"Aw shucks, Gobber needs me to work at the forge today," Hiccup told the dragon.
Toothless pouted. "I could eat him, if you want."
"Toothless..."
"Really! I could fit him into my mouth if I tried and I'm pretty sure he doesn't taste that bad," Toothless offered. "And the fact that he's missing a couple of limbs makes it easier going down. Then again, that man is probably very high in cholesterol."
Hiccup ruffled the dragon's ears. "I'm sorry, Toothless," Hiccup said, and offered, "Maybe you could go play with the other dragons?"
Toothless sighed. "Okay."
Horrorcow was really nice, albeit the Gronkle was little slow when flying, but really, really smart! It made sense, since Fishlegs was his rider and he was almost as smart as Hiccup. The twins LeftnRight were nice too and generally enjoyed his company, although the Zippleback heads tended to argue with the other much like Ruffnut and Tuffnut. Fireworm, to be frank, was bit of a jerk. They could be civil to each other for the most part, until the Monstrous Nightmare decided that he was better at something that Toothless was and decided to challenge the Night Fury in whatever ridiculous endeavor they decided to pursue, whether it be who could run or swim or fly faster, hold their breath longer, shoot their fire farther, roar louder, etc. Spike was a little bit nice to him, but not friendly. She always shot him down when he'd offer her a pretty flower he picked or a regurgitated fish tail (which mind you, is the best part of a fish).
The Night Fury was convinced she was just playing "hard to get".
He went off in search of the others, mulling over what games they could play and things they could do while formulating his plan to woo Spike with his good looks and charm.
"Hey, Toothless!" Fishlegs waved from his front yard, huddled over a crate with some board game with his Gronkle.
Toothless waved back and joined the two. "Hi Fishlegs! Hiya Horrorcow!"
"Oh," grunted the Gronkle, not taking his eyes off the "action" for one second. "Hullo, Toothless."
"Say, you wanna go do something?"
"Oh no, not right now." The Gronkle shook his head. "We're playing Vikings and Valkyries."
"Darn," Toothless said. "Oh well. I guess I'll see you…after you're done."
"Okay."
"So uh. Just holler if you need me.!"
"Mmhmm."
"Bye. Yeah. See ya. Have fun!"
"Will do," intoned Horrorcow.
Toothless found the twins at the Thorston hut, sitting on the front steps.
"Morning, LeftnRight!" Toothless yipped.
"Ah, good morning, Toothless," hissed the twins, who were currently pinning down Tuffnut.
"Lemme go, you snakes!" the boy yelled.
Ruffnut and the twins began to plait his hair in a girly fashion.
"So, when're you guys gonna be done?"
"Oh, we don't know," Left thoughtfully said.
"This prank might take all day if Ruffnut wishes," Right added, laughing at the predicament of the poor boy being forced to wear makeup.
"Oh. Okay. Well, I'm free anytime."
Toothless gave a sidelong glance at the snoozing Monstrous Nightmare watching the scene unfold. "I don't suppose you'd want to join me?"
"Sure I would!" Fireworm coughed.
"You would?"
"Of course, seeing as I would win."
Toothless rolled his eyes.
Astrid hummed a tune to herself as she went about her business before a great shadow loomed overhead. Toothless jumped, cornering Astrid. She screamed in terror as she fell backwards and began to swing her fists blindly.
"Ouch, hey, ow! Astrid, it's me!" Toothless said, rubbing his sensitive nose.
The blonde dusted herself off. "You shouldn't sneak up on me like that."
"Lesson learned." He stuck his tongue out at the girl.
She smiled nervously. "How's it going?"
"It's going great. Hey, by any chance, have you seen Spike anywhere?"
Astrid's eyes darted left and right suspiciously. "Spike? No, no. I haven't seen her," she said in a fake voice.
"Why are you talking like that?"
"Talking like what? I'm not talking in this voice to try and hide the fact that I know where Spike is!" she sputtered before clapping her hands over her mouth.
"Hm." Toothless eyed her warily.
Astrid began to sweat.
"My instincts are telling me you're trying to hide something. But I can't put a claw on it."
Astrid sighed in relief, grateful that Toothless wasn't exactly the sharpest axe in the armory.
He spotted the Deadly Nadder trying her best to remain inconspicuous, hiding in a baleful of hay with her spikes poking out.
"Hi, Spike!" he greeted, wagging his tail.
Spike jumped out of the haystack and glared at the girl. "Hello Toothless," she said icily.
"Hold on, you have some hay in your spikes," Toothless said, about to lick her.
"Don't touch me!" she snapped.
Spike didn't slow down in her stride as she began leading him all around Berk, trying to weave in and out of crowds and going in circles to try and lose the Night Fury.
