“A HTTYD AU in which Stoick is a young man who thought he had a rather plainly written future until a wild, young woman with wild ideas literally drops into his lap.
In which Astrid is political and realistic and grooming her son to be a chief of War.
In which Hiccup is tired and empathetic and finds this Valka to be completely sane where few else will. Her return is less like a bandage to an old wound, but the pouring of ether on an infected one.
And in which Valka is left straddling every side of a blooming war, feeling like a captive in her own birthland, knowing the true nature of dragons, and had been, herself, on the cusp of learning the source of their erratic feeding behaviors.
She needs someone to listen to her, and the current chief is willing, but with very little support elsewhere. Her only hope is to get through to the popular, future chief, who’s so keen on his mother’s sentiments. And yet, at the same time, seems willing to pay her some mind as well…”
I meant to say your not you, also a generation swap you just swap who was born when to who , example hiccup and Astrid are valkas parents and hiccup is taken by a nightfury , Astrid is a he cheft and valka is the hiccup who ends the war, same with the others. I hope that explains things😅😅
In response to this ask
Okay! Thank you – and all the people who replied! Though the details of what you said made littler sense to me.
TBH, if we’re swapping things around (and ignoring all that nonsense of genetics) I’d have Chief Hiccup and his wife Astrid grooming their sturdy son Stoick (”Take after your great great grandfather, Chucklehead, you know”, his mother often tells him) to take over the chieftainship. Stoick’s 25.
Chief Hiccup has managed to maintain a shaky peace with the dragons – a peace that has been steadily crumbling for several generations now with little say as to why. If the songs are to be believed, there were once dragons and humans living side-by-side, peacefully. Now both species avoid one another, and should territory be crossed bloodshed often breaks out. More and more frequently, it seems, dragons appear to seek out conflict. Under Hiccup the Useful’s rule, Berk maintained a circumference of neutral territory as other Viking villages struggled under what they called “raids”. That treaty has been crumbling to the point where or twice a year, with little warning, they come to Berk, in hordes.
Stoick’s strong stature and flaming, heroic red hair – not to mention his prodigious skill in weaponry, no doubt inherited from his mother – has already given the young man a steady reputation as a “Savior” amongst the Vikings. Should an all out war break out, and Vikings are forced to take up arms against dragons, at least they had a future in Stoick the Vast.
Its on a Coming-of-Age Viking Voyage – a trial of chieftainship – that Stoick the Vast sails into a small horde of dragons in flight. A brief skirmish breaks out, to which the Hooligans are, of course, victorious, and what. Stoick had expected nothing less of himself.
What he hadn’t been expecting was for a young woman to drop into his lap, mid-sea, and unleashing the most colorful of curses.
It’s a… shocking moment for all involved. When things settle (somewhat) they learn that the near-feral girl calls herself Valka. It doesn’t take much sleuthing thereafter to discover that she was of Hooligan origin: Valhallarama, Wrink and Dörll’s 8 year old girl who had been snatched from her very bed in one of the most well-known and aggressive dragon attacks in Hooligan history. Dörll passed shortly after the horrific loss. Wrink was now known as Old Wrinkly and thought to have been half-mad.
Stoick remembers it himself, having been 18 at the time. He recalls the guilt his father visibly wore, how it greyed the once healthy auburn beard. He recalls his mother sitting him down and discussing his heritage, his skill, her faith in him as a chief and his willingness to do what was necessary. He recalls his own anger: at the dragons, at himself, at the injustice of it all and the lack of answers… and how his mother’s low and fiery words only stoked it.
He could cure it, Stoick thinks to himself. Cure the anger within him. Cure his father’s guilt. The girl was alive. Young woman now, really. and it wouldn’t hurt that his own reputation would only be vaulted in returning her to Berk.
Now if only he could understand why the self proclaimed “Valka” so vehemently defended her captors…
(Because it’s an AU and they’re children I’m diminishing the age-gap to a whopping 3 years rather than 10!)
Val felt the twin tugs at the base of her neck before her eardrums were assaulted.
“Giddyup!”
She ripped her long braids from the offending fat hands.
“Damn it, Gobber!”
Gerald “Gobber” Belch lumbered past her, with what could only be described as a guffaw given the way his paunch juggled over his belt. He beared a certain weight— the sort that made him round as a child but, as a budding fourteen year old, had begun to stretch into mass. He’d probably make the junior football team come September.
“I hate it when he does that,” she hissed to their only mutual friend.
The ginger next to her threw his arm around her shoulder, hugging her to his side so that she’d barely notice the thumbs-up he cast his classmate.
“I saw that,” Val grumbled, but didn’t pull away. “Are you going to try out too?”
