AN: Hordes of people are updating old fanfics thanks to this quarantine situation because suddenly everyone is bored with a TON of free time, and then there's me, who's struggling so much with online-based learning that I have even less free time than I did before being confined to my house. This chapter has been written for months. I've just been so swamped with school, I forgot I was going to post it. I changed a few of the previous chapters to line up with where I want this story to go. Nothing major...the plot is still the same, just a few details had to be tweaked.

Going forward, there will be a lot of references to Race to the Edge, and some references to Riders and Defenders of Berk. To fully understand what's happening, I highly recommend you watch the shows, or at least read about what happens so you have some context.

"MOM!"

Hiccup kept his voice low to avoid waking anyone else up, so to ensure he could wake up his mother, he grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Mom, wake up, wake up, oh my god, wake up, I found something!"

Valka groaned quietly, swatting Hiccup's hands away from her with a tired scowl. Slowly, she sat up, blinking a few times before looking at her son. "What?"

"I don't know."

Valka moved to lay back down, but Hiccup grabbed her shoulder again to stop her. "Mom, I don't know because I haven't touched it yet. I came back here to get you and some equipment to document the find." He was panting heavily, lungs burning from his hurried pace in the frigid air to get back to camp and get his mother. He was trembling, too, but that wasn't from the run. It was from excitement.

Valka noticed Hiccup's trembling and frowned, putting her hands on his and pulling them away from her, just holding them. She looked up at her son's face, taking in his expression, before speaking. "This can't wait until morning? When we have a team awake and ready to go with us?"

"No." Hiccup's tone was firm. "No, no we can't let them know, not yet. I need to see it for myself before we put it out there. We have to examine it first! Mom, Mom, I found a book. There's a book tucked into a crevice on the north side of the island!"

"Wh-what were you doing alone wandering around like that? You could have been hurt!" Instinctively, she started looking him up and down for injuries, squinting in the darkness of her tent. She pushed Hiccup back a little, trying to see better with the sliver of sunlight shining into her tent when her gaze fixed on the right side of Hiccup's chin. It was scraped, and there was a little bit of dried blood caked over the injury. "You were hurt. You're bleeding!"

"I am?" Hiccup reached up to where he'd hit his chin on the rocks, wincing at the twinge of pain. When he pulled his hand back, there were a few dried blood flakes on his fingertips. "Oh, oh that... I'm okay, I just lost my footing and fell. I-it's nothing, I'm fine. That's how I found the book! Mom, please, we have to go out there. Right now, please..." He was already pulling away from her, kneeling by her stash of supplies and unzipping her camera bag.

She sighed and shuffled out of her sleeping bag. She knew Hiccup - she knew he would try to document it on his own if she didn't get up and go with him right now. Waking her up was a courtesy. Hiccup III's journals were her son's greatest obsession, and while she knew he wouldn't go as far as to steal it, he was an intern, and she needed to be there, guide him through the procedures, make sure nothing was damaged, authenticate the find. He couldn't do this kind of thing at - she looked at her watch - 3:30 am, not by himself, but he was boar-headed and stubborn, and sometimes she just had to give.

He was, without a doubt, her son. That was certain.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming. You're lucky the sun's out right now, young man," she scolded, but only half-heartedly.

After all was said and done, Hiccup sat in his tent, the book they had recovered from the mountainside on a small table in front of him, along with a camera and his laptop. He had a blank document open, ready to start transcribing the old Norse journal into Norweigan and, much more difficult, English. But despite his excitement, he found himself too nervous to open it. It looked just like the one that had been passed down to him - the same age, the same materials, the same method of binding. The longer he stared at the closed book, the more he was convinced it was his ancestor's.

But why was it here, on a battlefield? For everything they'd learned here, they still didn't know what really went down. It was mere speculation.

He pulled out his phone.

They were too far away from civilization to get any kind of cell phone signal, but he wasn't looking to contact anyone right now. He opened up his photo album and selected the screenshot of Jack's last email to him.

"Hiccup,

I'm so proud of you. I can't even put into words how much. How does it feel to be out there? Have you found anything new since the last time we talked? Were you allowed to take pictures of the skeleton? Tell me everything.

Emma misses you. She won't admit it, but I can tell. She mentions you at least twice a day, and I don't even think she realizes she's doing it. It's pretty impressive. I think she likes you better than she likes me. When you get back, make sure to give her a big hug. She'll hate it. It'll be great.

I know you're looking for something. Not in a general 'oh, we're on a dig, we're looking for anything we can find' kind of sense. I know you're looking for something in particular. I hope you find it. And when you do, I hope it's everything you want it to be.

I can hardly wait until you come back. I wanna hold you in my arms again. Until then, I guess emails are good enough.

Come back to me safe.

