Chapter 11


Astrid had severely miscalculated how much Toothless understood human speech, as evidenced by how much Hel the dragon gave her for the first 5 minutes of the flight.

The initial ascent began slowly and evenly, a sharp contrast to the tightness in Astrid's stomach. As the dragon's feet left the ground, Astrid swung her arms around Hiccup and locked her hands into a death grip. A poorly concealed grunt was the only indication that Astrid might be crushing Hiccup's stomach.

Watching the ground gradually blur beneath them, Astrid pushed and pulled giant shuddering breaths through her lungs. Toothless rose straight up into the sky, beating its wings, dipping slightly before each upward gust. With every little drop, Astrid's gut bounced inside her, and she only briefly squeezed her eyes shut before fear yanked her eyes open again.

Finally, Toothless settled at a height that made Astrid's tower tiny in comparison, and the dragon began gliding forward. Astrid knew, in some distant part of her mind not yet overcome by fear, that the land below them and dusky clouds above them presented a sight unseen by most humans. Yet her eyesight remained dim as she stared straight ahead, terrified to let her gaze drop.

Hiccup, to his credit, pretended not to notice her stiffness - interrupted occasionally by tremors - or notice her silence ringed with shaky breaths. Toothless' forward movement without rising or dipping settled the pain in Astrid's stomach. A brief second of relief had her forehead resting on Hiccup's shoulder as she stared down at his tunic. Embarrassed, she immediately yanked her head up again.

"There we go. Nice and easy, bud," Hiccup said to the dragon, which of course was the exact moment Toothless decided to become neither nice nor easy.

Toothless shot straight up into the air, and Astrid's lips curved around a silent cry that turned into a very real and very loud scream as Toothless turned to plummet straight down.

She comprehended nearly nothing but the drop in those moments of scrambling limbs and deafening wind. Every bone in her body seemed intent on crowding up to her brain, and her heart felt as if it was both disappearing and burning. The world around her appeared only as a vortex of colorful streaks.

Toothless leveled out eventually with a stomach-lurching yank, but then it started barreling through the air so quickly that sky and earth became foreign concepts of another world.

The whirling stopped, but then Toothless climbed up the clouds again as Astrid desperately tried to force her body to withhold the contents of her stomach. A sole thing spiked across the empty plane of her mind: the dreadful realization that Toothless had every intention of immediately repeating those processes.

After an abundance of diving and spinning (Toothless), screaming and clawing at Hiccup's shirt (Astrid), and swearing and yelling, "I should have named you Useless!"(Hiccup), Astrid managed to choke out an apology to Toothless.

"I'm sorry!" The words were barely discernible, but everything in Astrid had crafted those words with all the sincerity she could ever hope to possess. "I'm sorry!"

The dragon immediately responded by halting its dive of death and sending them into a smooth horizontal plane across the sky.

The resulting silence overpowered Astrid, and, from the sound of his labored breathing, Hiccup as well.

Trying to push her heart rate down to some vaguely normal beat, Astrid loosened her death grip around Hiccup's chest ever so slightly. She didn't miss his wincing. He'd probably be sporting her fingernail marks across his skin for a week. "Sorry," she offered to him as well, her voice much softer than the previously screeched apology to the dragon beneath them. The word, barely audible over the wind whipping around them, came out even as she gasped at precious air.

Hiccup sighed. "Not your fault." He glared down at his dragon. "Thank you for nothing, you useless reptile."

Toothless responded by twisting his head to whip his ear against Hiccup's fingers. Hiccup yelped, and a tiny chuckle escaped Astrid. She could hardly believe she was laughing right now at the creature's antics.

Could she blame the dragon? Astrid was a stranger. As far as she knew, Toothless only had positive interactions with one human - Hiccup. When she and Toothless met each other, she had demonstrated clearly aggressive body language and yelled at Hiccup. Right before this flight, she had yelled at Hiccup again. The terrifying lift of her stomach during Toothless's dives had morphed into guilt.

Toothless was smarter than she'd expected it... than she'd expected him to be.

