The lull after the storm. Some mentions of nudity and bodily functions.

Berkian Eddur - 1

Becoming Lífþrasir

Vagga; Interlude

Astrid started awake, her shoulder protesting wildly at the position she'd fallen into through her exhausted state. Her neck throbbed as she turned it, but she stubbornly ignored it, pushing off the mattress to straighten the covers and then smooth a hand down his unresponsive face.

He hadn't moved an inch, not since she'd fished him out of the water, barely conscious and delirious with pain. That was three weeks ago.

She pushed off the bed, all of her body stiff and aching as she straightened and stretched. The Goethi would be here soon, with fresh salves and ointments, and with the plants to boil and put him in his painless sleep.

"Good morning, Toothless," she whispered to the dragon, who had curled up around his bed and refused to move. The first time the dragon had needed to relieve himself, he'd been so upset that he had to leave his rider's side that he hadn't eaten since. It was only because Astrid had allowed the dragon to use reeds she then removed that he even drank anything.

"Good morning to you, too," she whispered, turning to the calm freckled face on the pillow. With cautious fingers that hadn't quite stopped being hopeful yet, she ran through his hair, watching as his brows twitched and his closed lips moved. He had done this for the last two days, respond when she touched him, and it gave her so much hope she thought she'd burst with it, as Toothless sniffed at him encouragingly.

Then sneezed.

"I know, it smells funny" she said with a smile, and began pulling the covers back as she took the pot of boiling water off the fire. It would be best to get this task done before the healer arrived; she wasn't sure how much Hiccup would appreciate knowing that the village healer had seen him in the buff any more than necessary. In fact …

Astrid sighed, the irony not lost on her. The first time she would see her promised unclothed, it should have been in much different circumstances. As she rolled her sleeves and put some ice into the boiling water to even the temperature, stripping away the soiled skins and pulling up his short tunic, a part of her still smiled at how red he would become, when he found out that she sponged him clean every day, if his father was correct.

The truth was, Astrid had seen her fair share of naked men. Her brothers had never been ones to have compunction on washday because their little sister was around, and as they grew older, it had even been her duty to help her mother fill the baths and wash the clothing before the eldest sons of the family had started taking wives. In fact, Astrid was about as desensitised to naked men as she was to holding axes, and splitting heads like melons with them. Her dad often sat down and played Fox Games with one of her brothers while they both had everything out to dry at the fire, crowing at the board when he won as if he were fully clothed, instead of balls to the wind.

She washed his hands next, and his arms, lifting him to take the tunic off - and blessing the opening at the front - to bathe his chest and back, removing the accumulated sweat of the night; nothing near what he'd suffered through his last fever. The gladness she still felt, even at a week's distance of that fever breaking before it could take him away from them, made her chest shake. Every time his skin, warm by not burning, rested against her hands and wrists, and every time his calm, even breaths brushed her cheeks as she washed his back, it was a blessing from Frigga.

She put him down gently, cradling his head like an infant as it lolled then settled on the pillow. She took a moment to look down at him, taking in his healing bruises and scars. The Goethi had been most worried about his ribs and lungs, but they had fared well, with only some severe bruising, his arms and hands and fingers had also been protected by his armour. His legs had fared similarly, though his right knee had been swollen and angry through the first week as the protective pad had caved in on it.

His left foot, however…

He must have landed on it, or been hit by some of that flying debris, because it had been mangled beyond recognition. The Goethi had taken one look at it before she began screaming orders. The village had been too startled to dare disobey or gainsay her, and his foot had been lost and throw into the fire before Astrid could realise that she was sobbing.

She cupped the stump as gently as she could, swathed as it was in bandages and poultice. When the Goethi came, she would help clean it as she did every day; a part of her rejoicing to see it heal well, the other part mourning his loss and the shock it would bring him once he was awake. Gobber had taken the measurements, and in a few more days the new foot would be fitted in place of the old one, just as soon as the sutures stopped leaking blood.

Astrid sighed, caressing his hair as she gently wiped him down, wondering whether she should wash it, when he murmured something he had repeated for the past three days. Immediately, her stomach plummeted, and she looked away from him with a blush, covering him up. It was in moments like this that she felt shame for seeing him, instead of joy in his recovery and warmth at his closeness, never mind that it was her duty as the only woman in his household, and his promised. He didn't want her to see him, and that made all the difference.

