Chapter 10:

Toothless came down into the grove. "It's like a huge beehive! They're the workers and she's their queen." Ander explains it to me. "Well duh! Hold on a second." Toothless says to him as he shifts back into a dragon.

Ander stares for a second at me and Toothless. "So...you two are really together?" I nod, making Ander sigh. "Well, I know better than to get into a fight with a dragon. But, Hiccup, if anyone finds out-"

"I know."

"And tomorrow-"

"I know." Toothless looks at me, confused. "What's tomorrow?" I swallow the lump in my throat. "You know how my dad put me in dragon training?"

"Yeah?"

"And how the best in the class gets to kill their first dragon in front of everyone?" Toothless seems to get my drift and hugs me closer to him. "Oh, Hiccup." Ander becomes uncomfortable really quickly and mutters a goodbye before taking off.

Toothless and I are left alone together and we sit down on a rock together and gaze out over the lake. I can smell his scent of pine wood and smoke. "I wanted to run away with you today. So we could get away from all of this. Toothless...what are we going to do?"

Toothless's POV:

I didn't know what to tell her. What was I supposed to tell her? That everything would be okay? That we would live happily ever after and that people would accept us?

"Listen. You're a smart girl. I think that you'll find a way to make this work." I kissed the top of her forehead, hugged her tighter and rubbed her back. "You'll find a way. I'm sure of it."

Hiccup's POV:

Could I find a way? I walked home and thought about what Toothless said. I looked up at the moon and sat down at the base of a tree.

"Hey Mom. Its, been awhile since we last talked." I pause for a moment because I'm trying to weigh the sanity of talking to my dead mother. "...I need your help Mom." I choke up a little, trying not to let the tears flow. "I just don't know what to do anymore! So...if you could help me, it would make things so much better."

I sat there on that rock for awhile. Then it hit me. I stood up and ran back towards the village. I knew what to do.

...

I took a deep breath before I walked through the doors of the arena. The cheers of the crowd vibrate in my ears. My head pounds, my palms are sweaty and my heart races a thousand miles a second. 'Please Thor...please Mom, don't let my plan fail.' Another deep breath and I walk through the doors.

"Silence!" My dad shouts. "Today, my daughter becomes a viking!" The crowd cheers some more and I spot Ander giving me a sympathetic look. Another deep breath. "Release the dragon!" The iron clad gates open.

Every year, the dragon is different. For my dad it was a Zippleback. For Gobber it was a Gronkle. For me...it's the Monstrous Nightmare that was captured the night I shot down Toothless. I breathe again as the Nightmare stares me down.

"I'm not fragile." I say as I drop my knife. "I'm not my father." I say a little louder as I drop my shield. "I'm not a viking, and I'm not one of them." I shout and throw off my helmet. "Stop the fight." My dad says.

"No, Dad! We don't have to fight them!" I scream at him and let the dragon sniff my hand. The Nightmare takes one last look at me before he closes his eyes and puts his head to my hand. "We can live in peace." I say with a smile.

"I SAID STOP THE FIGHT!" Dad shouts at the top of his lungs and hits the metal bell that usually signifies the end of dragon training. The Nightmare's eyes shoot open and it rises up above me and lets out an ear-splitting shriek. 'Toothless, I love you.'

Toothless's POV:

I wake up startled from my nap. 'Hiccup.' I scramble to get up the sides of the grove. 'Turn human, you dummy!' I shift into my human form and run out of the grove and into the forest. I shift back into a dragon and try to fly towards where Hiccup might be.

Ander's POV:

Hiccup looks terrified as she stares up at the Nightmare. A tear slips put of her eye. 'She's thinking of him.' My bitter heart tells me. 'She should have been crying out for me. Not him. And now the end for her is near and I can't even tell her how much I love her.' I remember what she said to me before she went in there, 'If anything goes wrong, tell Toothless that I love him, and that he needs to get off this damn island real quick.'

Stoick's POV:

My boiling anger turns to fear as I see my little girl in the middle of the ring, staring up at that beast. My little Hiccup, who made me drawings of me and her slaying dragons together. The little girl who used to hug me and cry out, "Daddy's home!" when I'd come back from the Council of the Chiefs meetings. Hiccup, whom I held close to me when her mother, the love of my life, had died.

"HICCUP!" I shout to her. But she can't hear me. "Gobber, we have to get her out of there."

"I don't know how...we don't know where...I don't know what to do...Hiccup usually helped me with this stuff!" Gobber flounders for the right words to say. Now my little girl is trapped in there. And it's all because of me.

Hiccup's POV:

The Nightmare continues to advance towards me and I can't move at all. All of a sudden, I hear a loud shriek and a ball of fire hits the top of the arena. "Night Fury!"

