This one-shot was inspired by some of the drabbles done by HereLiesTheHero in their collection "For the Love of Thor." I urge you to check it out, if you have not already.
There was fire, charcoal smeared across a sunset canvas, the taste of it acrid and wonderful. Or it would have been. It was his favorite taste in the world, next to fish. He loved tasting the cozy smoke of the roaring hearth. The warmth of a scorched patch of grass for sleeping. The thick cooking fire in the Mead Hall as it roasted food or brought brews to a boil. Hiccup's hands after a day in the forge.
He did not like this taste. It was burning homes and sweet, cooking flesh. Death and war choked the air, blood and battle.
Something lumbered past him, a hulking black shadow Toothless couldn't identify as friend or enemy, dragon or Viking, only as "not Hiccup."
Where was his rider?
He ran, jumped, glided, all but flying, until he passed out of the crucible, into the forge. Iron thundered against iron, reworking weapons in the midst of battle, even as the Viking warriors wielded them.
Though his sight was clouded by nasty smoke and fighting, his purpose was a clear white light in his mind, and, intent upon it, he charged into the fray, feeling blows being delivered to his flanks and wings, but feeling none of them. Ripping with teeth and claws into any enemy in his path. Concerned only with finding his friend. But he felt it vividly when his surrogate tail wing was shredded like parchment from his tail. Felt it like it was being torn from his body all over again. Felt it and saw red, red, red, eclipsing that white light. He turned.
After the blood and thunder had ended, sifting among the dead and wounded and torched, they found Hiccup, wreathed in smoke that tasted like death and mortally still.
Stoick dropped to his knees before the small, broken body, holding his enormous head to his son's stiff chest.
A feeling of overwhelming familiarity hit Toothless, and he was reminded heavily of a certain battle a couple of years ago. A certain battle that had cost Hiccup a leg, but drawn these two friends closer than before with their shared loss.
Toothless crossed the wide, empty space between the crowd of Vikings and their kneeling leader, tasting that smoke, seeing Hiccup's bloodless skin and crimson clothes.
Unlike before, though, those large hands lowered that frail body to the ground, and Stoick the Vast rose, turning, shoulders shaking. Head shaking.
He was gone.
Realization, like falling, like a Night Fury, like a bola shot from a cannon, slammed into him. Hiccup was gone. His rider was gone.
Toothless was invincible, near immortal. Hiccup was…
Toothless's maw gaped open, a purple light igniting far down his throat. He roared his anger and pain out in one massive explosion of supersonic sound and fire.
His wings were clipped.
Days later, after disappearing into the forest after the retreating attackers, Toothless returned to Berk. He wandered into the village, frightening even the stout-hearted Vikings, looking worn down and incredibly old. He bypassed the crowd of questioning villagers, the wreckage of buildings, the harbor, heading straight for the forge, for the comfort of familiar smoke.
Stoick intercepted him, red-eyed but otherwise composed.
"Did you…?" But he didn't need an answer, not really. The ragged, blood-flecked claws and soot covered scales were answer enough.
Toothless nodded anyways, Stoick returning the nod grimly. Before the exhausted Night Fury could move, one large hand encompassed his snout. Toothless looked up at Stoick from threatening eyes, but the Viking didn't remove his hand.
"I know… I know you loved Hic— 'im too. Before 'e died, 'e was working on something… something special, as an… "anniversary gift," he called it. By Thor, that boy was… an o-odd one…" Stoick's voice hitched, but he reclaimed it.
Then Toothless remembered what day it was. They had met two years ago to the day, in a copse of obliterated trees. One with his dagger aimed at the other's very heart. In that moment, he could see it clearly. It felt suddenly as if that dagger had not hesitated, had ripped straight through his heart, never mind carving around it. He crooned low in his throat, a wounded animal sound.
"He left it for you, in the forge." Toothless shouldered past the Chief, bounding into the fuming forge.
Gobber was there, his hammerhand banging a glowing piece of metal into some semblance of a weapon. It tasted simultaneously metallic and sulfuric. Like blood and fire. When he caught sight of Toothless, the noise stopped. He turned, his expresion unreadable, and pointed to the corner of the forge Hiccup had practically claimed as his own.
There was a table and shelf covered in sheefs of parchment, the wall plastered with drawings of Toothless and his tail wing, forever gone. But something new was there, on top of all the old plans and schematics, something new but familiar. It was bundled up, but the shape was unmistakable.
