A/N: Hey look, I'm back! I'm doing a whole lot better, though I'm still not quite where I'd like to be. As such I can't quite promise regular updates yet, but I promise I'll try not to go another month without updating. Thank you all so very much for your patience and understanding and support, it really means the world to me.
This chapter is a little shorter than I wanted it to be, but it was actually going to be much longer before I decided to split it in half, so you get this today and then the next part will be up probably on Monday.
I also want to make it very clear that I like Valka. I think she is a very flawed, complex, interesting character. I don't condone her actions, but I don't think she does either and I think that's important to remember. That said, Hiccup and Valka's relationship in Persephone is a lot more complicated than in canon, and we're dealing with a much darker, much more bitter version of Hiccup, and that makes a big difference in how Valka is presented here. But for the record, I like Val. Please don't bash her in reviews to me.
Title from the song by Imagine Dragons, because that song is SO Persephonecup it hurts.
Chapter 24: Hopeless Opus
"November?! You've kept her here since November?!"
"I didn't keep her here, I told you; she chose to stay!"
"She chose to stay, why would she choose to stay?"
"Because she, she and I, we, well, we—"
"Yes, I can see what you and she are doing."
"We're in love."
"Is that what you're calling it, now?"
"I'm serious."
Astrid emerged into the sunlight of the large opening cave, in the middle of which was Hiccup and his mother, with Toothless nudging at her hand. Stormfly was watching them all from her nest in the corner. None of them noticed her enter.
"Where did she come from? What do you mean you saved her? From what?"
"It's kind of a long story."
"I assumed as much, since if it was a short story you'd have told me already. Start explaining."
Astrid felt a gust of warm air ruffling her hair and turned to see where it had come from, only to find herself face to upside-down face with one of the largest dragons she'd ever seen outside of the Dragon Queen's nest. She screamed and stumbled backward, attracting Hiccup and his mother's attention. The large dragon cocked its head at her.
"Cloudjumper, leave the poor girl alone," Hiccup's mother scolded, and the dragon dropped down from the stalactite he'd been hanging from and sniffed once more at Astrid before heeding the woman's call. "Don't mind him," Hiccup's mother was saying, "He won't harm you. There's no need to be afraid."
Astrid bristled. "I'm not afraid of him," she said. "He just took me by surprise, is all."
"Of course he did," Hiccup's mother said dismissively, giving Astrid a patronizing smile while she stroked Cloudjumper's chin.
Between them Hiccup sighed and rolled his eyes. "Mom," he said, approaching Astrid and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "This is Astrid. Astrid, Valka."
Valka gave her an once-over then ignored her entirely and looked to Hiccup. "You still haven't told me who she is and what she's doing here. And more importantly why you think you can trust her."
Hiccup shot Astrid a look she couldn't read. "I know I can trust her, okay. And…she's from Berk."
"Berk?" Valka's head whipped around. "She's from Berk?" Valka looked at her more carefully. "Whose child are you?"
Astrid glanced at Hiccup. "The Hoffersons'."
Valka frowned. "Arvid or Finn?"
"Arvid."
"Hm." Valka looked her up and down again. "Ingrid Clausen's baby, then. Violent girl." She turned her glare on Hiccup. "So you've settled down with a Viking, a Berkian, no less? Have you completely lost your mind?"
"Mom." That was a strange word to hear out of Hiccup's mouth. He crossed the room to his mother. "She's on our side. Berk gave her up."
Valka didn't turn from doting on her dragon, while Toothless wriggled with excitement beside her, still attempting to get her attention. "What do you mean they gave her up? You said you saved her life."
"They were trying to win my favor—the 'Dragon Master's' favor." Hiccup waved his hands in reference to his mysterious alter-ego. "They gave her up. It was a uh…" He hesitated. "A virgin sacrifice kind of deal."
