Chapter 3: Sweet Embrace
Though the storm raged all around, the calmness of the waters had to have been the work of Loki, swirling gently and trying to envelope the two figures that sunk slowly below its grey tides. Brunhilda pushed through the most deadly waters in the world with only one purpose in mind.
Her eyes never left the slowly descending mop of blonde hair as it sunk deeper and deeper. No beast had the courage to stand in her way as she wrapped her hand around the girls waist.
Pulling her into a vice grip, Brunhilda kicked with all her might to breach the treacherous waters. Her lungs burned and her eyes blurred as she frantically swam to the surface, all while desperately thinking of how her daughter was doing, and if her small lungs had already given in to the blank grip of death.
There was no light to be had, no inclination that she was getting closer to salvation other than the brief flashes that came from the lightning far above their plight as though Thor himself was trying to guide her.
'I will not die this day, Valhalla has no room for me yet' she thought 'not while my daughter ain't safe in bed.
The tides changed, as though enraged by her newfound defiance of their cold embrace. The once gentle currents began to pull and push her back below, impeding her process by trying to spinning and disorienting her. Yet, as she tumbled blindly she could still feel the pressure on her ears begin to lessen, signalling that she was close to the surface.
Her air was barely holding out, and soon her strength became weak as her adrenaline fuelled reserves ran dry. Praying to the gods and clinging to her only daughter, Brunhilda began to paddle frantically towards the flashes of light that seemed to flicker faster and brighter on the edges of her vision.
Just when she could feel her breath failing her, Brunhilda heard the crack of thunder and broke through the water. She hauled Astrid nearly out of the water as the two started coughing, Brunhilda desperately trying to keep them both afloat.
The fierce warrior looked around the rolling waves with desperate eyes, looking for something to put her child on at the very least. Nothing was apparent at first, but soon the dark, waterlogged brown of various debris was spotted on the crest of a low wave, being carried towards her.
Their position in the water allowed them to simply ride the wave up to the debris, where Brunhilda laid a coughing and unconscious Astrid on the board while she clung to it with all her might. The faint flashes of light above briefly illuminated her daughter, showing her the bright red gash that weekly pumped blood from the top of her eyebrow, across her nose and down towards the opposite end of her face.
Fear gripped the mother, who couldn't help but remember the plucky three year old telling how she wanted scars just like her momma only a week ago.
Tears welled in the exhausted woman as the clouds begun to break, the rolling black hatred beginning to fade into the standard grey of the Archipelago. The waves the duo rode became less and less frequent, and soon they found themselves in the middle of a calm sea, as though the world ending storm had never occurred at all.
The proud, fierce, and indomitable pillar of viking spirit crumbled into sobbing tears as her daughters hand limply trailed in the water next to the debris, who's timely presence and abundance could only have meant one thing in such a storm. The matriarch didn't have just one child, but a whole boatload, and her beloved husband Achtun.
The last she saw, the seven of them were facing down a true demon of the sea, one who was king to all those that saw it pass. Boys as young as eight had stoof behind their father filled with both terror and determination, hefting makeshift weapons and daggers against a monster that could wipe out whole boats filled to the brim with trained veterans.
They had fought, and it was clear that they had lost, as the sea water and tear-soaked board indicated. The only ship in the area had been theirs, and this much debris could only mean their small vessel had been completely annihilated.
And so, for more times today than she had in her life, Brunhilda felt truly and completely without hope. She grieved, and soon drifted to rest alongside her daughter, with her fingers forming holes in the soft wood from the strength she put into her desperate grasp, completely unwilling to let her little girl become a Valkyrie before she could even heft her first axe.
Two days passed, and Brunhilda still failed to spot either another ship or land. Her throat was like a desert, the salt water and lack of fresh water making her weak and parched. She could barely move anymore, so great was her weakness that all she could do was simply cling to the remains of their vessel in the hopes that an end would come, either from the mercy of the gods or man.
Her eyes drifted to her daughter, whose wound had begun to scab and settled for a dull red atop her pale skin. Astrid still hadn't stirred, muttering softly in her sleep about crabs and sea-shells. While this concerned Brunhilda, she almost found relief in knowing her daughter didn't have to remain awake and suffer through this Hel, as the absolute boredom would kill the little warrior long before anything else.
'Gods' Thought Brunhilda, 'She's sure grown big in'ae short time, hasn't she?'
It seemed like yesterday that they were safe in Gothi's hut, with Brunhilda holding a swaddled newborn girl as her husband and boys crowded around to get a look at what they thought was a new baby brother. The memory made her smile, as her boys soon found out that the little dainty girl could give them a run for their money and most certainly would when she was older.
Acthun had talked her into letting him commission a wee little axe from Gobber for her third birthday just a month ago, and was eagerly making poor drawings alongside his oblivious daughter on what her dream weapon would look like. While the images were borderline concerning even for a viking, Achtun was delighted in knowing his daughter shared the same view that an axe was simply begging to have more blades attached to it. Stoick shared a hearty laugh with them both when they heard Gobber's frustration at trying to get all the wooden pointy bits to spin correctly while in the Great Hall. The poor blacksmith had nearly gone purple in the face during his explanation before little Astird and her constant companion Hiccup ran up to him. Astrid asked if she could sit on his lap and Hiccup begged to play with his arm attachments. The misshapen softy couldn't resist, and took great delight in regaling the wide eyed Astrid with grandiose tales as Hiccup began to swing his mallet attachment into the stone ground, trying to be just like his father.
