Author's note - Elegy was originally one chapter, but I needed to go back and split an early chapter in volume I into two chapters.

"Memento mori." – Remember death.

Elegy - II

Never in all her life had Astrid thought that she would be worried to arrive back to Berk. Or that she would do so from the sky while soaking wet and shivering.

The storm had not started out particularly violently, but it had rained very hard and there had been several terrifying moments when a rogue gust almost tipped her off-balance. Her dragon though seemed to know exactly how to navigate such weather and instinctively reacted to each gust. Thankfully, the lightning storm stayed far above the three dragons as they passed through the rest of the storm. Between the multi-pronged forks and the constant rumbling in the background, it made for a very impressive display.

Perhaps Thor is angry.

The thought of Thor brought back something else to her mind. There had also been that one strange, purple lightning bolt that she had seen through the inferno. It only now struck her that the lightning bolt had been completely out of place. She had been too afraid and awe-struck to reflect on it at the time.

Her Nadder began to shiver, and its wings trembled as they pumped through the howling wind.

"It's ok girl, you can do it! Almost there!"

She could already make out the coastline of Berk through the thinning sheets of rain.

"I can see it!" she heard Fishlegs's distant shout.

They finally broke through the last of the sheets of rain and emerged into a glorious evening sunset on the western horizon. The signal-fires were clearly visible on the outer sea-stacks. Astrid looked back at the storm which they had just passed through and had one more reason to be relieved that she was not still back on that island.

The village itself looked mostly deserted because it was. Only the Elder Gothi, her attendant, the children, a couple women chosen to watch over the children, and a few farmers and fishermen were left behind. Everyone else had sailed with the fleet.

Where should we land? We don't want to scare them but we need to let them know that dragons are not a threat.

She finally decided that they could risk landing in town next to the Great Hall. Almost everyone would be gathered inside the Hall, so they could safely land outside and then, hopefully, explain what had happened.

The three dragons glided over the village, and Astrid guided them to land near the Hall. They seemed a bit nervous about being in the village again. The Zippleback and Nadder backwinged gracefully as they touched down, and the Gronkle buzzed in to land in its own way. The dragons then shifted on their feet while looking around the village.

The four youths, completely soaked to the bone and slightly shivering, looked at each other in the evening daylight.

"That was scary," Fishlegs mumbled.

"Yeah, we almost died," Ruffnut agreed with a breathy emphasis on the 'died'.

"I know, it was awesome!" Tuffnut answered.

Astrid just rolled her eyes in amusement.

Some things never change.

"You all stay here to keep them company. I'll be right back."

She turned to the twins and held up a fist.

"And you two had better not do anything stupid! Or else!"

"Or else what?" Tuffnut shouted.

Astrid turned away, walked over to the Hall's entrance, and put her hand on the door. Then she took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

The sounds of revelry and the smells of mutton and ale immediately greeted her. Of course, the Hall was mostly empty, but there were still enough people in the village to make for a merry gathering. She looked around and located the person she needed. Elder Gothi was slowly sipping her soup while sitting alone at her customary position at the table nearest the door.

"Elder, I am sorry to disturb you, but I have something I need to show you."

Gothi turned her piercing blue eyes on her, and Astrid felt like the Elder's gaze stared through her very soul. This was the first time she had ever spoken with the Elder, and she felt ashamed, as if merely speaking to her was somehow irreverent, but she did not look away. Gothi eventually relaxed and turned to look at the door. She cocked her head to the side and looked back at Astrid as if to say, "At this hour?"

"Yes, I know it is odd, but I need to show you now. And only you."

Once again, Gothi looked suspicious, but she slowly rose to her feet while leaning heavily on her cane. She needed a bit of help pushing the door open, and Astrid gladly obliged to help in this regard. They walked outdoors together.

What would Gothi say? Or more precisely, what would she think? The entire plan depended on Gothi's opinion of the dragons and her willingness to speak up in their defense to the rest of the tribe. And yet, she had spent years seeing the results of the raids. The Elder was supposedly the wisest among the tribe, but had she lost someone dear for whom she harbored a need for revenge?

Astrid paused just before they turned the corner and she took a deep breath.

"Elder, before I show you I need to tell you not to worry. They will not hurt you."

Gothi's questioning expression spoke for itself.

"Well, you know how the Chief left for Dragon Island?"

A strangely sad, disappointed, and curt nod was her response.

"I and the other teens went too, and we just got back. We… we did not use boats."

There. She had said it. Only a complete idiot would fail to make the connection and, of all Berk's inhabitants, the Elder was certainly not an idiot.

