[HTTYD] TWOF/DQB: Rulers of Berk

Rulers of Berk

(rough draft)

A Dreamworks' How to Train Your Dragon fanfic by Raberba girl

Summary:  The "royal family" of Berk prepares to receive important visitors.

A/N:  Although this is mostly a Two Worlds, One Family fic, it does deviate a bit in that it uses my "Dragon Queen of Berk" headcanon.

I finally made a basic timeline.  In this story, Halla is ten years old, and so is Freefall (though only in "human years"); Stoick II is nine, and so is Toothless's offspring Daydream (in human years); Lily (Hiccup & Astrid's daughter) is six.  Toothless's mate is another Night Fury OC named Empress (they have a...complicated relationship; at any rate, Hiccup is still definitely Toothless's Most Important Person).

There were other, much more important stories I should have worked on before this one, but the opening scene of this had been playing through my mind for a couple of days, and I ended up drafting the whole fic in between working to clean my room.

o.o.o

Hiccup had only gone to bed about three hours before, having stayed up late fighting over one set of plans with Gobber and another set of plans with Snotlout.

Astrid had gone to bed about two hours before, trudging back into town with her soldiers after a skirmish, making her way to the chieftain's house, and falling into bed without bothering to change out of her bloodstained clothes or even remove her armor.  Hiccup was so tired that he wouldn't have cared even if he'd been awake.

Toothless had just sprawled onto his bed and fallen asleep twenty minutes before, having been up all night dealing with a crisis involving a clutch of rowdy orphaned hatchlings, and was practically dead to the world.

This was just the most recent late night of many, and the three leaders were bone-weary.  None of them were ready for dawn.

Of course it came anyway.

"Mom!"  The young Night Fury, speaking her verbal approximation of the word that had no exact translation in dragon language, bounded through the skylight and poked Hiccup's head with her nose.  "It's morning~!  Time to fly!"  When there was no response, she kept poking her 'mother' until Hiccup finally raised an arm to push her away.  When the dragon barely budged, he burrowed down further under the blanket, clutching it over his head.  "Mooooom!"

"Go away," came Hiccup's muffled voice.  Freefall had learned quite a bit of Norse by now, and while she didn't have the right physical structure to speak much of it, she was still the only dragon who could understand most of what Vikings said.

"Moooooommmmm, it's morniiiiiiing, come flyyyyyyyyy!"

Astrid's arm dragged over the bedside table, but even she was too tired to do more than give the first item her fingers closed on a half-hearted toss.

Freefall cocked her head in confusion - she was used to having things thrown at her whenever her 'aunt' was annoyed; it was a fun game to dodge them.  She sniffed at both humans more closely.  "Mom and Throws Things are very, very tired," she realized in disappointment.  She took a second to express her feelings with a drooping posture, then brightened up and bounced over to where her 'father' lay.  She poked Toothless's head, again using a verbal approximation in order to address him.  "Daaaaaaaaad, it's morniiiiiiiiing!"

Toothless, eyes still closed, smacked her with a wing and then curled up with his face hidden.

"All the adults are too sleepy!" Freefall complained.  "Hmph.  I bet Storm Fly will fly with me.  And Mother's Mother, and Cloud Jumper."  She ran to dive back out the skylight and look for more entertaining companions.

Peace and quiet resumed...but only for a few minutes.  Then a yellow and pink Monstrous Nightmare poked her head through the skylight.  "Queen - I have news."  The dragon's rider, a little girl about six years old, dropped from her neck to the edge of the skylight, where she crouched with perfect balance.  "Dad, Mom," she called loudly, "there are ships."

The only response was some indistinct mumbling from Hiccup and Astrid.

"Dad?"

There was a sudden shriek of childish outrage from below.  Distracted, Lily and Butterfly looked over the edge of the roof to the ground, then started laughing in unison.  There was a series of thunking sounds.  Child and dragon frowned, then scrambled backward and hissed, also in unison, when a furious nine-year-old boy hauled himself onto the roof.

