Another short, really sad story of forming bonds and love between parents and 'child'. The story is a short, backstory style story of Hiccup, Astrid and their adopted Daughter, Valkyrie, who made a one-off appearance in my other HTTYD One-Shot, War-Broken World. It will be split between Astrids POV for this chapter, while the second chapter will be in Valkyries POV during her first few days at Berk, with Hiccup and Astrid.

~Astrid's POV~

With an angered growl, I rushed off to Stormfly and took to the skies. Snotlout had been driving me crazy, no surprise there, but sometimes he would be quite annoying. I was beyond glad he had stopped flirting with me, but by Odin sometimes he didn't shut up. I wouldn't admit it, but secretly, I liked Snotlout, turns out he can actually be quite a reliable friend, when he doesn't make you want to rip his head off and feed it to Hookfang - which was basically EVERYDAY.

I wouldn't deny it, however, Snotlout made for a great help to Hiccup with chiefly duties, though he was still terrible at managing the new dragon Riders whenever me and Hiccup couldn't lead the new generation. The twins were, well, still the twins, and Fishlegs is basically another Book Of Dragons, he knows almost everything about every dragon in the Book off by heart.

I heard Toothless give a small roar to catch our attention, and I turned to find Hiccup airborne with me, but no Stardust with the ebony dragon. They had grown almost inseperable - the good kind. "Where's Stardust?" I questioned over the wind.

"She's a little tired, but it was her idea for Toothless to basically kidnap me mid-ceremony to go on a flight. Thank god mom was there to take over." Hiccup chuckled, to which I quickly followed.

"So, any ideas where to go find a new land?"

"Actually yes, trader Johann told me about a new village he sailed across, could be worth going to check it out, maybe make an alliance. It's not actually too far either. C'mon, follow me." We soon took in the direction of the village, both curious yet cautious of what we may encounter. Would they be hostile or scared of the dragons? Would they be happy to accept friendship? I hoped for the latter. I decided to make small talk about this village with Hiccup on the way there.

"You think they'll be friendly? I mean to the dragons?"

"I doubt it, but maybe when they see how harmless Stormfly and Toothless can be their won't be much issues." He sounded confident.

"How cool would it be if they already had dragons?" That thought got me excited. Another dragon-viking village. New friends, new riders.

"That would be cool." He laughed, but with slight hesitation. I knew something was bothering him.

"Hiccup? You ok?"

"Y-y-yeah, I'm fine." I pulled Stormfly closer to Toothless, then continued. Hiccup had been under quite a bit of stress lately, I wanted him to know he could count on me. That I wasn't going to end things because he had to spend less time with me. I didn't care, he was looking after the village, our home, the dragons. "Hiccup, c'mon babe.. You can talk to me. I promise, you can count on me."

He sighed, dejected about the words ready to leave his mouth. "Astrid... I'm really sorry."

"For what?"

"For not.. Being there as much as I used to. For not spending as much time with you anymore."

"Hiccup.. Honestly, you don't need to apologise. You're doing right by me, by everyone on Berk by attending to your duties. You can't put me over the top of the entire village. Even Stoick told you multiple times during your lessons and when we got official, a Chief's first duty is too his people. Honestly babe, I don't mind it, because I love you. A good girlfriend doesn't do something stupid like break up with you because of something you NEED to do." I wanted to just wrap my arms around him and tell him everything would be ok. He had been struggling with that, I had a suspicion for a while. He had been struggling, believing he was a bad boyfriend and thats why I had began hanging around Snotlout more.. The idiot might make me want to rip his head off, but like I said, he can be reliable.. Most of the time it involves me threatening him with my axe but still...

In truth, I was hanging around with Snotlout because it would be less suspicious to Hiccup than if I hung around with his mom so much.. I was trying to figure out the best way to propose to him. Hiccup was special to me, and by the Gods I wouldn't want to lose him. In truth, it was actually Snotlouts idea to do it this way, still not the smartest idea his ever had, or even the worse, but I couldn't see a better alternative. Offering a reassuring smile to him, I quickly averted my gaze to whatever had caught our dragons attention. Smoke on the horizon.. "What the, thats where Johann said the village was."

Quickening our dragons, we rushed through the sky to the village, arriving to a sad sight. "Oh Thor" I gasped in horror. The village - or what little was left of it, looked as though Hel herself had just gone on a rampage here. Remnants of what I assumed were houses stood chared and burnt, with the occassional small fire still eating away at the foundations. From up top we could see the extent of the damage. Not one house stood untouched. Not one person appeared alive... Dried blood was all over the paths and walls of what remained, corpses littering the village. "What the fuck happened here?" I questioned, unable to believe what my eyes were seeing.. Even children were laying dead across the village ground. Children as young as three years old... It was a slaughter. I wanted to just turn around and never look back, Hiccup looked like he wanted to do the same.. But our dragons wouldn't.. And we couldn't.. What if there were survivors somewhere? What if they needed our help? We couldn't leave without atleast searching for survivors...

Descending to the centre clearing, we dismounted our dragons and scanned the surrounding. I wanted to throw up, but kept myself from doing so. It was alot worse up close. "Let's hope we can find some survivors. These poor people..." He knelt down beside one of the smaller bodies. "Poor girl... She looks like she was only four years old.." Another body.. Another kid.. Nearly all of the corpses surrounding us where off kids between three to fifth-teen "Split up, and stay close to your dragon.. We don't know who, or what might be around here.." As he said that, he pulled out Inferno and ignited the fire-sword, while I grabbed my trusty axe from Stormfly's saddle and gripped it tightly with both hands, ready to fight anyone or anything that attacked us.

