So here at last is what is technically the first chapter of entirely new content since the 18th November '17 rewrite.
If I have any returning readers from before the update that have come straight to this chapter then hi, welcome back, I appreciate you returning to this old dusty fic. Chapters 1-10 have been rewritten (more info in the Chap 1 A/N) but if you don't want to read it all again then that's fine, but I recommend at least going from Chapter 8 as I've slightly altered Astrid's response to (hopefully) make her seem a little less stupid.
Anyway: This chapter ended up being pretty long, but after the wait since the last update I figure I'll let you just dive straight in, there'll be a longer note at the bottom if you want more information.
The haggard old woman's eyes turned to Hiccup's unconscious form slumped against Stormfly's neck, her brow immediately creasing with concern.
She waved the stammering and apologetic Astrid out of her way and hobbled from the cottage out onto the cramped porch. The wooden planks let out a worrying dissonance of creaks, even from her slight frame passing over them as she approached Hiccup.
Gothi's eyes grew wide and she let out a low gasp as she came close enough to observe the black net wrapped objects on his back, their nature unmistakable as the tips protruded slightly from the very base of the bindings. She paused a moment and made a swift gesture with her hands, almost too swift for Astrid to see. It took a moment for her to make the link, as Gothi continued to close the gap between herself and Hiccup, but with a sinking realisation, Astrid found a dusty old memory surfacing of an old storyteller performing the same movement to ward off evil during his gesticulated accompaniments to his tall tales.
She found herself biting the inside of her cheek to keep silent until invited to speak by the elder and stood wringing her hands with anxiety, breathless as she waited for any sign of the old woman's reaction to this most unheard of event.
The diminutive woman came and stood by one of Stormfly's legs as she peered up at the son of the Chief, absently placing one of her hands against the Nadder's glistening blue scales as she leaned against her staff, observing the troubled face of the motionless young man above.
"W- would you like me to get him down for you?" Asked Astrid with a low hesitance, wary of overstepping the mark and showing disrespect to the elder by breaking her train of thought. But as if emerging from a trance, she shook herself to and turned, nodding as a sign of encouragement and moved out of the way so that Astrid could properly reach her dragon.
After a bit of maneuvering and using Toothless as a sort of platform, Astrid managed to drag Hiccup from the saddle, over the Night Fury's back, and onto the porch, propping him up against Stormfly's leg as Gothi approached for a closer look.
The old woman hobbled forwards once more, Toothless sniffing keenly in her direction as she passed by. She took no notice however and knelt before Hiccup, her petite wrinkled hand reaching up to brush a strand of hair from his face as she studied his expression intently.
After spending several moments watching his flickering eyelids, she moved around and gently pushed him forwards so that she could inspect his net wrapped wings.
Her head cocked slightly to one side, she gradually reached out with a single finger outstretched and gave one of the wings a light prod through the net bindings. With an earnest gasp of disbelief, her touch met with the unmistakable leather of dragon skin, covered with scales that felt no less real than the ones that she had just put her hand against on Stormfly's leg. Gothi gravely turned her eyes up to Astrid, gesturing for her to explain herself.
"I… I don't really know what happened. I never... I guess I never let him explain… not really..." Astrid trailed off, her brow creasing as the guilt of all that had passed that afternoon began to crash against her like a tidal wave. Now that she was faced with the prospect of having to explain not only the situation as a whole, but her actions, and her part in the condition that Hiccup now found himself in, she was gradually able to view herself with a greater distance and began to inwardly cringe in preparation for the scathing judgments she felt sure she was about to receive.
Licking her suddenly all too dry lips, she began to falteringly recount the events that had occurred, starting from Hiccup's story of the ill fated late night flight that had changed everything. Her voice trembled and she inwardly tore at herself in remorse and regret as she strained to remember any scrap of information that may prove important, but equally trying to keep the tale as brief as possible so that Gothi could be prompt in her assessment of the situation and, Astrid hoped, beginning treatment.
As she reached the confrontation on the clifftop, Astrid suddenly found herself unable to meet Gothi's pensive gaze, instead looking gravely down at the waves crashing far below.
Her voice grew lower and increasingly grief stricken as she concluded her tale, unable to help the words that poured forth in a jumbled epilogue of repentance, "This is all my fault, Gothi. I don't know what happened! I just couldn't… I just couldn't face the thought of those- those things. And I tried to get away- I wanted to get away... I wish I hadn't, but I did…" She lowered her head, her line of sight now restricted to her own leaden feet and the scuffed wooden planks beneath. "By the time I turned around he was already falling…" A sudden lump appeared in her throat, "I'm just glad that Toothless was there, otherwise I don't think I could've- I would have been too far away… But, he hasn't woken up since." She concluded as a deep sigh wracked her tense frame. Staring down at the ground, embroiled in her own thoughts, she jumped slightly at the feeling of Gothi's bony hand patting her own.
