úlfheðnar, httyd

xxvii. Losing Mother

𖣯 ✹ 🌷(úlfheðnar) ꏍ ！┈─❟
╰───►chapter twenty-seven; hiccup
❝ losing mother! ❞

    HICCUP could feel his heart racing.

     Everything around him narrowed in onto a single view-point; this strange who stared up at him behind their wooden mask━hunched and crouched as if scared he was just a figment of their imagination; something they wanted, but knew they'll never have. 

      The dragon's hearty breaths of fire, still blazing in illuminated darkness seemed to match the pace of his heart that pounded in his ears━the only thing he seemed to hear. The one thing that kept Hiccup focused; that kept him into reality from the thoughts that swarmed his head of why this stranger knew his name, was Yrsa's hand clutching his upper right arm tight━as if not sure whether to get ready for a fight or to wait ... maybe she was just as frozen with her shock. Hiccup knew he was.

     He managed to let out a strained, "Uh ...?" 

     How do they know him? Who were they? 

     Thin fingers reached up to the strange mask and lifted it up. A chin was revealed; sharp, but soft; tuffs of brown-auburn hair glowing copper in the fire curled around ears and down into a long braid. Finally, the mask was removed and Hiccup could see wide, light-green eyes; staring at him in tearful shock━the face of a woman. Forty, perhaps, but she seemed far younger with a long, but small and striking high cheekbones. 

     Hiccup had no idea who she was. But she watched him like he was some long lost treasure she was scared to believe was actually here, standing in front of her. 

     Now that the mask was gone, held in her trembling hands, her voice was clear; round and low━but it sent a jolt to Hiccup's chest. It was strange, like hearing her breathless: "C━could it be?" sparked some strange, old memory even he didn't knew he held. But some part of him recognised it ... and it sent his heart tumbling and falling. 

     He was glad when Yrsa's fingers slipped down into his, becuase he needed the comfort━he needed to cling onto her hand to know he wasn't alone. 

      The Rogue Dragon Rider lifted her dark brows, voice suddenly hoarse as if she wanted to cry. She started to stand back up, almost as if it was a stranger to act like a human again. "After ... after all these years?" She stepped towards him and Hiccup shuffled back further, and she froze. "How is this possible?"

     "Uh," Hiccup swallowed the fearful lump in his throat, "s━should I..." his lips were parched and his tongue dry, as if telling him something he already knew and yet couldn't seem to understand. "Should I know you?"

     The strange woman's face fell. Eyes falling, she was suddenly overcome with shame. "No," she murmured. "You were only a babe..."    

      There was a twist in his chest; his stomach was rising up to meet it━everything about him seemed to know; to the point his knees trembled. But he didn't. Who was she━?

     The woman met his gaze again, hesitant in her next words. "But a mother never forgets."

      Yrsa's gasp was in the back of his mind. Hiccup━at first━didn't think he heard her right. But then her words flooded him; like a wave that crashed over him and made him stumble. The feelings that had been twisting and churning beforehand━warning him grew overbearing. He wanted to vomit. He didn't believe it━he didn't━who was this woman to tell him he was his mother?! Hiccup shook his head, feeling the lump come back; aching and making it hard for him to breathe. His mother was dead. She had been taken by dragons. Eaten━she was dead. Dead.