It seems like the wall around my muse is finally beginning to fall apart. Those eight showings of HTTYD2 that I went to probably helped a bit with that. Cried every time. Anyway, onto the chapter.

Fire and Ice, But Mostly Fire

It took Hiccup a couple days to get the crutch done, tweaks and all, and it did really help. I was able to get around on my own. I was slow, but at least I was able to move without being carried. That, and I didn't want to go very fast and risk screwing up the stitches. I did not need to go through that experience again anytime soon.

Hiccup was usually with me whenever I was out and about, and I found myself spending more days in the Stall since I couldn't help Halla very well when I was moving around so slowly. Whenever he had a break from helping Gobber, he would break out his notebook and start teaching me the letters of the alphabet in their language. It was slow going, and hard. I'd never been very good at languages, and had barely passed French in high school. But he was a patient teacher, and kindly corrected me when I got something wrong. After a week I was able to recognize Hiccup's name as well as my own.

It was after being on the crutch for about a week that I was awoken in the middle of the night again to roars and yelling. Halla came running down the stairs, helmet and axe in hand. Using the crutch, I got up off the bed as careful and as quickly as I could, wincing slightly as the stitches pulled. Halla put on her helmet and grabbed my left arm, helping me to the door. "Let's get you to the Hall."

"Okay," I said as she briefly let go of my arm to open the door. Once outside, she wrapped her arm around me to help me walk quicker.

Outside was chaos. There was still a good amount of show on the ground and it looked orange as it reflected nearby flames. Dragons darted across the night sky and Vikings with weapons ran after them with a yell. We quickly moved up the path toward the Hall, going as fast as my leg would let me. It was as we were almost up to the next level that someone ran up to us, causing us to stop walking.

"I can help her, Halla," said Hiccup.

Halla hesitated for a moment before removing her arm and stepping out of the way. Hiccup soon took her place. I gave her a small smile. "Good luck."

"Get up there as quick as you can," she said before running off in the direction she had just come from, raising her axe.

"How's the leg?" Hiccup asked as we starting moving again.

"Achy, but I think the stitches are okay," I replied.

We were almost to the base of the stairs when a sound in the air made me stop and glance back. A sound that I knew, but one I had not heard since finding myself in Berk. Only one thing could make that sound here. I felt the corners of my mouth twitch upward. Hiccup looked at me, confused for a moment, but if he was going to say anything, he was interrupted by a distant yell.

"NIGHT FURY!"

A flash of blue fire and one of the catapults was destroyed. Hiccup tugged on my arm and we starting moving again. "Come on."

Walking fast had hurt, but the stairs felt even worse. I winced but kept moving. "Wh-what was that sound?"

"Another dragon," he replied. "A Night Fury. No one's ever seen one."

I glanced up. We were maybe halfway up the stairs. Just a few more minutes of pain. "You guys have a lot of dragons here. Wouldn't it be smarter to, ow, just leave?"

"We're almost there," he said. "We're Vikings. We have stubbornness issues."

I hissed in pain, glancing up at the doors of the Hall. Close. So close. "Gonna have to check the stitches when we get in there."

It took a few more painful minutes to reach the top and once back on level ground the pain lessened slightly, but my leg was throbbing. Thankfully someone was at the door and opened it for us. There was a good number of people in the Hall, though not as many as when I had first woken up in Berk and been brought up here. Those that were in the Hall were children sitting close to their mothers. A couple babies were testing their lungs, their wails echoing in the large room.

Hiccup helped me walk over to the nearest bench, which I dropped down onto so hard I was momentarily distracted from the pain in my leg. I pulled the crutch out from under my arm and leaned it against the table before working on lifting my leg up onto the bench. Hiccup sat down next to my foot as I reached for the bandage on my calf and started to undo it.

"I got it," said Hiccup, gently pushing my hands out of the way so he could undo the bandage.

I gave him a small smile. "Thanks."

It took a minute, but he got it off. I glanced at the bandage, which thankfully was blood stain free, before looking down at my leg. The skin around the five stitches was red, but none seemed to be bleeding. And the healing skin hadn't opened. "Thank goodness. I was so sure she'd have to redo them later."

"Thankfully she doesn't," he said before working on redoing the bandage.

