A/N: *throws papers into the air* Sorry for posting this later than I originally said I would. I started rewriting parts, and then unrewriting parts, and that snowballed and it's basically back to where it was and I'm finally happy with it.

This part takes place roughly two years after the end of part 1. (Excluding the scene at the end where Astrid's wondering if she's pregnant.) So basically they've been married for a little over two years when this picks up. It's more dramatic and less humorous than part 1, and it took a turn at one point that I didn't originally plan on but ended up liking so I kept it. POV gets weird in this one. Also sorry but no smut in this chapter, but I gave you like three sex scenes in part 1.

*leaves this here and runs*

Part 2: Mothers and Daughters

She doesn't feel right.

She keeps trying to tell them all this, but the other women just tut and smile and reassure her that she's doing just fine. They've all had babies before and she hasn't, so she has no choice but to believe them. Even so, she's not sure she should be feeling the way she is. It wasn't so bad earlier, the shaky feeling in her bones. Everything about the experience has been a steady stream of increasing pain and decreasing dignity, but she doesn't know if she's supposed to be feeling this strange, so she doesn't mention it. She also doesn't know if she's supposed to be feeling this dizzy, so she doesn't mention it either. Everything hurts and everything is terrible and she wants it to be over as soon as possible but every time she asks they all tell her she still has a long way to go.

It's not very encouraging. "You're a strong girl, you'll do just fine," Valka had told her earlier, when Astrid realized that the exuberant kicking her baby had been engaging in for the better part of the night was not in fact kicking at all. She'd already been tired from the lack of sleep and as the contractions grew stronger she felt herself growing weaker. They keep telling her it's better to do it all upright, but she'd lost the strength to stand hours ago, which doesn't seem to worry anyone as much as it worries her.

They're all too busy being worried about the wrong things, in her opinion. She can replace the blankets, so she wishes they'd stop nagging her about stripping the bed and just let her rest. It's not the end of the world if she bleeds through the sheets.

Her scream mingles with Stormfly's worried screeching outside. They'd have to tranquilize her again. The nadder had heard her distressed cries all the way from the stables and neatly torn a path of destruction through Berk to get to her. Having no way to explain to the beast that her rider and her stomach-egg were in no danger the other riders had had no choice but to tie her down and keep her sedated outside. Even knowing that Stormfly is confused and worried it is some comfort having her near.

Another wave of pain hits her and Astrid screams; half a dozen voices coo reassurances in a jumble of noise as she falls back against the pillows.

"Hiccup?" she croaks, and her mother strokes her hair.

"They've gone to get him, dear. Snotlout and the twins flew out to get him." Astrid wants to sob. He's supposed to be here. She hadn't ever fathomed having to do this without him.

"This one last thing," he'd said before he left. "I have to take care of this one last thing, and then I'm not leaving your side until the baby gets here." She'd given him a crooked smile and let him go, mostly certain they had plenty of time left. But no, they didn't, because as it turns out she'd been right all along: Gothi got the dates wrong. She hadn't wanted to say it, but she'd felt Gothi was slipping in her old age. The elder had estimated the conception to have taken place in February, but Astrid had never felt that was right. Hiccup had been gone most of that month on official business, and they'd only gotten a handful of days together, half of which she had spent down with what at the time she'd thought was the same stomach bug the rest of the village had. It had always seemed to her more likely that she'd conceived in January, possibly even as far back as the end of December. There had a string of storms that had kept them holed up with little else to do but make love, and she honestly couldn't remember if her supply of herbal tea had kept up with them.

But no, Gothi had assured her. She couldn't be that far along. She'd have presented symptoms before now. And the stomach bug that had almost definitely been the beginning of morning sickness didn't count. But her bleeding had been irregular for a while. Well, she'd been forgetting her Moon Tea of course, how did she think she'd gotten pregnant? She's getting bigger awfully soon, isn't she? You're carrying the grandchild of Stoick the Vast, girl, what do you expect!

Everyone rushed to assure her to trust Gothi, and after a while it had been too exhausting to claim otherwise, even with the mounting memory problems the elder had been having in the last few months. Officially speaking, the baby had been conceived in February, and was therefore due in October at the earliest. Which does not explain why she is in labor on the last day of August.

So of course everyone but her is slightly panicked that the baby has come a month early. Astrid is less panicked about the prospect of an early babe and more angry that their baby has terrible timing and has chosen to come while Hiccup and Toothless are miles and miles away meeting a neighboring tribe's envoy to discuss trade. Even once Snotlout and the twins reach him, he is still hours of flying away.

