A/N: Note to self (and to all of you): Never listen to "Whiskey Lullaby" and "Just a Dream" in a row. Ever. This was the result.
They are in the HTTYD 2 timeline in this. This was basically if Hiccup had not survived the Red Death explosion.
I apologize for any spelling/punctuation/grammar errors.
WARNING: Uh...maybe a tearjerker? I don't cry at my stories, so...I wouldn't know. You tell me when you finish.
I'm not going to bother hoping you have a happy read on this one.
"You ready girl?"
The Deadly Nadder squawked happily in response before her rider jerked on the saddle and tucked her knees in, the blue Nadder going into a roll mid flight. They looped and dived, the dragon opening her wings in the last second, the wind pulling her back up into the air. The Deadly Nadder cheered with its coo, the rider punching the air, happy with the success. "Stormfly that was amazing!" She said, patting said dragon's head. Stormfly cooed again and leaned into her touch, also happy that they had managed to pull of such a stunt. They were the best flyers in Berk, so keeping their reputation was key to them.
Astrid smiled, brushing her blonde bangs away from her face after the wind had pushed them in front of her eyes. She remembered wearing them like that as a teenager, but now - with flying and everything - she preferred them tucked behind her ear, or at least out of her line of vision. She learned it's better not to crash while on a Nadder who had poisonous spikes hooked to her tail.
She made sure they flew for a few more minutes before heading back home, Stormfly's wings beat and battered by wind and exhaustion.
"Home?" she muttered to her dragon, her best friend. Stormfly shook her head, which was a Nadder's version of 'yes'. Tightening her grip on the saddle, she and Stormfly flew back on the route back to the village. Jerking the saddle to the left, Astrid steered Stormfly across the trees below them, taking a shortcut instead of rounding the entire width of the island to go back home. Stormfly looked back at her with confusion before obliging. Astrid noticed her dragon's glance at her, and she knew why she was confused; she'd never taken this path before. Astrid herself didn't know why, but something moved inside her, something told her it was the easiest way to go home. So why shouldn't she go this way?
As they flew over the forest Astrid looked down at the ground, almost seemingly recognizing a few trees (much to her surprise as well). A named flew through her head. "This is Raven's Point..." he muttered, having not spoken those words in a long time. Stormfly seemed to not have heard and kept flying, quickly passing over the area. As they did so, the thought was swept from Astrid's mind and she focused back onto riding, not giving it a second glance. Though as they did this, something ignited somewhere inside her, and she couldn't get it to go away for the rest of the trip home.
When they reached their house, she climbed off of Stormfly and quickly took off her saddle, her fingers nimble with years of experience. They walked to the stables and she tucked the saddle away behind one of the wooden planks before turning to Stormfly and giving her a pat on the nose. Stormfly squawked her farewells before settling down for a nap at the back of the stable. Astrid smiled and walked out back to her house, ignoring the fact that the feeling she had felt going over Raven's Point was growing inside her.
Opening the door, she quickly realized that her parents weren't home, left the fire brazier burning, and she had the entire place to herself. Figuring it would probably be a while, she walked over to the kitchen - or at least cupboards at the back of the house - and got a cup before filling it with mead that was found in a barrel on the opposite end up the room.
She walked over to the table off the side and sat down in a chair, beginning to lose her train of thought as she stared at the roaring fire in the center of the room. Taking a sip from the cup she thought back to her training that day. They'd been flying for hours on end, practicing tricks, defensive skills and maneuvers, speed, the height they could fly before any oxygen deprived mishap occurred, the usual training. Stormfly was the most skilled dragon to be found on Berk, so of course she had no problem with any of these exercises.
'Well, maybe not the top most skilled.'
She stopped her thoughts, her mind jerking back to reality. What had caused her to think of that? Of course Stormfly was the most capable! But whatever feeling that had grown inside her, a still unnamed feeling, rose up and flared again. She knew she was lying to herself. She knew there was one other dragon who would make Stormfly look like a fool in her own agility courses.
'That is if it's still here. No ones' bothered to check it in years...'
Was it even still alive? Did something happen to it? The feeling bubbled inside her, giving her more questions with a need of answering. She never tried to think about the dragon, and most of the time avoided a rare conversation about it all together. It brought bad memories, that dragon did. Memories from when she was fourteen, about five years ago.
