NFF-Hiccup's encounter with the god of night.

Fair warning, I have lost the plot; it's been too long since I had a good read of my own stories.

Chapter 12:

The three arrived at Edward's ship and Hiccup was shocked to see the form of Shadewrath splayed out over the top deck; it was a wonder that Edward could carry such a burden on his ship and still sail.

While Toothless and Stormfly landed, Hiccup went off to perform a complete circle around the unconscious dragon, just to confirm that he actually existed and wasn't a figment of the imagination.

Eventually Hiccup came down to land; bouncing off the deck slightly from his distraction, but ultimately recollecting himself to turn back human and talk to Edward.

"What happened?" Hiccup said, worry heard in his voice as he tried to work out the cause behind Shadewrath's sudden and strange transformation.

Edward shrugged, Toothless and Stormfly gave him looks that suggested they had as little idea as him. Hiccup now had confirmation and he almost left a trace of himself behind as he hurried over to the sleeping Night Fury.

The sudden movement surprised both Edward and the dragons, but they left Hiccup alone while he gave Shadewrath a careful visual check; giving empathic cringes every time he stumbled on a scratch or bruise from the fall.

Toothless and Stormfly watched with silence as Hiccup finished his second, thorough inspection and then ran off to find some pure water to clean the affected areas. Toothless then turned to Stormfly.

"It seems like he cares a lot about Shadewrath, for some reason I had my doubts, but he wants to make sure that he's okay." Toothless said calmly, giving Hiccup occasional glances to indicate that he was the subject of his concern.

Hiccup picked up on Toothless' conversation and paused briefly to rebuke it.

"Toothless… he needed help and I gave him help; surely that's totally understandable?" He said, before a distinct possibility came up in his head. "Unless… are you jealous about how much I care for Shadewrath?" Hiccup said with a teasing voice; the possibility of such a thing being true made him feel cheeky.

Toothless struggled to come up with a good explanation for his words, but eventually just gave up.

"I guess you could say that." Toothless replied, slightly defeated. Hiccup went off to treat Shadewrath again and Toothless sighed as he realised how bad the thought of jealousy made him feel. Turning back to Stormfly to continue talking, albeit more quietly to avoid Hiccup's notice, Toothless was slightly unimpressed to see that she had defaulted to preening.

However, he still spoke to Stormfly since he didn't want Hiccup to hear what he said; he cared too much about Hiccup to let that happen.

"I don't know, Stormfly, I really don't; something about Shadewrath's relationship with Hiccup makes me feel like Hiccup will abandon me for him. I mean, how do I even know he still cares about me? Sure I was his 'buddy' when I was the only Night Fury around, but how about now? I also know that, currently, he does care about me, but he's also forming a very close relationship to Shadewrath that could tear him away from me!" Toothless growled; angry at the very thought that Shadewrath would take away Hiccup.

Stormfly, surprisingly, stopped preening her scales and listened carefully to Toothless' rant; eventually she replied to him when he finished.

"I think you worry too much; you and Hiccup have a rich history together and your bond to each other reflects that. You may think your relationship is weak, but you've saved him and he's saved you; now you have a strong connection forged by mutual defence. However, I am just guessing; you would have to ask Hiccup for his true feelings; and if, by some freak occurrence, he is starting to like Shadewrath more than you, then it should still be possible to win Hiccup back; Shadewrath may be better in some aspects, but he's no match for you." Stormfly said resolutely; she honestly believed that Toothless, if he wanted to be friends with Hiccup, would have no trouble doing so.

Toothless found her response extremely comforting, but then his mind raised another troublesome contender; in such a way that it seemed purposeful.

"What about Astrid? I don't know what to expect from her and Hiccup seems to be paying attention to her, so she's an obvious contender." Toothless said, with some contempt coming into his voice.

"Why are you so worked up about this, Toothless? You need to calm down before you get out of control." Stormfly said; worried and surprised.

By this time Hiccup had washed about half of Shadewrath's visible wounds.

Toothless turned and actually gave Stormfly a warning growl.

