Chapter 13

Hi! It took me a little more time for me to update, but my wrist got hurt, and I had to stop writing for some days, even I felt really inspired for this chapter. I hope you'll like it as much as I do!

When they came back in the cave, Toothless went back to Lady, and Hiccup didn't stop him, he wouldn't need his friend's help. Right now, his female needed him more. Plus, it would allow him and Astrid to spend some times together with no one else. At first they visited the parts which Hiccup had seen already: the treasure room, the one with leaf-butterflies and the one with the cascades. They saw that nothing was out of place.

"I don't know this place as well as you," Hiccup admitted, " I won't be of much use."

"You noticed the flowers," she pointed out.

"Yeah but that's because I spent more time in there. It's not the case with the other rooms."

"Is that all you saw?"

"Yeah."

"Indeed, you missed other places. I'll show you more. But first, maybe we should get some food and meet your friend again."

He agreed, they were still meeting with them daily and Hiccup would also have to train the villagers again with dragons. Exploring the cave wasn't really a priority, the Valkyrie didn't seem to have any wrong intention toward them.

"Will you come with me at the village?"

"People are still scared of me."

"Maybe they just need to know you."

"I fear it won't be that easy."

He shrugged, maybe she just needed time. They left for the beach and found back the riders who were waiting. Ruffnutt and Tuffnutt were arguing once again:

"You only won because you have help from Eira," Tuffnutt was saying.

"You have help from Barf and Belch!"

"Guys, what's happening?"

They both turned toward Hiccup, Fishlegs and Snotlout both looked fed up.

"They are having a contest, it was fun in the beginning but they are starting give us a headache," Snotlout complained.

The twins explained they were competiting on who could end their part of the work in the best and quickest way. Tuff had kept Barf and Belch while Ruffnutt was working with Eira and her dragon who was starting to be more cooperative.

"Guy, why must you always turn everything into a competition? This is not one."

"It's not funny otherwise! You're really no fun, you've changed, man," Tuffnutt sighed.

"I almost miss the time when you were making mess," Ruffnutt added.

"I must admit I take their side on that," Astrid said.

When everyone looked at her in astonishment, and she just shurgged.

"You're often too serious. It's just like when you train me with dragons, you explain well, but you never make it a real challenge."

"See? Astrid agrees with us," Tuff beamed.

He rolled his eyes and Fishlegs spoke before the twins could complain furthermore.

"Eel Pox has been finally totally cured," he said. "And the repairs are almost done. We will help with the training and in the field after that I think. I also decided to try to form some people to be healers with your book."

"Good idea," Hiccup said.

"Anyone sighted Dagur?" Asked Astrid.

"No, not for now."

"I wonder why, that's weird."

"We destroyed a good lot of his ships," Snotlout pointed out. "Maybe he decided we were too much."

"No, Heather and Hiccup are on this island, he won't let go," Fishlegs retorted. "He is probably preparing something while repairing his ships."

"Yeah, I fear it as well," Hiccup sighed.

"I'm gonna make another patrol around the island," Astrid declared, "We'll see if anyone's coming."

"I'll continue the training in the village meanwhile."

They parted and Astrid took Stormfly with her to go around the island. The Nadder enjoyed flying with her, she would sometimes rub her head against her while Astrid would give her some caresses. She saw no one coming around, Dagur might have retreated for a longer time. Last time he hadn't thought that he would meet Hiccup and his riders on this island, now he had to prepare for that. She eventually headed back toward her island when she saw a Zippelback fighting against one of her dragons. On the Zippelback was Tuffnutt, trying desperatly to control his dragon. He was yelling like crazy while trying no to fall. Astrid laughed a little while seeing this, but still came to help the poor rider. She chased the other dragon away, and Barf and Belch calmed down.

"Thank you Astrid, I thought I was going to become crazy."

"You're welcome, but I thought your dragon was more obedient."

"Well, I rarely ride him alone. Usually Ruff is here with me."

"I see...You do everything together, don't you?"

"Pretty much. Sometimes it's quite annoying, but it's like this..."

She found herself wishing she had a twin too, it would have been good to have someone with whom she could have shared such a link. They started to fly toward the ground.

"So, did you see Dagur?"

"Nope, he is nowhere to be found."

"I'm pretty impatient to burn his ass! He tried to kill Barf and Belch once, chased them down...Thank Thor Hiccup figured a plan out."

