Hiccup woke up to a splitting headache. He was probably dehydrated, and the head injury wasn't helping. At least his mind was clearer now.

He thought back to his little speech and winced at the memory. It wasn't that it was bad, but it could have been worded better. He was amazed that he had been able to come up with even that in his concussed state, considering he probably had been running off of adrenaline alone. It was a good thing working Toothless's tailfin was basically reflex. It was a miracle they'd made it out here without him messing that up.

He took stock of where they were. His heart almost stopped in fear.

They were on top of a tall sea stack, fairly close to the start of the fog that marked Helheim's gate. None of that scared him. What had scared him was the fact that the Berk fleet was apparently sailing back to home, and they were within shouting distance of this particular sea stack. Literally sailing right by, oblivious to the Furies and outcast hidden by the height of the sea stack.

Hiccup thought that if he spit, he might hit a Viking below him. That was how close one of the outlying vessels was to the sea stack. Man, that was a terrible way to wake up! He decided to wake Toothless and Svarturkló. If only so that they didn't do something loud when they woke up on their own. It probably wasn't a good idea to let the Vikings know they were there. After a moment of consideration, he decided to start with Toothless.

He approached the sleeping Fury. Now, how to wake him up without startling him? Hiccup thought he might know. He gently laid his hand on the dragon's head and started slowly scratching. Toothless always liked that when he was awake. Hiccup's guess was confirmed when Toothless's eye lazily slid open to land on him.

'Not that I'm complaining, but why?' Toothless was surprised to see Hiccup put a finger to his lips.

"I needed to wake you up without startling you. We can't make any noise. The Berk fleet is right below us, on their way back to Berk. They don't know we're here."

That woke Toothless up. He quickly turned to look at Svarturkló. She was still asleep. "How long until they leave? This sea stack, I mean." He wanted to know if they might be able to just let Svarturkló sleep until the Berk fleet had passed by.

Hiccup looked over the edge to judge the fleet's speed. "Maybe two hours? Those things aren't really that fast with no wind."

Toothless considered this. 'We can just let Svarturkló sleep until then.' He crept over to the edge overlooking the fleet. 'Can I do my business over the edge?'

Hiccup almost tripped. "No," he wheezed when he regained his breath, "bad idea!" He was struggling to keep his laughter to a minimum. "The idea is to stay hidden. A dragon rear end hanging over the ledge won't count as hidden."

Toothless stared at him. And then he understood. He quickly walked over to the other edge. 'I wasn't talking about that edge! I meant one on the other side!' He was extremely embarrassed.

Hiccup turned away to give him some privacy. "Sure, that's fine. But thanks for that mental image. A Viking covered in dragon droppings, trying to figure out what kind of seagull is that big. I'll treasure that for the rest of my life."

Hiccup resumed watching the fleet go slowly by. He was struck with a sudden pang of regret. Toothless sidled over a minute later and joined him in leaning over the edge, just his head actually over. They were practically invisible, because the Vikings would have to look straight up, and determine that they weren't just a few weird looking rocks.

'Are you alright?' Toothless was picking up on Hiccup's mood.

"Yeah. Just trying to think what I could have done differently. I feel like there was some path of choices I could have made that would have lead to the Vikings of Berk actually listening to us. Something that would lead to us all living in peace, Vikings and dragons. I can't help feeling I messed up somehow."

Toothless chuffed. 'Maybe. But you're ignoring something.'

Hiccup didn't look away from the fleet. "What?"

'No one is perfect. Not me, not any of those stubborn Vikings down there, and not even you. You tried. Maybe there was some magical combination of actions and luck that would have done it. But here, today, you just happened to not find it. It isn't the end of the world. Because you tried your best, and they wouldn't listen.' Toothless's tone turned slightly angry. 'And don't you dare blame yourself for the actions of a village that hated you until you started looking like you might be just like them in the future. A crazy girl who fixated on killing as her life goal. A power-hungry cousin who tried to kill you multiple times. A father who pushed you to be what he wanted you to be, ignoring who you really were. DO NOT blame yourself for any of that. I won't let you. Got it?' Toothless forced Hiccup to look him in the eyes, by means of hanging precariously over the ledge. He was entirely visible if anyone would think to look up, but he didn't care. This was more important.

Hiccup heard what Toothless was saying, and knew he was right. He couldn't blame himself. "Got it. Now get back before they see you."

Toothless shuffled back. 'What will we do now?'

Hiccup shook his head. "I don't know. Try to explain to your mom what's been going on." He considered that. He considered the fact that Toothless had a strong protective instinct. It was probably a species trait. If so... "About that..."

