AN: Procrastination on school work and cooler weather which allowed me to sit on my porch and write, spawned this. Also, this shorty is based on:
Sons and Daughters by Allman Brown & Liz Lawrence
-O-O-O-
The clouds were streaked pink and purple across the sky. She was not above them, chasing the sun away as it dipped below the horizon. It had been the beginning of the week since she'd flown. The beginning of the week since she'd seen daylight at all.
The sturdy walls of their house had held her well, giving her the graces to not exist for as long as she'd like. Duties as the chief's wife were not so forgiving. She'd ignored them all this week, and had even refused to be convinced to attend the council meeting tonight, as much as Hiccup had begged her.
They'd argued before he left, and she'd shouted nasty things she really hadn't meant. Things that had to do with how selfish and blind he was—none of which were true. She'd driven the final blow by bringing up his mother. The accusations comparing him to his father weren't new holes to punch, and he'd just spat them right back at her., too good at their verbal spars by now. But his mother. That had triggered him to grab his riding gear, slamming their front door when he left three hours before he actually needed to be at the Hall. It was shame, not solitude, which kept her here tonight.
She had barricaded herself here because she just didn't want to feel…didn't know what to feel. DIdn't know if she actually deserved the privilege anymore.
Her knees tucked beneath her skin, bare feet planting in her chair. The knees of her pants were damp where she'd wiped her tears earlier. It was like they never stopped now. She pressed a hand between her legs and her middle, flattening her palm against her stomach.
It had not been long at all, so why was she feeling like she'd been shredded from head to foot by razored dragon's teeth. It had not been long at all. This time.
Her list was growing. That she had to keep a list at all was wrong. Monday's confirmation made if four children that they would never know, play with, teach, and care for. Three days ago, while Gothi dangled the stone looped onto a thread over her herb-cocktail that she steeped as tea and made her drink. Three days ago she'd added four.
She'd asked the sagewoman if she was even capable of keeping one. Of birthing one. The old woman just scraped the dregs of her cup and gave a sad little lurch of her shoulders.
The idea that she could not give Hiccup this gift was worse than all of it.
She had never given thought to the importance or hierarchy of being a woman. She hadn't had to. She could hold her own against anybody on the island, physically and in wit. But married, as a man's wife; it lit something in her that was completely new. Not being able to function properly, it turned her worthless.
And he'd been so happy. The smile that blossomed every time she'd told him of a pregnancy; it could've outshined the pink-y sunset ten times over, because this time would be it.
It never was. His hope was sickening to her after the second.
He wanted children. It was one of those things that he'd whispered and they'd promised on some late night as teenagers. Before everything had become different. He wanted several, and he'd teach them all to fly before they could walk. At this she'd cocked an eyebrow.
Her hand skirted over the material of her tunic, feeling the flat and warmth of the skin beneath.
Another wife's duty. The heir. She hadn't even thought that deeply of the ruin she'd brought to him until this very moment.
She heard the door creak on its usual path, and slowly shut. Noiselessly, he dropped his gear in its usual spot. From the heavy gait he kept, she could sense his weariness, and felt it palpable in the air. He had that way. Whatever he felt exuded from him. For being self-depreciating, sometimes broody, he moods weren't difficult for her to narrate.
The shadow of his figure blocked the glow of the fire pit before her. He just stood there for too many seconds, and Astrid felt her shoulders grow instinctively tense. She couldn't look up to him. He wasn't done. The storm that had clouded the viridian of his eyes had not yet passed, and she wasn't resilient enough to face him anymore.
But then there was the thunk of his knees against their floorboards, and the soft of his hair brushing her calves as he leaned his cheek against them. Long arms and long fingers looped around her form, gathering her altogether, flattening up her spine.
He was quiet. So quiet that he seemed to not breathe, and she didn't even feel the tiny current of his breath. There was a soft sound, and at first she mistook it. But then his nose was pressing into her right leg and the thick wool was soaked with new wetness.
He sniffled once, twice.
