ON WITH THE SHOW!

Nightfall, Part Sixteen

His crew is laughing, but Stoick is not amused.

He had commandeered the fastest and most maneuverable ship in their fleet, along with the most experienced crew, and loaded it up with a number of interesting weapons and Gobber for good measure, since the blacksmith knows more about them than anyone, possibly even the traveling hunters they got the projectile nets from. A rapid argument with the ship's captain had resulted in the conclusion that they could bring all the weapons and still steer the ship as fast and as well as they could without them, and if anyone else disagreed with the chief they could be thrown in the harbor too.

That is how you solve things when you're dealing with Vikings.

Stoick would very much like to throw everyone in the smallish longboat that they have just nearly collided with into the water and leave them to swim home, but in the state they're in they might just drown and then he'd be short some fifteen otherwise perfectly good fighters.

Also formerly-roaring-drunk and waking up to be seriously hung-over fighters, but there are ways to deal with that.

Ways like nearly ramming the drifting ship in the half-light of predawn because everyone aboard had gotten rascally drunk after bringing what looks to have been most of the stocks of well-aged ale with them rather than a decent navigator or a good catapult. That would wake up most people, but not this lot.

So instead Stoick storms aboard and knocks them all awake with the flat of an axe that was just lying about the deck, roaring as loud as he possibly can.

It doesn't take long to get the disgraceful crew up on their feet, if somewhat wobbly when they get there, and properly shouted at. Just how they got away with this little expedition is not clear – no one is in any shape to remember.

Stoick isn't going to throw them in the water after all – he's going to leave them here drifting not half a league from Helheim's Gate and let the dragons eat them.

He doesn't do that. He picks the most sensible person he can find out of his own hand-selected crew and designates her to get the other ship back to Berk in one mostly intact piece. If she's short a few sailors by the time it gets there, he suggests that he won't ask too many questions. Of her.

Astrid, now, Astrid he's going to have words with. How could she have overlooked a boat full of Vikings carrying barrels of ale down to the harbor, probably, if he knows this particular group, singing very loudly and badly?

The spectacle of it should put him in a better mood, but it doesn't. He glares at someone for laughing too loud – sound carries strangely through the gods-forsaken mists they're back on course for. They've spent too long stopping in at and shaking down the smaller islands around Berk, looking for the chief's missing son.

They've found nothing. Oh, plenty of local dragons, but mostly the less threatening loners that rarely raid the village, and certainly not in the organized waves that those monsters do. The crew had even gotten in some hunting and fishing on the side, until Stoick had whipped them back into shape with some shouting and gotten them focused again.

But they hadn't seen so much as a scale or a shadow of that Night Fury – or the boy.

If they have gone anywhere, then surely they will have come here, Stoick thinks grimly as the mists of the Gate come into view over the horizon, barely visible in the slowly rising dawn. He knows the perpetual fog too well to be fooled, though – let your guard down around the Gate, and the ship will be through it and lost before you can swing a hammer. He's been here before.

Never successfully. It's impossible to navigate inside the Gate, and far too easy to get permanently turned around. Ships are lucky to ever get out again, much less all the way to wherever in its depths the nest is.

He can already hear some discomforted muttering from the deck a safe distance from where he stands at the helm, unwilling to relinquish control of the ship until he has to. This is his fight. He will go into the Gate and bring back his son.

But if it's risky to go into the Gate it's mad even by Viking standards to go in while it's dark. Visibility in those cursed mists is low even in bright sunlight. So for the moment – until the sun is up – the ship waits, some of the oars deployed to hold her at station-keeping against the waves.

"You cannae be thinkin' to look for 'em in there," Gobber complains from where he's lurking at the stern, having run out of catapults to tinker with and net-slingers to polish. "In three hundred years we've ne'er so much as found the nest, much less one hidin' lad."

