Two Years Ago

The pain was agonizing. Spreading from his chest, from his neck from his arms... but he had to get up. He wasn't dead yet. Hiccup sat up and looked at his adversary.

Dagur stared at him in shock. "What-"

"I'm s-sorry Dagur..." Hiccup breathed into his face. "But I can't let you win."

Dagur made a move to grab the dagger sticking out of Hiccup's chest, but the Hooligan quickly collided the Berserker's nose with his forehead. Dagur cried out, recoiling back. Hiccup wrapped his right leg around the back of Dagur's left knee, pulled back and shoved Dagur forward.

Dagur's leg slipped out from under him and he screamed in shock. He grabbed Hiccup's arm, pulling him over the edge with him. Hiccup's stomach slammed into Toothless' black hide and Dagur's hand slipped from his.

Hiccup watched Dagur plummet toward the rocks below with wide eyes. Toothless yanked to a halt, hovering in place to watch the enemy fall and smash into the rocks with a sickening crack that set Hiccup's teeth on edge. In a daze, he watched Dagur lie there, completely unmoving, watched as the small pool of blood formed underneath Dagur's head...

Hiccup gasped as he awoke, feeling trapped by the blankets tightly wrapped around his body. It took a little while to loosen them enough to slip out but he managed to extricate himself from his own bed. Astrid slept on, completely unburdened. Good. She didn't need to be disturbed.

The young chief winced as he turned his head. The gash on his neck was healing quite nicely but it still throbbed uncomfortably, especially on nights like this. He smoothed out the blankets so that Astrid wouldn't be cold and found himself in a bit of a conundrum. He could try to crawl back into bed so he could... no. His heart was still pounding, his head still reeling with memories he desperately wanted to keep down. He wasn't going to get any more sleep tonight.

There was always the saddle adjustment he'd been working on. That might distract him.

His metal leg made an odd clunking noise as he descended the staircase. He wondered how long it would take to get used to his new prosthetic. A few months perhaps. Who knew, really?

Hiccup lit a candle and placed it over his work table. He blinked a few times to try and clear his vision before getting out some parchment and trying to draw up a design. He would measure Toothless later. His Night Fury was likely to be asleep. No one was awake at that hour.

Or were they?

There was a strange noise above his head. He froze, straining his ears so he could hear it more clearly. Footsteps. Little footsteps. Finn or Adrianna had awakened. A second later, Hiccup knew exactly who was awake and exactly why.

"Addie?"

The footsteps stopped for a moment.

"It's okay, Addie, it's me."

The noise traveled down the stairs and within seconds, a tiny girl, her hair messy and her hand clasped around a stuffed Night Fury, came into view. Hiccup smiled grimly.

"Bad dreams again?" he kept his voice soft to avoid waking up the rest of his family.

Adrianna nodded, wiping her eyes with her arm. She looked like she had been awake for a while. Perhaps the noises Hiccup was making as he descended the staircase had alarmed her.

"Why didn't you come to us?" her father asked, looking concerned.

"I didn't want to wake you up." Adrianna replied in a higher register. "Why are you awake?"

"I had a bad dream too." Hiccup said after a moment's hesitation.

Adrianna stared at her father, her eyebrows furrowing slightly. "I thought grown-ups didn't have bad dreams."

Hiccup chuckled. He thought it was a bit cruel to be amused that his daughter would think such a thing. She almost always crawled into bed with her parents after her nightmares. Why wouldn't she assume that she would outgrow them? Yet another thing to add to the harsh realities from which he would not be able to shield her. One down, a thousand more to go.

"Sometimes grown-ups have a lot of bad dreams after something bad happens to them." Hiccup motioned for her to come forward. She tentatively walked up to him. "And something very bad happened to me. I got hurt by an evil man who wanted to take you away. And sometimes when I go to sleep-"

"You're scared again. 'Cause even though he's gone in real life, he won't go away from your dreams." Adrianna interrupted, her green eyes fixed on his.

