Berserker Island (part 3):

After dinner, Hiccup and Astrid more or less snuck away from their table while the adults were having a rambunctious discussion about the pros and cons of leather armour versus iron in regards to melee warfare. It was something which Hiccup would normally find fascinating, but Astrid tugged on his hand and pulled him from the bench, so follow her he went.

He always would.

"Where are we going?" he stage whispered after they'd wound their way through the tables to the outer edges of the bonfire lit area.

Astrid's face was alight with mischievousness as they walked the boundary between light and shadows next to the back gardens of a row of homes. It was like their own little world that wasn't bothered by the raucous voices only feet away. "Nowhere in particular. I just wanted to steal some time with you without hovering parents."

His breath caught as the still new thrill that ASTRID actually desired HIM tingled through him from head to toe, but he played it as cool as he could manage, simply grinning back at her and saying, "Oh. Well, in that case…" Hiccup used their joined hands to pull her towards the small evergreen forest that separated the village from the monolith of a mountain that rose up in the center of the island. He then turned so that he was walking backwards and put his free hand over his heart as he vowed solemnly, "If it's privacy M'lady wants, than it's privacy M'lady will get. Neither dragon, nor volcano, nor blizzard, nor interfering buffoons could stop me from providing what M'lady desires."

She giggled softly. "You're such a dork, Hiccup. An adorable dork, but still a dork."

He shrugged and turned back around. "Lucky for me that works for you."

"Who says?" she teased, swinging their arms as they strolled.

"Hmmmm. That's a good question. I think it was a blonde goddess with a penchant for violence who said something to the effect."

"A blonde goddess who clearly has terrible taste," an exasperated sounding voice said from their right just before Dagur stepped out beside them, looking incredibly intimidating with his horned helmet, well built body, and a feral gleam in his eyes as he effortlessly flipped a wicked looking dagger with his left hand into the air over and over.

Hiccup somehow managed to hold in the unmanly squeak of surprise, but that didn't stop his heart from jumping up into his throat or the unintentionally tight grip he took on Astrid's fingers.

"Speaking of interfering buffoons," Astrid muttered under her breath.

Hiccup snorted before laying into the older boy, his own pride and Astrid's presence making him brave. "Thor's teeth, Dagur! Cough or something before you sneak up on people like that!"

"Now why would I want to do that?" Dagur grinned maliciously. "I happen to love sneaking and frightening little runts such as yourself. It's one of my favourite pastimes." He flipped his dagger again. "Right after using them for target practice."

Astrid tugged her hand from his with some effort and she stepped into Dagur's personal space. She snatched the dagger right out of the air and tossed it at the nearest tree they weren't that far from, burying it in the bark to the hilt. In the same flowing move, her axe was off her back and also flying through the air to land directly beside the dagger in the tree trunk. (She probably would have aimed to split the dagger if she'd been at all confident that it would work without damaging her axe.)

She then turned to the demented red head with another dagger in her hand that she pulled from no-one-knows-where and pressed it into his abdomen warningly. "Next time you threaten Hiccup or make any move towards me other than perfectly polite, those both land here, understood?"

Hiccup all but drooled with love and lust at his fierce warrior goddess. Thor? If you're hearing this, thank you for her. Thank you. Thank you.

Dagur, not looking intimidated at all, just laughed and backed up a step, hands raised in the air. (The right one was bandaged.) "Sure, Blonde Goddess. Sure. I get it. But if Hiccup dies through no fault of my own, you can bet your sweet little body that I'm going to come a-courtin'."

Astrid jabbed him just a little harder as she rolled her eyes and then put her dagger away back to who-knows-where. "And I'll just throw you off a cliff and into the ocean, but that's your prerogative if you like to swim."

Dagur grinned. "I love swimming. This sounds like fun."

"Glad my demise gives you something to look forward to," Hiccup said dryly as he grabbed Astrid's hand again and started inching towards the abused tree. "But for now, my fiancé and I were just going to enjoy the ambiance under the pine trees over there for a bit."

"The what?" Dagur asked, looking confused before he shook it off. "Whatever. That's boring. You should try exploring the cave system. Now THAT's exciting. Especially in the dark. Lots of bottomless drop offs and such. I could take you if you want."

