AN: Okay, seriously, I have an excuse – my job right now involves a lot of typing, and by the time I get home, my hands hurt. So trying to make myself type anything is downright impossible, but for you guys, I'm gonna give it my best. Expect updates to be long in between like usual, but I swear to you guys, I'm not abandoning the story.

ch 14

Hiccup wakes up in the bottom of a ship, arms twisted around his back, wrapped around a mast, and tied at the wrists. It's not a comfortable position. At least they didn't take his prosthetic. If he can get his hands free, he might just make them regret that.

For the moment, he stays completely still. It's a habit he picked up on after so many years at Snotlout's not-so-tender mercies. He stays still, makes sure he can move when he needs to, and tries to listen in and see if he's alone yet. Aside from a throbbing headache, he appears to be fine. He also seems to be alone – all of the voices are muffled, seeming to come from above him.

He lifts his head and opens his eyes.

There's a Terror sitting in his lap, a chain around her neck with the other end bolted to the floor. She cocks her head to the side and stares at him. 'Hello.'

He smiles. "Hi." His voice is quiet and raspy, but the little dragon hears him anyway. She blinks in surprise.

'Wow. She finally did it. She found a human hatchling.' The Terror coos softly at him. 'I'm sorry, little one.'

Hiccup frowns. "Why are you sorry? You didn't do this to me."

'I know what is coming, and if you are lucky, you won't survive it.'

He swallows hard. "That bad?" The Terror nods. Hiccup pulls at the ropes, trying to wiggle his hands free. He feels the ropes start to burn, but he keeps steadily tugging at them. The Terror just stares at him. He offers her a smile. "It's okay. We're gonna get out of here."

'You sound very certain.'

"Yeah, well, there's gonna be a pissed-off Night Fury coming after their butts as soon as he finds my present." he muses. "Toothless isn't gonna take this very well."

The Terror tilts her head. 'Toothless? You named a Night Fury, and he let you?'

"He didn't have much of a choice." Hiccup admits. "I kinda shot him down, and if he wanted to get back in the sky, he had to learn to trust me. Besides, when I met him, I didn't realize I could understand dragons." He smiles faintly at her. "Speaking of, what's your name?"

The Terror makes a chirping sound that Hiccup knows is laughter. 'I no longer have a name. I am just a Terror.'

"That's not right. Everyone has a name."

'Tell me about the dragons you know. Tell me how you learned their names.'

So he does. Hiccup spends the next two hours telling the little Terror everything – from shooting down Toothless to finding him, getting him back in the sky, defying the village with Hookfang, and ultimately losing his leg against the Red Death. He tells her how the others adopted the ring dragons and gave them names, how they all work together to train the dragons.

The Terror stares at him. 'Train?'

He grimaces. "I can't very well tell them the dragons only listen to me because I understand them, now can I?" he retorts. "If that's what it takes for them to understand for now, then that's exactly what I'll tell them." He twists his wrists and smiles bitterly. "Well, it doesn't matter anymore. They know now. They turned against me."

The Terror tilts her head to side and stares at him. 'So what are you going to do about this current predicament you're in, hatchling?'

Hiccup smiles. "Something crazy."

'Good.' She curls up in his lap and stares up at him. The chain pulls a little, but she pays it no mind. 'Now, when you do your crazy thing, this is what you need to know, hatchling.'

/-/

The dragons and Astrid find themselves in the forge. Astrid looks around. "So what are you after?" she asks. Toothless huffs and nudges past her. He growls at Hookfang, who simply nods and takes position by the door along with the others. Astrid follows Toothless. "I don't know where Hiccup keeps his stuff. He's a really private person." she tells the dragon. She'd feel silly talking to him, if it wasn't for the look he gave her. That look clearly said I know and that's not why you're here. She grimaces. "Sorry. You know him better than the rest of us, don't you?" He huffs.

In the back of the forge is a sheet covering a small room. Toothless shoves it aside and curls up against the far wall. The place is filled with the scent of fire, charcoal, paper, and metal. It's a scent that Hiccup carries with him wherever he goes, the scent that defines who he is, and it makes Toothless croon sadly. Astrid follows him inside.