Trauma was not something Astrid liked to experience, even though she only ever did experience it once. They say those who are heartless once cared too much, and that was basically her case. Whenever she thought of that dragon, still trapped away in the woods, she remembered everything about it.
Including the one who rode it.
Most would think that Astrid would be one to burst into tears when Hiccup had died, but that was not the case. Astrid was, and will forever be, a Viking. Vikings do not cry. Instead, the emotion hit her in a different way, and she became more...blunt. She rarely showed any sign of happiness to anything her friends enjoyed, or felt the twinge of pain when someone was upset or if a small pet had died. She became more used to a random train of thought, not like she would've when she was fourteen. Her emotions were kept well tucked up inside her in a vault in her heart, and she had decided to keep them like that. She never wanted to go through a pain like that again, the pain of caring.
Instead she focused more on flying then training with her axe, wanting to take up the role of being the best again, but this time in a different category other than weapon fighting. She used what Hiccup had taught to an advantage, and tweaked it in her own ways.
Still the thought had come back to her, and the unnamed feeling was making sure she recognized what she needed to do about the dragon that was causing her all of these thoughts.
Focusing on reality once again, Astrid took in the last bit of the mead and placed her cup on the table to wash later; right now she had something to attend to. Walking over to that small coatrack next to the door, she took her fur shawl and clipped it around her, knowing it was probably going to be a long walk there without Stormfly. No, this was going to be something she'd do on her own.
She walked out the back door and made her way quietly across the backyard, making sure not to wake up Stormfly or she'd never get her to quit following her. When she had succeeded that, she stared at the forest that loomed in front of her, wondering which direction she should take.
No need. Something told her that there was - or should be - a path straight to the place. Shrugging, she walked inside the trees' border line, and began making her way through the woods.
A few minutes in she decided to take a left, hoping to find the trail. To her sudden and uncalled for dismay, she saw that nothing was there, just dead leaves from the trees and grass growing between them. She didn't know why she was suddenly sad, but her question was soon answered by the flame - she had decided to call the feeling inside her a flame. Something snapped at the back of her mind, and she suddenly remembered very vividly and very clearly, following an auburn haired boy down the path completely unnoticed.
She made an 'oh' shape with her mouth. One who conceals their emotions and memories can forget such things over time. Ignoring the sadness that was still lingering, she let the flame guide her down the covered path that no longer existed.
To try and bury the sadness, she hummed to herself a little tune that Gobber always sung, no matter how annoying it had gotten over time. It seemed to make the time slip by quicker, and before she knew it she had found a rock.
Just a rock.
Why this rock had a significance to her, should couldn't remember, but had a feeling she would. Right on cue, she remembered being angry about something, though she couldn't remember what...until the flame told her. 'Dragon training. Hiccup was beating me in dragon training and didn't even care.' she thought to herself, proud of her rediscovery. She also remembered jerking her axe out of a tree near the rock, and tumbling around to find the auburn hair boy staring at her like she had caught him red handed at something. She remembered following him down to this rock before he disappeared from her sight.
'I must be getting close then. It should be around here somewhere.'
She let herself walk freely, letting herself recognize things in the scenery around her, before finally coming across the place she had been searching for. The Cove. The flame inside her vanished, as if it didn't want to stick around to see what happened next. Gulping, she shakily walked through one of the gaps in the wall, beginning to make her way down the rocks until her large furry boots touched the soft grass on the ground.
As she looked and walked around visions flashed before her, visions of frightening Hiccup when he was trying to leave on Toothless, and when they returned from discovering the nest. She felt the emotions clammed up inside her stir; she remembered very vividly what happened after they discovered the nest. Her expression changed from one of wonder to one of torture. Why must these thoughts return again?
'He's dead. Toothless is probably dead too by now. Get over it.' She scolded herself. Muttering to herself, she was about to turn and leave - Toothless had obviously found a way out of the Cove - when she was suddenly shoved to the ground.
She never saw it coming. With a scream, she was flipped over onto her back, now being pinned by her shoulder. Her eyes that were clenched shut slowly found herself being pinned down by the worst thing she could've thought up in her mind.
She was being pinned by a Night fury.
She knew this Night Fury. She knew his name, she knew him well. But that was five years ago, and she'd never seen him since then. Toothless towered over her, all 1,000 pounds of pure hatred and murder holding her down. She realized she was hyperventilating, and she couldn't stop herself from letting out small cries of fear every other breath. The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself bared its teeth at her, and she only saw one emotion in his eyes.