"Why is he your chief by the way?"

"What?"

"Hiccup. You obey him, why is that? Because he is heir to the tribe?"

"No, we don't really obey him, we just..."

He stopped while seeing Astrid's expression. She didn't look angry but she was obviously not convinced at all. Tuff led his dragon toward a deserted beach and made him land there, where Astrid followed him.

"It's just that...Well he is the one who gave us our dragons and he defeated the Red Death...And...I don't know..."

His face turned slightly thoughtful and sad. Astrid realized it was the first time she saw him like this.

"On Berk everyone think we are idiots, Ruff and I. Maybe they're right. They never doubted we were real Vikings, we know how to kick ass and there are things we can do. But no one would really listen to us or trust us with things which really means something. Hiccup does, I know he thinks we're idiots too, but he gives us chances to be more."

"Well, if it does help, you're not talking like an idiot right now."

He looked at her with some surprise.

"Thank you...You're not bad, even if you're a little too scary sometimes."

"Um, is that a compliment?"

"Yeah...It doesn't sound like one?"

"I'm not sure..."

"Oh..."

With anyone else than him or his sister, she would have felt insulted, but it wasn't hard to understand that the twins were quite clumsy in their own way.

"You know, I'm glad you didn't chase us away. Hiccup might be a tyrant at time, I wouldn't want him to disappear. Thanks."

"...You don't have to thank me."

With that she fled away along with Stormfly and the two went hunting, thinking deeply all the while. She evetually returned to the cave with some fishes. She went to Lady who was still with her eggs and gave the female some strokes to show her encouragement, and fed her some fishes as well. Stormfly also nudged Lady gently. The Night Fury responded gratefully, happy to have other creatures who were friendly enough to be trusted. She and Stomrfly stayed with her for some times before they heard some shrieks which belonged to Toothless. The dragon and his rider appeared and Hiccup smiled to Astrid.

"You're giving some attention to the future mommy?"

"Yes, she must be bored, keeping an eye on her eggs while Toothless is gone."

Indeed, Lady wouldn't leave her eggs unless Toothless were here to take his turn, and even sometimes she would stay with him. Astrid had ordered the other dragons not to touch her eggs, yet the parents were still very careful. Hiccup went at her.

"Do you want to explore the rest of the cave?"

"Yeah, let's just rest a little first," she answered. "We could go to the mirror room, so it could show us Dagur."

"I hope we'll get more about him."

It wasn't the first time they would do that, yet they rarely saw anythiçng very interesting, they mostly saw him raging at his men, They went in there and Astrid couldn't help but wonder if the flowers didn't look slightly greener than before, but she w asn't sure. Hhicup asked the mirror to show him Dagur. The mirror did show them the crazy Berserker chief, and they saw that he was concerting with other men about his own tribe's business. It was almost weird to see Dagur being serious, yet apparently Hiccup saw that there were many problems due to the way Dagur was leading the tribe. If Heather could be chief instead of him...Eventually, the mirror stopped and Hiccup saw Astrid seemed a little off.

"What's wrong?"

"You know...You were right about one thing: you didn't have to thank me for letting you see your friends."

"Why do you speak of that now?"

"I spoke with Tuff earlier, he thanked me for allowing me to see you. It sounded wrong. And it's also because of Dagur. Do you remember when he said Heather was his?"

"Believe me, I'm not about to forget."

"Well, after that, Heather told us that her brother wouldn't let anyone get close. You want to know the most scary thing?"

"What?"

"I could understand why he did that! I could understand his deranged mind! He didn't want her to get close to other people because he feared them to make her dislike her older brother. Instead of trusting her to stay loyal, he preffered to confine her under the pretext that he was the elder and the chief. I thought that it was horrible, but I realize I almost did the same to you, I was close to being like him. When he said Heather was his, I saw myself telling you that you were mine...I saw myself in him..."

He wanted to tell her she wasn't like him but she continued before he could speak:

"You're right. You didn't have to thank me because I had no right to forbid you to see your friends in the first place. You agreed to stay here, not to isolate yourself from everyone, seeing your friends never broke our pact. But in my mind other people meant threat. Yet I didn't have to take control of your entire life just because I was scared, I should have simply trusted you."

"Why were you scared?"

