AUTHOR'S NOTES:

• I know I said I wouldn't do any more, but I ended up writing another one anyway. This is a prequel to the previous "Lost" chapters, so it was written with the mind-set that the readers had read the previous installments.

• At this point, there might be another one, but I'm not 100% sure. Some have told me they like this weird little series and at least one person has informed me that they would like a continuation of the Maleficent drabble series.

• Can't say I care for how this one ended, but I haven't been able to come up with anything else. And I apologize for any cheesiness ahead of time. Just a fair warning.

• I do not own How To Train Your Dragon or Kingdom Hearts. HTTYD belongs to Dreamworks and Cressida Cowell. KH is copyrighted to Tetsuya Nomura and Square Enix.

The small break of trees in the woods was the definition of somber on that chilly morning. The sun had only begun its decent toward its skyward throne barely one hour ago. The snow was only starting the endless flurry after a few hours' worth of clear skies. The dull crunches of the white powder beneath her boots were just background noise to those who dared to trudge through the winter wasteland.

Astrid quickly glanced around to make sure she had the place to herself. It wasn't often she wondered in this direction. It was probably because she was dangerously close to enemy territory if she dared enter the obscure plot of land.

Under the cover of nature, Astrid felt at home. She felt less on edge and more on her own terms. It was almost a feral thought to consider that one of man - a daughter of Embla - would feel so at ease in the lands dominated by those with sharp claws and gnashing teeth.

Seeing no other living soul present, Astrid released a breath of air she hadn't realized she'd been hanging onto, causing a puff of gray fog to escape her dried lips. The blond surveyed the area beyond the trees one last time before taking the first step out into the open. The second her boot crushed the snow on the ground, Astrid froze and held her breath again.

Nothing.

No reaction.

No movement other the snow falling and the chilly wind blowing through her bangs.

Satisfied, Astrid completely removed herself from the natural cover the forest provided. She briskly made her way toward her initial goal, not pausing in her determined stride to examine or acknowledge the stone structures she passed. Each carefully placed rock barely reached her knobby knees. Some stones were far more decorated than others. Here one mimicked the wings of a Nightmare. Over there was one that looked like a little house. Further down the row was one with what resembled a cradle balanced precariously atop the stone monument. Still others were nothing more than a large rock standing erect on the frozen earth with only a few words etched into its gravel surface.

And not one garnered the attention the graveyard's first visitor since the first snow had fallen this winter.

Astrid knew where she was going. She had taken the same path many times before. She felt ashamed of herself for having not come by in so long, but the blond also knew she was taking a major risk being there now. Astrid's steely gaze softened up for a fraction of a second before she shook her head, shoving any emotions that threatened to climb up her throat back down into her stomach to stew for another day.

Before she knew it, Astrid had reached her destination.

Without missing a beat, Astrid eased herself down to sit on her legs. Her trusty axe was placed flat on its side on the ground next to her. The Nadder helm she almost always adorned was removed from her head and placed over her axe. Her paling blond hair shown like a beacon of light against the dim surroundings. Astrid kept her head bowed forward for several minutes and listened to the wind howl, silently praying to whatever gods up in Asgard that would lend the young Valkyrie their ear.

With a shaky breath, Astrid lifted her stormy eyes—once a vibrant shade of blue having dulled into a dull chunk of ice—up to face the stone before her.

It was of a simple design; smooth, off-white, and lumpy. One side of it had been grounded down into a flat surface and polished until it shined back in the day of its creation. The stone was shorter than most of the others surrounding it. They all knew he deserved something far more intricate, but at the time no stone mason in Berk had enough spare time to make one that could even hope to mimic his inventions or crazy ideas.

A few smaller rocks sat before it, each one different than the last. Fishlegs was no mason, but he had worked for weeks on the small rocks to try and make each mimic one of Berk's seven different dragon species - including the BoneKnapper. He'd been previously working on trying to make game pieces out of them for some weird enterprise he'd been concocting in his head for some time. But the idea had been dropped at the news of the Dragon Master deathand Fishleg's favorite game pieces now sat before her, poised to protect the stone they were charged with watching over. Astrid honestly didn't see many resemblances between the stone copies and the real ones. The only one she recognized was the Night Fury. It was sleeker than the others and made of a darker ore.