Hiccup paused for a few minutes, staring at his daughter... who understood. Gods, why didn't he think of that? She had been crawling into bed with him and Astrid for the past year and a half. And yet here he was. Keeping secrets from his family because he didn't want to burden them. But his little girl had already been burdened. She knew his fear. She had been facing it longer than he had.

"Do they ever go away?" his daughter asked, breaking the silence at last.

Hiccup opened his mouth... but no sound came out. He blinked a few times. A father is supposed to know the answers to the important questions. Yet he didn't know. She had voiced his greatest fear: that he would never get away. That he would be haunted by the most horrifying experience of his life until he died.

He couldn't answer. He stared into her wide eyes and noticed, for the first time, that they seemed older. Like a weary old woman had been trapped inside of his child's body. A woman who had gone through so much pain and who wanted to be free.

He hated it.

The torture she endured on so many nights. The fear she faced every single day. The times she was thrown into the most terrible moments of her life. Always over her shoulder, always haunting her like a dark shadow in the corner of her eye that lingered but never came into focus.

He knew because it was his turn to experience it. He had felt the fear, been thrown into his nightmares even during daylight. He had felt his past following him, sometimes so closely he could almost touch it. Was this what his daughter had faced for the last year and a half?

He leaned forward and put his arms around her, hugging her tightly as if holding her would make her feel safe again, would banish the monster of her own mind for good. She held him as if she was trying to do the same thing.

Her question still echoed in his mind. Would the nightmares ever go away?

"I don't know, Addie." he whispered in a trembling voice. "But I do know that you don't have to face this alone anymore."

Present Day

Agonizing pain ripped through his chest as he lay there, Dagur the Deranged triunphantly leering down at him. A burst of strength Hiccup didn't know he had coursed through him and he sat up.

Dagur stared at him in shock. "What-"

"I'm s-sorry Dagur..." Hiccup breathed into his face. "But I can't let you win."

Though Dagur made a move to extricate the dagger from Hiccup's chest, the Hooligan was too fast for him. His head collided with the Berserker's, causing Dagur to cry out and recoil. Hiccup wasted no time in wrapping his right leg around the back of Dagur's left knee, pulling back, and shoving Dagur forward.

Dagur's leg slipped out from under him and he screamed in shock. He grabbed Hiccup's arm, pulling him over the edge with him. Hiccup's stomach slammed into Toothless' black hide and Dagur's hand slipped from his.

Dagur was screaming. The sound echoed in his head until there was a sickening crack and all went silent. Dazed, he watched Dagur lie there, completely unmoving, watched as the small pool of blood formed underneath the now dead Berserker's head...

Hiccup awoke with a jolt. He was covered in a cold sweat and his heart was pounding in his ears. It was that dream again. The same dream he had almost every night. He put a hand up to his neck and felt the scars on his skin, which stung as a result of the dream but had, in actuality, healed quite a while ago. He looked over to the other side of the bed and was slightly relieved to see that Astrid slept on, undeterred by her husband's nightmare.

There would be no more sleep that night. Hiccup knew that he could probably crawl back into bed at dawn and fall asleep instantly but he only got an hour or so before his wife woke him. Judging by the angle of the moonlight in the window, he guessed that it was about two in the morning. He had only gotten three hours of sleep. All in all, a typical night's rest. He thought irritably that Astrid oughtn't have asked him to sleep next to her since he wouldn't even spend most of the night with her. Surely she had to know that.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, careful not to disturb his wife's slumber. The last thing he needed was her asking questions he didn't want to answer. Only one person truly understood and she slept in the bedroom farthest down the hall.

He yawned as he traipsed down the stairs. He had some designs he could work on in the hours before he would be able to sleep again. No one was downstairs. It was rather peaceful to work in the early hours of the morning. This particular morning, however, he found himself hoping for company.