It was a horrible stench, charred flesh, blood, bone and death, Thor it was a struggle to keep myself together. This was death on a fucking level no-one on Berk had ever seen, atleast to my knowledge. Arrows still lodged in the exposed bones, severed limbs. There was almost nothing left. Kneeling down beside another body, I rolled the corpse onto its back and nearly threw up at the sight. The poor guy had his own bottom jaw nearly ripped off, his eyes still open.. So empty, so devoid of anything. Other bodies.. More dead people.. Dead kids.. One stood out.. Two stood out.. Three bodies.. All women.. All.. Pregnant women.. Dead, huddled against each other in the corner.

So quiet.. So silent, I couldn't hear anything.. Literally anything but my own breathing and Stormfly's.. No birds, no.. no life at all.. The entire island was dead. No survivors. "C'mon girl.. Lets get out of here.. I can't handle this much longer." I felt my eyes watering, my chest feeling heavier, and my limbs feeling so much weaker. I had seen death before, even when I was much, much younger.. Back then it fazed me, but I grew to accept that death would be something I'd witness.. But nothing could prepare anyone for this scale, this level of slaughter and mutilation of bodies. As I mounted Stormfly's saddle, I felt tears begin to fall down my face. The sight of so many dead kids, dead mothers and fathers.. Dead families just completely broke me.

I pulled on the saddle, signaling Stormfly to take off. I wanted to get as far away from here with Hiccup as possible. The Nadder wouldn't move. She was just as frozen as I was. The silence had been broken by crying. The weak, petrified screams and cries of a young girl.. A survivor! I don't believe I've ever been happy to hear someone I didn't even know crying!

"HICCUP! THERES SOMEONE ALIVE OVER HERE!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, kicking the sides of the saddle slightly as a sign to Stormfly to follow the screaming. A broken down house, ransacked and engulfed in flames that had not died out like the rest. The crying was coming from inside! Our dragons couldn't get in, so it was down to me and Hiccup to do this, and he didn't even have his flightsuit on.

"Astrid! Where are they?" Hiccup questioned, frantically wanting to find someone alive, but his expression became full of pain when he heard the screaming over the flames. Facing each other, we gathered whatever courage we could and prepared to enter the house, one at a time.. The only gap in the flames wasn't big enough for both. I knew Hiccup was scared for me, just as much for the survivor. We couldn't risk using our dragons, the house looked ready to collapse under the heat and power of the fire any second. A loud, heart-breaking scream echoed once again, and on instinct I rushed inside the building before Hiccup could even react, only for the foundations to collapse and trap Hiccup outside and me in the flames.

The smoke was thick, the heat unbareable, but I forced myself through. The crying had ceased, replaced by loud, choking coughs of deprived lungs, and I could hear Hiccup shouting my name over the crackling fire. I could already feel my lungs burning as I unwillingly inhaled the smoke, but I pushed on. My heart was racing, fear flooding throughout my limbs and my body growing weaker every passing second. The smoke was so thick, so heavy.. The deprived coughing that replaced the earlier screams was now faded, weakened and desperate clinging onto life. I could remember where the sounds were coming from, so I wasn't completely in the dark, so to speak. It was alot closer than I thought.

"Hello!" I knew it was a stupid idea to shout, but I needed to get some form of response from the survivor.

"Help!" The young, female voice choked, the girl struggling to even say the word. I knew exactly where she was now though, so both our chances were much higher. I rushed through the dancing embers and approached the door where the girl was behind, only for my heart to break. I heard a weak, final cough, followed by the thud of a body dropping down, made even worse by a louder thud of a wooden beam falling down. I had left my axe outside, but this door was so weak it practically crumbled down when I kicked it. A young girl lay in the centre of the room, motionless but hopefully still alive, trapped beneath a wooden beam. The room was more smoke filled than fire, thankfully, but it made it even harder to breath. I knew Hiccup was still out there, shouting for me to hurry up and get out of there, or that it should've been him in here, not me. Pushing my body to the limit of its strength that I still had left in me, I moved the wooden beam and scooped the motionless girl into my arms, my eyes darting everywhere for the quickest way out. I couldn't find one, so I was forced to settle for the way I came in. Hiccup and the dragons could easily clear me a path.

"I got you.. I'm... I'm gonna get us out of here.. I... I promise.." It burnt to even speak, and I was growing weaker the longer I was deprived of fresh oxygen. Clutching the girl tightly to my chest, I forced my way to the earlier opening and cried out for the dragons to clear the way, to which Toothless instantly rushed forward and snapped the barrier apart effortlessly and rushed inside, grabbing me as I still held the survivor tightly, and he protected us both from the flames. I was so thanful Hiccup never risked his life aswell.. One of us needed to be fit in order for the girl and the other to have a fighting chance.

Coughing desperately for air, I laid down against Toothless' side, feeling Hiccup wrap his arms in relief around me, before sitting down beside me and trying not to cry. I cradled the form in my arms, looking down at her weakly with a smile gracing my face.. She was still alve.. Too weak to move, to even wake up or breath normally.. But she'd definitely survive. Then, my heart sunk.. This girl had lost everything.. She had no family, no tribe.. Nothing. I had this sudden, really protective instinct about her.. This sudden natural urge to protect this girl. A strange connection that just felt natural. We didn't know her, she didn't know us, but I knew then that I'd do anything for this girl's saftey. I looked at Hiccup, my eyes saying it all.. "We should adopt her."

He nodded in agreement. I knew he felt the same protective instinct. It was unexplainable but felt completely natural. We would adopt her, and we'd raise her the best we could, protect her as much as we could, make her happy. We'd do right by her parents. I looked towards her again, her small chest rising and falling weakly with each shallow intake of air, and I took this moment to observe her form. She was relatively skinny and frail, but not unhealthy, with long hair that hung over one half of her face, a bit like mine used too, and she wore a beautiful locket that had a tiny inscription of her name on.

"Valkyire."