Gothi stood stock-still with a far-away look in her eyes. Slowly, she turned to look at Astrid with a strange expression which she could not place. Was it indignation? Amazement? The two sets of eyes, one youthful and energetic and the other ancient and tired, stared at each other for several moments. Without any warning, Gothi walked forward with as much purpose as someone her age could muster. She turned the corner and froze in place. When Astrid joined her, she saw that the three dragons were calmly resting with their respective humans, Astrid excepted, reclining at their sides. No disaster had befallen the group in the couple of minutes she had been gone.

The impromptu saddles that had been constructed the day before were clearly visible on the dragons' backs. After a couple moments, Gothi began slowly walking toward the nearest dragon, her Nadder. It began to stir at her approach and raised its head to look at her.

Ok girl, please be very, very good...

She made sure that her dragon could see her right next to the new person so that it would not be afraid. There were maybe ten feet between it and the Elder. Gothi then stood as tall as she could, not that it meant much considering her age, and let go of her staff, which fell to the ground with a clang. She hobbled very slowly with a heavy limp toward the dragon and held out a tiny, shaking hand toward the Nadder's head.

Astrid was very proud of her dragon. Even flying through that storm paled in comparison to what she had just done. Not only had she not seemed afraid of the Elder, but she had been very gentle with the old woman and had let the strange human rest a hand on her nose, on her blind spot. She could not see the expression on Gothi's face, but she knew from how the Elder was gently stroking the dragon's head that she had been completely won over.

I really need to give you a name. Something simple but not dumb. Hmm, Azure… Stormflier… Stormfly... Stormfly. Yes, that sounds good. I wonder what the twins will come up with. Probably something disgusting.

Slowly, as if to avoid startling the dragon, Gothi turned around and walked back toward Astrid. She stopped at the cane on the ground. Without being asked, Astrid bent down, picked it up, and handed it to Gothi who smiled kindly in return and used it to write a single word in the dirt.

Talk.

"So after everyone else left, Hiccup… showed us how to get the dragons' trust, and we flew to Dragon Island. There was a monster dragon on the island. It was bigger than the Great Hall. It was making the others gather food for it or else they would be eaten. That is why the raids happened all these years. Most of the boats had been smashed and everyone was running around in chaos when we got to the island. Hiccup found his Night Fury, freed him, and they went to fight against the monster."

Astrid paused as those final moments replayed themselves in her memory. Gothi gently laid a wrinkled hand on her arm and silently told her to continue.

"They… they tricked the monster and made it crash but… they are… gone," she barely whispered the last part as if not saying it out loud would make it hurt less or be less immediately felt.

"We… we came back here to have all the fishing boats be sent to pick up those stranded on the island. Two boats from the fleet were still floating and are bringing the wounded back right now. And I brought you out here to show you that the dragons are not our enemies now. You know how stubborn the rest of the tribe will be. They would never listen to just me."

Gothi solemnly nodded once and looked off into the distance in obvious thought. Then the corners of her mouth lifted in a smirk. She used her cane to write in the dirt again.

Wait here.

The Elder turned and hobbled back inside the Hall while Astrid went to give attention to the newly-named Stormfly.

She had been hard at thought ever since Hiccup's performance in the Ring. When one reaches her age, there is little more to do with the time than think. She was very frustrated with Stoick's pride. He led the entire tribe off essentially to war without even consulting the Elder or getting her blessing. There was also no mistaking what she had just seen and experienced. And that meant that everything else that Astrid Hofferdottir had said was likely accurate as well. It was truly a shame. Hiccup had always been different and had been able to learn something about dragons before any of them. She paused a moment as she remembered something else.

Hiccup's mother, Valka, had once said very similar things. Was it possible that she had learned whatever Hiccup had also realized? She had always been a little bit different as well.

Astrid was certainly right that only the Elder could possibly convince those of the tribe still on Berk about what she was claiming. But how to go about this? They were a very simple, superstitious lot who trusted in tradition unquestioningly. The tradition is that Nords kill dragons. But there is another tradition even older than the war against dragons. The tribe listens to the Elder when he or she makes a pronouncement. Especially when there are special circumstances surrounding the message. She smiled again to herself as she put together her plan to get her point across.

After hobbling inside the Hall, and making a noisy display of doing so, she walked directly up to the bonfire at the center of the Hall. She held her cane in both hands and raised her shaking arms above her head. The chatter in the Hall quickly quieted as they realized that something profound was happening.

Astrid paced back and forth as she waited for Gothi to reappear. Stormfly had long since grown bored of walking in circles and lay back down to rest. What was the Elder doing by the way? How could Gothi possibly convince them? She waited with baited breath.