Toothless squirmed. 'Yeah, that'll be tense. I just want to get it over with. She was looking at my tail the entire flight from the Nest here."

Hiccup saw Toothless needed to be distracted. "Speaking of which, let me take a look. I want to see if it was damaged in the crash."

Toothless swung his tail into Hiccup's lap. 'I hope not. We might not be able to fix it.'

Hiccup laughed softly. "Worst case, Svarturkló can take me to another island with a blacksmith, and I can fix it there. But we don't have to worry about that right now. Crazily enough, nothing is broken or breaking. Even the leather is holding up. We fight a dragon that uses more fire than I've ever seen, and somehow you keep a flammable tail intact the whole way? I'm calling luck on that one."

Toothless snorted. 'That was skill.'

Hiccup poked his living tailfin. "For this end anyway. I call half the credit."

'But you were following my muscle directions!'

"Hey, a captain using a borrowed map is still a captain."

'I think your head is still injured.' Toothless was being petty now. He had no response to Hiccup's logic. Especially because he wasn't sure what a 'map' was. Hiccup had shown him his, but he had had a hard time recognizing anything.

Hiccup nodded. "Yeah, probably. We're going to need fresh water soon too."

Toothless sighed. "Well, this fleet better hurry up then. We aren't going anywhere until they leave.'

Hiccup went over to Toothless's side. He wanted to see what was in the saddle. As he recalled... "Hey, look at this!" He pulled out a tin canister. Gobber had a few, and Hiccup had borrowed one when he realized taking a waterskin on a flight was a terrible idea. He had needed a container that wouldn't burst under the slightest pressure. He opened it. "Fresh water. Not a lot, given we have two dragons here, but enough for us each to have a little."

Toothless lowered his head and eyed the canister suspiciously. 'That's metal, not water.'

Hiccup laughed. Instead of answering, he undid the lid. "Open your mouth."

Toothless complied, and Hiccup carefully poured a third of the water in. It wasn't a whole lot, but it was something. Hiccup then drank his third and put the lid back on.

Toothless licked his lips. 'I guess it is water. We should carry more of those.'

That was an idea. Hiccup would make a few more when...

'What is it?' Toothless saw Hiccup frown.

"I think the fact that I can't go back to Berk is starting to sink in. I won't really miss much, but I will miss a few things. The cove, for one. Even if it wasn't safe anymore."

Toothless agreed with that. 'Will you miss any people?' He wanted Hiccup to talk, instead of holding it all in. That might make it less painful.

"Maybe Gobber. Fishlegs was weird, but he was smart. And the twins made things interesting. Actually, I think the twins would have been the first to accept dragons as friends if things had gone differently."

That had Toothless intrigued. 'Really? I thought it would be Fishlegs. He never wanted to fight them in the first place from what I could see. He just wanted to study them up close, to add more numbers to wherever he keeps them.'

Hiccup laughed. "But Fishlegs is scared of them. He might have come around, but the twins would be all in from the start. They love destruction, and dragons are pretty close to destruction incarnate if they want to be. I'm surprised the twins never tried to make friends with a dragon."

Toothless had a thought. 'Maybe they will now. You've shown them it's possible.'

Hiccup grimaced. "Are you kidding? The village has been lambasting the same old villains for twenty years. Alvin the Treacherous, the Outcasts, and the dragons. They'll leap on the chance to add me to that list. If it's anything like with Alvin, I'll live in infamy, hated by all. Actually, I'll be just like Alvin, because they won't want to tell people exactly what I did. No one will say what Alvin did to be cast out, though I think I have a pretty good idea."

Toothless wanted to hear this. 'What do you think he did?'

"I put this together based on a few things. Gobber told us Alvin used to be Stoick's best friend. Ack told me Alvin and Stoick were on dragon duty as teenagers. Back then they used people our age in combat, without any training first. True survival of the fittest. Now, Gobber never says when exactly he lost his arm. He won't tell us exactly how, either. As best I can figure, Alvin did something on dragon duty during a raid that caused Gobber to lose his arm. Given his name, I'm gonna bet he ignored orders for personal gain. But one lost arm isn't a big enough deal to get outcast, so a few other people probably died as a result of Alvin's treachery. We do know that he took the name and went with it after he was outcast. Now he takes pride in it. He might not have been so bad to start, but I've heard tales of his more recent actions." Hiccup shivered. "I hope we never run into him."

Now that Toothless knew what this 'Alvin' character was like, he didn't want Hiccup to associate himself with him. 'You weren't outcast though.'

Hiccup stared at Toothless. "Were you there? I'm pretty sure Stoick shouted something along the lines of 'You bet you're outcast!' at the top of his lungs. That's all it takes."