"You would be wise not to underestimate the connection between me and Hiccup. We can finally talk and act like normal friends! But now there's a chance that Hiccup will completely ignore me forever in favour of some… some other person who doesn't deserve such companionship with him. I like you Stormfly, but you should be more careful." Toothless said in a forceful, angry tone.

Stormfly fell into silence for a while; this side of Toothless was unexpected, even with the depth of his companionship to Hiccup, and made her worry about how he would act in the future. A few minutes later though, she had to know why Toothless would get angry now.

"Why here? Why now? I've known you for a long time and you've never been this agitated." Stormfly spoke in a curious manner, her words slightly blunter from the earlier aggression of Toothless.

"You seem to forget the one instance I would; protecting Hiccup or myself. If the crew of this ship decided to attack me or him, especially him, I would be agitated. Hel, the thought of a possible attack makes me want to slaughter the person steering the ship." Toothless said, aiming a hateful glance at Edward; who noticed the unwanted attention with nervous worry, before taking his attention back to steering the ship.

Stormfly began to understand with this sentence; obviously Toothless would care about keeping Hiccup safe and, by the tone of his conversation, this was also the reason for him being so worked up about other people having a relationship in any way to Hiccup.

Hiccup was about to come over and work out what Toothless was growling at before something else distracted him.

Shadewrath had been gradually regaining consciousness since his fall and was stirred from his slumber instinctively when he heard Toothless' growling. He took a moment to get his bearings; mostly focused on Hiccup due to his touch and then he became confused at the sudden realisation that Hiccup was tiny compared to him.

"Hiccup? Why are you so small?" Shadewrath said, squinting out of necessity to discern just who he was talking to.

Hiccup was still slightly concerned about the cause of the growl, but he saw the awakening of the massive Night Fury as a slightly bigger issue.

"I'm sorry; can't tell you that much because it happened after I was unconscious. Perhaps Toothless could explain it?" He said, before giving Toothless a polite call.

Toothless walked over carefully; paying more, suspicious, attention to Shadewrath than Hiccup. Shadewrath looked to him, expectant for answers and Toothless let him know, but Hiccup could tell Toothless was wary and he wasn't sure why until he began speaking.

"Something about the shock of hitting Hiccup must have caused quite a catastrophic reaction. You're lucky this reaction shows remorse, or you'd be on my kill list for harming Hiccup." Toothless said menacingly; his distrust of Shadewrath very evident.

Shadewrath was shocked and worried by this; it had been an accident! His subconscious response to move away from the threatening Night Fury almost caused him to knock over one of the masts which barely held. However, even with such accusations pointed his way, Shadewrath couldn't respond for a while; he had no experience with responding peacefully to this, which he had to with Hiccup around, from his time in the wild.

Hiccup was surprised as well; Toothless had seemingly never been this irritated before.

"Toothless, what are you saying? I put myself in the way of that blast; and Shadewrath was only trying to hit the ballistae, not me." Hiccup said resolutely.

Shadewrath was quite surprised to have Hiccup's support; he'd expected that Hiccup would be as quick to blame him as Toothless. His trust and affection for him grew slightly.

Toothless was about to affix Hiccup with a threatening gaze before he realised just what he was doing. His eyes widened quickly with surprise at his own behaviour before trying to apologise.

"I'm sorry Hiccup, I didn't mean to be annoyed at you. It's just… You've known me for more time than Shadewrath and somehow you seem to like him more than me." Toothless said, acknowledging that this confession was quite embarrassing to admit.

Hiccup wasn't one to cast unfair punishments and this was no exception. So, while Toothless acted submissive for apology, Hiccup merely came up to him and gave him a large, friendly hug.

Toothless' eyes widened for a moment from the unexpected reaction, but then he calmed down; Hiccup was just showing his affection and that was fine.

Shadewrath huffed at Toothless for his earlier behaviour, a sound magnified by his height, but mostly forgave him as well.

Meanwhile, as the emotional exchange was going on above and friendships were slightly stretched, Viggo was ready to escape; he had already broken the bindings that attached him to the hull since the bonds had been made with western Europe's body shape in mind, not the incredibly strong build of Vikings. Having gotten past his first little obstacle, Viggo scanned the cell with eager eyes; scanning the dark area for anything that might help him escape.