Adrianna had been joining him on some of the nights when he couldn't fall back to sleep due to nightmares. As Hiccup drew up some designs for a more efficient tail control for Toothless, his mind wandered a bit. How long had it been since they had stared doing this? Two years? Yes... it must have been about two years now. Neither he nor his daughter had ever told Astrid or Finn that they had late night meetings. There was something special about them, like their monthly Saturdays together. Something that was completely and irrevocably theirs.

His wish for company soon came true. The young girl descended the staircase about an hour later. She was pleased to see that her father was already awake. Some nights she was alone. She didn't like those nights, the ones in which she lit a candle in her room and prayed that daylight would come soon. Her father, her sole confidant in these matters, was much better company when they were undisturbed by the rest of the family.

"I had a feeling you'd be coming down." Hiccup smiled warmly and opened an arm so that he could comfort his still shaking child. She immediately allowed him to hold her close, placing a head on his shoulder. "Really bad one, huh?" Adrianna nodded. "Do you want to talk about it?"

The girl sniffled and shook her head. She told her father everything... except what was in her nightmares. The scenes she had to relive almost every night were impossible to put into words. He had given up pressing for details because they tended to trigger flashbacks that could take hours from which to recover.

"You don't have to tell me what happened in your dream." Hiccup said, tenderly rubbing her shoulder so that it would be warm and, hopefully, she would stop shaking. "But you were so little when... when it happened. How much do you remember?"

Adrianna bit her lip, her eyes fixed on her fidgeting fingers. "All of it."

"I know the feeling." Hiccup kissed her on the top of the head. "Some things you just can't forget."

"No matter how much you want to." Adrianna finished with another sniffle. "What are you working on?"

"Oh, this? Just some designs for a new tail-fin for Toothless. I'm not sure I'm actually going to build it. Something seems off about it." Hiccup pushed the papers a bit closer to his daughter so that she see the pictures, even if she couldn't read the words.

Adrianna's tongue darted between her parted lips. It was a sign that she was concentrating with all her might and Hiccup found it cute. Not to mention somewhat familiar.

"Wouldn't it fall apart?" she asked after about a minute.

Hiccup eyed the design again. "Why would it fall apart?"

"Well..." Adrianna seemed to enjoy her moment of brilliance. Her eyes flitted to her father's face, which she knew would light up when she shared her theory. "You put the metal bit in a different place."

"Yes. It has better wind resistance." Hiccup raised an eyebrow.

"Well if you moved the tail to the side, it would rip 'cause there's no support." Adrianna pointed to the flaw. "Toothless would crash. And then he'd pout. He always pouts when he's clumsy."

Hiccup smiled. "Too true." he looked over the plans again. "All right, that's the last time I try to do any work in the middle of the night."

Adrianna giggled and Hiccup tightened his hold on her shoulder.

"What's going on here?"

Father and daughter turned around, identical pairs of green eyes widening as they focused on the rigid form of Astrid, her arms crossed, her lips pursed, and her eyes narrowed. Hiccup knew his wife's mannerisms like the back of his hand but it didn't take much observation skills to figure out that she was livid.

"Addie and I are just talking." he said after a few seconds.

He had waited a bit too long. Astrid's body stiffened.

"In the middle of the night?" she asked with a voice as tense as her posture.

"We couldn't sleep." Adrianna mumbled. "Nightmares..."

Hiccup wished she hadn't verbalized that last part but he conceded that their late night meetings couldn't go unnoticed forever. And he wasn't about to ask her to lie.

"Nightmares?" Astrid's eyes bored into her husband's. "What sort of nightmares?"

Hiccup was beginning to feel distinctly annoyed now. "Same as they've always been."

Astrid looked from her husband to her daughter and back several times. Hiccup's arm was still draped around the girl's shoulders almost like it was instinctual. Almost like... like he was protecting her from her own mother. She gritted her teeth, trying hard not to raise her voice.

"How long has this been going on?" she asked in a voice that dripped with false nonchalance.

Adrianna felt Hiccup's arm stiffen around her shoulders. "Since the nightmares started." he said, his eyes fixed on Astrid's as if silently challenging her. "We understand what it's like to be hesitant to go back to sleep."