"The original plan was to get you used to a nice, easy flight for a few minutes," Hiccup explained, no doubt guessing at Astrid's concern over the lanterns. He stared pointedly at his dragon but apparently decided against any more verbal insults. "From up here, we need to wait until the lanterns rise."

She made an effort to steady her breathing before responding. "And until we can get cloud coverage from below?" Astrid hypothesized.

"Exactly." He craned his neck to the rapidly darkening horizon, then nodded. "Which looks like right now." Astrid watched as his posture, hand positioning, and feet angles changed, and - in a way she couldn't hope to understand - Toothless immediately adjusted with him and began to ascend.

They moved in a large arc upwards to turn back towards - Astrid guessed - the lanterns. Her sense of direction, already a very newly acquired and undeveloped skill, had taken a hit with Toothless' shenanigans.

She tried her best to let that resentment dissolve. Any animosity at a dragon she was currently riding miles above the earth - well, it just wasn't a good idea.

They broke through a damp layer of cloud, and Astrid forgot everything but the sight before her.

All around them floated the lanterns.

Their golden light cast halos on the thick, billowing clouds. The yellow hues contrasted perfectly with the streaks of purple and magenta painted across the clouds by the receding sun. Astrid's fingers reached out to skim across a gleaming cylinder. The soft, thin fabric greeted her skin with warmth before it continued its lazy climb. Her hand still outstretched, Astrid swung her head around to behold the hundreds of lanterns drifting everywhere.

Her eyes, overflowing with the moment, briefly noticed that Hiccup was guiding Toothless into large, slow circles. Some part of her ached to thank him, but she couldn't possibly rip her attention away from the lanterns. Everything was too much, in the best possible way.

Astrid returned her gaze and full focus to the lanterns. She laughed, though for what reason she couldn't be sure, as a lantern unhurriedly twisted and twirled past them. Her fingertips stretched out again to stroke a frayed purple ribbon tying two lanterns together. They collided with a soft familiarity that hinted at the hearts that released them far below. Gentle breezes sent some of the orbs swinging across the sky and skirting around or into others.

The expanse of gold and magenta brought into Astrid a strange but embraced unity of overwhelming stillness. This... this was her dream.

"We're going higher." Hiccup's voice was soft and reverent as he twisted to look back at her. "The air will be a little thinner, so keep your breathing fast and deep, alright?" She found the power within herself to manage a nod. His gentle gaze turned back to his dragon, whom he urged to continue upward.

They wafted around several massive clouds and broke through a final layer of deep purple, and Astrid gasped.

Up here, where clouds blocked even the dimmest of the sun's farewell beams, the stars sparkled above them. She had tasted the stars' beauty from her tower, but never like this - spread across the sky farther than her eyes could ever hope to wholly fathom. Their silver light blended with the golden radiance of the lanterns emerging from below. Astrid had never been so surrounded with luminosity in her life. Now, to call her own hair "gleaming" or "glowing" seemed a poor imitation of light.

A breath of cool air tumbled across her skin, and Astrid shivered. She leaned forward, wrapped her arms around Hiccup, and settled in, even as her eyes still jumped across the expanse to soak in everything.

Slowly Hiccup reached out and pinched at the metal frame of a lantern passing by. He held it in front of him, and they marveled at its glow together. Astrid rested her chin on Hiccup's right shoulder, and she felt it drop its tenseness beneath her. Mercifully, he seemed to understand she was beyond words, and he offered none of his own.

A sleepy, muted debate bloomed within her, as she wondered whether to close her eyes and rest peacefully in this moment or to keep her eyes wide open so she didn't miss even the smallest thing. Her tiredness and peace won, and her eyelashes fluttered down, grazing Hiccup's cheek as they descended.

Time escaped them in those hours, minutes, seconds. Astrid occasionally blinked and watched the lanterns continue floating into the expanse of stars. Her eyes would rest for a few moments before flickering around the world again. Then, finally, she opened her eyes to see that the lanterns had departed. Only she, Hiccup, Toothless, the clouds below, and the stars above remained.

Even then they continued their wide circling in silence. Astrid tilted her head back and off Hiccup's shoulder to gaze up at the pale dust of distant light scattered across the stars. To see everything expanding infinitely above like this...

