lavender: sender lays their head in receiver's lap and closes their eyes. @everdawn
the great hall fell into a hollow quiet, the kind which arrives after the unthinkable has happened. not the comfortable silence of a village at peace, nor the jovial hush following bursts of laughter— it surrounds, thin and brittle, in the wake of grief. torches burn low, flames wavering as though uncertain they had the right to exist. hiccup sits hunched at a long wooden table, shoulders bowed, mind racing, contemplating, as per usual. maps sprawl before him in careful chaos: berks entire landscape, jagged sketches of drifting ice, annotations scratched in margins where ideas were born, then discarded in the same breath. small markers dotted the drawings, each representing a feeding station planned for displaced dragons, unsettled after drago's assault shattered their home in fragments of cold. unsure fingers hover over one such marker, nudging it a fraction to the left, and back again, as if precision will somehow fix what's broken.
he exhales slowly, in the full knowledge of relentlessness. on himself most of all; but astrid, the others… they followed without question. that loyalty both steadied and weighed on him in equal measure. there wasn't time to stop, to breathe, to be. not since— his throat tightens, he pushes the notion away, unable to let it root. beside him, astrid sits in revered companionship, busy in her own plans and work, presence a constant warmth. she hasn't said anything for a while now, and he hasn't needed her to. that's the thing about her: she knows when to challenge him, and when to simply stay. through the dragged mornings and longer nights, she remained steady. unyielding. his defender, his—
a shift breaks his thoughts. before he can glance up, she's moving, fluid despite her fatigue. without ceremony, she leans sideways and places her head in his lap. for a heartbeat, he merely stares at her, caught somewhere between surprise and something far softer. a laugh escapes him, quiet yet genuine, the sound rather foreign after countless days of restraint. "whoa," he murmurs, affection threading inside his tone, "tired, are we?" carefully, like she's precious and breakable simultaneously, he presses a gentle kiss to her temple. his lips linger for a moment, an acknowledgment of everything she's been when he didn't know how to stand. when he retreats, his fingers absentmindedly begin to trace light, playful scratches along her hairline— fingertips brushing through golden strands, soothing in a way that surprised even him. "you know," he adds, a hint of teasing rising above the familiarity, "if you wanted my attention, you could've just said so."
as he watches her settle against him, the quip fades imperceptibly. he finds himself staring at the curve of her cheek, the slow rise and fall of her chest. playfulness, which came so easily, drains, replaced by tender insistence. "i'll finish up here, astrid," he whispers, resigned. they're both exhausted. the thought of her, so close, trustingly leaning on him… his heart aches, a pressure he can't mend. his anchor in a life of sea and storms that tried to pull him under. was he that for her, too? he's not sure, ever so warped by his own distress as of late. movements pause in her hair as his voice lowers, tinged with a roughened edge of sincerity, "hey." he taps her head lightly, "you should go home, get some rest."
