#young!stalka

Generation Swap AU

“A HTTYD AU in which Stoick is a young man who thought he had a rather plainly written future until a wild, young woman with wild ideas literally drops into his lap.

In which Astrid is political and realistic and grooming her son to be a chief of War.

In which Hiccup is tired and empathetic and finds this Valka to be completely sane where few else will. Her return is less like a bandage to an old wound, but the pouring of ether on an infected one.

And in which Valka is left straddling every side of a blooming war, feeling like a captive in her own birthland, knowing the true nature of dragons, and had been, herself, on the cusp of learning the source of their erratic feeding behaviors.

In response to this ask

Okay! Thank you – and all the people who replied! Though the details of what you said made littler sense to me.

TBH, if we’re swapping things around (and ignoring all that nonsense of genetics) I’d have Chief Hiccup and his wife Astrid grooming their sturdy son Stoick (”Take after your great great grandfather, Chucklehead, you know”, his mother often tells him) to take over the chieftainship. Stoick’s 25.

Chief Hiccup has managed to maintain a shaky peace with the dragons – a peace that has been steadily crumbling for several generations now with little say as to why. If the songs are to be believed, there were once dragons and humans living side-by-side, peacefully. Now both species avoid one another, and should territory be crossed bloodshed often breaks out. More and more frequently, it seems, dragons appear to seek out conflict. Under Hiccup the Useful’s rule, Berk maintained a circumference of neutral territory as other Viking villages struggled under what they called “raids”. That treaty has been crumbling to the point where or twice a year, with little warning, they come to Berk, in hordes.

Stoick’s strong stature and flaming, heroic red hair – not to mention his prodigious skill in weaponry, no doubt inherited from his mother – has already given the young man a steady reputation as a “Savior” amongst the Vikings. Should an all out war break out, and Vikings are forced to take up arms against dragons, at least they had a future in Stoick the Vast.

Its on a Coming-of-Age Viking Voyage – a trial of chieftainship – that Stoick the Vast sails into a small horde of dragons in flight. A brief skirmish breaks out, to which the Hooligans are, of course, victorious, and what. Stoick had expected nothing less of himself.

What he hadn’t been expecting was for a young woman to drop into his lap, mid-sea, and unleashing the most colorful of curses.

It’s a… shocking moment for all involved. When things settle (somewhat) they learn that the near-feral girl calls herself Valka. It doesn’t take much sleuthing thereafter to discover that she was of Hooligan origin: Valhallarama, Wrink and Dörll’s 8 year old girl who had been snatched from her very bed in one of the most well-known and aggressive dragon attacks in Hooligan history. Dörll passed shortly after the horrific loss. Wrink was now known as Old Wrinkly and thought to have been half-mad.

Stoick remembers it himself, having been 18 at the time. He recalls the guilt his father visibly wore, how it greyed the once healthy auburn beard. He recalls his mother sitting him down and discussing his heritage, his skill, her faith in him as a chief and his willingness to do what was necessary. He recalls his own anger: at the dragons, at himself, at the injustice of it all and the lack of answers… and how his mother’s low and fiery words only stoked it.

He could cure it, Stoick thinks to himself. Cure the anger within him. Cure his father’s guilt. The girl was alive. Young woman now, really. and it wouldn’t hurt that his own reputation would only be vaulted in returning her to Berk.

Now if only he could understand why the self proclaimed “Valka” so vehemently defended her captors…

Childhood Bestfriends AU: Stalka

(Because it’s an AU and they’re children I’m diminishing the age-gap to a whopping 3 years rather than 10!)

Val felt the twin tugs at the base of her neck before her eardrums were assaulted.

“Giddyup!”

She ripped her long braids from the offending fat hands.

“Damn it, Gobber!”

Gerald “Gobber” Belch lumbered past her, with what could only be described as a guffaw given the way his paunch juggled over his belt. He beared a certain weight— the sort that made him round as a child but, as a budding fourteen year old, had begun to stretch into mass. He’d probably make the junior football team come September.

“I hate it when he does that,” she hissed to their only mutual friend.

The ginger next to her threw his arm around her shoulder, hugging her to his side so that she’d barely notice the thumbs-up he cast his classmate.

“I saw that,” Val grumbled, but didn’t pull away. “Are you going to try out too?”

“To what?” he asked.

“Football.”

