18 years earlier

Vikings considered themselves experts when it came to ships, and for good reason. Ships had always been a vital part of life on Berk, they were an island after all. They used them in war and peace, for travel and fishing, in almost every aspect of life they were indispensable. As such, they were able to tell very easily that the ship that just washed up was definitely NOT from the archipelago.

Starting from the bow, the ship had plain, undecorated sides with no rower holes. The ship had a trio of masts, but the most unorthodox part was the sails that seemed to have been positioned along the ship's length and could pivot. The vessel was undoubtedly foreign even to the most novice shipwright, drawing quite a crowd to the beach it had landed on.

Unfortunately, the hopes of studying this fascinating boat were squashed by the fact that it was laying in pieces on a rocky beach. It had washed up the night before, and the Vikings were inspecting the wreckage headed by the newly appointed Chief Stoick the Vast. The ship seemed void of life and most of the Vikings were examining the remains of the vessel looking for unusual trinkets, including but not limited to a cracked spouted pot, some small ceramic cups (some of which destroyed), and a piece of paper rolled up by wooden handles on either side and though most of the writing was ruined had depictions of various stances that looked to be some kind of strange and intricate dance

But it was Stoick himself that made the most shocking discovery. As he lifted a chunk of wood in what used to be the ship's cabin he found a person. This person, a woman, was unlike any he had ever seen. Sprawled across the floor as she was, her face was hidden, but her hair was pitch black, a rare color here where hair ranged from porcelain blond to dark brown. In addition to the unusual color, her hair was pinned up in a knot in the back, a hairstyle not practiced in any tribe Stoick had met. Her clothes were no less strange; primarily a dark red with lighter red elements and dark trimmings. Flipping the woman over he was given another shock. She was undoubtedly foreign but above all, she was gorgeous. Stoick had never seen anyone, no anything, so beautiful in his entire life. As her stunning visage held him paralyzed, she started to stir, golden eyes staring up at him in shock.

Her head pounded as she approached consciousness. She remembered the storm, it had moved in too quickly to avoid and threw her ship like it was a feather. She fought the fuzziness of her vision to assess the damage. The masts were broken, sails in tatters and the hull broke into fragments on the rocky shore, un-sailable and probably unsalvageable too. As the haze in her mind continued to recede she finally noticed the giant of a man looming over her staring at her with equal amounts of shock. And giant was no exaggeration, for spirit's sake he was probably over seven feet tall, and he had a massive red beard covering most of his face. And as she took stock of the situation, she saw all of the other enormous men rummaging through the remains of her boat. They were all massive! She was considered imposing for her height back home at 5'9 but some of these men completely dwarfed her at over six feet each. Who even were they? If they were of any of the other nations she would probably be in cuffs by now, and they most definitely weren't fire nationals or colonials. Where even was she? Any initials fear she had was shoved aside by the burning desire for answers as she nervously raised her arm in greeting.

Months past and the people she now found herself living with were so intriguing- barbaric and uncivilized, but fascinating nonetheless. She was surprised to discover they were not affiliated with any of the four nations. In fact, they were so far off the chart they didn't even know what bending was! It was all so interesting. And their religion was hilarious, filled with wild stories of their god's shenanigans that were borderline insanity. Though she would never risk sharing that opinion out loud at the risk of losing any goodwill she had gained. As she began to accept her fate, she assumed a name more traditional to the tribe, picking the one she found most humorous, Valhallarama, and it shortened to Valka, which sounded close enough to her own name. When she had boarded her ship, she had wanted to explore and travel the world, and now she was certainly getting quite an interesting trip. Over time, she got to know and care for the people she had found herself with. And she started to develop feelings for the chief, who after he had found her had been nothing but kind to her and helped her make a home out of Berk.

She only had three problems. One - she couldn't bend. Not because she physically couldn't, no she was still perfectly capable of it, but she knew that it would get her instantly labeled a witch and thrown out. Their fire god, Loki, doubled as their god of mischief and along with some kind of fire giant named Surtur were apparently destined to help destroy the world, so it was probably a good thing to not be associated with either of them. Two - she was stuck here. Her map was ruined and their ships were so primitive they couldn't sail against the wind without a crew of rowers. And finally, three - dragons. They were hunted back home in the fire nation too, but they were still respected. They were the original firebenders after all and she had even met one before she had set sail. They were such beautiful and wise creatures and killing them was such a repulsive thought. Here though, dragons were different, they were more like animals and raided the village for food. But they were still dragons, sacred beings despite all that. She tried, again and again to get the villagers to see reason and peace but it never worked. That was the worst part.

A few years after she had arrived, she married Stoick, but she still hoped that one day that she could go home and introduce her family to her husband and soon-to-be child. The fire nation was constantly expanding, and she dreamed that one day she would wake to see steel and steamships on the horizon. Maybe if she was lucky, it would be her older brother's ship, but any would do. That she could help broker peace between her new and old homes, and help elevate the barbaric people she had grown to care for to the level of her homeland. And as her son was born she hoped that he would one day be able to see the great cities of his ancestral home.