Astrid's quiet voice cracked as she looked pleadingly into the face of the elder, "Please, will you help him? I know it looks bad, not knowing what's caused this, and I- I know what you must be thinking… But I checked the wing as best I could and I don't think it's too badly broken, so we should be able to fix it... We deal with broken wings all the time, don't we? Please, please Gothi, help him."
Gothi turned her head away and surveyed Hiccup with hooded eyes, leaning heavily on her staff.
After what seemed like an eternity, the elder turned back towards Astrid and nodded her head towards the cottage, leading the way over to the entrance.
Feeling for a moment as if like she was deflating with relief, Astrid stood and stared after Gothi in near disbelief before gratefully rushing over to Hiccup and issuing instructions for Toothless to help her maneuver him inside.
The warm scent of herbs surrounded her the moment she entered the cottage. Walking backwards through the doorway, she and Toothless moved in much the same fashion that they had atop the sea stack. They hit a snag however, when Toothless went to move inside but found that the doorway was too narrow to accommodate him past his forepaws. Pushing and twisting his frame to try and squeeze past, the stirrup squeaking and clanking on the saddle, and Hiccup's legs jostling about on his back, the Night Fury let out a growl of frustration.
Gothi tutted and hummed, coming forwards shooing him backwards in an effort to make him cease his forceful movements. Given how creaky the precarious cottage already sounded, Astrid was none too disappointed that Gothi was stopping him in his tracks.
With a gesture for Astrid to take Hiccup and lay him upon the large table that occupied much of the room, Gothi disappeared outside, hustling Toothless before her and leaving Hiccup's legs to drop to the floor as a result. Any words of comfort or reassurance that Astrid had been about to utter to the fretting dragon were quickly swallowed as she was left gritting her teeth and hastily bracing herself to prevent her burden from falling to the ground completely.
After a great deal of manhandling and muttered curses, Astrid managed to heft Hiccup the short distance between the door and the tabletop. Laying him on his stomach and arranging his limbs so he looked a little less like he had just been tossed there, Astrid stepped backwards gasping a sigh of relief. As she stood catching her breath from the exertion, Gothi reappeared, dusting off her hands with a small smile. A quick glance out the door showed Toothless and Stormfly both settled on the porch, each in the process of devouring several fish from the baskets usually reserved for the flocks of Terrible Terrors that frequented the abode.
Pulling over a low stool and stepping up onto it, Gothi pointed to Hiccup and made a twirling motion with her finger. The nets needed to be removed.
After a few minutes of sawing and hacking with her dagger, Astrid managed to rid Hiccup of most of the wrappings. Though some lengths of rope remained trapped beneath him, she took the bulk of them and bundled them up, kicking them, along with the splint, under the table at Gothi's direction.
As the old woman began her examination, she first pulled a small knife from a side table and cut a neat cross shaped slit through the back of the tattered tunic that Hiccup was wearing. The incision ran centrally down his back and then widened so that the split joined with the two incisions that he had already cut for his wings. With a delicate grip she pulled the fabric away from his back, now no more than a useless rag, and draped each side down onto the table.
Now with unfettered access, she slowly ran her hands over Hiccup's healthy left wing, her eyes wide at once again feeling the genuine dragon scales beneath her touch. With something akin to reverence, or perhaps it was apprehension, she gently gripped the wing and, with Astrid's help, unfurled it as much as the cramped cottage would allow. If there had still been any doubt in the minds of the two women as to whether it truly was a Night Fury wing, it was there no longer.
Motioning for Astrid to keep the wing spread in the air, Gothi placed her palm flat on its surface and traced the curve of the limb all the way down to the point where it met with the flesh of Hiccup's back.
Able to get a good look at the transition for the first time, Astrid found herself rather taken aback.
She wasn't sure what exactly it was that she had been expecting - some kind of grotesque graft, full of scarring and twisted mottled tissue? But despite whatever fears had laid dormant in her mind, she certainly hadn't been expecting that graceful mold of wing to back. Dragon to human.
The pale plain of Hiccup's back was smooth in its natural human curves, all the way up to the point where another human's shoulder blades would rise in low protrusions, but here instead, they blossomed out into his first wing bone; the rise of the limb being treated with the same sleek curving architecture as the rest of his human body.
Around the base of the wing, beneath the increasingly sparse peppering of brown hued scales, there was a slight grey-blue blur as the black hardy leather of Night Fury skin became soft and pink. The transition, though foreign to Astrid's eyes, seemed to have been treated perfectly naturally by Hiccup's body; almost as if the wings had every right to be there on his back.
It was smooth, elegant, and, she couldn't deny, oh-so-very Hiccup.
