Howdy, friends. Just a quiet night at home for our characters this update. I have a feeling you'll like the next chapter, though. Particularly because it comes with another one-shot, which I'll post Monday, so if you don't follow me, check in for it!

Innumerable thanks to my dear reviewers:

The Lightning Phoenix

Little Did You Know

Thunderbird 22

Colinou

QuiteARandomFan

Kelroe26

InfernoChicken

canadasam101

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brickmaster2

"You must be hungry," Valka said as she pushed open her front door.

Aeri's stomach suddenly grumbled loudly, and with a small smile she said, "Yes, I must be. It's been a while since we last ate." A look of horror dawned on her face. "Shade needs to eat! He's still wearing his saddle, I have to..."

Valka cut off her granddaughter with a firm look. "Shade is a competent, adult dragon. He can take care of himself for a little while. I would even go so far as to say that he would want you to take care of yourself first."

"But-"

"No buts! You're going to eat. How long were you flying?"

"I lost track of time. Maybe ten days, almost without stopping."

Valka was stunned. That was an awfully long time to be airborne, even if they had landed to eat and relieve themselves. Hiding her shock, she stood and took out two bowls for some soup that Astrid had brought her yesterday, which was heating up over the fire.

"Oh my. And what caused that limp?"

Aeri frowned. She had hoped no one would notice, but sitting in the saddle for that long stiffens up the whole body, especially injuries.

"I sprained my ankle just before the attack on Heimme."

It was Valka's turn to frown. Her granddaughter didn't strike her as the clumsy type, so what had happened? "I doubt that was an accident," she said.

Just then, they heard the sound of a door opening, and Aeri looked over to see Cloudjumper entering his shelter, which was a large space added on to the house so that her grandmother could live with her dragon as she had for years before her return to Berk. She gave him a small wave, and he nodded as he settled himself onto his enormous bed.

"You're right," Aeri said after a pause. "I was captured, and sustained several injuries then."

Valka nearly dropped the bowls. Glancing over at Cloudjumper, she saw that his eyes were wide with concern.

"Captured?" She tried to keep her voice calm.

Aeri sighed. There was no point in hiding what had happened. She was going to have to tell someone what had happened, and it might as well be her grandmother first.

So, she started with the two years after she had left, going into what she felt were mundane dealings with the different peoples and dragons she and Shade had encountered. Her grandmother listened attentively, asking the occasional question. After a time there was a knock at the door, and unwillingly Aeri's heart began to race. Sensing her granddaughter's discomfort, Valka quietly made her way to the front of the house and opened the door just wide enough to fit her shoulders through it. She wasn't surprised at all to see her son standing there at the bottom of the stairs, looking remarkably calm in the fading dusk.

"Hello, son. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Well, for starters, you could let me see my daughter."

Hearing this, Aeri stiffened. She wasn't sure she was ready to face her father, and her grandmother seemed to gather this with a glance at her face. "Actually, Hiccup, why don't you come back tomorrow?"

Valka almost laughed at the disbelief on his face. "Are you telling the Chief that he can't see his heir?" he scowled at her.

"No," she retorted. "I'm telling my son that my granddaughter is weary, confused, and not ready to face her father's judgment tonight. Come back tomorrow."

"My judg- now wait just a minute!"

Valka began to close the door, so Hiccup quickly strode up the steps and put a firm hand on the wood. "Mother. I have to see her." He allowed her to see his pain and frustration, his eyes shining with desperate emotion.

"And you will," she said gently. "But I think you could both use a night to clear your heads. This is something you need to handle delicately."

"Not something I can charge at, sword drawn?" He raised an eyebrow, and Valka remembered her eventful reunion with Stoick just before his death.

A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "Precisely. Why don't you go for a flight with Toothless? He could probably use your friendship about now."

Hiccup sighed. "He still hasn't come back from wherever he flew off to. I'm worried about him, Mom. He was so angry... I haven't seen him so upset in a long, long time."

"He needs time to readjust. We all do. But more importantly, we need to be grateful."

"Yeah, I'd be even more grateful if you'd just let me in..."

"Hiccup," she admonished. "You know better than that. Go home. Get some rest. Come back tomorrow."

Hiccup raised his eyebrow again but didn't argue. "Aye aye, captain." He started down the steps, but turned back. "And Mom?"

"Yes, Hiccup?" Valka asked warily.

"Thank you."

With that surprising statement, he set off up the hill, leaving Valka smiling slightly in the doorway. Closing the door, she returned to sit across from her granddaughter, who looked pale. Valka wanted to ask her a million questions, but knew all would be revealed in time. Aeri would speak when she was ready.

"I knew it would be hard," her granddaughter finally muttered. "Just not this hard."

Valka's smile returned, and she moved to kneel in front of Aeri's downturned face. Placing a gentle hand on the young woman's cheek, she softly lifted her head until their eyes met.

"Nothing is worth anything without some sacrifice. Life would not be so good if there was never anything difficult or challenging about it."

"I know..." Just then, a scratch sounded outside of the enormous door to Cloudjumper's part of the house, and a black head poked in.

"Shade!" Aeri cried, and the Night Fury slowly entered the shelter, nodding respectfully at Cloudjumper, who had no problem sharing his space. Valka rocked back to allow her granddaughter to stand and hurry to her dragon.

"Hey, bud," she whispered, resting her forehead against his as she stroked his neck. He warbled at her, clearly sensing something was wrong.

