Hey guys! I'm surprised at how big this fanfic has gotten with one chapter, I haven't seen this many favorites and follows on any of my stories in a really long time. But nevermind that, you all came here for Chapter 2 didn't you! Well I have it right here and you're about to read it so without any delays let's get right into:
Chapter Two: Survival
When Hiccup returned to the world of the living, the first thing he registered was that he was comfortable. So much that the young boy was going to let himself fall back into a nice comfortable deep sleep.
But then the memories of the past few days returned to the sleepy boy, and he mentally sighed and then groaned while rolling over against Toothless' side.
Hiccup didn't want to get up, he wanted to sleep in Toothless' paws and wings forever and just forget all the problems and challenges that now plagued them.
And judging by the way Toothless moaned and closed his eyes, trying to block out the bright sunlight coming into the cave like a Viking rushing a Dragon with a battleax, he felt the same exact way as his human companion did.
Hiccup knew he had to get up, he had to figure something out and they had to do...something. As much as he wanted to go back to sleep, let the peace of resting in Toothless' wings become endless...he couldn't.
Hiccup blinked a few times before opening his eyes fully, the sunlight shining through the cracks in Toothless' wing cocoon.
Hiccup rolled over and laid his hand on the dragon's soft velvety chest, tapping a few times to get Toothless' attention.
"Bud, let me up, we got to get up and start...whatever day it is" Hiccup mumbled and Toothless shook his head with a moan.
"Bud, come on let me up!" Hiccup asked again and Toothless growled this time before increasing the strength of his hold on Hiccup.
"Bud, you can sleep in all you want, just let me up..." Hiccup asked one last time and Toothless shook his head with a croon and a snarl.
"Fine, have it that way" Hiccup mumbled and pretended to lose consciousness, keeping so still that Toothless whined and stuck his head in the cocoon in worry.
"HA!" Hiccup yelled and scratched Toothless' sweet spot before the dragon could pull away, and Toothless lost consciousness in three seconds flat.
Hiccup slowly worked his way out of the dragon's grip, trying his best to not wake up the sleeping Night Fury.
"Sorry bud, but we have to get up, I know you would like to sleep in and so would I but its just not happening" Hiccup whispered to the dragon, who purred and slightly growled in his sleep.
Hiccup decided he would let Toothless sleep in a little longer, as much as he wanted the dragon up know he knew that when a Night Fury set their mind on a goal they wouldn't let go until it was achieved, and Toothless' goal was sleep.
So, Hiccup decided to take a peek outside and see what it looked like in the day time. He stumbled out of the cave and looked up at the bright blue sky and a few pure white clouds.
"Perfect day for a flight..." Hiccup mumbled and then felt something in the back of his head like he'd forgot something...
Oh yeah, Toothless' tail fin got struck by lightning.
Hiccup quickly stumbled back into the cave and looked over at the onyx dragon's one-finned tail, his breathing catching in his throat at what he saw.
The prosthetic's leather cover was burnt off, leaving the now bent and singed metal rods exposed to the elements. The main control wire that leads from the saddle to the tail fin was snapped in two, with the tail fin permanently fused in an open position.
The problem was that Hiccup didn't have access to the tools to fix it, let alone the supplies to do so even if he had the tools. The tail fin would need to be almost completely rebuilt from scratch and Hiccup didn't have the parts let alone the tools and place to do so.
And Hiccup couldn't get access to them without leaving the island, and without the tail fin, they COULDN'T leave the island.
So...they were stuck, they were stuck until Hiccup either found and managed to gain the trust of a dragon who would help them or by the off chance Johann shows up exploring and Hiccup trades a few things for the supplies to fix the tail fin.
"Crap..." Hiccup muttered as he came to the realization that without the tail fin, they couldn't fish for food or even get around the island easily.
This fact was pounded even harder into Hiccup's head as a loud hungry growl echoed from Toothless' stomach, and the dragon shifted uncomfortably in his sleep.
