A/N: This chapter was pretty hard to write. I have a whole lot that I want to happen in not very many more chapters, and I'm having trouble organizing it all to happen correctly without rushing anything. Hopefully I can do it alright without ruining what I've done so far!

Also, though I didn't do it because of requests, in response to some requests/comments, I'd like to point out that this chapter is much shorter than some of the recent updates, which were pretty massive.

Astrid was not the sort of person to go down quietly.

To say that she was mad was an understatement. Stoick was equally as enraged, but age and experience had tempered Stoick's fuse to operate – most of the time – according to his judgment. No matter what Hiccup believed, his father was a man who knew how to choose his battles wisely. Astrid had not yet learned this wisdom. She'd worked herself up into a frenzy that might've looked like a berserker rage – but only if Stoick hadn't met any real berserks in his lifetime.

She was now past the point of speaking, although she'd done quite a bit of that already, raging and cursing and spitting at the air. Now, she was digging through all the cargo – which she should've known was not going to help either of them – looking for something, anything that she could use to help them escape. At this point, escape was only top priority because it was a prerequisite to hunting down the bastards who'd had the yellow-bellied gall to kill Toothless (Astrid's words, not Stoick's). Stoick was inclined to help, but there wasn't any good way to help. He knew it was no use, and thought, overall, it was a better idea to save his strength. Astrid would wear herself out sooner or later, although Stoick couldn't find the heart to tell her so.

Dead. Toothless. Toothless… dead? Stoick had only recently grown a close bond with that odd dragon, but now, even the idea of his death cut Stoick to the quick. It was almost embarrassing to admit, but Toothless had become like a second son to Stoick. Maybe it was how Hiccup treated him like a brother, or maybe it was how Toothless returned the favor. Maybe it was the snark that reminded him of Hiccup, or the smile, or the odd sort of respect he held for Stoick, but as a human the fury had become a Haddock in every way but blood. Blood. Hiccup's cries echoed in his memory. Stoick sighed, his father's heart aching for a son he hadn't realized he'd had.

It was not quite an hour later when Astrid stopped her rustling and slouched where she stood, shoulders drooping. She fell to the ground, spent, and curled in on herself. She was still and quiet for a long moment, but then she sniffed and wiped at her face. Stoick closed his eyes, aching quietly in sympathy for her. He left her alone for a while, wondering if Astrid was the sort of girl who would want to be comforted or left alone. But even he, Stoick the Vast, needed to be reminded that it would be alright once in a while. So, Stoick heaved himself up off the floor and moved across their small cell. He placed a hand on Astrid's shoulder gently. At first she didn't react, but then, after another sniff, she turned to him and punched his massive arm - once, twice, thrice, before she dissolved into tears completely and hid her face. Stoick only looked down at her sympathetically, and moved the arm she'd punched to lay across her shoulders. She didn't resist when he pulled her against himself and let her cry. He'd never tell her that while she fought back sobs, he fought back tears of his own. The bars of their cell watched their pain without pity, cold iron laughing at the caged Viking warriors.

Ru's wings ached. He'd been flying for over a day, now. Many dragon breeds would've found the feat impossible, but Ru came from expansive mountainous lands, and he was as strong as he was ancient. He'd long learned the meaning of endurance. Even still, his limit charged up at him like the horizon, and he knew that if he was going to intervene, he'd have to do it sooner rather than later. But timing was crucial. So in the dark of evening, Ru dipped down past the clouds and alighted to the water, submersing himself in the waves so only his face remained above the surface, concealed by the white wake of the ship. Traveling by water was hardly safe for a sky dragon like himself, particularly in the open ocean, particularly at night. But Ru was large enough that any sea dragon big enough to see him as a snack would have to be far, far beneath the waves.

As quietly as he could, he snuck up close to the ship so he could listen to the men on deck. They weren't a chatty bunch, but in the boredom of last light and long shifts, they talked more than any attentive guards ought to have. And it appeared that there had been a bit of an unfolding drama on board. They whispered in surprise and fear to one another about something – the waves and the distance made it harder for Ru to make out. It took nearly two hours of listening for him to finally learn what had happened. When he finally heard it, his green blood ran cold.

