The Outcast and The Night Fury

Chapter Eight

I blinked, staring at Toothless in open-mouthed amazement. Then I slowly shook my head. I was imagining things. Or could I possibly still be asleep and dreaming? I pinched my arm, hard.

"Okay, I'm awake," I muttered to myself. "But I've got to be hallucinating."

Another thought occurred to me and I glared. "Sly, are you playing some kind of trick? What are you doing? Playing some audio or something?"

But even as I said it, I realized that Sly arranging this as a practical joke was pretty near impossible. He didn't even know about Toothless. And did I really think that Toothless would move his lips in perfect synchronization with the words? Toothless would never agree to help Sly trick me.

But that meant I was completely stupid, or delusional, or…

"Hicca? Okay?" Toothless stepped close and watched me in concern.

"Um, sure, bud." I swallowed hard and studied him. "Are you…talking?"

Toothless actually rolled his eyes. "Yes."

My legs felt a little weak and I decided that maybe I should sit down. So I sank down on the rug and leaned back against my bed while Toothless lay, Sphinx-like, beside me.

I looked at him. "But how? How can you speak?"

Toothless seemed to struggle with the words. "When I was hatchling, woman cared for me. She spoke often. I learned words from her. When I met you, I wanted try to speak too."

Well, maybe that helped to answer one question, but a dozen more flooded my mind.

"So what happened to that woman? Why was she taking care of you? Do you still live with her, or did you?"

Toothless shook his head. "Too much, Hicca."

I nodded. "Okay, sorry. But did you live with her still? Do you have another home?"

I had to ask, though I was terrified of the answer. I was so accustomed to thinking of Toothless as my friend, that it was unbearable to think he might have someone else he cared for more, that he might want to go back to.

But Toothless shook his head again. "No, not since big enough to care for self. Woman worked at place for dragons. Maybe like your Center? She cared for me because dam and sire gone, but she stop when I got bigger. One day I flew far, got lost. I've been alone long time." He nuzzled my cheek. "Lonely before I met you."

Something in my heart eased and I reached to hold him, laying my head next to his. "Me too, bud. I was really, really lonely before you."

After a few minutes, I sat back with a little laugh. "Wow, you can talk, really talk. This is amazing, Toothless. Can other dragons talk too?"

He considered. "Never heard other dragons speak human words, but I not know many dragons. I think maybe some can understand humans if around them enough."

"Is there a dragon language?"

Toothless nodded. "Yes, several. But common language all dragons learn is named Dragonese."

I caught my breath. "Could you teach me to speak Dragonese?"

He tilted his head to the side. "Maybe."

"How would you say our names in Dragonese? Toothless and Hiccup?"

"Hic-cup, Hic-cup," Toothless repeated my name to himself a couple of times, emphasizing the last syllable. He beamed at me. "Got it now, Hiccup."

He chirped and warbled. "That is 'Toothless' in Dragonese."

I tried to copy him, but he and I both ended up laughing at my poor attempts.

"Well, this is going to take a while, isn't it?" I finally said. "We'll have to try again later. I've got to go down for breakfast or the Holts will come up to check on me. Wait here and I'll bring you some food afterwards."

"Already eat. I fly now, so can catch own food," Toothless said.

"Oh, that's good, I guess. Just be careful and watch out for poachers," I cautioned him. "Will you still wait here for me?"

"Yes. I will wait here." Toothless yawned and laid down, stretching out on his side.

"I'll be back soon," I promised as I climbed to my feet and headed for the door.

After a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs, grapefruit, and sausage, I was back upstairs with Toothless.

"Hey bud, I know you think I'm paranoid, but I'm really worried about you being alone in the cove when there could be poachers nearby," I told him.

"What's 'paranoid'?" Toothless interrupted.

"It means being suspicious of everything, especially if there's not a real reason to be," I explained.

"Like flying over ocean and fearing a Fathomfin will leap out to eat you?" Toothless asked.

'Um, yeah, I guess. But anyway, you can't stay in my room because Mr. or Mrs. Holt might come in to clean, but I was thinking maybe you could wait for me in the old stables while I'm at the Center," I began.

"Hic-cup," Toothless grumbled.

"I know, I know, I'm being silly, but I really am worried about you, bud. Couldn't you please just hang out in the stables while I'm gone, and then when I come home we could go to the cove or anywhere you want," I pleaded.

Toothless sighed. "Where is stable?"

We snuck out of the house and down the pebbled path to the carriage house and stables beyond. Apparently my ancestors had a fair number of horses because there are three brick and stone buildings which comprise the stables, the big main stable where there are a dozen stalls, and then two smaller ones, with four stalls each.

Toothless was curious so I explained as we went. "They used to keep horses here. Old Mr. Madsen—he's the groundskeeper—has all his equipment in the bigger stable so we'll have to use one of the smaller ones. Mr. Madsen said that one of the small stables was a foaling barn where the mares and foals could be away from all the noise and crowd, and the other small stable was where they kept sick horses in quarantine. That just means they kept the sick horses away from the healthy ones."

Toothless stopped. "Sick? I not want to be sick."