He was wild.
This was no longer Toothless. This was a Night Fury who was going to kill her at any moment, as she was now trapped beneath its claws. It had probably heard her coming and hid on a rock above her entrance, waiting for the right moment to strike. The grief of his beloved Hiccup's death had stuck to him like a leech, draining away any tame part of him. Now he only felt hatred and the spree of killing.
To him, she was just another animal ready to be devoured.
She could see his jaws open above her head, and she could see and smell the green flammable gas starting to billow up inside...
She had to do something.
It took all over the strength she had left in her frightened form, but she managed it. "No..." she said, barely above a whisper. It was all it took. The night Fury closed his mouth, now confused. His prey had...spoken? Prey doesn't usually do that sort of thing.
Astrid saw she had it confused. 'You have to do more than that!' She let out a shuddering breath, and she knew just what she needed to do. She sucked in another breath, and let go. She let go of all the emotions she had kept locked up inside her for five years tumble out with her next words.
"P-Please...I know you...Toothless. You must remember me...somehow..." she pleaded. The Night Fury's jaw formed into a snarl and he leaned his head in inches away from his prey's, his name ringing through his ears, causing pain to his stone cold dragon heart. Only Hiccup had called him that. Well, Hiccup and...
"Don't kill me...I was your friend..."
The words struck his core. "I was your friend" raced through his mind. His snarl disappeared and he focused his eyes on what he truly had in his claws. He scanned the human's face, and sparks clicked at the back of his mind as he recognized the blonde hair. The blue eyes. The round face. He took in a breath, looking startled. But surely it couldn't be...
But it was.
He thought she would've died too. He felt stupid; of course she wouldn't be dead! Humans lasted for years! Well, not as many years as a dragon, but they lasted long. Just because Hiccup was dead, didn't mean everyone else was.
Including...Astrid.
The name felt foreign in his mind. He hadn't thought of her in years. But as he continued to stare at her terrified face, he remembered practically everything. She was the reason he was still alive when Hiccup was. She kept the secret.
But the most recent memory triggered in him as well; she was the one who put him back in here. He remembered her hoarse but kind words as she took off what was the remainder of the saddle, telling him over and over how everything was going to be ok, everything would fall back into a normal pace again, how she would be here again tomorrow. He had watched her leave, and remembered sitting there, waiting for her to come back and comfort him again.
But she never did, and the waiting became old.
He realized no one was coming for him, and it multiplied his grief, making him forget the ways Hiccup had made him happy, how he had learned that humans were friends, only leaving him with the fact that Hiccup was gone forever, up in Valhalla.
But she finally did return, and he had thought of her as another piece of prey.
He immediately loosened his grip on her, and she jerked away from him, crab walking backwards as fast as she could from him. He realized that he had scared her really badly, and he felt ashamed. He whined at her, begging her not to leave, afraid of blocking her way out and frightening her again.
Astrid felt her back bump against the side of the wall, and she didn't want her back turned from a possible threat. But she sat there, and the hostility in his eyes had faded, as she recognized the emotion of sadness in them instead. He remembered her. She suddenly felt the urge to reach out and touch him, comfort him, tell him it was ok. But she had lost her chance on that five years ago.
Still, she wondered. With much fear, she very slowly began to reach her hand out to the dragon in front of her. He realized what she was doing, and his ears went back, afraid she'd strike at him for pinning her, as she had seen her do to Hiccup once by the pond side. But everything had gone ok with that. He hadn't seen what happened next, only that Hiccup was smiling when he walked over and looked at him.
Maybe this will turn out ok as well.
Astrid sat up and watched as Toothless made no sudden movements to harm her as she let her shaky hand outstretch. She was amazed when her hand fell safely on the nose of the beast who was trying to kill her only minutes before. Suddenly, the avalanche of emotions she had let spilled released more that she didn't know she had been keeping as she felt a wave of sadness hit her full on.
Dropping her hand away from his face, she turned and made her way to the exit. Toothless whined at her, as if begging her not to go. She looked back at him with a saddened, twisted smile.
"I'll be back for you. I promise."
Toothless stared as she left, a knowledge that he hadn't known in years; confidence. She was telling the truth. She was the closest thing to his deceased Hiccup that he had. His poor little Hiccup, died in the fires of the Red Death, his own dragon kind. He was never going to come back.
But Astrid would. That was enough for him.