REVIEWS:

Silver Sentinel: Overprotectiveness, probably. The others don't have much experience with the wilderness on their own, it's cold, and there's always a possible threat, so he feels responsible for them. He might reluctantly leave to care for them, but taking time for himself? No self sacrificing idiot would do a thing like that.

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Chapter 5

"What is it with people waking me up?! Hiccup and Fishlegs are still asleep!" Snotlout's vocal complaint woke me up roughly

"No, I'm not," Fishlegs chimed. "I woke up first."

"I'm awake!" I muttered, abandoning hope of getting any more rest, and smirked at Snotlout's murderous expression as Toothless opened his wings. The air, which had just begun to warm up, was replaced by an almost solid wall of snow that had settled on him overnight, and I sat upright in protest, scrubbing at my sleep-filled eyes.

"Come on. The sooner we leave, the sooner we'll reach the village." I waited for Fishlegs, Snotlout, and Astrid to crawl out, in that order, before I could scramble off Toothless' wing and let him stand up. Thor, it was cold! I jumped from foot to prosthetic and tried to get my own pathetic body heat going.

Toothless swayed a little as he got to his feet, and I touched his shoulder worriedly. "Are you okay?"

'I'm fine,' he said firmly, and I shrugged unhappily. I couldn't deny that his warmth had been invaluable last night, but I wished it didn't have such a heavy cost.

"Is the wind dying down?" Snotlout yelled, and I realised that I could actually hear him, even from opposite ends of the rock.

"No, we're still behind the rock, remember?" I called back, holding tightly to Toothless' tail. Snotlout felt along his side until he reached the saddle, and Toothless bent to let him climb on. Fishlegs was at the very base of the tail, ready to catch anyone who blew away in the strong wind, and I held hands with Astrid across it. "Ready?" I called loudly, and everyone nodded.

Toothless roared once, then stepped out of the shelter of the rock and pulled his wings in tightly as the wind suddenly became far stronger. I lowered my head and closed my eyes, then took a step forward. It became easier and easier as I walked, my leg muscles easing into the familiar pattern. Ten steps forward, stop and wait while Toothless roared. Ten steps forward, stop and wait.

Fishlegs counted quietly and I could hear his fingers tapping as he kept track of how long we'd been walking for. The blistering wind was just as strong as yesterday, and I started to shiver. If anything, the temperature was even lower, and I promised myself that we'd stop as soon as we reached some proper shelter, and hopefully wait out the storm. Surely it couldn't last much longer.

By late afternoon, we still hadn't found anything. Astrid and I huddled together on Toothless back, barely conscious. We were simply too exhausted to walk any further, and too cold to contemplate anything.

Snotlout shivered, his teeth chattering too hard to talk, and being dragged along by Toothless and Fishlegs. Only Fishlegs and Toothless were still going strong, plodding along determinedly. We'd all reached the stage of exhaustion where we just kept going because we didn't have enough energy to think about stopping, mindlessly following each other's faltering footsteps. My mind felt fuzzy, but I still knew that we had to find shelter, and I grasped the thought, refusing to let it go.

Astrid's frozen fingers clutched my equally frozen hands, and I slumped against her as she leaned into me. The entire world was cold, freezing, or frigid, and I was definitely on the frigid end of the scale. Snotlout fell on his face in the snow with a small groan, and our party stumbled to a stop.

"I c—ca—can't w—wa—walk—" he sniffled, and Fishlegs heaved him upright with a strained grunt.

'Get on,' Toothless panted, the only one who wasn't shivering, and my cousin slowly climbed up to join us on the saddle. We wordlessly included him in our huddle, sharing the tiny grain of warmth we each had, and I almost didn't notice when we changed, battling across the wind instead of into it.

'In here!' Toothless yelled, and slithered in head first. It was a tight fit, and I knocked my head on the ceiling of some sort of tunnel, but after the entrance it widened a little, opening up into a decent sized cave. There was ice across the roof, but at least we were out of the freezing wind.

"T—Toothless," Fishlegs shivered, the only one who could still think rationally. "We n—need to warm u—up."

'I know,' he yawned, exhaustion in his voice, and lay down on his side and spread his wings wide open as Astrid, Snotlout, and I tumbled off his back.

Fishlegs pursed his lips. "Not l—like that! You're t—too tired f—for it!" I nodded weakly, agreeing with him.

'I don't have a choice. There's no wood for a fire,' Toothless reminded us, and, sagging in defeat, Fishlegs gently guided us to Toothless with a steady hand on our shoulders. I forced my eyes open as we slumped against his sides and saw his furrowed look of concentration as he forced more warmth from his heartfire. His eyelids fluttered and I read the fatigue in his limbs, but he valiantly pushed himself to keep us warm. My own head lolled and I felt myself dragged down towards sleep.

