Author's Note: Just a reminder that among dragons, like most animals, the rules of physical contact are different from human norms. Toothless and dragon-raised Hiccup are a tactile pair because that's how they communicate. Read it however you're comfortable with.

And: You guys. I love you all. Thank you for coming back. Thank you also to those who have been waiting for this story since "Nightfall" finished; thank you for understanding that I could do this fast or I could do this right, and I wanted to do it right.


Stormfall, Part Two

Through the noise of the storm, they can hear the cries of dragons struggling to stay in the air, yelping pain and excitement both at the pull of muscles stiff from the trap but free to fly once again.

Their cries are a joy to the dragon-pair, almost as much as the storm. Storms are their element, the rough winds and roar of the storm's voice and the snapping bite of its flashing teeth. The rush of the storm at sea and the remembered heat of the burning human nest far below and the shared delight that thrums between them in touches and small sounds makes a warmth inside much greater than the cold of the rain.

The island with the burning nest is long since lost to them, hidden somewhere by the winds that knock dragons away like pebbles swatted by an idle paw. In the storm there are no landmarks, and the pointing stars are hidden by thunderclouds.

The black dragon banks and dives, tearing himself and his beloved-companion free of a gust that threatens to knock them off balance and sends them tumbling too close to the dark shadow of another dragon. Neither he nor his rider can tell who it is, familiar companion from their own home-nest or one of the prisoners freed from the human cages, but they keep their distance for now. Secure in their flying-together harness, Hiccup yelps here us here careful watch-out!, warning the other dragon off. Playing a fly-close game is a fun game, and they are humming with excitement at the success of the hunt, but they are not yet home safely so now is not a time to play.

Stopping their fall with a sharp snap of wings, Toothless twists in the air to send them soaring towards better winds, keeping them beneath the thick and blinding stone-grey clouds and out of the rough waters that churn too closely below. Most dragons can swim, and he and his other half are comfortable in shallower waters and with fishing from the air. But the ocean has fangs this night, striking up at dragons and pulling them down where they cannot escape the cold that freezes wingtips and tails and delicate, clever paws until they are too numb even to bleed.

On his back, his rider shifts his weight, catching sight of another of their just-now flock tumbling from the sky, out of control in the storm winds. Toothless understands the thoughts of his other half as he does his own – they think together as they fly, understanding each other completely even from the smallest of signals – and can follow Hiccup's attention even without looking to see where his eyes are. There are few sounds to be heard over the screams of the angry storm, or signals to watch for in the darkness that is hard to see through even for Toothless, and they communicate almost purely through touch.

Together they dart through the winds to fly beside their flailing dragon-cousin, who is Moss on Paws who they know. Toothless shows her which way to go by spreading his wings into the wind, letting her find him in the air and follow his lead, and she crowds in towards them so close that Hiccup can reach out and draw his claws lightly across her hide to encourage her before Toothless coils away. It will help none of them if her wings tangle with his, and then they will all be falling. The pair who think of themselves as Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss, part Tt-th-ss and part (click)-phuh and both together as one, are agile flyers even in the storm, with many tricks learned from many such flights for the joy of it.

Toothless hums worry, seeing in Moss on Paws a problem with the hunt they worked out so carefully, and on his back Hiccup snarls frustration and irritation and a whimper of agreement, reluctant but unable to deny the truth of it.

If there was no storm, they would have been away and safe and home by now, but the sky cannot be commanded, and they had chosen to leap anyway rather than waiting and missing their pounce. To speak to humans directly and go into their nests to break traps that were guarded is a new thing that most dragons would not dare to do, would not even think to do. But they know a few things about humans now, and together the remarkable pair of dragon and dragon-man are all but fearless.

