Hiccup looked at the cave in relief. They had finally found some shelter. Toothless hobbled inside and collapsed on the cave floor. Hiccup reached back into the smaller fur pack and pulled out the small hunting knife. He placed the knife on the hook on Toothless's saddle. After many laborious minutes, he finally was able to pry open both hooks and unhook himself from the saddle. Hiccup's body gave out and slid down Toothless's side and plopped on the ground in an exhausted heap.
Once he could feel his feet again, He got up and unloaded the bags from Toothless's back and hauled them to a corner and also took the saddle off as well. Toothless was sleeping soundly, so Hiccup decided to let him rest. They still had a long way to travel but Hiccup figured they could take their time, they were far away from Berk and no one had seen them leave anyway so the Vikings (Not including Astrid but he knew she wouldn't rat him out) would have no idea what direction he took off. So Hiccup knew they were at least safe from Berk. But not dragon hunters.
Hiccup knew that if he and Toothless ever wanted to be completely free, they would have to leave the archipelago for good. But Hiccup knew they couldn't. Yet.
Hiccup loathed his father and everything he and his village had done to him, yet he felt they shouldn't have to perish at the claws of the red death. He knew that with the rate at which the dragons were attacking, the Berkians wouldn't make it through the coming winter. And Hiccup knew the only way to save the village would be to stop the red death.
But Toothless and I are in no condition to fight. And a beast so big would take us down easily. We need to take a different approach, Hiccup thought.
Hiccup looked over at Toothless, who was sleeping peacefully. He would wait until Toothless woke back up and ask him. If Toothless didn't want to go back, they wouldn't go. Hiccup knew he needed to start trusting his dragon more on account of last time when he broke his ribs and stalled their trip for nearly a month.
Hiccup took off his cloak and flight harness and put it on top of the bags. He grabbed his hunting knife and slipped it into his belt. He then headed outside the cave. Considering it was late fall, it was quite warm outside. Hiccup stepped out of the cave and into the grass outside. He was in a very leafy green forest, though he could see the leaves on the trees were beginning to turn yellow.
As he ventured further out into the forest, he began to realize how pretty it was. Hiccup leaned down to smell the fresh aroma of red flowers on a bush. Hearing the soft rush of water brought him to a large creek running through the woods. He knelt down on the bank and cupped some water in hands and drank some of the freshwater. After he quenched his thirst and washed his face, he dried his hands and got up. He knew Toothless would be ravishingly hungry when he woke up. Hiccup wanted to go find some food, but he knew he couldn't catch any fish without bait or fishing pole. He had nothing except a knife. And Hiccup didn't think he could bring himself to kill a small animal like a rabbit or a squirrel. Heck, he didn't even know if Toothless even liked that type of meat because Hiccup had only seen him eat fish because that was all Hiccup would feed him when Toothless lived in the cove.
Sighing, the boy started to walk away from the creek when he heard a low whooshing sound from the creek. He turned around and heard a loud screech. Then a large wave erupted from the river as something large burst out. Hiccup was drenched from the wave and nearly knocked over. When he was able to wipe enough water from his face to open his eyes, he looked up and saw Rush. Rush screeched again, her rows of razor teeth circling in her mouth. The rushing death slithered out and circled around Hiccup with her long spiked body. The spikes that ran from below her wings all the way to the tip of her tail were closed against her body, so her skin looked smoother and she almost looked like a completely different dragon.
"H-hey Rush," Hiccup greeted, lifting his hand. Rush pressed her snout against it. "Did you track us all the way here?"
Rush nodded.
"Ok well now that you are here, think you could do me a small favor?" Hiccup and Rush tipped her head. "Well you see. I wanted to get fish for Toothless but I can't catch fish without a fishing pole or a net. You think you can help me out?"
Rush bobbed her head up and down. She then uncoiled herself from surrounding Hiccup and slipped back into the creek. She disappeared into the water, only for her head to poke out a moment later. Her tail tip flicked up too, and Rush waved her tail. Hiccup figured she wanted him to follow her.
Rush's head disappeared under the water but her tail stayed above water so Hiccup could follow along from the bank. Hiccup made his way along the bank quickly and followed Rush's tail.
After a few minutes, Rush's tail suddenly stopped and disappeared underwater. Rush leaped out of the water a moment later. She landed on the bank and shook herself, water flying everywhere. She then flicked her tail at Hiccup again and slithered along the bank and stopped. Hiccup walked around Rush and saw the river fed into a pond. The bank of the shore was filled with small pebbles. Hiccup gazed across the pond and his eyes caught sight of a large pile of something.
