Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Great Hall of Berk was, to put it mildly, a symphony of olfactory offenses and auditory assaults. Usually, this was just par for the course – the natural state of a Viking gathering, where the aroma of stale mead, singed yak hair, and questionable hygiene mingled with the robust tenor of boasting, arguing, and the occasional heartfelt (and off-key) sea shanty. Today, however, the usual cacophony had curdled into something altogether more… desperate.

“They’re picking us apart, Stoick! Like gulls on a beached whale!” bellowed a particularly burly Viking, his face the color of a fermented turnip. This was Agnar the Aggrieved, and his current grievance, shared by most of the assembled Vikings, was Alvin the Treacherous and his band of perpetually annoying Outcasts.

“Aye!” roared another, this one a woman with braids so tight they looked like they could crack walnuts. “Me prize-winning pig, Brunhilde? Snatched! Right from under me nose! Said they needed her for… morale!”

A wave of sympathetic grumbling, punctuated by a few less-than-sympathetic snorts (likely from those who’d had dealings with Brunhilde’s notoriously foul temper), swept through the hall.

Stoick the Vast, Chief of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe, stood at the head of the massive oak table, his arms crossed, his expression resembling a thundercloud that had just stubbed its ethereal toe. His beard, a magnificent fiery cascade that usually bristled with authority, seemed to droop with the weight of his village’s woes. “I know Alvin is a boil on the backside of Berk, Spitelout!” he rumbled, his voice echoing through the smoky rafters. “But what would you have me do? We’re outnumbered. Out-armed. And if I hear one more suggestion about painting sheep to look like dragons, I swear by Thor’s missing sock, I will personally use someone as a battering ram!”

The sheep-painting enthusiast, a nervous little Viking named Mildew, wisely decided to inspect the fascinating patterns in the dirt floor.

The problem, as Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third saw it from his usual inconspicuous corner (currently occupied by a stack of slightly damp fishing nets that smelled suspiciously of ambition), wasn’t just Alvin. Alvin was a symptom. The disease was Berk’s chronic state of being… well, Berk. Small, isolated, stubbornly traditional, and about as appealing to potential allies as a week-old haddock in a heatwave.

“We need allies!” someone shrieked, a statement of the blindingly obvious that nevertheless sent a fresh wave of panicked shouting through the hall.

“And who’d ally with us?” retorted another, equally loud voice. “We’ve got three fishing boats that leak, a catapult that mostly hits Sven’s outhouse, and our primary export is belligerent stubbornness!”

“Hey! My outhouse is sturdy!” Sven protested, missing the point entirely.

Hiccup sighed, the sound lost in the din. He was sketching in a small, soot-stained notebook – a new design for a self-stoking hearth that wouldn't require Gobber to accidentally set his beard on fire quite so often. It was either that or listen to the endless loop of doom. He usually preferred the former. But today, the sheer, unadulterated panic was almost… inspiring. In a headache-inducing sort of way.

The arguments raged. Names of neighboring tribes were thrown out, each dismissed with a fresh wave of negativity. The Gothi Tribe? Too mystical, and their chieftain hadn't spoken a coherent word in three decades. The Bog Burglars? Self-explanatory. The Murderous Mountaineers? Probably not looking for a peaceful alliance.

Hiccup, feeling a familiar itch of annoyance mixed with the burgeoning pressure of a truly epic eye-roll, finally let his Berk-brand sarcasm get the better of him. He didn’t even look up from his sketch of a flame-retardant bellows.

“Well,” he drawled, his voice surprisingly clear in a momentary lull as someone paused for breath (or possibly choked on a fishbone), “if we’re that desperate for someone powerful, why not just sell one of us off to that cursed noble in Valerius? I hear their kingdom’s got armies up the wazoo. Surely they’re looking for a… a strategically acquired spouse for their blighted blueblood. Instant alliance, problem solved.”

Silence.

Not the usual Viking silence, which was merely the absence of shouting before someone started shouting again. This was a different breed of quiet. A thick, viscous silence that coated the Great Hall like a layer of particularly sticky tar. Every eye, from Stoick’s thunderous gaze to Mildew’s previously downcast peepers, swiveled towards Hiccup.

Hiccup finally looked up, a half-formed witty retort about the structural integrity of their fishing fleet dying on his lips. He blinked. They were all… staring. Not with the usual dismissal or vague irritation. They were staring with an unnerving intensity, a sort of collective, dawning comprehension that made the tiny hairs on the back of Hiccup’s neck do a nervous little jig.

Oh, Thor. He’d done it now. The one time. The one blessed time he wasn’t actually trying to offer a solution, wasn’t trying to be helpful, wasn’t even being serious, they’d taken him seriously. He could almost see the cogs whirring in their Viking brains, smoke practically puffing from their earholes.

Agnar the Aggrieved was the first to break the spell. “Valerius…” he breathed, the name sounding like a half-forgotten legend.

“The Cursed Kingdom…” whispered the woman with the tight braids, her eyes wide.

“But their armies!” boomed another Viking, a sudden, greedy light in his eyes. “They say the Valerian Royal Guard alone could conquer half the Archipelago before breakfast!”

The hall erupted again, but this time it wasn't the sound of panicked despair. It was the sound of panicked… consideration. Hiccup felt a cold dread begin to seep into his boots, a sensation far more unpleasant than the usual dampness from the leaky fishing nets.

“Valerius!” Stoick rumbled, stroking his beard thoughtfully. His eyes, however, still held that unnervingly focused gleam as they bored into Hiccup. “A powerful kingdom, indeed. But… cursed. Tainted.” 

“Aye!” shouted Gobber the Belch, Hiccup’s blacksmithing mentor, who had been surprisingly quiet until now, possibly because he was trying to dislodge a piece of gristle from his prosthetic tooth. “They say the curse affects the royal line! Some say it’s a beast that walks in human skin! Others say they turn to stone if you look ‘em in the eye on a Tuesday!” 

“I heard,” piped up Fishlegs Ingerman, a Viking of surprising intellect and even more surprising girth, his voice trembling slightly, “that the cursed noble – no one knows if it’s a prince or a countess, or even what it is – has such a dire affliction that it’s impacted their diplomatic relations for generations! Kingdoms shun them, trade routes wither! But their military… their military is undisputed.”

Perfect, Hiccup thought miserably. Just perfect. He’d inadvertently suggested hitching their rickety wagon to a five-star, gold-plated, diamond-encrusted, military-industrial complex of a kingdom… that also happened to come with a resident bogeyman.

“But who would we send?” Spitelout demanded, ever the pragmatist when it suited him. “This isn’t just asking for a cup of sugar. This is a marriage offering. To a cursed noble. It would have to be someone… well…” He paused, looking around the hall. “Someone important enough to be an offering, but… perhaps… expendable enough if things go pear-shaped?”

And just like that, as if drawn by an invisible string, every single eye in the Great Hall, including the one belonging to Stoick the Vast (who Hiccup could have sworn looked a tiny bit apologetic, or maybe it was just indigestion), landed squarely, unequivocally, and with terrifying unanimity, back on Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third.

Hiccup opened his mouth. Perhaps to protest. Perhaps to offer a detailed explanation of sarcasm and its common misinterpretations in panicked Viking assemblies. Perhaps to simply scream. He never got the chance.

“Wai—” was all he managed before two brawny Vikings, each roughly the size of a small yak shed, materialized on either side of him. One might have been Ulf the Unflappable, the other Thorfinn the Thick-Skulled. Hiccup didn't have time for proper introductions. He was hoisted, with all the gentle care one might afford a sack of particularly troublesome turnips, and frogmarched towards the front of the hall.

The next hour was a blur. A confusing, terrifying, and deeply humiliating blur. There was a lot of shouting. There was a surprisingly quick vote (Hiccup suspected the ‘ayes’ had it before the question was even fully asked). There was a hasty ceremony where Stoick, looking grim but resolute, declared Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third to be, once again, the official heir to the Hairy Hooligan Tribe. This, Hiccup gathered, was to make him seem slightly less like a village reject and more like a genuine political offering. The fact that he’d been “re-owned” more times than Gobber had lost his good sock seemed to escape everyone’s notice.

Then came the feast. A massive, raucous, celebratory feast. A feast to commemorate Berk’s brilliant new alliance and the impending departure of its newly re-minted heir. A feast, Hiccup noted with a fresh wave of bitter irony, that he wasn’t actually invited to. He was, instead, unceremoniously deposited in his small, drafty room (the one above the goat pen, joy of joys) with a stern warning from Stoick to “pack a bag and try not to look too much like bait.”

The speed at which everything happened next was nothing short of astonishing, even for Vikings, who were generally quite good at rushing into things without thinking. Before Hiccup had even managed to find a pair of matching socks (a lifelong struggle), a horn blew from the watchtower. Ships. Not Alvin’s ramshackle fleet. These were sleek, dark vessels, their sails bearing an unfamiliar crest – a snarling wolf’s head against a field of silver.

The Valerian delegation had arrived. Apparently, they’d been “in the neighborhood” – a phrase that Hiccup found deeply suspicious for a kingdom several weeks’ sail away. It was almost as if they’d been expecting Berk’s desperate plea. Or perhaps they just had a very efficient cursed-noble-marriage-proposal-response team.

Hiccup was produced. He’d managed to find one cleanish tunic, and Gobber had forcibly slicked his hair down with something that smelled suspiciously like fish oil and regret. The Valerian delegates were imposing figures, clad in dark, well-made armor, their faces stern and unreadable. They looked Hiccup up and down, much like one might inspect a goat before purchase. One of them, a tall woman with eyes like chips of ice, circled him slowly, occasionally prodding him with a gauntleted finger.

“He is… small,” she observed, her voice devoid of inflection.

“Good things come in small packages!” Gobber offered cheerfully, earning him an elbow in the ribs from Stoick.

“He is… the heir?” another delegate, a man with a scar that bisected his face, inquired, his gaze lingering on Hiccup’s distinctly un-Viking-like physique.

“Undisputed!” Stoick boomed, puffing out his chest. “Strong. Clever. Full of… Viking spirit.”

Hiccup tried to look spirited. He mostly just looked like he was about to be sick.

Apparently, his particular brand of spiritedness (or perhaps their sheer desperation to offload their cursed noble onto anyone) was acceptable. Treaties were signed with a flourish of quills and ominous-sounding Valerian pronouncements. Berk would receive military aid, favorable trade agreements, and the undying gratitude of the Valerian Kingdom (or so the parchment claimed). In return, Valerius would receive… Hiccup. To be wed to their Cursed Noble, identity still maddeningly vague.

He was given one hour. One hour to say farewell to his people, his village, his life as he knew it. One hour before he sailed at dusk towards a cursed kingdom and an even more cursed marriage.

