Chapter Text
Warnings: Psychological horror, disturbing imagery.
❄
The boy’s village was smaller than Astrid had imagined. It wasn’t a village at all, it was a shelter for one person.
It sat at the foot of a cliff wall, in a bend of the valley: a recess in the rock, long and so low that Astrid had to duck her head to get in. Stormfly and Cloudjumper didn’t even try. They lay down outside, under the overhang of the stone, with snow piling up on their backs, and stuck their heads in through the opening to see.
The first thing Astrid saw inside was the fire, a small, stubborn flame inside a circle of stones. The second was a row of little houses.
They were tiny. They fit in the palm of a hand. Made of twigs and dried clay, with bark roofs and doors the size of a fingernail, lined up along the wall of the hollow like the streets of a toy village. In front of each one stood a little straw figure, looking outward. There were at least a dozen. Some looked like they had been mended so many times that they were more patch than house.
“Valka, nobody lives here anymore,” whispered Astrid.
“I know…”
“Do you think he made all this by himself?”
“I think so.”
The boy was already sitting by the fire, his cloak wrapped up to his chin, looking at the two of them with an expression Astrid knew very well. She had seen it many times on Hiccup’s face: it was the look of someone showing another person something they’d built for the first time, not knowing if they’d like it.
“They’re beautiful,” she said, her voice coming out huskier than she expected.
After hearing her, slowly, his shoulders came down.
He got up and went down the row straightening a figure that had toppled, then another, in the rush of someone tidying the house before the guest sits down. Astrid watched him. She noticed that he walked right past one little house in the middle of the row, the only one with two figures at the door, one bigger and one smaller, without looking at it, like someone going around a hole in the ground.
Astrid opened her mouth. Valka touched her arm, lightly, and shook her head.
Astrid closed her mouth.
The boy reached the entrance and stopped, with a piece of firewood in each hand, face to face with a snout the size of a barrel. Cloudjumper watched him from above without blinking, and the boy stared back, his head tilted back as far as his neck would go.
“You can touch him,” said Valka. “He likes it.”
The firewood fell to the floor. He reached out a hand, slowly, and Cloudjumper lowered his head until his snout touched the small palm. A low rumble, like a big cat’s, vibrated through the whole stone.
“I’ve never seen him do that with a stranger. Even with Hiccup he watched from a bit of a distance the first time,” murmured Valka, astonished.
Stormfly, who didn’t accept being left out of anything, pushed her snout between the two and snorted in the boy’s face. He closed his eyes and laughed without a sound, his hair blown all the way back.
“Stormfly, no,” said Astrid.
Stormfly pretended not to hear.
Valka sat down by the fire, pale, with her hand on her forehead, and Astrid took the waterskin and a cloth and dressed the wound once more, with more care and calm than before. Valka felt very grateful to have someone as capable as Astrid to help her.
“Is it bothering you much?”
“Nothing I haven’t suffered worse before.”
When she finished, Astrid stepped away and only then remembered she hadn’t eaten since morning. She took the last piece of dried fish out of her bag and, just as she was about to take the first bite, felt the weight of two big round eyes staring at her hand.
The boy was less than a step away. He hadn’t made any noise getting there, and he wasn’t making any now to hide it.
“…Do you want a piece?”
She split the fish in half and held out one half to him. He hesitated far longer than Astrid expected before taking it, with his fingertips, like someone accepting something unfamiliar.
Is he afraid the fish is spoiled? she thought. Or that there’s something in it?
Seeing the child’s obvious hesitation, she deliberately bit into her own piece first, chewed slowly and watched him out of the corner of her eye.
It was strange to watch. The boy first looked at the meat, then poked it and, finally, sniffed it, nose wrinkled, in a way that Astrid had to admit reminded her of a certain someone, besides being quite funny. Still suspicious, he turned the piece over and over, until he finally took a tiny little bite.
Outside, the two heads followed the fish as it rose to his mouth like people watching a fight. Stormfly even opened her beak. Cloudjumper let out a low rumble that seemed to say go on, eat.
