"Hiccup…" Astrid bowed her head, choked from emotion and the chase.
The wind streaked past her hunched form as she sat in a quiet state of shock, contemplating the figure that lay before her. The nordic airs roughly tousled her hair out behind her as it whistled by, the only clue as to the tumultuous thoughts lurching within her.
Toothless continued to whimper and plead, alternately pawing lightly or nosing his unconscious friend. Astrid glanced up at him through her tears, wondering at how terrified she had once been at such a kindly beast.
All at once, a memory came to the surface of her addled mind, leaving her a hunched bundle as, unbidden, it flooded through her consciousness.
Soaring among the clouds, higher than Vikings had ever been intended to go.
The sun was just dipping below the horizon, painting the sky in the most breathtaking shades of pink dappled in orange, interrupted only by the black shape that streaked across the crisp picturesque waves.
Astrid was in awe.
Driven by an impulsive curiosity, she finally dared to break her hold on Hiccup's waist and reach a hand up to stroke one of the fluffy clouds above her head. She gasped in shocked delight as her fingertips swept right through it, the cloud no more solid than water.
Enthralled, she reached up her other hand to join it, running them both through the mass, joyfully experiencing the sky on a level that no Viking ever had before.
They stayed up there until the moon had risen and the constellations spread across the inky infinity that they gently cruised within, the three of them all too content to end it.
Astrid had thought that nothing more could steal her breath away that day, but as the Aurora Borealis began to dance and weave, basking them in its shifting tones of green and purple, she was proved wrong.
Though, even that sight was almost matched by the baffling glimpses she got of the village, her home, so far away, lit by twinkling pinpricks of torchlight.
Awestruck, she wove her arms tighter about Hiccup's waist, leaning her chin onto his shoulder, unable to tear her eyes away.
Such were the variety of dazzling views that were revealed to her in the thrill of flight that afternoon, that they were enough to make her finally concede that, perhaps, training a dragon wasn't a completely fruitless exercise after all...
Astrid opened her eyes with a gasp. She hadn't even realised they had slipped shut as she relived that magical night that had marked the beginning of so many things.
She blinked for a moment in the afternoon sun, looking again at the figure that lay before her. Her brow creased in a forlorn frown, Astrid reached out and once again ran her hands falteringly along Hiccup's injured wing. The revelation that he had made that day four years ago suddenly paled in comparison with the news that he now revealed to her.
As Hiccup let out a pained whimper at her touch, Astrid drew back as if stung.
The last time he had whimpered like that…
She hung her head again with the weight of the memory.
She had thought she had lost him...
Shock flooded through her as she flung her hands to her mouth in unbridled relief.
He was alive!
Hiccup had brought down that monstrosity of a dragon and survived!
Vikings and dragons alike rejoiced as Stoick cradled his son in his arms.
Astrid made her way through the crowd and drew level with the father and son, just in time to see Gobber pointing a finger accusingly at the-
Astrid blanched as she took in the sight of the charred, mangled lower left leg that seemed to cling halfheartedly to the rest of the limb.
They were Vikings, of course people got limbs savaged all the time. It was an occupational hazard and everybody knew it.
But… Hiccup.
Hiccup was… so un-Vikinglike, at least in the traditional sense, that he couldn't possibly…
It wasn't right. He didn't deserve this.
She listened in numbly as Gobber and Stoick quickly agreed that it was best to remove the damaged segment of the limb whilst Hiccup remained mercifully unconscious.
Mind and body too heavy to voice her objections, she waited, her heart and gut wrenching together, as Stoick held Hiccup firm and Gobber went and fetched an axe. They weren't even going to use a saw for Thor's sake!
Despite her horror at the situation, Astrid couldn't tear her eyes away as Hiccup twisted and whimpered through the heavy cloud of unconsciousness and his father's iron grip whilst Gobber did his grisly work.
But there seemed to be so much blood.
Was there supposed to be that much blood?
Surely he was losing too much blood...
Toothless was silent now. He laid flat on the ground with his nose pressed urgently against Hiccup's ribcage, only his occasional heavy inhalations to be heard as he sniffed deeply, his breath causing small ripples in the fabric over Hiccup's minutely moving chest.
Stormfly sat just beyond Hiccup's head as her own twitched around, constantly surveying the assembled party in a tense agitation. Her tail gave a small flick each time she heard Astrid make a sound as she relived that painful day before lapsing back into a still and heavy thoughtfulness.
