Oh my gods.
Oh my gods.
Oh mighty gods, oh great Norns, oh gods, gods gods.
…
So.
So, right then, so, uh…
That morning.
Right, um.
So, yesterday morning, we went to Toothless' cove.
It's where…
It's where Hiccup decided to…
Oh my gods.
I can't believe…
Sorry, Spike… I…
…
Gods.
So. So we all tromped to the cove. Everyone. The whole village, all of the Brass Monkey sailors, following Hiccup and Oglaranna.
I'd thought Hiccup was taller. He looked so small.
Oglaranna was in a great mood. She kept on swinging her axe and cheerfully booming, "GREAT DAY FOR IT, ISN'T IT?" until I wanted to pound that broad face in.
Hiccup was… just walking. Just walking, quiet and serious, the way he can be sometimes.
He held my hand the whole way.
He wasn't even trembling.
Not like me. I was shaking like an autumn leaf, my fingers clutching and re-clutching at his.
I've never… not before. Not before Hiccup. The Norns had to spare him. The three ladies of destiny could not be so cruel as to give him to me and then snatch him away. I'd been praying to Urd for a kind fate and to Odin to protect him in combat all night.
I prayed even as he loved me, as I loved him. He held me too tightly afterwards and buried his face in my hair, but he never said anything about dying. He didn't need to.
When we'd all made it under (or over) the shield stuck in the entrance to the cove, Hiccup turned to me and grabbed my face.
"Astrid," he murmured fiercely. "I love you."
"You'd better not die," I hissed, not trusting myself to say it back without tears.
He just smiled, green eyes bright with fear.
I kissed him then, and deepened it, wrapping my arms around his neck. He choked a sob into my mouth, before kissing me back. Hard, passionate, desperate kisses.
"You'd better not," I growled against his mouth, "you're not going to get away from me that easily."
"Wouldn't dare," he breathed, and kissed me again. "Astrid, Astrid…"
"ARE THEY ALWAYS LIKE THIS?"
"Ah, no, that's new," Gobber's voice replied.
"Hiccup," Stoick's voice broke through our reverie. "Hiccup, time."
He kissed me softly then, and leaned his forehead against mine.
"Time to get my Thor on," he quipped weakly with a pale half-smile.
"You'll be…" I couldn't finish that. "I believe in you." That was better.
His little half-smile turned into that crooked grin that cuts through my heart. "Time for something stupid?"
"Something crazy," I smiled back shakily, my voice actually cracking, and kissed him once more. It felt like I was watching from under water as my hands smoothed down his tunic, and then let him go.
He looked at me for a long moment as though committing me to memory, then his eyes grew distant. He drew himself up straight, and unslung his hammer.
"Come on, son," Stoick put a beefy hand in the middle of Hiccup's back, and handed him his helmet.
"Something crazy," I heard him whisper to himself as he placed it on his head and turned to face the grinning giantess.
"VERY TOUCHING," she laughed. "READY TO DIE, GORGEOUS?"
"Is that what you see in me?" Hiccup asked calmly, a sarcastic lilt in his tone.
My heart leapt as I watched him move out to take the position across from her, limbering his hammer-elbow. He looked so thin and brittle across compared to the titanic woman, a foot shorter than her, and so very breakable. But he was calm. So calm. Was he?
He hadn't been calm that morning… or the night before…
What was going on in that head of his?
"WHAT, DEATH?"
"Gorgeous," Hiccup sneered the word, and swang his hammer contemptuously as he warmed up.
"FISHING FOR COMPLIMENTS?" Oglaranna's axe made a terrible whistling sound as she swiped it through the air.
"Hey, if you'd been where I was three years ago, you'd never have your fill of compliments either," he pointed out, and there was a small titter of laughter through the assembled villagers.
"THAT'S FUNNY?" Oglaranna squinted at them.
"Long story," Hiccup assumed a ready position, hammer gripped loosely in his left hand. "But no, I actually really want to know. Astrid asked yesterday, and you don't know the first thing about me. So, was it my looks?"
Oglaranna shrugged. "YOU'RE VERY PRETTY. I ALWAYS WANTED A PRETTY HUSBAND."
Hiccup winced. "Yeesh, pretty."
"DOES ANYTHING ELSE ACTUALLY MATTER?" Oglaranna also assumed a ready position.
