My first non-one shot fic in English! Not being a native speaker, I have to translate this from German, so please let me know if there are any mistakes! Enjoy reading :)
Thump. Thump.
Hiccup groaned. It was too early. It was too early and he knew it and he bet his prosthetic leg that his best friend knew this, too. But knowing Toothless, the dragon probably didn't care. He wanted to go flying. Now.
Without opening his eyes, Hiccup curled into a ball and pulled the blanket over his head. Five minutes. Was that so much to ask? Maybe if he pretended to be sick, he could...
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
The whole house shook with the dull sounds of an impatient dragon jumping up and down on the roof. When a clay pot with brushes and pens suddenly fell from the shelf near his bed and shattered on the old floorboards, Hiccup rose into a sitting position. He sighed. Toothless would keep doing this until he got out of bed - and he did know already that the tiredness would disappear once they were up in the air. He had had one and a half years to get used to it, after all!
With another sigh, Hiccup swung his feet out of bed and fished for his leg prosthetic on the night table. The first model made by Gobber had long since been replaced by a new one that he had created with his mentor's help - it was lighter and slightly bigger because a sudden growth spurt had struck the boy last summer so that he now almost reached up to his father's shoulders. He was still too small and too thin for a Viking, though, still a talking fishbone that wasn't even granted a proper growth of beard if not for the small patch of facial hair on his chin. Not really what a 17-year old Viking should have looked like.
Well, one couldn't have everything. If the lack of facial hair was the price he had to pay for the village's respect, his father's pride and Astrid's affection, he could live with that.
You are taking too long. Why are you taking so long?
The dragon's clear, deep voice rang through the boy's thoughts and he grinned against his will while putting on his tunic and a warm fur vest. Sometimes, Toothless was just like a small child! And Hiccup could have sworn that the dragon had to be older than him, at least physically. He could feel they were on the same level mentally - an older dragon would not have been as curious as the Night Fury had been at the beginning of their then forbidden friendship.
"Coming!" he called upwards, knowing that the dragon would hear him. Unlike his father who miraculously managed to sleep through Toothless' early morning routine each day without even so much as stirring. Stoick's snores made the house shake just as much as the dragon's stomping...
Hurry up! was Toothless impatient answer to that in which he could hear the blatant pleasant anticipation of an early morning flight with his human. Hiccup remembered the first time he had heard the dragon's voice in his mind all too well - it had been after their first real test drive, at sunset on that stony beach, after the Terrible Terrors had appeared. They had caught fish and had been eating it (Toothless ate his raw, Hiccup had preferred his roasted) with the Terrors peacefully purring next to them, when the dragon had mumbled something about how the poison dwarfs as he called them stayed with them just for the fish. And Hiccup had heard him. He had heard and understood him and since then, they had been able to communicate.
Nobody else could hear Toothless, of course, so that the rest of the village had to think that he had lost his mind along with his left foot in the battle with the Green Death when they saw him seemingly talking to himself.
Well, they didn't know what they missed out on!
Without wasting another second, Hiccup hurried outside. He had knowingly left his helmet - the breast-hat as he still referred to it - on the bed post. He had already lost it once on his first Snoggletog with Toothless and he really didn't want to repeat that particular experience.
As he opened the door, he was greeted by a gust of cold winter air. The short summer Berk had - also known as the time the snow stopped and the hail started - was still long in the coming but it was already remarkably warmer than a few weeks ago. It could almost have been considered warm by Berkian standards.
Hiccup had been right with his assumption - it was too early. The sun was just a rosy shimmer on the horizon of a still-dark morning but that didn't seem to bother Toothless in the slightest. With a happy purr, the Night Fury leaped from the roof top of Hiccup's house excitedly and landed in the calf-high snow, spraying the boy with powdery snow from head to toe.
"Hey!" Hiccup protested half-laughing, half-scandalized and shook his head to get the snow out of his hair. "I'm here already, no need to go on a rampage!"
You were taking too long, Toothless complained, his green eyes big and not aware of any guilt.
"I'm here now, bud," Hiccup grinned. "So, you up for a flight?" It was a pointless question - jumping up and down excitedly, Toothless hit the ground with his tail a few times and Hiccup couldn't help feeling glad he had taken off the fake tail fin the day before.
Hiccup wondered how he had survived fifteen long years on the ground when there was flying. He couldn't do it on his own, of course, he was as dependant on Toothless as the dragon was on him in this case. But how in Odin's name hadn't he thought of training a dragon earlier?
Flying was magical. It was freedom and cold and wind and adrenaline and excitement and joy and so much more he couldn't name but felt every time he and Toothless raced through the clouds, with the wind in his ears and the flapping of mighty black wings beneath him. Endless lightness as he let himself fall from the dragon's back, when they fell down, lower and lower, with only the never-ending ocean that encircled Berk under them.
He loved this feeling of easiness and irresponsibility, loved the flutter of nerves as they flew more and more daring maneuvers.
