Well, here it is! The final chapter of Arc Two! Things just got real...
Thank you to all of my amazing reviewers, especially the ones that have followed me this far and who review every chapter so faithfully. You guys keep me going, and for that, I can't thank you enough!
If anyone can guess the reference I make, I will be flabbergasted. I'll give you a hint: it's from a hit TV show and a book series!
Anyway, without further ado, enjoy the last chapter of this arc!
HORIZONS
Arc 2: Verðandi and the End of All Things
Chapter XI
Hiccup awoke the next morning more or less refreshed, despite the drone of a humming sound buzzing like a hornet at the back of his head. He'd been hearing it on and off ever since his run in with the tidal wave, and it was honestly beginning to get on his already frazzled nerves. He turned his head to the side and his irritability all but disappeared though, as he caught a glimpse of a tuft of golden hair shining brightly in the sun.
Astrid.
Coming clean the night before had actually felt...okay. It felt as if a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders, in that he could finally confide in someone, particularly someone who could answer him back. He knew for a fact that Toothless could comprehend his language perfectly, and understand everything he said, but finally having the opportunity to engage in a human conversation had been surprisingly pleasant.
He didn't think he had missed being human that much.
But apparently, he did.
He sighed softly and stretched his back, his aching muscles rebelling against the strain. The sting from the wound on his ribs wasn't as intense as it had been when he had fallen asleep, and for that he was thankful; he had enough to worry about already, especially now that he wasn't looking out for just Toothless and himself anymore.
Now he had responsibility.
Ugh.
Hiccup turned his head in the opposite direction and locked eyes with the ebony dragon lying beside him, the Fury silently conveying the same thing. Hiccup, although still naive to the true nature of the situation, was more worried about their survival now that there were four of them to take care of. Toothless, on the other hand, realized exactly what having Astrid and her Nadder as tag-a-longs really meant.
Things were going to become deadly serious, very soon.
Hiccup raked his fingers through his messy hair, wishing that he could find his comb. He figured he had lost it sometime during their rest in the heart of the mountain a few days ago, but he had been so tired then that he couldn't be sure, especially since their entire 'vacation' was a bit of a blur thanks to the blood loss. He sighed and turned his head towards Astrid once again, shifting slightly so that he could catch a glimpse of her face amidst the piles of fur heaped on top of her.
Gods, when had she gotten so skinny?
Her complexion had become ashen and sallow, and her was skin taut against her protruding cheekbones. She looked almost frail in a sense, and it both shocked and disheartened him to think of her that way. For his entire life, she had been a source of strength, of brawniness and brute force. Now she just looked sick, as if she had starved herself in her attempt to catch up with him.
His stomach turned at the thought.
Something ugly reared inside of him as his concern began to ebb away, transposing into frustration. Why had she risked her health, and her life, for him? He ran his hand over his face and let a breath of chagrin pass his lips; even though he was hundreds of miles away from Berk, he was still inadvertently causing harm to others.
He bunched his fingers into fists and tried without success to suppress his emotions. For so long he had done so, compressing them as tightly as he could to the back of his mind where they would hopefully be forgotten. But after being so unfettered for so long, not to mention the monotonous vibration currently residing in the spot he had reserved solely for his repressed feeling, he just couldn't force himself to simmer down and shut up about it.
He threw his covers off of his body and pulled himself into a sitting position, ignoring the sudden sting in his side. His clenched fists and sudden fury were enough to distract him from the lesion on his ribs for the moment, and although he wouldn't be able to ignore the reopened wound for very long, he didn't give it enough thought to notice. He continued to his feet and bent down to roll up his sleeping bag, cringing but otherwise still furious.
He was tempted to say something as she stirred from her slumber, but he bit down the reckless urge. Instead, he stomped over towards his basket and shoved the bundle of furs unceremoniously inside, forgetting all about his pristine, organizational folding technique. He ignored the look of confusion his dragon was throwing at him and continued to busy himself with the stubborn sack of furs, cursing under his breath as he used his foot to pack them in.
