Battle Scars • httyd [1]

Four - The Lost

The heavy droplets of rain run down Edge's face as she sits on the steps in front of her home. Her hair is flattened on her head, the strands leading the water to trickle into her shirt.

With her knees pressed to her chest and her face slack, she traces small patterns into the soggy dirt with a stick.

"Hi."

"Hi." Edge answers quietly as Hiccup sits down beside her, carefully stepping over the drawings in the ground. With their shoulders and legs pressed closely together, Hiccup blows air through his nose lightly, observing the stick as his best friend moves it elegantly.

The sky is gloomy from the rain clouds, slowly darkening as the evening progresses as it always does.

Edge mutters something incoherent, as her voice fails her and causes her to whisper soundlessly. Hiccup turns to her with a sad frown.

"I didn't.." He doesn't finish, Edge looks at him with watery eyes, concerning Hiccup, who's never seen her shaken up so badly.

"I thought you would come earlier. You scared me. I was so scared, Hiccup." She rasps at him, her exhaustion catching up to her after endless hours of sitting on the step to the front door.

Shame creeps up on Hiccup as he realises that he spent a lot of the day in the woods. With that dragon. He hates to admit it to himself, but after his second encounter with the beast he'd gone straight home, Edge barely crossing his mind.

"I'm sorry." He whispers back, close to tears himself. He stares hopelessly at his younger friend, feeling sick to his stomach at his own carelessness. The rain seems to fall a bit heavier with his words, the usually miserable weather on Berk multiplying ten-fold.

The twig in Edge's hand snaps, the very tip stuck in the wet ground. As if a lever being pulled, the sobs wrack through her tiny body once again, Hiccup embracing her tightly, squeezing her close to his heart.

"I'm so sorry." He whispers. Sometimes he forgets she's just a child. The child of a viking tribe, but nonetheless still merely a kid. He feels his hands bunch the material of her shirt as they close into fists.

"Where were you, Hiccup?" Edge mumbles into his body. He sighs at her questioning, knowing very well that he can't tell her until he's positive he won't get eaten by the dragon trapped in the cove.

"In the woods." He chooses to answer vaguely. A silence follows, in which Hiccup releases his fingers' hold on Edge's shirt. As he lifts his head to look at the surroundings, he gently glides his hands over her shoulders and back.

"You're not telling me the truth." Edge counters after a short while, making her best friend sigh. He pulls her away from the warmth of his body, having her look at him.

He opens his mouth a few times, but can't seem to find his words, much to Edge's confusion. The two never had troubles where they couldn't talk with one another, so what had happened to Hiccup that leaves him speechless?

"I will tell you everything when I know for sure." It is a lame answer, but Edge seems to understand. She searches his eyes with her own, before nodding, suddenly looking much older. Hiccup wonders if it's just the dimmed daylight through the rain, or if stress and sadness can have such an effect on young Edge.

"Dinner?" Hiccups asks. She shakes her head.

"I'm not hungry. Can I sleep by your fireplace?"

"Anytime." Hiccup answers with a tiny smile on his lips.

The two friends move towards Hiccup's home, both drenched in rainwater. It feels almost like routine that Edge sleeps at Hiccup's. Every time the Hooligans leave in search of the dragons' nest, Edge crashes by the fireplace.