This chapter is about life on Berk after Hiccup and Astrid's deaths. It is mostly from Stoick's POV. It is a pretty short chapter but I promise you the next one will hold a lot of drama to make up for it.
Also, the suit of armour they wear is actually the same as the ones the Defenders of the Wing wear.
The mountain that was a man slowly opened the door which led to his son's room. His dead son's room. This was how he started his day, this is how it had been for eight years…
He called out his son's name and prayed for a familiar nasal voice with a sarcastic attitude to call back to him. It was a ritual, a morning prayer he made every day to the gods. A prayer he knew would never be answered.
The entire village knew how their Chief's son had died, they all knew and accepted the fact he was never coming back, but he never gave up hope. He never had the relationship he would have hoped to have with his son but he had always loved his son… he only wished he had told him that sooner.
The man himself had changed over eight years, he was still as tall and strong as before, but his large bright auburn beard had streaks of grey. He looked tired and devoid of any emotion, the colour of his clothes had faded away just as his will to live.
As he stepped out his doorway, bending down to not hit the door frame, he was greeted with unusually pleasant weather. Even the gods were trying to make him smile, but his lips stayed the same, unwilling to move. His eyes once filled with life are now drained of any colour.
It was the anniversary of his son's death.
It was the anniversary of the death of a young shield maiden of the tribe.
It was the anniversary of the disappearance of the dragons.
Three things that had happened on the same day, he had always hoped for one of them to come true… maybe it was the price he had to pay for the dragons to leave…
As Stoick the Vast made his way down the well-worn dirt path, leading to the centre of the village, he saw his tribesmen. They had been delighted that the 'little troublemaker' or 'fishbone' had died. Few even had celebrated the young boy's death. They only stopped when Stoick made an example of Mildew…
Only a few such as the Ingermans', Gobber, Gothi and Hoffersons', who had also lost their eldest child, were truly heartbroken that the two had made their way to Valhalla.
It broke his heart that his son had died not knowing that he had truly loved him, Stoick had only been a cold and stoic father to push his son to become a better and stronger Viking. He wished that his little son would return to him he had been smart and small but he was his son and he missed him as much as he missed his late wife.
He slowly walked past the line of houses towards the Great Hall, while nodding in acknowledgement at anyone who greeted him. The villagers were already hard at work to build new houses for the growing population.
He saw Ingrid Hofferson, a battle-hardened warrior, and to see her this broken was a rare sight. Her husband Havlor comforted his depressed wife along with their younger daughter Anna.
Stoick remembered the night his life had changed, when his son and Astrid hadn't returned home, Stoick had ordered search parties to be sent out.
A few hours before dawn they had found a lush green cove with a magnificent lake at the center. The cove was beautiful and majestic, it would have been the perfect place to relax if it hadn't been for what had taken place there.
As they searched the cove, they found Hiccup's dagger in the lake. The find also led to the discovery of dragon scales, one was of a Terrible Terror and the other one was as dark as the midnight sky.
Everyone knew what had happened, the legendary dragon had killed Hiccup and Astrid. The Night Fury had killed his son and Berk's young shieldmaiden.
Devasted and heartbroken by the revelation, the search party returned to tell the news to the villagers. While most of them celebrated the death of the runt, a few made tales of how the menace had run for his life and Astrid had tried to protect him as a true warrior would. They had continued to party and make rumours until a drunk Mildew was punched to the ground by a very furious Stoick.
The funeral was held the very next day. Stoick was now all alone in this world. He knew that. Maybe he was destined to be alone.
Since Hiccup's death, Snotlout has become the new heir. He is constantly trained by Stoick. While both he and his father were selfish and arrogant, they still somehow managed to sway the minds of all the villagers to do their bidding even though Stoick was still the tribe's chief.
As he pushed open the gigantic wooden doors leading into the Great Hall, he was greeted by a few villagers and the council members were already seated on the wooden table, which was placed on a raised platform. The rest of the villagers slowly entered the Great Hall as he made his way to the table, to have his first meal of the day.
It was a few hours past midday when Stoick entered the Great Hall again to eat his second meal, he saw most of the villagers were already present eating their meat while shouting and making jokes.
In the far corner, he saw the Hoffersons and Ingermans silently eating their lunch, the latter eating silently purely out of respect. As he sat beside Gobber he heard the comments the Jorgensons and their friends were making about his late son.
