A/N – Sorry about the long wait. I've been busy. I said I wouldn't wait until the weekend to do all my homework, and I didn't leave ALL of it, just a lot.

I was meandering through the outline of this story and there is a direction that I'm leaning toward…however, it's not extremely original, although one of my favorites. I'm not sure yet.

Thanks for the follows and reviews! I'm really glad that my strange AUs are enjoyed.

X

Chapter 5: Cold Medicine

Astrid sat at her bedroom window and watched the snowy village below. Hoark chopped wood. Mrs. Ingerman set steaming pies on her windowsill. Gemma's two boys threw snowballs at each other, and one at Sven. He chased them around the house until Gemma appeared in the doorway and shook an angry finger at Sven, then at her boys.

Astrid sighed. She'd built several snow-Vikings as a child, and knocked twice that many down with her axe. She could barely remember standing next to a snow-dragon four times her height. The tiny axe she held had been made of wood.

A soft knock interrupted. Her mother's voice sounded on the other side of the barricaded door. "Astrid? Gothi is here to see you."

Astrid sat up straight. "Okay."

The barricade scraped along the wooden floor and the door slowly opened. Her father and Stoick stood in the hall, blocking the stairs. Gothi padded inside and dropped a leather bag onto the dresser. Her mother entered carrying a steaming cup of tea. She set it beside the bag and grab the door's handle.

At once, Harald stretched out his hand. "What are you doing?"

"I'm closing the door," Ingrid said simply. "Girls only, dear."

Harald crossed his arms and Ingrid shut the door on him and the chief. Gothi reached into the bag and withdrew a strange accumulation of things. She set a yak hoof on the floor and motioned for Astrid. Gothi placed small chicken bones into her hands and then pointed to the yak hoof.

"What am I supposed to do with these?" Astrid asked, jingling the bones.

Gothi pointed to the floor.

"Drop them around the hoof," Ingrid instructed.

"Why?" Astrid asked.

Ingrid sighed. "Just do what she says."

Gothi pointed with more urgency. Astrid shrugged and let the bones fall from her hands. They scattered around the hoof and clattered to a silence. Gothi drew close to the mess, examining something that no one but her could possibly have seen. After a long moment, she rose and nodded.

"What does that mean?" Astrid asked.

Gothi drew in the dust with her stick. Ingrid crouched to read it first.

"She says you're fine. Anxious, but otherwise fine." Ingrid said with a kind, relieved smile. "Gothi advises that you destress."

Astrid glared at her mother.

The tests continued. Astrid inhaled the steam of the tea, held a stone in her hand while she drank it, and then dropped the stone blindly onto the floor. Gothi read the tea leaves and examined the stone and its placement.

"What does she say?" Astrid asked as her mother read Gothi's dust-scribbles.

"You are healthy," Ingrid said. "Avoid the half-moon."

"What?" Astrid asked.

Ingrid shrugged, then smiled broadly at Gothi. "Well, what does it mean then?"

Gothi shrugged.

Astrid assumed the worst had passed, and then the worst began. Gothi instructed to her undress and lie back on her bed.

Astrid crossed her arms. "What? Why?"

Ingrid cleared her throat. "It's just another test, dear. It'll be fine."

Ingrid closed the window. The winter chill persisted as Astrid removed her clothing. She shivered as she scooted onto the bed, trying to conserve what heat she had left. Gothi pulled the fur from the end of the bed and pulled it over her. Ingrid appeared at the bedside and yanked the fur up to her daughter's chin.

"You will catch a cold like this," Ingrid said.

Gothi only exposed what she needed, and covered it again when she finished. Her knobby hands fingered her limbs, poking and prodding. Astrid kept her eyes on a knot in the ceiling wood. She clenched her teeth as Gothi's attention shifted to her womanhood. Astrid tried not to think about her cold hands or what she looked at or what she looked for.

She thought about the tree that had been cut down so she could have a rooftop. The knot in the beam twisted and swirled viciously. The tree must have been gnarled. Astrid thought of a wide tree with long thick branches crashing to the ground.

"She's done, then?" Ingrid asked and brought Astrid back to the present.

Gothi nodded. She smoothed over the dust with her foot and began to scribble something else. Ingrid knelt over the bedpost to read it.

"Well?" Astrid said as she tightly held the fur around her.

"You were not violated," Ingrid said at once, a hand on her chest and a sigh on her lips.

"I told you that," Astrid said. "Didn't you believe me?"

Ingrid looked at her daughter, a flush in her cheeks. "Yes, of course I did. But…you said you were asleep. Anything could have happened."

Astrid shook her head at her mother. She couldn't believe those words. "You didn't believe me?"

Ingrid tried to say something else, but Harald's voice stomped on the door.

