I hunched low over Hiccup's back while looking at the mammoth thing in front of us, I could feel my body shaking from the fear, and could barely hear anything over the pounding of my heart in my ears.

"Come on Buddy, time to go." Hiccup whispered to Toothless.

I wrapped my arms tighter around Hiccup's middle preparing for the surge of movement but, Toothless didn't move. He simply hunkered down even lower than he was and gave a bit of a twitch with one ear. I hadn't been around him much, but Toothless' message was a clear "Be Quiet!" As he shuffled a bit further back on the ledge and behind the pillar of rock that was forming our hiding place.

Thoughts raced through my mind. This was just like a bee hive, and this was the queen. What keeps the dragons coming back? They are obviously scared silly of the thing why not just leave? Could they leave?

All pondering came to a halt when the huge head surged up and then to the side to crash into the ledge just above our hiding spot. A shower of rocks came down, thankfully none of them where too large, but I had a burning sensation across the side of my face where one had glanced off.

Suddenly Toothless burst into action. Firing several of his lightening like fire bolts directly at the Queens face, just as he launched off the ledge. We were flung into the air like a stone from a catapult, I fought to keep my head from snapping back and stayed as low as I could so that Hiccup's head wouldn't hit me in the face. The Queen roared, in anger or pain or maybe both, and all the smaller dragons suddenly took off in a huge swarm. A few of them also sending off blasts of fire at the Queens face as she shook and sunk her head back down in to the mists.

"Go! Go!" Hiccup shouted at Toothless and all the other dragons around us. It was like being in a flock of birds. They were all desperately trying to escape through the small opening at the top of the volcano, which got even more frantic as a huge gust of wind started hitting us in the face. We were being pulled back in! I looked back to see the Queen inhaling and gas building in her throat.

"Hiccup!" I shouted and nearly head butted him as I turned forward again.

"I see it!" He yelled back. "Toothless! We don't stand a chance if we can't get clear!" Hiccup yelled at Toothless in desperation.

Toothless surged forward. I could feel his muscles under my legs shaking with the effort he was pouring into trying to get us out. We cleared the mouth about 10 heartbeats ahead of the flames, the heat buffeted my back and sent Toothless spinning for a few heartbeats before he straightened back out again.

"I feel really dizzy" I almost whispered over Hiccups shoulder, he looked back at me, his face incredibly pale even in the moonlight.

"It doesn't seem to be following us." Hiccup said "Let's hope it stays that way."

Toothless groaned. His muscles were jumping so hard under my legs it was almost seizure like.

"A little further bud." Hiccup soothed "We just need to make sure it's not following us, Okay?"

Toothless burbled a bit and nodded his head, even I could hear the exhaustion in his voice.

How did this dragon seem to understand everything Hiccup said? And more Hiccup understood the dragon, granted the dragon was pretty expressive as animals went. It made me wonder how many of the others were like this, or was it just the Night Fury that seemed gifted with this level of intelligence? It made me rather anxious to get back to Berk and take a closer look at the dragons in the training ring, as I had not missed the Nadder laughing at Snotlout anything that thought he was a joke couldn't be too bad, I laughed a bit to myself.

"Okay Toothless, let's find a good spot. I don't see anything following." Hiccup's voice broke me out of own thoughts, and brought me back to the moment. We were landing on a small island that looked to be near the edge of Helheim's Gate, we weren't in the fog, but I could see it.

Toothless practically flopped onto the piece of land with an exhausted sounding "ooff".

Hiccup fussed over Toothless for a few minutes after we dismounted, until the dragon made it fairly clear that he just wanted to sleep.

I laughed a bit at Hiccup, as his dragon smacked at him with his tail to discourage his worrying. Toothless curled up like a house cat and was quickly asleep. After a couple minutes of awkwardness, we sat down next to each other and rested our backs against Toothless' side.

"So" I started "You really did hit a Night Fury that night?"

Hiccup ducked his head and and looked rather ashamed of himself. "Yes, yes I did."