While exploring caves did sound like fun, Hiccup had no desire to do so with the deranged boy who would probably find some way to knock Hiccup into one of said bottomless drop offs. I wonder if that's where the missing Heather ended up? Wouldn't put it past him. Maybe I'll mention it to Chief Oswald. Delicately, of course.

Astrid clearly agreed that going spelunking with Dagur in the dark wasn't the best idea, because she shook her head and let the older teenager down in the nicest way possible, probably hoping not to set him off into a murderous rage or something. "We'd love to. But not tonight. My parents would definitely freak if I disappeared for that long. Maybe tomorrow?"

Dagur, thankfully, accepted the excuse. "Yeah, sure. No problem. Can't freak out the parents, can we?" He backed up back towards the shadows. "We'll go after bre… Ummmmph!"

The Viking boy flailed as another person suddenly came out of the nearly hidden path he'd been backing towards and they collided. They both did an awkward dance until they regained their balance, Hiccup and Astrid snickering quietly. The other person was tall and slim and wearing a dark cloak, the hood of which fell off as they almost fell over backwards, revealing a comely woman with hair of a medium shade that was neither bright like Astrid's or dark enough to be black.

"Watch where you're going!" Dagur spat, glaring at the woman.

She flicked her gaze at Hiccup and Astrid, then ducked her head subserviently, pulling her hood back up. "My apologies. I didn't see you coming in the dark," she mumbled in a pleasant alto voice and then hurried towards the gathering.

Dagur sneered at her back and then spun around to leave.

"Hey!" Astrid called. "What about your dagger!"

He looked back over his broad shoulder and winked with the eye surrounded by the blue tattoo. "Keep it, my Blonde Goddess, as a promise gift." And then he was gone, back into the dark, as silent as a ghost.

"Freaky," Hiccup muttered under his breath.

"I am so glad we don't live on the same island as him," Astrid whispered as they walked to the impaled tree.

"Agreed," Hiccup pulled out the dagger after she'd taken her axe back and returned it to its place on her back. "The workmanship on this isn't bad," he admitted as he examined it in the light of the distant bonfire.

"Whatever it is, you can keep it or throw it away or melt it down or whatever," Astrid said as she started pulling them deeper into the trees along a well trodden path. "I don't want to keep anything of his that might give him more ideas than he already has."

"Good point, my wise Vikingess." Hiccup paused and stabbed the dagger into a passing tree. "Maybe he'll find it there in a day or two and understand that you're not interested."

"Ha," she snorted softly. "More like think of it as a more interesting challenge."

"You're probably right."

"I know I am."

"That's because you're always right."

Astrid stopped and pushed him off the path and behind a thick tree. She leaned into him, grabbing fistfuls of his vest as she whispered in his ear. "You just keep telling yourself that for the next seventy or eighty years and we'll get on just fine."

Hiccup shivered from the sensation of her warm breath in his ear and gulped at the promise in her eyes. "I will, M'lady." Forever! She's talking about us being together forever!

Gods, how did I get so lucky?

"Good," Astrid smiled right before she kissed him.

Hiccup very happily wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back.

Once they were both panting and Astrid had managed to make his hair stand pretty much on end with her fingers, she grinned at him with a contented look that made his chest feel stuffed full. "We should probably get back now before my dad really does have a fit."

"Yeah. I guess." Hiccup would happily brave the wrath of Hector Hofferson for another three minutes of Astrid's lips, but it was her call.

Despite her words, Astrid took her time carefully smoothing his hair down before she set a rather sedate pace as they meandered back down the forest path, their hands once again entwined. "Soooo, this has been an enlightening trip," she said conversationally.

"Yeah. Learned that rowing is even harder than it looks."

"And that you absolutely love sailing."

He beamed. "Totally. I also found out that I'm basically the girl in our relationship and you know what? I really can't make myself care."

Astrid laughed. "I should say that's not true, but I can't argue with the facts. As long as you don't start wearing my clothes, I think we'll be fine."

Hiccup huffed indignantly. "I think not." And then, feeling cheeky, he added in a completely serious tone, "I don't have the hips to make your skirt look good, for one thing."

He grinned at the top of her hair as she snorted and then had to rest her forehead on his shoulder and cling to him as body-shaking guffaws overtook her for a minute. I might be the damsel in distress here, but at least I'm funny.

