A/N:
Dragonrider's Fury, you may be onto something, but I dunno, leaving Hiccup and Toothless like this forever does sound fun. :P Oh, and you can thank Deadly-Bagel for the PDA skit.

Toothlessgolfer, I'm glad to see the change in Hiccup's and Toothless's behavior is coming across. We'll be getting even more of that here. Oh, and you're on the right track with the sky light.

Epclaymore, we're at least halfway done. I'm thinking, in a couple chapters, the stone gets lost or something, and Hiccup learns that Night Furies can live for a long time. Man, I just can't wait until I get to the part where I do some big time skips and Hiccup makes some sneaky appearances to various historical figures to make them do the right thing. My favorite is when he inspires Abraham Lincoln to change his stance on the American Civil War from being about the powers of State to a matter of slavery to prevent intervention from other countries. That clever little Night Fury.


Rebound

Many of the details of motherhood were already known by Astrid long before she even became pregnant. It wasn't like she was flying blind – which was something both she and her dragon had taken turns doing at times. There was the crying, and the cradling, and the cooing, and cleaning up the messes, and washing the rags to clean up the next mess. All of that was well and good.

However, nobody talked about the soreness. As Astrid held her just-nourished child to her shoulder, her arm supporting him also pressed against her tender skin, she used her other hand to gently pat his back to burp him.

The door to her home opened and a humming Valka came in with a smile on her face. "How's it going, my dear?" Valka asked.

Astrid straightened her tunic and gave an exaggerated groan. "I've been bitten by a Terror, kicked by a yak, flattened by a Gronckle, mauled by a Night Fury, but… this is unbearable! I swear he grows fangs when I'm feeding him!"

The mother-in-law tsked. "You've had him for only three days."

"Just kill me now!"

"I have good news, then," Valka said as she took the child from Astrid, who sank into a chair by the table with a groan and a shake of her arms. "I got your cousin to agree to help you out as a wet nurse. Her youngest is over two, after all, practically tearing meat off the bone."

Astrid stared in disbelief. "Thyri?! Last I checked, she was grumpy at me for having helped Hiccup overthrow our tradition of murdering dragons for sport, even though she herself rides one."

Valka casually waved it off. "Oh, I had a talk with her. Well, Cloudjumper and I had a talk with her Nadder, who ended up, shall we say, leaning on Thyri to agree. Yes, one might say her dragon was… nipping… at the bud to help the rider of a fellow Nadder."

Astrid flopped down over the table. "I worship you, Valka!"

"And in other news, Hiccup is back."

Astrid instantly sobered and straightened in her chair. "Any luck?" She didn't really hold out for much hope of an immediate solution.

Valka sighed. "They're as they were yesterday, but Gobber and Gothi are now fighting over who gets to examine that strange gemstone first."

"May the gods have mercy on Gobber because Gothi won't," Astrid said with a smile. "Is there anything new that we know?"

"Yes. Left on its pedestal in the cave, with the sun shining on it through a hole in the ceiling, the writings they saw on the walls said the metaphorical bucket would refill after time."

Astrid paused and stared at Valka, mulling that over. "How long?" She hoped it wouldn't be too long or Hiccup would take it hard on himself. He had already made it clear that, in his eyes, he was "letting down a goddess" with Astrid having to raise their child with a husband who could do little more than act as a guard dog… or guard dragon.

Valka shifted the child and avoided eye contact with Astrid. After a long pause, she apologetically said, "A hundred years."

Astrid's jaw dropped. Her fists clenched. "A… A hundred... years?! But by then he'd be–"

Valka solemnly nodded. Nothing needed to be said. Hiccup was forever a dragon for all it mattered. As a dragon, he would watch his child grow up, his wife grow old, and if a Night Fury could outlast a human, everyone he ever loved would die before his eyes.

Astrid knew without a doubt how he would take this.

"He needs me," she said. Immediately if not sooner, she added to herself.

"He's already looking into it," Valka said. "As a dragon, he's memorized every rune written on the walls of that chamber, whether he can read it or not, and he and the gang are looking through our tribe's library to see what they can piece together."

"No, that's not it," Astrid said. "I know my husband. He needs me." There was no doubt about that.

She held out her hands for her child.

Valka nodded. "I'll come with you."