The twins hadn't a clue what to leave as a gift to the dead and gone. They argued about it like they did with practically everything else until they eventually came to the conclusion that they would settle for not kicking each other's ass on the day of funeral. The fact that they had actually accomplished it still baffled everyone who witnessed the rare truce between the always bickering siblings.

Gobber and Stoick had said a few words, but Astrid hadn't been present to hear them. Even if she had, she didn't want to remember the things they might have said in tribute. Both of them had serious issues when it came to the ways with words anyway. Most Vikings did for that matter. Astrid was no exception.

Snotlout had never been one to give much thought to anything, but even he seemed to feel the need to be out of his normal character that fateful evening. Though they had never been close despite the blood relations, Snotlout left his favorite dagger next to the memorial site. What the dead could do with the blade was beyond her, but Astrid's giftserved an even less practical use.

A well-worn saddle was still leaning against the side of the stone figurehead. Astrid had spent an entire day trying to talk Toothless into letting her remove it. And, in all honestly, it had only been placed there last year. On the day of funeral, after her mother had spent several hours trying to talk the petite blond into at least showing up, in front of Odin and everyone, Astrid composed herself as best as she could and punched the daylights out of the stone. Her knuckles were sour, bloody, and painful for weeks, but Astrid felt she had gotten her point across. She'd gained a few small scars on her knuckles that she wasn't exactly proud of too.

A lone rusty horned helmet sat at the top of the stone. Viking helmets were usually buried with the deceased or, some cases, passed down to the younger generation. It wasn't uncommon for the oldest son to take his father's helmet. It could be taken as an odd coping mechanism. For those who died in battle or something equally as honorable, the helmet was often buried with the Viking. While his demise wasn't very chivalrous, the lasting deeds he had left large colorful marks on Berk made for an exemption to the rules. It was something he was renowned for doing in life anyway.

Etched into the stone were a few words along with his name. She glanced over the epitaph without really reading it. It just sounded like empty word to her anyway. Although - and Astrid wouldn't admit it was her until the day she died - the middle name had been scratched out. She knew how much the name bothered him and it didn't suit him in any way. The horrendousword was far too big for somebody of such a small stature and even more humble beliefs. It had been kind of amusing to watch him raise his imaginary hackles whenever Astrid shot a terrible pun his way involving his atrocious middle name. But he'd known it had all been in good fun.

With the wind beating at her back, Astrid took a deep breath, ignoring the pain the chilly wind caused her lungs.

"Sorry it's been so long since my last visit . . . Hiccup."

It didn't make any sense. Astrid was so adamantly against the idea of him being dead. Yet hear she sat, talking to a stone that was erected in his memory in the middle of a snow covered graveyard. There wasn't a body laying a few yards beneath her. A small box of random belongings had been gathered and buried instead. Ironically, it looked as if Hiccup himself would have had barely managed to fit himself into it. Most of his sketchbooks had been taken and Astrid counted herself lucky to have been able to snatch up three of them while nobody was paying attention. She felt little guilt for stealing them though. A few of his old tools were too small for Gobber to use effectively, so they'd been placed in the box. Stoick had also placed a few items in it that Astrid didn't recognize.

"I wanted to bring Toothless, but you know how he feels about," Astrid paused to gesture around the stone she was talking to, "all this."

Astrid could almost see him standing behind the grave stone, leaning on top of his helmet with his arms crossed, rolling his emerald eyes and a crooked, goofy grin plastered across his freckled face that almost seemed to be taunting her despite no ill feelings behind the simple expression.

Looking as if the hands of time couldn't ever hope to catch up to him on the wings of a Night Fury.

Feeling all the more stupid, Astrid bit the inside of her cheek and pressed onward. Hiccup always had a habit of making her act out of the norm and it seemed even after death it wasn't going to be any different.