Reaching up to grip the Terrible Terror that was gnawing at his leather shoulder armor, he jerked it free and hurled it at his sister, who caught the little creature with a cry of dismay.  "Get your poisonous little RAT away from me!  I'll kill it if it ever comes near me again!"

"DADDY!" Lily immediately shrieked, "STOICK CALLED SHIMMERWING A RAT!  AND HE SAID HE'D KILL HER!"

"MOM, LILY'S SHIMMER-RAT ATTACKED ME AGAIN!  IT'S HER FAULT!"

Toothless raised his head.  "GO AWAY," he snarled at the noisy children.

In response, Lily ducked her head and crept onto Butterfly's neck to fly away.

Stoick, though he couldn't actually understand dragon language, was still perfectly capable of picking up on the Night Fury's irritation and commanding tone.  "Don't boss me around, dragon!  I'm the chief's son, you're just an animal!"  Then he shrieked as Butterfly tossed a spout of flame at him over her shoulder.  "MOM, LILY'S MONSTER SET THE HOUSE ON FIRE AGAIN!"

Astrid literally fell out of bed, crawled across the floor, dragged herself out the skylight to join her son on the roof, flung a bludgeon at the closest fire prevention trigger, then crawled back to curl up in bed beside her husband without even waiting to watch water start pouring down.

Stoick growled as he moved across the roof, stamping his boot on the few stray flames that had been missed.  Since both his parents and even the head Night Fury seemed to be pretty useless at the moment, he finally climbed back down to find something more interesting to do.

After a while, Astrid murmured, "Maybe we should get up...."

"Yeah...in five minutes," Hiccup mumbled back.  Their hands slowly clasped together, and they sort of attempted a kiss, but both of them fell back asleep before the gesture could be completed.

The next visitor was another Night Fury, this one a little younger than Freefall and midnight-blue in color.  He entered the room almost without a sound, making his way over to the humans with catlike delicacy.  "Sire's Half," he said, nuzzling Hiccup in an attempt to rouse him, "I want to bring Your attention to something."

"Morning, Daydream," Hiccup murmured, caressing the young dragon's nose with sleepy affection.

Daydream gazed at him for a moment, confused.  "...Maybe You are not completely awake yet, Sire's Half."

"Mmm...."

Daydream finally gave up and crossed the room to see if he'd have better luck with his father.  "Consort-sire, I want to bring your attention to something."

Toothless gave a great sigh, but reluctantly uncurled and raised his head.  Though he wasn't particularly fond of his biological firstborn, he still very much preferred Daydream to the other, more rambunctious hatchlings and children.  "What do you want?" he grumbled.

"Queen is too sleepy to listen to me, but I think that what I have to tell you is important."

Toothless looked over at the humans' bed, confirmed that Hiccup was failing to be a proper queen at the moment, did a dragon eyeroll, then yawned and sat up so he could cover for his queen as usual.  "What is it?"

"Foreign humans are coming.  Our human flockmates are both agitated and excited, so I don't know whether it's good or bad.  I want to ask Elder Dragonheart or Humanheart, but I think they both are gone playing, and Lily is too busy fighting with her litter-mate to listen to me.  I don't know where Hatchling Warrior is."

"Useless humans," Toothless grumbled, including Freefall in that category.  He rose to his paws and stretched, then padded to the skylight.  Daydream followed him out.

Minutes later, another Monstrous Nightmare landed on the roof, this one red and black.  His ten-year-old rider dropped to the floor with graceful form, though she made a heavy thud upon landing.  The girl strode over to the bed, stepped onto it, and stood over her half-asleep brother.  "Hiccup," she boomed pleasantly as the bed creaked in protest at the sudden added weight, "Patrols spotted the Elysian fleet approaching.  They'll be here in about an hour."

Hiccup and Astrid's eyes popped open in unison.  They stared at each other for a second, then struggled to sit up.  Halla stepped back to give them some room.

"Elysians?!" Hiccup exclaimed.  "An HOUR?!"

"They're not due for another week, at least!" Astrid gasped in dismay.

"I rode out Boneripper to greet them - and yes, I had backup, but it was fine.  The captain said they'd skipped over one of their planned stops and decided to just head straight here."