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In recent years, before Stoick's unfortunate demise, Astrid had spent evenings with him and Hiccup. The chief delighted in telling embarrassing stories about Hiccup as he grew up, sharing laughs with Astrid as they pushed the limits of how red his face could get. When Astrid told Stoick about her first ride on a dragon after having discovered Toothless in the cove, Hiccup had engaged in a staring contest with the floor, but Stoick slapped his son on the shoulder and shouted, "Atta boy! I knew I'd raised a son who'd take the dragon by the horns instead of waiting for good fortune to come to him!"

Once, though, in a moment of somberness, the chief told about Hiccup's birth and those first few days. He spoke about how his knees turned to butter as he looked down at his child for the first time and held him in his hand. There was no doubt, even though his child was born early and small, he would kill for his child. He would die for his child.

He shared about the night Valka was snatched away during a dragon raid. The dragons had left, the village was on fire, the few remaining cattle were scattered abroad, and the dead were still being counted. Stoick had deep reservations about his actions that night, mainly the one decision that secured his child's safety and his wife's demise. That night, he realized that every time he saw his child, he would hear Valka crying out for help as she was flown off to her fate. Driven by grief and doubt, he held his child over the edge of a cliff and willed his hand to tip the the thing into the abyss below.

He couldn't, of course, and while he would afterwards talk about honor and the will of the gods, he confided in Hiccup and Astrid that there was only one thing that stilled his hand. Only this single thought, and absolutely nothing else, was sufficient to stop him from doing something he would have regretted for the rest of his life.

It was his child.

The night before Hiccup and Toothless had flown back to retrieve the strange gemstone that had changed them, when they were relaxing in the Great Hall, Astrid had studied Hiccup while he looked at their child through the eyes of a Night Fury. She could see how conflicted he felt, and she felt whispers of it when she touched him and could peek at the thoughts he was projecting – probably without realising it.

Dragons did not behave like humans. Their thoughts and behavior and standards were so different. They would never help a hatchling that was too weak to break out of its egg, and their way of teaching a young dragon to fly was to carry it high up and drop it with no intent of catching it should it fail.

A male dragon would not have the deep bond with his offspring that Stoick had, and Hiccup's body knew that it was not his offspring. His knees weren't turned to butter at the sight of his child, and his heart did not explode with love to touch and interact with the little thing in whatever ways a dragon could. He felt nothing, but he knew he should have felt something, and that bothered him deeply.

If there was any creature in Midgard who knew Hiccup best, it used to be a tie between Toothless and Gobber, but Astrid knew her husband better than he knew himself. He was a hopeless romantic at large, an idealist. A mind-numbing, gnawing frustration always arrived on the heels of a problem he could not fix. It was a silly habit of his, and he knew it, and Astrid loved him for it.

And he'd just learned that he would never be able to properly support his wife and child as only a man could. Ever.

The steps up to the Great Hall were numerous, and Astrid hastened up them, her child clutched tightly to her chest. Fortunately, It wasn't as hard as the last time with her strength returning every day. Valka shadowed her, as sprightly as ever, a goal of health and fitness in older matron years that Astrid vowed she would at least match.

One of the massive double doors was left open enough for Astrid to shimmy in, and she scurried towards the library.

Calling it a library was really a quaint anachronism according to traders from the mainland who would talk about large buildings with many rooms, all lined with tall shelves and crammed with tomes and books so high that ladders were sometimes needed. On Berk, it was more along the lines of a few rough-built shelves along a wall in a dark corner that had the footprints of only Fishlegs and a few others on the dusty ground.

Toothless was seated on a bench at a table near the shelves, hunched over a book. Hiccup was crouched behind him, neck stretched out so he could look at the pages over his rider's shoulder. He grunted in frustration as Toothless quickly flipped page after page, sometimes ripping them or tearing them from the bindings in his haste. They reached the end and Hiccup's nose sent it flying off the table to join a heap. Toothless took another from the stack on the end of the table and the process began anew.

Though Hiccup saw each page for only the briefest instant, Astrid knew that he could recall it at any time in the future to read, reread, and reflect upon. She also felt that it was a safe assumption that he probably could read as fast as they were tearing through the books.

However, one other thing she knew was that this was not right. This was not showing respect for the irreplaceable resources for the tribe. This certainly was not the Hiccup way of doing things.