As the uncountable minutes passed, Astrid's body sagged. When her chin returned to Hiccup's shoulder, he at last broke the reverent silence. "Ready?"

She never thought she could ever be ready, but to her surprise - "Yes." Astrid had lived her dream.

Toothless's terrifying dives felt like memories from ages past in comparison to the gentle descent they now fell into as the earth gradually greeted them once again. Astrid withdrew her chilled hands to clasp them together at her chest and rub them together. Her mind remained quiet. The memories crafted above loomed too powerfully inside Astrid for her to tuck them into her brain just yet.

A cacophony of cries and shrieks broke the silence jarringly. Hiccup looked down and growled a word Astrid had only recently learned from all her time in taverns recently. Then he muttered, "We've been spotted."

Astrid tensed. "By who?"

"Probably local townspeople, but they won't keep it to themselves for much longer." Hiccup groaned and shook his head. "I'm going to have to do some maneuvering if they decide to pull out the catapults again."

Not recognizing the word "catapults" but guessing they weren't particularly welcoming objects, Astrid scanned the town, which was slightly to the left of the cluster of trees directly below them. "Do you have a plan?"

Hiccup nodded sharply. "We can drop you off there-" he pointed to a massive pile of hay topping a farmer's cart "-and then get rid of the attention."

"Why can't we both just jump off here? Can't Toothless evade them better without anyone on his back?"

He sighed and answered, "Toothless can't fly on his own - at least not with this current gear. He's got a solo-flight tail-fin, but I switched it out earlier when I came to check on him."

"And I can't just come with you?"

"I"m not risking you getting knocked off by a catapult rock."

"What about you?"

"I have a lot more experience in free-falling than you do."

Pushing herself up to a crouch, Astrid balanced behind Hiccup as the hay-pile rapidly approached. "Where do I meet you?"

"The docks where you met the ocean. You remember where that is?"

She nodded. Then, realizing he couldn't see her, she huffed and replied, "Yes. I'll see you there."

"Okay. Jump when I say one." Hiccup slowed Toothless's flight, even as more cries and yells echoed below them. "Three... two... one!"

In one fluid motion, Astrid grabbed at her satchel and her skirts, leaped into the air, and pulled her knees up to her chest. This jump, in comparison to Toothless's plummeting, seemed tame - though her stomach still clambered into her throat.

She slammed into the hay-pile with about as much impact and gentleness as expected. The few hay-piles that Astrid had glimpsed in the past looked much softer than this scratchy, stiff pile of straw. At least, she reasoned, nothing was hiding at the bottom of the pile, and the unfamiliar smell was strong but strangely sweet. She could feel the splintering wood beneath the pads of her toes. After a bit of grumbling and hissing, she detangled herself and her hair from the pile, dropped to the grass, brushed herself off as best she could, and took a moment to remember the geography she had seen from astride Toothless only moments earlier. Turning to her left, she set off. A few wrong turns ended up becoming a few right-after-all turns, and she quickly found Hiccup's hidden tunnel into the city. The guards at the gates likely wouldn't pay her much attention, but for once on this trip she wanted to choose the option of "better safe than sorry".

The city had not bothered to lessen its crowds or festivities, even with the lanterns long departed in the sky above. Street performers perched atop poles and crates to hiss fire between their teeth for the crowds' applause. Children slipped between the drunken hands of the festive, pinching elbows and tugging braids to cause delightful mischief. Obstructive lines of burly warriors enjoying the night off wrapped arms around each others' shoulders as they staggered together drunkenly down the roads. Dancers pirouetted around players still keeping the tunes flowing through the air. Food steamed, fried, broiled, and burnt kept the music's company in the general aura. Surrounded but alone, Astrid took her time to enjoy this last night of warm chaos. She spotted the three little braiding ladies sound asleep and tossed on the massive shoulders of what appeared to be a giantess. The woman, her ginger hair matching that of the trio's, held her children and a fond, gentle smile as she trudged through the crowds toward home.

Astrid would have to return home tomorrow.

And she immediately pushed that thought away. Astrid would have the rest of her life to think about being in that tower, and she wouldn't waste these good moments on those melancholy thoughts.

