Greetings!
Thank you all for your follows/favorites/reviews. Considering this is my first actual fanfiction, it means a lot to me.
I completely forgot to mention this earlier: There are going to be six chapters of this story. It isn't a long one.
Ugh, this chapter really got a bit more cheesy than I would have liked. Please excuse my inability to name things.
Guest Reviewer: I just noticed that I had spelled the title incorrectly. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
Also, in this chapter, and in future chapters, when it is the dragons speaking, it's in dragonese. Just thought I'd let you know. One of my beta readers was a bit confused by that. (Has anyone caught on that the symbols in between the breaks in the narrative indicate perspective?)
Anyways...story!
Toothless scarfed down enough fish for a dragon twice his size before ambling over to the side of the Haddock's house, and curling up on the ground miserably as the other dragons who had been too scared to come and eat alongside Toothless raced up to the feeding area.
True, it was thanks to him that he and Hiccup were back on Berk safely. However, the Viking still hadn't awoken.
"It's not your fault." Toothless looked up to see Cloudjumper who eyed him carefully before sidling up to the smaller dragon.
"I know. It's just worrying. None of the human healers know what is wrong."
"That's because it isn't a human ailment." Cloudjumper said. Toothless' head came up sharply, and Cloudjumper bobbed his head in a nod.
"I've seen it before-Valka has as well, but she wouldn't recognize it, not in a human. But the signs are all there: Hiccup is in a delirious state, is he not? He first fell unconscious in a storm, correct? And the most telling sign is that his eyes have gone pale."
"What is it?" Toothless asked, although the pieces were coming together in his mind.
Cloudjumper snorted softly, his breath coming out in steam. "It is known as the Storm Delirium."
The world seemed to roll underneath Toothless' feet. "Are you sure?"
"Are you familiar with it?"
An almost-forgotten memory-he had tried hard to forget-flashed through his mind of awaking from a eon of fear, at least from how he remembered it. The other dragons had said that he had been sick for only a few days, but it felt like so much longer. The Storm Delirium could be devastating to a dragon's mental health, and Toothless himself barely recovered with his sanity. The Storm Delirium seized a dragon's mind, forcing them to live through their worst fears as nightmares in their mind. None of the dragons really knew what caused it.
It haunted dragon lore even still.
Toothless churred bitterly. "Familiar? You could say that." He thought a moment, imagining Hiccup being forced to live through his fears-every single one of them. Even his mind could be brought to ruin. "He isn't a dragon though. It isn't a thing humans can get."
"Perhaps. But Hiccup isn't...completely and entirely human. You know that he seems more dragon than Viking most of the time."
Toothless couldn't argue with that. "How do we stop it?"
"Oh, it's quite simple really." Cloudjumper said. "The cure is a plant. However, it's one of the rarest plants known to dragon kind."
The Night Fury was undeterred. "Where can I find it?"
"An archipelago about a week's journey from here, if you're a strong flier." Toothless caught the undertone in the large dragons voice, and knew that Cloudjmper was referring to his leather tailfin.
Toothless decided to swallow his pride, for Hiccup. "Okay, then we send one of the stronger dragons out."
"Easier said than done. Aforementioned archipelago is the Vailancean islands."
Eyes widening, Toothless felt a shiver of fear go through him. "Please tell me that you're joking."
"If only. I went there once, and I'm never doing it again. One of the Skrills that the alpha's est had contracted the Storm Delirium, and my friend Damasen and I volunteered to go. Worst mistake I ever made." Cloudjumper's voice lowered mournfully. "Damasen lost his mind, and the krill did before we could get back."
Toothless shook his head. "No, no, Hookfang will go. He's a strong flier, and he's either brave or arrogant enough to go."
"I wouldn't bet on it." Cloudjumper turned to go eat. "But I would act quickly. Hiccup will get worse every day."
"How long do you think he has?" Toothless asked, while figuring in his head that it would probably take about twelve, most likely thirteen days to get to the Vailancean islands and back.
"With how he is right now?" Cloudjumper replied, "I would say that you have eight days. At the very most."
Night had rested its fingers upon Berk, and Toothless was laying in Hiccup's room in the forge The low-ceilinged nook plastered with drawings and schematics was comforting, even as the dragon gave an anguished moan.
Hookfang had blatantly refused, even when Toothless had resorted to good old-fashioned begging. Finally, Toothless had spat in frustration "You would go if it were Snotlout."
"Even then I would second-guess myself. And if you'll so kindly notice, it isn't Snotlout who is sick." The Monstrous Nightmare had then turned and flown away, as if to mock Toothless' inability to do so.
Asking practically every other dragon on Berk had garnered the same result. They loved Hiccup, but not enough to face down the legends of the Vailancean islands.
I would go in an instant, Toothless thought. But, naturally, I can't.
It was one of those less-than rare moments when he wished that Hiccup wouldn't have shot him down. If course, then he wouldn't have met the Viking in the first place. Although as time went on, Toothless was less and less sure of had drawn him to Hiccup, some innate sense that the fragile human boy would play some major part in his life.
He couldn't let him die. Not now.
Something caught Toothless' eye. Sitting on the shelf was something the dragon thought had been destroyed years ago, but Hiccup must have repaired and kept it.
A new plan formed in his mind, and seizing it from the shelf, Toothless ran off to find someone to put on the new-well, old- prosthetic.
The one that would allow him to fly on his own.
There was still light coming from the Haddock's house as Toothless pushed against the door to let himself in. A fire was going, and Hiccup's bed had been moved to the main room, like the last time he had been seriously injured-when he had lost his leg. Valka, Astrid, and one of the village healers sat at the bedside. Valka had tears still on her face, and Astrid looked as though she were forcing herself not to cry.
Toothless nudged Astrid, who turned at the motion. Her worried expression relaxed only a little as she caught sight of the dragon. He held up the tailfin in his mouth, and Astrid's eyes widened in understanding.
As she took of the usual saddle and prosthetic and replaced it with the other one, Astrid murmured, "I don't think this is a good time for you to be leaving, Toothless. Hiccup needs you."
He snorted, and thought darkly I'm leaving because he needs me. Twisting to see his tail, he opened and closed the wings a few times before moving on to the next item.
It took some work, but Toothless managed to get a bag down from off of the wall and and around his neck. He would need some way to bring whatever this plant was back to Berk after getting it.
If he got it, the rational part of him said, but he ignored that.
He was about to leave, but paused, and turned back to Hiccup's bedside. He stirred, and his eyes fluttered open for a moment, just long enough to see that the usually emerald green irises had gone pale, like Cloudjumper had said. Before then, Toothless had been able to hope that the ther dragon had been wrong, but that hope had just shattered.
Hiccup murmured softly, words that were for the most part unintelligible, but he caught his name amidst the string of sounds.
Toothless nuzzled Hiccup gently before leaving, pausing only to obtain a description of the plant from Cloudjumper-though not its name he would note later-before launching into the night.