Relief filled her at the thought of Hiccup not having to carry such a heinous blemish upon his body, not even having been aware that she carried a fear of such an event. She found a small smile touching her lips, absently caressing her thumb against the wing she was holding. A moment later she blinked, taking note of the act and stilling her digit, swallowing self consciously; her conscious mind still struggling to process the tumultuous whirlpool of shock, guilt and discomfort that filled her.
Luckily, she was spared from having to dwell on it any further as Gothi finished her evaluation of the healthy limb and seemed ready to begin her treatment of its injured twin. Gesturing for Astrid to lower and fold the wing that she was holding and beckoning for her to join her on the other side of table, she dragged her stool around, stepping up on it and peering down at the mildly crooked right wing as it sagged limply now that it was no longer held in place by the splint or nets.
For a moment she seemed unsure of how to proceed, her brow creasing as she scratched her nails along her lightly whiskered chin.
The hesitation didn't last long however, as she leaned forwards and began to lightly trace her hand along the contours of the limb, pausing to press lightly and feel the bone in places that caught her attention. After feeling the wing over, she once again took a light grip on it and gestured for Astrid to help her guide it into as full an extension as they could manage in the space available.
Almost as soon as they began to move it, Hiccup's body began to flinch as he made a series of low croaking grunts in objection, his jaw locking and his fingernails scratching across the table in intermittent bursts. Astrid hesitated and looked to Gothi, but the old woman returned the glance and nodded resolutely to continue.
Once extended, the old woman then began to repeat her methodical process of lightly pressing and feeling the bones. The wing tensed in Astrid's hands as Gothi gradually moved along until she had thoroughly inspected the limb in its entirety. She turned then to Astrid and presented her verdict.
A series of small cracking motions made with her hands followed by gestures to several spots on the outer reaches of the limb signified various breaks, while patches of angry looking swelling that spread outward from the stiff joints were pointed out one by one, hand movements and light touches emphasising their severity.
"So," Astrid spoke slowly, her mouth suddenly dry with nerves as she glanced down towards the elder's unfathomable expression. "Some small breaks and a lot of swelling and bruising? Then… you can help him, can't you? Would you help him?" She asked the most pivotal question, her world slowing to an agonizing pace as she waited for the reply.
Gothi surveyed Hiccup once more, her discerning eyes taking in every detail.
"I- I know this is all a mess… but physically speaking, he'll- he'll be okay? Right?"
It took a few moments for Gothi to make any kind of response. Indecision and uncertainty played out plainly across her face - something that Astrid seen but a handful of times.
At last she turned to look up at Astrid, bobbing her head in affirmative.
"Thank you." Astrid breathed, looking down at the woman with sincerity. The look of guarded apprehension that she saw in Gothi's eyes left her with a pit in her stomach; reaffirming to her what a risk she had taken in bringing Hiccup here, and what an even greater risk she had averted by doing so in secrecy. "So, what do we need to do?"
Gothi cast a final look over Hiccup's prone form before gesturing for Astrid to stay put and hobbling out of the cottage, returning a few moments later with several lengths of rope.
Gesturing once again for Astrid to remain still as she gingerly held Hiccup's injured wing in an outstretched position, Gothi moved systematically around the table, visiting each of Hiccup's limbs and lashing them to the nearest table leg one by one.
A low feeling of discomfort bubbled in Astrid's gut as she watched on, "What're they for?" She asked hesitantly.
Gothi gave her a meaningful look and tugged at one of his restrained arms, the short length of rope pulling taut and leaving only a small range of motion.
"To… stop him moving when we set the wing?" She reasoned slowly, Gothi offering a nod of confirmation as she continued her work. It did make sense, she supposed, though she felt she should offer an objection to the treatment. But as cruel as it felt, it was a necessary measure in order to prevent him from suddenly moving and hurting himself, or one of them, when they began to manipulate the broken bones more intensely.
As she visited his left leg last, Gothi laid the ropes to one side and opted instead to simply remove his prosthetic, an action Astrid deemed wise seeing as the metal had far more potential to inflict damage than any of his other limbs.
After setting the prosthetic atop a shelf to one side, the old woman returned to Hiccup and turned her attention to his left wing; first winding some rope loosely about it as it lay folded against his back, and then stretching the line to connect with that which was tied to his left arm, amply restricting its movement.
After depositing the remaining ropes on a small work surface, Gothi then began to move between several cupboards, opening them and filling the muted room with the sounds of clinking glass as she rummaged through the contents. Every so often she would emerge and hold a phial or jar up to the light and squint at it, giving it a light shake so that the contents, usually powder or herb based, would shift around in their holdings, occasionally taking a few sniffs as they moved. Some of the containers would then be placed onto a work surface, while others would be returned to the cupboard and the rummaging would recommence.
Astrid watched with curiosity as the small collection of glass jars steadily built up on the counter, until for several minutes Gothi did nothing but pour through the cupboards, searching the same shelves time and again but still coming up with nothing. More than once she would return to the phials that had already been singled out and check through them, her fingers dancing across the glass, before returning to the cupboards and continuing her search with an increasingly furrowed brow.
