Astrid stalked through the forest, frustrated and hopeful in equal measures. She was frustrated for a good many reasons, all of which she could have explained if asked, but the reason for her hope eluded even her as she walked.

She knew where to go. Hiccup was wily, surprisingly so given how oblivious he seemed to be once he thought he was alone, but she had tracked him to a hidden cove. It was a hollow in the ground with only one small opening, a crack in jumbled rock that granted entrance to the silent, still place below. Obscure, difficult to get to, but not completely undiscoverable though he seemed to think it so.

She was headed there because she knew Hiccup would be there, and she was fed up with everything surrounding his sudden leap into prominence. She was fed up with the humiliation, fed up with being lumped in with Snotlout as not quite good enough, and fed up with the mob of Vikings congratulating Berk's most promising youth and all but sneering at her for losing.

But still, she found that she couldn't hate him directly, not with the confusion surrounding him. Every time she thought of all the bad things that had come to pass because of his sudden, inexplicable success, she found that it wasn't directly his doing. He spurned the attention of the village, he didn't mock her or put her down. He was not the one making her parents smile knowingly when she complained about how it was so sudden and unfair–

She cut at a sapling in passing, her ax parting it with ease. The sudden violence did nothing to soothe her temper.

It wasn't her parents' fault either, they were just like the rest of Berk. Her mother, Asa, said it was because Hiccup was finally coming into his own as a man and a Haddock. It wasn't Astrid's fault he was beating her; that was just the way things worked.

Her father, Sighvat, had not been so kind. He had simply remarked that she must not be training hard enough and left it at that. That hurt all the more because it wasn't true. She pushed herself harder than ever with every day Hiccup was still on top. She was in the best shape of her life, her strength matching if not exceeding Snotlout, her stamina far and away the best among her group of peers, and her battle skill unmatched by any–

But Hiccup. Always 'but Hiccup...' no matter what she did, now.

Hiccup might not be to blame, but she could easily lay fault at the feet of the village as a whole. It had been 'but Snotlout' before dragon training had upset everything, and might have been worse had he not been so incompetent when it came to actual training, not just shows of strength. The village was just aching for anyone to overthrow Astrid's grip on the top.

That was what angered her. Not that Hiccup was winning, but that the village was so eager to cast her aside, to downplay or outright forget her accomplishments. All she wanted was to be recognized. Not in competition with someone, not as somebody to beat. It wasn't even supposed to be a competition in the end; they were all fighting for the same thing, and they were all on the same side. The only constructive type of comparison was one made in private, acknowledgment that somebody else was better, and needed to be matched. Self improvement. Not this pointless, demeaning comparison. She liked competition, but not being the best, or being the one to beat. She wanted...

She wanted a rival. Someone who was not actually trying to beat her so much as themselves, an equal who saw competition as she did, something to drive them both to improve.

That, she realized as she slipped into the cove, was why there was a sliver of hope alongside her anger and frustration. She hated that Hiccup was so effortlessly beating her, but she liked that he didn't seem to care about beating her. He wasn't doing it for the fame or glory; he barely seemed to acknowledge either with more than unease and awkwardness. He was not trying to win, he was trying to do his best, and he was beating her with his best. Assuming all of this was actually legitimate skill, he might be a rival. One that she could compete against without hard feelings.

Her mood, briefly lifted by that pleasant daydream, sunk like a rock as she hopped onto a low boulder, sat down, and pulled out a whetstone. He was sneaking away to this isolated place, so something was going on. His progress was almost unnaturally quick. She hoped it was natural and fair improvement, but she suspected he was cheating, somehow.

There were two paths this coming confrontation could take. Down one path, Hiccup was not cheating, in which case she would swallow her lingering frustration with the village and congratulate him. He could be a good rival. She would just have to deal with the village's need to see her 'put in her place' separately.

On the other, far more likely path, he was cheating and she would find out how. She would out him in front of the village and go back to having no real competition, holding her status as the most skilled of her generation, even if the village would rather see her dethroned. That was the path she did not want to take, but it was also the one she knew was going to be followed...

