"Okay, bud, you stay here."

Toothless growled and tried to stand between Hiccup and the water.

"Toothless, I'll be fine. I survived fifteen years without you, Thor only knows how, and I think I'll be able to make it back at least half-alive."

Toothless didn't necessarily like that, but he backed down anyway.

They were standing on the beach at Lars Lake. Hiccup had picked this place to practice freediving, because it was deep and wide without being in the middle of the ocean. He took a deep breath and began wading in. As soon as he got out of his depth, it became abundantly clear that keeping himself above water with his prosthetic was going to be no easy matter, but he didn't feel like turning back at this point.

Finally Hiccup stopped, doing his best to tread water. He turned and squinted at Toothless, who was pacing anxiously back and forth on the beach, then took another deep breath. Honestly, he could probably count all the good experiences he'd ever had with water on one hand. Or one finger.

But this was for Berk, and for the Submaripper.

"Here goes," he muttered, and dived.

It was cold and murky, and the farther down he went, the more he felt like the water was crushing the air out of him. About halfway down he ran out ran out of air. Panicking, he turned himself the right way up and tried to kick towards the surface, but he suddenly felt a net close around him. His first thought was that Viggo had caught him, and he struggled to get free, but that just got him more tangled.

As soon as he broke through the surface he pulled his diving mask off and gasped for air. The net was hauled over the edge of the boat, and he realized two things: One, this wasn't a hunter ship (thank Thor); and two, he recognized the voice that spoke.

"Well, look here, Bucket! Looks like we caught ourselves a Haddock!"

"We did?" said Bucket. "That's the biggest haddock I've ever seen."

Hiccup gagged, because he was pretty sure he had just swallowed a minnow.

"That's funny," Hiccup said, "I've always been told I was really small for a Haddock."

"Don't feel too badly," Mulch replied kindly. "A starving person would eat one regardless of the size."

Hiccup coughed into his fist awkwardly. "Um… thanks." Because he really appreciated the thought.

"Oh, it was our pleasure," said Bucket, even though he couldn't remember how Hiccup got on their fishing boat in the first place.

There was a silent beat or two before Hiccup clapped his hands together. "Well, it's been nice knowing… talking to you, but I've got some dying… DIVING to get back to." He nodded to them. "Good day."

And he jumped over the side of the boat into the water, where he would spend the remainder of the day trying to swim back to the beach without drowning and wondering why he hadn't asked Bucket and Mulch to give him a lift.