"I feared them to try to separate us, to tell you horrible things about me and give you a bad opinion of me. But I was already giving you a bad opinion of me anyway. Instead of taking you away from people just because they could have told you bad things about me, I should have worked on giving you a good impression."

"You already did."

She smiled to him, happy to know that. She understood one thing: relationships meant risk, more especially the risk to be separated. If Hiccup was smart enough to make his own mind instead of blindly listening to people, then she had nothing to fear. If he was stupid enough to let other people make up his mind for him, she'd rather dump him because she didn't like stupid people. For once she realized that her appearance had an at least one advantage: it would filter stupid people, and give her only those who were intelligent. Yet there was still one thing...

"It's also wrong of me to hold you here. I realize it..."

She took pause and he didn't say anything, just listened eagerly. Astrid sighed and declared:

"Forget about that pact, I'll stop raiding the village whether you're here or not."

"Astrid..."

"But if you accepted to help them," she quickly added, "if you accepted to help the village...Would you accept to help me?"

"Yes. I told you already I won't abandon you. We won't abandon you."

She nodded, not knowing what to say, and lowered her head. Hiccup put a hand on her cheek and gently tilted her head up. She murmured:

"Thank you. I'm sorry I tried to keep you here that way."

"Well, now I'm staying with you because I want to."

They both smile and found themselves out of words. The atmosphere grew a little awkward and Hiccup eventually found a way to break it:

"So, do we inspect the rest of the cave? There are still parts I don't know."

"Yeah, you missed really cool things, believe me!"

He followed her enthusiastically, he was quite impatient to see that. She led him toward the treasure room, and took a passage he didn't notice until now, because another big rock stood a few feet before it. Astrid took a turn into a smaller gallery which led to a round cave and Hiccup was amazed again at what he saw. In the center of the room was a big oak tree, nine orbs were dispersed in it: on the top, the center and the roots. The orbs seemed to be gentle pale flames, undulating slowly and crackling silently.

"What is that?"

"A representation of Yggdrasil I think."

Of course it made sense. Yggdrasil, the cosmic tree supporting the nine worlds, with Midgard in the middle of it. He had seen many drawings and paintings of Yggdrasil, but this was just breath-taking. The oak was on a small isle surrounded by water which was filling the rest of the room without a single way to cross it without soaking your feet. Hiccup noticed there were small will-o'-the-wisps running over the surface of it. The flames looked like the ones in the tree and they were dancing on the water gracefully. There were small plants growing in the water and small fishes swimming. It was really something for the elf who made that cave: water, lights, small animals, plants...Hiccup could understand why she did so: the result was amazing. Truly, that elf had been some kind of artist.

"Follow that path toward the tree," Astrid instructed.

She was showing him a small path made of flat crystal stones, yet he wondered why she was asking him that, the stones were underwater like the rest. Her smile wade him understand there was a point to it, so he did as she instructed. When he advanced, he was prepared to feel water on him, but instead his foot meet a concreted surface. He was taken aback, the crystal stone right under him had rose suddenly. He advanced a little more, and it was like this again, each time he was about to put his foot in the water a stone would rise. Once he would advance, those behind would replunge in the water again. This strange path was nonetheless allowing him to cross dry-foot. Astrid laughed at his confusion:

"Pretty amazing, isn't it?"

She passed before him and turned round to face him, smiling gleefully.

"Yeah! When I thought this place couldn't be more amazing!"

"Oh you would be surprise, I can show you more."

She walked backward, heading toward the tree, and the stones rose each time she passed above those. Hiccup felt a little tense, he had the impression she would fall each time she took a backward step.

"You kind of scare me when you do that..."

"Oh come on, are you afraid I'm gonna fall?"

"Yeah a little."

"The guy who makes people fly on dragons is afraid when he sees me walking backward!"

"It's because you're not watching your steps, when I ride on Toothless I watch where I go, I don't blindly..."

Astrid suddenly jerked backward and Hiccup caught her arm, thinking she was about to fall when he saw she was laughing at him. She was never gonna fall, she just teased him.

"Haha! You really believed it!"

"Yeah, very funny!"

"Come on! You're so serious at times that you become annoying!"

"Oh, I wish my father could hear you."

"The twins would agree with me."

"Are you refferring to me not allowing them to make a competition out of the repairs?"

