The Glass Dragon

My dreams that night were odd to say the least. They were full of fire and fighting, death and distress.
Worst of all, they were filled with dragons.
It was terrible. We were on an island, an island that was littered with debris from wrecked ships and dead Vikings, splintered long boats and fleeing dragons. No matter where I looked, there was fire and smoke, burning my eyes. I couldn’t even see the sun. I was choking on the thick ash and heat. I kept running, but it felt like I was running in circles.
I finally ended up by the water’s edge, next to the fleet of destroyed, smoldering Viking ships. I got a quick and clear glance skywards to see the biggest dragon I could have ever encountered, a Red Death, springing upwards, chasing a swift black speck. My stomach knotted in fear for some reason. I must have known the spec.
I watched as the dragon and the spec disappeared into the clouds, and I was holding my breath, not because I had to from the smoke, but because I was so full of worry that my breath just did not come.
There was an explosion like thunder overhead and I winced. The clouds burned red. A second roar and they turned white-hot. There must have been another dragon up there, fighting the Red Death. That must have been the black spec. Why was I so worried? Who cared if two dragons had it out and destroyed each other? That was two less that I had to worry about in my life.
There was another explosion of red-orange and the spec was swooping low. It turned abruptly and in a ball of blue-white light, it shot a fire ball into the mouth of the Red Death.
The huge dragon was roaring furiously, starting to burn from the inside out. Its wings were ripping apart. Holes were burning into its flesh. I felt a wave of relief, but it was short lived. The dragon crashed onto the shores, not all that far from me, shaking the ground violently as it exploded and pitching me forwards.
I hit the ground face first; the pebbles on the shore were slicing open my cheek and my palms. I winced and picked my head back up, just in time to see the black speck falling from the sky, diving after an even smaller speck.
My heart turned to ice. My stomach knotted around itself. I couldn’t help the words that exploded from my throat in terror.
<i>”HICCUP!" </i>
I woke up with a start, still screaming. Hiccup sat up abruptly across from me, staring at me. “What?!” he asked in a panic. His hair was in a disarrayed mess from sleep.
I sat there, wide-eyed, my chest heaving and my blond fringe sticking to my forehead in the cold sweat. I just shook my head, too stunned to speak. The heat, the panic, it had all felt so real.
He sat the rest of the way up, and he rubbed his head some, looking at me through his yawn. “You alright?” he asked, now calmer, the panic subsiding visibly.
“Yeah,” I breathed, and then swallowed hard, taking another deep breath to calm myself. “It was just a nightmare.” But the thing that scared me was how little I actually believed that statement. It hadn’t felt like a nightmare at all.
It had been the most terrifying thing I think I have ever faced, including the loss of all sense of who I was.
The green-eyed boy nodded and sat up more, cracking his spine before pulling on his fake leg and strapping it into place for the day. I watched him, though I wasn’t wholly focused on the action. All I kept seeing was what I was sure was him, falling into that explosion, being chased down by the huge, black dragon. The feeling of dread washed back over me like a monsoon. Did I actually know him? I really doubted that. It wasn’t possible. Even less likely was the possibility that I had any sort of feelings for him.
I must have been lost in my own head because the next thing I knew, his boot and his prosthetic appeared in my line of vision. I slowly looked up at him, his bright green eyes shining, even in the chilly gloom of the cave.
“Did you hear me?” he asked, crouching down to be eye level with me.
I shook my head honestly. “No, sorry. I was still lost in thinking about that nightmare.”
He gave a gentle smile and offered his hand to pull me up. “I said that it must have snowed again because our trail from last night is covered. We’ll have to find the path down to the village again.”
I nodded absently. It snowed on my Berk too. My head ached with possibilities and what ifs. What were the chances that this was my home, that I had just forgotten that much? What if I didn’t know my mother or my friends?
That made me laugh some to myself. I really had no friends to begin with. I had always been the competitive one. I didn’t play well with others too often from what little pieces of my memory that I could recall. That in and of itself tended to get me into trouble.
I followed him to the mouth of the cave and looked out at the scene laying before us. I had to admit, the snow clinging to the needles of the trees, glittering in the early morning sunlight, it was very beautiful. Uniquely beautiful. I groaned softly and held my head. This was getting irritating. All of this was like Berk, I think, but none of it was either. It was so confusing. And I still didn’t know why there were so many holes either. Why was the last thing that I remember being fifteen, then today, I’m seventeen? So many questions, too many questions.