Shadows darkened the room as Valka and a whole crowd of dragons descended.  "Hiccup," she called urgently through the skylight, "we need to ready the village to receive visitors now."

Night Furies were raining down from the ceiling.  "Mom~ You're FINALLY awake!" Freefall exulted, leaping to plant her front paws on the bed and give her mother an enthusiastic lick on the face.

In the process, Astrid, who had been on the verge of climbing out of bed, was knocked back horizontal.  "Get off me, you little brat!" Astrid exclaimed in exasperation, elbowing Freefall in the chest.

"Half Of Me, hurry, sleep time is over, time to be queen now," Toothless said, shoving into Hiccup's other side with a mixture of urgency and regret.  He, too, would have very much appreciated the chance to sleep in.

"I knew I was right, I knew everyone should have listened to me," Daydream said unhappily, "I am upset, I should do something but I don't know what, Queen please give me orders...."

Hiccup, half-crushed by dragons, was barely able to move.  "Help...!"  Halla reached down, seized his arm, and hauled him free as effortlessly as if she was a grown man.  'I might be Dad's firstborn son,' Hiccup thought wryly, 'but you're the one who actually took after him....'

Hiccup started to head for the stairs, but Toothless seized him, tossed him onto his back, and simply jumped down to ground level with him.  Astrid stared down at herself and the bed in dismay.  "Uugghh, what a mess, remind me to never sleep in dirty battle gear again...."  There wasn't time to change the bedding, though; there wasn't even time for a proper bath.  Astrid hastily discarded her armor and squinted up at the skylight.  Most of the dragons had either followed Hiccup or flown off the roof, but she was glad to see her own dragon peering in at her curiously.  "Stormfly!  Hey, girl, let's go find the closest body of water I can dunk myself into...."

Downstairs, Valka had started putting together a quick breakfast for the children.  Stoick and Lily, instead of setting the table like they were supposed to, had apparently gotten distracted trying to gouge each other's eyes out with spoons; Shimmerwing perched on her human's shoulder and scolded Stoick enthusiastically.

"Guys, cut it out, would you?" Hiccup called distractedly from across the room, where he was trying to groom his beard into something befitting a strong leader rather than something that looked like Terrible Terrors would be happy nesting in.  Freefall was rooting around in the closet, trying to disentangle the chieftain's cloak from the winter clothes.

Toothless, after a spoon came flying at him and bounced off his shoulder, snarled at the human children.  He seized Lily's tunic in his mouth and dragged her off to deposit her at one end of the table, but when he went back for Stoick, the boy roared at him and tried to flee out the window.

Unfortunately for him, it was the same window Butterfly was lounging outside, and she raised in her head in curiosity just in time for Stoick to jump smack into it.  The Monstrous Nightmare roared and shook Stoick off; he landed in the basket of fish that Halla had just opened.  The surrounding dragons, displeased at having their breakfast interrupted, all screeched and shoved Stoick back out again.  "I HATE dragons!" he shouted, prompting Halla to grab him and dangle him in the air before her face.

"What have I told you about insulting our flockmates?" she growled.

Stoick, though wanting to scoff at the idea of humans being in a 'flock' as if they were dragons, wasn't in the mood to tick off his very strong aunt.  Halla was only fun to fight with when she didn't actually care what they were fighting about.  "Sorry," he grumbled.

Valka leaned out the window, holding out a bowl invitingly.  "Come eat, Stoick love," she said.

Astrid came striding back into the house, the bloodstains gone from her skin and hair even though they still showed in dark patches on her wet clothes.  Stormfly peered through the doorway after her and squawked curiously.  Empress, having found Astrid bathing and followed her home, poked her head into the house, but hissed at seeing it so crowded and backed out again.

"Throws Things!  I found your queen fur," Freefall chirped, flinging it in Astrid's path.  The Viking woman yelped as she tried to avoid stepping on the chieftain's cloak.  "I did a good thing!  Praise me!"

"Astrid, would you like--?" Valka started to ask, holding up another serving.