Valka and Astrid waited for his reaction and were stunned when it came. How could a child have such a cute little face after eating just a sliver of fish? His eyes opened wide, his pupils dilated and his cheeks turned rosy.
“How cute…” whispered Valka.
“I’ve never seen a child like this in Berk.”
“Mm-hm, true, right?” Valka laughed, agreeing with Astrid. “He’s practically glowing.”
It was truly a scene that could kill you with cuteness. Stormfly let out a squawk of pure envy.
“Do you think he’s never had fish?” asked Astrid, quietly.
“Not much, it seems.”
Just as he was about to put the rest of the meat in his mouth, he froze. He looked at the piece, looked at Valka, and Astrid felt her face heat up as she realized what she had just forgotten: she hadn’t shared the food with her.
To the surprise of both, the boy got up and went to the nest, and began rummaging through it. When he turned around again, he came straight to Valka and placed a handful of little berries in her hands, which he had probably gathered by himself.
“Thank you very much, little one,” said Valka, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to eat that. Don’t get her wrong, she trusted that the child didn’t mean her any harm, she just wasn’t sure he knew which fruits were good to eat and which weren’t.
Besides the berries, he split his own piece of fish in half and handed half to her. By then Astrid nearly died of embarrassment: the child had remembered Valka, who was hurt, and she hadn’t.
“I was going to share with you,” said Astrid.
“Of course you were.”
“I was!”
“I believe you, Astrid.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Of course I do,” said Valka, sarcastically, just to tease Astrid. She hadn’t really been upset or anything like that. Valka just wanted to tease her friend. She knew Astrid had only forgotten because she was hypnotized by the child.
Looking back down at the things in her hand, she saw that some of the fruits were quite strange, others not so much. There were dark-blue little balls the size of a fingernail, covered in a fine frost that looked like powder; red ones, wrinkled and firm, like the ones that grew on the slopes of Berk at the end of summer; some amber-yellow, soft and almost transparent, that looked like drops of frozen honey; and, in the middle of them, a single one, too small to be a fruit, blue-white, with a tiny dark seed visible inside. It looked made of ice, but yielded to the touch like wax.
Not eating the berries was not an option. He was standing right in front of her, with his little eyes full of expectation.
Valka reluctantly began putting one in her mouth without biting it and kept looking at him, and then looked at Astrid, who shrugged and was laughing a little at her, seeming to be getting a little revenge for having been teased earlier.
“Courage,” said Astrid.
“Aren’t you going to try one?”
“He didn’t give me any.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Nooo, I would never be that kind of person,” she said, barely holding back her laughter.
Valka finally bit down. The blue little ball popped between her teeth, cold and sweet, with a sour undertone that rose to her nose. The boy came a little closer, a small smile on his face, and kept staring at her, trying to read her expression, like someone saying I picked them, tasty, right? Then came the red one, and Valka squeezed her eyes shut, it was so sour. The yellow one was a bit of honey and snow at the same time. The blue-white one melted on her tongue, leaving a coolness that went down her throat like a breath of winter.
To her surprise, the berries, together, were quite tasty and bittersweet.
“It’s strangely good.”
When she said that, he began nodding vigorously, with his eyes closed, his hair swaying. He stood still for a moment, looked at the pile of berries that was left and, on impulse, went to Astrid and put a yellow one in her hand.
“I…” Astrid looked at the berry, at him, at Valka, who was now smiling at her with the same smile Astrid had worn a few minutes before. “Thank you.”
She tried it. She made the face of someone who had decided not to like it.
“So?” asked Valka, loving the situation.
“…It’s good.”
“Want more? I’m sure he’d be happy to give you more..”
“Don’t start.”
Near the entrance, Cloudjumper had stretched his snout out as far as the opening allowed, and was looking at the pile of berries with an expression that begged, without words, for someone to be generous. The boy noticed. He went over with a handful and held out his open palm. Cloudjumper took a yellow one with the tip of his tongue, delicate as a lady, and closed his eyes in a rumble of satisfaction.
Stormfly pushed her snout in front of him.
