XXXIV.
When he came out of his daze, he saw his father's body.
No, not body. My father.
Hiccup was panting, the exertion of breathing difficult enough to handle alone. But he had to suffer through a greater burden than respiration, for his vision focused, sending him unbidden images of...
…can't be dead… just can't…
…of a form lying supine on its side, neck resting on the lower outstretched arm…
…is he alright? He has to be alright…
…and visions of shattered ice bricks heaped on top of that still form… and also images of a smashed boulder of ice in the background, which must have broken once a human body flew and rammed against it…
…needs to be alright…
…and an entire path of blood and entrails paved way to that unmoving form. And it was little more than a form, indeed – not a hole in his chest but an exploded slimy chewed-up scarlet mass tumbling out from the ribcage. His entire torso vomited a combination of dripping juice and half-eaten, half-burnt meat. Even at this distance, Hiccup could smell the smoke, the pungent odor of cooked flesh, could see areas blackened on Stoick's trunk alongside impossible shades of red spilling onto the ground, could taste blood in his own mouth from when the explosion must have splattered the guts...
…can't… think… can't… breathe… must…
And Hiccup, while still light-headed and gasping for breath himself, staggered up on foot and prosthetic to rush to his father.
Yet before he ran he paused, stumbling back on his peg leg, nearly falling. He had just caught sight of Toothless to his right. The night black dragon panted from the exertion of his recent plasma blast, smoke curling out from between his teeth. As his chest heaved, the Night Fury's narrow-slitted eyes stared unseeing at the ground before him.
Hiccup found himself disbelievingly shaking his head, murmuring some word – perhaps it was "No" – and charging straight down the path of unrecognizable organs and blood-splattered soil toward Stoick's unmoving form.
And when he reached his father – he refused to call this his father's body – he immediately began hoisting and shoving off ice chunks to reveal his father's bare arms – he refused to call it his father's body – and once the blocks were gone he yanked hard at his father's shoulder – he refused to call it his father's body – but his father wouldn't budge – he refused to call it his father's body – and he yanked and pulled and strained and tugged and finally turned Stoick over to listen for a heartbeat – for no mind the blood drenching the man's fur cape, or the tendrils of leaking innards dripping and dangling out a half-opened gut, or the already-present pallor of wrinkled cheeks – he refused, refused, refused to call this his father's body, to believe that this corpse – this man, this man, his father – was dead. He threw himself up to his father's chest, stickying himself with steaming, reddened mush now oozing against his cheek, and prayed to Odin for a heartbeat. A foolish, impossible hope. And yet he heard something, a pounding, a very heavy pounding, felt it pulsate through his ear and resonate throughout himself as he leaned in to Stoick's ripped chest…
…but those throbbing beats came from Hiccup's own frantic, racing heart, reverberating through his ear, rather than originating from Stoick himself.
Come on, come on, come on…
His ears sought to separate the thudding of his own heart from Stoick's pulse. He leaned in, rubbed at the blood on his father's chest, shoved his ear back onto the still-stained shirt, and pressed his head down firmly as possible to strain for sound. For a shaky drum. A weak fluttering. A single throb. Anything. Anything at all.
"Dad… no… you…"
A subconscious whimper exhaled out his jaw, and he pulled back to stare dumbfounded at his father. At his father's body.
Dead.
"No," he gasped, eyes widened.
"No."
He felt his breathing quicken as realization took hold. As the meaning of what he didn't hear coalesced into unwanted truth. The truth of death. All its implications. Quickened breaths transformed into louder gasps; gasps gave way to sobs. And as his shoulder heaved, he pulled his left arm forward, laid it on top of Stoick's body, and buried his face in the cooling corpse to cry.
"No, no, no. No."