Each time she thought that perhaps she had made a decision, she would counter it it in her mind and find herself running through the same loops over and over.
Any course of action that she weighed up seemed to be as good as a death sentence. No matter which way she turned she couldn't see a way out.
She ran her hands tensely through her hair, internally wrestling with herself all the while. A growing distraction built up in the back of her mind as she found her thoughts turning more and more into the past, wondering how, in less than an hour, life now seemed so riddled with complications and grave consequences.
Her chest felt heavy as she hugged herself with a low moan, inwardly making ardent pleas; desperately wishing for a time when even complex emotion seemed so juvenile and simple in comparison to what she now faced.
Finally she dropped her head into her hands as one last memory swept into her mind, so sweet with the promise of its nostalgic resolution that she couldn't possibly refuse it.
"Hey look, it's Hiccup!"
"Hiccup!"
"He's awake!"
The joyous cries rang through the village, echoing up to where the teens raced about the buildings atop their new dragons.
Astrid gasped, her heart skipping a beat as she landed Stormfly as quickly as she was able, almost falling from the saddle in her haste to dismount. She recovered herself however, and remembered to give her new friend a quick pat before running up towards the Chief's house where already a crowd had gathered.
Even as she pushed herself between the assembled Vikings, she could hear Hiccup's tone, already as laced with as much dry wit as it ever was, making some kind of joke. As she emerged through the centre of the crowd, she was just in time to see him lowering his new prosthetic to the ground as a chuckle rose from the surrounding Vikings.
Astrid's eyes widened as she closed the final distance between them, almost unable to believe that he was truly awake and walking about. He had been unconscious for so long.
Her punch flew instinctively into Hiccup's arm as she reprimanded him, "That's for scaring me."
The boy flinched and turned to her, clutching his arm awkwardly while he stammered, "Wha- what, is it always gonna be this way beca-"
And as Astrid looked at him, in that moment, she acted on a different instinct entirely, taking ahold of the front of his tunic and pressing her lips to his...
For several moments, Astrid was still and silent, unwilling to shake off the cloying tendrils of time. If only she could live in the past and remain in that singular instance. But the present was calling, and as she brought herself to and her eyes refocused, she found her decision was made.
With a shaky breath she rose and gingerly stepped around the sprawled figure of Hiccup to lay her hand on Stormfly. As she felt the warmth of the dragon's scales as she leaned into her hand, she felt her resolve strengthen.
"C'mon girl." She said lowly and pulled herself into the saddle, her voice cracked and hoarse from disuse.
Stormfly shook herself and leapt into the sky with a squawk, turning, at Astrid's direction, towards the mainland. Both looked ahead with determination as Toothless and his broken rider atop the sea stack receded steadily into the distance.
The thumping of her heart as it raced in her chest seemed to almost rival the hefty thud of the Nadder's feet as she landed on the docks. The fishing fleet wouldn't return for several hours, being kept thoroughly busy with their efforts to replenish the fish stores, ever diminishing thanks to the mammoth demand of the islands reptilian inhabitants.
Astrid dropped onto the creaking wooden boards and paced along towards a bundle of broken nets that had been cast aside at the edge of one of the jetties, along with some empty baskets. Her eyes never ceased to dart around, anxiously watching the gangways that lead up to the village in case she was observed.
With only Terrible Terrors and the seagulls that they chased as her witnesses, Astrid dropped into a crouch and began to sift through the mess of fraying ropes, her hands growing increasingly tremulous as she found doubts beginning to creep into her mind about the course of action she was taking.
With a grunt of anxious frustration she half threw the nets back onto the ground, giving up on trying to unravel the hopeless mass and sitting back on her haunches, looking around for several moments as she absently chewed on her lip.
A squawk from Stormfly reminded Astrid of the task at hand and, forcing herself to focus, she decided to try taking a knife to the nets instead.
After several minutes of sawing and tugging, she had managed to hack out and arduously untangle a piece of net that she hoped would be suitable for the purpose that she had in mind.
Unwilling to waste any more time, she thrust the rest of the nets back to the side of the dock and tucked the piece that she had cut beneath her arm, jogging back to Stormfly and shooting up and away as swiftly as they had arrived.
Toothless's mournful keens filled the air around the sea stack as Stormfly came in to land.