"Astrid, you need to breathe dear, like we told you," Valka's calm voice comes from somewhere near her left. She opens her eyes and tries to push herself onto her elbows again. She's trying to breathe the way they'd taught her, but breathing at all is proving extraordinarily difficult. She falls back onto the pillows again. Someone mops her brow with a cool cloth. One of the midwives is saying something, but she can't quite distinguish the words. She wishes her mother would stop babbling on beside her.

"Astrid." She blinks her eyes open. When had she closed them? Valka is watching her intently. "Astrid you need to sit up, you've got to push."

The room gives a funny sort of lurch when she tries to sit up, and her mother and mother-in-law catch her under the elbows and hoist her up. "Come on now, dear thing, you're doing just fine."

Is she supposed to feel so strange? Why are they all looking at her like that? Someone tells her to push and she does and the room lurches again. There's a lot of talking. They keep telling her to push and to breathe and don't they understand she's trying?

The room spins and she falls back. There's another voice, possibly her mother's, telling her that she has to keep pushing, keep breathing, she's doing fine…

"I just…I just need…just a minute…" she pants, her own voice sounding far away to her ears.

You can't stop now, someone says. You really can't, you have to sit up, you have to keep pushing…

She reaches for what's left of her strength and tries to sit up, tries to push, but she feels so disconnected to her own body. Someone's hands are on her shoulders, someone is telling her she can't stop now, and they sound worried. Astrid doesn't know why. Was there a reason she was listening to them? She was doing something, wasn't she, something important? There's a last surge of effort, a last frail attempt at forcing her distant body into motion, and then there's hands on her shoulders and elbows and face and voices loud and afraid.

Astrid, Astrid! Someone is calling her name again, but from far away. She can't see anything, can't even seem to breathe right, and even the excruciating pain seems miles and miles away…

She slips back into cool darkness to the sound of someone screaming her name.

x

"Astrid, Astrid, oh merciful Frigga above, Astrid!" Valka steps back and watches as a hysterical Ingrid shakes her daughter's shoulders. Her heart is beating wildly but she remains calm. Someone has to. She looks to the midwife.

Thornbloom shakes her head, looking lost. "I can't get the baby out yet, and Astrid's losing too much blood. We need to get the child out now, but if we can't get Astrid to wake…"

Valka takes a deep breath. "What can we do?" Thorn doesn't answer. "What do we do?" Valka asks again, more firmly.

"To save them both? I don't know that there's anything we can do," Thorn says quietly.

"What?" Valka looks to Ingrid, cradling her daughter's face in her hands while tears run down her cheeks.

"If we can't wake her…She stands a chance if we can get the baby out, but if I try to pull it out I'll likely crush its head," Thorn says, her eyes on the floor. "Even then, Astrid has lost so much blood it may already be too late, not to mention..."

"The chief needs an heir," Bodil finishes. The all look to the healer. "Astrid's life is already forfeit. We move to save the babe."

Valka's world tilts on its axis. For a moment she can't breathe.

"My daughter is not dead yet!" Ingrid screeches. "We wait for her to wake!"

"If we wait they both die, leaving the chief with neither heir nor wife, and you know Hiccup would rather hand the throne to Snotlout's line than remarry."

"If you cut my little girl open she definitely dies!"

"She might not."

The women all look to the corner, to the healer's young apprentice Signy. The girl is all of seventeen and still technically in training, but she's a rider as well as a healer, and has traveled far to learn about her trade. She frowns at the floor, thinking. "I've heard of methods in this situation to attempt to save the mother's life as well as the child."

"Can you do it?" Ingrid gasps, and the girl sighs.

She looks at them and bites her lip. "The thing is, it's still risky. So far all I've seen is attempts. Usually they bleed out anyway. I've seen one woman live a few hours longer but still die. But I've also seen what was done wrong in each of those situations. I understand the anatomy better than they did. I fully believe it's possible if we work quickly. She's in danger of death but she's not dying yet, and that's a key difference here. She might still not live, but she stands a chance."

"No!"

"Do it."

"What?!" Ingrid cries indignantly at Valka. "Did you not hear her, we could still lose Astrid!"

Valka rounds on her. "And if we do nothing, we lose them both for sure!" she yells, and Ingrid quiets. Valka turns back to Signy. "You really believe this is their best hope?"

Signy nods. "It's the only option where both of them living is even a possibility."