"This is where the dragons hide," Stoick grits out – they have had this conversation before on the way here. Well, Gobber has tried to have this conversation, and Stoick has ignored him. It's hard to avoid someone on a single ship, but Stoick has so far been able to distract his old friend by setting him to making sure all the complicated weapons are in working order and running the crew through firing drills. That had kept Gobber both busy and entertained – and as an added benefit, this crew has gotten quite good at hitting even small targets thrown away from the ship as practice. "This is where they'll be."

"Aye, if ye say so."

Stoick declines to respond to that. He grips the helm a little tighter instead and waits for full daylight.

He desperately wants to go in there – and yet part of him also does not.

The chief ignores the second, smaller part, and sends Gobber off to load the net-slingers and ready the firing crews.

He is about to give the order to ship the oars and let the winds carry them into the Gate when a crewwoman looks up and asks her neighbor, "Did you hear that?"

Sound carries near the mists – everyone hears her and stops to listen.

After a moment in which everyone seems to hold their breath, Stoick hears it too – a high-pitched, whistling shriek that he has heard before.

"The Night Fury!" he snarls – and a chorus of gasps and chattering half-anticipatory and half-frightened erupts.

"Ready the catapults!" Stoick orders. "Crews to the net-slingers! Oars ready! I want it brought down – but not hurt!"

Vikings scurry to obey, and those with the keenest eyes and the sharpest ears scatter up the mast and onto the prow of the ship to get a bearing on where the noise is coming from.

Immediately, they can agree that it is getting closer, because it's getting noticeably louder. The chief leans on the helm, following their directions as the rowers haul on the oars even before he can command them to.

She really is a maneuverable ship. He knew they could bring all the weapons and still be able to navigate.

"Steady!" Stoick commands as the lookouts signal that the shrieking noise is as dead ahead as they can figure given the disorienting effects of the fog of Helheim's Gate. "Light the flares!"

These are lightweight woven balls of reeds and flexible wood and anything else that will burn, loaded into the catapults back on Berk – or here – and launched at attacking dragons to both disorient them and highlight them against the sky, especially at night. The Vikings have been using them for a while and while they don't do much damage if they even hit, it feels good to shoot fire back at the creatures for once.

"There you are," Stoick growls, eyes narrowing at the dark shape emerging at a truly remarkable speed from the fog.

"Fire!"

The crews have benefited from the practice drills – they launch the burning fireballs in unison, spreading a barrier of fire across the morning sky. The Night Fury is visible only for a moment before it recoils away from the sudden flames, beating black wings down and cutting that long tail underneath to keep its balance in the air, still screaming.

"Nets!" He almost doesn't need to give the order – Gobber's training has proven very useful, because given the choice of doing it right this time or being subjected to more sarcasm in front of your friends with nowhere to escape to, most people will do it right and count themselves lucky.

Rapidly expanding nets hiss through the air in the wake of the fire even though the fire crews are blinking spots from their eyes. They know that trick, and the net-launchers have kept their own eyes averted, trusting their crew.

That is what it is to be a Viking – to be able and willing to go into battle without even looking because you trust your fellow warriors to do their work right.

In almost less time than it takes to take a breath, the nets are tangled around the Night Fury and it is flailing, shrieking, falling.

But the gods are good and so are his navigators – it had emerged from the mists almost on top of them and because it was some distance in the air Stoick can roar "Forward!" and his oarsmen can surge the ship – bless her, she is a lovely mover, as good as her captain claimed – ahead so that the devil creature crashes to the deck rather than into the water. The uncontrolled and unwanted landing makes the ship rock with its impact, nose plunging into the water briefly, but she comes back up and stays level even as the dragon struggles. Stoick has no desire to try to fish that thing out of the ocean; let it drown and the ocean is welcome to it, but –

Amidst the ropes binding the thrashing creature, he can see a smaller figure fighting his way free of them, shedding dragon-claw gloves in favor of the knife strapped to his right forearm.

