Sorry for the day's delay, guys! I've been struggling recently with a surgery that did not go according to plan, and trying to catch up on missed school because of it. I hope this finds everyone well!
Chapter Thirty-One: Almost
"You're touching me…" Astrid breathed again. She turned her head and her mouth fell into Hiccup's palm. Hiccup watched her, wondering, as Astrid covered his hand with hers. Suddenly, she leapt into his arms, smashing into him and sending the two of them sprawling over the shore of the cove and into the shallow waters of the cool lake. Hiccup cried out as Astrid squealed.
"Hiccup!" she screamed. "Oh, Gods, I'm sorry!"
She quickly wrenched him to his feet. Hiccup shook the stars out of his head as Astrid jumped back.
"Wait, I mean, how did you, but I can't, you shouldn't be here, I'm happy you are, Gods, are you, I just –"
Hiccup grabbed her arms. "Whoa, Astrid, calm down. What are you doing?"
"I'm freaking out!" Astrid said, barely making a sound through her hysterics. "I've been here for so long and you've never touched me and –"
"Okay, question," Hiccup interjected. "When has me touching you been a bad thing?"
"Never! I'm not saying it is! But it doesn't make any sense and I don't know what –"
"It's my dream, it only makes sense that I'd see you."
Astrid shook her head and began pacing. "No… you don't get it," she said frantically. "This is my dreamland, and if you are here, then that means – are you dead?"
"What?" Hiccup asked with a scoff. "No, I'm not dead, I'm sleeping. What is going on?"
"Hiccup, where do I begin? You'll be awake soon!"
Hiccup grabbed her wrists. "What is going on?"
"I'm in some kind of Underground," she said quickly. "I don't know where but I haven't seen the sky in months. Dagur took Ruffnut and I'm in the Hatchery – Hiccup, they don't let the mothers stay with their babies! And then on my first day, after being trapped in this horrible, horrible cell, they brought me there and I got bitten by a Monstrous Nightmare, and I was hit by a dart that puts dragons to sleep and –"
"Wait, what? I still don't –"
"This is real!" Astrid cried. "This whole dream is real, you can't forget! I'm alive, and I'm underground, and they have hundreds of dragons, broken and trapped."
"How can this be real?" Hiccup asked, his expression confused and sad. "I'm sorry, I don't understand…"
"Something has brought us here together, to a common dream. Maybe – maybe our bond?"
Hiccup was about to say something before he noticed her boney hands in his, frailer than ever before.
"What happened to your hands?" he asked. Then he grabbed her face. "You're thin – thinner than I have ever seen you."
Astrid bit her lip. "I've been sleeping. I was poisoned and I haven't woken up quite yet. See? You wouldn't dream about me being like this. And you! How did you get this awful scar on your leg?"
Her fingers brushed his bare leg over where the Sun Sap had hit him, and they stood in silence as they looked at each other carefully.
"Snowdrop misses you," Hiccup murmured. Astrid snatched her hand back slightly, looking back up to Hiccup.
"Is she okay?" Astrid asked quickly. "Oh gods – if this is real – then I don't have to torture myself wondering if you're alive, if Snowdrop –"
"She's fine," Hiccup breathed, pressing his lips to her forehead firmly, smelling her smell that was tainted with something he was not familiar with. "I'm fine. And we're going to come for you one we know where they took you. Where they took Ruffnut. Where they took everyone."
"They're fortified," Astrid replied quickly. "There's no sunlight or fresh air. We're underground. There are hundreds of dragons down here, you have to tell Stoick."
Hiccup faltered. He tried to say something but took one second too long. Astrid looked between his eyes and suddenly became red.
"No. Oh gods, no, Hiccup?"
Hiccup shook his head slowly. "Dad… got in between Snow and a Whispering Death. We're trying everything we can but…"
He shook his head and stopped speaking. Astrid's mouth twitched and her face paled only slightly as she tried to find words.
"Odin's shield, you're the chief then."
"…Yeah. Everything I ever wanted." He gave a sad chuckle.
Astrid wrapped her arms around Hiccup and Hiccup crushed her against his chest. But Astrid felt something tug at her lower back. She pulled away and tried to kiss him, but something wrenched her away. She looked at her hands and her fingers slowly faded away.
"Oh no," Astrid whispered hoarsely. Hiccup tried to grab her hand but his hand went through hers as if she were smoke.
"What's happening?" Hiccup asked frantically. Astrid looked up to him and stumbled back, her body fading away.
