Short ish chapter, but I like it. You guys can probably figure out on your own where this one is going. It's the end of the movie, after all. But I wrote my own version of the wake-up scene and the final scene and I hope you guys enjoy it. I enjoyed writing it, so all I ask is that you guys enjoy reading it half as much. Don't forget to leave a review at the bottom, and maybe take a look back on the whole story when you do! I want to know what people thought of this story as a whole.

25. Out of the Ashes

For a while, he saw only darkness, suffering fleeting intervals of wakefulness while he slept; brief, blurred moments of incoherency quickly followed by more painful darkness. Dreams, he thought. Some of them were, anyway. In most of them, he recalled a young woman with long, braided blonde hair and a man sporting a full red beard, each standing over him in many of those particular visions. Sometimes there was a portly man with a crooked smile, though the happiness that Hiccup had often found in the man's eyes was distinctly gone, replaced now with only worry. Almost always, those few blurry seconds coincided with a fullness in his throat and something on his lips.

He knew that each figure was someone he cared deeply about. The woman in particular radiated such a warmth in those semi-conscious moments that leaving her behind sent a shooting pain into his chest before he was quickly claimed by unwanted sleep. On occasion, he sat through visions of darkness, visited by a slightly older young woman that was without a doubt her, fuller and more enchanting in every way. She'd visit him and whisper words of tender affection, a longing that made his heart seize and his mind beg to just be saved from this torment.

In others, he'd envision the large man with the beard sitting at a fire, suffering muted sobs and muttering something about another year gone without his son. Unlike the dreams with the woman, he apparently wasn't involved in this dream. The woman came to him, singing to him and tending to him and kissing him and whispering sweet nothings as she asked him to come to her. The man never even looked at him, never seemed to know he was there. And in others still, the man with the twisty blonde beard would stand alone in a small room with walls covered in parchments, gazing at each of them and occasionally looking at some with intense sorrow.

When he found himself in that black room, he was always wishing—hoping—that the woman would come see him and make his blood pump and his heart soar. Only those dreams brought him any semblance of happiness. More than anything, though, he wanted to understand, but his mind was so constantly addled that he could never determine if those passing moments were real or if they were torturous fever dreams.

Maybe he was dead. Maybe the visions were just that, snippets of misery spawned by the soul trying to comprehend its end while he was taken to the land of the dead. Or maybe they were glimpses into the future, one that he wasn't a part of.

Eventually, after so many of those awful dreams, he woke.

The space where his eyes should've been hurt, dry and aching from being glued shut for Odin knows how long. Bits of light harassed the blackness in his vision. Feeling returned to his eyelids next, allowing him to open them tentatively. He winced as air stung his eyeballs, but the darkness steadily gave way to color all the same.

Unexpectedly, the first thing he registered seeing was… also black. Green eyes and a warble filled his vision and his ears, the shape in his gaze wriggling with pent-up enthusiasm.

"Toothless?" Hiccup murmured.

The Night Fury excitedly nudged him, burying his head in the boy's small chest. Sensation returned to his body in a sudden rush and Hiccup beamed, lips tugging stiffly into a grin, "Hey, bud. Hey! I'm happy to see you, too." A small laugh escaped him, making him feel impossibly light for a moment.

Too thrilled to be careful, Toothless half-climbed onto the bed, unexpectedly burying his heavy foot into Hiccup's skinny stomach. Hiccup shot up, an agonized groan spilling from his throat as he clutched at his belly.

"Ow!" Hiccup grimaced. The ache went away as quickly as it came, and he looked up to take in his surroundings. Everything came back to him at once—the mission, the battle… the fall.

How was he here?

"Uh, I'm… in my house." Hiccup stated the obvious, so terribly confused. He realized with a pang that Toothless was with him, "You're in my house. Does my dad know you're here?"

As if the fact was a wonderful thing, Toothless bounded around, leaping up onto a couple of support beams and knocking down a tray of dishware with a cacophonous crash. The Night Fury looked nonchalantly at the fallen dishes and then leaped back up onto another beam without the slightest hint of concern, simply thrilled beyond explanation that his boy was alive and well.

"Toothless, come on." Hiccup sighed. The dragon stopped and dropped down from the beam, stepping over with concern. It started to alarm Hiccup. What could possibly be the matter?

The front door suddenly opened, drawing both his and Toothless' attention. A slim, feminine figure slid inside; a heavy sack of fish hefted over her back. An intricate blonde braid stared him in the face as the newcomer went to close the door, back turned to him.

