Little Miracles

Last Straw

Chapter Eleven: Last Straw

Hiccup felt like his insides had evaporated completely. There was no way. No way his baby could be dead. This had to be a trick. It couldn't be her skirt. It couldn't... it wasn't supposed to end this way. He vaguely heard a cry come from next to him, saw a figure rushing toward the skirt... picking it up... the blood was on her hands now. The world was beginning to spin. This couldn't be happening... not his baby... not his Addie...

He felt arms grabbing him, holding him up. Leading him to a nearby bench. He didn't care who it was, he could only continue to stare at his daughter's skirt in the hands of his wife. She was emitting a strange noise, her breathing labored; he watched her rock back and forth with the skirt in her hands, blood dripping from between her fingers. Addie's blood.

He could hear his own labored breathing now. His heart pounding in his ears. But he couldn't let the reality wash over him, not for a second. If he accepted it, he wouldn't be able to handle it.

There was a distant voice, a form in front of him. He felt large hands on both of his shoulders but he couldn't focus on anything except the skirt. The only remnant of his baby girl.

"Hiccup..." he heard, feeling the hands shaking his shoulders. "Hiccup, she's not dead!"

His eyes snapped down and he found himself face to face with his father. "H-how do you..."

Stoick pointed to the wall behind them. Out of the corner of his eye, Hiccup could see Fishlegs pointing to it, directing Astrid to look at it too. A message was written in blood, clearly visible from this angle but impossible to see if one was only walking into the Great Hall.

SCARED YOU, DIDN'T I?

Underneath the message was a mangled corpse. If it weren't for the feathers, Hiccup wouldn't have known what it had been in life. The dead chicken lay in a pool of its own blood. The sight nearly made him vomit. It looked like Trista had torn the chicken to shreds with her bare hands. He felt his body shake, his heartbeat obscuring most noises as it continued to race. Even over the noise of his heart, he could hear his wife gasping, see her throw the bloody skirt to the ground and bolt over to the message. He couldn't move. He felt his father shaking him again, trying to bring him back to reality but he couldn't do it. Yes, his Addie appeared to still be alive but a woman who would do something this sick and twisted would never let her live. He felt like he was on a search for his little girl's body. He could almost see it sprawled out in front of him, her bright green eyes staring at nothing, glazed over...

"Hiccup, you have to get a grip. This is what she wanted." came the garbled voice of his father. "She's trying to distract you, to make you lose focus. Do not let her succeed."

Reality was beginning to set in little by little. He looked down at Stoick, who was still shaking his shoulders.

"She's going to kill her." he muttered, his voice trembling with each syllable. "Addie's as good as dead..."

"No she's not." Stoick wrenched Hiccup's body forward, forcing him to stare into his eyes. "Listen to me, Hiccup. Do not give up on her! You didn't give up when she was born, don't you give up now!"

The memory of his quick actions on that tiny island three and a half years ago gave Hiccup the same sort of out-of-body experience that had seized him back then. A part of his brain was wired never to let himself give up on his children. Whether they were suffocating in his arms or dangling off a cliff or being kept by a madwoman, nothing was going to stop him from doing everything in his power to protect them. It was an integral part of him ever since he had found out they existed, a part that kicked in when Astrid had been taken, when Finn had nearly fallen off the tiny ledge into the rocks below... the protection of his family was in his hands. And if his little girl needed him, he was going to do everything he could to make sure he was there for her.