A/N: New Chapter! Yay! A couple days behind schedule because college has decided to kill me, among other things, but it's still here now! yay! enjoy

Disclaimer: I do not own HTTYD

Chapter Thirteen: Closer, closer, closer

Hiccup exited the smithy. She looked around surreptitiously, and smirked to herself when she saw no one around. Perfect – she didn't want anyone around right now. Yet another set of modifications to Toothless' saddle were complete, and now she just needed lunch before she headed back into the forest to seek out her dragon companion. Brushing her hands off on the sides of her tunic, Hiccup exchanged her leather apron for her fur vest, heading off to the great hall at a languid pace. A light breeze pushed her roughly-cut auburn bangs off her forehead, cooling the slight sheen of sweat from her face. Adding foot pedals and rigging them up had taken both extreme concentration and effort, especially when it came to tensing the gears and lines. Luckily, she'd figured out how to minimize the high-tension cables, so that the line that ran from Toothless' fin to the saddle could be easily clipped in – no need to go through a complex tensioning process ever time.

Soon, the chief's daughter found herself at the entrance of the hall, her walk having flown by in the face of her technical musings. She tugged the doors open with something of a struggle – they were huge and heavy, after all – slipping inside quickly. She ate her lunch quickly and quietly, and was back out in the sunlight only ten minutes later. She strolled easily back to the smithy, steps slow and relaxed. Face tilted towards the sun, she didn't notice people in the village staring at her. In fact, she didn't notice the attention she attracted until she head someone call her name.

"Hey, Hiccup!" a voice shouted. Startled, Hiccup spun around on her heel, and was even more surprised to see Ruffnut running up to her, her brother trailing closely behind. The chief's daughter became wary immediately; although it wasn't as nearly as common an occurrence as it was with Jabtooth, the twins (along with Snotlout) had used her as a target before.

"We wanted to talk to you," Tuffnut added when he and his sister caught up to the diminutive girl. Hiccup's eyebrows rose in surprise.

"You did?" This was new.

"Yeah! What you did with the dragon today was...y'know...awesome! We were all mad the first time you beat a dragon, thought it was a fluke, but after today...You really are cool," Tuffnut declared with a grin. It was all Hiccup could do to not fall over in sheer shock.

"What?" she choked out.

"How did you do it?" Ruffnut asked excitedly.

"I, ah, I...um...well-" Hiccup stuttered before being cut short.

"We couldn't believe it! You were all like 'BAM!' and the Gronckle was like 'AHH!'" Tuffnut declared.

Hiccup just stared at him. Did he realize his statement was pretty much incomprehensible?

"Hey guys!" a new voice greeted. Looking over her shoulder, Hiccup was floored to see her cousin walking up, grinning not only at the twins, but also at...her? She'd never received anything but contempt from Snotlout before (and certainly never anything so friendly as a smile).

"Uh...hi," she managed to reply.

"What're we talking about?" the stocky brown-haired boy asked.

"Training!" Ruffnut replied promptly

"And how Hiccup totally slammed it! The Gronckle didn't stand a chance!" Tuffnut added.

And right when Hiccup thought she couldn't get any more surprised, Snotlout chimed in.

"I know, right? It was so cool!"

If Hiccup could have seen her face at that moment, she would have laughed. Eyebrows raised and eyes wide in disbelief, she gaped at her peers, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

"Uh...thanks...guys," she offered hesitantly.

"There you guys are!" Fishlegs cried as she approached the group of four. "Hey, great job at training today, Hiccup."

The chief's daughter pinched herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming or delusional. She thought for sure they'd be furious at her sudden success – never would she have expected such universal acceptance for her achievements.

"Er...thanks."

Hiccup's peers talked to and around her as they made their way through the village, voices loud and carrying. How was she supposed to get Toothless' saddle with her peers following her around? She'd have to ditch them, and manage to convince them not to follow her.

