A/N: This chapter is for Achillies453. Thank you so much for being a long-time supporter of my work! :D

(Un)Timely Rescues:

Toothless half dozed on the last patch of the early morning sun-warmed sand before the clouds rolled in and made everything shady. His eyes were only narrow green slits as he appreciated the sight of Luna playing in the waves and catching their breakfast. With drowsy curiosity, he decided to check up on his human boy.

It had been a few days since he'd last connected to the mind of Hiccup Haddock the Third (what a strange name, but Astrid called him that sometimes), so he figured it was overdue. He was curious to hear more about the upcoming 'dragon training' that the boy had thought of in passing a few times, as well as something called 'The Mangler' (which didn't sound very nice). And now that he and Luna had finally mated and his hormones were sated for the moment, Toothless wouldn't even mind of Hiccup was thinking about mating with the Astrid girl. Might even learn something new, he thought with mild intrigue.

It was a simple matter now to send his mental senses flowing down the invisible bond that he'd developed with Hiccup over the last year of spying on him.

Hiccup was sailing away from the island.

(Or more accurately, cursing their weird gods resoundly under his breath as he sweated through the agony of rowing with muscles not used to the task.)

Alarmed, Toothless went from half asleep to wide awake in an instant.

Because the last time Hiccup had gone sailing, he'd nearly drowned when their floating wooden craft had been destroyed by a Ripwrecker – a dragon that Toothless had almost tracked down for the sole purpose of yelling at for endangering HIS human - until he realized how crazy that was.

And the time before that, when Hiccup had sailed away from home last fall, he'd gone to the island that hurt to fly near and had come back feeling very sad and determined to find his missing mother. Which had made Toothless and Luna depressed too, because they knew their families would have spent a significant amount of time looking for them when they'd gotten stuck in this area as slaves to the Queen. Hiccup had also had a very ingrained image in his head of a human standing on the back of a flying dragon, which had shocked Toothless and Luna quite a lot because neither of them had ever heard of a dragon allowing a human to do such a thing.

In short, they had already decided that if their young humans left the island, they would follow them and make sure they didn't get in any further trouble.

There was just one problem; Luna would be delivering her eggs anytime in the next day or so. She couldn't leave the island. And he didn't want to leave her alone for the important event.

Toothless jumped up to his feet and bounded to the water's edge. "Luna! Hiccup's left the island again!"

His mate popped her head up above the water and looked at him with big blue eyes. "Oh, that's unfortunate timing."

"What should I do?!"

"That's up to you, sweetie."

"Oh, come on! You can't let me make this decision on my own! No matter what I pick, you're going to think it's the wrong one!"

Luna glided through the lake towards him, laughing softly. Water streamed off her sleek white body as she fully emerged and padded through the shallows to where he stood. She then shared the fun by giving a vigorous yet careful looking shake.

"Thanks," he thought sarcastically as he blinked the water out of his eyes and shook too.

"You're welcome," she thought back, smirking. Then, despite the situation, they took a moment to purr at each other as she rubbed her body along his as she circled him. When she was in front of him again, Luna sat on her haunches and said, "All right. Here's my decision and I promise I won't be mad at you if it doesn't quite work out, timing wise."

Toothless sagged slightly in relief that his pregnant mate was taking charge in this instance; he had no desire whatsoever to anger or disappoint her right now.

Luna continued, only smiling a little as she sensed his feelings. "You have to take an offering to the Queen today anyway, so you might as well do that right away."

"Of course, my love!" Toothless thought back eagerly.

"That way you should be back before anything of significance happens, since I don't quite feel like I'm going to pop yet."

"Oh, thank the Great Dragon."

She smiled wider. "And if you happen to hunt for the Queen's tribute in the same area as Hiccup has gone, well… so be it."

Toothless nearly pounced on her with his relieved, joyful, overwhelming love, but remembered at the last millisecond that she was feeling very sensitive right now and wouldn't appreciate his enthusiasm like she usually did. So his surge forward was checked and he turned it into a gentle nuzzle against her cheek. "Thank you, Luna! You're the best mate ever!"

She only laughed and nuzzled his cheek in return. "You're not so bad either, love."

"Thanks." He purred louder and licked her cheek. "I better get going then. Do I need to check on your human too?"

Luna closed her eyes for a second and then shook her head. "No. I can feel her still on this island."

"That's good. One less human to worry about."

"Yes."

Toothless licked her cheek one more time and then spread his wings in preparation to fly. "I'll be back as soon as I can, sweetness."

"You're actually going to leave without eating breakfast first?" Luna said with clear amusement as she regurgitated five fish on the sand for him.

Toothless put his wings back down and laughed. "Hunh. I guess not."

Between the cover provided by the gathering rain clouds and the really awesome ability to go invisible that Luna had shown him, Toothless had no problem following the human sailing ship without being detected.

When they passed near a human inhabited island that had a herd of sturdy yaks conveniently grazing in plain sight, Toothless left off following Hiccup to snatch up an old-looking beast and fly it to the Queen as fast as he could. In total, the trip took him a couple hours to complete and return to Hiccup's location. Thus, by the time he'd followed his bond with the boy to find him again, the three Viking ships had furled their sails to do some fishing with very helpful and clever nets. (Which Toothless had envied on more than one occasion when the fish were playing hard to catch.)

