A/N: If it seems like it's an obvious reference, it's because it is.
It turns out that the Gods didn't want to give me even a little bit of time to collect myself in peace as I lay on the cold stone floor of my father's house. Not thirty seconds after I began taking my impromptu nap came the sound of two fists rapidly knocking on the door I'd just shut and locked. There was no doubt in my mind who those fists belonged to, considering the advice Astrid had just given me about the twins.
"Ruff, Tuff, leave me alone. I already know you plan on tying me to a tree in the forest, so I'm not opening the door." I closed my eyes again, hoping they'd leave me be. I knew fully well that wouldn't happen, but I still hoped for it.
"Hey dragonbreath, we aren't going to tie you to a tree in the forest anymore! But you have to admit it was a pretty good plan," I heard Tuff exclaim. Exasperated, and losing more time I could be spending with Toothless, I rolled over onto my back and started lightly shouting at the door.
"Plan? How is that a plan? All it requires is rope, a tree, and a moron who willingly opens his door to two people who have, in the past, tied him to random trees in the forest. That is not a plan. It requires no steps, no thinking; just rope and stupidity." I continued to lie there, staring at the ceiling of the house. I was considering just making a break for it out the back when I heard another voice pop up.
"We're not here to do anything to hurt you, Hiccup, we swear! We just wanna know how you managed to DO that today! It was incredible. It's like your speed jumped by plus five overnight!" Fishlegs did seem to be excited about hearing my secrets, but like Hel I was about to tell anyone in this village anything even remotely close to the truth. Sitting up, I heaved myself to my feet and walked to the door, leaning my back against it. I cleared my throat to let them know I was about to speak.
"I did it because I've officially been Gobber's apprentice for the last nine years. If you don't have quick hands when working with razor sharp blades and molten steel, you tend to regret it." I knew the twins would buy it, but Fishlegs was there and he'd see the obvious flaw in that statement. I was surprised to hear Ruffnut speak up first.
"Idiot, you've been his apprentice for nine years, so what? Two weeks ago I threw a rock at you and you didn't even notice. And you were looking straight at me." I heard the other two sniggering on the other side of the door while I rubbed the top of my head, the bump from the rock long since gone.
"In my defense, I was deep in thought. Though I'm sure only Fishlegs understands the concept."
"I understand it. Ruffnut doesn't, though."
"Who asked you, yakface?"
"Like I need permission to speak, hag!"
"Dragon brain!"
"TROLLHEAD!"
"SNOTLOUT'S BOYTOY-"
"CAN THE TWO OF YOU PLEASE STOP ARGUING FOR ONCE AND LET HICCUP SPEAK?! We could start Dragon Training ANY day now. Stoick's due to come back TOMORROW if their schedule is on time and that means that we'll start actually fighting Dragons in two days! If Hiccup's figured out how to move faster then we need to know! I don't know about you guys, but I'd take any advice at this point, just to calm my nerves." In the brief silence that followed I'd come up with a decent idea of how to get them to leave so I could finally go see Toothless. I cleared my throat.
"If dad is coming back tomorrow and we start training in only two days, then there's not much you can do to improve what you already have by much. But I'm serious, the forge is what gave me the bulk of my hand movements. I've just... I've been... Swimming, a lot, lately. And that's made me a little faster is all. See, nothing exciting." I slowly exhaled, hoping my barely-constructed sentence would work. A few more seconds of silence passed.
"He's right, you know. Two days isn't a lot of time to work with," came Ruffnut, sounding a bit deflated.
"I'm not swimming. Hiccup, you're insane. You'd freeze to death!" Fishlegs exclaimed. He was probably right, especially for someone like me. But as long as they bought it, I didn't care.
"Oh, grow up, you big baby," came Tuffnut's voice. "Ocean water's fine once you get used to it. But it doesn't matter anyway; Hiccup's right. There's only two days left before Stoick gets back, probably, and that's not a lot of time." A thump came to the door, which I assumed was the sound of Tuffnut's head slamming into it. "Ugh. I told you this was a stupid idea," I heard Tuffnut moan. I listened intently to the silence that followed, hoping to Thor they'd finally left. I was almost convinced of it until I heard Fishlegs' voice again.