Humans who are almost always the enemy might consider him human, but Hiccup knows that he is not – he is one of the dragons of the nest of the great king. This is a true thing. He knows now that he had been brought there as a hatchling by Cloudjumper who had been their mother's mate, for Toothless had considered Hiccup's mother to be his as well, sharing all things as they do. Cloudjumper had caught her as dragons choose their mates and stolen her away like a treasure to be protected. He was told some of this by a human who had learned a bit to speak as dragons do and who had shown him that their paws were alike. She had said things in human words that he understood a little and showed that they were true, shattering a belief he had held all his life as if she were a predator breaking into an egg.

Hiccup cares nothing for this – he knows where he belongs, he knows what he is inside – and he does not think about it.

His mother Valka had never thought to tell him, before she died, that he was human: it had never occurred to her that he did not know. That her son acted and spoke as much like a dragon as the dragons themselves was quite adorable, after all. She had looked with affection at the way the flock had accepted her son, hoping that the two of them could make peace between her people and the Vikings' dragon enemies. Because of this dream, she had done nothing.

But what was sweet in a baby of three years would have been worrying in a child of thirteen, had Valka lived to see her son reach that age.

Hiccup is twenty-one now, and when he chooses to be, he is terrifying.

He wears dragon-scales like armor, and dragon's claws in gauntlets fitted to his clever, different paws, protecting them and turning them into deadly weapons. He is lightweight and agile, moving as dragons do in leaps and scrambles and pounces, rather than heavy and strong as humans often are. Although he is small in the eyes of his dragon family, he can hold his own in a fight on the ground, for he fights in the manner of dragons, biting and clawing, roaring and snarling, and with the intelligence that makes him so dangerous, able to predict his enemy's movement and plan to take advantage of their weakness. But the air is his natural habitat. He has been flying since he was a baby, had taken quite naturally to his first flight in his mother's arms, and sought it out ever since.

He is altogether a wild creature, with a wind-tangled mane of long hair that he has never really learned to cut back and the voice of a dragon, as comfortable on Toothless' back and at his side as if they were a single being. The black dragon is as much a part of him as his own heart. Inseparable since infancy, they believe themselves to be two parts of the same soul.

There are dragons with two heads, so it is not unthinkable to them that they might be a dragon with two bodies, bound together in ways they cannot see, just as they stay flying together with a harness they think of as a flying-with.

That they cannot see a thing does not mean it does not exist. They cannot see the wind that is trying to drive them into the blinding clouds one moment and smash them from the sky the next, but they feel it and use it and defy it, slipping around the force of it and sidling away from the blows it strikes. On other nights they have played in storms no less fierce.

A thing that is hidden is still a real thing; that is how hiding-finding games work.

Cold cannot be seen, or hunger. Scents in the wind are invisible. The touch of the mind of the great king of dragons, who rules their flock, cannot be seen.

Things that cannot be seen are still true things.

Things that have happened and are no more cannot be seen, but they were still real. They leave scars in the mind and scars across skin, and the dragon-raised feral bears many such marks. The memories of battles and hunts and being-hunted are etched across his skin. He wears those of hunger and the deepest cold of winter in his body, and of traps that cut and break and snap across his paws, and all of them with the same stubborn resolve that allowed a human child to survive in a dragon nest in the far north. He could not have survived alone, but he has never truly been alone. Toothless is always with him – they protect each other and learn from each other and get each other into trouble and out of it – and the flock has raised and trained him as one of their own, just as they would any hatchling.

The effect is as if a dragon had learned to take on a human body, but had learned nothing of how a human mind might work or how humans behaved. Neither one thing nor the other, perhaps, but much more dragon than man.

This was his choice, and he is not satisfied with it – he cannot imagine that it could be any other way. In the sky of the far north, sharing Toothless' wings and his fire, he is home.

But their home is dangerous, and although they are small dragons they are clever, learning to fight off their enemies and protect their friends with speed and cunning. They have fought in midair battles with stranger-dragons trespassing on their territory, and raided human settlements for food when there is not enough food for the flock, and traps set by humans are their prey. This is not the first time they have freed other dragons from the traps and cruelty of humans.

