The first to know

Get Him Back to Berk ... NOW!

Those words still haunt me to this day. Whether it be a comedic retelling or a dramatized nightmare that shakes me from sleep. 

I looked down at the mangled, bitten, bleeding, slightly singed remains of my brothers lower left leg and I felt my brain slow down taking in an image that would be burned into my mind for years to come. My brain slowly supplied every bit of information I had gleaned over my hours upon hours of time I had spent reading, and I felt the proper advice begin to tingle on the tip of my tongue.

"There's no saving that." My father mumbled quietly.

"No there ain't, we need to get him back to Gothi, if he can even survive the sail back." Gobber agreed solemnly

"WE NEED TO FLY." I put in a little louder than I originally intended. My father and my uncle looked at me questioningly but when my dragon appeared over my shoulder it seemed to dawn on them what I meant.

"Right." They both began to lift Hiccup into my arms.

"Uhh guys he still has an open wound, please set him down." Astrid pointed out. They did as asked while I delved into my knowledge of stopping blood flow

I tore a strip off of my shirt and tied it around Hiccup's leg just below his knee, I looked up at my father.

"Do you have a stick of any kind." He produced from his cloak a straight branch with a smoldering end at my command, upon closer inspection one could see it was the burning remains of his war hammer. I stuck that through the already tight fitting piece of scrap fabric and twisted it, I continued to do so until the blood flow had been reduced to barely ooze. I looked at my father.

"I need another bandage to hold that in place." He looked down at his son's pale face and then back at me before taking a strip from his own tunic and handing it to me. I looped the middle of it around one end of the stick and wrapped it around Hiccup's leg before tying it off on the other end of the stick. I did all of this while Astrid held the thing steady and my dad kept any possibility of Hiccup flailing from happening.

"Scoot, please come here." At that point he had been attending to Toothless who was now fully conscious and was yowling like a scalded cat wanting to know if his master was still present in this realm or if he would, despite all of his efforts, be grieving the loss of his best friend in the near future. Thankfully the other dragons were keeping him from charging at my subpar medicinal practices so that Hiccup would at least have a chance. Scoot, who had been licking the top of his older brother's head, trying to calm the irate reptile, lifted his head and walked to my side. The other dragons redoubled their efforts as Toothless, after losing his one calming effect, began to struggle like his life depended on it, or rather like Hiccup's did. 

"Please help me bring Hiccup over to Toothless." This was a bit of an after thought, but seeing Toothless so distraught left me worried for both the safety of himself but the Berkians as well, I figured seeing that he was alive would be enough to placate the beast until they got him back to berk. 

Scoot obliged and while everyone else seemed either too tired or weary to temp Toothless's wrath I slipped Hiccup off of Scoot's back with a decent amount of strain and lay him before the angry dragon. With a sniff, a lick and a quick cuddle the Night fury seemed satisfied with my care and allowed my father to come and hoist my brother into my arms while I sat astride my own dragon.  

"Astrid you will accompany them, keep them safe." My father turned and addressed the young shield maiden. She nodded in reply and shot into the air on the back of Stormfly. Finally he turned back to me and removed his groom's fur before he draped it over Hiccup and myself.

"Bye Da."

"Good bye Iddy." Scoot easily shot after her and kept pace without much effort. As we soared through the mist I adjusted the fur around my brother tucking it in so that he might stay insulated in the drafty chilled pre-winter air.

 Astrid coasted up next to us and decided to pull an Idonea Solfird Haddock by calling my bluff.

"Thought he couldn't take the weight of two people. He looks like he is doing fine to me." Scoot let his tongue flutter out of his mouth in agreement.

I decided I would be painfully honest with her.

"I saw the kiss in the cove I figured I would help out a little bit." She had no response but random noises emitted from her direction I turned to see her beet red and opening and closing her mouth like a gasping fish.

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Finally Berk came into sight and the both of us spiraled down quicker than what would be advised. We landed before Gothi's hut and rushed him inside leaving the dragons to play outside.

She scratched in the dirt furiously and thankfully I was able to translate some of it. '--Bed---Now'

Me and Astrid placed him on the bed.

'---Ax--Now'

Astrid lifted her ax for Gothi to take. 

'Hold----down' I held Hiccup's other leg while Astrid pinned his shoulders to the board.  I screwed my eyes shut and held my breath as I heard the scrape thump of the ax cutting through bone and into the wood underneath. I looked up and paled, it was terrible and I am remiss to describe it.

She ripped the ax out of the table and let it fall to the ground with a clang. Thankfully Hiccup was still beyond any kind of movement. I watched her rush over to a cabinet and take out a needle and thread before coming back. What on earth is she going to use that for there is no skin to stretch together.

Of course I was wrong about that because apparently she was still so good with an ax that she left a long track of skin hanging off of the outside of his leg.  

She lifted this in her fingers and stretched it over the terrible wound, I knew not what she did with the rest of Hiccup's leg but I didn't want to find out. She nodded down for me to hold it in place and I did as I was asked, unable to move my eyes for fear that I would throw up if any kind of dizziness was added to this equation. She continued stretching and stitching his skin until finally tying it off and wrapping the whole thing in bandages before slowly undoing my previous tourniquet and stood up wiping her hands.

 'who----done-' She motioned to the pieces of the thing she just removed.

Astrid walked up before reading it and pointing at me.

"Uhhh yeah I did that."  She nodded and began scribbling again.

'where---learn'.

"Uh Books." She nodded slowly in response before getting down an old tome that I had yet to get my paws on. 

"Read---Apprentice---me."

"But I Already Apprentice with Gobber."

'--Both' 

"Do both?" She nodded in response.

"Good enough for me." I snatched up the book and dashed out of the house dragging Astrid behind me. I brought her around the edge of the house and threw up. She was gracious enough to hold my tangled hair out of my face while I discarded my past three meals onto the dirt and grass outside.