Toothless had left.

After meeting up Hiccup on her working shed (the personal one beside their hut for her own projects rather than the blacksmith workshop she'd still work with Gobber… Quite a development from a tiny room behind the forge) Artichoke had moved along, offering his new 'Yaknog' warm drinks to anyone in the village. For some reason, people either ran away from it or barely took a simple sip. Quite odd, honestly, considering he'd just mixed a few of his mother's best holiday recipes. He'd given up after a while. Given up on offering his Yaknog, that is, not given up trying to mitigate the sadness left in the air.

Growing up, he'd say Snoggletog was the best time of the year. Now he knew it wasn't exactly true, but it was the best part of winter, and in those times, the festivity seemed greater than what it truly was, compared to the feasts and celebration they'd thrown on spring and summer. People would drop their crabby frowning that framed their faces ever since snow fell and see how spring wasn't so far at all, and even if times weren't so down with the harsher weather, peace, and dragons, and all… The prospect of missing dragons just left the village… Depressed.

He missed Stormfly, he did, but a selfish part of him missed the holiday gleefulness more.

Next time he saw Hiccup, around lunch, a cold, simple meal served on the Great Hall rather than the warm dishes previous to the dragons' departure, she looked just as gloomed as the rest of them, as he was avoiding letting on. His heart sunk just a bit more than it already had been. She told him Toothless had left. As soon as she got her new tail, as soon as she could fly on her own, she had flown the same direction everyone's dragons had. And so maybe Hiccup had been a bit late on the longing party, but she got there, and being close to her was no help to bury the sadness at this point. Part of him wished to hold her and admit how truly sucked to see Stormfly barely look back, but he wasn't ready to let it all out just yet. So the boy just gave a comforting pat on his wife's shoulder and swallowed up any bad temper.

The oldest warriors of the village seemed quite determined to not let dragons decide to ruin their holidays, we've been perfectly happy celebrating this for generations, Stoick had said. And he was right, as always. Well, as most times.

At night, Hiccup looked hollow. She didn't cry, thankfully, but she just sat sating at the roof, waiting the usual scratching Toothless would do to wake them up pretty much every day. Everyone in Berk missed their dragons, but the girl was the only one to look empty, rather than simply sad.

"They'll be back, you know". He decided to say what he knew- what he wished Hiccup would say, what she had said when Toothless was still there. They have to be back. It wouldn't make sense for the dragons to have grown just as close, just as much a part of Berk as Berkians had grown close to them, just to leave forever overnight, right?

"Yeah, yeah, of course", she replied, as if woken up from trance, though sounding as monotone as she still looked.

No dragon to scratch the roof and walls, Artichoke had woken earlier than Hiccup and got up to continue whatever preparations, wherever any help could be needed, even if most decorations had been set pretty quickly and easily when the dragons were still around, only details and food left to be fixed, which seemed to lack motivation now.

Not long after a short breakfast, Artichoke was walking through the village's most concentrated area of huts to get extra ingredients, as his mother, one of the Great Hall's cooks had requested, when he was saved by nothing but his trained reflexes, a brown-ish enormous buzzing blur passed right above him. Squinting his eyes he saw a- "Hiccup?!", actually he had seen a nut-brown Gronckle flying straight to the sea, away from the tribe, from the island, but what was really weird was the fact Hiccup was holding on to it. Not riding it but griping tightly to its face to not fall down. "Where are you going?", he shouted, unable to form any other questions the sight had made bloom in his mind.

"I have no idea!", he heard her faintly yell out, being carried away with apparently no control, though she didn't exactly look like the Gronckle's prey or anything, the dragon wasn't holding her by its paws, she was just something stuck on it, actually. I didn't even know there was still any dragons left, I thought we had cleared out two days ago when-

"Meatlug!", turning, he saw Fishlegs yell to the same direction where Hiccup had been taken to, exasperated. "What about presents?". Wait, what? That was Meatlug? That means…

Oh, I'm gonna kill him. Fishlegs had kidnaped, locked up his own dragon, something they were all forbid to do ever since the war, specially Meatlug, who was a part of their prisoners used for dragon fight training, by the way. Swallowing up his own rage, Artichoke quickly fetched their other friends. To help him beat Fishlegs off or try to make more sense of the situation, or both, he didn't know yet.

"I can't believe her", the larger boy had said as soon as the other teens gathered on his adjoining hut, where it was clear the Gronckle had been kept captive, hay and chains separated as evidence.

"You can't believe her? I can't believe you!", Artichoke shot right back, trying to sound as disappointed as possible. "You kidnaped your dragon!", yeah, keeping control was not an option, as he smacked his friend's arm saying the last part. If that isn't treason…

"That makes it sound so mean…", he whined, wincing. No, you don't get to play victim here pal.

He heard Tuffnut call out, but ignored, still not over roasting Fishlegs for this. "Meatlug flew away the second he was unleashed!", yeah, let's lock our dragons who we're still trying to build trust after generations, centuries of fighting, I'm sure that's a good idea. Artichoke was another second from burying his fist into his friend's chubby face when Tuffnut called in again, louder this time.

He and his twin sister were kneeling around the mount of hay Meatlug had probably been using for sleep. As if possible, the twins had made a worse mess of it, but then the other teens approached… It- it is a nest.

Artichoke couldn't help a roll of his eyes when Fishlegs suggested his dragon had a collection of rocks. Though they did look like rocks. Several oval forms, stiff and rugged, light blue shapes, rather large. He could carry one off the ground, though it was heavy and almost the size his torso.

"You're such an idiot, these aren't rocks", he heard Ruffnut said, and was sure she had slapped him once again. "Your dragon laid eggs!".

And if dragons were like any other wild animals to lay eggs… "Wait!", Artichoke said, turning to his group. "I bet that's why the dragons left! To lay eggs!", there was so much they didn't know about dragons yet and considering this… But why would Meatlug leave these here? Had it even more to lay?

"But boy-dragons don't lay eggs", Fishlegs said. Gods, how could we ever have thought you were the brains of our group? It was true he was passionate about their even more limited knowledge on dragons before the war was over, always bringing it up every now and then even when was not deemed necessary. Amongst them, the taller one would stick his nose in their small library whenever possible, he was even helping Hiccup write down their new information, but…

"Yeah, your 'boy-dragon' is a girl-dragon", Ruffnut continued, rather calm for her usual low bullshit-handling.

"Okay", Fishlegs widened his eyes, "that actually explains a lot of things" and in literally any other situation, this last comment would be enough to grant him a curious, almost disgusted response from Artichoke, case he wasn't so deep in the holidays' expectations in the last few days.

"Hey!", he shot up, holding on one of the eggs, searching around the room for something to use as a ribbon. "Everybody's missing their dragons, right?".

Snotlout, still with arms crossed, just grunted at the prospect of Artichoke's fake bright mood, which would surely guarantee him a punch in the face when this was all over, but that's for later.

"I've got an idea!", he continued, finding a red bind at last, "it'll be another new Snoggletog tradition". Artichoke held the egg, now with a red ribbon as an ornament, as wrapped presents would look like.

Thankfully, his friends got the clue and, even better, they agreed, much different from his Yaknog offer and last night's suggestion. They all quickly worked on the few eggs Meatlug had left behind, embellishing and wrapping them, then off to dispense across their village, much like today's easter eggs.