"I'll...I'll need to go grab something from the great hall," she spoke up, turning around. When the other four made to follow her, Hiccup hastily stopped them. "No, no, don't worry, I'll catch you later. Really, guys."

Shrugging almost in unison, her peers continued on their previous path. Hiccup darted away, rounding the corner of a house quickly in order to get out of their eyesight should they turn around, and nearly crashed headlong into Astren.

"Oops! Sorry," she apologized hastily, ducking under Astren's outstretched arm, which he had placed on the side of the house to steady himself from the near-collision. She only got a brief glimpse of his face, but it was shadowed by a severe scowl.

So it would seem not everyone was thrilled by her unexpected triumphs after all.

Hiccup entered the cove, bundled-up saddle in hand, eagerly looking around for Toothless. It was late afternoon now – on her way to get the saddle, she'd been waylaid by Gobber, who asked her to finish up several sword-sharpenings, and after that she had to wait for him to become absorbed in another task before she could risk taking the saddle out of her little workroom. The hike through the forest, as always, took some time.

"Sorry, buddy, I meant to get here earlier...but it just didn't work," she apologized upon the Night Fury's bounding towards her. "But I modified the saddle some more!" the girl added cheerily, hefting the cloth-covered item up. Toothless looked at it in evident distaste – although he understood the necessity of it, he clearly didn't like it.

"I'm sorry, Toothless, but it's necessary!" she reminded him. The dragon just huffed in response, giving the lump a half-hearted glare. Hiccup unrolled the saddle from it's cover, and removed a smaller working of leather. She smiled to see the results of her hard work – her harness was much improved from the simple belt she had before. It now had straps that made an "X" across her chest, and the back was two panels of sturdy leather, laced together by some hearty twine. Hiccup removed her fur vest, slipping the new harness on in it's place and belting it securely across her waist. In addition to the new, improved design, she'd also added stronger tethers (the last thing she wanted was for them to break during a flight. These new ones could withstand a substantial amount of force – she'd have to smack into something just shy of the size of a small mountain to break these tethers)

"Your turn," she said to Toothless in a light-spirited sing-song. Turning, she saw his dejected expression, and couldn't help but laugh. For such a normally dignified dragon, he sure knew how to pull off a pout.

"Oh, alright. How 'bout I scratch you first?" she asked. She'd noticed Toothless liked to be scratched on his hide and snout – maybe her offer would make him more willing to use the saddle later.

The Night Fury leapt up in response, breaking into the lopsided, gummy grin that Hiccup loved. She laughed, striding over to him, and prompty scratching the spot right behind his ear. Toothless crooned, leaning into the touch.

"Well, at least you're easy to please," she remarked, moving on to the base of his skull and the side of his neck. The Fury wriggled with glee, reminding her much of a puppy. She continued on, getting the base of his wings and right between his shoulder blades. She also scratched just beneath his jaw bone, and jumped back in shock when he suddenly collapsed to the ground in some sort of trance.

Hiccup looked at her hands. Had she found a sweet spot, another secret about dragons? Glancing down at Toothless, who was currently in a very contented, trance-like doze, she thought so. When her dragon companion made no move to get up anytime soon, Hiccup chose to sit down beside him, using his side as a back rest.

They stayed that way for a long while, and it was approaching sunset by the time Toothless recovered and Hiccup was awake again (she'd napped when waiting for him to come out his semi-conscious state).

"Well, looks like you got your wish," she said to Toothless, shading her eyes against the rapidly sinking Sun. "I don't think we have time to fly today, which means no saddle for you."

Toothless came over, bumping her hip with his snout.

"Don't worry, bud, I don't mind. It was nice to just have a quiet afternoon," she said with a grin, reaching up to scratch the top of his head. Toothless crooned in agreement, grinning his gummy grin again. Hiccup laughed, and hugged his neck. "We'll try flying again tomorrow, okay?" With his nod of approval, she smiled, wrapping the saddle up in the tarp again, and storing it in a niche in the cliff face.

