Chapter 28

Toothless settled into a comfortable seated position at his vantage point near the edge of the clearing Hiccup was competing in. When Hiccup had agreed to let him watch her competition, she had been very worried about him, so Toothless had consented to staying as far from the Scots as he could while still being able to watch the competition. While it wouldn't be nearly as fun as scaring the cluck out of the Scots, Toothless contented himself with watching Hiccup surprise everyone with her skill in archery.

It had been a tough week for Hiccup. She never said it, but Toothless could tell from the way she held her head in her hands and closed her eyes when she thought he wasn't paying attention. It was kind of stupid of her to think that there was ever a moment when he didn't pay attention to her. Half the time she was like a new hatchling which needed to be protected, and the other half she was his equal, his partner, probably Toothless's favorite sentient being on the planet. There was no way Toothless wouldn't be able to tell when she was pushing herself too far. It wasn't like he had helped with her problem, though.

Toothless whined slightly as he thought of the brutal hours of work he put her through- aiming training in the mornings with her strange but more effective than usual bow- but he couldn't find it in himself to feel too bad about it. Hiccup had wanted to do it. She said that she needed to be the best 'archer' to make sure she was going to marry Maraud. And no matter how much Toothless had tried to convince her that no one on Berk thought her to be Useless, Hiccup just wouldn't listen. She wanted what she always wanted: to try her hardest and be the best. And Toothless could proudly say that she had flawless aim, even after only a week of training. He was confident that if she kept practicing for a few more months, maybe a year, she would be like the Night Fury of the land. She would never miss, and be admired by all.

Toothless watched with rapt attention as Hiccup's competitor stepped up, a bow in her hands. Hiccup had told him earlier that she was competing against another girl, but as Toothless watched the mountain of flesh and muscle get into position, Toothless found himself severely doubting that to be a fact.

Her (assuming that the competitor was, in fact, a female) stance was strange. She stood sideways, and on both feet. She tried to hold the bow the same way Hiccup had tried to on her first day practicing archery. Sure, it could work, but it was a horribly unreliable stance. There was no way to feel the weapon, no way to personally guide each strike to its target. Why was that strange unpredictable stance the default for all these people? Toothless rolled his eyes. Humans.

The girl pulled back the string and let the arrow loose after a moment. She moved on to the next target, and then the next. Toothless had to admit that she wasn't horrible. Two of her targets had arrows in the solid red center, and the third had an arrow lodged in the outside ring of red.

Toothless snorted. He could say that the Scottish princess was decent at the sport, by she was by no means as good as Hiccup. He imagined what punishment he would have given Hiccup if she had been so off-target. At her shiver from the sidelines, Toothless could tell that Hiccup was thinking about the same thing.

His human stepped forward, and Toothless sat up straighter. A couple of people tried to hand her the same type of bow that the Scottish princess had used, but Hiccup politely declined, probably telling them that she had brought her own bow with her. Toothless looked at her, unimpressed, and slightly twitched his nose to the side. If he had been there, he would have burned those stupid bent sticks to ashes.

They were pathetic excuses for bows, nothing like the one on Hiccup's arm. Hiccup's bow was much better. It let her feel the arrow, and its path. It made the weapon become a part of Hiccup, just like Toothless's fire was a part of him. Hiccup had actually made the bow on her arm by hand. She knew where every single indent and scratch was. Hiccup was almost as in tuned with the bow as she was with her own emotions.

Stoic the Vast's daughter stood up proudly before rolling back her right arm sleeve and un-collapsing her special bow. The red-headed Scottish prince sat forward in his seat and trained his eyes entirely on Hiccup. Toothless had to fight the urge to jump on the cocky Dunbrough again. Hiccup wouldn't like that. And for every inch Toothless disliked the Dunbrough prince, he loved Hiccup.

She crouched low on the ground, completely facing the target. Hiccup used one of her raised knees to steady her arm and notched an arrow as she breathed in. She let out the breath and aimed. She breathed in again and fired.

Toothless warbled happily as he saw her follow his instructions. He didn't really need to look to see if the arrow hit home or not, but he did, just to make sure. She hit it exactly in the middle, just like Toothless had taught her. A warmth expanded in Toothless's chest as he watched his best friend use the skills he had taught her. He was just so proud of her! And, he was also extremely pleased that her arrow went straight through the other girl's arrow to get to the center. Hiccup might not have been one, but Toothless was a big show off.