Hiccup thought of how they were gonna get food now, and pretty soon considering that they both had barely eaten in the past almost twenty-four hours since escaping Berk.
Berk, Hiccup remembered the dragons still trapped in the arena, the Monstrous Nightmare doomed to be killed by someone who got the 'honor' of killing a dragon in an arena.
Hiccup so badly wanted to go back to Berk, rescue the dragon's in the arena and make sure the Monstrous Nightmare stayed alive...
But they couldn't, the tail fin was broken and without it they couldn't even get off the island, let alone sneak onto Berk and free five dragons under the cover of darkness.
So Hiccup let out a loud sigh while closing his eyes, they couldn't help the arena dragon's no matter how much they wanted too.
Hiccup snapped out of his thoughts when Toothless blinked his sleepy green eyes open with a grumble and a low vibrating croon that made the dragon's chest hum slightly.
"H-hey bud, good morning" Hiccup mumbled and Toothless crooned loudly while slowly getting up, the dragon's wings now folded neatly at his sides and his tail moving from side to side slowly.
Hiccup quickly remembered the tail fin and saddle, so he walked over to the dragon's head and scratched Toothless' jaw, the dragon let out a loud rumbling purr in response.
"Can I take the saddle and tail fin off, bud?" Hiccup asked nicely, and Toothless thought it over before nodding.
Hiccup quickly moved over to the tail fin prosthetic and started undoing the straps keeping it on Toothless' tail, one by one the straps came undone before Hiccup slid the broken device off.
Hiccup then moved over to the main saddle, quickly positioning himself underneath Toothless so he could reach the two main straps that went over the dragon's belly and chest.
Hiccup managed to undo the one on Toothless' belly easily, the strap falling to the side as Hiccup moved up a bit to get to the dragon's chest.
And then Hiccup found a problem, apparently, when the ax had grazed Toothless' chest it had also jammed the strap and buckle device that went over the dragon's chest.
"Holy Thor, bud, this thing is jammed pretty good" Hiccup mumbled between pants as he tried to detach the very tight strap, which was starting to constrict Toothless' breathing and movement.
Hiccup tried a few more times, pulling helplessly at the strap in an effort to undo it, but every single time ended with the strap in the same position and Hiccup gasping for air.
Hiccup knew the strap would get tighter and tighter over time until Toothless' breathing was constricted so much that it became dangerous.
"Alright, screw this, Toothless can you cut the strap?" Hiccup asked as he finally gave up on pulling the strap, and Toothless nodded before using one quick swipe of his claw to cut the strap in two.
Hiccup was about to work himself out from underneath the dragon, but Toothless smirked and just let himself fall on top of Hiccup.
"Gah! T-Toothless you, y-you useless thousand-pound reptile...g-get off!" Hiccup yelled in annoyance as Toothless purred and settled down on top of the boy's legs and torso.
"Bud, if you don't get off me, I'll make sure an eel will be somewhere near where you sleep!" Hiccup threatened and Toothless gaped in shock before climbing off the boy.
"Thank you! Holy Thor, I felt like three Gobber's had just been dropped on me" Hiccup moaned while rubbing his aching chest and legs, quickly getting up and stretching a few times.
Toothless chuckled and rolled his eyes, he didn't weight that much, well in dragon terms he was practically underweight but in human terms, he was very VERY heavy.
Hiccup then quickly helped Toothless work his fore-legs out from the saddle's metal rings before throwing the saddle to the side, the thing landing in a heap beside the prosthetic tail fin.
"There ya go, bud" Hiccup whispered and scratched the Night Fury's back, causing Toothless to purr loudly in happiness while leaning in towards Hiccup's touch.
Of course, something had to ruin the moment of peacefulness, and that something was Toothless' stomach.
Toothless' stomach growled loudly, and the dragon flinched inward with a whine replacing his purrs from a moment earlier, and Hiccup took in a sharp breath.
