Inspired by the word 'rain'. An experiment on POV from a technical standpoint. Still on hiatus to sort out my life.

Out Damned Spot

I remember the first time I held a life in my hands, and I remember the first time I felt it slip through my fingertips. It was a Terrible Terror, small for its size, a runt in a large world. Cradled in my palms, I watched it whimper and struggle for breath, its tiny paws reaching up to me as if I could heal its broken body, as if my breath would put the blood back in his veins and the life back into it's failing heart. I had found it after a dragon attack some years ago under a brambly bush, and while I never admitted it to anyone, I held that tiny Terror and watched it die. Not for some sick search for satisfaction, watching the enemy of my people looks so feeble, so lonely, and so scared, but to let it know that it wouldn't die alone.

It didn't change much. I still went into the academy with the full intention of killing the 'big boys', as Gobber put it. I knew the power they had. I wasn't naïve. But I wasn't entirely heartless, and I remembered that Terror's little last breath as it relaxed among my fingers, letting go and giving into something I had yet to experience, every night after training.

I never cried for it. Part of me wished I had, show some heart and give the creature a little wake, no one would notice. But I moved on with my life, only with a notion of death a little larger than before.

And for some reason, I thought of that Terror today. And it couldn't have come at a worse time.

"Just keep moving, Hiccup!" I screamed, shoving his shoulder forward with an outstretched arm. He stumbled forward in the mud, the pair of us panting in the rain, sliding up the muddy hill as our pursuers gained on us. "We're almost there, just keep moving!"

Our dragons were trapped, locked away in the arena by a clutch of Berserkers, separated from us as we desperately scrambled up the hill to get to them. Under a canopy of raindrops hard enough to tear our clothes from our backs, we shielded our eyes from the torrent. I had my axe in my grip and I clutched it with stiff knuckles white as snow. Berkians were clamouring from the forge and the Meade Hall, flocking for weapons to defend the island from the ambush.

Only Dagur would be crazy enough to sail in this weather. And he did, though no one believed he would. I had already prepared an angry monologue for the person who thought putting the dragons in the arena to protect them from the rain, though the only thought I had at the moment was the persistent shrieking of my breath. In and out, in and out, in and out.

Hiccup disappeared around the corner, sprinting the miracle mile to the arena as the Berkians began to overpower the small clutch of Berserkers. We were almost there, our dragons within reach. We could make it, if I just pushed a little harder, and a little faster.

"Pa!"

I snapped my gaze around, sending whips of golden hair forward and around into my face. A Berkian woman was on the ground holding her arm to herself. She was crawling forward on her knees towards her father, a withered old man in nothing but a tunic down to his knees. Well retired beyond his battle days, too senile to hold a sword. Or so we thought, for this elder was holding a sword with his two hands, his wrists so thin I thought they would break under the weight of the iron. And he stared down the Berserker in front of him, protecting his daughter valiantly. The Berserker laughed as I took the two seconds required to assess the situation. And he swung his mace up and over his head.

The sword was torn from the man's grip with a loud clang as the Berserker's mace smashed the blade over. It disappeared among the mud as I ran to their aid, as he fell back onto his rump, terrified and confused.

He looked so small, so broken in his age. So fragile, just like that Terror. How could I stay away?

I gave off a war cry, the sound exploding from my throat. The Berserker whirled to look at me as I reeled my axe arm back. He blocked my attack as the woman rescued her father from the fray. My axe blade hooked over the handle of his mace, and I heaved back on it. My feet slid in the mud, and I lost my balance, just slightly. It was enough for him to lift my axe up to smash his forehead into my face. I staggered back, dazed, as I watched his mace lift into the air. I gasped and threw up a hand, twisting my body to dodge the blow. It rammed into my left pauldron and sent me spinning into the mud. And by the time I moved to get up, pain blew up my side and down my arm like fire.