Another tail wing. Not just the leather for it, but a whole new setup. It looked better. Sturdier. Beautiful.
"'e was workin' on this ol' thing fer quite a while."
Gobber walked over to it and untied it, stretched it out-a leather harness with an attached piece of flat metal, some rope, another couple of harnesses for the tail, the tail wing itself, and nothing more. It was simpler, too. Those huge hands reached towards him, as if to put it on.
Toothless backed away, his head fins pressed flat, and glared.
No one else could ever replace Hiccup. No one else would ride him. No one else knew how to ride him, and he wouldn't let anyone get the chance to learn.
"Easy, now. 's not what you think." Gobber didn't seem to mind. Even when Toothless growled, as he strapped the tail wing to his tail. Even when he snapped at Gobber with teeth speckled with dried blood, Gobber's soot-flavoured hands remained steady. Toothless wouldn't hurt him, and they both knew it.
Unlike when Hiccup had put it on in all the other designs, this seemed to take no time at all. It attached to his tail in much the same way. But the harness went around his left hind leg, almost like a net, except that it hung loosely behind his leg.
"A'right, it's on there good an' tight! Go on an' try 'er out!" Gobber gave him a sad smile, and then the banging continued.
Toothless left slowly, confused, tasting the the sizzling steam as the axe or sword Gobber had been working on was submerged in water.
Above, the sky stretched up and out, infinite and blue. Somewhere in his chest, his heart swelled with the wind his wings captured as he stretched them, remembering that feeling of infinity. His wings went high, in preparation, his body hunched low, ready to pounce into the sky. He shifted his weight, compensating for the slight body of someone who wasn't there.
It threw him off, that not-thereness. The complete abscence of someone he had grown so used to. His wings shriveled with memories of trying to fly without his tail wing and without his rider. The way his tail wing had opened without fully opening. Remembered dirt flying and the bitter pain of failure.
But he had to trust in Hiccup. Trust that Hiccup wouldn't leave him with something that was broken without a rider.
He walked towards one of the many cliffs that jutted out over the sea, looking not down at the the cold, crashing waves, but up at the calm, unmoved sky. He crouched, spread his wings, and shot out into that calm ocean with no tide.
His tail wing opened, but didn't open. He flapped and scrabbled futily at the air with his claws, trying to climb his way back up, as he spiraled towards the water, unable to control himself without his rudder. The air whistled past him as he fell, as he had fallen when his tail wing had first been ripped off.
Here was the end. Here was the water, rushing up to welcome him. He was going to die, not by fire, as would have been fitting of a dragon, or even battle, but by water. He may as well have remained strapped to that wooden contraption under the sea.
But he would not have had those last happy years with Hiccup. He would not have been able to save Hiccup. They both would have died then.
Just as Hiccup had died a few days ago, and Toothless was about to die now. It looked as if, either way, they were destined to die together.
Then he looked up at the calm sky, and stilled. He spread his wings as wide as they would go, stretching for that feeling of infinity. Felt his legs go automatically into the bent positions they assumed to create as little resistance as possible when he flew.
His left hind leg hooked itself snugly into the harness. It didn't catch on his claws. It didn't tangle from his earlier flailing. The flat piece of metal felt solid beneath his huge limb, fit against the pad of his foot smoothly, and as he pressed down on it, his tail wing flew open, his wings shoved the air below him (briefly dipping into icy water), and he surged up.
The sky floated past as he shot up and up, the island and sea fading below him. The forward edge of his wings folded down, his body curled forward, and his legs drew into another position, preparing instinctivly for the next maneuver. Diving, soaring, spiraling, weaving-the tail wing followed smoothly, the metal responding to his natural movements as if it had always been a part of him. As if it knew him. As if it were Hiccup.
Hiccup, as he should have known, had not left him useless. All along he had intended for Toothless to one day be able to fly on his own again. He wished Hiccup were here now, more than ever, so thay he could let his rider know that he would rather need Hiccup and have him here, than not need him and have him gone.
When he shot out of a column of puffy clouds, he slowed and skimmed their tops just as he skimmed the memories he had of his rider. Up here, the sun was bright and warm, and it almost tasted of worn hands after a day in the forge.
Though it was hardly infinity without his rider, without his Hiccup, without that extra extension of himself that made infinity so complete, it was as close as he could get.