Because it was just too perfect. Hiccup was not this good at anything, and it made no sense for him to start being good at something now. She did not hate or despise him, not like some of the more unsavory villagers had back when he was a worthless screwup, and she did not scorn him, because he obviously wasn't trying to fail at all he did. But she also knew he shouldn't be able to do any of what he had done in the past weeks. Defeating dragons, taking them down in seconds, sometimes without even a weapon. He was not capable of that, but he was doing it anyway.

She hardened her heart, putting her hopes away and letting her anger take hold. She would not show her hope, not when it was going to shrivel and die, proven pointless. Hiccup was not her rival; he never could be. It was stupid to think otherwise.

~O~o~O~

Astrid's heart was hammering like Gobber in a smithing frenzy, and she felt the urge to attack something, either the immediate enemy or the dragon carrying her further into the unknown, though neither of those was a good idea. She had gotten her answer, and now all of that definitely did not matter. Not when they were both facing a far larger problem.

The nest was a massive mountain shrouded in fog, huge and likely some sort of volcano, dormant or maybe even active. She knew this from personal observation now, and that observation wasn't over yet. They were flying toward the nest, and they were surrounded by hundreds of dragons. Only the same fog that all Berkians hated with a passion protected her and Hiccup from being recognized for what they were; passengers, not prey.

Passengers on a dragon she had just called amazing, out loud, for Hiccup to hear. Her thoughts from a few hours ago felt old, outdated even though they came from the same day. None of it applied now, and she was utterly failing to think of anything to tether her sanity to as reality flung all she knew out the window over and over again. Here she was, her chest against Hiccup's back, the both of them on a friendly Night Fury, about to enter the nest itself, all against her will – and against Hiccup's too, as well as Toothless' will, if the way he was whining so quietly she could barely hear it was any indication.

Toothless. Such a stupid and yet fitting name, a familiar opinion that was not invalidated by all that was happening. Only someone named Hiccup could somehow dub a Night Fury 'Toothless' and mean it. It also fit that he had managed to get a dragon to take him into the air; he was the only one insane enough to try that!

But she had no more time for musing. They were flying through a dark and eerily straight tunnel now, surely about to splatter on solid rock at any moment–

A dragon swooped out of the way, and she saw that there was literally a light at the end of the tunnel, a sickly glowing mix of red and yellow mist. They shot out into the open.

Astrid felt like she might hurt her neck, looking in all directions even as the dragon below her turned unpredictably and jerked her around. There was so much to take that in she twisted and turned as far as she could despite the discomfort, looking all around in the few heartbeats they spent gliding through the open air.

The inside of the mountain was hollow. Yellow fog, a sulfurous mist, lurked in the depths, obscuring the bottom. Ledges lined the interior of the volcano, the higher ones populated with dragons of all kinds. Flying, lazing around, socializing, or whatever passed for such with demonic beasts. This really was a nest.

The dragon beneath her banked in the air and flew them over to one such ledge, landing and bounding around a small supporting pillar, huddling behind it. Astrid got the distinct sense that Toothless was hiding both them and itself, afraid of… something. She didn't know what. None of the other dragons had noticed them; none were even looking in their direction.

Hiccup leaned forward, looking around the pillar. "It's satisfying to know that all of our food has been dumped down a hole," he remarked.

She leaned forward in turn, almost resting her chin on his shoulder in her need to see what he saw. There were the other dragons, flying almost in single file... and dropping their food into the obscured depths, just as Hiccup had said.

"They're not eating any of it," she observed. If they didn't eat what they stole, it made no sense that they stole at all. Unless they ate on the way and were just incredibly wasteful… Or were demons with no need to eat at all, and simply raided for pleasure, targeting something they knew their enemies had to protect.