"That's an example. After all, if it give them motivation, what's the matter?"

"I don't know, I just don't like to see them competiting all the time, especially when we work."

She rolled her eyes at him, maybe it was because they had stopped arguing all the time, but she was starting to realize he needed to lighten up sometimes. She continued to advance backward, maliciously enjoying the way he was watching her cautiously. She reached the grass safely.

"See?"

"Yeah, yeah."

She laughed even more, before turning to the tree. Hiccup took some steps closer and approached his fingers of the flames which seemed out of this world, they were warm but not burning. When his fingers touched one orb, something suddenly appeared on the trunks: those were carvings, it represented people in a forge. Hiccup let out an amazed huff.

"I think that the world of dwarves," Astrid advanced.

"You're probably right."

He took off his fingers and touched another orb. Different carving apperaed this time, picturing a world of flames. Astrid fled toward the higher part of the tree, and touched the highest flame, and this time, it was the world of Asgard, the kingdom of the gods which appeared. They looked at every carving like this, those were all magnificent, it would have made more than one artist jealous. He smiled to Astrid, this was truly a wonder. He wanted to say something but he felt speechless while she smiled back to him, looking directly in his eyes. He felt strangely stupid and couldn't help but remember the first times when he was with Kari, his only girlfriend. He also felt this way often, when he couldn't find anything to say with her.

"Hum...You...Do you see anything out of place?"

"No. Everything is as I remember it. Come now, let's see the rest."

He nodded and followed her. She led him in another gallery, in was glowing with small flames appearing here and there.

"This one is really not like the other. The one who made that place was maybe feeling a bit eccentric that day."

"Okay."

They entered the room and he saw that this one was really astonishing, Astrid was right: the elf was probably feeling a little more eccentric that day. Hundreds of roses of different colors and different sizes ornated that room, growing over the faces, while green grass and other flowers covered the ground. Niches were on the faces, it seemed to be made to sit in. In the center of the room, flames were burning in a basin made of a single huge emerald gem. In fact there were other smaller basins, all made of a single emerald gem with flames burning it. There two in every niches and others placed on the grass near the roses, to enlighten the room furthermore. But as incredible as it was, this was not the most breath-taking sight. The flames emanating from the basin on the center were burning slowly and some would suddenly grow into the form of a small bird who would fly across the room, only to consume itself and be replaced by a new one right after. There were a dozen of fire-birds flying around like this and they were singing like real ones.

"They won't hurt you, their flames doesn't burn, just like the ones in the tree," Astrid precised.

Hiccup touched one of the fiery small beast; the fire bird went on his finger, sang and consumed it self. He saw then something carved on the huge gem and looked more closely to read:

As beautiful as they are, those flames are no living beings but mindless mirrors of the real birds living outside. Don't forget to admire them too, for life is a greater source of joy and beauty than magic.

"She was right about that," Astrid commented. "As much as those places amazed me, they couldn't make me really happy, it would just distract me."

He imagined indeed that being in there alone wouldn't really bring much out of it. He found himself hoping that with him, she woud find enjoyment in this again. He looked up and saw that above them, the sky was open in plain sight, the starts were slowly appearing in the dark sky. He looked around, the roses were beautiful, enlightened by the flames which were enlightening the room warmly. It was strange but it made him think of a Great Hall, the room was huge, and their were a big fire in the center along with other smaller fire around the walls. Ecept there were no tables or chair, just like when they cleared the room for a celebration.

"It seems like a place to celebrate," Hiccup said, "like when you clear up a room. It's well decorated but you can move around easily."

"Yeah...It reminds me when we danced for the annual feasts..."

"Maybe she made the room for that: to celebrate and dance."

"The birds would be somehow the musicians."

"Yeah."

They looked at each other, the idea blooming in their mind but none were really feeling bold enough.

"I never was such a good dancer," he said.

"I was," Astrid told him, "when I was still human."

"Really?"

A short silence passed before he dared to ask:

"Would you show me? I mean, not right now maybe, but..."

"Right now would be maybe better, while we still have time," she suggested quite nervously.

He nodded, went toward her and took her paw in his hand.

"I warn you, I used to be bad and now with my foot."

"I have paws instead of feet, I'm sure you aren't the only one who will have difficulty," she joked, still nervous.

He nodded and let her instruct him, they started moving slowly at first. Above them, the night had fallen, and it seemed like the stars were watching over them.

