Takes place after the events of HTTYD 3.
Warnings: Slight gore
Word count: 2395
The two of them arrived at the small sandy beach, the blue and pink sky reflecting in the still water of the small lake.
Eret began taking off his armor, leaving his pants on and slipping off his shirt, showing his tanned muscular form. Y/n looked away before beginning to do the same.
Slowly, she let her long sleeved brown tunic slip off her shoulders and down her arms, revealing the many bandages covering her naked torso. A shiver ran down her spine when the cold air nipped at her exposed skin. Eret glanced at her before finding himself staring at the bandages. They wrapped around her chest and back. A few dried blood stains were visible through them.
She let the tunic fall to the sand, having nothing but her thin underwear and bandages to cover her. She attempted to untie the bandages on her back, only ending up hissing in pain when she applied pressure to the patched up wounds.
"Let me help," Eret was quick to say when he noticed her struggling, approaching her from behind. She glanced over her shoulder before letting her arms fall to her sides with a sigh, allowing him to remove the bandages.
Y/n lifted her arms as he began to peal them off, reaching under her arms and around her waist and grabbing the bandage with his other hand. He removed them layer by layer, slowly but surely to not hurt her.
He continued to do this until her blood stained skin underneath the bandages began to show, along with the large wounds on her back.
Eret couldn't help but pause at the sight of the four giant claw marks. They were long and deep, tracing over her shoulder blades and spine. They stretched from one side of her back to the other.
Eret had heard about the dragon attack. During the last battle against Grimmel, y/n fell victim to one of the Deathgrippers jagged pincers. It had viciously torn through the armor on her back, slicing through skin and muscle, nearly bone deep. The dragon had clawed her twice with both pincers before Astrid and Stormfly scared it away, leaving her with four deep gaping wounds on her back, thick red blood covering her skin. Astrid thought y/n was already dead until she tried to push herself off the ground, some how still breathing.
Eret couldn't imagine how much it must have hurt, not to mention the pain she'd been in ever since.
"Is it that bad?.." she asked with tensely raised shoulders and arms covering her chest, still facing away from him. She figured it was obvious by the long silence after he had removed the bandages. He hesitated for a moment and scratched the back of his neck.
"Well, it- it could've been worse."
"Don't lie, Eret." she chuckled slightly. "Things can always be worse, saying that is just a medioker way of covering up the fact it's probably pretty bad. And I'm guessing it is?"
Eret sighed and removed his hand from the back of his neck. "It'll be better once we clean it up a bit."
They began their descent into the water. It was cold, colder than she expected. Despite living in mostly cold temperatures, y/n never felt that she got used to them, letting out a small gasp as the water consumed her feet. Eret only snickered at the look on her face, not nearly bothered as much by the cold of the water as she was.
They worked their way further into the water, stopping at hip height. Well, it was hip height for Eret. Y/n was nearly a head shorter than him, bringing the water to her belly button. The water just barely grazed one of the cuts on her lower back, but it stung nonetheless. She inhaled sharply at the stinging sensation and was tempted to reach down and touch it, but her arms remained over her chest covering her private parts. Eret noticed and stepped closer to her, creating ripples upon the calm surface of the water.
"You alright?" he asked, slight worry in his voice.
"Yeah.. I'm fine," she assured with her eyes closed.