"Hiccup?"
"What?" he grumbled back, still unwilling to look at her. She was sick and skinny, and it was all because of him.
"Are you okay?"
"I should be asking you that."
He heard her sigh from behind him, but he paid no heed to it.
"What got you into such a bad mood?" Astrid asked, drawing up beside him. She stared pointedly as he maintained his frustrated expression, arms folded tightly across his chest.
"Nothing," he bit back petulantly, letting his instincts guide him further into a flurry of emotions he wasn't very familiar with.
"Well obviously something's up," Astrid persisted, sliding in front of him as he continued to turn his body away. Hiccup frowned and glared just passed her shoulder, towards the Western part of the island.
"Just go get ready," he ground out, his voice still gravely from disuse during the night, "And get something to eat. You look hungry."
Astrid narrowed her eyes and slowly backed away, trying to make sense of Hiccup's sudden change in behaviour from the night before. She kept one eye on his hunched form as she started digging through her pack, snatching a bundle of dried fruits and cheeses from the very bottom. Her stomach growled ravenously as she unwrapped the cheese from its cloth, the scent of the fermented foodstuff making her mouth water.
She ripped a hunk off of the cheese and stuffed in her mouth, her eyes practically watering as the flavour assaulted her tongue. She couldn't even remember the last time she had eaten, but by the gods, did it ever feel good to fill the empty hole in her stomach. She'd become more or less used to the feeling of raw hunger clawing at her from within, and it relieved her greatly that there was no need for haste any longer. She sunk back into her sleeping sack as she started shovelling the dried fruits passed her lips, chewing them in ecstasy.
Hiccup glanced at her from the corner of his eye, hating the way his own stomach was rumbling. Of course he was hungry - he hadn't exactly been living the life of luxury. It bothered him that she was enjoying her food so much; she was practically crying as she continued to cram handfuls of dried crab apples into her mouth, barely chewing them as she stifled a moan. But why was he so upset? Wasn't the reason he was mad in the first place because he hated to see her starve?
Hiccup shook his head violently. This headache was starting to affect him.
Eventually, the young explorer dug into his own pack and started gnawing on the cured venison Toothless and himself had caught a few weeks ago, staring out towards the horizon. The ebony dragon stirred and sat down beside him, feeding off of the same nervous energy his hatching was exuding. Without having to turn towards him and watch his movements, Toothless could tell exactly what was troubling his human beyond the presence of his mate.
The incessant drone in their minds was beginning to grow worse with each passing day.
They were both feeling it; Toothless could sense the same buzz of energy humming from the human's limbs, throbbing to the repetitive hum of his pounding head. And it got even worse the closer they got to each other, especially during the prolonged contact that was necessary for both of them to continue their journey across the ocean. Hiccup had sensed this too, even though Toothless didn't really understand how he knew this – he blamed it on the fact that they hadn't been more than a few meters apart from each other for the past month since their departure from Berk. He snorted quietly, glancing sidelong at his human hatchling.
They spent far too much time together to be healthy.
Wide eyed, Toothless tried to quell the wave of horror as Hiccup smiled at the exact same time.
Packing up the last of his supplies, Hiccup attached them to Toothless' saddle and piled the rest into his backpack that he had slung over his shoulders. His bad mood, so foreign to the usually pensive boy, had waned somewhat to the far reaches of his mind, but trickles of the unusual animosity still remained. Toothless had settled into a tedious routine of watching him almost constantly, which stirred so many feelings inside of the young explorer that he was beginning to find the Night Fury's presence annoying.
But nothing could have prepared him for his greatest annoyance of all.
"So, where exactly are we going?"
Hiccup bit down on his tongue, forcing himself to keep his composure, "We're going west."
"You don't have any clear destination?"
"No."
"Doesn't that seem a little reckless to you?"
Hiccup sighed, grabbing a tuft of his mahogany hair and tugging it roughly, "No."
"Can you at least give me more than a one worded answer?"
