A/N: Yay, time for the sequel! Awesomeness! By the way, if you want to know what baby Toothless looks like right after he hatched, look at my profile picture.

Dead By Dawn

Chapter 1

Pricked

Hiccup slashed his way through the dense brush, using the largest knife he could carry without being worn out too quickly. It was a small knife. But it was just fine. This day was the hottest in a long time, and Hiccup needed all the energy he could get.

What's more was the fact that today was the Summer Solstice, the longest, and now hottest day of the year. It was also Toothless's birthday. Toothless had refused to tell Hiccup exactly how old he was, but he did describe the conditions of the day on which he hatched. Toothless had hatched just after sunset, on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea, sky, and crescent moon.

This was the reason that Hiccup was out in the woods, dehydrated, sweating bullets, and constantly pulling spurs out of his legs, torso, and bare arms.

Though it was a lot cooler than his long-sleeve shirt, his green short-sleeve shirt, the arms cut off a little higher than halfway between his shoulder and elbow, offered little to no protection from the spurs that stuck on 4-foot stalks of grass. It was this spur grass that Hiccup was attempting to cut down.

Sighing, realizing that there were too many stalks to cut down, and that it was way too dry to set them on fire, Hiccup stopped slashing, deciding to risk being pricked about a thousand times rather than risk setting the whole island of Berk on fire. He went back to looking at the ground.

He had been searching the old battle-grounds for a few hours now, and he only needed a few more pieces of metal (which seemed to be in short supply these days) to finish the birthday present he was making for Toothless. Speaking of the hyper black dragon, where was he?

Hiccup stopped and looked up. Toothless was nowhere to be found.

"Huh," said Hiccup. "I could have sworn he was right- GAH!" Hiccup yelped as a large, scaly, black object tackled him playfully to the ground, licking his face.

"To-Toothless! St-stop it, I'm gonna drown!" said Hiccup between licks and fits of laughter. Toothless smiled at the success of the surprise attack and stepped off of Hiccup's chest.

Hiccup smiled at the rambunctious antics of his pet Night Fury, but when he sat up, he cringed in pain. Toothless had accidentally knocked him into an extremely large and dense thicket of spur grass. There were spurs lodged deep into his right arm and the right side of his back, extending across the back of his neck, thinning out and ending at his left shoulder. There was one lodged so deep into the wrist of his right hand that it was bleeding.

Toothless saw his rider in pain, and immediately felt guilty.

Hiccup saw Toothless's look and said: "No, it's okay buddy. It was an accident. You didn't know those spurs were there."

No, but I should have seen them, thought Toothless.

With a slight sigh, Hiccup ran his left hand over his back, effectively brushing out most of the spurs that didn't get lodged into his back. His riding harness had done a fairly good job at protecting his back. His left arm got off without anything but a single scratch. There were a few spurs in his neck that stung when he pulled them out. Toothless helped by pulling out some of the spurs in Hiccup's back with his teeth.

Hiccup's right arm got the worst of it, mainly caused by the big green spur, about an inch or two long, lodged deep into his wrist. Hiccup couldn't pull that one out because it kinda deflated when he gripped it, almost as if it were filled with liquid. Not to mention it hurt like crap. Instead of pulling it out, he wrapped it up in a spare piece of cloth.

Toothless licked Hiccup's cut-up arm. Not everyone knew it, but dragon saliva helps sterilize small wounds like cuts so they don't get infected. In this heat, infection could occur in anything. Even a small wound.

"It's all okay, Toothless. I'm fine. No harm done... well, except this thing," said Hiccup, looking down at the only remaining spur, now sticking out of the slightly blood-stained gauze. Toothless still looked guilty. Hiccup sighed. "It's okay! Just a little prick. It's nothing Camicazi can't pull out."

Camicazi was as good as any Healer (and even better at stitching up wounds), mainly because she had grown up with a Healer as a best friend, and was now good friends with another Healer named Sig. She was also a great warrior. Her size, speed, and talkativeness made her impossible to hit and made it impossible for her opponent to focus. She was clever, funny, an amazing fighter, and best of all, she could quickly switch personalities.

When Hiccup had been poisoned last winter and Toothless had brought Hiccup to her, she had immediately switched over to the serious, loving, gentle side. Heck, she had helped cut out Hiccup's appendix and she still respected him after seeing him in that state. Hiccup was sure one little spur would hardly be anything.