It's hard to miss that much falling dragon, so everyone is already out of the way when the chief yells, "Keep back! This is my battle!", and they could not press themselves much further into the bulkheads if the inner hull had been made of snow.

Stoick leaps down to the deck, handing the helm off to the nearest crewman, who looks relieved to have the sturdy wheel between himself and the dragon, and moves in to reclaim his son.

The wild boy is howling with fury and fear, hacking at the ropes that bind him almost as tightly as his monster pet, but not randomly, not stupidly. He knows how they work, he knows what they are, and he's getting out of them very quickly.

The moment he rolls free he's at work on the remaining ropes, trying to free the dragon's limbs. They're strong ropes, but his knife is cutting through them quickly. Obviously not quickly enough for his liking, though – his rough and shaggy hair flies as he tries to look at everyone at once, trying to figure out who is the biggest threat and who is coming for them, mouth half-open as if he is trying to cry out even as he gasps in another breath, shoulders heaving as he hyperventilates, panicked and afraid.

He is clearly terrified, but he won't leave the dragon, won't move away from it, won't stop trying to get it free.

And he cannot cut through enough of the netting to do so before Stoick is upon him, snatching Hiccup by the scruff of his neck and wrenching that knife from his hand, throwing it to one side to clatter across the deck and vanish far out of reach, dragging him away.

Hiccup screams in frustration and wrath, trying to turn and fight, but his father is so much bigger than he is it's not even close to a struggle, not without those claws or the black dragon that is now fighting even harder to get free of the ropes. But there's no way – the nets are severely restricting its movement and it can't even open its mouth properly to spit that blast of fire.

Dodging flailing arms that are hitting quite hard and quite accurately for such a small youth with no real battle training, Stoick uses his size and weight to his advantage, wrapping the boy in a wrestling hold where he cannot move and cannot fight.

For a brief moment he is holding his son in his arms where he belongs.

For that same moment he forgets that it's not like fighting a human, and the chief roars in surprise and pain as the wild boy bites him, sinking his teeth into the broad forearm wrapped around his chest and tearing at it, twisting his jaws back and forth and worrying at the bleeding flesh.

"Enough!" Stoick shouts, getting a grip on that scaled leather armor and whipping the smaller figure around until Hiccup's back collides sharply with the ship's inner hull. He grunts in what might be pain or might be anger and doesn't recover in time to do more than growl when Stoick braces his feet against the pitching deck and traps the nearest clawing hand, leaning the unbitten forearm across the boy's slim chest and effectively pinning him where he is with no way to pull free – not unless he's a lot stronger than he looks.

But does he ever growl, baring bloody teeth and wrinkling that snub nose and all but flashing fire from dragon-green eyes. It's a noise that should not come from a human throat.

The dragon roars back to him – it has never stopped – and they sound too much the same for Stoick's liking.

"Enough!" he repeats. "It's all right, Hiccup, I'm not going to hurt you. You're safe. It's all right, you're all right."

He might as well not be saying anything at all – his son continues to struggle, trying to heave a man who must weigh at least three times what he does off him and get back to the dragon, crying out its name in that strange clicking way that sounds like "Tt-th-ss!" over and over again, a desperate wail.

"Listen to me! It's all right, I promise. You're going to be all right, you're safe!"

Hiccup roars at him like nothing human, and keeps trying to get away and back to the Night Fury, which is wailing now, sounding like a heartbroken human baby and fighting the ropes uselessly. Still, no one dares approach it.

Momentarily, their eyes meet, father and son, and Stoick stares, trying to see the human in there, trying to find his son buried under the fury in his heart.

"Why?" the chief asks, not expecting an answer, not sure that Hiccup has understood anything he has said. He turns his head to look at the dragon briefly and cannot understand.

"You're my son, Hiccup – I'm your father. We're family," he pleads, softening his voice. "Come home."

Those green eyes glare into his, anger shuddering away into fear and distress.

"Why?" he asks again.

