and pulled Fishlegs with her. "All right, you and Hiccup are usually the only other smart ones here and-," Astrid pointed to Hiccup as he looked around and directed the group to turn, -"Hiccup is definitely not acting like it right now."

Fishlegs nodded. "I know. I mean, there's no way trolls are real or else someone else would've said something about them… right?"

Astrid smacked her head with her own hand. "That's not what I meant." She pulled Fishlegs behind a tree so that the others wouldn't hear them. "There is no way that boy knows where he's going and I'm not looking to make myself dragon food anytime soon. We should head back before we really get lost."

They re-entered the trail that Hiccup was following and continued talking in hushed voices. "Y'know, you're not as bad as everyone says." Fishlegs realized his mistake too late as Astrid grasped the collar of his shirt and quickly began explaining himself. "Well, I mean, everyone knows that you're really strong and… um… brave and determined and stuff." She released him and nodded. They both stopped walking. "Some people think that you're too determined and stuff. Like, you're all about punching but you don't think things through and you don't know when to stop or when to give up."

"I don't give up-"

"See!" Fishlegs pointed at her and Astrid grabbed his hand, shoving it to his side. "Sometimes the best thing you can do is give up."

"I don't give up because I know how to pick and choose my battles." The statement surprised Fishlegs even more. "What's the use in humiliating yourself by starting a fight that you can't finish? That's how the dragons got my uncle."

Fishlegs nodded. It wasn't full proof, but it was a better mentality than many Vikings had. A lot of them would charge into battle without a second thought only to be mauled or mutilated. One day, Astrid Hofferson would take on a battle that she wouldn't be able to finish, but Fishlegs wouldn't be the one to tell her that.

Neither Astrid nor Fishlegs realized just how dense and dark the forest was until they looked around and couldn't see any sign of their friends. They had barely been stopped for a minute or two. Both unsure of what to do, Fishlegs decided the best thing to do was to yell out for the others with Astrid clasping her hand over his mouth seconds later.

"What are you doing!?" she hissed. Fishlegs shook his head and Astrid realized that her grip on him was a bit hard. "There could be something in here and you just told it right where we were." Fishlegs eyes widened at the thought.

Astrid pulled him off the trail where they waited, still, making sure that nothing was coming for them. They heard a twig snap and both kids held their breath.

"Fishlegs," the familiar squeaky voice of Hiccup whispered as he glanced around. "Fishlegs?" Not noticing his friends in the brush below him, Hiccup assumed the worst. "Oh no! The trolls must know we're here and they got Fishlegs and Astrid!"

Astrid chuckled at the misunderstanding and Fishlegs couldn't help but smile a little too. Trolls were scary but there weren't any trolls.

"No!" Snotlout cried as he stamped his foot into the ground. "Not my pretty little Astrid. My baby. My sweetheart." Astrid rolled onto her back and was struggling to stay silent. One hand was clasped over her mouth and the other over her stomach while she quietly laughed. "Take me instead!"

In the deepest, scratchiest voice Astrid could muster, she yelled out, "That could be arranged!" All the kids jumped at the voice, Snotlout jumping into Tuffnut's arms and hugging him.

"Hello," Hiccup called out with his voice far louder and shakier. He waved his sword around and gulped, trying to think of the next best thing to say to save his friends—assuming they were still alive.

Fishlegs caught on to Astrid's joke and joined in with his own terrible voice. "Oh yes, you're little friends were quite delectable. Fishlegs and Astrid, isn't it?"

The pair watched as Snotlout started whimpering into Tuffnut's shoulder. If the lighting had been better, they would have seen Hiccup's eyes watering too.

Astrid broke first. She couldn't hold back the laughter yet, it came out so distorted that it sounded more like she was sobbing. She rolled out of the bush, still in a ball.

"Astrid," Hiccup yelled and ran over to check for wounds. "I thought you were eaten!" By now, Astrid was hyperventilating and Hiccup told her to breathe. He stood up to run for help but Astrid grabbed his hand, using it to pull herself up.

"Hiccup," she gasped, still collecting her breath and herself in general. "There are no trolls. Fishlegs and I,-" Astrid gestured to the bush and Fishlegs crawled out of it, face flushed and smiling, -"were playing a prank on you guys."

