Hiccup stood in the forge. Gobber had given him the day off because there was nothing to be done at the moment, and had promptly screwed on his mug arm and made his way to the Great Hall. He had been looking at Hiccup strangely, though he acted like nothing was wrong when Hiccup stared back at him. Hiccup was alone in the forge, and given Gobber's tolerance for alcohol, would likely be alone for the rest of the day.

Well, physically alone. 'Why are you here?'

Hiccup decided he might as well explain what he was thinking. He began talking as he grabbed a blank piece of paper and started drawing. "Your replacement tailfin needs to be able to open and close when you want it to."

Toothless interrupted. 'Not just open and close, it needs to be able to fold, tilt, half close... it might be easier to show you.'

Hiccup tuned in to Toothless's senses. That process was becoming quicker and easier as he practiced. "I'm watching."

Toothless proceeded to stare at his tail as he took it through the full range of motions it used for flight.

Hiccup quickly saw that building something that Toothless could use on his own was out of his reach right now. Maybe someday, when he understood the process more... For now, he needed a way to get Toothless into the air without being in control of both fins. "I don't know how to make this work" he admitted, closing out the alternative perception. He looked down at the blank paper.

Toothless was quiet. 'But you got it to work before, for a few seconds. What makes this different?'

"That was me operating the other fin, I can't think of a way for you to operate it yourself."

'Then don't.'

"What?" Hiccup asked, unsure if he was grasping what Toothless had said correctly.

'If you can't figure out a way to get me up on my own, then figure out a way to come up with me, and work the artificial fin yourself.'

Hiccup was torn, one part of him felt horrible that Toothless had to choose between always flying with a passenger, not completely in control, or not flying at all. The other part of him was ecstatic at the prospect of returning to the air. He ignored both parts in favor of the practical aspects of the problem. "I thought you weren't able to fly with a ninety-pound weight."

Toothless snorted. 'On my tail, no. Ride on my back, and I could probably carry three of you.'

Hiccup smiled. "So you want me to build you a saddle."

'What's a saddle?'

Hiccup was drawing as he answered, the saddle's design taking shape under his hands, along with a sketch of Toothless wearing it as he envisioned it to look like. "It's a piece of shaped leather that goes on your back, that I can sit on and hold on to in order to stay on your back while you fly. It lets me hold on without hindering your movement." Hiccup had finished his saddle design. It was a slim, flat piece of leather, unlike the raised saddle design used for horses. He figured a dragon so clearly built for speed would need an aerodynamic saddle.

'It doesn't look so bad. I'll have to see it made though. I don't want it to make me look weird.'

Hiccup could have predicted that response. Toothless was desperate to get into the air, but his pride would only bend so far in doing so. "I promise to not make you look silly."

'You better not.'

The process of making the saddle took the rest of the day, and this time Toothless was much more interested in how Hiccup was doing it. Answering the Fury's constant questions about the processes of tanning leather and building saddles made the day fly by, and Hiccup was genuinely surprised to find that night had fallen as he stepped out behind the forge, finished saddle in hand, along with a spool of rope. He realized that he hadn't eaten since... had he eaten this morning? He couldn't remember. It didn't really matter. He returned to his corner of the forge, and once again hid his new equipment behind his cluttered desk. It wouldn't have been big enough to cover up the whole saddle, but the stacks of paper and spare parts made up the difference.

"I'll have to bring these to you tomorrow. I need food and sleep right now." That was an understatement. In addition to having not eaten in quite a while, Hiccup hadn't slept in thirty-six hours and counting. He was near collapsing, having held out as long as he did through excitement and adrenaline.

'Go on then. I'm not going anywhere.' Hiccup wasn't sure if Toothless was referring to his current imprisonment in the cove or his occupation of Hiccup's senses. He was too tired to really care.

