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It was a shock to find his mother alive and well. A good shock, Hiccup had thought at the time, but still a shock— it has been twenty years, after all.
She stayed away because she thought he’d be safer if she did, or at least that’s what she told him after sharing what really happened the night she was taken. Hiccup took her at her word in the moment, but now, after… after everything with Drago has settled down, well… he has a hard time believing that.
He was a baby, one that had been born too soon at that; no one was sure if he’d even survive to see his second year, and his mother staying away lowered those chances. Maybe her presence and her ideas would have made things tricky for him as he grew older, but what safety was she offering by increasing the chances he wouldn’t make it to his second birthday?
Hiccup sort of gets it, though. The desire to live a life alongside dragons, peacefully including them, working with them side by side— Hiccup gets that. He fought for that to happen on Berk, he built the Edge with the other riders for that to happen.
He was going to run away with Toothless for that kind of life, when it was starting to feel like getting Berk to change was nothing more than a faraway dream.
So, he understands that much of why Valka chose to be with the dragons instead of him and his dad (he ignores the voice in his head reminding him that when he was going to leave with Toothless, they had been building trust and friendship between them for weeks and he didn’t have anyone on Berk relying on him to survive; his mother was taken by a dragon she met that night and decided not to bother coming back even though she knew she had a baby who might not make it through the year waiting at home).
Hiccup fiddles absentmindedly with the toy dragon she made him as he thinks about it some more. Could he ever have done the same in her position? If he had a child, could he ever leave them behind to stay with a dragon he just met? He doesn’t think he could have made the same choice.
He kind of hates Valka for having made that choice to abandon him (he kind of hates himself for being able to kinda see why she did it). He can see pieces of himself in her; the auburn hair, the slenderness, the not being able to kill a dragon even when they had a weapon pointed right at it, the free feeling they get up in the air that not many others Hiccup has met seem to understand.
Under different circumstances, his mother is everything he could have been.
⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏࣪﹏𓊝﹏﹏⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪
It was a surprise to find her son after twenty years apart. A good surprise, Valka decided after realizing he wouldn’t harm the dragons she has spent the past years living with, but still quite the surprise— and to see him with a Night Fury too!
The night she met Cloudjumper had changed many things for her, and helped her realize some things; most prominently, it helped her realize that she would never be able to do what it takes to protect her family if it were a dragon she had to protect them from.
When she shared with Hiccup what happened that night, she meant it when she said it broke her heart to stay away, but she had not been brave enough to be honest in telling him why she thought it would be best if she did so anyway. So, she told him it was because she believed he would be safer.
In a way, a very convoluted way, it was the truth. But the honest, straightforward truth of the matter was that she believed it would be safer for her to stay away— safer in the matter of saving herself the greater heartbreak of raising a son who would grow up to kill dragons (she ignores the voice in the back of her head that speaks of how she knew there was a chance he wouldn’t survive to see his second birthday, and buries deep the thought that only appeared on her worst days where she thinks she would have rather a dead son than a dragon killing son. A dead son would have broken her heart, but raising a dragon killer would have broken it worse). Or, she had assumed that’s what he would grow up to do, as that is what every child on Berk is raised to do. She sees now that such was not the case, and regrets leaving behind her son who clearly took after her in the matter of dragons.
As she flies with Cloudjumper to the place she was told her son sometimes goes to when he needs space to think, some island called the Edge, she thinks over the things she knows about her son (the very few things, a small part of her thinks, because she made the choice twenty years ago to not come back and watch her son grow up, and now her son does not know her at all, just as she does not really know her son at all either).
She knows they have their similarities; he got her auburn hair, her slenderness, her care for the lives of dragons, her understanding of the freedom being in the air brings a person. He really did take after her; she regrets that she wasn’t there to see him grow up.
Valka can see the way he is different from her as well, though (he changed their minds. He did for the dragons on Berk what she could not), and she kind of resents him for it.
When she sees him, she sees the way her son is all she would have once liked to be.
⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏࣪﹏𓊝﹏﹏⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪
“I was told I might find you here,” Valka says softly as she sits down beside Hiccup on a ledge overlooking the ocean on the Edge. He doesn’t look up at her, staring ahead at the sunset as he fiddles with the toy she remembers making for him when she found out she was going to have a baby— she and Stoick were both so happy. She misses that time, when it was just her and Stoick and their happiness. She mourns that she will never again get to have moments of happiness with Stoick in this life.
“What’s the truth?” He asks, after a long moment of silence; a strange non-sequitur to her greeting.
“Of what?”
