Disclaimer: I don't own How To Train Your Dragon, and knowing my luck, I probably never will. All rights go to the author of the books, Cressida Cowell and the company that made the much-loved films and series, Dreamworks. This fanfiction is set in the Dragons: Riders of Berk series.
A/N: Just to clear things up to do with the story you're about to read, bold speech is when the dragons are talking, italics are for when the humans are thinking, and bold italics are when the dragons are thinking. The
UNDERLINED WORDS IN ALL CAPS THAT ARE ALIGNED IN THE CENTRE
are for what Toothless will later show them. (I'm hoping I haven't spoiled my own fanfic here.) Anyways, I hope you enjoy this, folks! Please R&R!
It was a normal day over at Berk's dragon training academy. Fishlegs was reading and re-reading the Book of Dragons for mistakes, Snotlout was trying (too hard) to look tough in front of Astrid, who was ignoring him, and the twins were fighting. Hiccup was . . . nowhere to be found, something that Astrid was quick to point out. This wasn't like the Hiccup she knew.
"Where's Hiccup and Toothless?" Astrid asked, squinting a little as she searched the Berk skies for a Night Fury. "Shouldn't they be here by now?"
"It's probably nothing serious," Fishlegs dismissed, but in reality he'd already begun panicking when Astrid asked where Hiccup and Toothless were. Just then, an oh-so-familiar Night Fury made his entrance, along with Hiccup, who was holding some charcoal, a piece of paper and wearing a helmet. He also had another helmet under his arm.
"Why are you wearing a helmet?" everyone asked, out of curiosity. Hiccup had never been known for wearing a helmet. In fact, he was more comfortable without a helmet. What could have happened that made him want to wear one now?
"And why do you need two of them, exactly? It's not like you have two heads," Ruffnut pointed out. Living with Tuffnut and his crazy antics made her slowly become sceptical to new ideas, and her memories of Hiccup's failed inventions (before he proved himself as a Viking) hadn't helped to combat that ideology. "Wow, Tuff. And I thought we did dumb things."
"I couldn't have said it better myself," Tuffnut agreed.
"It's for a training exercise I thought up," Hiccup explained vaguely, as he tore horizontal strips off the paper and wrote names on them with the charcoal. "You've been bonding with your dragon, which is great, but you will have to get used to riding a dragon that isn't your own. What if your dragon is captured and you need to mount a rescue? Or you and your dragon are split up and you are too far away from them to search for each other by foot or use a dragon call?"
"Yeah, yeah, Hiccup, you've made your point. What are we doing?" Snotlout whined, pouting slightly. "Tell me now before I get bored and tell Hookfang to set this place on fire." His tone reminded Hiccup of a small child acting big, and if it wasn't Snotlout talking, Hiccup just knew that he'd be snickering by now.
"Each of these strips of paper has the name of either a human and a dragon on it, or in Barf and Belch's case, half a dragon. The humans and dragons are split up and placed inside a helmet, I'll pick a name from each helmet, and that's how you find out which dragon you'll be partnered with for today," Hiccup explained. "I still have to sort the names, though. Hold on."
Hiccup meticulously sorted the names into two piles, and put a pile into each helmet. Closing his eyes, he selected the names, and after some time, here was the final layout: Ruffnut would be riding Hookfang, Stormfly was with Tuffnut, Hiccup was with Meatlug, Astrid and Fishlegs would be riding Barf and Belch (Astrid with Barf, Fishlegs with Belch), while Snotlout would be partnered with Toothless for the day.
"That's it for sorting names," Hiccup concluded. "Any questions?"
"Yeah," Snotlout said. "Why am I the one with the cripple? Can I swap?"
"How dare you!" Hiccup yelled, being the first to stand up for Toothless. "Don't you EVER talk about Toothless like that!"