The dragon enthusiastically observed the competition (mostly cheering at how well Hiccup was doing). Toothless was so fixed on watching Hiccup that he failed to notice the shadows moving behind him, or the glowing red eyes of a monster. But the creature behind him didn't attack right away. No. Even if he was a monster, sometimes he recognized real danger when he saw it. Mordue needed to wait until the dragon was even more distracted. He melted back into the shadows and waited for the right chance to pounce on the thirty foot long reptile with dagger-like teeth and claws sharpened by the rocks of the land. Mordue warily watched the dragon's face. The bear needed blood, but it wouldn't help if he only spilled his own. The dragon needed to be more distracted. Much more distracted.

Hiccup was doing great. She had already hit the bull's-eye on the first two targets, and, as Toothless had observed before, she had split the other girl's first arrow in half. Hiccup was now on her last target. If she got better than hitting the outside ring, then she would- undoubtedly- have won Maraud's hand. While Toothless didn't particularly care for the prize, he did have a Viking-sized ego, and there was no way he could handle Hiccup losing to the likes of the Scottish behemoth.

Toothless watched as Hiccup breathed in and notched her arrow. She slowly released her breath, but as she aimed, Toothless found that he couldn't release the breath he was holding. She started breathing out…

Hiccup looked towards Toothless the second before she let go of her final arrow, and Toothless smiled toothlessly. He wasn't sure exactly why, but every time he did, Hiccup's mood would instantly brighten, and she would relax. So, Toothless tried to do it as often as possible.

At first, Hiccup smiled back, but then her eyes looked beyond him and her expression changed to one of horror. She shifted her bow, and Toothless could tell that she would hit the tree behind him. But why? Toothless was confused. His human wasn't stupid. Not by a long shot. And the amount which she cared about winning was almost unhealthy. So why would she purposefully try to lose? Why, when she was so skilled at the contest's required skillset, and when she had already gotten so far into it?

Something wet landed on Toothless's shoulder, and he shifted his head to see what had splattered there. It wasn't clear like water, and it didn't smell as sweet as rainwater. In fact, it looked like froth: white with lots of bubbles in it. And it smelled like rotting meat and rancid blood. It smelled like the Red Death's maw. The Red Death… it couldn't have come from something as terrible as that, could it have?

Toothless turned and looked behind himself. It wasn't the Red Death, but it was a monster! It was the bear! The one which didn't smell natural, and had almost killed Hiccup! Toothless let out a cry of shock and tried to move away, but he was too close to the humans to make much noise. If he was discovered by the humans, then Hiccup would be in danger, and there was no way Toothless could risk Hiccup's safety for any reason whatsoever.

Before the beast could lay a single paw on Toothless's scrambling form, an arrow squelched into the bear's eye. Toothless was more relieved than ever that he had insisted on making her so accurate from such a great distance away.

At the bear's distraction, Toothless took his opportunity and started to speed away, back to the circle of stones. But something stopped him. The people who were watching Hiccup and ranking her- they were yelling at her!

Toothless stilled and all thoughts but one left his mind. Hiccup.

How dare they yell at her! She just saved their lives from a monster which would surely kill them all at any chance it got, and what do they do to repay her? They yell at her, just like the Berkians used to do!

Toothless saw red, but knew that Hiccup wouldn't like him charging out into the opening, where people could see him. He let out a growl, warning them. If they continued doing what they were, they were going to be in for a world of fear. Because if there was one thing Night Furies knew how to do, it would be terrifying lesser beings.

That was why Hiccup kept coming back to him when she first saw him. He had scared her, yes. But she had seen past that, into his very soul. She had been on par with him from the start. But Toothless could bet his remaining tail fin that not one other human being on the planet would have done the same thing. That was why Hiccup was the only one who could control his flight with him. She was the only one worthy.

Toothless continued growling, louder and louder. The more he thought about his human, and how incredible she was, and how she never got what she deserved from the stupid people she surrounded herself with, the angrier he got. Why could the other humans never give her a break? Hardship after hardship she had to endure, and no one was making it easier for her.

Toothless watched through squinted eyes as Hiccup stopped trying to explain why she didn't shoot at the target, and looked around, worried. Toothless knew that she would be the first to hear him. She kept looking around, jumping to see over some of the taller men, but she couldn't find Toothless. Well, he had just moved quite a ways from the bear, and he was quite excellent at hiding in plain sight.

She started to shove her way through the crowd, and Toothless couldn't help but to notice the difference between the congregated group Hiccup was easily wading through, and the angry sea of bodies on Berk, which Hiccup would have drowned in by now.

The people kept pulling at her, trying to make her stay, and Toothless saw the Dunbrough prince make his way to the crowd out of the corner of his eye. Toothless couldn't watch anymore. If he did, he was sure that he wouldn't be able to restrain himself from running out there, grabbing Hiccup, and flying her far, far away. So, Toothless turned his head, and surveyed the forest, trying to calm down.

