Much to Toothless' dismay, Hiccup made a beeline for the stables, where he was certain Sky would be, licking his wounds, and, sure enough, there he was. "Sky," Hiccup knelt down beside the dragon, who glared over his shoulder at Toothless. "Yeah, yeah, I know, you and Toothless don't like each other, but listen-"
"He tore my tailfin off," Sky interjected dryly, "I can't fly because of that monster!"
Hiccup heaved a sigh. Toothless could hardly be classified as a monster in his book. If anything, Sky had it coming, but that wasn't important now. "Toothless, can you wait outside, please?" He asked, looking back at his Night Fury apologetically. Toothless snorted in disgust, but obeyed nonetheless. "I can help you fly again," Hiccup said finally when Toothless had gone.
Sky seemed rather wounded by this, "You think I want to go through life needing a human like that pathetic-"
"Rephrase: I can make it so you can fly again even without a rider." Hiccup corrected, "I've done it before, with Toothless, he just prefers to have me with him. I have a design for an automatic tailfin that moves with the natural one. I'll need to take measurements and it'll take a few hours to build, but I can do it."
The proud dragon didn't seem too interested, "It wouldn't matter. The other Night Furies would only kill me if they saw me like this."
"Right," Hiccup agreed, "Because they'd be worried that it might break off or burn off, but, I have an idea, a proposition for Flamewing that might change his views on his 'only the strongest may survive attitude.'"
Astrid folded her arms suspiciously, "And how do you propose to do that?" Though she was only understanding Hiccup's half of the conversation, she was able to catch the gist of what Sky was thinking in context. "This Flamewing is Toothless' father, right? The one that disowned and banished him? How do you think you're going to be able to get through to him?"
"The same way I got through to my father." Hiccup replied grimly, "Something stupid and crazy. Something that proves once and for all that dragons and humans aren't enemies. A battle against a common enemy."
"And who would that be?" Astrid pressed.
Hiccup glanced over his shoulder at her and deadpanned, "Alvin."
Her jaw nearly hit the floor, "You can't be serious. Alvin?! That's... That's suicide! We don't even know if he's still alive!"
"But we know his dragons are no longer on his side," Hiccup said pointedly, "So if, say, a handful of Night Furies were to suddenly attack them for 'revenge,' their dragons wouldn't defend them."
"I don't see where you're going with this." Sky mumbled, "There's no way you're going to be able to convince-"
"The thing that always made us so anxious about Night Furies was the fact that they were mysterious. We didn't know what they looked like, or how many of them there were. They could attack from long range and never missed their targets, and they never ran out of shots." Hiccup continued, getting to his feet, "If Alvin and the Outcasts were attacked my Night Furies, just Night Furies, they would assume they were being attacked by the pack for vengeance. In truth, it would just be Sky and Toothless, but they don't need to know that."
Astrid's eyes narrowed, "So you're going to get the Outcasts to attack the Night Furies who will then attack us? So we're the common enemy?"
"That last part is wrong. No, the Outcasts will prepare to attack the Night Furies, but I can get ears on the inside. That Monstrous Nightmare we brought back with us, we could send him back with the Outcasts to keep an eye on them, and have him come back to tell us what's going on. Because I can understand dragons now, I can get a detailed outline from him, their battle plan, and we'll follow them to the Isle of Night, lie in wait, let them start their attack, then, at the height of chaos, swoop in and save the day." Hiccup explained.
"That's quite clearly staged. Flamewing won't bite that." Sky pointed out.
Hiccup shook his head, "We'll tell Flamewing that we'd followed the Outcasts and knew their plan all along, we were waiting for the right moment to strike."
"What if the Outcasts say something to implicate the fact that they were attacked?" Astrid wondered.
"We'll say there was a miscommunication the night they were attacked and that we were initially going to attack them then, but changed our minds at the last minute, and Sky and Toothless didn't get the memo because they were too busy fighting." Hiccup shrugged, "It's believable enough, given the circumstances."
Sky growled a bit, "What's in it for me? Why should I lie to the faces of my pack members?"
"Because they'll kill you if you don't?" Hiccup offered, "The plan is not to win over Flamewing completely. That could take years. No, right now we just need him to be more accepting of..." He gestured to Sky's tail, "Disabilities."
Koda chuckled, "That's never gonna happen."
Hiccup smiled a bit, "You'd be surprised, Koda." He mused, "I thought the same of my father..."
"So what's your proposition for him?" Astrid questioned.
"To stop killing the runts and disabled." Hiccup replied simply, "To send them to Berk. While they might just be more mouths to feed for Flamewing, for us, Night Furies of any kind are invaluable assets, and with my inventions, I might be able to give some of them relief from their disabilities, like Toothless and Sky. Besides, I've been thinking, and... Well, I mean, I saw Sissel holding Koda earlier, and... Well, let's be honest, the kids we've been given, most of them are too small, too young to fit on the saddles for our dragons, and I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to modify them down to size. If we want to teach them how to ride dragons at their ages, we'll need younger dragons. We can even make a festival out of it, have something of a "coming of age" ceremony, where, after the young runts have been here until a certain age, they can show their worth for Flamewing and he can decide then if they can come back to the clan, if they even want to."
Sky seemed to consider this, "I suppose he might go for that. It would be win-win. They would be safe, but not in his way."
"Seems reasonable," Astrid admitted, "But the plan for getting to that point is completely insane."
"What she said," Koda murmured.
"Well, we won't be making any moves right away. For now, I need to work on making you a new tailfin," Hiccup said, looking to Sky, "But when that's done, we'll need to start talking to the others about this..." He heaved a sigh before adding, "If I can get my father to listen to me." With this, he took a few notes in his journal before heading off to the Smithy, presumably to work on the tailfin he'd promised, and Toothless was right behind him.