"That dragon's smarter in one claw than you are in the whole of your body!" Astrid defended hotly. She attempted to hurl her axe at Snotlout's head, but was restrained by Hiccup, who was already thinking the worst of himself for restraining his girlfriend when he felt the same way. Toothless was his best friend, and, admittedly, his first real friend too. He shouldn't be stopping Astrid from beating up Snotlout; if anything, he should be helping her. "I don't avoid you because 'we have too much in common' or because I've known you for too long to see you as anything other than a friend. I avoid you because you're a huge jerk and you never change!"
The humans weren't the only ones in the arena who had been angered. Their dragons erupted into enraged screeches and growls, not believing what their reptilian ears were hearing. "How dare he say something like that?" Stormfly raged.
"He has no right to even think that, let alone say it with that oversized, overused mouth of his!" Meatlug ranted with a red-hot fury , then turned to Toothless with the more comforting tone that had made her known as the mother of the group. "Don't listen to him, Toothless. I know you never do that anyway, but right now you really shouldn't listen to him."
"I know the twins are often called muttonheads, troublemakers and idiots by the other humans on Berk, but I'd bet my lunch today that even they know that what Snotlout said crossed the line," Barf growled.
"Crossed the line? Please. Snotlout just crossed every line ever made with what he said!" Belch seethed. "Toothless is our leader, and I don't care that he's missing a tailfin! At least he's not missing his brain, like Snotface over here!"
"I'm so sorry, Toothless," Hookfang apologized, mortified at his human's actions. Hookfang, despite his headstrong and proud nature, was extremely easy to embarrass, often saying sorry on behalf of his errant rider as if he had to make up for all the stupid things his rider did on a daily basis. (He's going to be doing that for a long time at the rate Snotlout's going.)
"See? Even my dragon agrees with me," Snotlout bragged, as Hookfang covered his head with his wings in shame, but unfurled them when he realized that he was far too big to hide anywhere that wasn't a stable, and even that was a stretch.
"NO, I DON'T! WHAT ARE YOUR BRAINS MADE OUT OF, SNOTLOUT? ROTTEN FISH BONES?! SHUT UP!" Hookfang howled, using his voice (or roars, depending on whether you were a dragon or a human) to cover up his mortification. This is the most embarrassing day of my life, he thought sadly. Toothless is my friend, and I'm trying to prove that I'm not exactly like my rider. This just makes everything so much worse.
"Snotlout, why would you say that?" Fishlegs protested, torn between doing what he thought was right and keeping the peace between his friends. "Do you have any idea how rude that is? Besides, it's just a training exercise in case of an emergency. You'll get a different dragon to work with the next time we do this."
"I hope I do," Snotlout sneered. "I need a strong dragon that can fly on its own, not this useless thing." Snotlout pointed straight at Toothless when he said this, as if he doubted Hiccup knew which dragon he meant. This was the last straw for Toothless, who finally spoke. He didn't care that Snotlout wouldn't understand, but he didn't want to just sit there as he was insulted. That was a sign of weakness in the dragon world.
"I wasn't planning on being paired with the class muttonhead, but that's life for you," Toothless growled, rolling his eyes as the other dragons cheered. However, their jubilation was doomed to be short-lived. Snotlout, despite having no clue what Toothless had said about him, had thought Toothless' insult was a threat, and was now itching for a fight. (Typical Snotlout behaviour.)
"Come on, Toothless, fight me!" Snotlout grunted, jumping up like a dog and aiming a few jabs at Toothless' snout, which missed. (Thor knows Snotlout couldn't land a punch to save his life.) "Come on, you ground-bound sack of scales. Those grunts had to mean something." Then, Snotlout smirked as he went in for the kill. "Unless you're just a weak dragon whose roar is worse than its flame because it can't fly."
The other dragons roared with disgust at the use of the phrase ground-bound, and that's when the forgiving, happy-go-lucky, trusting part of Toothless snapped. No, it hadn't snapped, it was broken, and no amount of repairs and apologies would restore it to what it was before. He knew he was never going to forgive the black-haired boy for what he'd done to Hiccup before they'd even met, but calling him cripple was the straw that broke the dragon's back. If he was going to run his mouth, he might as well do it somewhere on Berk where bragging wasn't just allowed, but encouraged. Sighing, he picked up Snotlout by the back of his tunic and held him high enough above the ground for him to not even come close to scraping the floor.