"Can't eat yet, have to find a change of clothes...!"  Astrid called, diving up the stairs.  Hiccup, having finally gotten his beard into decent shape, hurried after her, and was followed by Toothless and Freefall.

Outside, Daydream finished eating his fish, peered into the house, saw that the humans on the ground floor were simply eating, then climbed up to the roof.  His mother was lounging there, peering through the skylight.  "Are Queen and Consort-sire in there?"

"Yes.  Why is everyone riled up?" Empress said disapprovingly.  "I flew out with our guardians to intercept the foreigners, but they weren't hostile.  Why are the humans upset?"

"Humanheart isn't worried--" though, granted, Freefall was almost never worried about anything, even when she ought to be... "--and Consort-sire is only worried because his other half is.  I think it is just a human thing."

"Too silly.  This is a very stupid flock," Empress grumbled, resting her head on her front paws in dissatisfaction.  "I want to play with Interesting Thing, but she is too busy."

Daydream slipped down into the room, where Hiccup was trying to fend off Freefall as he donned the cloak he only wore on formal occasions, a beautiful thing embroidered with dragon scales that was cumbersome and got in the way whenever he was trying to actually interact with dragons.  Toothless was letting Astrid brace against him as she wrestled her feet into her nicer pair of boots.

"They are putting on their special skins and feathers," Daydream observed.  "There is someone they are trying to impress.  The foreign humans.  Our queens want to impress them."

"Our queens always impress foreign humans," Toothless asserted proudly, "even when they don't try.  Our flock is very special, no other flock is like ours."

"Mother thinks that's a bad thing."

"Mate is wrong, because it's a good thing."  Toothless's language was full of undertones of flying and love and safety and pride.  Daydream liked that, and decided that he would side with his father in this disagreement rather than his mother.

"Does my hair look okay?" Astrid asked anxiously, tying off the end of her braid.  "I combed it and tried to smooth it down, but it's still damp and I know it's going to look worse when it dries--"

"You're beautiful, chief," Hiccup said, kissing her.  Since she was still close to Toothless, they leaned heavily on the black dragon as they took a moment out of the crazy morning to just enjoy each other and bask in the reassurance of their love and togetherness.

"Why do they like to court on me?" Toothless complained, heaving his shoulders in an attempt to dislodge them.

"Awwwwwww, Mom and His mate love each other so very a lot much!  I am happy!" Freefall crooned, going to drape her neck across Daydream as she watched.  Daydream craned his head to give her a wary look, not sure how to react.  The skylight was now clear, since Empress had flown away in disgust.

By the time the two leaders of Berk had made it back downstairs to grab a bite to eat, Valka and Stoick were already gone, and Lily was packing provisions into a basket.  "How long are the Elysians going to be here?" the girl asked.

"We're thinking about a week, but who knows," Astrid said, going to fill a bowl for herself.

"Whether they're gone or not, check back with us in exactly one week, okay?" Hiccup said, hugging his daughter goodbye.

"Nrgh...."

"You don't have to let them see you if they're still here, just check in somehow so we know you're all right."

"Okay.  I love you, Daddy," Lily said, kissing his nose.  She let go and went to hug her mother.  "Bye, Mom."

Hiccup told Daydream to accompany the travelers, then scooped the Terror off Lily's shoulder and went to the window to call for Lily's Nightmare as well.  "Butterfly, Day Dream, Shimmer Wing, keep my offspring very safe," he ordered.

"OF COURSE we will," the dragons chorused, Butterfly impatiently, Shimmerwing indignantly, and Daydream indulgently, since Hiccup gave them the same strict order every single time they left the nest, even though it should have been obvious that they would take good care of the youngest and weakest member of their little troop whether Hiccup told them to or not.

"Don't forget your axe," Astrid was saying.

"Mom, I've got three dragons with me, I don't need--"

"Take the axe," Astrid snapped.  "Or a bludgeon or a blade or something.  You need to be prepared for ANYTHING, not just anything your dragons can handle."

"Uuuuggghhhh...."

"You never know, Lily," Hiccup said mildly, handing over a weapon.  "There's a few things that humans do have to protect dragons from.  Just take this so we'll feel better, okay?"