When her son Hikroh, or Hiccup as he was called by Stoick and the village (she had found their tradition of horrible names funny until one was given to her son), was born she hoped that he would be a bender. She knew it was a bit selfish, putting her son at the risk of an angry religious mob or even just the practical issues of having a young, inexperienced fire bender living in a wooden village, but she trusted Stoick would accept him and she wanted so badly to be able to teach her son bending. So she prepared a traditional test to discover fire bending abilities, an ancient tradition passed down through generations. Placing a variety of flammable materials with him, she left him alone in a room of their hut and waited, hoping that he would produce a small flame, a sign that he too could bend. What she got instead was a large flame that quickly spread to the entire room, and then to the adjacent rooms quickly engulfing the whole building. Within minutes half the village was gathering and throwing buckets of water to douse the flames, but for each bucket of water they threw it quickly evaporated and flames engulfed the area. Valka was certainly impressed by her son's abilities but letting him go any longer would probably result in the complete collapse of the house. So using her own bending she cooled and weakened the flames to a point where the water could douse them. Once the danger had passed she ran inside to find the boy who caused the inferno laughing and playing in the ashes.

Valka loved her son, doted on him constantly, and she resolved to one day bring him back to the fire nation. He had more of his father's hair, although it held the brown tinge of her brother's hair, but he had her eyes, eyes she also shared with her mother. The rest of his face was a perfect mix of her and Stoick. He not only had the makings of a master firebender, but also displayed potential for a near-genius intellect. He reminded her of some of her family who worked as engineers in the imperial military. Once he developed finer motor control, she started teaching him calligraphy. He didn't get very far, but she managed to teach him his own name, despite him not understanding what the symbols meant. Looking back, she was definitely glad she was able to do that before that fateful night.

It was one unfortunate dragon raid that ruined everything. A dragon had broken into her house, worse yet, into Hiccup's room. She rushed to protect him, drawing fire into her hands to ward off the dragon. But what she found was shocking. The large four-winged dragon was playing with her son, not attacking. And as it turned its eyes to her, she saw proof of everything she knew about dragons. Peace was possible, they were intelligent creatures, not as much as the ones back home but enough. It must have sensed something about her, as it started to sniff and inspect her and she wondered if it could sense her bending, bending that came from the dragons themselves.

But Stoick entered at just the wrong moment. Axe high he charged the dragon. Valka tried to stop him, to get in between him and the dragon, but she had never extinguished her flames, and in her panic fire shot out, burning Stoick's beard. And at that moment, he looked at her like he never had before.

"Stoick, please wait, listen to me. I-" She was cut off abruptly by the enraged Viking.

"No, you Loki-spawned DEMON! JOTUNN! You're one of THEM!" And with that, he charged her and the dragon, axe raised. The dragon panicked, and in its haste grabbed Valka. As it flew off, Valka couldn't help but call out her son's name. The son she knew she would never again be able to get to. She would be killed on sight now, they thought her a demon. In one moment, she lost everything.

She didn't know where this dragon was taking her, and even if she did get free she had no idea how to get back to the fire nation. If she could find her way home, then she could try to leverage her family's influence to get a military expedition out here. From there she could find her son and try to explain what happened and make amends with Stoick with enough protection that she wouldn't be killed on sight

But she knew she couldn't. She could spend decades looking and never find home, and with one wrong move, she could end up in water tribe or earth kingdom territory, where she would surely also be killed or imprisoned. So with that, the last of her hope was extinguished and she cried. Cried for the home she would never again see. Cried for the loss of the man she loved. Cried for the son who would grow up without knowledge of his homeland. She cried for Hikroh.

Hiccup was never a child one would consider ordinary by Viking standards. For one, he looked different. His hair was a normal auburn and his skin was a typical Viking tone, but that was it. His face screamed of his foreign ancestry and mother, a mother who was only spoken of in hushed whispers, and his eyes were a mix of green and gold. He was shorter than most, and far scrawnier, too. And then there was the way he acted. He was smart, far more so than any Viking considered normal. He created things and doodled while most Viking children were swinging around the toy weapons their parents gave them. And on all his doodles he signed them the same way, with markings that the Vikings couldn't read. Hiccup didn't quite know what they meant either, he guessed his subconscious remembered it from when he was a baby. He had asked his father about it once, but he had yelled at him, sending him away, and they'd never spoken of it again.

Stoick recognized the text all right, more than recognized, it was burned into his memory. It was the text of the demon woman who seduced him, the boy's mother. But he loved his son and would make sure he didn't fall into his mother's dark ways. He was relentless on the boy, driving him to be a Viking, act like a Viking, do Viking things. But as Hiccup failed to meet his expectations over and over, Stoick's hope dimmed. So he stuck the kid with Gobber, hoping the boy might at least find a place in some sort of Viking profession.

Hiccup took to smithing like a natural. The most fascinating thing about his work though was the metal. Hiccup always managed to get the fire to the perfect temperature to melt the steel quickly without ruining it, and his blades were quenched and tempered to perfection, creating blades that could hold a razor's edge as good as a master smith. But Hiccup and fire always had an… odd relationship. For one thing, he'd never been burnt by it. Sure he's had his fair share of burns from the forge, but always the hot stones or heated metal, never the fire. Even when he really SHOULD have been burnt to a crisp, he got out unscathed. No matter how close he got, the fire never touched him, almost as if it moved away from his touch. Even if he was in the middle of a burning street in a dragon raid, he never got burnt, and he never felt fear of the fire either.

Hiccup had never felt like a Viking, and he wanted to fit in so badly, but he failed each time he tried. He was lost in this world. Until he shot down a night fury. Unlike the Vikings, the dragon accepted him, embraced him in a way he never felt before. And eventually, he flew away on the back of that dragon. He chose the southwest. South away from the cold and west away from the rest of the Viking tribes. A direction that unknowingly set him on a direct course for the fire nation.

Thank you to Octobot on AO3 for betaing!