A/n: Request from PI-Valkyrie-exLorien. Writing this has made me think about the Avengers crossover. I can't wait till I'm finished with this so I can write it!
(2 suggestion spaces left.)
Valka looked at the swirling expanse in front of her. It was exactly as her son had described, from his experience travelling to a strange new world with Hookfang. It excited her, mostly, the prospect of travelling. There was the thrill of fear too - what if she went through, and it was a terrible, dangerous place? What if there was no way back?
But Hiccup found his way back, and Valka didn't doubt that she and Cloudjumper could, too.
"Come on!" she laughed, mind set on getting through. Though the darkened patch of sky was large, almost all-encompassing from where she hovered, just in front of it, it was fading. "It'll be fine."
Cloudjumper shook his head, not agreeing with her assessment. 'Come on...' he said, panic increasing in his voice, 'we can go back now, tell people to stay away for a while, we don't have to go in there!'
"Oh, you're no fun." Valka accused. She sighed dramatically; it looked like she wasn't going to be able to persuade him, after all. Unless...
Grinning and sending a silent thanks to Hiccup for the idea, Valka stood up.
'Oh no, what're you doing?' Cloudjumper asked, but he was too late. Valka let out a whoop as she leapt from his back, diving straight through the portal. He went straight after her without hesitation, cursing Hiccup and his unconventional methods of getting a dragon's attention.
It was just as Hiccup described, towering grey structures standing tall like a collection of closely-packed sea stacks, twinkling lights coming from the ground, the structures, everywhere.
"It's beautiful..." Valka breathed.
'Yes, it's very pretty.' Cloudjumper agreed snappily, not quite as impressed. 'Now can we get out of here, before the way back disa - oh great.'
"What?" Valka asked. The portal had been closing when they flew through, sure, but it wasn't so close that the few seconds they'd spent in the new land would've rendered them unable to return, would it? Craning her neck to look behind her, Valka noted that the portal was, sure enough, still swirling away in the background, no smaller than it had been a minute previously. In fact, it appeared to have stabilised; they had as long as they wanted to explore before they headed back.
So what was the problem?
Turning back round, Valka nearly slapped herself for not noticing the massive thing - for lack of a better word - that was slowly approaching. "What is that?" she asked, not expecting an answer.
'I don't know.' Cloudjumper admitted. It wasn't a surprise, not really, but it was still disappointing to hear.
Valka started asking what to do just as a voice came out of nowhere. She didn't understand what it was saying, but its tone was strict, no-nonsense.
"What's it saying?" she whispered to Cloudjumper, who shrugged.
Apparently the voice realised that she hadn't understood, as it started reeling off different messages, all in different tones and what she could only assume were different languages. Deciding that they'd come across hers eventually, she relaxed back into Cloudjumper.
Finally: "Please come onto the helicarrier. A hatch has been opened for you. If you don't, we will be required to use force."
It was an odd message - she hadn't the slightest clue what a helicarrier was, or what authority the voice held - but she decided to obey the orders it had given her. Assuming the strange, grey floaty thing to be the helicarrier, she nudged Cloudjumper forwards and started looking for an entrance.
"There's no need to be so formal," she told the voice while she searched. "or to use force; me and Cloudjumper are quite peaceful, actually."
There was silence, then: "We'll see about that."
It was all very exciting, really. Something like Hiccup's experience of the world she found herself in.
The hatch showed itself not long after, and Cloudjumper flew into it. They were met immediately by two men, dressed strangely and standing with an air of power despite a lack of obvious weaponry on their persons.
"Hello!" she said, not really bothered by their attitudes - she'd dealt with worse back on Berk - "Who're you?"
"We're asking the questions." the man on the right snapped back. He was the shorter of the two, and actually looked a bit more pleasant. Taken aback by his rudeness, Valka found that she didn't want to discover how much worse his one-eyed companion was. "Who are you?"
"Well, I'm Valka," she introduced, more warily now, "and this is Cloudjumper."
"A dragon?" the shorter man questioned after the other said something in the strange language from before.
"Yes." she confirmed, quite proudly.
"Oh great, another one."
Another one? So this was where Hiccup had ended up! Now they could compare experiences!
"Another one?" she asked anyway, curious as to their impressions of her son.
"Yes. Came out of a portal just like the one you just appeared from, with two dragons. Left before we could ask any questions."
"Sounds like Hiccup." Valka nodded knowingly.
"You know him?" the man prompted. Why hadn't the other spoken yet?
"Yes; he's my son." she explained. "Why isn't the other guy speaking?"
"He doesn't speak Norse." the man said. She nodded - it made sense, sort of. "Now, questions?"
"What? Oh, yeah, ask away..." Valka invited, attention grabbed by a strange contraption behind the men. It was an odd shape, nothing like anything Hiccup had ever made.
"Where are you from?"
"Berk." she answered, thinking of the best way to go about moving over to the curious object without drawing attention to herself. It would be difficult under the two men's intense stares, but she was confident that she could manage it. She started shuffling round.
"Did you create the portal?"
"Nope!" A cheery answer and a slightly exaggerated hand action to compliment it, so that they didn't notice her larger steps.
"Do you know anything about this place?"
"Just what Hiccup told me." She was so close.
"And what did he tell you?"
"That the people there were really inquisitive." she said jokingly, taking another half-step back. If she reached out now, she could grab it -
"Hey! What're you doing with that?"
"This?" Valka asked, holding the object up. She still had no idea what it was, but it was small, easily held. If not for the complete lack of sharp edge or heavy iron end, she would've thought it a weapon. "What is it?"
"A gun." the man said After a moment's consideration, he continued: "It's a weapon."
"Really?" Valka had never heard of a gun before. "Never seen one before."
"Why, do you use swords and axes on Berk?" the other man said. He spoke in a strange way, like he was reading the words phonetically.
"Yes." she responded. "What else would we use?"
"A gun, for one." Back to the other man, who now sounded mildly amused. "Are you a Viking, by any chance?"
"Yes!" Valka confirmed. She grinned - they were finally getting somewhere.
"You worship Thor, Loki, people like that?"
Valka nodded, a bit confused. Why call gods people?
"Well, you'll like this."
"And you really make thunder, and use Mjolnir, and you can fly?"
"Yes." Thor said kindly. He was vaguely amused - he'd never gone down to Midgard back when everyone believed that the people of Asgard were gods, and it was quite fun to have someone so in awe of him.
"Wow... Wait 'till I tell Hiccup! He'll regret leaving so soon now!"
Ah, and the Viking names. They were always the best parts of people's tales of their trips. Wait, Hiccup?
"Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third?" he guessed. Valka nodded, frowning slightly.
"You know him?"
"Loki spoke of him many a time after his visits to Midgard." he explained. "He said that he was a good man to play tricks on, and he used his magic to turn him into a... fury of the night."
Valka stared, dumbstruck. So Loki really had been behind Hiccup's dragon experiences. Wow.
"Well it's been nice talking to you Thor," she said, looking out of the window - she'd never heard of using glass to make walls, of all things, but she had to admit that it was genius - at the slowly diminishing portal, "but I think me and Cloudjumper have to be leaving now."
Thor nodded in understanding. "Farewell, Valka, Cloudjumper." he said, nodding his head to each of them in turn.
Thor was nodding at her. It was almost too much.
Making an effort to stay calm, Valka returned the nod and jumped onto Cloudjumper. Thor pointed the way to the hatch and left her to find it.
"Ready to go home?" Valka asked, patting her dragon as they hovered next to the portal. It was barely their size now - they must have been there for quite a while.
Cloudjumper nodded, and no underhanded tactics were required to force him through this time.