TWILIGHT

A life draws to its end and a former Chieftess has one last journey to make. AU Warning: Severe sadness, character death. One shot.

Disclaimer: I don't own How To Train Your Dragon. Rights remain with Cressida Cowell and Dreamworks.

A/N: My Mum just died. So this isn't going to be happy.

The silence was gentle, enfolding as the dim lighting outlined the shape lying shrunken and peaceful, swaddled in warm embroidered blankets on the bed. There was no sound but the soft rustle of breath as the woman quietly took laboured breaths. Hair that was once sun bright was now a faded white, the skin once so luminous sunken and dull, lips pale and slightly parted as she struggled for each increasingly short breath.

Her guardians shared a glance as the breathing paused and then grew shallower. They had been warned by the healer that it wouldn't be long, that a life long and active was now drawing to it's dusk, sleep enfolding the once-proud warrior and welcoming her home. She had hung on, stubborn despite age, infirmity and bereavement, stoicly hanging on and offering her sharp observation though all the others of her generation had long gone. Her children and grandchildren tended the venerable Matriarch until an apoplexy had finally felled her. Every day since they went...and especially every day since he did...she had walked through the village, staring out to sea in the direction they had vanished. And they had found her there, slumped on the ground, a bruise on her head and limbs stiff, her faded blue eyes rolled back.

Her son, the Chief had been a constant at her side over the three days since, his sisters returning from the islands they had moved to with their husbands and children to say their goodbyes. In truth, the entire village had wanted to visit but she had been too weak, her eyes flickering only to the sounds of her children, her lopsided mouth moving soundlessly as she struggled to say his name. Quietly, her daughters and daughters-in-law did their duty, bathing her face, combing her fine hair and talking gently to remind her of her home, her friends and her beloved.

She slept now, eyes closed but chest rising and falling, the amplitude growing shallower by the hour as the day drew towards its end. Her eyes fluttered and opened and she tried to mumble, a hand moving slightly, clasping at him.

"Tell...tell..." she tried, her cracked voice tired as her son leaned forward. He was tall, lean but muscular, his auburn hair and bright blue eyes a mix of his parents. Stoick the Steady they called him as he clasped the frail hand, smiling.

"It's okay, Mom," he reassured her in a low voice. "We're all here. We're all safe. The village and tribe are safe and prospering. Your family is well. And...they are waiting for you. You've hung on so long to make sure we were all safe. Only a warrior could have lasted so long..." And he smiled and squeezed her hand very gently. "But your battle is done. The day is over. You can rest." And he glanced at the darkening sky.

Now-sightless eyes swivelled upwards in memory of where the window should be and she smiled.

"It's twilight-a perfect time for a ride of Stormfly," her son urged her, his voice gentle. The dragons had gone before he was born and he had never seen a dragon, especially not the Deadly Nadder his mother had spoken of with such love and pride. As she grew older, the tales had grown more frequent, sometimes scorned by Stoick's generation as mere stories, tales too fantastical to be anything other than fiction. But sometimes, as he saw his children sit wide-eyed and enthralled, he wished he could have been a dragon rider as well. "Dad will be waiting."

She took a shuddering breath.

"Hiccup," she breathed as her eyes fluttered closed and her breathing grew shallower. Moments later, her chest stilled and her son bowed his head, feeling the hand grow slack in his. And though there was a pain in his heart even worse than when they had lost his father so suddenly, he forced his voice to be steady and speak the words to honour her passing.

"There I see my mother, my father, my brothers and sisters. They bid me take my place among them in the Halls of Valhalla, where the brave shall live forever!"

Tears slid down his face and his wife, Elin, wrapped her arms around him. His sisters Asta and Valka were quietly sobbing, each holding the other in their searing, shared grief. Foreknowledge, it seemed, was no buffer to the pain of loss. The Chief pressed his damp face to the withered hand, feeling the flesh already cool.

"Sleep well, Mom," he whispered. "And maybe one day, I'll see you and Dad in Valhalla."

The Funeral was a great affair, the largest event Berk had hosted for over a decade as representatives of every Tribe across the Archipelago and some beyond made their way to the tiny, isolated, inhospitable isle. The funeral boat was laden with honours for the former Chieftess, the last Dragon Rider left on Berk. Dressed in her dragon-scale decorated armour with her favourite axe-the one her husband had made her and given her on their wedding day-wearing with the medallion he had given her as his betrothal gift that she had treasured all her life, she looked every inch the warrior she had been. A dozen Chiefs and Chieftesses attended and watched her son and daughters, their spouses, her grandchildren, the Elders and many of the Tribe fire the flaming arrows that set her ship alight and sent Chieftess Astrid Hofferson Haddock on her final journey to Valhalla.

oOo

Astrid opened her eyes and glanced around. Her mind felt foggy and she wondered why she had a headache but as she looked at her surroundings, she smiled. She was back on Berk-but the Berk decades earlier, when dragons and Vikings lived together in peace. The sky was a cloudless blue and the sun was warm, indicating Berk's very short summer. A Terrible Terror squawked overhead and a familiar croak answered as she spun around, shocked and delighted. A familiar blue and gold shape was running towards her as only a Nadder could, tail low and frill back, her brilliant yellow eyes wide in excitement. And Astrid found herself running towards her, joy filling her heart.

"Stormfly! Girl, I have missed you so much!" she exclaimed, hugging the scaly face and feeling the dragon butt against her middle. "I was so sad when you all left-I could never say because we all know why it had to be...but I have missed you..." And she hugged the dragon again.

"I hope you've got one of those for me, Milady," the familiar and much-missed voice said and she looked up to see the tall shape approach, his auburn hair dishevelled as usual, two braids poking out from behind his ear and wearing the brown leather armour that she always felt flattered him best. The emerald eyes were sparkling with his love and adoration of her and his sharp-jawed face was lit with his lopsided smile.

"I may have," she managed, then flung herself towards him, wrapping him tightly in her embrace. "Gods I've missed you, babe... I found out what a world without you in it was like...and Thor, it was desolate..." Her lips found his, the kiss long and hungry, filled with the separation of over a decade. His hands threaded her hair, brilliant gold once more as he kissed her urgently and finally pulled back.

"I can't tell you how much I've missed you," he told her roughly. "I am so sorry I had to leave you but...I had no choice. The wound was too deep and I-I just couldn't go on. And I heard Toothless, calling me home." A warble sounded and the sleek black shape of the Night Fury popped up from behind Hiccup.

"I've missed you both," she admitted. "Stoick is a good Chief. And the girls have grown up into good women and their children are grown too..." He gentled her hair and sighed.

"I knew they were in safe hands," he admitted. "I've been waiting with Toothless..."

"I bet you were glad to get back in the air after all those years," she teased him as he stroked her cheek.

"You were too, weren't you bud?" he added as Toothless grinned, his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth. His keen gaze slid over her outfit. "Hmm...red. I always loved you in that tunic..." And she smiled, the medallion catching the golden light of the sunset. "You kept it!"

"Only my most treasured possession, babe," she reminded him. "I knew it had to come with me." And then he looked over at the Nadder, who butted against her side and she hugged her again. He grinned.

"But we couldn't go without you so we've been waiting. The others went ahead and we can join them as soon as we've had our flight." He paused. "Everyone is there...family, friends, dragons..." His grin was almost blinding in his happiness as he tilted his head. "If you want to, of course..." She stared into his eyes and smiled back at the only man she had ever loved

"Hiccup-my love," she told him. "I have been waiting for this flight for all of my life."

Behind them the sun set and the two lovers rose on their dragons, side by side as they always had been, and flew away into the fading twilight, reunited at last.

End.

28/5/2018