His fists balled up as anger took over his body. He was about to give them a piece of his mind only to be stopped by a sound the people of Berk had been dreading for eight years… the war horn. Stoick quickly got up and without thinking twice started shouting orders to defend their island from the invaders, whomever they may be.
As he ran outside the massive chief's breath hitched, as he looked at the size of the invading army. The ships of the invader's fleet were bigger than any other ship he had ever seen. The fleet itself filled the entire ocean to the horizon.
He immediately knew they wouldn't win this fight, it was impossible. He looked around him to see all his villagers thinking the same thing. He had to make a decision and quickly.
He then saw the colours the ships were flying, recognizing them to belong to Grimmel the Grizzly and his Dragon Trappers, and knowing that Grimmel wasn't coming for a chat, he decided that he had to retreat.
He ordered all his people to ready their large wooden boats to escape the incoming force of Dragon Trappers. The villagers quickly readied the sails of their ships, as the children and young adults brought supplies and resources for their journey to their undesided destination.
In a few minutes, they were cutting through the cold water currents, heading north towards the borders of the Archipelago. They had brought whatever they could in the limited time they had to escape.
Stoick was trying to place as much distance between them and the invaders by sailing in the direction of the icy winds. The invading fleet was now out of sight, their home of seven generations was also now beyond the horizon.
Why?
That was the one question every Viking on the six boats had.
Why had they attacked? Berk was a peaceful island ever since the dragons had stopped attacking them. So why had the Trappers attacked them? To gain territory? To loot and raid them? Stoick just didn't know.
The six Viking boats were trying their best to make their way through the lightning storm that had quickly been dubbed 'Thor's Wrath' by the villagers.
The storm was too powerful to sail through and after hours of continuous sailing, the Vikings were growing tired. And as no sunlight passed through the thick dark clouds, they had no idea in which direction they were sailing or what time it was.
The storm and the tall and jagged waves seemed to never end. While the old chief prayed for the gods to show them mercy, the waves and winds seemed to grow more stronger and powerful. Before any of them could even react, all six ships were sinking.
The Vikings scrambled to stay afloat and tried their best to protect the younger children, as they held on to the floating wooden planks which once made the boats that were now at the bottom of the ocean.
It felt like an eternity before the storm ended, and as soon as it did they saw large ships sailing their way. The massive ships were even larger than the ones belonging to the Trappers and had sails with a crest they could not recognise.
The crest looked like a dragon curled up in the shape of a ball with one of its tails painted red.
As the men on the ships saw the Vikings in the water, they quickly scrambled and started shouting to each other, they dropped ropes and dragons flew from the deck towards them. All the Vikings were too tired to even move as the dragons gently carried them onto the deck. The creatures dropped them gently onto the polished wooden floor before hovering a few meters above them.
Saying that he was shocked was an understatement, the ship was beautiful, it had what looked like self-reloading balistas, chain and net shooters. It was very advanced, that was something all the Vikings could see.
They looked around to see that the sailors had beautifully crafted weapons, that had intricate designs on the handles and the blunt side of the blades. The sailors themselves wore black leather armour with a hood and a black mask covering their mouths, the dragon riders had dragon scales sewn onto their armour which had also been painted black. The suits were meant to look scary and it was working.
The Vikings looked up to see the dragons hovering over them, the only sound the creatures made was the periodic flapping of their wings. The dragons looked surprisingly docile, but what shocked them even more was that the people who had rescued them, were riding said dragons.
Stoick looked back ahead to see a slightly tall man wearing a different armour made of black leather and red dragon scales. The man had a goatee and short black hair. He wore a smile that could make any man feel uncomfortable and had a dragon scar on his neck.
"Hello, my dear shipwrecked friends my name is Viggo Grimborn a council member of the Draconian Empire, I am the captain of this fleet. You don't look like you are from this part of the archipelago… So do tell me who is your leader and where all of you are from."
His voice was smooth, too smooth, it had a calm but scary effect on it. His voice made the hair on the back of every Viking's head, stand.
Stoick slowly got up to stand at his full height.
"My name is Stoick the Vast Haddock, Chief of the Hooligan Tribe from Berk. We were attacked by Grimmel and his Dragon Trappers. His army greatly outnumbered us, so the only option we had was to run away where we fell victim to the storm and lost our ships."
As Stoick finished his explanation Viggo's eyes turned wide, his previous calm nature turned erratic. He quickly turned around to the now murmuring sailors and shouted, "Set sail to Dragon's Edge!"