Another Day in Berk

Unfortunately for me, Hiccup and Toothless got way ahead of us despite Nightstriker's two pairs of wings. She was fast, but a Night Fury was still the fastest dragon from what we knew so far. Thankfully flying above the clouds made it easier to see a far distance.

I took a moment to appreciate the gorgeous sun and the way it gleamed off Nightstriker's scales. I sighed, enjoying the peacefulness of it all. Then I spotted a black figure in the distance.

I could tell by the wingspan and shape that it was Toothless and Hiccup, but when I was about to urge Nightstriker forward until I noticed a second Stormcutter come up from under the pink clouds. The dragon swooped around Toothless until a strange dragon came out of nowhere and grabbed Hiccup off of Toothless.

"Hiccup!" I exclaimed. "Come on! We need to get to Toothless!"

Nightstiker took action and dove to our falling friend. As much as she knew I wanted to save Hiccup, we both understood that if Toothless was riderless, he would trapped wherever he fell.

Thankfully we found Toothless trying to climb up a floating platform of ice, but before we could get near him, sea dragons surrounded the Fury. They caused him to fall back into the water for a moment as they dragged him through the water. His head eventually popped out of the water and he continued to struggle against the other dragons.

"Let's follow him," I told my dragon.

She nodded her big head and silently glided just above the water a good distance away from Toothless. We followed the dragons to an enormous ice structure and watched our Fury friend get taken into the caves carefully by a person in a mask. Long spikes jutted from the top of the mask, making whomever was behind it more intimidating.

"Wait for them to leave," I ordered. "If they're a threat, we don't want to get captured, too."

Nightstriker landed on an ice pillar and we waited for only a few minutes before the masked person went inside a cave entrance. I nudged my Stormcutter's side for her to move forward and she gracefully flew toward the cave.

"I guess we're going in, girl," I whispered.

The Stormcutter picked up her speed and we landed in the cave. I jumped off her and silently made my way deeper into the structure, Nightstriker following close behind. Suddenly, Nightstiker's ears perked up and she lowered closer to the ground as she walked, curious of what she heard.

"What is it?" I noticed her reaction, but she just kept moving.

We heard Toothless growl a little and then Hiccup's voice. I began to run and came into a large room within the structure where dragons surrounded our friends. Nightstriker had just caught up to me when I pushed past the strange dragons to Hiccup.

I tackled my friend to the ground, "You're okay! I saw you get taken and Toothless fall. We couldn't get to you in time, but you're okay. I didn't know what was going to happen to you."

Hiccup sat up from where I tackled him, forcing me to sit up and he held my shoulders. "I'm fine. Are you okay?"

"I am now."

One of Hiccup's hands left my shoulder and touched my face. His thumb ran under my eye nearest his hand and his eyes held concern.

"Why were you crying?"

I took my hand and wiped my other eye. I had tears on the tips of my fingers and I just looked at my friend surprised. Then my lip quivered and I hugged Hiccup again.

"I thought I was going to lose you... I was going to fail your dad..."

Hiccup pat my back softly, "I'm okay, don't worry. You wouldn't have failed anyone, Frigga."

I sighed into his shoulder and let my hands drop away from him. My head stayed on his shoulder as I took a few seconds to recollect myself.

"Come on. We need to find a way out of here," Hiccup gently stated, lifting my head from his shoulder. "I'll need your help."

"Yeah, okay. I'm good," I nodded.

Hiccup stood up and then helped me up. He squeezed my hand once before letting go and giving Nightstriker a pat.

There was a noise behind us and we both whipped around to see the masked stranger coming out from the shadows. Their head tilted in curiosity. They stranger waved their staff at the dragons around us and the ones behind them opened their mouths. The dragons filled their mouths with fire and filled the cave room with some light. Our dragons growled menacingly once they saw the stranger in they light. The masked person seemed more frightening in the firelight.

The masked person slunk toward us. Hiccup took a step in front of me and used his arms to push me behind him more. Toothless and Nightstriker to a few steps closer to the stranger, but the masked person held both their hands out to each dragon. They suddenly flipped over on their backs as the stranger mimicked the action with her hands. Toothless let his tongue hang out like he was put into a nap while Nightstriker's eyes seemed to roll back into her head.

Hiccup took another step back, bumping into me, when the stranger came so close to him that they were able to reach out and touch him. Their hand nearly touched Hiccup's face until they suddenly pulled back.

"H-Hiccup? Could it be?" a muffled female voice asked from behind the mask. She removed the mask to reveal a middle-aged brunette with pale green eyes full of wisdom. "After all these years? How's this possible?"

My jaw fell open. Valka, Hiccup's mother stood before us. She looked the same as she did 20 years ago, just wiser and a few gray hairs speckling her brown locks. Small wrinkles were around her eyes, but I could recognize her face in a crowd.

