The sky was pure, the sun was warm and the wind was a gentle breeze. Hiccup and Toothless were having a whale of a time!

On this morning's ride, they had had perfected their dragon diving technique. They could now do it with great ease, cutting through the clouds and then joining together again in perfect unison.

Now, they were on their way back to Berk. Toothless was going at a steady, lazy rate and Hiccup wasn't complaining. He was too busy thinking about the reaction Astrid would have when she saw his birthday gift that he had spent all night making for her.

It was a beautiful new helmet, encrusted with Nadder and Terrible Terror scales, and precious stones that he had picked out himself from rocks. The band around the bottom of the helmet was made of highly polished steel, and Hiccup had drawn intricate lines and pictures all around it. Their friendship and all their adventures together were depicted in the metal.

It showed them together on their dragons, defeating the Green Death. Their first flight together on Toothless. Their first kiss, when Astrid saw him for the first time after the battle.

This was the part that had taken Hiccup hours. He had messed up several times, but it wasn't that noticeable and he was hoping that Astrid wouldn't mind.

He imagined the look on her face when she saw it, and then his mind was fully occupied with the thought of the kiss that would surely follow…

This was the moment when Toothless chose to tell his pet human that didn't feel he was receiving enough attention, and hit him with one of his earflaps.

"Ouch! Sorry bud…" Hiccup was quickly brought out of his reverie. He was alert for a few more seconds, but then his mind rapidly turned to worrying about her taste in helmets…

"Do you think she'll like it, though? I'm not sure… I mean, she might have a really big attachment to the one she has now, or she might notice the mistakes in the pictures."

Toothless rolled his eyes.

"Or she might not like the colour of the stones, or she might think the horns are too long. Or it might be too big. Or-"

Fed up with his pet's worrying, Toothless decided to reassure his human by snorting loudly, and blowing a big fire cloud in front of them. That stopped Hiccup worrying about Astrid, anyway…