I pushed them all back in my head and straightened up. “So which way are we going?” I asked the boy beside me. I cast a sideways glance at him, taking him in.
He stood still, the only thing moving on him was his chest gently rising and falling with his breathing and the few wisps of hair that were being tousled about by the winter breeze in the mountains. He remained silent, thinking as he took in the surroundings.
“That way,” he finally said, pointing off to the right. “We came up that rock face last night. “We may as well start from there.”
I nodded and waited for him to lead the way. He took a few steps out into the snow and turned to look at me. “Hey, Astrid?” he said, gazing at me.
“Hm?” I answered, raising my eyes to look at his face, rather than his feet.
He grinned at me. “From now on, promise you won’t go running off into the woods and getting us lost?”
I blinked some, but I had to laugh. “Who said I’d be taking you with me if I went off again?” I replied.
He just smiled and shrugged before climbing down the small rock face. I followed suit, using the same hand holds that he had, the same foot holes. That is, until I got closer to the bottom. I couldn’t find the last one and I was going to risk falling on my ass in the snow when I felt a pair of hands take my waist and lift me down onto the soft, white powder underfoot.
I turned and looked up into Hiccup’s face and gave him a small smile. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, no problem,” he said shyly. “We don’t need you falling again.”
I looked at him as he turned to walk on, my head tilted to the side. “Again?” I asked as I caught up to him and his long legs.
“Yeah. You fell and hit your head. I told you this already,” he said, only once looking back at me over his shoulder.
I made a face of confusion, though it was only to myself. “Oh. Yeah, sure,” I lied as I followed him through the snow and the trees.
We walked in silence for a long while. There were other sounds though, that kept us company. There were the winter birds, chirping in their trees, the sounds of some small animals scurrying through the underbrush. There was the sound of our footfalls in the snow and ice, and the sounds of our breathing. The outside world was peaceful.
But internally, I was waging a war with myself.
I couldn’t shake that dream, that nightmare, no matter how hard I tried. Every time I thought about it, that fluttery, panicky fear flooded the pit of my stomach and threatened to freeze there. Every time I thought about that explosion, my face stung and I could feel the hairs singing on the back of my neck. Every time I thought about the two specks falling into the fiery abyss, I wanted to both scream and cry.
I must have been doing the latter, because my traveling companion noticed. “Hey, you alright?” Hiccup asked, his tone full of concern.
“Yeah. It’s just cold,” I sniffed. “The cold is burning my eyes.” It was a lie, of course, but I felt that it was a pretty convincing lie.
He just nodded some, and kept walking, though he did turn his head more, as if he was checking on me. I wished he would stop. I felt bad enough as it was, weak enough.
“I’m fine,” I said sternly after I caught him checking on me for about the fifth time.
“I just wanted to make sure,” he said. “You seem very off since yesterday. Yesterday, you were snapping at me left and right. Today, you’re very quiet.”
“I don’t know why it’s such a big deal to you,” I said, trying to snap at him, though in my opinion it was a bit lack luster compared to the previous day. “I just can’t shake that nightmare. It was terrifying.”
“Want to talk?” he offered. “Sometimes talking about a bad dream can make it seem less...bad...”
“No. But I suppose you’re not going to give me that choice.”
He grinned at me. “You would be correct.” He wagged a finger at me. “Come on, talk.”
“It just had to do with dragons. Lots of dragons...”
That seemed to get his attention. He paused mid-step and looked at me. “You don’t like dragons?”
I snorted in disgust. “OF course not. We’re vikings. We kill them. They’ve slaughtered hundreds of us. What’s to like about them?”
He nodded some, as if thinking about what I had said, and contemplating what was the correct thing to say next. “So...” he started, then faltered. “Why was this dream so terrifying, then?”
I bit my lip. “I think my mind concocted some sort of version of what could have happened with you. You said you killed a Red Death. I think my mind just made up a dream about it. There was a lot of death, and fire. It just sort of rattled me.” That sounded plausible enough, not to mention it was an excellent explanation of that crazy nightmare. That’s all it was. A nightmare.
He was grinning some at me. “They why were you yelling for me?”
My cheeks burned instantly, like a dragon flame had lit inside of them. “You know, you were falling into a fiery pit of death, it was a little frightening. I’m over it.” I shrugged my shoulders and kept walking, but as I remained a few steps ahead of him, I could feel his eyes on me, watching me, and I could feel his cocky little grin, burning into the back of my skull and I really wanted to knock it off of his face with my fist.