The feast was still going strong, though now with an added layer of Valerian gravitas, when Stoick found Hiccup sitting alone on the cold stone steps of the Great Hall, staring out at the darkening sea. The Valerian ships, sleek and predatory, were already being loaded with supplies. His supplies, presumably. And him.

Stoick sat beside him, the stone groaning under his weight. For a long moment, they just sat in silence, the distant sounds of revelry a stark contrast to the quiet tension between them.

“Well, son,” Stoick said finally, his voice rougher than usual. “This is… not how I pictured your future.”

Hiccup managed a wry, humorless smile. “Pretty sure ‘sacrificial lamb to a potentially monstrous cursed noble’ wasn’t on my career aptitude test, no.”

Stoick sighed, a sound like wind whistling through a broken longship. “Despite… everything, Hiccup. All the times I haven’t understood you, all your… peculiar ways… I am proud of you. You have a strength most of these thick-skulled Vikings can’t see. A different kind of strength.”

Hiccup felt a lump form in his throat. He knew his father was bound by the council, by the desperate needs of the tribe. There was no ill will, no blame. Just a deep, aching sadness. “I know, Dad. It’s… it’s the Berk way, isn't it? Needs of the many, and all that.”

“It is,” Stoick admitted, his gaze fixed on the horizon. “But that doesn’t make it easy to send my only son into… well, into whatever awaits you in Valerius.” He cleared his throat. “I was in an arranged marriage myself, you know. With your mother.”

Hiccup looked at him, surprised. Stoick rarely spoke of Valka.

“Terrified, I was,” Stoick continued, a faint, reminiscent smile touching his lips. “She was a shieldmaiden from a rival clan. Fierce. Beautiful. Thought she’d skewer me in my sleep first night. But… by the grace of the gods, and a lot of stubborn patience on both our parts, it worked. We found… something good.” He clapped a heavy hand on Hiccup’s shoulder. “There’s always hope, son.”

Hiccup appreciated the sentiment, he truly did. But he couldn’t resist. “Dad, with all due respect, Mom wasn’t rumored to be a cursed entity that devours her suitors or turns them into newts. The Valerian noble is probably an eight-foot-tall troll with hairy legs that could crack coconuts.”

Stoick actually chuckled, a brief, surprising bark of laughter. “Or perhaps a beautiful maiden by day, and a horrendous, half-man-half-beast by night, craving only the taste of pickled herring and despair!”

“Or a siren!” Hiccup added, getting into the grim spirit of it. “Lures sailors to a watery grave with promises of perfectly forged weaponry and dragon-proof undergarments!”

“Maybe she just has really bad breath,” Stoick offered, and they both shared a moment of dark, desperate humor, the kind that only surfaces when you’re facing the truly ridiculous unknown.

The moment passed, leaving a heavier silence in its wake. The horn sounded from the Valerian flagship – the signal for departure.

“Time to go,” Stoick said, his voice thick. He pulled Hiccup into a rough, engulfing hug. “Be strong, Hiccup. Be smart. Be… you. And come back to us.”

“I’ll be back,” Hiccup mumbled into his father’s massive shoulder, the scent of pine smoke and leadership oddly comforting. “Probably.”

When Stoick released him, Hiccup nodded once, then turned and walked towards his small room, the weight of his backpack suddenly feeling like the weight of the entire world. He grabbed his pre-packed satchel – a few changes of clothes, his journal, charcoal sticks, a whetstone, and a small, intricately carved wooden dragon his mother had made for him years ago. Standard adventuring kit for the reluctant hero.

Then, under the cover of the deepening twilight and the general distraction of the ongoing feast and the Valerian preparations, Hiccup did what any sensible Viking about to be shipped off to marry a cursed monster would do. He snuck into the forest.

Toothless was waiting, a sleek black shadow against the darker shadows of the pines, his luminous green eyes glowing with concern and a touch of draconic impatience.

“Alright, bud,” Hiccup whispered, scratching the Night Fury behind his ear frills. “Phase one: survive the goodbyes. Phase two: Operation Stowaway. This is going to be tricky. These Valerian ships look… professional. Not like our leaky tubs where you could hide a Gronckle in the bilge and no one would notice for a week.”

Toothless grumbled, a low thrum in his chest, but nudged Hiccup encouragingly towards the docks. Getting a fully grown Night Fury onto a foreign warship undetected was a challenge that would test even Hiccup’s considerable ingenuity. But the thought of facing whatever horrors Valerius held without his best friend was simply not an option.

It involved a lot of stealth, a carefully timed distraction (a herd of sheep “accidentally” released near the loading ramp, courtesy of a sympathetic Gobber who owed Hiccup for a particularly ingenious fire-suppression system for the forge), and Toothless’s remarkable ability to compress himself into spaces that defied draconic physics. Somehow, amidst the chaos of last-minute cargo loading and the stern shouts of Valerian officers, the sleek black dragon managed to slip into the dark, cavernous cellar of the flagship, settling amongst barrels of what smelled suspiciously like pickled fish and impending doom.

As the gangplank was raised and the Valerian flagship smoothly pulled away from the flickering lights of Berk, Hiccup stood on the deck, a small, solitary figure buffeted by the cold night wind. He watched his island, his home, recede into the darkness, a knot of fear and grim determination tightening in his chest. Below deck, a certain Night Fury was probably already making himself uncomfortably at home.

One way or another, this was going to be an interesting voyage. And Hiccup had a sinking feeling that “interesting” was about to become his new least favorite word.

Chapter Text

The Valerian flagship, the Sea Serpent's Scowl (or so Hiccup mentally christened it, given the perpetually grim expressions of its crew), was a marvel of naval engineering. It sliced through the waves with an unnerving efficiency, its dark sails billowing like the wings of some enormous, ill-tempered bird. It was also, from Hiccup’s perspective, a floating prison designed with the express purpose of making his life, and Toothless’s current subterranean existence, as miserable as possible.

Hiccup’s “quarters” were a cramped, damp cupboard optimistically labeled ‘Guest Stateroom’ by a particularly stoic Valerian marine who clearly had a warped sense of humor or had never actually seen a guest. It was located conveniently close to the bilges, ensuring a constant, fragrant reminder of the ship’s inner workings and the questionable dietary habits of its crew. More importantly, it was several decks above the cellar where Toothless was currently engaged in a silent, one-dragon protest against the indignity of being smuggled like a sack of contraband turnips.

Keeping a Night Fury hidden on a ship crewed by warriors who looked like they flossed with sharpened steel was, to put it mildly, a challenge. Hiccup’s days became a masterclass in subterfuge and creative foraging. He’d feign seasickness to hoard rations (“Oh, woe is me, my delicate Berkian stomach cannot handle this… robust Valerian cuisine!”), then sneak slivers of dried fish and purloined bread down to the cellar during the dead of night, navigating the creaking, groaning bowels of the ship like a particularly anxious wraith.

The Valerian crew, a collection of grim-faced individuals who communicated primarily through grunts and disapproving glares, mostly ignored him. They clearly viewed him as some sort of unfortunate, undersized mascot their kingdom had been saddled with. Hiccup didn’t mind their silence; it was preferable to their conversation, which, when he did manage to overhear snippets, was almost exclusively focused on the horrors awaiting him in Valerius.

“Heard the last suitor from the Northern Isles tried to offer the Noble a poem,” one sailor muttered to another as they polished already gleaming spearheads, their voices low and gravelly. Hiccup, pretending to be engrossed in studying a particularly fascinating knot in the ship’s railing, strained his ears.

“A poem?” the other scoffed. “Fool. They say the Noble’s gaze alone can curdle milk at fifty paces. Probably turned his pretty words to ash in his mouth.”

“Aye,” the first sailor agreed, nodding sagely. “And then turned him to ash. Or was it a newt? I always get those two mixed up.”

Hiccup swallowed hard. Ash or a newt. The Valerians seemed delightfully flexible in their apocryphal punishments.

Another evening, huddled near a ventilation shaft that offered a tantalizingly brief whiff of something other than bilge water and despair (it mostly smelled of cabbage, but at that point, cabbage was an olfactory vacation), he heard two more guards discussing their destination.

“Almost there, thank the Silent Gods,” one sighed. “This whole affair gives me the creeps. Carrying him”—a subtle nod in Hiccup’s general direction, though he was thankfully out of their direct line of sight—“to It.”

“Don’t call the Noble ‘It’,” the other hissed, though his voice was laced with its own brand of fear. “Bad luck. They say the Noble can hear disrespect, even across the waves. That its… afflictions… grant it senses beyond mortal ken.”

“Afflictions?” Hiccup whispered to himself, heart thumping.

“Remember Lord Borin’s nephew?” the first guard continued, undeterred. “The one who boasted he’d ‘tame the Valerian beast’? They found him three days later, wandering the palace gardens, stark naked and convinced he was a talking squirrel. Still gathering nuts for winter, last I heard.”

Hiccup made a mental note: no boasting, no poetry, and definitely no impersonating small, nut-obsessed rodents. The Valerian rumor mill was a truly terrifying thing, painting a picture of his intended not as a person, but as a sentient natural disaster with a penchant for creative and deeply unsettling curses. One particularly vivid tale involved a merchant who’d accidentally overcharged the royal household for a shipment of saffron and was subsequently cursed to speak only in riddles, while his nose slowly transformed into a parsnip. It made Berk’s superstitions about trolls stealing socks seem positively quaint.

Toothless, for his part, was not enjoying the voyage. Hiccup could feel the dragon’s frustration through their bond – a low, simmering irritation mixed with the distinct discomfort of being confined in a dark, smelly hole. There were a few terrifying nights when the ship hit rough seas, and Hiccup had to create elaborate diversions (cue more feigned seasickness, this time with added dramatic groaning and the strategic ‘accidental’ dropping of a bucket) to cover the sounds of a very large, very unhappy dragon being bounced around below deck.

One moonless night, under the guise of needing “fresh air for his delicate constitution,” Hiccup managed to sneak Toothless out onto a deserted section of the lower deck. The Night Fury stretched his magnificent wings with a sigh of pure, unadulterated relief that practically vibrated through the timbers. He looked out at the vast, dark ocean, then back at Hiccup, his green eyes glowing with a mixture of affection and a clear “you-owe-me-so-many-fish-for-this” expression.

