06/04/2021 update: Minor changes to word formatting. (Evernote seemed to have messed up some of the formattings...)

05/04/2021 update: This whole story has been rewritten, so please be aware that some reviews up to chapter 14 may not reflect what is in the current chapters. All previous chapters have also been deleted to avoid confusion.

Warnings: This story contains OC/OC and Hiccup/Astrid pairings. The majority of this story will not include canon scenes from the movies nor series and will mostly focus on the original characters. This story is also an AU, so please be prepared for lots of original characters and settings.

Disclaimer: I do not own How to Train Your Dragon, its sequels, the Dragons series, their settings. and the characters in it. I only own the original characters, settings, and plot in this story.

All author's notes except for updates, disclaimers, and triggers/warnings will be at the end of the chapter.

Prologue

"Take a deep breath in… now push!"

Under any other circumstances, Valka would very much like to comment on how foolish the midwife's exaggerated breathing motions were. At this very moment, however, she could barely register anything other than the agonizing pain in her abdomen, much less the puddle of sweat accumulating under her tunic.

"Just one more push, and this will be over, alright?"

Valka grunted ungracefully as she struggled to contain her voice from bubbling up her throat. Gods knew if her husband would crash the doors down if she let even one single shout out of her mouth, and the idea of spending the entire winter repairing the door, especially in the freezing cold, sounded very unappealing. Why her child decided that it was time to come out at this day, one of the strangest days that only existed every four years, coincidentally one of the coldest days of the year, she did not know. Amidst her pain, Valka briefly entertained the thought of holding a grudge against her child when she grows old enough to understand.

Stoick always thought the baby was a boy. Valka had scoffed at him, and declared that a mother knows best, so the baby in her womb must be a girl. Stoick was not one to argue against his wife, especially not when she was having constant mood swings as ferocious as an angered Monstrous Nightmare. As a loving couple, they decided to settle this with a bet.

Another wave of agony ripped through her body. Though she had listened to many tales about birth giving, she did not know that it would hurt this much. Teeth gritted, Valka vehemently decided that she will never agree to having another child, no matter what her husband says this time. The world was cruel anyways, and no child should have to be born into a war, to grow up in conditions where it was either life or death every day. Waves and waves of exploding pain hit her body as if it was an unending cycle; Valka had lost count on the amount of time that had passed since her water first broke.

An excited yelp suddenly rang into her ears. It took Valka a few moments to realise that the midwife was shouting.

"It's a boy! Congratulations, Valka!"

Darn, guess we're eating a month of mutton meat. Valka, though weak and exhausted, thought of her bet with Stoick as she reached out for her son.

Their son.

A cry reverberated throughout the room and interrupted her thoughts. It sounded so high-pitched, so painful. Valka reminded herself that this must be done to ensure her son could breathe, but hearing him cry in his first moments of life made her heart ache. When she finally got her son back, blood wiped clean, she gasped.

Unbelievable. Her fingers traced the tiny brown hair sprouted from her son's head. His eyes were surprisingly green. Internally remarking how they looked just like his father's, she smiled and cooed at her newborn child. It was only seconds, but she could already feel her love for him swelling from inside her chest. He looked so fragile, so small and thin, unlike all the other babies she had seen. Her eyebrows knitted together as she lamented on how he should not have inherited her own frailness, that he should have been strong instead, like his father.

Then she felt everything stop.

Her eyes rolled to the back of her head. She was being torn apart.

Someone snatched her son away – No! She thought, but she couldn't concentrate on speaking through the pain. She wanted to scream, to know what was happening at this very instant, to know what was going on!

"Valka!"

What now?!

"Another child is coming!"

What?

She pushed again, and though she thought she would be used to the pain of giving birth by now, she was not. In fact, it hurt even more, like someone had pressed red-hot iron into her. The cycle of agony began again, and if she was at least slightly more conscious, she would have realised that she had just broken her vehement decisions from moments ago on not having another child.

Breath in, breath out, push!

Breath in, breath out, push!

