From Gift of the Night Fury.
A Few Tweaks, Part 3: Good Morning, Mister Bossy
"Stupid leg! Ahh, thanks buddy, I'm okay. Yeah, we- we can go flying now."
They had three hands and a hook between the two of them, yet after fifteen minutes' worth of wiggling, Hiccup was still firmly stuck. They had tried everything they could think of: Hiccup had wiggled his leg, shaken it firmly, and bent it in every angle he could manage, sitting or standing. Gobber had fished around with the point of his hook, nearly getting it stuck. He'd squeezed his fingers in between chain and foot and gotten them pinched for his trouble. When all else failed, he even resorted to spitting profusely on the metal, much to Hiccup's dismay, in an effort to lubricate the foot. Nothing worked, and the chain link remained stuck like a child on its mother's apron strings.
Throughout their Herculean efforts, Toothless had sat upright with his head cocked to one side, letting out a deep bass yowl from time to time. He was watching, his intelligent green eyes flicking back and forth from Gobber to Hiccup, with an occasional glance spared at the untidy mess on the floor of the forge. He yawned, suddenly bored, and lay down on one of the few available patches of clear space on the floor, his eyes closing for sleep.
The movement caught Hiccup's attention. He looked over at Toothless, his face creasing in a thoughtful frown, his memory racing back to that first night in the cove.
"Hey, Gobber," he said, the wheels turning in his active brain. "I think I've got an idea."
"Eh?" Gobber looked up wearily from where he sat half-draped over a short barrel. "If it involves tryin' ta file the chain down, my answer's no; that'd take you all night. An' me best file's probably buried under a pile of other tools righ' now."
"It doesn't involve a file, but a fire." Hiccup scrambled up, until he was kneeling on his right knee. "Could we melt the chain?"
Gobber shook his head. "Oh, lad...that's even a wee bit too dangerous for me. Besides, we could nae get a fire hot enough on the floor without burnin' the whole place down."
"Toothless could do it," Hiccup answered quickly, the certainty evident in his voice. "He can scorch the earth to make himself a warm place to sleep, he can do it."
"I don't know, lad," Gobber said, scratching his chin. "You know 'im better than me. It could work, or we could both end up burnt to a crisp."
"Let's just try it," Hiccup responded, trying to keep the pleading out of his voice. "Toothless, wake up. I need you."
The dragon yawned again and stretched luxuriously, knocking over a stack of helmets with a noisy clatter. Ignoring the noise, he wandered forward to sniff the foot and chain. Hiccup put a hand on his head and looked in his eyes.
"Hey, bud...can you do something for me? I need you to burn, right here." He pointed downward at the source of all the trouble, and Toothless lowered his head, sniffing again. His nose wrinkled and he licked the foot, leaving a trail of slobber on the bottom of Hiccup's trousers.
"Come on, Toothless," Hiccup encouraged. "Just a little bit of steady flame."
But Toothless apparently wasn't in the mood to be helpful. He raised his head and licked Hiccup's face again, snuffling and nudging until Hiccup lost his already precarious balance and toppled backward. Then it was all-out war: Toothless engaged in a bold frontal assault of licking, nuzzling, and pawing. Hiccup retreated at first, frantically backing away from the dragon's insistent tongue, dragging the heavy chain along with him. Then he regrouped, summoning all his forces of cunning and dexterity to attack the aggressor.
Gobber roared with renewed laughter at the conflict in front of him. Toothless was controlling the battle, pinning his squirming victim down with his superior size and strength, but not for long. As Gobber watched, Hiccup wriggled, diving further under the dragon's belly and reaching up to tickle his wings with both hands. Toothless snorted at the minor irritation and bent his head in an effort to lick Hiccup again.
But the boy was too far under him, tickling and wriggling and forcing the dragon to move. Toothless backed up, stomping his muscular legs and roaring in annoyance at his defeat, his growls joining Hiccup and Gobber' peals of laughter. They were silenced by a sudden loud crack, and Hiccup sat bolt upright, dismay written on his face.
"Oh no," he whispered, "Toothless, what did you do?"
Gobber crawled forward to inspect the damage, fearing the worst. Sure enough, Toothless had stepped on the metal foot, snapping the linchpin and socket under his weight. Gobber pulled the wreckage off the remains of the wooden cuff and held it up for Hiccup to see. With the movement, the frame suddenly slid free of the chain link, as if from a well-oiled gear socket.
Gobber chuckled. "I could get used to havin' dragons around," he said. "Useful creatures when you're in a tight spot."
Toothless, now sitting upright with an alarmingly smug smile on his face, gurgled happily. Beside him, Hiccup did his best to sit up. He was more drenched than ever, and his hair was plastered to his head with copious amounts of dragon slobber. He crossed his arms and glared at Toothless.
"Thanks for nothing, bud," he growled, then sighed. "What is my dad gonna' say when he sees the mess we've made? And when he sees this." He gestured expressively to the ruined prosthesis.
Gobber stood and stroked his mustache, thinking. "You know, Hiccup," he said slowly, "your dad don't need ta see this place 'til it's tidied up. And as for this-" he waved the bent socket and frame in the air, "well, it looks like it could use a few tweaks."
Hiccup grinned, gratitude in his eyes. "Thanks, Gobber," he said, and he meant it.
The three of them spent the rest of the day together, Hiccup hopping around the shop on an improvised crutch, straightening shelves, organizing tools, and setting the place to rights. Toothless sat in the doorway, his eyes never leaving his rider. And Gobber moved between anvil and workbench, bending, shaping, and building. Hiccup's new designs were fetched and both studied them, carving, crafting, and discussing finer points of angle, measurement, and proportion, until the sun went down and Hiccup climbed up the hill to his home, Toothless at his side and the crutch left behind.
Gobber watched them go, smiling to himself. It was not a bad day's work he'd done, he considered. Not bad at all.