"I think I've made all the modifications necessary. I want to leave it here so I don't have to worry about sneaking it out anymore," she explained, catching his curious look. Toothless nodded, then sat on his haunches, watching as Hiccup clambered back up the trail towards the exit-crevice.

Right before she left the cove for the day, the chief's daughter looked back over her shoulder and waved at the grounded Night Fury.

"Bye, Toothless! I'll see you tomorrow!"

Stoick punched the wall of his cabin, roaring in frustration. The wood splintered under the force of the impact, sending little flakes of crushed wood drifting to the ground. The giant man huffed, this time pounding his fist into his open palm as he sat down on his narrow bunk in the cabin. As chief, he was the only one with a cabin – the rest of the expedition slept on deck, or in the large, one-room galley and dining cabin. They were all crammed onto one ship – the other two had long since sunk from the dragon attacks, but by some stroke of luck, no one had died. Well, as far as he was able to tell. There were lots of minor burns, several nasty ones, a few broken bones, and lots of broken spirits. Stoick sat morosely in his sleeping quarters, glancing around the small space as if it could help him. His cabin was also used for charting their course and planning their next move, as evidenced by the table on the other side of the small space, covered in maps.

Not that the maps had done them any good. They reached Helheim's Gate within a day of their departure, and were ambushed by hoards of dragons the moment the ships were enveloped by the ever-present fog. Since them, they'd moved aimlessly – no one could see more than about two hundred yards ahead. Stoick swore they were going in circles. The days dragged on endlessly (that is, when they didn't spend the day fighting off a sudden swarm of dragons that spontaneously appeared out of the mist) and the only thing that separated one day from another was the pitch-black of night. The fog blocked out the moon and the stars, and was so thick that even during the day it was impossible to determine the Sun's position.

However, due to the routine blackness that fell every night, Stoick knew that tomorrow would mark a full week since they left Berk. An entire week, and what did their expedition have to show for it? Burnt ships, a few wounded warriors, and not even a single dragon head. They were just impossible to fight, when they were restricted in their fighting by the ship's deck. He hung his head in his massive hands, slowly shaking it back and forth. What had he done? This whole thing was one big failure. Had he honestly expected to succeed this time, when he had information no different from the all the other attempted Nest raids that had taken place over Berk's three hundred year history? Hadn't he heard someone say the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

Huh. He probably was insane – at least, he wouldn't be surprised if he was after this maddening trip. The days dragged on – no way to tell time until night fell, no landmarks to measure their progress by, just drifting on and on and on. Even Stoick was starting to find it hard to focus. He sighed. Tomorrow, he'd tell the expedition that they needed to start looking for a way out of this hellhole – they were running low on supplies, and if Stoick had lost his motivation for this disasterous trip, how could he possibly let the horrible thing go on?

Mind made up, the Viking chief's mind wandered. He wasn't one for pensive reflecting, but he had nothing better to do. It was pitch-black outside. The only reason he could see was due to the candle he'd left lit on the map-table. He thought wistfully of returning home, sleeping in his wonderful bed (which, he thought, was actually big enough for him. This cot was tiny). Ah, to be home again, with a large enough bed, warm food, and a floor that didn't rock underneath his feet.

Home. Hiccup.

Hiccup!

Stoick's heart raced as he thought about his only child. It was habit for him to be anxious about her – with good reason, as she managed to get in some trouble (sometimes even mortal danger) on a weekly basis. Was she okay? Gobber promised to look out for her during Dragon Training, but accidents were unavoidable – especially with Hiccup. She couldn't be dead, could she? (He wasn't kidding when he told Gobber that he feared she'd get killed during training) Hiccup had to be okay – she was the only thing he had left, the last piece of Valhallarama. Stoick felt his gut clench with worry, as it always did when 'Hiccup' and 'dangerous situations' came up in the same thought.

