Chapter Text
The Isle of Berk was a bitter lump of rock with little inclination for warmth, but as the spring ended with the fall of the Dragon Hunters, the summer began much warmer than the years before.
Viggo Grimborn was dead, and there was something wrong with Astrid.
She’d felt something wrong from the moment the volcano erupted, even before, but it took a few weeks of hauling supplies back and forth, the summer sun beating down, the winter trees sprouting new leaves, for the reality to set in.
The adventure was over, and things were about to go back to normal on Berk.
If the demise of the dragon hunters wasn’t enough of an indication, one last look at the remains of volcanic eruptions on Dragon’s Edge would do the trick.
None of the riders seemed the least bit homesick for the time they’d spent on the island outpost, even after they’d returned to Berk, complaining of all the work they’d have to do—recovering their belongings and dragon eye findings from charred huts, as well as the mental recovery of all the knowledge they’d accumulated in the last few seasons.
Homesickness wasn’t all that tangible for the others. None of them had the sensation of aching flesh, like something was calling them back to Berk, for whatever reason the Gods would send such a thing to strike the deepest parts of the soul. Homesickness was a difficult feeling, considering most Viking homes were burnt down at least once from dragon fire. But often, you missed the island itself. Berk. It was the taste of the air and the sensation of the crashing sea against every rock and shore. The way the dry grass felt against your hands and the view of the moon on a clear night.
None of the riders were homesick except for Astrid.
In all fairness, there were things to miss about Berk.
The meals were better, though still not as good as Heather’s yak chops, most of the riders were excited to see their families, and while the weather was far better on the Edge, the dragon riders had made it back in time for summer, and Berk had better beaches.
At least, she thought she was homesick on the Edge, when she felt a sting in her gut and an ache in her chest. She missed her mother’s cured salmon and her father’s scratchy beard. Now, back home, she missed the Edge, too, but it didn’t feel the same.
She missed the smell of Berk more than she thought she would, but that was the thing about being held hostage by Viggo Grimborn—life is far too short.
Astrid thought she was homesick until she spent more than a single night on Berk, a month after the volcano erupted. Even after travelling back-and-forth for their gear, when she landed in the arena on her last journey back from the outpost, the homesickness she’d been feeling translated into something worse.
She ran through the underpass and puked over the cliffside. Her lunch spilling down into the ocean below.
Astrid rarely threw up. When she did, it wasn’t because of homesickness, or because Viggo Grimborn had held her axe to her throat. Astrid threw up because she overtrained, got the scourge, or had eel pox. In all other cases, throwing up meant she was at least close to death. She could only remember the fraction of times that she’d puked, and this was one of them.
Babies puke. Sick people puke. Astrid wasn’t sick. Healthy Viking girls who wield axes and ride dragons don’t get sick. Healthy Viking girls who have boyfriends don’t get sick. Healthy Viking girls who perhaps, maybe, possibly, might become Chieftess of Berk, don’t get sick.
From her memory, there was that time she got the scourge. Puked twice. Eel pox was once, and she’d thrown up from overtraining at least five times, but that was pre-peace with the dragons, which felt like a lifetime ago.
To summarise, Astrid hated puking.
She also hated healers. Gothic might’ve healed her blindness once with an orange salve and a few odd concoctions, but Astrid hated being prodded and poked, and avoided the elder’s perch as much as humanly possible.
This was a once-off, embarrassing, unseemly event that left her with a stain on her tunic and bad breath in the dry heat of summer—and it wasn’t worth the trip up Gothi’s stairs.
It was nothing.
It had been nothing the day after the volcano, nothing when her stomach began to unsettle a week later, nothing when the nausea started a week after that, and nothing when she first threw up over the ocean a minute ago.
And over the course of the last five weeks, nothing was getting a whole lot more difficult to hide.
𓇢𓆸
two weeks later
Toothless had been gnawing away at the firewood while Hiccup fretted over his plans. The Dragon had chewed through the bark, the new layers, and was testing the inner circles of the slab of wood with his teeth. Hiccup hadn’t touched his food, but his belly rumbled. He was good at ignoring what he wanted when everyone had needs.
The farmers needed a new gate. The healers needed a new cauldron. The smiths needed new metals. The traders needed higher rates. Everybody needed something.
The door to his house flung open, and for a moment, Hiccup thought it would be someone else who needed something from him. But it was only Astrid.
And in all honesty, Hiccup needed her.
“Hey.” He said, surprised. It was early in the day, and she was not only awake, but dressed, which had been unusual. For a few weeks now, Astrid had been unwell, though she’d deny it, in classic Hofferson fashion, there’d been all the symptoms of illness. Today, she didn’t seem all that fatigued or nauseous, which gave Hiccup some hope that she’d kept her word to visit Gothi already, and had taken some medicine for her illness?
“Hey.” She replied, holding the door open for a moment. There was something distant in her eyes. The lowered brow and half-open mouth. Astrid’s chest rose and fall. Hiccup had seen this version of Astrid before—when she’d been hiding her plot with Heather, and the day she caught the scourge and lied about it.
She’d come across a revelation, at least, something she didn’t want to tell him.
“You feeling better?” He asked, standing up anyway and dropping his pencil.
“Can we talk?” She replied a little too quickly for his liking. Classic Astrid avoidance. She let go of the door, but the way Astrid moved was hesitant, like she hadn’t ever barged into his house before. She sat down at the table, and Hiccup moved to the other side, eyeing his dragon, chewing on a piece of wood as though it were a bone. He fed another piece into the flames, and then shrugged as he stoked the coals.
“Sure. What about?”
Astrid looked at the fire. Then at him.
“Hiccup, I…think I’m pregnant.”
𓇢𓆸