"Well? Are you finished?" he howled.

"Yes, but wait a moment," Ingrid held her hands out as if to catch the door.

Astrid quickly dressed and no sooner did she stuff her feet into her boots than the door opened. Harald stomped inside with Stoick a few paces behind him.

"She is perfectly fine," Ingrid said.

Harald looked between his wife and daughter and then at Gothi, who gently nodded her wrinkled, gray head.

"Well, we couldn't be sure, could we?" Harald huffed. "Still, everyone thinks you are sick. You'll stay up here at least another week."

"A week?" Astrid cried, straining her throat. "Are you serious? Dad, I'm fine!"

"The village thinks you are deathly ill, and you will stay up here. Stay away from the window. I don't want people thinking me a liar or wondering why I lied." Harald shook his finger at her.

"But, Dad-"

"No, your father is right Astrid," Stoick interrupted calmly, his massive hands up to buffer the anger between father and daughter. "At least we know that you are healthy. It would be wise to remain in disguise for a while."

Astrid glared at Stoick, but ultimately declined to argue further. "Okay."

"I accept that this will remain between us?" Harald asked Gothi. She gently nodded and scooted past him toward the stairs, her leather bag of treats under her arm.

Harald and Stoick left, thundering down the stairs. Harald mumbling something too low to hear, and then Stoick said lowly, "Wait a week or so and you'll see."

"Wait a week for what? My nonexistent disease to go away?" Astrid snapped to Ingrid.

"No, I believe your father intends to wait for your next bled," Ingrid said. She picked up the empty tea mug and looked down at the nonsense remains. "It will prove to him that you aren't carrying some…demon child or whatever he thinks."

"Mom, can't you talk some sense into him?" Astrid pleaded. "I can't stay in here forever!"

"I have tried," Ingrid said proudly. "But he's as stubborn as you. It's like trying to talk sense into a stone."

Astrid shrugged and collapsed onto the bed. Her mother sighed and gave her daughter one last look before she shut the bedroom door behind her. A moment later something heavy scooted back in front of her door.

X

A week passed as Astrid studied the knot in the wood. She wasted away under the fur blanket as another snow fell, and then another. Every morning Astrid watched the neighbors shovel their way out. This morning had been no different.

A soft knock on her doorway announced her mother. "Astrid, come down for breakfast."

"You mean I'm allow out?" Astrid crossed her arms.

"Yes, for the meal," Ingrid opened the door. "Now come on, before your father changes his mind."

"It smells great," Astrid said as followed her mother down the stairs. Sizzling eggs and mutton had wafted up and made her mouth water for more than the bread and tea shoved through her door twice a day.

Harald said nothing as Astrid joined her parents at the table. Astrid stuffed a forkful of warm, buttery eggs into her mouth. The taste melted and she moaned. Her mother smiled at her, and then shot a deadly look at Harald. He didn't seem to notice.

"I saw Hoark rolling a barrel of mead into the Great Hall," Ingrid said as she cut through her mutton. "And then Mulch and Bucket followed with enough fish for a village."

"There is a council meeting tonight," Harald said. "The annual winter meeting."

"Ah, that sounds exciting," Ingrid said.

"I would gladly let you go in my place," Harald said humorlessly. "It's dead boring and by the end everyone's had enough mead to kill a small yak. There isn't much on the agenda besides Snoggletog, routine things, fishing routes and inventory. With any luck it won't take more than the afternoon."

Ingrid nodded.

Astrid cleared her plate, and Ingrid had spooned another helping of egg onto it just as the horn sounded. The three of them froze, seemingly along with the rest of Berk, as the air turned still as death. The horn sounded again, breaking through the silence as if Thor himself stomped on the world.

"Is that…?" Ingrid whispered.

Harald stood up and reached for his sharpened blade by the door. Astrid's eyes went up the stairs to her room where her axe rested beside her bed. The silence pressed into her ears.

"Maybe it's nothing," Ingrid whispered, hand over her chest.

The horn sounded, and in the silence that followed came the first dragon roar. It shook the sky and rattled Berk. Harald threw the door to the house open and shouted into the sky, blade at the ready. Astrid scrambled to the door in time to see the high sky littered with dragons, wings spread, impossibly high. Vikings emptied into the streets, weapons drawn, eyes to the sky, ready to fight for their lives and village.

Astrid stepped over the threshold just as a dark Monstrous Nightmare flew over their house, nicking the top with its feet. The massive wings shifted the air and her hair blew wildly around her head. She grabbed it away from her eyes in time to see the Nightmare's horned head turn. The dragon landed on Gemma's rooftop. Shouts and arrows flew at it and a liquid fire erupted from its wide mouth, smothering a wheelbarrow and Gemma's stack of firewood.

