III.
She's warm when she stirs to life, which is strange, because she'd shivered and shuddered trying to fall asleep. Her thin mockery of a wedding gown did little to block out the cold, especially as it bled through a hard cave floor. She scooted as far away from the shadows of the sleeping dragons as possible, pressing her back to the stone wall and curling into a ball. She'll freeze on the floor before she'll lie in the pile of furs Hiccup called a bed. And then she waited for the fear to pass, for the fury to settle. She laid with her teeth chattering and her head hurting until she finally slipped into something like a nightmare.
But now she's warm. Her body aches all over from sleeping on the ground, and there's dust and tiny rocks pressed into her skin, but she's warm. When Astrid opens her eyes, she finds herself beneath a thick, soft fur. A faint strand of gratefulness follows her barrage of confusion, but it doesn't last long.
She realizes the warmth isn't coming from the fur. It's coming from the Night Fury wrapped around her.
She yelps, bolting up and scooting back until her back is flush against the stone wall. The dragon— Toothless— doesn't stir, heavy breaths moving in and out of his large chest with metallic whirs. His ears and jawfins twitch. Astrid puts her hand over her heart and feels it pound against her palm.
Her eyes scan over the cavern, which she can finally see by the weak sunshine streaming in its mouth several yards ahead. It's larger than it felt the night before, extending far back into a tunnel where the dragons had been sleeping. Except for one or two, though, the beasts have mostly cleared out. The roof of the strange abode is tall, and it stretches over another opening higher up. This one is likely too small for anything other than a Terror to fit through, but it provides extra light and a safe escape for smoke.
She glances towards the bed near the back, finding Hiccup sprawled facedown in the furs. His face is turned away from her, his fingers curled around the flask she'd seen last night. Rays of sun stretch like fingers from the tiny opening above and stretch across his bare back. His pants are slung low enough that she can make out the faint dimples at the base of his spine. Astrid feels her face going warm from embarrassment and fury.
Slowly, as not to wake the sleeping dragon curled like a cat around its kittens, she pushes herself to her feet. Her hands scrape the walls behind her, searching for purchase, and her gaze goes back and forth between the Night Fury and his rider.
A tight soreness has taken residence in her legs, a consequence of being shoved in a saddle for who knows how long. She hasn't had the opportunity to check yet, but she's sure there's bruises along her arms and wrists. Her shoulders feel like they've been ground down to nothing. Still, the ache in her thighs is the worst, and she tries not to wince as she carefully lifts the hem of her dress and steps over the dragon's tail.
That's when she notices it— the contraption. At first she thinks it's some device Hiccup's invented to keep the beast from turning on him. A muzzle or some kind of high-tech riding crop. But at a closer glance, she notices the way the metal coils around his tail. Then it flares out into what she thought was two tailfins. Instead it's just one. One— and a leather lookalike.
She manages to untangle her feet from the fur and ease away without waking him. Her first— no, only thought— is escape.
First she tiptoes towards the furs, her breath sounding too, too loud in the quiet cavern. Hiccup is sound asleep— she can hear his exhales as well, along with a soft snore. Now that she's closer, she can see that there's something almost covered by the corner of one of his furs. The delicate twist of metal. A gleaming pearl. Her bridal crown. It rests just inches from his face.
She glances aside, surprised and a little shocked. She doesn't want to think about why that's in his bed. But her gaze hasn't found a good place to settle. She realizes she's staring at his bare torso. His shoulders are freckled, leading to a pale back marred by pink burn scars, and his shoulder blades stick out like wings trying to break the skin. Her eyes rove to his hips. There's a dagger strapped to his belt. She could grab it easily and shove it between those half-wings.
Astrid shudders. Steps away from the chief's long lost son. She's killed dragons before— without a second thought. But killing a human being, and one of her own, is something she can't do quite yet.
She thinks about what he said to her last night as she walks quietly towards the mouth of the cave. How Berk gave her up to a dragon master they thought was a demon. If Hiccup had been the evil thing he showed to her last night, would that have made the villagers accomplices in her murder? They would kill her for their safety, so shouldn't she be able to kill him?
She shoves the thought away. Runs her hand along the wall as she squints into the bright light. Sunlight warms her chilled skin as a breeze blows in, and she can't help but fight back a smile. She might be able to get back to Berk after all. She could be gone before Hiccup even woke.