As she tried to remember if she had ever seen any dragon actually eat anything, the procession wound down, the last few dragons dropping their catch. Last in line was a fat and sluggish Gronckle that didn't seem to be carrying anything. It bumbled out over the center of the pit and dropped a single, pathetic scrap of fish out of its oversized maw. Then it scratched itself and turned to go, apparently satisfied–

The volcano erupted. Or at least that was what Astrid thought for a moment before seeing and understanding the far more terrifying truth. A dragon covered in lava had lurched up from the obscured depths, snagging and swallowing the delinquent Gronckle whole in a single exaggerated movement. It lingered, the blood of the earth streaming off of it like muddy water, an impossibly large figure looming menacingly.

"What is that?" she whispered, terrified for what felt like the tenth time tonight. That thing was far worse than any guess she had ever heard as to what resided at the Nest. It was not in the book of dragons. She knew that for fact. Bork the Bold would have sworn off of investigating dragons forever if he had ever seen this.

The monstrosity turned, its massive nostrils dilated, its beady eyes searching. Several of the eyes focused in their direction, massive pupils narrowing dramatically.

A tremendous roar shook the volcano and dragons rose in flight almost in unison, swarming in their haste to leave. It had seen her and it was not happy, to the point where the other dragons wanted no part in its anger.

"Alright buddy, we gotta get out of here," Hiccup said even as the Night Fury spread its wings and the monstrously large dragon leaned closer to their ledge. "Now!"

The Night Fury leaped up, off of the ledge and back into the air, and seemed to hesitate, looking down at the monstrosity. A moment passed in which Astrid was sure it was going to just spin and send her flying, out of the saddle and right into the beast's face. Then the Night Fury fled, darting into the midst of the massive horde of dragons fleeing their master's sudden wrath, flitting in between other winged shapes.

Astrid chanced a look back just as the horrible thing let off another, more nuanced and subtle roar, if such a thing could be said of any sound that rattled her teeth, this one reverberating wildly and giving her an instant headache–

A solid object slammed into her body and she was flung sideways, her entire side feeling like it had caved in. A black-scaled limb smacked into her and she grabbed at it, desperate to stop spinning. The black dragon she and Hiccup had been riding gripped her compulsively, and she screamed as claws tore through her arm, stopping on and in bone. She could not let go if she tried.

A wing slapped her from another angle, and she felt a sickening crack in her arm. Rock ledges rocketed past her, and her vision began to blur. Hiccup's dragon had wings, but it could not fly without him and it was not flying now.

A horrible, throat-tearing shriek was pulled out of her as her arm was yanked upward with immense force, the black wings above her flaring out to catch the air. Blood streamed down into her face as they fell–

Astrid's vision darkened and she slammed facefirst into a strong, black chest of scales, before jolting forward to hit her head on the underside of the dragon's chin. Everything stopped. They had landed on something.

She had no strength to scream, but she could and did whimper, entirely overcome with agony. Her arm was one horrible, blindingly painful mass, and she could see her own bones, broken and shattered in several places, revealed in the horrible gashes the dragon's sharp claws had torn down the length of her forearm in the process of grabbing her and holding on.

Suddenly she was moving again, rolling onto the ground and out of the dragon's embrace. Her eyes did not seem to want to focus, but she could see the dragon's black mass as it loomed over her. Hiccup had to be...

Clarity of thought was slow in coming and brought only confusion, her mind quickly shutting down but nonetheless alert enough to see what should not be.

The saddle was hanging off of the dragon, and it was empty. The dragon was staring past her, its eyes wide and horrified. It was staring out into the abyss beyond their small, isolated ledge down near the terrible fog.

Hiccup was not there. He was not on this ledge, because she could not see him and she had ended up able to see most of where they had landed. He had fallen. He had to be dead.

She would join him soon enough, despite escaping such a direct fate. Her mind was fading, and though she clutched at her upper arm with her good hand, the blood still flowed more or less freely. Lesser injuries had killed far hardier men and women on Berk. A weak, strangled gasp passed from between her lips.