Dirt coated my teeth as I clenched it through the pain, my legs practically swimming upon the ground before I pulled my knees under my body. My axe, I couldn't find it, my face and my eyes full of murky rainwater. But I could see the figure of the man in front of me, his arms above his head.

The Berkian woman screamed my name, a distant echo. But it was enough.

I rolled out of the way and the mace buried itself into the ground next to my head, shaking my body upon the ground. I rolled back, half-rolling onto the mace to tear it from the soldier's grip with my weight. But his gloves gave him the advantage against the slippery rainwater, and he ripped the mace from the ground and along my side. Metal claws shredded my clothes and my skin, and I flipped over onto my belly with a cry caught in my throat.

It escaped in a grunt when the man drove the toe of his boot into my belly. The force lifted me from the ground slightly before slamming me back down.

I remembered the way the Terror wheezed in my hands as I struggled for air, my heart screaming at me to breathe and my mind begging me to run.

And I remembered the two knives Hiccup had made for me, the handles brushing my fingers as I held myself. I gasped in a breath as my fingers curled around it, pulling it from my belt. The soldier sauntered up to me, looking down at me with a shit-eating grin on his mouth, the water dripping from his chin onto my face. So I drove my knife into the bastard's foot and revelled in his howls. He dropped the mace as he dragged my body with his. He flailed about before he fell, and I grabbed the other knife with my good hand, though my mangled arm proved next to useless at this point. At least it held the knife in his foot.

I drove the second into his calf and held on as hard as I could, shrieking as the rain pelted me, deafened me. I felt the blade slide down the lines of his muscles as he tried to kick me off.

I was lucky to avoid the first kick.

I was foolish to believe he would miss a second time.

I heard the blow before I felt it. One moment I was staring at the soldier's teeth glistening in the lightning light. The next, I was on my back, my head lolling.

Turns out, a kick to the jaw isn't something I can shake off.

I coughed and felt water thicker than rain coat my tongue. Then, the taste of iron. And the pain, the excruciating pain in the hinge of my jaw, the joint of my shoulder, but gut, my lungs, my heart. Get up, I told myself. Get up, get up! Get up, Astrid!

I let my head fall to the side so I wouldn't drown, spitting the blood out of my mouth. The soldier crawled over to me, looming over me, a dark silhouette against a darker sky. Rain dripped from his hair and his helmet over my face, and I barely gave him a look of defiance before his hands were on me.

Fat fingers dug into the flesh around my throat. I opened my mouth to breathe but could only gnash my teeth as the Berserker straddled me, squeezed me, hatred flashing through his black eyes.

…I remembered holding a life in my own hands. But I never imagined what it could feel like with my life in the the clutches of another. And I knew, with ever fibre of my soul, my spirit – my entire being – that it was not the last thing I wanted to feel.

I couldn't think about it. I drove my hand up, the point of my blade seeking any sort of entry, and I found one under his arm. I buried it as deep as I could, my mind separated from my body. The man released my neck to grab my hand, his shriek followed by a gasp as his lung lost its air. He buckled over and inadvertently brought his body into the range of my other hand. I didn't waste any time, and I drove the other blade into the crux of his neck and shoulder.

Even I had underestimated my strength. The man lifted his body up to retreat from my daggers, and I let him pull me up along with him. My forearms and wrists refused any other option. I just stared at him, gulping in breaths.

It was like I had left my own body in that moment, and I could see myself, blood pouring over my face, my eyes wide and wild, my teeth clenched, animalistic growls seeping through them as our noses almost touched.

I screamed as warmth spilled over me, and I felt the blades scrape against masses – hard, soft, something in between. But something had to give, and Hiccup had sharpened these blades better than the Berserker had bulked his muscles. The blades slid jaggedly down the man's body as I wrenched my weight back. The moment my back hit the ground once more, I watched a crimson ribbon burst from his back, splashing into the fat raindrops overhead.

