Numb
A woman with long, braided, copper colored hair watched with a certain amount of detachment as her son cried over her dead husband's body. Her sea green eyes were glazed over and unfocused and her body was poised all stiff and rigid, like she was ready to bolt any minute. Which wasn't far off from the truth.
Valka knew she should be crying out in anguish or something of the sorts. After all, the man that she had loved for over half her life had just died. It was sort of ironic really. After all, they had had just been reunited after twenty long years of separation, only to have him slip through her fingers again.
And this time, permanently.
She should be filled with grief and sadness, and yet, all she could do was stare on resignedly as they lowered her husbands body onto the boat and prepared him for the journey.
It wasn't as if she didn't feel anything. Shock rang throughout her body but the grief just wasn't processing. She looked at the people around her and found that all of them had teared filled eyes. Hiccup was crying, his girlfriend, Astrid, was crying, even his friends around him were sobbing. And yet, here she was, frozen and unable to feel any sort of grief at all. Her husband of over twenty years was lying dead at her feet and she couldn't even muster up the will to shed a single tear.
Why wasn't she crying?
Valka stood with her feet rooted to the ground as Hiccup approached her, his bloodshot eyes filled with tears and laced with remorse, obviously reflecting the grief he felt upon the loss of his father.
Why wasn't she crying?
Hiccup spoke, jarring her from her thoughts, "I'll…I'll give you time to say your goodbye privately," he croaked, his voice was rough and coarse, like the way hers should be.
Why wasn't she crying?
She watched as Astrid gently held his hand and guided him, and the rest away, leaving her there as she stared he the lifeless form in front of her.
Valka didn't know how long she stood there, just staring blankly at him, not even registering anything that she saw. It seemed like forever before she finally mustered the courage to focus on his features.
She glanced at his face, his beautiful face that always used to have either a huge scowl or a huge smile on it, was now distorted with burn marks and scratches.
Her eyes trailed down to his hands, hands that used to hold her tight and made her feel safer than anything else in the world ever could. Hands that used to caress her and comfort her. Hands that here now broken and limp and lifeless.
She expected to feel something, anything, upon seeing her husband's still body properly, and yet, she was still numb.
Why wasn't she crying?
Finally, Valka looked at his lips, lips that were ice blue and cold, not like the warm lips that had kissed her so many times, the warm lips that had whispered sweet words into her ear.
This wasn't Stoick. This wasn't him.
Denial coursed through her veins as she shook her head wildly before she collapsed to the ground in front of the boat. Memories came rushing back to her, bits and fragments of their relationship came hurtling towards her and every memory that she'd work so hard to forget now surfaced again.
The tears finally came as they racked through her body with full force.
"A'm sae sorry love, a'm sorry aye couldn't protect ye," she sobbed, apologizing over and over again to a man who would never hear her cries.
