Have you ever had the feeling that your life is never going to be the same?

I've had it, and let me tell you, it took some getting used to.

After chasing both Eret and Hiccup out of my room with her cane, my elderly (but incredibly talented) doctor brought in my parents and sat them down beside me.

I glanced over at them, a burning anger rising in my chest as I was reminded of our fight not too long ago. But nonetheless, I was happy that they were here with me now.

Dr. Gothi pulled out a sleek, white laptop from her brown, leather satchel. She typed on it for what seemed like a brief second before turning it towards us, revealing some x-rays of what I assumed to be my skeleton.

At around the same time, a young nurse came in, a sweet smile spread across her face.
"Hello, my name's Atali, and I'm Dr. Gothi's translator"

My parents shot her a quick smile, before impatiently gesturing towards the screen.

"Oh yes, of course!" She scrambled. "So what you see here is the young Ms. Hofferson's spine"

Dr. Gothi nodded approvingly before zooming in on the neck. "Here you can see that you have a minor case of whiplash, which means that there is no need for you to use a neckbrace, but you may experience some pain in your neck whenever you move it in the next weeks"

I could feel my parents' worried eyes upon me, but I did not want to look at them right now, I couldn't look at them right now.

The doctor scrolled further down on the x-ray and zoomed in on an arm. "If you look here, you will find that your left arm is broken, something you might've gathered"

I glanced down at my left arm, which had been tightly cocooned in a cast.

Dr. Gothi took a deep breath before scrolling further down the screen and sharing a look with the nurse, Atali.

The nurse furrowed her brows as she cleared her throat, a look of sadness washing over her face. "This is where we reach the biggest problem"

Dr. Gothi zoomed in on the bottom of my spine, which was not looking very good. "As you can see here, the lower back has been severely injured, which has made us fear the worst"

"Which is...?" My mother asked, her voice audibly trembling, seeing as she probably knew the answer to that question.

"There is a possibility that Ms. Hofferson may never walk again"

Everything went silent. I glanced over at my parents, tears were welling in the corners of their eyes as their mouths moved, but not a sound escaped them.

I glanced up at the roof. This couldn't be happening.

May never walk again. Those four words had hit me like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky.

The usage of my legs was the only thing in this world that kept me going.

Running on a treadmill, hiking in the mountains, dancing in the rain, walking through a park at midnight and pretty much everything else that made my life worth living.

As I sat there, drowning in my own thoughts of self pity, nurse Atali kept on informing my parents about everything else that was wrong with me, before handing them a couple of brochures on how to deal with handicapped household members.

Suddenly, I felt a pair of fingers wrap around the back of my hand, which snapped me back to reality. I glanced down and found that it was my mother who had done this.

I shot her a weak smile before turning my attention back to nurse Atali.

"We wish you all the best of luck, and we will of course do everything in our power to make sure Ms. Hofferson makes a good recovery"

***

5 months. It had been 5 months since I had gotten those horrid news.

By the time the end of the school year rolled by, I had pretty much fully recovered. My bruises were long gone, my broken bones were healed and the scar on my forehead was just a half inch thick, white line on my hairline.

But of course, there was still one major problem.

I spun around in circles in my wheelchair. Spinning around was the only thing I found enjoyable about the hellish thing I was stuck in, Gods, how I hated it.

How I hated having to be wheeled around everywhere.

How I hated how dirty my hands got if I tried to do anything myself.

How I hated being treated like a porcelain doll by the people around me.

Gods in Asgard, how I prayed that the physical therapy would help me heal.

I had only recently begun my physical therapy. Every other day from 4 pm to 6 pm, I met up with my physical therapist. She helped me do some exercises, to help strengthen the lower half of my body, before forcing me home to rest so that I wouldn't overdo the exercise and cause myself harm.

My absence from school wasn't as long as some would expect, after two months with a boring tutor at the hospital, I was finally allowed to go back to my school.

