Chapter Two

Wounded Soldiers

"Life is ever lord of Death

And Love can never lose its own."

-John Greenleaf Whittier Snow Bound

Everything slowed in that moment, in that instant when Astrid fell shaking from Stormfly's back, tumbling towards the vast blue expanse of the ocean below him. A shadow moved out of the corner of his eye and he watched as Stormfly dove after her. Unlike Hookfang, no one needed to remind Stormfly her rider had fallen from her back, and the iridescent blue and red Nadder fell towards her, wings crushed against her flanks as she allowed her greater weight to slice through the air resistance between her and Astrid.

Abruptly his ears became aware of a roaring sound and he stopped as he realized he was yelling. Yelling, and pushing Toothless down with his hands. Every instinct in his body wanted to follow Stormfly in her dive, but the annoyed look Toothless gave him brought him up short. If he dove now, he belatedly realized, they ran the risk of running into Stormfly and sending all four of them in the drink.

"Come on, girl," he said, urging both of them on. "You can do it, Stormfly. Get her."

And she was doing it, the blue-red ball of dragon was falling rapidly, faster than Astrid was falling towards the ocean and the impact with the surface of the water that, at her speeds, would kill her instantly. At precisely the right instant, Stormfly's wings shot out, slowing her descent as her clawed feet reached out to pluck Astrid out of the air.

And in precisely that instant, a convulsion extended one of Astrid's leather flight surfaces, and the wind caught it and sent her hurtling forward and away from her dragon's grasp.

"All right, bud it's our turn," Hiccup growled as he and Toothless turned and dove, slewing in on a reciprocal course towards Astrid. Toothless's wings aligned in a diagonal against his flanks as dragon and rider hurtled towards her. His mind flashed back to that horrible day five years ago when one of Snotlout's attempts to hog the glory for himself had sent Astrid falling towards the forest floor back on Berk. She'd already slammed into several branches and had been knocked unconscious by the time he and Toothless had managed to intercept. It had been a miracle that she hadn't broken her back or been killed by the impact.

She hadn't of course. She'd regained consciousness, and with enough energy to try to beat Snotlout into a pulp and shove his helmet up his ass to boot. He shook his head and watched as Astrid continued to convulse wildly, the wind continuing to twist her life a leaf in the air.

"All right," Hiccup said as Toothless struggled to match Astrid's rapid course shifts. "We're going to have to time this one if we want to get it right." He watched, watched as Toothless matched Astrid's course shifts, watched the ocean that continued to grow steadily bigger. Watched as he and his dragon hurled themselves toward her.

Then something shifted. What it was he could never say for certain, but something in the way she turned screamed in his mind. Telling him that it was now, now or watch the woman he loved die.

"Now!"

Toothless' wings extended out, as his hind feet grabbed and clutched Astrid's legs securely. Toothless slowed, leveling his descent to bleed off momentum before winging his way back towards Stormfly.

"Astrid!" He shouted down at the weakly moving form clutched gently but firmly in Toothless's claws. "Talk to me, honey! Tell me you're all right."

Astrid managed to pull herself up, holding onto Toothless' leg and give him a weak thumb's up.

"Hold on!" Hiccup said, desperately. "We'll find someplace to put down. We may have to head back towards Berk and-," then he noticed it, on the horizon, a dark blue outline against the light blue of the ocean and the sky. Land.

He needed to check Astrid out as soon as possible. "Take us over there, bud" he said softly. Toothless warbled in response as he flew off into the distance, winging his way to that far distant coast, with Stormfly close beside him

The next hour was a blur of pain and noise for Astrid. Every nerve ending in her body felt like it was being set on fire. Her body continued to writhe and contort with convulsions even as Toothless continued to carry her in his claws. And it was cold. So very cold. All she could do was hang there, shivering and in pain, with nothing in front of her but blue sky. Then abruptly she felt herself descending. No! The panicked thought echoed in her pain-numbed brain like a thunderclap and she writhed, sitting up as much as she was able before she saw Toothless's black form, still clutching him in his claws. She looked to her side and breathed a sigh of relief. They were descending at last, but she wasn't falling, they were headed towards what looked to be a tall sea stack spotted in green moss jutting out of an also moss-covered sandstone platform sitting out there in the water.