"Hiccup," she called out as she approached them.

There was no sign of having been heard.

"Hiccup!"

Still, no acknowledgement of her presence save for Toothless flicking his eyes up to her for an instant before going back to the book in front of him. A black snout shoved it off to join the heap with a frustrated snort.

"Hiccup, look at me."

No response. Another book was pulled from the stack, the runes on it completely unrecognizable, and Toothless started to open it.

Astrid shifted her child to one arm and slammed her free hand against the wooden book cover, forcing it closed.

Two sets of green eyes locked onto hers.

"Firefly sad. Frustrate. Upset."

Astrid smiled at Toothless and nodded. "I know my husband well." Though Hiccup was keeping a calm outward composure, she knew he was furious and fuming within. Actually, as strange as it seemed, he was living up to his father's namesake with a face made of flint.

She shifted her gaze to Hiccup, and she didn't even need to touch him to hear the thoughts he might want to project to express himself, as she could sense the tension beneath the stiff exterior.

Last night, they had discussed their marriage situation. She had married a man, not a body, her soul bound to his. They had sworn an oath before the tribe and the gods that they would never betray each other's best interests or trust, and that commitment endured so long as they were both on Midgard.

It was the standard in Berk in any case. Once, a villager had begged Stoick to terminate his marriage, and Stoick's reply was to thrust a dagger into his hand and say, "We all heard your vow, and you know there's only one way out. Do it outside if you're that desperate. I don't want your blood staining the Great Hall."

The man was not that desperate.

Turning into a dragon would change a lot of the details, but it would not change the vows Hiccup and Astrid made to each other. Nothing ever would. They would find a way to make it work.

Toothless started to open the book, but Astrid slammed it shut again. "Toothless, you're not helping. Can you let us talk alone for a little bit?"

Toothless shifted uneasily in his seat. "Not smart."

Astrid smiled as she used her free hand to pick up one end of the table and pulled it back to widen the space between Toothless and the books, then sat down in front of him. "I'll be the judge of that."

Hiccup whined plantitively and eyed the books still on the stack.

Astrid simply shook her head. "Not now, Hiccup. This is not the proper way and you know it. Look at what you're doing to Toothless, taking advantage of his loyalty to you. Look at how harried he is by your demands. His eyes are bloodshot for Thor's sake!" She gestured to the books in the heap. "And this is not how a chief treats our tribal resources."

"Not help," Toothless said as he reached for a book, but Astrid smacked it away.

Hiccup whined at that, but Astrid just rolled her eyes. "C'mon, Hiccup, we're gonna organize these books again and go for a walk. You're a wreck, and it shows, and nothing good can come when you can't even think straight."

Hiccup whined insistently and Toothless reached for a book, but Astrid grabbed his arm just below the shoulder and shoved hard, sending him stumbling off the bench to his feet. Hiccup growled at that, but Astrid said, "Calm down, Hiccup. Get a grip on yourself!"

Toothless rushed forward, but Astrid put a foot to his stomach from her seated position and pushed, sending him stumbling backwards to trip over his own feet.

Hiccup growled louder at that, but Astrid grabbed the bridge of his nose and ground out, "I! Said! Calm! Dow–"

Something happened. The first thing she realized was that her arms were extended above her head, her child clutched in her hands out of harm's way. Her next realization was that she was on her back with pain flaring from the back of her head, pinned under the paw of a snarling Night Fury, his weight pressing her into the table and driving the breath from her lungs. It was too late when she realized that there was a very good reason that the slit-pupiled stare from above turned her veins to ice.

Off to the side, she saw Valka move, and a loud smack sounded out as the staff impacted the snout. Hiccup dug his claws into the table and leaped sideways at her, overturning the table in the process, and Astrid instinctively pulled her child in close and landed in a crouch as the table beneath her crashed onto its side. She straightened to see Hiccup crouched low, hissing and snarling, rapidly flicking his eyes between her and Valka.

The way he snarled and whined, claws constantly scraping at the stone on which he stood, It was clear that there was an intense war being waged behind his eyes between the reservations of the peaceful Hiccup and the explosively violent rage of a Night Fury.

Astrid gestured with a tilt of her head, hands preoccupied with sheltering her child. "Out. Forest. Now!"