The midwife exclaimed in shock, but Valka swore she heard a tinge of terror within it. "What? What is it?" Valka breathed, short-tempered from the prolonged pain she had been through. The midwife handed the baby over to her, hardly speaking when informing Valka that the baby was a girl. Gaping at her daughter, Valka inhaled sharply. She was beautiful. Her eyes were adorned with an alluring shade of green, almost indistinguishable from her brother. Except -

"What... I don't understand." Valka traced over the skin of her daughter. Or rather, scales. Valka's hands noticeably shook while they hovered over the baby. As if the baby had noticed her mother's wavering, she reached up to hold her mother's hands with her own tiny little ones. The baby cooed and let out a comforting sound. The midwife stared at the scene dumbfoundedly, wondering if the baby was doing this consciously. Valka blinked at her daughter, and with a jolt of horror, she turned towards the midwife with widened eyes.

"My husband, he can't see this. Not now, not ever." Valka's hoarse voice quivered as she cradled her daughter closer to herself, scared that she would be snatched away and killed for her strangeness. She started praying to whoever she could think of at this moment that the midwife was not a dragon hater, and began to feel her heart drop when she realised that almost everyone in the village hated dragons. To her surprise, the midwife only sighed at Valka's alarmed posture, and turned away to search for something in the room.

"I'll help you." The midwife produced a dark cloth from a cabinet, taking the baby gently in her arms when Valka relaxed slightly, wrapping the baby around with the cloth to hide her face and body underneath. "I'll... announce that she was infected by a very contagious disease. Only you and I will be able to see her." The midwife eyed the worried mother for a moment, and sighed again, "I might have to keep her and see if those… scales… fall off."

"What if they don't?"

"Then we'll have to hide them until they're gone."

The young mother wept for her children's fate. One would have to conceal her identity, while one would be conceived as weak, both very unlike the Viking code.

~/~

"Hiccup." Stoick stroked his son's head fondly, "His name is Hiccup."

He was such a wee little thing, so small, so fragile. Stoick frowned deeply at his brother's jeers, and proceeded to coldly snap at his brother's boast about his unborn son and his insults about the newborn baby. Stoick hoped that by naming his son Hiccup, though it was an unofficial name for the smallest and the scrawniest, that it would help his son become stronger; According to Gobber, "it'll scare away the gnomes and trolls."

Stoick scoffed. As if he believed in such sayings.

But, better be safe than sorry. Stoick smiled down at his son again, momentarily looking up to his wife, and noted her concerned and distressed expression. He gently put his son on the crib, who finally started to stop wailing and yanking. "Val," He lightly shook his wife's shoulder, "What's wrong?"

He knew what was wrong, but he knew it would be better if she said something herself.

Her hand laid on her still swollen belly, "He's so… tiny, so frail. I'm scared…" She trailed off in the middle of her sentence with her head drooped down.

"No, Val." He firmly lifted his wife's head up, "He will be strong, just you see. He'll be a fighter, like you. I know that both of our children will grow up to be the strongest Viking we will ever see."

Valka sniffed, taking Stoick by surprise when she suddenly whispered, "Aleda."

Stoick blinked, "What?"

"Aleda." Valka's smiled, "I've been waiting to tell you. The Elder said it was a good name."

"Why a Spanish name?" Stoick was, to say the least, very confused. Why were they naming their daughter after some gold stealing people? [1]

"The Elder said it meant small and winged." She gazed at him with determination, "And I don't want her to be named something… Viking. I want her to be special, like Hiccup."

"Val… We can always–"

"Remember your promise? If the baby turns out to be a boy, you get to name it. But if it's a girl, I will name it. Now that we have one boy one girl, you named Hiccup, so I decide what to call our daughter." Her fierce glance had always… intimidated Stoick. Chief Stoick, who could take on a fire-spitting dragon with nothing but his fists, was intimidated, but at the same time, irresistibly enticed, by his wife.

"Alright. But can you at least tell me why?" He sighed, knowing he could not, and would not, argue with his wife.