"Um, should I know you?" Hiccup asked, not seeing my reaction. I even touched his shoulder to catch his attention, but he was too focused on the woman in front of us.

"No. You were only a babe... But a mother never forgets."

I watched Hiccup try to take a breath until he gasped and almost started to freak out, but his mother stopped him.

"Come with me," she smiled, rushing away from us and deeper into the cave system.

Hiccup quickly followed her, pulling me behind him and our dragons following close behind.

"You've grown so much... both of you," she said when we caught up. "I'm glad to see our families stay close."

"I live with Hiccup and Stoick," I stated. "I have for the last thirteen years now."

"Really now? How do your parents feel about it?"

"Um, well they passed away... in the same dragon attack you were kidnapped during..." I sighed. "I lived with my grandmother for a while until she passed when I was only ten. Uncle Stoick let me stay as long as I helped watch Hiccup. It's how we became best friends."

Valka paused in her walk and looked at me sadly, "I'm so sorry, Frigga. But I'm glad that... Stoick took you in..."

I shrugged, "It's in the past and I can't say thank you enough to the two of them." I squeezed Hiccup's hand and smiled at him before looking back at Valka. "I'm so glad that you're alive and well, Aunt Valka."

Tears welled up in her eyes as I called her by her nickname, but she simply nodded once. "This way."

"Come back here!" Hiccup suddenly called out, rushing after her again.

Valka didn't stop.

"You can't just something like that and run off! You're my mother?! I mean, do you grasp how insane that sounds?" Hiccup glanced back at me, "And you talk to Frigga like you never disappeared? I need an explanation."

"Quickly," his mother said, climbing over rocks. Hiccup wasn't getting anywhere with her.

Hiccup jumped onto the rock, but he wasn't tall enough so he sorta slid back down to the cave floor. Toothless bounced over and used his head to push Hiccup up the rock. Once he got up, he reached his hand over and pulled me up. His face was red in embarrassment when I looked at him. I smiled and ruffled his hair a little, but I only made his blush worse. Nightstriker and Toothless got over the rock and we all continued on our way.

"I have questions! Where have you been all this time?" Hiccup asked. "What have you been doing? They said you were dead. Everyone thinks you were eaten by-"

The cave opened up to an enormous cavern where hundreds, maybe thousands, of dragons were flying in flocks around the empty space. The roof was made of the ice structure which allowed sunlight to shine through enough to light the cavern. It was an incredible sight to behold.

"-Dragons..." Hiccup finished in an airy breath.

The two of us looked at each other in shock, smiles forming on our faces. We looked back at the flocks of dragons and pondered how there were so many. Our sight-seeing was cut short when Toothless growled at something behind us. We turned to see Valka on the Stormcutter that was fluttering around Hiccup and Toothless earlier. Nightstriker had her head tiltled, almost upside down, seeing another dragon like her.

"This is where you've been for twenty years?" Hiccup asked Valka.

The dragon lady nodded enthusiastically.

"You've been rescuing them?" Hiccup took another glance at the view before us, "Unbelievable."

"It's amazing," I agreed, watching a green Snafflefang love up on Toothless. He didn't like it very much and awkwardly scooted away from it. Nightstriker stayed focus on Valka's maroon Stormcutter until Toothless bumped into her, distracting her from the older dragon.

"You're not upset?" Valka asked her son.

"What? No! Well it's a bit much to get my head around, to be frank. It's not every day you find out your mother is some kinda of crazy, feral, vigilante dragon lady."

The stranger Stormcutter helped Valka to the ground with it's wings and the woman smiled warmly, "At least I'm not boring, right?"

Hiccup smiled along with his mother, "Well I suppose there is that one specific thing."

Valka then came over to Nightstriker and began to inspect her curiously.

"Her color is beautiful and quite rare," she said to me, running her hand along my dragon's back. "She's still young. Maybe seventeen or eighteen. Where did you find her?"

I massaged behind Nightstiker's ears, "Hiccup and I were exploring a new land he discovered. We found her protecting a baby Scuttleclaw from a brown bear. Toothless helped scare the bear away and we helped her take the baby back to its mother. Then she kinda stuck around me."

Hiccup put one of his arms around my shoulders, "Frigga saw herself in our friend with her watching out for me all my life. She needed a dragon to keep me as safe as she tries to keep me safe."

I blushed, "That's not why I like her so much... Come here!" I twisted my body around so I could get my arm over his shoulders and pull him into a head lock. I roughly ruffled his messy hair to hide my embarrassment of his statement.

"Ah! I give!"

Valked laughed as I let her son go, "How delightful!"

That time, both of us blushed, Hiccup straightening out his hair until Toothless poked his body between us to get to Valka.

