REVIEWS:

Time2060: This is my story, he can be comfortable if I want him to be! But seriously, any normal animal has a squishy part directly below their ribcage. Multiply that by however large Toothless is, and that's enough room for a small Viking.

Shaonics6: Gobber thinks Hiccup's fine with joking about him weaknesses. He's too good at hiding his emotions for his own good.

Silverleone: That was more to do with clearing up the mess the movie leaves hanging than anything else. Not every scene in a story has to be a major plot point.

Commenterkitten: Will this chapter suffice?

Visionary-Writer: How many times have you read it in total so far? I'd like to know.

No one speaks my name

Dragon Training was in the afternoon, to 'spice it up a little,' according to Gobber when he showed up in front of my house early in the morning. In his opinion, being ready for a raid at any time of day was essential to learning how to fight dragons. I nodded while he told me, waited about ten seconds while he stumped his way down the hill, and slipped out the back door.

The morning air, crisp and cold, promised a bitter winter, and while Vikings were out and about, not many of them were standing still. I yawned, still exhausted from yesterday, but the freezing air was starting to wake me up. Clouds were a major part of the sky's decor, and the sun only made brief appearances from time to time.

"Morning, Hiccup," Mulch called, and I raised a hand in greeting. It wasn't too unusual for him to greet me, if nothing more.

"Morning, Hiccup," Spitelout called, and I almost did a double-take. He never spoke to me.

"M—morning?" Asgard, I'd been stupid yesterday.

I slipped down a side street, thankfully abandoned, then changed direction and headed for the small storehouse by the Great Hall. It was half filled with baskets of fish, and I was terrified that someone would see me, so I grabbed the nearest one and got out of there as fast as I could.

The streets were gradually filling as Vikings woke up and went about their tasks, and I decided to take the precarious platforms made of wood. They were practically a maze, and not many Vikings used them because, in Gobber's oh-so-tactful way of putting it, 'You never know when that last piece of mutton will be the one that sends you into the ocean.'

Hurrying down the staircase that would take me to the fork that let me move up one level and reach the four way crossroads, the fifth to last turn I needed to take, I missed a stair. My heart skipped a beat, I windmilled my arms wildly, dropping the basket of fish, and fell head over heels down the steps. The world turned into a kaleidoscope of wooden planks and grey cloudy sky, before I landed with a bump at the bottom. The basket of fish landed next to me, rolled neatly in a circle, and dumped nearly half its contents over the side.

There was a muffled yell, and my blood turned to ice. Oh no.

"Hiccup Horrendous Haddock! There will be repercussions for this! Repercussions!"

I grabbed the remaining fish and fled left, sprinted up the stairs, and swung right at the crossroads within two minutes, chest heaving and my limbs thrumming with adrenaline. There I was forced to stop and think because I wasn't confident in my ability to navigate the treacherous pathways. It was a left, then three rights, then a left… right? Within five minutes, I was hopelessly lost. I'd somehow made it all the way down the cliff, when I wanted to be at the top.

I hesitated, standing near another crossroads. One path stretched back behind me, going up the cliff and rejoining the main maze. Another snaked upwards, back and forth, hugging the cliff face until it came out by the main square. The last one, the most interesting one, went under the second one and over the first one, disappearing somewhere in the distance.

Going back would be depressing, so I carefully watched the other two, hoping Odin would give me a sign.

"Hiccup!"

Snotlout, his clothes slightly damp and a fish clutched in each hand, came racing down the cliff-hugging path. That's a good enough sign for me. The wooden path thrummed under my feet in a staccato rhythm as I ran. Thump thump thump thump thump.

A wet fish slammed into me from behind and I almost stumbled, recovered, and swerved up a handy path to my right. It curved round and round, always at a steep angle that made my lungs and legs burn with exertion. The second fish sailed past my head, and I somehow found myself crossing out of the shadow of the cliffs and into the shadows of various houses. As soon as I was far enough ahead, I took three sudden turns and kept sprinting, stumbling to a sweaty stop in front of the forge.

