58. The regrets

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As much as Valka craved a warm feeling from her son, that of a freshly brewed cup of tea would have to do. His wife, wife of all things, had been courteous enough to lead her back and give her the grand tour of her dream come to life. Everywhere she looked past curious stares at her and her dragon, Cloudjumper, every dragon had a comfortable home, a place to eat and rest and a gentle scratch or two from accepting Viking neighbors. Compared to a certain dullness that the anguish of war brought, here was the kaleidoscopic paradise she had banished to delusions of grandeur.

She took a long, almost envious glance around the lavish palace of a house many times larger than her old home that supposedly belonged to her son. She sat on throne-like chairs, her feet on rugs, drinking from cups even chests of gold a Monstrous Nightmare's size couldn't procure. Near littered on the shelves and sturdy walls were ornate, exotic wares from oceans over, thick books written in numerous languages, and paintings of Hiccup and his Night Fury depicted as hailed heroes, voyagers of unknown frontiers, and loving friends. Every object had tethered to it an adventure beyond the known Archipelago and shone with storied revelry like gems in the open light despite the wear on some.

If only it were all Berk, if only Berk allowed itself such hope.

Valka drank her tea in humble silence. Her son's sudden indifference to her arrival had a good part in setting that mood. A leader's vigilance was what he passed off with as he took Torch and a newly awakened Toothless to the docks to assist in island patrol, leaving her and Syn alone. 'A chief's work is never done,' he quoted his own father as he walked out, though she knew...

"He hates me, doesn't he?" She asked looking down into her cup.

Syn paused her spoon mixing her tea. "Well, "hate" is a strong word. And Hiccup, well, it takes a lot for someone to get that far on his bad side. Stoick, for example..."

"Ah, Stoick..." She sighed. "Such a fool I was, thinkin' anything could change there."

To think that Stoick could bother to put his tempered blade down long enough to raise a child was yet another foolish hope on her part. Syn had been enthusiastic, in a word, when sharing the details as per Hiccup's lonely childhood on Berk, allowed to heal only when that beautiful ebony dragon flew in. She had half a mind driven by fury and motherly instinct to rain a fiery tempest of vengeance on Berk and her oafish husband, but quickly reminded herself that she had no such right. After all, where was she in all that time?

"Well, change doesn't really come easy."

"And sometimes it doesn't come at all. We have three centuries of war to prove that much."

"And the eight years after to deny it."

Valka only looked at the young woman and smiled sadly. "True enough, dear. I came this far hoping to see it for myself, as much as Cloudjumper and my own senses screamed sense at me."

The room went silent for a moment. The atmosphere seemed to waver in between directions like realms teetering on the Great Tree's branches on the sensitive topic of the old woman's whereabouts other than Valhalla. Perhaps it should have been discussed with her son present, but Syn was a bit too curious and wanted to do more than just sip honey and herb tea all day.

"... What exactly happened?" Syn asked. "While we're teetering on the subject of change, what drove you to abandon your home village to live in... wherever "Cloudjumper" took you?"

Valka wistfully stared out the window to see her beloved Stormcutter looking right back at her. With a small huff and a brief look of sadness he quickly turned back to oversee the village. "Looking back, I can't help but think he could read my mind with but a glance. He must have seen how out of place I was on Berk, caught in that endless spiral of bloodshed. Since I was a lass, I believed peace between our kinds was possible, but-"

"Majority pleaded insanity?"

"That was one of their kinder terms for it."

"I can definitely relate to that..."

"Then came Cloudjumper, caught smashing through our roof and playing with my little infant child, of all things." Valka chuckled nostalgically. "What more proof could I have asked for that dragons knew of compassion, better even than most humans, I'd wager?"

"Wow..." Syn set her cup down. "He mentioned that one time, how a dragon from way back gave him that tiny scar."

"I can't really blame either him or Stoick for their actions that night – as much as they may no doubt hate and curse one another, they shared the same desire. But maybe, if I'd just gone through with it-"

"-Hiccup would have done the same."