"Yeah, I really did not want a repeat of that experience," I said. Just letting it rest on the bench was helping with the pain. It still hurt, but was slowly lessening. "Once was enough for me."

Hiccup pulled his notebook out from his vest and set it on the table. "If you want, we can work on your reading some more while we wait for the raid to end."

"What about Gobber?" I asked. "Don't you need to go help him?"

Hiccup shrugged. "He'll understand."

I raised an eyebrow.

He glanced up at me. "Okay, so I'll probably have to do extra work tomorrow for him. It's fine."

"Well, what about your net thrower? Don't you want to do test out the tweaks you made?" I asked, glancing over at the doors to the Hall as someone else came in with a young child in tow.

"Nah, maybe the next raid," he replied. He was giving up the chance to test it after tweaking it to keep me company.

I smiled. "Or we can test it on a sheep or something before the next one. Have it all ready to test on a dragon."

He smiled as he opened up his notebook and picked up his pencil. "Sounds like a plan," he said before writing something down. He then set down his pencil and held up the page for me to see. "What letters are these?"

I grimaced, only this time not from the pain in my leg.

It was almost an hour before the raid ended. Halla came into the Hall just behind Stoick, who announced that it was safe to leave. Mother's began to gather their children and head out while Hiccup put away his notebook and I grabbed my crutch. Hiccup stood up and I was about to swing my leg off the bench, but Halla held up a hand to stop me. I set the crutch back down as Stoick and Halla stopped before us.

"How's the damage?" I asked as Halla sat down where Hiccup had been and beginning to remove the bandages. "We checked it after we got here and it wasn't bleeding."

"Good, no bleeding is good. And thankfully no one was seriously hurt," Halla replied.

"Aye, though we lost half a herd of sheep and several houses," Stoick added, glancing over at Halla as she looked over my leg.

"My home was partly destroyed," Halla said after a moment, looking up from the wound and at me. I felt my stomach drop. Halla had been the first one to welcome me here, and had taken me in. "The loft is completely gone. I need to go through my supplies and take stock of what survived once it's cleared enough to get in there. It'll take at least a week to repair. Until then, I'll be staying with Phlegma."

"What about me?" I asked as she went back to inspecting my leg. She glanced up at Stoick.

"You'll be staying with us," Stoick said, moving over to stand beside Hiccup, who did a double take at his father's words.

I glanced at Halla, who didn't look completely thrilled with the idea but seemed to be trying to smile all the same. For some reason I had the feeling that no one else wanted me to stay with them while her home was rebuilt. Even after being in Berk over a month, maybe even two since I'd lost track of how long I'd been in Berk, I still rarely got smiles from those I delivered things to for Halla. Phlegma smiled at me whenever I dropped something off for her, but apparently she didn't like me enough to stay with her.

"A little irritated, but the stitches look fine. Should be able to remove them about the time the house is rebuilt," she said before rewrapping my calf.

Halla finished wrapping it before helping me up off the bench, Hiccup handing me the crutch. It was slow going, but we left the Hall a few minutes later and headed down the stairs. Halla had an arm around me to help and Hiccup walked on my other side. Halla and Stoick started talking about the repairs to be made to her house, which I didn't really pay attention to since I was busy making sure I put one foot after the other.

When we reached the house of the chief and his family, Stoick went inside after bidding the healer goodnight while Halla and I stopped just outside the door. She removed her arm from around me and stepped away. "I'll come by and check on your leg tomorrow, after I take stock of what survived of my stores. See if I have everything to make a salve for it. If not, I'll see if Gothi has some."

"Gothi?" I asked. Why would she have some salve?

"I learned all that I know from her," Halla replied. "She still knows plenty of healing techniques that I don't."

"Oh."

She smiled. "Get some rest, Kendra."

"You too, Halla," I said as she moved away, heading for the lower levels were Phlegma lived.

I followed Hiccup inside and we headed for the stairs up to his room in the loft. We were starting up them when Stoick walked up to stand beside where we were on them. "Hiccup."

In front of me, Hiccup stopped and looked at his father, who he had to look down at due to the stairs. "Gobber expects you at the stall bright and early to make up for not being there during the raid."

