Nine days.
Nine days I went without internet. I hate tornadoes. They are a giant pain in my ass.
I'm so sorry I didn't get to reply to most of you but I just want you to know that I loved hearing from you! I appreciate what you have to say so much and I always look forward ro reading your inspiring reviews. Without them, this story simply wouldn't be.
I hope you can understand why I took such a long sabbatical (hello Mother Nature). I promise it won't be this long again.
And now, the final arc of the saga. May I remind you that Horizons is now a strong T.
HORIZONS
Arc III : We Are Skuld
Chapter I
Hiccup woke up with a start, his green eyes gaping wide as he absorbed his surroundings in a frenzy. He heaved involuntarily, his back arching as he gasped desperately for breath, and his hands clung instinctively to the closest thing to him.
Astrid stirred restlessly in her sleep – her head having been nestled gently on the hollow of his chest – as he gripped her body like it was the only thing left in Midgard to hold on to. His dream, still so fresh in his mind, had shaken him to the very core and unconsciously, she proved to be the only thing he felt he could hold onto.
He turned his head to the right as he came around, already sensing that Toothless was awake and was suffering from the same ill affliction as well. He didn't have to be told twice to know that they had just shared the same dream, and Hiccup was quickly grasping at the implications of what this ancient snake had done to their heads.
Their eyes met from across the cave, both as worried for each other as they would be for their own kin. Hiccup felt the wash of Toothless' fatherly concern and basked in it, trying to reassure him with his mind that they would be okay, that they would find a way out of this.
It was odd to feel the dragon actually agree with him without even saying anything, or moving at all for that matter. He could just feel the dragon's resolve in his gut without really knowing why and there was nothing he could do to convince himself that he had imagined it.
His breathing slowed and he released his grip on the Valkyrie pressed to his side, to which she let out a small sigh. Hiccup pressed his lips into a thin line and wordlessly projected his confusion concerning the dream they had just shared to his counterpart, whose dread was quickly becoming apparent.
Once again, without really knowing how it was happening, Hiccup sensed the white dragon's involvement and caught a glimpse of her body in his mind's eye. She was almost iridescently white according to Toothless' draconian vision, which made her look even more beautiful and pristine than he remembered her as. He got the vague sense of a foreboding story, of a grisly tale that had to do with the snake and of the fear it had instilled in the many regions across the Great Continent.
He locked eyes with Toothless again as he realised exactly what the Night Fury was getting at. Was the dream they had just experienced, so real that Hiccup had practically felt the Young Boy's pain in his own heart...had it been more than just a mere fable thought up by their imaginations?
Had that actually happened?
Had that actually been real?
Hiccup desperately hoped it hadn't; their stories were too familiar for him to ignore, and the last thing he wanted was to be the last of his people, broken from the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Simultaneously, the boy and dragon realized what they had to do. The only way to free themselves from this mess would be to fight the snake, or follow in the footsteps of the Young Boy and just give up without a fight. The answer was obvious, but it was no less daunting to finally admit it and act on it. They would have to kill Jormungand, or the Leviathan, or whatever it insisted on calling itself, and they would have to somehow outsmart him at the same time.
Outsmart a snake that was millions of years old?
Hiccup pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the same trickles of anxiety wash along the forefront of Toothless' mind as well. Outsmart. He could do that. No big deal.
The boy dragged his hands down his face and moaned in misery.
He was screwed.
Toothless snorted from the other side of the room, sending him a glare that glowed in the firelight.
Oh sorry. They were screwed.
When he woke up next, he found himself almost entirely alone, save the presence sitting sentinel at his side. The weight that had been lying on his chest however, was sadly gone.
He opened his eyes and pulled himself into a partially sitting position, conceding to resting most of his upper body weight on his elbows. His chest wasn't screaming in pain like it had been the night before, but it still stung at any little movement he made whether he liked it or not.
He rested his chin on his shoulder and glanced to the left, spotting something that hadn't been there before smudged on the ground. He squinted, noticing the charred stick lying beside it, and realized that the markings were runes scratched in ashes on the ground.
'Be back soon.'
He breathed out, tossing his head back as he closed his eyes. She was probably out finding food, or something equally important in order to sustain the four of them. He thanked every bone in his body for her tenacity in staying; it honestly hurt his already smarting pride to admit it, but he knew he'd be lost without her.
Toothless opened one of his green eyes and glanced over at his hatchling noiselessly, hating the way the boy groaned as he collapsed back down onto his back. His wound should have been healed by now, and the human's slow recovery was worrying him senseless. Besides being hunted eternally by a million year old serpent with an obsession problem, what else could possibly go wrong?