After a few minutes, a small crowd of fishermen, women, and children began to trickle forth from the Hall. They turned the corner and froze when they saw the motley gathering. Astrid fully expected screaming, panic, and weapons to be drawn and had already moved to stand next to Stormfly to give her reassurance if the need should arise. The crowd, still being led by Gothi, slowly made its way closer to the dragons until Gothi held up a hand and pointed. If Astrid had not known that Gothi was already on their side, she would have thought that the Elder could have been commanding an attack.

Gothi then walked forward alone and repeated her earlier performance with Stormfly. The moment her hand touched the dragon's nose, Astrid heard a collective gasp from the bystanders and a great deal of muttering.

'Impossible...' 'I don' believe it.' 'Wow.' 'Don't say that!' 'I…knew…I…one…too…many.' 'Wish I had my axe.' 'Is she mad?' 'You saw it, the vision was true.' 'Our Elder is a Seer!' 'Praise the gods!' 'And the kids really rode them?'

The fact that almost none of them were genuinely contemplating threatening the dragons was good enough for Astrid, although she was rather curious what happened in the Hall. She spied young Gustav staring at Stormfly in what looked like awe. Most of the parents were holding onto their children very tightly, but Gustav was a very slippery and curious child. Perhaps he could tell her what happened.

"Gustav, what happened in there?"

He barely managed to tear his wide eyes away from Stormfly. He lowered his voice in a conspiratorial whisper.

"Oh, Astrid, it was so cool! The Elder had a vision, and she wrote everything down. She saw a great battle on Dragon Island and she saw that dragons were helping us and she saw dragons carry some of us back to Berk and everyone thought it was crazy and she said that we should come out here and see the gift of the gods and here you are and they are all friendly and they look so amazing!"

I wonder if he is excited at all?

The next few minutes passed in a blur as she was asked all manner of questions about the outcome of the battle and how she had tamed her dragon. She was spared the continued difficulty of explaining the situation when Gothi began writing instructions and ordering the fishermen to make ready their ships. The healers were told to assemble their medicines and prepare for the arrival of the wounded. The crowd gradually dispersed until only Snotlout's little brother Gustav was left, still wide-eyed.

It was done. The ships were being readied, and Berk was ready for the arrival of its wounded. She had also made the first step toward peacefully introducing the dragons onto Berk. And now she finally realized how hungry and exhausted she was. When had she last eaten anyway? Or any of them for that matter?

"Gustav, is there any food left inside?"

"Yeah, there is a lot of bread, cheese, and fish but the mead is all gone and do you think your dragons would like some fish? I think they would like fish."

"Ok, how about you go get us some bread and cheese. I will get the fish. And I'll let you give Stormfly a fish."

"Ok!"

He was off running toward the Hall. She would have preferred to eat in the Hall since it would be warmer and would provide better shelter, but that would have meant them leaving their dragons alone outside. There were too many things that could go wrong with that plan since they were back on Berk.

She called out to Fishlegs, Ruff, and Tuff.

"I'll get a basket of fish from the storehouse."

"Ok, we'll be right here," Fishlegs piped up.

The three of them remained with their dragons outside the Hall and felt the exhaustion of a long day closing on them. Astrid eventually returned with enough fish for all three of their dragons to be at least sated, and Gustav also returned with bread and cheese for them. They ate in silence and the four teens returned to their homes an hour later with their respective charges in tow.

The camp back on the island was very impromptu with sails having been recovered to use as tents and ruined ships salvaged for firewood. The men were huddled around the campfires to ward off the night chill and were roasting what remained of the fish and chewing on tough bread. Every so often a wild dragon came near to investigate the camps and was shooed away. Stoick had given specific orders that none of the dragons were to be attacked except in self-defense. Stoick worked himself tirelessly, taking out his nervous energy and grief on logs that needed lifting and supplies that needed moving.

Finally, after all his men and women were taken care of, Stoick lay down as well. He briefly thought to himself how ironic it was that the first night of peace with the creatures was in fact spent with his tribe on Dragon Island as he had always thought it would be, but the peace was because of very different reasons. He had trouble falling asleep at first. There was an odd chill in the air that seemed to have nothing to do with the weather and the nearby fire seemed powerless to dispel.

In one of those tents, his head propped up by a pile of unmentionables, Gobber slept soundly with a precious bundle in his arms.

Astrid awoke at dawn as was her custom. It was evening of the fifth day after she and the other riders had returned to Berk. The first day had passed in a blur with various questions being asked of her, the supposed dragon expert, and her helping to slowly acclimate people on the island to their new company. That evening the first two boats arrived with the wounded and burn victims. She and the other riders helped to patch up the wounded. Between the additional fishing vessels making two round-trips and the initial boats returning as well, everyone made it off Dragon Island and was back on Berk. Stoick was the last one off the final boat. There was no cheering at his return. The final boat was also the one that carried the bodies of the fallen, brought back to Berk to receive their final rites as was custom. One of them had been crushed by the Monster and the others were burned alive in the initial firestorm the creature had unleashed. The ceremony in their memory was about to begin.