'He can't outcast someone who isn't part of the tribe. And you left the tribe before he said that. So, I think it's more accurate to call you self-exiled.'

Hiccup liked the sound of that better than Outcast. "True. Which is good, because Alvin claims leadership of all outcasts, and I'd rather not work for him."

The conversation died down after that. They watched the Berk fleet sail away, slowly passing by the sea stack. Once the last ship was far enough away, Toothless decided to wake Svarturkló.

'Back up Hiccup. That scratching trick might get you killed if you tried it. I'll wake her.' Toothless approached Svarturkló gingerly. He barked almost in her ear, a short high pitched sound. He waited for a second, then did it again. The annoying sound was repeated this Svarturkló abruptly swatted him in the face with a paw. He leaped back and purred smugly. 'That's how Night Furies wake each other up.' After a moment his smug look faded. 'Actually, it's really annoying. Your way is better, at least for me.'

Hiccup smiled. "Well, now that I know how Night Furies do it, I might just start doing that instead..."

'Don't you dare. I'll slap you every time you do.'

Svarturkló slowly got up and stared at them. 'Why did you wait so long to wake me up?' She was addressing Toothless, but he was still relaying everything.

Hiccup figured it might not even be a conscious decision. Now that he thought about it, she didn't sound like Toothless at all. He wondered how that worked. Was he maybe actually hearing her through Toothless's ears by the link? He would need to ask about that later. Something was different now. Before, Toothless hadn't even told him exactly what the other dragons had said, like when he was releasing them from the arena. Now he was giving him everything, even things not directed at him, word-for-word. It helped to surpass any language barriers the already awkward conversation might have had.

Toothless settled down into a seated position, facing Svarturkló. Hiccup sat beside him. Svarturkló stayed standing. She began the long-awaited discussion with a slightly ominous remark.

'Svarturkappi, before we start I want you to thank the human for me. I want to get that out of the way before you tell me what's been going on. That way I can kill him if I have to.'

Toothless looked quite worried. Hiccup decided to intervene. "Thanks, but I can hear you. Now, anyway. And killing me is a bit of an odd way to repay me saving your life and your future."

Svarturkló looked very startled, and a bit annoyed. Maybe he wasn't supposed to hear that. 'That is the first thing I want to be explained.'

Hiccup shrugged. "Honestly, we don't really get it either. I mean, I don't know if Toothless is translating for me intentionally, or if it's automatic, or if I'm just hearing you through his ears without realizing it."

Toothless wrinkled his nose. 'Translating? I'm not translating anything. You must be hearing through my ears. Are you trying to?'

Hiccup tested the little bundle of senses in the corner of his head. Now that he noticed it, he did have hearing ever so slightly accessed. Not enough to even begin hearing through Toothless, but apparently enough to translate. "Actually, yes. I didn't notice until now because it's barely open. Cool."

Toothless agreed. It was nice to have his friend able to back him up.

Svarturkló huffed. 'Not that. I want to know how you can do anything with my son's head whatsoever. I don't like the idea of another Queen, but a Viking this time.' She snarled softly.

Hiccup leaned back. "Hey! He started it, not me. None of this is mine. If anything, Svarturkappi is messing with my head!" He turned to Toothless. "Although you know I don't mind."

Toothless met his mother's eyes. 'We really should just tell the story from start to finish. I'll be less confusing. And this is already confusing enough as it is, no matter how it's told.' He curled his tail around to Hiccup's other side. 'And you won't do anything until we tell the WHOLE story. That means no attacking halfway through. Got it?" That last question was underlined with a tense snarl. Toothless was not playing around.

Svarturkló eyed the prosthetic tailfin. 'Okay. But like I said, there better be a really good reason for all of this.'

Hiccup sighed. Time to rip the bandage off. Better do it quickly. "Okay, I'll start. I was never a very good Viking. I wasn't strong or stupid enough to do anything Viking-like. So, to prove myself, I built things. Contraptions of metal and wood to make up for my failings. They never worked. The last one I ever made was a machine that could throw bolas. It was to shoot down dragons. But I wanted to hit one dragon in particular. So, I set it up during a raid." Hiccup didn't want to continue. But he forced himself to anyway. "I got really lucky, and I hit something. A Night Fury. No one believed me, so I went out in search of him." Svarturkló had been giving Hiccup the stink eye for the last two sentences, and he gulped.

