I should be doing other things right now... but... AUGH. This has been in my head all day.
For one week, the boy with brown hair had been asleep.
After the battle with the queen dragon, or the Green Death, whom was manipulating the smaller dragons around it, Hiccup had taken a while to wake up after falling into that ring of fire. But when he did, he collapsed yet again on the same day.
Right in the middle of a celebratory feast.
And he didn't get back up.
So now, one week after that, he was found to have a fever, which many of the healers thought was due to colossal pain in his leg. Gobber had been feeling terribly guilty, but everyone knew that if Hiccup woke up, he'd be trying to assure to Gobber that everything was fine.
...when Hiccup woke up.
It was the seventh night of Hiccup's slumber. Here Astrid was, sitting on some mix between a wooden stool and chair, with Toothless seated next to her. The dragon had leaned his head against her shoulder, tail curled around the legs of her seat.
Both let out a sigh simultaneously.
Toothless had bonded with Astrid more as Hiccup slept (though, of course, the Night Fury still spent most of the day watching over his boy). To Astrid, he acted like some kind of a scaled cat-dog. She subconsciously scratched him behind his ears (or, at least, what she thought was her ears), and he let out a soft rumble, resembling a purr.
They both watched the auburn-haired boy breathe shallowly in the room. It was cold by the bitter winter night, but the fire blazing in Hiccup's room's fireplace contrasted with the freezing temperature. The fire had been lit by his fellow ebony dragon.
Astrid and Toothless couldn't leave the house, even if they wanted to, anyways. Astrid had come for a visit to her unconcious... friend, but in that time, a harsh blizzard had begun to brew, so Stoick had offered her to stay (which meant that he would have refused to let her leave in the horrid weather).
The night dragged on, seeming to drag on forever, although winter days usually seemed shorter. The solstice would be the next day- if it wasn't midnight already, that is.
Toothless and Astrid fell asleep, leaning against each other and taking in deep, steady breaths.
Something very peculiar happened when midnight showed itself. But Astrid wouldn't be remembering it.
Astrid woke to the worried face of Toothless and the rumbling snores of Hiccup's father.
Dawn had peeked over the clouds of Berk, and any trace of a howling blizzard was gone. Astrid looked up at Toothless, who cooed in relief, dropping his head on her stomach in exasperation.
She looked around. She was in the same bed as Hiccup (she got up immediately at that thought, startling Toothless a bit before she started petting him). Wasn't she sitting on that chair the last night? What had happened? Toothless might be an overprotective dragon, but he looked very worried.
"I'm fine," she told him reassuringly. She must had had a bad nightmare last night, or something, and Toothless saw her face... or something.
If it was that bad, good thing that she didn't remember it...
Astrid looked over Hiccup. Strangely enough, he was breathing as strongly as she was. It wasn't a bad thing, she figured- maybe that meant he would wake up soon.
She quickly climbed down the stairs, shoving some food into her mouth before opening the door to the house. The fresh scent of snow greeted her, if it had a scent at all; she breathed it in invitingly. Toothless shot past her, cooing with his signature, silly toothless grin and rolling around in the snow. The Night Fury was one of the only dragons that didn't mind the snow as much, despite the fact that he was black and the snow was horrible for camouflage. It was nice to see that he was playing, instead of dwelling depressingly over Hiccup.
She saw Fishlegs and Ruffnut emerge from their houses. She greeted the other two of the first dragon riders with a curt wave, then looked back at Toothless. He was neck-deep in the snow, watching Astrid with a curious expression.
Even she couldn't help a laugh.
She decided to go in the training room- a bit of axe swinging wouldn't hurt much. She walked over to her destination, Toothless trotting behind her. She felt drowsy, for once in her life, and it surprised her.
She grabbed her axe easily. She threw it up in the air and caught it a few times. Was it just her, or did it feel a bit... heavier? Not letting that bother her, the Viking flung it at a nearby target. Toothless, who stayed smartly by her left side, watched quietly, not really scared of the weapon as much as he would have been if he hadn't met Hiccup before. Astrid felt the axe naturally depart from her right hand.
