Flash Fiction Month 2016

Day 10: Fortitude (HTTYD)

Hiccup threw another few twigs on the meagre fire. The sputtering orange flames gobbled at the wood greedily.
"At this rate, we'll be frozen by morning," Astrid concluded gloomily, pulling a bearskin around her shoulders.
Kelsey shuffled closer to the fire, moving stiffly. Her torso was heavily bandaged and her left arm hung in a roughly constructed sling. The fight with the raiders had left her battered and weak, and Astrid was not alone in fearing for the life of her adopted sister.
Hiccup had taken her aside when they landed.
"You realise she might not last the night," he'd whispered, his eyes betraying the pain his voice had managed to hide.
"I know," Astrid had murmured in reply, watching Kelsey glide to the ground on Luna's back. "But if we keep riding, she'll die for sure. She needs to rest."
They'd found a clearing, a tiny space hemmed in by towering pine trees and coated with a thick layer of snow. The dragons had set about clearing the icy powder, shoving great swathes of white across the ground with their tails, while Hiccup and Astrid went to find firewood. Dragon fire still needed fuel to burn for longer than a few seconds.
Night had fallen swiftly, bringing with it the cutting chill of northern winter. Having eaten and distributed blankets and furs, the trio huddled close to the fire, trying not to shiver.
"You should sleep, Kelsey," Hiccup told the freckled girl. "You need rest."
She was only a few years behind the other two vikings, but Kelsey Bager looked a good deal younger. She had always been small, and had spent most of her life fighting a mysterious weakness. Luna's arrival on Berk had apparently cured her, but she was still a slight girl with a limited constitution. Tonight, her face was pale as the snow around them, and her sapphire eyes were clouded with pain.
Luna, her Moon Fury companion, nuzzled gently at her shoulder, crooning her agreement to Hiccup's statement. Kelsey stroked the dragon between her blue eyes with a cold-numb hand.
"You don't want me to take first watch?" she asked. Astrid frowned at her.
"Kelsey, you can barely keep your eyes open. Sleep. We'll worry about first watch."
Luna dragged a thick rug of shaggy oxhide over to the fireside, and nudged Kelsey toward it. Kelsey hissed as her arm was jostled, but obeyed, lowering herself onto her uninjured side and curling up on the oxhide. She did her best to hide her shivers; even in her thick woolen and leather clothes, she could feel the cold pressing into her bones.
Astrid stood, shaky on her frozen feet, and spread a blanket over the younger girl. She returned to her position beside Hiccup as Luna settled down beside her human partner.
She shuffled close, her belly pressing against Kelsey's back and her tail curling protectively around her. She lay her head beside Kelsey's, taking the tip of her tail in her mouth, as was her habit.
Kelsey opened a bleary eye as Luna half-spread a great white wing, laying it over her, closing her in a living tent of dragon-scales.
"I'll take first watch if you want," Hiccup offered, when Kelsey's breathing had found a sleeping rhythm.
"Are you sure?"
Astrid's eyes were on her sister.
"Yeah. You're pretty exhausted too, don't pretend you're not." He kissed her on the cheek. "Don't worry. I'll keep an eye on her."
Astrid sighed, and managed a slight smile.
She lay down, rugged up in her bearskin, at Hiccup's side. Her last thought before she fell asleep was how funny Kelsey looked; Luna's breath had blown her hair out of it's loose braid, and it now sat in an untidy mess around her head.
*
Morning came with the songs of birds and the sound of thunder.
Hiccup roused himself, stretching frozen muscles and bruised limbs. Astrid was still awake from her watch shift, Stormfly curled and asleep beside her.
Toothless grumbled and snuffled as he woke. When he stretched his wings, frost cracked and floated to the ground in flakes.
Thunder boomed again. The sky was dark with rolling grey clouds, threatening rain.
He glanced around the clearing, but nothing had changed since he woke Astrid for her watch several hours earlier. Kelsey was hidden from sight under Luna's wing.
"

How is she?" he asked, getting up to stamp his frozen foot.
Astrid blinked, startled from her thoughts.
"Huh? Oh, well, she's alive."
"That's good."
"Yeah. Luna hasn't let me check her injuries, but she seems alright. Not great, but alright."
"Well that's something then."
The Moon Fury yawned, opening her wide eyes. She swivelled her head to check on her human, then carefully uncoiled from around her. She got up, shaking ice from her downy feathers and her scales. Kelsey stirred as flakes of ice pattered down on her face. She was still deathly pale, but she didn't appear too much worse than when she'd gone to sleep. Luna helped her sit up.
"Storm?" she asked when she saw the sky, her voice still slurred with sleep.
"Looks like it," Hiccup answered. "We should get moving."
Astrid and Hiccup packed up the temporary camp while the dragons played with the birds in the trees. Luna stayed beside Kelsey, licking her face every so often to make sure she was awake and alert.
Finally the trio mounted up, and one by one the dragons took to the sky, wheeling in the direction of Berk under the stormy sky.