Toothless grumbled, more to himself than anything else. He was going to kill that snake.
And he was going to enjoy it.
Hiccup alternated between sitting semi-upright and lying down on his back for a good half hour; he was starting to get restless waiting for her to return for a number of reasons, mainly because he was helplessly worried about her safety, but also because he missed her. In that half hour, he came to a number of startling conclusions, some more than others – some of them were guesses as to her whereabouts, but one particular realization stood out as the most important one of them all.
He was madly and irrefutably in love with her.
He just had to find a way to tell her before they got themselves killed.
He fell onto his back with a huff and raked his fingers roughly through his hair, content that he could actually comb through his unruly mane without his hand getting caught in all of the knots that had been ensnared in there before. Having lived so long without the comforts of home, Hiccup was starting to become truly grateful for all of the small things that made his life just that little bit easier.
But mostly, he was just grateful for her.
When he heard a rustle from the mouth of their cave, he immediately forgot about the pain in his side in his excitement and sat up to greet her. This proved to be an awfully stupid mistake as he tried to subdue his hiss of agony, but she was far too observant at reading all of his quirks to miss it.
In a matter of seconds, she was kneeling at his side, the half dozen hares she had caught for lunch thrown without a second thought to the floor.
"You idiot!" she shrieked, catching him from behind as he fought to catch his breath. She helped him back down onto his back and shot him a withering look that told of a thousand horrible consequences should he move so much as a muscle. Pleased that he had been thoroughly distracted from the pain, Astrid went back to the rabbit she had hunted and picked them up one by one before returning back to the fire.
"Where...where'd you go?" he wheezed, turning his head to the left in an attempt to avoid the glare of fury that the green eyed dragon on his right was trying to pierce him with.
"To find us some food," she replied hastily, thankfully preparing the hares on the other side of the fire, just out of his plane of vision, "I found a hot spring not too far from here too."
"A spring?"
"Yeah," she replied, smiling wryly, "You stink. I can't believe I slept next to you and didn't suffocate."
Hiccup was quiet for a moment before breaking out into peals of aching laughter; it was exactly what he had needed to break the heavy tension, considering his discoveries during the night prior.
"Thank you for summing that up for me," he replied dryly, grinning despite himself. It was hard not to when she was peering over her shoulder like she was, her eyes sparkling in the firelight with amusement.
"You're welcome," she grinned, chortling as she continued to prepare the meat. Their laughter dissolved into a comfortable silence as she spitted two of them and tossed the other four to Toothless, who practically swallowed all of them in one gulp.
"Didn't your mother ever teach you to chew your food?" Astrid lectured jokingly, wagging a finger at the ebony dragon. Toothless graced her with one of his widest grin until she couldn't stop herself, and laughed at the ridiculous expression on his face, "Did you teach him how to do that?"
Hiccup did his best impression of a shrug, "When we first met, he tried to imitate my smile. He looked just as ridiculous then as he does now – nothing's changed."
Toothless sent Hiccup his most withering glare before settling back down on his belly and resting his chin on his paws. He appeared to be asleep, but he wasn't fooling anybody - he kept one eye on his hatchling and the other on the boy's mate, waiting for what would happen next.
"Come on then," Astrid said quietly, walking up beside Hiccup and helping him into a sitting position. He grinded his teeth together but made no outward motion that hinted that he was in pain otherwise, but Astrid wasn't stupid. With a sigh that clearly spoke of the beatings to come, Astrid let go of him and sat cross legged beside him, handing him one of the roasted hares on its spit.
"Thanks," Hiccup muttered quietly, taking the fettered wood in his grasp. He brought his free hand up and broke off one of the rabbit's hind legs, to which he ate silently as he watched the girl sitting across from him.
She ate like an animal. And that wasn't even the frightening part.
Astrid ripped into the hare with her teeth, chewing as if she were one of the men in the Mead Hall. And then she would lick her lips ever so slowly, catching the juices with her tongue in a way that made Hiccup want to collapse in on himself.
"What?"
Hiccup realized he had been caught staring and averted his eyes quickly, a raging blush colouring his features. Astrid brought the hare up to her mouth, effectively hiding the smirk plastered all over her face, and continued to eat like nothing had happened.
"How are you feeling?"
"B-better," he fought to respond, but with his bodily functions waging war inside of him, he was surprised he could even form a coherent word and force it past his lips.
"Does it still hurt as much as it did last night?"
"Not –not really. It still stings a little, but it's healing."
