Chapter Text
The island was smoking from several different places. Buildings that had been up for years had been burned to the ground. Hiccup's own house had been hit.
But he was perfectly okay with this. Why? Because they were finally winning.
Turned out taking the fight right to Berk was the enemy's mistake. The last few months of stopping trade ships and trying to catch any of the dragon riders alone and off guard had left the people of Berk intching more and more for a fight. So that when the fight finally happened, the hunters didn't even know their mistake until it was too late.
"Astrid!" He called, lifting a hand to get her attention.
She led Stormfly close to Toothless and grinned. She also knew how close the victory was. "Yeah?"
"Care to do the honors, m'lady?" Hiccup tilted his head and gestured dramatically at the fancy ship in the midst of the chaos.
Astrid looked at it, her eyes a dazzling blue-and-gold in the light of the fire and the sun that was beginning to set.
In the seconds before her answer, Hiccup stared at her and admired her.
He had tried to describe her to himself (he would never be brave enough to say it to her face, no matter how close they got), but he could never find the words. Not the right ones, anyway. Somehow her spirit was always lit and dancing in her eyes, and he never got over how beautiful she looked in every color he'd ever seen her in.
Saying he wouldn't be the person he was without her was anunderstatement. The amount of times she'd saved his life far outweighed the times he'd saved her's. The amount of times she'd helped him out of dark places without allowing him to push her away was amazing.
He smiled at her softly.
He loved her so much. Their wedding was in less than a week. He was more excited than he had been in his entire life--which was saying something. He had promised Toothless he wouldn't cry, but deep down he already felt himself losing that battle.
"Already on it!"
She leaned forward on her dragon to leave, but Hiccup quickly said, "Astrid?"
She stopped to look at him.
He smiled at her. "I love you."
She paused to smile at him and then turned around with Stormfly and headed quickly in the direction of the center ship.
Hiccup watched her for a second, still smiling. Then he patted Toothless' neck. "Alright, bud, let's--"
With a shriek, Stormfly veered wildly off course and dropped violently toward the ocean, which was a bit rough because of the fighting.
Hiccup's head quickly turned in their direction and without hesitating he pushed Toothless to dive toward them.
What had hit her? An arrow? Hiccup cursed himself for not immediately following her to keep an eye out for things like that--he had gotten too comfortable with the bearing victory he forgot the fight wasn't over yet.
A flying rock, launched a moment before from a ship near him, touched Toothless' wing just enough to mess up his dive. The Night Fury had to spread his wings in order not to fall into the water himself.
Stormfly and Astrid had vanished in a think cloud of smoke, coming off of a group of sinking boats. To Hiccup it felt like it took Toothless far longer than usual to right himself before continuing toward their friends.
Had they hit the water? We're they sinking already? How far down had they gone? With the sun setting and the dark smoke, not to mention the confusing light of the fires, the water would be impossible to search through.
Toothless must have sensed his urgency, because he didn't even stop to see if Hiccup wanted to enter the water, he just folded his wings in tighter and dived into it.
...............
If Toothless hadn't been there, Hiccup would have forgotten that he needed to breathe just as much as Astrid did.
He had confused his lung's screams for air with his stomach and heart's boiling need to find her. The water was so black he didn't realize his vision was darkening too.
After he'd landed everyone was cheering and bumping him and taunting the retreating ships. No one noticed he wasn't joining in but Valka, who gently took him aside.
"What happened? Are you hurt?" She asked, running a hand through his wet hair, concerned.
Hiccup stared at her, not registering what she had said at first. "I... couldn't get to her."
His mother tipped his head so he would look at her, searching his eyes for clues. "What?"