“She’s so dramatic,” said Astrid, laughing at her own dragon.
“She’s a Nadder, and naturally vain and needy.”
Stormfly snapped up a red one. Stopped. Her eyes went wide and her whole head scrunched up at once, with a hiss of someone who had bitten a lemon the size of the world. Then she spat the berry out, shook her head hard and looked at the boy with a deep accusation.
The boy covered his mouth with both hands, but his shoulders were already shaking.
“It’s your fault,” said Astrid to the dragon. “You shouldn’t bite into things before you know what they are.”
Stormfly let out an offended squawk and went off to sulk in a corner of the entrance.
It was when the boy sat down next to Astrid, to eat the rest of his fish, that she noticed his hair was a disaster. Tangled, with some parts stiff with ice, full of knots growing in every direction, with bits of melted snow dripping behind his ears. He scratched his head constantly, in a way that said it had been bothering him for a long time.
“Come here,” she said.
He looked at her.
“Come here. Sit here.” She patted the floor in front of herself. “I can’t stand looking at that.”
He, slowly, got up and moved a little closer, and sat with his back to her, legs crossed. Astrid let out a breath through her nose, pulled a leather strip from her boot and began.
She had never told anyone this, but she was very good at it. Throughout her whole childhood she’d had a single rule about hair: if it gets in the way, cut it. But as she grew up she began to enjoy taking care of it, and she would never admit that in front of anyone. She started by running her fingers through the knots and undid each one patiently, without pulling, and the boy held his breath, tense, the first time she touched his scalp.
“Hold still.”
He held so still that he stopped breathing.
“Pff… you can breathe.”
Astrid couldn’t hold back her laughter and let a little escape, and the child turned to look at her with a face that asked: are you laughing at me?
“I’m not laughing.”
He stared at her.
“I’m laughing just a tiny bit. Turn around.”
He turned back, breathing, and with another silent little laugh his shoulders shook. Then, little by little, his body went soft, until his shoulders dropped and his head tipped back, resting on her knee.
Outside, Stormfly had given up sulking and tilted her head to the side, following every movement of Astrid’s fingers with one eye. At some point she stuck her snout into the shelter, waiting for her turn.
“You don’t have hair, Stormfly.”
The dragon looked at her with stubborn hope.
“I can’t braid your spikes.”
“Does it hurt?” Astrid asked the boy, to change the subject.
With obvious sleepiness he shook his head slightly. Saying no, and letting it slip that he was loving it with his whole body.
She separated a small lock, on the left side, near the temple, and began to braid. Two, three, four passes. She tied off the end with the leather strip.
“A warrior’s braid. In Berk, only those who’ve done something hard get one.” It wasn’t quite true, they were given to those who won battles or did something hard, but could also be earned in a few other ways. “I got mine at nine. I had to survive three days alone on an island without eating.” She paused. “I ate some fish. But don’t tell anyone.”
“I heard,” said Valka.
“You won’t tell.”
“If you say so.”
The boy slowly raised his hand to the braid, touching it with his fingertips, afraid of making it come undone. He turned his face back, looked at her, and Astrid saw something in him she hadn’t seen before: pride and happiness.
It was a small pride, almost shy, but unmistakable. He straightened his back and ran his hand over the braid again, chin lifted, like a soldier who had just received a medal.
“It looks good on you,” murmured Astrid, and felt her throat tighten.
He jumped to his feet. He ran to the row of little houses, rummaged among the twigs and some other things, and came back with something closed between his two hands. He stopped in front of her and opened his fingers.
It was a dragon, or at least it looked like one.
Small, made of thin twigs, woven vines and bits of flowers. It had two open wings, decorated with blue feathers, a long body and a row of spikes, real spikes, tiny, made from slivers of bone. The eyes were two yellow pebbles.
“This is…” Astrid began.
Stormfly, who had stuck her head through the entrance (taking up half of it) with the rest of her body outside, sniffed the object, tilted her head one way, then the other, and let out a squawk of pure doubt, clearly not recognizing herself.