He squinted at the and then glanced at Rush. "Is that a pile of… Fish? Did you catch all that?"
Rush nodded and slipped into the water and began to swim across. Hiccup ran around and by the time he reached the pile, Rush was already there and had about half the fish in her large mouth. "You gonna take some back for Toothless?" Hiccup asked. Rush nodded again and leaned down. Hiccup mounted and Rush took off.
As Rush alighted down on the grass, Toothless strolled out of the cave and over to the two. Hiccup dismounted and ran over to Toothless and hugged him. "Sorry bud. I won't make you fly for so long with so much weight ever again. Are you ok now?"
Hiccup stepped back and Toothless licked his face. Toothless then stepped away, but Hiccup noticed that Toothless walked with a slight hobble. "Toothless, are you ok? You are limping."
Toothless lifted his wings from his side to reveal that the scales around his arms were all red. Where the metal rings on the saddle that went around his arms and the strap around his neck must have started to dig in his scales from wearing the saddle for so long it started rubbing Toothless's scales off. The sores seemed to cause him obvious pain.
Hiccup walked over and sat the dragon in the grass. Toothless rolled over onto his back so he could get off his sore arms. Hiccup frowned as he looked at the red marks. "I'm sorry," Hiccup said apologetically. He got up and sat against a tree a little ways away from Toothless.
Rush slithered over to Toothless and regurgitated some fish into the grass. Pulling his right wing under him, he rolled over to his side, slurped up the fish, and then rolled onto his back again and let the warm sun wash over his scales. Toothless purred contentedly. Rush curled up next to Toothless and then looked over to Hiccup.
Hiccup shook his head. "No I'm fine. You can rest with Toothless."
Rush shrugged her wings and laid down her head and closed her eyes. Hiccup watched her until he was sure she was asleep, and then he got up. He slowly strolled around the clearing and then stopped at a particularly tall tree. The tree had some strong low branches, so Hiccup grabbed one and tested its strength and once he was sure it was strong enough, he began to climb.
He had a difficult time trying to find strong enough branches he could throw all his weight onto, and almost fell about halfway up, but eventually made it to the top of the tree. Hiccup heaved himself over the last branch and then fell onto a very wide stump at the top. The top was all black and completely flat so Hiccup figured the whole top of the tree had been blasted off and very recently at that because there were no signs of new growth.
So Hiccup settled down on the stump and gazed up at the sky. High up in the air, Hiccup could see the silhouettes of a flock of dragons. Hiccup squinted and studied the wings, and guessed it to be a flock of nadders. As he watched the dragons soar across the sky, Hiccup couldn't help but smile. He was the first viking in three hundred years to tame a dragon, and now he was able to experience the sheer thrill of flying through the sky at insane speeds.
Though his dragon could fly extremely fast, Toothless couldn't fly for long periods. And on top of that, Toothless had to carry around thirty pounds of extra weight for a little over twelve hours. He figured Toothless would want to get back in the air as soon as possible, but Hiccup would have to fix the saddle and Toothless's sores needed to heal. So Hiccup decided on grounding Toothless until he was better.
Hiccup stayed in the tree for a little bit to rest, then decided to climb back down because he had work to do. He slowly made his way down and back to the clearing. Toothless and Rush were still sleeping, So Hiccup quietly tip-toed around them and went into the cave. Picking the saddle up, Hiccup undid the cables from the saddle and set them down. He then dug through his bags and pulled out a needle, spool of thread, and some leather and went back to the tree. It took him a lot longer to get back up the tree but he eventually got back up to the tree.
Once Hiccup was seated comfortably on the platform, he started to lay out leather on the neck strap. After testing all the skins by wrapping them around his own neck, He picked out the softest fur. Since the fur was way longer and thicker then the neck strap, he laid the fur against the strap to measure it. Taking the needle, He poked holes along the fur every half inch, so that when he finished he could easily tear out a strip of fur the exact size and length of the neck strap. He then tied an end of the string to the end of the needle. He then began to sew the fur strip onto the strap. Once he was finished with one side, he flipped the saddle around and began to work on the other side. He had to cut and maneuver around the buckle on the strap; it only took him a few extra minutes. When he finished, he cut the string and then tied the two ends together. He then lifted it up to admire his work. It actually turned out better than he had expected. And the fur wasn't made out of tough coarse hair, but more like fluffy down so it would be extra comfy for Toothless when he wore the saddle. Then as he looked at the metal arm rings, he quickly spotted the problem. Hiccup saw that the rings had some jagged cuts and metal poked out. He figured if he smoothed the metal out Toothless would not have metal digging into his scales.