The trees were a cool green, like Hiccup's on a lazy summer day, and the air was pleasantly moist because of the fertility of the ground and moss. Birds sung in the air and animals skittered across the ground. Everything was serene and beautiful. His growling actually almost died down. Almost.

It took a few seconds for him to see, but when he did, his growling started up again tenfold. The bear. The demon bear. It was moving- towards Hiccup!

A feeling started bubbling in Toothless's chest- not unlike when he saw Hiccup falling towards the flames of the Red Death. Duty. Devotion. Desperation. He needed to make sure that the demon bear stayed away from Hiccup, or die trying.

Toothless continued growling as he rushed to the bear, and Hiccup continued slowly making her way through the people whirlpooling around her.

Before he looked at the red headed Scottish prince, Toothless honestly thought that the he and Hiccup were the only ones smart enough to figure out that something bad was going to happen. However, for all his faults, the prince of Dunbrough was no fool. He, too, had heard Toothless's growling. Hiccup's potential fiancée (the word made Toothless cringe and shiver in disgust) stood up, tense muscles and a focused gaze. He glanced around himself, alert, and weary. There was no way the prince knew what was going on, but the little fool went looking for his arrows anyway.

Toothless ignored his observations of the royal Scot as he slammed into the bear. It was like one mass of pure muscle hitting another powerful force covered in fur, hardened skin, and broken shards of weapons.

The bear turned menacingly towards Toothless, but the dragon held his ground. The bear rose to its two feet and roared in Toothless's face. Toothless screeched right back, and fanned out his wings, trying to seem bigger. If it was intimidated, the monster didn't show it. Instead, it just redirected its focus on the people, who had screamed at their cries to display power.

Toothless chanced glancing to the left, and noticed that amid the people who were worriedly looking at the woods, Hiccup was still trying to get through them and to the woods. He could clearly see the worried and stubborn look on her face. She was on a mission. And that mission was to make sure that he was ok. However, the people surrounding Hiccup were holding her back. Toothless wasn't sure if he was irritated that people were handling his human with such little care, or if he was grateful that they were making sure that she was safe.

Toothless saw Mordue charging towards the clearing and tackled it again. This time, the bear swatted a large paw at him. Toothless dodged and head butted the cursed animal in front of him. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he could practically smell the curse on it. Toothless growled fiercely. There was no reasoning with this animal- it was cursed to be evil, and there was no changing it. He had to keep Hiccup away from this bear.

Toothless hit it again and bit into it, trying to damage it enough to convince it to retreat. The bear shook Toothless off, but charged at him again, and the two tumbled into the clearing. Toothless felt the bear's claws rip through his rough hide, but didn't pay much attention to the fire-like feeling spreading through his front right arm. He was on his feet the second the two of them stopped rolling, and surveyed the clearing.

It took Toothless about half of a second to realize that Hiccup had made it out of the pool of people, and decided that he was irritated with them. They had one job! Keep Hiccup safe! And yet, Hiccup was free from them and making her way towards him and the cursed bear.

A large red-headed man with a crooked nose and a peg-leg stood up from his seat by Hiccup's mum and called out,

"Gather up yer arms, boys! Kill the monsters!"

Toothless briefly wondered if the man had included him in the 'monsters.' Hiccup answered that question when she cried out,

"No!"

Toothless was slammed to the ground as the bear stood over him. Seemingly out of nowhere, Hiccup rushed in front of him and notched an arrow. She let it loose, and it hit the bear in the eye again. It roared in pain, and Toothless took the opportunity to throw Hiccup on his back.

There was no way his human would face that monster on her own. They had faced their first flights together, the Red Death together, and this engagement together. Now was not the time to stop doing things as a team. They were partners, and partners looked out for each other.

Toothless could feel Hiccup notch another arrow, but before she let it loose, another arrow sunk into the bear's neck. Toothless didn't even have to turn his head to see the red-headed prince notching another arrow. The bear turned towards the boy who wanted to marry Hiccup, but his human let loose another arrow and Toothless streaked in and slammed into the bear again. Toothless ran a few more steps, to keep distance between the bear and Hiccup, and took a couple of seconds to ensure Hiccup was doing alright. Instead of answering, Hiccup cried out and told him to turn around.

Toothless whirled around to face the monster again, which was charging at him with bared fangs and a frothy mouth. He roared at the bear, but before the bear could do anything to respond, a couple of spears pierced its flesh. Someone called,

"Young Macintosh! Wee Dingwall, get out of the way!"