Her hunt gradually spread to encompass all the shelves in the cottage as she scoured all the different work surfaces, shifting pots and chests to reveal nooks and crannies that Astrid wouldn't have guessed even existed. But still she could not find what she sought.
Astrid watched mutely, loathe to intrude on the healer's look of frustrated focus as she returned to stand once more before the herbs she had already selected, her arms folded as one hand reached up to stroke her bristled chin while she eyed them thoughtfully.
Several moments passed in that manner before Gothi shook her head resolutely to herself and retreated to one of the old wooden chests which stood in a corner of the cottage.
"What is it? What's the matter?" Astrid broke her silence at last, trying to keep her tone in check as she fought to contain the worry that thrummed within her chest.
Gothi dug around for a few moments, moving scrolls and parchments aside until she emerged with a thick leather bound book, the cover battered and worn with age. Without so much as a glance up, she began to thumb through the pages, moving back towards Astrid as she did so.
Once she found what she was looking for, she held the book up and presented the relevant page to Astrid who stared blankly at the onslaught of information before suddenly realising that the book was an old herbology almanac. Gothi rapped her finger against a scratchily inked diagram of a plant and looked up at her with an eyebrow raised.
"You need this?" Astrid asked, and the old woman nodded in confirmation. "Okay, let's see…" She hummed, leaning forwards, careful not to jostle the wing she was holding, and read through the information more thoroughly, not without a slight feeling of trepidation as botany had never really been something she had ever taken much notice of.
She disregarded the section about the herb's uses, leaving that line of thinking to Gothi, and scanned across the page until she found a few lines detailing its appearance and habitat.
"'Most recognisable by its feathery leaves and white flowers'," She read aloud, "'Grows most abundantly in grassland'. So... this can be found on Berk?" Her eyes flitted between the description and the diagram, trying to recall whether she might have seen it before. The vigorous nod that Gothi gave in reply indicated that the answer to that was probably a yes. "Okay… Okay I can take Stormfly now and we'll go and find some." She said, still focussing on taking in the contents of the page.
Gothi lowered the book and looked up at her, studying her face intently.
Astrid tried to look as confident as possible, but knew that her uncertainty was evident to the perceptive old woman.
She didn't doubt that she could find the herb eventually, but in this case time was of the essence. Hiccup's wing needed to be set as soon as possible, so she couldn't afford any hesitation or second trips if she brought back the wrong plant.
It was with a grim expression that Gothi shook her head before indicating that she too wanted to go on the excursion.
"But one of us needs to stay and watch Hiccup! We can't leave him alone, what if someone comes and finds him?" Though deep down she knew that it was only a slim danger, as not many people would dare enter the elder's cottage without invite, it was a risk all the same; and when dealing with a scenario that held such potentially catastrophic consequences, every move had to be measured carefully.
Gothi shook her head once more, placing the almanac down on a side table and pointing to the door, reminding Astrid that out on the porch was the offspring of lightning and death itself. No guardian was fiercer, or more loyal.
"But what should we do with his wing? We can't just fold it back in again, it'll put him through so much pain, and then again to extend it later. We can't do that to him." She pleaded desperately.
Gothi hesitated, nodding this time, pausing in her task of dragging a woven basket out from a corner, and instead turning back to the few discarded ropes that she had previously placed aside.
She took them in hand and returned to Astrid's side, looking up at the outstretched wing thoughtfully.
Several moments passed before the old woman stepped back onto her stool and with slow measured movements proceeded to harness the rope around Hiccup's injured wing, taking care to support it in ways that would least aggravate the most severely injured areas.
Then, moving across the room, Gothi used her stool to clamber atop one of the emptier counters, rising up onto her toes and throwing an end of the rope up over the rafters. It took several attempts for the rope to fly true, but once it did, Gothi caught it on its descent and, with surprisingly nimble fingers, proceeded to loop the two ends into a complex series of knots.
Once finished, she slipped back down to the floor and looked over the arrangement with a critical eye, pacing back along the crisscrossing ropes, every so often giving them a slight tug.
But they all held, and finally Gothi gave the signal that Astrid could relinquish her hold on the wing. With a degree of hesitation she did so, still a little dubious as to whether she could truly entrust the injured limb to the rudimentary rope sling.
With a satisfied nod at the sight of the wing suspended almost exactly as it had been in Astrid's hands, Gothi resumed her retrieval of the basket, leaving Astrid to stretch her arms in relief.
Pacing around to the front of the table, Astrid crouched before Hiccup's face, brushing a thumb against his cheek as she noted the troubled crease in his brow.
"All of this'll hold, right?" She asked lightly over her shoulder, "He couldn't try and move and end up hurting himself while we're gone?"