I raised my eyebrows and fought down a smile. Hiccup glanced over at me and fought down a smile as well. "I kinda figured."

"Right," Stoick said with a nod. I glanced back and forth between them. Okay, this was awkward. This was going to be an interesting week.

"I better get Kendra comfortable and then get some sleep," Hiccup said after a moment.

"Right. Right. Sleep well you two," he said, glancing over at me before heading toward the door that led to his room under the loft.

Hiccup let out a breath before moving again toward his room. I reached the top of the stairs and stood there, watching as he walked across the room to a chest along the wall and pulling out a pillow and a couple blankets.

"You can take the bed, and I'll just sleep downstairs," he said.

"You don't have to sleep downstairs. You can stay up here. I don't bite," I said, giving him a small smile.

He just looked at me for a moment with an expression I couldn't identify before he nodded. "Okay," he said before heading over to the wall across from the bed and laying out the blanket to lay on.

I grinned as I walked over to the bed and dropped down on it, leaning the crutch against the wall. "Sorry for kicking you out of your bed."

"It's okay," he said as he laid down on the little bed that he'd made for himself on the floor. "Your stitches probably wouldn't like having to get up and down from sleeping on the floor."

I chuckled softly as I took off my boots. "True."

Once they were off, I laid back against the pillow, pulling the blanket over me. The candle on the desk by his bed flickered as I shifted to get comfortable. I closed my eyes after I finally found a comfortable position and tried to fall asleep. A few people seemed to still be awake and I could hear their calls to each other through the walls, though I couldn't understand what they were saying. Across the room, I could hear Hiccup roll over.

I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling, watching the light from the candle flicker. "I haven't shared a room with someone in years. It's only ever been sleepovers, the last one when I was…fourteen or fifteen for a friend's birthday party."

I could hear Hiccup shift on his blankets. "A couple years ago, Snotlout and his family had to stay here after their house burnt down in a raid," he said. "It was definitely not a party."

I grinned up at the ceiling. "Yeah, can't see that one being any fun."

"I used to stay with my Aunt Freda and Snotlout when we were little and our dads went on trips. Those weren't bad. Actually, they were kinda fun from what I remember," he said and I could hear the smile in his voice. Then he sighed. "But they stopped being fun by the time I was five or six, and after I started working with Gobber I stopped staying there at all."

I didn't respond. I didn't know how to. I just stared at the ceiling, at least until a massive snore erupted from downstairs that made me jump slightly. It sounded like a chainsaw going right next to my head.

Hiccup chuckled. "Sorry, probably should have warned you about that."

"Yeah, a little warning would have been nice," I said, sitting up. He turned his head toward me as I sat up. "How do you sleep with that?"

He shrugged. "Guess I'm used to it."

I must have made a face, because he started laughing. I was tempted to throw the pillow at him, but then I'd have to get up and get it back.

"Was your mom used to it too?" I asked. Shit. Foot in mouth. Why did I have to say that of all things? Sure, I'd wondered about his mother before, but had never ask since no one ever seemed to mention her.

Hiccup's smile faded slightly and he turned to look at the ceiling.

"Sorry," I said, looking down at my lap. "I shouldn't have asked that."

"No, its okay," he said. I glanced up to see him roll over to look at me. His eyes dropped to the floor. "I don't know if she was or not. I don't even remember her. She died when I was less than a year old."

Sure, my mom and I weren't exactly close, but to not have her be there for me at all? Or the other way around and not have my dad around growing up? I couldn't imagine.

"What happened?" I asked after a moment. I'd already stuck my foot in my mouth once, might as well go all out.

"Dragon raid," he said quietly, glancing up at me before rolling over onto his back to face the ceiling again.

That…sucked. And actually explained a bit. Why his dad hated dragons so much. They'd killed his wife when Hiccup had been a baby. No wonder he reacted as he had after the whole thing with the Monstrous Nightmare. Or would react since that was still sometime in the future.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly, laying back down. "I'm not exactly close to my mom and dad. Shoot, I look for any excuse to spend as much time out of the house as possible. But to not have one of them around…I can't imagine."

Hiccup didn't say anything. All I could hear was his quiet breathing across the room.

I sighed and closed my eyes. "Night Hiccup."

"Night."