Instantly, Hiccup bolted off, shrieking and roaring. He shot headlong into the closed doors, crumpled into a heap, then a quick swipe of the paw and flick of the handle between his teeth allowed him to rush out.

########


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Toothless had to give Astrid some credit. Though she tipped Firefly over the threshold, she quickly recognized her error afterwards. It was her own fault for dealing with the situation the way she did, in a way that was so Astrid, but with Firefly gone, she had the meekness and presence of mind to ask Toothless what she did wrong, why it was wrong, and what signs she should have noticed.

Of course, Toothless knew exactly what had happened. Firefly felt as if he had greatly wronged his dragon and his mate, that it was all his fault, and he would not be convinced otherwise – he was stubborn like that. The dragon wanted to take action on the strong feelings boiling inside, and the only peaceful way to do so was to allow him to chase after knowledge in those dusty bits of hides the land-striders called "books". While he wasn't sure if they would find anything useful, it did keep Firefly occupied, and Toothless could feel the rage in his dragon eventually starting to fade, but Astrid sure disrupted that in no time at all.

It was all behind him, now. Astrid was unharmed save a bump on the back of the head from the pounce. She had groaned, "Whether it's you or Hiccup in that body, it's always the back of the head." Firefly was rampaging through the forest, probably sprinting up and down trees, chasing and eating every critter he saw, tearing off branches and shredding trunks. It was something Toothless had done on occasion when he wanted to knead his claws through someone's insides but he couldn't bring himself to deny his Firefly a peaceful resolution to a heated situation.

It would be a while until Firefly would have completely worked out his rage, and he would no doubt come back only when he was so thoroughly exhausted that he could barely drag himself back. So, Toothless decided to make good use of the time by catching up on some desperately needed sleep, and there would be no better place than Firefly's wooden cave – or "house" as the land-striders called it.

Back when he was a dragon, he had watched his rider sleep plenty of times, so he knew how to properly sleep as a land-strider. While the riders didn't have a "bed" to sleep on like other land-striders – so that their dragons could curl up with them – they did have hairy hides to hide under to keep warm when a dragon wasn't available. It was just one more way in which land-striders made everything complicated, even something as simple as sleeping.

He flopped down, pulled a hide over himself, and curled up with an arm tucked under his head. He was surprised at how tired he really was because his next conscious thought was a groggy irritation at having woken up. He just had a very intense dream where he was… He had… There was a… Something happened and…

He blinked in surprise at how his amazing land-strider mind so effortlessly lost its grip on whatever he was dreaming of only a moment ago. The more he tried to hold onto the details of his dream the more they inevitably slipped away.

He groaned and tried to go back to sleep, but the loud pounding on the door probably would not stop until the land-strider on the other side was dealt with in some way. So, he stretched and stumbled to his feet to stumble towards the door.

"Hello, is anyone in there?" the land-strider outside shouted through the door. It took Toothless a moment to place that voice, as it was the first time he heard it with land-strider ears, but that was definitely Cougar. His dragon named him that because he was arrogant and boastful, but he sometimes displayed a certain brilliance in a fight, sometimes because his opponents could be caught by surprise when he did something no sane person would ever consider.

Cougar pounded on the door again. "Hey, it's me, Snotlout. Ya know, the great Snotster? Valka? Hiccup? Toothless?"

Toothless lifted the latch and pushed the door open. He blinked at the sunlight to see–

A demon.

A monster.

He saw the most miserable creature that tormented him for his whole life.

"Oops, did I step on you?" the monster sneered.

Toothless scrambled up and ran away, but something snared his legs and he fell. "Only cowards run."

Fingers roughly grabbed his hair, tearing a pained scream from his throat if not his hair from his head. "C'mon, fight back!"

His head was pressed against a wall and a fist impacted his temple, sending him to the ground with the world spinning around.

"Pathetic!"

An impact to the soft belly could be felt, knocking the air out of him.

"That's what you get for being a weakling!"

A rib was broken by another hit.

"Runt!"

The monster grabbed a handful of his tunic and lifted him up to head-butt his nose. Toothless tasted blood.

"Loser!"

A boot pressed his cheek into the mud, and he begged for mercy. His pleas were unheeded.

"Useless!"

Something snapped in Toothless. No more running! No more hiding! Blood for blood!