"Okay, Daddy."

Astrid rolled her eyes in exasperation at how easily Hiccup could always get Lily to obey him.

The little girl, accompanied by her dragon entourage, started to leave, and nearly crashed into her brother coming in.  "Watch where you're going!" Lily snapped.

"You're the one with the fat hulking monsters; tell them to watch where they're going!"

Lily swiped her little bludgeon at Stoick's head; Stoick whipped out his training blade, countering so forcefully that Lily's weapon flew out of her hand and narrowly missed a Gronckle passing nearby.  Lily flung herself at Stoick, knocking him off balance as she was cheered on by Shimmerwing.

"Fight!  Fight!  Fight!" Freefall screamed in excitement.  "Who will win?!  Who?!"

"This is a bad fight, Stupid," Toothless snapped, seeing the displeasure of the children's parents.

Stoick shoved Lily away.  She sprang at him with a roar and he readied himself to defend, but Daydream snatched Lily out of the air and deposited her on Butterfly's back.

"I can't shoot him?" Butterfly said wistfully.

"Just go away," Hiccup said in a mix of amusement and exasperation.  Butterfly tossed her head and obeyed.

Stoick stabbed his blade at the wall to express his frustration, then rounded on his parents and cried, "That stupid Nightmare is at it AGAIN, he's chasing the yaks around on purpose just because he thinks it's FUNNY to get yelled at by the herders...!"

"Chase yaks," Freefall echoed wistfully.

"Chasing our yaks is bad, too," Toothless warned.  "BAD."

Freefall flopped down at his feet and wriggled on her back, smiling a dragon-smile up at her adoptive father in sheepish apology.  "I will not chase our yaks.  I am a very good dragon.  Can I find foreign yaks to chase????  Please please pleeeeaaase?"

"'That Nightmare'...you mean Fireworm?" Hiccup asked.

"DUH, Fireworm!  All those overgrown fire pits are total menaces, but That One is the WORST, you should have him put down or something, he's basically a wild dragon so WHY do you keep letting him run around Berk as if he owns the place?!"

"Fireworm is in our flock, Stoick," Hiccup tried to explain yet again.  "He accepted me as his queen, so I can't just kick him out unless he does something really bad--"

"Scaring the cattle out of their minds is BAD, Dad!"

"Well, to humans, yeah, but these are dragons we're talking about, they're--"

"If you want them to LIVE here then they have to follow the RULES, it doesn't matter if they're dragons!  You're their chief, so go make them behave!"

'The same way I can make you behave?' Hiccup thought in irritation.  "Do you have any idea how hard it is to counter basic animal instincts?!  I have to figure out how to put it in terms they'll understand even though half our human concepts aren't even translatable, and even then, they have minds of their own, Stoick!  And Nightmares are particularly--"

"If you won't teach him a lesson, then I will!"  Stoick yanked his sword back out of the wall and whirled toward the door.

"Brother is going to provoke Fire Worm, and they will have a very fun fight and get in very much trouble," Freefall remarked with a dragon-smirk.  Toothless groaned in anticipation of the mess he and Hiccup would need to prevent or at least clean up.

"Stoick!" Hiccup shouted, knowing that picking a fight with a Monstrous Nightmare was guaranteed to end in chaos and destruction.  There were ways to approach and handle dragons of various breeds and temperaments, and it was frustrating that even after nine years of being taught by the best dragonmasters in the known world, Stoick still had no idea how to--

"Hey, Stoick."  Astrid set a hand on her son's shoulder, and he paused to look up at her.  "You know that brute force doesn't work on Fireworm, or even with most Nightmares in general.  Instead of picking a fight with Fireworm when the Elysians are right on our doorstep, let's just go find something to distract him with until your grandmother can deal with him, okay?"

Stoick exhaled, calming down at once.  "Okay.  I'm glad someone around here knows how to handle a crisis...."

Hiccup silently threw his hands in the air, at a loss as to how easily Astrid could get Stoick to listen to reason.