Gothi gave a slight noise of dissatisfaction as she stepped into her field of vision, carrying the basket with a previously concealed leather strap. Whether the noise was born from impatience or sympathy, Astrid couldn't tell.
But nonetheless the old woman gave the rope securing Hiccup's wrist a firm tug, giving a firm look to Astrid as she did so.
"Okay," She bowed her head, taking a breath, "Alright."
Gothi stepped back with a nod towards the door. It was time to go.
Astrid rose and laid her hand on his cheek. Out cold.
With a light sigh she stooped and placed a kiss to the top of his head, smiling slightly at the feathery brushes of his hair against her nose. Trailing after Gothi out onto the porch, she found the old woman already happily seated in Stormfly's saddle, the woven basket in her lap as she dangled her legs either side of the dragon, eagerly awaiting take off.
With a flash, Toothless was at her side the moment that she left the doorway, his ears pressed flat against his head.
"We'll be back soon, okay?" She promised in response to the steely eyed look of insistence that he pierced her with; his emotive green eyes fixing her with both a warning and a question. "He'll be okay, but we just need to go and find a herb that Gothi's missing." She replied. "But you'll keep guard here until we get back, right?"
Toothless flared his nostrils and let out a puff of air before retreating to the doorway. His chest seemed to puff out proudly as he reared onto his hind legs and settled into the pose of a stoic immovable sentry.
Astrid couldn't help the distant melancholic smile she gave at the sight of his unwavering faithfulness. Toothless truly was Hiccup's best friend.
Unwilling to allow herself any more time for delays, she took a breath, quashing her emotions as she turned back to Gothi; the old woman gesticulating insistently towards the open skies.
"Let's go."
On reflection, Astrid felt rather foolish.
The plant had been perfectly simple to find.
It was one of the small frills to the Isle of Berk that she had always managed to overlook; always having been too busy practising with her axe or running errands to have noticed the delicate leaves or the small white flowers peeking up out of the grass on the rolling hills of Berk. Though, of course, in more recent years she had spent a great deal of her time far above the ground rather than peering along it; and, for much of that time, what with all the expeditions that she and the other riders had undertaken, it hadn't even Berkian ground she was flying above anyway.
But nonetheless; the plant was exceedingly common, at least on the hillside Gothi had directed them to, and despite Astrid never having previously noticed its existence, after a quick tutorial from Gothi on how best to harvest it from the earth, she quickly set about filling the woven basket.
In a little over half an hour she had managed to fill more than two thirds of the basket and Gothi had given the signal for them to return to the cottage.
Throughout the flight back, however, Astrid found her persisting embarrassment at her lack of observational skills and botanical knowledge being overtaken by her latent anxieties for Hiccup. Inwardly she found herself torn by impatience to return and begin the process of healing his injuries, and a deep set dread at what kind of incident may have occurred in their absence; her only comfort being the knowledge that Toothless was guarding the doorway, making the chances of anyone actually laying eyes on Hiccup miniscule.
By the time they arrived back, not even an hour after they left, Astrid's relief had won out and she sprang from Stormfly's saddle with the basket in hand, having confirmed on their aerial approach that there were no Vikings waiting for them on the porch.
The wind was up, causing the ramshackle cottage to creak more than usual as it was battered to and fro atop its precarious perch, but Astrid ignored the protests of the wood and wasted no time in telling an aloof Toothless to stand down from his post, her mind now set firmly on their task of setting Hiccup's wing and putting their gathered herbs to good use.
At Gothi's direction, Astrid lead the way inside, leaving the old woman to treat the two dragons to another fish from her stash. She deposited the basket beside a small side table and began to unload the herbs from within, allowing a slight smile to spread across her face as she listened to the snapping of jaws from outside, hope blossoming within her now that they could finally begin healing Hiccup and, at least partially, right the wrongs she had caused.
Suddenly, the sound of a low rasping caught her attention and her head snapped to the side, freezing in shock as she took in the sight of Hiccup's prone form on the table shuddering and reverberating with his rapid unsteady breathing.
Her heart felt as if it might beat out of her chest as she moved across the room, carefully ducking and dodging beneath his suspended wing and the various crisscrossing ropes that supported it as she made her way towards his head.
The sight of his bleary feverish gaze as it clumsily followed her movements halted her in her tracks.
His jaw shifted slightly and a low gurgle came forth, sounding oddly amplified to her dumbstruck mind. She stumbled back in surprise, the air disappearing from her lungs as if kicked, as the pain and disorientation in his inarticulate voice, combined with the flash of detached intensity in his eyes took her off guard.
The sight of his eyelids immediately wavering and his mouth twisting in a tight grimace quickly returned her to her senses and she rushed to his side.