Stumbling through the doors, I took a moment to check that Gobber wasn't there and grabbed the saddle, a hammer—I always needed it when I didn't have it— a coil of rope, and slipped out the back door, closing it tightly behind me. Still breathless from the terrifying race, I walked carefully to the forest and disappeared into the trees. The cold air didn't feel very cool anymore, there was a furnace burning inside me, and a drop of sweat trickled down my neck.

The trees were tall and silent, as always, but there were dozens of tiny animals, small and noisy, leaping through their branches. I gradually cooled down as I approached the cove, quiet and peaceful. The lake was undisturbed, except for a few ripples, and the rushing waterfall was the only sound that rang through the serene setting. No Night Fury. I spun around a few times, sure that Toothless was right behind me, ready to pounce. The walls were empty.

"Toooothlesss!" I called, setting the basket of fish down with a sigh of relief and rolling my shoulders. Even missing half its contents, that thing was too heavy to carry while being chased by Snotlout.

With a showery explosion of water, drops glimmering in the meagre sunlight, Toothless breached out of the water. For a moment, his wings caught the air and he flew towards me. Then, his tail swung the wrong way and he only just landed on his feet in front of me. A lump stuck in my throat as I saw the place where his tail fin should have been—would have been, if it wasn't for me.

"Hey, Tooth—" I had to clear my throat, but it didn't really help. "Toothless. Are you hungry?"

With an enthusiastic croon, he leapt straight for the basket of fish. "Don't eat too fast this time," I cautioned him, and he slowly picked up a fish, bit it in two, and swallowed one half, then the other. With a questioning tilt of his head, he looked at me as if to say, will that do, Mr. Fussy?

"Yeah, yeah, make fun of the person who brought you food," I snarked, and the lump faded into the background a little.

Gurgling a laugh, he returned his attention to the fish. I looked around the cove, appreciating how sheltered it was. There could definitely be worse places to get stuck in. The thought reminded me that I was trying to get him in the air again—I should probably get the saddle on him while he was eating.

I picked up the saddle from where it was resting on the floor and held it up. The straps thankfully hadn't got tangled, and I carefully stepped toward Toothless while he was distracted.

The moment I got within five paces, he whirled around to face me, showing his teeth. I took another step, he dashed off sideways, and I followed him. He came to a stop somewhere in the middle of the cove. I took a step forward, and he took a step back. I tried to circle round to the right and block him against the wall. It worked—for about three steps, then he simply leapt right over my head. Unless they were extremely hungry, it was impossible to get a saddle on a Night Fury.

"I spent three hours on this, you know!" I yelled at his retreating tail. He faltered mid-step, then carried on walking to the other side of the cove. I let the saddle fall to the ground, and let out an exaggerated sigh.

"I thought you wanted to fly again?" Just like with Gobber, I could tell that his interest was piqued, even if he didn't move an inch. "And I've thought and thought, but I can't think of a way for you to control your own fin again. I'm sorry," I said, genuinely remorseful. "Looks like you're stuck with me, but for me to manipulate your fin, I have to be in the air with you."

He tossed his head and snorted. Why a saddle?

"I doubt it would be very comfortable for either of us to sit skin to skin," I explained. "Could you at least try it, before deciding you don't like it?"

Rolling his eyes, something he'd probably picked up from me, he reluctantly dragged himself over to me.

"Now, sit," I ordered, and he gave me an unimpressed look.

"If you want me to reach your back, you will sit."

He sat, if grudgingly. Smiling to myself, I draped the saddle over his back. He visibly flinched, but managed to stay still. "Thank you," I said softly, running the first strap through my fingers until I reached the end.

The saddle had two straps, both to go around his chest and in front of his front legs. It took some adjustment, and I thanked whichever god had given me the brainwave to make the straps extra long. He cringed away from every touch of the leather, but finally I got the saddle firmly attached.

"How is it?" I asked, pulling experimentally on the saddle. It shifted a little, but not much. "Too tight?"