"Morning, Toothless. I hope you like what I brought today; some salmon from down south, halibut, some nice Icelandic cod, maybe a couple of…"

Astrid turned to face him and immediately dropped the sack full of fish on the floor. Her bright blue eyes went wide, disbelieving, as her blonde bangs draped across her face.

"Hiccup?"

"Astrid?" Hiccup murmured, still groggy. He recalled those fuzzy, painful fever dreams, and realized that he had in fact been partially awake, a throe of involuntary consciousness. He was glad to see her now. She looked windblown, and her cheeks had been stung by a red color from cold morning wind. She was as beautiful as ever.

"You're awake," Astrid said. A jubilant tear fell from her right eye and she repeated herself, "You're awake." She crossed the room in what seemed like only a few quick steps, suddenly smothering him in a tight hug, and Hiccup sucked in a breath as she did so. "I didn't know if you were going to wake up for real or if you were going to die. But you're here."

Hiccup raised his bony arms up to reciprocate, and he gulped as he felt her racing heartbeat. Or maybe that was his own. Maybe it was both of theirs. "How… how long was I out?"

"Two weeks and a day," Astrid answered automatically. She'd been counting. "It's almost Snoggletog."

Hiccup flinched at the revelation. He'd lost over two weeks of his life, a black spot on the calendar of his memories. "Well, let no one say I'm not punctual," he muttered flatly.

Astrid snickered, realizing how much she'd missed his sarcastic wit. How much she'd feared that she'd never get to hear it again. She untangled her arms from around him, pulling back so she could meet his eyes.

"What do you remember?"

Hiccup grimaced, blinking intermittently as he dug through his hazy memory. He squinted at seemingly nothing, visibly struggling to fill in the gaps.

"I think I remember being here. I'm starting to think that I wasn't really all there when I was." Hiccup murmured.

"There were a couple of times where you were only partially awake. The first time was pretty scary, we thought you were going into shock. But after that it usually just happened when we tried to feed you." Astrid explained.

"Oh." Hiccup nodded. He thought harder and a particularly important memory flashed across his mind. For an instant, he was back on the island, turning Toothless around to spit a ball of plasma into the queen dragon's mouth, igniting the gas stirring within. Suddenly he could still feel the wind howling in his ears, and the queen's furious roar as she chased after them echoed in his head.

"We killed the queen."

Astrid smiled. "Yeah. We did."

Hiccup suddenly stiffened, hearing the sickening crunch of the queen's tail meeting Stormfly's wing and shattering it. He sucked in a sharp, panicked breath, "Oh, Stormfly! Is she alright? That wing of hers looked pretty bad, and—"

"She's fine, Hiccup," Astrid half-laughed, touched. "She's healing nicely. The queen might've killed us both if not for you and Toothless, though."

"I remember…" Hiccup said, "Toothless got the dragons from the ring to keep her off of us." There was also that other thing that happened, the memory rushing back to Hiccup with a jolt. His eyes flicked to Astrid's lips, his own tingling at the sight as he recalled the sensation of her lips on his. He forced himself to peel his gaze away from them.

He didn't want to bring that up just yet. Astrid hadn't mentioned it… did she even want to speak about it? What if she had regretted it? He knew he hadn't. He shifted uncomfortably under the blankets, and his legs barely grazed against each other. The thing was, he couldn't feel the left one.

Hiccup's brow furrowed, knitting together in confusion as he looked down at the blankets. "Hm. I think my foot's asleep." These things happened. He had been asleep for more than two weeks, after all, he supposed it made some sense that some parts of his body hadn't quite woken up yet.

Astrid's reaction was not at all what he expected. She tensed up and tentatively reached out one hand as if to stop him. "Hiccup, wait—"

But he was already moving. Hiccup gently lifted the blankets, prepared to swing his legs off of the bed and to the ground. What he saw, though, froze him in his tracks.

Astrid went white as a sheet. Toothless warbled and took another step closer, black pupils rounding in the dragon's deep green eyes.

Slowly, Hiccup dragged his legs off of the bed, carefully setting them down on the floor below. He held onto the hope that he was just seeing things, that suddenly coming out of a long and unplanned sleep was just playing tricks on his mind.

His right foot was bare, looking healthy as ever, or at least as healthy as could be expected after he'd sat in a coma for two weeks and shed a few pounds. The left foot, though, clinked as it met the wood floor, an attachment made of metal now taking the place of his foot and part of his lower leg.

When it didn't go away and reshape itself into his regular foot, Hiccup looked up at Astrid and Toothless, his breathing picking up as he tried to make sense of… well, everything.

"Hiccup, I…" Astrid started, but he cut her off.