“It’s you,” said Astrid. “It’s got spikes and everything.”
Stormfly doubted it. Then she opened her mouth, far too interested.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Stormfly closed her mouth, offended at not being allowed to eat this strange object.
“Definitely Stormfly,” agreed Valka.
The boy pointed at the twig dragon. Then at Astrid. Then, slowly, at his own chest, and Astrid understood: I made it for you.
She looked at the little dragon, at the bone spikes, at the feathers chosen one by one, and thought of what Hiccup had said to her once, in the Great Hall, when she asked why he always built small things: because it’s the only way I know to say something to someone that I can’t put into words.
“I…” She coughed lightly. “Thank you.”
The boy smiled.
It was a small, whole, childlike smile, and it was so clear and so true that Astrid forgot what she was going to say. She held the twig dragon in both hands, as if it were made of glass, and clipped it to her belt, next to the axe, where no one could take it.
Stormfly followed the movement with her eyes, and Astrid was certain that, later, she would need to keep an eye on her belt.
When she looked back at the boy, he was looking at her braid. He reached out a finger, stopped halfway, realized he had been noticed, made the face of someone caught doing something he shouldn’t and slowly drew his hand back.
Astrid sighed.
“Just one.”
He took a tiny lock near her ear and worked on it with his tongue between his teeth, a tongue Astrid pretended not to see. Two passes, three, and the thing turned into a knot.
“That’s a knot.”
He nodded, proud.
Astrid didn’t undo it.
“Don’t say anything,” she said when she saw Valka watching.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“But you were thinking it.”
“I was.” Valka smiled, the first truly relaxed smile Astrid had seen on her since they’d arrived. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell the others.”
“…”
“All right, I won’t tell Hiccup either.”
“Thank you.”
“But I’ll remember that you thanked me.”
The boy had gone back to sit by the fire, the braid in his hand and his eyes half closed. Before lying down, though, he got up one more time. He went to Astrid’s axe, which was lying a little way from the cloak she would use as a bed, and dragged it closer, pushing the handle twice until it was in just the right position. Outside, Stormfly lifted her head at once and looked at Astrid, waiting for her reaction.
“Let it be, it’s fine,” said Astrid.
Stormfly lay down again.
Soon after, the boy’s head tipped to the side and he fell asleep, all at once, a smile still on his face.
Astrid looked at him for a long time.
She thought of everything she had ever said in her life: that she had never wanted to be a mother, that she had spent her life training to be the best warrior in Berk and that she had no idea, not remotely, what to do with someone so small. But the twig dragon weighed on her belt, his braid was a little crooked, her knot was even more crooked, and the boy slept like someone happier than he had ever been in his life.
I definitely don’t know how to do this, she thought. But I’m trying.
She covered him with the cloak and lay down beside him, without thinking, one hand on his small shoulder.
Valka smiled at the sight and decided to lie down too.
“Good night, Astrid. Tomorrow we look for the others.”
“Good night, Valka.”
I just hope they’re okay, Astrid thought.
…..
Valka woke in the middle of the night with the feeling that she was being called.
It wasn’t a voice. It was something deeper, a call, an instinct. Like someone holding her by the sleeve from very far away. She lay still for a moment, looking at the stone ceiling, and understood she wouldn’t sleep again.
The fire was nearly out. Astrid slept on her side, with her arm around the boy and her axe within reach, in the exact place where he had put it before sleeping, after adjusting the handle twice, as if he knew where she would look for it. Valka felt such tenderness, looking at the two of them, that she had to close her eyes.
She got up without making a sound. Cloudjumper, curled at the entrance like a living door, raised his head as she stepped over his tail, and she touched his snout, a silent request. He followed her, quiet, taking the greatest care not to make any noise.
Outside, the valley was still. The sky was a dark gray, with no moon and no stars, the snow having stopped falling. She climbed the slope, with no destination, only letting her feet carry her, and walked like that for a long time, until the trail ended and the ground began to change color. First gray, then black, of wet stone.
And, at the end, the sea.