"Yeah bud, I know, hungry" Hiccup mumbled and rubbed the Night Fury's back comfortingly, and Toothless whined and rolled over onto his back with his belly on full display to Hiccup.
"You want...food?" Hiccup guessed and the dragon rolled his eyes with a snort before using his paw to gesture to his stomach, moving his other paws claws in a similar fashion to Hiccup's fingers.
"You want me to rub your belly?" Hiccup asked and Toothless nodded excitedly, and Hiccup sighed while getting down on one knee and starting to rub the black dragon's stomach.
"I swear sometimes you act like one big cat" Hiccup mumbled and Toothless snorted before going back to purring in delight as Hiccup scratched the dragon's aching stomach.
Eventually, Hiccup decided he had scratched Toothless' belly enough, so he pulled back and looked outside at the huge clearing and then a treeline.
Toothless worked himself into a stand position, quickly moving over to Hiccup's side and following the Viking's line of sight.
Toothless warbled lowly while nudging Hiccup, and then looking back at the treeline in curiosity.
"We need to find some way to get food, especially to fill the bottomless pit called a stomach" Hiccup joked somewhat and Toothless looked at Hiccup shocked.
"What?" Hiccup asked and Toothless rolled his eyes before doing a gesture of stalking something and then pouncing, and then eating.
"Are you asking why I don't know how to hunt?" Hiccup asked and Toothless nodded in worry and confusion, as well as a bit of annoyance that his human companion didn't know something that every dragon did.
"Well, I mean, my father never bothered to teach me how to hunt, guess he never figured I'd not be on Berk with the tribe. And I don't have access to any of my tools or even inventions from home to try and hunt" Hiccup explained and then Toothless smirked with a look in his eyes that sent a shiver down the young human's spine.
Toothless did a gesture for flicking through a book and then did a gesture for talking and pointing at things in a similar style to...a teacher.
"You're gonna teach me to hunt?!" Hiccup asked in both shock, excitement, and a bit of panic at the fact that Toothless want HIM to learn to HUNT.
Hiccup gulped loudly in fear as Toothless nodded excitedly and padded out of the cave with a huff and a croon.
"Oh Thor, bud! We can't start right now! We first got to find food to fill your stomach, and then we got to get some resources together so we can survive on this island" Hiccup mumbled out and then grabbed his arm self-consciously.
"Besides, I'm just a human, I don't have sharp teeth or a built-in flame thrower or even claws, I'm useless..." Hiccup whispered and Toothless' head snapped up to look right into Hiccup's eyes.
"What?" Hiccup asked and Toothless purred before gestured to the tail fin and saddle lying in the corner, and the message was obvious, "You're not useless."
"B-but I'm just a human, a runt, the most I can do is draw and plan, I can't even lift a hammer or an ax or..." Hiccup started rambling and Toothless snorted while giving Hiccup a 'really?' look.
And Hiccup remembered, dragons didn't use weapons, they had built-in flamethrowers, claws, and super sharp teeth. So the fact that Hiccup had none of these didn't both Toothless at all, the dragon wasn't like everyone on Berk, he didn't judge people based on what they COULD do.
No, Toothless judged people based on what they HAVE done, and the fact that Hiccup knew his best friend would never judge him for being scrawny or a runt comforted him greatly.
"T-thanks bud, umm...well, we can start training...later...we need to find food and resources first," Hiccup told the dragon and Toothless nodded in understanding, quickly making his way to the treeline with a smile.
Hiccup ran after Toothless, and both entered the forest with smiles and happiness pouring from the two.
Toothless was miserable as all hell, his wings kept bumping against branches or tree trunks, and thorns kept getting stuck in the dragon's paws.
Not only that, but Toothless had tripped over five rocks and faceplanted into the soil below, which made the dragon really cranky and miserable.
Hiccup wasn't as miserable as his dragon companion, thanks to his relatively small size he was able to avoid most if not all of the problems one might face in a thick forest such as the one that was on the island.