"This is embarrassing for both of us, so I'll get it over and done with," Toothless muttered to Snotlout, so quietly that not even dragon ears could hear it. Then, he walked out of the arena through the gate, with the other humans and dragons staring at his retreating form.
Spitelout Jorgenson had been having a perfectly normal day before Toothless showed up in the Great Hall. He'd been showing off and bludgeoning in his own head as part of a crazy game he'd thought up as a teenager and simply never grew out of. The aim of the game was simple: each player hit themselves with a bludgeon they'd brought themselves in turn until they passed out from concussion, and the last man standing got a pint of ale from each of the players the next day. (For this game to work, there had to be someone not taking part to see who the real winner was, AKA, a referee.) He was about to start the game with a mouthful of trash talk (as per usual) when he felt the Great Hall fall silent, something that rarely happened on Berk. Spitelout and the other Vikings could only watch, slack-jawed with disbelief, as the Night Fury carrying his son in its jaws approached him, spat his son out like a bad piece of fish in front of what felt like everyone on Berk, and silently left the way he came in.
"Hi, dad," Snotlout muttered, smiling nervously. Snotlout's nervous smirk and the circumstances behind how he got into the Great Hall prompted the laughter of one tipsy villager, and then another, and another, until it seemed that everyone in the Great Hall, with the exception of his father, was howling with laughter at Snotlout's misfortune, while his father looked on with the sort of steely glare that had "What did you do?" written all over it. (As a parent, you get good at that look.)
"Well?" Spitelout demanded, angry at the interruption. "Why were you dropped off here by Hiccup's dragon?" Spitelout's stubborn nature (like most of the older Vikings) meant he absolutely refused to use words like Night Fury, Gronckle, Nadder or Monstrous Nightmare because that made it look like he wanted to be associated with dragons and learn about them like the teenagers. The same rule was used with their names.
"You see, Dad . . . " Snotlout started, then trailed off. His dad seemed to be rather sceptical of Snotlout's version of events (and with good reason, as Snotlout had a track record of lying to adults), so he'd have to come up with the perfect story that was true (or, at least, looked true). "You won't believe me when I tell you . . . "
Toothless made his way back into the arena, as all eyes seemed to be trained on him. He didn't bow his head like he didn't want to be noticed, nor did he pretend everything was right with the world like Hiccup did after he'd had an argument with someone. (Nobody would believe him if he tried the latter option, anyway, so why bother?) He simply took his place in the arena, and motioned to Hiccup to continue where he'd left off.
"Toothless!" Hiccup exclaimed, half-surprised that Toothless was back, half-angry for not explaining his disappearance thoroughly enough for the likes of a very stressed-out Hiccup. "Where have you been and what took you so long? You had me worried, bud!" Toothless nuzzled Hiccup affectionately, and joined the other dragons, who bombarded him with questions as soon as he was close enough to hear them.
"Why did you leave with Snotlout?" Stormfly asked.
"Is he dead?" Barf and Belch prayed. "Please say he's dead! He deserves it!"
"That is a horrible thing to say, you two, even if it is Snotlout!" Meatlug scolded, before her curiosity took over and she asked, "Anyway, where did you take him?"
"He's all right, isn't he? Not hurt or anything?" Hookfang worried. Idiot or not, Hookfang still cared about Snotlout and didn't want to see him come to harm in any way. (Thor knows he'd never forgive himself if he was.)
"One question at a time!" Toothless roared, making the other dragons step back. "Rest assured that Snotface is still alive, and the only thing that's been hurt is his sense of pride."
The other dragons laughed, but at the same time they were extremely confused. It was like the questions asked by Stormfly and Meatlug were ignored completely, and those were the questions everyone wanted answered.