“To what?” he asked.
“Football.”
“‘Course,” he shrugged. “Dad expects it. Gobber’s gunna. I suppose I’ll be good enough—”
Val snorted. He knew he’d be good enough. Steven Haddock had long established himself as “good enough” with pretty much everything.
“Guess this is the last I’ll see of you, then,” she aired.
Stoh looked down at her, “What’does that mean?
“Come on, Stoick—”
“—Don’t call me that—”
“—you’re going to be a highschooler.”
“So?”
Val sighed. She hated when he played dumb. He was supposed to be her senior. She shouldn’t have to explain things to him.
“You’re going to go into all the cool things.” She bent back a finger, “Football.” Another finger. “Parties.”
“Freshmen don’t go to parties,” he interjected.
Another finger. “Girls.”
“Freshmen don’t get girls.”
Val whacked him in the stomach. Stoh had always been big for his age but it was quickly becoming apparent it was the right sort of big. He had to have known it.
“I’ll join the debate team, too,” Stoh offered. “But I’ll wait until you get into high school, so I won’t accidentally make joining the team cool or something by the time you get there. I know you think it’s uncool to be “cool”, and all.”
Val bit her lip. Both to hide her smile and her guilt for already thinking about private school.
“How valiant,” she managed.
Well, they’d be neighbors, at least. But even that seemed hollow, in the coming school year. He’d be a freshman in High school, she’d be in middle-school. Their age-gap seemed more apparent than ever.
She didn’t want to say it—the painfully, obvious truth—that this would be their last summer together. That their paths would fork here, at the crest of Stoick’s highschool career and her own budding desires. Stoick—her big, charming, popular Stoick—would be sucked into cliques and popularity and a family tradition of politics, while she would fly by the skin of her teeth, travel the world, explore her options with every fund available to her, and they’d find less and less excuses to get together with each passing summer. Diverging interests, new friends, opposite horizons…
It was the beginning of the end. Even at eleven years old, Val sensed it. And with eight years of knowing Stoick under her belt, she knew he refused to.
So Val did what she was taught to do, and burrowed into Stoick’s warmth, and enjoyed the bounce of his booming laughs, and his all-too-potent 14-year-old smell, and held onto the moment of their Last, TrueSummer.
The end didn’t have to be tragic, or painful, or bittersweet. It could simply be a happy ending before new beginnings. For all she knew, their paths could merge again.
~~0o0o~~
Short Fic AU (not taking any more, just starting to respond to some)
If you're still taking ideas, I'm feeling pretty down this evening and was hoping you could do some Stalka fluff. Maybe him comforting her when she's sad and lonely or something...?
This falls somewhere between Different and Take my Hand
Don’t get involved, he told himself. Don’t do it.
His feet brought him anyway. Away from the hubbub of the Mead Hall–-where he wanted to be, drinking, celebrating, congratulating Lugwart for his win–-down paths winding between pastures, beyond the north most pyres that would have to be lit soon as dusk approached, and around the flat-roofed home of the village jeweler where sniffles and quiet hiccups grew louder with every step.
He spotted her seated against a rain barrel, knees pulled to her chest, keeping very still. She had heard him coming; she already glared at him over crossed arms.
“Go away,” she said in that low, bold voice.
Stoick stepped fully into the shade of the house. “Are–”
Valka stood, pushing up so quickly Stoick nearly felt intimidated. Leaves clung to her skirt.
“Go away, Stoick,” she said, louder. Her fists balled at her hips. Her eyes were rimmed in red.
“I just wanted to–” Wanted to what? Get shouted down by an angry teenager?
Valka snarled, her cheeks flushed with that righteous anger she seemed to embody. “Don’t you have a murder to celebrate?”
Stoick opened his mouth. Then shut it. He couldn’t leave, couldn’t bring himself to. He needed to speak, but all he could seem to do was stare at the tear streaks running the curve of her face, at the wisps of her hair catching setting sun, an orange halo cast around her head.
The silence stretched where Stoick stared and Valka’s fists slowly unclenched.
Her lips parted and she too looked as if she suddenly were at a loss for words. With a hitch of breath, she turned, head bent so that her braids split and the white of her neck gleamed. Stoick found himself sufficiently distracted as she furiously cleared her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he managed, approaching once more.
She scoffed, voice thick. “You killed yours when the time came.”
“It’s just how–”
“How it is, I know.” She crossed her arms and sniffed, still facing the sea where the sunlight skipped across the water. Stoick took the opportunity to step closer.
“Where–er, why don’t you get inside?”
Valka snapped her head back towards him, braids flying. Her eyes were wide, angry, perhaps more out of startle than injustice. She didn’t back up, but her nostrils flared with his next step.
