His wife's actions during the race had echoed in Hiccup's brain, her voice on their wedding day running through his head –again and again, like a bad mantra.
"I swear to never harm you, be it by poison, words or acts and to rather create for you a home where poisons have antidotes, words are as honey and acts are ones of love."
She had promised, and held her promised.
But what about him?
Had he loved her as he promised he would? Had he done all that he could to make her happy, as was his duty and responsibility? He should have been the one protecting her, not the other way around. He should have been the one feeling the pain, not Rezef. Not Rezef, not when the girl had accepted Astrid and allowed him to live the love of his life with her. Not when she had understood his heart, accepted him fully and gone as far to please him, as far to keep him happy, as to accept seeing him with another woman. As to close her eyes when she walked into THEIR room, THEIR shared bed, to see a blonde head resting there. She had accepted his love –but what had he given her in return?
Sometimes, he wondered. Wondered why she was doing all this. Was it just her duty? Was it just what she had been told to do, and she did it –like a machine? But she never really promised to save his life. She didn't have to take the fall for him. Was she redeeming herself? From what? The Haradrims loved her, though she did instil fear in their hearts. So why?
Astrid had suggested why. Because she was in love with him. Because she was so far in love, so far willing to see him happy, that she didn't care if she got hurt in the process. Because she loved him.
He couldn't believe it. Why would this beautiful, deadly Haradrim Assassin, this woman who could do anything and everything she wanted, why would she love him? Him, who had lost a leg? Him, who knocked things over every day, who tripped down stairs and bumped into stuff on a regular basis?
But she always caught him before he could fall too far down the stairs, always fixed the stuff he knocked over and always moved the things he bumped into. She always… she was always there. Always.
And Hiccup knew she could cook. He had seen her make breakfast for herself, when the night had been too short for him and Astrid and the blonde Viking wasn't dressed by the time his wife was ready to go.
His wife.
It had felt weird to call her that, at first. Foreign. As if the only one he could call that was Astrid, and Rezef would never truly be his wife. But now… now…
"_you are thinking about her again, aren't you?"
Now he had a smile on his face when he said she was his wife. She was. She was his.
"_I was wondering why… why she took the fall."
Astrid's blue eyes bore into his for a little while, reading the deep emerald orbs.
"_you are starting to realise that maybe I was right, eh? Are you going to leave me?"
He laughed, but even to his ears it sounded fake.
"_no. I don't plan to. I love you. I am just… I don't know. Baffled? I feel selfish about all she has done, and all that I haven't."
Her blonde eyebrows furrowed cutely, and suddenly all thoughts of exotic black eyes and charcoal manes rolled out of his mind.
"_you were beautiful today, Astrid. I think I fell in love all over again."
She pushed him playfully away, laughing slightly. The spark was back in her blue eyes. He was still hers.
Rezef would have expected to see her husband at the reception that night. Actually, she wouldn't have thought he would not be there. It was only proper etiquette that he should attend the feast in her honour, but the seat at her right remained desperately empty as Hiccup did not deem it fit to grace her table with his presence.
Her Traumogh did not fail to notice the absence of a certain blonde haired Viking either.
The dinner passed on without any commotions, each guest drinking, eating, roaring with laughter and fighting to their hearts' contents –all of them being the signs of a quality feast. Desserts were served, and soon came the time of the 'after-party', the big, wide reception in an adjacent tent where ale flowed freely and naked dancing girls enraptured men in their charms. Flute players as well as harpists and lute-players encouraged people to dance and be merry, as the Assassins slowly sunk into the shadows to meet outside in order to share tales of past adventures and a pipe full of smoking herbs. Rezef was about to walk outside, trying to avoid the people her reputation hadn't scared, those who were wishing to congratulate her despite knowing she could snap their necks in a second, when her Traumogh motioned for her to join the Assassins outside.
Silently, the woman walked over to where they were all sitting and listened as a man told the tale of a party of five Assassins who had gone into the Wild.
"_suddenly, we hear a roar from the right. A shadow flittered above us, and we barely had the time to register what had just jumped out of the jungle to attack us that BOOM!" the children jumped. "The Golnaukhûn had unsheathed her famous blades and was cutting the jungle cat into hundreds of tiny pieces!"
Rezef smiled fondly from where she was sat, before she corrected the man she had once worked with.
"_precisely sixty six pieces, Verafiil. Not quite a hundred though, I am afraid."
The child she was sitting next to opened his eyes wide, when he realised the Assassin beside him was THE Winner of the Tournament.
"_Rezef! You came!"
"_Traumogh caught me as I was leaving."
"_can you tell us a story?" asked a little girl from the right, cutting through adult nonsense. Rezef's eyes turned to her, the little girl flinching under the soulless black orbs.