As the first drops of rain began to fall, Toothless scanned the skies and ocean, even going so far as to dive under the water and make a large perimeter sweep of the area around the ships to check for underwater predators, and found nothing to be concerned about. Convinced for the moment that Hiccup should be safe enough, he made the twenty minute flight back to the island of Berk and his precious Luna.

Whom he almost promptly flew right back away from, because she was in a cranky mood that bordered on foul as she paced their little beach as rain poured down from the sky in sheets. She was cursing him, the Great Dragon, and even the Viking gods for the cramps currently besieging her. Like a wise male of any species, he only stayed long enough to ask, "How long, do you think?"

"I don't know! An hour or two, maybe?" she snapped back as he hovered safely out of the range of her teeth.

"Then I'll be back in an hour," he promised. "I'll just go check on Hiccup one more time."

"Fine. You do that."

So he did, grateful that he had a really good excuse to skip this stage of the egg-laying process. He didn't remember his mother being this grumpy when his younger brothers were laid, but he hadn't exactly been hanging around to watch back then either.

But when he got back to where the Vikings had stopped to fish, chaos had descended there to an even greater degree as well.

The entire pod of teal and purple coloured Sliquifiers that lived near Berk had decided to steal the conveniently trapped fish already caught in the nets. This meant that the boats were being pulled all over the place, the humans were screaming curses and shooting at the Sliquifiers with arrows and other launchable weapons, the Sliquifiers were shooting acid balls at the ships and humans, the fish were being traumatized by the now acidic water, and Hiccup was in the thick of it with a large contraption that he kept pointing at the fast moving sea dragons while thinking to himself, One of these would work! Definitely. The fastest dragon on the water could help me search for my mom in no time!

Toothless rolled his eyes to himself. Does Hiccup actually think he can catch a Sliquifier and convince it to carry him around like an obedient boat? He's clearly suffering from delusions of… something. The idiot's only going to get himself killed.

And then his eyes widened in alarm as Hiccup actually tried to do just that by using his contraption thing to shoot a mess of weighed down ropes at a Sliquifier and actually making contact with the dragon. The ropes wrapped around its long neck. Hiccup whooped out a, "Yes!" then wound a rope that attached to all of the other ropes around a hook on the side of the ship, thus catching the now thrashing and crying dragon - an adolescent dragon who was going to strangle itself to death before he ever thought to calm down.

The humans didn't see this though; they were just cheering on Hiccup for his catch, his father clapping him on the back with pride, nearly sending the boy right over the rain-slick railing with his enthusiasm.

Heeding their young podmate's cries for help, the other Sliquifiers abandoned the nets and all converged on Hiccup's ship, sending shot after shot of acid at the rail of the boat and the rope, trying to free the dying dragon. The acid would have eaten through one of them eventually, but probably not fast enough.

Toothless couldn't watch this atrocity anymore and not do anything. He could hear the Sliquifier in his mind, crying for help, and a fury at Hiccup for causing this grew in his chest, expelling out as a burst of blue plasma at the rope holding the Sliquifier to the ship.

It broke instantly under the power of his perfectly aimed shot. The humans cried out at seeing a ball of blue flame appear from nowhere. Which would have been satisfying under any other circumstances, but the trapped dragon was still tangled up in ropes that he'd somehow managed to also now have wrapped around his wings and legs.

Instead of strangling, the dragon was in imminent danger of drowning. Stars above, I'm going to have a hard time forgiving Hiccup for this, Toothless growled to himself as he dove towards the ocean from his hover in the clouds above to rescue the other dragon.

Hiccup, though, had also finally seen that he'd done something terribly stupid and then did something even more stupid by diving into the sea. His father screamed, "HICCUP!" as the boy disappeared into the thrashing mess of dragons, nets, fish, and water.

Toothless had a similar heart attack moment until the boy's head reappeared above the water.

He might be displeased with Hiccup at the moment, but he was still HIS human.

"DO NOT EAT THE HUMAN BOY!" Toothless roared mentally at the Sliquifiers as they surged towards easy prey, shooting bolts of acid at Hiccup as he swam valiantly towards the drowning young one. His yell caught their attention, at least, and they all looked up at him in alarm, knowing the wrath of a Night Fury was not something to be taken lightly. His warning was too late though, because Hiccup had cried out and faltered for a second. He just knew that Hiccup had been hit by an acid ball. But the boy then swam on, reaching the trapped dragon at the same time Toothless did.

To exclamations of alarm from the watching humans, Toothless dove into the water and pulled the Sliquifier up by his gasping head, thinking that he could burn the ropes off of him. But Hiccup had also latched onto the dragon and had a shiny knife in his hand, already sawing at the ropes. Their eyes met for a moment, the boy's wide and dilated nearly to black. Toothless could feel his surprise, pain, and remorse as if it were his own along with the need to make right what he'd done.

