20Whump Server Prompt #1: Falling Through Ice
Set during Httyd 2. Hiccup and Toothless fell above a frozen ocean and neither of them had much luck landing.
Author's Notes: This was written for a monthly prompt challenge on a Httyd whump Discord server that I take part in.
Unlucky Enough
"TOOTHLESS!"
The Night Fury heard Hiccup yell after he was torn out of the saddle by another dragon.
He wasn't sure of the exact species. He just heard it coming and tried to warn his Rider of its approach, but by then it was already too late. It had dug its claws into Hiccup's shoulders. It looked like a Shovelhelm.
He'd heard Hiccup shout when he was grabbed, before calling out his name, but Toothless was already plummeting.
The ocean was frozen below them. The ice he landed on was thick. Too thick to break even under his weight and with the amount of force he'd smacked onto it.
Upon colliding with it, fire ran through Toothless' entire being and he couldn't help but release a roar of pain as he lied on it. With Hiccup for a rider, he wasn't a stranger to crashlanding, but it was rare for them to hurt as much as it did this time.
He needd a moment to regain his composure, to let the painful agony in his body settle. His left fore- and hind legs and wing hurt especially bad. There was a particularly terrible headache brewing after the impact his head made with the frozen sea.
Once able to breathe a little easier, Toothless stared up to the sky to see the mysterious dragon rider with their Stormcutter and all the other dragons in their pack still circling them. Searching for and finding the offending Shovelhelm, the Night Fury noticed that Hiccup was no longer in his grasp.
He'd grabbed Hiccup by the shoulders instead of his arms. It was without a doubt a minor slipup, but it probably caused him to lose his grip.
Scanning the area for his Rider, Toothless' keen eyes quickly caught sight of a gap in what must be a thinner sheet of ice someways away. The water within it rocked, as did the broken chunks and pieces. It was newly created.
And Hiccup was nowhere to be found.
'Hiccup!'
Pushing himself up to his feet, every inch of him hurting and his left side protesting, Toothless dragged himself with a limp and hurry towards the break. The need to find his Rider motivated him to fight the pain.
It took him seconds longer to get there than he would've liked. If the hole had been created by Hiccup, he hadn't reached the surface at all in that time.
A roar of panic left the Night Fury, as if calling out to his Rider, before he sunk his head down into the water to see and make sure whether Hiccup was there or not. The freezing cold water bit even into his tough and heated hide, but Toothless chose to ignore it. What mattered to him was finding Hiccup.
He found him quite easily.
Hiccup was unconscious and sinking. And was that blood he spotted in the water?
Toothless wasted no time. He took a quick breath of air and dove down into the hole with him. The bone-chillingly cold water did his sore limbs no favours, but he refused to be held back when his Hiccup needed him.
With strong and swift strokes Toothless attempted to reach Hiccup as he slowly sank further and further away from him into the dark depths down below.
The stranger who had intercepted them moments earlier did not agree with his efforts. Before long, the Night Fury felt himself be pulled out of the water by other dragons.
Toothless struggled as hard as he could, roaring loudly in rage when he broke through the ocean's surface.
Hiccup was right there. Toothless only needed to grab him and he could've saved him had those dragons not interfered. The same Shovelhelm that had failed at keeping his hold on Hiccup properly was the one who held him in an iron grip now.
Toothless roared at him.
'My Rider is down there! He's drowing!'
Instead of listening, the Shovelhelm growled back at him. It wasn't necessarily hostile. It was more of a warning to calm down and not fight them any further, lest he lose his grip again.
With a simple wave of their staff, the dragon rider told the pack to move. If Toothless' efforts to be let go of so he could save Hiccup weren't desperate enough already, his struggles grew fiercer. At the same time, the Shovelhelm's grip on him grew even tighter, just shy of piercing his hide. Toothless' cringed at the sensation.
It took some tries, but eventually, a second dragon joined them to keep the Night Fury from escaping. All that Toothless could do was watch as the break in the ice Hiccup had fallen through became smaller and smaller as the entire pack flew away from the scene.
No amount of angry snarling or close warning shots could convince any of them to turn back around for his dear Rider. His calls of fury turned to calls of despair. And they weren't for the other dragons, they were for Hiccup, his significant other.
"I know Bud."
Remembering the last time his Viking came close to death by drowning didn't lessen the blow of losing him in the slightest.
"I wouldn't leave you either."
Toothless left him. It wasn't of his own will, but Toothless still left him. That was the only part that would ever truly matter to him.
They pack heard the telltale whine, but Night Furies were rare enough that they didn't immediately realize what Toothless was planning on doing. Once they did, it was already too late.
The Shovelhelm was blasted right out of the sky. As he fell, so did Toothless and the other dragon.
All three of them landed on the cold hard ice. While the other two were slow to recover from the crash, Toothless was quick to get back up on his aching feet. Injured or not, he needed to move.
He could hear that accursed staff rattle again, could hear the Stormcutter let out a roar, and the entire pack stopped.