"She's barely breathing," Bodil is saying, her ear to Astrid's nose and her fingers pressed to her neck, "And her pulse is so weak I can barely feel it." She lifts her head. "If we're going to do anything we have to do it now."

They all look at Ingrid. Her dark round eyes regard them all tearfully before she nods and lets her head fall onto Astrid's shoulder. Valka looks at Signy. "Save mother and child if you can," she says, her voice strong despite her fear. "But if not…" she trails off, looking at her daughter-in-law. "If you can't save the babe then save Astrid. And if you can't save Astrid then save the babe. But save one of them. For the love of the gods, save one of them." She pictures Hiccup and Astrid, holding each other and mourning their first baby. She pictures Hiccup, crying as he rocks the child he's been left to raise alone. Both scenarios feel like ice in her chest, but not as much as the image of Hiccup alone in this empty room. "Hiccup won't survive the loss of both."

x

Ingrid is pulled, still crying, into a chair. Signy snaps out orders and everyone scrambles to get her what she needs. Hot water, soap, Gronkle iron knives, herbs, a needle and silk thread…Valka remains calm and collected, delegating jobs, helping Signy prepare her tools. Bodil keeps an eye on Astrid's life signs. There's a flurry of wings and shouting outside, and Valka immediately hands her bowl of herbs to Thornbloom and heads for the door, sweeping past the corner where Astrid watches.

She pulls her attention from the still form on the bed, where the women are pulling the nightgown over the swell of her belly, and looks out the window. Valka is running over to where Hiccup is dismounting Toothless, his face a mixture of excitement and terror. "Is it over? Did I miss it? How's Astrid? Is it a boy or a girl?" She watches as Valka puts her hands on his shoulders and says something to him too quietly for her to hear, but she can see the horror that steals over her husband's face. He falls to his knees, shaking his head.

"I think she's stopped breathing."

Her mother wails.

"Have you finished with the speed stinger venom?"

"Yes, but we haven't prepared the-"

"That's good enough, hand me the knife," Signy says.

"She has. She's stopped breathing." And there's Bodil. "Val! She's stopped breathing!"

She watches Valka and Hiccup look to the window, and then Hiccup is on his feet, Valka tearing after him, calling his name. Her mother wails louder and then the room is silent for a moment before a new voice fills it with screaming. She turns. Her mother is on her feet and accepting into her arms something wrapped in blankets from Thornbloom. Somewhere in her hazy mind it registers what that bundle is. Signy and the other women are still huddled around her belly, doing something.

"Astrid, Astrid!" The door slams open and Hiccup is rushing past, Valka on his heels.

"Hiccup, no!"

"Chief, I need you to stay back!"

"It's time."

Astrid looks behind her. "Just a minute more. I want to see." Stoick nods. She turns back to the chaos before her. Valka restraining Hiccup, the huddle of women around the bed, the tiny red arm waving from the bundle of blankets in her mother's arms.

"I can't feel a pulse."

"No!" Valka falls to the floor as Hiccup pushes away and runs to collapse by the side of the bed. "Astrid, no, please…" Astrid watches as he takes her limp hand in his and kisses her knuckles. "C'mon, milady, you can't leave me yet."

"Time's up," Stoick says behind her.

"Will they be okay?" she asks. Hiccup has buried his face against her shoulder, and her mother has handed the baby over to Valka before falling to her knees on the other side of the bed.

"Depends on you," Stoick replies. Valka approaches Hiccup and puts a hand on his shoulder. The baby screams and Hiccup flinches. He shakes his head and Valka steps away, casting a worried look at the child in her arms. He doesn't want to see it, Astrid realizes. Whether because he blames it or because he simply can't bear to look at it, she's not sure, but he doesn't want to see the baby.

"I can't leave them yet." She looks back at Stoick, who is giving her a familiar proud, affectionate smile.

He steps forwards and places heavy hands on her shoulders. "Aye, lass, I know you can't." He leans down, and Astrid closes her eyes as he places a warm, bristly kiss on her forehead. "I told them you'd choose to fight." And his warm laughter carries her into darkness.

x

There's early morning sunlight streaming in through the window when her eyes flutter open. She frowns. It was dusk only a moment ago.

"Astrid?" She blinks until her vision clears and she sees Hiccup, clothes and hair disheveled and circles under his eyes, sitting in a chair beside the bed. His tired eyes light up when he sees her awake and his face breaks into a relieved smile. "Oh gods," he breathes, leaning forward to pepper kisses all over her face.

"What happened?" Astrid murmurs. Her body feels heavy, and her mind still numbed by sleep.