"It's nothing... Dad came by to see me. Grandma wouldn't let him in." She gave a small laugh that seemed to be part sob. Shade rumbled comfortingly. His father had yet to reappear, and he wasn't going to waste any energy waiting for the stubborn Alpha to decide to talk to him again. Obviously he understood his father's anger, even expected it, but it was just so out of character for his dad to hold onto it. The idea of his father being eternally angry sent a slither of unease through him, but he shook it off. He could worry about his relationship with his dad later. Right now Aeri needed him. So he sat still while she clung to him, listening to her heart race with anxiety and pent-up emotion, giving him time to think about his sisters. And brother. It had been quite a shock coming home to see a new face in the family, and he knew Aeri felt the same way. Soren didn't seem to mind him, though, which was a huge relief. Shade couldn't help but worry about how Aeri's siblings would treat her, after all that had transpired. He just hoped that they would follow their grandmother's example, but while most of the humans on Berk were predictable in their ways, Aeri's family was anything but.

Out of the corner of his eye, he observed Valka preparing a meal for herself and Aeri, taking comfort in the familiar routine of home.

"Shade," Cloudjumper rumbled quietly, and the Night Fury shifted slightly to meet the larger dragon's gaze, doing his best not to disturb Aeri, whose face was now pressed into where his neck met his shoulder as she marshaled her strength.

"Yes?"

"You must be hungry."

He couldn't deny it. Storm had asked him to eat with them, but he had decided against it, not wanting to create too much of a stir quite so soon. That, and he had wanted to get back to Aeri as soon as possible. "I could eat."

"Help yourself," the Stormcutter gestured to a number of barrels nearly overflowing with fish, and Shade's mouth watered. But he couldn't just dump his rider and go stuff his face, so he stayed put until Valka came over to them. Cloudjumper watched the younger dragon with approval, already detecting that Shade had matured far beyond his youth.

Aeri felt her grandmother's hand on her shoulder, and she looked up. She hadn't been crying, merely attempting to calm her thoughts. Shade's presence gave her a peace of mind she rarely experienced.

"Come on, dear. You need to eat," Valka urged, and Aeri knew she was right.

"Okay. Let me take off Shade's saddle first…" Once that was done, she wandered back over into the 'human' side of the house and sat down. She had heard enough stories to know that this edible food was not Valka's handiwork, but she dutifully ate everything her grandmother placed in front of her. On the other side of the space, in the 'dragon' part of the house, she could see Shade demolishing a barrel of fish, and it brought a smile to her face.

"So," Valka said as she tidied up. "You told me a bit about the first two years, but what about this last one?"

Where to begin? "Well, one day Shade and I had a run-in with some pirates…" Aeri started off haltingly, unsure of how much to reveal to her grandmother. But as the hours passed, the words began to pour from her, and it was only through great effort that she managed to avoid the more difficult topics of Haku and the Queen, instead focusing on her interactions with Mika, Fern, Maara and Vasara.

"The pirates resurfaced not long after the old Chief died…" Aeri described how she had never met the man, due to the accident that befell him during one of the dragon raids that took place before she arrived. "They kidnapped me to capture Shade…" Valka listened carefully to every detail, making connections and inferences that she was sure her granddaughter was hoping she would not.

Finally, Aeri sat back, taking a deep breath. "And here we are."

For a moment there was no sound but that of the crackling fire. Valka glanced over to see Cloudjumper's wide eyes reflecting the light. He'd been paying attention, though it was long past their respective bedtimes. "So there were dragon raids." It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"And you stopped the raids."

"Yes?"

"How?"

"Well, Shade did most of the work, rounding them all up and chasing them off with a number of well-placed plasma blasts—"

"I think you know what I'm asking. I assume there was no Alpha, otherwise I'm sure you would have mentioned him. That would also present an enormous issue upon the arrival of the refugees. No, there was no Alpha near Heimme. Which leaves…"

Aeri didn't want to meet her grandmother's gaze. "Which leaves… the Queen," she mumbled.

Valka leaned back in her chair. "I'm listening."

Aeri racked her brain for a suitable answer. "I… we… We defeated her."

Her grandmother's expression didn't change, her thoughts carefully hidden. "You and Shade defeated a Queen."

"…yes."

"With whose help?"

"Some wild dragons. And the villagers built a giant catapult to break open the mountain…"

"But other than that, it was pretty much you two?"

"Well," Aeri swallowed. "It was mostly Shade, after I was knocked out."

Knocked out? Valka's innately insatiable curiosity was begging her to ask for all the details. Instead, she looked over to where the Night Fury had finally collapsed, exhausted.

"He's certainly his father's son…" she murmured, eyeing the sleeping dragon. Turning her gaze onto her yawning granddaughter, she offered a half smile. "And you're your father's daughter."

"I am not so brave. Or ingenious. I am very little like my parents, I've found."

"Don't be so sure—"

"They never would have done what I did, leaving. I'm too self-centered to bear any real resemblance to them."

"Aeri," her grandmother said, her voice firm. "You showed true courage by returning. And wisdom, and loyalty to those you care for and take responsibility for. You've learned a great deal in your time away, and I think you should stop giving yourself a hard time for what's in the past."

"I don't think everyone thinks the way you do about it, Grandma."

"If not now, they will soon enough. Right now, it is late indeed, and you need rest. The bed upstairs is all ready for you."

Aeri knew her grandmother was right, but that didn't ease the turmoil now taking place in her heart. With a sigh she stood, turning towards the stairs, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her. Valka pulled her granddaughter into another embrace, taking comfort in the young woman's presence, and the fact that she had survived what odds fate had stacked against her thus far. After a moment, Aeri relaxed, thankful for the unconditional love and acceptance radiating from her grandmother.

Stepping back, she smiled, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. She could hide her internal conflict, but she could only pretend for so long. "Thanks, Grandma."

"Goodnight, Aeri."

Goodnight! (Actually it's morning here, but you get the idea.)