Disclaimer: I don't own How To Train Your Dragon, nor any of the characters

"He's so different," She heard Stoick murmur softly to the dragon next to him. Something was definitely up. "I could never understand him." Astrid heard him sigh in exasperation. "He'd always been different. I remember the first time he made a fire. He hadn't been eager, but once he saw the little twigs and branches I'd gathered, he started setting them up right away. I laughed for a bit, before I saw what exactly he had been doing. You know what he did with them, Toother?"

Toothless just snorted once, looking at the Chief. He couldn't make out what he was saying, sure enough, and had not really wanted to listen. But he could feel Stoick's emotion, and tied with how tired he still was, simply remained at his side, listening to words he would never get while still comprehending the man.

"He built a miniature house out of them! I still don't get how he managed the slanted roof, but I knew he was smart then and there. How it stayed up so long, with his luck, I will never know." He paused again, and pulled the night fury into his lap in an embrace with his strong arms. "But I didn't see it then... I never managed it. It wasn't for another couple of years until I realized he was not the boy I had really wanted in life. His mother would have liked him... But she was... gone, just after his first birthday. I was so depressed..."

Toothless groaned. It wasn't an upset one though, it seemed... curious. His ears were... epithetic, from what she could tell. He felt Stoick's sorrow... maybe he knew why.

"I never have been a very good father to him these past years. His mother, I think, would have liked him, but without her I could never understand what he was... until now. And what did it take? And what it's cost... He might not even survive..." No... NO! He- "I didn't even have any other kids to pay attention to, and all I was wrapped around in was how he was different. How I couldn't understand him. I always thought, 'How come he couldn't have been like Astrid? Now there's a real viking! Ten times the the honor, the strength Hiccup had, and a girl!' Still a girl, really, but not so much. She would've been able to compete with me at her age!" How flattering! "I'd always look with envious eyes at her parents, and wanted to engage her to Hiccup, but I doubted it so badly... I mean I still do, but, she did save him in the ring against that Nightmare, before you arrived..."

Toothless perked his ears up, somehow understanding. He bobbed his head slightly with unknown meaning before settling again. If only I could see his eyes. "And I didn't. I probably caused the whole thing with that hammer, even. And then you saved him after that even... and then he saved me..." Stoick's thick arm lifted off toothless as he wiped his face of its wetness. He's crying? And I would've disowned him had I not left immediately... I would have had no heir... no son... no family." His head fell further down, probably resting on top of Toothless himself, and he wailed. It was a quiet plea, one that wouldn't go beyond her own ears probably, but still. Its not your fault... I could have stopped it... I could have been better too... Its my fault too...

"I don't know how I can make it up to him, Toother. What can I give him that he would actually want? I don't even know... What kind of a father am I?" That's it, I can't take this any more!

"You're a Viking father," She said, climbing into the boat next to him. "Your fish..." His face was damp, and his beard had become wet in certain places. There was no real pattern to it. His eyes were red from the tears, but were wide open from her surprise entrance. Toothless looked confused, but he too seemed sad in his big green eyes. He didn't quite get it, but he understood his regrets as a father. He seems to have quite a few of them, too. So do I, Stoick, so do I.

"Oh... thank you, Astrid. How... long had-"

"A while." She handed him the first fish, looking at hiccup to avoid his gaze. "Since you told the story of how he built a little house instead of a campfire."

"You... you heard all that?" He sniffled again, trying to regain his composure, taking a bite of fish. "Let Toother have the other one. He's probably even hungrier." She slipped the second fish of the stick, and put it in front of of the Night Fury.

"You mean Toothless." He sniffed the cooked fish, and seemed somewhat repelled by it. Yet, he reached out and slid it down his apparently large throat in one gulp anyway.

"Eh, I suppose so. Let Gobber know that, he was sure that's what his name was." The dragon let out a small belch sound, his eyes sagging slightly from it. The two let out a few laughs before it died down. Stoick looked at her for a while, before turning his head forward again. She would be the first to speak again.