He glared at his dragon, who lolled his tongue unhelpfully.
"No."
He heard Astrid huff in exasperation and hoist herself onto her own dragon, settling quickly into the leather saddle. She watched passively from her peripherals as Hiccup leapt onto Toothless and started hooking his prosthetic into the series of clips that were attached to the stirrup. The complex array of components and clasps boggled her mind as he continued to fiddle with the small parts, screwing in a section here and buckling a segment together there. How he had created such an impressive array of equipment was thoroughly beyond her.
And so was his bad attitude. What the Hel was wrong with him anyway?
Without wasting any more idle time, Toothless took off at a near vertical tangent and Astrid quickly followed suite, allowing the Nadder to spiral upwards at a less drastic angle in order to catch up to the nimble Fury above them. After a minute or two, they settled into a comfortable formation, Nadder and Night Fury flying side by side just beneath the clouds in the overcast sky. For hours they maintained the same heading, flying west without an actual objective to reach, and the more she thought about it, the more she hated it. For weeks Astrid had been flying towards an end, towards a goal. Now it was like they were sticking their necks out for absolutely no reason whatsoever, save the 'thrill' of exploration.
It wasn't the Viking way.
She pushed her unruly bangs out of her eyes with her free hand and sighed. When did Hiccup ever follow the Viking way?
The sun was just beginning its descent along the horizons when Toothless banked left suddenly, jerking down just beneath her Nadder's withdrawn claws. Toothless and his rider let out a shriek as Hiccup reached up to cover his ears, pressing his hands against them as hard as he could in an attempt to drown out the horrible noises that had swelled like a giant sea swell over top of them.
The look of horror on Astrid's face only magnified as the sea started churning beneath of them like a whirlpool, except the water was rising instead of sinking down into the cyclone. Astrid screamed at Hiccup and urged her Nadder down in the direction of the Night Fury and his rider, the latter spiralling out of control towards the frothing waves. The Deadly Nadder nosedived for the falling pair and extended her sharp paws, seizing Toothless by the hind legs before they crashed against the foam. The cerulean dragon fought to hoist all four of them back up into the clouds, the extra weight forcing her to beat her heavy wings double time.
Between moving her body back and forth in the saddle to help her Nadder gain momentum and keeping her eyes trained on the pair beneath of them, Astrid barely had the chance to duck before a torrent of water streaked passed her head, dousing her and her dragon in ice cold water. She gritted her teeth together and wiped the water from her goggles with her free hand, peering down over her dragon's withers at the tempestuous eye of the cyclone. Between every swell of the waves, she caught the tiniest glimpse of the force of nature that was causing it all; a huge, legless body the size of the mainland in width, covered in lurid, overlapping scales...
And that was only a portion of it.
She heard Hiccup and Toothless cry out again against the crashing of the waves, and Astrid urged her Nadder on in haste. So long as they were near this creature, which Astrid quickly likened with the colossal snake skin she had seen on her voyage, Hiccup and Toothless were in incredible danger.
"Faster!" she screamed, urging her Nadder to fly with urgency as another torrent of water surged from the cyclone towards them. This time it collided with them full on, nearly buffeting her from her seat. She fought to get back into the saddle against the glacial wind the cyclone had summoned, her teeth chattering violently as the freezing weather turned her soggy clothes to ice. The adrenaline pumping through her veins was the only thing saving her from hypothermia as they continued their escape into the clouds, where she hoped they would find refuge from the monster below them.
She screwed her eyes shut as the volume around her rose in magnitude, and the world seemed to freeze at a standstill that she never thought would end. A roar overtook her senses with a raging, horrifying vengeance that threatened to shake her very bones from their tendons and send her plunging into the abyss. She screamed as she felt its breath against the exposed skin of her neck, putrid and rancid with the reek of decay and death. She could feel its eyes sinking into her, gouging into the back of her head like knives.
In that briefest of moments, she knew what it would feel like to die.
