Comfort
"Hiccup!" She screamed. Her vision was blurry and filled with a dark shade of grey that seemed to be a mist of smoke and ashes that were covering up the whole strange place she was standing on. She could barely see her own hands in front of her as she walked cautiously. The thick mist dissolved a little bit into the air and she could see a little more, though she got far more question and far less answers. She just had one thought in mind: find Hiccup.
"Hiccup! Answer me!" Her subconscious craved for one thing, didn't know why, it just did. She sensed something was definitely wrong. The ashes came from the remains of whatever the fire had consumed. She hoped she was wrong.
Her worst fears came true as soon as she accidentally stepped on a corpse. She yelped as she saw paling dead eyes looked at nothing. Her jaw trembled and she stepped away from it walking backwards. Her back bumped into something, she yelped, immediately turning around and watching that it was a small wall, what had left of it. Or what once had been a home. Astrid was panting now hard and her lungs burned with the smell of sulfur and smoke; she could feel it.
Suddenly the mist started to fade away slowly. Astrid's eyes widened at the sight of what once was Berk. Her home. It was destroyed, burned to the ground. Astrid panicked and looked around. No one was there. She was alone and she was terrified; she could only see the ruins of the buildings and the corpses decorating the ground.
No. This cannot be true.
Where's Hiccup?
Where is he? Where is everyone?!
He should be here with her.
Astrid ran across the village searching for him. Anything. She had to find him.
"Hiccup! Where are you?!" She wailed and whined and cried his name. No answer.
It felt like hours had passed and she found nothing. "Oh, please no, Hiccup" She whimpered. When she looked again in front of her, a dark figure appeared. She jumped to her feet and ran to it. When she got closer, she saw a picture that she thought will never leave her mind ever.
Toothless was laying on the ground, his large black body covered in blood and cuts and bruises. Beside him… laid Hiccup's lifeless body.
Eyes widened and covered in tears. She stared dead at him. Her heart pounded in her ears and her whole body fell numb. What just happened? What happened to everything? NO. Her chest burned so hard she thought it was going to explode. A wave of rage and despair gripped her mind and her body shook hard. Her eyes were full of wrath and anger that exploded within her in a way it had never before. Then her knees weakened and she just dropped into the hard floor. Defeated.
She reached out to delicately touch her lover's dead face, careful not to break it. The fact that it was already broken made her scream and wail again his name.
"Hiccup! Please no! Don't leave me!"
"HICCUP!"
"Hiccup!" She woke with a rough shirk of her body. Astrid looked around and realized she was in her room, in the middle of the night, sweating like a boiling pot. She sat up chokingly and felt her cheeks and neck wet with her tears.
It was only a dream.
A so fucking realistic dream.
Astrid took her blanket to wipe off the wetness spread in her face and body. She was panting the whole time, her mind trying to block every single memory of that bloody nightmare. Denying it. It was nothing like she'd ever dreamed about.
After moments of trying to calm down her nerves and stop that blasted shaking of her body. Astrid realized that her mind wasn't going to let her sleep anymore in the night. So she just breathed in an out. In and out, deeply. Her thoughts then lead her to Hiccup. The young chief had had her worried for the past week; he had so much to do and every time she found him, she saw how stressed and tired he was. She had been thinking about him the whole week now that she thought about it, and she was wondering if she could pay him a visit one of these days. She wanted to comfort him. And after what she saw in that dream, all she wanted to do right now was to make sure he was alive and okay.
Astrid tossed and turned for a moment and grew impatient and doubtful. What if… no, it couldn't be. But… NO, she thought.
What if…
Astrid threw away her blankets and stood out of her bed, her legs guiding her to her to the pile of clothes in her table and her boots, and then to the window. Without thinking twice, she swung her leg over it and descended through her house. The air was so cold it reminded her of her nightmare; once outside, she strolled faster like she was escaping from her own nightmare, like it was chasing her, then jogged, then ran. To the chief's house.
Through the darkness she could see Hiccup house standing peacefully in the hill next to the Great Hall. She was obviously not going to enter through the front door, so she headed to the back of his house before deciding to climb up his window.
He'd done it in the past; climb up her window and spend the night. Before he became chief and things were normal, sometimes when his father wasn't at home, she would sneak up in the night to his house and climb the same window she was in front of now. It was no foreign thing to her. But this night was a little different. Astrid was just down below his window, looking up, and for the first time, she hesitated. She stood there just watching his window with a stupid thought and a dark conscience telling her that he might not be there, and another part of her reminding herself that it had just been one freaking nightmare and she was not going to fall for stupid thoughts she tried to scare herself with. No, she thought.
A shaky hand landed on the wood of the wall and another up ahead. Suddenly as she climbed, her weight became such a burden she had to fight it. She was sweating again, and the cold of the night made her feel weak; Astrid was nervous. Her eyes peeked through the inside of the window; it was dark inside his room and her heart skipped a beat when her eyes guided her to the place his bed was. The fact that Hiccup's sleeping body was laying in the bed, answered all her doubts and it thrilled her.
