Double upload cuz it was short and delayed... :)

As told by Hiccup

Chapter 38

If I still clung to hope after that night, it was extinguished in the morning.

I woke up to the sound of Astrid crying softly, and I knew.

I got up and dressed, but I didn't have the courage to go downstairs and face reality.

Astrid came in to me, face a little red from the tears.

I sat on the bed, and she sat beside me, hand on my arm. She started speaking in a low voice that trailed off frequently. She seemed to be trying to break the news to me gently, but I didn't hear the first few words. Then her voice broke through my haze of frozen disbelief.

"There was no pulse, Hiccup – his skin was as cold as ice – I'm so, so sorry."

I clenched my fists and leaned forward, crumpling in on myself, not wanting to believe anything.

My heart had withstood many fractures, but this broke it. How could he be dead? It was impossible, inconceivable, it couldn't be true!

Astrid put her arm around me. I stayed with my face in my hands.

She sighed, and put both her arms around me. I resisted the embrace for a second, then gave way and sobbed into her shoulder. But tears weren't enough, not at all.

Alone, alone! Alone! Without you, without me. If one of us goes on while the other stays. Alone.

A new wave of tears spilled from my eyes as I remembered Toothless' thought. It was real, now.

Life without him … how long would I have to live it? I had promised him I'd come soon after. But I couldn't betray my people and leave them here, on this cold and cruel earth. How long until I could let myself die of sorrow? Until another heir of my line could be found… but that could take years.

Astrid wiped a tear from my cheek, but many more followed it, streaming down my face like rain.

Then it felt like all my tumultuous emotions were slowly ebbing, draining away, swirling until they were no more, gone, leaving my body a husk, a shell, worthless. An ache, deep and strong as a bass note remained, though.

Astrid must've left me sometime, but I don't remember seeing her leave, only realizing numbly that she wasn't there. I stayed, sitting on the bed, staring at the wall, seeing nothing. I sat there, blind and deaf to aught but my grief, unable to feel anything but my anguish, and that deep, throbbing pain from inside, for hours, trapped and lost without him. It began to grow dark. I realized I was lying inert, without being able recollect having slumped from my sitting position.

Then my fingers twitched, and my aching eyes fluttered open, even though I didn't know I had closed them. Light was pouring in through an open window. Who had opened it? Why was it morning? Had I slept? Had it been a hundred nights or just one?

I stayed motionless, tears rolling down from my stinging eyes. My cheeks felt raw and sore, and a horrible taste was coating my mouth.

I rolled over and laid my face against the softness of my pillow, breathing in the smell of home, filling my lungs over and over. There was comfort in the rhythm.

I had depended on Toothless, and he had left me. I couldn't leave the people who depended on me. I couldn't abandon my tribe. I was their leader, their shepherd, the one who had to steer them through the storm.

It was a lonely job, now, and yet, one I was determined to do well.

"Goodbye," I whispered, and the word burned my throat. "I'll come as soon as I can."

Don't kill me and stuff.