Chapter 7
Early sunset, skies lit up red and clouds scattered messily on the horizon. Stoick the Vast wandered through the village on his new dragon, Skullcrusher. He sighed.
"Five years… I can't believe it's been five years," he said to Gobber.
"Well Stoick, Drago was a maniac, it may even take longer for them to show themselves… or maybe he's dead," Gobber whispered the last part to himself.
"And this helps, how?" Stoick scoffed.
Still slightly dark, a high-pitched whistling could be heard, and one thing was for sure… it was getting closer.
"Is that…?" Stoick started until Gobber finished that sentence for him.
"NIGHTFURY!" He yelled.
And sure enough, the black, unholy offspring of lightning and death itself appeared and zoomed over their heads, doing a tight turn in the air then landed on the cliff in front of them. The whole village had gathered there already, Astrid and the others pushed their way to the front.
Astrid had grown a lot in those past 5 years, her hair was in a side plait and she wore a white fur hood.
A slim man in leather armor, an unusual left leg and mask stepped off the back of the dragon, and then forward to the crowd.
A few other people backed away from the figure.
"Who in Thor's name are you? And why do you have a Night Fury?" Stoick exclaimed.
The man shrugged to himself and reached up, pulled his mask off and ruffled up his auburn hair.
He looked up to the astonished faces of the people he had known a long time ago. His emerald eyes bore a hole in Stoick's soul as the chief teared up and raced over to his son.
"Hiccup!" He yelled as he embraced him.
"Hey, dad," Hiccup said quietly. Stoick drew back to look at his son before seeing all the blood that was soaking his arms. He realised it wasn't his, and he looked at Hiccup.
"Whoops," and that was all Hiccup said before he collapsed in his fathers hands. For a moment Stoick was stunned before he yelled.
"Someone get the healer and my wife!" Before running towards his house with an unconscious Hiccup in his arms and a limping night fury running after him.
Stoick kicked the door down and placed Hiccup on the table before finding bandages to stop the bleeding. As Stoick pressed the bandages to the open wounds, Hiccup yelped in pain.
"Shhh," Stoick whispered. The bleeding was slowing down but not because of the bandages, it was because there wasn't that much blood in Hiccup left to bleed...soon he would be...No Stoick would not allow him to think like that, he just got his son back for thor's sake, he was not going to lose him again.
Just as he thought this gothi, Valka and Gobber all barged into the room. Valka ran over and grabbed one of Hiccup's hands and started crying and whispering.
"My baby, oh gods, no, no, no!"
Gothi walked over and started to apply a herb to the wounds to seal up the scars enough for her to sew them up.
"Um not to put more pressure on you Valka but Toothless is hurt too," Valka turned around to see Gobber looking at Toothless, she noticed multiple scratches some deep and some just a graze from arrows. There was also what appeared to be bite marks on his left back leg which was making him stand uncomfortably.
She moved over to Toothless even though her heart was telling her not to leave Hiccup's side.
She scratched underneath Toothless's chin making him collapse sleeping. She put some bandages on the worse wounds to stop his bleeding.
"Gobber go get Mulch, he knows what to do," Gobber nodded and ran as quick as he could.
Valka walked back over to hiccup to notice he was very pale, she looked over his injuries to gasp as she saw that her son's left leg had been replaced by a piece of metal. Anger surged through her.
"I will kill Drago for doing this to my poor boy," the last bit of her sentence cracked a bit as tears came pouring out.
"My poor, poor boy," she whispered as she held Hiccup's hand.
All Stoick could do was stand there as he watched his wife cry over her son and Gothi sewing the wounds up.
He didnt no what to feel, happiness his son was home, or anger towards Drago for what he did, or desperate as this could really be the last time he see's Hiccup.
An hour after all the wounds were clean and sealed they moved Hiccup to his hold room. Toothless followed slowly even after Mulch told him not to, making Mulch follow him to Hiccup's room so he could look over the dragon.
The bite mark and scratches seemed to already have healed, but Mulch still used some thick cloth to stop bleeding or infection.
Hiccup's face paled even more, Astrid looking over him from her seat next to his bed. He was close to death. After Gothi had done all she could, and Stoick sent Valka to get some sleep, he asked Astrid to keep an eye on Hiccup so he could explain to the village what was going on. She had been sitting here for an hour or so now and the only sign Hiccup was still alive was his shallow breathing. She remembered when they were just 15, her first actual crush and just like that he disappeared and then just like that reappeared.
There was a mumble of unrecognizable words, she looked towards Hiccup so see that his eyes were opening slowly, Astrid stopped breathing she was about to call out to Gothi when Hiccup looked at her and smiled the best he could.
"Miss me?" He asked, Astrid was silent before reaching over and grabbing Hiccup into a tight bear hug, sobbing slightly.
"You...idiot," she said through the crying.
"Do I take that as a yes?" He mumbled before falling silent. Astrid thought he had died and quickly put her head to his chest….she heard his heart beat and his breathing perfectly fine.
"Idiot," she said before getting up to go look for Valka or Gothi to tell them of him walking up.
"Don't" Hiccup said as she stood. She turned around to see that hiccup hadn't gone back to sleep, he had just closed his eyes.
"What? Why? They need to know you are ok," she said.
"I wanted… to talk to you," he said. He opened his eyes slightly, but only to look at his feet.
"Sure… what is it?" Astrid asked as she sat back down.
"I… wanted you to… I wanted you to know the reason I'm still alive," Hiccup stuttered.
"I wanted to tell you, but everything went dark once my dad ran over to me," he continued. Astrid scooted forward on the chair to hear him better.
"The only thing that made me want to fight Drago to come back to Berk… was you," he finished, tears forming in his eyes.