Hiccup exhales shakily. "You tried to die on me," he says, his lips curled in a wry smile. "Don't you ever do that again." Astrid looks over his shoulder at the empty corner of the room by the door. She'd dreamt it. She must have. Or perhaps she'd been just conscious enough for her addled mind to construct the images?

"Astrid?" She turns her attention back to her husband; the vision, or whatever it had been, already starting to fade from her mind.

She blinks. "Nothing." She tries to sit up, and immediately Hiccup is jolting forwards and gently pushing her back against the pillows.

"No, no, no, no, no, you can't sit up," he says. Astrid winces as sudden pain sears across her stomach, relaxing away as she rests on her back again. She realizes for the first time that her entire abdomen feels numb. There's a dullness and an ache from the bottom of her ribcage down to the top of her thighs. "They had to cut you open to get the baby out," Hiccup explains as Astrid looks down at herself, at the significantly smaller swell of her stomach. "You have to be careful not to move too much for a few days to let it heal. Signy said it'll probably leave a scar, but otherwise you'll be fine eventually. She's numbed you up with speed stinger venom in the meantime. She saved your life. I think I'm going to give her a yak. Or twelve. And an island."

Astrid nods. "I'm sorry I scared you." She musters a smile. Hiccup laughs, a tired, relieved sound that for a moment makes him look less exhausted. He leans in and presses a kiss to her temple.

"I'm just glad you're okay. Both of you."

Both.

For the first time Astrid notices the wooden cradle at the foot of the bed. Hiccup notices her line of vision. "She's outside with Mom and Toothless. You should see him; he doesn't really know what to make of her but he thinks she's fascinating, if a little loud." He laughs. "She's got lungs like a harpy."

"She?" Astrid looks at Hiccup, a small smile curling the corners of her mouth. A grin splits Hiccup's face.

"She."

Astrid looks back at the cradle. She's filled suddenly with a longing the likes of which she's never experienced before. Her chest aches and her throat tightens with the force of it.

"You wanna see her?" Astrid can only nod dumbly. She knows the cradle is empty but she can't tear her eyes from it, from what it represents. "I'll be right back." He rises and leaves the room, and it feels like an eternity before the door creaks open again. She looks up, her heart pounding as he steps into the room, beaming down at the bundle of blankets in his arms. Toothless follows him, his ears perked straight up like a rabbit's. His large green eyes lift from the little thing in Hiccup's arms and he gives her a huge gummy grin and a delighted warble. It takes all of her self control not to leap from the bed.

And then Hiccup has reached her and is placing the squirming, cooing little bundle into her arms and her entire world stops. Round green eyes look up at her from a wrinkly pink face. Astrid hardly dares breathe as she runs a hand over the soft red hair on her daughter's head. She's such a tiny thing, but she's strong and she's already got the Hofferson look of determination down. Astrid leans down and presses kisses all over her eyelids, her tiny nose, her ears, her minute fingers and soft little palms. She's never felt happier or more terrified. She hasn't felt like this since that first flight, all those years ago. She doesn't have words, and when she looks at Hiccup, at the joyous grin on his face that matches hers, she knows she doesn't need them.

Astrid laughs as Toothless gently nuzzles her face, then leans down to lick the top of the baby's head, leaving the soft hair sticking up. The dragon surveys his work and nods, a satisfied coo rumbling in his throat.

"She still needs a name," Hiccup says, reaching out and letting their daughter wrap her tiny hand around his finger.

Astrid draws the child closer to her breast and sighs happily. "Eira," she says. "For the gods' mercy. Neither one of us should have lived."

Hiccup nods and kisses her again, his free hand tangled in her hair. "For the gods' mercy."

x

She doesn't know what she would do without Valka.

Hiccup was loathe to leave them, but he'd left the Boulderhead chief waiting on a boat in the middle of the sea for two days and had to hurry back to patch up the damage lest all trade negotiations fall through after Snotlout's disastrous attempt at diplomacy in his place.

Astrid's still exhausted, still essentially bedridden while the incision in her stomach heals, and still in far more pain than really seems fair given that she's done her part and the baby is out now. She does what she can, but she's still not allowed to move much. Her own mother helps too, and babysits during those hours when Astrid just desperately needs some quiet to rest, but it's Valka who spends every waking moment keeping the house from falling apart. She cooks and changes diapers and helps Astrid move in the two minutes a day she's allowed out of bed. Astrid for her part is able to sit up and hold her daughter and little else. It's a level of dependency that makes her thoroughly miserable.