"Sepha?" Astrid turned around, startled, to see Stoick standing at the entrance of his own chambers. When she had moved in, the platform that had served as Hiccup's bed space had been closed off with light wood and reed to give her some privacy, and Stoick himself had then walled off the portion directly underneath to add the support, lest the platform collapse under the added weight, and taken it as his own bedchamber. It had made carrying Hiccup's bed down problematic. In the end, the frame was dismantled and reassembled next to the fire in the hall's main room.

Astrid sighed, looking away from Stoick as well as she brushed stray hairs from his eyes. "The most beautiful woman in Midgard," she replied with a smile that was probably more than a little odd. Her insides always twisted when she remembered that. She had begun harbouring the horribly presumptuous hope that the girl from his childhood Cami had mentioned had been her, until he'd begun murmuring this name a few days ago. "I think he may have loved and lost her."

"Ah, Hiccup," Stoick said with open compassion as he walked over to the bed, shadowing his son as he blocked the firelight. Then he looked at Astrid, and his face changed to one of dismay.

"He told you this?"

"Not in so many words," she went on, still caressing his hair, her chest twinging again when he sighed and murmured unintelligibly. "We were speaking, the day before Dogsbreath came in. He said I remind him of her."

"Oh, Astrid…" She shook her head vehemently.

"Don't, Stoick," she said, voice always hushed around his bed even when she wanted to raise it above her choked whisper to mask the tone. "Before all this happened, I left it all up to him. We were to speak again, before Snotlout and … we didn't have the time. But the last we spoke, I knew who I was talking to, and I told him I would let him choose. If he decides that he doesn't want to stay, or doesn't want …" she stopped. She couldn't continue that sentence. "I think he's given Berk enough, it's time we give something back. The choice is his to make."

He gave a heavy sigh, resting his larger hand on his son's head, causing Astrid to withdraw her own. "You're wise beyond your years. Me … he was right there, and I never saw him. Even when I try to do right by him, all I can do is hurt him," he said in a voice so sad that it broke her heart.

"I don't think he sees it that way," she said kindly and honestly, remembering the raw care in his voice every time Hiccup spoke to Stoick through Cattongue. Hiccup very obviously still loved his father. These two men just needed to learn to tell each other just how big a place they had in each other's hearts. Maybe then, they could begin to mend their relationship, and knit together like broken bone.

What would become of her and him … she had told Stoick the truth. She turned to look at Hiccup again, now resting more peacefully, breath deep and head lying quietly on the pillow. Whatever happened was up to him.

=0=

Light hurt so. Very. Badly. It was evil, truly evil, and Hel had something going, to have her realm in darkness. He bet she just had a massive hangover and just didn't want to be disturbed. That would explain her cranky, 'damnation on the souls' nonsense too. Someone just needed to give her some watered honey.

Hiccup groaned, trying to remember how on earth he'd ended up with the mother of all hangovers. Had he been out drinking with Thuggory again? He'd sworn he never would again, after the last time when Thug'd become engaged … then again, hadn't he got married recently? That was probably it, they had gone and gotten so spectacularly plastered poor Heather was probably still a virgin, and Brawlknife was going to kill them all…

He shifted, and suddenly, three quarters of his body was on fire. His knee hurt like the jotun had taken an ice pick to it, his shoulders and back and chest felt like every breath he took - which began coming in shorter pants - was stabbing him repeatedly from the inside out.

He opened his eyes against his own advisement, and found that the light was not, in fact, sunlight, but a merry blaze keeping the place toasty warm a few feet away from the bed. His head cleared, if only slightly, and he became aware of the huffs of warm air blasting against his arm, which he'd recognise anywhere.

"Hey, Toothless," he said, instantly receiving enthusiastic thrilling noises from deep in his friend's throat and the hand he'd raised to pet him on the head was laved with sticky, wet dragon saliva. "Och, Toothless!"

Somehow, he managed to find the strength to raise his head, and the sight of his wet hand suddenly made him realise exactly why he had awoken.

Gods, he needed to go, real bad.

He tried to sit up, with the result that he had to try really badly not to faint. Toothless moaned and murmured in obvious distress next to him, and through the pain Hiccup remembered with slow, sluggish thoughts what seemed to be flashes of images - tumbling rocks and trees and water.

"Gods, did I fall off you like a complete amateur?" he asked. That's it, he was never going to drink with Thuggory again, only bad things happened. "Are you hurt too, bud?" Worry rose in his chest like a physical thing, and with some struggles - and help from the same dragon he was trying to take care of - he managed to get up, somehow. Panting heavily and hurting all over, Hiccup first looked at Toothless before taking stock of himself. All told, Hiccup thought in relief, the dragon didn't look much worse for wear. There were a few more missing scales than usual, exposing the bluish black skin beneath, but nothing the dragon couldn't shrug off.