That got Valka's attention. She raised her eyebrows at her son, then turned her gaze on Astrid, who felt her cheeks heating up. Valka seemed to stare right into her soul. For a woman so enigmatic Valka had a way of making Astrid feel all her secrets were laid bare, which could have something to do with having been found in bed with her son, and now Valka knowing that his bed had been the first. "Berk gave her up as a virgin sacrifice?" She looked at Hiccup, shaking her head, her lip curled in disgust. "I shouldn't be surprised. Leave it to your father to do something so…barbaric. Primitive." She glanced at Astrid. "What's she still doing here?"
"I told you, she chose to stay."
Valka rolled her eyes and gave in to Toothless's demands for attention. "Yes, because you're in love," she said, and the way she said it made it clear she either didn't believe him or disdained the very notion or possibly both. "She's still one of them and I don't see what good you think is going to come of keeping her here."
Hiccup's eyebrows knit together. "You don't know what you're talking about. She's here because she wants to be. Because she changed. Because she's seen what the dragons are really like. And," he hesitated, "She's been helping me. With the raids. With freeing captured dragons and keeping the dragons and villagers apart."
"I've been branded a traitor by half the archipelago," Astrid added, straightening her spine and holding her head up high as Valka frowned. "Including Berk."
Valka looked her over again, her disapproval replaced with something that could be cautious curiosity.
"Why would you do that? Turn on your village? Your people?"
Astrid's expression hardened. "My village gave me up. My own parents gave me up, knowing they were likely handing me over to be raped, tortured, or killed. Is it really any wonder I didn't want to go back?" She crossed the room, bypassing Hiccup and Valka and smiling at Stormfly. "And besides," she said, stroking Stormfly's horn as her dragon rose and shivered, shaking out her wings and trilling happily, "I'd seen what the dragons were really like. I didn't know how I could go back after that. How anyone could." She paused, glancing at Valka out of the corner of her eye before she said softly, "Of course, I didn't have a husband and baby waiting for me at home."
Valka's lip curled. "That situation was more complicated than you could possibly understand," she said coolly. "So for the moment I'll forgive your ignorant criticism, but in the future I'll thank you not to judge things you don't know anything about."
Astrid snorted. "Didn't stop you," she muttered under her breath. She wasn't sure if Valka heard her, but Hiccup was soon interrupting their cold standoff.
"Like I said, I can trust her, so calm down."
Valka took her cold stare off of Astrid. "So you've drafted someone else into your hopeless mission."
Astrid watched Hiccup's frown change from irritation to something closer to disappointment. "It's not hopeless. Astrid changed. She was one of Berk's fiercest warriors and she changed. If I can change her mind, I could change theirs, too."
Valka sighed. "Oh, Hiccup, not this again."
"No, Mom, just listen—"
"No, you listen," Valka said, turning to her son and giving him an almost pleading frown. "Those people are not capable of change. I have told you that, time and time again. I tried to stop the fighting. I tried to change your father's mind and he wouldn't listen to me. None of them would ever listen to me."
"Astrid listened!"
"A bitter young girl who'd seen firsthand how cruel humans can be listened to you. I don't call that a victory."
Hiccup shook his head. "It's not just about getting them to listen, it's about showing them! You've lived with dragons for twenty years. I've lived with them for five. We both know so much about them now, if we went back, together—"
"Absolutely not!" Valka interrupted, shaking her head. "I will not risk my dragons' lives by going back to that place, to that man, after everything that's happened—"
"That's exactly my point!" Hiccup pleaded, his hands outstretched towards his mother. "After all this time, and you're still alive, you're still okay, you don't think that wouldn't show him the dragons aren't what he thought they were?!"
Valka was still shaking her head, her eyes closed and her mouth in a thin, tight line. "You say that as if it's so simple, Hiccup, and yet here you still are." She looked at him then, and Astrid could see the familial resemblance in the sad determination. "All this time and you haven't tried either, and the reason for that is you don't believe it would work any more than I do." Valka glanced at Astrid, who watched them both with a sinking heart. "Berk is not capable of change. If anything, Astrid is the exception that proves the rule."
Hiccup stared at the ground for a long tense moment before he said, "We found the nest."