Astrid's eyebrows raised. "Two years?" she huffed, her teeth gritting together almost painfully in her mouth. "Two years?"

"We didn't want to wake you up." Adrianna admitted, her gaze now focused on her feet.

"Go upstairs to bed, Anna." Astrid pointed in the direction of her daughter's room.

"But-"

"Just go, sweetie. I'll be up in a minute." Hiccup gently pushed the girl's back.

The couple watched their daughter climb up the stairs and remained silent until they heard her door shut behind her.

"No more of these late night meetings. She needs sleep. You need sleep." Astrid said after a few seconds of tense silence.

"She needs someone to talk to." Hiccup shook his head. "And you wouldn't understand."

"Don't tell me what I can and can't understand." Astrid snapped, her voice a bit louder than perhaps it should have been. "You've been pushing Finn and me away."

Hiccup couldn't stop himself from laughing. "I'm not doing anything! I'm just being there for my daughter."

"It's no wonder she can't read if she isn't getting enough sleep." Astrid snarled. "I don't care what you get up to at all hours of the night but letting her stay up and have these little meetings is irresponsible!"

Hiccup stood up, smirking as he now stared down at his wife's face. "She's still scared!"

"So tell her she'll be fine and to go back to sleep!" Astrid didn't even bother to keep her voice down.

"I'm not having this conversation with you." Hiccup pushed past her and grabbed his coat.

"Where are you going?" Astrid balled her fists.

"To kiss my daughter good night and then for a walk." Hiccup glared at her as he ascended the staircase.

"You can't just keep running away!" Astrid shouted.

Hiccup stared at her for a few seconds before averting his eyes and arriving at the top of the stairs. Astrid could hear him open Adrianna's bedroom door and shut it behind him.

Xxx

The air was nippy before the sun rose above the horizon. Hiccup managed to calm his frightened daughter by telling her that the stuffed Night Fury he had made for her three and a half years previously would keep her safe. It was a lie he frequently repeated and, though she was no longer naive enough to believe him, she seemed to take comfort in it anyway.

He kept his gaze on the ground, watching his foot and prosthetic take each step with mild interest. His chilled hands were in his pockets and his breath rose in front of his face in little clouds that would likely disappear once the weather turned warmer. He hardly noticed where he was going until a large body stepped in front of him from an adjacent street. His prosthetic scraped in the dirt when he halted and the large man jerked in his direction at the sudden sound.

"Hiccup?"

"Fishlegs?"

The men recognized and called the other by name simultaneously. They stared at each other in shock for a moment, confused at seeing the other at such a late hour.

Fishlegs looked at his friend, who looked distinctly upset about something. He thought it would be pointless to ask about the cause of his foul mood. Hiccup had taken to simply glaring at anyone who wanted to talk to him about anything family or emotions related.

"What are you doing out?" Hiccup asked after a few very confusing seconds.

"Peri woke up in the middle of the night. Ruff and I calmed her down but now I can't get back to sleep." Fishlegs shrugged. "I'm used to it by now."

"Well with five kids, I'd hope so." Hiccup gave his friend a halfhearted smile. "You and Ruff done yet?"

"Probably not. I hated being an only child and Ruff always wanted more than just Tuff to keep her company. We want a big family." Fishlegs chuckled. "Before we started dating, I would never have guessed Ruff was the maternal type. I guess people never stop surprising you."

"Yeah." Hiccup shook his head. "Well... that's great. Have a nice walk."

Hiccup turned his thin frame down a side street, but Fishlegs stopped him with a large hand outstretched.

"Wait..." Fishlegs took a step closer. "Are you okay? You've been... off."

"Off?" Hiccup raised an eyebrow. "Off how?"

"Hiccup... I mean a lot of us have been thinking it." Fishlegs took a deep breath. "Lately you've been kind of short tempered. You don't like to talk to people. You keep to yourself. We're not sure why."

"I'm fine, Fish." Hiccup took a step back. "Just drop it."