"So are you going to open the door?" He asked. I had no intention of letting any of them in the house, even if I knew Fishlegs wouldn't do anything to me. I still didn't have any reason to trust the twins, and they were probably still out there.
"Why?" I blurted out. "I'm still not so sure you're not going to tie me to a tree, or something else equally stupid." Really, I didn't think anyone could blame me for being suspicious.
"Well, we can't exactly blame him for that reaction, anyway. I mean, we have done it to him more than once," Tuffnut said with a chuckle. Ruffnut chimed in.
"We always cut you loose, though." She stated.
"After several hours, yeah." I replied.
"But we still did it," she retorted.
"Look, I'm not opening this door." I tried to say it with the kind of authority my voice utterly lacked, but all I accomplished was making Tuffnut snort.
"Come on guys, lets just go practice by ourselves some more. Hiccup's run outta useful information." Tuffnut's comment came through quietly, like he was finally walking away from the house. I had no idea where the other two stood, but Ruffnut's voice cleared up part of that mystery for me.
"Right. But before we go, Hiccup, it was actually pretty cool how you didn't seem to give a shit about Snotlout throwing a knife at you. But you're still a scrawny little punching bag." I was beginning to tire of being surprised so many times in one day, but I'd never gotten a compliment from Ruff before.
"Yeah, and the look his face? When he realized what Stoick and his Dad are gonna do to him? I will never forget it." Tuffnut quietly laughed at the mental imagery from where he was standing.
"Yeah, it was a real nice catch. Goodbye, Hiccup," I heard Fishlegs say in a sad voice. They walked off, leaving me alone and bathed in quiet once again. I sat there against the door for a few more minutes, and after accepting that they had really left, quickly leaned forward and burst out the back door. I began sprinting as fast as I could to the cove, making sure no one was following me.
I hurriedly jumped down the series of rocks that made up the rear entry to the cove and began to look for Toothless, only to have him lightly pounce on me again and happily start licking my face in surprise at my hour-early arrival. I managed to get him off of me, and after cleaning slobber from myself I went through everything: Talking to Astrid in the forest, Snotlout throwing a knife at me (Toothless let out a hearty growl at that part - Snotlout's really going to regret that decision if he ever somehow meets Toothless), talking to Astrid again, and the twins and Fishlegs actually being impressed with my catching the knife. I also briefly mentioned dragon training, and how I'd be forced into it when my father returned.
This was a touchy subject for me, especially considering my relationship with Toothless, and as such I still hadn't tried explaining it to him. I knew I'd have to do it, and soon, but not before we had a chance to get back into the air. My mind was still muddy from the entire situation at the Mead Hall and more flying would surely remedy the problem.
I gathered our riding equipment once more as Toothless purred happily, knowing we'd be flying again so soon after my departure. I double checked some straps, tested the prosthesis, checked the connections to the tailfin and made sure its newly designed buckles sat comfortably over Toothless' scales. After making sure everything was secure and comfortable, we catapulted back into the air.
We'd already done this dozens if not hundreds of times before, and yet it always felt like the first time: the sensation of my stomach dropping to my feet, my heart fluttering and pounding, my entire being screaming out that it was in danger. I'd be racked by all of these emotions, and yet, my mind could so effortlessly cancel them out. Whenever we flew like this, Toothless and I properly harnessed together and acting as one, being so high in the air didn't feel dangerous at all. It always felt like home; a place I'd never be happier to see.
I let out a piercing howl and clicked the control stirrup into place, causing Toothless and I to start spinning. I clicked it again, forcing us straight down, and after completing our first successful front flip without me slipping out of the saddle, we were once more launched into the skies by Toothless's immensely powerful wings. We pierced the clouds, flying past them with ease as everything below us started getting smaller and smaller. I clicked the stirrup again, closing the prosthesis as Toothless's wings folded to his sides. With no means of support or control, Toothless and I dropped out of the sky, falling back toward the water below just as quickly as we'd climbed. I began screaming with delight as we cut back through the clouds, coming closer and closer to the ocean before Toothless reopened his wings and pulling us out of the dive. I clicked open the tailfin as we slowed down, bringing us to a much more reserved kind of glide than usual.
With a few good stunts out of the way for the time being, I decided that now would be just as good a time as any to bring up dragon training to Toothless. I wasn't sure how much of what I said he could actually understand, if anything, but considering the subject matter I felt like I had to say something.
