Symphony of Shadows

37. Debris

A/N: A little dual POV action in this chapter, enjoy:)

She was a fool.

She'd given way to her desperate loneliness and foregone all logic. The signs must have been there but she dove head first into the eel infested sea because she wanted to believe that there was hope after all. That she wasn't destined to be forgotten. That she could be loved. But it had all been a lie. The betrayal stung far more than any eel could and she didn't know what to do. The only thing she did know was that she had to get off this gods forsaken island. Hiccup, no, the Svikari, would be loose from the ropes any minute. She should've taken her knife back but she hadn't been thinking, the only thought in her mind had been his betrayal. How many times had she mentioned her hunt for the dragon rider? Her mission? And he had played her for exactly what she was, a fool.

But no more, Astrid refused to ridicule herself by staying near him for any second longer. Her lungs were aching as she tried to fight the panic attack that sat waiting just underneath the surface as she tore through the trees in the direction of her ship. In an instant, her tunic began to be soaked in rain as thunder and lightning boomed overhead. Just what she needed. The ground became muddy and uneven as she sloshed through the foliage, determined and refusing to be weighed down. Soon, her boat came into view and she sprinted towards it. The stormy winds would work in her favor as she tried to make sense of what direction would take her to Berk the fastest. She hauled up the anchor as quickly as she could and set sail, hoping that she could get farther away from the storm. Lightning and wood were not a good mix. Astrid scoured the skies for any sign of the traitor. There was no time to think about the hole in her heart, she had to make her escape.

She hadn't been sailing for long when dread started to set in. The storm she had hoped to escape was still going strong as the wind howled fiercely and waves taller than her entire ship splashed far too close. Astrid was used to the archipelago weather but she wasn't an expert by any means, she preferred to stay on land. She tried to steer the ship but it appeared to have a mind of its own as another wave almost managed to capsize her. She prayed to Thor to stop his relentless assault but her prayer went unanswered as thunder boomed so loudly, she had to cover her ears as they threatened to burst. Astrid knew she was nowhere close to Berk, it was simply impossible as she wasn't even sure the storm was taking the ship in her original direction. She couldn't even see farther than the mast, much less what was out in the water which was a recipe for disaster.

The ship started to lean left and she braced herself for impact as she tried to steady the steering oar but it was no use. In fact, the pressure of the sea was so great that she heard a loud crack. The steering oar had broken in two, rendering it utterly useless and Astrid utterly hopeless. Her ship was now almost sideways as it swirled along what felt like a circle but she couldn't see, much less tell. What she could do was smell and the sudden stench almost made her puke. There must be rotten debris around or something. She had bigger problems to deal with, however. She saw another boat coming towards her and shouted for help but it was unmanned, further stoking the fear in her gut. Floating tree logs crashed against the hull of the empty ship and she watched it sink into the abyss. Her stomach turned as she saw a number of unmoving bodies floating in the water, presumably the passengers of the now-sunken ship. Astrid would join them soon if she didn't get out of whatever freak storm this was but the ship was tilting more and more by the second. It seemed like the water around her was getting higher and she was getting lower but she had no idea how that was possible.

Her longboat was almost horizontal now and she held on to the upper side of the ship for dear life. As lightning shot through the sky, Astrid heard a high pitched whistle that she thought was imagined. It couldn't be. She was proven wrong as she saw balls of purple plasma hurling at her. He was going to finish her off. He was going to kill her like a coward and not with a fair fight. Just another reason to despise him even more. Luckily, the damned dragon missed and it hit the water right next to her instead. The assault continued however as the Night Fury delivered a series of blasts, diving through the air and landing mere feet away from where she clung to safety. Son of a bitch. If she managed to survive this ordeal, she would not rest until he was dead. How dare he? He had been the one to betray and deceive her in the first place and he had the audacity to hunt her down and kill her? While she was moments away from drowning? That half-troll was lucky she was stranded on this damned boat.

Unfortunately the gods had decided to lessen her odds of survival when a rock crashed in the side of the boat, splitting it in two. Astrid was fucked. The sea was bone chilling as she fought to stay afloat which was another impossible feat. It was like Njörd himself was determined to drown her. The gods were merciless today. She could see now that the water wasn't just full of waves but an odd vortex of swirling sea and debris. Said debris was the most dangerous as several pieces of wreckage collided with her body and pulled her down under the surface. She fought for air but the cold was seizing her limbs and she was too far below. Kicking was no use as she made her desperate last attempt to make it. The light was so close but so far and her lungs were pained as her last breath of oxygen escaped. Her vision started to fade as she finally gave up and let the ice take over her body. At least she wouldn't die at the hands of the dragon rider.

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She was so damned stubborn. Only a fool would sail into a storm so far from Berk. Hiccup scoured the choppy waters for any sign of her ship but found nothing except for fifteen feet tall waves. He had to find her. His life and the flock depended on it. A pained part of him also felt the urgency to make sure Astrid was alright but he stifled it as much as he could. Hiccup would find her.

Toothless swooped down low to make up for the poor visibility and the dragon sense a disturbance. Something was wrong. The Night Fury followed his senses and spotted the source.

There it was, a massive whirlpool in the midst of a storm. The dragon rider swore as he signaled Toothless to do a fly over and to his dismay, saw Astrid's ship caught in the fray. He also couldn't ignore the stench which solidified his hypothesis. He had heard of a Submaripper before but had never dealt with one personally,
"Okay, Bud, we need to break this up. Direct shots to the center until we can get her."
His dragon cooed in agreement and dove towards the vortex of water that dragged the boat further down. Toothless fired off shot after shot but the dragon relented unmoved. He could see Astrid struggling to right the ship unbeknownst to the invisible force she couldn't win against. She was stubbornly holding on the siding as she dangled precariously. His stomach lurched and he signaled Toothless to keep firing into the mouth of the whirlpool. He had to get to her, their past be damned.

One of the plasma blasts pierced right through the center of the vortex and the Submaripper seemed to slow down its attack but by then it was too late. A rock crashed into her ship and down she went with it.
"Astrid!"
He watched in horror as her head went under after being pummeled with something in the water. His traitorous heart stopped beating and he didn't care about their fight anymore. He didn't carry about any of it. For a second, he was back to being just Hiccup and Astrid needed him. He wouldn't let her die, he couldn't. So, against everything he'd been working on since he ran away from Berk, he told Toothless to retrieve her. The water was freezing as they dove right into the area he'd last seen her and he forced his eyes to open in order to find her. She wasn't hard to find, she'd nearly managed to reach the surface but he guessed the adrenaline had worn off and the had hypothermia set in. He raced towards her and drew her into his arms. She was far, far too cold. He needed to get Astrid back to his island and next to a dragon as soon as possible. It was the fastest and safest way to warm her up and if he didn't get her away soon, she wouldn't make it.

Hiccup forced himself not to think of that and instead focus on getting them there. The dragons would get used to her and he could keep her there until he figured out a solution. He could only hope that she would forgive him when she awoke because he couldn't imagine a world without her in it.