One moment he was running and the next he was dead.

Stoick sat up and groaned. His chest felt like someone had punched it while wearing an iron glove. He looked around. Sure enough, there was the black dragon, smoke trailing from his mouth. Everything seemed totally the same, and a shard of fear pierced his heart.

"Hiccup!" he yelped, looking around frantically. He spun around to see… himself. He was still, in a mess of shattered icicles, and behind him was Hiccup. He seemed vibrant, buzzing with energy, and somehow Stoick knew he was alive, even though the young man was totally still. In fact, when he focused on the world around him, everything was still. The tendrils of smoke curling from Toothless' mouth were frozen mid-spiral; Bludvist behind him wasn't blinking or breathing.

"Hmm. Quite the performance," said a voice beside him. He spun in alarm. There was a girl there. She looked about seventeen or eighteen; but her slate-grey eyes spoke of decades. As he watched, her eyes shifted colour; from grey to black to white and back again. The effect was disconcerting.

"Huh," she said, and suddenly Stoick was remembering with vivid clarity scenes from his life. Banishing Alvin, dancing with Valka, holding his infant son, watching him grow, and seeing him plummet into flames. He shuddered. That had been the most horrifying moment of his life. He saw the moment when he realised that Hiccup was flying like his dragon; he watched himself prattle on about chiefdom and turn to find his son gone. He saw Hiccup backing nervously away from Toothless, felt his feet pounding against the ground, heard the whistling and then it all stopped. And he understood.

"Thor almighty," he inhaled sharply. "I'm dead,"

The girl tilted her head. She was wearing spiked shieldmaiden's garments, in pristine silver-grey, with black metal armour and thick white fur. In her hand was a barbed spear that glowed with divine power.

"You're a Valkyrie," he stated stupidly.

"Yes, yes I am. Isn't it awesome? I mean, it's all like, I AM A VALKYRIE!" she struck a pose with her hands clawed upwards. The spear stayed floating in mid-air. "It's so cool!"

Stoick blinked. She seemed very… immature, for one of the immortal warrior women who served Odin.

"You're very… um…"

"Young?" she interjected helpfully. "People always say that. It's the part no-one ever understands. I mean, we're immortal. We won't exactly be ancient."

"Oh," Stoick said. He looked downwards again. Everything was still frozen; and Stoick scanned the battlefield. Valka was frozen, one arm extended and her mouth open in a shriek of horror.

"The thing I'm asking, though," said the Valkyrie, "is whether or not your death counts as being in battle. HEY! ALFRUN!" she yelled. Another Valkyrie, who looked slightly older with long, dancing black hair, appeared a few feet away. She was holding the arm of one of Drago's men.

"What do you want, Felda?" she said irritably. Felda flicked her blonde hair.

"Dragon fire. Died saving his son. Reckon it counts?"

Alfrun tilted her head and suddenly the moments leading up to his death were playing again. Stoick squeezed his eyes shut.

"Yeah," Alfrun said finally, letting the images dissipate. Her eyes seemed watery and she looked at the frozen Hiccup below. "That was one of the most heroic things I've ever seen."

Stoick wanted to express his gratitude but found he couldn't. His tongue felt frozen to the roof of his mouth.

"Awesome," Felda said happily, and Alfrun vanished again. Felda ducked in circles around Stoick lifting his arms.

"Hmm… nice muscles," she said, "you have all your toes and sweet Freya, your beard!" She lifted it happily, and Stoick looked at her, miffed.

"It's huge! How did you grow this thing? I mean, it's so orange, and so enormous!"

"When you're done examining my beard," Stoick said, "can you tell me what's going to happen?"

She straightened.

"Well, there's no doubt about it," she replied. "You'll feast in Odin's hall tonight- and all eternity, in fact. But you have a choice. Generally in deaths on the battlefield we don't have to wait for a funeral. But we can, if you want to. I'm technically not supposed to let you, but…" she trailed off and gestured to Hiccup. Stoick nodded silently. Did he really want to see his own funeral? And Hiccup… oh gods, Hiccup would feel horrible.

