Disclaimer: Rift-Raft made the setting, and Rift-Raft made it hot. I only own my story and my very own plot.


"When the outlook isn't good, try the uplook!"


Hiccup has been acting… strangely these last few days. Well, more than usual, anyway. He's constantly in the nest he calls a 'smithy' and barely talks to anyone – even that large, smelly human stopped trying to joke around with him a few days ago. Of course, Hiccup still talks to me and our nest mates, but I'm starting to get worried. Every time I try to bring up his new mood, he shrugs it off or changes the topic. Like he's keeping a secret.

That's why I made sure to wake up extra early this morning, so I could get some answers. I'd been expecting him to still be asleep at this hour, considering how lazy he is, and he was, which gave me plenty of time to prepare what I'd say to him – he's not weaseling out of it by saying "I can't understand you" this time!

What I did not expect was for his scent to be… off. It's hard to explain, but he smells just a bit like he used to – like there's still some dragon left in him – but that's impossible. I know another transformation will kill him, and now that he's not a dragon anymore, there's no reason for him to be the source of an even remotely draconic scent, no matter how faint. Lingering scents of our nest mates I can understand, but any Shadow-Blender scents other than mine should have left him long ago. Again, it was pretty small, but now I have yet another thing to ask him about, especially if he's found a new Shadow-Blender that he hasn't told me about.

The Dragon of the Sun was still well under the horizon back when I woke up, and He had just climbed over it when I lost my patience. "Hiccup. Wake up." Nudging him with my nose, I pushed off the 'blanket' to get a clear view of his face. "Hiccup!"

He bolted upright, grabbing his head with his paws, and instantly began sweating. He croaked out a single word through sudden distress: "What?"

Not expecting such a violent awakening, I jumped back, my claws unsheathing on instinct. I immediately retracted them and leapt over to his side. "Is something wrong?" I asked, giving a concerned croon for clarity.

Hiccup turned to me, his eyes not holding their usual dull, sleepy glaze, as if he had been awake this whole time. "Toothless?"

We made eye contact, and I prayed to all the Gods that the link would spring forth. After flickering weakly for a few seconds, it leapt to life, stronger than it's ever been these past two months, but still much weaker than I was hoping for.

Confusion. It was the only thing I could get from him, and it hit me pretty hard. I did my best to send over concern and comfort, trying not to get overwhelmed by his scattered thoughts, but it didn't feel like it was working. Breaking eye contact, I pressed my forehead to his, wanting nothing more than to calm him down. It took a few minutes, but his shivering and unsteady breathing slowly settled, and his excessive sweat and fear scents lost their potency as they did.

Now trying to calm my own nerves, I slowly spoke in words that I knew he'd already learned. "What happened?"

Taking his forehead off of mine, he slowly looked up to meet my gaze and breathed out a long sigh. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" I repeated, nudging him to continue.

Hiccup's expression fell thoughtful and, after a minute, he sighed again. "Not really. Well, I do, sort of, but not exactly."

I tilted my head, now even more confused.

"You may even think I'm crazy if I told you. Ow! Hey!"

Pulling back my tailfin, which had just finished delivering a very weak slap to his arm, I shook my head in determination and looked him in the eye. "No, I won't."

Hiccup returned the sharp stare briefly, but quickly looked down after a few seconds. "You're right. I'm sorry. It's just so weird." He looked up at me sheepishly. "And maybe a bit blasphemous."

My jaw dropped, and he was quick to laugh at my dumbfounded expression.

Slapping him again, I shook my head, my cheeks still warm from the embarrassment. "This is no time for jokes!" I cringed slightly at the volume of my voice as it echoed off the wooden walls of the nest.

Hiccup, not as affected as I by the echo, and speaking in a serious voice – more serious than I've heard out of him in a long time – shook his head too. "I'm not joking."


I don't know if I can call it luck or not, but I've had an easier time than I was expecting with keeping the tail fin a secret from everybody, even Toothless. Gobber never pays attention to what I do anyway, he just drops off the daily work load and comes back at sunset to collect it. I was so sure Dad was on to me, but after our conversation last night took an unexpected turn, which I don't mind or regret, I managed to hide it from him too. Toothless was much more difficult; I was able to stall him for three days, but I knew he would corner me eventually.

So, what happens the morning he was probably planning to pry it from me, the very same day that I'll be finished with his tail? I get visited by the gods! Hooray!

I knew I'd need a distraction, but I didn't need one this much. And so, I get to sit down and spend all of my free day (which I was planning on using to finish touching up the tail, but now that'll have to wait until tonight) trying to explain Viking religion to a very confused dragon. Oh, and did I forget to mention that I can't understand half his questions? That makes it so much more fun!