But then the clouds were approaching, and time began to race in order to catch up with the precious seconds it had lost. She shot through the cloud barrier like a missile and rocketed towards the sky above, just in time to see the enormous outline of a snake's head disappear into the clouds.
Below her, Hiccup and Toothless returned to their senses long enough to regain their faculties, and the Nadder quickly released them from her sharpened claws. The matching looks of horror on their faces as they stared down at the veiled, retreating shape of their pursuer never melted into one of relief.
'tihhhhhvezhhhhven…'
They shuddered as the serpent's voice waned into silence in their minds, the drone of his presence at the back of their psyche slowly wilting into a whisper. It had spoken to them, taunted them, toyed with them…
It knew their names…
Hiccup gripped the handles of his saddles until he lost the circulation in his hands; he stared down at the clouds until his eyes, wide and haunted, began to tear. He sat rigid in his saddle until the muscles in his back screamed in protest, the wound in his ribcage aching.
He didn't feel any of it.
He didn't hear Astrid crying out to him as they soared against an updraft. He didn't see her face as she flew before him, her expression scared and fretful.
All he saw were memories he wasn't familiar with, playing over and over again like a series of pictures in his mind.
All he heard were the echoing screams of a snake as old as the middle earth itself, laughing like a mad king on his throne.
Eventually, they withdrew from their standstill and started to follow Astrid and her Nadder towards the west, flying on autopilot just behind them. Toothless was just as preoccupied as his rider, having sensed the correlation of their thoughts at the brink of the monster's psychological assault. When the snake had spoken to both of them, it was as if it had branded them as one being; it spoke to them as a singular unit, and this worried the ebony dragon more than he cared to admit.
Because, when the snake opened their minds, Hiccup suddenly became open to him.
The dragon forced himself to relax, and the manner in which Hiccup slowly relieved his saddle from his death grip confirmed his theory to be unnervingly correct. So long as that blasted, snake-induced headache reverberated in the back of their minds, Hiccup and Toothless were linked.
He could sense the boy's confusion and horror without having to physically look at him, which, come to think of it, would have been impossible had they remained on Berk. He had associated it with their familiarity time and time before, but to be able to sense his emotions at that capacity was unnatural, but not necessarily unwelcome.
Hiccup stared out into the expanse with an utterly blank expression, moving his knee only in instinct to keep him and his dragon afloat. His face was a contradiction, however, to the storm that was raging like a torrent inside of him, leaving him feeling exhausted and uncomfortably exposed.
In those moments when that creature, whatever it was, had tried to kill them from the inside, Hiccup lost his mind. He saw things, felt things, smelt things he had never experienced before, in a range of colours he had never seen before, from a pair of eyes he was sure he didn't own. He saw things from an entirely different perspective, from above, from below, from upside down. He even saw himself, skewed in a myriad of technicolours brighter and denser than he himself was capable of seeing. The onslaught of the foreign memories left him drained and frightened, but confused most of all.
He hadn't understood exactly what the monster had been saying in its language when it had hissed inside his mind, but its malicious intent had been inexhaustibly clear. It was out to kill them for its own perverse pleasure, because it found them to be...intriguing. Not for any other reason per se; it just had a sick obsession with toying and killing intriguing things.
The thought made Hiccup sick to his stomach.
And not for the first time, Hiccup begged every god in Asgard to just make him normal.
It had also made itself clear in its intent to hunt them down no matter how well they hid. It was positively delighted that the pair continued to try and run for their lives, because as far as it was concerned, it only made the game of hide and seek more pleasurable. The seraphic, sweet satisfaction it had expressed when describing their inevitable destruction made Hiccup want to crawl out of his own skin, revolted by the way it took revelry in frightening them.
Fear, it had implored wordlessly, would make their flesh taste sweeter.
Hiccup retched violently, and threw up over the Night Fury's shoulder into the sea.