"Enough!" Hiccup shouted, finally getting everyone's attention on him. "Now Toothless has finally shown up, let's get on with-"
"I've got a bone to pick with you, dragon!" Spitelout hollered, bursting to the arena with Snotlout in tow. The younger Jorgenson seemed to have ditched the sheepish look on his face for the smug, you're-in-trouble grin he always had. "Why'd you drag my son all the way through the village and drop him off at the Great Hall like he was some delivery to be made? Do you have any idea how shameful that was? You had no right and no reason to do so! Who do you think you are, dragon?"
"No way," Barf muttered to Belch, "Toothless literally dumped Snotlout with his father! And in the Great Hall, too! In front of the other Vikings! Toothless must be as crazy as his human to do something like that!"
"Seems to have backfired, though," Belch whispered. "Spitelout believes Snotlout's every word, even though he's in the wrong. I hate to say this, but I don't particularly want to take his place right now."
"I don't care," Hookfang sniggered, immensely proud of Toothless. "This should have happened to Snotlout ages ago. Hooray for Toothless for doing what I never could!"
"Oh, Toothless, I could ask you the same question," Hiccup mused, almost as if he was disappointed with Toothless for his judgement. "You didn't have to take him out of the arena and search for his dad, for Thor's sake! Just bring him to me if he's bothering you!"
"Don't know why you bother with tellin' 'im that, Hiccup," Spitelout huffed. "I'm willin' ta bet that he doesn't understand a word you or anyone else says. None of 'em do. He's only staying with ya 'cause you've got food for him ta eat. Besides, without ya, he can't fly, so he has to stay."
Toothless walked up to him, tentatively. He didn't trust that human as far as he could throw him, which was pretty far, considering that Night Furies weren't the biggest of dragons. So he circled the father/son duo, tilting his head from side to side occasionally. He was looking them up and down and side to side. Eventually, he turned away from them and walked over to the wall. I didn't think I'd ever have to do this in my life, but I must get the message through somehow, Toothless thought. Well, here goes nothing, I guess. As he worked, some of the humans gasped and their eyes widened, even going as far as to pinch themselves to see if they were dreaming. (The last one was what the twins did.)
"This is incredible," Hiccup breathed.
"Odin's ghost!" Fishlegs exclaimed quietly, scared that if he said it any louder, Toothless would stop and everything would go back to normal.
"Who taught him that?" Astrid shrieked.
The others watched on in shock as Toothless did what they thought was impossible for a dragon - writing. Toothless was burning words into the walls of the arena for them to read. And the words he wrote made the riders feel sick to their stomachs.
GROUND-BOUND SACK OF SCALES.
FIGHT ME!
Hiccup started wandering around the arena, and as he accidentally led the other dragon riders around the arena in the world's most depressing conga line/tour, he looked at all the other words Toothless had written, he almost wanted to cry for the sweet, gentle, intelligent creature he knew. Nobody should have to hear what Toothless had heard today, and just because they're a dragon doesn't mean they aren't offended or they don't understand. They are, and they do, and the proof was there for all to see.
I NEED A STRONG DRAGON THAT CAN FLY ON ITS OWN, NOT THIS USELESS THING.
JUST A WEAK DRAGON.
ITS ROAR IS WORSE THAN ITS FLAME.
CAN I SWAP?
The last message was the worst. Etched directly above the gate so all could see, Hiccup felt tears well up and threaten to roll down his cheeks as he clapped a hand over his mouth in shock. It was only one word, but it was the word that got everyone so angry and so worked up in the first place. Everything Snotlout had said after that just added fuel to the fire.
CRIPPLE.
It was written in big letters, bigger than the lettering used for all the other messages Toothless had written so far, above the gate that everyone used to enter and leave the arena, so everybody could see it. Another thing everyone else could see was the colour draining from Snotlout's once-smug face, as Spitelout's jaw literally dropped. Then, Toothless stopped writing on the wall of the arena so he could write on the floor. Shooing everyone to the edges of the arena, Toothless wrote a simple, but powerful message that would stay with them for the rest of their lives. As he burned the words into the floor and their minds, the humans, as if acting on instinct, read aloud what Toothless was writing as he wrote it, their voices becoming one as what Hiccup had always known, and what Toothless was trying to tell them all this time was finally realized.
I CAN UNDERSTAND YOU.