Valka blinked, her eyebrows rising. "You what?"
Hiccup looked at her through his bangs; they were the same height when standing straight but Hiccup's slouched shoulders put his eyelevel below hers. "We didn't mean to go there, but we found it. The Queen's nest. We saw her." He straightened and Astrid watched his jaw clench. "She's smaller than we thought she was. Much smaller than the Bewilderbeast—"
"No," Valka interrupted, stepping back.
"But Mom—"
"No," she said again. "I know where you're going with this, and my answer is no." She paced away from him and Hiccup followed.
"Mom, you said it yourself, all dragons bow to the alpha, that should include the queen! He could take her down, he could stop her—"
Valka rolled her eyes, a gesture done more in exasperation than annoyance. "He wouldn't dare. He protects his own; he wouldn't intrude on the sanctity of another dragon's nest."
"He would if you told him to," Hiccup pressed. "He'd do anything you told him to. If we stop the queen, we stop the raids. We stop the war. Don't you want to do that?"
Valka sighed and shook her head. "Hiccup, I am not starting a civil war amongst one species for the sake of another that doesn't care about them."
Hiccup had his hands outstretched again, pleading. "Mom, would you just listen—"
"No, you listen," Valka said firmly. "The dragons were here long before Vikings were. This is their world. And I will not turn it upside down for the sake of Vikings when that will do them absolutely no good. The dragons may stop the raiding but that won't stop the Vikings killing them. They'll still hunt them and fight them and kill them. And without the queen commanding them the dragons won't be as inclined to defend themselves." She sighed again. "Defeating the queen will change nothing. The dragons will be in as much danger as ever."
Hiccup's brow furrowed. "Are the dragons all you care about?" he demanded, voice rising. "You're so selfish; you won't even try to change their minds!"
"What, like you have?" Valka challenged. "Holing up in here for the past few years, only coming out in a mask and leading them to believe you're some demon who's controlling the dragons?" Hiccup looked away, his hands curling into fists at his sides. "Don't take that sanctimonious attitude with me, Hiccup. For all you yell at me for never trying to change their minds you've done absolutely no better."
"I help in the only way I know how," Hiccup muttered.
"As do I," Valka replied, calm but firm.
Hiccup frowned. "It'd be different if we worked together." He looked up at his mother. "Don't you see that? Maybe alone we aren't enough to change things, but if we worked together—"
"We'd still achieve nothing. Hiccup, these people cannot be changed!"
Hiccup flung out an arm in gesture at Astrid. "She changed!" He pointed to himself. "I changed!"
Valka was shaking her head again. "We're different. You and I are different from them. Maybe she is too. We're still only three people against an entire culture."
Hiccup's lips pursed. "I've seen one person change entire cultures. I've heard of one person starting whole religions, revolutions."
"They weren't dealing with people as hard-headed as Vikings."
"That doesn't mean we can't at least try. If we succeeded—"
"If we succeeded everything would be wonderful and happy and grand, yes, but what if we fail?" Valka took a step closer to Hiccup. "Have you even thought about what's at stake in all this? About what would happen if we tell your father that we're still alive and that there's a dragon queen controlling the nest, and that doesn't convince him?"
Astrid watched Hiccup's face fall. She knew he had thought about that. He'd thought about that a lot.
Hiccup swallowed. "He, he'd probably…" he trailed off, his voice wavering with uncertainty.
"He'd redouble efforts to find the nest. And he'd know we were alive, and what side we'd chosen." Valka sighed. "You stayed away for the same reason I did. We both let him have the memory he can still love."
Hiccup ran a hand through his hair and frowned. "That doesn't mean you have to take the cowardly path and not even try. Maybe on our own we couldn't get him to listen, but you and I together—"
Valka shook her head, her eyes squeezing shut. "And we're circling back around to the same old argument, because you can't understand that they won't change."
Astrid watched Hiccup's lip curl. "You're the one who won't change!" he shouted, taking Valka by surprise. She blinked at him.