“‘Course,” he shrugged. “Dad expects it. Gobber’s gunna. I suppose I’ll be good enough—”

Val snorted. He knew he’d be good enough. Steven Haddock had long established himself as “good enough” with pretty much everything.

“Guess this is the last I’ll see of you, then,” she aired.

Stoh looked down at her, “What’does that mean?

“Come on, Stoick—”

“—Don’t call me that—”

“—you’re going to be a highschooler.”

“So?”

Val sighed. She hated when he played dumb. He was supposed to be her senior. She shouldn’t have to explain things to him.

“You’re going to go into all the cool things.” She bent back a finger, “Football.” Another finger. “Parties.”

“Freshmen don’t go to parties,” he interjected.

Another finger. “Girls.”

“Freshmen don’t get girls.”

Val whacked him in the stomach. Stoh had always been big for his age but it was quickly becoming apparent it was the right sort of big. He had to have known it.

“I’ll join the debate team, too,” Stoh offered. “But I’ll wait until you get into high school, so I won’t accidentally make joining the team cool or something by the time you get there. I know you think it’s uncool to be “cool”, and all.”

Val bit her lip. Both to hide her smile and her guilt for already thinking about private school.

“How valiant,” she managed.

Well, they’d be neighbors, at least. But even that seemed hollow, in the coming school year. He’d be a freshman in High school, she’d be in middle-school. Their age-gap seemed more apparent than ever.

She didn’t want to say it—the painfully, obvious truth—that this would be their last summer together. That their paths would fork here, at the crest of Stoick’s highschool career and her own budding desires. Stoick—her big, charming, popular Stoick—would be sucked into cliques and popularity and a family tradition of politics, while she would fly by the skin of her teeth, travel the world, explore her options with every fund available to her, and they’d find less and less excuses to get together with each passing summer. Diverging interests, new friends, opposite horizons…

It was the beginning of the end. Even at eleven years old, Val sensed it. And with eight years of knowing Stoick under her belt, she knew he refused to.

So Val did what she was taught to do, and burrowed into Stoick’s warmth, and enjoyed the bounce of his booming laughs, and his all-too-potent 14-year-old smell, and held onto the moment of their Last, TrueSummer.

The end didn’t have to be tragic, or painful, or bittersweet. It could simply be a happy ending before new beginnings. For all she knew, their paths could merge again.

~~0o0o~~

This falls somewhere between Different and Take my Hand

Don’t get involved, he told himself. Don’t do it.

His feet brought him anyway. Away from the hubbub of the Mead Hall–-where he wanted to be, drinking, celebrating, congratulating Lugwart for his win–-down paths winding between pastures, beyond the north most pyres that would have to be lit soon as dusk approached, and around the flat-roofed home of the village jeweler where sniffles and quiet hiccups grew louder with every step.

He spotted her seated against a rain barrel, knees pulled to her chest, keeping very still. She had heard him coming; she already glared at him over crossed arms.

“Go away,” she said in that low, bold voice.

Stoick stepped fully into the shade of the house. “Are–”

Valka stood, pushing up so quickly Stoick nearly felt intimidated. Leaves clung to her skirt.

“Go away, Stoick,” she said, louder. Her fists balled at her hips. Her eyes were rimmed in red.

“I just wanted to–” Wanted to what? Get shouted down by an angry teenager?

Valka snarled, her cheeks flushed with that righteous anger she seemed to embody. “Don’t you have a murder to celebrate?”

OMG ALL ABOARD THE YOUNG STALKA TRAIN. WOO WOO! These are my headcanons sorrry

Meeting Valka

Different

Hold my Hand

First Kiss

(I would be 100% down for a young!Stalka movie :3 I’m so into the mysteries around their beginning)

Honestly? As soon as I started thinking about it my mind headed towards the opposite.

Stoick had always been tall. But that dude is 6′9′’. He’s past tall. I like to think he was of average height for a viking for the first fifteen years of his life, if a little taller. He was broad and lengthy and already looked like he was budding into a perfect future viking chief... and then at 17 he shot up. Up. Practically a full foot in three months. And people were like...  ‘Woah. That’s... woah.’ There was even a period where he gained so much height he seemed to have lost girth. He spent the following winter overworking his body to even it out, fumbling with hammers and banging his head on anything that hung from rafters with the unfamiliar reach (he’s since sworn any and all witnesses to silence).

10- The Night Raid (part1)

Please do not repost!