Title: Heart Palpitations

Summery: The second half of their date. Last of this small arc.

Prompt: Kissing

Word Count:1,292


Valka looked into Gobber's eyes and laughed as Gobber swung her around to imaginary music. Slightly earlier on, after the moment where he had comforted her, Gobber had pulled out salmon and bread for them to eat.

"I'm sorry that it isn't anything special," he murmured, still unsure of where they were standing.

"It's fine, really. Cooked like this is something I didn't have the opportunity for in the Sanctuary most of the time. There were too many dragons attempting to give me regurgitated things," she said with a laugh. At once the awkwardness that existed was gone.

"I'm thankful that Grump doesn't do that to me! I've seen Toothless do it enough times and Hiccup eat it to appease the beastie that I really don't want to try. This is all home cook, which is why it isn't anything more exciting. I can't do more exciting than this. I'd need to pack an extra pair of skivvies then."

Valka let out a full bellied laugh and from behind them they hear Cloudjumper do something similar. "I can feel my heart palpitate now!" she cried jovially.

"I love a woman who is both pretty and can use big words!" Gobber said loudly and they both fell over laughing. Neither of them realised what he had just said.

When they had sat up again, Gobber placed the fish over the fire properly and looked up into her eyes. They glowed so brightly, he wouldn't have needed a torch in the dark. He just needed them to stay with him for the rest of his life. The smile lit up his world and forced a smile out of him, not that that had ever been hard to do, but now his smiles felt different. They felt larger. It was as though his own smiles could stop his enemies where they stood-

Bad train of thought! He scolded himself and his smile fell slightly. She is the ex-chief's wife.

Valka watched his facial expressions change rapidly from happiness to disgust and wondered what she had done or said to have caused it.

"Are you alright?" she asked gently. Gobber nodded.

"It's just… I lost my best friend, you know… I know you lost your husband but sometimes I see Stoick in Hiccup and can't help but feel sad at the lost time. I'm such a hypocrite in telling you to move on, when I haven't myself," he said. The whole time he was shrugging and shifting sideways. Valka could tell that he had been hiding how he had felt over the death of Stoick.

"I'll help you through it on one condition," she offered, surprising herself. He looked up at her from the food that was now cooked.

"Huh?"

"You help me as well. Together we can be happy. We proved it!"

"Well then. Let us eat in toast of this new partnership!" he said, pushing away the sadness and hiding the bitter guilt of how he truly felt.


After the food the two vikings sat around the fire for a while talking comfortable. After a while, things grew more comfortable and Valka ended up sitting next to Gobber leaning against Grump. The friendly dragon warmed up his inners and with the pleasant atmosphere all around, Valka was nearly falling asleep.

"Are you falling asleep on me?!" Gobber cried, laughing. "Are me stories that bad to listen to?"

"No, nothing like that. It's just this is the first time in quite a while where I don't have to worry about the next attack, about how Hiccup is going, about-"

"Say no more. Maybe if you were moving around more you wouldn't be so sleepy!"

Gobber reached down and gently pulled her to her feet. With his good hand he laced her fingers with his and gently wrapped his hook around her waist. He then started spinning them around whilst he sung a sea ditty that had no intelligible words to it.

"Well, when I was a wee lad
I always knew what I wanted!
It was a bright pink dragon,
Just the thing to be granted!
One day when I was wondering
Just when my ears would ring,

"I said to meself:
Jump up and down on the spot
Just as though the ground's getting hot.
Fall against the tree, my dear,
And you will always be near!"

Valka, recognising the song, started laughing and joining in when she had enough breath. Although it wasn't often, she was still able to join him in with the rhyming and the most important words, not that it made sense anyway.

Slowly the words coming out of Gobber's mouth became more and more warbled and they ended up just spinning in circles as fast as they could. She found herself looking into his eyes, just as he looked into hers. Suddenly she tripped over some of the sand that they had kicked up and she fell, bringing Gobber down with her. It was only his fast reaction time that spared her from getting a hook lodged in her stomach.

"I'm so sorry!" she managed to get out through laughter. Gobber just laughed even harder.


Together they flew towards Valka's house. As it was the cheif's house it was all the way at the top of the hill and Gobber constantly made jokes about how he didn't think Grump could fly that far up hill. They waved to the few people still up and about and saw Hiccup walking Astrid back to hers.

Grump's landing wasn't as smooth as Cloudjumper's or even as Stoick's rumblehorn's would have been, but at the same time Valka realised it was charming all the same.

The two talking until the reach right outside the door where they stood, a slight awkwardness falling upon them. Now that the night was at it's conclusion, neither wanted to end it first.

Slowly he lent in and kissed her.

It was a friendly kiss on the cheek as a goodbye, but there was a promise of something more.


Hiccup rounded the last corner to approach his house. It had been a long day, made even longer by the fact that he was forced to work in the forge for most of it whilst Toothless sorted out the few dragon arguments that had evolved. He had finally insisted on Astrid going back to her house as the time had gotten late. She naturally refused unless Hiccup himself also went to his. He did so with a self promise to get up early to finish what he hadn't managed to complete. Judging by the fact that he hadn't run into Toothless yet, it was fairly safe to assume that the dragon was either still working or had given up as well and retired to bed.

At that time of night it wasn't unusual to run into his mother. She normally went on a nightly flight to think and to make sure the dragons were alright. The strange thing was Gobber standing outside of his house and his mother bright red in the face. Hiccup sighed and started walking noiser jsut in case.

"Hiccup!" Valka greeted, sounding surprised. "I thought you had gone to bed early."

"Nah. There were still things to finish at the forge cause someone left me to do it all," He responded and walked past Gobber. The older man gave him a friendly slap on the back in greeting, sending him forwards a few extra paces.

"Well, I'm off to bed. See you tomorrow, Valka. Bright and early, Hiccup!" Gobber said and walked down the path, singing. Hiccup raised an eyebrow.


I've got my axe and I've got my mace, and I love my wife with the ugly face! I'm a Viking through and through!


Got you for a second there, didn't I?

I have been appreciating the specificity of the foreign languages that I have been learning. Therefore I now detest the ambiguity of the English language. Honestly. There were so many sentence I wrote and then was like 'no. Fix that. No one other than me will understand what you mean.' And then I would fix it and I' fairly certain that I have quite possibly made it way worse…

I also apologise for the OOC nature of practically everyone here. I love Gobber and Valka but can't write them. Practice makes perfect? Is there a ship name for the two of them? Should there be?

And we wont mention the song Gobber sings. It wasn't my best work. *hides head in shame*

Oh well. Have at it.

The fluff is slowly getting larger and larger!

Aly