Snotlout, awed and humbled at the intelligence that Toothless had shown, started stuttering fearfully as he realized that what he'd said was about to be his downfall in the worst way. "Toothless," Snotlout whimpered, "I d-didn't know th-that you could - you know-" Snotlout trailed off, as Spitelout laid a hand on his son's shoulder and tightened it, which made him realize that he was in deep trouble once he got home. Snotlout broke out in a cold sweat and his skin paled.
"I'm sorry to have bothered ya," Spitelout eventually forced himself to say, reddening slightly as he realized how badly he'd got this wrong. "According to my son's account of things, Toothless-" this word was especially forced, as this was the first time Spitelout had ever used any dragon's name, "tried to attack him for no reason and dragged him over to me, but now I see who's really at fault. Hiccup, Snotlout won't be coming back to this lesson until much later, I'll need to talk to him. Come on, boyo. Take -er- Hookfang with you." Clapping Snotlout on the back to get him moving, the pair left the arena with none of the noise, aggression and smugness they'd entered with. It wasn't until the Jorgensons were out of sight and earshot (or at least human earshot, as the dragons could clearly hear Spitelout scolding his son and it was music to their scaly ears) that Hiccup had to deal with a lot of questions.
"Who taught Toothless to write?" Astrid shrieked, holding Hiccup by his shoulders and shaking him. Hard.
"If Toothless can learn how to do it, does that mean we could have an entire island of dragons that can read and write?" Fishlegs theorized excitedly. "Hiccup, this is a dragon training breakthrough! This must be noted in the Book of Dragons!"
"Can we borrow him and get him to write rude messages everywhere?" the twins chorused, grinning widely at the thought of pranking people with the help of a dragon that can read. After all, someone would obviously suspect them, but they'd never in a million years suspect Toothless of being behind it. It was genius!
"Calm down, people, calm down!" Hiccup shouted, causing everyone to fall silent. "Astrid, I don't know where Toothless learned how to read and write because I'm not the one who taught him. Fishlegs, the only way you could have an island full of literate dragons is if they are taught, and even then they have to be willing to learn. And NO, you can't borrow Toothless or any other dragon you can find just to prank people! Do you have any idea how irresponsible that is?"
The room fell silent, until Astrid raised a question that got them all thinking. "Wait a minute. If you didn't teach him to do that, who did?" Slowly, everyone turned to Toothless, expecting him to write an answer for them. Toothless paced over to Fishlegs, then suddenly grabbed the Book of Dragons in his jaws and dropped it at Hiccup's feet like a dog.
Tuffnut, like everyone else in the room, was confused, and he got angry with Toothless. "Toothless, what does the Book of Dragons have to do with anything?" Toothless snorted, and pointed to the book with one of his claws, almost like a human would. "I know it's there, T, now go put it back. We don't need it."
"Maybe he's trying to tell us something," Hiccup mumbled, then gasped. "Toothless, did you learn how to read from the Book of Dragons? Is that why you gave it to me?" Satisfied that not all humans were as thick-skulled as Tuffnut, Toothless nodded happily, and then stiffened up with surprise when Hiccup ran over and hugged him.
"Toothless, you clever, clever dragon!" Hiccup shouted happily, as his grip around Toothless' neck became tighter. "This way, I can finally communicate with you, and prove that dragons are capable of understanding us! Thank you, Toothless, thank you!"
Toothless smiled and nuzzled his human, making him laugh. So long as Hiccup was happy, he was happy. For Toothless, the feeling was short-lived, as he soon realized that he was being watched by the other dragons. Stormfly motioned for him to go to them. Nervously, he approached them and looked them all in the eye. For a while, nobody spoke. Stormfly broke the silence by saying, "Is it true? Is what they're saying true?"
Toothless fidgeted under Stormfly's gaze as he tried to find an answer. "Hiccup sometimes reads the Book of Dragons to me. I must have picked it up from there. I don't think he minded me seeing it, to be honest. He probably thought I was looking at the pictures of dragons and not the words."