He trudged up the stairs to the Great Hall and grabbed some bread for a late dinner. He sat down at an unoccupied table, and ate alone, as per usual. For Toothless's benefit, as he could tell the Night Fury was still with him, Hiccup spent the meal looking around the Great Hall. He could see the massive, ornate doors, the various painted shields, the roaring fire. He could also see the tables and clusters of Vikings in various stages of inebriation. The Hall was partially empty, probably a result of the nest hunt. Hiccup concentrated on his food.

'Hiccup?'

"Yeah Toothless?"

'I've been wondering something. What decides who sits with who here?'

Hiccup looked around again and saw the random clusters of Vikings. "I'm not really sure what you mean. There isn't any rule, people usually sit with their friends and family."

Toothless was quiet for a moment. 'Do you have friends?'

That question struck a little too close to home. Until recently, Hiccup might have considered Fishlegs something of a casual friend, but he had been growing distant, and this latest thing with dragon training proved that. He didn't have any friends among the younger kids, as they pretty much all hero-worshipped Snotlout. The worst of these was a boy named Gustav, who was literally the leader of the Snotlout fan club. He was basically Snotlout-in-training, down to the brazen stupidity and dumb jokes. As for the older Vikings, the young adults, they had had to deal with the results of Hiccup's mistakes far too often for him to consider them friends. So no, he really had no friends in the village. He had known this, but it still hurt to think about. "No, not really."

Toothless could tell he had hit on a sensitive subject, so he decided to find something to make Hiccup feel better. 'What about family?' Toothless couldn't have known, but that was just as bad.

"My dad, but he's not here, and wouldn't be sitting with me if he was. He always has something Chiefing-related to be doing. Other than him, technically Snotlout is my cousin. His dad, my Uncle Spitelout, is just as bad. And, that would be it."

Toothless felt horrible now. He had tried to cheer Hiccup up and accidentally done the opposite. 'But you have me.'

Hiccup slowly smiled. "That I do." If nothing else, he now had at least one real friend. Even if that friend was a dragon, he still counted. He finished the rest of his meal in relative contentment, and headed back to his house, to collapse into bed. He didn't even remember laying down.

The next morning, Hiccup woke at daybreak, as per usual. What wasn't usual was where he woke. He was face down on the floor, a good few feet away from the wooden construct that qualified as a bed by Viking standards. That is, wooden and above the floor. He didn't waste time pondering his situation, it had happened before. Apparently, he was a heavy sleeper when making up for a night of missed sleep. That didn't happen often, but he distinctly remembered the time he had woken up with his arms hanging off of the edge of the loft that was his room. That had been an unpleasant reminder to not miss a night of sleep.

He hurriedly got up and ready for another day. He was halfway across the village when the pocket in his mind changed slightly, now subtly vibrating to signal that Toothless was tuning in. Hiccup decided to speak first this time. "Good morning Toothless."

Toothless didn't reply right away. 'Wait, how did you know I was using your senses. Was that a lucky guess?'

The disbelief in the dragon's voice amused Hiccup. "Nope, I can just tell now."

Toothless was astounded. 'I didn't think that would be possible.'

"You didn't know any of this was possible. One more impossible thing shouldn't come as much of a surprise."

'It shouldn't, but it still does. Where are you going?'

Hiccup grimaced, good mood somewhat dampened as he remembered. "The arena."

Toothless caught on quickly. 'Right, to clean the pens with Gobber.' He growled. 'For something that wasn't your fault.'

Hiccup scowled. It was nice to have someone else acknowledge that, even if it was someone who couldn't exactly convince Gobber of the truth of it. The more he thought about it, the more it got under his skin. He had been lied to, and as a result missed training, and he was the one being punished for it. But he knew Gobber. The blacksmith wouldn't care why Hiccup had been late, and he definitely wouldn't rescind the punishment. Especially because the punishment in question meant that Gobber had help for one of his least enjoyable responsibilities as the teacher of dragon training. Hiccup would just have to deal with it.