-Jack"

Smiling to himself, he tucked his phone back into his pocket and gently touched the cover of the book. If he was right, it likely hadn't been touched by human hands for 800 years. That meant the parchment would be brittle and dry, and Hiccup was absolutely terrified that it might crumble under his touch. He would have to do this as delicately as possible... Carefully, slowly, testing the waters, he turned up the front cover, and his lips parted in surprise. There was a piece of paper folded up, tucked right there, between the cover and the first page.

"To Stoick the Vast, beloved father, legendary chieftain of Berk."

With bated breath and cautious movements, he unfolded the loose paper to read its contents.

"This journal marks our last days at Dragon's Edge. After the battle for the King of Dragons was won, we packed up and headed home to Berk. My father, Stoick the Vast, survived injuries that, to any other man, would be life-threatening, proving yet again he was destined to be among the greats.

Two years later, he died here in battle, protecting me from Toothless' plasma blast. He was right all along about Drago - there are some people in this world that can't be talked down. Sometimes I wonder, if I had listened to him, could I have freed Toothless from the Bewilderbeast's control sooner? Could that have saved my father's life? I know these questions amount to nothing. I can't change the past. I just can't help but question my choices that day. We all feel his loss, and poor Toothless suffers the most with his guilt. It's all I can do to reassure him every night that it wasn't his fault. I know it wasn't his fault.

I know one other thing for certain - Stoick died a proud man. He died a dedicated father. He died a warrior's death, and that is only fitting of a man so great.

It is also fitting that I leave this journal, this journal telling how he lived, how he survived, here, as a gift for him. My father's funeral was rushed in the aftermath of battle. None of us were certain we'd be able to return to honor him properly, so we did what we could in the moment to give him a funeral he deserved. He was burned with nothing of his but the clothes on his back. I must give him something, so I give him this.

I love you, and I miss you, Dad.

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III"

Hiccup had to put the dedication down on the table again, in fear that he would crumple it. His hands were shaking. All of him was shaking. In just one letter, half of his family's bedtime stories passed down through generations were ripped apart and given new context. Toothless, the Night Fury, was the one to kill Stoick the Vast? Under the control of a Bewilderbeast... The giant wounds on the dragon remains made much more sense, now. Drago Bludvist must have had a Bewilderbeast of his own, fighting Valka's during the battle. Judging by the letter, he assumed Drago's had won.

He had to remind himself that that was speculation, not fact, and the archaeologists had a lot more evidence to find before they could come to that kind of conclusion.

He snapped a picture with his mother's camera of the letter, and then pulled his phone back out, to take another picture, just for good measure. A new thirst for understanding fueling him, he carefully set the letter aside and focused his attention now on translating the journal.

"Most of what I've written since we settled Dragon's Edge was burned when I destroyed my hut during the raid."

Fuck. FUCK. Hiccup felt a rock settle into his gut thanks to the first sentence in the journal. The date in the journal was roughly three years after the last entry in the journal the Haddocks owned. Three years... Possibly three years' worth of history just...gone? Hiccup almost wanted to cry, but he didn't. He took a deep breath and forced himself to stop. It was only three years... Maybe Hiccup III rewrote some of what was lost. He wouldn't know until he kept reading.

Okay. Okay.

"We were attacked by a group of riders on Singetails, and we just don't know enough about those dragons to have defended ourselves effectively. We had to retreat, and The Defenders of the Wing graciously took us in, offering to let us stay as long as we need to. After the ordeal we've had, we definitely need to recover, and I need to regain my friends' trust. Astrid and I left the others alone to go on what now seems like a useless errand, which weakened the Edge's defenses. We almost lost Fishlegs in the chaos. Everyone was already angry with me and Astrid for getting so caught up in our relationship, and now they've found out I've been building another Dragon Eye and keeping it secret. It was why I destroyed my hut - I couldn't let the dragon hunters get their hands on it. Thankfully, Fishlegs had gone back for the plans and the parts before I did, so it wasn't a total loss, but this means I destroyed my house for nothing.

Something else is bothering me. The man who led the Singetail riders is the same man who tried to buy Toothless at the Dragon Hunter's Auction...the bounty hunter who tried to turn me in to Viggo. Clearly he's not just a bounty hunter. I don't know what he wants with the Edge. I don't know what he has to do with any of this, but I need to find out.

Right now, we're all exhausted. I know the gang is disheartened, but I don't know what to do about the Edge. They're looking to me for answers, but I don't have them. How am I supposed to be their leader when I'm just as confused as they are? I just have to hope something comes to me after some sleep."

It was a short entry, depressed and resigned, but it was a clusterfuck. Hiccup had so many questions...

With a heavy sigh, Hiccup shook his head and gently put the book aside, pulling his laptop over to start translating.

Hopefully his ancestor would fill in some of the blanks.

AN: The first journal Hiccup III wrote, the one Hiccup IV has that was passed down through his family, runs from the first movie to Season 1 Episode 15 of Riders of Berk. The journal he found on Valka's mountain runs from Race to the Edge Season 5 Episode 7 to the series finale, Season 6 Episode 13.