The dragon loomed over her once more, staring down at her with tortured eyes. She was too close to the end to care about what it felt, or what it did, so when it placed a paw on her chest, her only thought was a morbid hope. Maybe it would put her out of her misery. If it killed her, she might be able to end up in Valhalla.

But it did not kill her. Instead, it pushed lightly, pinning her firmly to the ground, and opened its mouth. A blue glow began to rise at the back of its throat.

She didn't believe what she was seeing, even now. Dragons were not smart enough to know about cauterizing wounds...

Uncaring of Astrid's feeble unspoken objections, the Night Fury began to burn her arm, a harsh blue glow lighting up the edges of her fading vision. She was too far gone to feel it as more than yet another agony, one that finally sent her into the abyss of darkness and relief.

~O~o~O~

Astrid had not expected to wake up, but she did anyway. It felt like she was on fire, but she knew she wasn't. Broken, bleeding, burned, but not currently aflame.

She opened her eyes, feeling a small amount of determination in the face of her horrible predicament. There was the slimmest of chances that things were not as bad as they seemed. Hiccup might be around, somewhere. He could take them home, and get her to Gothi. If anyone could save her arm and her life, Gothi could.

There was still hope. Astrid forced herself to sit up and take in her surroundings, feeling a blinding headache coming on as she did.

She saw a small ledge, one stained with her own blood. Within walking distance on the same ledge there was a circular cave opening leading into the inside wall of this hollow mountain, but aside from that the entire shelf she was sitting on was isolated. There were no dragons around aside from Hiccup's, which was hunched over in a corner, still and silent.

Astrid couldn't see much of the rest of the volcano's interior. Just the wall directly opposite their ledge, and only a small portion of it, at that. The rest was blocked by the overhang, and by the fact that she was pretty far back on the ledge. She could not see the rest of the nest, and it could not see her.

She considered that fair trade. More than fair, really. The normal dragons wouldn't be an immediate problem as long as she stayed away from the edge of the rock shelf she had crashed on. They wouldn't be able to see her either.

The same might not hold true for the monstrosity, though, and it was no longer looming large in the center of the volcano. She crawled over to the edge and peered into the depths, but she couldn't see anything. Its actions confused her, but if it was somehow no longer in a rage, or asleep, or just waiting for something, she was fine with that. Anything that meant it was not actively searching her out, or raging, or just bathing the lower ledges in torrents of flame–

She made herself ignore those inescapable possibilities, focusing on the things she could affect, the lack of knowledge that she could correct. She retreated from plain sight, then chose to look at her arm first, awkwardly craning her neck to look down at the limb that was curiously unresponsive–

Astrid abruptly wanted nothing more than to throw up. She only held her bile in because there was nowhere to let it out without being noticed, as the ledge was out and the rest of the shelf sloped down and inward, meaning it would all pool around her.

What she saw was not pretty, and worse, it definitely wasn't savable. Her arm was like a mangled piece of meat, mutilated and torn all the way past her elbow. There was a horrific burn circling the base of the open wounds, and she almost couldn't feel it among all the rest of her pain.

She knew the ability to stand the pain would wear off eventually. No matter that she was a Viking; she had helped carry the wounded to the Great Hall after raids, and she knew what the normal response would be once shock wore off.

Astrid forced herself to breathe and studiously did not think about going through life as a warrior down an arm. That could come later, once she knew she had a future at all. It helped that the extent of how terribly injured she was had not yet truly sunk in; that made it easier to put aside for now.

One arm was mangled, but the other fine. Her chest and side had hurt with that deep breath, so she could probably add bruised or broken ribs to the list of injuries. Her head ached, and she had hit it, so a minor head injury, though even now her thoughts were clearing. Death, if it was still coming for her, was not here quite yet.

That left only one more thing to determine. Hiccup's whereabouts. She looked around again and saw no traces of him. He might have gone up the cave to explore it, or...

Or what she had assumed right after they crashed was the true answer.

She could not accept that. He was her only way out of here, unless she wanted to try and build a raft with one arm and no supplies, if she could even get out to the shore from here. He had to be around somewhere.