He leaped at his adversary with the intent to kill. An arm warded him off, but he managed to bite down on said arm. However, something slammed into the side of his head and he fell to his knees, clutching his throbbing head.

As he struggled to his feet, panting, he suddenly stopped, as had the monster. No, not a monster. It was only Cougar. Well, Snotlout, if one went by his land-strider name, which Toothless suddenly realized he had done for everyone except his precious Firefly.

"Bloody Hel!" Snotlout shouted at him as he rubbed at the trickling bite mark and shook his arm out. "I was gonna ask if what I had heard about you and Hiccup was true, but I suppose you just answered that for me."

Toothless thought about what just happened. It was… a dream? But he was awake. A waking dream?

It was Firefly's memories! Toothless groaned at the realization. He knew that Snotlout had tormented Firefly in his earlier years, but Firefly didn't hold a grudge, so Toothless hadn't torn Snotlout to shreds back when he was a dragon. It made no sense that seeing Snotlout could cause him to suddenly experience the beatings Firefly had endured, but then again, land-striders were very strange creatures.

"Is that really Toothless in there? And what was that for?!" Snotlout demanded.

Toothless pointed at Snotlout. "You hurt Firefly! He not can fight for self! You show dominance and still hurt him more after! You fend off but not let flee!"

Snotlout crossed his arms. "Are… you… talking about before Hiccup found you? The hazings me and the others would give him?"

Toothless could only stand and stare. He knew he wasn't thinking clearly, so he wasn't entirely making sense, and had no expectation of being understood. However, Snotlout had somehow made the right leap in logic.

"You understand?" Toothless asked uncertainly.

"Of course I do," Snotlout said. "Have you ever met my father? I was raised speaking shout-ese!" He rolled his eyes. "But really, Tooth? Our village was under siege by fire-spewing, fang-chomping dragons. We had no room at all for weaklings, especially weaklings who thought they could get away with inventing stuff that was causing even more damage than you dragons. Things changed, Hiccup turned out to be alright, but can you really blame me for putting him in his place at the time?"

"You bad!" Toothless screeched.

Snotlout rolled his eyes. "I'm bad? Tell me, Mr. former Night Fury, while I was doing these things you didn't approve of, what were you doing, huh? Where were you?"

Snotlout was right. Toothless shrunk inward. He was a thrall to the demonic queen at the time, mindlessly obeying her every whim.

Fly here! Shoot fire at that! Kill that land-strider! Return to me! Submit!

Fly! Fight! Submit!

Fly! Fight! Submit!

Toothless let out a tense sigh. Firefly could have easily been one of the black dragon's victims were he ever seen as a threat.

"Besides," Snotlout said, throwing his arms out, "it's me, Snotlout. Remember? Hiccup's hero? I saved his arse on Outcast island. You helped." He pointed to the bite mark on his arm, which had already stopped bleeding. "And what was this supposed to do, huh?"

Slowly, almost timidly, Toothless said, "I see you hurt Firefly. Dream but not dream, not sleep but see things." He hung his head. "I want kill."

He wasn't at all prepared for Snotlout's response to that. The land-strider started laughing, and it grew in intensity until he fell to his knees and was eventually rolling on the ground, roaring in mirth. Eventually, he subsided to giggling as Toothless glared down at him.

He rolled up to his feet and pointed to the bite mark. "This was your attempt to kill me?"

Toothless felt pressure in his face and he was worried that it was turning red.

"This is not an attempt to kill," Snotlout said. "This is you sticking your head out and saying, 'please chop it off while I am completely defenseless!'"

"If I dragon, you dead," Toothless insisted. "I not land-strider long."

It was something that had been gnawing on him, but he felt a strong flare of frustration at his inability to fight. It wasn't just that everything land-striders did for survival was unfathomably complicated, from eating to answering nature's call, but with no fire, no wings, no scales, and blunt teeth and claws, he couldn't help but feel frail and helpless.

Snotlout nodded. "Hmm, I see. You're as much a fighter as Fishlegs is boring, but you're stuck in this scrawny little body."

"Yes!" Toothless exclaimed, excited that someone actually understood his frustration. He then realized the insult to his Firefly and snarled– launching into a coughing fit as a result. Land-striders couldn't even snarl properly. "Rrrrrr! I not even feel rage when mad!"