"Wow you walk fast," Toothless noted, panting. "Hey, do you wanna play some hide-and-seek in the forest?"
"No thanks." She swerved onto the cobblestone path that led to Astrid's home, ready to "hide" in her den and hope that the Night Fury wouldn't "seek" her out.
Toothless blocked her escape. "Maybe just tag then!"
She barked, "Get out of my way, Toothless."
"Do you want some fish? I could go get some for you, if you'd like!"
"Not right now. I'm busy."
The Deadly Nadder irritably pushed Toothless out of the way, watching him tumble and roll down the hill still making goo-goo eyes at her.
"That hurt," groaned the Night Fury. "Hiccup said that when a girl hits a boy it means she likes him." Putting two and two together, he suddenly squealed with glee, "She likes me! She really likes me!"
With his muscular limbs, razor-sharp claws and teeth, velvety charcoal scales, powerfully constructed wings, and wide-eyed yellow-green saucers, there would be no way she could resist. He ran and picked the prettiest flower he could find and knocked on her barn door with his tail.
"It better not be you, Toothless!" Spike screeched.
Toothless waited at her door, picking at an irritated scale. He couldn't have that, oh no.
She finally came out. "What?"
"I brought you this flower," Toothless grinned, holding it out to her with his paws. "Do you like it?"
The dragoness regarded the dragon and his hopeful expression and looked down at the flower.
Toothless' heart raced as she opened her mouth, probably to ask him to propose to her to be her mate and ask to have his babies and…
She spat out a stream of fire that burnt the flower to ash.
"Now I do. Bye!"
What did he do wrong? He thought she liked him! He was sure he didn't come off as too desperate.
Girls were so weird!
"Yippee!" cried the ecstatic Night Fury as he jumped into the lake on a bright, sunny day on the island down at the glade.
He swam under the murky depths of the water, hunting for his prey. His pupils contracted sharply upon detecting some movement along the slimy foliage and snapped up an Icelandic cod in his greedy maw before resurfacing with a gasp, looking around.
Toothless' ears drooped sadly when he realized that he was still alone in the cove.
He splashed the water forlornly, watching the ripples spread from his paw as he floated on his back on the surface, reaching to the sky to try and touch it to no avail.
He emerged from the lake, droplets of glistening water sliding down his shimmering scales. He shook himself dry and jumped into a bed of soft, aromatic dragon nip to get rid of an itch, sighing blissfully as he lay in the patch of grass and rolled around lazily, basking in the golden rays of the sun.
The clouds floated by lazily, taking on various shapes and forms.
His heart longed to fly, to soar higher than ever. The sky was his playground, his domain. A vast, open kingdom where he reigned.
He felt a bit lonely with no one to play with. And he was starting to catch onto the idea that maybe Spike didn't like him at all.
"Hmph," Toothless huffed indignantly. "Who needs them? I certainly don't need them. I don't need anybody!"
He mulled over his words.
"Except Hiccup, I guess."
Toothless stamped his foot in irritation.
"I can have fun all by myself!"
The silence was humbling. For the first time in a long time, Toothless felt no need to speak. He had nothing to say and no one to say it to. He scratched at his scales, an itching sensation running up and down his body.
"Ooh!" he hissed, rubbing against the grass to scratch his itch.
A wave of nostalgia hit him, recalling Hiccup's fingers scratching his neck. He could really use a scratch right now. It reminded him of what life used to be like, how he used to be, how things used to work before Hiccup.
"Look at me, acting like a needy little hatchling," he sneered. He sat up and looked at his reflection. "I am Toothless, the one and only Night Fury!"
There was a lump in his throat as he said those words, regretting bringing it up instantly.
"Stop looking at me like that," he scolded his image. "I know what you're thinking." The pair of piercing eyes looked back at him accusingly. "Stop staring at me!" He slashed at his reflection fiercely again and again, narrowing his pupils and hissing and spitting at his invisible foe, watching his reflection come back into view. "You can't trick me! There's only one of me!" he roared at the top of his lungs, terrifying any living creature within a mile radius.
Only one.
He did not, he would not face the truth.
But he would have to.
He had tried to forget, pushing those unpleasant thoughts to the back of his mind.
From the moment he was born he was alone, forced to fend for himself against a cruel, merciless world where the strong preyed on the weak. And he would be strong. Without a mother to raise him, to teach him how to survive or how to love, he learned never to trust anybody, relying only on himself because that was all he had. He built up a reputation as the silent, deadly hunter who never missed his shot. He never spoke a word, expressing himself not through words, but through action, through violence, controlling and manipulating the other dragons through fear, because those were the only things he knew. He was afraid and he wanted to express himself by causing pain and hurt even though the harm he could inflict upon other was nothing compare to what he felt knowing that he was a toothless freak that nobody wanted. So he remained silent, allowing only strangled cries of rage and plasma bolts to escape from his mouth. There was no need to speak to your enemy. Everyone was his enemy, no one was his friend! He needed no companionship, no family, no love. Love was fickle. Love was weak! And he would not be weak!