"_Mor', sit down…" murmured a boy next to the girl. "don't anger her." The little girl was obeying her friend, when Rezef's cold voice shone through the now deadly campfire.
"_there is a land, far, far away, where people are very different from here."
Elder Assassins turned their heads sharply towards Rezef, who had never spoken out at a campfire before, as her Traumogh smiled slightly to himself. Magic lingered everywhere, even where people thought it lost.
"_in this land live people, who have learnt to manipulate the flows of nature around and within them, allowing those selected few who could understand the way the earth worked to create techniques based onto those flows of energy."
"_like healers?" asked a little boy, before slamming his hands over his mouth when he noticed he had spoken over her. She simply smiled.
"_yes and no. Some people did use their knowledge to help others, by specialising into medicine and using their own energy to save lives, like our healers do. But most of them, on the other hand, used their knowledge to make war. They created techniques which could kill people, based around fire, earth, water, wind and lightning. Each person had a natural affinity with one of each, their affinity often decided by which village they came from. For example, if they came from the Village Hidden in the Mist, then they would be very good water users. Do you understand?"
Everybody nodded yes, and Rezef smiled before carrying on.
"_each village fought against one another –"
"_why?"
"_why what?" Rezef asked, looking at the same boy.
"_why did they fight? Why did they make war?"
"_because it is easier to make war than to make peace, young one. Much easier."
She let her words sink into their brains, aware that she had their rapt attention now and carried on.
"_but some people got tired of making war, and wanted to make peace again." she ignored the smug look on the little boy's face, and carried on. "This group fought for a 'new dawn', as they called it. It was composed of only nine people"
"_nine? How are they going to make peace with nine people?"
"_they were nine of the best ninja the world had ever seen." Her answer had been a bit clipped, as Rezef began to feel a little annoyance at the kids. She breathed in and out, carrying on with her story.
"_those nine people each came from a village, which they had defected from –"
"_defect-what?" asked a smaller girl.
"_defected. It means that they left the village without asking if it was okay and were therefore considered as traitors." Answered an older Assassin for her.
"_why did they do that?"
"_they were some of the best; the villages wouldn't have let them go."
The kids nodded slowly, trying to assimilate all those concepts as Rezef carried on.
"_now, before I carry on, you must know that in those times, there were demons around. There were nine main demons, one which had one tail, another with two, another with three and thus until you reached nine tails. If all the demons were reunited, then they all turned into a master demon, which had ten tails. Now, the leader of this group wanted to find all the demons, in order to create the ten tails. He believed he would be able to master it and that he would then use the body of the ten tails to cast a spell which would trap the whole world under a comatose sleep, in which everyone would be happy."
Kids began to 'oh' from around her, seeing the happy ending for everyone happening.
"_however, not everybody wanted him to do it. In fact, many people preferred to remain unhappy and awake rather than happy but asleep."
She was about to leave it at that, giving the children something to think over, when somebody stopped her. It was an adult, which surprised the girl.
"_what happened to the group of nine?"
She paused, trying to find a way to put it nicely.
"_they died." She finally replied. "They were killed, fighting for what they believed in. The leader didn't reunite all the beasts, and they died trying to create a perfect world. One died fighting for his pride, another for all that was human in him. One died for his loyalties, and another for his ideals. One died a servant a peace, and another far beyond his time. All died, but for all –death was a deliverance."
The silence stretched, not awkward but reflective. One of the smaller children yawned, and an Assassin got up.
"_I think it is about time you children went to sleep, neh?"
They grumbled slightly, but did leave to curl up in the still warm sand, below their tent. A woman accompanied them, promising a bed time story if they were good. Rezef watched them leave, before she turned to her Teacher standing behind her.
"_the Guild has changed a lot in the past months. I rarely recall people telling me to go to bed, or even reading me bedtime stories."
"_people are trying to find happiness, Rezef. No one can forever be alone."
She didn't reply, silently watching the woman act the story out for the children.
"_your story was nice."
She laughed sarcastically, turning her face to her teacher.
"_it didn't do the legend justice, and wasn't by any mean fit of one of your tales."
"_but you said it. You sat with the children and picked the tale and gave it a deeper meaning, didn't you? You made something out of it, for them. Your tale will stay with them forever, whereas mine might simply roll over their consciousness as water over rocks."
"_I remember all your tales."
He looked at her more closely, before smiling.
"_you should come back more often, Rezef. I am sure the children would love to hear about the Vikings, and some of their tales."
"_you need to ask my husband then, he seems like the one to know them all."
He sent her a long, sideway look.
"_what you did in the arena…"
"_was foolish. I shouldn't have put my life in danger for him." she stood up, brushing the sands off her clothes. His voice rung sharply behind her as she began to fade in the shadows.
"_what you did was what any loving wife would do, Rezef."
She allowed them to roll through the silent night, leaving the words of her teacher behind.
Empty words to an empty heart.