"That's good," she replied, doing her best to suck the meat from the ribs. Hiccup tactfully avoided her gaze and kept his eyes trained on the embers of the fire in an attempt to keep hold of his sanity, "But how'd you get that in the first place? It's a weird wound."
Hiccup nodded, still avoiding eye contact, "When the snake first found us, he chased us straight into a storm. We landed on the coast of Greonland, but I slipped and cut myself. The rest of the story is a bit of a blur, but Toothless managed to heal most of it."
"So dragons have healing powers then?"
"Yeah, yeah I guess. I had my suspicions but actually seeing it in action…that was weird."
"I'd say."
"But yeah, I don't know why it didn't totally heal. Maybe their abilities only span so far."
"It's likely," Astrid used her index finger to wipe a dribble of juice from her chin and lapped it up with her finger. Hiccup shuddered, unable to stop himself from watching, "But it's probably just because you haven't given yourself enough time to heal. If it was as deep as it looked to be, you're lucky you're still alive."
Hiccup stammered, his body and mind in a frantic fight to ignore each other, "I-I...yeah, yeah definitely."
Astrid fought to contain her smirk again, and used the remains of her meal to hide it, "Something wrong?"
"Wrong?" he squeaked, his voice betraying him, "N-no no, nothing's wrong."
Astrid narrowed her eyes playfully, "Are you sure?"
Hiccup gulped, "Y-yeah."
Astrid shrugged and started chowing down again, leaving Hiccup squirming in his seat until he finally drummed up the courage to say something.
"Astrid?"
"Mm hmm?" she replied, her mouth full of rabbit.
"Could you...could you maybe, you know, um..." he swallowed uncomfortably as his eyes were drawn to her lips, glistening in the firelight, "Stop?"
Astrid was doing all she could not to laugh, "Stop what?" she said innocently.
"All...all that," he gestured frantically with his hands.
"All what?" she raised one of her eyebrows, her tone incredulous, "Eating? I'd die if I didn't eat."
"Not eating," he corrected, getting more and more flustered by the second as she licked her fingers clean, "You...you're like...you look like you're making out with it!"
Astrid started laughing hysterically at his outburst, and Hiccup's cheeks turned furiously red as the sound of his outburst reached his ears. He hadn't meant to say it like that, but then again, he never had much of a filter in the first place, which had always landed him in heaps of trouble. He hunched his shoulders in preparation for a punch that never came, and upon opening his eyes, he spotted Astrid, still laughing, her greasy lips pulled into a huge grin.
"Oh fine!" she finally said between bursts of laughter, setting her mostly eaten rabbit down beside her, "Way to ruin my fun."
It took him a minute to comprehend the implications of what she was saying, "Wait...you were doing that on purpose?"
"It was fun to watch you squirm!" she replied, grinning cheekily as she continued to laugh. Realizing what had happened, Hiccup hunched in on himself in a mixture of embarrassment and injured pride, exchanging a glance with the dragon on his right.
Toothless shrugged; this verbal form of primary was fascinating to the point of being ridiculous.
Hiccup sighed, and they finished the rest of their meal in silence, although it was hard to ignore the smugness coming off of Astrid in waves as she sat in front of him. Lost in an inner monologue, Hiccup took back his previous declaration that he was in love with her, and decided that if that snake didn't manage to kill him, she would probably be the one to finish the job.
Once he was finished, Hiccup sat the spit down beside him, only for Astrid to snatch it back up again, "Full?"
"Yeah," he replied, his pride still worse for wear. Astrid rolled her eyes as she got to her feet and threw the remains of their meal in the heart of the fire, to which she started stoking with enthusiasm.
"Good. Because we've got some work to do."
"Work?" Hiccup gulped, "What kind of work?"
Astrid glanced over her shoulder, "Tactical work. If we're going to beat this thing, don't you think we should – you know – have a plan?"
Hiccup breathed out quietly, rubbing the back of his neck out of habit, "You know what they say about the best laid plans..."
"Oh come on," she rebutted, ignoring the growing expression of dread on Hiccup's features, "Well, do you have anything better in mind?"
Hiccup's lack of response answered her question without her having to ask again. She crossed her arms over her chest and started towards him, stopping just in front of his stooped figure, "Come on. We can't just wing this thing," she dropped down to her knees and started helping him to his feet, "And while we're at it, I'm making you take a bath. If I closed my eyes, I'd swear you were Tuffnut."
That was a step too far, and Hiccup had the gall to look mock-offended, "I do not! That's impossible!"