That long hair flies as Hiccup tries to duck away, but he's going nowhere until the chief lets him go – he is simply too outmatched.

But then his mouth works, tongue licking out to wet fear-dry lips, and he says again, "Tt-th-ss."

Stoick is about to growl angrily – they have gotten nowhere! – when he says something else added on to the dragon's name that is the only thing he has said since the Vikings brought them down.

"…(click)-phuh," he gets out, that guttural way he says his own name, and "(click)-phuh Tt-th-ss" with something that sounds like "hrrt."

The chief's brow furrows under his helmet as he tries to translate the answer he'd been demanding and had finally been given. He'd understood the first two words said twice, but the last…

His son makes a peculiar, frustrated noise, and finally manages something that sounds like "uh-uffff Tt-th-ss."

He turns his head away and will not look at his father, fixing his eyes on the dragon and holding its gaze. For the first time, the dragon quiets, emitting a low, pained moan with a sob in it.

It must be something quite simple…and then Stoick understands it, and his heart goes cold.

He is speechless for a brief moment. In that moment, Hiccup looks back up at him.

They're his mother's eyes, Valka's eyes, wide and pleading and frantic, and absolutely frightened as if it is a monster that holds him captive. And then they close as if concentrating, remembering, flailing for something, anything, that will get him back to that bloody creature.

When he opens them again they're truly desperate and Stoick is so caught by the tiny flare of scraped-up humanity in them that he barely even notices his son – Valka's son, Valka who had always believed that there was a better way and never hesitated to try to find it no matter what the cost – lick his lips and try again.

"Puh-eeeeese."

And that he understands quite clearly.

"Puh-eeeeese," the dragonrider begs again. But when Stoick does nothing he drops his head, those green eyes vanishing, and then turns as far as he can to meet the dragon's equally-green eyes. The look they share is one that belongs to twins, brothers-in-battle, the closest of pairs, but how can that be possible? They are from different worlds – his son is human!

But he may as well not be – he does not think he is or does not know he is or does not care because there is more of the dragon to him than anything human – and dragon and rider look at each other as if they are in the hands of their enemy and know that they will not escape alive, when the only way they can be together is to fill the world in their view with each other and die as together as possible.

The future crystallizes like ice in Stoick's mind, and he can see clearly through it what he must do for his son. No matter how painful it will be for him.

"Gobber," he says, his voice containing all that ice, an eternity of ice.

"Aye?" his old friend asks tentatively.

"Find where his knife went and bring it to me."

If he flicks his eyes to the side just a bit he could see his trusted friend standing there, but he can hear from Gobber's voice what the look on his face must be like, so he does not take his eyes off the broken dragon-child still held against the bulkhead. "Wha'? Now wait just one blinking minute, Stoick! Wha' are ye doin'?"

"You heard me. Get me the knife."

"I'm nae gonna let ye hurt him, Chief! He's yer son!"

"I know that," Stoick grits out. "I'm not going to use the knife on him."

Gobber yelps, taken aback. "Stoick, ye cannae hurt him!"

"I'm not going to hurt him! Now by all the gods, Gobber, get me his knife!"

The smith wavers, unsure, but the iron in his chief's voice overpowers him and he stumps off to where the blade has fallen, picking it up uncertainly and bringing it to the man holding his own son prisoner and frightened.

"I hope ye ken wha' ye're doin', Stoick," Gobber says disgustedly, but he hands over the knife. It's a good blade, well balanced and well cared for and more than sharp enough to do what needs to be done.

The flash of movement gets Hiccup's attention, even to the point of breaking his gaze away from that thrice-damned dragon, and when he sees the knife held in his father's hand his eyes go huge and horrified. He knows what blades do, and even though there's nowhere he can go he tries to struggle away again, away from Stoick, back towards the dragon, all unsuccessfully.

The sound he makes breaks Stoick's heart, and he knows he will be hearing that noise in his nightmares forever – it is a terrified, hopeless, despairing whimper, heartbroken and resigned. And it's doubled – the dragon is crying too.