But then her eyes adjust. The sun retreats, and she realizes with a sharp inhale that hoping is too dangerous.
They're high. Hundreds of feet off the ground. And all she can see for miles is blue, glittering ocean.
Astrid turns. Slams her fist into stone to resist a cry of frustration and disappointment. So that exit isn't plausible. She'll have to go deeper into the island. Pressing her lips into a thin line, she fixes the straggling dragons that are blocking the tunnel leading from this open room in her gaze. One is sprawled in a ray of light, sunbathing. The other is closer to Astrid, gnawing distractedly on a large bone.
Nerves rattle in her chest. Her heart starts to beat a little harder as she slowly approaches. The beast doesn't seem to notice her presence, or even care. But she can't tear her eyes away from the sharp teeth crackling along its pale chew toy. She gives it a wide berth as she passes. It hardly glances up.
Twisting, she feels along the wall and watches the dragon over her shoulder. The dark of the tunnel is intimidating, but she has no other choice. Without hesitating, she dips into the blackness.
It's warmer than the previous room. Astrid detects the faint scent of sulfur and smoke— something she thought she'd smelled on Hiccup the night before. It gets stronger the farther she presses into the tunnel. The slippers on her feet are pathetic scraps of fabric, and she wishes she had her good sturdy boots. Stones and pebbles dig uncomfortably into her soles with every step.
She gets lost. She knows she's lost, but she can't make herself care when the only other option is to be left to that dragon rider's mercy. There has to be more than one exit, as tall as the mountain appears to be. So she continues, and soon enough she sees a reddish glow in the distance.
Astrid exhales slowly. Squints into the heat. The closer she gets, the warmer it feels. Sweat starts to bead on her forehead and chest. She feels a few droplets trickle down the back of her legs and between her breasts. And the nearer the glow comes, the more she begins to hear things. Clicking, humming, chattering.
She comes to a stop. She can't even press on to see what lies beyond, in the fiery heart of the island. A long, spined tail rests at the mouth of the tunnel. Her heart pounds.
Astrid spins to try and run back, but her slippers have one more disaster to wreak. She slips on the smooth stone floor, and a startled cry escapes her before she can stop it. Her elbows and knees slam into hard rock. And her breath catches when there's a slithering noise behind her.
She scrambles, trying to sit up. There's no way to tell what kind of dragon this is, but it's no species she can recognize— it's too big, and it's one black silhouette crawling into the tunnel. Astrid whimpers, scooting back against the wall as her hands search the ground for anything she can use for a weapon. If she can distract it, she can get away. She has to.
But as soon as she shifts, it growls. Yellow eyes examine her from a dark face, pupils just a slice through the golden glare. It's monstrous, at least twice as big as the beasts that raid her home. And its sights are set on her.
"Get back!" she shouts at it, her voice sounding weaker than she'd like. Waving her hands at it, she tries to see if it'll spook. "Go away! Get out!"
It responds by rearing. The dragon comes down on its front paws so hard that the ground trembles, and it makes a fearsome noise caught somewhere between a roar and a shriek. Astrid yelps and twists her eyes shut, trying to crawl away from its hot, malodorous breath.
And then she's being gripped by her upper arms. She's yanked up, and an arm wraps around her waist and holds her to a solid warmth. At first she startles, thinking it's another dragon, so she screams and hits him, but then Hiccup gives her an annoyed shake.
"You don't want this one," he says to the dragon, and Astrid goes still against his still-bare chest. Her lips are parted against his collarbone as she attempts to draw weak strands of air into her lungs. "She sucks at scratchies. All claws."
"Get me out of here," she whispers. She wishes it would sound more like the demand she intends it to be. "Get me away from that thing."
Hiccup's other arm stretches out. She feels the warmth of the dragon's breath against her shoulder, and she involuntarily presses tighter against the rider's torso.
Then he drops his hand and pulls her around, tugging her back through the shadows. The flickering features of his face dim as they walk away from the now ominous red glow. When they're fully entrenched in the dark again, he lets her go and grips her wrist in his hand. She hears him sigh, and it sounds terribly inconvenienced.
"I'm too hungover for this."