"Look, I wouldn't be saying this if I didn't care. But some of us have started having... meetings." Fishlegs fidgeted a bit and Hiccup felt a twinge if anger rise in his chest. Meetings? "Just talking about everything that's been happen-"

"It doesn't matter, Fish! I do what I have to do! I said drop it!" Hiccup shouted, his voice echoing in the still silence of the deserted village square.

"Okay okay. Sorry for trying to be a friend." Fishlegs nervously added yet abruptly turned back the way he came.

Hiccup watched him go for a moment, quickly realizing that his outburst only proved his friend's point. And the rest of the village's apparently. A short trot caught him up to Fishlegs and he held a hand out to stop his friend.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shouted. You're right, I am more irritable. But I can't... I don't want to talk about it."

Fishlegs nodded. "We know you don't and I'm not asking for details. It's your business, your family. And I don't want to lecture you... but you're the chief. Everything you say and do directly affects all of us. And the last few months have been... concerning."

Hiccup grunted in response, almost refusing to comment. He kicked a loose pebble out of the dirt and balanced on the edge of his prosthetic expertly. Sensing he was not getting anywhere, Fishlegs sighed. Hiccup looked up at him through his bangs. Was it just his imagination or did Fish sound... tired? And it wasn't because of the hour.

"Just... Just let us know, okay? We're your friends, and if you don't want to tell everyone then talk to me. Or Gobber. We've been your confidants before and you know we won't blab if you don't want us to."

"So says the guy who informs me that there are secret meetings of which I am the topic." Hiccup replied sarcastically.

Fishlegs winced, but quickly added, "You know what I mean. Don't think your sarcasm fools everyone. I want to help-"

"I know, Fish. I know." Hiccup sighed tiredly. "I will. Just not yet."

Fishlegs gently patted his shoulder and smiled warmly. "Get some sleep, Chief."

The burly man walked back up the street, his boots crunching in the dirt.

"Night Fish." Hiccup gently called after him.

He stood silently in the torchlight before turning back to the hill leading to the bridge and by extension, his home. In all honestly he didn't want to go back. He was no longer tired; conflicting emotions from his family and now his friends swarmed his mind.

Maybe he could just make a mug of tea and sit outside, watch the stars. Oftentimes as a teenager he would open the ceiling door and watch the heavens rotate while the hours passed and sleep would evade him. Perhaps he would do that again from the porch. Hopefully Toothless would be awake soon and he could get an early morning flight in before the day's stresses began. Correction: they already began. He wasn't outside for nothing after all.

His house loomed in the distance, a soft glow of candle light winking at him from the kitchen window. Apparently Astrid hadn't blown it out when she went back upstairs. How thoughtful of her. That was a change.

Hiccup sat on his front steps, huffing at the angry thoughts still churning. His people were holding meetings about him? What kind of meetings? Was it even legal to hold meetings about the chief against his knowledge? His eyebrows took a jump when the thought occurred to him: mutineers did that. He scoffed lightly. He wasn't that bad of a chief. Surely they weren't planning to get rid of him already. They had to understand that two children and a wife who was becoming increasingly snippy would cause anyone to be irritable.

Things would get better one day. The nightmares would go away and Astrid would come around. He was just having a low point in life, Nothing else. But he did recognize one key point that he was thankful Fishlegs had mentioned: his actions and attitudes directly affected the village. And if what Fishlegs said was true, the results were apparently not so good.

Xxx

Astrid smiled sweetly at the heat of the sun basking on her face. She listened happily as Adrianna quietly sounded out her word list. Twenty minutes of reading in front of Gobber's forge was proving to be a successful lesson so far. She hoped bringing Adrianna to the village for a session would be profitable due to the people milling about. Originally she assumed it would be very distracting, but Adrianna seemed to focus better with some background noise. It was strange, but if she was reading, Thor strike her down if she complained.

"A... An..." Astrid glanced at her daughter, biting her tongue to keep from blurting out the word. "Annn...d. And!" Adrianna grinned. "I did it!"