"Of course not!" Snotlout threw his arms out. "This is probably as close as you'll ever get to a whistling kettle, but you're in the body of a man whose definition of anger is shouting, 'Stop, or I'll get even more frustrated with you!'" He snickered at some thought. "I bet Hiccup can really do some damage now that he's in your body, not that he ever would. I've seen you when you're good and mad. Hopefully Astrid doesn't do something stupid… and…"

He drifted off and grinned when Toothless started scratching the back of his neck and toeing the ground.

"Is she alive?" Snotlout asked.

Toothless nodded.

Snotlout snorted. "Typical Astrid. I still don't get what she sees in Hiccup. She needs someone who can speak her language." He slapped one heavy hand against the other in demonstration. "She's a fierce warrior, it hurts to watch her waste away with that scrawny–"

"RAAAAAAA!" Toothless cut him off with a leap forward, claws outstretched. Snotlout grabbed an arm with a painful twist, and when Toothless tried to bite, fingers wrapped around his neck and slammed him against a wall to crumple to the ground.

Snotlout groaned and held his forehead in dismay as Toothless scrambled to stand again, hacking for breath. "This just ain't right, seeing you like this, Tooth. It's painful to watch. Look, let's try this." He held up a hand, palm out. "Hit me."

Toothless stared at the hand, perplexed. Every other land-strider had a hard time accepting that it was really Toothless inside this lanky body, and when they did finally come to believe it, they always looked at Toothless as if he was an amusing oddity. However, Snotlout was different. His eyes held a sparkle of understanding for the brawler he was addressing and a certain respect for someone who was known to never back down from a fight.

"C'mon, before I die of old age," Snotlout said. "Only way to learn is to start throwing punches."

Toothless recognized this as something land-striders did to train their young. It seemed simple enough, and he genuinely appreciated that this was the first time a land-strider wanted to show him how to fight in a land-strider body. And Snotlout was literally asking for it. He curled his fingers into a fist, as he had seen other land-striders do in the past, and threw his hand forward.

"Owwwwww!" he howled in pain that shot through the base of his fingers. He flexed his fingers and inspected them. Nothing seemed to be broken, but that sure did hurt!

"Good lesson to learn before we have you hitting trees," Snotlout said with a grin. "Thumb on the outside, keep your hand aligned with your wrist. Yeah, that's it. Hit with those knuckles down there, not the ones further up." He held a hand out again. "Now, hit me."

Toothless snarled as he threw his fist forward. The impact felt a lot more satisfying and a lot less painful.

"Good!" Snotlout crowed. "Again!"

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Hiccup stood shakily and panted as he surveyed the damage. Shredded bark and branches were strewn about. The forest floor was littered with kindling. His body burned from exhaustion.

A small tree, victim to Hiccup learning about his fire, suddenly gave up and fell over with a loud groan to smash into the ground in front of him. It left a silence broken only by the crackles of a few small fires, as if the forest itself was wary of invoking his temper.

He recalled having chased some squirrels and rabbits, continuing pursuit long after any reasonable carnivore would have given up. It wasn't the meat he was after, though he did give into the instincts to crunch down on them and swallow. The main point was to thoroughly drive out the blinding rage that had taken hold of him, to work himself to the point where he could barely stand, which felt oddly satisfying and indescribably fulfilling.

This should be enough.

I hope.

With a heroic effort, he moved his stiff legs to pat out the flames before walking towards the village, and as he neared the threshold, he felt around with his sensor lobes. As expected, his amazing senses could discern a vast array of information that would overwhelm his human mind, but he could pick out the general direction of Astrid's mental hum from the pathway between the Great Hall and their home, exuding a mix of anxiety and relief. Their child was upset at having had his sleep disrupted by something, but he quickly settled down.

Astrid caught her first sight of Hiccup as she neared the door to their home, and she stopped to stare. Hiccup scrunched inward on himself and whined, frozen in place, until Astrid flicked her head to gesture to follow.

They both froze, though, when they heard a thud from around the corner and Snotlout saying, "You were doing good until you kicked. Never kick. Now, get up and come at me again."

Toothless' voice drifted over. "Why no kick?"

"Feel that pain in the back of your leg? If you actually put any effort behind the kick, especially if you miss, imagine that pain but a hundred times worse, and now your leg is dangling like a worm on a hook and all you can do is flop on the ground like a fish. That's why you don't kick."