He curled himself inward, trapping himself into a small black cave formed by his arms and shoulders and his father below him. The world echoed hollowly in this small enclosure, blocking out the sounds of men wrapping up the battle and the great Bewilderbeast's roars fading into the distance. He felt nothing outside himself except his father's firm body and wet tears on his cheeks. He heard nothing except for his own gasps inside his self-made cocoon. He thought of nothing except muddled devastated denials, repetitions, variations of the words, "No. This can't be happening."
And then Stoick moved under him.
Hiccup threw his head up in alarm.
Kneeling right in front of the body, staring straight at Stoick's tired unseeing eyes, was that armored warrior, that draconically-dressed armored villainess, crouched down on all fours like an animal, emotions and expressions unreadable behind the multi-colored mask.
"Stoick…?" a breathy voice whispered hesitantly. Reached out to touch his limp hand with her own more delicate fingers.
"No! Get away from him!" A yelp. Hiccup stood up to challenge the Vigilante. He angrily gestured toward her – what he gathered to be toward her – for the world blurred in tears and he could not fully tell.
Even with his limited vision he could still decipher that she ignored him. A vague brown-greenish blur leaned in, pressed her hand gingerly against Stoick's body, before moaning, "He tried to save me."
To save you. More than a little bitterness at the irony rung through Hiccup's otherwise-dazed head. But he… saved… me… It had all been a blur. He had barely seen his father rush up to push him aside before the Night Fury's blast hit. But just because it had been a blur to his own consciousness did not make the event any less real. Did not make the impact less real. The death… He tried to shake away the tears pooling around his eyes, so that he could see something… he rubbed at his eyes multiple times, probably smearing blood and grime across his cheeks… and then looked downward.
The Vigilante had pulled off her expressionless mask and set it down at Stoick's foot. The woman underneath that mask, though, was far from unemotional. Grief wrinkled her eyes; tears pooled beneath her irises. She seemed… too human… too caring… too understandable and sympathetic… to be the villainess who had directed Toothless' plasma blast. In a way it had been easier for Hiccup to regard her as the unearthly, inhuman mask rather than the middle-aged woman mourning before him. Now she reached in to stroke her late husband's beard, murmuring, "What a shame destiny has taken such a crooked course. Stoick… just when we reunited…"
"Get out of here," Hiccup persisted, voice trembling half from anger, half from shock. He could not tell what was shaking more – his voice – or his breathing – or his hands. "You rejected him. You rejected me. Years and years of leaving my father and me on our own. I've gotten used to that! I've had to get used to it! But the one thing I don't expect, the one thing I don't expect, is for you actually to betray me. Is that really too much to ask?"
She was silent.
"You're mourning his death? You killed him. You killed him…"
"'And love me for eternity'," she whispered, not at all listening to Hiccup's retaliation. Or maybe she had… guilt plastered her face in far more a tangible form than her mask ever had. "'Love me for eternity'… that's the line he wanted me to sing."
There could be no eternity now.
"But I couldn't… couldn't ever return… to the world of men. Still cannot now." A period of silence. "War truly does have terrible consequences." She looked up at Hiccup, a spark of anger glittering in her eye, and now she was not speaking solely to her late husband, or to herself. "But that does not make the war any less necessary. I cannot desist… not even now… especially not now. The more Vikings interfere, the worse the consequences." Her voice hardened. "I hope you've learned your lesson of what happens when men intrude into the lives of dragons. If we meet again, don't think your dragon will miss his shot a second time."
And Hiccup dazedly watched the Vigilante leave. She crept back, scuttling about on all four limbs as often as she stood, and keeping her eyes on Stoick's body no mind she walked in the opposite direction, a direction somewhat toward Toothless, who was still panting, still dazed, still the mindless monster who shot the killing blast.
The sounds of the battle faded even more now. Tensions must have been resolved in some way. Someone must have retreated, someone lost, someone… "won."
Hiccup did not know who. Did not care to know the outcome of this bloodshed. Did not know where the Vigilante went. Or Astrid. Or Drago. Or even Toothless. Energy spent, he fell forward onto his knees and sobbed.