thearena | time's coming to an end

Who| Closed to Astrid, Hiccup
What| Astrid and Hiccup discover Ruffnut's mannequin
Where| Berk Store / Department Store
When| Start of Week 3
Warnings/Notes| Mention of Death

It wasn't home, but it was the closet thing to it. They've gotten comfortable in the Berkian themed store since they'd arrived, spending a majority of their time there, keeping a general distance from the rest of the arena. If they left, they left together, unless they traveled with someone else they trusted. But with time, they grew more accustomed to the paths and routines, developing a system in snagging food and supplies, and without much of an attack towards them, it became a bit easier to let someone walk off on their own.

Except Ruffnut hadn't arrived in hours (maybe more than that, Astrid could barely keep track of the days anymore) and it was getting to be a concern. Having kept the current watch, Astrid leans over a sleeping Hiccup to tap him lightly (well trying to tap lightly, Astrid tended not to have much control over he strength).

"Hiccup? Hey, wake up ..."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Mmm wha- ?" mumbled, swatting Astrid's hand gently away. "S'too early for flying."

He'd finally managed to fall asleep properly, without feeling like he was cast adrift on a sea of nightmares and terrible visions. The last thing he wanted right now was to have to wake up, and so far he wasn't really picking up the urgency.

Hiccup had slowly been getting better, his timing of rests elongating every night that went back, so the last thing Astrid really wanted to do was to deprive him of much needed sleep. But the bad feeling in her gut wasn't easing down, not without having seen Ruffnut in what felt like ages. So she chose to treat this as she would back home, feeling guiltless about rousing Hiccup.

"Hiccup, get up." There's a harder smack to his arm, a more familiar method of the Hofferson wake-up call. "I need you awake. Ruff hasn't come back yet."

"Wha? What's goin' on?"

He sat up and started rubbing at his eyes. It took him a moment to actually register what she was saying and then the worry started to slap his brain awake with full force.

"How long ago did she leave?"

It didn't seem that long ago but, hey, he fell asleep so what did he know?

She tried recounting the hours, trying to register in her memory, recalling them all awake when she had left, some time passing before Hiccup had drifted to sleep and Astrid had made sure to keep a close eye on him. With his mind not having been too stable, her protectiveness over him has increased ten fold while here in the arena.

"Maybe close to half a day in a few hours. I might have dozed off with you somewhere there. I lost track of time." Easy to do with chaos after chaos. "We should really go try to find her. It's been way too long."

Hiccup kept rubbing at his eyes.

"Yeah, she should'a been back by now."

He dragged himself to his feet, now starting to look worried. And possibly vaguely guilty. If he was less vulnerable, this wouldn't be as much of a problem. As it was, whenever one of them went out to scavenge, he was such a mess that the other had to stay with him.

She doesn't take long to follow him in standing, though she's quick to bend back over to gather some supplies to take on the way, already set in what they had to do. "Things have been pretty quiet for the past few hours, so I think it should be safe for us to head out. We'll do a lookout around this floor first and then carefully check the others."

She pauses as she stands straight again to give him a worrisome look. "Think you'll be okay to go looking around?"

"World's spinnin' a lot less now. I can handle it," he assured her. "And there's no way I'm letting you go out alone if he she might be in trouble."

He'd hopefully be a lot less of a burden and might actually be able to do something now that he was less dizzy and the hallucinating had almost completely stopped.

He started towards the shop's opening.

"Let's just hope she ran into Thor and got caught up admiring his muscles or something."

Even if she thought she could handle going out there by herself, she definitely didn't want to leave Hiccup in here alone, even if they had done well to avoid attack in their little base so far. "Alright, just stick close to me, okay?"

She keeps the distance between them short as they walk out the shop, immediately taking a careful look at their surroundings. It's still quiet out, without much activity, though she was still sure to walk with caution, keeping her ears open while constantly scanning the environment.

"That's the hope. Knowing her, she probably did just get caught up in something ridiculous."

Their search proved to be pretty fruitless. Frighteningly fruitless. And frustrating, too. It wasn't like they could shout her name since it would call attention to themselves, but that made it all the more difficult to find her.

"Maybe she's hiding somewhere or -"

He froze as he saw the shop window. It was the one that displayed the recent dead. As he stared at one particular mannequin there, he blinked a slow blink, temporarily in shock.

It was too much heaped on at once, finding himself here, dying senselessly without knowing he'd come back, getting tortured for no reason and sitting there unable to stop his girlfriend and friend from suffering, too, just for trying to help him.

And now this.

He slowly dropped to his knees, dragging his nails over his face, trying to hold in a scream.

Too much. Too much.

A chief protects his own. A chief protects his own...

time's coming to an end

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