"H- Hiccup?" Astrid stammered, eyes fixed on him as she immediately dropped from the saddle and scrambled to his side, checking for a pulse as she feared that the worst had happened in her absence.
It was with a great deflating sigh of relief that she felt the reassuring thump of his life force beneath her fingers.
She held that position for a moment while she allowed her own heart to return to a more regular rhythm.
"Okay." She breathed at last, sweeping a strand of hair away from her face and composing herself for the task ahead, "Toothless, I'm going to need your help with this." Her piercing blue eyes met striking green as she levelled her gaze at the distressed dragon. "You probably aren't going to like it, but you need to trust me, alright?"
Toothless cocked his head to the side and sank back down to lay beside Hiccup with a low whine, eyeing Astrid with hesitance.
Seeing as he seemed to have at least halted his prior overtly borderline hostility, she took it as a safe sign to proceed and laid out the patch of net along with a piece of driftwood that she had salvaged along the coast on her way back. Hesitantly, she gripped Hiccup's arm and rolled him slowly onto his front, forcing herself to ignore his grunts and Toothless's guarded looks as she focussed on jostling his injured wing as little as possible.
Once he was settled on his belly, Astrid took care to reassess the wing and reaffirm her understanding of his injuries, though the wing was now far more swollen and visibly misshapen than before. Reaching over to the piece of driftwood, she held it up against the wing. It was a little shorter than she had hoped, but would be good enough.
Steeling herself, Astrid gripped the wing firmly, stealing a look over at Toothless's wings to reassure herself of how it should fold before falteringly guiding it back into Hiccup's body.
It was slow and incredibly stiff as it bent, and it jarred repeatedly against the swollen muscles, requiring Astrid to use more force that she would have liked, eventually having to resort to twisting part of the wing so that it would lay as it should.
Seeing Hiccup's jaw lock and his breathing hitch, Toothless sprang to his feet, nostrils flaring as he growled in objection.
"I have to do this." Astrid insisted a little breathlessly, forcing herself to release the breath she didn't realise she had been holding. She finished folding the wing as quickly as she dared, and despite doing the best she could to make it sit naturally, it sagged a little lopsidedly against Hiccup's back. "Look, see." She panted, holding her hands up placatingly, "I'm done. This bit's done."
Toothless hesitantly sank back down, his lip immediately curling as he saw Astrid take out a knife.
Seeing the glint of the dragon's teeth from the corner of her eye, she pointedly turned away from Hiccup, using the blade to cut off a length of rope that was fraying away from the rest of the net, before tucking the knife back into her belt and facing the dragon once more.
Tying the piece of driftwood against the folded wing was more awkward than Astrid had envisaged, but after a little trial and error she had made a makeshift splint, aiding in keeping the wing fixed against Hiccup's back as it should rather than wilting to one side.
Next, she stood and took hold of the net, first making sure that it had no further tangles in it before straddling Hiccup's back and neatly laying the net beside her foot whilst she folded his left wing in, taking great care not to accidentally push it against the carefully positioned right.
"Toothless, go and stand around by his head. When I lift him up, I need you to slide your nose under him to keep him levered off the ground. Okay?"
The dragon gave her an incredulous look but gradually complied after a little more coaxing.
Looping her arms beneath his shoulders, Astrid hauled the limp form up with a grunt, lifting him just enough to allow Toothless's head to slide beneath Hiccup's chest, effectively keeping his upper body levered above the ground.
"Good." Praised Astrid briskly as she wasted no time in sliding the net beneath him, taking ahold of one end and, being careful not to dislodge the precariously secured piece of driftwood, folded it up over his back. Holding that end of the net down with one hand, she then proceeded to take the other end and wrap it up and over, winding the net around and around his body until there was only a small strip left.
She gave the end a tug and reached into the layers of net and pulled lightly on each one, checking that the bindings were pulled taut enough to keep his wings bound down to his back, but not so tightly as to overly constrict them.
Satisfied, she tucked the loose end into the wrappings, weaving it in as much as the stiff fraying ropes would allow, before hooking her arms back beneath his shoulders and helping Toothless to lower him to the ground.
"Good job, that should do the trick." She nodded at him, pursing her lips at the grim reptilian expression that he shot her in return.
Turning away from the ornery dragon with a sigh, she beckoned to Stormfly, "C'mere girl. Bend down, here, please... thank you." Pacing around the crouching dragon, Astrid pondered over the next phase of her plan, eventually settling on a course of action that she hoped would get Hiccup into the saddle in the least jarring manner possible.
