Soul of the Sky (HTTYD Runaway Fic)

Memories

Astrid
It's funny how battle takes you into the past.
All around us is detonations and dragonfire, attackers on the horizon, the desperate hope that reinforcements will come soon. Fighting a losing battle against ships we can't beat, knowing that the only dragons who can destroy them are imprisoned on them. The crackle and hiss of burning wood lights the smoke-shrouded night as if we'd stepped into the fires of Muspelheim. But instead of focusing on what's in front of me, my mind is taken back to the fire and fury of years ago.
When war raged on Berk against the same creatures now defending the Edge.

"Dragons!"
Glowing blue mist shrouds my vision. I watch my uncle charge at the Flightmare, axe gripped tightly in his hands. Watch as he freezes in seeming terror, watch as the dragon kills him. Watch my younger self angrily push Hiccup to the ground and yell at him in a sudden outburst of emotion, the stricken look in his eyes as he stares at the retreating back of his former friend. That day was the day everything changed. All of the respect for Clan Hofferson went out the window when 'Fearless' Finn Hofferson died of fear. Ever since then, I've trained and trained to be the best, to prove that I can transcend the bad name of my family. As that six-year-old girl, flames raging around me, the call of "Dragons!" seems like a curse. The curse destroying my people, my friendships, my home, my happiness.

That same call resounds in my ears nine years later. Not yet old enough to fight dragons, we put out fires instead. It's monotonous work, a constant rhythm of filling buckets and tossing water on fires. All of us dream of the day when we too will achieve glory by battling the dreaded creatures. My own flow is interrupted when fifteen-year-old me's tired eyes meet the starry green ones of Hiccup Haddock. He's staring longingly out the window as if he'd like nothing better than to be out there with us, the cute little scar below his lip very distracting.

It's not in my nature to be shy about feelings, but this particular Viking makes being obvious out of the question. And the way I get distracted by his face is annoying.

Another explosion resounds behind me, and that reverberation melds with the sound of blasts as younger me scrambles through thick forest. I have only one goal: get to Hiccup before the attacking dragon kills him. Maybe I resented his sudden success, but I still cared. I wish I'd shown it then.
I observe as she stumbles down a slope into a war zone, blood and dragon scales everywhere. Time frozen for a moment, I watch my younger self turn and leave. See the tears in her eyes and feel the agony in her heart. Too late.

The call comes again, this time to a young warrior training a catapult on the attackers in the sky. Her grief has turned to anger and determination. Dragon after dragon falls at her hands, and she smiles grimly with every one. Then a fireball blows the launcher to bits, sending her crashing against the cliff. She grips her axe determinedly. As the destroyer looms over her, she lunges forward. The weapon cleaves through scale and bone.
She stands, shell-shocked, over the body of a dead Monstrous Nightmare, feeling none of the glory expected from her first kill. My first kill.

And in the six years separating her from me, the call is conspicuously absent.