She feels like a failure as a mother. Childbirth had almost killed her and nursing is proving to be a frustrating and futile endeavor for everyone involved. Eira would suckle fitfully for a couple of painful minutes at the most before pulling away to cry and fuss. Astrid's cousin had had a baby some months before and has stepped in to help with feedings, which Astrid has found she cannot bear to watch. She's been taught to make a yak's milk formula and been assured her daughter will not want for nutrition, but the feeling of inadequacy remains. It's not a feeling Astrid is accustomed to accepting.

On top of that she sometimes feels crushingly sad without knowing why. One afternoon she starts bawling out of the blue for no reason at all, which frustrates her to such a degree that she just cries harder. It's then that Valka wraps her arms around Astrid's shaking shoulders and holds her close. She doesn't shush her, doesn't tell her there's no reason to cry. She just holds her and rocks her and kisses her hair as if Astrid were her own child.

"I know," she says. "It happens to all of us. You start feeling mad while you're pregnant and it doesn't stop until long after your child is born. But I promise, dear girl, you'll start to feel yourself again in time."

"I have no idea what I'm doing," Astrid says brokenly, "I'm a terrible mother."

"No, you are not," Valka scolds, and Astrid is surprised at the ferocity of her expression. "I know what it is to be a terrible mother, and you are not a terrible mother. You're a new mother, that's all." She strokes Astrid's hair and gives her a tender look. "You're far too critical of yourself, Astrid. You're so gifted at making other people see their own strengths when they can't see it themselves; don't you think it's time you gave yourself the same benefit? No one knows what they're doing at the beginning. Give yourself time, brave girl."

Astrid just nods and buries her face in Valka's shoulder, because she can't seem to manage anything else.

x

For two and a half years in the back of her mind Astrid has wondered.

She's never said anything, never dared bring it up to either of them, never felt it was her place to scratch at those old scabs, but she has wondered.

She knows they have found closure; that Hiccup has extended his forgiveness and he and Valka have forged some sort of bond from the wreckage. She knows that Valka had her reasons, and whatever they were Hiccup had deemed them acceptable, or else they were in agreement that they were unacceptable and Valka's remorse had made up for it. One way or another, the past had been laid to rest between them.

It hasn't stopped Astrid from wondering. Over the past couple of years it has mostly been in the form of the odd thought now and again. Valka might reference her memories of Hiccup's infancy, or they might mention something from his childhood that Valka had missed and have to explain it to her. But as much as she'd wondered, Astrid had never never let herself ask. It was just morbid curiosity. A desire to know about a situation she didn't fully understand.

But now it is a question that is eating her alive.

"How could you do it?" She doesn't even mean to ask it. It just slips out one evening. They are expecting Hiccup back by nightfall, and some part of Astrid realizes that if she's going to ask she needs to do it now, but the words still surprise her. She'd been biting it back for so long, but looking down at her own baby in her arms she can't keep the burning question at bay any longer. She's a mother now. She needs to know. She needs to understand, because right now she looks down at her child and she can't even fathom.

Valka looks up from the tiny dress she's sewing. "Do what?"

"How could you do it?" Astrid repeats, and there is disbelief rather than accusation in her tone. "How could you leave him?" Valka sets down her work and exhales shakily. "I'm sorry," Astrid says quickly. "But I just need to know. Because you left him. I know you didn't plan to leave but you didn't come back, either. You just walked out of his life and didn't come back for twenty years. And you wouldn't have come back at all if he hadn't found you." She looks down at her sweet baby, the one she can't bear to be away from for more than a few hours. Her heart aches at just the thought and she holds Eira closer. "How could you bear it?"

She's met with silence and when she looks up Valka is staring at the floor with empty eyes. She doesn't look offended, just…sad. "I couldn't," she says finally. "Not for a long time." She sighs. "I was so young when I had Hiccup. I married Stoick at seventeen and I was nineteen when Hiccup was born. Twenty when I was taken. At first I was afraid of what might happen if I went back. I was young and scared and I didn't think there was any way I could return without someone, human or dragon, getting killed, and I couldn't bear that. I knew the dragons I befriended wouldn't hurt me, but I was worried what they might do if I asked Cloudjumper to take me back. If the villagers attacked and the dragons tried to defend themselves…" She shivers. "I'd already almost gotten my husband and son killed once. I was afraid it might happen again.