He hesitantly shook his head from side to side, then looked at me expectantly. Shocked by the dragon who'd just shaken his head, I took a few moments to respond. "It—it's not too tight…?"

A nod, more confidently this time.

"Okay—oh, Thor—I have a dragon, who's trying to communicate with me?" I looked at him, still half believing he was just nodding and shaking his head at random. He nodded, eyes solemn.

"Okay—okay. I can—I can live with that. Now, let's get you in the air." I looked around the cove. "Do you remember what I did with the tail fin?"

The living tail fin rose in the air and slapped my head. "Yeah, yeah, I'll take better care of it from now on! But you distracted me last time!"

I slowly walked around the pond, Toothless hovering by my shoulder the whole time. Every single patch of grass looked the same!

Finally, I caught a glimpse of a fallen tree under the water. "Hey, wasn't that near where you crashed?" I asked, and he squinted at the wooden corpse, half obscured by the water. "And then we moved a little over… there!"

A brown diamond made of leather sat on the grass, drying in the meagre sun. I picked it up and tried opening and shutting it a few times. The hinges worked perfectly, opening and closing smoothly and fluidly. I raised an eyebrow at him. "Whaddya think?"

He sniffed the tail fin, getting a proper look at it for the first time. It made him sneeze. I couldn't help chuckling, and he glared at me.

"Give me a break!" He huffed and shoved his tail at me roughly. "You could ask nicely," I snarked, and he shook it impatiently in my face. "Fine, I'm on it, but you don't deserve this."

The buckles did up nicely, fitting snugly around his tail. Toothless crooned in appreciation before swinging round to look at me again. A head tilt and a questioning warble. What's next?

"Now, I attach this rope to the tail, and get on your back," I told him, then hastily added, "If you don't mind."

He grumbled a bit—a lot, actually—but eventually the rope stretched from his tail to my clenched fist as I perched on his back. It was a lot broader than the tail I'd hitchhiked on, and I felt extremely precarious when I couldn't hold on with my legs, like the slightest gust of wind would blow me away. Every time he shifted under me, my heart tried to merge with my mouth, creating an uncomfortable lump in my throat. The small bump on the front of the saddle suddenly seemed a lot smoother and smaller than when I'd crafted it.

"O—okay, let's take this gently," I said, taking a deep breath. "Fly over the lake, so that when—if—we fall, the water will cushion us."

He grunted crossly at my lack of confidence, but crouched and took off with a jerky leap. I yelped and clung tightly to the saddle with both hands. Thor, every wingbeat almost unseated me, jolting up and down wildly.

Enormous black wings rose up beside me, then beat down hard once. I panicked and yelped, clinging to the saddle tightly. We started to tilt sideways, but he managed to settle into a glide. Gliding was fine, until he yelped and we started to slide out of the air. I panicked and pulled the rope out sideways. A whole host of problems suddenly presented themselves. First, there was no way of adjusting the tail fin accurately—I could only pull and hope. Second, sticking my arm out far enough to keep the tail fin open meant I could only hold on with one hand. Third, the tail didn't just open and close, it tilted up and down at the same time.

I glanced back over my shoulder at the fin, trying to match it to his living one. My fin fluctuated wildly, never in the same position for more than a split second. I already knew this set up wouldn't work, but what could I do? We passed over the middle of the lake, quickly running out of soft water to fall into.

"Okay, this won't work." He grumbled in agreement. "Let's land, and I can try to think of something else."

Huffing in exasperation, but also in resignation, he started to tilt downwards. I pulled on the tail fin when it threatened to blow shut and massively over compensated. The tail fin snapped open, he turned left with a surprised roar, and I kept going straight. One mad rush of adrenaline and terror later, I was sopping wet again, coughing up water for the second time in two days.

I struggled toward the shore through water deeper than I was tall, my wet clothes pulling me down and draining my energy, and something bent down and lifted me by the scruff of my neck, gently setting me on ground that was rapidly turning to mud.

"What the—" I instinctively looked around for the random Viking who'd seen the hopeless heir almost drowning—again—and roughly rescued me.