"Sweet!" Ruffnut ran up and smacked the girl in the back. "It looks like we're finally rubbing off on you."

Hiccup was stunned. The Astrid Hofferson—the all-work-and-no-play girl—was laughing. Not only was she laughing, but she was laughing at him. Fishlegs and the twins were laughing too as Snotlout rubbed his eyes, but Hiccup made no move to change his demeanor.

"So, uh…" Astrid looked at Hiccup and saw that he wasn't smiling. She had thought that the goofy boy would've taken some joy in the joke. "You good." She waved her hand in front of his face until he jerked his head away. "What now?" she asked.

Hiccup pulled his map back out, reorienting it a few times as he scanned the surrounding area.

Tuffnut leaned in towards Astrid, cupping his hand to her ear as he said, "He's been doing that for the past ten minutes since we lost you guys." Astrid audibly groaned and walked up to Hiccup, trying to peer over his shoulder and look at the map. This time he didn't yank it back or swat her away.

"All right," he sighed, putting his face in his hands. "So, we are lost." Snotlout clapped and Astrid would've punched him if the situation wasn't so dire.

"Of course we are." Astrid slashed the edge of her ax through a tree, making an arrow that pointed right. "So we know we've already been here," she explained.

"Oh no!" Snotlout cried, this time clinging to Astrid instead of Tuffnut and she had to squirm her way out of his unwelcome grip. "We're actually gonna die! We're never gonna get out of this forest. I'll never get to grow up. I'll never get to kill my first dragon. Or have my first sip of mead. Or my first kiss." Snotlout paused and turned to look at Astrid. She did not return the feeling.

Astrid stuck her hand out as Snotlout pressed his face into it. "No. Just, no," she repeated as she walked away, leaving Snotlout to fall flat on his face. "We're gonna get out of this." Everyone watched as Astrid walked over to Hiccup and patted him on the back. "Hiccup's smart. He'll figure it out." Snotlout grunted into the ground as the twins laughed and Fishlegs awkwardly rubbed his arms. Hiccup was dragged along as she slapped each of them over the head. "And, we'll help him."

"Astrid's right," Hiccup said as he pulled his hand out of her grasp. "Alone we have little chance of surviving but, together, we might just make it." Everyone nodded except for Snotlout who gave a thumbs up from the ground.

"Alright then." Astrid crossed her arms and walked back towards the others so that they were in line and facing him. "What next, chief?"

Before Hiccup could speak, they heard rustling behind them and everyone dive-bombed into the bushes except Snotlout; Hiccup and Astrid had to drag him with them when they jumped. As the only ones with weapons, the two were closest to the trail and ready to strike.

"Kids? I coulda sworn that I just heard 'em." Hiccup sighed as he recognized the voice all too well as the one that had told him about trolls in the first place.

"Don't worry guys." Hiccup put his sword back in its sheath, stood up, and motioned his hands down as a way to tell the others to calm and stand down. "It's just Gobber."

"Or that's just what the trolls want you to think." Snotlout's claim was met with another harsh smack in the back of his head by Astrid.

The kids all got up and greeted Gobber with a hug.

"You do know the way back?" Astrid asked him… They'd make it back eventually.

Hiccup had told his kids, Zephyr and Nuffink, that there had been dragons when he was a boy.

Unfortunately, all the dragons had left before either child was born. Hiccup's stories were always about dragons being good but Zephyr never quite believed it. She had heard whispers about a time when dragons were a Viking's greatest enemy. They raided villages, stealing livestock and burning houses. How could such a good creature do such bad things?

Zephyr wanted answers. She wanted to capture a dragon and get those answers. The problem was how, as all the dragons had disappeared before she was born.

Zephyr was a lot like her father. She wasn't much of a fighter and preferred to use unique contraptions of her own creation. Her plan was to lure the dragons out with some of their favorite things—fresh fish and cooked chicken—before ensnaring them in her trap. However, a girl like her wouldn't really be good at actually dealing with dragons. She had all the knowledge she needed and more but, gods, she didn't want to get that close to a dragon.

She enlisted her younger brother, Nuffink, to help. Unlike her, he thought dragons were great. In fact, he really wanted a dragon and threw a fit when he found out he couldn't get one. He'd love to be near and to touch a dragon and that was all Zephyr needed to convince her brother.