"So to sum it up, only the Vikings that embody all the virtues of, well, Vikingdom, get a seat at Valhalla. Odin rules over the realm, while his sons Thor and Loki apparently have a more direct say in who are worthy enough to enter and who aren't. And it looks like there are some laws that prevent them from accepting me, because I didn't 'look to them' while I was dying, or something."

Toothless looked at me in (thank the Gods) comprehension, and asked the same question that he had after every attempted explanation – one of the few that we both knew I'd understand. "And you believe in them?"

Giving a defeated sigh, I leaned away from him slightly as I braced myself for his reaction. "Yes and no."

Rather than hissing or growling like he did the last few times I answered that question, he simply raised his brows very high at my new response.

Relaxing slightly, I settled back down against his side as he pulled his tail around my legs, waiting for me to continue. "It's not like I pray to them like I used to, or even look to them for guidance. I don't think I'll go to Helheim when I die, but it looks like I'm not going to Valhalla, either. I do think they exist-" Toothless scoffed a bit at that, "-but I don't think they want anything to do with me. Actually, from what they said, they do, or at least Loki does, but they have laws stopping them from doing anything about it."

Toothless' eyes were unreadable as he added on to his repeated question. "So what do you believe in?"

I'm so lucky that I can understand the words of the most difficult questions.

I rested the back of my head against his folded wing, looking up to the afternoon sky as I searched for the answer. "Well, I guess we could look at what we know and try to come up with an answer, right?"

Toothless tilted his head in a questioning manner as I tried to piece together my thoughts. Hopefully he'll be able to understand them more than I can.

"We've already met the Dragon of the Sun and the Dragoness of the Moon, so we know that they exist, and we can probably assume that the dragons' belief about how the world was formed is true. If not, it happened so long ago that it doesn't matter much either way. If we're going to believe my dream was a vision and not some hallucination, then we know the Viking gods exist too. My best guess is that the Viking gods either helped them form our world, came into existence after it was formed, or somehow found it after its formation; maybe some of the first Vikings who died became those gods?"

Toothless snorted, and he didn't even need to say anything for me to know what he was thinking.

I sighed. "I guess you're right; it's not like it really matters. Anyway, the Dragoness of the Moon is the sovereign of dragon souls while the Viking gods are the same for human souls." After thinking over what I said for a while, I gave a final nod, leaning back even more.

Toothless took a while to digest this, resting his head in his paws and looking at the forest with eyes glazed over. Eventually he looked over to me and gave a nod, satisfied with the theory.

I sighed in relief.

Relief that was short lived – his satisfaction quickly dissolved into concern. With a distressed grumble, he asked yet another difficult question. I didn't understand all of the words, but as soon as he finished, I knew what he meant: "So who'll be ruling over your soul?"

My first response was almost automatic. "Well definitely not the Viking gods, from what they just told me."

Toothless snorted again, as if the mere thought of these gods dealing with me was laughable.

My second response, on the other hand... "So I guess that leaves… the Dragoness of the Moon?" Even I knew the hope I was trying to push into my voice sounded fake.

Toothless turned his head around and rubbed his cheek against my own, releasing an encouraging purr and trying with all his might to cheer me up.

"Yeah, I hope so too, bud," I said, rubbing the bottom of his neck with my hand and causing the purr to become louder. I smiled at the sensation, starting to get over the heavy atmosphere that had settled around us, and pulled on his ear. "So, got any dumb questions that don't make me betray everything I was raised to believe?"

Accepting the challenge, Toothless barked and paused to think. "What about food?"

I rolled my eyes. Of course he would find a way to bring food into this. "What about it? Are you hungry?"

He shook his head, smacking me with his one tail fin for good measure. I need to find a way to get him to stop that. "No, their _ _ _."

It took me a long time to figure out what he meant, but after a while it finally clicked. "Oh." I raised both my eyebrows as I searched for a way to respond. "You want to know what happens to game when it dies?" At his nod, I lowered one eyebrow as I thought about it. "Well, I don't think human or dragon gods deal with animals. Maybe they have their own gods? Or maybe they don't have any?"

Toothless gasped at this last guess, and turned to me as if I had just told him that there is no afterlife.

"Hey, I'm just guessing here. I won't know unless some vengeful deer decides to use deer magic on me."

I laughed as Toothless gave me his 'I'm not amused' look.

We both gave a start when my stomach released a low rumble. Grinning in slight embarrassment, I stood up and turned to face my best friend. "I guess all this talk about food has made me hungry. You up for a snack?"

"Yes!" he shouted, bolting upright with a happy chirp.

Chuckling, I turned around just before a very excited dragon pushed his head between my legs (well, leg and peg), dashing in the direction of the village when I got a loose grip around his neck. I smiled widely at his antics, gripping harder to avoid falling off as he weaved in and out of the trees.

Maybe I could get used to this after all.