"Okay, buddy, I really need to talk to you about this 'Dragon Training' thing." I ran my hands up and down his neck, telling myself it was for his sake even though I knew it wasn't. "Basically, bud, the 'Viking Tradition' around here is simple: You aren't considered an adult until you've slain a dragon, and I'm being forced into Dragon Training for that exact reason. My dad wants me to kill dragons, and I really, really don't want to." I moved my hand to his head, scratching him firmly behind the ears. He seemed more interested in that than my words, but I kept talking regardless.
"Thanks to you, bud, I've learned more about dragons and the way they really are than I ever imagined possible, and it's clear to me now what I have to do with what I've learned." I grabbed the saddle's handle and clicked the stirrup once again. Toothless reacted in tow, flapping his wings a few times to increase our speed as we climbed back up into the air, Berk growing smaller and smaller once more.
"It all starts with dragon training. I don't want to hurt the dragons in that ring, and I think I have a plan that might help me avoid that. Still, I need to make these sparring matches seem legitimate. Not only do I have to take down my dragon opponent, I have to do it without hurting her, all while my fellow classmates are out to kill her. Or him. I haven't bothered wondering the gender of the dragons we cage, but for some reason I'm thinking they're all female."
Toothless swiveled an eye up to me, grunted, and nodded. I suppose it wasn't hard for his impressive sense of smell to pick up the scents of the caged dragons when we fly about the village at night, since we can get a lot closer without anyone noticing us.
"Anyway, that's what's really been bothering me. I need to get the other classmates on my side, and winning is the easiest way to do that. The adults never pay me any mind, but if I manage a few victories in the ring I might be able to sway the other teenagers, assuming they start coming around after I start winning. I mean, if I start winning." I clicked my ankle again and we began an even quicker ascent. Toothless vocalized a bit more as he flapped, making a few sounds I didn't know he could.
"I have to be careful about it, though. I can't outperform them too much, even if I do manage to rig the game. If I manage to leave them behind during training, they could hate me for that just as much as they hate me for being weak." With another click we evened out and began gliding near the cloud line. I ran my hands through my hair a few more times, despite it being hopelessly whipped about by the wind, while I ran through all of the ways this might backfire on me. Sure, my classmates could be impressed by a victory or two, and maybe even accept that I wasn't completely incompetent. But even that didn't mean I could get them to accept anything more than that.
"This isn't going to work, is it? The dragons in the pen aren't nearly as tame as you are because they're treated badly! Hel, sometimes they aren't even fed! This is a terrible idea. I don't have a plan. I don't have a decent plan, and I need one, and it's all so messed up-" My rambling stopped the moment I felt a happy purr beneath me. Toothless was staring at me, trying his best to calm my nerves. We were swaying lightly from left to right, the motion brought on by Toothless bending his wings as we glided through the air. Our rocking and his purrs were doing wonders for the anxiety I was feeling, and also helped put things into perspective.
"I know, I know, I need to stop worrying so much and just go with it. One more thing, though." I scratched Toothless's left ear a little more before grabbing hold of the handle and clicking my ankle once again, causing our glide to start angling downward. "If I do get them to start listening to me, I'm going to need to convince them dragons aren't dangerous. Meaning at some point in the next few weeks, maybe months, assuming things work out the way I want them to... You may be meeting some of these people. You may even get to meet Astrid. Are you alright with that, bud?" Toothless continued staring at me and purring, and I wasn't sure if he didn't have a response or didn't know what I was saying.
"You can think about it for a while, I guess. Regardless, if I somehow do manage to put this all together, I won't let them bring any weapons. Not that I think you'd be in any danger, I just don't want them to think the weapons are necessary. I also don't want them to think that you'd actually be afraid of a couple of teenage Vikings that can barely fight, either. Well, they can barely fight except for Astrid. She's pretty deadly with that axe of hers, but still, I'm not worried about you. Just... Just them." Toothless kept his eye trained on me and began nodding his head before breaking into more dragon laughter.
"Well, of course I know you're not afraid of them. It just felt right to ask." Toothless crooned at me, and the message was clear: he appreciated it.
"Good. Now that that's out of the way," I started, clicking the stirrup to fold the prosthetic fin closed, "How about we do some freefalling?" I could see Toothless break into a grin as his wings began folding up, making my stomach drop once again.