"I want my daughter to be able to fly to freedom with her wings, to achieve happiness." Valka's thoughts had always been different than other Vikings. While other Vikings wanted their children to be strong to fend off the constant dragon raids, Valka only wished for her children to be happy and free. Of course, Stoick never really knew that Valka had meant her words literally, something that he would only learn about fifteen years later. And though his wife was admittedly strange according to Viking terms, he was proud to have such a woman in his life. She was always so optimistic, bringing him hope when he needed it.

"How is she?" He felt like he sunk to the bottom of the ocean when he heard the news about his daughter. Plagued by an infectious disease! It took hundreds of warnings from the midwife, who turned out to also be a healer, and about twenty men and his wife to hold him down from charging into the door right there and then. Valka was very worried about her daughter, not because she had a disease, which wasn't even true, but she feared of what others would say, how they would treat her, especially her husband, as they were all brought up thinking - knowing - that dragons were horrible creatures. It really did not help that her daughter looked like one.

The midwife helped her gather rumours and information about her daughter's appearance. And since they were only rumours, they had absolutely no idea whether the information was true or not. One said that they were the demon's children. Valka threw the book into the fire, much to the midwife's chagrin.

One said that they were descendants of dragons. Valka slammed that book on the floor and would have ripped the pages apart if not for the midwife's intervention.

The last rumour they came across was the well-known legend amongst Vikings: the Lycanwing. It is said that Vikings that survived the bite of a Lycanwing were doomed to a life as half-man half-dragon, transforming into a dragon at the height of every full moon. Valka disregarded this, clearly recalling that her baby daughter was not bitten by any dragon, especially not immediately after her birth. [2]

Weeks had passed since the naming ceremony, and she still had no results nor solutions to her daughter's condition. Hopeless, she turned to the midwife for help, who began to become her good friend, and the only person she trusted. "All we can do now is to hide her identity," The midwife said solemnly.

"What do you mean, hide her identity?" Valka had a bad idea about where this was going.

"There isn't another choice, Valka. Your child will have to wear a cloak, preferably with a mask, at all times."

Wearing a hooded cloak and masking oneself was considered cowardly, suggesting they were concealing something evil and horrible. At that moment, Valka knew her daughter would have an incredibly difficult life. [3]

~/~

"What?!" Stoick stood up abruptly upon his outburst, tipping the table over. The table, already the sturdiest and heaviest table they could find in the village, was no match against Stoick's strength, tumbled into the fire, again. Valka watched as the wooden table become engulfed in fire, not the least bit surprised.

"Really?" She shot a disapproving glance towards him, "That's the fourth table this month."

Stoick stared at the table, now fuel for their warming embers, and cleared his throat awkwardly. Valka was still looking at him with a seemingly nonchalant face. But he knew her too well. She was nervous. Out of habit, Stoick pondered about why she was harbouring such feelings, quickly concluding that it was due to his actions. He huffed and sat back down, "Sorry."

Valka, who was actually nervous because she was hiding their daughter's real condition from Stoick, was taken aback by his attitude. Sheepishly, she cleared her throat and replied, "It's alright."

A brief moment of silence proceeded. Valka directed her gaze away from her husband, afraid that he would see through her. Seeing that Valka did not want to speak first, Stoick broke the silence, "So, cloak?"

"Hooded cloak, to be exact."

"Why?"

"The disease," Valka began her rehearsed excuse. She was never good at lying, especially not in front of her husband, so she had rehearsed what to say multiple times in her mind, "It... scarred her." Valka took a glimpse at Stoick, who seemed to be waiting for her to finish. Her eyes darted away from him again, and continued, "The midwife, Gothi, said that it's really bad, and it's best for her to wear something to cover it."

"It's just a scar! Everyone here more or less has one."

"It's not just a scar. Didn't you listen to what I said? It's really bad."

"Doesn't mean she has to wear a hooded cloak over it!" He took a deep breath as frustration began to build up, "If you're worried about other people's reactions, I'll make sure no one speaks ill of it."

