Chapter 3 (Hiccup)
I freeze when I open the door to the first room I venture into.
I had been wandering around Beasts Bounty for a while, before I stumbled onto a huge building in the shape of a thimble, with windows spaciously placed all around it.
When I got into the building I had no idea where to look first. But I decided to go from top to bottom. And just as well I did, because now, I have found Astrid.
She is standing up, with one arm slightly stretched out, as if she was reaching for something, but thought better of it. She stares at me when I come into the room.
The room is dark with only – what looks like – three dragons flames giving reasonable vision.
There is a tall thin man standing a few feet in front of her, he looks creepy.
I look at the creepy guy and come to a conclusion. Running.
I skit past him and take Astrid's hand in mine. Her eyes are confused and sad and lonely all at the same time.
She tightens her grip of my hand and then pulls me into to hug her. I hesitate, but only for a moment.
"Hiccup…" she sighs. "I'm, I'm so sorry…"
I hug her tighter. "Me to…me to…"
We both seem to pull back at the same time, but still keeping our hands laced.
We run past the creepy man trying to get out of the building but we are stopped by one of his Hideous Zipplebacks', well at least I can check that one off the list.
"I am Valdomear NeedleTooth! And you will NEVER escape me!" the creepy man who we now know as Valdomear shouts as we are sprinting down the stairs.
"After them!" we hear him roar again.
We make it into the Blood Shed Forest just before we hear the angry roars and screams of his dragon soldiers.
But this is a different route to the one I took to get here. I don't actually know where we are…
We come to a wide river, it looks deep too. And the current is wild.
But we have no choice.
I let go of Astrid and stand on the edge of the bank. She gasps and yanks my arm back. "Hiccup what do you think you are doing?!"
"Astrid, we need to jump." I keep my eyes locked onto the river.
"Hiccup…please don't jump. You will die! Hiccup! I don't want to go back home without you! And I want to go back home!" she begs.
"Astrid, you can take your chances in here. Or die out there for certain."
The dragons are very close now. Even though we took a confusing route for even us to follow, they have found us. We can hear them screeching in the air above us. Circling around us.
Astrid holds my hand tighter. And we jump.
It all a blur at first. When I find my bearings, I find Astrid. The current isn't allowing us to get above the water.
Astrids hand is once again, laced with mine. We swim together, under the water for as long as we can.
And then, we stop.
Astrid is a few feet in front of me. She stops when I do. But wait? I didn't tell myself to stop. And, why am I going down?
I look down to see if something is dragging me by my metal foot. But I can't see, the water is too murky.
Astrid let's go of my hand and instead grabs me by my waist, trying to pull me back up, but she isn't strong enough.
She lets go once more and starts to swim down – to see what is at the bottom of the river. But I stop her, by holding onto her waist and her arm, she looks at me, terrified. I just shake my head.
Astrid's face goes from scared, to worried and sad and all the things no one deserves to be… then she shakes her head slowly, and swims back down anyway.
I feel something pushing me up. And then I am let go. I swim up to the surface as fast as my legs will take me. Then I realise. Astrid's not here…
I take a deep breath, try to control my hyperventilation, and I dive back down to the bottom of the river.
I see Astrid at the bottom, shifting around. When I come closer, I see her more clearly. And her arm is trapped under a big rock that whatever was dragging us down – probably a dragon – moved in its get away.
I don't know what to do! I kind of panic which obviously is not helping.
Once I calm myself down, and realise how little time she has left, I swim down to her and kneel on the river bed beside the rock. It's really big and heavy, I sincerely hope it hasn't crushed any of Astrid's bones.
I am trying to lift it, drag it, anything! But it won't budge. Astrid takes one of my hands with her free one, and closes her eyes.
I shake my head and try even harder to lift the rock. Just as I begin to think I will never get her out, I hear a splash and I feel a stronger current above me. Then, all of a sudden, Astrid and I are being hauled out of the water by something. But what?
Our saviour lays us down on the ground at the other side of the river. Astrid and I cough and splutter, trying to catch our breaths. When I am reasonably calm, I gaze up at whoever saved Astrid and I.
Not a saviour, saviours…
Toothless stands directly above me with his big green eyes asking me if I'm alright.
"Oh my Gods! Toothless!" I try to stand up but I lose my balance. Of course Toothless steadies me.
"I missed you so much bud…how did you know we were here?"
Toothless stands up straighter and bobs his head to the side. I look over, and see Stormfly with Astrid. They are not hugging like Toothless and I would. Neither of them seems happy like they usually would.
I run to Astrid and put my hand on her back, kneeling down next to her, she is still sitting on the ground trying to catch her breath.
"Astrid…I could have lost you…"
She turns her head to me, and hugs me so tight I can hardly breathe. I hug her back.
"But, you didn't. They found us, before we got too lost."
She is still hyperventilating, so am I. But she wraps her arms around me even tighter, and kisses me on the cheek.
I still want to know why she never spoke to Stormfly first.
She pulls back, and turns to Stormfly, she begins to stand up, so do I, and I decide to help Astrid a little because of how hard I found it to keep my balance at first.
"Stormfly, please, I'm not mad at you. It was in the past. You had to! You would have died and it was your instinct! Please don't..don't…"
Stormfly begins to back away.
"No! Stormfly! You, you just saved my life okay, and you have, so many times! Do you think that because of something you did in the past, I'm gonna throw all that away?" she is crying now, she is walking towards Stormfly as she speaks and Stormfly is staying still for now.
When Astrid gets a certain distance from Stormfly – probably a foot and a half or so – she speaks softly, like she knows how Stormfly feels. "it's okay girl… Your fine." Stormfly grunts. Astrid half laughs half sighs "I'm fine too girl, we are all fine…" Astrid reaches her hand out and touches Stormflys nose, then Stormfly moves closer and they hug each other.
I don't bother to ask what it was all about, but it was nice, it was great to see them bond again.