"No, I would never put you where you could get sick," I reassured him. "That was a long time ago, and these stables are cleaned out every year anyway, so there are no more germs that could make you sick. But here, you can stay in the old foaling barn instead if you want."

I opened one of the wide double doors and we went inside. I had brought some blankets and I spread them out in one of the back stalls. "No one comes in here except when Mr. Madsen cleans and he already did that back in the spring, so you should be fine. And I'll unlatch the back doors so you can push them open if you need to go outside."

Toothless curled up on the blankets and I knelt beside him. "I know this isn't nearly as nice as the cove, and that you're only doing this for me. Thank you, Toothless. It really does mean a lot to me, to know that you're safe here."

He nuzzled me. "Hiccup a good friend. I love you."

I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him hard. "I love you, too, Toothless."

Reluctantly I stood up. "I have to go now or I'll be late. But I'll be back in three hours. And I think the harness is fixed so maybe we could fly this afternoon."

Toothless barked happily and we grinned at each other. Then I unlatched the back doors to the stable and left.

As soon as I reached the Wildlife Center, Sven and Phlegma divided us all up again. Sven took Sly with him this time, and Phlegma had Ruffnut and Tuffnut manning the desks in the gift shop and office.

I thought it was foolishly brave of her to leave them unsupervised like that.

Fishlegs was assigned to doing some chores outside; I'm not sure exactly what because just before that, Phlegma told Astrid and me that she was going to show us how to wrap bandages and make splints. Then I was torn between still feeling embarrassed about Sly pushing me into the dragon pen and being starstruck at how pretty Astrid looked. Her golden hair was in two thick braids and she wore a light blue tracksuit that matched her eyes.

She was good at bandaging and splinting too. Phlegma demonstrated a few times and then told me to hold out my arm while Astrid bandaged it. Her fingers brushed against my hand and for a second, I actually thought I might faint. My heart hammered in my chest and I could scarcely breathe.

But Astrid was cool and professional. She held a couple of flat depressor sticks on either side of my arm and quickly wrapped long strips of gauze around it and easily secured the bandage with medical tape.

"That's very good, Astrid," Phlegma approved.

Astrid smiled at her. "Thanks. My mom made us all learn first aid when she started working as the emergency dispatcher. She said it might come in handy someday."

"And she's right," Phlegma agreed. She turned to me. "Okay, Hiccup, your turn."

Just then there was a loud crash from the front and then we could hear Ruff and Tuff yelling at each other.

Phlegma sighed and headed for the door. "I'll be back in a minute. Hiccup, give it a try."

So I tried to splint and bandage Astrid's arm, but I was all butterfingers. The depressor sticks kept wanting to slip and it was hard to hold them and wrap the gauze around Astrid's arm at the same time. Of course it didn't help that my hands were shaking like leaves either.

"Sorry, I'm not very good at this," I muttered,

"It just takes some practice," Astrid said calmly. "You're left-handed, aren't you? Try holding the sticks like this with your right hand and see if that helps."

I did, and it did help a little. I managed a rather clumsy bandage before Phlegma came back in, shaking her head and muttering, "I pity their poor teachers."

"My mom says that a lot, too," Astrid volunteered, and the three of us all laughed a little. It was weird, but nice too, to feel like I was actually part of a group even if it was only for a few minutes.

After a while, Phlegma asked Astrid to help her feed the dragons and sent me to feed the birds in the aviary. Or bird, I should say, as there was only one-the puffin I had seen in a cage earlier was well enough to be outside now.

The aviary was a good-sized area behind the office, covered in mesh wire but large enough for birds to fly about a little. There was a tree and shrubbery inside, along with several wooden boxes, of various heights, with cut-out doors, I suppose for the birds to go inside for shelter if they wanted. There was a small pool of water with a flat rock in the middle, and the door to the aviary had a smaller door at the bottom.

I knelt to unlock it and pushed the pail of fish inside. I quickly realized that while I might be good with dragons, the same was not necessarily true with birds. The puffin burst from a tree, zooming straight at me, squawking angrily. I snatched my hand back through the door, but not before he ripped my sleeve with curved orange beak.

"Hey, I liked this shirt." I frowned at him. "I thought you guys were supposed to be cute and harmless."

The puffin squawked again before diving into his lunch.

"You all right, Hiccup?" Phlegma had come out to check on me.

"Yeah, he just got my shirt."

"Don't take it personally. He's getting cranky from being cooped up. Calm down, Puff. You'll be out of here soon," She said to the puffin who ignored her and kept eating.

Phlegma glanced at her watch. "Well, if you're all right, it's about noon, so we'll call it a day."

"See you tomorrow!" I was off in a flash.

I was always eager to spend my afternoons with Toothless, but especially so today, for this was the day that Toothless and I were finally going to soar into the sky together.

Author's Notes: Happy Holidays to everyone! I apologize for the short chapter. I had intended to include the first flight, but I really wanted to update again before Christmas, and I didn't want to rush the flight scene. So I decided to go ahead and post this first part and Hiccup and Toothless flying will be in the next chapter.

Thank you for reading! Please review—it's really encouraging to know if people are reading and enjoying!