As soon as he saw him she climbed inside, Toothless earfins shot up and his head jerked at her direction. Astrid gestured to herself reassuring him that it was only her. The dragon noticed the girl and figured she only wanted to see his rider for some strange reason in the middle of the night, so, he let her be. Toothless rested his head back to where it was and stayed there not quite dozing off completely. The young girl sighed in relief and turned to see the dragon's rider in his bed. She dared not to touch him. A dark part of her told her not to.
Astrid scanned him; Hiccup was sleeping peacefully, lying face-sided in the bed, his messy hair was covering his eyes and his hand was on top of the pillow while the other one was below it. His soft breaths coming out of his mouth made her heart thrill with consolation, but she needed to know.
Astrid reached out an unconfident hand and carefully touched his warm shoulder.
"Hiccup" She leaned down to whisper his name and shook him a little harder. He stirred but didn't wake up. "Hi-Hiccup" Her voice was cracking and small. "Hiccup" she tried again near his ear.
Hiccup's heavy eyelids parted and his head moved to what was waking him at this hour of the night. As he saw the figure of his girlfriend just inches away he gave a little yelp and jolted in the bed.
"Astrid!" He whispered, sitting on the bed, "Wh-what are you doing here? At this hour? What happened? Are you ok-uhm-" Astrid couldn't resist it anymore. He was alive. Hiccup was okay and he was there with her. Astrid cut him off mid-sentence and captured his lips in a hard passionate kiss. Hiccup didn't understand what happened, but he didn't complain. Something was wrong with his girlfriend and he wanted to comfort her in any way he could, so he returned her kiss with the same amount of care. Their bodies angled so he was resting his back on the headboard and she was framed against him.
They stayed like that for a moment. Astrid's body was shaking in his arms, the young chief was starting to get worried, the wet tears the fell off her closed eyes met his cheeks and he tried to pull back. "As-Astrid" he mumbled against her mouth, but she was not done. The girl kept on feeling him and kissing him. Hiccup managed to calm her down a bit and pulled back again, he saw the teary eyes on her wet face and his expression flowed with concern and fear. He cupped her cheeks with both hands and tried drying her wet face with his thumbs. "Astrid, what happened, please talk to me"
Astrid shook her head and took her face in her hands pulling him closer and giving him small kisses on his cheek and his jaw, then up to his nose and forehead.
"Astrid, tell me what's wrong. You're worrying me." His intense green eyes pierced into her soul and she sniffed before hugging his neck.
"You're okay" she sobbed and buried her face in his neck.
"Okay? Of-of course I'm okay, why wouldn't I be?" She sobbed harder and her fingers dug into his loose shirt.
"Hiccup I-I'm so sorry I had to wake you up like this I-"
"Hey, hey, its okay, if something's wrong, I want to know" His hand came up to the top of her head and caressed her hair, trying to calm her down. Astrid pulled back and started to inspect his body with her hands as if searching for injuries of some type. Now he was really worried. What was wrong with her? "Hey, babe, please, I'm here, what happened?" Hiccup lost the count of how many times he had asked her that question.
"Yo-You were- the village- Toothless." Astrid lowered her head and wept. Hiccup had only seen her this broken down just a few times in his life.
"What? Wh-"
"It- it was awful. I was alone and t-the village-" Then it hit him. She had a nightmare, a really impacting one apparently.
"Hey, shh" Hiccup soothe her, "It was only a-"
"Hiccup- It was so real, I felt it" she shook her head again and rested it in his chest. Hiccup wrapped his arms around her and consoled her.
"Shh, its okay now, you're fine, nothing's going to happen. I'm here" he mumbled in her hair and then adjusted their bodies, bringing her onto his lap with both legs on each side of him, his hands on her waist as he rocked her.
"Yes, you are here"
"And I'm going anywhere. I promise." This time he kissed her hard to make sure she understood. They hugged each other again, Astrid was relaxed now. When they pulled away, Hiccup gave her a loving smile and kissed her forehead.
"C-can, Can I stay for the night? Please, I don't want to think about that again"
"Of course, Astrid" He pushed her up by the waist and pushed himself down the bed taking her with him and putting a blanket on top of their bodies.
Astrid stared at him as he wrapped his arm around her and she put a hand in his chest, feeling his heartbeat. It seemed for a moment that she didn't want to take her hand off his chest ever. She wanted to feel that heart beating underneath her hand until they were on and wrinkled. The darkness of her nightmare faded slowly into the back of her mind, after all, now that she was in Hiccup's arms where she decided she belonged to, that nightmare she felt real, was suddenly a bad memory, not longer felt. Now, she just felt Hiccup and his very-much alive arms holding her; it felt more real than her nightmare now.