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Hiccup knows this dream.
He’s had it more times than he can count, and it always starts the same way:
Falling.
He can feel the wind buffeting his face and tangling his hair, worming its way into his armor. He’s distantly aware that he’s dreaming, but he knows that once he fully recognizes that, things will go as they did in life: hands will start to scrabble and tear at him, Grimmel will die, and the Light Fury will catch him at the last second with a bone-jarring impact that will wake him up. Every time he has this dream, he tries to stave off that realization, to hold out longer and longer before the rest of the dream can take over, to preserve that feeling of flight as long as he can.
Even freefall is better than nothing.
It almost feels like it used to, falling through the clouds in the newest iteration of his flight suit. He can almost sense Toothless next to him, the two of them winding around each other so that Hiccup feels like he truly is a creature of the sky.
But thinking about Toothless forces an image into his head. Clear and sharp, it punctures through his vague sense of falling-flight so that all he can see, all he can think about, is Toothless falling too, unconscious, and too far away for Hiccup to reach even if there was something he could do.
But then the Light Fury is there too, tackling Toothless onto the grass on top of the cliff, and Hiccup lets out a sigh.
He’s safe.
Then the falling, so exhilarating before, turns awful. His stomach rises in a way that feels so real even in the dream he knows he’s having. He can feel hands all over him, ripping off pieces. He knows they’re just bits of his armor and the wings from his flight suit, but they feel like they’re parts of him being pulled up by the root from under his skin and dropped to fall into the ocean below.
The ocean which is now rapidly approaching.
He knows what’s going to happen, though, knows that she’s coming for him, that she’s going to catch him, wrapping her claws around his chest and leaving bruises that will linger for weeks but are still better than the alternative.
But the dream ends differently this time.
He looks up to the sky, just as he did in life, just as he does every time—
But nothing’s there.
She’s not coming.
Hiccup doesn’t have enough time to panic, but he can hear Grimmel screaming. The sound is abruptly cut off as the man hits the water, and half a heartbeat later, Hiccup does too.
The feeling of his body breaking splinters through him. It’s a strange sensation—he knows what breaking a bone feels like, and there’s a little of that, but this is everywhere. And there isn’t any pain. He can’t breathe, and he’s not sure if the throbbing sound in his ears is the pulsing of the waves or his own heartbeat. He knows that the fall should have killed him outright, like it did Grimmel.
Like he killed Grimmel.
There’s nothing but a red cloud in the water where the other man fell, and even that is quickly dissipating. Looking at it, Hiccup can feel himself starting to seep into the water too, slipping away as the edges of the dream go soft and fuzzy, and everything fades to black.
Hiccup blinks himself awake, sitting up with a great, whooping breath to try to fill his starved lungs. Or at least the lungs that his brain thinks are starved, despite the fact that he’s been breathing freely as he sleeps. A few deep breaths definitely help, though, as he covers his face with his hands and tries to let go of the panic, of the waves’ suffocating pressure that still fills his head.
The bed next to him is empty, which means Astrid’s still out with the Guard. She’s been insisting on taking night shifts lately, since the village council officially appointed her as leader of the New Berk Guard. Publicly, this is because she refuses to ask anyone to work a shift that she won’t do herself, but it also serves to quell the mutterings that she got the position because she’s the Chief’s wife. These are unfounded, of course—the reason she’s the leader of the Guard is because she’s the one who stepped up and took responsibility when everything was starting to settle down in the new village, long before she and Hiccup got married. As Chief, Hiccup wholeheartedly supports this policy, but as her husband, he always misses her on nights that she’s away.
Tonight, though, he’s almost glad she’s not here. The way he woke up just now would have definitely woken her too, and then he would have had to explain the dream, which would have led to telling her just how often he has that dream and what was so different about this one. He doesn’t think he could have handled that.
Even now, as he lies down again and shuts his eyes, there’s a weird tugging sensation in his gut, like someone is pulling on him with a dull fishhook. He tries to swallow it away, but that only brings the lump up into his throat. He hasn’t thought much about what could have happened on the day the dragons left, almost a year ago—or rather, he hasn’t let himself think about it. Now, though, it’s all he can think about. He almost died. He killed someone. Though neither of those things is new—last summer was far from the first time for either one—that day lingers in his head, and not just because it’s also the day Toothless left. What would have happened, he wonders, if he had died? What would Astrid have done, and who would have led New Berk? Would the dragons have even left, if he hadn’t been there to—
Oh.
