Nothing to Fear

Chapter Eleven: An Unlikely Hero

"ADDIE!"

As Hiccup ran as fast as he could toward the hole in the ice where his daughter had been standing moments before, every story he'd ever heard about people falling through ice into frozen water flitted into his mind. His heart stopped as he remembered that few of them had a happy ending. He heard several loud cracking noises before his own body fell beneath the water's surface. The world suddenly went silent as it felt like his body was torn apart by the freezing water around him. Everything in his brain told him to curl up to conserve heat but his little girl was far more important. Desperately trying to ignore the stabbing chill around him, he reached out and, after a few kicks of his legs and swings of his arms, he caught his daughter around the middle. He immediately swam upward and felt his hand burst through a tiny sheet of ice at the surface. Brandyn pulled him and Adrianna out of the water as Toothless tried to blow hot air on them without melting the ice beneath them.

"You okay?" Brandyn asked the barely conscious Hooligan chief.

"Ad-d-d-d-die..." Hiccup mumbled groggily as he leaned over his daughter. "C-c-c-come on..."

Brandyn looked at the Haddock girl, who now seemed to be coated in a layer of ice. Her arms were clasped tightly around her chest and her mouth was open but no movements came from her, nothing to indicate that she was still alive.

"B-b-b-breathe..." Hiccup muttered as he blew into her slack jaw and tried to push on her stomach.

Ignoring her freezing father, the teenager crawled over and shoved him out of the way. Hiccup yelled indignantly but stopped as he watched Brandyn use his fingers to pry Adrianna's mouth open a bit further. The teenager then took a deep breath and blew into it. He moved down and applied pressure to her stomach.

"Come on..." he muttered as he moved his way back up to her mouth.

Brandyn repeated the actions a few times, his mind racing as he tried to remember exactly what he'd seen a healer do for a similar patient years ago. Finally, the girl spat out the water that had been in her lungs and lay limp on the ice, her chest rising and falling and her limbs shivering but still very much unconscious.

"She's okay!" Brandyn called to Hiccup. "But we better get her back to the house!"

Syd bounded over and helped Brandyn mount him while also holding the Haddock girl. But Hiccup wasn't about to let his daughter out of his sight. He crawled over and reached out, trying to take her from the boy.

"Woah, hey, you should be headed back. I've got her." Brandyn protested but Hiccup paid him no heed.

"G-g-give her to m-m-me." he said stubbornly (or as stubbornly as a man shivering so hard he stuttered could say anything).

"Get on your dragon and fly back before you pass out." Brandyn held Adrianna as close to him as he could. "You're soaking wet and freezing to death. You'll just make her colder."

"Now, Brandyn!" Hiccup barked, his glare almost as cold as the water.

"Hiccup-"

"She's my daughter." Hiccup reminded him as he held out his arms. "Mine."

Brandyn growled in annoyance before placing the girl's frigid body into her father's arms. Toothless immediately bounded over and scooped them up before taking off.

If Hiccup though being submerged in freezing water was bad, flying while soaking wet in sub freezing temperatures was the worst. He curled his body over Adrianna's and prayed fervently that she would be okay. How in the world did she always end up in these situations in the first place? It was like trouble followed her everywhere and Hiccup's desperate attempts to protect her were as ineffective as trying to keep a treat away from a Terrible Terror.