"Hiccup? It's alright, it's me, Astrid." She spoke quickly and lowly, desperate to get her message across. She ignored the tugs of guilt in her stomach as she watched his gaze seem to flare at her words, "There- there was an accident, but it's okay. It's only Gothi here, it's all going to be fine." She promised, his eyelids drooping lower and lower, "Hiccup…" There was no point continuing, making the word no more than a whispered plea as his eyelids pressed together and didn't reopen, his breathing slowing to a more measured pace as he lost consciousness with a muted groan.
For several moments Astrid could do nothing but study his troubled face in the vain hope that he might flicker back into awareness for several more moments and she could try speak to him properly.
The sound of Gothi's step as she re entered the cottage and the clatter of the door in its frame brought Astrid back to herself, and she stood up with a sudden surge of energy.
"Gothi! It's Hiccup, he was awake!"
The woman's quizzical look quickly intensified and she urgently moved across the room, her diminutive height working to her advantage as she barely had to duck to navigate the maze of ropes overhead.
Stepping back up onto her stool, Gothi leaned forwards and examined Hiccup's pinched expression, running her hands over his face, and carefully lifting an eyelid.
"He was awake when I came in but he was already slipping back again… It looked like he was in pain." Astrid explained with a frown.
Gothi gave a quiet grunt, seemingly satisfied that there were no further signs of consciousness, and gave Astrid a look that she took to mean it was probably for the best that he wasn't awake for what was about to come.
Allowing no time for that thought to sink in or for any further delay, Gothi began to speedily prepare the contents of the various jars and phials that she had previously set aside.
She set Astrid to finely chopping the herbs that they had gathered with a small sharp blade while she measured out the other ingredients and mixed them together in a small dish.
Once Astrid had chopped a sufficient quantity, Gothi added the herbs to the mix and, retrieving a pestle, began to crush the mixture together, releasing a heady blend of conflicting aromas that drifted enticingly through the cottage.
Once the concoction had been thoroughly squashed into a thick gritty paste, Gothi set the dish on the edge of the table and retrieved several wads of fabric from one of the chests in the corner and laid them beside it. One by one she smeared each with a generous dollop of the paste before neatly folding the fabric in on itself and knotting it shut.
When the paste had been expended she hobbled back to the chest, this time returning with a length of wood along with several rolls of gauze.
Waving Astrid over to once again support the injured wing, Gothi loosened the ropes that held the limb aloft, checking that Astrid had taken the strain, before untying the knots all together.
With Astrid bearing the weight, Gothi guided the wing into folding, every so often signalling for Astrid to pause while she pushed and manipulated the scaly flesh until a slight pop or a sickening crack was heard as she ensured the bones were all sitting in their proper places.
Astrid stared blankly down at the wing, trying to block out the jerking of Hiccup's body as he twitched with abandon, his low gurgles intermingled with the scrape of his fingernails clawing deep into the wood as he was forced to endure untold agony. Seeing him react so strongly despite being unconscious made her truly grateful that he hadn't managed to remain awake for the procedure.
Remembering his slip away from reality, Astrid found herself replaying the few moments of wakefulness that she had been able to witness.
The deep pain and disorientation in his attempt to communicate; the troubled crease of his brow; the look of fear and... almost betrayal that seemed to have flashed through his eyes as they blinked their last.
If Astrid's hands had been free at that moment she would have buried her face in them, but occupied as they were, all she could do was drop her gaze to the tabletop as she tried to weather the feelings of guilt and remorse that thundered into her like hammer blows.
Throughout her time in Gothi's cottage, she had been trying to put aside her actions on the clifftop and her hand in Hiccup's current predicament, and simply focus on trying to deal with resolving the situation at hand; but the look in his eyes had only served to remind her how much she had to atone for, how truly guilty and wretched she felt, how much she wished that he would wake up properly so that they could talk and she could apologise in full for what she had said and done.
If he never trusted her again then she wouldn't blame him.
Despite her own personal feelings and the tumult that she still grappled with in regards to his wings and their exact origins, she couldn't deny the bravery in the action that he had taken.
Given how jittery he had seemed prior to the reveal, he had clearly known the risks, but had still chosen to put himself in that position of such enormous vulnerability. The faith that he had shown Astrid was staggering.
And the fact that she had still thrown it in his face and run only made her all the more ashamed.
So she could understand if their bond would never be the same again.
If there was even any bond left to be salvaged in any sense.
The sound of Gothi giving a cluck of satisfaction snapped Astrid back to the present. She hoped the old woman hadn't guessed quite how distracted she had become, but as she looked up at her with her ever inscrutable expression, it was impossible to tell.
The injured wing was now laid flat on Hiccup's back, no longer crooked as it had been when Astrid had first brought him to the cottage. Gothi eyed it carefully and gestured for Astrid to maintain a light amount of pressure on it to prevent it moving and risk upsetting the work she had done.
Once Astrid had nodded an affirmative, Gothi pulled her stool around to the other side of the table and began unfastening the ropes that restricted the left wing before proceeding to rewrap the lines around the limb in a different arrangement.