The crowd thinned into stragglers by the time she reached the dock. Astrid found a rare dry wooden crate and perched on top of it. She settled against the stone wall of the hut behind her, angling herself to watch the water and stars to her right and the city and its people to her left.

She felt something trembling on her cheek. Lifting her fingers, she tapped at her skin and then stared at the teardrop shimmering on her fingertip.

Astrid had lived her dream.

At three years old, she'd noticed the lanterns. Despite her mother's best attempts of distraction, Astrid had plopped her tiny elbows on the window sill and gaped at the golden spectacle before her.

Only when her sixth birthday turned to dusk did the realization dawn on her - the "golden stars" were annual occurrences marking her birthday. Astrid's stubbornness, already burning brightly within her, had refused to dismiss the phenomenon despite her mother's insistence that Astrid was merely imagining things. For the next year, when Mother tried to force the skill of painting into Astrid's repertoire, Astrid painted nothing except the "golden stars".

Eight years were how long it took for Astrid to stop mentioning the lights to her mother. She spent the next few birthdays convincing the doubting woman to go to bed early before sneaking to the window and enjoying the night in all its golden glory.

When fourteen-year-old Astrid curled up at the window, head tilted back to enjoy the lights, that first moment of true rebellion sparked in her brain.

I want to see the golden lights myself.

And now, at eighteen, here she was on the other side of that dream. After this - after returning to the tower - there were no more plans. She had crafted no ideas for life after the lanterns.

She was terrified.

She was excited.

Rolling her head back to realign the crick in her neck, Astrid let herself smile in the privacy of the shadows. She slid her frying pan onto her lap and gazed up at the thick clouds above. Tears continued their silent pilgrimages down her cheeks. Just this once, she would allow their existence.

Her thoughts strayed, despite her best efforts, to Hiccup. She hoped he was alright.


Hiccup had experienced worse landings.

Yes, believe it or not, being wrapped in a very thick assortment of vines while hanging upside-down four feet above the ground was not his worst landing. That incident involved much more lava and much less hope for survival.

Toothless would have helped Hiccup out of this specific conundrum, but the sounds of approaching humanity had Hiccup hissing at the dragon to leave while jerking his head toward the darker tangles of forest. Toothless replied with his own unimpressed hiss before disappearing into the midnight ink of the world beyond. Hiccup could only hope Toothless wouldn't need his solo-flight tail for a little while.

"I really need to merge the two designs," Hiccup grumbled to himself, wiggling in his unfortunate cocoon and adding this new task to his long list of to-dos.

Build new tail.

Escape this.

Return crown.

Sleep.

Solve dragon-viking bloodfeud.

Kiss Astrid.*

It was his list. He didn't have to be realistic.

More wriggling produced no new results, and Hiccup decided to focus his energy on at least getting his arms loose without sending his entire body to the ground head-first.

The branches and leaves rustled more and more loudly, and Hiccup resigned himself to embarrassment when whoever it was found him in this position. Hopefully the person or persons would be kind enough to help him down. He prepared his best smile.

A woman ducked under a thick branch, swinging a lantern in front of her to illuminate the miniature clearing. She pushed back at a gray-streaked strand of her dark brown hair and surveyed him, cold and unimpressed.

"Hello... ma'am."

Her only response was the lift of one eyebrow.

Hiccup had no choice but to push on. "You wouldn't mind giving me a little assistance, would you? I will be able to provide compensation once I'm on the ground." He thought quickly and added, "I don't have it on me, but I swear I will get it for you. Uh, Viking's honor."

His promise yielded the opposite effect of what he'd hoped for. The woman drew back and sniffed disdainfully. "A Viking with honor? Ha."

Something immediately scratched at his brain. Hiccup knew her voice from somewhere. He scanned his eyes over her wide, pallid face; dark and dramatically powdered eyes; long burgundy dress... it was only her voice he recognized, not her appearance. He plunged ahead, hoping to solve the mystery - and, of course, get back on the ground. "Okay, so not effective. But come on, I hardly look like a Viking, do I?"