“Tell me something,” she said, scathing enough to halt him. “Did you even know it was male? That he was underfed?” She stalked forward, arms dropping, hands falling to her hips. “Do you always weaken your opponents before murdering them?”
She stopped a foot away and Stoick wondered if she might hit him. He could see the emotion brimming in her eyes, feel the heat of her wrath. Her pointed chin trembled.
“Did you hear him crying as you people killed him?” she hissed. “Or were you all cheering too loudly?”
There was something about the way her narrow shoulders lifted and fell. Her words hitched in her throat. Her eyes teared up again and her lips drew back, unable to stop the sob with her next words: “It’ll never change. We’re as much a monster as they are. They way we–the way we make sport of their lives–”
He couldn’t argue with her. Even if he wanted to–-even if he had the pride and reasoning of every viking rolling on the back of his tongue–-this wasn’t the time. Instead, unthinkingly, he covered the last step of distance between them, opened his arms, and pulled her to his chest.
She fought. He knew she would just as he knew this was the right thing to do. He hugged her, dropping his lips to the top of her head, and murmured, again, “I’m sorry.”
Her struggles fell instantly. He felt her shudder with the draw of her next breath… then she cried into his chest.
A month ago Stoick would have left her. He would have taken pint after pint in the Mead Hall and compared stories with fellow winners and wouldn’t have given much thought to seeking out the distraught girl. He wouldn’t have looked for her in the crowd of the Final Exam and he wouldn’t have let his cheers die upon seeing the grief on her face.
A month ago he wouldn’t have been distracted by the skin of her neck or the shape of her face. A month ago he would have shouted her down, asked her if she would be crying if the Nightmare had won, if they had lost one of their own, rather than silently accept her rage. A month ago he wouldn’t worry about his heart beating too quickly or try to memorize the feel of her back beneath his palms.
“Well, maybe,” he started, staring ahead but holding her close, “Maybe when I’m chief I can, y’know, do something about it…”
She had quieted into deep breaths. He could feel the heat of her mouth through the tunic cloth. She hadn’t pulled away.
He cleared his throat. “About the… you know. Some of our traditions. I can make some changes…”
The whole village must have been in the Hall. It felt quiet. Peaceful.
He felt her hands on his chest, felt the gentle pressure–far unlike her sharp struggles of before–and reluctantly let her go. Coldness swooped in.
He watched her rub the heel of her palms against her eyes and nose. “Yeah?” she asked, watery, and Stoick felt an unusual, a frightening, fondness.
“Yeah.”
“Sorry,” Valka mumbled, gesturing to his front. It might have been the approaching dusk, but her skin seemed rather reddened.
Stoick looked down. “Ah. No worries. A chief’s supposed to look out for his own n’all.”
“Then, you’ll make a better chief than your father.” The words came fast and Valka looked immediately regretful. She pushed it down in the next second with that age old defiance that once annoyed Stoick to no end.
Today, at least, Stoick would let her get every pot shot in. He shrugged again.
“‘Suppose that’s the goal of any good chief.”
*Stoick re-installed the Final Kill after Valka was taken
So my mind was wandering between shows (as one does) and a thought struck me- do you think Valka was short until a sudden growth spurt in her late teens, like Hiccup? (I really just want an entire movie about young Valka and young Stoick to be honest)
(I would be 100% down for a young!Stalka movie :3 I’m so into the mysteries around their beginning)
Honestly? As soon as I started thinking about it my mind headed towards the opposite.
Stoick had always been tall. But that dude is 6′9′’. He’s past tall. I like to think he was of average height for a viking for the first fifteen years of his life, if a little taller. He was broad and lengthy and already looked like he was budding into a perfect future viking chief... and then at 17 he shot up. Up. Practically a full foot in three months. And people were like... ‘Woah. That’s... woah.’ There was even a period where he gained so much height he seemed to have lost girth. He spent the following winter overworking his body to even it out, fumbling with hammers and banging his head on anything that hung from rafters with the unfamiliar reach (he’s since sworn any and all witnesses to silence).
Valka, on the other hand, I’ve accidentally connected to her granddaughter. In that: she was always kinda tall for her peers--as often happens to girls when they’re younger. It was really the rest that had to catch up to her while they were in their teens. Valka managed a couple more inches through her teens, and even one more as a young adult, but past the age of fifteen it was all slow growing for her. Still, Valka’s height was apparent from the start and she still managed to tower over a good chunk of vikings by the end of it.
I would like to be faster for the strips, but I’m full of exams, projects and homeworks. But here you are, in the day of my birthday with the beginning of a arc of the story. Hope you like it.