It’s because he accepted it.
He knew, before Grimmel ever shouted it at him, that his chances of survival were small and rapidly dwindling, that the plan coming together in his head was not one he was likely to survive. It wasn’t even a plan, not really, just hope—hope that if Hiccup gave the Light Fury the ability to save her mate, she would do so. And then, once she did, his mind just went blank as he accepted the outcome of that choice. That scares him, that he stopped trying to figure out how to get out of the situation like he had so many times before.
He’d been okay with that, okay with not making it, as long as Toothless was safe, and, he admits to himself now, as long as Grimmel died too.
Suddenly, the darkness of the bedroom is suffocating, reminding him far too much of the crushing weight of the ocean. He sits up, deciding he needs some air, and reaches for his leg where it’s lying on the floor. He doesn’t bother with clothes, just slinging a blanket around his shoulders on top of his nightshirt.
Hiccup lets his feet carry him out of the village, quickly realizing that he’s heading to a very specific point on the island’s western edge. The night sky is cloudless and full of stars, and the air, pleasantly cool, helps calm him down as he breathes it in.
The reminder that he can still breathe is a welcome one.
His bare foot brushes through the soft grass as he approaches the cliff’s edge, and the world opens up beneath him in a way that’s achingly familiar to him despite how long it’s been. He’s missed it dearly, he realizes, and as the sea breeze gently ruffles his hair, he shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, letting a slow smile spread across his face.
He hasn’t been standing there for very long before he hears footsteps on the grass behind him. He’s not sure who would be up at this hour, walking up behind him on the edge of a cliff. Maybe Spitelout, he thinks wryly, making a bid for chiefhood for either himself or Snotlout. But the footsteps are too light for Spitelout, much too light, and when Hiccup opens his eyes and turns, it’s Astrid, walking toward him with a slightly worried look on her face.
She smiles, though, when he meets her eyes. “Hey babe,” she calls, just loud enough for him to hear.
“Milady,” Hiccup says, returning her smile. “What are you doing here? I thought you were busy.”
Astrid shrugs as she comes up next to him. “Well, when Sigrid told me she’d seen the Chief going out for a walk in just a blanket, I thought I should come check it out.”
“I’ve got my nightshirt on too,” Hiccup says defensively, and Astrid snorts with laughter.
“You okay?” she asks after a moment.
Hiccup sighs. “Yeah.”
“Bad dream?”
He nods, bracing himself for her to ask more. She doesn’t, though, just shuffling a little closer to him.
“Going on a walk was a good idea,” she says.
“Yeah, I wanted some fresh air.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I—” The events of the dream flash through his head again. “Not really.”
“Okay,” she says. “I might just stay out here with you if that’s okay.”
“Don’t you need to be getting back?”
“No, I was actually just about to head home when I heard you were out here.” She shivers, looking out over the ocean. “I forgot how gorgeous this view is.” It makes sense—they don’t come out here a lot.
“Want some blanket?” Hiccup asks. Astrid nods, and they settle onto the ground, curled up with Hiccup’s arm, along with the blanket, wrapped around her shoulders. It’s been a long time since they were able to get away like this, just the two of them, and it’s nicer than he can say.
Unlike Hiccup, Astrid hasn’t slept, and so it doesn’t take long for her head to start leaning heavily on his shoulder. The breeze from earlier kicks up again, and she sighs happily. “That feels nice,” she says, her voice sleepy.
Hiccup hums in agreement. “This book I borrowed from a trader one time said that some people call a westerly wind like this a zephyr.”
“Zephyr,” she repeats. “I like that.”
“Hey, Astrid?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for coming to check on me.”
“No problem, babe.” Her breathing slows down and steadies out in a way Hiccup is very familiar with, and he knows she’s fallen asleep. He holds her closer, staring across the ocean at something over the horizon until the sun rises behind them, painting the waves red. It looks more than a little like blood, but for some reason, that thought doesn’t bring back the choking panic from earlier.
He doesn’t think he’s going to forget the dream for a while, if at all. But now, with Astrid’s head on his shoulder and the wind coming off the sea, he can breathe easy.