It was a shivering succession to shoulders shuddering and gasps of air. He'd press his nose into her calve again and again, like a dragon's nudge, but she suspected he was only wiping the damp of his cheeks and nose.
Tentatively, fearfully, her hand dropped to his hair, threading into it and combing it. He flinched and she gasped when her thumb brushed against a new, fat tear on the apple of his freckled cheek.
Even at twenty-five he had freckles.
She almost pulled away, but he pressed against her.
His voice cracked sharply, and he choked on a breath. She ran a hand over the crown of his head, wishing him not to speak now. She kept her fingers moving, gripping and sliding, trying to ground him just as much as he was trying with her.
She felt small sometimes around him. Sometimes it was in a mental way, but now she just felt frail as he enveloped her, and she wasn't entirely sure she was the one supposed to be comforted now.
Silence resumed again, when his breaths quivered to a quick pattern, and they sat.
He kept her tightly held, bound together more preciously and carefully than the pages of his journal. She touched him with a gentleness that was not her character and only reserved for him.
The silence was wrinkled when she took a tiny, tiny breath.
"I can't do this again," she admitted. "I can't."
He was unfolding her now, pressing her knees down and pressing his palms to the tops of her thighs, to look at her face.
His eyes were stern and solemn.
She spoke again, avoiding his eyes, avoiding the tears that lingered in her own. "Its hurting you now. I'm the only one that should get the aftermath of it. Not you. You didn't do anything. You—I'm so sorry for what I said earlier. Please don't think I meant it. I was so upset and angry…I hate having to feel so much pressure from everybody, feeling like…" She wrinkled her nose and scrunched her eyes shut. It had all tumbled out in a mish mash. Usually he was the one with uncompleted sentences.
"I'm sorry I can't do this for you."
His hands were skirting up her sides, over her shivering arms that would not be warmed by the fire. Thumbs pressed against her cheeks.
"Please look at me," he whispered. He sounded so tired.
A noise like a sob escaped her throat, more like a choked breath of defiance. She couldn't. His face was dry and still rosy from the cold outside, his eyes deep green like seaweed and heavy with exhaustion and shed tears. Her own blue ones set upon his finally and she sighed.
He shook his head, holding her own between his palms. "You didn't do anything, Astrid. And there was nothing we could've done. We'll fix this together. No body is alone in this." He leaned forward, eyes brightening, affirming his statement. Then he glanced away, uncertain, eyes dodging along the floor. "You aren't withholding anything from me. As long as we have to do this…as long as we have to wait…as many times as we've got to start all over again, I'll do it. With you. Because…" He huffed and sat back. His hands fell form her cheeks.
When he looked up again, there was determination in his jaw that Astrid still wasn't—and probably would never be—convinced of. But he didn't seem to care.
His irises glowed in the dim light of the fire and glanced away from her again. She could tell he was mulling over his own thoughts, his inner-dialogue running again.
She watched, unable to follow him.
"Did you make dinner?" he asked suddenly.
She bristled. He was going to go off again because she hadn't done her chores. Her appetite was slim the past week, and she had not slaughtered any meat for them. Bread was baked, but it was only the end of the loaf from last week.
Before she could speak, he was on his feet. He bent over the arm of her chair and smoothed a hand over her braid, taking the end of it between two fingers playfully. He smirked, though his tiredness did not drain from his face. He pressed his lips to the top of her hair, and then pressed his cheek there and nuzzled.
He was so like a dragon in his affections, sometimes it was uncanny.
He toasted bread for them over the fire, and dug out some dried meat that was decent enough. She leaned into him while they ate their tiny supper. She did not feel any better or different than before. Her spirits had not been lifted, though he had tried. But she knew this: that he was there. Through busyness of meetings and planning and new drafts for the stables. Through the slow and steady comforts of their own home, the routines and patterns they kept. He had chosen her. And she him. And he would be here, to take care of her though she did not want it, to toast her bread though she was not hungry. Through days that turned to years, Hiccup would be hers.
All of the things that made up their lives would form them; bad and good would pass. But only good change would remain after it all. And good things, while not current, were to come.