It was not until Hiccup had taught him how to love did he begin to come out of his shell.
He scooped up the water like the broken, fragile pieces of the "mirror" only to have it trickle between his paws.
Maybe that's what he clung on so desperately to some semblance of a relationship with whomever he associated with like a child. Because he was afraid. Afraid of being abandoned. Afraid of being alone.
He didn't want to be alone. Never again.
Toothless immediately regretted his thoughts, feeling ashamed for having even had them. He felt like a petulant hatchling. He would just have to entertain himself. He would have to be independent for the time being.
Gods, why was he so itchy?
He waddled over and broke off a tree branch and began to draw, trying to imitate Hiccup and how he drew those perfect curves and managed to capture the essence of the subject in front of him. The sun was low in the sky now. He danced, feeling his spirits rise.
"Done!"
To the untrained eye, the scribbles that Toothless had etched into the dirt would probably appear to be nothing more than a shapeless, featureless bundle of chicken scratch…which was exactly what it was.
But to Toothless, it was a portrait of him and everyone he knew and cared about. See those dots? Those were Hiccup's freckles and that curve was his dimply smile next to dragons and their riders.
"This is getting unbearable," whined Toothless as he scratched more and more at his scales.
A blue jay chirped and perched itself on his tail.
Toothless smiled his disarming gummy smile. "Hello Mister Bird! Would you like to play?"
The bird, surprisingly, chirped back in response before it was gobbled up by a fox.
Toothless shrieked. "No! No! Shame on you, Mister Fox! Spit Mister Bird out right this instant!"
The fox, utterly confused, spat out the twitching bird and ran as fast as he could from the dragon that sounded oddly like a human.
"Why don't you sing a song, Mister Bird?"
The bird cheerily chirped and opened its beak, ready to sing a beautiful melody.
"I can show you the world…"
"Really?" Toothless was not amused. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"…shining, shimmering, splendid…"
"That's it, featherbrain!"
Toothless swallowed the bird, spitting out a repulsive feather, smacking his lips.
"The nerve!"
Dusk fell quickly with a mix of orange and white, dark red, green and yellow in the sky.
"I really should've thought this through before I came down here."
He was trapped, unable to fly out as he normally would and a storm was coming in.
"They'll come looking for me sooner or later."
Hiccup sat by the fireplace in a comfortable chair eating a bowl of stew, sighing contentedly.
"Dad?"
"Yes, son?"
"Do you ever get that feeling that you know you're forgetting something, but you can't remember what it is?"
"Why yes, son, all the time. Even with you!"
The two shared a hearty laugh before Hiccup realized what his father had said.
"That's really not funny," Hiccup deadpanned as his father continued to laugh and wheeze, doubling over.
"It's," laughed Stoick, "it's funny 'cause it's TRUE! HAH!"
"WHEN I GET MY CLAWS ON YOU, STEW-FOR-BRAINS, YOU'RE GONNA PAY!" screeched an agitated Night Fury in the rain.
The glittering obsidian scales that lined his body from snout to tail served a dual purpose of not only adding to his beauty and grace, but also served as protection against the cold and fire and camouflage in the shadows of the night and reflected the moonlight during flight, further adding to the mystique surrounding the Night Fury as one of the rarest, most legendary dragons never to be seen. Toothless prided himself on his appearance, always preening his scales to keep them clean and immaculate in hopes of someday attracting a suitable mate.
"Gods, it's freezing!" shivered Toothless.
Wait a minute. That couldn't be right. He didn't get cold. His scales were like a fur coat…
Toothless examined his body and noticed a pool of black scales accumulating around his legs.
"Huh. Where'd these come from…?"
He looked at his body, finding patches of silver scales all over his body.
The dragon gasped in horror. "No," he uttered. "Nonononono! Not my beautiful scales!"
His scales! His scales were falling off!
It could only be one thing.
"I'm melting!" Toothless roared, seeking cover from the rain, running around frantically in circles before using his wing as a makeshift umbrella. "I'm melting!"
Hiccup slept, a book covering his face before he sat up abruptly.
"TOOTHLESS!"
He bolted as fast as he could with his bad leg.
"Toothless, I'm so sorry, I should've remembered," Hiccup went on and on as he led the Night Fury back home, unable to see the dragon in the heavy rain.
The dragon remained silent the entire trip. The second they landed Toothless burst into the house and disappeared.
"Toothless!"
Toothless clambered down into the basement and hid himself, trying to pathetically put his scales back on.
"What's happening to me?"