Why didn't he stay? He would know if she was okay, could look out for her during training, make sure she didn't get injured or roasted. He should have stayed. This expedition was doomed to failure from the start – he saw that now.

Bowing his head, Stoick prayed his daughter was unharmed, sleeping safely in her bed. A week was far too long to be gone, unable to supervise her, unable to make sure she was safe. He couldn't lose Hiccup. She was his only family, his only child. For all his criticisms, and all her shortcomings, she was still his precious little girl. Furthermore, she was only fourteen. Surely, fate couldn't be so cruel as to end her life when she was scarcely more than a child?

That's ENOUGH, Stoick told himself sternly. It was useless to worry, Hiccup would be okay (she had to be okay!), and furthermore, he was just going to make himself sick with anxiety, thinking of all the things that could go wrong. He'd never get any sleep this way, and he and his warriors would need all of their wits if they were going to navigate their way out of this forsaken fog.

Hiccup left the ring the next day with a grin splitting her face. Her newest strategy worked – the Nadder, when scratched just underneath it's jaw, collapsed just as Toothless had. She'd begun to think she should start trying out these new discoveries on the dragons when no one else was around – less attention to attract that way. However, fate had other ideas. Astren had been charging at the Nadder, and Hiccup was close enough to reach the dragon, so she scratched it's chin without thinking about the consequences of another victory. It was the only quick fix she could think of at the time – if she hadn't interfered, either Astren or the Nadder or both could have gotten killed.

If Hiccup was going to be honest with herself, she also kind of liked this new found attention from the village, for it was positive. People started not with contempt, but admiration and respect, and the feeling was wonderful and nearly overwhelming at the same time.

"Hey, Hiccup, wait up!" Fishlegs called, the other teens trailing behind her. Well, everyone except Astren, who was – unsurprisingly – fuming over his latest defeat at Hiccup's hands. The chief's daughter stopped short, complying with their wishes as she waited for her peers (friends?) to catch up with her. They swarmed around her, demanding for her attention, asking questions, but never really expecting an answer, for which Hiccup was grateful. She let herself relax slightly, letting the talk wash over her as the others bantered back and forth. She had never felt so accepted amongst her own kind before – only with Toothless. A pang struck her when she realized that they were only so accepting of her because of her newfound stardom, her deception.

But even this thought couldn't stop her from enjoying the moment. What she had longed for over so many years was at her feet – she was hardly going to turn it away now.

"...then I got this huuuge rock, and I tossed it in the puddle, and water went, like, everywhere!" Tuffnut proclaimed excitedly. Hiccup hoped she'd just re-tuned into the conversation at a bad point, and that Tuff wasn't actually as dim as his anecdote suggested.

"Yeah! The other day, I tried to punch a bee," Snotlout remarked, punching the empty air for emphasis. "I almost got it, too! But the bee stung me afterwards," her cousin added at the end.

On second thought, maybe Tuffnut was that dim. At least he kept good company.

"While you idiots were out acting like four-year-olds, I actually did something worthwhile," Ruffnut replied in an airy, superior tone. She reached into her cropped fur vest, pulling something out when she withdrew her hand. A dagger was clutched in her hand, but instead of having a blade and then a hilt, the back end of it's hilt had another blade. Everyone leaned in to admire the double-ended weapon. Even Hiccup was impressed by the thing – her blacksmith's training had given her the ability to spot when blades were particularly well-sharpened, and this odd dagger of Ruffnut's fell into the sharp-as-a-dragon's-tooth category. In other words, dangerously sharp.

"Where'd you get that, Ruff?" Fishlegs asked, small eyes wide in admiration.

"Well, you see..."

Hiccup walked into the great hall that night unaccompanied by her...friends? The word felt foreign to her, at least when it wasn't applied to Toothless.

Okay, friends, she decided mentally. She entered the great hall without any of her friends by her side, which was something of a relief. She hadn't been able to get away from them until a half-hour ago. By then, it was already dark and much too late to visit Toothless. She would have to make it up to the Night Fury by bringing him an extra barrel of fish tomorrow.