Astrid nodded. "Now let's try these." she replaced the three letter word list with a four letter word list. Adrianna's smile immediately disappeared. "What?"

"I did my reading. You said I could play when I was done." Adrianna said, scowling at the three sheets of paper that had been placed in front of her.

"You can when you're finished reading these words." Astrid commanded.

"You didn't say I was going to have to read more!" Adrianna whined.

"You wouldn't have agreed if I told you." Astrid replied in an almost nonchalant tone. "Sound it out, An-"

"You lied to me."

Astrid rolled her eyes. "I omitted the truth. There's a difference."

"Daddy says to never lie." Adrianna fixed her bright green gaze on her mother.

"Well your precious daddy isn't here." Astrid said through gritted teeth. "This isn't daddy time okay? You are with me and so help me Thor you will sit here until you read these pages!"

Adrianna nearly screeched in response, tugging at her hair. A few people stopped to look at the pair of blondes.

Astrid faked a smile but seethed at her daughter. "Stop acting like this and try again."

"No!"

"Don't you tell me no, I said sound it out! For gods' sake, Anna, you're seven years old, you need to learn to read!" Astrid pointed to the word on the paper, balling her other hand into a fist so tightly her fingernails were cutting into her palm. "What is wrong with you? Why won't you listen to me?"

"Why would I want to? You're so mean!" Adrianna snapped, pushing the paper away.

"I am the only one who cares about making sure you have an education." Astrid pushed the paper back in front of her daughter.

"Care? You don't care! You just want to yell at me, that's all you ever do!" Adrianna shouted, her face turning red.

"You think I like this? You think I enjoy having a daughter who is years behind her peers in reading? You are sadly mistaken." Astrid said through gritted teeth.

"Then stop!"

"I'm not going to let you embarrass this family!" Astrid gripped Adrianna's shoulder, causing the girl to squirm. "What do you think it's going to look like to everyone else if you can't read? People are going to think you're stupid, is that what you want?"

"Daddy doesn't care if I can read or not!" Adrianna mumbled into her lap

"Well your daddy isn't here right now! I am your mother, you are supposed to listen to me!"

Adrianna stood up. "No!"

"Don't you talk back to me, young lady!" Astrid seethed, grabbing her daughter's wrist.

Adrianna gave her mother a very false smile. "Oh, I'm sorry, you want me to stop responding? Fine, I'll stop!"

Both blonde Haddocks failed to notice that most villagers, a group that included Gobber, Erick, and Heather, had stopped to stare at the ensuing argument.

"Sit back down." Astrid breathed in her daughter's face, determined not to make a scene.

Adrianna stared back in defiance. "No."

"Stop being a brat and sit back down!" Astrid grabbed the girl's shoulders and tried to force her back in the chair.

"Ow, let go of me!" Adrianna shrieked.

"I said sit down!" Astrid pushed her daughter's shoulders down but the girl remained upright.

Adrianna defiantly remained on her feet and looked her mother directly in the eye. "No wonder daddy can't stand you."

SMACK!

The force of Astrid's hand across Adrianna's face caused the girl to stumble backward. The mother heard a collective gasp from the villagers standing nearby. Heather nearly screamed at what she had just witnessed. Gobber dropped the bucket he was carrying, his mouth wide open in shock. In fact, as Astrid looked out over the crowd of horrified Vikings who had just witnessed this incident, there seemed to be a lot of open mouths. A lot of wide eyes. The looks on their faces ripped through her. She had slapped her child. What's more, she had slapped the girl out in the open. She couldn't even fathom why she had done it. It seemed that for a moment, for less than a second, she had completely lost control.

By the time she looked back to where her daughter was standing, her gaze met thin air. She turned around just in time to see the little girl running at a breakneck speed toward the Great Hall.

"Anna... Anna, wait!" Astrid called, running after her but stopping when she realized that her daughter had too much of a head start.

