Nope. He was definitely late. He might not have been too late if he had left immediately after making contact with Toothless, but the time it took him to come to terms with what had happened pushed his lateness from tolerable to inexcusable. He knew this as he climbed the stairs up to the top of the watchtower, where Gobber and the teens were roasting food and talking around the firepit in the center of the conical stone tower. He just hoped Gobber wouldn't call attention to his lateness. The other teens needed no additional justification to try and make his life miserable.

As he moved into view, Gobber stopped talking and stared at him ominously. The other teens slowly quieted as they noticed him. Snotlout sniggered and elbowed Tuffnut. Gobber glared at Hiccup. "Next time, ye get here before the event in question is almost over, ye hear me Hiccup? I dinnea want to hear yer excuses. Let this happen again, and ye get to clean out the arena cages for a week." With that, he went back to the chicken on his prosthetic arm skewer.

Hiccup would maybe have responded with some sort of comment, but he was busy trying to not visibly freak out over something else.

'Hiccup? Your name is Hiccup? Well, whatever you decide to call me, it can't be worse than that!'

He had heard the voice he associated with Toothless in his head, just like earlier. Only, this time he was pretty sure the Night Fury in question was nowhere near here. He stumbled over to the nearest empty seat and absent-mindedly grabbed a fish and skewer as his mind raced. He connected a few things the dragon had said earlier. Ignoring some asinine argument between Snotlout and the twins, he spoke, so softly that only he could hear it and his lips barely moved. That was the point. "Are you watching through my eyes?" As he had feared, the reply came swiftly.

'And listening through your ears, and so on. What gives you that impression?' Here the voice took on a very familiar sarcastic tone. 'The fact that I found out your name without ever leaving this natural prison? That was just my draconic intuition.'

Hiccup couldn't reply immediately, because Astrid was watching him with a suspicious look on her face. Hiccup guessed that he hadn't hidden his seemingly random shock very well. He tried to look normal and smiled at her. She glared at him before jerking her stare away from him. Success. He had gotten the girl of his dreams to stop staring at him.

Trying to look normal (something he had been incapable of all his life) he resumed muttering under his breath. "Yeah, it's my name. Now stop using my senses please."

'But this is way more interesting than my view right now. Look and see for yourself.'

Against his better judgment, Hiccup was curious to see if he could still use Toothless's senses from a distance. He made sure no one was watching him or trying to get his attention, before trying to replicate what he had done earlier today. The lump of information that had been sitting dormant in his mind expanded once more, and he was once again in the cove. Staring at a rock wall two inches from his borrowed eyes. He collapsed the vision back to normal. "Very funny."

'But true. Pretty much anything you do is more interesting than my life right now.'

"It's still wrong to use my senses without permission." Coincidentally, there happened to be a moment of silence from both Toothless and the teens.

'Then will you give me your permission?'

"Will you still use my senses if I don't?"

'I'd try not to. Though I don't have any problem with you using mine whenever you want.'

Hiccup considered this. "Fair enough. But stay quiet unless you have something important to say please. I don't need any more reasons for people to hate me, and apparent insanity would definitely be one."

'Thank you.'

Hiccup hadn't just given permission out of fairness. There was something almost desperate in Toothless's words and tone, and it had him worried. He resolved to think about that later. Now, to at least put out an appearance of normalcy for the next five minutes. Hiccup returned his attention to the world around him. And promptly realized that his fish was burning. He pulled it away from the fire and blew out the small fires while trying to pick up the thread of conversation. As he choked down the burnt fish and listened he realized that he hadn't missed much. Gobber was just telling a story he had heard a hundred times before, the one about how he lost his various limbs. Hiccup had heard it, but Toothless had not. When Gobber claimed that the dragon had thought his arm delicious, Hiccup heard a mental snort.

'I've heard humans taste about as good as rotten shark. No dragon would eat a human voluntarily. He must have done something to make the dragon mad.'

Hiccup found himself agreeing with that last part, given Gobber's tendency to shout colorful insults at the dragons as he fought.

Gobber finished his story, and now it was time for the comments from the nut gallery. However, before Ruff or Tuff could start, Snotlout started ranting. "I swear I'm so angry right now! I'll avenge your beautiful hand and your beautiful foot. I'll chop off the legs of every dragon I fight. With my face!"

Toothless laughed, a strange gurgling sound made even weirder when Hiccup couldn't see him do it. 'I'd love to see him try.'

Gobber replied to Snotlout's rant, ripping a leg off of his chicken for emphasis. "No, it's the wings and the tails you really want. If it can't fly, it can't get away. A downed dragon is a dead dragon."