Astrid watched in confusion as the elder clambered back atop a work surface and proceeded to throw the loose ends over a rafter. Her eyes grew wide as Gothi gripped the rope with both hands and hopped the distance from the counter to the floor, using her weight as she fell to pull the rope taught and effectively lever the bulk of Hiccup's healthy wing around a foot off his back.
With a small grunt, Gothi tied the rope off on the table leg before returning to Astrid's side, who couldn't help but note the increase in the old woman's breathing and the slight flush to her cheeks at the sudden physical exertion; though, given how bright the twinkle in her eye had become, it seemed she had rather relished the experience.
With Hiccup's back no longer cluttered by its twin, Gothi replaced Astrid in holding down the injured wing, instead instructing her to take up a position at the head of the table and carefully hoist his upper body a little way above the tabletop.
The angle was awkward and it pulled the ropes that remained around his wrists to their fullest extent, but Astrid complied and watched as Gothi laid the length of wood along the edge of the wing and began to place the poultices, the fabric now fully saturated with their contents, along parts of the wing and puffy joints with care.
Once she seemed content with their placements, she began to wrap the gauze around his body, binding the splint and poultices to his injured wing, and his injured wing securely against his back.
The gauze was many layers deep by the time Gothi was finished, though she had been careful to try and allow room for Hiccup to breathe and stretch once he awakened.
With a satisfied hum, the old woman gave the signal for Astrid to once again lower Hiccup to the table, and then together they released his healthy wing and guided it back down to rest atop the gauze wrappings.
As Gothi proceeded to move around the table releasing Hiccup's human limbs from their ropes, Astrid could only stand and take in their work.
"So… we're all done?" She asked in a blend of relief and disbelief, her heart giving a small skip of joy and accomplishment when Gothi nodded to her with a smile. "I can't thank you enough for this, Gothi! I- I honestly don't know what I would have done without you." Once again she felt a small stab of guilt, for both her part in Hiccup's accident, and at the memory of her unsavoury inner debates when she first arrived atop the sea stack.
The elder gave a low hum and bobbed her head in response, waving her hand carelessly, though the glance she made in Hiccup's direction was anything but.
Astrid paced around the table and crouched beside Hiccup's face, studying it for any signs of the intense discomfort that it had previously shown. Satisfied that his expression seemed less severe, she traced a thumb lightly down his cheek, relishing the contact before he awoke and potentially dismissed her.
"When do you think he'll wake up?" She asked softly, not taking her eyes off his face in case her touch proved enough to rouse him.
Gothi came to stand beside her and gave a small shrug.
"Is there nothing you can do that'll wake him faster?" As much as she was dreading the conversation that was inevitable, Astrid couldn't help her eagerness to see Hiccup up and about, as it would mean his recovery would begin in earnest.
Gothi shook her head and dragged the stool over to her, patting it in invitation. It was just a matter of waiting.
"Thank you." Astrid murmured, accepting the seat, "Although, I do feel bad invading your home like this."
The old woman made a sound of nonchalance and crossed the room back to her phials of herbs, busying herself with preparing some new concoction.
For several minutes the only sound was the tap of Gothi's step as she pattered to and fro, and the clinking of glass as she measured out different plant extracts.
Astrid leaned her chin on her hand and placed the other atop Hiccup's, her gaze still occupied with the study of his sleeping face. Whatever was in the poultices seemed to be working as his expression seemed lighter by the minute.
"How long do you think he'll have to keep it strapped up and splinted?" She asked quietly.
Gothi paused in her shuffling and thought for a time before twisting her hand back and forth indecisively.
Astrid found her stomach knotting with uncertainty at the healer's lack of an answer; for while she had been sitting, she had found herself pondering the conundrum and had been hoping the healer might put some of her fears to rest.
As dragons were generally known to heal faster than Vikings, the speed of Hiccup's recovery would speak volumes as to just how human he still was; the answer to which was charged with implications.
With no answers at hand and suddenly feeling exhausted after the events of the day, Astrid allowed her head to sink down until it was resting upon the table, letting her arm flop by her side. She couldn't wait to go home and fall into be-
"Oh Thor!" She hissed, shooting upright, her entire body on edge as if standing in close proximity to a Skrill.
The scrape of the stool sliding across the floorboards, followed by the thump of Astrid's knee colliding with the table had Gothi spinning around in confusion, a single eyebrow cocked questioningly.
Astrid met her gaze with mounting horror, "How am I supposed to get him home? If he doesn't start to wake up soon then the Chief might have gotten back before I have a chance to smuggle him in. And," She realised, her mouth as dry as parchment paper, "I don't even have anything to cover him with, the tunic he was wearing before is useless." She picked at the fabric where it remained pinned beneath Hiccup with a thumb and forefinger, releasing the hold she had maintained on his hand to run her palms over her face. "And I imagine the one he was wearing on the clifftop will have blown away by now… I can hardly just let myself into the Chief's house uninvited, 'future daughter-in-law' or not." She felt another stab of guilt as she said the words so often cited by Stoick, but she covered the unwelcome emotion with a growl of frustration, "We're going to get caught out at this rate..." Her mind was racing, chasing itself in circles as she tried to work out a solution to her predicament, but the sight of Gothi giving her an encouraging nod sent her brain into shutdown.