Zephyr and her brother set out when she knew her parents would be too busy to notice their absence. Her father was at some sort of important chieftain meeting and her mother was running the village in the meantime. They snuck out right after breakfast.

Armed only with the tiny sword and ax their parents had used when they were kids, the siblings trekked through the woods to where Zephyr had set up the contraption. It worked kinda like a bear trap but, instead of sharp metal teeth clasping the paw of its victim, it caged its prey. Zephyr's invention was much larger than a paw; it could fit several people in it. It could probably fit a medium-sized dragon.

Zephyr kept her father's sword in its sheath, attached to her belt. In a basket, she had the fresh fish and chicken. It stank and Zephyr struggled not to gag as the top of the basket was right under her nose. She also had a little sack with her notes.

Zephyr was slow, trying not to drop the basket. It was heavy and Zephyr knew that, if she leaned too far to one side, she'd crash. Also, the basket was making it hard to see where she was walking and Zephyr had to go really slow to avoid tripping.

Nuffink, in contrast, was bouncing around as he waved his ax through the air. She was starting to regret inviting him after he jumped right in front of where she was walking and almost knocked her over twice. Their father was an only child and sometimes she envied that fact.

Zephyr stopped as they reached the clearing, relieved that she could finally put the basket down.

"Alright, Nuffink," she called to the boy as he continued skipping through the clearing. "Nuffink!" she yelled at him. He didn't respond and Zephyr was starting to believe that it was on purpose. She picked up a tiny pebble and threw it at him. It hit his head—by accident, actually; it wasn't hard enough to hurt much but it made a sound on impact. "Nuffink. Do not set off the trap while I put the bait in it." She looked at him, waiting for his reply until he nodded.

Zephyr walked around the perimeter of the clearing, hoisting up large rocks the size of her head and placing them onto the wooden circle of the trap. The rocks would hold down the cage from closing as Zephyr stepping onto the platform to put on the bait would otherwise trigger it.

After placing the last rock, Zephyr picked up the basket once more and carried it to the platform that she had covered with plants and dirt. She was about to dump the bait when she glanced around and realized she could no longer see her little brother.

"Nuffink," she whined. "Get back out here. I am not your babysitter and I am not going to look for you if you get lost." No response. She groaned and decided that she would look for him after she placed the bait. The dragons never came, anyways. She'd have the time.

Zephyr counted the fish as they fell out of the basket; there wasn't much chicken to spare on this little experiment. One, two, three, four… Zephyr had gotten her brother to help her catch a whopping ten fish yesterday and she planned on using all of them. The more fish, the stronger the smell and, the stronger the smell, the more likely a dragon would fall for her trap.

Seven, eight, nine… The last fish was having a bit of trouble getting out of the basket. She shook the basket but it didn't budge. The basket was deeper than her arm could reach so she had to set it down and practically climb halfway in. When she got back out she saw Nuffink… and all the rocks she had placed to stop the trap from closing on them.

"Nuffink!" If her hands weren't covered in the smell and ooze of fish, she would've smacked herself in the forehead and then Nuffink. Yeah. Sometimes she really wished that she didn't have a little brother.

Predictably, the trapped closed on them. It was kind of slower than she had wanted it to be, but they wouldn't have made it anyways as two tiny, weak humans. The sticks that made up the bars of the cage were too close together for either child to slip through and their bindings were set with hardened tree sap. The sticks themselves were relatively sturdy, but they might break if Zephyr just kept hitting them with her sword. But, she had some other business to attend to first.

"This wouldn't have happened if you had just listened to me." She scowled at him and he cowered under her.

It was kinda ironic. If anything, Zephyr should've been more afraid of him. Nuffink took after their mother. He really liked all that fighting and training stuff. Zephyr was only stronger in age, intelligence, and size. Nuffink was doing good with his training and, despite being younger, he could beat Zephyr at arm wrestling. Zephyr wasn't good at fights. She was only as intimidating as her words and whatever crazy, stupid plans she came up with. She didn't care to be good at fights.

Nuffink had turned away from Zephyr, staring at the ground as he kicked around the fish. "Well, you didn't say anything about the rocks," he muttered.