I couldn't help it – she was obviously an imbecile as well as half-troll. I laughed derisively.
And Hiccup lunged, his hammer whirling in that practiced arc to slam with perfect precision on Oglaranna's axe arm. He'd moved faster than a snake-strike, faster than a Night Fury. The giant woman actually dropped the axe with a strangled curse, and my breath stopped in disbelief.
"It matters," Hiccup snarled.
I was dumbfounded. The surrounding villagers were in shock. Hiccup had actually scored the first hit, and it looked like Oglaranna's axe-arm was out of action. And as to what was going on in his head – he was angry.
Oglaranna cradled her broken right arm against her body, and picked up her axe with her left. "VERY CLEVER, SURPRISE ATTACK," she grunted. "WON'T SAVE YOU, BUT CLOSEST ANYONE'S GOTTEN IN YEARS. YOU'VE BEEN PRACTISING, CHICKEN!"
"Would you quit calling me that?" Hiccup started to warily pace around his still opponent.
"YOU DON'T LIKE BEING CALLED ANYTHING, DO YOU? NOT GORGEOUS, OR CHICKEN, OR DREAMBOAT. PERHAPS YOU SHOULD ENJOY IT WHILE YOU'VE GOT THE CHANCE; THEY'LL BE CALLING YOU DEAD SOON!" Oglaranna jeered, and she lashed out faster than I could follow, the axe screaming through the air.
She was obviously just as accomplished with her left arm as her right. I sucked air between my teeth. Hiccup blocked the huge blow with the hammer, and I saw him wince at the shock up his arm. The strength behind the blow was prodigious. She reversed the swing, and he ducked as the axe sizzled through the air where his throat had been. A vicious strike at his feet forced him to jump – and almost made him stumble, but the spikes under his foot caught the frozen sod. I saw him grimace as his stump landed heavily inside his leg. I heard a groan from Gobber's direction, but my eyes were riveted to the fight.
"This might be an out-there suggestion, but how about my name?" Hiccup panted, and the hammer snaked out and clacked precisely on her left knee.
She fell to the ground on her right knee, panting with pain. Hiccup's absolute precision with that hammer was baffling her. He didn't make useless passes – only striking when and where it would do damage.
"- not that it's all that great a name. Sorry, Dad," Hiccup watched her like a hawk.
"Blame your mother," Stoick's voice was weak with incredulity. "She… wanted a family name."
"I like it when Astrid calls me love, or husband," Hiccup continued, as Oglaranna hauled herself painfully to her feet and hefted her axe again. "That's good for the ol' ego."
"THAT LITTLE FOOL WIFE OF YOURS," Oglaranna growled, and the axe span in a complicated manoeuvre. Hiccup jumped back, but not before a deep slice was carved across his chest and along the back of his hammer-arm. He screamed through gritted teeth.
I cried out, and clapped my hands over my mouth.
Hiccup's breath was harsh and loud as he fought to keep the pain under control. Oglaranna didn't follow up on her advantage – from the way she was leaning, her kneecap was broken and she couldn't walk. Her face was shiny with sweat and agony.
"Not…" Hiccup rasped, "uuunghh!… not a fool…."
"Stop defending me, you idiot," I yelled at him, and my eyes were pricking in front of the whole village and I didn't care.
He smiled through his scratchy breathing. Blood began to seep through his tunic and trickle down his arm at an alarming rate.
"SO WHAT DOES… unh… SHE KNOW THAT I SUPPOSEDLY DON'T?" Oglaranna swiped at him again, but he was out of her reach. "HMM? NOTHING! AND SHE'S NOTHING! NOTHING BUT A POOR VILLAGE GIRL WITHOUT A SHRED OF FAME OR HONOUR TO HER NAME!"
His head came up. I could see wildness in his eyes.
He was stepping within range of her axe again, and in defence of me. Idiot, idiot, idiot.
Oglaranna sent her blade howling at his face, but he barely seemed to notice, leaning back absently as another cut was made across his cheek and the bridge of his nose. Hiccup's arm was moving, his blood running down his arm to spatter his hammer as it traced that precise arc through the air again –
- to smash heavily against the lurching Chieftess' jaw. I heard the sickening crunch.
Oglaranna cried out in pain and fell onto her injured left knee, eliciting another scream. The wounded giantess rolled onto her back, and her broken arm thudded against the frozen grass.