That meant she either had to call out for him and hope she only drew his attention, a risky and stupid plan, or go looking. If she was capable of going anywhere.

She eyed her mangled arm. There was no saving that, and she had no idea what to do with it in the meantime. Making a sling felt pointless. She couldn't feel it anyway, save for a biting ache that was as weak as it was general, a tiny sample of what she should be feeling.

That delayed pain would be coming for her later, and she would suffer it later. At the moment she needed to stand, to walk and find Hiccup. Never before had those things, save for the last, been difficult to do. Now, she truly wasn't sure if she could manage them.

She lurched forward anyway, firmly planting her good hand on the stone in front of her, and struggled to a crouching position, her bad arm dangling uselessly. It hurt, in a distant way. She needed to get this done before… Something. Before she died, or before the pain came back and made it impossible to do anything at all.

From her three-legged crouch, it was not that hard to stand. Her legs, unlike the rest of her, were pretty much untouched by the trauma she had just endured, and while they felt weak, they were steady.

There was a dry rustling to her left. She turned awkwardly, swinging her limp arm. The dragon, Hiccup's tame Night Fury, was moving.

It stood, uncurling from what looked like a quite uncomfortable position. Its eyes slid right past her, and it looked out to the yellow-fogged abyss behind them. It whined loudly, staring out into the empty space and whatever lay below, where she could not see.

That did not bode well. Astrid knew nothing of dragons sounds, but given the context... mourning. She did not want to assign that emotion to the beast that had brought them here, especially when it only had one person to mourn, but she could think of no other reason for sadness at this moment.

Fragments of plans to use the dragon to find Hiccup floated through her head. He might not be dead, the dragon might not be mourning him. She could use the dragon...

If she had any confidence in getting it to do what she wanted. As it moaned and whined pitifully, staring out into space, she gave up on trying to get it to obey. There was no point in wasting time. She could find Hiccup herself.

She began to walk to the tunnel entrance, hating how slow and shuffling her steps were. Aside from the deep thrumming making up a constant background here, her steps were the only things she could hear, slow and grating in the near-silence.

The whining stopped abruptly, leaving an ominous silence. She turned, suddenly wary, and saw Night Fury staring at her, its expression unreadable. It was impossible to know why it stared at her, though she could guess. That it saw her as potential prey now that they were alone was the first thing that came to mind, but that could not be right. It had cauterized her wound. Obviously, it would not have gone to that effort if eating her was the goal. Other than that, she had no ideas.

The Night Fury crept forward, warily circling her. Looking her over, though she had no idea what it was looking for. She turned with it as best she could, returning its gaze and ignoring the tingle of fear racing through her. This thing was tame, and it had kept her alive. Whatever Hiccup had done with it still held. It would not just kill her now.

The dragon finished its inspection and seemed to lose interest in her for a moment. It flicked its tail out and pawed the metal and canvas prosthetic.

Astrid's eyes were drawn to the prosthetic. It was about as mangled as her arm was. The canvas had been shredded somehow, probably in the process of crashing, and the metal was no better, snapped, bent, and broken in every place possible. The tail must have hit and dragged along the ledge to do that much damage, and judging by the red stains, the damage wasn't entirely constrained to the mechanical side of the tail, either.

The important thing was not the damage itself, but rather what it meant. Hiccup could never get them back up into the air with the prosthetic like that. Even to Astrid's untrained eyes, it was inoperable and probably borderline unrepairable. Out here with nothing to work with, there was no chance it could be fixed.

But she didn't know. She didn't know for sure that there was no solution to the tail, or that Hiccup was dead. She still needed to go into the cave and look for him.

The dragon was in the way now, between her and the cave. She began to shuffle around it. That drew its attention, and it looked up from the tail to her, in the process dropping the tail back out of sight.

She glared at it. "Move," she croaked, remembering that her throat was raw as her words barely made it to her lips. It was more of a plea than a command, though that was not how she had wanted it.