Toothless took that opportunity to take his mother's attention off of Hiccup. 'The Queen was using me that night for the raid, leaving me a prisoner inside my body, as usual. You know the drill. But when the bola snared me, and she couldn't break free, she thought I was going to die. So she pulled out and set me free so she wouldn't experience it. But I survived the crash. I lost my tailfin,' and here he had Hiccup put his hands on the prosthetic, 'and I was still trapped. Then, a little human found me in the woods. All he had was a knife, and I was sure he was going to end me.'

Svarturkló was staring at Toothless's damaged tail and artificial tailfin. He flicked it a bit, shifting Hiccup's hands. She looked back at Hiccup and snarled.

Hiccup continued the story in a shaky voice. "I found him. But in the end, I couldn't make myself kill him. That was because I looked into his eyes, and saw myself in his emotions. Fear, desperation. Everything my people have always said dragons don't have, don't feel. So I cut him loose instead. He pounced and pinned me, but he didn't kill me either. Just roared at me and flew off. I left. But I came back the next day, for no real reason. I was really surprised to find he was still there, in a cove. He couldn't get out. That was when I figured out that he couldn't fly. I came back the next day with fish."

Svarturkló was staring at Hiccup with malice, though not as much as before. 'You thought food was enough to repay grounding my son?'

Toothless interrupted before she could continue. 'Just keep listening before you jump to conclusions! No matter what Hiccup thought, he was a lot more help at that moment than you were, still enslaved at the nest. And either way, he was putting his life in my claws.'

Svarturkló flinched at Toothless's angry words.

'Anyway,' Toothless continued, 'The fish was to keep me from starving. We learned to trust each other that day. Me because I didn't have any other options, and him because he wanted to try an fix what he had done wrong. We trusted each other enough to make contact. And that was when I decided I needed to know more about him. So, I tried to use the thing the Queen had us use on Terrors.'

Svarturkló gasped.

Hiccup laughed. "Yeah, that hurt if I remember correctly. Worst headache ever for a couple of seconds. But once that passed, he could talk in my head, and we both could access each other's senses, whenever we wanted. So we talked, and then I went home. But I couldn't stop thinking about what I had done. I thought I might be able to make something to fix it." Hiccup reattached the prosthetic, drawing Svarturkló attention. "It took a lot of attempts, but this was what I could come up with."

Toothless took over again. 'But during that time, I learned about his life. Hiccup was alone among his own people. We became friends pretty fast. I helped him keep the captive dragons in the arena safe from the other Vikings when they trained against them. But that made Hiccup the look good to the Vikings. And as a result, made him an enemy, especially to that girl who tried to attack me at the Nest.'

Svarturkló stared questioningly. 'The one who smelled insane?'

'Yes. She got worse over time. She was just really angry at the start. Then, she cut a Terror in half for no reason. After that, you could smell it on her. I taught Hiccup to run like we do, and how to be sneaky. It saved his life at least once. Eventually, we decided to free the arena dragons, because Hiccup was going to be forced to kill one by the Vikings. So he set them free. That was the raid that we saw you in. Hiccup ran through the raid, risking his life a hundred times over to try to get to me so we could save you. But there was no way he would make it. We both knew that. But he risked his life and tried anyway. That was when I started thinking of him as my brother.'

Svarturkló eyed them both. Her expression was carefully neutral now.

Toothless continued. 'A lot of stuff happened after that. Hiccup and I coming up with a plan to save you was one thing. Another was Hiccup building a special weapon, with input from me. He made that scythe, the thing he was using this whole...' Toothless trailed off. 'Hiccup, what happened to it?'

Hiccup winced. "It got ripped off of my back at some point. I think it was probably destroyed when the Queen exploded." He noticed that Toothless wasn't happy about that. "I can always make another one bud. What do you say we make the next one even better?"

That perked Toothless back up. 'Yeah, we can make this one better looking too. Can iron be black, or purple maybe?'

Hiccup considered that. "Not iron. Maybe some alloy. I'll look into it at some point. That would be cool."

Svarturkló cleared her throat.

Toothless glanced over sheepishly at her. 'Sorry. So anyway, a lot of stuff happened, Hiccup's cousin tried to kill him, Astrid was planning on killing him, the entire village would kill both of us if they found me, and so on. Then the raid happened. We were going to save you, but...'

Svarturkló winced. 'I think I know what happened.'

Toothless nodded. 'The villagers were going to take a Nightmare, to replace the one Hiccup freed, and make Hiccup fight it. But they decided to make him fight you instead.'

Hiccup took up the narration. "But before we could do anything, the Queen attacked us using a Nightmare, and knocked Toothless out." He looked at Toothless in sorrow. "I tried to stop her, but I only hit her once before she got past me. I'm sorry."