She didn’t know how she had gotten there. The valley was far from the coast, and she had walked very little, but the beach appeared before her, long and somber, an arc of black stones covered in ice and frozen foam, with the dark sea breathing in the dark beyond.
Valka stopped.
There was wreckage on the sand.
Pieces of wood, long and dark, scattered by the tide. A twisted mast slat. A piece of torn sail, tangled in frozen seaweed. And, among them, half buried in a mound of ice, a leather bag with something black embroidered on it.
She recognized it before she touched it.
She knelt on the wet stone and pulled out the bag, her hands stiff with cold. The buckle opened easily. Inside, wrapped in oilcloth, still dry, were parchments. Dozens. Drawings of channels, of valves, of pipes, of a structure with compartments of ice and water. Hurried notes in her son’s small, crooked handwriting. And, in the middle, one special drawing, more careful than the others: an egg, large, with little arrows drawn around it, and underneath, in very cramped letters, a single sentence.
Don’t let him die.
Valka held the parchment in her hands for a long time.
“He did this for me,” she said, not knowing to whom, in a low voice trembling with a cry that threatened to escape. “All this for an egg that wasn’t even his.”
The wind blew faintly. Cloudjumper curled up beside her, warm and quiet, and Valka rested her forehead against his scales.
“Do you remember the day you met him?” she murmured. “The beautiful baby who played with you while still in the crib.”
Cloudjumper made a low sound, a rumble that was barely a sound.
“You took me in,” said Valka. “I was in Berk, even in the village I was still alone, scared of everything, and then you showed up in the middle of the attack, enormous, with your enormous wings and blazing fire… For a moment I thought I was going to die. But you only defended yourself and took me with you.” She laughed, a damp laugh. “For twenty years I thought I was the loneliest person in the world, but you and Snær never let me be truly alone.”
A tear ran down and almost froze on her cheek.
“And in the end I couldn’t save her…”
She almost said the rest, but the words stuck in her throat: she almost said that she hadn’t been able to save her own family, that she had abandoned her son and hadn’t protected him from the pain of grief…
That was when she noticed the boy.
He was standing a few steps away, barefoot again, cloak dragging, his hair with the crooked braid falling over his forehead. Valka looked down at his feet and frowned. The little boots had stayed in the shelter, carefully placed beside the little houses, too clean for someone who seemed to consider any gift too important to wear out. She didn’t know how long he had been there. He had followed her, uncalled, without a sound, and he was looking at her with big eyes full of something Valka couldn’t name. It wasn’t pity. It was more like understanding.
“You followed me,” she said, without reproach.
But she quickly composed herself and tried to act natural.
“It’s nothing, little one… it’s just sand in my eye,” she said, trying to wipe away her tears in a disguised way.
He didn’t answer. He came slowly and sat down beside her, on the wet stone, without touching her. He looked at the parchment in her hands, at the drawing of the egg, and then at the sea.
“Did you know I had a companion?” said Valka. She spoke slowly, to him and to the night. “Her name was Snær, and she was a Bewilderbeast, a dragon the size of a mountain. And I loved her more than anything. She died defending the dragons and me, and I couldn’t even do anything to help.” She swallowed. “Now all that’s left is an egg, and I—”
She stopped.
He had raised his head.
He wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was looking at the sea, and his body had gone completely still and rigid, in a way she had seen before, in Astrid, in dragons, in anyone who senses danger. His fingers closed on the cloak. His shoulders rose.
“What is it?” whispered Valka.
Cloudjumper had stood up. His ears were pricked, and a low, careful sound, almost a lament, came from deep in his throat. He was looking in the same direction as the boy, at the waves.
That was when she heard it.
At first she thought it was the wind, a thin note passing through the rocks. But it wasn’t wind. It was something approaching from the other side of the breakers, coming from far away, very low and soft, in a deep tone that Valka felt more in her chest than in her ears.
It was a voice.
It hummed. No words, only the melody, slow, hoarse with cold and weariness, the song she and Stoick had sung together, the only one the two of them knew all the way through, the same one he had hummed off-key, with no shame at all, the night he found her again in the sanctuary after twenty years.