“I know, bud, I know,” Hiccup murmured, stroking the dragon’s smooth snout. “Just a bit longer. Then we face… whatever It is.” Toothless let out a soft, almost mournful croon, as if he too could sense the oppressive atmosphere of their destination drawing nearer. As they approached the Valerian coast, Hiccup noticed Toothless becoming more alert, his head often cocked as if listening to something Hiccup couldn’t hear, his nostrils flaring. Hiccup assumed that sneaking Toothless onto the ship was going to be a cakewalk compared to getting him off. Thankfully he packed Toothless’ automatic tailfin in his luggage and began attaching it to Toothless.Toothless gave a low warble. “Don’t worry, bud.” Hiccup stroked his neck, trying to placate him. “I know you hate this fin, but just use it until we can meet up again. While it’s dark, sneak off into the night. You know, as you do.”Toothless just stared at him for a few moments, giving him a worried glance, before taking off into the night, unseen and hidden.

The first sight of Valerius was, to put it mildly, intimidating. Dark, jagged cliffs rose from a turbulent sea, crowned by a city of such stark, imposing architecture that it seemed to have been hewn from the very bones of the mountains by giants with a penchant for severe angles and a distinct lack of frippery. Towers pierced the bruised twilight sky like grasping talons, and the air itself felt heavy, charged with an unspoken tension. Even the gulls circling overhead seemed to fly with a kind of nervous, apologetic reluctance.

Compared to Berk’s higgledy-piggledy charm, Valerius was a monument to power and grim efficiency. There were no cheerful, brightly painted longhouses here; only stone, iron, and an overwhelming sense of being watched.

The Sea Serpent’s Scowl docked in a harbor bristling with warships, each one larger and more menacing than the last. The reception was as cold and unyielding as the Valerian stone. A contingent of Royal Guards, their armor black as a starless night, their faces hidden behind visored helms, escorted Hiccup off the ship. There were no welcoming smiles, no words of greeting beyond a curt, “The offering will follow us.”

Hiccup, the ‘offering,’ tried to look dignified. It was difficult when one felt like a particularly unappetizing canapé about to be served to a creature of nightmare.

As they marched him through the echoing, stone-paved streets of the capital, towards a palace that loomed in the distance like a sleeping beast of prey, Hiccup couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d stepped out of a bad dream and into something infinitely worse. The whispers of the sailors, the tales of curses and transformations, the sheer, oppressive weight of the kingdom’s fear – it all coalesced into a single, terrifying certainty: his upcoming nuptials were going to be an experience.

And “interesting,” he decided with a fresh wave of dread, was definitely still his new least favorite word.

Chapter Text

The journey from the harbor to the heart of Valerius – a city that Hiccup mentally decided to call ‘Grimstone-on-the-Sea’ – was an exercise in escalating intimidation. The streets were wide, paved with dark, unforgiving stone that echoed with the rhythmic clang of his Valerian escort’s armored boots. The buildings were monumental, all sharp angles and towering spires that seemed to scrape at the perpetually overcast sky, looking less like dwellings and more like accusations carved in granite.

Wealth was evident everywhere – in the intricate ironwork of the balconies, the rich tapestries glimpsed through heavily guarded windows, the sheer, unadulterated scale of the place. But beneath the opulence, there was an undercurrent Hiccup couldn’t quite place. A certain… watchfulness. People moved with a subdued haste, their eyes often darting towards the colossal palace that dominated the city’s skyline, a structure so vast and foreboding it made Berk’s Great Hall look like a misplaced garden shed.

He noticed other things too. Strange, almost runic symbols carved above many doorways – wards, perhaps? And the architecture itself, particularly around the palace district, incorporated unusually thick walls and oddly reinforced sections, as if designed to contain something… or keep something out. Occasionally, a sound would drift on the wind, too deep and resonant to be thunder, too guttural to be any beast Hiccup knew. It sounded like the world’s largest stomach grumbling after a particularly unsatisfying meal. Dragon roars, he suspected, though distant and muffled. His future in-laws, perhaps, clearing their throats.

Upon arrival at the Royal Palace of Valerius – a structure that Hiccup privately dubbed ‘The Fortress of Perpetual Frowning’ – he was subjected to a whirlwind of protocols that made Berk’s occasional attempts at formal etiquette look like a drunken goat rodeo. He was divested of his travel-stained cloak (and the small, comforting weight of his satchel, which was whisked away by a stern-faced attendant for “inspection and sanitation”), and then ushered through a series of antechambers, each grander and more soul-crushingly silent than the last.

Finally, he was deposited in what was clearly his guest suite. And “suite” was an understatement. It was larger than Stoick’s entire longhouse, furnished with heavy, dark wood furniture polished to a terrifying sheen, and tapestries depicting heroic (and incredibly violent) Valerian historical events. The bed alone looked capable of comfortably accommodating a family of bears. It was opulent, luxurious, and about as welcoming as a tax audit.

Before he could even attempt to locate the chamber pot (which he suspected was probably solid gold and guarded by gargoyles), a stiff-backed official with a face like a disapproving prune marched in. This was Lord Chamberlain Theoroy Tiberius Grimsbane (Hiccup mentally shortened it to ‘Grimmy’), and he proceeded to deliver a monologue on palace etiquette that was both incredibly detailed and utterly bewildering.

“The Royal Personages will receive you at the eighth bell of the afternoon,” Grimmy intoned, his voice like dry leaves skittering over cobblestones. “You will bow. Not too low – that implies servility. Not too shallow – that implies disrespect. A precise forty-five-degree inclination from the waist, eyes demurely lowered. Address Their Majesties as ‘Your Resplendent Highnesses.’ Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not make sudden movements. Do not, under any circumstances, inquire about the weather, the local wildlife, or the… particular afflictions of the Royal Household. Is that understood, Master… Haddock?” He said “Haddock” with the same enthusiasm one might reserve for identifying a particularly unpleasant fungal growth.

Hiccup, whose brain was still trying to process the forty-five-degree bow while simultaneously wondering if “local wildlife” included whatever was making those stomach-rumbling roars, just nodded dumbly. He was given a list. An actual, physical list, written on stiff parchment in an elegant, spidery script. “Palace Ordinances and Prohibitions for Visiting Dignitaries (Short-Term),” it declared. It was three feet long.

Rule #1: Do not enter the West Wing

Rule #13: If you are required to enter, no whistling in the West Wing.

Rule #17: Avoid direct eye contact with the Royal Chef (on Tuesdays).

Rule #23: Under no circumstances should one attempt to feed the… gargoyles. (Hiccup made a mental note that his earlier suspicion might have been alarmingly accurate).

Rule #47: Any mention of the color mauve in the presence of the Royal Astrologer is strictly forbidden and may result in… ‘unforeseen celestial repercussions.’

It went on. And on. By the time Grimmy swept out, leaving Hiccup alone in the echoing grandeur of his gilded cage, his head was spinning. This wasn't a kingdom; it was a finely tuned neurosis with its own postal code.

The hours leading up to the eighth bell crawled by with agonizing slowness. Hiccup paced. He examined a tapestry depicting a Valerian hero disemboweling something that looked suspiciously like a very large, very unfortunate squid. He tried to remember Rule #84 (was it “no humming near the hydrangeas” or “no juggling pickled eggs in the library”?). He missed Toothless with an ache so profound it felt like a physical blow. He hoped his dragon was alright, soaring somewhere over these grim, unwelcoming lands, hopefully not trying to make friends with any mauve-hating astrologers. Toothless had a surprisingly sensitive disposition when it came to celestial repercussions.

Finally, a gong that sounded like the crack of doom echoed through the palace. The eighth bell. Showtime.

Two guards, who looked like they’d been carved from the same granite as the palace walls and then given a crash course in advanced frowning, appeared at his door. They escorted him, in a silence so profound Hiccup could hear his own heart thumping a nervous rhythm against his ribs, to the Royal Throne Room.

It was… a lot. Vast, vaulted ceilings disappeared into shadowy heights. Stained-glass windows, depicting more scenes of Valerian triumph (they were very keen on their triumphs, the Valerians), cast long, gloomy shafts of light onto a floor of polished black marble. And at the far end, on two enormous, intricately carved thrones that looked deeply uncomfortable, sat Their Resplendent Highnesses, King Alaric and Queen Elara of Valerius.

Hiccup remembered the bow – forty-five degrees, eyes down. He hoped he didn’t accidentally topple over.

“Master Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third of Berk,” Grimmy announced from somewhere beside him, his voice managing to imbue Hiccup’s already unfortunate name with an extra layer of ignominy.

“Rise,” a deep voice commanded. King Alaric. He was a formidable figure, broad-shouldered and stern-faced, with a beard like a silver spade and eyes that could probably freeze mead at twenty paces. Queen Elara, beside him, was elegant and composed, her beauty marred only by a faint, perpetual sadness in her eyes. She offered Hiccup a small, almost imperceptible smile, which he clung to like a drowning man to a particularly well-polished log.

“So,” the King rumbled, his gaze sweeping over Hiccup with an unnerving intensity. “This is the… Viking.” He paused. “You are smaller than I expected.”

Hiccup resisted the urge to say, “And you’re taller than I expected a man sitting on a chair that looks like a medieval torture device to be.” Instead, he opted for a polite, “Appearances can be deceiving, Your Resplendent Highness.” Smooth. Maybe.

An advisor standing near the throne, a weaselly looking man with a perpetually pinched expression, sniffed audibly. “Such familiarity from a… Berkian.”

The Queen chuckled then, a surprisingly warm sound in the cavernous room. “Oh, hush, Malakor. The boy is clearly nervous. And our customs are not his.” She turned her kind eyes to Hiccup. “Welcome to Valerius, Master Haddock. Your journey was… acceptable?”

“Yes, Your Resplendent Highness. Thank you.” Acceptable if you enjoyed confined spaces, bad food, and pervasive existential dread.

King Alaric leaned forward. “How old are you, boy?”

“Twenty-one, Your Resplendent Highness.”

“And your station in Berk? What is it you do?”

“I’m a blacksmith, Your Resplendent Highness. And… heir to the tribe.” The ‘heir’ part still felt like a badly fitting tunic.

“A blacksmith,” the King mused. “And an heir. The usual. The usual.” He stroked his silver beard, his eyes never leaving Hiccup. Then, almost casually, he asked, “Tell me, Master Haddock… what are your thoughts on dragons?”

Hiccup blinked. Of all the questions he’d braced himself for (queries about Berk’s military strength, which was laughable; inquiries into their chief export, which was mostly fish and stubbornness; perhaps even a pop quiz on the three-foot list of prohibitions), this was not one of them.

The air in the throne room suddenly felt very, very still. Every eye was on him. Grimmy looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. Malakor the Weasel was practically vibrating with smug anticipation, clearly expecting Hiccup to say something deeply offensive or idiotic.

Hiccup thought of Toothless. He thought of the terrifying beauty of a Monstrous Nightmare in full flame, the stubborn loyalty of a Gronckle, the playful intelligence in a Night Fury’s emerald eyes.