They both know what blades do, and they know they are going to die.

Neither can escape, but Hiccup tries so hard to reach out to the Night Fury – pinned as he is, all he can do is open his left hand and turn it so that perhaps from his perspective it looks like it is rested on the dragon's bound nose.

And Stoick flips the knife around and puts the hilt in that open hand.

"Go," he says.

He's fairly sure Hiccup stops breathing entirely, one shocked breath gasping in and going nowhere as his mouth opens in overwhelmed disbelief.

"If it's the only thing I can do for you as your father, Hiccup – go."

Stoick steps away, releasing him.

It hurts even more than he'd thought it would.

Hiccup stares at him and the knife in his hand and the dragon bound on the deck and bolts for the latter. He falls to his knees at the creature's side and drops the blade all over again, wrapping his arms around the Night Fury's neck as far as they will go and just holding the creature, desperately, whimpering with the release of tension and with joy.

The dragon croons back at him, eyes finally closing in something that almost looks like a beatific smile.

Its rider snatches up the knife and cuts through the nets as quickly as he can, sawing at the ropes and pulling away what he can until the dragon can shake itself free.

They should go – they should flee as quickly as they can and not look back – but the first thing the Night Fury does when it sits up is wrap a foreleg around its companion and hug him back, burying its nose in his hair and hunching its shoulders, making tiny little sounds like relieved sobs.

When it lets go Stoick expects them to vanish.

But Hiccup looks back at his father from where he's crouched on the deck in the dragon's shadow and ducks his head and shoulders slightly. It's brief and it's animalistic but it could almost be thank you.

And then he springs to the dragon's back and it takes off in an enormous leap and a powerful downbeat of wide black wings, disappearing into the sky.

Stoick closes his eyes so he does not have to watch them go, bowing his head with grief and loss.

When he looks up again his crew is trying very hard not to look at him, but there are too many backs turned revealing tense shoulders and hands over mouths or eyes or entire faces for it to be entirely believable.

"Turn the ship around," says Stoick. His voice sounds dead even in his own ears. "We're going home."

Stoick has driven the crew hard all the way here and they'd probably be justified in taking it out on him but they are merciful and leave him alone to stand at the ship's starboard hull and stare at the waves. He's deliberately not looking north the way they were going – he may never look north again.

After an endless while of waves and as much silence from the ship behind him as the crew can manage while still making good time back to Berk against the current and the wind, someone dares to approach him.

Unsurprisingly, it's Gobber, which Stoick can tell even without looking because he can hear the intermittent click of Gobber's right leg on the planks of the deck and he knows how Gobber moves.

"Did you really think I would kill my own son?" he asks his friend coldly. It is not something he could ask of anyone else – but then no one else would answer him honestly.

"Ah," says the smith, "…ye've no' exactly been yerself lately, y'know…"

"That's not an answer, Gobber."

"He thought ye were goin' ta kill him! Ye terrified the poor lad!"

"Gobber! Answer the question!" Stoick demands, turning away from the waves just a little bit to glare.

When he meets Gobber's eyes his friend looks like someone has just pointed a knife at him – or maybe a big ballista or two knowing how tough Gobber is. "Ah…" he tries to stall again, but then slumps, joining Stoick in leaning on the bulkhead.

"F'r a moment, I wondered if ye would," he admits. "And I thought ye might be meaning t' kill the dragon wi' the lad's own knife. Ye ken that would ha' killed them both wi' a single blow?"

"I know. I could see it in his eyes – in both their eyes." Gobber has been honest with him even if he does not like what he has just heard – has he truly been so out of control that his best friend thought he might kill his only son? – so he will be honest in return. That is friendship.