Valka’s knees gave way.
“No,” she whispered. “No, it can’t be…”
The boy was already on his feet. He took her hand in both of his little hands and pulled. She let herself be dragged one step, then two, without taking her eyes from the sea, where, in the foam, a shadow seemed to be forming. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Standing on the water.
Cloudjumper let out a growl that was almost a plea, but didn’t move, as if his body didn’t know what to do either.
The melody went on, closer, clearer, and Valka took a step toward the water.
Then two tiny, freezing hands covered her eyes.
The boy had climbed onto the wreckage to reach her. He was on tiptoe, arms stretched out, both palms pressed against her face, squeezing with all his strength, trembling all over. Valka felt the tremor pass from his body to hers.
She tried to pull him off. He didn’t let go.
Behind her closed eyes, the melody went on, closer, and now there was a pause at the end of each phrase, the way he always did when he was waiting for her to sing her part. Valka felt her own throat open, almost by instinct.
It was his voice. It was the same, the exact same, and she felt her heart break in two halves, one that wanted to run and one that screamed to stay. She tried to say the boy’s name, she didn’t know what it was, and a wordless sound came out.
The boy squeezed her harder.
Then, very slowly, he took his hands from her face. Before Valka could open her eyes, he took her hands and put them back, pressing them against her own eyes, as if to ask: stay like this.
Valka obeyed, not knowing why. But her fingers were trembling, and through the gaps between them she still saw something. A light, under the water, far from the shore. It was pale and greenish, a sickly shade, like that of a deep-sea fish, and it pulsed slowly in the same rhythm as the melody: it lit up on the rise of each note and went dark on the fall. It was the light, Valka realized, that drew the broad-shouldered shadow on the foam. And, worse, it seemed warm. In a sea full of ice, that light looked like a fireplace lit in a window.
Then she saw the boy turn toward the sea and—
Shhh.
It was the first time she heard the boy make a sound. It was a breath with almost no air in it, a plea, that went through her chest like a knife.
And the voice fell silent.
The sea went quiet. Cloudjumper let out a deep growl, and the pressure around the beach seemed to ease, like a tide pulling back, all at once. When the boy’s hands finally pulled hers from her own face, Valka opened her eyes and found only darkness. The light was gone, like a candle snuffed out between two wet fingers, leaving not even a glimmer on the water. Only the empty beach and the sea foam with nothing on it.
She didn’t know why, but her legs gave way and she found herself on her knees on the stone, panting, the parchment crumpled in her fist.
The boy sat on the ground beside her, pale, worried, the braid undone at his temple. She pulled him into her arms without thinking, and he let her, for a moment, his head on her shoulder, his fingers clutching the collar of her cloak.
“Who…” Valka tried, but the word felt wrong as soon as it came out. “What was that?”
The boy kept looking at the sea.
For a moment it seemed that would be the end of it. Maybe he would point at something, draw in the snow, try to explain with his hands what he couldn’t say with his mouth. His fingers even rose, hesitated in the air, but didn’t seem to find any gesture.
He lowered his hands.
Valka waited.
The boy looked at her, then at the sea, and at her again. He seemed to be thinking. Not of an answer, but of how to deliver it.
Then he reached out his hand.
Valka frowned as the small, freezing fingers touched her cheek.
“Little one?”
He didn’t answer.
He looked at her for a few seconds, too still, and something in his expression changed. Not fear. Not exactly. It was the hesitation of someone who knew he could do something, but would rather not.
And then the world changed.
Valka was no longer looking at him, she was looking through him. Dark water. No — beneath it.
The world seemed enormous from that height, the rocks too big, the horizon too high. The sea stretched out ahead, black and still, and something was moving where the light didn’t reach.
One.
Two.
Many.
Distorted shapes dragged themselves over one another under the water, too long in some places, too narrow in others, fighting over something Valka couldn’t see. Until one of them turned its head.
And looked at Valka.
She didn’t understand what they were. She only knew they were dangerous, and that she was the prey.