Upon my return, everything had changed. I was in a wheelchair, so everyone looked down on me. I was no longer the strong, confident Astrid Hofferson they all knew, no, I was that one girl in the wheelchair, the kid that had to be wheeled around by a teacher so that I would get to class on time.

Eret leaving didn't do me any good either. With no boyfriend to turn to, I went to my friends, but it didn't take long for me to realize that they were terrified of causing me harm or breaking me, like I was some porcelain doll.

Luckily for me, there was one person that didn't treat me any differently than they had before the crash. Hiccup took me out to do things, he laughed with me, he drove me wherever I needed to go, but most importantly, he didn't treat me like I was made of glass.

"You ready to go?" Hiccup asked me as I heard him making his way up the stairs.

"Yeah, I think so" I told him as I wheeled myself out of my bedroom.

A sweet smile spread across his face as he picked me up, brought me downstairs and placed me on the couch before going after my wheelchair.

As he went back up after my wheelchair, I couldn't help but smile, like I always did.

You may wonder, why did I stay in my room upstairs, isn't that just very complicated for everyone around you? Well, yes, but the thing is that all the rooms in our house are upstairs, and seeing as I refuse to sleep in the living room for an unknown amount of time and my father refuses to spend a lot of money building an extra room downstairs, we came to the compromise that I would be carried up and down the stairs. Not very practical for my dad, but luckily for him, Hiccup was around.

My parents and I were all eternally grateful for Hiccup's help, something we had told him numerous times, and yet he remained humble as ever, repeating over and over again that "it is just the right thing to do".

Regardless, if I ever were to walk again, I would find a way to pay him back, no matter what he thought of it.

I kept my gaze locked on Hiccup as he carried my wheelchair down the stairs like it was a feather, which for him, it probably was. As I mentioned earlier, Hiccup had carried me up and down those stairs countless times, so it would definitely be strange if he hadn't gained some sort of muscle or strength from it.

Hiccup went out the front door, stashed the wheelchair in the back of his car and then came back inside to carry me out.

The drive itself wasn't more than thirty minutes long in total and in that short amount of time we had managed to pick up Toothless and driven far away from the city and deep into the forest.

Hiccup parked his car in a small, empty parking lot that sat off side of the road towards the tree line, right in the middle of nowhere.

"Where are we?" I asked him as I glanced out the window, trying to find something I recognized.

A grin spread across his face as he unfastened our seatbelts and got out of the car. "Somewhere very special to me"

Hiccup got my wheelchair out of the trunk, right before letting Toothless out of the backseat where he had been napping during the whole drive. As soon as the black Labrador was out of the car, he seemed energetic as ever. By the time Hiccup had made it over to my side to help me into my wheelchair, Toothless was already sniffing the trees 70 ft away.

"Thank you" I smiled at Hiccup as he gently lowered me into the wheelchair, only to begin pushing me towards a small dirt path that went up in between the trees. "Are you sure that I won't get stuck in the dirt?"

"Yes" He chuckled, as if there was nothing in the world that could ruin this day for him. "And if you do, which is highley unlikely, I will carry you the rest of the way"

I smiled a little to myself. For some reason I found it very charming when he said things like that. Yes, they were very cheesy, but for some reason, it felt so right when he said them to me.

Our little 'hike' took about forty-five minutes. There was no way in Hel that Hiccup hadn't grown tired of pushing me yet, but still, he kept on going and going until he pushed me onto the top of a hill, where we found Toothless, wagging his tail excitedly as he patiently waited for us to make our way up there.

As we reached the top, I was taken aback by the sight before me.

Before us was a large and wide cliff which stretched around us like a circle. From where we had stopped, you could see everything the nature around us had to offer: miles and miles of large green trees separated in the middle by a slender river, surrounded by small mountains flecked with white and long waterfalls running down the sides.

"Wow this is... gorgeous" I said in awe, my mouth probably hanging open.