Quietly, she headed over to the large kitchen on the other side of the enormous room. The chief's daughter reemerged with a plate of food, and sat down at a empty table next to the one her friends occupied – she was so used to sitting alone it didn't even occur to her that she would be welcomed at their table. It was just a force of habit.

Within seconds, Ruff, Tuff, Fishlegs, and Snotlout jumped ship, hastening over to Hiccup's table. They spoke eagerly to her, so absorbed in their chatter that Hiccup was the only one who noticed Astren's sudden scowl at being abandoned. Out of the corner of her eyes, she watched him stalk out of the great hall, posture tense, face furious. She even thought she saw him aim a punch at one of the doors to open it.

However, she didn't have time to consider Astren's obvious irritation with her. Fishlegs was asking another question about how Hiccup had taken down the Nadder, and the smaller girl needed to focus on evading the questions without being obvious about it – she didn't want to raise suspicions, and by doing so, risk Toothless' safety.

"Uhh, yeah, I'm not sure, I think I just got lucky. Hit the dragon in a weak spot while it was distracted," she offered as a reply, shrugging her shoulders.

"Don't be modest!" Snotlout grinned, clapping his cousin on the back in (what was probably supposed to be) a friendly manner. However, there was enough force behind the motion to make Hiccup choke on the water she was currently trying to swallow. She spluttered, spitting out half of the liquid and trying to gasp for air around the rest, which had lodged directly in her windpipe. As the girl continued to cough, her friends looked at her in alarm. Snotlout pounded her back again, several times, until Hiccup stopped coughing (this, by the way, was in no way aided by Snotlout's efforts. In fact, not only did it make it more difficult for her to clear her airways, she was also probably going to have a bruise tomorrow). "And don't try to inhale water again. Just because you're good at Dragon Training doesn't mean you're a fish."

Hiccup gave her cousin a sideways glare. Was he serious? He was the cause of her near-asphyxiation in the first place! Snotlout the Dense, however, did not catch on to her displeasure, and continued on with his story.

"...wrangled this huge fish! Dad was so impressed, knew right then I was gonna be a great Viking someday," he said, grappling with the empty air to demonstrate his fish-wrangling skills. Hiccup resisted the urge to laugh – it looked more like he was spontaneously convulsing than wrestling with a fish. Still, she enjoyed being a part of the pointless but entertaining chatter of her friends, and it was late before she finally left the great hall and her friends.

She still wasn't quite comfortable around them, but it didn't mean she didn't enjoy herself.

A/N: Whooohoo! That chapter went much faster than the last one. As I'm typing this up, finals and graduation are rapidly approaching. I started writing this beast sometime in...february? January? I don't really remember anymore. ANYWAY. When I started this project (confession time) I planned to write the whole thing out before I posted it. I had a feeling (one I still believe in, btw) that if I posted it before it was finished, I would lose interest in writing the thing and end up leaving it unfinished. With that in mind, I planned to complete it by the end of the school year, and then I would post the story over the summer, each chapter a few days apart.

Yeah, the whole finishing-by-the-summer thing didn't work out, as I have less than two weeks to finish more than half of the movie (going off the top of my head, I think 'Test Flight' is about halfway. I'm still as 'See You Tomorrow', which is taking FOREVER. Don't get me wrong, I love the hiccup-toothless-bonding scenes, but there's just so much to include, and I want to actually put my own interpretation on each part – not just summarize it. An idea that is looking more and more appealing each time I open this file. BUT I WILL RESIST!)

Writing this whole thing out, even when it's difficult, will be an excellent writing exercise/experience. My NEW goal is to finish writing this by the end of summer, so that I can post it during college. Even though I know I'll be super busy, as long as the writing, author's notes, etc., is finished by the time I start college, I'm sure I'll find the time to post a chapter at least once a week (it will probably only take five minutes by then. I hope. I've never actually posted anything before this story.)