The Night Rider: Book Two

Chapter 2: Dreams vs Reality

WARNING: It gets sexual in the beginning... sort of.

ASTRIDS POV.

Hiccup was lying in a bed and Astrid was sitting beside him, the two were silent neither of them daring to speak. Their eyes burned into one another until Astrid couldn't restrain herself anymore and almost jumped onto him pressing her lips up against his and he pressed back. Their lips parted momentarily so that both of them could breath between their passionate kiss but then their lips were once again pressed together. Hiccup placed both of his hands on her hips and adjusted her so that she was sitting on top of his own hips. Hiccups back was placed up against the headboard so he was sitting up. Astrid filled her hands with the soft fabric of Hiccups shirt and ripped it off his body exposing his smooth chest, not a scar or burn disturbing the skin.

Astrid placed her hands eagerly on his chest exploring it, running her hands down over his muscles. Suddenly Hiccup was moving her body and her back was placed up against the bed and he was on top of her. Hiccup pressed his lips up against her neck and collarbone placing kisses along them like a rabid animal hungry for food. Hiccups hands began to slowly slip up her shirt caressing her soft skin.

"Astrid." He said breathlessly into her ear before something dripped onto her forehead. Astrid who had her eyes shut assumed it was sweat. She ran her hands down his chest running over wet and uneven patches along his skin. Astrid stopped and opened her eyes. She screamed and pushed Hiccup off her terrified at what she saw before her. Hiccups chest was ladened with cuts that leaked blood down his chest, the burns from his fight with the Queen had returned and the burned skin twitched like it was sizzling. Hiccups left foot was gone replaced with a stump that blood oozed from soaking her and the bed sheets.

"Astrid what wrong?" A male voice asked from behind her and someone placed and hand on her shoulder. Astrid in a panic flung herself off the bed and onto the floor crawling away frantically from her parents who were also just as hideously disfigured as Hiccup was.

"What's wrong sweetheart?" Her mother said reaching down and gingerly placing a hand onto Astrids pale cheek. "You look scared." She said before Astrids eyes flung open and she sat up in her bed. She looked around her dark room shaking coated in sweat. They weren't there, they weren't there, they weren't there she tried reassuring herself pressing her hands into her eyes. This wasn't the first time she had had this dream. This was probably the twentieth time it had happened in the last six months... since her parents had died... since Hiccup had left.

Astrid reached over to a window that was beside her bed and opened the shutters letting a low light flood into the room. Astrid inhaled deeply shutting her eyes letting her lungs fill with the relaxing morning air. It had been six months since their battle with the Queen and six months since their last dragon raid. Hiccup had been right about the Queen controlling dragons and making them raid villages. Stoick had told her and others about how Hiccup had thought that the raids were caused by the Queen controlling dragons to do her bidding. And since there hadn't been a raid since her death he must have been correct.

Out on the street below her some Vikings were already wandering through the streets and some dragons were flying through the dark skies above. After the Queens defeat most of the dragons that had been in the nest had flocked back to Berk. No one knew why they had but no one really cared. After seeing that a dragon had helped stop the raids by defeating the Queen most the Berkians had gotten the proof they had needed to see that dragons weren't bad after all. Some Vikings on Berk still resented dragons and hated having them around the village but those Vikings mostly kept to themselves. There was a thump on the roof of Astrids house and a squawk. Astrid smiled and swung her legs out of her bed pulling some fresh clothes from a wardrobe and getting dressed as she made her way down her stairs.

By her door Astrid slipped into her shoes and left her house being greeted by the crisp air. Astrid turned around and looked up at the roof of her house smiling at the sight of her dragon.

"Stormfly." Astrid greeted the Nadder as it jumped from the roof landing in front of Astrid nuzzling her. "There's my girl." She said scratching the dragon making it squawk happily. The dragon broke contact with her and stepped back flapping its wings frantically. "Does someone want to go for a fly?" She asked in a childish tone and Stormfly chirped back. Astrid walked over to her dragon and swung up onto the saddle and before she knew it they were gaining altitude. Astrid gripped the saddle loosely, when she had first begun to ride Stormfly she had been terrified that the dragon would drop her but now that thought never crossed her mind. 

Up here in the sky with only her and Stormfly she felt safer than she ever did on the ground. With her parents and Hiccup gone the only connections she really had were to her friends, Stoick, and maybe Gobber but she wasn't anywhere near as close to them as she had been to her parents or was to Hiccup. Had been to Hiccup. Had been. Astrid had to constantly remind herself that he was gone. To Astrid it was blatantly obvious that her parents were gone but sometimes in the morning she would wake up and expect Hiccup to be lying next to her or outside her house on Toothless waiting to fly.

But he wasn't, and he probably wasn't coming back. As far as she or anyone of Berk knew Hiccup was alive, from traders they heard that the Night Rider has been busy sinking and raiding dragon hunting ships outside the Archipelago but other than that no one had directly heard from him. Astrid knew that one of these days she would probably hear from a trader that the Night Rider was shot down and lost at sea, or that he was simply killed. A tear slipped from Astrids eye and began to dribble down her cheek but she quickly swiped it away. She couldn't bring herself to think what would happen if Hiccup died.

She wasn't quite sure why she felt the way she did for him, she barely knew him truthfully. She wasn't even sure what she really felt for him. She knew it wasn't something you'd feel for a friend but she didn't know if it was love either. Stormfly stopped her accent and leveled out above the clouds.

'The best part is looking down.' Is what Hiccup had told her. Astrid peered over the side of Stormfly and down to the crystal blue waters below that still barely reflected the stars back at her. Every morning Astrid tried to get out early enough the catch the stats fading and no matter how many times she saw it it still took her breath away. Astrid looked away from the waters below and out in front of her, she couldn't see it but she knew somewhere in front of her was the vast fog wall of Hellhimens Gate and she knew somewhere beyond that was Hiccup. She wondered what he would be doing right now, if he was even alive. Astrids eyes shut tightly at the thought pushing it away, he was alive... he had to be.