Killed him?

They'd killed him?

Ru had not felt such a rage bubble up inside of him since he was a youth, since his own family had been attacked, since he'd sat on the seat of royals and commanded a thousand flames. But now it returned, roaring up his long neck and making the water around him boil. He'd found the future of dragonkind on the other side of the world, and these humans, these scummish redbloods had snuffed it out without a second thought. Ru fanned out his wings in the water, catching the waves so he slowed almost to a halt, letting the ship plug on without him. When it was safe, he dug himself up out of the water. His throat was shaking to roar his outrage, but he held his silence. Muscles quivering, eyes narrowing to slits, he glared down on the ship and could imagine, almost hear Hiccup's cries. What had they done?

Tonight, when they were sleepy and dumb, when their blood-heavy heads lay comfortably on their pillows, they would find one more dragon on their ship. If they wanted to catch him, they'd have to get through his jaws and his vengeance first.

What neither Stoick nor Astrid nor Ru could have possibly known was that in those dark hours, at the height of their grief and their rage, something happened in that dark, bloodied cell. Something that had not happened in many, many centuries, and has not happened since that very night. The dragons called it magic, and the Vikings called it the work of the gods, but those who saw it firsthand would forever call it a miracle.

Rædwit had been curled around his nephew's lifeless human body for some time, whining softly over the cold flesh, wondering in his heart why it all had to have happened so fast, why it had to have happened like this. After thinking his nephew was dead for so many years, he found him here, in a human body, only to lose him forever in an instant. It was like salt in an old, raw wound.

The other dragons remained respectfully distant and quiet while their leader mourned. But after a very long silence, one of the younger dragons gasped. Rædwit opened his eyes at the noise, and noticed what the youngling must've seen. A strange glow was beginning to radiate off of Toothless' body, not unlike the glow of a dragon's eyes. It was not particularly bright, or alarming, but definitely there where it hadn't been before. And growing. The glow was spreading slowly; first over his eyes, his face, and then down his throat, and to his chest. It settled on his heart, and grew brighter, and whiter, and now Rædwit was noticing that the body was warm, too. No, not warm, hot. Hot to the touch, like fire. Like a dragon. Unsure of what was happening, Rædwit stood up and away from the body, which was now glowing a dim greenish hue all over, and blinding white from its chest and its gut, where Toothless had been stabbed.

A very odd sound split the silence and echoed off the metal walls of the cell, sizzling like static. The light exploded in all directions, and the dragons all leaped away, blinded by the flash in their dark cell. A louder, cracking noise followed, and the light swelled and faded, swelled and faded, pulsing like a luminous heartbeat. With one final, massive burst of echoing, roaring noise, the light disappeared in an instant. The dragons' ears rang. Rædwit blinked rapidly, trying to see through the sudden blackness in front of him. A new noise arose from the aftermath, an oddly… natural noise. A dragon noise.

A breath. A huge, deep, dragonese inhale. Plumes of smoke followed on the exhale.

"Oh, suffering scallops," said a voice. It was tinged with an odd human accent, and was far more developed and mature than Rædwit remembered from years ago, but he recognized it still. "Surely that's a bit overkill." The voice laughed at its own unintended joke. "Well, I suppose it had to have been."

Cautiously, Rædwit crept closer, almost afraid to hope."…Æðelin?"

Out of the dark, a black neck swiveled and two big, round, green-yellow eyes peered up at him. The eyes down at their body, and then back up again. "I think so, yes," said Toothless.

Rædwit launched himself at the other fury, abandoning all pretenses of leadership and solemnity. He shouted love and abuse in the same sentences, raving and crying how much he'd missed Toothless, how much he'd grown, how stupid he was for risking his fragile human body, and how had he survived, but oh who cared, he was here, he'd been dead, but now he was here and sweet skies above, how inordinately good it was to see him again, properly, finally, alive. Like a father or mother or uncle or maybe all three at once in that particular moment, Rædwit examined Toothless from head to tail, commenting on how well he'd filled out, what exceptionally long wingtips he had, how strong he'd grown. It was all an incessant stream of chatter that had Toothless grinning like a manman – or mad dragon, as it were – right up to the point when Rædwit reached Toothless' tail, and froze.

