Hiccup has never been more thankful that she learned how to sew. In earlier years she despised anything that was considered a woman's job. Her father's constant praise of Arne, his constant deflection when it came to talking about her or her mother, really, the man couldn't even hold a decent conversation with her. He always wanted to talk about things that did not apply to her, it was clear that her father had wanted a son. So she had tried to be that for a while, but the need to know things outweighed the need to be what her father wanted.

So she learned how to sew and she was happy she had, otherwise, making the tail for the dragon would have been very difficult. Gobber's words hit something, a piece of information she had forgotten about.

"A downed dragon is a dead dragon."

Hiccup didn't know why she had forgotten about that tidbit of information. She had heard Gobber's stories time and time again, the time she spent at the forge gave him the time to do so. Gobber was like her father in a way, he didn't really know how to connect with her, but he at least tried. She had heard his stories about losing his limbs a lot of times, and the stories kept changing.

But if Gobber had one thing going for him, it was that he did not care who you were or what you did, he would teach you what he knew all the same. Hiccup was on her way to becoming a master smith thanks to Gobber.

She had drawn out her blueprints for the tail and couldn't help but wonder what he would think. She was using the skill he thought her to help a dragon, something he killed when given the chance. Maybe he would be confused, angry, maybe he would give up on her like so many others already have.

The thought made her pause, she had the leather pulled halfway up the metal skeleton of the tail. She looked down at her piece of work. It was an amazing accomplishment, Hiccup liked to think that Gobber would be proud, but at the end it didn't matter. She chose a side and she was keeping to it.

Hiccup pulled the leather the rest of the way up after a minute of pause. She spread out the tail and compared it to her drawing, it was almost identical. She collapsed the tail and sighed. No turning back now.

"Hey, Toothless," Hiccup called as she entered the cove, she let the heavy sack of fish fall from her shoulder, "I hope you're hungry."

She pushed the sack over, making the fish spill on the ground. Getting the fish was easy, she had gotten up before anyone else and had snuck into the docks where the fresh fish was kept, and she had borrowed a sack of the fish.

"Okay, that's disgusting," she said to herself, "Uh... we've got some salmon, some nice Icelandic cod, and a whole smoked eel," she told the dragon as he nosed at the slimy fish.

When he smelled the eel Toothless roared in fear and jumped back from the pile of fish. Hiccup startled at the change of mood from the Night Fury, she almost dropped the prosthetic tail she was holding. She quickly figured out what was wrong and took the smoked eel out of the pile.

"No, no, no, no! It's okay," she reassured him as she threw the eel aside, "Yeah, I don't really like eel much either," she mumbled and wiped the slime off of her fingers.

Toothless dug into the fish after the eel was gone. Hiccup took the moment and snuck around the dragon to his tail. She kneeled next to his tail and laid the prosthetic next to his tail.

"Okay. That's it. That's it, just stick with good stuff. And don't you mind me. I'll just be back here... minding my own business," she mumbled.

When the tail moved exactly out of her way, she thought the Night Fury had noticed what she was trying to do. But the dragon was still unaware, the tail moving out of her way was just a coincidence. A coincidence that annoyed her enough for her to sit on the offending limb.

That was a mistake on her part. She had turned her back to Toothless and didn't see him start spreading his wings, reading for take-off.

"It's okay. Okay... okay... There. That's not too bad. It works," Hiccup mumbled to herself as she looked at the spread out tail. Her made prosthetic was almost perfect, it was smaller than the flesh one, but considering she had made it out of memory it was as good as it could be.

Hiccup lurched forward as Toothless took off into the air. She clutched the dragon's tail with her legs and arms, holding on for dear life.

"Whoa! No! No! No!" she yelled in fear.

Hiccup quickly glanced at the dragon's head and saw that they were heading towards the rock wall. She leaned to the side, changing their flight path. She manually opened the prosthetic tail and managed to save them from crashing to the ground.

"OH, MY- IT'S WORKING! YES! YES, I DID IT!" Hiccup cheered.

Her voice gained Toothless' attention. The Nigh Fury threw the girl off of his tail, into the water below. Hiccup shouted as she reached the water, a moment of panic passed as she figured out what happened. After that it didn't take long for her to reach the surface.

"Yeah!" she cheered as she got out of the water.

She laughed as she saw the Nigh Fury in the water next to her. The dragon sneezed and splashed her for laughing, only making her laugh harder. She was soaking wet, out of breath but happier than she had been in a long time.

'I chose well,' Hiccup thought to herself.

She waded through the water onto the shore, Toothless following her. She took off her vest and laid it on the ground, sitting next to it. Hiccup motioned for the dragon to approach her.

"This is a prosthetic," she explained when the dragon laid his tail in her lap without being asked.

Toothless sniffed at the contraption and then looked at the girl with curiosity. The dragon crooned as she removed the fake fin from his tail. She laid the tail next to her vest so it could dry as well, she sighed and laid on the ground, enjoying the warm sun.

[If you have any theories on where I'll take this, I would be happy to hear them!]