He took a breath. “Dragons, Your Resplendent Highness?” he said, his voice surprisingly steady. “They are… impressive creatures. Powerful, certainly. Magnificent, in their own way. But… nothing to be feared, if understood.”

The silence that followed was so absolute, Hiccup was fairly certain he could hear a dust mote land on the polished marble floor fifty feet away. Malakor’s jaw had dropped. Grimmy actually swayed. The Queen’s sad eyes widened, and a flicker of something unreadable passed through them.

King Alaric just stared at him, his expression unreadable. Then, slowly, a strange sound rumbled from his chest. It took Hiccup a moment to realize it was laughter. A deep, booming laugh that echoed through the throne room, startling the dust motes into a panicked frenzy.

“Nothing to be feared, if understood!” the King roared, slapping his knee. He looked at the Queen, who was now smiling openly, a genuine, radiant smile that transformed her face. “By the Silent Gods, Elara, did you hear him? The boy has spirit! And a refreshing lack of… unrelenting terror!” He turned back to Hiccup, his eyes twinkling. “Master Haddock, you have… passed.” 

Hiccup frowned. “Passed, Your Resplendent Highness? I… I didn’t know there was a test.” 

“Life is a test, boy,” the King said, still chuckling. “And you, it seems, have just aced a rather crucial pop quiz. The union is approved. The alliance is sealed. Welcome, officially, to the family… such as it is.”

Hiccup was still trying to process the “pop quiz” and the fact that his honest opinion on dragons had apparently been the deciding factor in his marital fate when he was unceremoniously ushered out by a still-reeling Grimmy and the now deeply disgruntled Malakor. He was escorted back to his palatial prison cell, his mind a whirlwind of confusion. He’d survived the first encounter. He hadn’t been turned into a newt. He’d even made the King laugh. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Famous last thoughts.

He was left to his own devices for the rest of the day, which he spent mostly trying to decipher more of the Palace Ordinances (Rule #112: “The Royal Tortoise is not to be engaged in games of chance. He cheats.”) and wondering when, exactly, he was supposed to meet his actual, bona fide, Cursed Noble spouse.

Sleep, when it finally came, was fitful, filled with dreams of hairy trolls, stone-gaze Tuesdays, and talking squirrels offering him unsolicited financial advice.

He was awoken before dawn by a gentle shaking. He blinked groggily to see two young maids standing by his bedside, their faces pale and drawn in the flickering candlelight. They looked at him with a mixture of pity and something that might have been awe.

“Master Haddock,” one whispered, her voice trembling slightly. “It is… time.”

“Time for what?” Hiccup mumbled, trying to disentangle himself from the mountain of velvet bedcovers. “Breakfast? More prohibitions? Have I accidentally whistled in a westerly direction?”

The maids exchanged a worried glance. “You are very brave, Master,” the other one said, her eyes wide. “But… you truly do not know what you are getting yourself into.”

Hiccup sat up, suddenly more alert. “That seems to be the general consensus. Look, can someone, anyone, just tell me what this… Noble… is actually like? What am I walking into?”

The maids looked at each other again, a silent, fearful communication passing between them. Finally, the first one spoke, her voice barely audible. “She is… well, she is fine, Master. Truly. As long as you do not… get on her bad side.”

Hiccup’s heart did a little leap. She. Finally, a pronoun! A female pronoun! He wasn’t going to marry a hairy troll (probably) or a sentient parsnip. He was going to marry a she. This was, in the grand scheme of things, a significant improvement. “She?” he repeated, a grin spreading across his face. “Well, that’s… that’s something, isn’t it?”

The maids just looked at him with even deeper pity. Clearly, his optimism was misplaced.

He was then subjected to an ordeal of dressing that made Gobber’s attempts to get him into formal Viking attire look like a gentle suggestion. Silks, velvets, fabrics Hiccup couldn’t even name, in shades of deep blue and silver that he was fairly certain were far too fancy for someone who regularly smelled of forge smoke and fish. He felt less like a groom and more like a particularly well-decorated sacrificial offering. There were layers. So many layers. And a cloak that weighed more than he did.

Once trussed up like a prize turkey, he was escorted, not to a throne room or a dining chamber, but to what looked like a chapel. It was smaller than the main throne room, but no less imposing, filled with stained-glass windows depicting stern-faced deities and smelling faintly of old incense and anxiety. A priest, or some Valerian equivalent, stood at an altar at the front, draped in robes so elaborate they probably had their own gravitational pull, holding a jewel-encrusted scepter that looked suspiciously like it could double as a bludgeoning weapon.

Hiccup was gently but firmly guided to the front and made to kneel on a velvet cushion that smelled faintly of mothballs. He had absolutely no idea what was going on. Was this another test? A pre-marriage blessing? An elaborate Valerian prank?

He was about to whisper a question to one of his granite-faced guards when the heavy chapel doors at the far end creaked open.

A figure entered, walking slowly, gracefully, down the long aisle. Also draped in layers of rich fabric, a heavy veil obscuring their face. She, Hiccup presumed, his heart starting to do that nervous jig again.

The figure reached the front and knelt on the cushion beside him.

A low, slightly husky female voice murmured from beneath the veil, “Well, at least you’re not an old man with questionable teeth. That’s a small mercy, I suppose.”

Hiccup, still utterly bewildered, turned to her. “Uh, hi? Sorry, do I… do I know you? What exactly is happening here?”

Before she could answer, the priest at the altar cleared his throat with a sound like rocks grinding together and began to speak in a deep, resonant voice, launching into a sermon about unity, alliances, and the sacred bonds of…

Oh.

Oh no.

It dawned on Hiccup with the sudden, unpleasant clarity of a face full of icy seawater. This wasn't a blessing. This wasn't a prank. This was it. This was the actual wedding. Right now. No further introductions, no awkward small talk, just straight to the “I do’s” with a completely unknown, heavily veiled, and reputedly cursed individual. Berk’s efficiency in getting him betrothed was nothing compared to Valerius’s speed in getting him hitched.

The ceremony was a blur of unfamiliar rituals and solemn Valerian pronouncements. Hiccup mostly just knelt there, dumbstruck, occasionally muttering “yes” or “I will” when prompted by a sharp nudge from Grimmy, who had materialized beside him like a disapproving specter. Then came the moment. The priest gestured towards the veiled figure beside him. “And now, as is the ancient custom of Valerius, the groom shall lift the veil of his bride, and look upon the visage that shall be his for all his days.” Hiccup’s hands were trembling. This was it. Troll, hag, the cheating tortoise? He reached out, his fingers brushing against the soft, heavy fabric of the veil. He took a deep breath and lifted it.

His breath caught in his throat.

No troll. No hag. No parsnip nose or squirrel teeth.

The face beneath the veil was… beautiful. Heart-stoppingly, breathtakingly beautiful. Strong jaw, high cheekbones, a full mouth that was currently set in a rather unimpressed line. And her eyes… a piercing, stormy blue, fringed with thick, dark lashes. They were eyes that looked like they’d seen too much, and were currently seeing right through him. She was young, too. His age, or near enough.

He was speechless. He’d braced himself for a monster, for something out of a nightmare. He’d gotten… her.

A new, entirely different kind of terror bloomed in his chest. The “she-beast by night” theory his dad had joked about suddenly seemed alarmingly plausible. No one could look this good and not have some kind of horrifying nocturnal transformation up her silken sleeve. It was just cosmic law.

“You may… uh… kiss the bride,” the priest intoned, looking slightly impatient, as if he had other cursed nobles to marry off before lunch. Kiss her? Hiccup’s brain felt like it had been replaced with agitated bees. He leaned in, his movements stiff and awkward. He was supposed to kiss her. He, Hiccup, who had about as much experience with romance as a haddock had with advanced calculus. Their lips met. It was brief, clumsy, and probably about as romantic as a handshake with a damp codfish. Hiccup was fairly certain he bumped her nose. When he pulled back, her expression was unreadable, though he thought he saw a flicker of something – amusement? Pity? – in those stormy blue eyes.

The ceremony ended with more pronouncements Hiccup didn’t understand. Then, before he could fully process the fact that he was now, apparently, a married man, he and his new, beautiful, and almost certainly cursed-in-some-terrifying-way wife were being escorted out of the chapel.

Not back to their separate palatial prison cells. Oh no.

They were led to a new suite of rooms. Even grander, if possible. And pointedly, singular. One very large bed dominated the main chamber. Their joint room. Where the newlyweds were, by ancient and deeply awkward tradition, supposed to spend their wedding night. Together.

Hiccup fumbled with the clasp of his ridiculously heavy cloak, nearly tripping over a rug that probably cost more than the entire village of Berk. He felt his face flush. This was happening too fast. He’d gone from sarcastic village outcast to sacrificial groom to pop-quiz-passing political asset to actual husband in what felt like the span of about thirty-seven minutes. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, unsure what to say. “So… uh… nice… tapestries?” he managed, gesturing vaguely at a wall hanging depicting yet another Valerian disemboweling something. His wife – who’s name he should have remembered, but he was too busy freaking out during the ceremony – watched him with that same unreadable expression. Then, a small, almost reluctant smile touched her lips. “It’s okay,” she said, her voice still that low, husky murmur that sent an unexpected shiver down his spine. “I don’t bite.” She paused, and her smile widened just a fraction, revealing a hint of perfectly normal, non-trollish teeth. “Much.”

Hiccup swallowed. Hard.

Chapter Text

Astrid Hofferson, Crown Princess of Valerius, and – according to popular, terrified consensus – Bearer of the Unspeakable Familial Affliction, was enduring poetry. Again.

The poet in question was Lord Periwinkle of Puddlemere, or some such equally P-centric nincompoop. He was the third cousin twice removed of a Duke whose lands bordered a swamp known principally for its aggressive mosquitos and a rather pungent variety of bog onion. He was also, Astrid noted with a sigh that could have withered a lesser man’s ambitions (but sadly, not Lord Periwinkle’s), currently comparing her eyes to “twin pools of twilight wherein lost stars did weep.”

She offered him what she hoped was a regal, yet subtly dismissive, smile. “Lord Periwinkle, your ode to my… ocular luminosity… is truly… something.” She paused, searching for a suitably bland platitude. “You have a remarkable talent for rhyming ‘sorrow’ with ‘tomorrow.’ Such innovation.”

Periwinkle puffed up like an amorous pigeon. “Indeed, Your Highness! It came to me in a dream, much like your ethereal beauty haunts my waking hours!”

“How… nocturnal of you,” Astrid murmured. She understood the game. He wasn’t here for her sparkling wit or her (admittedly striking) resemblance to a stormy sky. He was here because she was the Princess of Valerius, a kingdom with coffers deeper than the North Sea and armies that could make hardened mercenaries weep into their ale. Her ‘curse’ was a known quantity, a terrifying X-factor, but for some, the allure of Valerian gold and power was apparently worth the risk of potentially being turned into a garden gnome or spontaneously combusting. He saw her not as a person, but as a particularly shiny, albeit potentially explosive, piggy bank. Such was the price of her station. And her lineage.