She kept her face and eyes as expressionless as humanly possible. "It's been three years since . . . well, you know . . ." Astrid was barely able to choke back a small sob, thankful that nobody living was around to hear the ache in her chest. It didn't matter how illogical it was for her to assume that time mattered to a forty pound stone. She wasn't a sissy by any means, but they say talking helped. The problem was that Astrid would rather slit her own throat than let somebody be a shoulder for her to cry on.

The wind blew a powerful gust against her spine, causing the blond to fall forward since she wasn't prepared to brace herself. Astrid landed on her hands, her face mere centimeters away from the stone. Blinking stupidly, Astrid forced out a sigh before the tiny remnants of a smile quirked the right corner of her mouth upwards. But just as soon as it appeared, it was lost again to the chilly wind. One might think it was nothing more than an illusion and that it had never actually happened. Even Astrid thought the ghost of the happy emotion was just her mind playing tricks on her.

With a discomforting cough, Astrid righted herself and placed her hands in her armpits in an attempt to warm her fingers after having touched the snow. Her usually blank face morphed into a small frown. Her eyes were glazed over, lost in thought in a place inside her mind Astrid rarely let herself wonder these days.

"Toothless is doing okay. Still a grouch. Sora's as annoying as ever." Astrid rolled her eyes at this. She couldn't smile despite how much she knew the idea would have garnered a grin from Hiccup. "I haven't had much luck getting Toothless flying again. Sorry that I'm not as gifted as you are at this." Admitting to someone that she couldn't do something stabbed at her pride, but she forced herself to swallow it. Astrid still loathed the word "sorry", but Hiccup had a knack for eliciting that word from her every so often. Likewise, he said it a fair amount of times to her despite how much she disliked hearing that word. It implied that you had done something wrong or hurt somebody else in some way. And Astrid had been adamant she could do no wrong and Hiccup was as harmless as a drunken fly. But she had been forced to grow up and he was no longer here to cheer her up.

Astrid used to shake his head at the idea of talking to a dead person. It wasn't logical and it didn't make sense. The person was dead. Their heart and soul no longer resided in the person's body. They couldn't hear you. But there had been no body. So it was just easy for Astrid to pretend that he wasn't dead than it was for her to think talking to a stone in the middle of a snowstorm was perfectly sane.

A quiet, wet laugh escaped Astrid despite her best efforts. She remembered how they used to bicker back and forth for hours on end over whether or not Hiccup was crazy. "I still think you're insane," she choked out before she felt a burning sensation across the bridge of her nose. A large part of her was desperate to hear a smart remark in defiance and two bony arms flailing around for emphasis. Astrid inhaled sharply through her nose, causing a sniffling sound. Till the day she died, Astrid would say that noise came because of the cold weather despite how she hadn't made the sound all winter before now.

At a loss, she glanced around the cemetery. It was a small plot of open land, surrounded by thick bellied trees. There were no walls or fences to protect it against vandalism. No one was around to watch you fall apart except the ghosts. Astrid didn't believe in ghosts. After everything she'd fought and witnessed, she found it hard to believe that anyone would want to linger in a world that caused them so much pain and suffering.

The cemetery was filled with her ancestors. It was very same one Berk had been using since it was first settled three hundred years ago. Astrid wouldn't be surprised if her mother was buried there somewhere. But she wasn't interested in finding out. She was in enough trouble just for being so close to the place she once called home. Ullac's cemetery was far smaller than this. Astrid thought it was shame that they'd had to make on in the first place. Ullac was barely two years old for crying out loud! But part of living was dying. If you could call their state of existence living that is.

Astrid pinched the bridge of her nose to try and ease the sudden burning sensation behind her eyes. "I guess you don't really care about time anymore, huh?" She gave another valiant attempt at humor, if only for her own sake. Both of her hands moved out of her armpits so her arms could wrap around her torso. Astrid kept telling herself it was to try and keep warm and that she did not wish somebody else was holding her. "Gods . . . Why did you have to go away like that?" It was a question that had plagued her for years. Everyone had thought about it for three years but most had shoved it to the back of their mind in favor of thinking about survival. But not Astrid. She still wondered. She still wished for an answer she knew wasn't going to come.