He raised a brow when he looked at himself. One couldn't say the same for the human, he thought sarcastically, as he took stock of the bandages around his chest - which were part of what was constricting his breathing - and what he could see of various cuts and multi-coloured bruises peeking around the white medical bands and open front of his eastern tunic. He pushed his elbows forward, trying to sit up straighter, and his abdominal muscles contracted and twitched in protest, as if they too wanted to join the pity party, even though he could see nothing wrong with them. It almost felt as if he'd been given a beating. Gods, he hadn't been this bad since the Picts and Sepha...

"Asgard, what did happen," he asked, taking on elbow off the bed in order to cradle his head even if he tottered. He tried to pull himself backwards, and managed with moderate success, especially when Toothless lent him a nose he could push against. He gave a sigh of relief when his back found the headboard and he flopped bonelessly against it, panting like he'd run from the hairy red moving bushes of men that were the Scot tribe1. He groaned at himself as his bladder gave another, more insistent twinge, so with a resigned sigh, he ignored the slight nausea (never again, Thuggory, never again), pushed the covers off and swung his legs over the bed, aiming for the door.

Legs, leg and wooden metal thing, whatever.

He stopped, his brain finally catching up to what his eyes had seen. His whole body went rigid, the pain taking a sudden backseat as his skin broke into a cold sweat and an unnatural chill took hold of his chest. The feeling of slight sickness became burgeoning nausea, and he suddenly lurched forward and put his face into a bucket containing a few fingers of water which he spotted at the last minute. The unexpected strength of the lurch and heave flung him clean off the bed, and he groaned while he vomited, smacking the floor with his right side and only then realising that he was naked apart from the tunic and bandages.

Toothless gave a high pitched scream that he only uttered when he was in great distress, and that probably would have hurt if his ears weren't already ringing almost deafeningly. There was a bang, a gasp and some called words in a tone of dismay that he did not understand, and then there were hands under his armpits and someone holding his almost bobbing head as he heaved, comforting palm on his forehead.

He didn't know for how long he was ill, but it felt like an eternity. Once his stomach had stopped trying to eject bile and even the air it contained, not little in thanks to the warm hand that was rubbing his belly, he started trying to stand, which he managed on wobbly, achy knees between Toothless's snout and the solid, strong hands and arm around his back. He turned to say thanks, and stopped short.

Lovely blue eyes, flaxen hair, slightly rounder face, delicate nose. Worried, very, very, worried expression.

Astrid. That was Astrid, his beautiful…

Of course it hit him at that moment. Of course it would. Dragon Island, the massive dragon, Berk. Returning here. The final push of that creature and then …

Falling, tumbling, drowning, and finally Astrid and Astrid's arms, and sky and sea and pain.

If his stomach weren't empty, it would have emptied itself again. No that it didn't try.

"Easy, shhh," she said in a quiet voice, pushing him back towards the bed. He almost collapsed with a cry of pain when he tried to put weight on his left foot. Again, her strong hands and his loyal dragon caught him, but he suddenly realised that what he had seen earlier was real, that his foot was gone and there was a metal thing attached instead, and it hurt like Odin's dogs were still ripping it off, which granted, was an occupational hazard, but dear Odin why…

And then he realised also that he was mostly naked, covered in ill and tottering helplessly like a child in front of the woman who's opinion counted most in the world. Blood rushed to his face, and even more followed when his bladder gave another twinge - this time one where the next would mean soiling himself.

"No," he said, and Asgard, it came out as an almost pitiful moan. No, no, not in front of Astrid… "I need to …"

"What is it? Tell me, Hiccup," she urged gently, so gently, rubbing a cheek against his shoulder as both her hands were occupied. It was soothing, but it was almost as if she were trying to calm a distressed child, not an adult man - an adult man who had looked at her and longed for her for what felt like all his life. But now he was reduced to this, and oh, all the gods, he was going to have to speak, or he was going to … but how…

"I have to … pass … water," he replied awkwardly, using the only euphemism he could think of that didn't sound vaguely vulgar or suggestive, and ending up sounding like a demented old man instead.

"It's alright, I'll help. Go for the bucket, it has to be cleaned anyway," she said, still in that gentle tone reserved for upset children. Gods, how humiliating, how humiliating, why Astrid? Why not anyone but Astrid?