The sun had begun setting, slowly tinting the skies with a deep orange hue. It had been hours since we started, but Toothless and I still hadn't grown tired of flying about Berk and the surrounding area. We were still occasionally keeping an eye out for my father's ship, but the majority of our time was spent screaming through the skies as fast as we pleased. Still, it had to happen eventually, and before long we finally came across it: the scouting ship, crowning out of the mists, badly battle damaged and patched up in several places.
Using the twilit sky to disguise ourselves, we quickly caught up to the ship. As my eyes tried to make out shapes on the small boat, I thought back to the dock's timekeeping logs. The Dockmaster kept a running schedule of when a boat would be out, and a rough guess as to when it might return from its particular voyage based on our fleet's average return time from certain locations. However, it didn't factor in weather or choppy seas, and the suggested return schedules were usually unreliable as a result. This time, though, the Dockmaster's guess seemed to be close to the truth.
Fishlegs might like to worry over stupid things sometimes, but in this particular occasion, his fear wasn't unfounded; My father was heading back to Berk, only about a half-day behind schedule. Instead of getting back tomorrow night, he'd be getting back at midday, the day after. That meant I only had two more nights with Toothless and only three days before Dragon Training began if nothing else got in their way.
We pulled close enough to the ship for me to see some details with my spyglass. I managed to catch a glimpse of my father, looking displeased as usual, after coming back once more from Helheim's Gate without finding the nest. I had a feeling they wouldn't be able to find it, as I was beginning to think only a dragon could reach that place.
Toothless and I circled around them for a while longer, trying to hear any conversations that might have been going on while they sailed back home. Unfortunately, the crew was battered, tired and apparently none too talkative, because the ship was completely quiet save for Spitelout's obnoxious snoring. I grinned a little at the sound, since his son shared the same annoying sleeping trait that I knew Astrid couldn't stand. Sure, she'd told me earlier that she hated his advances and flirtations, but it helped to stoke the fire of my barely-smoldering confidence that there was something about me that she preferred in comparison to him. Still, he was the most obvious future suitor of Berk's finest female warrior-in-training.
Of course, they'd make a terrible couple; they'd butt heads on everything and spend more time arguing than talking, laughing, or anything else. Snotlout's far too arrogant and too focused on constantly trying to show her how perfect he is when it's painfully obvious she isn't interested. Astrid, on the other hand, is too level-headed, independent, and too determined to prove she doesn't need anyone but herself.
I might not know much of courtship or romance, but at least as far as Astrid goes, I'd always figured she'd need someone with a lot of patience and a big heart. That's why I always thought we'd make a good couple, though I hated sounding arrogant about it. But even considering all that, Berk still has its history of following tradition, including arranged marriages. Now, no words had been spoken about the two of them, but it made sense from a warrior-clan standpoint to have the fiercest male and fiercest female make fierce little babies; a thought my brain often refused to process. If that time ever came, I'd probably banish myself from the clan.
Stroking Toothless's head absentmindedly, my foot clicked back a bit and we began to descend. I wasn't even in control of it anymore; it's as though when I jumped on his back, Toothless's mind took over my left leg. I was appreciative of that as we descended, since I was getting tired and had a lot on my mind. With my father coming back, I was also getting pretty worried.
I didn't want to leave Toothless alone in the cove for hours on end, even if he was a dragon, and I didn't want to be alone for that long, either. I silently wished I could get out of dragon training as my eyes began drooping further and further closed. Noticing my face and the slowing response from the fin, Toothless lightly slapped me with one of his earflaps to wake me back up. I jumped a bit, coming back around to full consciousness as I responded to the slap.
"Sorry, bud. I guess I'm more tired than I thought. All of this flying is really getting to me." I rubbed my stomach, which felt like it was on fire from flying around all day. "Some days I wake up and everything hurts just because of how much time we spend flying. But it's a good kind of hurt, so don't worry about it. It just means I'm getting better at staying stable when we're out here. Speaking of which, Toothless, why don't we wake me up a bit? Blow through what's left of my energy so we can both get a good, deep, long nights rest, what do you say?" Toothless purred happily as he picked up the pace, pulling us ever higher into the air.