"You learned to read and write from the Book of Dragons alone?" Meatlug asked, as the other dragons closed in on Toothless, forming a circle that he couldn't escape from. Toothless began going through the two-minute panic drill when this happened. Usually, when he was surrounded by a group of other dragons, they got angry and began firing at him, and he had no choice but to fire back. He was about to fire at them in self-defence when they suddenly chorused:
"THAT IS SO COOL!"
Toothless was thrown off guard by their response, but were immensely relieved that they hadn't done something much worse to him by now. "Um, really? You're all right with it?" he asked, not believing what he was hearing.
"Of course!" Stormfly assured. "I can't believe you learned how to read and write so quickly!"
"I agree," Meatlug chimed in. "Now the humans know that we understand them, and that we're not as dumb as Spitelout said we are." Then her voice took on an uncharacteristically mischievous tone. "Besides, did any of you see the look on Snotlout's face when he realized he was done for? Priceless. I know it didn't seem funny when everyone was staring at what you'd written, but when you look back on it all, those are the moments you remember until the day you die."
"Yeah," Barf grinned. "How did you throw Snotlout into the Great Hall, anyway? Isn't it always full of people?"
"Oh, it's easy," Toothless answered dryly. "You grab him by the back of his tunic, pick him up, walk to the Great Hall and leave Snotlout with his dad. And of course it's full of people. You really think it's called the Great Hall for nothing?" Barf looked away from Toothless bashfully, while Belch fixed Toothless with a glare. However, they were interrupted by Hiccup.
"All right, people, just because Snotlout's gone doesn't mean we can't do the lesson," Hiccup shouted. "Get back to the dragon you were assigned to for the day."
"Then what do I do?" Ruffnut complained, bringing up a valid point. "You partnered me with Hookfang, and now he's gone."
"You'll have to go with Toothless, then," Hiccup answered. "Now Snotlout's gone, he doesn't have a partner for today either."
"Sweet," Ruffnut said, grinning. "Snotlout doesn't know what he's missing with Toothless."
"Thanks, Ruffnut," Hiccup said, smiling at the first person who'd complimented Toothless today. He felt glad and partly relieved when people defended his dragon, but compliments were always so much better. It had been a long day, after all. "Now, let me show you how to work Toothless' prosthetic . . . "
The lesson was coming to a close, and everyone had done better than what Hiccup expected, including himself. Having a Gronckle was easier than he expected, and he now understood why Fishlegs talked about Meatlug's hovering so much; it was actually really relaxing, and he felt himself dozing off once or twice. Despite how fun the lesson was turning out to be, he had to draw the lesson to a close. "Right, guys, we'll have to stop there for now," Hiccup called, as groans echoed round the now graffitied walls of the arena.
"Do we have to?" Tuffnut moaned, hugging Stormfly. "You have no idea how cool Stormfly's spines are! Stormfly, spine shot!"
"Here we go again," Stormfly sighed, shooting several spines into a target, three of which hit the bullseye. "Remind me again why I can't let him fall to the floor."
"Because the lesson's ending soon?" Toothless answered sweetly, but with a note of sarcasm in his voice. "Stormfly, it can't be all bad. You now have a not-so-secret admirer."
"Come on, Stormfly, be grateful for what you have," Meatlug teased, a smirk on her face. "Tuffnut might even treat you like he does Macey. And you know how much he likes Macey, don't you?"
"He'll take me home with him and pretend to talk to me in some weird-sounding squeaky voice?" Stormfly shrieked, forcing Toothless to literally bite his tongue just so he didn't burst out laughing. "Not happening, you two!" She then flew over to Belch and said two words:
"Take him."
"Gladly," Belch said, holding Tuffnut in his jaws as the male Thorston squirmed and kicked out. "Holding Fishlegs up makes my neck hurt. I don't know how Meatlug does it."
"I'll take him," Stormfly offered, and grunted a little when Fishlegs slid onto her back. Belch, however, easily swung Tuffnut onto his now aching neck. "Heavier than I thought. Hey, Meatlug! Want Fishlegs back?"