"No," this time it came out as a long moan, because his bladder was hurting almost worse than the throbbing wound that was the rest of his body. "No helping!" he tried for an order, but it came out as a plea. "I'm not dressed, it's not right!"

"I'll just hold you up," she said, and there was also a note of pleading in her voice. She turned her face away, resting her cheekbone against his shoulder as her flushed cheek fit perfectly into the natural cradle of his upper chest. She fit against him like a missing piece of himself. In his pained and confused state, his heart almost broke. Beautiful Astrid, fitting against him like that, allowing him some dignity, even as he vomited all over himself, naked and shamefully weak.

It was one of the most embarrassing moments of his life when he handled himself and aimed for the bucket, the tinkling sounding loud and obscene in the quiet room as he was keenly aware of her sweet breath against his arm the whole time.

He moved back on suddenly stiff muscles as soon as he was done, and was sure that he had not left any undue necessities for her to clean up, knees hitting the bed too quickly for the long distance he'd felt he'd travelled when he got off it. He went down like a rock, and Toothless was halfway up the bed and holding him up instantly, while Astrid steadied him against the dragon and then dashed to bring a rag and basin, with which she began cleaning his vomit.

He tried to protest, batting her hand away, feeling shockingly weak for having just woken up. She shushed him quietly, and he could have sworn he felt the ghost of lips on his forehead. To his horror, tears sprung to his eyes at her tender treatment, because how was she supposed to look at him as a man, to see someone who wanted her so deeply when he couldn't even stand unaided?

But he was already closing his eyes, already feeling his limbs grow heavier even as he tried to bat her hands away, while she persisted in cleaning his chest, his tunic, his - gods, she was cleaning his crotch with the warm, wet rag. He wished he could have yelped and twisted away as he wanted to do, but his body was too heavy, and all he could do was groan and turn his head away, blushing uselessly.

"Ok, Toothless, give me a hand," he heard her say, and he was lowered back onto the bad, her hands under his knees and under his armpits, his metal foot unsnagged carefully and lovingly as covers were pulled over him. He opened his eyes, blinking slowly as he tried to see between the gaps of darkness when the weights at the end of his eyelids pulled them down again, but all he could glimpse was her hair, untied and shining in the firelight, a muted red-gold hue that was as beautiful as any sunset.

"Astrid," he whispered, and fingers ran through his hair and face.

"Yes," she replied in a breathy sigh. "Rest, Hiccup. I will be here."

It was her this time, it was really her. He wasn't going to wake up to find Sepha tending to him and a pit of disappointment that would swallow him whole. She was here, his Astrid, caring for him.

Then he wished she wasn't, when he remembered her hand on him, and her having seen his battered, pitifully weak naked body. She had seen now. She would know that he was nothing like the other, stronger and better men of the tribe.

Her fingers carded through his hair, touch light and tender.

"Astrid," he said again, before his mind gave out again, and his consciousness winked into sleep.

=0=

Stoick sat in the meeting, his mind full of a wasps' nest of buzzing and nothing more. He was exhausted and frazzled with worry, and there was not a single thought he could have on a practical thing going on in the meeting without it turning to his boy, lying on that bed, a leg less; because of him, and because of Berk.

"That really isn't the issue here," Thuggory was growling. "The issue is that you and your son broke the agreement. He was supposed to get on that bloody dragon and put out the fires at the mouth of the port. Because of him, Hiccup had to go out there and bait that thing while I put out the fires!"

Stoick had to force himself to listen. The Meathead heir had taken his son's loss rather badly, and had decided to take umbrage at Snotlout's role it in.

"He had to adjust half his strategy to accommodate this idiot's tantrum," Cami said. Stoick sighed; The Meathead heir wasn't, in fact, the only one. His son had apparently accumulated more allies than his great grandfather Hamish in the past five years. If any doubts still lingered in his mind on his son's worthiness to follow after him, they were swiped clean off.

If he wanted to stay. If he wanted to follow after him. If he wanted to speak with Stoick at all.

"...blame a faulty strategy on my boy!"

"The 'faulty strategy' that got you a Victory that will go down in the legends! How dare you speak of your own in this way! What kind of Vikings can't follow orders given and do what he's told!"

"Just following your precious Hiccup's example! He couldn't follow one to save his life! And why do you jump to his defence in this way, he is not even a Meathead!"

"He is my best friend! And he would have been better off born in my tribe, where he would have been respected!"

"Are you insulting our tribe's hospitality after you have mooched off us right before the Winter?"