Toothless, however, wasn't that worried about the spur. He was more worried about the fact that Hiccup was focusing on his wrist, and not how dehydrated he was. Toothless saw that Hiccup had stopped sweating.

Since any form of speaking was a way to lose water, dragons have a tendency of not really talking when it's hot, unless they're in a shady place. So instead of telling Hiccup what to do, Toothless figured that he could just fix the problem himself.

Toothless nudged the spur with his nose. He figured that if Hiccup took his mind off the strange spur, that was green while all the rest were brown, then he would focus on how thirsty he was.

Hiccup looked up at Toothless.

"Wanna give it a try?" he asked, sounding tired. Toothless nodded, and Hiccup held out his hand. Toothless gripped the spur with his teeth and jerked his head back quickly, effectively dislodging the spur.

Hiccup's face went pretty pale. Sure, spurs were really small, but they hurt like heck when they were lodged in that deep. Hiccup suspected that that particular spur had hit a nerve, which was why it hurt so much.

The wound was small and hardly bled, but Hiccup still re-wrapped it pretty tightly to prevent it from getting dirty. Once the cloth was wrapped securely, Hiccup slipped his dragon-scale riding gloves over the bandage and on his hands. The insides were slightly cool. They had been Toothless's gift to Hiccup on Hiccup's birthday.

Right after Hiccup had put his gloves on, Toothless nudged the water-filled canteen hanging from Hiccup's belt.

"You thirsty?" asked Hiccup. Toothless shook his head no. Hiccup looked at him questionably for a few seconds before realizing just how thirsty he was. Toothless smiled when he saw Hiccup go for the water.

Humans are so silly.

Once Hiccup was properly hydrated again, he realized that there was a strange pain on the back of his head. Running his hand through his hair, he realized that there was something tangled in his hair. Once he worked it out, he saw it was a fairly large, palm-sized scrap of metal. Just the right size for what he needed.

Smiling, Hiccup wiped off the bit of blood on it and put it in the little pouch hanging from his belt. He stood up and looked at the bushes of spur grass that he had fallen in. Right near the center of the brown cluster, a single green stalk stood out. The path Hiccup's right arm had taken was clear.

"Hey, Toothless? Do you think you could..." Hiccup trailed off as the stalks combusted. Hiccup looked over at Toothless, but the dragon also looked confused. Quickly, Toothless jumped on and stomped out the flames. The only stalk left burning was the large green one, which had spurs thick enough to penetrate dragon scales. All the other spurs were way too small.

"...light it on fire..." Hiccup finished. "Are you a mind reader?"

Toothless shook his head, no. He risked losing a bit of water by saying: "I didn't do that on purpose..."

The last stalk of spur grass that was still burning deflated on itself with a popping noise. Once it had collapsed to the ground, the still-burning stalk started oozing this weird liquid, which was boiling and foaming due to the heat. Finally, once every single drop was dried, brown, and caked, the stalk stopped burning, as if the mysterious liquid inside was the fuel for the fire.

"That was gross," commented Hiccup, who was looking a little pale.

Suddenly, something in the pile of ashes was ignited by a small fireball from Toothless. The fire, having nothing for fuel, burned out almost immediately.

Hiccup looked back at Toothless. Hiccup could tell that Toothless hadn't done that on purpose. So... what just caused that?

Toothless looked back to Hiccup, shaking his head slightly.

"I know that was an accident, so don't worry about it," said Hiccup reassuringly.

Toothless looked like he was about to say something, but Hiccup cut him off.

"Hey, let's go flying. I kinda wanted to check something out."

"Yes!" said Toothless quickly.

Hiccup smiled, then re-clipped his safety harness, which he had been wearing loosely and unclipped for the entire time they were on the ground. He put his canteen and little bag, filled with random pieces of the same type of metal, back in the burlap sack hanging from Toothless's saddle. He hopped on, clipped himself in, adjusted the foot pedals, and the two were off, disappearing into the wild blue sky.

A/N: First chapter of the sequel- complete! Tomorrow will be my update day, and I will probably get two, maybe three chapters updated! You know the drill: R&R and nobody gets hurt! Also, I just wanted to start this story with a little misadventure, y'know, start with a bang. It will get better once you find out who the enemies are. =D