“You should truly consider sharing your verses with other noble ladies, Lord Periwinkle,” she said, rising gracefully, a clear signal that the Ode Hour was officially over. “Perhaps some who are… less occupied. And preferably located on a different continent. With limited postal service.” She swept from the overly perfumed receiving room before he could launch into another stanza about her cheekbones resembling “alabaster cliffs kissed by mournful moonlight.” Honestly, these people needed new metaphors.

Her parents, King Alaric and Queen Elara, were waiting for her in the Royal Study, a room that always smelled faintly of old parchment and unspoken anxieties.

“Another one bites the dust, I presume?” her father rumbled, not looking up from the map of troop deployments he was scowling at.

“Lord Periwinkle will be composing odes to the resilience of Valerian door hinges for weeks, I imagine,” Astrid said, sinking into a chair that felt only marginally less like a medieval torture device than the thrones.

Her mother sighed, the sound as delicate and weary as a pressed flower. “Astrid, darling, you must try to be… accommodating. We need to secure your future. An unmarried princess is one thing. An unmarried princess with… your particular circumstances… is quite another.”

Astrid rolled her eyes. She loved her mother, but her talent for stating the painfully obvious was truly unparalleled. “And what sort of accommodation do you suggest, Mother? Should I feign a swoon when they compare my knuckles to ‘ivory pearls gleaming in the gloaming’? The few suitors who dare darken our doorstep are either fortune hunters so desperate they’d marry a rabid badger if it came with a dowry, or fools so convinced of their own charm they think they can ‘cure’ me with a winning smile and a firm handshake.”

“Is a fortune hunter really so bad, in the grand scheme of things?” her father mused, finally looking up. “Ambition can be a powerful motivator. Might make a man strive to be a… a good husband, to protect his investment.”

Astrid snorted, a distinctly un-princess-like sound. “Or it might make him try to lock me in a tower and rule in my name while systematically looting the treasury. We need to find someone from outside the usual circles. Someone who doesn’t know the full, lurid extent of the ‘Hofferson Affliction.’ Someone who might actually see me before they see a walking, talking, potentially lethal diplomatic incident with a crown.”

Her father’s eyes, usually as sharp and cold as steel, suddenly lit up with a peculiar gleam. “Well, now that you mention it, Astrid… what do you know? I believe I might have found the perfect match.” 

Queen Elara gasped, her hand flying to her throat. “Alaric! You didn’t! Not without consulting…” 

“Nonsense, my dear,” the King boomed, a self-satisfied smirk spreading across his face. “Opportunity knocked, and I merely opened the door a crack to peek. A tribe from the outer islands, the… Hairy Hooligans, I believe. Barbaric, by all accounts. Poor as church mice. And their offering for this alliance, their heir, apparently has zero knowledge of Valerius, our royal line, or any… specific family traits.” He winked. “He’s a blank slate, my dear. A perfectly ignorant, politically expedient blank slate.”

Astrid stared at him. “You’re offering me up to a barbarian from a tribe called the ‘Hairy Hooligans’? Father, this feels less like a marriage and more like… entrapment. With potentially questionable hygiene standards.”

“Nonsense!” Alaric declared. “It’s a done deal! The betrothal contracts are already signed. He just needs to pass a small… assessment. A formality, really.”

“Alaric, you and your ‘tests’!” the Queen lamented, but there was a flicker of something like desperate hope in her eyes too. Astrid just sighed. A Hairy Hooligan. This was her life.

The “assessment,” apparently, had been passed with flying colors, or at least with a surprising lack of spontaneous combustion or newt-transformation on the part of the Hooligan heir. Astrid found herself back in her chambers, being prepped for her own wedding, a wedding she had about as much enthusiasm for as a root canal performed by a drunken troll.

“So, he’s not a newt, then,” Ruffnut Thorston, her maid-of-all-work, confidante, and quite possibly the only person in Valerius who wasn’t actively terrified of her, commented as she wrestled with the laces of Astrid’s ridiculously elaborate wedding gown. Ruffnut, with her mismatched braids and perpetually amused smirk, was a breath of fresh, if slightly chaotic, air in the stifling formality of the palace.

“Apparently not,” Astrid said, wincing as Ruffnut yanked a lace tighter. “Father said he showed ‘spirit’ and a ‘refreshing lack of bovine terror.’ High praise indeed.”

“Did you ask the important questions?” Ruffnut grunted, yanking another lace. “Like, does he bathe? Does he have all his teeth? Is he, you know, actually human-shaped?”

Astrid snorted. “I wasn’t even there for the ‘assessment,’ Ruff. For all I know, I’m marrying an exceptionally brave badger with good political connections. He’s a Viking, though, so I’m picturing… large. Very large. Probably smells of fish and misplaced aggression. All muscle and beard, with the conversational skills of a particularly dense rock.” Not exactly her type, not that “types” were a luxury afforded to cursed princesses. One took what one could get, and apparently, what she was getting was a Hairy Hooligan.

“Could be worse,” Ruffnut mused. “Could be a hero. All shining armor and noble pronouncements. Those are the worst. So boring.”

“Or a nobleman, convinced he’s doing me a favor by gracing me with his P-centric poetry,” Astrid countered.

“Or a moron,” Ruffnut offered cheerfully. “Just a straight-up, drooling, village-idiot moron. At least he’d be easy to manage.”

“Or a drunkard,” Astrid sighed, “who’ll spend his days face down in the royal wine cellar.”

They both paused, considering the grim possibilities.

“Well,” Ruffnut said finally, stepping back to admire her handiwork (or perhaps just to make sure Astrid could still breathe). “Whoever he is, you look stunning. Like a beautiful, terrifying harbinger of… well, something. Probably doom. But stunning doom!”

Astrid had to admit, as she examined her reflection in the full-length silver mirror, Ruffnut wasn’t wrong. The gown was a masterpiece of Valerian craftsmanship – layers of deep sapphire silk and silver embroidery that shimmered like captured moonlight. Her blonde hair was intricately braided and woven with pearls, and the traditional Valerian bridal veil, heavy and opaque, awaited. She looked every inch the powerful princess of a formidable kingdom. She also felt like a beautifully wrapped package being sent off to an unknown, and likely unpleasant, fate. “You did a great job, Ruff,” she said, managing a small smile. “If I have to entrap a barbarian, at least I’ll look good doing it.”

The walk down the chapel aisle felt like a march to her own execution, albeit a very well-decorated one. The air was thick with incense and the unspoken anxieties of the assembled court. She knelt on the velvet cushion, the heavy veil obscuring her vision, her heart a cold, hard knot in her chest. She was keeling behind someone who was waiting patiently for her. Her Hooligan.

She risked a tiny, sideways glance from beneath her veil. Young. Definitely not an old man. That was… a relief. A very small, very specific relief, but a relief nonetheless. “Well,” she murmured, her voice low and husky, barely audible even to herself, “at least you’re not an old man with questionable teeth. That’s a small mercy, I suppose.”

The Hooligan – her husband-to-be – actually flinched. He turned, and she could feel his bewildered gaze on her veiled form. “Uh, hi? Sorry, do I… do I know you? What exactly is happening here?”

His voice was… surprisingly normal. Not the guttural roar she’d half-expected from a “barbarian.” And he sounded utterly, completely lost. Cute. Astrid mentally scolded herself. This was a political pawn, a piece in her father’s desperate game. Not “cute.”

She watched, a flicker of amusement stirring beneath her regal composure, as he stammered his way through the ceremony, his responses to the priest’s pronouncements always a beat too late, his expression a perfect portrait of a fish not only out of water but possibly several miles inland and actively questioning its life choices.

Then came the veil. The priest, in his voice like grinding glaciers, ordered her Hooligan to lift it. She felt his hesitant touch, his trembling fingers brushing against the silk. She braced herself for the inevitable reaction – the gasp, the widening eyes, the flicker of fear or horror that always, always came when people truly saw her, the Cursed Princess, up close.

He lifted the veil.

And the look on his face… it was priceless. For a split second, it was there – the shock, the terror, the dawning realization that the bedtime stories were, perhaps, not entirely exaggerated. She saw it all play across his surprisingly expressive features.

But then… it changed.

As his eyes – a startling, intelligent green, she noted with a strange little flutter in her stomach – focused on her, truly saw her, the fear didn’t deepen. It… shifted. Melted. Was replaced by something that made her breath catch in her throat. Awe. Pure, unadulterated, slack-jawed awe. He was staring at her as if she were the most beautiful, most astonishing creature he had ever beheld. Not like a treasure to be plundered, or a monster to be placated. Just… beautiful.

Her stomach did a series of complicated flip-flops that had absolutely nothing to do with the tight lacing of her gown. No one, ever, had looked at her like that.

The priest had to clear his throat – a sound like an avalanche starting in a gravel pit – three times before her Hooligan seemed to remember he was supposed to do something other than stare. “You may… uh… kiss the bride,” the priest repeated, his patience clearly wearing thinner than ancient Valerian tapestry.

The Hooligan’s subsequent attempt at a kiss was a masterpiece of fumbling, endearing awkwardness. He was clearly as experienced in the art of romance as she was in competitive cheese-rolling. He bumped her nose. His lips were surprisingly soft, though. And for a fleeting, ridiculous moment, Astrid found herself wanting to laugh, not in scorn, but in genuine, startled amusement.

The rest was a blur of pronouncements and processions. Before she knew it, they were being escorted to their… joint bridal suite. One bed. Very large, very ornate, very undeniably one. Her Hooligan looked like he was about to spontaneously combust from sheer social awkwardness.

He gestured vaguely at a tapestry depicting a particularly gruesome Valerian victory. “So… uh… nice… tapestries?”

Astrid couldn’t help it. A small smile escaped. “It’s okay,” she said, the words out before she could stop them. “I don’t bite.” She paused, a mischievous impulse taking over. “Much.”

The look of pure, unadulterated panic that flashed across his face then almost did make her laugh out loud. He looked like a startled fawn cornered by a… well, by whatever he thought she was.

She decided to take pity on him. He looked genuinely terrified, and honestly, she was too exhausted for elaborate seductions or terrifying transformations tonight. “Relax,” she said, her voice a little softer. “I’m only teasing. I have no intention of… consummating this alliance with a man I met approximately forty-five minutes ago, husband or not.”

He visibly sagged with relief, a wave of it so palpable she could almost feel it. “Oh. Right. Good. Me neither. Definitely. Not that you’re not… I mean… it’s just… fast.” He offered to sleep on the floor, in the antechamber, possibly even on the roof, but she waved a dismissive hand.