"I was here to help save your arses from something you had started yourself!" Red in the face, Thuggory unholstered his axe. "That's more than enough words from you!"

"Enough!" Stoick finally roared, quieting the room. He stood up, his patience waning at being forced to sit through this farce instead of being by his son's bed. Astrid herself had been spared the ordeal; he honestly thought they wouldn't have managed to get her away from his bedside even if they chained her and used dragons to pull. He frowned at Thuggory.

"Put that axe down, boy," he said. "We are allied clans, and we do not arm ourselves against each other in our council rooms. That is an act of war, and I'll forgive it only this time, because you are young and angry." He gave the boy an unblinking glare, which was returned unflinchingly. "Now put it down."

Thuggory seemed about to send him to the jotun before his wife gently managed to pry his axe away from him. He huffed, still obviously fuming, but allowed her, and nodded to Stoick. The chief then turned to Spitelout.

"Apologise, now," he ordered. Spitelout went crimson.

"What!"

"You insulted my son. You insinuated that the heir and future chief of a brother tribe was not a welcome guest, and belittled the aid he and his friends, the fellow heirs of all our allied clans, gave us in one of Berk's greatest battles. That is not acceptable, Spitelout, and I will not allow it. Apologise."

With a rebellious, crimson face, jaw jutting out that his son had fully inherited, Spitelout turned to Thuggory and spat an apology between his teeth, which Thuggory and the Bog heir accepted with tight nods.

"Thuggory," he continued, addressing the boy. "Concerning my son's arrangements with the village being breached … I am glad he has made such a friend as you, ready to go this far to help him." Another curt nod. "But I think, perhaps, it would be best to wait for him to recover, and to speak of his own price," he concluded. Stoick just hoped his son was still the boy who had left, still the beloved child of his heart who cared so much that he drove himself to committing disasters because he wanted to help so badly, so that he wouldn't ask for something that would harm their tribe.

But of course, he knew it was so; his son, estranged and thinking that Berk was his enemy of all things, had come to Berk to help with every intention of leaving it as the stranger he had come, and took nothing as a reward but to teach and help and give them more. Stoick felt another wave of shame wash over him; there was his son, giving him another later, and there was he, the father, spitting him in the face for it.

"Technically, Stoick," Gobber spoke up, stroking his long mustache seriously, "If you look carefully at this situation, you'll find that there was no debt, actually?"

"What?" he asked, and Thuggory started going crimson again but stood silently.

"Debts are owed to outsiders," Gobber said, and Stoick's brain lit like a forest fire. "And your son isn'ea one. Therefore, there was never any debt in the first place." He gave a pleased smile, and Thuggory looked at him furiously but did not rejoinder. "I 'ad some time to think about it, because I'd begun to suspect the lad in the forge was the wee bairn I'd taken in as an assistant all those years ago." Why that sneaky bastard son of an albino mongoose! No wonder, all those cryptic hints to stay away from the boy…

"You mean, all this time, he was duping us? Making us do what he wanted, the little cheat, making us feel in his debt and controlling us with it when he really had no right to-"

Mildew's little tirade stopped with an abrupt squeak when the shaft of a cross bow embedded itself in the column behind him, after passing faintingly close to his crotch. Open mouthed looks snapped in the opposite direction.

"I do apologise," said the UglyThug heir with rather unconvincing nonchalance as he held the crossbow in seemingly inexpert hands. "I had not realised the safety was unlocked. You are, of course, not hurt." Mildew went an unhealthy shade of puce and opened his mouth, but the calm and half-lidded looking UglyThug heir cut him off. "And of course, I find that as you have given me the kind opportunity to answer your question, then no, it does not mean that Berk has been lied to." He began fiddling with the crossbow again, making most of the people in front of him save Mildew step aside to be out of range. "As Hiccup is the heir of this tribe, it was his every right to give orders and direct Berk's army for a defence strategy that safeguarded his own tribe and village. I do not see how any hoodwinking took place; Hiccup was perhaps playing a practical joke, or wished to return to his journey once he had done his duty by his tribe, so he kept the identity with you that he assumed while travelling. After all," he concluded, stroking the crossbow like a favourite pet, "he is a humble man. Not once did he expect anything from our tribes that we had not offered when he visited, all the while being an equal to me."

There was some murmuring, and Stoick was very glad to see smiles and looks of pride among his villagers.