Hiccup didn't listen to the rest of the conversation. He had been struck by a horrible realization. He might not have killed Toothless in the cove, and he wasn't going to let him starve, but it was his fault the dragon couldn't fly. If Toothless died because he couldn't leave the cove, it would be Hiccup's fault. He quietly slipped back down the stairs, thinking furiously as he left the gathering. How to fix the lack of a tail fin? His thoughts were interrupted.

'He's right.'

"What?" Hiccup mumbled.

'Even if we aren't killed by predators that we can't escape, dragons don't survive not being able to fly for very long. It drives us insane.'

Hiccup was horrified at the prospect of his actions not only dooming someone to death but a slow, painful death via insanity at that. "How long do you have?"

'No idea. Hopefully, being able to use your senses will help me hold out longer. At the very least, I won't be bored as I wait for death.' This was said despondently, and the hopelessness in his tone made Hiccup shudder. It was far too familiar.

As they had been talking, Hiccup's feet had carried him to the center of the village. He stood there, deep in thought. Something struck him, and he slowly smiled. He broke out in a dead run to the forge. After making sure Gobber wasn't there, Hiccup moved into his corner and pulled out his notebook. He flipped to the drawing of Toothless, the one he had corrected to depict the dragon's lack of a second tailfin. He paused, charcoal in hand. "Could you look at your tailfin for me please?"

'Why?'

Hiccup smiled. "I'm going to try to build you a replacement fin, and I need to see something to copy." He expanded the corner of his mind that he had labeled as Toothless' senses. The dragon had complied, and Hiccup could see the remaining tailfin clear as day through the Night Fury's superior night vision. He blindly flipped to another page in his sketchbook, one he was fairly certain he hadn't used yet and began drawing what he could see. As he drew, his plans for replicating the tail took shape in his mind. He finished drawing and collapsed the image in his head back to its corner. "Alright, got it."

'Will you be able to make it?'

Hiccup hesitated, hearing the almost painfully strong undertone of disbelief mixed with hope in the dragon's question. He wanted to reassure the dragon, but he didn't want to lie. "I hope so, but it will take a while. It might take me a couple of tries to get it right." Toothless was silent.

Hiccup began heating the coals, mentally adding up all the pieces he would need to make, and estimating how much time he had. He would finish before sunrise, but just barely. he resigned himself to being sleep deprived tomorrow. Speaking of which. "I'm going to be working here all night. It's going to be pretty boring to watch." The dragon responded with the mental equivalent of a snort. Hiccup placed one of the pieces of scrap metal he had appropriated for this on the coals.

Hiccup worked through the night, creating all of the various components he wanted for his plans. At some point, Toothless's sporadic comments had died off, and Hiccup was pretty sure the dragon had fallen asleep. That made one of them. Weird though, he would have guessed Night Furies to be nocturnal. The whole 'never seen, attacks under the cover of dark' business would have made more sense for a nocturnal dragon.

Finally, at about an hour before sunrise, he finished the last piece and assembled the device. He held the prosthetic tailfin up in front of the final schematic he had pinned to the wall. He opened and closed it. It was done. He was also dead tired, but that was beside the point. He had done it. Now, to go show Toothless in person.

Hiccup left the fin in the forge, hidden for the moment under mounds of paper. The sun was just starting to illuminate the village as he somewhat stealthily stole some fish from a storehouse, having avoided the notice of the few Vikings around at this hour. Well, it wasn't technically stealing, as the village food supply was for the village as a whole, so as a member of the village it was partly his, but taking it to give to a dragon? That probably counted as stealing. And treason, and insanity, but who cared about that? Hiccup spirited the basket of assorted fish back to the forge, where he would retrieve the tailfin, and make his way into the forest.

However, before he could leave the forge, he noticed Fishlegs. Slowly making the climb up to... the Chief's hut. His hut. With Stoick gone on the latest nest search - which reminded Hiccup, another thing to ask Toothless about at some point - Fishlegs had to be looking for him. Hiccup considered just letting him search, but having someone actively looking for him when he was trying to keep so much hidden probably wasn't the best idea. He dropped the basket of fish in his corner of the forge and went to intercept Fishlegs.

Hiccup quickly caught up to the portly teen, who wasn't the fastest stair climber ever. "Looking for me?"

Fishlegs jumped in surprise. "Hiccup! Don't sneak up on me like that. Uh, Gobber told me to tell you that training is happening today after lunch instead of in the morning."

Hiccup frowned. This was unusual. "Did he say why?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Nope, he uh, just told me to tell you so you wouldn't be late."