"You don't need to ask," Meatlug replied, as she flew over to the Nadder as fast as she could, short wingspan to body-size ratio be damned. When Fishlegs hopped onto Meatlug's back, Hiccup was confused, but clambered onto Stormfly regardless.
"What are you doing?" Astrid yelled. "The lesson's supposed to be over; you said so yourself!"
"It's not me; it's the dragons!" Hiccup answered. "I think I know what they're doing! They're swapping their riders until they've got their actual rider back. And once that happens, they'll stop. Now, do you want Stormfly or not?"
Astrid only grinned as she jumped onto Stormfly, then helped Hiccup climb onto Barf's spindly neck. "Hey, Ruffnut! Lesson's over! Want Barf back?"
"OK," Ruffnut called, smiling as she flew over to Toothless. Then, a small dilemma arose. "How do I get to Barf without Toothless falling?"
"I'll get on him first," Hiccup strategized. "That way, when you get off, I'll be able to work his tailfin."
"Fine by me," Ruffnut shrugged, as she opened Toothless' tailfin as wide as it could go so he could fly on his own temporarily. Ruffnut's transition from Toothless' back to Barf's long neck was smooth, and Hiccup shuffled over to Toothless' saddle, which was a lot more comfortable than the rest of Toothless. (He was more used to leather than scales, to be honest. No offence to any dragons who may be reading this.)
"You know, maybe we should do this again sometime," Hiccup said, eliciting smiles from the other teens. "It was actually kinda fun."
"No thanks to Snotlout, who almost ruined it," Ruffnut said, then laughed. "Well, well! Speak of Loki, and he shall appear!"
"What?" everyone said, turning towards the gate. And that's when they saw something they knew they'd never see again, so they should take a good look at it while they had the chance.
Snotlout was walking towards the arena with a bucket of water in one hand, a sponge in the other and a face redder than Hookfang's, which most dragons didn't know was possible. Spitelout was carrying a ladder for the boy to use and Toothless immediately noticed that both hands were gripping the ladder tight enough for his knuckles to turn white, suggesting that he was really angry. Hookfang flew above them both, wearing a nervous grin that became not so nervous whenever he looked down at the pair. Toothless quickly motioned to the other dragons to take a look at this, and soon, no-one amongst them could contain their laughter.
"Now this is just priceless," Tuffnut snickered, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye with his index finger. "Our dragons are laughing at him. Even Hookfang's got a smirk on his face like no tomorrow. Snotlout's hit an all-time low."
"I never knew the Jorgensons ran a cleaning business," Fishlegs joked, making the group roar with laughter.
"So that's why Snotlout went to my house so much when I was younger! He wanted to make sure it was absolutely spotless!" Astrid giggled.
"Snotlout Jorgenson: clean business, dirty jokes," Hiccup laughed. "Oh, Thor, I'm never letting him forget this!"
"I hope you keep your word about that, Hiccup," Spitelout said, as he caught the last part of Hiccup's quip. "This is only the first part of Snotlout's punishment for what he said to Toothless today. Tomorrow he'll be apologizing to Toothless himself, since the dragon understood enough to be offended, and he'll be doing a special type of community service." Spying that Snotlout was standing around idly, he yelled, "Get to work, boyo! What d'ya think that bucket and sponge is for; decoration?"
"Sorry, Dad!" Snotlout yelped, and scrambled up the ladder like a Terrible Terror climbing a tree. As everyone lost their minds laughing at the terrified look on his face, Toothless approached Hookfang.
"Why's Snotlout cleaning the arena?" Toothless asked, grinning mischeivously at the sight. "I figured his father would just yell at him."
"So did I," Hookfang admitted. "He did shout, though, and it was absolutely glorious to watch. You should have heard him yelling at Snotlout for humiliating himself and his family in front of you and Hiccup by saying what he said, and that it would be a miracle if the chief didn't hear of this and demand to know what happened from Hiccup's point of view. He went into the usual you-should-be-ashamed-of-yourself thing every parent says. Then he suddenly went all nice-nice with Snotlout and told him about the whole cleaning the arena and apologising to you and community service. Didn't say what type of community service, though, but Snotlout looked terrified. Even tried asking for a different punishment, but his father refused. Something about making his bed and lying in it."