Simple times and simple memories were what had made life on Berk, normally frigid and deadly, so bright and worthwhile. They were faced with extinction every day, yet found a way to laugh through most of it. Family was all you really had when you were a viking.
And she had lost hers. All that was left of the Hofferson family tree was on a treacherous piece of driftwood.
Her grip tightened imperceptibly at the thought, pulling herself just a little bit closer to the wood. Her focus on memories took hold again in an attempt to keep her occupied and hopeful, pulling her deep into a stupor.
So deep was her trance that she hardly noticed the world around her until a shadow flickered above her. Eyes crusted in sea salt opened, and Astrid stirred slightly, looking at her broken mother without a care in the world, gasping lightly to the woman who always looked after her.
"Momma..." she wheezed, "Can I haf' some water?" before slipping back into unconsciousness. Brunhilda could cry no more tears as she gazed desperately beyond her daughter to look for...
Land.
It took Brunhilda a few seconds before she could properly understand what lay just ahead of her, her vision weakening as another shadow flickered past her head. What was more, after feeling the tides and watching the slowly approaching peak of the sharp, tall island grow closer, it was apparent that the currents were slowly pulling the two of them to the shoreline.
Hope rose in her heart, daring to dream that she had enough energy to make it to the island, maybe even help push them to a boat if they saw one.
For a third time, a shadow flickered above her, and this time much deeper and wider than before. The distant sound of cutting wind was soon replaced with the telltale signs of wings. The hated sound that foretold the death of countless vikings and smouldering villages, the sound that once inspired bloodlust yet now only filled the warrior with all-consuming dread. Hovering slightly ahead and above the two of them, a bright sky-blue Deadly Nadder watched them carefully with narrowed eyes, mouth slightly agape as it examined the broken warrior and her hatchling.
Silence reigned as both beings evaluated the situation, one severely more concerned with the presence of a dragon than the other was of a human. The delicate silence was broken with the dry cough of Astrid, who had begun to roll off the plank of wood and towards the water. Startled, Brunhilda reached to stop her from rolling, but days of fixed posture and intense exhaustion had fused her arms in place, barely even able to move her arms without intense focus and pain.
"Oh Odin, please no, not like this Odin oh no please not her. Not my Astrid..." weeped Brunhilda as her baby girl gently rolled face first into the water. Her cries of alarm and fear granted her frantic movements, as she desperately tried to inch her lifeless arms towards her now floating daughter. After a few jerking movements, she almost managed to reach her daughter before a shadow overtook her and a delicate claw reached down to grab Astrid from right in front of her. As her daughter was raised into the air by the beast, Brunhilda's sobs turned to screams of horror. Spitting hatred and curses to the beast, Brunhilda paddled feebly yet desperately towards the perplexed and alarmed dragon, who saw the danger and aggression in the wounded woman's eyes.
Beating it's wings slowly, the Nadder began to lift itself and its daughter far into the air, clear out of reach from the matriarch and away from the approaching island, back out towards the endless grey sea in a direction that she could not follow.
The screams of frustration and defeat that chased after the dragon was like that of a dragon itself, the passion and fury tearing her dry throat open like a knife. It was as if it was the final cry of a wounded and dying animal, echoing across the ocean and following the reptile as it beat its wings faster in an attempt to escape the horrible noise.
Brunhilda only stopped screaming when her daughter had long become a dot in the distance, vanishing from view. She no longer had the life within her to try anymore. The Indomitable Hofferson line had been defeated and wiped out in one day.
She had been defeated. But that didn't mean she was done. It was only the purest hate that kept her heart beating.
She would find that Nadder, and murder it with her own bare hands.
But until then, she would mourn.
Astrid woke up to the sensation of cold, fresh water running into her mouth. The tiny warrior looked around in confusion as she tried to remember where she was and what was happening. As she fully awakened from her daze, she realized her thirst and drank as much water as her small mouth could take.
After a solid minute or two of refreshing herself, Astrid looked around once more. Where she was used to the constant sounds of frothing vikings and clanging steel, she could hear only the sounds of nature around her.
Spotting two brightly coloured birds in the trees around her, Astrid giggled as they angrily hopped and tweeted at one another, clearly in some silly and funny argument. Her entertainment was short-lived, as the two birds suddenly stopped along with all the other nearby sounds of nature before taking off into the air.
Curious, Astrid looked around for any sign of life other than the now vacant birds. Soon, she heard a snap from behind and wiped her small frame around to face the being; a wide smile on her face as she cried out in anticipation.
"Momma!"
But what greeted her wasn't her mother, it was something markedly less scary but far more terrifying to most people. The bright blue Nadder tilted its head as it observed her with wide eyes, clearly enraptured with this little viking, having never seen one so small before.
Likewise, Astrid had never even seen a dragon, as she was always in the Great Hall playing Bashy Sticks with the rest of the kids her age during the raids. She had always been told something about dragons, but Astrid didn't really pay attention to the Chief that often when he spoke.
With nothing else to fall back on, she straightened her back and stuck out her hand just like her momma taught her and chanted out in practised and forced tones, "Hi, I'm Astrid!".
The Nadder dropped the cluster of apples it held in its mouth on the ground and sqwaked loudly into the air, flapping its wings and shaking its tail, making Astrid giggle.
Her new friend didn't seem so bad after all.