It took a few seconds for the young mother to realize exactly why her daughter had made a beeline to the Hall instead of home. Hiccup was holding a meeting there about... well, about some sort of harvesting thing... she hadn't been listening when he told her. It was too late to stop her daughter from telling her husband what had happened... what she had done. She felt a burning sensation behind her eyes, her heart pounding in her chest, her hands trembling with dread. This wasn't going to end well for anyone.

Suddenly, she became acutely aware of the silence of the village square. She whipped her head around to face her fellow Hooligans, many of whom were still in shock. Erick, on the other hand, was glaring at her with a sort of righteous anger. She was suddenly overcome with the desire to slap him as well but, besides the fact that his mother was two feet away from him, she really didn't have a solid reason to other than that this eight year old boy had the audacity to criticize her parenting.

"What are you looking at?" Astrid snapped at the crowd.

Instantly, almost like nothing had happened at all, everyone went back to what they were doing, apparently not bold enough to confront her for what she had done. Erick still looked furious but he refrained from commenting as he walked away with his mother.

This was it. Astrid looked over at the Great Hall, which now contained her husband and daughter. Any second now, she would be confronted by a livid Hiccup. She took a few shaky steps in the direction of her house. If she was going to have an argument with her husband, she wanted as few people to hear it as possible.

Xxx

The farming members of the council were a funny bunch. They were the sort of people who didn't mind getting dirt under their fingernails or wear shirts with holes in them. The sort of people who didn't care if they smelled like dragon dung or the copious amounts of sweat that would coat their bodies as they worked. Hiccup enjoyed farming meetings. He wasn't a stickler for traditions and there was sort of an unwritten rule that farmers were exempt from ordinary Viking attire and, at times, attitudes.

The meeting was coming to a close when he heard the large double doors of the Hall creak as they opened to admit a tiny girl. He smiled. Adrianna often liked to come in toward the end of his meetings so that he could have a bit of extra time with her between duties as chief. These little moments with her were precious to him.

He turned back to the group of farmers to wrap up the meeting but a sound caught his attention and distracted him completely. There was a sniffle... and then a hiccup.

"As you know, harvest time is limited so... so you need to make sure... make sure..."

Hiccup peered at his daughter and his heart stopped beating for just a second. Her little hand was covering an angry red mark on the left side of her face. She was crying as silently as she could but there was no masking the high pitched hiccups that sporadically emanated from her throat. Feeling propelled by paternal instincts, Hiccup made a beeline to his little girl, his sentence unfinished and forgotten.

The moment he reached her, he got down on his knees so that he could be face to face with his child. "Addie, who hit you?" he gently moved her hand away from her cheek and was dismayed to notice that the mark was quite a bit bigger than he had initially thought.

Adrianna shook her head, tears running down her face and dripping onto the front of her shirt. Hiccup put his hands on her upper arms and squeezed them in what he hoped was a reassuring way. In truth, he was shaking with fury. The size of the mark indicated that it certainly wasn't a child who had inflicted it. An adult had hit his daughter. Whoever it was, he already wanted to strangle them.

"Addie, come on, sweetie. Tell me who hit you." his voice was trembling with the effort to keep it calm and soothing.

Adrianna sniffled and stared at her shoes. "Mommy."

"What?" Hiccup bellowed, making everyone in the room, including Adrianna, jump in shock.

The Hall was spinning. Astrid had slapped his little girl! Her little girl. A bubble of rage, the likes of which he felt so rarely he almost forgot it was possible, burst within his chest.

"All right." he muttered to himself, his face burning and probably turning red. "That's it." He took his daughter by the hand, stood up, and faced the farmers. "Meeting adjourned." he said in a voice devoid of emotion.

As he walked out of the Great Hall, his hand gripping his daughter's, he looked over in the direction of his house. He didn't want to face his wife but he knew he must for his little girl's sake. But she didn't have to hear the confrontation.

"I'm taking you to Gobber's." he told her.

"Why?" Adrianna asked. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No. But your mommy and I need to have a talk." he took a deep breath. "A very important talk."