She watched as the platform loomed larger and larger in her vision before Toothless let her drop lightly to it. She lay there, arms and legs stiff with cold as Toothless set down.

"Astrid!" Hiccup's comforting voice said as she heard rather than saw him close the distance between them in a few steps. She felt herself being picked gingerly off the ground and being turned around. He propped her up and brought his waterskin to her lips.

She drank it desperately, managing to bring her right hand up to keep it to her lips and tilt it back, at the realization just how desperately thirsty she was. She only stopped when the water started flowing into her mouth in dribs and drabs. Hiccup pulled it away, replaced with his desperate terrified face as he cradled her in his arms.

"Are you okay?" Hiccup blurted, his desperation and fear trebling his voice. She smiled weakly. She would have hugged him if it didn't hurt so very much. Instead she simply let the man she loved hold her in his arms. "Can you walk? I can't look at you very well out here on this stack."

She nodded, even though her body still trembled. "I can walk. But my left shoulder; I think I dislocated it during the fall."

"Okay," Hiccup said. "Let's get it back in and then we can go inland, find a cave or something to get you out of the elements."

"Why not just head home?"

Hiccup motioned with his head and pulled her up. She sighed in dismay at the wall of dark grey cloud to the north. A massive storm to the north, in between them and Berk.

"Let's get this shoulder back in and find shelter," Astrid said softly. Hiccup nodded and began to undo the clasps to Astrid's flight suit so he could get at her shoulder. He mounted his foot in her armpit for leverage than pulled. The shoulder clicked back into place, painfully. Hiccup helped her back into suit, then walked her still shaking form over to Toothless. She held onto him as much as she could as they and their dragons launched themselves into the air towards the coast.

Despite the pain she'd passed out by the time they passed over land.

The first thing Astrid's mind became aware of as she drifted slowly back towards consciousness was warmth. She was warm. Very warm. Then the pain, a dull ache through every part of her body reappeared. Her eyes fluttered open and she found herself staring at a cave wall covered in green moss, glowing orange in the light of the crackling fire she now registered as behind her. She was bundled up in her bedroll and covered in furs, she realized. Her flight leathers were gone and she was in her shift and smallclothes.

She looked over to see Hiccup's lanky form hunched over the fire.

"Hiccup?" She said.

Her redheaded, green-eyed intended turned around, a relieved smile on his face. "Astrid!" He said. He grabbed a bowl and spoon out of the cooking gear she now realized he had strewn about the cave floor and ladled up something into it before walking over to her.

"Here," he said, proffering up the bowl, and the rich meaty smell coming out of it caused her mouth to water, despite the pain that was now starting to spread through her body again. She reached out for it with trembling hands, took a spoonful, being sure to grab some meat, and put it in her mouth. Boar meat. One of the dragons must have gotten it, as one or even two humans hunting wild boar on their own was tantamount to suicide.

A shadow fell across her bowl as she ate and she looked up to see Stormfly and Toothless staring at her. After a moment they started nudging at the back of her head softly, warbling in greeting.

"Hey, guys," she said, putting her bowl down and hugging, more like draping herself, over Stormfly while reaching out to scratch under Toothless' chin. "You must have been worried sick about me, huh?"

"We all have," Hiccup said softly. "Astrid, what went wrong? What happened out there?"

Astrid sighed. "I don't know, Hiccup. One minute I was fine, the next I started puking my guts out over Stormfly's side." She shot her dragon an apologetic look. "Sorry about that, girl."

Stormfly warbled her acceptance and plopped down next to her.

Were you feeling sick before we left?" Hiccup asked.

Astrid shook her head. "No. I was feeling fine, great actually. The only thing I was sick of today was paperwork."

Hiccup, undaunted, kept pressing, "Did you eat or drink anything out of the ordinary?"

"Well," Astrid said slowly, her mind casting back over her day. "There was this one thing. When I was drinking my ale this morning I noticed it had nutmeg in it."

Hiccup looked up at her, eyes wide. "Nutmeg? I thought we only served nutmeg ale for Snoggletog."

Astrid nodded. "It wasn't nutmeg ale really, more like they took the ale I normally drink and just dumped nutmeg in it. I figured they were trying to treat me for expediting the repairs to the mead hall, but overdid it." Though why would they do that now? She felt sick to her stomach again, and not just from the nutmeg.