"I don't understand," he trembled, looking back down at the prosthetic. He tried to slow his breathing—he did not need to hyperventilate right now—but the task was proving to be harder than he would've liked. His vision began to blur just a bit, details becoming grainy and head growing woozy.

Astrid's hand on his shoulder seemed to save him. She squeezed, leaning her head down to meet his eyes, and Hiccup steadied. Astrid frowned, saddened. She wished that there had been another way.

"They don't really know what happened. But it had to come off. The bones were crushed, and there was so much blood. If they didn't take it, you would've never walked again. And that would be if you even survived infection," Astrid explained. She stepped forward and sat down on the bed beside him, holding her gentle hand on his shoulder. Hiccup stared straight ahead, carefully shutting his eyes and breathing as slowly as he could.

"Toothless saved your life. Without what he did, you wouldn't be here now."

"I know, I know." Hiccup nodded feverishly, knowing that she was right and accepting it but still struggling to come to terms with the fact that his foot was gone.

He took several minutes, and when he was ready to speak again, his breaths were lighter.

"I guess I'm just like Toothless now." Hiccup said, a small smile appearing on his face. "It's fitting, right, bud?"

Toothless lumbered over and Hiccup placed a loving hand on the dragon's head. A warm breath escaped the Night Fury, pleased that his human was alright.

A brief silence fell over the three of them. Astrid examined Hiccup from the side, relieved that he seemed to be taking the news well. A smile came to her face as she wondered next how he'd take the news about Berk, about how it had changed and was continuing to change. There was so much for him to see.

Hiccup realized Astrid was watching him and turned his head, looking into her blue eyes longingly. Her chest tightened and she internally grimaced. Just his gaze tugged at her chest and sent a tingle down her spine. She kind of hated it.

So, she punched him. Hard.

"Ow!" he complained, hand shooting up to hold his arm where she'd slugged him. "Why?" he grimaced, annoyed.

"That's for taking a nap for two weeks," Astrid scolded. Hiccup sighed.

"What, is it always going to be this way? Because, you know, I was thinking after what—"

Astrid snatched a fistful of his tunic and dragged him toward her, the memory of their kiss during the battle guiding her forward. A slight gasp of surprise slipped from him, and she kissed him, right on the lips. It was a simple, closed-mouth kiss, just like the one back on Dragon Island, but it filled her with all of the same warmth as their last one.

When she pulled away, they froze at the sight of each other. Astrid held the fistful of his tunic in her hand and smiled sheepishly, both embarrassed and thrilled. She glanced at her hand and her embarrassment spiked, so she released her hold on his shirt. As her hand fell back down to her side, Hiccup murmured, "What was that for?"

"I'll let you figure that one out for yourself," Astrid decided, a tiny smile tugging at her lips again.

"I could get used to it," Hiccup admitted. Toothless snorted and looked away, embarrassed for his human.

"Hey. There's something else you need to see." Astrid said. She surged up, standing and reaching her hand down to Hiccup.

Hiccup cast a nervous look to his prosthetic. He was all too aware that people struggled with prosthetics the first time, and generally the next several times after that. There were so many variables; whether or not the measurements were right, the size and weight of the owner, and as a result how well the attachment would support that weight. The odds that his prosthetic was perfect was, frankly, exceedingly low.

"We'll go slow." Astrid said, practically reading his mind. Hiccup looked up into her eyes again, and an unexplainable feeling of strength rushed into him. "Small steps. And you've got us to catch you if you fall." Astrid added, gesturing to Toothless. The Night Fury warbled agreeably from her side.

Hiccup needed no further encouraging. He reached up and clasped his hand in Astrid's, using both her pull and his own push to stand. Immediately, his legs wobbled and he nearly fell, but Astrid was there to keep him from doing so. He smiled and followed her guidance, stepping forward with his whole leg first.

His prosthetic leg came next, a tentative step forward at best. He managed to hold steady and, emboldened, took another two steps. His second step forward with the prosthetic leg failed and his leg gave out.

Toothless ducked, reaching his head underneath him to catch and break his fall. "Thanks, bud," Hiccup heaved. Astrid wrapped her left arm around him, holding him more steadily, and they continued, carefully crossing the room. With each step, he grew more confident and steadier, though he definitely still needed Astrid and Toothless' help to stay upright.

That was okay, though. He had them both to keep him from falling, in all things.

"I'll get the door," Astrid said as they neared it. She stepped out in front, careful to keep one hand on Hiccup out of caution as she pulled the door open.

A Monstrous Nightmare roared from the other side.