So Toothless held the dragon at the surface of the water while Hiccup worked around the still writhing body, cutting him free with frantic saws of the sharp knife. It didn't take more than a minute, but for Toothless, it felt like an eternity. He could hear the other humans having panic attacks on their boats, the words, Night Fury, sounding over and over. He could hear the mental murmurs from the other Sliquifiers as they watched with concern and amazement as a human went out of their way to help a dragon for the first time that any of them knew of. And he could see, even through the water, that Hiccup's lower left leg was literally disintegrating from the acid that was eating through his flesh. And would continue to burn painfully until it finished its path all the way through his calf, bones and all.

Through their bond - that in hindsight he realized he should have probably closed off - Toothless felt every agonizing second of it.

The instant that the Sliquifier was freed from his rope cage, Toothless let him go and grabbed Hiccup by the shoulders instead, knowing that Hiccup was rapidly running out of strength and would never be able to swim back to his boat. This caused the boy's father to yell in alarm again, but Toothless ignored him.

He looked down at the boy as he flew them upwards a little so Hiccup was out of the water. And then, for the first time ever, he deliberately pushed his thoughts into a human's mind. "This is going to hurt something awful, but it's for the best."

"What?!" Hiccup thought back at the same time that Toothless shot a ball of plasma at Hiccup's leg, cancelling out the acid with superior plasma and breaking the already weakened bone off just below the knee in one clean shot. He then immediately spit a weaker blue flame at the leg to cauterize the entire mess into a smooth, blackened stump to stop the bleeding.

During that terrible proceedure, Hiccup screamed, looked at his leg, vomited, and fainted.

Toothless nearly passed out too from the echo of agony through their connection, but determinedly pushed past it.

"DROP MY SON, YOU EVIL BEAST FROM HEL!" was the only warning Toothless got before he heard the distinctive sound of a bladed weapon sailing through the air.

Toothless darted upwards, fast enough to avoid the axe that would have landed in his neck, but it caught his tail instead, ripping through the left tail fin with agonizing results.

Now feeling way more pain than ever in his entire life, Toothless went into survival mode, which meant flying away from the humans as fast as possible as he still clutched Hiccup in his claws.

Except, his tail wasn't working properly, and he couldn't get any height. Toothless flapped and flapped his wings, but he ended up in the water as well, waking up Hiccup, who sputtered right along with Toothless as they crashed into the ocean ungracefully.

He spread his wings to keep from sinking, and grabbed Hiccup's shirt in his teeth so the boy didn't end up drowning underneath of him, but that was as far as he got in terms of rescuing them. He kicked his legs and tried to swim, but that just left him floundering more. How one injury to his tail could cause such a complete breakdown of his ability to do anything, he had no idea, but it was an apparent fact. His efforts had taken him too far away from the human boats for immediate rescue as well, but he could hear the slap of many oars in the water making a determined effort to reach them, so Toothless came to the wincing conclusion that the only way to survive this was to let the humans come rescue him.

Or at least Hiccup.

He was most likely going to be slaughtered. "I'm sorry, Luna."

"What?! What's wrong?!" she thought back, her mental voice faint at this distance, but surprisingly there.

"Did something stupid." He answered. (What else would you call putting one's life in danger for the sake of a dragon murdering human? Granted, Hiccup had then tried to fix it, but still...)

"Toothless!"

He was going to explain further, he really was, but Hiccup struggled in his mouth, trying to turn around, saying, "Let me go, dragon, please!"

So Toothless did.

Hiccup used his leg and a half to feebly tread water, turning and grabbing Toothless' face, staring into his eyes. His normally pale skin was turning an angry red in reaction to all the acid he'd been swimming through, "Did you really talk to me? Or am I losing my mind?"

Toothless closed his eyes for a moment and then nodded once in the boy's grasp. "I did. You are not crazy."

"Holy Thor!" Hiccup breathed, rain and sweat dripping down his face, hands caressing his head now in a pleasant way. "I can't believe it! You can talk! Well, sort of," he added with a crooked smile, all pain temporarily forgotten in the moment.

"Yes, I can talk," Toothless thought back wryly. "At least until your sire decides to gut me just for existing, if taking your leg off the faster way wasn't incentive enough."

Hiccup winced.

"NOT ON MY WATCH, HE'S NOT!" a mental roar cut into Toothless' mind.

He looked up and back just in time to see a massive brown Stormcutter dive towards them, all four wings tucked into his body and a human figure dressed in brown and teal armour riding his back. Hiccup followed his line-of-sight and his eyes widened to nearly popping out proportions. "Mom!" he gasped.

Mom? Toothless just had time to think before the Stormcutter was scooping him out of the water. Out of reflex, Toothless grabbed Hiccup again in turn.

And then they were soaring off into the rain with roaring echoes of, "HICCUP!" bouncing off the clouds.

The Stormcutter who suddenly had four blurry heads looked down at Toothless and grinned crookedly. "Hi! I'm Cloudjumper and I'm your rescue dragon today."

Toothless grinned back and then promptly fainted; blood loss, pain, and stress catching up to him all at once.

Fortunately, the Stormcutter quickly caught Hiccup when Toothless unknowingly let him go.