The stunned silence was so thick you could walk on it.
Hiccup's breathing was laboured as he kicked Oglaranna's axe away from her. His fingers were still nervelessly clutching his hammer, and he raised it above his head shakily.
"You listen to me," he said in a wobbly but determined voice. "Or this comes down on your other arm."
Oglaranna's eyes widened, and her lips twitched as her eyes refocused on Hiccup. Her jaw hung uselessly.
"You know… nothing. At all," Hiccup managed, panting and wavering on his feet. "Astrid knows… she knows everything. She knows… I'm not brave… I'm not strong… that I still think I'm useless sometimes… and my leg… and how I feel about it…"
My automatic scold-Hiccup-for-his-insecurities reflex kicked in. "You are the bravest person in this village, Hiccup!" I marched over to him and glared. "Stop saying things like that about yourself!"
He looked at me like I was mental, and I realised his hammer was still poised, trembling, over his head.
"Ah, carry on," I mumbled.
His hammer dropped to the icy grass behind him with a heavy thump, and he tottered slightly before falling solidly against me. "Can't, he groaned. "Hurts."
"It's… it's to the death, lad," Stoick's voice was numb with shock, and then a chorus of voices joined in.
"Finish it!"
"Get her, Hiccup!"
"Kill her!"
"Berk's honour!"
"Hi-ccup, Hi-ccup, Hi-ccup…"
"End that shouting cow!"
"Finish her!"
"I can't kill her," Hiccup moaned against my neck. A trickle of his blood was dripping from his cut nose down the collar of my coat. "I couldn't kill anything."
"You said wouldn't," I reminded him tenderly, and he huffed.
"Either. Or. Not killing her," he said stubbornly, and wrapped his arms around me, leaning heavily.
"She could come back and kill you later," I pointed out, and he shook his head against my neck.
"Don't care. She won't. Will you?" He blearily looked over at the prone Oglaranna.
She shook her head gingerly, eyes wide with sincerity, pain and actual respect.
"See?" he turned back to me. "Let 'em go… besides, if she doesn't go back, Bugeyes'll be sad."
"Well, we can't have that, poor little Bugeyes," I said gently. "Let's get you cleaned up."
"Hiccup?" Stoick stumbled across the grass as I led my limping husband away from his opponent. "Hiccup, you've got to…"
"He's not going to," I said firmly. "We're going to splint her and send her home."
Stoick gawked for a moment, before his mouth snapped shut and he nodded slowly, his face filled with wonderment and a huge, wordless pride. "I… I never thought y'could do it, son. I never…"
Hiccup raised his blood-smeared face and vaguely grinned at his father. "Astrid taught me… and my hammer, like yours, did you see…"
"Come on," I looped his arm over my shoulders, "we've got to stitch those cuts."
"More scars," Hiccup sighed, and his other hand groped vaguely at his head until he could pull off his helmet and hand it to Stoick.
"That's what makes it fun, remember?" I said archly, and he laughed weakly.
"Gobber, where's Gobber?" he mumbled as I helped him through the now-silent crowd.
"Here, lad," Gobber pushed his way towards us, his face proud. "Surprised us all, haven't you? Again. Y'got to stop doin' that, it's bad for my nerves. And my undies."
"I'll… make a point of that," Hiccup smiled weakly. "Gotta… gotta sew up my face and chest and arm…"
"Aye," Gobber nodded gravely.
"Teach…" he turned to me.
"Teach her to sew you up?" Gobber sounded surprised, "Er, lad, it's usually best to practise on an old cloth before you graduate to people…"
"Want her to do it," Hiccup said mulishly.
"I'll do it," I said quickly. "You can…" I cleared my throat. It hadn't sunk in yet, and we were talking about stitching through his skin. "You can start me off, Gobber."
So. I can sew now, sweetheart.
Hiccup's alive. He's asleep at the moment.
I can't help but remember how long he slept last time…
It's unbearable to see him, lying there. But I have to remember that he's alive.
He's alive. Through sheer luck and nerve and good old-fashioned Viking stubbornness issues.
I can't… I can barely believe it.
I think we both thought he would die. I think everyone did, and he proved us wrong all over again.
Oh Gods.
Thank you.
Oh my dearest Gods, thank you… thank you… oh, thank you.