In the creature’s eyes, if they were eyes, there was no hatred or malice. There was hunger. An empty, ancient need that didn’t know the difference between wanting something and needing to devour it. The creature wanted what it saw, wanted it with everything it had. But something held it back.
One of the shapes drew closer.
And then—
It was over.
Valka returned to her own body with a jerk so sudden she had to brace a hand against the stone.
The boy let go of her cheek and was panting.
“You…”
He put a hand to his head and swayed.
Valka caught him before he fell. His eyes stayed open, but lost focus for a moment. He blinked once. Twice. He looked at her, then at his own hand.
And his expression changed, just a little. Like someone who had taken something, but ended up leaving with more than he could carry.
“Hey.” Valka held his face between her hands. “Look at me.”
He looked, took a few seconds, but his eyes found hers again, truly.
Cloudjumper came closer, slowly, and lowered his head to the boy’s height. The boy reached out a still-trembling hand and rested it on the dragon’s snout, and the dragon stayed still, quiet, letting him hold on until his breathing calmed.
Valka was very quiet.
The boy was still staring at the sea, and Valka followed his gaze, saw how the waves kept breaking as if nothing had happened.
She didn’t know what had just happened. But as she kept staring at the sea she was certain, a cold certainty, that the thing had been looking back, deep down, with impatience.
Cloudjumper nudged her with his snout, and Valka raised her eyes from the sea. She picked up the boy, awkwardly. He weighed as much as a feather. She went back along the trail, slowly, without looking back.
On the beach, among the ice reefs, the frozen foam shone, thin and quiet, under the starless sky. And, far down in the black water, very faintly, they were smiling.
…..
Astrid woke with a cold arm.
It took her a second to understand why. The arm that had been around the boy now held only the cloak, still warm, in the shape of his body. She sat up at once. The spot where Valka had slept was empty. Cloudjumper was gone too, and Stormfly was at the entrance, awake, her head turned toward the slope and her tail thumping on the ground, restless.
Her hand found the axe handle without searching, and only afterward did Astrid find that strange.
She spent the next few minutes standing at the entrance, deciding whether to go out and look or wait, the little twig dragon clipped to her belt and a bad feeling in her stomach that she hadn’t felt since… it didn’t matter since when.
When she saw the two of them at the top of the slope, Valka walking slowly, the boy in her arms and Cloudjumper behind, she opened her mouth to shout. She saw the small head resting on Valka’s shoulder and closed it, thinking he was asleep.
“He followed me,” said Valka, before she could ask.
Astrid looked in the direction they were coming from, the same one they had come by earlier, and understood.
“To the sea. At night.”
She looked at the boy in Valka’s arms.
“With him. Barefoot.”
Valka closed her eyes for a moment.
“I know, Astrid.”
Astrid wasn’t going to scold. She knelt, took the boy’s feet and rubbed them between her hands, saying nothing. They were freezing. She went to get the little boots from beside the little houses, too clean, and put them on him, one at a time, with more care than she used with anything that wasn’t the axe.
“You could have woken me.”
The boy pointed at her, at the ground where she had slept, and made the gesture of someone sleeping well. Then he put his hands to his own chest, and Astrid understood: you were sleeping well.
“I don’t mind,” she said, tying the second boot. “Next time, wake me.”
He looked at her for a moment, weighing whether to believe her.
His braid had come a little undone at the temple. Astrid redid it, with more care than before, and he stayed quiet the whole time, eyes never leaving the valley.
Valka watched the two of them. Part of her still wanted to go back. Even so, she held herself in check and decided not to tell about the voice. Not yet.
Astrid finished the braid and gave it a small tug to check it was firm.
“There.”
The boy raised his hand to it, feeling the weave between his fingers. Then he looked at Astrid.
He smiled.
But when she got up to feed the fire, the smile disappeared.
He turned his face toward the entrance.
Outside, the valley remained quiet. The snow covered the trail they had come back along, and there was nothing among the trees, nothing on the rocks, nothing Astrid could have seen even if she had been looking.
The boy kept looking.
For a long time.