The man's face almost touching mine, his eyes went vacant, pain relaxing from his face. The soul drifted from his eyes, and I watched it go. He held himself up for a second or two before his elbow buckled, and his weight fell onto me like a shroud made of boulders, a fleshy mass devoid of life. A hunk of meat. And his final breath rattled from his paling lips, blood dribbling out of him mouth onto my cheek, the smell of his final meal rotting on his tongue.

I couldn't catch my breath until I rolled him off me. And I sat up as fast as I could, desperation intruding my chest before I could comprehend it. I went to look at the man, but I was looking at myself. Crimson streams coated my arms, scarlet pools over my chest, red tinging the edges of my vision. It was everywhere. And for some reason, I couldn't look away. My palms opened to the sky, my breaths shaking and tears welling in my eyes. One of the knives fell from my hand into the mud heavily, burying itself into the earth.

Something was wrong. Something was wrong with me. What in the name of Odin was going on? I… I couldn't breathe, my chest tightening like a vice around my heart. I felt the pain of my injuries from the back of my consciousness and I didn't care. But the blood, the stains, all over my skin, under my nails, in my hair, and I couldn't get it off me.

I wiped my hands over each other, trying to smear the red from my skin. I ran a palm roughly down my injured arm, gritted my teeth against the pain. But it held fast like a reoccurring nightmare. And I couldn't tell whose blood was whose, and I couldn't tell if I was breathing, and I couldn't tell if anyone was coming for me, or if anyone was looking at me, or if the rain was letting up.

"No, no no no," I whimpered, scrubbing my hands. But no matter what I did, nothing would work. And soon, I wasn't sure if my scrubbing was taking away the Berserker's blood, or spilling my own.

I knew when I felt the Terror die, it wouldn't be the last time I would feel death.

I just never accounted for what it would feel like if it was a person instead.

Hands grabbed my arms, a familiar shape kneeling in front of me. He was calling my name, shaking me, as I continued my feeble task of washing myself. Toothless crawled behind me as his rider dropped to his knees in front of me.

"Astrid, are you okay?!" I heard Hiccup say. His gentle hand touched my broken face.

I didn't realize that I had screamed at his touch before his hand tore from my face. I flailed back and skittered away in the mud, the rain freezing me to the bone. And between us, I had thrust the knife. The blade suspended between us, red and threatening, as Hiccup crouched in front of me. Toothless growled slightly. Hiccup held up his hands and crawled to me in the mud slowly, not paying a single note of attention to the body behind him, nor to the dragon behind me.

"It's me," he said. "You're alright, do you understand? He can't hurt you anymore."

I sucked in a breath, the knife still up.

"I'm gonna take this from you," Hiccup continued cautiously. He gingerly grabbed my wrist, so careful, so gentle.

The knife fell from my hand before he could grab it, and I started to cry. Fat sobs, ugly tears, my face contorted violently in the rain, my breaths shooting in and out of me like a stabbing knife. Hiccup pulled me to him and held the back of my head, rocking me in the mud, back and forth, back and forth.

"You're okay, you're okay," he repeated, his own voice catching.

How could I be okay? No one, no one, had ever seen me like this. And here I was, convulsing upon the wet ground like a newborn babe, primal. Toothless surrounded us and unfurled one of his wings to protect us from the rain. But rain was what I wanted.

"I-I-I-I-I- no!" I whimpered, shrill shrieking breaths whistling past my red teeth. "I-I can't get it – it off m-me!" I screamed, barely above a whisper, muffled by his shoulder.

In the back of my mind, in the place where I could feel my injuries, I was telling myself over and over that I was okay, that I was safe, that the man wouldn't hurt me, that I was trained to do this and that at the end of the day, it was just blood. I could get over it, I was strong enough. It was just a bad day.

But I couldn't get those words from the back of my mind to the forefront, and I couldn't believe it as a result.

"I've got you, I'm here," Hiccup said firmly.

How can you be so calm?! I wanted to scream. What's wrong with me, why can't I breathe, why is the world spinning, why?!