Hiccup loosed another few arrows, and Toothless bit into the bear's neck. He couldn't properly wrestle with it, because Hiccup might get hurt. And that was one thing Toothless was never going to be willing to risk. Toothless could feel Hiccup reach for another arrow.

"Swina bqllr!"

Toothelss saw her bow go flying off to the side, and realized that she had run out of arrows. Now the only way she could help was by getting up close and personal and using the short sword she usually kept strapped at her waist. And it wasn't like Toothless was going to keep her from fighting a battle she felt she needed to fight. That was not what equals did. Equals didn't order the other one around. They encouraged and enhanced one another.

Toothless streaked to the bear again, panting heavily. In the air, he could keep going in battles for hours. He was a dragon, the best flier of them all. Of course he could. But land… land was a different story. His legs weren't made for running for long periods of time. They were mainly to help brace himself for any crash landings, or scooping fish out of the ocean. Running and crashing into the bear for this long was putting serious amount of strain on Toothless's body, and he knew that Hiccup could tell.

"Don't worry, Sweetie," Hiccup panted, "We can do this,"

Toothless bit the bear on the face and scratched at its chest. The bear raised its paw as if to strike Toothless, but Hiccup quickly unconnected her left prosthetic from the tailfin mechanism and swung around in the saddle. She kicked her leg up in time to deflect the paw from hitting Toothless's face.

The claws ended up slashing into Toothless's stomach, and the dragon couldn't help but to admire Hiccup for being able to keep in her pain when the same injury was inflicted upon her, so many weeks ago in the woods.

Hiccup swiped her sword at the bear, as did a number of other brave men from the crowd. Slowly, the bear backed up, and Toothless almost roared in delight. They were overwhelming the monster!

If the other people weren't in such close proximity, Toothless could have just let loose a plasma ball and the demon bear would have been nothing other than a bad memory and the source of a few scars here and there. However, these people weren't used to dragons, and if Toothless injured anyone (even by accident), Hiccup could get blamed.

"Yes! We're driving it back!" some fool from the crowd cheered. The bear didn't like the thought that it was being beaten, and found some emergency energy from within itself. It started attacking with renewed frenzy.

Toothless and Hiccup continued zooming to the bear and injuring it quickly before dancing out of the way, but the bear was starting to get many more blows on them. Toothless did his best to keep Hiccup safe, but at the end of the day, he couldn't protect her from everything. Though many strikes hit her, probably the one most noticeable would be the one on her face, a thin line going through her left eyebrow. She also had multiple gashes on her arms, fingers, and shoulders. And as much as Toothless wanted to feel guilty for her injuries, he couldn't spare the energy. He himself had been slashed at and bitten on all of his legs, his belly, and his neck. Luckily his wings and tail were safe.

The battle probably only lasted another fifteen minutes until Hiccup decided that she had had enough. Those fifteen minutes felt like eternities for everyone fighting the monster.

"Alright, Sweetie," Hiccup said. Her voice was hard and determined. Toothless recognized that the battle was going to end soon, and his trembling and aching muscles screamed their thanks. Toothless could tell she was fed up by the tensing of her muscles, and the way she suddenly stilled more than normal. Bloody and sweaty, Toothless's human told him what she had in mind, and Toothless agreed wholeheartedly with her plan.

He quickly dashed into the forest, picked the sickliest looking tree and, after a quick shot with his plasma ball, caused it to fall down. Toothless felt an undeniable sense of relief as he opened his wings. His short legs did their best to wrap around the heavy tree trunk before he took to the sky with it. In a few short strokes Toothless, Hiccup, and the tree were all in the air. Toothless looked to the ground, and released the log at precisely the right moment.

Thud!

Hiccup weakly cheered from Toothless's back, but they weren't done yet. Toothless dove down, and quickly seized the demon bear. He took its body to the sky and flew over the forest for a few minutes. At Hiccup's approving pat on the head, Toothless dropped the body and headed back to the clearing where all the people had congregated.

He landed, and Hiccup jumped off of him. Toothless could feel the sweat spot from where Hiccup was sitting on his back, but he didn't care. All he wanted to do was crawl in a cold hole and fall asleep for a while. He would have just taken Hiccup to one after dropping the bear in the woods, if he hadn't known her. However, Toothless probably knew Hiccup the best out of anyone in the world. He- of anyone- would know that Hiccup would wait for him to fall asleep and then try to walk back alone. And with the demon bear still in the woods (even if he was unconscious), Toothless would take no chances with her safety. So, he had decided to drop Hiccup off directly with the people who could keep her safe.

However, Toothless was starting to doubt that these people would keep Hiccup safe. As she leaned against his side, resting for a brief moment, Toothless warily watched the large men come towards the two of them. There was not one of them without a weapon in his arms.