"What do you say, buddy" Hiccup shouted over the whooshing of the wind, "another go?" The enthusiastic roar of the Night Fury was enough of an answer. Hiccup laughed - he felt like fifteen again and all worries disappeared, here above the clouds, he was fifteen again and this was his first time up in the sky, he was free and uninhibited - and moved the pedal on the saddle's left side at the same moment as he unhinged the retaining straps of his harness. He pushed away from the saddle and then they were canonballing down. A hoot escaped the boy's lips even though they had carried out this maneuver countless times before.
He fell, fell, fell, lower and lower, and Toothless fell with him, his deep roar speaking of the same pure joy the boy felt. And then, only a few feet above the treetops of a small forest, Hiccup re-hooked the straps to the saddle and they flew across the trees like Odin and Sleipnir themselves.
Breathing heavily, the boy clutched at the saddle and pressed himself flatly on the dragon's back so that they flew even faster.
That was great, Toothless announced happily. I've never flown so fast before!
It seemed as if they just had found out just how fast a Night Fury could go. Hiccup grinned.
"Wanna see if you can go faster?" he shouted. He could feel the dragon's excitement but before Toothless could give him an answer, the world seemed to jolt.
Hiccup couldn't describe the sensation otherwise; the sky above them seemed to tremble just like the earth beneath them and an ear-splitting screech resonated through the air - he knew that sound, had heard it before a wall of flames had closed before him, the memory still too fresh and livid, pain in his left leg which seemed to be on fire itself, he fell, dropped through the endless blue disoriented and powerless...
Hiccup!
Only the urgent, worried voice of the dragon managed to bring him back to reality abruptly. He had clasped his hands over his ears instinctively to protect them from the screech and Toothless was nervously flapping his wings. A deep growl escaped the Night Fury's throat.
"T-Toothless," Hiccup groaned, still recovering from the shock. "What was that?" His heart was racing. The images his memory had recreated had come too suddenly, too unexpectedly and the ear-splitting scream had done the last thing to trigger his panic attack.
The dragon growled in response.
Someone from my People is here.
Perplexed, Hiccup let his hands fall from his ears.
"Someone... from your People? You mean- you mean there's another Night Fury here?"
They shouldn't be, Toothless replied grimly, ears pressed against his head. Another growl. My People live further to the south, they shouldn't be in this area!
"Maybe it's your family, searching for you?" Hiccup suggested, suddenly realizing that he knew nothing about Toothless' origin. What a great friend he was.
It's something else. We have to get back to the village.
The dragon waited just long enough for Hiccup to get a proper hold. Then, he raced back to the village. Even faster than before.
The village was emptied when the two friends landed on the big plaza in the middle. A pillar of smoke was rising in the distance, as if a house had been on fire... Only a few Nadders and Zipplebacks sat on the roofs; when they saw the Night Fury, the dragons raised a row.
"What...?" Hiccup murmured, shocked, while sliding from Toothless' back. Toothless frantically looked from one of the other dragons to another and growled.
He's been here. Someone from my People has been here and-
The dragon's voice was interrupted very suddenly when someone shouted,
"Hiccup!" The boy instantly recognized the voice, he could have recognized it among thousands. How could he not, having paid attention to that particular voice since he had been ten years old? Astrid appeared between the houses, her long blond hair blowing in the cold wind. She came to a slithering halt in front of him and he grabbed her shoulders before she could slip and fall.
"Astrid!" he yelled and looked at her worryingly. "What happened, where is everyone? Toothless said he felt something but-"
"I knew it wasn't him," Astrid wheezed without answering his question. "I told them it couldn't have been him but..."
"What happened?" Hiccup repeated a tad more urging and grabbed her shoulders a bit tighter. Astrid bit her lip for a moment and threw a quick glance at Toothless, then she said,
"We've been attacked. By a dragon." Hiccup stared at her incredulously.
"A dragon? But our dragons don't attack people, that's-"
It was him.
"It was a Night Fury," Astrid confirmed Toothless' silent realization. "It- it fired a blast at your house and then it-"
"It did what?" Hiccup's blood ran cold. "What about my father, is he hurt? Has anyone been hurt?"
"Nobody's hurt, they're all in the Mead Hall," Astrid replied with a shake of her head. "But..."
"But what?" She looked into his eyes. Seriously. Worried. And... frightened...?
"Hiccup." Her voice was but a whisper. Her bottom lip had been bitten bloody. "It took Hrist."
He felt goose bumps on his arms. Hrist. Hrist, of all people, the Elder's granddaughter! Small, innocent Hrist who had been one of the few people to always be kind to Hiccup the Useless before his ascent to the village's hero.
As if on cue, suddenly all of the dragons began to roar and a sharp snarl escaped Toothless' throat, sounding angrier than Hiccup had ever heard him.
They have left a message for the dragons, the Night Fury's angry voice boomed through the boy's mind. 'One of yours for one of ours'.
Without wasting another second, Hiccup hurried away - to the Mead Hall.