“Why you stayed away.” Hiccup clarifies. “I don’t… I don’t believe it was to keep me safe.”
“It was, in a way.” Valka answers.
“The full truth. Please. You stayed away for twenty years— would have been longer if I hadn’t ran into you. So I— I think I deserve the full truth. I think I deserve to have you give me that much about it.”
“...it was to keep myself safe from heartbreak.” Valka says slowly, and does not elaborate further. Hiccup doesn’t ask her to.
“...you knew there was a chance I wouldn’t make it.”
It’s not a question, but she answers anyway, “Yes. Your father always believed you would, though.”
“I miss him,” Hiccup mumbles, “so much.”
“As do I,” Valka admits sadly, “How I wish I had more time to reconnect with him.”
“You could have, if you hadn’t abandoned us for so long.” he says bitterly, his tone biting.
“I fear it would have only brought us all unhappiness if I was there when dragons were still being killed on Berk,” Valka sighs. “I am glad to see you did not become a dragon killer— you really are my son.”
“I have killed a dragon before though,” Hiccup admits, “A Queen who was harming the dragons in her nest, and causing the raids on Berk. Toothless and I stopped her.”
Valka swallows dryly, “Well… I suppose that’s just one of the ways you are your father’s son.”
“At least I knew my dad, and know what it means to be his son. He made his mistakes, I should know, but he was a great man. I’m proud to be his son. But you… I don’t know you, or what it really means to be your son.”
“I’m your mother, and it— it means dragons. A connection with them, a trust with them, a loyalty and a freedom.”
“Some mother you were.” Hiccup sighs.
“I can fix that now, be there for you now, if you let me.”
“I… I don’t think you can be the mother I need. I think that chance has… long since passed.”
Valka thinks at that moment that she really hates him, just a little, for not giving her the chance to make up for the regrets she now carries of not going back to her family years ago.
“...perhaps you’re right.” She says, instead of the ‘You were going to try and talk Drago into changing his ways, but you cannot even give me this chance?’ that sits on the tip of her tongue. She has seen her son’s forgiving nature, and hates that he will not extend it to her (she pushes down the voice in her head saying that Drago was never meant to be a parent to him, Drago was just a stranger, not a stranger who was meant to be his family, to care for him, to raise him).
She does, though, ask him this; “Would you have given me the chance if Stoick were still alive?”
“I don’t know.” Hiccup answers honestly. “He… he’s not alive though, so… so it doesn’t really matter if I would have or not. He’s gone, and… and I…” he trails off, instead of continuing on to say the bitter ‘and I hate that he’s gone but you’re here.’ that seeks to escape him in his grief over his father.
So instead, he just says this, with tears in his eyes; “And I miss him very much… I want my dad back…”
“I would give anything for him to still be here,” Valka says, and doesn’t voice the awful addition in her mind of ‘even you.’
She doesn’t really know her son, had no time with him; he is, essentially, a stranger to her. And she, selfishly, would trade a stranger’s life for Stoick’s in a heartbeat to have more time to reconnect with her husband now that their opinions on dragons do not differ so drastically. On the days where her grief is heavier than usual, her worst, most bitter days, she hates Hiccup for being here instead of Stoick. And she hates herself for even thinking that of her son.
“Yeah, me too,” Hiccup agrees, and doesn’t know that he’s keeping quiet much the same thoughts as his mother is, thinking he would trade her life to have his dad still here with him.
He doesn’t really know his mother, grew up without her; she is, essentially, a stranger to him. And while he meant it when he said the chance of him needing a mother has long since passed, he still feels as though he needs his dad, and he would trade a stranger’s life for his dad’s if it meant he got to have more time with him. Since his death, there have been days where his grief feels all consuming, and he is left with mostly just bitterness and anger, and on those horrible days he’ll see Valka and he’ll wish it had been her that died instead of his dad. And then he’ll be left hating himself for wishing that of his mother.
They say nothing more after that. What more could they say, really? And so mother and son sit in silence as the sun sets completely, bathing the world in darkness and the chill of the nighttime air.
Hiccup and Valka sit side by side, hating each other and hating themselves for that hatred. Neither needs to speak the words for the understanding to settle between them that this is it, that they are too similar to one another to heal the rift between them. Perhaps one day, when the grief settles, they can try and reconcile.
But for now, Valka sits with a silent, wretched hatred (for which she hates herself) for her beloved son-turned-stranger.
And for now, Hiccup gets his hair from his mother, his slenderness from his mother, and his silent, wretched hatred from her too. He sits with it now, the hatred for his mother who he never knew growing up, and he hates himself for it. In this, he truly is his mother’s son.