His search was not successful and he cursed at the emptiness of the prison. Instead he decided he would turn the wall into a makeshift ramp and repeatedly punched through the wall until it was weak enough to push out onto the water; using the strength he had earned through many years of dragon trapping.

The sounds of Viggo's cunning escape did not go unnoticed by anyone. As the hardened timbers broke apart, both the English crew and Hiccup's group heard and went into action; the gunners started scanning the waters once they'd reached their cannons as did Edward and Hiccup, Toothless prepared a plasma blast and Shadewrath did so too as his frame stood and caused the boat to rock.

Viggo was momentarily taken off his feet by the unexpected, sudden rolling of the boat, stumbling. But, he was quick to get back onto his feet, aided by the oaken wood below him and jumped wilfully onto the now floating section of broken hull. The makeshift craft wobbled slightly, but Viggo kept it absolutely level on the water; keeping his body weight low until the rolling stopped.

Initially, he planned on just letting both boat's different velocities bring them apart, but Edward had, as everyone else had, been alerted to his presence so, with a quick lean over each side to try and find the source, Edward saw Viggo and rushed to his wheel to put all his effort into rotating the large wheel fast enough for a quick turn onto Viggo before his gunners' fire became too inaccurate.

Viggo was slightly too self-assured of his successful escape; he gave the ship a mocking wave as it left, only to pale slightly as the massive ship started turning hard, exposing what he could only assume were rows upon rows of some kind of weaponry to him.

There was a cacophony of noise as each gunner slewed their cannons onto target and adjusted their elevation. The preparing continued, but each one held their fire as the gunners patiently waited for the signal.

Edward finished the motions of his hard turn and got back to his feet now the vessel had stopped leaning from the manoeuvre that it had just gone through. He had no doubt that his gunners were already pointed at the target and aimed; he knew them well, but he was unsure of the 3 others on deck. He trusted them, but he was also aware they would not follow his orders and so he would admit to feeling slightly worried with the lack of control over this boy and his dragons.

However, he gave only a furtive glance at them before shouting "Fire!" in his practiced, commanding tone. His own gunners went off in sync; filling the air with converging cannonballs that splashed around and went through the enemy vessel.

None actually hit Viggo, since he was able to track their trajectories, but his vessel was thoroughly smashed and soon he was floating by a single piece of buoyant wood.

As Viggo splashed into the water, Toothless and Shadewrath felt it prudent to follow the gunners below them; Toothless fired a plasma blast first, followed by Shadewrath's own.

Both shots were directly onto Viggo and he could do nothing until the first one hit; the explosion ripped the plank from his hands and sent him swimming. But, he wasn't allowed the pleasure of treading water for long until Shadewrath's shot hit the water; it took a while to explode, ploughing through the water, but once it did no one could see Viggo's final fate behind a spray of water.

Hiccup was admittedly appalled by the show of such violence on what basically was an unarmed man; something both Toothless and Shadewrath noticed after a quick check on their friend. Neither of them could come up with a good excuse for themselves so they had to rely on comforting Hiccup.

"I'm sorry you had to see that Hiccup, but you know Viggo's a bad man. If we let him escape then he would've just kept trying to hurt us or others." Toothless said in an apologetic tone. Subconsciously, he was angry at Shadewrath for telling Hiccup that Viggo was dead. There was also a part of him that knew Hiccup wouldn't accept the whole 'good and evil' argument, but he had to at least comfort the boy in some way.

Just these subtle feelings gave Toothless a worried outlook which was unusual for him except Hiccup got them both into a bad spot.

His ruse didn't console Hiccup as he went off to vent somewhere else. As soon as he saw this disappointing reaction, Toothless gave a sharp, hushed curse. Shadewrath heard and pivoted his head down to acknowledge Toothless.

"Toothless, are you okay?" Shadewrath said.

Toothless was about to let his hatred of Shadewrath from earlier flow again, now that Hiccup was out of the way, but he decided it was pointless.

