The next morning, the sun shone on the sparkling snow. Children threw snowballs at one another and Espen greeted his mother with one of his own. The queen met his nervous gaze with an ornery smile and threw one back. Smiling, Espen plopped down next to her. "Do you think they'll still be fixing up the tree?" he asked, gesturing for his sister to join them once he saw her. The two sat by their mother. "I think that they will be." Mala stated. 'Perhaps you two could get to know Zephyr and Nuffink today also." The children's faces dropped. "But they don't seem fun at all." Espen complained. Keira nodded, "We'd rather be there with you two and the others. At least they all have done something cool." Dagur came around the corner and sucked his teeth. "They're probably fine. Just a bit more like their father. Hiccup wasn't the most outgoing kid either. You just have to get them out of their shells. You'll probably get along." he told. "It took you and Hiccup a while to become friends, though." Keira mentioned. Dagur tapped his chin, "True." "And same for mom." Espen added. Heather came by the front of the hut, followed by Throk. "Good morning." they greeted. The greeting was returned. "Same goes for Auntie and Uncle Throk too." Espen said. The Berserker and Defender stared blankly at the two. "What did we just walk into?" Heather asked. Mala sighed, "Our family not being the best with quick befriendings, it seems." Heather started to defend herself and stopped with a laugh. "Guess you two will have to change that."
The vikings finally left the hut and met back up with the Berkians at the Great Hall. This time, they noticed two more vikings present. One was a man with a blue tattoo on his chin and the second was a tall woman with greying hair. Hiccup went over to greet the visitors, smiling. "There's someone I want you all to meet." Leading them back to the woman, he began again. "This is Valka, my mother." The Berserker siblings' jaws dropped as Hiccup started introducing them. They barely heard him over all their thoughts on how Valka came back into the picture. Heather was snapped back into the matter at hand once her name was called. "This is Heather." Hiccup told his mom. "It's so great to meet you!" Heather exclaimed, still reeling from her astonishment. Valka smiled, "Likewise. I've heard you are quite the determined viking." "And this," Hiccup concluded, "is Dagur." Valka stopped for a moment. "This is Dagur the Deranged?" she inquired. The Berserker smirked, playfully. "It's been a while since I've heard that full moniker. Hope I won't disappoint you, Ma'am." The Berkian gave a small smile, but it did not exactly reach her eyes.
"Well, don't leave us hanging, H." Dagur said, poking Hiccup. He gestured to Valka. "How'd you two find each other again?" Hiccup looked at his mother with a warm expression and then back at his friends. "Honestly, it was by complete accident. I was flying on Toothless to blow off some steam since everything with Drago was-" "Drago?" Heather interjected. Hiccup face palmed. "Right. Forgot. Turns out he was the leader of the dragon flyers and this whole other group of hunters who weren't loyal to the Grimborns." He gestured behind him, "Eret here used to be one of them, but changed sides when it mattered." Satisfied for the time being, Heather nodded and let the viking continue. "So we were flying, then my mom and Cloudjumper, her dragon at the time, popped up." He started to chuckle. "The way they went through the clouds was almost like they were ghosts or something. All of a sudden, Cloudjumper grabbed me and just began flying off. Nearly gave me a heart attack because the last thing I saw of Toothless was him falling into the icy water. Luckily, some of the dragons brought him to where I was headed and we wound up in this land of more dragons than I'd ever imagined existed. That's when we started talking and I found out she was my mom."
Valka smiled at her son. "It was a miracle that we were reunited. Cloudjumper was the same dragon who had caused us to be separated, but it was only because he believed I was in danger. After I was gone, I realized how different dragons really were from how we had thought them to be. I just couldn't return to Berk-to all the killing. It seemed like my people would never be ready to hear what I knew, so I didn't want to confuse the mind of my son. He had to grow into the chief Berk needed and I thought that meant he couldn't go against traditions that timeless. I'm more than glad to have been proven wrong." Mala, though happy for her friend, could not help the judgmental feeling she had developing towards Valka. As a mother herself, only death or the certainty of Keira's and Espen's safety would keep her away. "Was Drago a lot worse than the Grimborns?" Heather inquired. Hiccup gave a solemn nod. "I'll at least give them that they always had some form of ethics. There's no hope that Drago will ever be willing to change like Viggo did. He had a Bewilderbeast himself and used it to control the dragons." he hesitated, "Not even Toothless was immune. Drago forced him to.." The man stopped and closed his eyes for a moment. He often was shocked at how the passed years did not ease his pain. "Toothless was forced to try to kill me and my dad sacrificed himself to save my life." he completed.