What if he left her and they killed her? No. There was no way Toothless could allow that to happen.

Toothless tensed his muscles and spread his wings, shielding Hiccup in the process. It was a terribly uncomfortable position for him, since his wings were not supposed to bend that way, but he didn't care. He was willing to give up his wings for Hiccup, and that was something he was proud of. If another dragon had been present, they would have helped him protect Hiccup, regardless if the dragon knew Hiccup or not. If a dragon was ready to receive damage to his wings for someone, all dragons knew immediately that that person was something special. Wings were fragile, and incredibly important for dragons, and the thought of sacrificing them for another being was a sacred concept for dragons. But Toothless didn't even think as he brought his wings up to cover Hiccup. He ignored her startled squeak as he hissed,

"Stay back! You don't hurt her!"

Hiccup swatted his wings aside before crying out,

"No! Toothless, they're not going to hurt me!" her voice drained of all energy, and her small body slumped against Toothless's rock-solid one. Sometimes it amazed him how strong Hiccup could be one second, and how vulnerable in the next. "Let's just go rest for a while," Then, louder, she addressed the crowd. "I'll explain everything later, I promise!" Back to Toothless, and her voice was as soft as snow. "I promise, they'll never raise another weapon to you again. Let's just go for now."

Hiccup struggled back onto Toothless's back and they took off. The rushing air helped cool down Toothless's burning muscles, and he could only hope that Hiccup was feeling the same way.

By the time Hiccup sneaked Toothless into the castle, past all the maids, and into her rarely used room, it was late at night, and Hiccup could see the dark sky through her small window. As she bandaged Toothless's multiple lacerations, she continually looked to the sky. She loved it. She loved looking at it, breathing it, being in it. But, she knew that there was no way she or Toothless could be out there that night. They were both injured, and there were probably a lot of people outside her room right then who wouldn't hesitate in making their injuries even worse.

Hiccup stayed up for a long time, cleaning all of the gashes on Toothless's body (after finding them first, of course), and then wrapping them. Then, she had to do her own. Luckily for her, Toothless stayed awake to lick all of her wounds before helping her wrap her cuts in bandages.

It took far too long to complete the seemingly simple task, but Hiccup didn't care. As long as their wounds were bound, and safe from infection, and as long as she was with Toothless, Hiccup was satisfied.

She climbed on to her bed and patted the space next to her. Toothless crawled up and smiled gummily at her. She smiled back. Toothless opened his wings, and Hiccup gladly scooted into his warm embrace. Now, if anyone came in there to take her away from Toothless, they would have to go through Toothless himself, first. And no one wanted to deal with an even slightly annoyed Night Fury.

Hiccup snuggled into Toothless's body. Tomorrow, she would have to explain everything and hope that everyone didn't hate her. She would have to apologize to anyone who got injured, and she would have to explain Toothless and their story together to everyone.

Hiccup smiled in her sleep and sighed happily. Tomorrow would come. For now, she was happy just sleeping beside her best friend.


I've realized that the only reason I planned this story to be 40 chapters is because the last about ten chapters are super long, so get prepared for even longer waits for updates than before. Also, I might have mentioned this before, but from June 27 to July 17 I won't be able to update at all, I don't think. And probably not a lot in early August, either.

This story isn't really about the How To Train Your Dragon movies, more about Brave, and you'll see why later, like, by chapter 34/35. It kind of depends on how sharp you are. Speaking of chapters, how about this one? I wanted a little insight of Toothless and Hiccup's relationship from Toothless, which was a whole lot harder than you might think. I wanted to show how awesome Hiccup was to Toothless, but also how sometimes Toothless feels the need to protect her, yet be her equal at the same time. Yeah… these characters are OOC. And, back to chapters, how about the next one? The people are forced to start getting used to Toothless, Fergus learns most of Hiccup's real story (the one about how she lost her leg), and Wee Dingwall and Young Macintosh show interest in someone they shouldn't be interested in ;)

Anyway, those three reviews I asked for came in the first day, which was a shock, 'cuz they usually come slowly throughout the week. I'm actually kind of confused how I have 146 of those right now. 134 favorites, and 148 followers! So happy, honestly guys, thank you so much. Next chapter, people who shouldn't are getting to like Hiccup a little too much (; also, people are forced to get used to Toothless. It'll be good, I promise. What did y'all think of this chapter? I'm hoping for eight reviews for this chapter, so we'll just have to see where that ends up. Again, thank y'all for all the support. Follows and favorites are in unbelievable numbers right now, and that's honestly, great. Thanks for reading, and I'm not sure when the next update will be : )