"Ah!" Hiccup half-yelled. He recoiled and shielded his eyes, unable to slam the door shut himself.

"C'mon, guys, are you ready?" Snotlout's voice called. Confused, Hiccup looked back up to find Snotlout on the Nightmare's back. He hadn't noticed them, shouting instead at others that Hiccup couldn't see.

"All right, hold on tight, let's go!"

Snotlout zoomed off, and three Vikings followed him on the backs of other dragons. Stunned, Hiccup half-scrambled forward to see if he wasn't just seeing things. He nearly lost his footing, but once again Astrid caught him.

"I've got you."

"Thanks," he answered. He looked back up after the dragons, spotting Snotlout leading them and their riders out to sea. Below them, dragons and Vikings walked side by side throughout the village, no weapons drawn and no fire flickering in the reptiles' throats. "I knew it. I'm dead." Hiccup said, "Completely, totally dead."

An uproarious laugh came from the right, and no sooner had Hiccup and Astrid looked over had a massive hand curled around Hiccup's shoulders. "No, but you gave it your best shot."

Stoick looked down at Hiccup, a big, proud smile on his face. Astrid let go of Hiccup and Stoick replaced her, wrapping his son in a suffocating hug. "My boy."

Hiccup wheezed. "Dad…! Can't…! You're crushing me!"

Stoick released him and laughed. "I never doubted for a moment you'd come back to us." Stoick turned his gaze to the village at large and gestured, "What do you think?"

Hiccup looked back to the village, marveling. "It's… it's incredible. But…" Hiccup trailed off and he turned to Astrid, suddenly grinning from ear to ear. "You did this."

"It wasn't just me." Astrid said, smiling.

"But it was. I've been out for weeks, and… you… you…" Hiccup trailed off, at a loss for words. He wanted to just reach forward and kiss her. Could he do that? That wasn't too far, right? After all, she'd started it.

Before he could get the idea to actually try it, someone shouted from the bottom of the hill.

"Hey, look! It's Hiccup!"

"Hiccup's awake!"

A roar went up through the village and Vikings of all shapes, sizes, and ages sprinted all at once up the hill to the Chief's house. Stoick chuckled and the people formed a half-circle around them.

"It turns out, all we really needed was a bit more of… this." Stoick said, waving his huge hands at Hiccup.

Hiccup frowned, "But you just gestured to all of me."

Stoick nodded, amused. That had been the point.

"Well, most of ya!" Gobber interjected, shuffling through the crowd to meet Hiccup. A leather-bound object was wrapped in his arms. He pointed at the prosthetic replacing Hiccup's foot. "That bit there's my handiwork, with a little Hiccup flair thrown in! Think it'll do?"

Hiccup looked down at the prosthetic, already dreaming up plans for improvements. "I might make a few tweaks."

Laughter rippled through the crowd. Gobber chuckled and offered the rolled-up contraption in his arms. "This is for you—welcome home, lad."

Hiccup caught the rebuilt tailfin, knowing immediately what the device was. Astrid peered in, grinning.

"Want to try it out?" she asked.

Hiccup beamed—as if she even had to ask.

The hill was soon cleared, the duties of the day taking ultimate precedence over Hiccup's return. But for the teens, there were no such tasks weighing them down. With Astrid's assistance, Hiccup attached the tailfin for Toothless and connected the rigging and pedal system for his prosthetic foot. Gobber had thought of everything.

When the contraption was set, Astrid leaped onto Toothless' back behind him. Hiccup slid his foot into the catch and cranked the revamped pedal. The red tailfin extended, revealing the scrawled Viking image on its end in all its glory.

Together, they took off, sweeping through the village. Hiccup dragged his prosthetic forward to change the tailfin's position, hearing a telltale click with each move. It all came easy, like he'd never left. Fishlegs appeared from one of the bridges in town on the back of his Gronckle, and they were closely followed by the twins and Snotlout. The town seemed to fill with the cries of the next generation, the one that had made all this change possible.

Hiccup pressed his knee into Toothless' side and he and Astrid leaned into a turn, sending Toothless looping around a catapult tower. There was a rumble and Snotlout cruised up beside them, looking proud and boisterous on the back of his Monstrous Nightmare.

"How about a race?" he shouted over the wind, flashing that cocky Jorgenson smile.

Hiccup looked up ahead and then back at Astrid. She nodded with a smile that screamed bring it on, and Hiccup pointed toward the Guardians, the stone statues standing watch in the distance and marking Berk's territory.