The dragon took a step back, completely blocking the cave entrance. It was still staring at her, still totally unreadable in intent or emotion.

She could not fight it. She could not reason with it. She had no alternative but to stand there and hope it moved of its own volition, as frustrated and helpless as that made her feel.

They glared at each other, neither moving or backing down. Astrid found her mind drifting, unable to focus. The shock was wearing off, and she had to find Hiccup, but she couldn't go anywhere. Her bad arm began to ache more and more fiercely.

Eventually, she had to sit down and cradle her arm, unable to handle the pain any longer. The gashes, the broken bones, the burn... it all was beginning to truly make itself felt, and letting her arm dangle limply only made it all hurt worse.

She vaguely noticed the dragon approaching her, finally abandoning its place blocking the cave long after she was no longer capable of taking advantage of that. It stood right in front of her, as if mocking her inability to do anything but suffer. She longed to poke an eye out, just to prove she was still dangerous, but that was as impossible as doing anything else was, now.

She hunched over her arm, unable to think any longer. The dragon was growling and shaking its head, seemingly at odds with itself, but she barely noticed. Her own pain was far more prominent, blocking out everything else.

That stopped being true when the dragon stilled, staring down at her with a new expression, and pawed at her. She feebly pushed the paw away with her good arm, only for it to return, more insistently pushing her body and jolting her.

Then the dragon stopped messing around. It flattened her with a single push, shoving her chest back and knocking her down, pinning her on her back as it had before. Its mouth glowed in a mocking parody of the last time it had loomed over her. This time, she was sure it was going to kill her. If she had the strength, she would have spit at it.

The dragon's eyes narrowed, dangerous slit pupils glaring, and it flamed her–

She gasped and tried to flail as the burning washed over her entire mangled arm from hand to shoulder, but it cuffed her head, knocking her half senseless, and she stilled. The agony was not so bad, not compared to how terrible her arm already felt, but she knew there would be nothing but charred ash left now. Maybe not having the arm would hurt less.

Then it moved to her other, good arm and flamed that too.

That, Astrid could feel, and her already tortured throat managed yet another screech, totally shredding itself in the process.

Time seemed to slow, and Astrid could not move. Something else had to be broken inside her, because she could not move her body at all, though she wanted to. She wanted, more than anything in the world, to flail, to escape, to end the torture this Night Fury had arbitrarily decided to inflict. It moved on to her legs and then her torso, and then flipped her over, and she still could not move. The process had to be fast, because she was not dead or unconscious yet despite the utter agony, but it felt like it took centuries. Her back was scorched, and then her head.

Last of all, it turned her back over and burned her face, and somehow despite the agony she was still alive. She was in too much pain to think, but even now it confused her, in what was by all rights far past when her final moments should have been.

Her entire body, from head to toe, had been burned. Her clothing had to be ash, and her body should be no better. The dragon stepped back, its fire dying away, and stared at her intently.

She stared back, her pain-addled mind totally incapable of wondering anything more than 'why?'

A moment passed. She could not move her head to look at herself, still strangely paralyzed. Then...

Then, the Night Fury's black scales began to reflect light from somewhere. The small patch of stone ledge she could see grew lighter, illuminated.

Her body burst into flames. True, red and yellow flames, the kind one would see in a large bonfire, leaping out from her. The black dragon was actually forced to hop back, its eyes wide.

Astrid was too far gone to wonder what in Odin's name was happening. She was dead; she had to be, and she was just watching from her dead body, waiting for whatever came next. That explained a little bit, though not why she could still feel everything.

The flames stretched out further in some directions and began to darken, impossibly turning grey, and then black. They covered her face, finally blocking her vision, granting her the darkness she had expected of death.

The pain faded, replaced by nothing at all. She could not feel herself, which was far more in line with how she assumed death should feel. She was not anxious to find out what came next, not really, but she had no choice in the matter, and she would not dishonor herself in front of the gods by being afraid or complaining that her death was not fair.