"Astrid said it loved him," Stoick remembers. He has been thinking about this all day now. "That he loved it too. I didn't understand that until this morning. I saw them together, I saw them play together and defend each other and saw that thing pet him like a child, but I didn't know what it meant to them. I could see that the dragon thought Hiccup belonged to it, but all I saw was that if he was the dragon's, then he could never be my son. That only one of us could have him."

He hates this mood in himself – it is the side of him that only Valka ever really understood. He suspects it is why she married him, and hates that because she is gone he now hates the part of him that she loved.

"Dragons took what I loved from me," he says simply. "I won't do that to my son."

Gobber is silent for a long, long time, and they watch the waves running past the ship's flanks together.

Finally, he says only, without any trace of sarcasm, "Chief, it is a true honor," and leaves Stoick to mourn for his child.

Berk feels strange beneath his feet. Stoick tells himself that it is only his sea legs and not that everything has just shifted from underneath him, that the thinness of the world around him is from spending all night awake at the helm because he could not bear trying to sleep and facing what awaits him there.

And there seem to be more Vikings here than there should be. He spots several people whom he knows he sent out dragon hunting, and they all try to duck out of sight when they see him.

Astrid is nowhere to be seen. He still wants a word with her, but she's probably anticipating a different conversation than he is, because it is not a conversation he ever would have imagined before yesterday morning.

"Stop that!" he snaps finally as he tries to walk through the center of the village and half a dozen people start to make quick getaways. "Get back here!"

When they assemble sheepishly – he knows these people went out on one of the raiding ships – Stoick demands, "When did you all get back here?"

They shuffle and appoint a spokesperson by pushing the most off-guard of the group forward. "About four days?" he offers as if it's a guess.

"Let me guess," Stoick says. "You didn't find the nest, so you turned around and came back."

"Uh…no. I mean, yes? Um…"

The chief sees what has happened – it's a distinct risk with sending many different ships out in different directions on a dangerous and improbable mission. The ships are drifting home behind his back.

He should care more about that.

He doesn't. It doesn't matter.

"All of you, tell everyone to stop hiding from me. I'm not in the mood. If you're back, you're back. Get lost."

They get lost – except for the slowest of them, who Stoick catches by one arm.

"Where's Astrid?"

"Up at the dragon pit," she replies promptly, and leaves to spread his message.

Stoick wonders about that response as he heads across the log bridge to the training pit, trying to puzzle out what she could be doing there. He briefly remembers her talking about dragons, but he'd been much more focused on the fact that his son had vanished again – and now almost certainly forever – and hadn't heard a word of it.

There's a crowd of people gathered at the foot of the slope, most of them sitting around looking impatient or interested or restless. The twins are running around trying to take bets on something that sounds violent and risky whenever they're not arguing with each other – Stoick immediately disapproves of whatever it is just on principle. That almost everyone is armed is no surprise; this is Berk.

"What's going on?" he demands.

He's greeted with a ragged chorus of "Chief!" which gets a lot more solemn and intimidated as they look a little closer. Stoick doesn't even want to know what he looks like.

"Astrid's training with the dragons and she kicked us all out," a voice in the crowd reports – it sounds distinctly like Snotlout. "Dunno why. Just watching. Can't blame her for being distracted, though, 'cause I was – hey!"

Tuffnut must have just punched him, because Snotlout forgets what he was saying and goes after the twin, chasing him out of the mob and practically into Ruffnut, who forgets whatever she was doing and leaps into the fight, although whose side she's on is not immediately clear.

This has the added benefit of giving the gathering a distraction to watch, and Stoick continues up to the pit unimpeded.

He's watched children train in here for years, but this is something new.

As he looks through the chains and into the pit, he is met with the sight of a Nadder chained to a pole on a long – but not too long – leash. It's eying up Astrid, who is crouched on the floor of the other side of the ring, watching it just as closely, but not as if she means to attack. Fishlegs is leaning on a barrel out of their way writing furiously in that little book of his.

"Astrid!" Stoick shouts down at her.