"Even if father agrees to that, that would mean Sky would be staying here on Berk!" Toothless complained as he trailed after Hiccup.
Hiccup glanced over his shoulder, "Well, you're both going to have to learn to deal with that. Sorry, bud, but you kinda brought this upon yourself."
"Can't you just let one of the other Vikings kill him? Wouldn't that be easier?" He asked.
"Easier? Maybe. My style? No, not at all. Besides, if we killed him, there'd be no reconciling with Flamewing at all." Hiccup reminded, "Berk and dragons are at peace now, our personal feelings for Sky aside. If it's okay to kill one, it'll be okay to kill more, and we're not going back to that."
Toothless' ears perked a bit, "Our personal feelings?"
Hiccup, who, by now, was busily working on measuring materials, paused to stare incredulously at Toothless, "What, you think I approve of the way he treats you, of what he's done? Come on, Toothless, you know me better than that." He resumed his work, allowing silence to come between them for a moment before he added, "You know, that's part of the reason I want to have the other runts here, on Berk. This unworthy attitude of yours, it's sad to watch."
The dragon curled his tail around himself, "You're not much better yourself, you know," He said quietly.
"I know I'm not, and that makes it all the more depressing." Hiccup admitted glumly. He was not truly working inside the smithy, instead, he was in the back, as he was just cutting and measuring material for the time being, anyway. Here, he could talk to Toothless without attracting the attention of people passing by. Or so he thought.
"It might be more practical to work inside. You know, where the tools are?" Astrid suggested. She and Stormfly had come to check on the progress, and were now coming around to the backside of the shack.
"Ah, hey, Astrid," Hiccup greeted, swiftly returning his attention to his work, "Just finishing up measurements..."
Astrid sat down beside him, "Want some help?"
"Um, no, no thanks, I'm good. I kind of have a system down for building Night Fury tail fins, since someone can't seem to keep his on," He teased, poking Toothless with his foot.
"Hey, builder's error," Toothless accused in an equally playful manner.
"Really..." Astrid murmured, "Because that looks pretty backwards to me. I thought it was Sky's right tailfin. That looks like a left."
Hiccup blinked and looked down at his work. She was right. Although he had yet to start putting things together, he'd been laying them out in position, and he'd been doing it backwards. "I-I was testing you! And you passed, congratulations!" Hiccup flubbed as he quickly switched the parts around to make them face the right way.
The girl sighed and leaned into Hiccup some, causing the boy to tense up a bit, "You've been so busy lately, I feel like we've hardly had any time alone together."
Toothless rolled his eyes, "Should we leave?" He asked sarcastically, earning a less playful kick from Hiccup.
"You're right, we haven't," Hiccup agreed, sliding out from under her and gathering his materials to bring them into the shop.
Astrid frowned a bit and moved to stand in the doorway, "You've been really evasive, Hiccup."
"Have I? I hadn't really noticed," Hiccup lied as he continued to bury his nose in his work, making as much noise as possible.
"You're doing it right now." Astrid accused, "Look, if there's something else bothering you, just tell me so we can work it out."
Hiccup exhaled sharply before turning to face her, "Astrid, I'm fine. I'm just... Thinking too much, and this whole thing with Sky, Toothless, and Flamewing has got me on edge."
The girl seemed a bit disappointed, but seemed to accept this, "Well, if there's anything else you want to talk about... You know I'm always here for you."
"Yeah, thanks." Hiccup mumbled, a bit too quickly as he turned his attention back to the metal scraps before him. Eventually, Astrid and Stormfly gave up and left Toothless, Hiccup, and Koda alone to finish Sky's tailfin.
It took several hours of hard work, but eventually the prosthetic was complete, and Hiccup brought it to the stables to give to Sky, but when he arrived, he found that Sky was nowhere to be seen. "Huh. That's strange." Hiccup murmured as he returned to Toothless and Koda, who he'd had wait for him outside to prevent conflict. "Sky's not here."
Toothless snorted, annoyed, "Who cares? The sun's starting to go down, it's time to eat! I'm hungry!"
Glancing up at the sky, Hiccup realized that Toothless was right, it was about time for dinner. His stomach growled at this realization, and a hunger he hadn't realized had been brewing suddenly surged up. "Yeah. Alright, bud, go ahead and take Koda down to the bowl. I'll meet you both back home." With this, the three parted course, the moment Hiccup walked into the Great Hall, Stoick got to his feet and called for Hiccup to sit by him and Gobber. Hiccup reluctantly obliged, squeezing between the two large men nervously. "This is unusual," He remarked, trying to break the tension. It wasn't working.
"What happened with that dragon and Toothless?" Stoick demanded.
Hiccup heaved a sigh. He didn't want to tell his father the truth, that he could talk to dragons, but he was beginning to run out of options. Even if he were to make something up now, the truth would come out later when Stoick asked how they would get the battle plan from the Outcasts. "It's a long story," He said, after much consideration.
That wasn't quite good enough for Stoick. "We have time." He said simply.
Gobber, noticing the tailfin sticking out of a sack on Hiccup's back observed, "That tail looks a bit big for Toothless."
"It's not for Toothless," Hiccup mumbled, "It's for Sky. It's an automatic tailfin like the one I made Toothless for Snoggletog."
"You mean th' one he obliterated?" Gobber wondered.
"Yeah, that's the one," Hiccup mumbled, "I've made some improvements on this one, reinforced it some."
"Why?" Stoick asked, "Hiccup, what in Odin's name is going on with these Night Furies?"
Props to Sairey13 for the idea with the runts (that was a very long time ago)~
Another short chapter, but I had to end it there for the "Dah-dah-duuunnnn" factor. Poor, poor Hiccup just can't seem to catch a break. And where did Sky run off to?