The axe, which was supposed to make a clean hit, instead skimmed the border of the target and bounced a little, rebounding slightly off the stone wall beyond. She looked at her arm confusedly. Was she having an off-day or something? Wait, why was she questioning herself all of a sudden? She was perfectly confident of her skills- maybe it was this strange tiredness aching in her bones today... that nightmare that she probably had had must had been bad.
Shaking her head, she moved over to archery. She only tried this when she was alone in the training ring, for she wasn't the best at it. In fact, archery wasn't really needed in the Viking society, for cattle and fish were the main diets of the village, but somehow she convinced herself to try it... and found that it was one of her more disliked skills by the first try, so she generally avoided it. It didn't mean that she couldn't get shots on a target with a bow and an arrow- they just weren't, er, outstanding shots, or at least not as good as her usual axe throws.
She positioned herself to shoot, anyways. The world suddenly seemed just a tiny bit clearer, and she felt like she could focus on the target. Just her and the target...
She drew back her arm and the arrow landed on the bulls eye. Surprised, she drew another arrow and shot it again, splitting the first arrow in half when the second went straight though it.
A distant clapping sound could be heard. Astrid looked up abruptly and saw Ruffnut watching from outside, clapping slowly with her customary smirk on her face. Astrid frowned. Why hadn't she heard Ruffnut sneaking up on her? The more lithe Viking in the arena had keener ears than most.
"Okay, I have to admit, that was pretty impressive." Ruffnut grinned, then strolled away calmly. Astrid stared after her. The girl in the training ring frowned again- she must have gotten a lucky shot. Two lucky shots, that is...
She decided to train on some other things for now.
Dinner came all too quickly.
Seeing as the blizzard showed no sign of starting up again, Fishlegs, Snoutlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, Gobber, and Astrid were gathered around a fire, munching into fish and meat around the blaze on one of their watch towers. Astrid tossed a fish to her Deadly Nadder, whom she had named Esmeralda. The dragon purred, nuzzling the female warrior's back affectionately before flying off to do whatever Deadly Nadders liked to do in their spare time. That meant that she was probably off to groom herself.
Everyone but Astrid had stories to tell, experiences to share. It didn't mean that Astrid didn't have any tales to tell- she just felt like watching, just for now, for some reason. Gobber's stories were always the most interesting, of course- your life might as well be as interesting as it can get when you've lost your hand and leg to a dragon. However, the blacksmith had his Terrible Terror, neatly coiled around his neck and snoring quietly.
Astrid found herself zoning out, staring up at the stars above her, where she was usually was sharp and listening to every word of her peers. What was going on? All day, she'd quickly become tired, as if something was sucking the life out of her. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but she still felt drastically tired. Maybe it was because of that nightmare that she supposedly had and couldn't remember.
Her usual skills had been weakening, and she'd been feeling weaker, although she was more agile and even quicker on her feet than usual. Every time she tried archery, she had gotten perfect shots, which weirded her out to the point where she stopped trying it altogether. She was much less uncomfortable around the dragons, and she constantly found herself wanting to take hikes for no reason, as well as avoiding the people of the village, as if it were a yearly practiced habit. She was also feeling a little less confident than usual... like right now. She was questioning her skills, questioning herself, for about the tenth time that day.
She was glad when the meal was done; she was tired, and it seemed like the miniature feast had lasted much more than just twenty minutes.
She strolled around the mostly abandoned village a bit, finding herself not wanting to return to her home, although she usually came back home to sleep almost immediately. Astrid felt put off by her new, strange antics. Toothless had gone back to Hiccup after a couple hours with Astrid, then returned and again went back, which had served as good company, but she had caught herself observing more about the dragon than she had before. She found herself wandering to the chief's place. Wait- what? Why would she go there?
All of a sudden, she felt just a teensy bit less tired.
She stared up at the place, just standing there blankly, suspiciously feeling as if a small bucket of energy was gradually filling her up.
Something was going on here.
Astrid wasn't sure if she liked it.
Toothless's snores were slightly heard from the house. A rare smile quirked Astrid's face, and despite the fact that this strange happening probably had something to do with something in that house, she quickly turned to her home, settled lower downhill.
This should be short. Uht. Hopefully. Depends on the amount of ideas that spontaneously invade my mind. ;)
I used the word 'strange' a lot in this.
Will you find out what Astrid dreamt of? Eventually.