Before, when Hiccup and Toothless were sharing their story with the other dragons, Toothless had told Rædwit how he'd lost the use of his left tail fin. But Rædwit hadn't actually imagined that it'd been torn off entirely. Seeing it made his heart wrench. Dragons could fly, at least passively well, with holes in their wings, or even their mid-fins gone entirely. But the tail fins were so crucial to balance, to steering, to lose even part of one was to lose flight entirely. But to lose an entire tail fin…

"You… You really can still fly?" he asked. Toothless did not seemed fazed by the question.

"Yes. With Gicpa's help." Suddenly, he frowned. "Gicpa. Oh… oh, gods, Gicpa- where is Gicpa? What did they do with him?" the fury whirled around.

"They took him away – I do not know where. He tried to-"

Before Rædwit could finish, a bang echoed down the metal halls of the ship, and the dragons jumped in surprise. Footsteps clanged their way closer and closer to the door of their cell. Around the two furies, dragons rustled and squawked, alarmed at the unusual visit. Were they coming back to clean up Toothless' body? Was Lech coming back in a violent rage, intent on taming the dragons himself? Would he try and make them feast again?

"Æðelin, get behind me," Rædwit said with sudden authority.

"What? Why?"

"They'll expect only one furyn, not two. Get behind me, do not let them see you." Toothless, thankfully, did as he was told just in time. No sooner had he wound himself in a ball behind his uncle than did the door to their cell swing open. A column of light flooded into the room from the door, illuminating the deep red stain smeared against the floor where Toothless had lain. Into the light, the guards tossed something. No -not something, someone. Hiccup.

The guards said something about blood, something about a body, but Toothless was not listening. Through his uncle's legs, Toothless was watching Hiccup. In the brief moment of light, he could see the boy's face, eyes bright red and puffy, cheeks scarred with half-dry tears, mouth still cemented in a half-frown from screaming. His clothes and his hands were covered in dry blood – Toothless' own red, human blood – and there were patches were Hiccup had obviously tried to scratch it off of his skin. His hair was a mess, he was missing his prosthetic, but most of all, he looked absolutely, completely exhausted.

The door slammed shut. The dragons stayed completely silent, none of them brave enough to speak to the human now, not while he was in such a fragile state. Toothless knew they'd silently passed on the duty to him. He should have been grateful. But suddenly, he didn't know what to do. Looking at Hiccup now, he realized that he hadn't looked at Hiccup through his dragon eyes in over half a year. Half a year, he'd been human. Half a year, he'd interacted with Hiccup through Norse, through human smiles, through hugs and cooking lessons and hair-ruffling. But now? Now he was a dragon. He could not hug Hiccup, or whisper Norse comforts. He could not hold him tight in human arms, or ruffle his hair with human hands. Toothless didn't know what he could do, anymore. After all, dragons did not feel like humans did.

Or… did they?

Hiccup suddenly let out a noise. It wasn't a noise that Toothless had ever heard him make. It was a like a sob, but without heart, without energy. The boy curled further in on himself, and brought his hand up to his mouth as if to make himself stop. Toothless' heart broke, and he swallowed his own uncertainty and stood to his feet. Quietly, he crept up behind Hiccup, trying to figure out what to say, what to do, what he could and couldn't feel, what would be right.

Hiccup was shaking like a leaf. Gently, Toothless lowered his head and blew into his hair, ruffling it like he might have with human hands. Hiccup froze, and grabbed defensively at his head where the breath had touched. Toothless paused, and thought, and then he lay his body down softly behind Hiccup. He drew his tail up and around the boy, laying it across Hiccup like a hug. He nudged the boy's back and licked his arm, thinking of all the times he'd elbowed Hiccup, tickled and teased him. Last of all cam a word, just one, one he remembered hearing ever so faintly, just before his human life had faded away hours ago. Toothless would not realize until hours later that it was the first word he spoke as a dragon to Hiccup. It would take him a lifetime to learn how fitting this was.