"Its not all your fault either... Its ours too, Stoick. Mine too..." She sighed, turning back towards Hiccup and the two medicine women. They seemed to be finishing up with him, though she really didn't feel like scrutinizing the scene yet. "Most of the kids made fun of him for being so different. I plainly ignored him too, for a long time. Until he started messing up, and then not messing up, in dragon training." She sighed, looking back over to Stoick and Toothless. "None of us could figure it out... Only Fishlegs even gave him a chance... otherwise he was the outsider. It's not your fault he is who he is..."

"You... I'm nor sure I'm ready to believe that yet, not completely, not when it comes to me..." and neither do I. "but thank you, Astrid. It's nice to hear from someone besides Gobber now and then."

"Your welcome, Stoick." She turned back towards hiccup, and then remembered what he had said about her. "Did... Did you mean what you said about me?" She asked, still in relative disbelief of what she had heard from him.

He had apparently forgotten he'd mentioned that, as the edge of his beard turned red as he looked at her, thinking. She doubted he had even admitted that to Gobber... though he might have known since they could have and probably did grow up together. Battle Brothers, or something, she recalled her father saying at one point.

"You... you know it's not polite to eavesdrop," He managed. It seemed like he wanted to stop, but he managed to keep going anyway. "But, back to the point, yes. I did mean it. Every word. I'd been tempted to get Gobber to just give you the final exam to show the others how it's done, but he never did give in. I wanted you out there fighting, because you could... can handle yourself better than some grown men. Like Gobber." He coughed and wispered the last part, and she laughed. "Example being when you saved Hiccup from the Nightmare in the arena, which reminds me..." He threw his fish into the water, not caring for the remaining bones. "What got you so concerned about him?"

It was her turn to blush, and she did so red and hard. Stoick smiled so wide she would have sworn he was about to laugh, but somehow he didn't. "Well, when he was picked for the exam... I kinda followed him to where he had been working with Toothless... He was actually about to leave on Toothless, or that's what it seemed like anyway." She paused as Stoick became a bit more disheartened again, and wondered why. Duh. He was running away from his father. Of course that'd make him feel bad! "But I'm not completely certain!" Stoick didn't buy it, and she sighed in exasperation. "Anyway, I was trying to get him to tell me how he had become so... how he managed to beat me... and then this guy right here..." Astid rubbed Toothless on the nose, and he made a plesant sort of grumble, reminicent of a cat slightly. "...came up and practically got me. Would have too, if Hiccup hadn't stopped him. I tried to get back to the village to tell everyone what he had done, but they caught me first... and long story short, I had the ride of my life, we saw the nest and that... thing that Hiccup and Toothless killed yesterday, and for the first time a boy had actually impressed me."

"Impressed you?" Stoick asked with a smile. Oh gods, did I say that out loud? To Hiccups Father! She screamed inside, but the only hint of that was the blush on her cheeks, again. She looked down to a curious, if not amused, black dragon. Does he remember that?

"Nothing, never mind that, just ignore that." She said fussily, not really caring that he didn't believe it was 'nothing.' "Anyway, when we got back, I punched him for kidnapping me and... thanked him for the ride."

"So he didn't want to leave after you thanked him?" He said smiling. She didn't get it.

"Yea... What about it?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing at all, Astrid." He was laughing. There was something. Toothless knew it too, it looked like. Ooh, I hate being out of the loop. Suddenly, there were dragons everywhere above the boat, being ridden by Vikings. She managed to pick out Snotlout leading the group. "Would you look at that..." Stoick said in amazement. Even Toothless looked impressed at the formation above him, or at least he looked surprised. Alright, he's looking, I can't tell what he's thinking from the bottom of that big head what he's thinking. Her gaze returned to the dragons above, seemingly endless in rank, as they flew.

It was nothing less than amazing.