Astrid laughed, keeping her arm beneath his until he balanced on his feet, "Trust me. Would I lie to you?"
"I don't know..." Hiccup trailed off, eyeing her suspiciously. Astrid just smirked and started leading the way out of the cave, but not before fetching a change of clothes out of his basket. She took the tunic and leggings into her side pack and waited for Hiccup to catch up to her, moving slowly at his side, "I'm not getting out of this, am I?"
"Nope!" she chirped, squinting when she spotted daylight at the mouth of the cave, "Now let's get going. We've got a plan to make."
"Uh, Astrid?"
"Yes?"
"Aren't...aren't you going to turn around?"
Astrid threw him a withering glance, planting her hands on her hips, "I'm not looking," she assured him, sitting gingerly on the top of a stone at the edge of the spring. Hiccup swallowed uncomfortably and continued to shed most of his outer layers in the relative shelter of the cavern at the cusp of the spring, a blush painted on his features.
"Still..."
Astrid rolled her eyes, aggravated by his unwavering self-consciousness, "What makes you think I even want to look?"
Apparently, this was the wrong thing to say as Hiccup visibly wilted at her ill thought out statement. Astrid sighed, unable to suppress the onslaught of guilt as she watched him visibly crumble, and pressed her hand over her eyes.
"I promise I won't look, okay?"
Hiccup nodded, more to himself than to her considering that her eyes were now covered, and finished stripping to his underclothes. He glared as his amputated stub with disdain as he unstrapped the prosthetic from his calf, leaving the device resting on the top of a crooked stone. He shivered as he took off his tunic, leaving his upper body exposed to the cold air, and quickly threw off his leggings and his under shorts before slipping into the water and sinking until only his head remained exposed.
"Are you decent?" Astrid asked, already knowing he was in the water. He was a fool for taking her word, considering she had watched him through the cracks between her fingers the whole time.
"Yeah," he croaked, hoping that she hadn't noticed the way his voice squeaked. It was doing that all too often lately, and his current predicament wasn't helping him any.
"Good," she replied shakily, lifting her hand from her eyes. She fought to keep the blush from her cheeks as she painstakingly looked in another direction, tactfully ignoring his naked form a few feet away.
At a loss for words, Hiccup turned his back towards her and started scrubbing at the filth on his face, his mind running in a million different directions. Despite the blonde distraction sitting behind him, his mind kept focussing on the one thing that had been haunting him for weeks, throwing his thoughts into chaos.
"So…" she said softly, practically reading his mind, "Where do we start?"
He peered over his shoulder, the dark mood somewhat stifling his nervousness, "You tell me."
"Well," she replied, kneading her hands together, "Let's go over what we know so far."
"About the snake?"
Astrid sighed impatiently, "Yes. About the snake."
"Well…" he trailed off, raking through what he had learnt the night before, "It's…it's obsessive. It wants to kill Toothless and I, and I don't think it'll rest until we're dead."
"Okay," Astrid muttered, looking pensive, "But we already know that. What else?"
"It's old," Hiccup splashed a handful of water on his face, rubbing his palms vigorously against his cheeks, "Really old, and it's been on a reign of terror since the world was started. It hasn't lost one victim yet, and it's determined to keep going for as long as it takes until it wins."
"So…it's stubborn. Not exactly a weakness," Astrid mused, "but we could find some way to use it against him. Keep going."
"It can get into our minds," Hiccup dunked his head back, and Astrid caught a fleeting glimpse of his chest in the movement, "The first time it got us, it tried to kill us from the inside. But once we got out of its reach, we were okay."
"By going up?"
"Yeah," he replied, scratching at his scalp, "The higher we went, the less affected we were."
"Alright. So as long as we stay as high as we can, we have an advantage."
"But we can't kill it by flying out of its reach."
Silence rung heavily in her ears as Astrid slowly grasped onto the logic behind Hiccup's reasoning. The boy took in Astrid's contemplative expression and continued, "At some point, we'll have to fly into its range and try and attack it physically. There's no other way."
"But…we'll be vulnerable…"
"Do we have a choice?" Hiccup said, a trickle of dread seeping in from the back of his mind. They were in way over their heads, and they knew it.
"No…I guess not…" Astrid fisted the opposite sleeves of her coat roughly in her palms. Planning a hunting trip was easy, but this? Astrid hadn't even seen a snake in her life.
"There's a good chance that fire won't be able to damage it, being a sea serpent and all," Hiccup continued, raking his fingers through his hair as a makeshift comb, "Somehow, we'll have to get at it ourselves."