"Get down!" Another fireball and the top of the arena comes off. Toothless swoops in and hisses at the Nightmare. "Toothless!" My dad breaks through the arena doors and storms toward the middle of the arena. He subdues the Nightmare then turns his gaze onto Toothless. Toothless pounces on him and pins my dad to the ground.

"Toothless, stop! That's my dad!" Toothless gets off of my dad with a purr. "Okay babe." The crowd gasps when Toothless speaks. "Okay, why is it such a big deal with you people that I can speak?!"

"Seize him!" Dad shouts to the men down in the arena. They all swarm Toothless and put him in chains. "Stop! Dad tell them to stop!" I cling to my father's arm. He shakes me off. "Take him to the ships! We have use of him yet." I watched as they carted the love of my life away in chains.

...

I'm sitting on the chair at home when Dad comes in. "What were you thinking? You could've been killed!"

"I was just trying to show that there's an alternative to killing them."

"But that's the only way, Hiccup!"

"No! It's not!" I say, standing up from the chair. "We don't have to fight the dragons!" Dad raises an eyebrow at me. "Oh! So then when they come to raid us, we should just sit there and watch? 'Oh, here you go Mr. Dragon, take all of my village's food. Sure we'll be starving come winter, but you'll be alive.' I don't think so!" Dad shouts at me.

"That's another thing, they don't raid us to have our food!"

"Really, then why do they take our livestock, fish, and cooked meat?"

"Because they have to!" Dad holds up his hand. "I don't want to hear about it anymore. Why were you defending the Night Fury?!"

"Because I love him!" I cup my hands over my mouth. "Love him? Hiccup, you don't even know him. He's using you!"

"No, he isn't. This entire time, Toothless has been protecting me while you fed me to the sharks! Why, he even protected me when we were in the nest-"

"You've been to the nest?" I stare up at my dad in horror, realizing just what I've done. "Dad, you can't go there."

"Of course I can, and that devil is going to lead us there." I groan. "Dad! You're not listening to me! There's something there that not even Thor can conquer. Dad!" I'm too late because my dad walks out of the house and towards the docks.

I scream out in frustration and kick over a table. "Why don't you ever listen to me?!" I shout at my dad's retreating form, trying to hold back the tears. But it's no use. My dad is going to sail with the rest of the village to their deaths, an they're taking Toothless with them.

Stoick's POV:

"Are we ready to set sail?" I ask Gobber. "All ready."

"Good. Take us away." I look up at the pier where Hiccup is standing. I meet her eye and she turns away from me, almost as if she's ashamed to be my daughter. Sighing, I walk up to the front of the ship where the devil is chained up.

"Lead us to the nest. Devil." I spit at the creature as he tries to break free of his chains. 'Soon, the dragons will be no more.'

Toothless's POV:

I struggle in my chains. 'Hiccup, I'm so sorry. I should have just killed you. It would have saved us a lot of trouble.' But then I think, 'No. I couldn't have killed you if I tried. I love you, Hiccup. Please remember that.'

Hiccup's POV:

I watch as the ships take off to their doom. "Well, you really screwed this up, haven't you."

"Yeah. I guess I did." I tell Ander, who watches me closely. "You know, if I had just killed him, none of this would have happened."

"Then why didn't you?" Ander asks me. I sigh. What could I tell him? "I just couldn't kill him."

"You couldn't or you wouldn't?" He presses. "Look, I just couldn't! I'm a viking and I can't kill dragons!"

"But you're the first to ride one. Definitely the first to fall in love with one. So, what's the reason? The real reason?" I sigh. "When I looked into his eyes, I saw that he was scared and terrified. When I looked into his eyes, I saw a piece of me."

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" I let Ander's words sink in and think about what I am going to do. It hits me and I run to the arena.

...

I stared at my fellow teenagers who stood with me in the arena. "Just for the record, this may or may not work." Fishlegs tells me. Tuffnut pushes him out of the way. "You're crazy. I like that."

Snotlout pushes him out of the way. "I love this plan."

"What is the plan?" Ander asks me. I smile at them all as I tell them about my plan.

Toothless's POV:

"Where is it?" Stoick asks me. I refuse to answer him. "Answer me devil, or I swear you'll never see Hiccup again." I sigh and hang my head. "Go north and then turn east." I know that I'm just leading them to their doom. No one can survive that beast. But they refuse to listen as they near the island's shores.

Hiccup's POV:

I lure out the Nightmare, keeping a hand on its snout to keep it calm. "The main thing is to keep its trust." A nervous Snotlout tries to go for a knife, but after one glare from me he drops it. "If you trust them, then they'll trust you."

I grab Snotlout's hand and place it on the Nightmare's snout. Initially he's a little freaked out, but soon calms down and enjoys it. "Okay. Who's next?" I ask my friends as they stare at the group of dragons behind me.