"Oh come on Toothless, it isn't so bad, at least you can't be bitten by bugs thanks to your scales" Hiccup comforted the dragon, who only snorted and growled in his own grumpy way.
"Fine, have it that way mister complains a lot, I'll just have to reduce the amount of Icelandic Cod in your dinner...if you have fish for dinner that is" Hiccup mumbled and Toothless growled before using his tail to trip the boy.
"Wha! Hey! Toothless! I swear you'll find an eel shoved right beneath your..." Hiccup growled and then looked up to find an ancient rotting Viking hut.
The hut was using four trees as the main supports, the walls made out of rickety planks and the roof made out of the leaves from the trees.
"...tongue..." Hiccup finished in shock before shooting right upright, Toothless growling at the hut while building up a small plasma blast in the back of his throat.
Hiccup slowly edged towards the hut, dreading that a dragon-slaying Viking may be waiting behind the hut's door, a Viking who would rush out and attack Toothless.
"Bud, be ready..." Hiccup whispered and Toothless snarled softly while building up a stronger plasma blast if need be.
Hiccup slowly edged closer to the door, raising his hand to the handle and slowly but surely opening the creaky loud door while his breathing increased in fear.
Something fell out towards Hiccup, and the boy yelped in shock before jumping back as Toothless fired a plasma blast at the 'thing'.
The thing fell to the ground singed, steam coming off the bones of the skeleton of a human.
Toothless crooned in confusion, he hadn't heard any human besides Hiccup breathing and the thing had just fallen out of the door instead of walking.
"No bud, I don't think you killed it. This guy or girl looks like they've been dead for...years, at least two hundred years" Hiccup mumbled as he tried his best to remember the time Fishlegs had talked about how to tell the age of a skeleton.
Hiccup slowly made his way into the hut, Toothless sticking his head in and glancing around before letting out a draconic sigh of relief, nothing beside him and Hiccup was alive in this hut.
Hiccup looked around at the countless items hanging from the walls, he saw everything from a butter knife to a piece of paper.
That's when a notable book stood out to the boy, and he slowly walked over to the book which was hanging on the wall next to a thin small sword and a basket.
Hiccup slowly grabbed the book and ripped it from its place on the wall, hoping he didn't set off a trap of some kind.
Hiccup opened the book and flipped to the front page, and his eyes widened in both shock and awe.
"This books at least four hundred years old, and this person...they must have been one of the first Vikings to ever enter the Archipelago!" Hiccup exclaimed in shock while reading through the book.
"Their boat crashed off-shore, and they swam to this island in a panic. They apparently made everything in this hut in order to survive...and then it just ends with a few words of warning against venturing into the caves...caves..." Hiccup mumbled the word caves over and over again until he shook his head and put the book back on the wall.
"Alright bud, we should grab what we can use from this hut and get a move on, and maybe we should avoid the caves...just in case," Hiccup remarked while grabbing the empty basket and filling it with a bunch of tools and helpful supplies.
Toothless snorted and rolled his eyes in annoyance, Night Fury's were one of the most powerful dragons in existence and Hiccup was fearful of going into the caves.
But if Hiccup didn't want to go into the caves, then Toothless wouldn't go in either. The dragon was set in following his human friend everywhere he could, and he was doing a pretty good job so far.
Once Hiccup had filled the basket, he quickly exited the hut and Toothless stuck his head in a basket nearby and then started stumbling around, Hiccup laughing in the background.
"Come here, bud" Hiccup managed to whisper between laughs, and he quickly pulled the basket off of Toothless' head.
Toothless sniffed the basket a few times, the dragon's eyes lighting up with hunger as his stomach growled loudly, and he whined in pain and annoyance.
"Bud, what's wrong..." Hiccup asked and then took a sniff of the basket, which reeked of fish, no wonder Toothless' stomach was acting up.
"It's going to be fine, bud, let's try and use THIS basket to find food you and I can eat," Hiccup told the dragon and they walked off into the forest, leaving the hut to rot.