We quickly spiraled upward, the clouds above us getting bigger, passing by and then shrinking below. The sky became clearer and darker as we rose, the air colder. By the time we leveled back out, we were much higher than we'd ever been; of this I was certain. But I'd noticed something else quite peculiar: no matter how far up we went, the moon and the stars didn't get any closer. It made me wonder just how distant they really were. It felt as though we could keep flying up into the air and never really make it to them. Sure, everything looked a lot clearer up here, but even so, nothing looked close, especially the ground.
Looking down, I marveled at the sight before me: the ocean, Berk, and the few islands that sat nearby. Everything was so vast, so far away; the odds of someone like me being born in a place like Berk seemed so unlikely. It seemed even more unlikely that someone from Berk would be able to befriend a dragon, as I had. Everything about the situation I'd found myself in was so extraordinary that I couldn't help but smile at it. It felt like a surge of courage began to flow through me about dragon training. Sure, I may not be a Viking, but I was still a legend in my own right. I'd bridged a gap everyone else figured was impassable, and I did it by ignoring hundreds of years of Viking tradition and befriending the enemy. If I could do that, I could handle Dragon Training.
I screamed in delight as Toothless and I began to spiral down to the ground, tearing through the clouds faster than I'd ever moved in my life. I couldn't even keep my eyes open from the sting of the wind, but it didn't matter to me at all. I trusted Toothless, even at such breakneck speeds, and even when I couldn't see a thing. He's an amazing creature, and I guess by extension, so was I.
"Left," I could almost hear the command. Toothless' thoughts and mine were so well in tune I felt his directions as words in my head, just from the way his body would vibrate and tense up as he moved.
"Up," I did as I was told. I could feel my body pressing hard against the saddle, the sheer force of movement pinning me to my best friend.
"Down," Toothless's body tensed and I clicked the stirrup again, forcing us to plummet even further.
"Up and right!" He tensed again, and I could feel his joyous purring echoing through my bones. We soared back up into the sky, Toothless's wings pumping hard on either side of me, dragging us into an even higher upward climb than before. Our speed eventually began tapering off as we stopped climbing, And once the wind calmed enough I reopened my eyes. Berk seemed to be nowhere in sight, with every direction around us seeming like nothing but open ocean. I had no idea where we were until I glanced straight down, just barely managing to notice Berk. It was nothing but a speck in the ocean, like a candle burning in the middle of a black field. Between that and the spectacle of stars and lights above us, I felt like I was getting light-headed and giddy. The light-headedness might've also had something to do with how much harder it felt to breathe while so high in the air, but that wouldn't be an issue for much longer. Noticing how I was acting, Toothless began to descend as I pulled off my harness straps again.
"Oh, I'm definitely looking forward to this. Ready for a midnight plummet, buddy?" I asked, patting him on the head before standing up out of the saddle and balancing myself on Toothless's back. I was getting prepared for the fall when the dragon below me laughed, tucked in his wings and spun me off of him. I yelped in fright for a moment, not expecting to fall from the saddle before I jumped off by myself. Toothless angled himself back over to me as I stopped myself from tumbling, still laughing at me over the sound of the wind blowing past us. I sighed, but with an unmistakable smile on my face.
"Really funny, there, bud. You're quite the comedian," I shouted over the wind; I knew he could hear me even if I could barely hear myself. I breathed in deeply as we passed through a cloud, enjoying the cool, misty air collecting in my lungs. Laughing, I tucked in my limbs and manage to pull off a few forward rolls before flattening myself out, limbs spread wide, slowing my descent by a tad. I really couldn't think of anything better than being in the air, and after shifting my body into a headfirst dive, I couldn't think of anything more relaxing than freefalling. My thoughts wandered, though, to the same person they always did. Sure, falling alone was great, but I couldn't help but think it would be even better with Astrid with me, a smile on her face, the stars shining in her blue eyes, the light of the moon making her golden hair seem to glow, her lips slowly reaching for mine...
At that point I shook my head, trying to push the thought from my mind and instead focus on the falling we were still doing. I reached out to Toothless and grabbed hold of his tail, climbing it back to the saddle. With my foot in position we quickly pulled out of the freefall and turned back to Berk, casually gliding our way back to the cove.