Hiccup shrugged. At least Gobber had someone tell him ahead of time. "Alright, thanks for letting me know." Fishlegs left without saying anything else, hurrying down the stairs much faster than he had gone up. Hiccup was actually happy with the news. It meant he had plenty of time to spend with Toothless, instead of the few minutes he had thought he would have before having to head back for dragon training.

With that, he headed back to the forge, grabbed the fish basket and tailfin, and headed into the forest, towards the cove. On his way there, he remembered something. He hadn't told Toothless what he had decided to call him yet. This would be interesting. He was pretty sure that the 'Unholy Offspring Of Lightning And Death Itself' might object to being called Toothless. Hopefully, he would be distracted by the fish, and wouldn't complain too much.

A few minutes of careful maneuvering later, Hiccup had arrived at the entrance to the cove. Which was still partially blocked by the shield he had been stupid enough to get wedged in there. He resolved to bring a sledgehammer from the forge when he had a chance. Wiggling himself and his stuff under or over the shield was going to get old fast. He slid the prosthetic under the shield and pulled the basket of fish in after he slid in himself. He stood up and dusted himself off as he surveyed the cove.

Toothless had been asleep on the ground nearby. However, at the sounds of Hiccup sliding into the cove, his ears perked up. He was awake and alert by the time Hiccup got to his feet.

Hiccup looked in his direction, saw him, and smiled. "Hey, I brought breakfast. I hope you're hungry!" He put the basket down and tipped it over with his foot. The basket toppled and spilled its fishy contents with an extended slimy plop. "Okay, that's disgusting."

Toothless moved in towards the fish. Hiccup set down the prosthetic tailfin. Toothless paused. 'You finished it?'

Hiccup's smile broadened. "Yup, it's done."

Toothless broke into a wide imitation of Hiccup's smile, teeth retracted.

"You can try it out after you eat."

'Good idea.' Toothless dived into the pile of fish but froze before eating any. He yelped, and quickly backed away from the pile of fish, snarling. 'Why is THAT in there?!'

"What?" Hiccup was confused, all he saw was fish.

'THAT!" Toothless definitely had his teeth out now and was staring at a yellow and black striped eel that had been in the basket with the rest of the fish like it was the source of all that was evil in the world.

Hiccup stared at it for a moment. "You're scared of a dead eel?"

Toothless snarled. 'Scared? No. Cautious with something that poisonous? Yes. Now get rid of it!' He punctuated that last statement with a low growl.

Hiccup threw up his hands and went to pick it up. "You could just ask, you know." He moved to throw the eel into the underbrush but stopped as something occurred to him. "Are all dragons afraid of eels?"

Toothless had relaxed somewhat when Hiccup picked up the eel, but he was still far from happy with the situation. 'All that I know of. Now get rid of it. Please?'

Hiccup walked back to the shield blocking the exit/entrance of the cove and threw the eel over. "There."

Toothless snorted. 'That isn't very far from here.'

Hiccup returned to the petulant dragon and the pile of fish. "I know, but I think I can use it later. You'll see." Toothless didn't bother to reply to that, he was too busy depleting the pile of fish at an astonishing rate. He must have been starving. Hiccup saw that the pile would be gone soon, and decided now was as good a time as any. "Oh, I came up with a name for you. I'm gonna call you... Toothless." He held in his laughter as the dragon kept eating for a moment, before processing what he had just said.

Toothless opened his mouth, dropping a fish, and slowly turned his head to face Hiccup, eyes wide and mouth still hanging open, teeth currently sheathed in order to better swallow the fish. His ear flaps were flat against his head, and his pupils were as wide as they could go. 'Toothless. Out of all the majestic and noble names in the world, you picked... Toothless.' The dragon closed his mouth as his pupils narrowed, holding eye contact with Hiccup. 'Is this a joke?'

Hiccup gulped. "Uh... no. I really do think Toothless fits you. You know, because you can retract your teeth... the name just stuck in my head!"

Toothless abruptly snorted, shook his head, and returned to his fish. 'Fine.'

Hiccup was quite surprised that the dragon had so easily accepted the name. He had at least expected a few alternative (and arrogant) suggestions from the Night Fury. "Really?"

'Really. Besides, it still beats 'Hiccup' or 'Gobber'. Is it some sort of twisted tradition to give your offspring the weirdest names possible? It can't be a coincidence.' Toothless sounded sarcastic.

Hiccup chuckled. "Yes, actually. Vikings believe that hideous names frighten off gnomes and trolls."

Toothless had finished his fish and was now completely engrossed in what Hiccup was saying. 'What do these gnomes and trolls look like? I've never heard of them.' Hiccup thought about that for a second. "I don't really know, I've never seen one."