He patted her back until she pulled herself together, standing upright again and wiping at her eyes. "Gods, Hiccup. Your sense of humour is going to be the death of me one day."

He rolled his eyes and tugged them onwards. "I hope not. I don't think that's on the list of heroic actions that will get you into Valhalla so you can retake your rightful place as a Valkyrie."

She paused again, her eyes meltingly soft as she kissed his cheek lingeringly. "And your natural grasp of everything romantic is going to make it very hard for me to wait until we're at least eighteen to get married."

Hiccup cupped her jaw and cheek and pressed and a sweet kiss to her hovering mouth. "I'm glad. Just let me know when and I'm there, Astrid Hofferson."

She smiled softly. "I know you will be, Hiccup Haddock."

They made the rest of the short trip back to the gathering area in contented silence, letting their glancing looks do all the talking for them.

At least, that was the case until Hiccup saw the cloaked woman from before standing in the shadows near the back gardens, arms wrapped around herself, and staring at his father like she was trying to work up the courage to go talk to him.

"Can I help you?" Hiccup asked kindly as they approached, thinking she had a message to deliver to the clan chief or something equally important. Stoick Haddock was pretty intimidating in his massive size, even to a Vikingess.

The woman startled and looked right at him for a moment, the firelight illuminating her hooded face clearly for a second before she ducked her head. Much more clearly than the first time he'd seen her. "No. No, it's nothing," she said almost sadly. Then she brushed past Astrid, walking quickly and aiming for the shadowed path she'd emerged from earlier that ran between the forest and the end of the houses.

"That was weird," Astrid said, turning and looking after the woman for a moment before shrugging and aiming for their table. She stopped when Hiccup didn't budge despite her tug on his hand. "Hiccup?"

He didn't answer, because he was kind of in shock. I swear that's the same face that adorns the painting in my father's room. Adding a few years worth of aging, of course. And if that's the case…

Hiccup tugged his hand from Astrid's and whirled around, scanning the dark for the retreating woman. "Mom?!" He thought he saw her shadow freeze and then take off at a run. It can't be. Can it?

"Hiccup, what…?" Astrid called as he bolted after the woman. Then she was hot on his heels.

Hiccup skidded around the corner of the last garden and then took off down the path the woman was following. Thanks to the faint moonlight that was just rising over the horizon, Hiccup could see her figure far ahead of him on the path. Every instinct he had said he should yell, 'Mom!' again, but he fought it back, saving his breath and just running faster. If my first call didn't make her stop, a second won't either.

Astrid, thankfully, didn't ask any more questions as she ran beside him, her clever mind probably putting the clues together.

Unfortunately, his mother – if that's who she was – was very fleet of foot, and they never caught up to her before a piercing whistle sounded through the night and then her shadow disappeared completely as if she'd jumped off the end of a cliff. Heart in his throat, Hiccup finally made it to the edge of the island, expecting to see a boat, or worse, a woman trying to swim through the treacherous ocean and not making it.

But what he actually saw shocked him even more than the possibility that this might be his supposedly dead mother who might have just committed suicide right in front of his eyes.

Hiccup saw a four winged Stormcutter dragon flying away from the island and the cloaked figure of his mother (maybe) standing on top of its back and hanging onto a horn on the back of its head… Riding it.

On purpose.

And the dragon did not appear to be protesting.

She turned, and he swore he saw her lift a hand in farewell before the swiftly flying dragon took her too far away to see.

"Holy Thor," Astrid breathed after a solid minute of watching the dragon fade into nothing more than a speck in the distance that soon became invisible to the naked eye. "I did not just see that."

Hiccup fell to his rear, his legs suddenly boneless.

Astrid lowered herself slightly more gracefully to sit beside him. He looked at her with eyes that felt like they might escape their sockets at any moment. "Astrid… My mother. She was taken by a Stormcutter."

"I know. Hiccup. I know." She squeezed his arm in silent support.

He buried his face in his knees for a few minutes of stunned silence, just processing as he realized he could never tell his father what he'd just seen because it would break Stoick's heart in more ways than one.

And then he looked up and stared blankly out over the churning sea waves, the image of the woman easily riding the massive dragon imprinted on his mind. "This… This changes everything."

The End

A/N: And that's it for book one! Book two has been started. :D