Snowfall on Berk

Chapter 37

~Astrid~

I wake to Hiccup lightly shaking me.

"Astrid. It's time to look at the hut," he says quietly.

I moan, and roll over to the edge of the bed. The room is still dark indicating it's before dawn. I climb out of bed and move to the cradle. Stoick and Jaclyin are still asleep. Looking back at Hiccup I begin to leave the small room. To my surprise Heather is at the bottom of the stairs. She smiles up at me as she places her axe behind her back.

My axe was in the hut during the fire. I do hope it survived. Hiccup made it for me after we returned from the Edge, when mine was destroyed. I pull on my hood, and arm warmers. The snow was almost completely gone, but that didn't mean it wasn't cold out.

Stepping off of the stairs Heather embraces me.

"When did you get here?" I ask.

"Early this morning. I fell asleep in the chair when I got here," she said.

"Thank you."

"No problem. Anything for a friend."

I smile. I pull up my hood, and the three of us leave the hut. Heather walks behind Hiccup and I. I lean into Hiccup and say, "Does your mother know that the babies are upstairs?"

"Yes she knows. She was tending to Cloud Jumper when we left," he says.

I know the fire wasn't Valka's fault, but it felt that way. Something just wasn't sitting right. But the feeling subsided when we turned the corner and saw the scorched hut. My hands fly to my mouth as I see what is left of it. The whole half of the hut has collapsed in on itself. The other half is completely black from the fire. I doubt anything had survived that fire. My knees begin to shake, and sobs began to rack through my body, but I didn't let any escape my lips. Instead silent tears streamed down my face.

Hiccup wraps his arm around me and we continue up the the hut. The front door had been taken off showing the scorched interior. Crossing the threshold I sidestep fallen beams, and other wood that has fallen. We start to make our way to the bedroom.

The bedroom is what took the most beating. The whole wall was missing getting a good view of the village.

"Well hey, now we can really see the village, and a good ocean view," Hiccup joked.

I gave a halfhearted laugh. Beginning to pick up the debris we look for anything that could be saved. The bed didn't look too bad, but it wasn't usable anymore. I sigh as I move the bed. When we first moved together we stuck a box under the bed, and under the floorboards. I hope that it survived.

I pull up the floorboard that it was under and found it slightly untouched. I pull it out and hand it to Hiccup, who then hands it to Heather, who takes it into the other room.

Hiccup looks in the closet across from the bed and finds his fathers cloak was the only thing that survived. He pulls it out and dusts the ash off of it. He drapes it over his arm in the continued search for anything that survived the fire. Finding nothing else we move to the main room.

We find the cradle Gobber made. The bottom was missing, and so was one of the legs. It was salvageable if Gobber could work with it. I find my axe right where I left it. The paint was covered in soot, and the metal was still hot from the fire. As I tried to pull it off of the floor I found I couldn't. The metal had began to melt into the wall.

"Erg," I exclaimed.

"What?" Hiccup asks coming over to me.

"My axe has melted into the wall. I can't pull it off."

"Sure you can."

Hiccup bends over and tries to pull it off to no prevail. I laugh as he tries again.

"Looks like we'll have to consult Gobber on that one," he said.

So we leave my axe there. We find more things that could be saved from upstairs. Such as Toothless's rock, and Hiccup's papers and drawings.

By the time we leave the hut the sun is almost completely up, and we have things tucked under our arms. We make it back to Valka's hut and set them down next to the fire place. I make my way upstairs to check on the babies. To my surprise they're still asleep. I pick up the cradle and carefully make my way downstairs so I can keep my eyes on them.

Hiccup is sitting next to the pile, and Heather is sitting in the chair with her axe in her lap. I set the babies down next to Hiccup, and I sit on the other side of the cradle. I pull out the box that I recovered from the floor. Brushing it off I open it. On top is a few things we took from the Edge that were special to us. Some drawings, the last remaining pieces of the Dragon Eye, and lenses. Under it all was my betrothal gift from Hiccup. Since it was under everything it wasn't harmed too badly.

The door opens and Valka walks in. She sees the gift. "I remember that. Your father gave me that for our betrothal," she said.

"Dad gave it to me to give to Astrid for our betrothal a while back," Hiccup said.

"I'm not a jewelry person so I kept it safe by my bedside before our marriage, and in this box after our marriage. It means a lot, and I didn't want to lose it," I say setting the necklace back in the box down.

Stoick begins to cry, and I tend to his needs. We continue going through the things. Sometime later Hiccup takes the cradle down to Gobber, and Gobber returns not long after with the cradle fixed. We separate Jaclyin and Stoick, and set them in their separate cradles. Then all that was left to do wasto start rebuilding, and making a wonderful world out of living with dragons.