Around sundown and Hiccup had only found apples and a good amount of berries, and Toothless had tried to hunt down a few rabbits but his noisy stomach alerted the animals to the black dragon's presence.
So, they trudged back to the cave in despair as the sunset on the horizon, Toothless just shaking his head as his stomach growled loudly.
"Bud, I wish you could eat fruits and vegetables, then this would be so much easier..." Hiccup mumbled as he carried the sword from earlier in his hand.
Toothless had demanded they go back to the hut and retrieve the sword, Hiccup theorized that the dragon saw the sword as Hiccup's version of claws.
Toothless head snapped up and he looked at Hiccup curiously, a thought going through the dragon's head. He's never eaten anything that wasn't fish or animals like rabbits or even horses (For which Toothless hated the second, for some reason.) but maybe he could try?
Toothless crooned and keened, nudging Hiccup and gesturing to the basket and Hiccup's eyes widened.
"Can you eat apples and berries? If so, then I could have stolen those out from under everyone's noses instead of fish when we were back on Berk" Hiccup mumbled and Toothless shrugged.
"You don't know? What if it hurts you, or you get an upset stomach?" Hiccup asked worried and Toothless gave him a look that said: "I'm an adult Night Fury, I can take it."
"Alright bud, but if you get an upset stomach I'm making you regurgitate it right there and then," Hiccup told the dragon as they entered the cold cave, they both laid down and Hiccup pulled an apple out from the basket.
Hiccup laid the apple in front of Toothless, who sniffed it a few times before slowly working the red apple into his maw, licking it a few times before swallowing it.
Toothless shuddered uncomfortably, he wasn't used to eating something that wasn't meat, but it had tasted alright and his stomach seemed to settle a bit from the fact he had eaten.
"Did that go down ok?" Hiccup asked worried and Toothless gave him a look that said: "What are you? My mother? I'm fine."
"Alright, alright, here you go bud" Hiccup told the dragon as he gave the dragon a few more apples, each different colors and sizes.
Toothless slowly started eating the apples, one by one and eating each more enthusiastically than the last, the sweet but slightly sour apple tasting amazing to the dragon.
Toothless still preferred fish, but these apples could make a nice substitute in the meantime until they managed to figure out how to get fish without flight or a fishing rod or net.
Hiccup munched on his own apple, sometimes eating a few barries which they had quickly figured out weren't poisonous thanks to Toothless' amazing sense of smell.
After they had finished eating, Hiccup was full and Toothless' stomach was only rumbling lightly instead of full-on growling.
They both looked out to find that it was raining lightly, no thunder or huge winds outside the cave. Hiccup turned to Toothless and shrugged with a nod.
"Guess since I don't have a bed I'll just have to sleep curled up in your wings again," Hiccup somewhat stated with a smirk, Toothless was warm and being curled up against the dragon was probably the best sleeping spot in the world.
Toothless smirked and rolled onto his side, purring and gestured to his torso. Hiccup stumbled over and slowly laid up against Toothless' side with a deep breath.
Toothless wrapped his warm paws and huge wings around Hiccup, cradling the boy and giving him a spot to sleep with his head resting on the dragon's foreleg.
"Thank's bud, I promise that tomorrow we'll find a way to get you some fish and then we'll start figuring out what to do" Hiccup whispered and rubbed Toothless' slightly rumbling belly.
Toothless purred loudly and held onto Hiccup just a bit harder, closing his eyes and quickly falling asleep alongside his young human friend.
Both slept better than ever before that night, each dreaming of flying and a future filled with happiness and, most importantly, each other.
So yeah, sorry if this chapter was a bit shorter than the previous one but I didn't want to make this into one huge Viking long-boat of a chapter, even though I have done that before and most likely might again in this story. Chapter Three will be (hopefully) done sometime soon, so yeah, with all that said I'll see you in the next chapter.
This is JustANormalHTTYDFan, over and out.