"You can't stop what other people will think of her." She could already imagine the villages', even Stoick's reaction to her daughter. No doubt they will have her killed.

"And you think letting her wear a cloak will be any better?" Stoick's voice involuntarily rose.

"Yes."

"A cloak, Valka! Do you know what that means?"

"I know very well what that means." Valka retorted, "We have no other choice. You haven't seen how bad it is -"

"If you let me see my own daughter then perhaps I would!" At the thought of having never seen his daughter, Stoick's tone took on a riled tone. At recognising his resentment towards her, Valka felt a pang of guilt ran through her heart.

She whispered, voice quivering, "You don't understand."

"No, I don't." Stoick snapped, "I don't understand why you won't let me see our own daughter. Is it because you think I'll treat her any less because of a disease?"

"That's not what I meant!" Valka stood up, fists clenched by her side.

Stoick's voice lowered to a growl, "Then why?"

Valka stayed silent. She couldn't possibly tell him that their daughter had scales of a dragon, creatures that they had been killing and killed by for centuries. But seeing him hunched over the chair, sounding so evidently hurt and betrayed, tore at her heartstrings. Instinctively, she stepped towards her husband, hands raised to embrace him, before abruptly realising that she could not compromise her daughter's life for this. Letting her hands fall down beside her, she closed her eyes. "Because I insist, Stoick."

For such a cold atmosphere, the room was contrastingly warm. The sound of fire cracking continued to fill the air, making the silence somewhat more bearable to Valka. She was unsure what was going through Stoick's mind at this exact moment, as he was facing their newly laid out wooden floor. Perhaps it was better this way, she thought, so that he could not see her eyes threatening to pool up in tears.

Without any warning, Stoick laughed, almost sneering. Valka shifted uncomfortably. She had expected him to shout back at her, to stand up and tower over her, or even break a few furniture. "You're just unwell. We'll talk about this another day."

"What?" Valka started, "I'm being serious."

"Serious about ruining our daughter's life? Or me being untrustworthy enough that I shouldn't even be allowed to see my own daughter?"

Valka felt frustration bubbling up within her when she realised he didn't believe her. "I told you that that's not what I meant."

"Then can you stop being so immature?"

"Immat-" Valka balked incredulously, "You think I'm making these decisions on a whim? Do you think of me as a child, Stoick?"

"You're placing our child's life on something as trivial as a scar. How is that not immature?"

"I just said that it's not as simple as you think!" She exclaimed in exasperation, "You're always like this, never listening to what I have to say!"

"Because you're always being so unreasonable!" Stoick barked, letting his temper run, "You always want things to go your way, never stopping to think how it affects other people!"

"As if you do! Who's the one that brute forces through everything instead of using your brain?"

"Are you calling me stupid?"

"You called me childish first."

"And are you not?"

"You're impossible." Valka turned and stormed up the stairs, shoving past Stoick in the process. Stoick scowled and mumbled something about how stubborn his wife was, and picked up a rod to poke at the embers angrily. Though both angry and irked at each other, it did not take long for both to realise that they were both just being stubborn and immature. They sighed, one lied on the bed and one sat by the fire, and decided to talk about it another day.

If only they knew that there wasn't another day.

~/~

Another dragon raid.

He should have known. They just had to attack in the middle of the devastating winter when food was already at an all-time low. In a second, he was already out of the door with his battle-axe, protecting his village and people. He prayed to whoever he could think of that Valka would stay safe in the house with Hiccup. Recalling his argument with his wife, he sighed heavily, reminding himself to talk to her after the raid. At the thought of his wife, he tried to find a balance between sparing the dragons as Valka often told him to, and fighting the dragons so they would not take too much of what remained of the village's supplies.

When he saw a Monstrous Nightmare fly away into the night and heard an exasperated grunt from another Viking, mumbling something about his wife, he knew that his wife didn't stay at home, away from all the danger. Again.