"It is time, Astrid," her mother Vídarr told her.

She was naturally very relieved that both of her parents had returned home safely. She had hugged her mother tightly when she returned in the second wave. There were many tears on both of their cheeks at the reunion. It had been very awkward introducing her parents to Stormfly. Her mother had gasped in fright when the Nadder flew over to Astrid's side. At least her father, Sigurd, had remained calm except for a slight twitching in his jaw.

Neither of her parents were especially great fighters, though they had managed to survive so far. They had immigrated to Berk a generation ago to escape an outbreak of tribal violence in the south. That the family was not completely native to Berk in part explained why they had not followed the tradition of naming their daughter something hideous. It was also the reason why they were lean and agile, very abnormal for Nords.

As the days had passed without incident, they had gradually come to accept Astrid's dragon as not being a threat to her safety or to theirs. There had even been one instance where she had to excuse herself for a moment and had returned just in time to see both of her parents subtly hand Stormfly a couple fish while grinning deeply.

As far as she was aware, none of the other youths had faced any major objections from their parents regarding the new pets.

Astrid led Stormfly to the stables that had been modified on very short notice to accommodate the dragons and then followed the crowd down to the harbor. The entire tribe gathered around the old sloop which Stoick had chosen to bear the deceased. They all removed their helmets as the bodies or selected remains were carried forth. The family members of the fallen lay swords, spears, and other mementos on the pyres. Finally, Stoick himself walked slowly onto the ship with both of his arms held out before him. In his arms lay a small tunic. No one needed to ask to whom it had belonged.

He lay the tunic on top of the remaining empty pyre. Alone on the ship and facing away from his people, he lay his hands on the pyre.

It was eerily similar to what he had gone through fourteen years ago. There had been no body for that burial either. He had at least still had his infant son to look after and to love back then.

Now though…

A horn sounded just as the sun dipped below the horizon. Stoick pulled himself away from the pyre and stood on the dock as the ship's sails were unfurled and picked up the eastern wind.

How absurd this was for him. He now had to give the same type of speech that he had given in the past to those who had fallen. He would sing their praises and recall their bravery in giving their lives for their tribe. They had earned Valhalla. As had Hiccup.

So why did it all seem empty and hollow?

He raised his axe high. The archers notched their flaming arrows and waited for the signal.

He lowered the axe and a dozen arrows soared through the air and lit up the ship out in the harbor. Everyone waited a minute for the flames to catch, and he found his voice again.

"We give honor to the Fallen. They have passed on in battle and have pleased the gods. May the Valkyries welcome them and lead them. Let their names be sung and their deeds be ever praised. They now feast at the Table of Kings in Valhalla with glory undimmed so long as the gods endure."

The sails were completely engulfed as the flames shot heavenward.

As one, the Berkians raised their voices in a cheer to honor the departed. While the noise was still dying down, Gobber noticed Stoick's gaze and spoke up on his behalf when the silence returned.

"Well, let's get a move on. Ta the Great Hall! We have celebrating ta do."

The Nords were accustomed to the ceremony by now, having been through it dozens of times in as many years. They quickly began moving towards the Great Hall, where they could already smell a true feast being prepared. Several large barrels of mead would be rolled out. Each of them knew that it would be a very long night filled with stories from those who were on the Island and saw the events unfold. The drinks would also spark conversation about the dragons that Berk now called its own.

None of them noticed that Stoick lingered at the harbor long after everyone else had left, staring out across the twilight ocean at the flames that still clung to life on the outline of the sinking ship.

I'm so sorry Val. I killed our son. I drove him away. And he was the strongest of us all. I don't know… Please forgive me.

The final spark still alight on the water was finally extinguished. He turned with a deep sigh and stumbled away to join his people in the Hall. No one would ever see that his sleeves were wet from having wiped away the tears from his cheeks.

Gobber left the feast early before the drinks began to catch up to him and hobbled his way back to his house to check up on a certain charge of his. He and Stoick had agreed that it would be best for him to hold onto the egg for a while longer so that Stoick could fulfill his Chiefly duties without being distracted. He closed the door to his small dwelling and walked over to the fireplace. He had wrapped the egg in an old cloth and left it a few feet from the fireplace. There was nothing else that he thought needed to be done for the egg beyond keeping it mildly warm and occasionally turning it as mother birds would.

After having spent a few days with it, he already felt strangely protective towards it. He brushed aside the top of the cloth and lowered his good hand to rest his palm on top of the egg.

I wonder what will become of you.