"He went above and beyond, too; really your son, that lad." That was Fleetfoot, who had come for the village-wide meeting only rarely. "Brought my little girl back to the house when she got it into her head to go after him into the woods and lost herself. Made sure she was safe in her mamma's arms before he left and wouldn't even stay for food or take any thanks, neither. Said it was the least he could do."

"Oh aye, he helped me out at the bakery too, when my lever got stuck on my coal furnace and he was passing by. Mighty strong, both he and his dear night fury. One tug and off it popped, while me - I'd been yanking for hours."

Other people began speaking up; his politeness, his patience with the new riders and new recruits, his rather handsome bearing - that one from Brunhilda, and Stoick was certain she was preening and looking at the mothers of all the unmarried daughters with smug triumph. He would have laughed if that woman didn't terrify him.

The door to the great hall suddenly opened, and it was so unusual in the middle of a meeting that everyone turned to look and the conversation died.

Astrid was standing there, her hair almost in disarray, as if she had it undone and had quickly rebraided it. But her face was radiant with a wide smile and a healthy glow of a delighted flush.

"He woke up," she said, unable to unbend her lips from their stretching smile even to speak. The Hall gave a collective call of happiness, before she went on. "He's asleep again, but it's a proper sleep now, the Goethi says. He should…" her voice broke. Astrid, tough, hard girl made of steel and bone, was shaking and trembling while she rested against the heavy door of the great hall, but she seemed to give a rat's arse about it, still looking joyful. "He should be ok, now. Really ok."

The Hall broke into an uproar. Gobber got into the council table and started yelling for mead and music and celebration. The din was jubilant and deafening and a balm on Stoick's ears as he watched the village celebrate his son's return and recovery, glad that his boy had not faded from their hearts and minds, and that his aid and assuredness in this business had cemented his position as heir more than Stoick ever could have. He saw Astrid slip away, still a wide smile on her face, no doubt to return to his boy's side.

He stood to be corrected, but Stoick could have sworn that his son had managed to turn his political engagement into a love match, after not being with his promised for more than a week.

Truly, he was his mother's son.

With a sigh, Stoick returned to the merriment around him, accepting a keg from Gobber and sitting to smile tiredly at his people, who were celebrating his son's courage and spontaneously composing edda as the alcohol blood-level increased.

Stoick himself determined, between swigs and laughter at the verses being launched from one side of the room to the other, that when his son was strong enough, and if his son could stand to look him in the eye and share a room with him some time soon, he would apologise properly, as a man should. As a father should know better to do.

If his son gave him a later, like Stoick had never given his son in years gone by, this time he would be a proper father and take it with both hands.

=0=

The title means 'Interlude'

1 No offense meant towards the Scottish. I'm actually a healthy amount Scot meself. This is actually a reference to 'Blackadder Back and Forth' where the 'romans' are wondering what the moving red hedge is while they stand at Hadrian's wall; it is, of course, the attacking Scots.

=0=

A special mention, here, to one of my reviewers, kane400, who was very helpful in spotting the errors that escaped my net. Cheers, kane!

There are only the three epilogues left; they bookend the story with the three prologues and at the end of the third one I'll leave a few notes on my clues. I've honestly added so many along the way – and I wrote this thing over December and January – that I'm sure I'm going to forget half of them. Oh well. If you have questions, now's the time to ask, and I can answer them in the final post.

All nudity and bodily functions in this chapter are due to realism and cultural norms of the time and place within which they are set. Please remember that This Is Berk. Some people have toilets and showers. They have wooden tubs and dragon-warmed water.

Not sure about a sequel yet. Please bear in mind that I really am very busy academically, and that will have to come first. Still, if it does come out, I'll probably not bother with this weekly posting lark, and just put it up as a complete chunk after I divide it into chapters and let you binge. And since I hate this website, I may actually not post it here. Not sure yet on that count either. I'll post a note at the end of 'Becoming' when the time comes. The thing will be rated M; fair warning. Remember who's engaged to be married, and who, quite obviously, needs to sort lots of things out as of 'Becoming's ending. The rating is pretty much non-negotiable thanks to those two.

Last posts will be over the next three days.

Also: A PLUG! PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A SHAMELESS PLUG!

Foxy has been working on 'Braced', the third story in her 'Chasing'-'Stages' AU continuity. The first chapter for this new story will be out next Monday so all of you coming down from 'Becoming' can just start following 'Braced' now. I've had the privilege of sneak peaking, and it is not only up to her standard, but once again pushing the bar; this time with a much funnier and wittier narrative. Foxy's learning curve looks like a skate-rink's up-slope.