After we landed, I followed our usual routine of changing out of my riding gear and scrubbing down Toothless with his wire brush. It only took a few minutes to get the dragon on his back, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and his legs kicking. I finished, and while Toothless righted himself I put his brush away and grabbed a bucket filled with water from the lake. Toothless shot a pillar of fire into it, quickly warming the water up for me. I grabbed some soap and a rag and began washing myself, trying to clean the salt water from my body before we slept. It wasn't Wash Day, and it might not have been a day I spent in the forge, but after all of the flying we'd done I felt pretty sore on top of feeling salty. Some warm, soapy water would feel great on my skin.
Toothless seemed to understand the concept of privacy, too, because while I bathed myself, he had his right tailfin blocking his vision from my cleaning. I was thankful for it, because even though he's my best friend and a dragon, I still felt a bit bashful when I'd bathe myself in the cove. Moving on from the thought I went to work on cleaning myself and my clothes. My right hand stung a little when I pulled off the bandages to clean the knife wounds, but at least there wasn't any blood.
After I was clean and dry, I hung my wet clothes up by the fire pit and grabbed some fresh replacements. I went about redressing the cuts on my hand while Toothless curled up in our usual spot in the cave-turned-den, right next to a pile of clean cloth. I threw a few more logs onto the fire before joining him in the den, and Toothless puffed out another blast of blue to brighten the fire a bit more. I leaned against his scaly hide and pulled out my journal, scribbling down several pages of tiny notes and drawings of the day's events on its pages. As the charcoal tip scraped across the parchment, I absentmindedly start talking to Toothless about Astrid.
"Toothless, honestly bud, I think you'd like Astrid. Plus I'm sure you two would get along well if she could get over you, well, being a dragon and all. She's tough, confident and proud, but I know she's got a softer side. I just don't know why she's hiding it." I closed my journal, looking at the front of it. Curiously, since I'd never really thought about it until just now, I opened the journal back up, but to the first page. I started counting out some drawings. "Eleven, twelve, thirteen..." I smiled when I reached the thirteenth and final drawing of Toothless. I thought it was the best drawing I'd done, and as such it also happened to be my favorite.
"I've got thirteen full drawings of you in here, bud. I'm not gonna bother counting the doodles, because if I did I wouldn't get any sleep tonight." I went back to counting, this time with a different subject in mind. I turned to the last page again and finished my tallying. I cleared my throat, smiling a little at the face I knew Toothless would be giving me in a moment.
"I, uh, also have a few drawings of Astrid in here. Nothing much, just a few... Dozen." Slowly, I turned to Toothless. Sure enough, he had what could only be described as a knowing grin on his face and his eyes were half lidded, pupils fully dilated. I could almost hear him taunting me in my head.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Pathetic. But here, this is my best drawing of her. You're in it, too. Take a look. She's beautiful." I showed the picture to Toothless. It was a two page drawing of Astrid and I in his saddle, cleaving through a cloud with one of his wings. His eyes were big and happy-looking, his tongue hanging out of his mouth much like it had on our first successful flight. I'd drawn a huge grin on my face and Astrid's, her arms wrapped tightly around me.
His eyes scanned the image, opening and blinking, going from slits to wide open pupils. He grunted to me, and in response I put the journal down. The look he was giving me was one of understanding and agreement. I opened it back up and made a note of his behavior before closing it and putting it in the basket I'd been using as a storage bin for the den. I turned around to sleep on the old quilt I'd laid out for Toothless and I, back when I had set the den up. Toothless had a different idea, though, and with a grumble he opened up his wings, beckoning me inside. He and I both knew I'd be very cold sleeping on an old quilt without my vest on, even with the fire burning at the mouth of the cave. I sighed lightly, crawling over to his open wings. He pulled me in and gently folded his wings over me, emanating a constant purr in an attempt to put me to sleep. It was working, because within a few moments, my heavy eyes shut and I began drifting off.
Images of Astrid and I upon Toothless, flying over the steely waters of the moon began overtaking my senses as I was lulled to sleep by Toothless's purring. "Astrid..." I let slip out of my lips, not immediately even realizing I'd said it. Just before I fell fully into unconsciousness, I heard what I had assumed was my father's voice.
"Don't worry. You'll see her again soon. Just go to sleep." I didn't jump this time around; For some reason the voice was comforting to me. Without thinking, I snuggled up in Toothless's wings and replied to it.
"I know I will. I love her, and you. Good night, Toothless." And with that, I passed out.