Toothless snorted, something Hiccup was coming to recognize as having the exact same meaning as its human equivalent.

Hiccup wanted to stop talking about the less intelligent traditions of his culture, so he picked up the prosthetic tailfin. "You wanna try this today or not?"

Toothless took notice of what he was holding, and jumped over to Hiccup's side, turning so that his tail was facing him.

"I take that as a yes" Hiccup mumbled as he moved around the tail, trying to ascertain the best angle to attach the fin from. He settled on sitting on the tail, facing the end of the natural fin. He proceeded to attach the iron and canvas prosthetic, oblivious to how Toothless's body language was changing as the dragon felt the return of weight to the other side of his tail, indicating a return in balance, and therefore... Hiccup heard a rustling as he finished the last buckle, but he didn't recognize the sound as that of a pair of wings spreading in preparation for takeoff. "Huh. Okay, that's not too bad, it works..." he mumbled to himself as he spread out the limp prosthetic tailfin to match the other side.

That was when Toothless took off.

Hiccup by instinct wrapped his legs around the now airborne tail and held onto the prosthetic fin's base for dear life as the ground rapidly receded. He wanted to scream, but he didn't have time.

Toothless pumped his wings frantically, entirely focused on flying out of the cove. Just like all his prior attempts, Toothless began to lose control, and plummet towards the rock wall of the cove. Hiccup had a moment to realize that the artificial tailfin wasn't extended, instead forced closed by the wind. As Toothless plummeted, Hiccup reached out and grabbed the fin, yanking it into the open position.

Toothless was just able to pull out of the dive and roared in joy as he flew up, out of the natural prison he had been stuck in, to the boundless skies above.

Hiccup was still hanging on to Toothless's tail, but he was paralyzed in a state somewhere between pure fright and pure exhilaration. He decided to go with exhilaration. "It's working!" he screamed as Toothless shot up, out into the sky. Caught up in the moment, he tilted the artificial fin, causing the straight path Toothless had been on to twist into a wide half-circle in shape.

In moments, Toothless found himself gliding above the pond that took up half the cove. That was when he noticed his passenger. 'What are you DOING?!'

Hiccup tried to explain, but was cut off before he could say anything by the jackknife in midair that the dragon had just executed, throwing him off with such force that he skipped slightly upon impact with the water. He had wanted to tell Toothless that he had been keeping his fin open, but now he was more occupied with surfacing.

As a result of throwing off the one thing keeping his artificial fin open, Toothless almost immediately followed Hiccup into the water.

After they both had surfaced, Hiccup couldn't resist letting out one final shout of joy. "Yeah!" He lunged up out of the water as he did, and the resulting downward force submerged him again. After recovering from his second dunking, he struck out for the edge of the pond. Toothless had already gotten out and was currently doing something that struck Hiccup as strange.

The Fury was running aimlessly across a sandy patch of the cove. He didn't seem to be chasing or fleeing from anything, but he was running quite fast. As Hiccup watched, Toothless let out a small plasma blast, which exploded a few yards in front of him. He dived forward, and his momentum carried him through the fireball, which didn't seem to hurt at all. As he slowed down and stopped, Hiccup understood. The fire was to dry him off, and the running a means of ensuring the heat reached his entire body before it dissipated. Hiccup considered his own soaked condition and envied the dragon.

Having dried, Toothless returned his attention to the dripping human standing a short distance away. He slinked towards him, not exactly menacing, but not friendly either. 'Why were you on my tail?'

Hiccup stared. "It wasn't exactly my choice. I would have wanted a better seat than that. You took off while I was putting the tail on, and I held on by reflex."

Toothless dropped the unfriendly crouch and assumed a slightly embarrassed expression. 'Oh.' The Fury clearly wanted to change the subject. 'So, why didn't the tail work? It felt like it was for a minute there.'

Hiccup frowned. He turned his attention to the problem at hand. "It folds up in the wind. I held it open while I was on your tail, and it worked then."

Toothless realized exactly what he had done when he threw Hiccup off. If it was possible for dragons to have turned red in embarrassment, he would have. 'Whoops...'

Hiccup crossed his arms. "Yeah, whoops. Did you even know we were above water? or were you just getting rid of me once you thought I had given you your flight back?" His volume rose as he voiced a suspicion that had been lurking in the back of his mind the entire time he had been talking with the dragon. Was Toothless acting so nice and normal in order to get Hiccup to restore his flight? Was he just being used?

The Fury literally recoiled in shock, and hunched inwards, appearing smaller than normal as a result. 'No! I wasn't trying to get rid of you. I just wanted to be able to fly without ninety pounds hanging off of my tail. I knew we were above the pond. I didn't want to hurt you!' The genuine hurt in the dragon's voice was more convincing than his words.

