Remember When… [Rating: K]
He held her hand softly, one wrinkled hand laid gently on top of another. It was just her and him now in the house all alone – for their children had left on a voyage with the grandkids, and would not be back for a week yet, if even two. It evoked the quietness of the old days, back before they were old, back during the times when they were newlyweds and younger even than their grandchildren were today. Oh, but the smell of her hair was just as refreshing now as when it was blonde. She still wore it braided, too – a hair fashion which had never grown old for Astrid Haddock.
Remember when our first grandkid got his little fat fingers twisted up in that braid? Aksel was only about three months old. Maybe four. As soon as he got his finger caught he began bawling and howling up to his grandmother. She had simply smiled, wrinkles crinkling along her already-wrinkled cheeks, and delicately removed his fingers from her hair. Not like that stopped him from reaching up for the braid again a minute later.
Hiccup himself now reached out with his free hand to stroke Astrid's braid. His hand hovered for a moment by her ear, but then slowly moved down her braid. She turned her head slightly at his tender touch; Astrid was still sleeping, for all it was midmorning and she was usually up at this time for morning chores. But he let her rest; she needed it, deserved it.
Not like Astrid had ever been much of a chore person, anyway. She simply had tolerated it because he was chief and had other duties to attend to during the day. But far more often, she went away on quests with an axe gripped firmly in both hands. Or at least, she had. She was a bit too old for questing now.
A bit of poignancy hit Hiccup's mind. Remember the day you came home from your last voyage? That time when you told me you were getting too old for this? Your bones were creaking; you could barely walk, let alone do those handsprings you did when you were young.
But… His eyes stared down fondly at her lightly-closed lids …that opened the way up for new things. More time for us to spend together with our kids, our grandkids, and each other. It hurt us both to see you give your war axe away to your eldest daughter. And it hurt her, too. Katja's blue-green eyes stared down at the axe, flashed up to her mother, and then shot down to the axe again. She couldn't believe that you would ever give it up.
It's hard to believe that day came, for all we knew it would…
It had not been bad in the end, though. Not all bad. Even though growing old brought with it many physical limitations and the end of old sports, at least it also meant they could share many fond memories together.
If only there were many more in store for them.
Yet time cannot tick backward. Hiccup and Astrid had far more memories behind them than before them.
Hiccup could smile anyway. So many of those old memories were good ones.
Remember when we had the house to ourselves for the first time in two and a half decades? After our youngest daughter married that young man from the Svenson clan? Bard and Klara had been so happy that day, their eyes shining brightly. You and I had come home to an empty house, a house which had suffered through so much wear and tear of three children. Yet they had grown, and we were by ourselves.
We almost didn't know what to do with ourselves at that point. You came up with the idea for us to go on picnics, go fishing, practice archery, do a lot of activities together now that the kids were out of the house. I know I felt a little hesitant about it at first. Did I have the room in my schedule? The chiefdom needed running. And I had never been fond of physical sports even in my twenties. But… every moment I spent with you was worth it. The slippery fish I caught but then accidentally dropped on your head. The way you shouted and punched me into the river for revenge. The infinite times you bested me in axe throwing contests. The one – one – time I actually beat you.
Memories kept flooding.
The days we went out on a hike and got dunked on in the rain. The voyages we went on to distant islands. The time we thought we caught a glimpse of a blue Deadly Nadder flying over the sea.
You had screamed that day in excitement, and yanked me forward by my shirt with incredible vigor. You charged, half-dragging me, to the edge of a cliff where we could overlook the ocean. Pointed to a speck in the fading sun. That was not just any Nadder, you insisted. That was Stormfly.
"Stormfly?" Astrid murmured, puzzled. She had opened her eyes now, though she continued to rest on the pillow contently. The blueness in her eyes had paled over the years, and now the whites of her eyes were milky moreso than clear. Nothing had changed in the way she stared at Hiccup, though. Full of love.
"What?" Hiccup mumbled.
"I thought you said something," she said, and then started to drift back to sleep.
She was paling. Hiccup knew it, and his heart sank. He wished with all his will she would rise from this bed – if not this hour, maybe before the morning was done.
Remember when, in this very bed, you birthed our first daughter? You told me I worried far too much for it. "I'm a warrior," you told me. "I've been through much worse. This is a good thing; I'll be fine."
And this birth was absolutely amazing. I remember us huddling together for the first time as a family of three. I kissed you on the cheek; you turned to give a bigger kiss on the lips. "What should we name her?" you asked.
From the bed, in a groggy voice, Astrid remarked, "You're definitely talking to yourself."
"Oh." Hiccup blinked, realizing he must have begun reminiscing aloud.
She reached up to punch him lightly, affectionately, on the shoulder. Her thin arm wobbled in the general trajectory towards Hiccup's side. But she missed him, and the action took up much of her strength. For a moment, she fell into a horrid fit of coughing that shook her entire brittle body, making her look almost as though she were breaking into a seizure.