Hiccup chuckled before setting the brakes on my wheelchair. He lifted me out of it before leaning me against a tree, where I could see everything even better than I could from my wheelchair.

Hiccup sat down beside me, and together we watched Toothless running around, chasing his own tail, before focusing on a particularly large pinecone he found. "So... how did you find this place?"

I watched him as he gazed longingly towards the horizon, a serious look washing over his face. "I wasn't the one to find this place, I was just the one to name it. You see, when my mother met my father she brought him here. They would sit here for hours upon hours and just talk. Even after her disappearance my dad brought me here at least once a month, until he couldn't bear to come back here anymore"

"I'm sorry about your mother" I said as I placed my hand over his, giving it a soft squeeze.

He glanced down at our hands before meeting my eyes once again. "There's no need to be sorry, I didn't know her well anyway, she disappeared when I was a baby"

"Still" I shot him a quick smile before setting my eyes back on the horizon, hand still on his.

We sat there in silence for a little while, taking in the calming sounds of nature around us. I closed my eyes as I felt the evening rays of the sun warm my face.

"Itchy Armpit" Hiccup blurted out, right out of nowhere.

"What?" My eyes shot open, confusion soaking my question.

"Itchy Armpit. That's what I call this place. I'm not really sure if mom or dad would agree with that, but ever since Toothless licked his armpit here, I just can't forget it" Hiccup said, eyes still on the horizon.

I furrowed my brows. "That's a little strange"

Hiccup chuckled. "I know"

A growl could be heard from behind us. We turned around and were met by the sight of Toothless growling at a bush.

"What is it, Bud?" Hiccup asked the dog.

Toothless exchanged a few quick looks between Hiccup and the bush, making sure to narrow his eyes whenever he reached the bush. Toothless managed to tear himself away from the bush, only to come running to where we were sitting, barking madly at us.

Hiccup and I exchanged confused looks as Toothless ran out of patience and sank his teeth into Hiccup's left leg, attempting to drag his owner away.

It didn't take Toothless very long to realize that Hiccup was no longer connected to his leg.

I watched in horror at the leg Toothless held in his mouth. Just as I was about to scream, (which would've probably sent me flying off the edge of the cliff) Hiccup grabbed me by the arms in an attempt to calm me down.

"Calm down, it's just my prosthetic" Hiccup reassured me, something which I did not find reassuring at all.

"Yes, of course, the infamous Hiccup-Haddock-prosthetic-leg, the one you talk about constantly!" I replied sarcastically as I tried processing this new information.

"Sorry about that" He scratched the back of his head in typical Hiccup fashion. "I just hoped I'd never have to tell you about it"

I took a deep breath, and cleared my head. "You didn't want me to know?"

He shrugged. "Not really, I guess I was just scared you'd think I was some freak if I told you"

I placed both my hands ahead of me and scooted over to where Hiccup sat. "Come on, Hiccup, I wouldn't think of you as a freak! And let's be real, why the hell would I care if you had one less leg than I do?"

He thought about what I had said for a second before turning his gaze onto his leg.

"If you don't mind me asking...what happened?" As I was finishing my sentence, Toothless came trotting over with Hiccup's leg, placing it neatly in Hiccup's lap before sitting down beside his owner, officially given up on trying to tell us the secrets of the bush.

"Do you remember that time in the park?" Hiccup asked me. I answered with a nod. "Rescuing Toothless wasn't without its downsides. One of the wolves he fought managed to bite me. The wound got infected, and eventually it got so bad I had to amputate my leg"

I wrapped my arms around him comfortingly and leaned my head on his shoulder.

A soft chuckle escaped Hiccup. "The doctors asked me if I had a preference in legs, I told them to 'make it as realistic as possible', then they handed me this"

He spun the plastic leg around like a rotisserie chicken, making sure that I got to see each and every bit of it.

I shot him a mischievous smile. "So... you got any more missing limbs you'd like to tell me about?"