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howtowhumpyourhiccup · 4 months ago

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Chapter 26 - Not Even Close

Summary: Set during RttE, based on the episode "Gold Rush." The entire point was for Hiccup to get Berk's Gold back. Well, he's far from his goal now.

Warnings: Mentions of Captivity, torture, animal attack

Rating: Explicit

Dead Dove: Yes

Words: 1 043

Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon

Characters: Astrid, Heather, Hiccup

Whumpee: Hiccup, Astrid

Whumper: Viggo, Ryker

Pairing: Hiccstrid, Vigcup, Rycup

Author’s Notes: Happy New Year everybody! I hope everyone's goals for 2025 get realized.

Enjoy!

-XOXOX-

On patrol, Astrid is angry.

“I swear it, Heather! The next time I see either Viggo or Ryker, it’s on sight! On sight!” She growls with so visceral of a tone in her voice, the other woman is surprised she isn’t turning Stormfly into the direction of Hunter Island right this very second.

“You should see him, Heather! He’s still in pain! He’s been in pain since yesterday and you know how bad his phantom pains can get and he refuses to take care of himself! He was… He- he was only with them for two months! For two months! Sure, maybe two weeks longer than that! But two months and Viggo has him so hurt, so wrapped around his finger that he won’t even take care of himself, so matter how much he hurts!” Astrid roars at the end of that rant, fists tight. Her dragon cringes at the volume.

“Next time I see him, he’s dead!”

Heather keeps an eye on the water below and the horizon in the distance, like they’re so supposed to. Still no ships three weeks after his rescue, but that doesn’t mean they’re getting away from danger, it means they’re headed towards it. Every day, they’re a day closer.

She could speak, say something to try and help, but what can she say that will bring her friend comfort?

Hiccup is in some kind of a state of mind, not even Heather is sure which one, but she knows the worst is yet to come. The best guess she has is that he’s protecting himself. From himself, from the Grimborn Brothers, from his loved ones. Viggo’s is the only name that has fallen the past few weeks, that’s how little they know. They haven’t figured out that Ryker had a hand in his suffering, too. That there are two men in his head deciding what he says and does.

So letting Astrid rant, that is the best Heather can do.

“And you, you and Dagur, you’re just hanging around Hiccup. Like you have this unspoken thing going on that the rest of us don't understand! How can you be around him and not be driven completely insane by everything that’s been taken away from him? How?!”

“Because we do have this unspoken thing that you don’t understand,” there is the one thing Heather can talk about. Perhaps, the only thing raging inside of Astrid’s head that she may be able to help with.

She stares at her, eyes wide and fearful. There is very little this warrior fears, but all the ones she does experiences, they always have to do with Hiccup. The love of her life, whether he knows it or not.

Heather decides to elaborate, Windshear shoots her a brief look.

“You’re not a stranger to pain, Astrid. None of the Dragon Riders are, but there are some things that even you don’t understand. Things that Dagur and I do because we’ve lived through them. And unless you have, you just can’t understand.”

“Stoick and Gobber haven’t lived through them either,” as far as Astrid knows, they haven’t been held captive before. Yet even they seem to know something.

“But they still have decades more life experience. They’ve fought battles and wars for far longer than any of us have. Even if they were never captured themselves, they’ve known people who have, still seen what it can do,” and Hiccup will be their example. Whether the Dragon Riders want him to be or not.

Astrid looks devastated. She just got told that, not only does she not understand her best human friend, the boy of her dreams, but she likely never will. Not in the same way his father and mentor appear to do, not the same way the Berserker Siblings appear to. Heather, who has been through a kind of Hel that she never even told her about, as it turns out.

But Heather isn’t done yet and she continues in the softest and most emphatic tone she can manage.

“Can you give me just one example of what you think happened to him on that ship? For ten weeks? Because I can promise you, Astrid, every single day was a new kind of nightmare and I am amazed with the way he’s still getting out of bed. He’s still talking to you, lets Toothless all over him, he listens to you. I had years to work my way out of that dark pit and you know how hard it was for me to trust any of you when we met again,” they are harsh words she tries to bring her as softly as she can. Because Astrid is in pain, too, and Heather never wants her to think she’s in the wrong for that.

And her words reach her. Astrid can’t give her a single example that hasn’t been rubbed into her face already. Like the scars on his back that can only come from a whipping or the scars on his arm that can only come from a dragon. And both of those are still surrounded by a veil of mystery.

Because what on Midgard could Hiccup have done that he deserved to have his back torn open? His voice permanently changed by screaming. Nothing in her eyes, but Hiccup isn’t her enemy. She loves him.

What on Midgard happened that would cause a dragon to try to rip his arm off? She’s been around dragons long enough, grew up seeing the kind of carnage they can bring, it’s how she knows that his arm must’ve looked like a nightmare after it just happened. It’s a miracle that it’s still there at all, that he can use his left hand somewhat like normal, though it lacks most of its strength.

Then there is him flashing Fishlegs. She can’t even begin to tie a concrete explanation to that one that doesn’t make her scream and cry.

Heather is right, Astrid doesn’t know and neither do the other Dragon Riders.

“Trust me, Astrid, the worst has yet to come.”

“Then how can we help?” She asks and all Heather can give her is a shrug. Because even having lived through some pretty bad stuff herself, she still doesn’t know the answer to that.

#httyd fics #httyd movies #rtte #race to the edge #astrid hofferson #heather #my fanfics #price

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