By the time the Elysian flagship sailed into the harbor, there was no sign of the frantic whirlwind of activity that had preceded its arrival.  The dragon patrol escorts gracefully swooped around and headed back out to keep an eye on the rest of the fleet.  Many of the villagers had turned out to watch, accompanied by their various dragon friends and partners.

Valka, in her full dragon warrior regalia, loomed with Cloudjumper from a nearby cliff top like some kind of ancestral guardian.  Halla, bearing no visible weapons but with her formal armor shining brightly in the sun, stood straight-backed and perfectly balanced on a Thunderdrum that was slowly cruising through the water.  Of course Hiccup, Astrid, Toothless, and Stormfly were at the head of the welcoming party, and Freefall posed near her mother with her wings half spread and her expression uncharacteristically stern, having learned from experience that most foreign humans found this impressive and intimidating.

Two men, also in formal wear, disembarked with their entourage, all glancing uneasily at the surrounding dragons.

"Welcome to Berk," Astrid said.  "Lord Andor, I presume?"

"That is correct," one of the men answered with a small bow.  "This is Commander Spiro.  We greet Berk in peace."

"That's good to know," Hiccup remarked.

Astrid hid a smile.  "Shall we head up to the Great Hall and take some refreshment before you tell us your business?"

"Ah...yes, thank you, my lady...."

Astrid gave orders for the ships to be looked after, and led the way up to the Great Hall.  Valka and Cloudjumper vanished like ghosts; Halla called to a nearby Hobblegrunt to give her a lift to the Hall.  The watching Berkians either returned to their normal business or started ambling toward the Great Hall as well.

"Magnificent creatures," Lord Andor commented bravely as Freefall dogged his steps and sniffed curiously at his sleeve.  "We'd heard tell that your island was filled with tamed dragons, but had no idea of the true extent of your mastery of the beasts."

"Dragons are people," Hiccup said.  "Once you stop assuming the worst and try to actually get to know them, it's like finding an entire new world that you never even knew existed."

"Just look at them," Commander Spiro marveled, "thousands of pounds of fire-breathing menace, yet you've got them eating out of your hands like dogs."

"Not dogs," Freefall huffed.  "And there is no food in your paws, you boring human."  Hiccup patted her head soothingly, and she purred.

The commander paused, then started reaching out a hand toward the young Night Fury.

"He is very scared," Freefall laughed, though the man seemed perfectly composed as far as the humans could tell.  "I will tease him."

"Don't," Hiccup ordered.

Freefall pouted, but then purred her love for her mother and obediently let the commander touch her head and then give her a small pat.

"Extraordinary," the man murmured.

Freefall bared all her teeth in a silent mock-snarl, and laughed again when he hurriedly backed away.

"Let's just get up to the Hall so we can eat," Astrid said meaningfully.  Since Freefall wasn't wearing a saddle at the moment and there was nothing to grab hold of to drag her away, Astrid planted a hand on the dragon's neck instead, and kept it pressed there hard in warning as she inserted herself between Freefall and the visitors.

"It was only a little tease," Freefall grumbled.  "Very little."

Once the visitors had been refreshed after their journey, the two foreign leaders took a walk on the outskirts of the village with the two Berk leaders, who were trailed as usual by their dragon partners.

"Now, sir, if we could get down to business..." Lord Andor finally said after some meaningless pleasantries.

"Yes, we were wondering when you'd get to that," Astrid said.

"We actually had two purposes in coming here," said the commander.  "If I could have a private word with you, my lady, as my lord speaks to the chief...."

Astrid frowned.  "You both want to talk to me in private?"

"No, madam," Andor clarified, "it's only Spiro who has business with you.  I myself am here on an entirely different matter, which I'd like to discuss with Berk's chief."

"Yeah.  I'm Berk's chief," Astrid said.

The men stared.

Hiccup smiled a little as he guessed the misunderstanding.  "You want to talk to the leader of the dragons, right?" he said to the commander.  "That'd be me."

"I...I beg your--  What?"

Astrid rolled her eyes.  "I'm the chief of Berk, me, Astrid Hofferson.  I'm the leader of the humans in this village, so if you're here on human business, I'll be the one calling the shots on that, thank you very much."

