Author's note: Sorry this is late. First this chapter didn't come as easily to me (what I have for the rest of this fic is vague at best), and then there was a period of time when I couldn't work on it because of some weird Internet troubles, and then when I got it all typed up FanFiction logged me out before I could save so I had to write it all over again...what are you gonna do, right?

It has been mentioned that Hiccup was rather...forward with Astrid. This was not by design, but I came up with an explanation. In this storyverse, Valka and her gentler ideals have always been a part of Hiccup's life, so he would have a role model to look up to. He's not accepted as one of the hands, exactly, but he's not quite the Chief's embarrassment that he was in the first movie. Remember how...I think that was in chapter 5 when that came up...Hiccup took it as a given that Astrid would never seriously hurt him because if she did Stoik would fire her? I really don't think Hiccup had that in the movie, because he never thought his father would offer any support to his fishbone of a son (and he was probably right). Having the mother gives him a confidence boost. Basically, before Toothless, he wasn't at rock bottom, so he's just a little bit bolder even around his crush than if he had been.

Thus endeth the discussion. Onward to the story!

With a tool that looked like something between a can opener and a little scythe, Hiccup carefully worked around the base of the cone he wanted off. Toothless held rock-still, understanding from Hiccup's mind that if he flinched the tool might slip and crack the horn that his rider was trying to leave - and while that wouldn't interfere with his power levels, it would hamper his precision and leave a weak point in his horn's integrity: one hard blow at exactly the wrong angle would split the whole horn down the middle. The way the tool was working now, if a cone was cracked in the trimming it would be the one coming off.

Heavy footsteps sounded in the doorway, approaching and then stopping out of range of a panicked unicorn's kicks.

Hiccup knew those steps. "Hey, Dad," he said without looking up.

"He's behaving for you?"

"Yeah...I don't think he quite understands why I want the horn, but he gets that I want a little and he's willing to give the little I want."

"I managed to make contact with some people in the business of improving hospital equipment; they'll test your buddy's horn and see if it does anything you think it can do. If it works, the royalties will go a long way towards paying off both your medical bills."

Hiccup carefully took the end of the horn and wiggled it; it seemed a bit loose. He put the blade down and focused on gently rocking the last few cones. "I just hope it doesn't set off another chain of unicorn hunts."

"Seems unlikely; hardly anyone ever even sees a Black. And that song scares people off them quickly enough." Stoik looked thoughtfully at Toothless. "Do you think it makes a difference, whether the unicorn wants to give up a bit of horn or not or doesn't care either way?"

Hiccup's brows drew down. "What, you mean like in the stories where a magical creature freely gives someone a bit of blood or something and it has all these positive extra qualities..." the loosened horn came free with a hard pop, "Good boy, Toothless...and if someone killed a magical creature to steal the same blood it has a curse on it?" He ran his thumb over the new end of the horn, checking for cracks; it seemed sound. What he'd pulled off had a slight crack in it, but that wasn't really a problem: unicorn horn was almost never used in its base form, instead being carved into something or ground up.

"Exactly."

"I don't know. Do you?" Hiccup tossed the horn piece to his father, who caught it deftly.

"Not at all about the death-curse; I was working these creatures right at the end of the 'hunting unicorns for their artifacts' period, and any hunter worth his salt could drop one straight dead within a second of getting it in his crosshairs. Heck, I was one of them. And that's not a lot of time for a dying-curse, especially when you're focusing on running or fighting for your life a moment before." Stoik rubbed his beard. "Now, I suppose if what was done was that a unicorn was held down and its horn sawed off...something more torturous...maybe that would be cursed. I don't personally know anyone who ever did that, though, and I have never heard of any situation where something bad happened to someone because they used horn from one."

Hiccup shuddered, running his fingers through Toothless's mane for reassurance. He found it hard to understand why anyone would want to torture a unicorn just for their horns and hair: they weren't exactly the paragons of purity old legends made them out to be, but they were still beautiful and graceful and beneficial to their home environments. He hoped anyone who had tortured one really had gotten cursed artifacts for their troubles.

Now, he had known already that his dad used to hunt unicorns: it had been said (mostly by old Melvin) that Stoik had been the best such hunter out there. But at least he'd also known that Stoik didn't torture them, and had been one of the first to try another way. Harvesting from domestic and mostly-domestic unicorns was easier, especially when it was discovered that the horns were cut-and-come-again.

