Valka wants to make Hiccup a present for his first birthday. Stoick suggests a tunic. Later, though, something happens which makes the tunic the only thing which Hiccup and Stoick have left of their mother, and wife... (Listening to 'Say Something' while you're writing this makes for some very feelsy material, so be warned... )

Today was my little Hiccup's first birthday. I wasn't going to just give him a present- as Stoick probably would do. Most likely, he'd told Gobber to make him a dangerous, sharp, ridiculously oversized weapon.

But I was going to make Hiccup something safer. Something he could wear...but I just had to think of it. Although this probably wasn't my best idea, I decided to ask Stoick, of all people, what to make him.

'I don't know...' he grumbled. 'Make him a tunic, or something, Val.'

'Thank you, for the brilliant idea, Stoick!' I said, wanting to add, 'I'm surprised that you were clever enough to think of it.'

'Don't mention it. Now, Val, I can't stay here chatting, as much as I'd like to. I need to do my Chiefing duties.'

'Well, as you've given me that brilliant idea, I think you should make Hiccup a tunic yourself.' I said craftily.

'No, Val, don't start this...you know I have to do my duties...' he protested.

'Stoick, you're just using that as an exscuse. I'm not the only one who has to do sewing. Have you ever done it before?'

'No, and I've never needed to. You always do it.'

'Well, now's a great time to learn! Consider this your first Chiefing duty.'

'Oh, all right.' Stoick relented. 'I guess the duties can wait a while. For you, Val.'

I smiled triumphantly, and shoved a needle, and some green thread into his huge hands.

'Where do you get all this from?' he wondered, more to himself than to me.

I ignored him, and went to go and check on Hiccup, who had started crying.

Eventually, after I had soothed the little Viking's wails, I heard Stoick's big, heavy footsteps.

Proudly, he held up a tunic, nonetheless, but extremely oversized.

I tried to stifle my laughter, in case I awoke baby Hiccup.

'WHAT?' Stoick bellowed, which rendered my attempts to keep Hiccup asleep useless- so there was no point trying to be quiet now.

'It's- it's just- so small!' I gasped, in between fits of laughter.

Stoick growled in annoyance, and roughly passed the tunic to me.

'You don't know if the little lad likes it yet. And he'll grow into it.'

Hiccup apparently didn't approve of his new clothing, because he carried on crying, regardless.

'Maybe he doesn't like it.' Stoick decided reluctantly. 'Perhaps it'd be better if you made it. I thought that all along, but somebody made me make it, even though I knew it'd be bad, and now I'm late for my Chiefing duties!' he ranted, storming off, and slamming the door behind him.

---

I'd just finished my duties, and suddenly, a sentry came running up to me.

'Sir! They're comin'!'

I knew from years of fighting the beasts, what 'they' meant.

One flew down from the sky-darkening swarm, and stupidly attempted to face me in combat on the ground. I was too busy fighting it to notice a dragon, with an owl-like face, sneaking into the house.

At exactly the same moment the beast's head hit the ground, Hiccup started crying, as if on cue.

'Where're you going, sir?' the sentry asked.

I shouted just one word as I was running off.

'HICCUP!'

If I had turned around to see the sentry's face, I would have seen it turn as pale as the snow, that lasted nine months of the year, on my little island.

---

I only saw one thing: a dragon with an owl-like face, bearing down on my wife, who was frozen in fear. I threw my axe, the blade missing, but it got the beast's attention.

Fire screamed from its mouth in a hot river, and I had a terrible flashback of a man, cloaked in shadows and darkness, and a dragonskin cape, screaming, 'LET'S JUST SEE HOW WELL YOU DO WITHOUT ME!'

But I did not die in that fire. And I would not die in this one.

In despite of my determination, it was me, not Val, who was now frozen in fear, powerless to stop the beast that had grabbed my wife, and was carrying her away, into the night, away from Berk, away from me...

Everything was paralysed, but my lips.

'VALKA!' I roared, my words echoing around the village, which she was being carried further away from by the second...

'STOICK!' she screamed, her voice sounding no more than a squeak, fading away, compared to my roar of terror.

Eventually, the beast, and her, were swallowed up by darkness, as black as the shadows the man had been lurking in, before we had made the fatal mistake to laugh, and the other Chieftains had died in the flames of the Chieftains' meeting hall.

I grabbed Hiccup, and held my son, who would be the strongest of them all, as the flames closed around us. Staring at the inferno had a sort of hypnotic effect. I saw the faces of my fellow Chieftains.

Come to us, Stoick, they called. Odin gives those who are burned to death a special place in Valhalla.

'No.' I said defiantly, my voice cracking with emotion at losing Val, and seeing the ghosts of the Chieftains.

At my denial, the faces morphed into dragons- the ones who had murdered them. And, in the middle of the row of faces, was the dragon with the owlish face.

I roared in fury, like the beasts themselves, and grabbed my bearskin cape with the hand that was not holding Hiccup, and snuffed out the flames, in my fury that was burning hotter than the inferno, and my sadness. It seemed that my tears helped to quench the flames.

But the fire inside me would never be put out.

I walked outside, in a zombie-like state, and watched the house burn, and die.

Like Val.

It was a while before I became aware of a hand on my shoulder. For a second, my heart lifted with hope. Was it Val- her ghost, even? I wouldn't have cared if it was- I just had to see her again.

Turning around, slowly, hardly daring to believe it, but knowing it could not be true, I met the face of my best friend, Gobber the Belch.

'I'm sorry, old friend,' he whispered, the sound unnatural, because I was used to his loud, joyous voice. Seeing Gobber, perhaps the happiest person on Berk, who had lost everything- wife, and limbs- having only me left, sad, broken- was terrifying. It really was. It reminded me, that Gobber had been like I was right now, once.

And just as I had comforted him when he'd lost everything, he was now comforting me, in the same situation.

'I'm sorry.' he repeated. There was nothing else he could say. So he didn't.

We stood there, watching the dragons fly back to their nest- and in that raiding group, was Val.

A crowd gathered, wondering silently why I did not do anything to stop the beasts flying away with our food.

Stupid as they were, they guessed that something terrible must have happened, so terrible, that it prevented me from swearing revenge on the beasts, and sending them back to Hel, where they belonged.

Gobber spoke for me, when I could not.

'V-val's dead,' he whispered, unable to believe it, telling himself more than the crowd. 'THE CHIEF'S WIFE IS DEAD!' he screamed, in tearful fury.

The crowd gasped. 'It's not possible...' one muttered.

I was still thinking much the same.

Someone pushed their way to the front of the crowd. I recognised him to be the sentry- well, one of them.

'Is Hiccup alright, sir?'

Once again, Gobber spoke for me.

'The little lad's alright...but as you might have heard, Val isn't.'

He wisely decided not to say anything more than that on her death.

As Gobber had reminded me, I remembered I was still holding Hiccup.

I glanced down at him, expecting to see him wrapped in furs, or perhaps the oversized tunic.

What I did see, though, made me cry even more.

He was dressed in my tunic, yes, but it had been fixed beautifully.

This was why Val had always done the sewing.

And also why this was the only thing Hiccup and I had left of her.