"But if it's dragons you're here about," Hiccup said, raising his hand with a small grin, "I'm your man."

"But--  But you're--?!  *ahem*  We were told it was a great dragon queen who lived on Berk, a human with an entire flock of the creatures under her command...."

"Yeah, and that's me."

"Hiccup's the whole reason we have trained dragons in the first place," Astrid said, leaning back on Toothless with her arm affectionately hugging his neck.

The men stared at them suspiciously, as if they thought the Berkians were trying to trick them.

"Here, you want me to prove it?"  Hiccup stepped away and shouted down toward the village, solely for the visitors' benefit, "I AM QUEEN!!!"  Then he roared out the same thing in dragon language, having adapted it into a sound he could actually make.  The makeshift signal tended to confuse wild dragons, but his own flock recognized it instantly.  Hiccup and Astrid were already covering their ears as, first Toothless and Stormfly, then every single dragon who'd pledged itself to Hiccup, bellowed back obeisance in response.

"WE ACKNOWLEDGE OUR QUEEN!!!"

Freefall came zooming up the hill toward them.  "Mom!  Mom!  Something exciting is happening?!  We're going to fly, we're going to hunt, we're going to fight?!"

"No, Freefall," he chuckled, trying to stay on his feet as the young Night Fury head-butted him and nuzzled him forcefully.  Switching to dragon language, he explained, "I'm just trying to impress the foreigners."

"Ohhhh."  She plopped down on her haunches.  "Boring."

"They are impressed," Toothless smirked.

"And a little upset," Stormfly observed.

"It doesn't work with me, see?" Astrid told Andor and Spiro.  She turned toward the village and shouted, "I am queen!"  There was a distant muttering of confusion from the Vikings who'd heard her, and absolutely no response from the dragons.

Freefall, who was the only dragon to understand the words, rolled onto her back and screeched with laughter.  "Throws Things says she is queen, but she is not!  It's a funny joke!"

"HOOLIGAN TRIBE!" Astrid then bellowed.  "BERK STANDS FOREVER!"

"LONG LIVE BERK!" many Viking voices roared back, swelling in volume as the more distant villagers overheard the shouting of the closer ones.  "LONG LIVE CHIEF ASTRID!"

Hiccup stepped up beside her.  "Long live Chief Hiccup!" he shouted.  All he got in response was some hearty laughter from the Vikings within earshot.

Husband and wife then turned back to the visitors, eyebrows raised, shoulders touching, surrounded by loyal dragon companions.

There was a long silence.

"Still not convinced?" Hiccup finally said.  "Because we can--"

"No--  Er, no."  Lord Andor bowed stiffly.  "I suppose it's you I need to speak with, my lady."

"As long as you don't mind my dragon tagging along.  Come on, Stormfly," Astrid beckoned.

Hiccup, resting his hands on the Night Furies on either side of him, cocked his head at the commander.  "Soooo, was there something you wanted my dragons to do for you?"

"Well...if you really do master them, then yes.  We've found ourselves in a difficult situation, and when considering possible allies, we were told of your island and thought perhaps...."

Hiccup and Astrid, in their respective elements and dealing with their specialties, were soon able to resolve both issues in Berk's favor.

"We have the very much best flock," Freefall said in satisfaction as she watched her family going to bed that night.  "Our dragon-and-human flock with a dragon queen and a human queen who love each other.  Very much best flock ever."

"Hiccup...make her be quiet before I kick her out...."

"Go to sleep, Freefall...."

o.o.o

Author's Notes:  "Sire" in this context means "male parent."  Daydream's name for Toothless changes slightly when he gets older, but he's still young in this fic and his personal sense of humor hasn't developed as much.

"Elder Dragonheart" is Valka, "Hatchling Warrior" is Halla, "Young Dragonheart" is Lily, and "Humanheart" is Freefall.  They and Hiccup are the only ones fluent enough in both human and dragon language to have more than just basic communication between species.  (...I just realized that Hiccup is the only one of them who's male, LOL.)  "Interesting Thing" is what Empress calls Astrid.