"I'm waking up," Astrid replied, terror filling her heart. "Hiccup –"
But she was gone, leaving Hiccup in the cove alone with the ghosts of their dreamland. The birds kept chirping and the weaver weaved another blade of grass into her basket as Hiccup stared at the place Astrid had been standing in. He shivered and closed his eyes.
"I still don't understand…"
Astrid's body slammed back together, her mind reconnecting with her figure as she was torn from the dreamland. Her eyes ripped open and she threw herself from the bed she had been lying on. She rolled onto the floor and landed on her shoulder. She snapped up and looked this way and that, skittering back frantically. She crawled into the wall behind her and smacked her head. She couldn't breathe, she could barely get any air into her body.
"Wildling?"
Astrid cried out at the sudden sound. It came from a dark corner of the room. She scrambled to her feet and found a fire-poker protruding from a small fire pit riddled with embers. She brandished it and pushed her hair away from her face with her elbow. Stargazer 'looked' around the room, turning her head this way and that, listening. Astrid began to tremble as she held the poker between herself and the blind woman.
She could see the woman was injured. Her eyes and her hair were bound in thin strips of brown cloth, hiding them from Astrid's sight. She wore loose men's attire; fabrics of itchy burlap and wool hung off her starved body.
"Who the hell are you?!" Astrid cried. "Where am I? What happened?"
Stargazer raised her hands calmingly.
"You were hit with one of Birdsong's slumber darts," she said quickly with a voice that Astrid found calm and soothing. "My name is Stargazer, Birdsong brought you to me after what happened."
Astrid glared. But she noticed the bandages around her arm and shoulder. Obviously, she felt no pain, otherwise she wouldn't be carrying a fire-poker made of iron. But the bandages were thick and well-tied. She looked down at herself and saw her leg had been bandaged as well. She looked up at Stargazer slowly, suspicious.
"You did this?"
Stargazer licked her lips. "Surprised?"
"You're blind," Astrid spat through clattering teeth.
Stargazer shrugged one of her shoulders. "You're observant. Well done!"
Astrid scoffed and rolled her shoulders. She smelled blood and musty earth all around her, the memories of the dreamland fading away slowly. The flowers, the songs of the birds in the treetops, Hiccup's hand brushing her mouth so wonderfully, all a dream, all gone.
"Do you want any tea?" she asked politely, bringing Astrid out of her mournful reverie. "If so, it's in the pot next to the fire-poker."
Astrid looked at the poker in her hands and looked over to the pot. She found the pot over the embers, steam rising from the contents within. She felt a void within her stomach. Sheepishly, she took the spoon from the pot and spooned the tea into her mouth sloppily after dropping the poker back into the pit. Besides the taste of soot, it tasted heavenly. And Astrid found herself slurping it over her dry and cracked tongue.
"Not too quickly, child!" Stargazer warned. "You haven't eaten in six weeks, you'll end up throwing it all up."
Astrid slowed herself only slightly as Stargazer found a seat by the wall. She relaxed against the stone wall, feeling the stone floor around herself. Her hands touched a pot of what appeared to be curdled milk. Astrid wrinkled her nose and squinted at it.
"So," Stargazer began with a light smile on her pale lips, "I'm sorry if moving you is adding to your disorientation. We had little choice but I think you'll be comfortable here."
Astrid took a gulp of air before she spooned more scalding tea down her throat, but she kept her eyes locked on Stargazer as she stirred the pot of milk.
"How does your arm feel?"
Astrid wiped her chin with the back of her hand and looked to her shoulder. It was bandaged thickly with browned gauze, which Astrid untied with stiff fingers. The bandages came away clean and her shoulder had healed with only the faintest of scars. "Of course, what with your magical tether to your creature, I can imagine your arm feels fine?"
Astrid glared at Stargazer. "I don't know what you're talking about," she murmured hoarsely.
"I changed your bandages every other day, child," Stargazer replied with a shrug. "After day two, you hardly needed them, if my fingers found the scars where they should have been. At first, I wasn't sure what that meant. But I left them on for when Alvin sent his men to check on you."
"Check on me?" Astrid asked.
"Not out of care, mind you. Just to see that you were still breathing. Dragon riders are rare, it turns out, and we have an apparent problem in our Hatch that needs a rider's touch."
"What do you mean? Are the dragons alright?" she asked quickly. Stargazer put the pot aside and thought of her words for a moment.
"We have been breeding eggs around here and Outcast Island since I came here years ago. Any dragon pair that we capture, we try to breed. Then we take the eggs and incubate them and await them to hatch. Once they grow, we then send them to the Pit, where they are trained outside of our control."