“The bed is the size of a small Berkian fishing village,” she said dryly. “I think we can manage to maintain a respectable distance without resorting to medieval camping.”

He seemed to relax a fraction more, even managing a small, grateful smile. Then, just as Astrid was thinking this might be marginally less horrific than she’d anticipated, he did something truly, profoundly stupid.

He looked at her, a frown of genuine befuddlement creasing his brow. “So, uh… I probably should have asked this during the… the thing… with the priest… but… what’s your name?”

Astrid stared at him. Stared. For a full ten seconds. He hadn’t been paying attention? During his own wedding ceremony? To the identity of the person he was marrying? “Seriously?” she finally managed, her voice dangerously quiet. “My name. You don’t know my name.”

He had the grace to look sheepish. “It was all a bit… rushed. And loud. And there were a lot of new rules about mauve…”

“It’s Astrid,” she said, cutting him off, a headache starting to throb behind her temples. “Astrid Hofferson. Crown Princess of Valerius.”

His eyes widened. “Princess? Oh. Right. I knew you were a noble, but… Princess? Wow. That’s… that’s quite high up.” He paused. “So, that makes me… what, exactly? Prince Consort Something-or-other?”

“Prince Consort Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third of Valerius, by marriage,” she confirmed, the absurdity of it all washing over her. “And what do you normally do, when you’re not being bartered for military alliances?”

As he stammered out his story – the sarcastic comment that sealed his fate, the rushed pronouncements, the utter lack of briefing beyond the ominous label of ‘Cursed Noble’ – a strange sense of understanding, almost kinship, settled over Astrid. He was a pawn, just as she was, albeit in a much smaller, more rustic game. He’d been thrown into this with even less information than she usually had about her own suitors. "So, you truly had no idea what you were walking into, did you?" she asked, her voice softer than before. "They just pointed you at the 'curse' and hoped for the best?"

He nodded, looking utterly miserable, a castaway adrift in a sea of silk and circumstance. "Pretty much. It was either this or… well, more of what Berk usually offers, which isn't much when Alvin's at the gates. At least here the tapestries are… substantial."

A wry, almost melancholic smile touched Astrid’s lips. She found herself shaking her head, a strange mix of pity and a bizarre sort of camaraderie bubbling within her. "Gods, my father is a menace with a map and a misplaced sense of optimism. And yours, it seems, are cut from a similarly desperate cloth." He looked up at that, a flicker of surprise – and was that relief? – in those startling green eyes. It was the first time, perhaps, that he hadn’t looked entirely like a cornered rabbit.

"So," he ventured, his voice still laced with a healthy dose of bewilderment, "with all this… " he gestured vaguely at the opulent room, the symbols of her immense power and station, "this kingdom, this… everything… why marry someone like me? A nobody from nowhere, who didn't even know your name until five minutes ago, and whose chief accomplishment today was not tripping over his own feet during a surprise wedding."

The question hung in the air, surprisingly earnest. She looked at him then, truly looked. At the earnest confusion in his eyes, the way his too-fine clothes hung slightly awkwardly on his lean frame, the faint dusting of what might have been soot still clinging to his temple despite the maids' best efforts. He was an anomaly, a piece that didn't fit any of the usual, gilded, predatory patterns of her life.

She found herself saying, the word escaping before she could fully examine its truth, “You’re different.”

He actually pouted, a comical expression on his earnest face. “That’s what everyone on Berk called me. ‘Hiccup the Useless.’ Different and useless. Guess it’s no different here.”

A pang of something unexpected – guilt? Empathy? – pricked at Astrid. “No,” she said, more sharply than she intended, then softened her tone. “Different in a good way. The only one who showed up for the ‘assessment’ and didn’t immediately try to either run screaming or calculate the kingdom’s net worth. The only one who looked at… well, who answered the King’s question about dragons with honesty instead of terror. That kind of different.”

He looked at her then, a flicker of understanding, maybe even gratitude, in those startling green eyes. Then, inevitably, came the question she’d been dreading.

“So… your curse,” he began, his voice hesitant. “What exactly…?”

Astrid rose, a familiar weariness settling over her. She walked to the single candle illuminating their vast chamber. “That, Prince Consort Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third,” she said, her voice once again cool and distant, “is a story for another night.”

She blew out the candle, plunging the room, and her new, bewildering marriage, into darkness.

Chapter Text

Hiccup woke with a start, his brain doing that peculiar lurch it always did when surfacing from a particularly vivid dream – usually one involving irate dragons, impossible inventions, or, more recently, talking squirrels with surprisingly sound financial acumen. This time, however, the lurch was accompanied by an entirely new sensation: the soft, unfamiliar weight of velvet bedcovers the size of a small fishing boat, and the even more unfamiliar, distinctly non-Berkian scent of lavender and something subtly, indefinably… regal.

Then the memories of the previous day – or rather, the previous thirty-seven-minute whirlwind of doom, destiny, and surprise matrimony – came crashing back with the force of a rogue wave. He was married. To a princess. A beautiful, possibly cursed, definitely intimidating princess. And he was currently in her bed. Their bed, he supposed, though the sheer acreage of the mattress meant they were practically in different postal codes.

He risked a peek. Astrid was already awake, sitting before an ornate vanity table across the vast expanse of the chamber, the early morning light catching the gold in her braided hair. She was brushing it out, long, slow strokes, her expression unreadable in the silvered mirror. She wore a simple silken dressing gown, a stark contrast to the fortress of fabric she’d been encased in the day before. Even in this unguarded moment, there was an aura of command about her, a quiet intensity that made the air around her seem to hum.

She must have sensed his gaze, for her hand stilled. Her stormy blue eyes met his in the reflection. A small, almost imperceptible nod was her only greeting. “You’re awake, Prince Consort.”

The title still sounded utterly alien. “Uh, yeah. Morning. Princess… Astrid.” He fumbled with the velvet mountain range, feeling his cheeks heat. Smooth, Hiccup. Real smooth.

A stark difference from his previous morning in the palace struck him then. The day before, he’d been roused by a pair of timid, pitying maids. Today? Silence. A profound, echoing silence that seemed to be the West Wing’s default setting. No bustling servants, no clatter of breakfast trays, just the distant sigh of the wind outside the towering, stained-glass windows.

“So,” Astrid said, her voice still that low, intriguing murmur, turning slightly on her vanity stool to face him. “What are your grand plans for the day, now that you’re… well, this?” She gestured vaguely, encompassing him, the room, their bizarre situation.

Hiccup ran a hand through his already perpetually messy hair. “Grand plans? Gods, I haven’t even figured out where they keep the spoons in this place. I’m a bit… at sea, you could say. Unfamiliar with the kingdom, the palace, the three-foot list of things I’m not supposed to do…”

Astrid’s lips quirked. “A servant can show you the highlights of the castle, if you wish. The armory is quite impressive, if you enjoy looking at pointy things. The treasury, less so, unless you have a particular fondness for counting gold bars. It gets dull after the first few thousand.”

“Right. A servant.” Hiccup considered this. Being led around by another Grimmy-in-training, subjected to more rules and disapproving stares? No, thank you. “Actually,” he said, then immediately regretted it, “it might be… easier, more efficient, if you were to… you know… show me around? Since you live here?” He winced internally. Way to sound like a demanding Hooligan. “But, uh, never mind. You’ve obviously got… princess things to do. Important, regal… stuff.”

She stared at him for a long moment, those piercing blue eyes seeming to dissect him layer by layer. Hiccup felt like a particularly uninteresting insect under a scholar’s glass. Then, to his utter astonishment, she said, “Perhaps. But most of my ‘princess things’ involve avoiding people who are trying to either flatter me, fear me, or marry me for my… considerable assets. A tour with my new, entirely bewildered, and refreshingly un-avaricious husband might actually be a welcome change of pace.” She rose. “Finish getting dressed, Prince Consort. We’ll explore your new gilded cage. Specifically, my wing of it.”

He scrambled out of bed, suddenly very aware of his rumpled Berkian nightshirt in the face of her effortless Valerian elegance. The clothes laid out for him were, once again, far too fancy. Silks and velvets in somber, rich colors. He fumbled with the unfamiliar clasps and ties, feeling like a scarecrow trying to impersonate a peacock. Astrid, meanwhile, dressed with an economy of movement that was both graceful and slightly intimidating, her simple day gown still managing to look more regal than anything Hiccup had ever owned.

“The West Wing,” she announced as they stepped out of their suite into a long, echoing corridor, “is mine. Exclusively.” The way she said it left no room for doubt. “By royal decree, and general terrified consensus, it is Astrid Hofferson territory.”

Sunlight, muted and grey, filtered through tall, arched windows, illuminating intricate tapestries depicting scenes that made Hiccup’s stomach churn – more Valerian heroes, more vanquished foes, a notable recurrence of very large, very angry-looking dragons being either slain or subjugated. Cheery.

“The entire wing?” Hiccup asked, impressed despite himself. It was vast.

“The entire wing,” she confirmed. “Only one other soul dares to tread these hallowed, and reputedly haunted, halls with any regularity.”

“Your head maid, Ruffnut?” Hiccup guessed, remembering the whirlwind of chaotic energy from the previous day.

Astrid actually smirked. A genuine, if fleeting, smirk. “The very same. Though I suspect her bravery stems less from loyalty and more from a morbid curiosity about my curse. She lives in eternal hope of witnessing some spectacular, preferably fatal, manifestation. Perhaps being turned into a particularly interesting species of newt, or spontaneously combusting in a shower of glitter and regret. She’s… unique.”

Hiccup was, as Astrid had noted, thoroughly puzzled. “She wants to be cursed?”

“Ruffnut finds conventional existence dreadfully dull,” Astrid explained, her voice dry. “She considers proximity to potential doom a spectator sport.”

Their tour began. And what a tour it was. The West Wing wasn’t just a wing; it was a self-contained kingdom within the palace. Room after room unfolded, each more opulent and eerily silent than the last. There was a library that stretched for what felt like miles, its towering shelves crammed with ancient, leather-bound tomes that smelled of dust and forgotten secrets. “Most of these haven’t been opened in centuries,” Astrid commented, running a finger along an intricate spine. “The last Royal Librarian who ventured in here was found three weeks later trying to teach the alphabet to a suit of armor. He claimed it was a surprisingly quick learner.”

There were guest rooms, dozens of them, each furnished with funereal splendor and looking as though they hadn’t seen an actual guest since the last ice age. Sitting rooms, each with a collection of stiff, uncomfortable-looking chairs arranged for conversations that probably never happened. Tea rooms, presumably for teas that were never brewed. Drawing rooms, for drawings that were never drawn. It was a monument to loneliness, a gilded mausoleum of solitude.

