"And with one twist, he swallowed it whole." Gobber told his story with all his students around the fire. Including Hiccup. He roasted fish over the fire while the others roasted chicken. "And I could tell by the look on his face, I was delicious. He must have passed the word because it wasn't a month before another one took my leg." He gestured to his peg leg, holding it up off the ground for everyone to see.
"Isn't it weird to think your hand is inside a dragon," Fishleg started. "Like, if your mind was still in control of it, you could kill the dragon from the inside. By crushing his heart or something." Everyone, excluding Hiccup, who was deep in thought, and Gobber, gave him a questionable look.
"I swear I'm so angry," Snotlout angrily said through his teeth. "I'll avenge your beautiful hand and your beautiful foot. I'll chop off the legs of every dragon I see. With my face."
Gobber caught everyone's attention once again. "Don't worry about it, 'cause it's the wings and the tail you really want anyway," he said. "If it can't fly, it can't get away. A downed dragon is a dead dragon."
Hiccup's eyes grew wide at his last words. By shooting down the dragon, he'd also taken away one of its best defenses.
Gobber yawned and stretched his arms. "Well, I'm off to bed. You should be, too, for tomorrow, we move on to the big ones. Slowly but surely making our way to the Monstrous Nightmare." The teens leaned forward in anticipation, no one noticing that Hiccup was gone. His roasting fish on the stick sat leaning against his seat. "But who will win the honor of killing it?
"It's gonna be me," Tuffnut bragged, and then he went about how he got a tattoo, but his sister told them it was actually a birthmark. Hiccup was already heading down the wooden ramp.
He rushed all the way to the blacksmith stall. Out of the corner of his eye, he nearly had a heart attack to see Skullette standing against one of the walls, staring down at an old leather-bound journal, her fingers tracing the indents of the writing left by the pen. Humming softly a song, she just stood there calmly. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" he snapped, catching his breath.
Her head snapped up, smirking up at him, her sightless eyes full of mirth through the bangs of her black hair. He knew very well that she'd probably heard him coming a few minutes before he even got there. At the very least, she could've given him a warning. Although, the result probably wouldn't have been much different than the one a few seconds ago.
"Maybe if you paid a bit more attention, it wouldn't be this easy all the time," she teased, closing the journal. She set it aside on a stool at arm's reach. Before he could see what was on the cover, she turned it over so the back faced upwards, as if she knew he would look. It always annoyed him to no end when she was always one step ahead of him, like she knew what he'd do before he even did it.
He drew something in his sketch journal and passed it to her. After she took it from him, he moved to start taking apart an old shield. Instead of checking what he'd drawn first, Skullette's head shot up towards the noise. "Okay, I know I'm going to regret asking, but what are you doing?" she asked in a bored manner, tilting her head to one side.
"I don't know about you, but I can't sit back and let that dragon die," he answered without pausing in his work.
"Didn't know you'd become so attached to the thing after a day or two," she said as she turned her attention the book in her hands, skimming her fingers along a page of his journal. It was the drawing of the Night Fury, but…different. Finding he'd drawn the other half of the tail, she furrowed her eyebrows in confusion and traced the outline. It was different in some ways from the other half, different from the original. "You're making it a tail?" she asked, lifting up her head.
"Him," corrected Hiccup, taking the handle off an old broken sword.
"Him, of course. How thoughtless of me," muttered Skullette absentmindedly, listening to the sound of him heating the piece of metal and hammer it into a metal rod. Upon finishing rounding it out, he dipped it into a bucket of water, the hot metal bringing it to an instant boil. Listening to him work so well in the blacksmith wasn't that surprising. He'd always been creative, even if ironically, he messed up a lot of things he was actually supposed to be doing. But what did she know? After all, she didn't see him do anything wrong.
He pulled out all the screws from the old shield and carefully heated and hammered them into marbles. An hour later, he was done. Using the combination of the marbles and metal rods, they created joint-like features, able to open and close. Carefully, Hiccup slid cloth around and in between the joints. Overall, it looked like a pretty good imitation tale. Not too far from the real thing.
He held it open in front of the diagram he drew of the full mechanics of the prosthetic tail. He opened and closed it, satisfied with his work. He turned around to show Skull the invention, but found her gone from her spot. His journal was on the stool her own book had sat a while ago, still open to the page with the Night Fury on it.
Setting the tail down gently, he flipped his journal close.
