Amongst the Stars

36)

"I-I did! Because I don't want a war! I don't want dragons, innocent people to die!" He rolls his eyes and fired a crossbow at Hiccup.

"Whoops there goes an innocent person!" He chimes. I scream and try move but I can't, it's like I'm tied down by some invisible force. "Ready for the dragon..?"

"Dagur no!" He raises his crossbow and takes aim at Valkyrie's helpless body struggling to move, just like me. "This is a dream. A nightmare. It's not real." I keep telling myself. I squeeze my eyes shut and try force myself awake.

"It's going to be real!"

I hear Dagur whisper before scrambling awake, shaking, sweating, violently breathing and with both my knives out, one in front of me and the other elsewhere...and I slowly turn to see it pressed against a wide awake Dagur's throat.

I don't pull it back straight away. I can barely move now, when I first woke up it's like I needed to move to remind myself I was awake, and what happened was a dream, but now I know I'm awake and I'm back to paralysis. "Atalia..." His voice makes my eyes well up with tears, and suddenly they start to fall as I drop the knives, my muscles too stressed to put them back as I fall apart.

Dagur is quick to take me into his arms, sitting us both up and holding me tightly, pulling me onto his lap as my tears roll down and I silently scream and hyperventilate into my hand, trying not to wake anybody up. I feel Dagur stroking my hair, shushing me gently and squeezing my frame slightly. "Was just a nightmare." He whispers softly, reassuring me that I am real, that he is real, that this is real. All the comfort I needed to be torn from my argument with reality.

We stay like this for a minute before I look up at him and he loosens his grip on me, adjusts it so he can look down at me comfortably. His eyes, his beautiful green eyes are something I don't think I could live without, something I don't think I could go a day without gazing upon. They are my tether to sanity I've come to learn, when I don't have access to them, I feel the discomfort in my mind, feel his absence and feel a wound that cannot be healed until I see him, and know that he is mine.

"Let's get married." I say suddenly.

"What?"

"Right now." I'm so awake now, I wipe my eyes dry of the tears and smile, hopelessly in love in my gaze that feasts on his surprised expression, I chuckle a little and place my hand on his cheek. "I want to be married to you right now."

His expression shifts from surprise and confusion to...relief it looks like, as he exhales and squeezes me into an embrace. "If that is what you wish, my love, it would be an honour to be your husband come the dawn."

***

I see Dagur standing at the cliffside, staring out as the dawn threatens to show itself, he's staring at it but not in a reconsidering way, almost like he's eager to view the horizons, and while I can't tell if he's focussed on the literal horizon: Berk, or the symbolic horizon of our future. I don't care. By Viking law, he will be mine and I will be his after I walk down this makeshift isle.

He had his entire armada awakened at last hour of night to prep for this, demanded I took time to myself, away from him, as he strongly believes in the superstition of seeing the bride before the ceremony.

I do my best with the materials I have to look presentable as a bride, and a chieftess. I have never put much thought into my appearance, aside from my hair and the multiple braids I like to put each strand in, other than that it's mostly just general hygiene...but today I cared.

I let my wet hair flow instead of putting it up in my usual braids. Messy blonde curls meets the sun, and it looks golden, and I can actually see it, and it makes me smile. It's beautiful hair. I have beautiful hair.