"Interesting," Toothless mused, then gazed around the room with a grin. "Guess I gave him a lot of work to do, didn't I? And he's not having much luck with it, either."
"I think he's gotten rid of one symbol," Barf pointed out eagerly. "He'll be done soon."
"Or maybe that's just one word," Belch reconsidered.
"No, that's one letter, a fraction of a word," Toothless clarified, making all the dragons gasp with shock. "Snotlout's got a long way to go before he's done."
As the other dragons cringed at Snotlout's colossal lack of judgement (directly proportionate to his colossal mouth) Hiccup had a quiet word with Spitelout out of view and earshot of everyone else.
"Uncle Spitelout?" Hiccup asked, not daring to look the man in the eyes until he realized that he might as well never say anything at all if he was going to act like a mouse. "I've got a request. Can you leave out the writing on the floor that says 'I can understand you'? It could act as a reminder for him not to do something like that again, and as a lesson to future dragon riders."
Spitelout nodded, planning not to tell his misbehaving son until he made a move to clean the floor just to annoy him. Smirking, laughing and making jokes about Snotlout's misfortune, the dragon riders exited the arena, leaving their friend to his unenviable fate. The dragons were sad that they had to leave without Hookfang, who had to stay with his rider throughout the ordeal, as he was apparently going to be useful to them in the chore of cleaning the arena.
Snotlout ended up staying there all night long, but it was all worth it in the end (sort of), as some villagers commented that the arena had never looked so clean. Snotlout, on the other hand, was tired, pale and had streaks of dirt on his face from where he'd accidentally wiped sweat off his forehead with a soot-covered hand. When Snotlout walked over to Toothless to publicly apologize, everyone noticed the bags under his now reddened eyes from staying up all night cleaning. He stuttered and stammered his way through his long, rambling apology speech to Toothless, and every once in a while, he'd look to his father, who'd watched his son stumble over his words from the now sparkling gates of the arena. Every few sentences Snotlout said, he grabbed a small handful of berries from the bucket he'd brought with him, and glare at Snotlout to keep talking.
Oh, and that 'community service' Spitelout was so eager to mention in front of the teens and their dragons? Later in the afternoon, Hiccup was working at the forge when he heard laughter. When he ventured out of the forge to take a look, he saw Snotlout tied to a pole, barefoot and without his helmet, laughing hysterically as yaks licked saltwater off his feet. A crowd of people were watching him, and none of them looked particularly sorry for the young delinquent. Nobody knew if the red tinge to his cheeks was caused by embarrassment or from laughing too hard, but it was safe to say he'd been there at least an hour, and that was enough for Snotlout to beg for leniency from his father, who simply told him in no uncertain terms that "the more ya beg, the longer ya stay there, so it's best for ya to shut up." That was enough to insure the teen's silence (other than his laughter). Hookfang also watched from the sidelines, eagerly explaining the situation in great detail to any and every dragon curious enough to ask what was going on (and there were a lot of curious dragons on Berk). The Monstrous Nightmare also made a few mental notes of his own, immediately deciding to himself that exploiting this weakness would be a fun way to pass the time if he ever became bored.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the first (and last) time anyone ever made rude comments about Toothless' missing tail, or Toothless in general, to be honest. Lots of people knew why Snotlout was being punished, and if they didn't believe Toothless was literate or sentient before, they just looked at the writing on the floor that had been deliberately left behind under Hiccup's orders. People now knew to watch what they said around Toothless and Hiccup, and that was how the pair liked it.
Well, what can I say, Snotlout's had this coming for a long time! Sorry if anyone seems OOC (Out Of Character). Anyway, please R&R so I know how to improve any future fanfics I write, HTTYD or otherwise. Have a nice life from FoxtrotTango543!
Hey, people, it's me again! The story may look different, but that's because I've added a few things and cleared up any spelling mistakes and missing words! Bye!