Dagur wanted to embrace his friend, but doubted that it would not have only caused Hiccup more pain, so he opted instead for words. "Brother, I am so sorry." Heather nodded in agreement, "Stoick was a great man." Mala looked at the Berkian chief sadly. "Was Drago the reason that you relocated?" Hiccup shook his head. "No, that's actually another person entirely. We defeated Drago after snapping Toothless out of his Bewilderbeast's trance. Toothless ended up taking down the Bewilderbeast and became the new king of dragons. We left Berk a year later when a new villain-Grimmel-came." The visitors could sense a fury coming over Hiccup as he continued. "Grimmel was the reason that Toothless is the only Night Fury left. He hunted them to near extinction and was determined to finish the job when he saw Toothless." Gobber came over to the group. "He was relentless. Tried to burn Berk to the ground just to get to Toothless." Tuffnut shoved his sister. "And someone led him here after being released." Ruff sheepishly grinned. "Hey, I was busy thinking about getting back to you guys." she said, her gaze falling on Fishlegs. Throk frowned. "I wish you had informed us of this. You never would have spent a moment in a cell had I known you had been captured."
Heather nodded. "Yeah, why didn't you all keep in contact? We didn't know you were in danger. There's no way we would have just sat by and done nothing." The Berkians went silent. "There just was a lot going on, I guess." Hiccup said, quietly. Noticing the change in the room's social climate, Keira and Espen went over to the Berkian kids. "Want to go hang out somewhere else while they talk?" Espen asked quietly. Nuffink looked at his sister and Zephyr glanced between the young visitors and her father's troubled expression. "Okay." she hesitantly agreed. Perking up, Keira grabbed her hand and the four headed out of the hall. "Where to, Zephyr?" Keira asked, excitedly. The other girl looked around, we could go by the statue. It's normally pretty quiet over there and if it isn't, we can make sure no one's throwing snowballs at him." The quartet went to the statue and looked up at it. On their first walk through New Berk, Espen and Keira had not realized how large the statue really was. "Was he this big in real life?" Espen asked. Zephyr shrugged, "I guess. We never got to meet him." Espen bit his lip, "Sorry. I thought you might have been al...we don't have any grandfathers around either." "Grandmothers either for that matter." Keira added, "Yours seems cool. Nothing like a cool dragon-riding grandma."
Zephyr scoffed. "That's the only bad thing about her. Her and everyone else here." The Berserker-Defender kids looked at her, shocked. "What?" they asked in unison. "Everyone here loves dragons. I just don't get it. What about a scaly, giant, fire-breathing monster seems so lovable?" Zephyr crossed her arms. "I mean, they are pretty great, Z." Keira defended. The Berkian grumbled, "I'm not Z." "You just haven't seen any. That's the problem." Espen told, "They have a lot of different kinds and apparently there are more than our parents even know about!" Zephyr poked at a knife. "It's probably a good thing your parents didn't know about them then." she said, under her breath. Keira heard her and frowned. "What do you mean by that?" Zephyr kept her eyes on the blade, responding. "I mean that I guess your mother amd aunt would have been fine, but Berserkers-your dad-used to force dragons to fight. Even though I don't like them, I don't think they deserved to be forced into battles." Feeling a pit of annoyance in her stomach, Keira took a deep breath. "Zephyr," she calmly began, channeling her mother's poise, "I understand that you have learned about the history of dragons and my father's people, but I feel as though you need to consider the present as well. Dragons stopped being a threat to vikings a long time ago and our father has more than corrected past faults."
"I think you're just ignoring the past. Both dragons and Dagur are issues." Zephyr pushed. Keira and Espen stared at her. Nuffink only listened uncomfortably. "There's not enough good in the world that can make up for dead vikings...and that goes for both problems." the Berkian girl stated. Keira lunged at her, her brother still too angry, himself, to have properly stopped her. In an instant, Zephyr's knife was several feet away from her and in the snow. Keira pinned the viking to the ground, Berserker blood boiling, and yet, in the coldest voice, she spoke. "You and are the rest of your Berkians are not in the position to talk about not risking people's lives. If you want to start talking parents, I could go on about how our father had to find all the Berkian gold that your father lost or all the other times dad saved the lives of your parents and friends." She rose up off of the viking and went over to her brother. "Our dad's not perfect and he definitely made some serious mistakes that he can't make up for, but that doesn't mean he's not trying. I think saving innocent lives is a fine change from taking them." She glared at the other girl. "If you have a point that's not an insult, bring it up and we'll have a conversation. Otherwise, don't ever talk about our family again."