Hiccup hates dragon-trappers most of all – he was taught to do so by his mother, long ago, when she began the war on dragon traps her sons still wage even though they forgot her for a long time after her death. A lifetime of that war has turned a child's disgust and fear-anger into a fierce cold flame as sharp as the ice of the king or Toothless' fangs.

He would not object to humans if they would leave his family – and other dragons – alone. There are pfikingr – Hiccup cannot pronounce the word Viking, although he recognizes the sound of the word – on an island called Buh-rrrrKK in human noises and Island of Dragons and Strange Pfikingr in the way Hiccup names things. They do not hunt dragons anymore, so they are no longer the enemy, although Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss are never quite sure what to make of them.

The trappers with the bright-winged ship are their enemy, though. They have learned to recognize the ship and its people just as they recognize other flocks of dragons, and for many days they watched the human nest in secret, planning together. They waited to strike as if they were lurking by the edge of a hole in the ice for a furry water prey-beast to come to the surface to breathe.

But they understood that humans moving holding-things onto the ship's back meant that the humans would next move cages with dragons in them onto the ship's back, and then they would take the dragons away. The humans would come back and the dragons would not, and that could not be borne.

Hidden among the stones where they could see into the human nest, Hiccup had snarled and paced and thought aloud to Toothless about the storm-clouds and the cages and the ship, balancing each against the others, until he had tired of the decision and curled up against his dragon-partner's side, singing to him in mewls of not sure don't-like fear anger you? you? what you? you me we us go yes go yes no maybe what not-sure not-sure frustrated…

Toothless had huffed silly at him and lifted his chin, signaling determination stubborn yes yes daring eager yes yes us go c'mon ready ready.

So they had flown back to where they knew some of their flock-mates were hunting and invited them to come with the dragon-pair to chase humans and break traps. They explained the ideas Hiccup had had about sneaking using gesture and pretending, acting it out between them to show what they meant to do.

And now they have pretended for humans, too, showing the story of what they wanted to say. Dragons have to shout to make humans listen, Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss know, because humans do not see signals and they do not listen to any noises but their own.

Humans can be very stupid, so if they did not understand, the dragon-pair will have to show them again and shout louder. That is later, though, and while Hiccup and Toothless are both better at thinking about later than most of their flock-mates, now is more important to think about.

But there is no thought in flying in a storm. To fly in a thunderstorm is instinct, and practice, and freedom, decisions made in a moment as quick and surprising and blinding as lightning. It is knowing how to fly with the winds rather than fighting them, and in slipping away from dangerous winds and the taste of lightning-flashes like jumping from stone to shifting stone. It is in never getting dizzy and knowing how to be out of control until that control can be snatched back with a thieving paw.

They feel the storm in their bones and the play of rain across their skins, taste it in the scent of heavy clouds and the salt of the raging sea, hear it in the growling of thunder and the distant cries of their flock-mates, and make it their own.

The storm is heavy on their backs, and it has blown the others all away. For a moment, black dragon and dragon-rider are alone together in the sky, relying only on themselves and responsible only for each other. When they wander far from home, exploring for new places and new dragon-flocks to meet and talk to and chase and be chased by, to be alone-together is a delight, but there are others in their flock now, and they should be flying together.

Where? Toothless asks in a low growl that Hiccup feels more as a vibration than a sound, prompting them both to look all around. They dip lower in the sky to search below the cloud cover, where the rain falls freely. It strikes them like pebbles dropped over the side of a cliff face, and Hiccup huddles into Toothless' shoulders, hunching his own shoulders against the assault and hiding his face against black scales. Out of the side of his eye he sees a dark shape in the water, but when he turns to stare at it more carefully, he recognizes it as the ship with the colorful wings, thrashing against the waves with its wings all sodden and rolling back and forth like a rock-skin cousin who has eaten many stones. There is no danger from it – a small movement might be a human out on its back, struggling to not fall – so the ship is not of interest, and Hiccup dismisses it as not his problem compared to the missing dragons.

