Once more a reminder this story is rated T
'That scar...' Stoick remembers, a flood of memories hitting him like a Yak.
Lava slowly pouring out from the jaws of a Gronckle as it flies slowly but steadily toward the storehouse. Stoick stood between it and it's target, his hammer and a shield in hand. All around him the sounds of rest of the village clamouring, burning and fighting off just the latest of many dragon raids on the village.
The Gronckle fired a sloppy blast, which Stoick easily caught on his shield, before throwing it back at the Dragon, hitting it between its eyes and dizzying it. He ran up to it, bashing it on the snout with his hammer.
He looked up for a moment hearing a loud dragon blast, and it came from his home.
He swatted the Gronckle aside and started running up towards his home as the offending, 4-winged beast landed inside the newly made window.
'Valka.. Hiccup' he grimaced in fear, and further quickened his strides through the streets filled with clashing Vikings and dragons.
As he arrived at his home, he threw the door open, and saw Valka backed into a corner, her sword hanging limply between herself and the huge dragon.
He threw his axe between then, making the Dragon roar and flinch backwards. Running over some debris from the beasts entry, Stoick avoided the flames launched towards his back. Seeing the flames creeping towards Hiccup in his cot, he yells to his wife "Hold on!" Before somersaulting through the fire and snatching up his crying son.
He whirls round to help Valka with facing the dragon, but by the time he had turned around, it had grabbed her by the legs and was flying out of the house.
"No! STOOIIICK!" Valka yelled, to which he raised his axe, but the Dragon was already too high up even for him to reach with his axe.
"Valka!"
And with a final cry of his name, she disappeared into the murky night sky. In the clutches of the four-winged devil.
"Valka." He uttered quietly in disbelief, holding his now silent son in his arms. The retreating silhouettes blurred through the fog and the tears, blending together and into nothingness as his one love was taken from them.
He looked down to his son, checks the cut isn't too deep and dabs some of the blood off. Walking over to the great hall, the life seemed to drain from his eyes.
Forcefully, he slammed the great hall doors open, handed off the bundle of cloths within which was his only son and heir, and stalked back outside.
With each step he took towards the rest of his burning village, his eyes gradually glazed over with a red sheen and his eyebrows furrowed further.
He picked up a discarded hammer off the ground in front of him, and crashed it into the side of a Gronckle's skull.
Stepping over to where another Gronckle is about to blast a boulder shaped hole through one of his villager's, he sticks his axe into the side of the beasts mouth.
Forcefully he brought the beast away from the unconscious Viking and slammed it's face down into the mud and cobbles beneath it. Soon after he followed it with a quick slice to the underside of it's skull, and finally it lay still, right beside the large catapult it had just destroyed.
Without a word or much of a change in expression, he walked on to the next of many scuffles in his village, passing off the hammer to another fighter facing off against a Deadly Nadder.
As he walked along one of the roads, he grabbed at a Night Terror as it flew by, carrying a lump of still-burning roofing. He caught the edge of its wing and he ripped the tip of its wing clean off, sending the dragon flying out of control into a wall.
He exhaled deeply, turning back along the path and refocused on a Monstrous Nightmare, its body aflame. It was holding and tearing the outline of a person between itself and a single Scuttleclaw. It wasn't long before each dragon walked a few paces off, a piece in each's mouth.
At this point he'd hit his limit on his rage and was cutting up any scaled creature in his path, hardly a thought in his tormented mind. But one thought comes through loud and clear: "Make an example of the Monstrous Nightmare."
It was easy enough to follow, it glowing like a beacon even amongst the flames and billowing smoke from most the buildings around it. Stoick followed it to one of the wooden bridges that connected some levels of the island, and threw his axe.
The edge sank in deep, and straight through the bone of it's right side wing, ripping a foot or so of it's wing membrane as it passed through. The dragon let out an ear-splitting roar, overpowering every other noise in the whole village as it lost a wing.
Stoick continued to advance steadily on the dragon as it roared in agony, the wing hanging limply by it's side. It's shoulder muscles flexed as it tried to move it, but the clean cut through it's upper bicep made that impossible and only caused the beast more pain.
Looking up, it shot a fire blast straight towards Stoick, which he deftly dodged around, and ran up to the dragon's only still functional wing.
Humans and dragons alike had ceased from their immediate fights to see what the commotion was, turning to the elevated bridge which was now starting to catch alight in places.
Having run out of larger weapons, Stoick grabs a small knife from his belt and jams it to the hilt into the elbow joint of the Monstrous Nightmare, causing it to fling him across the bridge. He skidded to a stop before getting up again, wiping at his face, and facing the beast once more.
The dragon was obviously panicked by this fiend of a Viking, and was crawling backwards as best it could with now only one barely functioning wing.
It hissed at the Chief of Berk, trying to gather enough energy to get away, but it's effort was in vain. Stoick took the last few steps towards the dragon with surprising speed, a strong uppercut catching the dragon on a soft spot under it's jaw, removing any chance of a last resort fireball.
The dragon collapsed down on the ground in defeat and Stoick stood over it. He reached for one of the beasts horns with one hand and the underside of it's chin with his other, and rested his boot on the dragon's shoulder.
"A Downed Dragon. Is a *Dead* Dragon". He exclaims, twisting as hard as he could and snapping the Monstrous Nightmares neck in one clean go.
Most of the remaining dragons took flight and fled after the Chief's display of easily dispatching one of the largest dragons still left there in the raid.
The remembrance began to fade from Stoick's view and the face of his son began materialising in front of his face once more. That small scar upon his chin from all those years before shining as he holds his son's head gingerly in his large hands.
"Hi-ccup" he breathed deeply before dropping the ceremonial sword he had still held in one hand.
He engulfs his son in a rib-crushing hug and rests his forehead down onto the top of Hiccup's head.
After they embraced and Hiccup's spine was thoroughly compressed, Stoick took a small step back, still resting his hands on his son's shoulders.
"Next time you have some more earth shatterin' news to tell me, don't almost get yourself gutted next time." He grins slightly despite himself.
"Yes Dad", Hiccup smiles, liking the way he was once more comfortable to call him his dad openly.
They both walk slightly over to some of the chairs closer to the wall and sit down near each other, Stoick leaning over more to look at how much his boy had grown and started to fill out his weedy Viking shape a bit more.
Suddenly Stoick starts laughing, and Hiccup looks up confused. His laughs are loud and even seem relieved, further befuddling Hiccup.
After a minute or so, Hiccup can't bear such an unusual sight, and so asks why he's laughing. After a couple of seconds calming down, Stoick replies,
"I just can't believe that I was almost going to have to announce Spitelout, and by extension, Snotlout to be next in line for the Chiefdom."
"What?"
"Yeah, with both You and.." He paused briefly and a sad look came over his eyes, "Valka, presumed dead. Well, I didn't have an heir"
"Ah, the Jorgenson's won't be all too glad I am back then will they?"
"Not to worry, I hadn't told anyone" he says with a slight smirk. "But now you are back, I don't have to worry nightly about the fate of the village in the hands of those boar-brained fools." He looks back at Hiccup closely. "My son, I am so glad you are back."