She scoffed, straightening to her full height as she crossed her arms and lowered her chin. "True, you hardly look like anything, much less a threat," she drawled.

Where had he heard that voice? Recently, that was certain. Even as he struggled hopelessly against the vines, he shook up his consciousness, trying to reason through the familiarity. How would he recognize a voice but not the face to go with it? Where would he have encountered only the voice of a middle-aged woman and not be able to see her?

Wait.

"You're Astrid's mother."

Idiot!

Despite the blood stampeding through Hiccup's body down to his head, he could feel his face pale - and he watched the woman's face match his own. "What?" she hissed.

Hiccup's mouth worked faster than the rest of his brain. "I mean, uh... Asher! Do you have a son?! Named Asher?! What did I say? Did- did I say Astrid?! That's so weird! I haven't met anyone named Astrid, ever, in my entire life! What a strange name! Anyways, clearly I must have gotten you confused with someone else-"

"Who are you?" If the woman's voice had seemed cold before, it was an arctic tundra now. She stepped closer to Hiccup, eyes narrowed, lips curled back to reveal snow-white teeth.

Astrid's fear of her mother was starting to make sense now.

A bead of sweat crept up Hiccup's forehead, and he chuckled nervously. "Just a guy! Nobody important!"

She stared at him for another moment. Suddenly, every ounce of venom fled from her body, replaced by exhaustion. "I..." her voice softened. "I'm sorry. It's just... I've been so worried about her. I've looked everywhere." She looked up at Hiccup, her eyes wide now. "Do you know where she is?"

Hiccup nodded. The woman's attitude and demeanor had morphed too quickly for his taste, and some nagging intuition told him that the first version of this woman that he'd met was the more accurate one. A life spent in a country's seat of power had exposed him to enough two-faced diplomats to read people fairly accurately. He had to handle this interaction with caution. "I do. I can take you to her," he said, trying to sound apologetic and eager. "Just... uh..."

"Oh, yes, of course!" The woman darted to a fallen tree to rest her lantern against it, dropped her satchel in the dewy grass, and set to work on Hiccup's vines. Her brows furrowed as she pulled, pinched, and tugged in a dizzyingly efficient display of skill. He couldn't tell if her skill was truly dizzying or if all the extra blood in his head was making reality incomprehensible as a whole. Within only a few seconds, Hiccup's arms were loose enough for him to grab a safe hold on the vines and shake the rest of himself free. He managed to drop a foot to the ground before extracting the other one, although he stumbled slightly when both loosened boots made contact with the matted grass below.

Straightening, he tugged at his tunic and ran fingers through his hair. "Thank you," Hiccup said, still guarded but hiding his trepidation as best he could. "I can still pay you, of course."

She shook her head, her curls gliding across her shoulders. "No, dear, of course not," she replied. "I suppose by now you know I have to be good at detangling."

He gave her a half-smile. "Yeah. Right, I guess so."

"Anyway, the only payment I need is just for you to take me to my daughter."

Hiccup paused, and the gentle, tired hopefulness of the woman's face dimmed slightly. "Sure..." he said, no longer bothering to sound convincing. "I just- I'm sorry, but I'm curious."

"Well..." She folded her hands at her waist. "I'm an open book."

Hiccup doubted it, but he plunged ahead anyway. "Astrid's very capable. She can take care of herself," he said. "But you didn't let her leave the tower. Why?"

The woman sighed and dropped her head in her hands. Between her fingers, she answered, "My daughter is rather... capable-" the compliment sounded sour in her mouth, even with that carefully constructed air of gentleness "-but... there's more to it than that."

"Yeah, sure, her hair glows," Hiccup openly scoffed. "There are other light sources, you know."

Her response confused him. As she gazed up at him, various emotions flickered across her face in rapid succession - confusion, relief, surprise, uncertainty. Finally, her entire being paused in some internal deliberation. "That's... all she told you about her hair?"

Hiccup's stomach twisted. "Yes... eh, well, more like she showed me."