"I told you to come here." As if to emphasize her statement, she stamped her foot on the platform and straightened her arm to point down.

"I was just trying to help," he protested. "I knew that you'd need to move the rocks back off to get the trap to work so I thought I'd do it for you."

"If you were really that intuitive you would've known that those rocks were the only thing keeping me from being trapped." Zephyr walked around the cage, mindlessly tapping the bars as she hoped to find one weaker than the others. "Y'know, it's times like these that I wish I was an only child."

She said it out loud and she meant it and she meant for him to hear it. Yet, when she heard his stifled sniffling, she couldn't help but feel bad. The damage had already been done. The worst thing she could've said to him had already been stated. She might as well get everything else off her chest before she went and apologized.

"You're a lot like mom, right?" She didn't wait for him to answer. It was a rhetorical question to which the answer was 'yes'. "I'm a lot like dad. It's flipped. I'm the girl and I should be like mom while you should be like dad." Nuffink wiped away his tears, slowing his breath so that he could listen to her rather than his ragged inhales and exhales. "Sometimes I really wish I was more like mom. Don't get me wrong, I love dad, but he's a little… out there. Take now, for instance. He's off at his meeting and mom's the one who's here." Zephyr waved her arms around as if to gesture to where Hiccup was, not that she could tell the direction from here. "Even when he's home, he's distant. It's like his mind is somewhere else." Zephyr stopped pacing around the cage and stopped tapping the wood, for a second. "It's with the dragons… You're a lot like mom, even though you're a boy, and you're really close to her and she's here. I'm a lot like dad and I can't find him."

"Are you jealous?"

"No," Zephyr said instinctively, but she knew that wasn't the full answer. "It's not so much a problem with you. It's a problem with dad." Zephyr began kicking one of the bars. "I guess I've always thought that, if you weren't born, I'd get more of mom's attention, and at least I'd have something."

"I'm sorry." Nuffink walked up to his older sister and gave her a hug. In return, she ruffled his hair.

"Don't be. It's not your fault. It's no one's, really. It's just the way things are." The two kids stayed there, hugging each other, for a solid minute or two until Nuffink finally pulled back.

They still needed to get out of this thing. Zephyr began slashing at the wood, but her blade was meant more for the tenderness of flesh and not the hard bark they were trapped in. Slowly, she could see her sword making progress on the outer layer, but that was only a beauty mark and it did nothing to actually weaken the bar.

"Hey, Nuff, do you still have your ax on you." The boy eagerly nodded before racing back to the platform and picking it up from beside the fish. "Swords are made for cutting people and sometimes animals, but they're soft inside. Axes are made for cutting trees and these bars-," Zephyr patted the cage she made, -"are made from trees."

Nuffink smiled and began hacking away at the bars. It still took a decent amount of time and Zephyr helped however feebly she could with her duller-than-it-should-be-because-it's-generations-old-and-used-for-kids sword. By the time they got out, they heard someone approaching and they both ducked behind a rock for cover.

"A dragon," Nuffink explained. "I knew they were real." Zephyr didn't say anything, but she had a wild grin too.

She had a wild grin until she heard the voice calling out to them.

"Zephyr! Nuffink! And what in the name of Odin is-" Snap. Zephyr and Nuffink raced out to see Gobber stuck halfway through their child-sized escape hole. "Oh, there you are. Yer mum's been looking for yers for lunch."

The siblings laughed as they dragged Gobber out of the hole.

"And don't tell your mother or father that I let you make this." It wasn't his fault but he was kinda the guardian of the forest at this point and witness to all the wild adventures that have happened within its boundaries.

According to the HTTYD Wiki, Stoick is ten years older than Valka… So, I changed that. Gobber is five years older than Stoick. I don't explicitly state their ages, but they're all much closer.

Everything I've seen with Zephyr & Nuffink has been from clips on YouTube so my characterizations of them have been based on limited knowledge. Also, obviously, this takes place before they met Toothless or any other dragons.

I don't know where 'little troll hunting Hiccup' came from, but I love it.

Astrid is my favorite character and it shows. Also, I regrettably didn't give the twins much attention.

I winged Zephyr & Nuffink's part being before Homecoming but with some elements from Homecoming like Zephyr wanting to hunt/kill dragons.