“And this,” Astrid said, gesturing to a room filled with more plush, unused furniture, “is yet another sitting room. For… sitting, I suppose. If one were so inclined. And had someone to sit with.”

Hiccup, trying to inject a note of practicality into the overwhelming opulence, finally lamented, “It’s all very… grand. But is there a forge? Anywhere? A place where a man can actually make something, instead of just… sitting in it?”

Astrid looked at him, a flicker of surprise in her eyes. “A forge? In the Royal Palace? Gods, no. Far too noisy. And dirty. And prone to… well, fire.”

“Right,” Hiccup said, deflated. “Of course.”

They paused in one of the many identical sitting rooms, the silence broken only by the distant, mournful cry of a seabird. Hiccup found himself staring at Astrid. Not in the awestruck, deer-in-the-headlights way he had at the altar, but with a focused, analytical curiosity. He was trying to reconcile the beautiful, composed princess before him with the terrifying, curse-laden monster of rumor and his own ingrained Berkian superstitions.

She caught him looking, her eyebrow arching in that unnervingly regal way. “Is there something on my face, Prince Consort? Or are you merely cataloging my features for your memoirs, ‘My Life as a Barbarian Trophy Husband’?”

Hiccup flushed. “Sorry. No. I mean, yes, I was staring, but not in a… a creepy, memoir-ish kind of way.” He took a deep breath. Might as well get it over with. “I was just… trying to figure out your curse.”

Her other eyebrow joined the first one. “Oh, were you now? And what conclusions has your extensive research yielded thus far, Professor Haddock?”

He ignored the sarcasm, his mind genuinely working through the possibilities. “Well, I’ve ruled out troll. Definitely no warts, and your legs, from what I can tell, are not particularly hairy, nor do they seem capable of cracking coconuts. So, that’s a relief.”

A strange, strangled sound escaped Astrid. It might have been a laugh.

“And,” he continued, warming to his theme, “you didn’t transform into a ravening she-beast last night and try to devour my soul, so I think we can tentatively cross ‘were-creature’ off the list. Unless it’s a monthly thing? Do I need to mark my calendar?”

This time, she definitely laughed. A short, sharp bark of genuine amusement that startled them both. “Gods, you Vikings have vivid imaginations.”

“It’s the long winters,” Hiccup explained seriously. “Lots of time for creative speculation. So, if you’re not a troll, and not a were-beast… you’re a beautiful maiden – well, madam now, I suppose, since we’re… you know…” He gestured vaguely between them. “So, the only logical explanation left, based on all the classic tales, is that you’re a siren.”

Her eyebrows were now attempting to merge with her hairline. “A… siren?”

“Stands to reason,” Hiccup said, nodding confidently, completely missing the astonished disbelief on her face. He was on a roll now, his mind, as it often did, running away with him down a path of enthusiastic, if slightly unhinged, logic. “Enchantingly beautiful, as previously established. Which means you must have an equally enchanting singing voice. You lure unsuspecting men – like myself, for instance, though the luring was more of a political treaty than a dulcet melody in my case – to your… well, to your palace, in this instance. And then… what? Do you kill them? Turn them into newts? Is that where all the ‘don’t feed the gargoyles’ rules come from? Are the gargoyles… former suitors?”

Astrid was staring at him, her mouth slightly agape. Then she started to laugh. Not a polite, princessly titter. A real, honest-to-goodness laugh, rich and throaty and surprisingly infectious. It echoed through the silent, stuffy sitting room, chasing away some of the shadows. Hiccup found himself grinning, despite his very serious concerns about potential newt-transformation.

“A siren?” she finally gasped, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “Oh, by all the salty sea gods, Haddock, you are… you are truly something else.” She shook her head, still chuckling. “My curse, as they call it, is nothing nearly so… aquatic. Or melodious. Though I appreciate the ‘beautiful maiden’ part.” A faint blush touched her cheeks at that, a fleeting vulnerability that made Hiccup’s stomach do an odd little flip-flop of its own, quite unrelated to any fear of curses.

Their tour eventually led them to a smaller, less overwhelmingly formal dining room within the West Wing. Just as Hiccup was wondering if they were expected to conjure food out of thin air, Ruffnut bustled in, carrying a tray laden with bread, cheese, fruit, and what looked like roasted fowl.

“Lunch is served, Your Highness, Your… uh… Highness-Consort-Dude,” Ruffnut announced, plonking the tray down with a cheerful lack of ceremony. She then proceeded to give Astrid a very unsubtle, very deliberate, eyebrow-waggling leer, jerking her head significantly towards Hiccup. “So,” she said, her voice oozing insinuation, “sleep well, did we? Comfy bed? No… unexpected nocturnal transformations to report?”

Hiccup choked on the water he’d just sipped, sputtering and coughing. Astrid sighed, a long-suffering sound that spoke of years of enduring Ruffnut’s particular brand of well-intentioned chaos. “That will be all, Ruffnut. Thank you.”

“Just asking!” Ruffnut said, grinning broadly before retreating, her cackles echoing down the corridor. Classic Ruff.

They ate in a surprisingly comfortable silence for a while. The food was simple but delicious. Hiccup, relieved not to be discussing his potential transformation into amphibian statuary, actually found himself relaxing. Astrid, however, seemed to become more thoughtful as the meal progressed. She’d fall silent for long stretches, her brow furrowed, those stormy blue eyes fixed on him with an unnerving intensity, as if he were a particularly complex puzzle she was trying to solve. Each time, Hiccup would mentally retrace his last few sentences, trying to figure out what offense he’d inadvertently committed this time.

Then, almost under her breath, so quiet he wasn’t sure he was meant to hear it, she murmured, “It’s… nice. To have company for a meal.”

Hiccup looked up, surprised. “It is,” he agreed wholeheartedly. “Back on Berk, I usually ate alone. Or with Gobber, which mostly involved him talking about battle-axes and me trying to stop him from accidentally setting his beard on fire with a gravy-soaked sausage.” He saw a flicker of curiosity in her eyes and found himself, to his own surprise, elaborating. “I wasn’t exactly… popular. Too small, too quiet, too fond of tinkering with things instead of, you know, hitting other things with an axe. ‘Hiccup the Useless,’ they called me. Different. Apart from my dad and Gobber, no one really… bothered.”

Astrid listened, her gaze unwavering, asking a quiet question here and there, drawing out more of his experiences, his isolation. It was strange. No one, not even his father, had ever listened to him talk about Berk with such focused attention.

As they finished their meal, she echoed her earlier sentiment, this time more clearly. “It truly is… pleasant. To have someone to talk to. Someone who doesn’t immediately start reciting bad poetry or edging towards the nearest exit.”

“Then why don’t you have more people in the West Wing?” Hiccup asked, genuinely curious. “This place is enormous. You could host a small army in here.”

A shadow crossed her face, the brief warmth of their conversation dimming. “Everyone is afraid, Hiccup,” she said, her voice flat. “Afraid of me. Afraid of my… curse. The only ones who brave these halls are the truly desperate, the incredibly foolish, or those, like Lord Periwinkle, hoping to line their pockets before they’re turned into a particularly unfortunate piece of topiary.”

Hiccup felt a surprising surge of anger on her behalf. It wasn’t right. This intelligent, beautiful, surprisingly witty woman, condemned to live in solitude, surrounded by fear and silence. He found himself clenching his fists. He knows loneliness from his time on Berk. He wouldnt wish that on anyone.

“That’s… that’s not fair,” he said, his voice tight. He looked at her, a sudden, fierce determination hardening his gaze. “There has to be something. Some way…”

He leaned forward, his earlier fears forgotten, replaced by a new, urgent purpose. “Astrid,” he said, using her name with a newfound confidence. “Can you please detail to me your curse? Exactly what it is, how it manifests. I want to create an item that can cure it. Or, if it’s too complicated, too ingrained, then maybe I can make something that will protect me from it. So that we may at least… be able to spend time together. So you don’t have to be so alone.”

Astrid stared at him, her fork clattering softly against her plate. Her eyes, wide and incredulous, searched his face. He could see a maelstrom of emotions swirling within them – shock, disbelief, and something else, something fragile and almost painful to look at.

When she finally spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. “You would… try to create something… so you could spend time with me? Knowing… knowing there’s a curse?”

She shook her head, a bitter smile touching her lips. “Hiccup, you don’t understand. This isn’t some minor ailment, some peasant superstition that can be waved away with a poultice or a cleverly worded charm. It’s not something that can be controlled, or cured, or… stopped. It just is.”

Hiccup felt his newfound determination deflate like a punctured sheep’s bladder. “Then… then what are we to do?” he asked, the words heavy with a shared sense of hopelessness.

Astrid looked away, her gaze fixed on some distant point beyond the stone walls of her lonely dining room. “After this tour, Prince Consort,” she said, her voice regaining some of its regal iciness, “you will do what everyone else does. You will stay away from me. You will keep to your own designated, suitably distant, palace-approved areas. For your own safety. Our… wedding night… was an exception, a political necessity. It will not be repeated.”

Hiccup sat there, glaring at his half-empty goblet of water as if it had personally offended him. The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable. Stay away? Like everyone else? After that glimpse of laughter, that shared meal, that fleeting moment when he hadn’t felt like ‘Hiccup the Useless’ but just… Hiccup?

“No,” he said finally, his voice quiet but firm.

Astrid turned back, her eyebrow raised. “No?”

“No, thanks,” he repeated, meeting her gaze directly. “I think I’d rather take my chances with the curse, whatever it is, than lose the only friend I’ve made in this entire kingdom. And my wife.”

Now she was truly shaken. He could see it in the way her composure faltered, the way her breath hitched almost imperceptibly. No one. No one she had ever met, ever come in contact with, had been willing to brave her curse, her reputation, just to be with her. Not even Ruffnut, for all her morbid curiosity; Ruffnut was fascinated by the curse, not necessarily by Astrid herself. This… this Hooligan…

“Hiccup,” she said, her voice strained, “as much as I… appreciate the sentiment… you truly do not know what you are getting yourself into. I am telling you, for your own good, staying away from me is the safest, the only sensible, option for you.”

He opened his mouth to protest, to argue that ‘sensible’ had never really been his strong suit, but she stood abruptly, interrupting him.

“You don’t know the curse, Hiccup,” she said, her voice low and intense, a hint of the storm returning to her eyes. “So you cannot make a claim like that. You simply cannot.”

She turned, her silken gown whispering against the stone floor. “Stay safe, Prince Consort.”

And then, she was gone, leaving Hiccup alone once more in the echoing silence of the West Wing, the taste of roasted fowl and unresolved cliffhangers bitter on his tongue.