But Hiccup still had doubts, questions he needed answered. "So why are you being so nice to me? You have every reason to hate me, and yet you act like we're friends. The only reason I can think of is that you want something from me."

The dragon stared at him, the muscles above his eyes lowering like eyebrows in confusion. 'Before we could talk to each other, we were able to trust each other. I considered you a friend then, and that was before you said anything about fixing my tail. I would like my flight back, but even if that was impossible I would be treating you the same way. You are trying to fix your mistakes, and it would be obvious to anyone that you regret shooting me down. Do Vikings not know how to forgive?'

Hiccup was thrown for a loop. He had heard throughout his life that revenge was the Viking way. Forgiveness was only mentioned in their stories as something the villain pled for, along with mercy. It was never granted. Hiccup thought for a moment, before answering slowly. 'I don't think most Vikings forgive, or ask to be forgiven. It isn't really the Viking way. Revenge is more our speed."

Toothless stared directly into his eyes. 'According to you, the Viking way also involved killing me when you found me in the woods and cutting my heart out. Not necessarily in that order, from what I could tell.'

Hiccup had no answer to that, so he said nothing.

'I have a question for you. I acted friendly from the start because I understood your regret. Why did you?'

Hiccup wasn't sure what Toothless was referring to. "What?"

Toothless huffed. 'From the start, you wanted to interact with me. When we could communicate, you accepted talking to me pretty quickly and didn't even get mad about the fact that I had messed with your head. You didn't even really care when I was using your senses, you just wanted me to ask first. You talked to me like I was your friend pretty much from the start. Why?'

Hiccup answered without forethought, saying what came into mind. "I don't really know. At first, it was shock, and after that... you talked to me like an equal, you didn't make fun of me or ignore me..." He paused for a moment. "And you seem so much like me. Intelligent, sarcastic... lonely."

Toothless looked down. 'I was.'

As they had been talking, Hiccup had been growing colder. It wasn't exactly summer at the moment, and the cove's enclosed interior didn't block all of the sharp winds from above. He was still soaked from his dunking in the pond.

Toothless noticed that Hiccup was shivering. Without saying anything, he got up and dragged over a large dead branch, almost a log in size. Ignoring standard fire building procedures, (not that he would know them anyway, being a living flamethrower) Toothless immediately set the log ablaze, resulting in what would be a hot but relatively short-lived fire.

Hiccup moved closer to the fire, relishing the warmth.

Toothless wasn't satisfied. He moved behind Hiccup, and settled down around him, creating both a wind-break and a warm wall at his back.

Hiccup turned to look him in the eyes.

Toothless returned the stare. 'This is what friends do. They look out for each other. And we are friends. Regardless of what you did in the past, or might be able to do in the future. Right?'

Hiccup was deeply touched by both his words and actions. There was a lot he wanted to say, but he settled for something simple. "Right." They remained like that until the log burned out.

Eventually, Hiccup remembered that training had been moved to that afternoon, and he reluctantly decided that he needed to get moving. He didn't want to. For the first time he could remember, he really didn't feel any need to go back to the village. Before, no matter how badly he had screwed up, no matter how bad things got, he knew he would have to go back to the village. It was the only place he could go, and it was preferable to its only alternative, the wilderness of the forest. Now, he had the Toothless, and by extension this cove. He had a place other than the village. And he realized that the village wasn't all that great. But he had to go back. Nothing had really changed. At least physically.

He forced himself to get moving, startling Toothless, who felt his weight shift against his side. "I've gotta go."

Toothless resettled. 'We still have a lot to talk about.'

Hiccup laughed softly. "Probably. But can we save the emotional conflicts for tomorrow? I've had just about enough of that for today."

'Sure. That kind of thing is best done face-to-face anyway. Hard to have a real argument when I can't see your face.'

Hiccup laughed, for real now. "Well, I could always just stare at my reflection while we argued. I've seen Snotlout talk to himself like that."

Toothless let out the gurgling laugh unique to him. 'Who is Snotlout? Have I seen him yet?'

"He was the one who wants to rip off dragon legs with his face."

Toothless snorted. 'He seems bright.'

The two laughed as Hiccup made his way out of the cove. He made sure to pick up the eel before he left. It might come in handy. He felt a slight change in the corner of his mind. Hiccup wasn't sure, but he thought that might be a sign that Toothless was using his senses. The pocket seemed to be... well, vibrating was the closest comparison he could think of. It was almost imperceptible, but he thought he could tell the difference now. It was nice to be able to tell when his friend was with him.