The black receded, and...

Nothing had changed. She was still on the ledge. Her body was numb, and she could not move at all, but she was still there. Her mind was acutely aware of what little she could still sense, no longer addled by pain or injury. She could hear, though that was strangely distorted, and she could see, perhaps better than before. She could smell, but as all there was to smell was sulfurous fog, she ignored that. Feeling was gone, and taste out of the question, but she was still here.

Time passed, or so she assumed, as nothing happened. Nothing changed for what felt like a long while.

Then something moved into her line of vision. The dragon that had tortured and killed her. It was staring, eyes wide and wary. It approached wherever her head had to be, growing large in her vision, and looked down past her head to the rest of her.

She did not understand what about her charred and likely unrecognizable corpse made it close its eyes and shake its head. It had done this; surely it knew what to expect. Even if dragons were soulless demons, which she was more than willing to believe after what had just happened, they were not stupid animals when it came to killing. They knew what they were doing.

Her vision abruptly rotated. If she had been lying face-up before, then she was face-down now, though she could somehow still see the rock... which by her fractured and hazy memory of those last moments, had not been visible while she was being burned. One more oddity to add to the pointless list of things to ask about once somebody decided to come and take her away from her own dead body.

A horrible thought struck her, and she would have gasped if she could have. It was possible that this was what happened to those who were not sent off in Viking fashion, burned on funeral pyre ships. Doomed to occupy their own dead bodies, incapable of moving or feeling anything but nevertheless still there.

No, surely not. She had been burned, after all, if not exactly in a funeral pyre, and not after death so much as before and during, as well as after. That was wrong… but she didn't know what the truth of all of this was.

The dragon moved into view again, sighing loudly, its ears and frills flat against its skull. It settled down just within the range of her oddly shaped line of sight, a few feet away from her, and stared into her eyes, or where her eyes should be.

It was sitting down, staring at her corpse. Hiccup had definitely picked a twisted, insane dragon to work with.

More time passed. Astrid could tell time was passing because the Night Fury was breathing, shallow and quick breaths that barely moved its broad chest. She could do nothing but watch it.

If this was all she had to look forward to for eternity, she was going to be very, very bored. Surely some Valkyrie or something would come for her eventually. She was dead, and had been dead for a while now. But whoever was meant to come for her, they were inexplicably late.

Author's Note: This is a weird chapter, honestly, and one that leaves WAY too many unanswered questions. There are a few, however, that I will answer now.

Inspiration: This story was inspired by another AU I have written, Taking Up the Mantle. (if you have read that story, you may see a few short passages both stories have in common in their first chapters). Think of this as a different AU take on the same originating prompt. As for what kind of AU it will be? Check the summary, which I am partially sure is what attracted most of you to this story in the first place.

Hiccup: Just in case someone doesn't believe the summary, let me be clear. He's dead. Straight-up, totally dead, not mostly dead and fated to return in humanity's darkest hour, or anything like that. This story and my other AU with the same prompt both operate with that as the opening deviation. I'm not bringing him back in any form, not even in a flashback or memory or dream.

Astrid: No, she is not dead, though she thinks otherwise at the moment. She can't actually see herself, and assumes what Toothless is staring at is her charred corpse. Obviously this isn't the case, else there'd be no story. Or a very bleak one, at least.

Toothless: All will be explained in time, for both Astrid and us, but you're going to have to wait a while.

Everyone else in this universe: Who cares? They don't matter at the moment. Maybe later, but not right now.

Now, on to some meta stuff. This story, like all of my stories, is totally finished. As in, were I to be banned from all things HTTYD starting tomorrow, I could post the rest of this story tonight with no regrets. I'm entirely open to and expecting to make edits if/when reviewers make good points, but unlike many authors, I am not writing this as we go. It's done. So no need to worry about it being abandoned, as there is no chance of that happening. Updates will come regularly, once a week on Monday, though I'm going to be putting up chapters 2 and 3 in the next two days, so as to jump-start the story proper.