"Hiccup—"
"No, it's true! You're always saying that they'll never change, while we keep having this argument over and over again because you're too selfish and cowardly to even try to change their minds. You say the Vikings will always refuse to believe dragons are good, but you just refuse to believe that the Vikings can be good! You're as biased and narrow-minded as they are!"
It was almost uncanny how like her son's Valka's scowl was. "I'm trying to keep you from getting yourself killed! I am practical and realistic."
"You're pessimistic and afraid!"
Valka huffed. "And you wonder why I don't come and see you very often anymore. It's always the same thing, the same argument, the same disagreements." She looked at her son with something like sorrow. "Just once I'd like to come and see how you are without you begging me to join your foolish crusade. It feels like you see me as more of a means to an end than a mother."
There was a palpable shift in the tension of the room at that. Astrid shrunk back against Stormfly as she watched Hiccup's eyes widen and then narrow, a cold look stealing over his face. His back straightened.
"You think I have a hard time seeing you as a mother?" he said, a hard edge to his voice. "Because it might have something to do with those eighteen years where you decided to forget that you were my mother!"
The anger on Valka's face melted into hurt. "Hiccup," she started, reaching for him, but Hiccup stepped back.
"No," he said, voice loud and echoing off the cave walls, "You don't get to talk now. You don't get to stand there and play the mom card and act as if you raised me better than this. Because in case you've forgotten, Mother, you didn't raise me. You don't get to take credit for how I turned out."
"I've never tried to—"
"All you care about is the dragons. I used to admire you for how much you cared about them, but now I see that's all you care about. And I'm sick of trying to keep your attention when you stop listening to me as soon as I stop being that dragon-loving child who takes after you and refuse to put the good of the dragons over the good of anyone or anything else!"
Valka was shaking her head, still reaching for Hiccup with hands that were too afraid to touch him. "Hiccup, regardless of all that, I still love you—"
"You left me!" Hiccup yelled, so loud that it startled Astrid and all three dragons nervously watching the exchange. Astrid couldn't say how much of the conversation they understood, but the dragons certainly knew to keep their distance. Astrid herself wanted to intercede, wanted to go to Hiccup, to comfort him, because there was so much anger and hurt on his face, but the center of the room where he stood with his mother seemed a world of its own upon which she could not intrude. "And you keep leaving me," Hiccup said, softer this time. "You're the same as Dad. Neither one of you wants to listen to me. I'm not Viking enough for him and I'm not dragon enough for you, and I'm done trying to be."
"One day I'll screw up, or you'll decide that I'm not what you want me to be, and then you'll want to leave, and I want you to be able to." Astrid's chest constricted and her heart dropped into her stomach as she realized that this was what he'd been talking about. He was always waiting for the day he stopped being what she wanted him to be.
"Hiccup—"
"Leave."
Astrid's expression of shock mirrored Valka's. The older woman blinked at her son.
"What?"
Hiccup's eyes were cold and his jaw was tight as he answered evenly, "You heard me, leave. Get back on that dragon you loved more than me and leave."
Valka sucked in a soft gasp. "Hiccup," she pleaded, but Hiccup just glared her down.
"Just get out. I don't want to see you anymore. I don't want to see you anymore, I don't want to hear from you anymore, I don't want anything to do with you. I'm done."
And he turned on his heel and marched out of the room, back down the passageway and into the darkness, a keening Toothless following obediently behind.
Astrid looked to Valka, who stared at the empty spot where her son had been standing, looking utterly lost. Astrid didn't know if she should say something to her, or if the woman had even earned the right to comfort, so she patted Stormfly's horn and made to follow Hiccup, her gaze averted from Valka.