Taking a deep breath, he looks up and around again, searching the sky for the flash of dragon-scales lit up by lightning strikes and listening for voices crying fear or pain or joy-at-reunion or attention. Toothless roars an attention-cry of his own, calling any dragon listening to come towards his voice, but there is no answer.

Enough! Hiccup snarls, a sound he would use to put a stop to a game that has grown too rough, that will leave him with bruises and cuts from over-playful dragon-cousins much larger than he. He is accustomed to their casual buffets and playful bites, and he will hold his ground against any flock-mate even without Toothless to defend him, but even many hatchlings are bigger than he is. Up go up up flame now flame up!

Toothless understands the new plan immediately, and spins away from a gust to rear back and soar straight upwards into the sky, flaming at the cloud cover with blasting-fire. His flames flash like lightning, bright and clear, a signal for any dragon able to see it.

Far away, another dragon flames in reply, and at once they race towards it, glad to have found at least one of their missing friends. As they do so, another flame lights up the sky for a brief moment, in a different direction. Unconsciously, Hiccup marks its position and direction, putting together a mental map of the area.

It takes many more blasts of flame, the growing flock combining their fires to make a brighter signal, to gather together the dragons still in the air. Hiccup does not know how many there are – he has no understanding of numbers – but he checks off dragons he recognizes, realizing even in the darkness and the chaos that some are missing. He has no way of knowing if they have found the island of the burning nest again, or landed safely elsewhere, or if they have fallen from the sky.

Even the ones still flying are exhausted. Their wings beat more slowly and they cluster in as tightly as possible so that the stronger dragons protect the weaker ones from the worst of the winds. Very Very Very Blue, who is not a hatchling anymore but is still small, flutters close to the biggest dragon he can find, and the loud-voice lets him land on her back to rest. Kicks in Dreams has a new scorch mark across her side from a lightning strike, and her hatching-mate Licks Stones is nowhere to be seen. Heads droop and tongues loll, tails hang limply, and the eyes that turn to Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss are dim and veiled behind very much blinking.

This was their plan, so Hiccup and Toothless are the leaders for now, and the others expect them to know what to do. Those from home know that the odd dragon-pair are always full of ideas that must be clever because they are so difficult to understand but sometimes work well. The strangers from the cages recognize only that dragons who can get them away from chains and jaw-holders are to be trusted.

There is a small light in the distance that might be a break in the storm or a flame-signal from another dragon, so Hiccup points it out to Toothless, leaning far over the black dragon's head to point with a single claw, and then waves this way follow us go yes fly now this-way! to the flock.

They follow because there is nowhere else to go.

But the closer they get to the light the less like the familiar shine of moon and stars it seems, but through the heavy rain it is hard to see what it is until they are already too close.

There is no break in the storm there, and no safe landing place. As it comes into focus Hiccup tenses in shock and fear, feeling Toothless backwing so sharply he turns almost nose over tail, tangling himself up like a clever-tie that holds things together. Danger! they yip together, crying out to the others. No no no bad careful danger danger alert bad bad!

The ship with the colorful wings was no threat, but the light is from fires on many, many ships, holding their place on the ocean even in the face of the storm. They are more than even the flocks of ships that sometimes travel through their territory and are good to steal from or fly over closely to make humans yelp and run. Those ships are slender and light and smell of tar and wood and humans, but these stink of metal and an unfamiliar burning smell that is not good like dragon-fire, but heavy in the nose and thick in the throat when Hiccup opens his mouth to taste it, reflexively gathering all the information he can about this new threat.

He does not doubt that it is a threat, this great flock of ships. To him they seem as many as the flock that lives under the rule of the king of ice, so many that he could never name them all – there will always be more. And it is a thing of humans, new and strange and therefore dangerous, and enough even to overwhelm and outnumber their greatest of flocks!

Hiccup has never questioned that his family and their king are the dominant power in their northern realm, but this –! This is an invasion, a plague, a stampede of human ships, and for the first time he feels truly insecure in their own territory.