Toothless needed to reach Hiccup before they could grab him again. He wasn't going to leave Hiccup behind. He didn't abandon him in the straits, he wasn't going to leave him to his fate now.
They hadn't gotten too far yet, fortunately enough. But still, Toothless was sure he must be seeing things as he sprinted back towards where his Rider had fallen. It almost looked like Hiccup was already out of the water.
The closer he came, Toothless realized that his eyes weren't tricking him. Hiccup truly was out of the water. He quickened his pace.
The dragons in the sky seemed to be watching him from a distance instead of chasing him. Did they figure out Toothless would be too much trouble to bring to wherever if he weren't reunited with the other rider?
Hiccup was lying next to the break. He wasn't moving. Thankfully, Toothless could still tell that he was alive. He didn't know on who's side they were, but he noticed a Seashocker disappearing into the darkness of the sea.
"... Bud?" Toothless couldn't thank the Berkian Gods, or the Seashocker, enough for the fact that Hiccup was still with him and breathing. The relief that swept over him upon hearing his voice, hoarse as it was, was indescribable.
Hiccup heard his dragon cooing and felt his warm breath as Toothless pressed his nose to his temple. He was cold. So, so, so cold. His fingers and toes were tingly, but numb. His stump was frozen. He shivered, the winds were relentless.
Toothless checked Hiccup's body out to get an assessment on his health. The fall could've been brutal to him.
He was lying on his left side, facing the other. His right arm was limp as it laid there at an odd angle and there was a terrible headwound that he'd previously been sniffing too. But that wasn't where the blood was coming from.
The Shovelhelm, on top of grabbing Hiccup wrong and losing his grip on him, one of his large talons had pierced through Hiccup's leather flight suit. The wound must not be deep enough to be life threatening or Hiccup would've bled out already, but that still needed treatment.
"I'm really cold, Bud." Toothless heard him and wrapped himself around the Viking as he lied down, both of his forelegs held him close. He held him close and hidden from view. Hiccup was sopping wet. In this kind of weather, so far up North, it wouldn't take long for him to freeze to death.
To make matters worse, Toothless knew the stranger and the dragon pack were approaching them again. He heard the rattling, heard the thunder coming closer.
Toothless bitterly realized he would have to let them do as they wished and take them. Hiccup needed treatment and shelter and he was in no fit condition to mount up and travel all the way back to Berk. He was close to passing out again. Hiccup's best chances were with the same ones who'd torn them out of the sky in the first place.
"Heh, I regret leaving Berk, Bud." Upon hearing Hiccup speak again, Toothless focussed his attention back on him. He was breathing through his pain, momentarily reminding Toothless of his own aches as he tried to suppress them for Hiccup's sake.
"Maybe I should listen to dad once in a while." Hiccup gazed up at him. Though he said it in a joking manner, Toothless could see he was truly sorry. To comfort him, Toothless cooed and pressed their foreheads together.
'It's okay.' That is what he tried to tell him. Hiccup smiled, closing his eyes. Whether he actually understood his dragon or not, at least Hiccup figured out what he was trying to do.
His left hand held onto his right shoulder. That was a hard landing he'd made, who knows the kind of injuries that were still hidden by his flight suit.
Hiccup was growing colder in his embrace too. Toothless gave him all the bodyheat he could provide, but it would mean very little for as long as Hiccup still wore his soaked clothes. Hypothermia could already be setting in.
With light footsteps, the stranger approached after having jumped off the Stormcutter. The other dragons in the pack were still up there in the air, but the two of them had joined them on the ground.
"Hmmm, Toothless!" Toothless held Hiccup tighter even despite his protests. He looked over, watched the mystery rider approach and bared his teeth in a snarl. It was a warning to not come any closer. At least, not with ill intention.
The rider stopped, crouching, and removed the mask that they wore.
The face that met Toothless was that of a woman and he was only briefly taken aback before growling again.
She didn't look like someone who would be a threat. In a way she reminded him of Hiccup somehow, but only vaguely so. Toothless wasn't fooled. He hadn't expected her, that was for sure. He would give her that much at least.
The woman made eye contact with him and continued her advance with caution. She was still crouching, her behaviour was that of a submissive dragon, a defensive one. Toothless never knew he'd ever meet a human who acted more dragon-like than Hiccup, but there she was and once again Toothless was dumbfounded.
Perhaps she could tell and she could very well be using that to come closer until she was right next to Hiccup, opposite to Toothless.
Gazes still connected, she slowly removed the armbrace that looked like a claw and placed it on Hiccup's shoulder.
She wanted to help.
Despite her draconic behaviour, her eyes were still that of a human and Toothless recognized a familiar kind of compassion in them.
"Bud?" Hiccup, though previously as stumped as he was, looked up to him. He was searching for an answer to only one question.
Could they trust her?
Hiccup would give her a shot if Toothless did and he decided, for his Rider's sake, that he did.