Astrid jumps to her feet; Fishlegs does his very best to knock over the barrel, which must be full of something because it lurches but does not fall; the Nadder jumps too and screams at the chief, Astrid, Fishlegs, the barrel, its own shadow, and probably the walls for good measure, whipping its tail around threateningly.

"No!" Astrid commands it, stretching out a palm forbiddingly in a clear stop signal.

It hunches its shoulders, ruffles its wings, and screams at her in particular. But no spikes go flying.

"See?" she tells Fishlegs, a bit smugly. Not giving him a chance to respond, she tips her head up and calls, "I'll be right there, Chief!"

She doesn't sound terribly enthusiastic about that.

And instead of leaving the pit through the wedged-open portcullis to report to him, she moves over to Fishlegs' barrel, opens it, and pulls out a large dead fish.

"Come on," she calls to the Nadder – its large blue head turns to follow her as she walks towards its pen. "Good girl."

It takes a few tentative steps towards her, chain rattling along behind it.

Behind the dragon, Fishlegs creeps around and unlocks the chain. The Nadder hears him anyway and whips its head around to scream menacingly.

"No!" Astrid commands again. "Come! Fish!" And waves the fish.

Unsurprisingly, moving food gets the beast's attention and it follows the fish until Astrid tosses the dead thing into the pen and the dragon follows.

Stoick watches, scowling, as the two very different Viking youths close the door behind it, careful not to trap the chain, talk to each other for a brief moment, and then leave the ring, Fishlegs snatching up his precious personal copy of The Book of Dragons and writing in it and scratching things out even as he walks.

"And what was that about?" he demands when she climbs the steps to join him.

Astrid sets her heels in that I am right therefore you are wrong but you are yelling at me stance and lifts her chin. "That was progress," she retorts. "I think she remembers how often I hit her with an axe as a trainee, but understanding and obeying a command of no is a good start."

"…you are training dragons," Stoick says. He's too numb to be incredulous, but he thinks he should probably feel that way.

"To fight off the others. Yes."

"So this is what you've been doing when I told you to get the ships launched and protect the village."

She draws in a sharp breath.

"If this works," she says, never afraid to push back at him, one of the reasons why she's going to be such a good leader someday, "it will protect the village. We can't keep doing what we've always been doing, Chief. They're coming more often, they're raiding harder. We have to do something new. Turning our enemies against our enemies – find me a way we lose in that scenario."

Stoick doesn't bother. He remembers shouting at her before he left – something about I'll deal with you later – and knows she must be anticipating some form of punishment, especially because she then went off and did something she wasn't supposed to. He is going to have to be more specific with his instructions to her in the future if she is going to pull stunts like this.

But he doesn't have the heart to punish her for something that doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter that she scared Hiccup away from Berk when he is the one who chased his own son away from the entire Archipelago, when no one was ever going to be able to bring him back and make him something he's not and will never be: a Viking, a human. If she failed at an impossible task it is not her fault that it was impossible; it was his for giving it to her.

So he doesn't rebuke her. But there's something he needs to know.

"Are you at all aware that one ship went out with more barrels of ale than Vikings aboard?"

That was not actually it.

Astrid's self-control is good but he can see that she's trying very hard not to smile. It may be amusement; it may be relief that she hasn't yet been exiled from Berk or stripped of her position as his successor for losing Hiccup or now for all but shouting at him when he's grieving. "Um, yes sir. They got back very late yesterday sober enough to complain that they were forced to row at top speed all the way back here and the words 'slave driver' were used."

He doesn't care about that.

"Um, chief?"

"What?"

"Did you find him?" She actually looks concerned.

Stoick feels his face and voice freeze. "Hiccup's gone."

Her poise breaks and her eyes go big and blue. "I – I mean – what happened? Chief, is he – did you…?"

It takes him a moment to figure out what she's trying to ask. "No, he's alive. We intercepted him and that dragon, netted it out of the air, but…" It will be all over the village by now, so it doesn't hurt to tell her – she'll find out anyway. "…I let them go. They flew away. They're probably halfway to the edge of the world by now and I can't imagine why they would ever come back."