"And how do you plan on doing that?" Astrid asked, her voice carrying as acerbic edge.
"Aren't you the one with all the battle expertise?" Hiccup shot back, his voice mirroring her own. Astrid swallowed uncomfortably, desperately searching her mind for something, anything to help.
"We have to find its weak spot," she finally said, avoiding his gaze.
"And where's that?" the dread he had been feeling before was now multiplying inside his chest with every passing second, "The last time I saw a snake, I was eight on a trip to the mainland!"
"What about an eel?" Astrid tried to keep a level head, but the panic that was coming off of Hiccup in waves was beginning to affect her too, "They're kind of the same, aren't they?"
"I…I guess," Hiccup breathed in deeply, consciously trying to calm his pounding heart, "But we can't just fly in there and cut its head off like we would an eel."
"No…" Astrid trailed off. Inspiration hit her suddenly, and she was on her feet in a flash.
"Astrid?" Hiccup cried, trying not to sound as hysterical as he felt.
"I'll be right back!" she said, leaping off of the stone and landing on the ground in a perfect crouch, recovering easily. She jolted out of the cave and disappeared out of sight, leaving Hiccup all alone.
Without her around, Hiccup was able to calm himself more easily. He stepped up onto a rock and left his upper body exposed, staring down at the wound that refused to heal on his chest. The upper and lower parts of the huge cut were only slightly scarred now, but the heart of the gash was still red and raw with scabs. He grazed his hand over the lesion and winced as his nerves rebelled against him, sending a jolt of pain rocketing up his spine. He hissed and sunk back down beneath the water, throwing his head gently back against a rock.
He closed his eyes and brooded for a moment, trying to come up with a way to get them both out of this alive. If anything, he would sacrifice himself to save her, and Toothless if he could. A life trapped on the ground would be better than no life at all, unless Hiccup could get her to…
The steady pounding of footsteps broke him out of his reverie. He sat up straight and watched her come running back into the cave, a writhing eel held proudly in her hands.
"How…how did you get—"
"Doesn't matter!" Astrid called back, jumping back up onto the stone she had been lazing on earlier. She grabbed it just beneath its jaw and studied it with scrutiny, eyes narrowed as the creature heaved for water.
She pressed her thumb roughly at the nape of the creature's neck, watching with fascination as it twitched in agony. Keeping her thumb in place, Astrid dug for the dagger from its cranny on the inside of her boot and held the hilt in her palm, hesitating for a moment.
She dug the tip of the blade into the back of its neck and the eel shrieked in her grasp, writhing once before collapsing limply over her fingers. Its sticky blood oozed down the length of her arm as she continued to stare at it with gruesome fascination.
"That's it."
"What?"
"That's it!" Astrid exclaimed, throwing the dead carcass behind her in a flurry of movement, "We have to embed something in the back of its head! We have to get on top of it somehow, and then stab it right where its head connects with the rest of its body!"
"My sword," Hiccup said numbly, the beginnings of a plan already forming in his mind.
"Yes! That's perfect!" Astrid said, leaping to her feet and pacing. She continued to talk animatedly, but Hiccup wasn't listening. The starkness of their plan was slowly coming into light and the realisation he felt crash down upon him was terrifying, but not surprising.
No matter what, he wasn't getting out of this alive.
But if there was some way, no matter how farfetched, that he could save both Astrid and Toothless from perishing as well…
Well, he would be okay with it.
He lowered his entire body under the surface of the water, effectively muting Astrid's voice from above him. His thought process came full circle as he remembered why he had come out all this way in the first place; to fancy the simple whims of a foolish boy who thought he could cheat death and visit his mother in Valhalla. How had so much changed so suddenly? He looked back on it and didn't even recognize himself.
Why?
He burst through the barrier of the water and took a harrowing gasp of breath. He blocked the world out as he shut his eyes and tried to calm his heavy breathing, and the pain burning in his chest. A swell of piercing acceptance washed over him as he inhaled deeply, drawing in the hint of pine and sulphur in the air.
He opened his eyes and caught Astrid's gaze, her expression drawn as she glanced at him from across the spring.
Perhaps, he'd get to see his mother after all.
So...did I take you on an emotional roller coaster? Are you drowning in foreshadowing? This is definitely a milestone for Hiccup, as the truth of the matter finally rears its ugly head.
Please let me know what you think! During my internet-less nine days of horror, I wrote parts of some of the upcoming chapters and they are going to be so good! I already gave my beta a preview of what's to come (thank you Sir Nick!) and I think he was a little taken back at how dark it was.
I love angst! :D
Brontë