Hiccup shook his head, a stony look on his face. "Maybe, but I don't think so. Something I overheard Trade Johann telling the mead hall proprietors a few years ago. It was a warning not to use too much nutmeg in cooking, that it caused well, nausea, convulsions, and generalized body pain. He then launched into one of his anecdotes about it. I tuned that part out like I always do of course, but the warning stuck. It's a warning he's repeated every time since." He sighed. "Astrid, I think you were poisoned. Deliberately."

Astrid nodded. "So do I. But why nutmeg? Why not a poison that would kill me outright? It seems so…needlessly complicated."

"Actually it makes sense," Hiccup said, standing up and beginning to pace. "Heather, for instance, would probably be able to tell if you'd suddenly dropped dead of hemlock or something else guaranteed to be fatal. But nutmeg? Most people don't know it can be poisonous in large quantities. And if our suspect knew you'd be flying, he or she would try to dose you in time enough to make sure it took effect while you were in the saddle. If you'd fallen into the ocean, you'd have died instantly and we wouldn't have been able to recover your body and that'd have been the end of it." Astrid saw Hiccup's lower lip trembling, and she knew that the events of that afternoon were playing over and over in his mind.

Astrid, despite the pain that was wracking her body stood up, meaning to walk over to her lover.

Hiccup was by her side in an instant. "No, milady, lie back down. You're in no shape to be walking," he said even as he pushed her gently, but firmly, back into the bedroll and covered her up. "You'll likely be sick for days and I don't want you stressing your system out any more than you have to. Besides, we're going to have to try to get back tomorrow. And you need to be as rested as possible." He slid under the furs and the covers and lay next to her, holding her to him. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.

"We'll get through this together, every step of the way," he whispered in her ear, even as a thunderclap from the approaching storm front burst over their little cave. Louder, he said, "Unlike Toothless that time he swallowed a Bloodbane Eel."

She could tell from Toothless' grunting that he was giving his rider an annoyed look.

"Yeah, that's right, I went there," Hiccup said, his tone suggesting that he only being playful. Mostly.

It started raining a few minutes later.

It was still raining when they woke up the next morning, and what was worse, the wind had picked up.

Hiccup sighed, leaning back against the cave wall. "Well, we can't fly out in that," Hiccup muttered sullenly. Astrid made to walk over to him, when the sudden sensation of her gorge rising made her dive for the large space that ran down the middle of the cave and throw up everything she had managed to eat last night.

Undaunted, and knowing that no matter how much one threw up it was vital to keep something in your stomach to throw up, she grabbed some of the dried yak jerky they always took and began chewing on it in a desultory fashion.

Neither one of them said a word. No one needed too. They both knew they were grounded until the storm passed and that someone needed to get back to Berk. They also both knew that she was too sick to fly, which meant that only Hiccup and Toothless could get back to Berk and stymie whatever threat was bearing down on them. Which, if one had their priorities straight in their mind, Hiccup had to leave as soon as the storm died down. Even if that meant leaving her and Stormfly alone for however long it took to ensure the security of Berk and/or until she finally felt strong enough to fly home herself.

But ashamed as she was to admit it, she was terrified. She didn't know what the long-term effects of this were going to be. There was this terrible, gnawing fear in her gut at the prospect of Hiccup leaving her to face this alone in a cave. But Hiccup was the Chief of Berk, it was his duty to put Berk's long-term survival and her sovereignty above the well-being of any one of person. Even if that person was essentially his wife, even if they still needed the ceremony to make it official.

But something she knew about Hiccup was that he was a human, a man, as well as a chief. The chief's duty was to leave to secure Berk. The man's duty was to stay with his sick, possibly dying fiancée in a little cave. Hiccup had never been forced to choose between her and Berk before. She knew the choice her own sense of duty demanded, and she knew the choice Hiccup would have made if she'd been healthier. She was also very aware of the paradox that, if she'd been healthier, there wouldn't have been a choice to make.

But to be honest, she was human too. She didn't want Hiccup to leave. She didn't want to be alone and sick with Stormfly on an unfamiliar island.

But for now they were both grounded and stuck in a cave so she walked over and sat down next to Hiccup, resting her head on his shoulder. After a moment, Hiccup's arm folded her around her shuddering form and pressed her against his side.

And for that one brief moment, despite the pain and shaking that continued to wrack her body, with her dragon and her Hiccup, she was at peace.