Toothless chuffed. 'Then you hit her one more time than I did. Don't apologize for trying to protect me. We both know you need way more practice with a scythe. Nightmares are powerful warriors. I'm just glad she didn't kill you.'

Hiccup looked back at Svarturkló. "And that's where we met. I'm just glad you trusted me enough to pull off this crazy stunt to save Toothless."

Svarturkló looked puzzled. 'Who?'

Hiccup winced. Whoops. "Oh, he couldn't remember his name for a while, so that's what I called him."

Toothless interrupted Hiccup. 'And once I did remember, I told him to keep calling me that. I like the name. Svarturkappi is still my name, but Toothless is another. I like both. One reminds me of my family by blood, and the other my family by friendship.'

Svarturkló still didn't let any sign of what she was feeling about all of this show. 'So you need him to fly now? Your false tail moves so naturally...'

Toothless nodded happily. 'Hiccup taps into my sense of touch, and he can feel the muscles in my tail, so he knows what to do immediately. It feels like I have my whole tail.'

Svarturkló examined Hiccup. 'And what do you plan to do now? Svarturkappi will come with me wherever we go, and you have a home and family to return to. Now what?'

Hiccup looked down. "I don't know how much you understood, but that thing after the Queen's death, with the Vikings? That was basically me telling them what happened. They didn't accept it, so I kinda don't actually have a home or family anymore. Not that I had much of either anyway."

Toothless spoke in defense of his brother. 'His mother is dead, his father was the big guy who wanted him to kill me with the ax, his cousin was trying to kill him to take his place, and his uncle was encouraging it. That's the sum total of his blood family. And the village that he lived in was just as bad, if not worse. His nickname was 'Hiccup the Useless'. They only started noticing him when he started using what I taught him, and even then it wasn't very good. I was his only friend, and am his only real family now.'

Svarturkló stared at Hiccup. There was definitely something softer in her gaze now. 'Well then. In that case...'

The moment stretched out. Hiccup and Toothless held their breath, while Svarturkló considered things.

Svarturkló continued. '...you may come with us. But I don't entirely trust you yet. If you do anything to make me doubt your motives, I'll get rid of you myself. You will be with us on a trial basis.' Then she snarled. 'And if you do anything to harm either of us, I will kill you.'

Hiccup stood. "Bud, you wanna tell her what I did while she was going to the Queen to attack her? How I fought you off?"

Toothless looked confused. 'You didn't. You threw your weapon away and told the Queen it wouldn't help...' Now Toothless understood. '...It wouldn't help because you could never bring yourself to hurt me. You didn't even try to fight back when the Queen was a second away from blowing your head off.'

Hiccup looked at Svarturkló. "I can't hurt him, and I never want to hurt him by hurting you." He shrugged. "I didn't even want to hurt the Queen. I couldn't do it until I saw that you would die if I didn't. Hurting people really isn't something I do if I have any other option."

Toothless piped in. 'He didn't even want me to kill his cousin when we found out he had been trying to kill Hiccup.'

Hiccup laughed. "Don't think the idea didn't tempt me. That was a hard decision." He moved over to stand in front of Svarturkló. "Deal, on one condition."

Svarturkló looked slightly amused. 'And what condition would that be?'

Hiccup wasn't amused, he was deadly serious. "I'm going to keep trying to figure out how to fix Toothless's tailfin completely, to entirely restore what I took from him. That means we'll need to test things, to try out new ideas. But I need to fix what I did."

'Yes, you do.' Svarturkló growled. 'When my son can fly on his own, you will-'

Toothless cut in snarling angrily. "You're not getting rid of him. Not now, and not when he fixes my tail. Try, and I might just go with him."

That made Svarturkló flinch, her eyes fixed on Toothless. 'You would really..?'

"Yes."

'Very well.' Svarturkló turned back to Hiccup. Her voice was less antagonistic, almost considering now. 'We will see when that time comes.'

"Agreed." Hiccup nodded. The smile tugging at the corners of his mouth implied he knew very well Toothless's opinion on the subject wasn't going to change.

Svarturkló didn't show it, but that last interaction convinced her more than ever that this human was worth giving a chance. She didn't trust him much, but she would let him earn her trust. 'We have a deal.' She closed her eyes and held out her head. This seemed to be the way to seal bonds of trust with humans. After a moment, she felt his hand on her nose. He smelled of iron and Night Fury. Right now it was her son specifically that he smelled of, but in time, being around two Furies of the same family would blend his scent to that of a Fury of their family, not a specific individual. By then, she might be okay with that. Only time would tell.

Author's Note: Thanks for the support, anonymous and named reviewers alike. Any guesses as to what comes next? Some of you have already figured it out, judging by previous reviews.