"C-Can I?" the woman asked for permission.

Hiccup nodded and she immediately went to love on him and study him.

"Oh he's beautiful! He may very well be the last of his kind! And look, he's your age! No wonder get along so well!" Toothless retracted his teeth as she rubbed under his chin. "Retractable teeth! How did you manage?"

"We found him in the woods. Shot down and wounded."

Valka started to name of the injured dragon's around us and then looked at the makeshift tail Hiccup designed for the Fury, "Did Drago or his trappers do this too?"

The boy chuckled nervously, "Well, crazy thing is; I’m actually the one who shot him down. Hey, it’s… It’s okay though, he me back, right bud? You couldn't save all of me, could you? You just had to make it even so…" Hiccup kicked out his peg leg and pointed at it proudly. "Peg leg!"

I smiled remembering when Hiccup burst through my bedroom door to show of his upgraded peg leg from what Gobber made for him. He had excitedly gone through all the changes on it, even walking around in front of me at a smoother pace than with his old peg leg. While he smartly explained everything about it, that's when I got thinking and realized my crush was bigger than I thought.

I blushed when I felt Nightstriker nudge my back. She looked at me then at Hiccup. The look in her eyes told me to wise up and talk to the boy or she'd find a way to make it happen.

"I don't know what you're even talking about..." I turned away from her. "You're too smart sometimes, girl."

Valka's voice caught my attention again, "What does your father think of your Night Fury friend"

"Ah, he didn't take it all that well. But than, he changed. They all did, pretty soon everyone back home had dragons of their own," Hiccup replied.

"If only it were possible..."

"No, really-"

"Believe me, I’ve tried as well but people are not capable of change, Hiccup. Some of us were just born different," his mother interrupted him before he could explain more. Valka's eyes clouded over in a memory.

"Berk was a land of kill or be killed, but I thought peace was possible. Then, one night a dragon broke into our house, finding you in the cradle. I rushed to protect you but what I saw was proof of everything I believed. This wasn't a vicious beast but an intelligent, gentle creature whose soul reflected my own." Valka looked down in sadness and regret, "You and your father nearly died that night, all because I couldn’t kill a dragon..."

"Runs in the family," my friend tried cheering her up.

Her sadness didn't leave her face as she gazed at her son, "It broke my heart to stay away, but I believed he’d be safer if I did."

"How did you survive?"

Valka went over to the larger Stormcutter by the edge of the cliff, waving us to come nearer. "Oh, Cloudjumper never meant to hurt me… He must’ve thought I belonged here, in the home of the Great Bewilderbeast! The alpha species, one of the very few that still exist. Every nest has it’s queen but this is the king of all dragons."

Below us, an icy oasis was revealed beyond the cliff. A pool of water where dragons of all sorts rested by, took up most of the ground space. Within the pool of water, the largest dragon I had ever seen laid there. The Bewilderbeast. He was a gorgeous white, with smokey gray spikes on his face and parts of his body and two long ivory tusks jutted from his face.

"With his icy breath this graceful giant built our nest. A safe haven for dragons everywhere."

"Wait, that's the ice-spitter? He's responsible for all that destruction?" Hiccup asked.

"He protects us. We all live under his care and his command."

A group of baby Scuttleclaws, that Cloudjumper had scared away from our dragons, fluttered over to the Alpha and woke him from his slumber.

"All except for the babies, of course, who listen to no one," Valka said with a laugh.

The Alpha watched the Scuttleclaws land on his face before he blew them away and he stood. He noticed Hiccup and I and made his way toward us. His bright blue eyes surveyed us closely.

"I lived around them for twenty years, learning their ways and discovering their secrets," the older viking spoke softly.

An icy burst of air was sent our way from the Alpha. I flinched at the cool temperature, then giggled at Hiccup's frozen bangs.

"Nice hair, Hiccup," I teased.

He shook the ice from his hair with his hands then took a few steps closer to me. He silently, with a smirk, ruffled my bangs with his fingers and let the ice fall from my hair.

"Nice hair, Frigga."

I stuck my tongue out at him, fixing what mess he left in my bangs and ignoring the heat coloring my cheeks.

Valka chuckled, "He likes you."

My eyes jumped to Valka who had all three of our dragons standing near her. All had perceptive stares and Valka and a grin. I suddenly felt that Valka wasn't necessarily talking about the Bewilderbeast to me. I glanced at Hiccup, but he was thankfully staring back at the Alpha.

"Wow," he muttered.

I nodded, pulling my eyes away from the young brunette to Valka.

"You must be hungry," she smiled warmly.

"Uh, yeah," Hiccup nodded.

"We could eat." I felt his green eyes on me.

Valka grinned wildly, "Good. It's feeding time."