Astrid glanced over her shoulder as the boy pulled himself back into a sitting position, his complexion frail and sickly. Even Toothless looked like death warmed over, and Astrid knew without a doubt that they would have to land soon regardless of the gigantic sea serpent stalking the depths of the sea below them. The clouds were parting and the sun was beginning to shine through, illuminating patches of the calm ocean below them. The snake had probably retreated for the moment, but Astrid was never one to get too optimistic about anything.
Just over an hour later, she spotted an island on the horizon and urged her Nadder to change directions and head towards it. The cerulean dragon eagerly complied, tired after hauling the Night Fury in winds not unlike a raging hurricane. She'd been caught in a number of tropical storms before, having migrated down towards to the sweltering coasts of the lower main continent many times before her enslavement by the Red Death. But what they had been forced to fly in was nothing short of unnatural, and the screams, not to mention the reek, of that snake creature was reason enough to take a break and try to forget about it.
Astrid landed a few minutes before Hiccup and she diligently scouted the place out for a shelter. She hastily found a cave on the side of an escarpment and slunk in, her axe in hand just in case the space was already inhabited. Luckily, the cave seemed more or less abandoned and Astrid returned to the snow trodden mouth, searching for the closest source of wood to make a fire.
As she hacked down a tree with the duller side of her axe, Astrid kept a wary eye in the sky for the Night Fury and his rider. They crash landed nearby and Astrid ran over to help, tossing her weapon in the snow behind her. She went to yank Hiccup upright but conveniently remembered all of the mechanisms that attached his prosthetic to his foot, and quickly thought better of it.
"Are you alright?" she said, her voice still hoarse from the screaming and the salty air. Hiccup made a soft grunt in reply as Astrid bent down on her knees so that she could get a better look at the stirrup. Scanning the mechanism over once, she realized that it wasn't as difficult as it had seemed at first glance, and with a quick flick of the four main clasps, Hiccup came free.
She hauled him up onto his feet and led him over to the mouth of the cave, where she sat the nearly catatonic boy down on a stone she had cleared of snow. Her Nadder was already busy trying to prod Toothless back into the land of the living, and now that both of them had been dealt with, she returned to cutting the wood for their fire. She took handful after handful inside the cave and set the logs up in a triangular pile before coming back outside into the setting sun.
"Come on Hiccup," she urged, lifting the boy back up onto his feet. She brought him inside and plopped him back down again just as Toothless and her Nadder made their way through the cavern and into the main chamber. Astrid didn't have to say a word as the azure dragon walked over and promptly set the heap of logs on fire, bathing the igneous rocks surrounding them in a wash of orange light.
Astrid's heart got the better of her as she pulled Toothless' saddle bags off of his tack and set them aside, hauling out Hiccup's sleeping sack as she did so. She rolled it out by the fire and set Hiccup down on it, pushing his dishevelled hair out of his face as she got a better look at him. She didn't think he could look worse after seeing him lie on his deathbed for seventeen days after the battle of the Red Death, but she was proved wrong yet again. At least then his eyes had been closed; despite the light of the raging fire, they now looked as glassy as those of a corpse.
"What happened Hiccup?" she implored, sitting down beside him on the matted fur of his sleeping bag. She put her arm around his shoulders and leant forward to match his hunched silhouette, staring blankly into the fire.
"We're being hunted."
Astrid pursed her lips, raising one of her eyebrows, "Well, that was obvious. I meant, what happened to you?"
"I…" he ran his hands through his knotted hair, his expression confused and desperate, "I don't…I don't know. I don't know what's going on."
He breathed out a few times, as if he were trying to prepare himself to voice something; Astrid kept her silence in anticipation of what he would say next, "One minute I'm…I'm me and then I…and then I'm seeing things that…that don't belong to me. And it's all because of that thing…that thing that's apparently trying to eat me and Toothless for fun."
"For fun?" Astrid asked, her eyes questioning, "How do you even know that?"
"Because I can understand it," Hiccup replied, his voice as morose as his expression, "And that's not even the worst part."
"What?"
Hiccup sighed and hung his head, "Days ago – maybe a week, I don't know – we were attacked and…I got a headache. But the headache…it's…it's how I can hear it. And Toothless can here it too. It thinks we're connected somehow, like Toothless and I are the same person, even though we're not."