Astrid and Hiccup rounded the corner to see Toothless picking himself back up and raising his fists to face Snotlout, who was doing the same. Both were grinning, and Hiccup sensed a carefree exhilaration that wafted out from their mental hums.

"What…" Astrid started to ask, but words failed her.

Snotlout saw them and held a hand up to Toothless. "Hic, looks like you finally started working out and put on some muscle." He sniggered at his own joke while Hiccup rolled his eyes. "And Astrid, you look… different."

Astrid rolled her eyes and hefted her son. "These things happen."

"No, no, I mean… besides that…" Snotlout scratched his head, caught between arousal and envy.

"I'm up here, Snotlout."

Snotlout flicked his eyes at Astrid's. "Alright, I get it. And no need to growl at me, Hic."

Hiccup hadn't realized he was growling.

Snotlout casually leaned against the wall and crossed his arms across his chest, trying his best to hide the fact that he was tensing his muscles as much as possible. "Anyway, Astrid, if things go South between–" he stopped when Astrid started growling too.

Snotlout scratched the back of his neck and gave Toothless a slap on the shoulder. "C'mon, T, I'll show you how to put some meat on those bones."

As they walked off, Toothless said, "Remember when land-strider going to stab you in back, and I–" he tucked his head down and charged forward.

Snotlout ran ahead to catch up. "Yeah, head-butt. I'll teach you that properly or you'll just break your neck."

Hiccup stared after the departing pair, completely dumbstruck. Toothless had always been cold around Snotlout for how he treated Hiccup in their youths, though Hiccup had revealed next to nothing about that. It was surprising to see Toothless suddenly warmed up to Snotlout. Maybe it was simply that fighting spirit being glad to find an outlet.

Astrid went inside, and Hiccup fell in behind her. He still hasn't apologized, though he could tell that she was not angry at him. Well, she was certainly shaken, but there was something to the passive projections she was shedding that implied some sort of understanding.

Still, as he stepped inside, Hiccup rose up on his hind legs, grabbed the blade of Stoick's old sword that was mounted over the door with his toothless gums, and lowered himself to roll onto his back with his neck stretched out and his eyes closed. The sword handle was sticking straight up out of his maw with the flat of the blade pressed against his tongue, leaving his fate in Astrid's hands. She could grab the handle and twist as she pulled it out to slice the gums, or she could thrust it forward to take his life. It was the Viking way to make amends, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. He didn't kill her, but he really did not want to think about what would have happened if Valka wasn't so quick to smack his snout and divert his enraged attention. Her life was in his hands – claws, whatever – and he felt it only fair to return the favor.

Even with his eyes closed, he could sense that Astrid saw all of this. He could feel the flare of annoyance from their child as he was gently placed in his crib, which quickly transitioned to peaceful sleep. Finally, he could hear footsteps approaching. There was a long silence as she stared down at him, but the more she held her peace, the louder her passive hum made it clear that she wasn't really angry at him.

Astrid sighed. "It's just not the same when you can practically read my mind, but you've always been romantically dramatic." She pulled the blade straight out, careful not to harm him, and mounted it above the door again.

Hiccup let out a relaxed sigh, which came out as a guttural groan, but he remained motionless, stretched out on his back.

Astrid sat on the base of his neck, her light weight not uncomfortable at all, and reached forward to casually rub his chin. "So?" she calmly queried.

{I'm sorry.} He poured out the deep pit of shame and regret he felt for the close call, but that didn't feel like it did any justice.

"I know." She sighed. "You felt like this situation is all your fault, and that it's up to you to fix it, and nothing could be right in this world until that happened."

Hiccup warbled his assent.

"Against any application of common sense, you felt like everyone was disappointed in you and that you had to prove something to me, that you were one invention, one discovery, one epiphany away from making everything right again."

Another warble.

"You never stopped to ask yourself, 'Maybe I should ask Astrid what she thinks about this before I fly off the handle? Maybe, for all I know, she likes me better as a dragon?'"

Hiccup snorted at that. {You do realize I can literally smell a lie, right?}

Astrid thumped a hand on him. "Spoilsport. My point is that you were so focused on the one thing that mattered to you that you shut out everyone else. You refused to see the forest for the trees and instead handled this in a way that was so… so… Hiccup."