The water beneath and around it bubbles and churns as if the water around it is filled with fish, swimming and swarming all over each other, but where usually such a sight would make him hungry with the promise of an easy hunt, he bares his teeth in an instinctive snarl instead.

There is the scent of dragons about it, too, and that makes no sense at all.

All around the dragon-pair, their flock turns to scatter and retreat, but they do so slowly, as if too tired to fly any further even in the face of such a strange and powerful human thing. They falter in the sky, sinking lower. Hopelessness pervades the thoughts of the flock, leaping from one to the other through the subtle signals dragons flying together learn to recognize on a level deeper than thought, telling them how to fly together, how to veer and turn and dive and leap without colliding, so that one may lead and many may follow.

In their exhaustion, in the disappointment of finding no safe haven after all their flying, the flock feels giving up. Those freed from captivity feel the return of the metal bars and know that they have fled and flown and struggled only to find a new cage in which aching wings and sore sides can rest, and they signal this to the others. The relentless, unending rain is everything there is, and the only bright fires left are the ones on the ships.

One by one, the fleeing dragons stop. They turn back. They stumble towards the ships, and the roiling dark water beneath them.

No! Toothless roars at them, commanding. He shakes off the despair, thinking instead of free flight, and his love for his Hiccup-beloved-self on his shoulders, who is crying out with him, and of the excitement of landing in a place where they have never been before.

He thinks of the time they fought a monster that tried to trap and then devour them both, that was both an Alpha and an eater of dragons, and of the triumph of bringing their beloved great king to the monster's nest and helping him to defeat her so that the dragons she had enslaved with her mind-calls were set free. He thinks of watching Hiccup do things that no other dragon can do, making patterns and shapes with charcoal and lines in sand, tying together deep wounds so that they will heal, taking apart traps that bite and playing hiding-finding-running-chasing games with the shining pieces; they are never bored together.

The others do not listen to his cries, and the only response he hears are the soft noises that Hiccup makes as he paws at his eyes with the side of his claws, snarling a protest.

It is good to fly all together with a flock, but if the choice of the flock is wrong – and it must be wrong to fly towards these ships; it must be wrong to land on them and huddle down as Moss on Paws is doing, resigned as humans appear on the back of the ship; to wait and make no protest as they throw a tangle-net over her and bind her jaws with ropes is wrong, wrong, wrong – then they will not follow!

Rage and fear give Toothless' wings new strength, and he feels Hiccup come to attention on his shoulders, no longer slumped in weariness but tense and crouched for battle and flight as fast as possible, paws twining into the flying-with and chest pressed low to the bigger dragon's back. Toothless can feel his heartbeat, thrumming through them both as quickly as racing paws, and his low snarl of frustration at the sight of their friends that they led to free others, captured instead, and the ones they set out to free led into a more terrifying cage.

Despair bites at them again like cold that creeps into paws on ice, nipping at the edges and eating its way deeper and deeper. But their anger is stronger, and Toothless draws in a breath to burn the nearest ship, preparing to lunge in, on the attack.

In the darkness even dragons struggle to see Toothless; when they fly in silence the night is their camouflage, but the black dragon roars danger! and threat flee you urgent-important flee now now now! They are not hiding now.

The dragons on the deck do not look back at them, but pale human faces turn up towards them and scatter. They drop ropes that are carried away by the rainwater washing across the ship as it struggles to free itself – even the ship is chained, bound somehow to the churning ocean! – but more humans scuttle out from the belly of the ships like ants, swarming and biting, too many even to see all at once.

Ants can be burned and ants can be washed away and ants can be escaped, but Kicks in Dreams lowers her head and succumbs to the biting of spears, letting them herd her away. She is devoured by the ship and disappears into its stomach without protest.