"Well, Toothless does rely on you to fly. Technically, you're his tailfin after all."
"This thing is intelligent enough to distinguish a human from a tailfin Astrid."
"Well obviously. But you two are inseparable. It's not that difficult to imagine that a foreign…gigantic sea serpent, who isn't exactly familiar with the nature of humans, would see you as anything but."
"Still…I find it hard to believe."
"Well, you better start believing, and soon. From what I've gathered, we won't be getting away from this without a fight."
"We? Astrid," Hiccup finally turned towards her, his facial expression both frantic and fraught, "I can't have you being pulled into this. You need to leave before you get hurt, or worse."
"What?" Astrid stared at him like he was completely insane, and crossed her arms tightly over her chest, "Are you crazy? There is absolutely no way I'm leaving you to be eaten by a giant snake!"
"I can't win this Astrid," he pleaded, "You have to go, now if you can."
"No! I'm not leaving!"
"Astrid, you have to! I don't need your death on my conscious too!"
"I'm staying here!"
"No you're not!
"Yes I am!"
"No you're not!"
"Gods, why are you being so difficult?"
"Because I don't want you to die!"
"How are you so sure that I'm going to die?"
"I just know!"
By this time, both Hiccup and Astrid were on their feet, their exhaustion forgotten as their anger for each other flowed through their veins.
"Did your snake friend give you super powers to see the future now too?"
"No, gods damnit Astrid – can't you just listen to me for once in your life?"
"Listen? What do you think I did when I jumped onto that dragon with you for the very first time?"
"You only got on because you had to!
"That's not the point!" she shrieked, barely keeping herself from strangling the bedraggled boy in front of her, "I trusted you! I put my faith in you! So why can't you put any faith in me?"
"Because I'm about to get murdered by Jormungand, that's why!"
"You don't know that!"
"Yes I do!"
"No you don't!"
"Yes I do!"
"No you don't!"
"Fine! You're right! Happy?"
"No, I'm not happy! Now, I'm staying, so deal with it!"
"You're going to get killed, don't you understand? I can't escape it! It'll hunt me down no matter where I go!"
"Then we'll go somewhere inland where it can never reach you!"
"There is no we! Go home Astrid! Go back to your family, your friends, before it's too late."
"I'm not going anywhere!"
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why won't you go?"
"Because!"
"Because why?"
Astrid was about to open her mouth with another standoffish retort when Hiccup buckled over in front of her, cradling his abdomen in his arms and gasping out loud. Astrid rushed to his side immediately and gingerly helped him back down onto the furs, her wrath forgotten as she laid him horizontal. She started peeling layer after layer of clothing up from where he had tucked them into his trousers, revealing the pale, infected skin that lied beneath.
"Hiccup," she breathed, gazing at the crusted wound. She looked back up towards Hiccup's pained expression before being drawn back to the festering wound on his ribcage, her stomach churning.
"Please," he whispered back, his eyes screwed shut in agony. He curled his hands into fists and held them rigid at his sides, his back arched and contorted as he tried to get a hold on himself. Beads of sweat were beginning to pepper his skin as he forced himself to regulate his breathing, hoping that his shallow breaths would minimize the movement of his chest.
From the other side of the fire, Toothless pulled himself to his claws and stumbled over to his rider in an attempt to try and help. He missed a few times, dropping his head at the wrong angle too many times to count, but when he finally did manage to slop his tongue onto Hiccup's skin, he couldn't help but notice Astrid gasp.
She reacted in nearly the same way Hiccup had, in that she couldn't drag her eyes away. She'd never even considered the practical applications of anything dragon related, save the convenience of transportation, but now that she thought of it, she hadn't ever seen a blemish on Hiccup's face since she had actually started paying attention to his looks…
His heavy breathing lessened as the minutes drew on, and the colour began to return to his face in the orange light of the fire. Astrid scooted closer to his head and brushed his hair to the side with a flick of her wrist, smiling fondly.