Valka looked taken aback.

"Hiccup has a lot of sides to him. The dragon trainer, the Viking hero, the inventor, the leader, the father, and all of them have one thing in common – his alpha sized heart. I'm inclined to think that came at least in part from you."

"I don't know about that..."

Syn stood and stepped out of the room for a moment before returning with her baby daughter, wrapped snugly in blankets and fast asleep. The aged dragon rider stared with joyful shock at the child she herself was unknowingly the namesake of. "Your son's had more than enough voices telling him not to trust his feelings. Maybe one of them was even his own. If it turned out his mom was yet another, odds are this child, this village, none of this would be here at all. However he feels now, I know deep down he's grateful for everything you've given him."

Valka paused for a moment as Syn handed her the baby. She pulled the glove off of her left hand and allowed it to caress the smooth skin of the baby's cheek. The gentle breath of life in the baby's lungs surged through that one finger into Valka's whole body. And suddenly, the child's face seemed as familiar as if she'd gazed into it her entire life.

It was through Hiccup, through her, the same breath that coursed through their lungs, the unseen spirit that guided them to foster and care for life. Though she willed for no more tears, assuming she was too tired to give them, a couple strayed anyway sprinkling onto the infant's face. The cooing sound she gave was sweeter than anything she could have heard in the heavens.

"Now then, why don't we talk about this nest of yours? I'm dying to hear more!" Syn enthusiastically asked.

Valka laughed. "My son knows how to pick 'em."

And so the women spent the hours went on with the two women telling tales of draconic greatness. Of kings in the far north and quests and foes in lands beyond, of glory, struggle and discovery. The two had discovered common ground on a rising list of things the more they shared each other's company and the burning of their tea leaf supply went completely without notice. And suddenly all those lost years seemed to fill in with just moments, moments Valka only wished she could have shared. Maybe this would be her second chance.

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"Leaving so soon?"

Johann had been set to sail his boat away with a Night Fury's speed and had just hoisted the sails to do so with rope burn fresh on his palms when Hiccup, his son, and his elite dragon guard had caught him. Even sailing away with a fragment of Hiccup's trust and word of Valka's survival might have been too much to ask for, especially when his next course of action might ruin them both. The rumbling tide beneath his boat knocked it against the dock like the truth against his own façade. And once again he felt the familiar sensation of goosebumps rising on his dry sailor skin.

"Eh-well, tis the life of a merchant, Master Hiccup! Places to go, wares to sell, but of course if you were interested in parting with a few of yours, I wouldn't mind- "

"Oh no, yeah, there's some incentive for ya. Why leave when you might still have something to gain?"

Johann's throat went as dry as the back of Berk's trees, his facial hair just as stiff. All he could do was stutter.

"The human with too much to say now can't say a thing." Toothless chortled raising a brow. "Ironic."

"Where are you gonna go, Mr. Johann?" asked Alvis innocently.

"Yes, o trembling human, where will you go?" Huffed the terrifying Torch with clumps of smoke seeping from his nostrils. Even Fafnir, Alvis's own dragon, was leering dangerously at him.

"T-To, uh... to..."

"I hear Berk is lovely this time of year. Only mildly freezing."

"Ah, dah, d-uh, w-w-w-wah, bruh, bu-"

Hiccup sighed with a thick massage to his temples. "Johann, why are we even doing this? You know you're a spy, I know you're a spy, the whole Thor-dang island knows you're a spy. Look, if I promise not to maim, roast, and/or imprison you, will you talk?"

"There goes our day..." Toothless mumbled.

"The day is young, you know." Torch said glancing back.

"Well it would leave me forever in your debt, for starters. And thrice-grateful and reduced to the point of tears, to follow. Though I don't suppose a little something along the lines of 'safe passage through Selardalr's waters' might be included in that offer?"

"... Fine, just get down here."