"As for the other...well, if I were to admit that a unicorn had the intelligence to curse things taken that they hadn't wanted to give, I would have to admit that they'd be smart enough to add a little boost to something they were giving freely. But I think, on the whole, I'd be more inclined to say no. If they were that smart, they'd have either mounted an attack on us unicorn hunters or collectively fled to parts unknown before they'd lost more than a few of their own."

Hiccup giggled. Let it never be said that Stoik Haddock wasn't capable of using decent logic.

"Your mother, now...she's always been convinced of the opposite. It's one reason, I'm sure, that she learned the art of unicorn-whispering - so that she could ask nicely if she could trim their horns or comb hairs from their manes." Stoik started to turn away, and then looked back. "Speaking of which, in her last message she said that the road was clear enough to traverse; she'll be home within three days, I shouldn't wonder."

"She's coming home?" Excited, Hiccup jumped to his feet so fast that he stumbled on his prosthetic and had to be caught by Toothless's neck. "Does she, um, know about Toothless?"

"I've kept her...mostly up to date about the happenings on the ranch, yes."

"Mostly?"

Stoik looked down at Hiccup's leg. "There are some things you have to brave in person. I just hope I don't end up in the recliner again."

"Again?" A mischievous grin lit Hiccup's face. "Would that, by any chance, be why you have a recliner that turns into a bed?"

Toothless turned his head to look at Stoik, as though curious to hear this piece of information himself.

Stoik half-glared at his son. "Yes, darn you; at some point when we were first married, when the only furniture in the house was still the bed, the kitchen table and chairs, and the recliner - a different recliner, an old one - we got into a fight over something or other. I was in the wrong but didn't want to admit it, and she banished me from the master bedroom. By the next morning I was in so much pain that I manned up and apologized, and when I got my first big paycheck I traded that recliner for the one we have now. Just in case I ever wound up in that much trouble again."

A sound very like a human chuckle came from Toothless's throat, and he tossed his head playfully.

Hiccup swallowed down his own chuckles and managed to say, "I think you'll be fine; it was Scott's fault we both wound up broken, not yours." He couldn't quite keep the grin off of his face, though, imagining his slender mother bullying his massive father out of any room. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't hard either: Valka was the only person to ever walk in the front door who could successfully intimidate Stoik, daring him with a look to argue with her. He only did if he was sure of his own footing, which was usually when the conversation had to do with running the ranch, and even then he never got her to back down - she came around instead, and still got something or other that she wanted out of it.

Stoik might rule the ranch, but Valka ruled the roost.

Hiccup went for a ride late that afternoon. "I think you're going to like my mother, Toothless. Unicorns are just like people to her; she talks to them, and they talk back. I don't know if she has a telepathic link with any of them, like what we share, but if she doesn't then her ability to tell when one has taken a dislike to someone or something...it's a little bit uncanny."

Toothless wanted to know why Valka wasn't there. If she had been, she could have told Spencer that he'd better let the Black he captured be either turned loose or trained by someone else.

"Don't like my uncle, do you? Neither do I, really - he lets Scott get away with too much. Well, Mom has this little job of her own: unicorn rescue. She and a few other people keep tabs on unicorn owners, and they send messages to each other if they think one of them is mistreating their beast. You're lucky you wound up here and not owned by, say, Alvin. He's red-flagged in my mother's book. So's the Berserker Ranch; it was off her radar for a while, and then Dagur took over and it went back on...anyway. I've seen some of the poor animals out of stables like those - horns cracked or even sawed off, mouths damaged by steel bits, ribs showing from underfeeding...and that's not even including the troubles exclusive to certain breeds. It's horrible." It was horrible even imagining, that someone would whip a Lowlander bloody because it couldn't run any faster, or force a Highlander to founder trying to pull a load that was too heavy, or keep an Inlander in a humid, leaky stable until its coat was rotting right off its skin.

Toothless bobbed his head violently, nearly yanking the reins out of Hiccup's hands, making it very clear that he agreed with that assessment.

"I think my mom's the only one of her operation to regularly skirt the law - if she can't get a mistreated unicorn out of its owner's hands legally, she'll steal it. That usually happens if its particular abuse is drugs, because short of a blood test there's no way to know in the early stages if one's being doped. My mom went on another rescue mission a couple months back; for my dad's sake, I hope it was a legal one - he's very careful to ask her as few questions as possible about her work."

Toothless would like her, all right.