"Hey, Toothless." Hiccup's voice echoed through the cove early in the morning with the prosthetic tail and a basket full of fish. The dragon sniffed the air, smelling the fish.
"Let's hope they're hungry," Skullette said absentmindedly from the entrance of the cove, crossing her arms over her chest. Hiccup had to admit he was proud that he didn't jump at her sudden appearance. He set down and pushed over the basket of fish.
"That's disgusting," commented Hiccup as Toothless sniffed at the food. "There's some old salmon, uh, Icelandic cod, and a whole smoked eel." A dark figure stepped out of the shadows, slowly edging toward the fish. But the dragon growled at the pile of fish, pulling back as he finished the sentence.
Weird, Hiccup thought. He bent to pick up a yellow and black eel, showing it to the Night Fury. Once he picked it up, though, Toothless roared, opening his wings, his eyes slit pupil. "No, no, no!" Hiccup begged, tossing the eel into the pond. He reached for Toothless, but he shook his head. "Yeah, I really don't like eel either," he admitted, wiping his hand on his vest.
"That sounded slightly terrifying," chuckled Skullette. "Let's try not to do anything risky today."
Meanwhile, what sounded like laughter erupted behind him. Hiccup looked to see the Night Rider laughing at Toothless, the dragon growling at him.
"Aw, is the big baby boo afraid of a little eel?" Night teased, leaning his arms against his brother's head, an amused glint in his eyes.
Toothless wacked in his back of the head with his tail. "Shut up," he growled.
"Of course, of course," Night smirked. "And Toothless? Really? You're sticking with that name?"
"I like it! It's not that bad," snapped Toothless.
Night shrugged innocently. "Whatever makes you happy."
Toothless rolled his eyes and began eating. Moving behind the dragon, Hiccup mumbled, "I'll just be back here, minding my own business."
"Hiccup, he's eating, he honestly won't care," Skullette pointed out. "And I doubt that unless you're idiotic enough to announce what you're doing, he's not going to exactly stop you."
Hiccup ignored her. He set the prosthetic tail beside Toothless's real tail, ready to attach it. Until he moved his tail away. Hiccup chanced a glance at Toothless to make sure he was still eating and moved closer, but he moved it again.
Hiccup huffed and straddled Toothless's tail. The dragon moved again, and Hiccup lost balance for a moment, but then began to strap on the prosthetic tail. Toothless, on the other end, was no longer distracted by the fish as he finished eating. He lifted his head from the fish basket, and tried to feel what was on his tail. Night glanced behind him, and nearly burst out laughing again. Of course. He couldn't wait to see his brother's expression.
Toothless's eyes grew wide and his wings fell to the ground by his side. He knew. At the look on his face, Night burst into silent hysterics, struggling not to laugh and failing.
By the time Hiccup finished strapping on the prosthetic, he pulled it open to admire his work. While he didn't see behind him and neither could Skullette, she had better hearing. And froze, hearing the movement of the Night Fury. The sound of its joints cracking as they extended, and the sound of his wings opening wide to take off.
"Hiccup, just a little warning here, but you might want to hang on tight," warned Skullette. Hiccup gave her a confused look, but before he could open his mouth to ask what she meant, the Night Fury took to the air. The teen wrapped his arms and legs around Toothless's tail as he took to the air.
Hiccup noticed the prosthetic tail closed but the real tail open, causing him to fall lopsided out of the air. He pulled it open just in time before the two hit the ground. Skullette turned her head curiously where she could hear the sound of wings beating in the air. At least she didn't hear the sound of something hitting the ground.
Toothless flew through the air, gliding across the waters and above the clouds. "It's working!"Hiccup cheered as he angled the tail to make his way back to the cove. "Yes! Yes, I did it!" As they flew over the pond, Toothless looked back at the sound. He turned quick, throwing Hiccup off his tail into the water. Seconds later, Toothless noticed the wind had forced the prosthetic tail close, and he fell into the water as well.
Skullette heard two loud splashes, and made a quick guess as to what happened. She ran over in the direction of the sound, and stopped when her foot came in contact with the water. "Hiccup?"
Finally, Hiccup swam to the surface up the water. Toothless resurfaced a moment later. "Yeah!" he cheered. He made his way back to shore, and was about to tell Skullette when she flicked him on the forehead, making him hiss in pain. "Ow!"
"That's for scaring me," she said, folding her arms across her chest.