I was on my feet before I realized I was moving, and Hiccup's shoulders were beneath my good arm. Toothless followed us closely. Hiccup's strong arm was wrapped around my waist, his cheek pressed against mine as he dragged me towards a nearby house.

I tried to stop crying when I made it to my feet. I tried.

The rain gushed from the slanted roof of the house in a makeshift waterfall, and Hiccup pulled the pair of us beneath it. The cold and the force of the water, thicker than the rain somehow, sent my shoulders spasming from frigid tension. It sprayed over my shoulder blades, poured down my neck, doused my hair. I shrieked for a single second as the water smashed into me.

Hiccup ran his hands over me and cast the blood from my body, the cold not affecting him as he forced the red into the dirt at our feet.

"You're going to be okay," he said. "It's alright."

My head hung and shaking, he wiped his hand clean on his pants and cupped some water within it, bringing it up to my mouth. I managed to rinse it out, but the pain in my jaw proved too much to bear.

At least my injuries were becoming an immediate concern rather than a disconnected afterthought.

"It's all gone," Hiccup said, making my eyes connect with him. "I'm taking you to Gothi, okay?"

"O-o-okay," I sobbed, sucking in a breath to compose myself.

They had bandaged me up over the course of a few hours. A splint for my arm, a couple adjustments to my nose and jaw, some massaging to my belly, and enough tea to last me a long lifetime. I had fallen into a lucidity that startled most of the matrons. I was too quiet, too stone-faced. Too cold.

"They want to keep you here," Hiccup whispered to me as I held a blanket around myself.

"Why?" I asked, a little too casually.

He pursed his lips and gave me a look. "…You remember what happened, right?"

I went for the lie, to say I blacked out and woke up with the job done and behind me, no feeling remaining. But the lie wedged itself in my throat. I cleared my throat and looked away , my eyes burning. But I couldn't stay there. I needed to be somewhere familiar. Not cooped up in Gothi's house.

Hiccup sighed through his nose. "…Okay. I'll talk to them."

How he managed to convince the healers I was alright to go home was beyond me. But as a condition, he assured them I'd be at his house that night, so that's where I went. I was as familiar with his bed as I was with mine, so crawling into his blankets was just as welcoming.

He laid there with me, holding me from behind, the fire roaring to keep the cold away. And I didn't say anything, my mind on other things.

That Terror. That wee Terror that refused to give up until his final hours. Compared to the Berserker, his death, though dragged out, was calmer. Peaceful. Natural. But I had torn a soul from a body. Violently.

When someone knocked on the door, I jumped so suddenly that Toothless stood on guard, his teeth bared to the staircase. But Hiccup got up and ran down the flight to quickly see the matter.

I had a feeling to follow him, so I pushed the blankets back to do so. I creaked down the stairs slowly, stiffly, as I heard Hiccup's voice indistinctly conversing with another. I didn't mean to be seen. I only wanted to see who it was.

The woman looked past Hiccup to me, her words trailing off slowly at the sight of me. I recognized her as the woman from earlier, the Berkian protecting her father. Hiccup looked over his shoulder to me, and when he twisted his body, the woman let herself in before he could voice his consent.

I descended the steps as she approached, her mouth open but devoid of words. And she took me in her arms, squeezing me in an embrace as she sucked in a breath.

She didn't have to say anything. I knew she was thanking me. And I lifted my good arm to pull her into me.

Sometimes, words were too much. Sometimes, the sound of a person's breath was enough. The man's last breath would haunt me, and the Terror's last breath would stay with me. But this woman's jagged breaths, rapid in succession, were so full of future and promise that I couldn't help but latch onto it. These would be the sounds I would try to remember the most. This was the moment that I would choose to keep with me. Not a dying dragon, and not a dying man. But a woman that would have lost her father, had I not taken that extra step.

…I remembered the first time I held a life in my hands, and I remembered the first time I felt it slip through my fingertips. But none of that mattered when I felt the life in my hands at that moment. Because this? This is worth remembering. This is worth fighting for.