matching set
Summary: Astrid makes one last pilgrimage. [warning: massive httyd3 spoilers]
Astrid only turns away from the Hidden World when the last smoke of her husband's funeral pyre has curled away into nothing, consumed by the surrounding mist of the great waterfall and the white clouds up above. Zephyr brings her mother against her shoulder and keeps her upright, but beyond a deeper chill in the old woman's bones, Astrid feels no different. She got all her crying done the night before, clutching Hiccup's hand to her chest and feeling the life slip out of him, as his breathing evened out and Toothless' soft snuffles raised his whitened hair at his brow. Both the man's wife and dragon knew this was coming. He had known it too.
One last trip, Hiccup had said. And one more for you, he'd asked Astrid, and of course, she had agreed.
Nuffink, ever the sailor, manages to get her to agree to stay the night before they set off again. Rest is important at your age, he says, and she tries not to be too smart with him for it. He's also a healer back on New Berk, and he's just lost his father. She ruffles his blonde hair and looks into his green eyes, and decides not to tell him that it's unlikely any of them will be getting much sleep tonight.
Toothless' low, and loud, mournful cries go late into the night and show no signs of stopping even once the sun is risen. His mate can do little but watch him and nudge him back to their low rock plateau so he's not constantly flying in circles, but he's as restless as he is devastated. Astrid, perhaps morbidly, is only relieved that a few of his scales are beginning to turn grey. He still has many more years to go, and she'll continue to visit until she must leave it only up to her children, and then grandchildren, but eventually, he'll join his rider again.
Now, for the task Hiccup had given her.
When their boat reaches New Berk, Astrid directs Nuffink to lead the boat further. Past the islands dotting the west, although they do stop to get some fresher fruit. They sail a few days south of the weather that makes one want to freeze to death, and glide solidly onto the Meridian of Misery.
Berk is nothing like when she last saw it, and all too familiar the same time. The shape of the island is still familiar: the curve of the Great Hall, now covered in ivy, the old dragon posts for racing overtaken by vines, the smokestacks by the sea, and the peak of Raven's Point. How many times had she trained in that forest, to kill dragons? How many more times had she taken Stormfly out across the sea to duck and dive and taste the waves? And even then, her love of flight had been nothing compared to her husband's, matched only perhaps by his mother—Astrid wasn't surprised Hiccup had decided to follow in his mother's footsteps, of making one last journey to the Hidden World before going to the next realm. She supposes they'll all see each other in Valhalla.
Zephyr helps her down from the boat. "Mum, let me—"
But Astrid swats away her hand when she tries to take the precious bundle from her mother's frail arms. None of it is too heavy, even her strength isn't what it used to be, and while she loves her children, it feels too precious to pass off for even a moment. She, after all, was the only other person to spend time at her destination, with the boy and dragon who had loved it first.
It's been long enough—seventy years—that the tree that had been splintered in the fall has healed over, but the place where Hiccup had carved in the symbol on Toothless' tail is still there.
Astrid touches it with a heavy hand. "This is it," she says softly, and her children stop and stare. "This is where your father found him, just over the bend of this hill. Where it all started." Tears fill her eyes despite herself.
Zephyr's hand finds her shoulder. "Mum—"
Astrid pushes on. They aren't done yet, and she doesn't want Nuffink to carry the shovel they'd brought for too long. Edging into their fifties, neither of her children are as young as they used to be, either. "Come along," she says, and they follow, not before exchanging questioning glances with one another.
She finds the Cove with little trouble after that, even if she takes her time to listen to the birds sing. Berk still breathes and feels like Berk, after all these years. She's glad to see the one thing that hasn't failed her is her memory. It is harder to reach the bottom of the Cove, though, and Nuffink and Zephyr skid down the rocks first before helping her. Nuffink keeps his hand over her elbow so that one of her arms is still free to carry her package.
The Cove looks the same, she notes. The pond, fresh and green and surrounded by patches of grass and sand. The birds nesting in one of the overhanging trees, the small clusters of boulders. She wonders if she looks in the pond whether she'll be able to see a thin dagger lying at the bottom, or whether it will have disintegrated by now.
Astrid bends down and unfurls her package, her grey braid swinging over one shoulder. The cloth was thick and kept the weathered red tail from tearing, the metal rods newly oiled now that her husband wasn't around to do it himself, and she's pleased to see the rust is extremely minimal. Beside it lies her husband's last prosthetic, a bent metal shape that had borne his landlocked weight for the last twenty or so years, once he'd stopped shrinking further from old age, and stopped doing any dangerous stunts.
It's still a very Hiccupy prosthetic, though, she thinks with a fond smile. She stands, and directs her son over closer to the river bank. "Here."
Nuffink digs a large enough hole, longer than it is wide, but shallow enough so that laying the two prosthetics to rest isn't difficult either. Now, Astrid does cry, but she's smiling because she knows this is right, and that Hiccup must be smiling down at her from Valhalla, because well—he's her genius husband, with all of his wonderfully brainy and sentimental ideas.
She covers the belongings and hole back up with dirt with her hands, and smooths it over. The hole is deep enough that the her husband's leg and dragon's tailfin won't be easily dug up by another creature, but not too deep they'll be hard to smell.
Astrid knows a shadow passed over the moon when they were docked at one of the western ports. She knows that come nightfall a Night Fury will stand over this spot and give his final mourning cry, until one day, he and Hiccup are reunited once more, to never be incomplete again. Once they are finally home.
Astrid wipes her eyes as she stands, and brushes the dirt off her hands. "Always a matching set, those two were," she says, and Zephyr gives a tearful laugh. Astrid takes the hand of her son and daughter, as Nuffink folds up the now empty cloth and stores it in his pocket. "Now, let's go back home ourselves, shall we?"
saw the hidden world and loved it. and bawled like a baby. this idea wouldn't leave me alone so here it is. (the names of their kids were revealed by cressida cowell on twitter). httyd will always have a special place in my heart, always.