Breaking down was no synonym for Astrid Hofferson. She was the personification of cool, calm, and collected to her family and peers.

"I still can't say I hate you if that makes any difference."

Taking into account that nobody else was around to witness, Astrid bowed her head and closed her eyes.

"But damn - it . . . I hate how you can still do this!" Her voice had started out as a whisper and ended in a shrill plea.

She wanted it all to just stop. She wanted the desperation to go away. But, more than anything, Astrid wanted the ache and longing to leave her broken body. At the same time, if all of it were to just up and leave her, what would the girl be left with but shattered dreams and an empty shell? As much as she loathed these feelings, they were all she had to fill the void. Happiness was proving to be harder and harder to come by. There never seemed to be enough to go around.

Astrid blinked repeatedly, working her jaw furiously to try to combat against the trembling in her shoulders. She usually got along with silence very well. She could remember times when she'd gone off by herself for the sole purpose of seeking out silence to escape the insanity and chaos Vikings were renowned for. Lately though, Astrid was finding it less and less tolerable. Cemeteries were unnaturally quiet and it was eerie. A chill ran down her spine that was not a result of the freezing temperatures.

". . . Why did you have to go?" Astrid didn't know why she allowed herself to whisper the one question that had been eating away at her. "Why did the gods see fit to take you?" Her normally confident tone began to waver with each syllable. "Damn - it, Hiccup, this isn't fair!" Nevermind the fact that she was being a little selfish here. Astrid knew her cries were greedy in the sense that she missed him and neededhim. She was also painfully aware that her pleas were falling a deaf ears.

With nobody around to observe her shattering composure, Astrid removed her right arm from around herself to reach forward and press her knuckles against the stone. She trailed her fingers across the surface to trace the outline of his first name. Her fingers were warm enough to feel the earthy lumps but cold enough to not register how its rough edges cut into her thick calluses. Her vision became blurry as she moved her eyes away from the helmet to the epitaph again. After trying to blink it away, she felt warm moisture run down her cheeks until it froze with the layers of pre-existing sweat. A wave of anger swept over the blond, but it only lasted a few seconds before it was replaced with her all too familiar feelings of loss and emptiness.

The cycle often repeated itself as such. Astrid tried not to think about Hiccup, but he had a way of creeping into her mind when she least expected it. And when he did, her ribcage would feel heavy, her stomach would sink, and her chest felt so empty it stopped her in her tracks. A brief wave of her famous wrath would wash over her, but it would only last a few seconds at most and leave her feeling worse once the negative emotion fled from her heart, leaving the widening void inside to consume another fraction of her sanity.

For a time, anger had been her best friend. It was her way of dealing with the situation they all found themselves unwillingly thrust into. Snotlout learned the hard way to stay out of her set path when the veins in her forehead looked like they were ready to burst. When Berk split ways, Astrid's wrath returned. When Ruffnut died, the young Valkyrie lost herself into a blind fit of rage and only realized she'd demolished several trees when she found Tuffnut doing the very same thing. While her violent tantrums had become fewer over time, they were no less destructive and terrifying to those unfortunate enough to incur the demon within.

Astrid pressed her index finger and thumb against her eyes when her vision began to blur to the point she couldn't tell where the helmet ended and the headstone began. "This isn't fair." Her normally calm voice had risen an octave. "How many—You don't deserve this. With a furious shake of her head, Astrid balled her fist and punched the stone's flat face right above his carved name. "How could—Why would—Just what the hell were you thinking!"

And, just like that, her notorious temper had returned.

Astrid pulled her fist back and hit the gravestone again. She balled her other hand and took a swing at it. It didn't matter that her knuckles were starting to bleed and that she was wasting precious energy. It didn't matter that any lingering ghosts might have been frowning and shaking their heads at the girl's pointless fight. And it most certainly didn't matter to Astrid that in her blind fit that her cloudy sky eyes were raining.