Johann never had the look for it, but beneath his ripened plank his limbs were as strong as any oak, the same as any Viking's were. A byproduct of having done so much business with the cutthroat, burly type. But all at once that seaworthy frame collapsed along with a collective breath of all those held for each time arrow-like glares were shot at him. Yet he still went pale-blue in the face like blades were still pointed down his neck slowly pulling himself up and cautiously walking down the creaking plank onto the dock.

He kept at least an arm's length from the two dragons who could end him with a single ember and actually looked to be mulling it over still. When shifting directly in front of Hiccup, whose face was just as steeled as his renowned father's, Johann could not even bear to make eye contact. The old merchant would have to resign himself to the fact that even with his cover blown, he was no safer than before.

"So then, everything's out in the open. Always good confiding in dear friends!"

"Yeah, so how 'bout you start by telling me why Stoick and the Hooligans sent you here? I mean, you of all people!"

"Well, given the last exchange between you and your former tribesmen, there were needless to say doubts that a representative of Berk from Berk would be well received." Johann tapped the tips of his fingers. "And yet the Hooligans can fare no longer with any sparse luxuries that I provide. IF nothing is done, if no true leader ascends to the chiefdom, I fear that within days, Berk will finally fall."

Kind-hearted, naïve Alvis still had doubts himself, but he still couldn't restrain his own concern. "Is that true?"

"Okay, but what exactly did Stoick ask you to do?"

"Well, dare to imagine the faces of teary-eyed Hooligans huddled round a single table in the dark. Mind you, even I could the day they approached my humble trading vessel asking for greater favor than ever before. In all my years of doing business with Norsemen, I could never have expected such mysterious nature-"

Hiccup was ill-tempered enough. He took Johann's worn garb and grabbed him close, forcing him to look him in the eye , one of rage like a dragon fire and another is fear of a mouse trapped in that raging fire. Even Toothless and Torch menacingly growled for good measure.

"JOHANN, WHAT! DID! STOICK! ASK YOU TO DO!?"

"He wanted me to win you back to Berk's side! And to find weaknesses in Selardalr's dragon-boosted defenses..." The old merchant gulped. "I fear he plans to go to war, Master Hiccup."

The shock of that one revelation loosened his grip. "War!? They want war!? But you said it yourself, they're totally crippled!"

"Indeed. Against your armada, they'll only be rushing to their deaths."

"Well, nothing new there..."

"I'll admit, in no uncertain terms, that my mentioning of your father earlier was a play on sympathy. But I did speak the truth. This may be a dilemma that can only be solved the Viking way." By tackling it head-on, Johann advised to Hiccup through his own attempt at a nerve-filled stare. The young runaway turned chief after a series of shuddering breaths was forced to agree he finally released his shirt and turned away.

Once again Hiccup felt like a marionette on chains controlled by his father spurring him into a course of action that may very well have meant life and death. Or maybe the more accurate feeling was that he was caught in a tug-o-war between two tribes wishing for his wisdom. He raked his hand through his wild mane shutting his eyes like an iron bear trap and grabbed a fistful of hair in frustration feeling not for the first time trapped, suffocated, oppressed. The way he craved to feel the winds of change and freedom from high above became stronger than ever when bound by rusted iron manacles of coercion. Always bound by one prison or another, it seemed.

But his free hand felt the comforting brush of dragon scales, and looking down, he saw Toothless as always filling his role as confidant to his faithful friend and rider. "Hiccup, just do whatever you need to do..." He warbled as reassuring as always.

"So, what will it be, Master Hiccup? Will you seek a compromise with your father?"

"We've always compromised, Johann. He tells me what to do and I agree with him." Hiccup growled.

"True enough, I suppose. But you must know if you leave them alone, they will not leave you alone."

"Also, true enough." Hiccup turned and stood resolutely. "So I guess we don't have much of a choice. We're headed for Berk."

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~~TO BE CONTINUED~~