5 Fic Day Writing Challenge
Round Two
3
A Heartbeat In Time
"Astrid?" Hiccup raced to the doorway of Astrid hut on Dragon's Edge, once more finding her in an ill state from a wound she'd tried to keep from him. Just like the time she had been deathly ill from the Scourge of Odin she'd received from a cut on a poisoned ghost ship.
Tonight, he once more found a bleeding and in pain Astrid upon her bed. This time bandaging a bleeding arrow wound in her leg.
"Hiccup what are you doing here?" She asked her voice mimicking that of the past.
"Well, this time I didn't need Stormfly to tell me to check on you." He said a hint of anger in his tone. They'd looked at the map sent by Viggo and had all agreed that he'd go to the peace meeting the next day. Afterwards they'd all gone to do their own thing but Hiccup had found his thoughts drawn away from political matters when he'd seen Astrid still limping and the wound seeping.
"I'm fine." She had said. When he's questioned her. A common lie said by her. A lot.
"Hiccup, I'm fine." She repeated now as he stood at her door.
"Yeah sure, and I still have two legs." Hiccup said bitterly as he knelt at her feet. He swiftly smacked her trembling hands aside and took over the process of securing her wound from infection. As the moments drifted by a silence hung between them.
"You were reckless." Hiccup said, more to himself than to her.
"Oh and, like you would have done any different." She sated, and he tried to ignored how true that comment was. He'd do anything for his dragon, Toothless. He'd do anything for her too.
Even if that meant dying a thousand deaths (HintHintHint 'Echoes of the Past' fans…)
"You still should have told me Astrid."
He replied his voice breaking with worry.
"I know." Gently she placed her hand atop his. Looking up into her sparkling blue eyes Hiccup knew that no matter how many times they went through this, she would try to keep him from worrying about her and he would always worry any way.
If he could he'd wrap her up in an arrow proof blanket and never let her out of his sight!
Then again she'd fight him on such a ludicrous notion. Hiccup sighed. He just had to face it. He was in love with a woman who was a fighter. She was going to get hurt...
…and he'd always bleed alone with her.
Breaking eye contact Hiccup gulped in air as his heart pounded within his chest.
"This is still bleeding Astrid." Hiccup started worrying like mad in that moment, as his hands soon became covered in her bright red blood as it instantly seeped through the bandages. Hiccup tried to keep his hands steady as he wrapped more and more of the bandage around her leg to apply the pressure.
"It'll be fine it's.. a it's..ju..a.. flesh.. wound, Hiccup,.. I'll live."
Hiccup wasn't so sure.
"Not if it gets infected, or continues to bleed." Judging by her slurred speech she wasn't alright at all.
His brave courageous warrior liked to think she was invincible…
They both knew better.
Hiccup grew rapidly distressed as he tried to halter the bleeding once more and it didn't work.
"Astrid!"
"I'…m … fin…e" Weakly she breathed the words as she swayed on her bed. She placed the same hand that had covered his, now to her forehead, the delirious action now coated her fringe in blood.
Then she began to collapse.
"Astrid!" Hiccup cried out as her eyes rolled back in her head. A second later she was craddled in his arms breathless and barely conscious. Panic tore through him, was the wound bleeding so badly?
"TOOTHLESS!" Hiccup cried out. Moments later his best friend bounded into the room a worried sound emanating from his gummy mouth.
Hiccup didn't bother to explain he placed Astrid upon Toothless' back and jumped up behind her, holding her in his arms and holding presser to her seeping leg wound.
With his heart pounding the three of them leapt out of the door and off into the night sky. The gang watched concerned from the battlements of Dragon's Edge uncertain what was happening but able to guess where they were going.
Gothi was the only one who could save Astrid now, but only if Hiccup could get to Berk in time.
Clutching Astrid to his chest with one arm, whilst continuing to apply pressure with his other hand to the wound in her upper leg, he urged Toothless to fly as fast as he could.
Hiccup ignored the bitting cold winds.
"Stay with me Astrid. Come on. Please!"
The whole time he fretted over why such a simple arrow wound could bleed so badly. Confused and petrified.
Perhaps it was how deep the arrow had gone…
….where it had struck her….
"I'm fine it just grazed me." She had said just moments before…then again we all know how honest Astrid is about battle wounds….about as honest and a pathological liar! Hiccup thought franticly as they neared berk, Toothless flying as fast as he ever had. Driven to do so by his friends fear for Astrid but also by his own concern for the young girl.
"Oh Thor! Let me know you're up there. Please don't let her die."
"Hiccup…?"
"I'm here Astrid, we are nearly there, just hold on."
She once more blacked out in his arms as the hilltops of Berk finally came into view.
Hiccup wasted no time, or pretences or greetings. He landed Toothless right on Gothi's hut ledge and called out her name.
"Gothi!" The old lady stumbled out her door clearly having been sleeping.
Hiccup was sorry to have woken her but nothing was going to stop him from saving Astrid. Nothing else matter in that moment but saving the woman he loved.
"Gothi she was stabbed in the leg last night. We thought it was a flesh wound but its poisoned or something it won't stop bleeding."
Without prologue Hiccup stepped down off Toothless back and carried an unconscious Astrid right into Gothi's clinic room just off her hut and placed her on the bed. Without remark or scribble Gothi set to work her expression anxious but collected. Hiccup stood by Astrid's side fretting like mad. His heart was in his throat and his head seemed to spin like he was barrel rolling with Toothless.
They had to save her. There just was no alternative.
He couldn't live without her.
END
Eliana Robinson
6/6/19
CREATION DATE – 1/6/18
PUBLISH DATE – 6/6/18
A Heartbeat In Time Disclaimer
A HEARTBEAT IN TIME - is a Fanfiction of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON I do not own the characters or original plotline.
PLOTLINE: How do we know that the arrow wound Astrid suffered in 'Defenders of the Wing' wasn't more serious…could this fit into the story with a twist?
This story is NOTfor official publication or profit.
A HEARTBEAT IN TIME is a tale in an unofficially link series between all my HTTYD fanfics and is purely meant as entertainment.
CREATION DATE – 1/6/18
PUBLISH DATE – 6/6/19
Part of the "Dragon Adventures" Series By Eliana Robinson