Toothless wasn't so complacent. As Hiccup made his way across the bridge connecting the rock outcropping that held the arena to the rest of Berk, Toothless lapsed into a discontent silence. In the brief time Hiccup had known him, he was beginning to realize that the dragon held great stock in fairness and justice. His reaction to Hiccup trying to make up for his mistakes, for example. He figured the unfair punishment wouldn't sit well with the dragon. But there was no way out of it.

He met Gobber in the arena, and the old blacksmith explained how the pens were cleaned. In true Viking fashion, the process was straightforward and simple. Each pen had a back door entrance. One pen would be opened, and then closed again once the dragon in question had entered the arena. The cleaner would then enter the now vacant pen and do their work. The fun part came after. In true Viking fashion, instead of trying to lure the dragon back into the pen with food, if the dragon didn't tamely walk back into the pen when the door opened, the cleaner would grab a weapon and force it back in. For today, Gobber would be doing the forcing, and Hiccup the actual cleaning.

The actual cleaning went fine, if disgusting and boring. Hiccup never even saw the dragons he was cleaning up after, although he did hear the ones that didn't want to return to their pens. Gobber was very good at what he had called 'Dragon herding'. Hiccup noted with amusement that he did indeed insult the dragons as he herded them. Toothless might have shared in his amusement, but he was too busy seething. He had seen the interior of a pen before when he had watched Hiccup force a Zippleback into one the other day, but now he was given a much closer look. The pens were dark, claustrophobic, uninsulated, permanently stained with blood and feces, and according to Toothless reeked of old pain and fear, as well as despair. Hiccup couldn't smell that (or he didn't recognize it, that part of the link still didn't make sense to him) but he agreed with the other criticisms of the pens. Whether or not these dragons deserved to be prisoners, any person should treat their prisoners better than this. Come on, even the worst jail cells, meant for Outcasts and the insane were better than this. Of course, those were still for humans, however broken or despicable. These pens were for dragons, what Vikings considered little better than demons, a step below animals. There was no need to do anything other than keep them alive to be fought. After finding out that most dragons were as intelligent as people, Hiccup had begun to consider them as such. This would have sickened him even before that change in perception.

But, again, he knew there was nothing he could do to change it. It didn't make him feel any better. So, when Gobber wanted to talk to Hiccup after they had finished with the last cage, the one housing the Nightmare, Hiccup wasn't at all in a good mood, and neither was Toothless.

Gobber and Hiccup were sitting in the spectator seats, outside the arena. Gobber was looking into the arena, staring at the stone floor and massive gates.

Hiccup, on the other hand, was looking past the arena, out at the sea, and the endless sky above. This was for his benefit as much as for Toothless. On a whim, he accessed Toothless's perception. The dragon was laying in a corner of the cove, hidden from any prying eyes, and had a good view of the whole cove. The view was beautiful, but in a different way to the sea and sky Hiccup could see. One view represented confinement, no matter how beautiful the cage, and the other freedom, regardless of the state of the world the freedom would be found in. One was somewhat safe and boring, the other very unsafe and exciting. Hiccup found himself intensely wishing to be up in that boundless sky, and no doubt Toothless felt the same. Needless to say, they were both focusing on Hiccup's perspective.

Gobber was the first to break the silence. He turned to look at Hiccup. His question was as blunt as the bottom of his prosthetic foot. "Are you alright lad?"

Hiccup was thrown for a loop, but he knew he had to be careful. There was so much going on recently, and he couldn't be sure what Gobber was referring to. He decided to find out. "What do you mean?"

Gobber looked uncomfortable. "Well... ye got intae a scuffle with Snotlout..." Hiccup snorted. "Not sure you could call a punch to the face a scuffle. The word scuffle would imply I at least tried to hit him back."

Gobber sighed. "And ye've been late to training and missed a class entirely. Why were you so late?"

A pungent mix of frustration and fear was bubbling inside Hiccup. He couldn't let Gobber wonder about his activities, and he needed a way to get him off of his back.