Fishlegs?' Toothless whispered with what seemed like his last strength, and Fishlegs turned to him.

"Yes?"

'Give me Hiccup.' I was lifted by two large hands, which would have been embarrassing except I was too tired and cold to care, and was passed into two scaly limbs with unnatural warmth. The last thing I heard before I fell asleep was Toothless muttering, 'Thank you.'

I woke up to the absence of any wind. The silence pressed against my ears heavily and I blinked my eyes open. It was grey in the space between Toothless' wings, and light came in through a small gap near his head. I stretched and yawned, then jumped as a hand touched my arm.

"What the—Fishlegs! You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"Sorry," he whispered. "Can we talk outside? Don't wake the others."

I crawled out on my hands and knees, and found my leg waiting for me when I got there. When did I take it off?

"What is it?"

"Have you noticed what Toothless is doing?" Fishlegs queried.

Oh, that. I rubbed my neck nervously. "His heartfire, yes."

"He's pushing himself too hard."

"I know! But what am I supposed to do about it? He's too stubborn to stop, and you can't deny we need it."

"But carrying us? That's just stupid. We've all got legs, we can walk."

"You're right. We'll talk to the others."

Astrid stuck her head out. "Talk about what?"

"Toothless is pushing himself too hard."

She frowned. "Everyone's pushing themselves hard. He's stronger than us, so he can take more."

"Yeah, but he hasn't eaten since we set off," Fishlegs added.

"I didn't know that." Gods, he was going to make himself collapse!

"And you know how heartfires work, don't you, Astrid?" Fishlegs continued. "He's been wasting far too much energy on keeping us warm."

"So what do we do?"

"We can't do much," I admitted. "We needed the warmth, and probably still will. But we can at least walk on our own."

"Okay," she said. "What about Snotlout?"

"What about me?" he mumbled, crawling out of Toothless' wings, still half asleep.

"We're going to walk on our own today," I told him. To my surprise, he nodded without complaining. Not one to let an opportunity pass by, I nodded briskly. "Well, that's settled then. Are we ready to go?"

"Wait, what about breakfast?"

I mentally quieted my own stomach. "When we get to the forest, we'll find something there."

I bent down in front of Toothless, and wished we could just be at home, where neither of us had to work so hard. I gently shook his shoulder. "Bud?"

His eyelids flickered open slowly, and his tired eyes gazed up at me. 'Yeah?'

"We're about to go. Everyone else is awake."

He snapped awake and scrambled to his feet, but stumbled slightly. 'Why didn't you wake me sooner?!'

"Fishlegs said to let you sleep," I told him. My stomach growled, and I blushed. "He said you needed it. Looking at you now, I agree."

"Are you coming?" Astrid called from outside, and I realised that the constant wind had finally fallen.

'The storm's over?'

"Yes," Fishlegs informed us. "It started dying down last night, and it was completely calm this morning."

Toothless pushed me out of the steep hole, and I crawled out into a solid world of white. There were some snow covered trees in the distance, the start of the forest, and from there it was only a short distance to the village.

"No point waiting around. Let's go." I said, and we trudged off, hopefully for the last time. Fishlegs' stomach growled loudly and he blushed, wrapping his arms around his middle.

"What I wouldn't give for a plate of mutton…" Snotlout mumbled.

"I know…" I couldn't help agreeing. "I'd even give a dragon regurgitated fish a second chance."

"Oh, it's not that bad," Astrid said, walking a little faster. "Are we going to dissolve into whiny babies just because we skipped a few meals? The sooner we get to Berk, the sooner you can eat."

I nodded, lifting my chin determinedly. "We just have to get to the forest, and we're practically there."

"Can I ride on Toothless?" Snotlout whined, dragging his feet. "I don't feel like walking."

"Snotlout," I warned, "you can walk just fine."

"Ugh, alright!"

Fishlegs tramped off, towards the forest and we struggled after him. Just because the storm was over didn't mean that the snow had magically disappeared, and it was even deeper than before, up to my waist in some places. Snotlout was often half buried in the snow, and eventually Toothless ignored our protests and tossed him onto the saddle. Progress was a little quicker after that. Fishlegs broke a path and Astrid and I easily followed it. It wasn't nearly as cold as the last few days, and Toothless' skin was always cool when I touched it, which would make sense if he was trying to conserve his energy.

After half an hour, I insisted on taking the lead. We were about an hour away from the forest, and I was definitely the person who knew them best, after practically living in them until I met Toothless. We were almost home, I knew, and my throbbing knee joints thanked Thor. It was almost noon on the fourth day, since we'd all slept in this morning, and I prayed we'd get back to the village before night time. I didn't think Toothless would be able to keep us warm all night and be ready to walk the next day, and I wanted to be able to sleep without smelling three other sweaty bodies next to me.