"Broðor."

Hiccup didn't move. His mind was too numb, so far buried and wearied by emotion that he actually couldn't react. But then his hand fell down of its own accord, brushing against the old ragged joints that should've been part of a tail.

He whirled around, and he could barely see in the darkened cell, but there was no mistaking those glowing, greengage eyes. It'd been over six months since he'd seen them, and he'd thought he would never see them again.

From nowhere, his dead emotions overhauled themselves, and Hiccup half screamed and half cried as he launched himself at Toothless, hands locking anywhere around the massive neck where they could find purchase. The coolness of his Toothless' scales was the most wonderful feeling Hiccup had ever known. The dragon's voice warbled in that long-missed way, but while Hiccup had only ever pretended to understand it in the past, now, for the first time, he understood the dragonese words properly.

"It's alright, now, Gicpa." And hearing it in Toothless' voice, his real voice, Hiccup believed it in an instant.

It would've been a lost cause to describe all the reasons he broke in that moment, but Hiccup well and truly broke. His one leg tucked beneath him, he clung to Toothless with all he had and cried. He couldn't cry for long; his body simply had no more energy for tears and sobs. Instead, he shook, and mumbled half-words into Toothless' neck.

The dragons standing unobtrusively around them could not understand what Hiccup said, but they could hear Toothless trying to soothe the inconsolable, tired human: "It's alright. I'm here, I'm fine, I'm safe, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." If Hiccup heard him, he must not have cared, because he kept his face planted firmly against Toothless. His thin, tired arms were like iron clamps as far around the dragon's neck as he could reach. After a while, when Toothless realized he would not let go, the dragon drew himself up and lifted Hiccup carefully over to himself, where he wrapped the boy in his wings, careful around his leg, and curled around him like a nest. Hiccup wouldn't have known that this was how dragon mothers kept their young dragons, how they comforted their hurting, how it was the dragon version of a hug. Toothless would tell him, one day.

Without words, Toothless twisted his head around and began licking the back of Hiccup's head, cleaning out the blood from his hair and off of his neck. Hiccup had always complained of Toothless' slobber, how it never actually washed off of anything, but now he didn't even move, he just stayed, and let himself be cleaned like a kitten by its mother. Once the blood was gone, Toothless slid his head down to rest over Hiccup's shoulder.

"Gicpa?" He asked, quietly.

"You're alive," It was the first intelligible word that Hiccup spoke. Voice raw, squeaking, he said, "You're back."

"I'm not going anywhere," Toothless said resolutely. "I made a promise, you know."

Hiccup laughed, rasping over his sore voice. His mouth contorted into a sob-like grimace before the laugh ended. "Stupid reptile," he said, still hurt.

"Broðor," Toothless corrected, knocking Hiccup gently with a wing.

Hiccup breathed a laugh that sounded was all at once relieved, sad, and tired. "Broðor," he agreed.

It wasn't long before Hiccup's tears and grief and relief all wore him into a deep sleep. His hand tried to clutch at Toothless for as long as it could, but eventually he curled up limply against the dragon's side, where Toothless blanketed him with a wing and curled around him, breathing warmly against his hair. Dragon legs and wings wrapped around his human now, Toothless remembered for the first time in six months how small and fragile the boy really was. But now, he also understood how much he felt, how much he knew, how extremely, ridiculously brave and powerful he , indeed.

Toothless no longer felt the hug like a human did, but he understood it, and that seemed just as important. Hugging his boy closer, Toothless nestled his head down next to Hiccup's side and slowly fell into a restful sleep.

But of course, like Stoick and Astrid helpless and distraught in their cell, Ru did not know that Toothless was alive. He could not hear Hiccup's relieved cries, nor understand how the cell of dragons slept so peacefully that night. He only understood the rage in his blood, and the fire he'd been holding back for days too long.

When he finally let out that sky-splitting roar, tucked his wings and dove for the ship, he knew nothing but his own desire for revenge. He was blind to all, and did not stop to wonder if he was making a huge, damning mistake.