{Except the dragon responded in a way I should have anticipated, and I almost killed you and our child.}

Astrid shrugged. "It's past. Toothless told me how much easier it is for him to control himself, to let a perceived insult go without getting his feathers all ruffled up." Hiccup snorted. "Or scales, whatever. Point is, hearing that from a dragon who took it upon himself, that one time you got a fever, to roam the village and nip at anyone who didn't show enough sympathy… Well, he raised a good point. The reverse has happened to you."

Hiccup whined at that. {Being in a dragon's body justifies nothing!}

Astrid shook her head. "We work with what we got. Live and learn since we have the opportunity for both. Now, could it happen again?"

Hiccup thought back to earlier. When Astrid entered the Great Hall, he was desperately fighting to stay calm. He needed answers, and the books might have had them, and he really wanted to dig his claws into something soft when Astrid interfered. She was right, of course, about everything. Tearing through the library like that was unnecessary and foolish. He had felt the heat building up within, but his sudden outburst caught him by surprise.

Suddenly, he had his answer.

{I know what signs I ignored. I felt the rage building, but I didn't recognize it at the time.}

"So you can just tear up a tree or whatnot. Good. We'll have to test out your snapping reflex sometime later." She stopped rubbing his neck and shifted around to sit on his belly, facing his tail. "Your turn," she casually said. "My ax weighs more, but holding our little guy all the time is killing me."

Hiccup thought about that, clueless about what she wanted, until she started to rub her back against one of his paws that was limply held above him. He warbled as he clumsily put his paws to work to give his wife a back rub, which she leaned into.

"So, what do we know? Spill it all."

{I'm stuck like this for a hundred years. The metaphorical bucket has been emptied. If the stone is left on its pedestal, the bucket would refill in a hundred years, and by then, it would be too late to change back because my body would be dead.} He whined. {And so would you, and our child, and everyone I know. I can't see myself wanting to live even if this body could go on a long time, which is something we don't know.}

Astrid gave a hard slap to his belly that he could sense had hurt her hand more than him. "Hey! Let's not descend into depression so soon. We'll figure something out. What else do we know?"

{The writings say that 'sky light' refills the metaphorical bucket. The sun shone down on the stone through a hole in the cavern ceiling.}

"Mmmmm," Astrid moaned as Hiccup worked his way to her shoulders, allowing her leaning and twisting to control the pressure since he felt nothing through the pads of his paws. "But we can't just put it back and hope nobody takes it. The word's out that the cave isn't all that cursed anymore and delvers will move in."

{We could leave it in the sun.}

Astrid hummed in thought for a while. "Ya. Build something to hold it on the roof of our home and hope nobody steals it while we're out. What about moon and star light?"

{It is cold whereas the sun is warm. I doubt it would make much difference since it has already been exposed to the night lights as long as it was in that cave.}

"Toss it in a fire to heat it up? Oh!" Astrid snapped with sudden vigor. "The forge!"

{But what if that destroys the stone? How can we know we're not doing more harm than good? Maybe the writings mentioned sky light specifically to warn us away from burning it?"

"Hmmm," Astrid hummed in thought, which gave way to a moan as she leaned her right shoulder into Hiccup's paw. "We could refill the bucket the same way we cook a whole boar. Dig a pit, get a nice hot bed of coals, then a layer of sand, and the stone buried in more sand? It would be a more gentle heat, and if it can cook a boar to perfection, it must be hotter than the sun."

Hiccup groaned. {I just don't know, and everything entails risk. Hopefully Gobber and Gothi can figure something out, and we still have some writings in the cave in French, Latin, and Greek. We'll have traders and convoys coming in from the mainland soon, and I'm sure we can find a translator and some books among them.}

The baby stirred and started to cry again. Astrid stood and took a step back to give Hiccup a frown and a dramatic groan. "He wants to feed again," she rubbed at the tender skin on her chest, "and I'm already so sore. Help."

{I'm a male, and a reptile at that.}

Astrid snorted as she walked to the crib. "Useless reptile." She couldn't hide the lilt in her voice, though, as she said it with love.

Hiccup rolled to all fours and padded over. At least he could support the child's weight and be there for his wife, and that made him feel a little happier.

Every little bit helped.