"Astrid!" Ingrid yanked her back inside the house as the fiery battle began. Blade, dragon, and war cry met in the street, but Astrid saw none of it. Ingrid shut the door and pulled her daughter to the backroom. Its walls were made with sturdy stone. Ingrid thrust Astrid inside.

"No, I want to fight!" Astrid tried to escape the room, but her mother shut the door.

"No, you're not trained yet and are a week two soft," said Ingrid. She pointed a finger.

Astrid stomped and crossed her arms. "Fine. But I'm going to training tomorrow."

"That is fine," Ingrid nodded. "At least we're be alive."

A roar like thunder shook the sky and Ingrid cringed. The house shook and the earth trembled. As a little girl, Astrid used to fear the island crumbling and falling back into the ocean. During storms, thunder shook the ground. During dragon attacks, the ground shook. Even though she was no longer a child, it still worried her.

"Will Dad blame this on me, too?" Astrid asked after too many moments of chaos.

"I don't know," Ingrid said. "The dragons have been attacking longer than you have been alive, so I doubt he'll have much traction. Still…they haven't attacked in some time. I suppose that doesn't matter. A matter of time."

Astrid sighed slowly. Her mother rambled when nervous. It was a habit that Astrid thankfully did not inherit.

X

After the dragons left, the village began to pick up the pieces. Astrid and Ingrid helped Gemma douse the fire in her house while Harald joined the men in dragging away larger debris and rebuilding roofs and walls before another snow made the task impossible.

"I'm glad to see that you are feeling better," Gemma said to Astrid. She had a cut on her arm from a fallen beam. Gothi had patched it up quickly. Both boys survived, unscathed.

"Me too," Astrid smiled. She swept the last bit of ash out the new, roughly made door.

"She's had a long day," Ingrid said. "If you're planning on going to training tomorrow you'll need your rest."

"Your mother's right," Gemma nodded. From the upstairs, her boys played with toy Vikings and dragons as if they hadn't almost died that day.

"Off with you then," Ingrid shoed. "I'll be home shortly."

Astrid wanted to argue, to say that she felt perfectly fine, but didn't. She handed her broom to her mother and made the short walk to her house. Their home hadn't been damaged, save for the talon scraps on the topmost of the roof, but nothing more. She washed up and collapsed on her bed, expecting sleep to come easily.

It didn't. She got up and meandered to the window. She spotted her father, along with several other men, climbing the steps to the Great Hall. She'd forgotten about the council meeting. The Great Hall's massive doors closed and a light snow began to fall. No doubt this attack would be spoken about in earnest.

Did her father suspect her to blame? She knew that he would not tell his fears to the council. Astrid wrapped her arms around herself. She slunk to the bed and tried to find sleep. She tossed, turned, and twisted in her blankets. Ingrid came home, by the sound of the front door and her groan, and went straight into her downstairs bedroom.

Astrid flopped onto her back. The underlying fear couldn't go away. Could this be her fault? What if it was? Had someone died tonight because of her? They won't know the toll until tomorrow.

She got up and went back to the window. A few low fires still burned. The snow had stopped, but had enough time to lightly dust the village. The Great Hall fires still burned bright. Astrid wrapped an extra fur around her shoulders and tiptoed down the stairs. Ingrid slept, and didn't make a sound when Astrid opened the front door.

She wasn't sure what she planned to do. She shut the door carefully and crept through the dark village. The sentries and night patrol were quiet tonight; dragons never attacked twice in a day. Astrid trudged through the snow and debris, toward Blood Tree Pass. She hugged the fur tighter around her shoulders.

The path through the forest had been kept safe from the snowfall. The twining, crooked branches of the canopy caught most of it, and now cradled it in the air. The snow blocked out the moonlight and left the pass in darkness. Astrid walked slowly, following the scarce holes in the snowy canopy.

She looked in every direction, but did not see the witch. Did they sleep after an attack? Even the shadows slept, it seemed. Their absence from the wood left a vast silence. Her footsteps upon the dirt were the only sound, echoing through the wood, bouncing off trees. She stayed a long while, looking, walking up and down the pass, looking for the green eyed witch, but she didn't find him.

Astrid didn't know what she would do if she found him, but she had to know the truth. Had he done something to her? Had the second? Her mother was right, she had been out of it. The entire memory blurred in and out. But…he had saved her, hadn't he? Why would he save her only to hurt her? A shiver ran down her spine. Was it a rouse? Had she fallen into their trap?

Those thoughts were not healthy, she told herself. She hugged the fur closer and made for home. As she entered the village, the snow began again. The Great Hall's doors were still closed tight. Astrid crept back up the stairs and into her room and collapsed onto her bed. Unpleasant dreams swirled in her mind, of witches and dragons and locked doors.