As he sat there, Toothless chimed in. 'Tell him why you thought it had been rescheduled. He should know, even if it doesn't matter to him, and it's the perfect excuse because it's true.'

It was a good solution. He didn't have to fake his frustration as he spoke, it was definitely real. "I was late because I had been told you moved the training to the afternoon."

Gobber looked confused. "Who told ye that? I never hold training in the afternoon, unless the Chief requests it!"

Hiccup scoffed. "Does it matter? You don't need me to tell you who it was, there's only one person who intentionally has it out for me." Hiccup sighed, some of his anger fading. "Well, there used to be only one. Astrid won't forget what happened against the Zippleback."

Gobber looked taken aback, both by Hiccup's anger and his lack of sarcasm. Those were both things he had never seen in Hiccup before. He was used to Hiccup replacing anger with sarcasm, not the other way around. He didn't know that the anger had always been there, and Hiccup was just less inclined to hide it when he had someone besides himself confirming that it was a legitimate response to the situation.

After a moment, Gobber decided to lighten the mood with another, happier mystery. At least for him. "Aye, that's another thing. How did ye scare that Zippleback off like tha'? I've only seen the like with the most intimidating Vikings on the battlefield." When Hiccup didn't answer, Gobber continued, chuckling at the fond memories. "Aye, I've seen yer father do it before. Just stand in front of a dragon, and look it in the eye until it flies away in fear. Of course, the dragon blood and bits o' brain smeared all over his hammer might have had something to do with that."

Far from cheering Hiccup up, the comparison to his father made him far angrier. After years of being told he looked nothing like his father, one trick with an eel and suddenly he was being compared to him. He wanted to be told he was like his father because of something he had a right to be proud of.

'How dare he compare you to a dragon-killer.'

Toothless's objection reverberated in Hiccup's mind. Something about it struck true. Did he want to be like his father anymore? He now knew that he never would be, if his stature and size hadn't already been a death knell for that dream. His father was a dragon killer. That was something he was becoming more and more convinced as the days passed he would never be. And that wasn't a bad thing. All in all, Hiccup was not pleased with the comparison. "No, I'm not." He spoke without thinking.

"Wha'?" Gobber sounded completely confused. The boy had wanted to be like his father... pretty much forever.

Hiccup backtracked. "I mean... I'll never be as big as him... or as strong... so I'm not like him."

Gobber could tell this wasn't what Hiccup had meant. But he had no idea what he really meant, so he accepted it at face value.

"Eh, you might hit a growth spurt or somethin'. Anythin' else botherin' ya?"

Hiccup's shoulders slumped. He was mainly relieved that Gobber seemed to have dropped the subject of his lateness and not registered his odd reactions as something unusual.

"Nope. Good talk. See you later." Hiccup stood and began walking away.

"Oh, and Hiccup. This is just a suggestion, but ye might wanna stop talkin' to yerself so much. It makes you look... well, crazy."

Hiccup smiled. Gobber didn't know the half of it. But when had he seen him talking to Toothless? Gobber had probably noticed him mutter a few words under his breath now and then. Nothing to worry about. Hiccup smirked as he called out a sarcastic parting shot. "Who says I'm not?"

He didn't see that the sarcasm had been lost on Gobber, who was even more worried about his apprentice's sanity than before. That anger, the talking to himself. It was unusual. More unusual than Hiccup... usually was. But Gobber also had to consider what Hiccup had done with the Zippleback. He decided to wait and see how it all played out. But he would talk to Stoick when he got back. Whether this was a good or bad thing, it wasn't entirely... natural. Something about it unsettled Gobber. He just didn't know what, so he dismissed the unsettled feeling.

Hiccup made his way back to the cove, his good mood somewhat returning as he did his best to put Gobber's unintentionally hurtful remark behind him. Gobber meant well. Still, he was looking forward to spending time with someone that actually understood him. Or at least understood him better than anyone else. Maybe even better than he himself did right now.