The woman's face hardened in cold determination, and Hiccup briefly wondered why that look he'd seen so often on Astrid's own face didn't seem familiar on her mother. "You must understand... she may trust you, but I cannot." The woman took a step closer, and Hiccup suppressed the urge to take a step back. "Her hair does so much more than simply glow. If people found out... if the wrong people found out, Astrid would be in great danger."

Astrid hadn't told him everything.

This wasn't the time to feel hurt. After all - his shoulders dropped - he hadn't told her everything either. What could he expect?

"So..."

"She has to stay in the tower. To be safe."

"But you told me she's capable. You agreed with me!"

"Capable doesn't mean invincible!" she snapped. "My daughter's hair is too precious to endanger! To lose! She has to stay in that tower."

"No!" Hiccup found his own voice rising and shoved it back down. "What could be so important about her hair that- you know what?" He stepped toward the woman, throwing his hands up. "Nothing's that important! Astrid deserves a life!"

The woman's eyes narrowed, and Hiccup realized his mistake. He cared too much. And she could use that against him. "A life... with you?" she crooned. "Is that what this is about? You don't really care about her freedom-"

"That's not-" But his voice broke even in those small words.

"Her hair's not nearly as important as the rest of her body is, is it?"

"No!" he yelled. "No! Astrid is what matters-"

The woman threw her head back to laugh. She jeered, "Yes, I'm sure you told her that, dear."

Hiccup's hands curled into fists. "I would never use-"

"Oh, of course not." She stilled before again falling into that tired, gentle act. "I… I'm sorry, dear. Certainly you're doing what you think is best. But you can't imagine what a toll this has taken on me. You must understand, I care about her. And I'm her mother - I know what's best for her." Her eyes lifted to his. "But she'll never return to that tower, will she? She doesn't understand the danger. You are her only hope."

Hiccup drew back. "What?"

"Tell her to go back. Convince her." Bowing her head, the woman folded her hands behind her back. She pulled her satchel to her side, and Hiccup watched her pull at the tie to lift the flap over the bag. Out of the satchel she slid-

"The crown," he mouthed silently.

She looked up at him. "I'm assuming this is yours. And I can also assume it's valuable. I'll give it to you. Just convince her to come home. You don't have to tell me where she is." The woman tossed the crown to the grass at his feet.

Hiccup knew he should pick it up. It didn't belong to him, but it was certainly his responsibility to return it. He could imagine Alyse's face, staring at that empty magenta pillow where the crown ought to rest. She and Corran had lost so much already. The least he could do was make sure this one remnant of the lost princess rested safely in their gaze.

But he did not move. He couldn't bring himself to bend down, to wrap his fingers around that crown and feel the cool groves and spikes of metal around rare jewels. "Keep it." His voice was hoarse.

I'm sorry, he offered in silent penance to Corran and Alyse. I found it once. I can find it again.

The woman stared at him in open shock. "I see." She tucked her hands and her satchel behind her back again. "If you truly do care about her, then-"

"I do."

"If you truly do care about her, then you should want her to be safe. You have to convince her- to help her understand that she will be better off with me, in the tower. I know it won't be an exciting life, but it will be a long one. Don't you want that for her?" When he said nothing, she blinked rapidly at tears. "You're her last hope. Only you and I can keep her safe, and that's not with you, not out here. She'll never go back unless you help her understand it's best for her."

When she lifted her head to meet Hiccup's eyes, he turned away. "You're- you're wrong. She's going back. I... I tried to convince her to stay out here. But-" He laughed, and laughing never hurt like this before. "You know her. She's stubborn. She'll go back to that tower, and she'll never leave again." A swallow burned in his throat.

"I... well..." He heard nothing behind him but her voice, surprised and quiet.

Hiccup stood immobile, for once wishing she'd keep talking so he didn't have to stay in this silence, with thoughts he didn't want to think.

Then she spoke up again, and Hiccup started at her cold voice against his neck. "No offense, my dear, but I can't risk her changing her mind."

Something metal slammed into his skull with a familiar clang, and as he fell to the ground and his vision dropped into darkness, all he could think was-

Of course it's a frying pan.


Author's Note:

Being a human being is so difficult sometimes. That's all I'll say about that.

Gotta love the whiplash in this chapter. Leave a favorite and a review if you can!