All the instincts Hiccup and Toothless possess are screaming at them to fly away from this place of chains as quickly as they can, set their tail to it and fly as fast as possible until it has vanished over the horizon, and never, never approach it again. They should scent the wind always for its stink and run away from even the traces of it before it can hunt them and trap them as it has trapped the others.

Furious more than frightened, they do not flee. Instead they land on the side of the ship and Toothless flames at the nearest cluster of humans, blasting away the wood of the ship's back from beneath their feet so that they stumble and fall and cannot reach little Very Very Very Blue or Colored Like Storm.

Arrows strike both dragons, though, and they whimper, eyes rolling, and slump to the ground.

More arrows hiss towards Hiccup and Toothless where they perch, screaming challenges and outrage at humans and encouragement to dragons deaf to their cries. Toothless has reared up onto his back legs to signal defiance with voice and body and boiling flame, wings spread and tail raised for balance, and Hiccup realizes too late that they are an excellent target for humans with arrows and tangle-nets. The beginning of his yelp of fly! is drowned out under a deafening crack of lightning and the answering roar of thunder following close enough to catch it by the tail.

The storm saves them, the slight lull vanishing under the whims of the thunderstorm. The ship thrashes against its chains, trying to escape, and the movement and a blast of wind as fierce as Toothless' blasting-fire swats them from their perch like a blow from a whip-sharp tail.

Hiccup and Toothless tumble, falling towards the threatening ocean.

Caught by surprise, Toothless stops them, spreading his wings only moments before they would have fallen into the dark water.

From above humans lean over the side of the ship and shoot more arrows at them, firing wildly like a panicked blue-spikes cousin. All of them miss, vanishing into the water below like raindrops, brushed aside by the rain.

Hiccup doubts that the arrows can hit them, in the face of the storm, but they still frighten him as they hiss by. Mistakes and ill-chance leave scars more often than battles in anger, when they do not kill. Things go wrong so often, in the wild world away from the nest.

But before they can strike again, as Toothless struggles to reclaim his balance, suddenly more frightened of the water than of the humans and their sharp-biting weapons, a loud human voice as deep as thunder shouts angry things, commanding. And there are no more arrows.

Close to the bubbling water the feeling of fear is worse, not of a predator's hunger but of a pull like falling with broken wings, like the inevitability of slipping from a sheer cliff-face of treacherous ice when claws will not catch, and they both feel it so intensely that there is no need to discuss what to do next.

Finally obeying their instincts, they flee, back into the storm, more willing to face the lightning and the cold of the rain than well-armed human fighters or the presence lurking beneath the strange ships.


It is a long time again before they find somewhere else to land, and if they were not so tired – frightened, discouraged, body-weary and heart-weary – they would try to fly further, searching for another refuge.

There are no humans on the back of the bright-winged ship when they find it again. There is no one to see dragon and dragon-man, bedraggled and exhausted, set down on its back.

Toothless lands inelegantly, uncaring that humans might hear his paws as he drops to the ship's back rather than hovering and landing lightly. From other adventures he knows that many ships have a belly that humans can hide in; there is an inside to them like human nests and the places they make to keep captive dragons in. If the ship's humans are all hiding in its belly they probably do not want to come out in the rain to chase Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss away, and if they try then they will not get far. Humans are awkward on their back legs, and the ship is rolling and thrashing so much that even Toothless, with his claws sunk into the wood, feels as if he might fall.

The black dragon drops into a low crawl to keep his balance against the ship's movement and they skulk behind a pile of holding-things in search of a hiding place. He understands that the things are tied down because Hiccup knows how to tie things, and they both recognize nets, so the things are not supposed to move.

It is not a good den – the rain and the wind are cold and wet, and waves lap over the side sometimes – but it is more solid beneath their feet than water as cold as ice.

Toothless feels his Hiccup-beloved climb down from his shoulders as he settles down in a small space between the holding-things and the side of the ship. Wrapping his tail around them to hide it from view, he raises one wing to let Hiccup crawl in and curl up at his side, and they huddle together. When Toothless puts his nose under the wing their breathing warms them.