"You should rest, milady," Hiccup urged her, wishing for an infinite time she had not fallen so ill. "Save your energy."
Yet Astrid ignored him. Instead of responding to his comment about her health, she followed up by saying, "Everything you suggested for her sounded like dragon names more than Viking names."
"Well… I did get more experience naming dragons." he defended with a shrug. "Now please, won't you…"
Astrid cut him off gently with another sentence. This time, it was she who began, "Remember when…"
"Remember when we got engaged?" she asked.
"How could I forget?"
It had not gone as planned. In truth, it hadn't even been planned at all. Of all the places Hiccup had imagined he would propose to Astrid, he had never expected it would be the battlefield. They had taken a short respite to regroup and prepare for a rather bold rush toward the enemy; the offensive had a short likelihood of survival, yet it was the only way either of them believed they could potentially defeat their enemy. And the war had been going on long enough – more than long enough – and had turned their lives into two years of Helheim.
At this time Astrid had noticed Hiccup staring off into the middle of nothing, eyes glazed with thought. She reached out to touch his shoulder, slowly rubbing her hand over him. And he had reached up to rest his own hand on her arm, feeling her right there beside him, there so close. Before he even knew what he was saying, he was burying his face in her hair and murmuring almost hoarsely, "I'll swim and sail on savage seas."
Astrid frowned, puzzled at the strange comment. "What?" she asked. "Is that poetry?"
Hiccup explained, "It's part of the lyrics to a song." He dropped his eyes downward. "Not one that I ever really knew, but it's one my father considered special. I only remember the first few lines. 'I'll swim and sail on savage seas… with ne'er a fear…' uh… 'for drowning'… and then something, ah, I don't remember… but following it… 'if you will marry me'."
Astrid shifted her weight and merely listened to Hiccup quietly narrate his thoughts. Her hand on his shoulder definitely held onto him more firmly, though.
"My father used to tell me the story of the day he told my mother that he wanted to marry her. They both always enjoyed singing that song, but on that particular day, my dad got down on one knee after the line 'if you will marry me,' and told my mom that he really did want to marry her. And she said she did, too. The following day, they began marriage arrangements with her family and… yeah. They got together. Married.
"Dad told me it was a very happy day for him. Both of them. But the thing is, they made it happy themselves. It was during the days where the dragon attacks were especially severe and none of the Berk fishermen could even leave the harbor. Winters were harsh. People almost starved. It wasn't a time that people were supposed to be happy.
"But my parents were. They found a reason to be happy in the face of all misery."
"Oh Hiccup," Astrid murmured.
"And I was thinking… maybe we could do the same thing." Hiccup dropped his hands and pulled his neck up to stare her straight, intently in the eye, giving her full view of his fears and hurts. Something else in his eyes, too. A straightforward sincerity. "If we somehow get through this, Astrid, will you… will you marry me?"
Hiccup and Astrid told each other the story every few years on their anniversary. They always saved it for their anniversary… at least until this day.
Astrid looked up at him, having finished her narration, and he answered, "I'll never be able to forget that. Remember when we told Mother?"
Valka had been ecstatic, crowing loudly, grabbing each of their shoulders, and nearly crashing their skulls together in a three-way hug.
"Remember when Dad first started predicting we'd marry?" Hiccup said with a nostalgic sight.
In a croaky whisper, between coughs, Astrid said, "Remember that wedding ceremony?"
"Remember the night that came after?"
"Remember when you threw a sheep in my face that one game of Dragon Racing and nearly knocked me off Stormfly?"
"Remember that one time you did knock me off Toothless?"
"Remember when it was just the two of us at Dragon's Edge?"
"Remember the month I tried to teach you how to cook?"
"Remember when we had our first kiss? Our first real, deepkiss?"
"Remember when we first told everyone we were together and Snotlout kept trying to convince us we weren't?"
"Remember when we went sledding down the mountain with our dragons?"
"Remember the first time I took you up on Toothless? That one sunset?"
Hiccup waited for Astrid to follow up with another, "Remember when," but instead of her voicing a memory, there was… silence.
Her arm was draped, limp, across an even stiller chest.
I remember when we were teenagers and barely knew one another. You caught my eye even then, for being such a beautiful and a powerful warrior. I wished I could be even a fraction as incredible as you. In my mind I always dreamed we would be able to talk, maybe even share a kiss, but I never even began to fathom that I'd be able to spend my entire life with you. I never thought that we would fall in love, that we would have three children, that there would be eight grandchildren, that we would spend sixty years together in the same household.
Yet when I was a boy, all I knew was that you were beautiful and strong. I knew that I was in love with you. And so I watched you from a distance. As you ran around, dousing fires from the dragon attacks, I watched you from the window of Gobber's forge.
I never knew, never knew, that the gods would bless us so.
And with that final memory, Hiccup reached his hands forward to touch his wife one last time. His late wife. He closed her eyes, and then he closed his, too, to let a single tear fall from his eye.
There would be no more new days with Astrid, now.
Only memories.