"But that'll be a lot more work," Hiccup noted. "I'll need to take off the whole saddle and have Toothless soften the metal so I can-"
Hiccup froze when he heard a distressed roar. Hiccup put the saddle down on a branch and turned to peak over the branches where he had a clear view of the camp. He saw Toothless desperately running around the clearing, Hiccup knew his dragon was searching for him. Toothless ran into the cave, roared, and then dashed back out and continued his frantic search for his rider.
Hiccup knew he shouldn't have come up here in the first place since his ribs weren't entirely healed yet. He had just wanted some alone time and also wanted to give the dragons some peace.
Hiccup whistled and waved his hand to reveal his spot to Toothless. Toothless stopped and turned around and looked up to where Hiccup was sitting.
Toothless roared and stumbled over the trunk of the tree and gazed up, whining for his rider to come back down.
Hiccup stuck the needle and spool in his belt, threw the rest of the excess pelts off the top of the tree and onto the ground far below. He then slung the saddle over his shoulder and began to climb down. Miscalculating where he was going, Hiccup accidentally put his hand on a particularly sharp branch and he yelped and whipped his hand back. Toothless roared up to him in concern.
"I'm fine bud!" Hiccup yelled down and continued his descent. As soon as his feet reached the ground, Hiccup was tackled to the ground by his angry dragon. Toothless licked his rider furiously until he pushed him away and got up. He shook the dragon slobber off and got to his feet. Hiccup smiled at Toothless softly and lifted up the saddle to show him.
"I'm fixing your saddle, I'm trying to make it more comfortable for you," He explained to his dragon.
Toothless tilted his head, leaned toward the saddle and sniffed it. He pressed his snout against the strap. He felt the soft fur brush against his snout and tickle his scales. He pulled his snout back and sneezed. He then snorted in approval and nudged Hiccup, crooning.
Hiccup chuckled and then pointed at the metal rings. "Toothless. I'll need you to heat this metal up alright? I need the metal soft so I can smooth it out."
He undid the rings from the rest on the saddle and set them out on the dirt. He then went into the cave and retrieved the forge tools he had stolen and went back outside to where Toothless was charging up a plasma blast. Hiccup dropped the bag of tools and dashed over.
"No!" He exclaimed and Toothless glanced at him in confusion, his mouth still filled with plasma. "Just a small fire. Not a fully charged blast that will kill us all."
Toothless grumbled but he slowly let the plasma mostly die out and got a significantly weaker flame ready in his flame pouch. His mouth agape and smoking a bit, he turned to Hiccup for the affirmative to fire.
"Hold it for just a second longer buddy," Hiccup said and went back to quickly retrieve the forge tools. He slipped on the pair of heat proof gloves and took out a pair of metal tongs. Taking one metal in the tongs, he lifted it up and nodded Toothless, who retracted his head back and released a weak blast of fire at the metal ring.
Even though the blast was weak, it was still quite hot and able to heat up the metal with just one more weak blast of fire. He then set it down and got to work rounding out the ring with a stray rock he found on the ground. With the rock he smoothed the metal rings so the didn't have such jagged edges.
He repeated the process with the other ring, and put the saddle back together. He stowed the saddle away in the cave and pulled out the bandage roll, setting to work on rewrapping his palm. Unwrapping it made him a little queasy, as he remembered how hard it had bled yesterday. He had wrapped it after taking off, but it had still been causing him aching pain since. As he finished unwrapping the old bloody bandages, his cut started to sting as he stretched his hand open to get the wrap off. The cut was a clean sweep across his palm, an inch and a half long. Though it wasn't bleeding, the scabbed wound was a puckering red and looked like it would gush blood if that scab was picked open. So he rewrapped the wound in fresh bandages just tight enough so it wouldn't budge but loose enough so it wouldn't rub against the scab too much.
Once that task was finished, he walked over to where Toothless lay, and plopped down beside his friend with an exasperated sigh. He was finally able to just lay back, throw all his cares away and rest with his best friend. Even if just for a few minutes, he enjoyed it nonetheless. Toothless just enjoyed Hiccup being both by his side, and finally calm and relaxed.
And as he lay, he mind drifted to the queen again. Me and Toothless have to kill her, He thought with a curt sigh. But only because of all those dragons. Their lives are at risk serving her. I am doing for the dragons, not Berk.
With that settled, he leaned closer to Toothless. The dragon was shocked for a second, his head lifting up to look at him in confusion. But as he saw the boy settling against his right forepaw, Toothless just wrapped his right wing and tail around him protectively and rested his own head next to Hiccup's, with both dragon and boy quickly falling asleep.