"Oh, wow." Her eyes are wide. The small room is the perfect size for Hiccup, with a desk shoved to the opposite wall where Toothless lay and papers rolled up, tucked away, and spread out across the desk in a haphazard mess. Pinned to the wall over the desk are hundreds of sketches of Toothless, most of his tail and wings, a few full bodied shots that he must have done while the dragon slept, and one portrait of the dragon in full flight with a small figure perched on his back.

There are other sketches of the other dragons, but Toothless dominates this room just as he dominates Hiccup's thoughts. Astrid sighs.

"Yeah, I don't know him at all." she whispers. Toothless just growls at her. Astrid startles. "Right. There's something in here you want." She starts gently putting the papers aside, looking for any kind of hiding place that would fit a creation.

Behind her, Toothless curls up into as tight of a ball as he can manage, unable to stop a soft whimper. Astrid glances at him before resuming her search, paying close attention to the stacks of paper under the desk.

"This isn't your fault, you know." Another glance at Toothless, but the dragon doesn't seem to hear her. She continues. "You wouldn't have left him if he hadn't told you to. You would have torn them apart. I remember what it was like after the Island." Toothless growls at that, but doesn't move. Astrid keeps going. "You wouldn't leave his side. You wouldn't even let Stoick get close, although I don't blame you. You must have been scared of him. Could you tell he was Hiccup's dad?"

Toothless snorts. 'He's no sire. A sire doesn't abandon his hatchling.'

"I guess you're not impressed. I haven't seen a lot of dragon parenting, but I imagine you guys do it the same way you do everything else. With all you've got." She pauses in her search, then chuckles. "No wonder you like Hiccup so much. He does things the same way. He never could stop once he set his mind to something. Which is how he got you, I guess."

'I never thought I would be thankful to be grounded.' Toothless murmurs, examining his new tail fin. 'But that's what it took to find my hatchling. I'd give up my other fin to keep him.' His eyes narrow as he examines the Viking girl. 'Not that you would know anything about that, would you? All you have ever wanted is to be the best. You probably would have killed him if I hadn't stopped you, wouldn't you? You were certainly angry enough for it.' She continues her search, completely ignorant to his words. He sighs. 'Sometimes not being able to talk to you is a pain in the ass. I wish you knew just how little I trust all of you. Maybe then you'd leave my hatchling alone.'

"What is this?" Astrid pulls a large box out from under the desk. Toothless perks up, watching over Astrid's shoulder as she opens the box and examines the inside.

It's a new tail fin, this one with gears and levers instead of a rope and pulley. There's no saddle. There is, however, a note and a diagram of how to put on the new tail. Astrid pulls out the diagram and takes a look. "This is pretty detailed. I think I can put the new fin on without too much trouble." She turns to Toothless. "What do you think?"

The dragon doesn't respond. His gaze is fixed on the letter. Hiccup had managed to teach Toothless the basics of reading, and clearly, this letter was meant for him. It's written in the simplest Norse, easy for him to understand. Astrid shrugs and moves around him. He hardly realizes it as she gently removes the fin and saddle from his back and begins attaching the new fin.

Toothless, I'm so sorry. This should have been a present. Be safe, okay?

Your hatchling

Astrid tightens one last strap around his tail, drawing his attention to her again. "Okay, how does that feel?"

He flexes his tail. The new false fin moves perfectly with the real one, the soft clicking of gears and the glint of metal the only signs of the prosthetic.

Dragons can't cry. Toothless wants to cry. He wants to howl at the sky at the sheer unfairness of this.

He never wanted his flight if it meant losing his hatchling.

He digs his claws into the ground and darts out of the forge. 'Stay with the others!' he orders. 'Sharpshot, I need you to come with me. I'll get a start on finding that damned ship. You make sure Dagur doesn't follow me.'

Stormfly nods. 'With pleasure. We'll be with you as soon as we finish up here.'

'What about our riders?' Meatlug asks. 'They won't understand.'

'The humans will figure it out and set sail.' Barf-Belch replies. 'They'll go with them. Right now, the hatchling is more important.'

Toothless doesn't wait for them to figure it out. With a shrill cry, he launches himself into the air.

I'm coming for you, Hiccup. Just hold on.