Out of disgust, Astrid scoffed and sniffed angrily. "Then you have everything under control," she spat.
"We did," Stargazer admitted at first, "but our eggs stopped hatching since we moved here."
"…What do you mean?"
Stargazer rolled her shoulders and sighed a heavy sigh. "We have hundreds of eggs of all kinds. We warm them, we turn them, we have even disobeyed our superiors by giving them back to the mothers. But none – not one – has hatched. They sit in their nests and remain still."
Astrid had never heard of that before. Of course, there were dead eggs that never would have made it regardless, but there were always babies. Astrid didn't know what to say, but the door swung open and Birdsong stepped in, closing the door behind her.
"Star, I have news –"
She halted as soon as her eyes hit the empty bed. There was a moment of question before she turned as found Astrid sitting by the fire.
"You – you're awake," she murmured. Stargazer made it to her feet quickly and felt for Birdsong.
"Only a few moments, Birdy," she said happily as Birdsong weakly grabbed her friend's hands. She pulled her towards the door.
"I need… a moment with Wildling," Birdsong said quietly without any clear expression. Astrid felt herself huddle against the wall, her eyes flicking over to the iron firepoker embedded in the embers of the fire.
Birdsong shut the door behind Stargazer, who graciously took her leave, and she locked the door. When she turned, Astrid hand was halfway to the poker.
"How do you feel?" she began.
"Don't touch me," Astrid trembled.
"I don't have to touch you to ask the question."
"And you didn't have to shoot me, either."
"I didn't mean to, if that means anything to you," Birdsong said with a glare. "However… we need to have a little conversation. Just you and me."
Astrid growled and tried to lick her dry lips with her dry tongue. "You know, I would try to rip you apart if I weighed anything. Did you try to starve me while I slept?"
Birdsong laughed darkly, an ounce of offence in her voice. "Actually, I force-fed as much as you would let me, but it turns out that even unconscious, you'd rather throw it up instead of being grateful. If I wanted you dead – if I wanted to starve you – I'd have already done it."
"Why haven't you, then?"
"Because I don't want to," Birdsong replied simply. She stepped forward and Astrid snatched the firepoker from the flames. Birdsong stopped and watched with an eyebrow raised as Astrid struggled to her feet as the firepoker weighed her starved arm down.
"Don't be ridiculous," Birdsong snorted. "You're wasting your time. I'm not who you want to kill."
"You don't know that."
"And this is why I wanted to have that wee talk with you. Because it turns out that I have some information that would pose more of an advantage to you than that iron stick."
"Then start talking!" Astrid yelled.
Birdsong frowned. "Fine. I was going to try to put this delicately, but your friend Ruffnut is gone."
At first, Astrid didn't hear the words properly. "What?" she asked with a catch in her throat.
"Dagur," Birdsong added. "I want to explain, and I'll be honest with you. I give you my word as a Berk woman."
"That's the shittiest word you could have ever given me, I don't even know you!" Astrid wheezed.
"You do, you just don't remember me."
"Stop lying to me and tell me why my friend is… is…"
"Astrid. Your name is Astrid. House Hofferson."
That wasn't news to Astrid, but she remembered that she hadn't told Birdsong, or anyone in the Underground, her real name. She was Wildling. Not Astrid. She let the firepoker weigh her arm down until it was touching the floor once more. "You were born during the peak of the harshest winter our families had ever felt in our lifetime. Your mother was Sigourney, my very good friend. You would come to my house to play with my son on occasion."
Astrid felt her body grow tired. "There were a lot of children on Berk when I was little. I don't know who you are."
But she did. She didn't want to, but she did. She could see the same flecks of green in Birdsong's eyes. And then she noticed Birdsong's slightly rounded nose. And how close it was to her thin lips. Astrid shook her head slightly. "No… you can't be."
Birdsong smiled. "Aye, but I can."
"No, I would have known –"
"Sometimes we have to point these things out to those who have their eyes wide open," Valka mused gently.
"Stoick said –"
"That I was dead? Hmm. Perhaps it is easier for him to think that. But your friend… she was sick. You know of the infection that her body was fraught with?"
Astrid felt the firepoker slip from her fingers and clang to the floor. And for some reason, even though she didn't trust Valka entirely, she found herself stumbling towards Valka. "No, I promised her that –"
Valka grabbed Astrid's tiny, frail, and shivering body. She pulled Astrid into her arms and held her on the edge of the bed. She rocked her gently as Astrid felt her eyes burn, but no tears would come from her dehydrated body.