"So for a while I stayed away out of fear and guilt. I told myself I'd go back eventually, in those early days, but I had already decided to stay with the dragons without even realizing it." She looked out the window but her eyes were far away. "I told myself that everyone would be better off without me. Stoick was the chief, I always thought he'd remarry. That would have been the expectation. Find a new wife; a new mother for Hiccup. Have more children. I never dreamed he'd stay alone all those years."

"That's still not what I asked," Astrid says gently and Valka nods and sighs.

"I know it's not." She glances at Astrid and the baby and a small smile tugs at her lips. "It must be hard to imagine with the way things are now, but the village wasn't always so receptive to the idea that we might not have to fight the dragons. Stoick certainly wasn't." She looks out the window again. "I was young and naïve and completely in love, so of course I thought I could change his mind. I was his wife, after all, and if anyone could convince him surely I could." She frowns. "But of course it didn't work that way. I tried and tried but nothing I could do or say could make Stoick or anyone else even consider that there might be another way. It would have been an unpopular opinion for anyone to have, but I was the chief's wife so you can imagine how well that went over." She looks at Astrid again.

"You know by now what it is to be a chief's wife. You know what expectations and obligations come with filling that role. And if you haven't realized already then you will in time that giving the chief an heir means more than just bearing and birthing his child. That's the future ruler of this island you're holding in your arms right now." Astrid looks down at her baby. She'll be the first ever chieftess of Berk. The prospect is both exciting and a bit scary. "There's a certain kind of person she has to grow up to be, and it's your job to raise her into that person." Astrid holds Eira a little tighter. Those green green eyes blink sleepily at her and Astrid strokes a finger over her head. She's not ready to think about all that just yet.

"You were afraid of the responsibility?"

"Not of raising a chief, no, but more of raising that kind of chief."

Astrid looks up, frowning. "I don't follow."

Valka shrugs. "Well, you wouldn't. You and Hiccup are in agreement that that girl will grow up on dragonback. Toothless is practically a dragon nanny as it is. You don't have to worry about raising the next great dragon slayer."

"Oh."

"Oh, indeed." Valka closes her eyes, tension creasing her forehead. "I wanted my son to grow up in a world at peace with dragons. I wanted to teach him a different way of dealing with them. I wanted to show him that he didn't have to fight them." She opens her eyes, concern and distress painting her features. "And I knew Stoick would never let me. Our son was supposed to be chief. Stoick would want to raise him to be a warrior. I knew my boy would grow up being taught to hate the dragons. To fear them and kill them." She swallows and blinks at the tears that have gathered in the corners of her eyes. "And I couldn't bear to see that." She looks at Astrid, her eyes wide and wet and pleading. "I don't expect you to condone my choices. I don't condone many of them. But I had no way of knowing back then how Hiccup would turn out. As much as it hurt to stay away, it hurt more to think of my sweet boy growing up to be that sort of mindless killer." She shakes her head. "I wanted no part of that. I didn't want to see my son become the sort of person he was supposed to become. I'd rather not see him at all."

Astrid just nods.

"Val, can you take her for a minute?" Valka crosses to her and Astrid hands the baby over.

"I certainly can, come to Nana Val, sweetheart." Valka beams down at her granddaughter and it makes Astrid smile. "What do you need, dear?"

"Oh nothing," Astrid says, and Valka blinks at her in confusion. "I just wanted to remind you."

Valka frowns, still bouncing Eira in her arms. "Remind me of what?"

"That you're getting a second chance." Astrid smiles at her. "I don't know what we'd do without you, Valka."

Valka stares at her for a moment with something like relief mixed with amazement. She opens her mouth to speak but suddenly there is the flapping of wings outside accompanied by a low rumbling roar. Astrid nods towards the door. "Go on, I can wait."

"He'll be wanting to see his family first," Valka says.

Astrid shrugs, beaming. "You are his family."

There's an unspoken thanks radiating out of Valka's eyes that turns to unbridled love when she looks back at Eira as they walk to the door. "Come on, little hatchling, let's go say hi to Daddy…"

end

A/N: Some things to know: 1. Eira means 'merciful' or 'gods' mercy' and stuff like that. 2. Historically speaking cesarean sections were last resorts when the mother was beyond saving for most of history. However, Berk seems like they would be a bit ahead of the curve when it came to technology. 3. Don't even ask me what like half of that birth scene was guys because I don't even know. 4. Astrid is fiercely competitive and doesn't like not being at her best. I thought it was interesting to explore how that mixes with new motherhood and post-partum depression. 5. I need to stop looking at this thing now.