"We'll give you a head start!" Astrid chirped. Snotlout guffawed and spurred the Nightmare forward, guiding it out to sea. The large dragon flapped its leathery wings repeatedly, a roar echoing over the water.

"Ready to leave him behind?" Hiccup asked her, and Astrid wrapped her arms around him to hold herself steady.

"Do it," she insisted. Hiccup leaned forward and opened the tailfin completely, and Toothless took off after Snotlout.

Snotlout and his Nightmare rapidly grew in size as they gave chase, the Night Fury quickly catching and overtaking the pair.

"Woo! Yeah, baby!" she heard him holler. They blazed between the Guardians well ahead of Snotlout and the Nightmare, pulling off an acrobatic loop to curve around the statues and set their sights on the island. Hiccup steered Toothless around and they flew back to Berk, passing Snotlout again on the way. The boisterous teen howled something about the race not being fair, and they left him behind and started to pass over the village. They passed over Astrid's house, and Stormfly squawked excitedly from her stable, still confined to the ground by her injured wing but happy, nonetheless.

Astrid beamed, and gazed upon the boy in front of her.

'Hiccup the Useless' had proven his worth, unconventional as it might've been. He'd gone against every Viking code in the book, sparing a dragon that he had shot down himself, and a Night Fury at that. He hadn't stopped there, either, going so far as to break the boundary between man and dragon and create a friend for life out of a beast. He'd brought fearless Astrid Hofferson into his new fold, showing the most hardened of his peers the truth. And though it hadn't all gone according to plan, together they'd shown their people the truth as well, and the new way of peace to go with it.

Above all, he had managed to win her heart. Cold, brutal, warrior-princess Astrid Hofferson. The shy boy from the forge had grown into the brave boy on the dragon, and she'd grown into someone capable of love.

Not long ago, he had wanted to leave. To turn his back on Berk and his face to the sky and never return, seeing what the world had to offer that was better. He'd spent a lifetime being labeled a disappointment and getting scorned for his quirks and failures. She was not innocent of harboring those same feelings upon a time. With everything that had happened with Toothless, he had thought—and rightfully so—that he would never fit in. That they would never fit in.

But things were changing now. Thanks to him, Berk had become dragon folk. He now belonged with the dragons, with Berk, and with her.

There were problems ahead, sure. The other tribes would soon hear about Berk's new ways, and none of them would be particularly happy about it. In addition, the influx of dragons to Berk would present some issues. They also still needed to complete housing and feeding arrangements for the dragons, as the winter snows were coming. Right now, Berk was only so large. The integration would be challenging.

But these problems, despite just being a few of many, were hardly concerning to them as they flew over the forest and back towards the village. Hiccup and Astrid were just two teenagers. The responsibilities that befell their adult tribesmen, that would befall them one day, were still too distant to trouble them.

For now, their focus was on the thrill of the air. For now, the road ahead was one leading to a new dawn for Berk.

Come what may, Astrid resolved. They were willing to fly down this road. Because with Vikings on the backs of dragons, the world had just gotten a whole lot bigger.

So, except for the epilogue, that's it! Wow. You guys are awesome, you know that? I only posted this story because of The Hidden World making me think nonstop about it. I made a lot of edits and additions that added around 20,000 words to the length of this story, and I do believe they were for the best.

I'm going to post the epilogue in about 2 weeks. I want to really work on it and make it long and good and a fitting end to the story that we started.

I know that I'm going to get questions about a sequel. The answer to those questions... well, it's slightly complicated? Put simply, I want to write a sequel, and I have been writing some rough drafts of a couple of chapters and brainstorming what the plot would be, because I want the journey to be significantly different from movie content. I would skip ahead to the HTTYD2 time. It's all in the first draft stage right now, and as Ernest Hemingway once said, "the first draft of anything is shit" or something like that. So if I commit to a sequel, it will be a while before anything gets posted. I will first and foremost finish the story (or at least get very far into it and know exactly where I'm going to go with it) before posting anything.

I also would be interested in doing a one-shot series for the Bound continuity. Thing is, I'm going to need y'all's help for it. If you're interested in seeing such a thing, PLEASE PLEASE send me a prompt idea. It can be anything (non-adult, though. That's my one reservation. I don't feel like writing smut, there's plenty of it out there in this fandom and most of it is going to be better than anything I can produce). If you send me a prompt, I'll explore it and try to do the best that I can, and hopefully post it.

That's all from me. I'll see you guys again in 2 weeks with the epilogue, and that'll be the end! Special thanks to everyone who has followed, faved, and reviewed these last couple of months. You guys rock. I'm out of here like Toothless for his date with the Light Fury. - OP17