"Alvin found out that Hiccup's wife was under our roof, and he needed to execute her so no one would know. Ruffnut, already sick, took your place."
Astrid squeezed her eyes shut and curled into a ball, holding her stomach. "No…"
"She didn't feel anything," Valka promised her. "Alvin is satisfied and has no reason to question you. You're safe for now."
"No…" Astrid repeated. She groaned and suddenly, her stomach lurched painfully and she threw herself upon the stone floor. In a single wave, the tea came splurging from her body. It coated the floor around her hands. Valka left the bed and pulled Astrid's hair out of the way as Astrid spat the rest up.
"I hate him," Astrid seethed as drool dribbled through her gnashing teeth. "It should have been me. It should have been me!"
"Hush, child. There is nothing we can do about that now."
"Why didn't you just tell me?" Astrid asked, turning her head only slightly to glare at Valka. "Why didn't you say who you were?"
"I thought my Hiccup was dead," Valka replied coldly. "I let Alvin make me believe that he was poisoned. And that Rose –"
"Rose?" Astrid asked, confused.
"Aye, Rose. He let me believe both my children were dead."
Astrid sat up and grabbed Valka's arm to help steady herself. "I – I don't know –"
"Rose is my daughter, Astrid, as much as Hiccup is my son. I'm guessing she chose to keep that part of herself a secret before you were taken?"
Astrid could only manage a nod, but it made things so much clearer: how Toothless would randomly sniff Rose suspiciously, like at the wedding. And how she had no home to speak of, yet made her presence known.
"Does Stoick know? Any of this?" she asked quietly.
Valka looked away. "I don't believe so. When I found out I was pregnant, I chose to keep it a secret. Between her and Hiccup, I'd had so many miscarriages. It broke Stoick's heart every time… so I decided to wait for once until I knew the baby would stick. I was going to tell him around the time I was captured."
"And that baby was Rose…"
"Turns out the gods made me wait for her," Valka said with a sad smile. "When she was among us, she told Alvin that she wasn't his child, as I let him believe – the only way Alvin would have left Rose alone would have been if I lied and said she was Alvin's daughter and not Stoick's – but Rose grew tired of the façade. Alvin hit her and she ran off, only to sneak her way into the arena. She was bitten by one of our largest dragons, Skyripper. Next thing I knew, she woke up from her injuries saying she could hear… voices."
"The bond," Astrid finished. "That was how she got the bond."
Valka rubbed her face. "I never fully believed her, but there were too many things that were hard to not believe. She said that Skyripper chose her because she was Hiccup's blood, and before I could stop her, she began to plant words in the minds of whoever would listen. Talk of a Saviour spread across the island like wildfire. Then Alvin ordered the Skrill, Crasher, to kill this so-called Saviour everyone raved about. When that failed, I asked Alvin to send Rose to the wedding. He didn't know that the ruckus was caused by her, but I needed to get her to a safe place to let things calm down. Thankfully, Alvin still values my word more than most, so he listened."
Valka leaned back and Astrid rubbed her belly as another wave of nausea tugged against it. "When she came back without any useful information, Alvin… chained her and announced they were leaving Outcast Island. He must have found out about her involvement in the rebellion. He lit the whole island aflame and forced me to bid her farewell. And Dagur revealed this – this concoction he brewed on our shores called Outcast Orchid, and they began to pick off the leaders one by one. Everything happened so fast and before I knew it, I was motherless… until now."
Astrid swallowed and Valka grabbed Astrid's frail hands. "Too long have I forced myself to suffer at the hands of evil men, who murder children and dragons and call themselves righteous. Too long have I been blind to the magic of my children, who have defied death and whose hearts call to mine every night. Ever since I saw you and saw what you did with that dragon, I was ready to open my eyes."
"What are you saying?" Astrid asked shakily.
"I am not going to sit here while my daughter-in-law suffers as I have. We need an uprising. We need to finish what Rose began and we need to get back to our husbands. We need the Saviour and all that the name entails. I will not watch as another Berkian submits to the ways of an Outcast."
Astrid fell onto her backside, trying to keep up. "I can't fight," she admitted. "Look at me. I've lost everything I had before and I don't know how to get it back."
"I have connections," Valka assured her. "I will get you more food, spread the word as much as I can, train with you, and keep my ears open for anything we can use to our advantage. We only have a moon or two to act before the ice closes our only way out."