"Your hair is worse than Tuffnut's," she said quietly, grinning when she received the response she had desired.
"Great Odin, cut it off!" he grimaced in reply, wincing when his laughter put too much stress on the re-healing wound. She cradled his head in her hands and set him down in her lap, reaching inside the pocket of her belt for her own comb. She pulled it out and began detangling his unruly mane section by section, basking in the comfortable silence of the cavern's fire. She heard him sigh after she unsnarled a particularly tough knot, and she leant forward so she could get a better look at the expression on his face.
"Thank you," he murmured, closing his eyes as he felt her shift forwards. He didn't have to be able to see her to feel the relief that washed over her, nor the press of her lips against his forehead.
His eyes snapped open.
"I still haven't changed my mind you know," she replied in return, resuming her assault on his tangled hair as if nothing had happened.
"A…Astrid…" he took a deep breath, ignoring the sting in his side, "I can't just fly in on a whim like last time; this thing is a thousand times worse than the Red Death! That dragon was a mother hen in comparison to this…this creature. He's the stuff of legend, and he's trying to kill me!"
"Shush Hiccup," she quieted him with a tug of his hair, "You've got one thing on your side."
Hiccup tried not to sound incredulous, "And what's that?"
"It underestimates you, and humans in general. It thinks you're nothing but a puppet, when you're really just the opposite! You may not be able to outrun it, or outfly it, but did it ever cross your mind that you could outsmart it?"
"Outsmart it?" Hiccup raised an eyebrow in confusion, "How?"
"You're one of the smartest people I know Hiccup," she assured him, "You're a tactical genius, and that alone should give you the advantage. This snake might be fierce and manipulative, but the ocean only spans so far. You've got the entire sky to work with, plus any land you may encounter."
Hiccup was quiet for a moment before replying, "But how do I beat it?"
Astrid rolled her eyes and shook her head warmly, briefly remembering who she was dealing with, "The old fashioned Viking way of course! You kill it! I saw that sword you made for yourself; you can't tell me that you made it for no reason."
"I made it for self defense, not for going around and getting myself killed trying to hack a snake's head off."
"Well, that much is obvious – you couldn't cut off its head, even with a hundred swords. You have to find its weakest spot and strike it there."
"How…how do you even know all this?"
"I always was the better hunter," she said with a smile. Hiccup turned his head up towards her so that he could see her face, and was unable to keep himself from smiling a little as well, "I can't pretend that I'm as smart as my great aunt, or even you, but sometimes I can think up some pretty intelligent things."
"You're the smartest woman I know."
"Good answer," Astrid replied with a laugh, settling back into combing the knots in his hair. For a while, only the crackle of the fire could be heard, and as she finished the last strands of his hair, she set his head back down and laid beside him, careful not to press her body too close to his. Smiling sleepily, he brought his hand down to hers and tangled their fingers together, cracking open one of his eyelids just in time to see her smile.
And as the tendrils of sleep began to take hold of his body, he heard Astrid whisper something from beside him, something that struck a chord deep within.
"My great aunt once told me that those of us who only concern ourselves with the past are like prisoners. She said that it's because they don't live in the present, and the present is where the future begins."
Hiccup smiled and tightened his grip on her fingers. He could start living in the present; he could see the faults of his ways.
He just wasn't sure if he could do it alone.
With a yawn, Hiccup exhaled quietly and pulled Astrid closer to him, hugging her close to his body.
Either way, it would just have to wait until tomorrow...
Hooray! A little danger, a little romance, a little suspense! How did you like it? Did the dialogue seem accurate to you? I really wanted to highlight their compatibility, like what was shown during Astrid's pep talk in the movie. She's his anchor, and he's the vessel, in a manner of speaking. Without her, he'd never have a chance to take a moment and collect himself before going out and achieving greatness.
Please leave a review as well! I'd love to hear what you think, as well as your theories concerning the final arc of this saga. :)
Brontë