In Lieu Of A Tail

11. Hiccup Plans, Astra Acts

Gothi sighed, it seemed as though the fates wanted her to intervene again. She gathered her medicinal kit and headed towards the arena, knowing that it would currently be abandoned. She hummed a song whose words had been lost to time when she arrived, and a Terrible Terror crawled from its hiding place, she gave it a herb and pointed to the door where the newly captured dragon was being kept. The Terror trilled, and Gothi knew it would give the healing herb to the dragon. The elder then headed towards the cells, the girl was equally important in the future that Gothi had seen, and right now she needed medical attention. No one would stop the elder, if they tried she'd remind them that a healer can break things just as easily as fixing them.

She only had to knock one Viking outside the cells upside the head, after which she went on without interruption. She unlocked the door, and entered silently. She closed the door behind her and turned to look at the girl's form on the wooden bench that served as a bed, she was young, surely not much older than sixteen. Gothi applied some healing herbs to the small cut on the back of the unconscious warrior's head and wrapped it with a clean strip of linen. She checked her patient over, testing for a fever with the back of her hand. She was just packing away her kit when she noticed something.

A long, thin scar ran up the back of the girl's hand and disappeared beneath her sleeve. Gothi moved the sleeve upwards to see it continue, and become crisscrossed with other paled lines. The marks were old, that was for certain. Gothi stared sadly at them. She rolled up the other sleeve to find more marks. These scars spoke of torture inflicted on the girl by someone else, there were too many, and they were too long and straight to be caused by anything other than the hand of man.

Gothi rolled the girl's sleeves back down, and found herself wondering about the child's past, she shook her head – now was not the time.

She had folded a spare blanket to act as a pillow, and hoped it would alleviate the pain of the head injury.

They landed in the cove, Hiccup wrenching himself from the saddle as soon as he landed. He groaned and cursed in dragonese.

"I never should have let her come, I'm a complete idiot."

"No you aren't, she's just as stubborn as you and wouldn't have taken no for an answer." Toothless interjected. "Besides, she was going to see the others anyway, at least you were too stubborn to let her go without us. Now we can rescue both her and Astra."

"That's a good point, only now we have to come up with a working plan." He cursed again, and Toothless briefly considered berating the boy, but realised it was pointless to do so, the Night Fury settled for fishing in the cove's lake, and collecting some wood for a possible fire later.

The dragon lay still, preserving her energy for when she may need it. She knew it was useless to try to blast the door, even if she could get through it and the metal cage, there were hordes of Vikings she would have to fight though to get to wherever her rider was being kept. These humans were bad, nothing like Hiccup or Aurora or the other good humans she had met. She was afraid, being in a position such as this brought back terrible memories of days long past, being unable to protect her friends, her family from bad people.

She worried most for Aurora. Her rider had been captured by bad people before, but those had been worse. These Berkians were nothing compared to those merciless beasts.

A scratching sound became audible, snapping Astra from her thoughts. She growled low in response and warning, turning towards the noise to find a crimson Terrible Terror sitting and licking its eyeball, a small package grasped in its talons.

Astra bore her teeth reflexively at the small dragon.

"I don't threaten." Called the Terror. They kicked the paper-wrapped package towards Astra, who stopped it with her claw and growled low in her throat. "That should help, it will give you some energy and pain relief. You will need all your possible energy if we are going to rescue your rider."