"I'm fine, he needs some time to recover." Toothless said, not revealing the real reason he looked so agitated at the moment.

At the bow of the ship, and with Shadewrath's willingness to ignore him while he calmed down, Hiccup reflected on the dreadful events that had just happened, 'I can't believe they actually went along with it; all of them. Viggo had absolutely nothing to defend himself and… he's gone now, or so I suspect at least. Does this have any implications for the relationship between me and them? Most definitely, but at the same time I don't want to push it too far; just like Astrid I want them to realise what they've done is bad, but at the same time I don't want to alienate them. Obviously I'm bad at that' he thought, gazing across the water to Viggo's ship, 'I tried it with Astrid and it didn't work; she just ignored the punishment. Will that happen to them?... Maybe.' Hiccup accepted, looking to the two dragons behind him as though their sight would indicate their future actions. Finally he let out his anger at indecision with a hard, but cushioned, pummel to the deck. He resolved that a mandated punishment for them would take too much and probably be ineffective. Instead, he would have to try and keep better control of them in the future; not a master/slave one, since Hiccup couldn't bear to think about becoming like them, but rather teaching them gently about how they could act in the future.

Having gotten his immediate concerns out of the way, Hiccup slowly returned to Toothless with the updated course of action in his mind.

Toothless was quite surprised to see him back so soon; normally Hiccup took a bit longer to recover, but he was happy nonetheless.

"Are you better yet? I hope it wasn't too bad for you," Toothless said, purposefully avoiding the previous topic in case it triggered memories.

Hiccup wasn't so sure if he could be so positive at the back of his mind, but he pushed it aside.

"Yeah, I'm fine now. I was just wondering if you could wait, just a little, before firing if it's not urgent?" Hiccup said, fully aware that Toothless could give him a are you serious look and he'd have to retreat.

Toothless did nothing of the sort, nodding slightly as he decided to agree with what Hiccup had said. Then he turned to Shadewrath to ask if he would agree as well; his head craning up to look at the dragon from below,

"Shadewrath? Would you mind waiting slightly before shots, unless it's a matter of life and death?" Toothless asked Shadewrath.

Shadewrath thought about it for a while, thinking about any potential difficulties he would run into with this in mind. Finding no serious cases, he defaulted to his wish to help Hiccup in any way he could.

"I shall, for your sake" Shadewrath said with a booming voice that shook Hiccup to the core.

Getting over his sudden fear of the looming Night Fury after a while, Hiccup gave a smile to Shadewrath and responded.

"Thank you, it… means a lot for me."

Shadewrath smiled back and Toothless copied the gesture; now they were just 3 very good friends.

Astrid was trying to get used to the vision of Hiccup she now had; the dragon side had been… worrying to deal with and now she wasn't sure if Hiccup would recover. Nevertheless, she acknowledged that if that was still an issue, she would have the determination to get him back to normal. This reassurance, that Hiccup still relied on her, was enough to lift her spirits.

Snotlout wasn't having nearly as much fun as he'd thought he would have when he got Astrid to get on board Hookfang; she was just too engrossed thinking about Hiccup. So, he vented out his frustration with a few wild lashes, one of which catching Hookfang on the jaw, to which he responded with a sour face.

Viggo had defied most expectations as he slowly crawled his way over to the shoreline just in front of him; he'd bested the initial capture, the cannonballs and Toothless' shot. If he could only get on dry land he would have a partial victory.

But a man's determination can only endure so much in front of cold physics; the cannonballs were a fate he had avoided, but the shockwave of Toothless' shot had damaged his organs.

Shadewrath's shot had flung him far into the air and also gave him a shockwave to be worried about; his organs were shutting down, far too damaged to cope and only a desperate plea for survival remained.

One hand reached the shoreline, but then it fell limp and drifted back into the water.

Viggo was dead.

A/N:

Well, I guess he's gone. There's a reason that's happened.

I hope you liked it, even if some parts may not fit naturally into the flow of the story. I'll try to read much more of my earlier chapters for the next update to all my stories.

End A/N