The Night Rider

Chapter 20: Talking to a Ghost

ASTRIDS POV.

'Hiccup, the Night Rider is Hiccup!' This was one of the many recurring thoughts that ran through Astrids head. But she still couldn't rap her mind around it. 'There's no way that the scrawny heir to Berk that died three years ago could possibly be the Night Rider!' She thought. 'But could he be?' She thought back to the day when Hiccup was killed, or at least everyone thought he was?

That day she had seen him with a Night Fury, the same dragon that she rode upon now. And how he had jumped in front of the colossal Monstrous Nightmare to save Stoick. And the two strongest pieces of evidence so far, the scar on the left side of his chin the both Hiccup and the Night Rider shared and the fact that both Hiccups and the Night Rider's mother was killed by a dragon. So it was true, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third was the Night Rider.

Or at least all the evidence she had pointed to it. She glanced down at the arm wrapped around her waist. She remembered how muscular he had been under his armor, it was nothing like Hiccup. It was the main reason most of the inhabitants of Berk ridiculed him because he resembled a toothpick more than a Viking.

"Astrid." The arm around her waist shook drawing her out of her thoughts and back to reality. "We are nearing your island." How where they near Berk? It felt as if they had just left Ryker's ship but how had they already flown through the thick fog of Hellhimens Gate and the rest of the way back to Berk?

Off in the distance she could see the grand island of Berk drawing nearer and nearer by the second due to the insane speed of the Night Fury. Astrid couldn't see the village of Berk so they must have been approaching from another side of the island. It had only been a few minutes when the three where above the island.

The dragon circled a spot above the island before swooping down and landing. It had landed in a large cove with high cliff's surrounding it and it took her a moment to recognize where she had seen it before. It was the same cove where she had first seen the Night Fury, it was the place where Hiccup was eaten by the dragon. Or maybe it was the place she had just seen him with one. She had to know.

"Do you know this place?" She asked dismounting the dragon and taking a few steps away before turning back around to look at him. His voice was quiet and pinched when he responded. "Yes." It was the response she was expecting but for some reason it still shocked her. The Night Rider brought both of his hands up to his helmet and pulled it off his head.

Astrid's legs almost gave away from under her at the sight of him. At the sight of the boy from all those years ago. Her eye's first landed on the scar on his chin, then they shifted to the unshaven stubble beard and then to his defined cheek bones and then finally to his eye's. Most of Hiccups face had changed drastically over the past three years but his eyes had not.

"It is you." She said taking a step towards him. "Hiccup your alive. But how? The dragon ate you, the only thing left was your shoe." The questions where pouring out of her mouth so fast she could barely stop them. "How are you the Night Rider? How did you survive being taken by a dragon." But Hiccup cut her off with his own words.

"Astrid, Toothless never took me. I went willingly." His words shocked her. "Excuse me." She could feel the anger towards Hiccup build up in her chest. "You left!" She said in an angered voice. "Yes." The anger in her took over and began to speak on its own. "How could you leave! You were and still are heir to Berk!"

"When you left you made so your cousin Snotlout would become the heir to the village, tell me Hiccup do you think Berk will survive as Snotlout as the chief?!" Hiccup tried to speak but Astrid didn't let him. "And don't even get me started on your father! When you were presumed dead it broke your father!" It felt so weird to be talking to Hiccup, it almost felt like she was talking to a ghost of a boy she once knew.

"He wasn't seen for days after you left and even now he's still not the same!" His voice was so aggressive when he interjected that she was almost certain it was Stoick. "I know what I did to him! You think that I really don't know what it did to him! Every day I have to deal with the burden of knowing what it did to him!" Astrid had to take a step back because of the pure aggression in his voice.

"I used to fly over Berk every night! For the first three weeks after I left I had seen everyone except my father! Do you know what fear that gave me? Had my father ended his own life because I had left? Had my father been driven into such a state of severe sadness that he couldn't full fill his duties as chief? Do you know how much I wanted to go back and tell him I was alright in the beginning?"

Astrid was able to say three words between his many sentences. "But you can!" She regretted saying it because all it did was lead Hiccup down another path of anger and yelling. "No I can't Astrid! Do you really think that if my father saw me now, as the Night Rider. Helping dragons instead of killing them. Do you really think he'd still welcome me back into the village?"

She had no response. She wouldn't admit it to him but he did make a good point. Hiccup took a deep breath trying to calm himself but even in that she could hear his anger. "If my father saw me now, he'd just as easily kill me as he'd kill the Night Rider." She could hear the pain it caused him to say what he did. "You can't tell him, I want him to remember me as a good son." After a brief moment of silence Astrid approached him and punched him in the shoulder.

"That's for letting your dragons take me." She punched him a little harder in the shoulder again. "And that's for beating me in dragon training." She punched him harder once again. "And that's for making me think your dead." Astrid looked away from him with her eyes. She quickly grabbed him by the front of his chest plate and planted a soft kiss on his lips before releasing him.

"And that's for everything else." She turned away from him and before she started walking away left him with one more thing. "Hiccup, I think it would do you and your father good if you returned." Before he could respond if he was even going to she broke off into a run and ran out of the cove leaving him and the dragon behind.

She had a ruff idea where the village was located but she wasn't quite sure so it was about thirty minutes until she began to hear the voices from her fellow Berkians. She broke through the tree line and almost instantly surrounded by Vikings asking her many questions.

Most of the Vikings had been repairing houses or storehouse when she arrived but when they had seen her they all dropped there tools and surrounded her. "Where were you?" Was a question she heard from many Vikings. "How are you alive?" Was another. "Where is the Night Rider?" Was a question that she heard Spitelout ask from somewhere in the crowd.

Her mother and father broke through the crowd and enveloped her in a hug. "Astrid where so glad your alright." Said her mother tightening her embrace. "We were so worried about you." Said her father with a large smile on his face. "Astrid!" Called Stoick braking through the sea of Vikings. "Where is the Night Rider?" He asked gripping her by the shoulders.

"Where is he?" He asked again not even giving her time to respond to his first question. "He's in the cove where Hiccup le-." She stopped herself not wanting to tell Hiccups secret. "Where Hiccup died." She corrected. But it was already to late when she realized what she had done. "Stoick you can't go out there he's already gone!"

She said to him as he began to walk towards the forest his axe held firmly in his right hand. "I'll see for myself if he's really gone. All of you with me." He commanded and him and all the villagers around her charged into the forest in the direction of the cove with there weapons drawn. It was just Astrid and her parents left standing looking into the forest as the Viking kill squad disappeared deeper and deeper into the thick tree's.

"Well Astrid let's get you home." Said her father trying to lead her home but she broke free from his grasp and followed the Vikings into the forest. If Hiccup was still in the cove she had to reach him first!