"To the right...You're a little too rigid."

"I know, I can't help it..."

"Good thing no one can see us..."

She laughed and they continued, Hiccup starting to get a little more at ease, then as they went on, they started to hear some music, a soft-paced one, as if some was playing flute near them. They were both astonished, and they searched around to understand the music came from the flames of the smaller basins.

"It is a celebration room indeed!"

He took Astrid's paw again and they continued to dance together, still clumsily, although Astrid managed to do better than him. The music along with the birds' songs was creating an enchanting atmosphere, and Astrid and Hiccup started to forget their nervousness. They still danced clumsily, but it didn't really matter. After all, there was no one else here. Hiccup couldn't help but realize that Astrid had some grace in spite of her dragon-like body, and couldn't help but wonder what she looked like as a human. She told him once she was ugly, but he decided that it didn't matter much. She had nice eyes...He hoped she would still have those eyes when she would become human again.

Though they were both enjoying themselves, Hiccup yelped in pain as he felt pain in his stump. It would do that at times. His smile faded. He hated to spoil this moment.

"What's wrong?"

"It's my leg."

"Oh. Come, let's rest. There is one more room you haven't seen yet. You'll see, it's very different from this one, I like it a lot."

He followed her toward a gallery, and the music stopped when they left. They didn't walk for long before getting in and Hhiccup understood once again what Astrid meant. This room had absolutely nothing to do with the one they were in minutes ago. It was the plainest here: the ground was perfectly flat, with only soft grass on the ground; the faces were nothing but natural stone and a very small cascade was gently falling. It formed a small spot of water, which only quivered a little under the movement of the water. Hiccup felt more serene in this place, but it wasn't like in the mirror room where he felt some magic had helped relaxing him. Here there was no magic, it was no more but the gentleness and plainess of the cave which made him feel that way. They sat facing the very small cascade.

"I understand why she did that, such peacefulness. Usually, I had the impression to be away from everything, but it wasn't the same as my usual loneliness, it was like...I don't know how to say it."

"You feel like you're on a deserted island, a small spot of peace in the middle of the chaos."

"Yes, but not only. It's also like time had stopped, as if I didn't feel ugly anymore, because beauty, ugliness...That doesn't exist here anymore, it's just the plainest things, the most essential without judgement."

It was true, the plain aspect of that part of the room, with only the sky above and the rays of moon lightly grazing the water and the stone...This all had a beauty too simple to be described.

"It's most gripping place. Who would have thought after all the wonders we saw in that cave?" Astrid whispered.

Apparence could be deceiving...She tentatively approached Hiccup and put her head against his shoulder, in response he passed an arm around her back, attracting her a little close and put his cheek against her crone. They both looked at the nightly sky, loosing themselves in the immensity of the stars above. They didn't even realise they had fallen asleep here until morning came.

Funny thing: I didn't even one to make a dance scene in the first place. It just came quite naturally when I wrote the roses' room. The thing with the huge gems comes from medieval literature, where gigantic gem stones were used quite often.

About the part when Astrid speak about Dagur and herself, I wrote it again because some people told me that they couldn't get Hiccup's philosophy and that it would have been understandable for Astrid to stop him from seeing his friends because theycould have said bad things about her and were posing an unnecessary threat...While I'm usually not really bothered about people disagreeing with me on some things, here we're talking about isolating a person from their friends for the only reason that they could be a potential threat to the relationship! It's one thing to tell someone : "I don't like your friends", it's another to straightly forbid them to interact! If all you see in your partner's friend are unnecessary threats, and if you think that allowing your partner to go on with their social life is generous of you, then you think like a typical abuser!

Taking control of your partner's social life is a form of domestic abuse, many abusers stop their partners to have a normal social life because they think those people could be a threat for them. It's abuse and alienation. Not being an abuser isn't generosity, it's decent. Hiccup agreed to stay with her, not to be isolated from everyone, the pact never said he had to shut down everyone. And having authority doesn't give you the right to hurt people. Sorry about the rant, but domestic abuse is a touchy subject for me.

Now some people didn't get Hiccup's philosophy right away but understood once I explained them furthermore through MP. I can understand that it might seem ungrateful at first not to thank her, but in the end it's just a way to remind her tha the is a person with rights, not a possession.