While Toothless as the shorter dragon would have provided an easier form of transport, she wasn't confident that the dragon would currently trust her enough to listen to her directions, so instead she decided upon the more arduous task of loading Hiccup onto Stormfly's back.
"Okay Toothless, I'm going to need you to support his legs, please." She moved around and lifted Hiccup's legs enough for Toothless to crawl beneath them, leaving them draped over his back whilst she returned to his head and once again lifted Hiccup from beneath his shoulders, grunting as she staggered a little from the awkward positioning and the added weight of the fishing nets.
Finding her balance, she walked backwards whilst issuing slow commands to Toothless, who suddenly became far more compliant now that Hiccup's safety was reliant on their cooperation. She stepped over Stormfly's tail and then stopped, holding Hiccup suspended over the dragon as together, she and the Night Fury then walked him up over Stormfly's back until his stomach was brushing the saddle.
"Okay…" Her speech was slow and measured with concentration, "Bring him this way a little more - stop! Good. Okay, Stormfly, try and bend a little more. Now just let him slide off…" She held her breath as she gradually dragged Hiccup from Toothless's back, pulling him a little more towards Stormfly's head so that his right foot was dragging along near the apex of the saddle. "Toothless, quick, come and pull his leg over." She panted urgently, her arms beginning to strain from the cumbersome burden.
The Night Fury wasted no time in bounding over and carefully closing his jaws around Hiccup's leg in a deceptively delicate grip, heaving it the rest of the way over the saddle so that Astrid could finally sit him back in the seat. She spent a moment ensuring he was in no danger of slipping off either side before lowering his upper body to rest against Stormfly's neck, nestling him beneath the spiny protrusions.
Finally, she allowed herself a small smile, other anxieties forgotten for a brief moment as she inwardly celebrated that single victory, the hardest physical points of her plan now accomplished.
"Well done everyone." Was all she said to the pair of waiting dragons, as even a quick glance at their expressions was enough to bring her mind plummeting back to earth, and the next phase.
Reaching her hands up to obscure her face for a moment, Astrid took a deep breath, "Alright. Let's get this done." She slid into the saddle behind Hiccup, wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him backwards so that his back rested gently against her chest.
"Storm-phff bleugh!" Spluttering as she found her mouth full of Hiccup's hair, she paused and lolled his head against her shoulder while fighting to crane her chin over his. Blowing from the corner of her mouth to fight away the stray strands that still threatened her, she muttered, "You just had to get taller than me didn't you… Stormfly, let's go!"
An explosive gasp escaped her as Stormfly bounded into the the air with a squawk, thrusting Hiccup's body backwards into her, small gasps of pain slipping from his own lips upon the feeling of his wings being crushed between the two.
Unable to help the feeling of guilt that filled her, Astrid waited until Stormfly had leveled out and then carefully peeled them apart, trying to shift her unconscious co-passenger into what she hoped was a more comfortable position.
"Toothle-" She peered around awkwardly, trying to see if the Night Fury was following behind, but the words died in her mouth as she spotted him in the corner of her eye, easily keeping pace as he eyed her intently.
With a sigh at the sight of Hiccup's winged entourage, Astrid fixed her eyes on the sky ahead. Worries of what might occur once they landed plagued her, shadowing all her thoughts just as Toothless shadowed their flight. Neither making her feel any less uncomfortable and leaving her wishing their flight would just be at its end, yet dreading having to face the consequences once it was...
The ramshackle cottage clung to the cliff. The creaking of the wooden stilts with every tiny movement of the atmosphere unhelped by the two dragons and their human companions landing with a thump on the narrow plank porch.
Astrid dismounted stiffly after the uncomfortable journey, glad to be back on solid ground, or more importantly, back in her own personal space, despite her reservations about what was to come.
Carefully she leaned Hiccup back down against Stormfly's neck, giving her a thankful pat. Astrid then scooted past an overbearing Toothless and tremulously approached the door.
The sharp rap of her knuckles on the wood seemed to drown out all out other sound, and she found herself shifting her weight from foot to foot as she apprehensively waited for the cottage's inhabitant to answer.
With no warning and a prolonged creak, the door swung open, the old woman behind it already smiling her quiet knowing smile; her eyes twinkling at an unshared joke as she peered up at her visitor.
Astrid bowed her head.
"Gothi… I- I need your help."