"I heard what happened to Gró and Hiccup" Astrid's mum starts.
"Already? News really does travel faster than the damned Bifrost" Astrid says sarcastically, with a slight bit more emotion than she expected.
Ingrid nods and smiles, "Everyone made it back alive and that's what's important."
"Most of everyone." Astrid sighs, crossing her arms. "I just don't understand why Stoick blames Toothless? It's my fault, if I had seen the Jormung's tail sooner then I could have warned-"
"Don't beat yourself up over it" Ingrid interjects. "And as for why Stoick blames the Night Fury, well I might have some idea."
Astrid looks up, intrigued.
"Well, Stoick needed someone to blame, and someone he can actually lash out too in the moment - which rules out the Jormung. And his first instinct would be to blame the person in charge, but..." Ingrid trails off.
"That would be me." Astrid finishes, confused.
"Yeah. And well, as you know he blamed you for a while last time for Hiccup's disappearance. And well, Stoick told me even during that time he felt wrong to blame you when it wasn't really your fault, but he couldn't help himself."
"But that doesn't explain why he doesn't blame me now anyway?" Astrid queries.
"Just getting to that bit. But he was able to see past it being your fault well before Hiccup returned, and still is regretful over how he treated you. So even if he does blame you slightly internally, he wouldn't let himself feel or express it. Which leads to it being passed along to the next person who had responsibility for Hiccup - so Toothless." Ingrid watched as Astrid considered this, before continuing.
"Another reason why he wouldn't want to blame you would be that straining your relationship would be a massive blow to the future of the village. You are the best tactician and fighter of your age group, and are easily ready to start taking up more responsibility in the village. All that combined and you'll likely be running a lot of Berk in a few years."
Surprised, but pleased at receiving the candid compliments, Astrid nods.
"And especially with Hiccup back in line to be chief, maybe running half the village isn't so much of an exaggeration..." she teases.
"What?" Astrid blushes minutely before calming herself "No, no. Hiccup is unconscious and for all we know he could still go into shock an-"
"Shh, calm down" Ingrid tells her, grabbing her hand and squeezing it gently.
"You'll get yourself all worked up. We both know that lad is tougher than he looks. Granted he isn't exactly the most fearsome looking and burly Viking to have lived."
"That's just because he's scrawny" Astrid smiles, picturing Hiccup nervously fidgeting like he would when he talked to her.
"He did certainly used to be." Ingrid chuckles back, "Now though, I think he's even a smidge taller than you".
Seeing her daughter roll her eyes at the height jest, Ingrid reassures her, "But he's still Valka and Stoick's son. Once he wakes up - which he will - he'll make it through this rough patch."
Astrid starts speaking, but is interrupted by Ingrid eagerly seizing her improved mood to ask about the battle, "So then, care to tell me the details on how the fight with the Jormung went?"
Astrid sighed but managed to smile thinly and began to recount the day as they headed inside.
A few days pass uneventfully, the village sombre and muted.
Astrid trudged up the village through a light rain on the way to the council meeting. Stoick had decided to call a meeting on next steps, and Astrid was not looking forward to this meeting. With their attempt at pushing back the Jormung a resounding failure in most metrics, and without Hiccup there, the sentiment on dragon's as a whole in the village may start to sour again.
Breaking out of her thoughts as she steps through the doorway, she looks around confused at the empty room.
She thought back to when Stoick had dropped round earlier that day, and he had definitely said it was that selfsame day, right?
Shrugging off her confusion, she took the lit torches by the door and lit the two in the back corner of the room to give more light.
It isn't long until Stoick walks heavily into the room, visibly exhausted with dark bags under his eyes.
"Ah Astrid, a pleasant sight at last." He sighs, walking over and sitting down one chair down from his usual seat at the head of the table.
"Are we early?" She questions, gesturing toward the vacant seats.
"Somewhat" he chuckles, "But for this first half of the meeting we are only really missing one person. You see, I thought it would be good to- Ah" he pauses as the last member steps through the doorway.
"Phlegma. Good to see you again."
"You look even more tired than you did this morning Chief." She shakes her head, "Hey Astrid."
Astrid returns the Botanist's greeting and they all settle in to talk.
Stoick hadn't arbitrarily chosen both Astrid and Phlegma for this first meeting, this was one focusing on the overall Village's strategy going forward and he had chosen two of his best for it.
Phlegma the Fierce, A No-nonsense Viking who is the Village's main botanist and has always been a leading tactician since she was younger. She even used to give Astrid some lessons when she was younger and Ingrid was busy elsewhere.
And Astrid herself, Berk's most admired young Viking - an excellent combatant as well as tactician. And now with Hiccup temporarily out of action, also the most experienced dragon rider.
"As you both I'm sure have deduced, this will be a preliminary meeting to go over Berk's next steps. Further details will be discussed in the meeting with the others later."
The ladies nod, sharing a brief glance across the table.
The chief sits back further into his chair, and upon noticing them waiting for him says, "Oh please, go ahead, I will add information where necessary, but right now I'm afraid I won't be much help with any rational thinking."
Astrid thinks to reassure Stoick about the state of his son, to tell him Hiccup will be fine. But she realises that he has largely excused himself from the meeting for that very reason - so bringing it up directly will only hinder proceedings.
"So- uhm, next steps?" Astrid starts slightly awkwardly.
"Let's go over everything we know about the Jormung and this situation first - and from there decide our best path forwards." Phlegma advises.
"Good idea" Astrid agrees, "Do we have a map or any paper?"
After procuring a small map of Berk and the closest few surrounding islands of the Archipelago, they lay it on the table between them all.
"So best place to start, food for the Winter." The weary chief looks to them both for any input.
Ingrid speaks up, "I can't speak on what we have in storage, but I know the current crops in rotation for winter are growing well, the cold spells we've had haven't damaged the cabbages, carrots or any of our grains. And only some slight damage to the beans."
"The grain is good news especially, its never fun to have to limit Vikings drinking. We'll get a clearer picture of our reserves later, but from prior overviews, it looks promising and that we likely won't need to ration anything further than our normal winter amounts."
"Provided dragon attacks stay as they are." Phlegma gravely adds.
"Hmmph. Speaking of dragons, it's fortunate the Jormung didn't follow the dragons back here, you did a good job Astrid."
"If we've had time to regroup, then unfortunately so will it have." Astrid reminds the chief, "We still need to stay vigilant."
"I do agree with Astrid, however, there is also the option that maybe the Jormung has been distracted by something else rather than simply regrouping? Possibly it's having to defend the territory it had previously taken as it tries to expand."
Stoick runs a hand through his thick, braided beard, absentmindedly picking at one of the braids.
"Astrid, what direction did the Jormung retreat towards do you remember?"
"Um–" Astrid hesitates, looking over the map carefully.
"Well if we came in from this direction.."
she says, her finger tracing a path from Berk just past Crescent's quake and into a largely unexplored area.
"Then we would have landed on the North side of the island. So at a guess the Jormung went Westwards? At least initially."
"Aye." Stoick says thoughtfully, "An' we all know that North-West is usually from where the Dragon attacks came from. Maybe the Jormung found easier prey in some dragon colonies than us Vikings. At least it lends credence to your theory Phlegma."
They all nod in agreement, overall now content with their progress in the preliminary meeting.
"If that is the case we may have a bit more time even than we are currently hoping for." Phlegma adds.
"We can't bank on that unfortunately, so let's let it be a pleasant bonus if it does pan out that way."
The conversation had just come to a natural pause when Gobber pokes his head around the door.
"Ooh, you've started the meeting already have ya?"