It took her several moments to formulate an appropriate response.
"What?"
Gothi nodded again and gestured to the cottage with an ardent enthusiasm that Astrid found incredibly off-putting.
"You want me to bring him here?"
The old woman nodded vigorously.
"Now?"
Another nod.
"What?"
If there was any way to accuse the elder of going completely mad without seeming unspeakably rude, then at that moment Astrid certainly would had done.
"What would that achieve? Hiccup isn't even awake to defend himself..." She paused, the words hanging in the air as she followed the train of thought, "Wait… is that your plan? Let the Chief see him while he seems feeble and helpless and hope he looks upon the situation more favourably?"
Gothi gestured that it was indeed, at least, a part of her plan.
As much as she hated to admit it, Astrid could see some wisdom in it. It wasn't like Stoick didn't have a history of having rather knee jerk reactions to scenarios without first hearing his son out. This way, to turn Hiccup aside would be to completely shed his responsibilities as a father, and Astrid hoped that their relationship had come far enough in the last four years that Stoick wouldn't stray back down that path. Not initially at least.
"I… I can see what you're getting at," Astrid conceded, "But this is so risky! How am I supposed to do this for Hiccup, to Hiccup? I- I don't think I have that right… especially now…" She found herself beginning to shrink away from the unconscious form on the table, but Gothi gave a resolute shake of her head and tapped the floor with her foot, gesturing around at the cottage once again.
Grudgingly, Astrid could see her point, or at least, what she assumed her point was.
It was far better to try and be upfront with Stoick, in the relatively neutral and controlled environment of Gothi's cottage, rather than get caught trying to smuggle a groggy Hiccup into the village, and this way she had the authority that Gothi wielded to back her up.
"You would really defend him?" She asked, uncomfortably aware that the elder knew no more about the situation than she did.
Gothi shot Hiccup another look of uncertainty before nodding an affirmative.
That at least gave Astrid a little courage. If the village elder was willing to look past long-standing Viking superstitions then, perhaps, there was hope of convincing the Chief.
"Alright..." Astrid's head drooped with the weight of the responsibility that now beset her, "I really hope you're right about this Gothi…"
The old woman gazed at her from across the room, giving her a solemn nod.
"I don't even know what I should say to him." She gave a low bark of laughter, "But hey, maybe the last four years have made him a little more receptive to change? I mean, back then if someone had said we would be living peacefully side by side with dragons by now he would have shipped them off on the nearest longship, it's hardly something anyone could have predicted... Maybe this is the same." She gave Gothi a shaky smile and looked down at Hiccup, hoping he might flicker back into consciousness and save her from having to undergo such a grave task.
Seeing no further change, she moved towards the door, each footfall seeming heavier than the last.
"He shouldn't be too hard to find so I shouldn't be gone that long…" She turned and gave Gothi and Hiccup a last lingering look, the expression that Gothi shot her in return clearly stating that Astrid was stalling, and they both knew it, "Look after him while I'm gone."
With that she stepped out onto the porch, the door giving a thud of finality behind her.
Just wanted to say a huge thanks to Just By Being Here for helping me edit the end of this chapter and generally being massively supportive through this entire rewrite, as well as TheNinja3004 and WhizzATurner, my good friends and writing companions (basically we all procrastinate, eat chocolate and complain that nothing gets written). You guys are the best.
I first decided to do this big rewrite after writing Chapters 11-16 last year and suddenly realising two things:
1) My writing had come on a really long way from when I started this fic.
2) Everything that I had already published was terrible to the point of being embarrassing.
Some parts I had always intended to rework in future, but this required far more work. So last October I started rereading and rewriting the first few chapters, and after a fair few delays and setbacks I've finally finished...
Since I posted the first version of Chapter 10 here, the document with the story in it has grown from around 15k to 62k, and once I get to work rewriting Chapters 12-16 I expect that may have grown even more.
So yeah, this thing isn't perfect (far from it) but I think it's okay to say that I'm massively proud of the work I've put in over the last 13 months, despite the time it's taken. And more than that, I'm determined to see this story out and get it finished properly!
Since beginning work on the rewriting process I've been keeping my profile updated with progress info, so check there if you're ever curious about the status of the next chapter (and if you're at all interested in seeing the update log up to now) - I'm just getting over a cold at the moment but I'm going to start working on Chapter 12 in the next day or so. I won't make promises for when it'll be out, but I'm cautiously optimistic.