Odin knows the boy has doubt issues on the best of days, he thought. He'll blame himself.

But then he decided. He couldn't leave without saying goodbye. He looked at Felda and she understood.

"Okay then," she said quietly, and took her spear from where it was floating, slamming the butt against the ground. Instantly time resumed; the smoke in Toothless' gaping jaws twirled away, Drago's chest heaved and Hiccup's fingers twitched spasmodically. Stoick gulped as his son scrambled up and fell to his knees beside Stoick's limp form. Valka moved so fast she was almost flying, and Stoick pressed his lips together to suppress his grief. Fate was a cruel being. The family had only just been re-united, and they were torn apart again in the most final way possible.

And I would keep you from all harm, if you would stay beside me.

A fine job he could do now. He was the tiniest bit too dead to be of any help now. He watched in horror and misery as Hiccup, for the first time in his life, yelled at Toothless. The dragon whined, eyes horrified and grief-stricken, before they suddenly resumed their previous soulless stare and he turned after the other dragons. Stoick couldn't hold back a snarl as Drago used his bullhook to cruelly tear the dragon from mid-air as he tried to fly after the other dragons.

"Get away from him!" he shouted furiously as Drago climbed into Hiccup's saddle and used his enormous foot to crudely manipulate the tailfin. Stoick could see the gears being mangled hopelessly, and growled angrily at the thought of Hiccup's most treasured invention being destroyed by such a brute.

Stoick watched as Gobber plucked bows from the battlefield and Hiccup sat dully beside his mother. They found a boat, and Gobber seemed less-than-happy with the way the sail was crooked and tattered, but the most heart-wrenching part was when Valka and Gobber lifted up the body to place it on the boat. Hiccup was shaking and he almost didn't seem to notice the strangled cry and the way his hand reached of its own accord towards his father. Astrid gingerly approached and wrapped her arms around Hiccup, and Stoick sighed miserably. Was it really just that morning, when he had called her his future daughter-in-law? He would never see the day it happened, and that saddened him. He reached out and placed one spectral hand on his son's shoulder, and a tear slipped out of his eye when Hiccup didn't make a single movement in response.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered. Even Felda was crying; some immortal warrior-woman she was. And then Gobber approached, and Hiccup stood. His metal leg slipped slightly on the ice, and out of instinct Stoick stuck out his arms to catch him. But it was Astrid who caught him, and he was forced to watch as Valka and Gobber pushed the boat out into the ocean. Gobber was speaking the traditional words though, and Stoick moved forwards to look into his son's eyes. Their vibrant green was clouded with grief and loss, and Stoick wanted so badly to be able to comfort him, but that was beyond him now. Hiccup raised his bow and, with aim so perfect that Stoick suddenly wondered why he had ever doubted Hiccup's Night Fury story, let the arrow fly. It shot through Stoick's ethereal form, slicing directly through where his heart would have been if he still possessed a body, and the flame flared brighter. It struck the boat, followed by many others, and the little boat blazed brightly. Hiccup turned to the other Vikings, and Stoick suddenly felt warm.

I'm burning, he thought, remarkably calmly for the situation. He had only moments left.

"I… I was always so afraid of becoming my father," Hiccup said, and Stoick lifted an eyebrow. "Mostly because I thought I couldn't," Hiccup went on. Stoick relaxed, feeling tears slide down his face. "Because how- how do you become someone that brave, that- that selfless? I… I guess you can only try,"

Stoick placed his hands on either side of Hiccup's face.

"No-one is braver or more selfless than you, Hiccup," he said softly.

"I'm sorry, we- we have to go now, or we'll be too late," Felda reminded him quietly. Stoick looked at Hiccup one more time and gave him a hug, then turned away.

"I suppose you're right," he said to the Valkyrie. She let her spear point drop and offered her arm. Stoick took it and followed her into Valhalla.