I tried to look up whether Viking brides took on the family names of their husbands or not (or vice versa), but I couldn't find any information on that.  For simplicity's sake, and because it did say that a woman was still considered to belong to her father's family even after marrying, I just let Astrid keep her maiden name.

In my fics, a dragon will capitalize the pronouns of both his/her Most Important Person and his/her queen or alpha.  Also, Berk's dragons, especially Freefall, make up a lot of compound words to express human concepts, such as the words for "brother" or "mother."  I tend to translate dragon language into English more by the characters' meaning rather than trying to stick to a more exact, word-for-word translation.  (If you want an absolutely fantastic example of dragon language that's translated word-for-word, go read Nightfall by Le'letha; it's one of the best HTTYD fanfics I've ever seen. X3)

The more I see the development of Hiccup as a Viking chief in both versions of canon (the books and the animation), the more I think that, yeah, Cressida Cowell and Dean DeBlois know what they're doing, Hiccup'll probably be a great chief, and it's a very solid and meaningful literary storyline even though I can't help thinking he'd still be happier playing with dragons his whole life.  But I still like to experiment with the dragon queen idea because Hiccup does seem way more at home among dragons than humans, and I honestly think that Astrid would naturally make a great chief (whereas Hiccup doesn't have a natural affinity for it), and...basically, I don't really favor one interpretation over the other, since I like them both.

*looking up some things while quick-editing* OH MY GOSH, I just found an interview where America Ferrera playfully says that Astrid's going to be chief in HTTYD3! XD XD  Come on, Dean, even one of your own main actors wants a woman to lead the Vikings...!  I swear, it would solve everyone's problems if Astrid actually did become chief.

This one-shot merged two ideas....  One was the Dragon Queen of Berk idea I'd had where foreign visitors mistake Hiccup for the Viking chief and Astrid for the dragon queen.  The other idea was a plunny where an exhausted Hiccup & Astrid are dragged out of bed by their kids and then frantically rush around getting ready to receive important visitors.  In hindsight, I can't even think why those two ideas didn't start out as the same one. XD

I'm kicking myself for not just putting all my canon-based HTTYD fanfiction in the same series - now I wrote this fic and couldn't decide whether it should go with the Dragon Queen of Berk stories or the Two Worlds, One Family ones. *sweatdrop*  Ended up going with TWOF because it's easier to follow for people who've read the other TWOF stories but not the Dragon Queen ones, whereas it'd be more difficult the other way around.

Ftr, an older Daydream appears in my divergent fic Until We Meet At The Table Of Kings.  Oh!  Speaking of which, I was gonna talk about Daydream more in these author's notes, wasn't I.  I think mostly about his name - ftr, Hiccup was not the one who named him; and in real life, his name was inspired by the "Toothless Daydream," a made-up dragon breed in the HTTYD book series.  (In the books, Toothless is tiny and very unimpressive-looking; so when Stoick was displeased by his son's meager dragon-capturing accomplishment, Fishlegs, who is Hiccup's best friend in the books, made Stoick feel better by falsely claiming that Toothless is actually a very rare breed called a Toothless Daydream rather than the Common or Garden dragon he actually looks like.)

Halla and her Nightmare, Boneripper, aren't official partners, because Halla's always had her eye on a different breed to partner with; but they are friends.  And ftr, Halla is graceful and has an affinity for dragons like her mom, but apparently got all the body type genes from her dad that had skipped over Hiccup.

Lily doesn't get along well with humans.  Her parents try to train her to be social with other archipelago tribes, but more distant foreigners are too much for her at this point, so they let her escape these sorts of events until she's older.

Although Japanese honorifics can be a bit frustrating to write in fanfiction if you don't know what everyone calls each other, once you do find out, I think it's absolutely fascinating.  You can tell a lot about characters' relationships just based on the way they address each other.  The way I've found myself writing dragon-talk seems to do something similar; it is unfortunately confusing, but I still like how dragons the way I imagine them don't really have permanent names, and that what they're called depends on who's addressing them, their relationship, and sometimes even the dragon's mood.