Chapter Text

The silence in my chambers after Hiccup left was a physical thing. It pressed in on me, heavy and suffocating, a stark contrast to the lingering warmth of his words. “I’d rather take my chance with the curse, before I lose my only friend and wife.”

The declaration, so earnest and foolhardy, didn’t echo in my heart as a comfort. It landed like a chilling premonition, the tolling of a bell for a doom I could see with perfect, agonizing clarity. He saw a challenge to be overcome, a puzzle to be solved. I saw a songbird, vibrant and full of a ridiculously charming, off-key sort of music, flying cheerfully into a viper’s nest.

And I, gods help me, was the nest.

I sank onto the edge of the chaise, my hands clenched in my lap until my knuckles were white. A surge of profound, nauseating horror washed over me, so potent it left me breathless. It wasn’t relief I felt at his loyalty; it was terror. His kindness wasn't a gift; it was a terrifying liability, a weapon he unknowingly aimed at his own heart.

I replayed his words, tasting them like ash in my mouth. Friend. Wife. The terms felt alien, like titles for a person who lived in a different world, a person whose very presence didn’t curdle the air and frighten small animals. The flicker of hope his words ignited was a cruel, phantom thing—more painful than the usual, familiar despair because it was a hope I knew I must personally, methodically extinguish.

A cold resolve began to form in the pit of my stomach, hardening the fear into something sharp and purposeful. His bravery was a symptom of his ignorance. He had looked upon the sun and, blinded by its brilliance, failed to see the inferno at its core. It was up to me, then. I would have to be the one to teach him. To educate him in the only language the world seemed to understand when it came to Astrid Hofferson: fear.

A soft, hesitant knock on the door broke the suffocating stillness. “Your Highness?” a voice squeaked from the other side. It was Elspeth, one of the younger maids, her voice trembling even through three inches of solid oak. “The… the King requests your presence. In his private solar.”

I closed my eyes, a familiar, bitter ache blooming in my chest. Requests. As if it were a choice. The tremble in the girl’s voice was another small, sharp cut. They were all so afraid. And they were right to be.

“I will be there shortly,” I said, my voice flatter and colder than I intended. I heard a faint gasp, then the sound of scurrying feet as the maid fled. Of course.

This was how it always was. A summons, not from a father, but from a king. A meeting, not in a place of family, but in a chamber of state. I stood, smoothed the nonexistent wrinkles from my gown, and prepared to face my keepers.

The King’s private solar was a room built for strategy, not sentiment. Dark, heavy woods paneled the walls, their polished surfaces reflecting the grim light of a late afternoon sky. Intricate maps of the known world, their borders marked with the aggressive crimson ink of Valerian influence, were hung in place of tapestries. There were no personal touches, no warmth, no sign that a family lived within these walls. It was a room for managing a kingdom’s assets, and I was, I knew, one of its most volatile.

My father, King Alaric, was hunched over a large table, studying a map of the Northern Passages, his brow furrowed in concentration. He didn’t look up when I entered. My mother, Queen Elara, stood by the tall, arched window, her back to the room as she tended to a pot of fragile-looking winter roses, their pale blossoms a stark contrast to the room’s oppressive gloom.

I walked to the center of the room and waited, a silent, dutiful statue.

My mother turned first. For a fleeting, heart-wrenching moment, her face softened into the familiar lines of a maternal smile, the one I remembered from a childhood that felt a lifetime away. But as I stood there, as the reality of my presence seemed to settle in the air between us, the smile became brittle, a fragile mask of courtesy. Her eyes flickered away from mine. She reached out a gloved hand towards her roses, ostensibly to prune a dead leaf. But her hand hesitated in mid-air, then pulled back sharply, a tiny, almost imperceptible flinch, as if she had pricked her finger on a thorn she hadn’t seen.

She was nowhere near a thorn.

But the monster was in the room. I understood. Her reaction, to me, was as loud and clear as a scream.

My father finally spoke, his eyes still fixed on the crisscrossing lines of the map. He never held my gaze for more than a fleeting, uncomfortable second. “Has the arrangement been… managed?” he asked, his voice the detached, clinical tone of a man discussing troop movements or grain shipments. “Does the Hooligan consort understand the necessary precautions one must take when residing within the West Wing?”

He spoke as if managing a dangerous, unpredictable animal, not his daughter's new husband.

“We trust you are ensuring… stability, Astrid,” my mother added, her voice tight, her attention still resolutely focused on her flowers. “Any… emotional volatility… would be most unfortunate at this delicate and politically sensitive time.”

Do not get angry, her words meant. Do not get sad. Do not feel anything too strongly, lest you break something. Or someone.

I didn’t see them as cruel, not really. I didn’t see them as weak. I saw their reactions as entirely, horribly justified. Of course Mother flinched. She sensed the predator’s proximity. It is a natural, sensible reaction to danger. Father cannot look upon me. He sees what I truly am, what hides behind this mask of a face. He sees the heir to Thyra’s monstrous legacy.

The meeting was brief, soul-crushing, and utterly familiar. It was another layer of confirmation, another brick in the wall of my self-loathing. I was not their daughter. I was their burden, their curse, their greatest and most terrifying state secret.

“I understand, Father. Mother,” I murmured, my voice a hollow echo in the silent room. “The consort is being… managed.”

I was dismissed with a curt nod from my father. I turned and walked out, my back straight, my head held high, the very model of a dutiful princess, while inside, my world crumbled into dust.

The long, grand portrait gallery that connected the royal apartments to the West Wing felt even more oppressive than usual as I walked back alone. The shadows cast by the setting sun were long and distorted, stretching like grasping claws across the cold marble floor. The air was heavy with the scent of old oils, dust, and the silent, painted judgment of generations of my ancestors. My parents’ fear had amplified my own sense of "wrongness," making my skin crawl, making me feel like an ill-fitting costume stretched over something monstrous.

My eyes, against my will, were drawn to the largest, most intimidating portrait in the hall. It dominated the far wall, a monument of ego and terror. Thyra the Tyrant. My great-great-grandmother. She sat on a throne of dark, jagged, volcanic-looking rock, flanked by the shadowy, colossal forms of dragons whose eyes were painted as glowing embers. Her expression was one of utter, ruthless command, her hand resting on the hilt of a wicked-looking sword. But it was her eyes—painted with an uncanny, disturbing skill—that held you. They seemed to possess a predatory fire, a depth that promised pain and power in equal measure. They were the color of a stormy sky. They were the color of my eyes.

As I drew level with the portrait, a sudden, unnatural chill swept down the corridor, raising goosebumps on my arms. I froze. The air grew still, heavy. And I could have sworn, in the flickering twilight, that the painted eyes of Thyra moved. That they shifted, just a fraction, to lock onto mine.

A draft, seeming to emanate from the very canvas itself, whispered down the hall. It curled around me, cold and sibilant. And carried on it, or perhaps born directly within the terrified confines of my own mind, was a single, powerful word, a serpent’s hiss in the echoing silence of the gallery.

"Unleash..."

A jolt of pure, undiluted terror shot through me. I didn’t hesitate. I broke into a run, my boots slipping on the polished marble as I fled the hall, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The whisper followed me, a venomous echo in my head. Unleash. Unleash. Unleash.

Was I going mad? Had the years of isolation finally fractured my mind? Or was that the curse, finally finding its voice? Was it the ghost of my monstrous ancestor, sensing a kindred spirit in her blighted bloodline, urging her heir to embrace her terrible destiny? The line between my own identity and the monstrous legacy of Thyra blurred, threatening to dissolve entirely.

I burst through the doors of my chambers, slamming them shut behind me and leaning against the wood, my breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. I was shaking, a fine, uncontrollable tremor running through my entire body. I needed to see. I needed to understand what Hiccup was so blind to, what my parents saw so clearly, what Thyra’s ghost recognized in the shadows of my soul.

Stumbling, I made my way to the grand, silver-gilt mirror that stood in the corner of my room. I gripped its ornate frame, my knuckles white, and forced myself to look. To truly look.

It was my face, but it was wrong. So horribly, fundamentally wrong.

My eyes. They weren’t just blue. They were the color of deep, glacial ice, a cold, flat, unforgiving hue. And deep within them, a predatory light that was not my own glinted back at me, cold and sharp and hungry.

The shadows. The shadows under my cheekbones were too deep, too sharp, like bruises on my soul that had manifested on my skin. They marred whatever beauty might have been there, making me look gaunt, feral, dangerous.

My mouth. I tried to force a smile, to see the girl I once was, the one who could laugh without it feeling like a lie. But the reflection’s lips pulled back in a humorless, predatory snarl. It was the baring of teeth, not an expression of joy. It was a threat.

And then I saw it. For a horrifying, flickering moment, as the last rays of the dying sun caught the silvered glass, I thought I saw a second image superimposed over my own. A darker, sharper silhouette, its form indistinct but its intent palpable. It was a thing of sharp angles and coiled power, with eyes that glowed like embers in the gloom. The shadow of Thyra. The shadow of a dragon.

My breath hitched. This was it. This was the monster. This was the face that made my mother flinch and my father look away. This was the creature whose very presence chilled the air and whispered of violence. This was what Hiccup, in his beautiful, brave, idiotic innocence, could not see.

As I stared, horrified, a frantic scrabbling sound broke the spell. A flash of vibrant blue. A small songbird, a summer finch that must have found its way into my chambers through an open balcony window, was now panicking. It flapped wildly around the room, its tiny body a blur of motion, its chirps sharp with terror. It seemed to sense me, to sense the predator staring out from the mirror, its panic escalating as it desperately sought an escape.

In its frenzy, it flew headlong into a pane of glass on the far side of the room. There was a sickening, soft thud. It dropped to the floor, a tiny, broken bundle of blue feathers, its vibrant life extinguished in an instant.

A wave of nausea and profound, crushing self-loathing washed over me. I sank to my knees, my hands covering my mouth to stifle a sob. This was not a random accident. It was my fault. My very presence, my monstrous aura, was a blight. It poisoned the air. It drove beauty to madness and death.

I looked from the small, still body of the bird to my own monstrous reflection in the mirror.

Hiccup. Hiccup was that songbird. Bright, full of life, impossibly resilient, and so foolishly, cheerfully flying straight into my cage.

I would not—could not—let him suffer the same fate.

My resolve, born from a desperate need to protect him, hardened into something sharp and painful, a shard of ice in my heart. I will not be the window that breaks him, I vowed to the monster in the mirror. If he will not flee, then I must give him a reason to run. I must show him the thing he refuses to see.

I rose to my feet, my reflection staring back at me with cold, determined eyes. To save him, I would have to become the cruel, cold monster he refused to believe in. It was the only act of love, the only truly noble thing, a creature like me could ever hope to do.