In the darkness Hiccup presses his face against his beloved-companion's jaw and whimpers. What now? he asks in the softest of whistles. Scared me scared us danger worry flock us danger confused don't-understand strange. His dragon's voice turns darker, and Toothless can feel him snarl. Angry worry dragon-kin frustrated trap-danger-signal what? what? He trails off into a low dark moan of failure.

The black dragon wraps himself around his dragon-feral partner just a little bit tighter. No, he refuses, and thrums reassurance until Hiccup's whimpers of distress and frustration and fear even out into an exhausted sigh.

You sleep, Toothless urges as the ship bucks beneath them and the wind makes its wings flap and creak, reminding him unpleasantly of the aches in his own abused wings. Flying in storms is only fun when it is their choice, when there is a good place to launch from and a good place to land and a warm cave to hide away in until they are dry again. Flying in storms when there is no escape is no fun at all. He blinks affection, deep and true, and sighs safe here.

He supposes he deserves Hiccup's snort of disbelief. They both know that there is nothing safe about a human ship, especially when they just tonight attacked these humans and burned their nest and chased them away. It feels like a very long time ago, as if they spent many endless winter nights, when the sun only wakes to stretch and go back to sleep, in the storm. As soon as there is somewhere to go they will have to leave quickly.

Hiccup nudges his nose against Toothless' with a whuff of amusement. He wriggles out from the enveloping wing to pin down the bigger dragon's head – it takes all his body to do it – and raises his head high, glaring defensively at what turns out to be the side of the ship just a breath away from his snub nose.

Protecting, he says.

It is at once a joke and entirely serious. Toothless whuffs along with him because Hiccup is so much smaller, and the idea of a small dragon protecting a bigger one is about as silly as a human ship being a safe place for them to sleep. But he purrs love-you love-you trust happiness contentment yes me-protected safe yes laughing laughing good because he knows Hiccup means it absolutely. They have fought to protect each other so many times that they could not remember all of their adventures if they tried, although they have told many of them as stories to their flock-family. That Hiccup will protect Toothless and Toothless will fight for Hiccup is as obvious as the paw on this side of his body fighting to protect the one on the other side.

It is a joke because it is obvious. It is serious because it is true. Toothless purrs his amusement and flicks one ear-flap so that it smacks that upturned nose.

Hiccup snaps at the offending ear-flap without much intent to bite, squirming around to pursue it, and Toothless ducks his head to drop the dragon-man onto the ground of the ship.

With his other half safely bundled away under his wing again, warmed by the brief tussle and comforted by the physical reassurance that touch and playing together always brings them, Toothless surveys the parts of the ship he can see through the protection of the holding-things as if they were hiding-behind rocks. There are still no humans out in the rain, but when he sets his jaw against the wood, he can feel movement from beneath it, vibrating in his senses like the heartbeats or pawsteps of running prey. The reminder makes him tense, just a bit, and Hiccup rests a paw over his ribs, responding immediately.

Toothless decides to relax so that his other half will too, tucking his nose back under his wing with a sigh. He keeps the edge of his hearing on alert, listening for the approach of humans or for the end of the storm, which is still lighting up the clouds with bright flashes and shaking them with thunderclaps.

The two of them have been wandering since they were old enough to fly out of range of the nest and feel comfortable sleeping away from the safety of the flock, exploring by whim and chance and endless curiosity. Perhaps when the storm lets up and the ship stops flying away like a leaf tossed into the place with the updrafts – this is a favorite chasing-catching game – they will wake up to find themselves somewhere familiar.

In his sleep, Hiccup whimpers and his paws reach out for something, scratching lightly but not finding it in the expanse of Toothless' wing, and settle for wrapping around one of the dragon's claws instead.

Occasionally they even dream each other's dreams, and Toothless can easily guess what his beloved has lost.

After the storm, they will figure out where they are and get back in the air.

And then they can go get their friends back.


To be continued.