This went on for several minutes before Astrid felt spent and let her arms fall limply to her sides like a pair of kinked weeds. Her breathing was labored and she didn't feel any better. But she did take some satisfaction after seeing the cracks in the stone caused by her bare hands.

After a few moments of silence, Astrid managed to find her voice again.

"You—you just—this isn't fair." How many times was she going to say that? How many times had she allowed herself to think that?

And so the cycle repeated itself.

She sat like that for a long time. The only movement she made was to place her hand on headstone. After building up the courage to do so, Astrid slowly inched forward and placed a quick kiss over the second carved 'c' on his first name. Satisfied, Astrid stood up and attempted to dust the remnants of snow from her pants and shoulders. Pools of melted snow had seeped into her clothing, but there wasn't anything to be done about it. She rubbed her now numb face against her upper arm, sniffling quietly like a scorned child. And, just like that, Astrid's game-face was back in its rightful place. The blond reached down to pick up her discarded axe and Nadder helm where she had left them to be covered in layers of snow. She felt more secure just having the items with her.

Looking back toward the headstone, Astrid suddenly swallowed, pursing her lips into a fine line across her face. "I'll bring Toothless and Sora next time whether they want to talk to your ugly headstone or not." She attempted humor again if for no one's sake but her own. She coughed back a very unmanly sob. "I miss you." Her voice quivered, "Damn it, we all miss you, you idiot."

With those parting words, Astrid turned and began the lonesome walk back into hiding. She was less detached from the world now than when she had entered the forgotten cemetery. Her head was held a little higher. But the second she set foot into the shadows of the trees once more, the blond slunk down and made as little noise as possible. The only signs of her near break-down were the red puffiness of her eyes which could easily have just been blamed on the chilly winds rather than a burning sensation from an emotional buildup.

She paused once in her departure to look back at the lonely headstone with a Viking helmet that looked far too large for its original bearer. Her eyes closed as she willed any memories to her mind. Astrid tried to recall what it felt like to hold him while on the back of a Night Fury under the aurora borealis, but her arms only felt emptiness. Her lips couldn't remember what it was like to have them haphazardly crashed into his. Both of her partially bleeding fists could only remember hitting the gravestone. Her body as a whole couldn't call to mind what it felt like when she landed on him during dragon training.

And Astrid was ashamed of herself for not remembering such things.

But there were some things she could summon into mind. Astrid remembered his crooked grins and she recalled the freckles on his cheeks that crinkled together when he would offer up such a smile. She could hear his laugh mixed in with the billowing gusts of wind and rattling bare tree limbs. His green eyes with little specks of yellow were the colors of the trees and sun at the peak of spring. Those nimble little fingers of his were always working—whether creating something or simply wedging themselves between hers—to help fix whatever problems somebody might have.

Astrid felt like an old woman standing there and reminiscing about a time long gone. It was time well spent. She just wished she had more of it to spend and share with him. But you can't bring back the dead and there is no way to barter for more time. Once it's gone, that was it; there was no getting it back.

Astrid gave a soft, almost mute chuckle.

In that retrospect, she had no regrets.

It was a little saddening that she'd had to learn such a harsh lesson at such a young age.

There was a renewed look of determination about her that was evident in her strides as the young Valkyrie went on the face the world. One that could not be broken nor had it been witnessed by mortal men for years. A sense of perseverance that would remain as elusive a sight as observing a Night Fury in full flight in a starless midnight sky.

"Until we meet again . . ."

The blond finally turned away.

To face the hardships brought about by an unforgiving environment.

To hunt for sustenance that could mean the difference between waking up tomorrow or dying in her sleep.

And she would be successful too, because nobody beats Astrid Hofferson.

FOOT NOTES:

• While writing this, I was listening to Who Knew by P!nk and Second Chance by Shinedown. More so on the former than the latter.

• In Norse mythology, Ask and Embla (from Old Norse Askr ok Embla)—male and female respectively—were the first two humans, created by the gods.