A sudden realisation hit him – if his wife wasn't at home, then Hiccup was alone.

In the middle of a dragon raid.

He abruptly turned directions, avoiding a dragon that tried to snap at him, paying no mind to what type it was. The only thing on his mind right now was that his son was in danger, and he had to get to his house, now.

He was met with a huge hole on the roof of his house, as well as a baby's cries. Hiccup. He hurriedly jumped in through the hole, finding an enormous dragon he had never seen before facing Valka. It stood extremely close to her. Acting out of instinct, he threw his axe towards it, hoping his wife was not hurt. "Valka, run!" He ran to dodge the fire that he knew would come, ending up right outside the ring of fire that trapped his son and his wife.

No! His eyes widened with fear. "Hold on!" He knew what to do. He had to. He rolled over the fire to retrieve Hiccup from his cradle and held his axe to attack the dragon–

"No! Stoick!" The distinct shout of his wife led him looking up into the sky. In horror, he found Valka in the grasp of the dragon.

No no no no no no! "Valka!" He cried, desperately wishing his shouts would cause the beast to release her. No! I can't lose you!

"Stoick!" Her voice, he could hear and feel, filled with regret, helplessness, mournful… And yet he could only stand there and watch his wife disappear into the sky.

"Valka." Hiccup wailed in his arms, as if he knew what had happened. Stoick could not believe that his wife was carried away by dragons. He could not even stop the dragon, or to protect his wife. He could only watch helplessly as his wife was snatched away, never to come back again. Part of him hoped it was just a dream. But the heat of the fire around him was too hot, too real for this to be a dream.

"No…" He didn't even have the chance to apologise, to hug her one last time, to caress her cheeks with the back of his hand. Their last memory together was an argument - a petty, foolish argument - between them.

"I'll carry out your wish, Valka." The chief finally allowed himself to let out tears that had not been spilled for decades. Before he turned away from that wretched sky that made him felt so useless, his eyes turned steel as his hand on his axe grew tighter to the point where he would later wonder how his axe didn't break under his grip, and thought of only one thing.

You will pay for this, dragons.

Author's Notes

[1] This is actually historically and geographically inaccurate in the sense that Stoick, a Viking, should not have known anything about the Spanish empire and the gold conquistadors, simply because the Spanish empire began 500 years after the end of the Viking age. If anything, the Vikings were the ones who raided Spain (or what was Spain in those days). The Dragons series (especially RTTE) however, did have multiple accounts of Tuffnut speaking in Spanish and French, so I decided to include this anyways.

[2] The Lycanwing is a mythical dragon species that was mentioned in Dragons: Race to the Edge. The quote in this story's summary is precisely taken from Gobber's speech on the legend of Lycanwings.

[3] Again, probably historically and culturally inaccurate. Hooded cloaks and masks were most likely not considered cowardly in Viking culture, but then again, the series had a lot of inconsistencies with Viking culture. Aleda's personality is largely based upon this assumption, so I have chosen to continue with cultural disparities for plot purposes.

So, I know it's been a while, like, maybe, eight years... I've left this project on hold for a very long time, mainly because I'm a terrible procrastinator... I do remember the overall structure I planned out many years ago, but there were so many plot holes and just so much bad writing in general that I had to scrap everything I previously did (except this chapter and parts of the next chapter). This chapter and the beginning of the next chapter is therefore the only remnants of what I wrote eight years ago, and the closest to what my previous writing style was.

I have also decided to actually flesh out the plot before restarting this project, and since I only do this in my free time, this will be updated extremely sporadically, so I have no guarantees on whether I will ever finish this. Progress on this (both writing and planning) will be posted on my profile. I'm treating this more as a personal project, but feel free to read, review, and give constructive feedback. I may not be able to reply to everything, but I will make sure to read every single one of them.

The main changes in this chapter are the dialogue between Stoick and Valka. The original dialogue, in my eyes now, seemed extremely immature and out of character for a couple that has been married for many years. The last part of the chapter is also cut because it no longer fits the plot of this story.