"Oh," says Astrid, sounding relieved. "I thought – never mind. I'm sorry, Chief."

Stoick folds his arms because he is very tempted to put his head in his hands and never come out. But from here he can see the entire village – his village – and even the people in it – his people – when there are enough of them together and they're wearing bright enough colors, or are moving quickly.

There seems to be some kind of fight going on but since he can't hear any truly agonized screams and it's acquiring an audience it's probably not his concern right now. There is another ship slinking back in to the harbor or whatever it is ships do when they're trying to get somewhere without being noticed. Over the horizon a little way, there is a plume of smoke coming up from the islet he saw in passing that someone had set on fire. Closer to home, there is a herd of sheep about to wander through Gobber's forge, and the smith himself is still down by the ship offloading the net launchers and flare catapults – well, he is watching other people do that and telling them what to do.

This is his world, and he will have to deal with it from now on. And he will. He'll move on and survive and bear the weight of his responsibilities to his besieged people, because that's who he is.

"Astrid," he says curtly, "tell me something."

"Yes, sir?"

"Did you ever teach – " He grits his teeth and says his lost son's name. "Hiccup the word please?"

He looks over and down at her. Astrid's eyebrows have gone up and she looks very confused. "Please?" she repeats doubtfully. "Chief, I was trying to tell him we were in trouble, not teach him manners. I may have said it once or twice when I was trying to get him to do something or pay attention to me, but I don't think he would have picked it out of everything else. Why?"

"Never mind. It's not important." It's the only thing that's important. "Go…" he waves a hand as he tries to think of something for her to do that doesn't involve being around him. Stoick doesn't want anyone around him at the moment. "…break up that fight before someone loses a hand. And then call the remaining raiding ships home – send them out again to hunt if you can find people to do that. We'll fortify – there's nothing out there to help us."

She looks down at the village – the fight is over, but she's observant enough not to question that. "Yes, sir," she says instead, and heads for the stairs.

As soon as she disappears down them, though, she comes back up again, just far enough to see him. "Chief?" she asks, and points at the pit behind him. "Can I keep trying? I think I'm on to something, and we'll have another defense if it works."

Stoick cannot get inspired about her crazy ideas right now. He does not want to think about dragons anymore, but he cannot avoid it. He will think about it – he cannot turn his back on anything that might save his people – but not today.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow he can do that. "Do what you want," he says finally. "Just don't put anyone else in danger."

After a moment, Stoick adds, "Astrid – don't get yourself killed either. I need you in one piece to run this place someday."

Her face lights up and her shoulders go back with pride at his confidence in her, and she leaves.

When she's gone he has to admit that it's an interesting idea, and he'll think about it later once he's grieved, at last, for his son, living but lost to him.

His son is alive, the chieftain of Berk tells himself. His son is happy where he is, he is happy with what he is, with one of the most dangerous creatures Vikings have ever encountered protecting him because it loves him with all its dragonish heart and he loves it as completely right back.

Stoick thinks he can live with that, knowing that his son is alive and out there somewhere – not what he'd ever thought his son would be, but so much better than bearing the endless weight of a dead six-month-old boy in his heart.

But if Astrid hadn't taught him to do that, then how…

When he figures it out, Stoick does hide his face in his hands, bowing his head with no one to see him and no one to judge him and no one to think him weak or failing as a warrior leader.

Because only his mother could have taught Hiccup that particular word.

Even so many years after her death, Valka has reached out to save her son's life and his mind and his heart, and probably her husband's, as well, because that most human of words had stayed his hand and stopped him from blindly tearing his wild, impossible son in two.

Valka, Stoick thinks to her, and it is most certainly a prayer, wherever you are, Val, my love, thank you. Thank you for teaching a little dragon to be just a little human.

To be continued.