There was nobody there. A shower of water hit me from the side, getting in my eyes, and I lurched away, blowing it out of my face. I forgot about the mud, and I found myself heading for the ground for at least the third time that day. I never reached it.

Something firm and thin caught my back and tipped me back onto my feet. I reached up to wipe water from my eyes, then looked around for whatever had done both the water and the catching. Green eyes met mine for a split second, and Toothless looked away, almost shyly.

"Thank you," I said, the small gestures almost the most meaningful thing anyone had ever done for me. "None of the villagers would have done that."

He crooned sadly and bent down, rubbing his cheek against my legs. The scales were smooth against my legs, as far as I could tell through the material of my sopping pants, and it felt strangely affectionate.

"Thanks, Toothless," I murmured, touched. My fingers unconsciously found his back, tracing the edges of his scales fondly. "Thanks, bud."

I'd heard Snotlout sometimes call Gustav 'bud' on his good days, when they seemed to slot together like two halves. Dad said he used to call Spitelout 'bud', back when they were inseparable youngsters who disobeyed every rule they could. Dad had matured, Spitelout hadn't, and they'd drifted apart. Gobber still called Dad 'bud' sometimes, but only when they thought they were alone. I knew 'bud' could be short for 'buddy', or it could mean 'brother'. I wasn't sure which way I meant it, but that was alright for now. I'd figure it out as we went along.

As if he knew the significance of the word, Toothless started to purr quietly, a low thrumming that shook my entire body, he was so close.

I smiled, happy and content even though I was dripping wet and starting to get cold. I glanced up at the sun—or where I thought the sun was—and sighed in relief. I had plenty of time to dry out before heading home, as long as I didn't get wet again.

I knelt down and started searching for usable sticks to build a fire. The ground was soaked, so I moved a few feet away, slightly nearer to the few trees that graced the edge of the cove. No one had ever scanned it for firewood before, so I quickly found plenty of suitable branches scattered across the ground. Toothless watched me with interest, occasionally dragging over branches that looked good to him. I was about to dismiss his offerings—what did an explosive plasma blast breathing reptile know about getting a steady fire to burn?—before I actually looked at what he'd brought and my eyes widened.

"Yeah, those are good," I said, masking my disbelief. Whenever I did something well for once, I hated it when someone acted as though they hadn't expected me to be able to do it. "A bit large… Could you break them up into lengths I can carry?"

He obliged, cracking them into pieces with powerful bites. Watching his teeth easily crunch through branches as thick as my arm as if they were bits of Gobber's soft bread, I should have been scared. I should have edged away. I should have noted it down somewhere to warn other Vikings. Instead, I scooted closer.

"Fascinating…" I didn't dare get too close for fear of getting a splinter in my eye, but I could see how powerful his jaw was. One snap, and the branches crumbled into two pieces. He built up quite a large pile of firewood by his feet, and I eventually remembered that there was more to starting a fire than watching a dragon chop firewood.

Starting with some small kindling, I assembled the basic pyramid shape all Vikings were taught to make when they were about three winters old, checking to see if the wind was blowing from any particular direction. The cove walls blocked almost all wind, so I decided it was ready to light. The flintstones in my pocket were wet from the water, but that wouldn't make it impossible to get a spark. Just difficult.

I bent down, my nose almost touching the wood, and hit the stones against each other. Nothing. I sighed, resigned to a long session of hitting rocks against each other for a good ten minutes. A black tail gently nudged me to the side.

I moved back into place, trying to find a good angle to hold the flintstones at. Toothless nudged me aside again.

"Uh, could you stop that?" I asked. "Please?"

He rolled his eyes at me again, and shot a firebolt at the fire. It was relatively gentle compared to the explosive shots that destroyed catapults, but it passed by less than an inch from my legs.

"Holy Odin!" I yelped and backed away hurriedly, my pants steaming. Toothless cheerfully pushed me towards the brightly burning fire, and I sat down in front of it with my legs drawn up to my chest. "Thanks, I guess…"