"I thought I was doing the right thing by staying away." Astrid paused and looked back at Valka, whose glassy eyes were still fixed on the empty space in front of her. "I thought it was for the best. I thought they would be better off without me. I thought Hiccup would be better off without me. How was I supposed to raise an heir who could protect his people from dragons when I couldn't kill one myself? I thought I'd be terrible for him." Her eyes squeezed shut. "When I first found him again I thought I was wrong, but you know…" she trailed off, a short gasp that could have been cutting off a sob shaking her. She took a deep breath and continued, opening her eyes. "Sometimes I think I was right. Maybe I never would have been any good for him. Maybe I only ever would have made things more difficult. I don't know." She laughed bitterly. "I'm certainly no good for him now. Not with everything that's happened. And not with who he's become." She looked at Astrid. "He's not always an easy person to love, my son. These last couple of years especially. And that's putting aside our disagreements. He's got a temper to be reckoned with and he doesn't always think things through. If ever you find he's too much to handle, you can always come to me. I don't want you to ever stay purely out of a lack of anywhere else to go. Your dragon will know how to find me." She directed a small smile at Stormfly. "She's visited me before, this one." Her smile faded into a serious look when she turned back to Astrid. "I love Hiccup, even if I don't always agree with him, and even if he doesn't believe I do, but I know what he's like. And I want you to know there's somewhere you can go if he gets to be too much."
Astrid frowned. "Thanks, but I can handle him." She started to walk away but Valka's voice, softer now, stopped her.
"How's his drinking?"
Astrid's eyebrows drew together. Valka's lips were pursed together and the lines of her brow were more pronounced when Astrid turned back to her. She looked worried. "He stopped. He's been sober for months."
Valka blinked at her, eyebrows rising. A hopeful look. "Has he?"
"I made him."
Valka nodded, her lips quirking in what could have been the hint of a smile. "Good, that's good," she said, almost absently, her eyes shifting away from Astrid's. She sighed, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. "That's very good." She frowned at the floor. "And, um," she began, her voice higher than it had been. "You and Hiccup, you are…taking precautions, I'm sure?"
It took Astrid a moment to realize what she was talking about, and she felt her face turn red when she did. She cleared her throat and looked away. "Yeah."
She could hear Valka's raised eyebrow and stern look. She was using that distinctly maternal questioning tone that she'd heard from her own mother a thousand times. "Every time?"
Her cheeks prickled. "Yes," she said, only partly lying. She always remembered her tea and kept track of her days, even if more often than not she locked her legs around Hiccup's waist before he could pull away at the end.
"Good," Valka said firmly. Astrid glanced at her. Suddenly Valka looked much older than she had earlier. Her large dragon curled around her and it brought a small smile to her face. She ran a hand over Cloudjumper's crown. "I don't condone my mistakes," she said, "All I can say is that I had my reasons and I thought I was making the right decision at the time. I was so young." Her eyes flickered to Astrid. "About your age."
Astrid frowned. "Don't start comparing me to you."
"Why not?" Valka asked, shrugging. "We have a lot in common. We were both taken unwillingly from our home and both chose not to go back."
Astrid's brow furrowed. "I didn't go back because my village turned on me."
Valka looked at her. "And I didn't go back because I was waiting on my village to do the same. Even being the chief's wife can only protect you for so long when you run around telling everyone that we shouldn't be fighting the dragons. Especially after I was taken. You may not be a wife or mother yet, but you can't tell me there is no one back on Berk you don't regret leaving behind." Astrid dropped her gaze, her mind immediately turning to Brenna. "I'm not saying I made the right choice, only that I thought I did at the time, just as you believe you've made the right choice. I hope for your sake that in twenty years time you still do." She gave Astrid a tired but genuine smile. "And if at some point you change your mind, I'll help you in any way that I can."
Astrid shifted her weight on her feet. "Thanks for the offer, but I can handle myself." Valka's smile tightened.
"I certainly hope so. Come on, Cloudjumper." She hooked her staff around the large dragon's claw and he lifted her up so she could jump onto his back. Astrid couldn't help her admiration of Valka's skill as she watched her walk easily over Cloudjumper's shifting back as the dragon climbed halfway out of the cave opening before spreading two of his four wings and taking flight.
Astrid thought again of Brenna, and how long twenty years was.
