He opened his eyes, mind spinning. A place of still water, greenery, and cliffs swam idly into view, wavering as his body recovered. He stood, shakily.

What was he?

Who was he?

Those questions weren't as easy to answer as he would have liked. So many memories, flooding into his mind. He had lived Ember's life. The entire thing. All sixty-something years of it, as best he could tell. Some parts stood out, but in those moments he had been spared nothing. It really had been like living that life. And then he had his old memories, the fifteen or so years from Hiccup. The majority of his experience in life didn't come from Hiccup anymore. It came from Ember.

He gasped, the last moments of that life hitting him. He had died. Literally feeling the strength leave him for the last time, the grievous wounds torn into his chest. That wasn't even the worst part.

"Flint." That name, choked out, broke him. He cried, head bowed. She was gone. And despite the corner of his mind telling him he never really knew her, memory trumped logic. Especially when that memory was so vivid. Was there a difference now, whether or not he had personally lived through what he could remember? It didn't feel like it.

A corner of his mind wondered how old he was now. If one judged by memory, he could remember something around seventy-five years total.

A startled whine broke him out of his frantic thoughts. He looked up to see a black Night Fury with piercing green eyes staring at him in utter horror.

Two parts of him struggled for control at that moment. Though it wasn't a struggle so much as confusion, his mind putting two different names to the one in front of him. He shook his head, before realizing the other part of his problem.

He was still Ember. Here, now, in the cove. The wings on his back were pretty good proof on their own, but he knew this body as he knew his own. It was his own. If anyone besides Ember could lay claim to it, he could. Was this how Vithvarandi felt about every single body she had taken?

Maybe. But there was a difference here, he was sure. He still didn't think any of this was right, or good.

Those thoughts needed to wait in line. Right now, that other Night Fury he still couldn't decisively name even in his head was panicking. He choked out another word, deciding for the moment to use the name he knew how to say in his current form. "Beryl."

His voice was deep, the name a warble. It didn't feel strange, but then, he had spoken that way for sixty years.

Beryl jerked back, eyeing him suspiciously. "I don't know which you are." His voice was one Hiccup knew and yet didn't. He knew the sound of his best friend but didn't understand him. Or, he knew what Beryl sounded like as a child, but not now, as an adult. The two combined were disorienting.

Hiccup groaned. "Neither do I, really." He shook his head, trying to regain control of his own mind. "The boy you knew is still here." He didn't know how to say his own name like this. "But I remember... everything. His entire life. Like I lived it." With all the trauma that implied.

Beryl growled. "Please, change back. This is wrong. A cruel taunt."

Hiccup moaned, shaking his head violently. "I know! I'm not sure how!"

"Figure it out!" Toothless snarled, pacing closer. His voice was sorrowful and angry at the same time. "Please!"

The raw pain in his voice forced Hiccup to concentrate. He ignored everything he had just gained and tried to think back to what he had done to trigger all of this. That void in his mind was still there. He mentally poked at it, but nothing happened. Desperate now, he envisioned his human self, the scrawny boy down a leg with no visible muscle, and poked that spot with the image he had created.

It reacted, and he exhaled in relief as the dark blue flames he remembered from the moment before Ember's memories hit him reemerged, transforming him. It didn't hurt, per say, but now that he was awake to experience it, he could feel his skin crawling, bones shrinking, limbs disappearing. What was even odder was feeling his prosthetic and clothing emerging from his body as part of him. Although, that was definitely better than the alternative. He had no desire to come back without clothes or a leg to stand on.

When the flames receded from his vision, he beheld Beryl, looking a bit less on the brink of total panic. Toothless. Beryl.

The body of Ember might be gone, but his memories remained. They hadn't faded in the slightest with the changing of forms.

"Thank you."

Apparently, having heard and understood dragons for sixty years transferred over. He still understood Toothless easily and clearly, just barely registering that said thanks was voiced in a high-pitched purr which underlaid the statement with worry and stress. He mostly heard the words and tone.

That fact on its own overrode his confusion and inner conflict. "Toothless! I can still understand you!"

Toothless tilted his head. "What, really? No human understands our speech. Even you have to guess. Though you are a great guesser."

"Yeah! I got all of that. And you're better at charades than I am at guessing. It's mostly your talent that we communicate as well as we... did, I guess." He smiled. "Something tells me talking is more efficient."

"Yes." Toothless growled at him. "The first thing I want to say is that it was a really stupid idea to go to that island."

"It was." Hiccup crossed his arms. "But come on, how could I have seen that coming?! You can't blame me for wanting to get my leg back." He pointed at Toothless's tail. "I don't see you complaining about that regrowing."

"Because you couldn't hear me before." Toothless flicked his tail. "Believe me, it hurts. I complain plenty."

There was a beat of silence. They were both ignoring... well, everything really. Hiccup broke first, looking out at the pond, in the hopes that no eye contact might make things easier to say.

"Bud, I... remember. Everything." He frowned. "And now I get why you weren't exactly happy to see him back in the caves."

Toothless wasn't having any of that. "No. Forget it, and never do... that... again. It's wrong."

"That's a bit unrealistic!" Hiccup waved his hands. "It's not like it was some dream that fades in a few seconds. I still have to stop myself from calling you Beryl! Right now, when I look at you, both names come to mind!"

"Just don't think-"

"I can't not think! I've been trying!" He sat down, frustrated. "I just lived sixty years in... how long was I out?"

Toothless shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't know you were unconscious. When the blue fire dissipated, you were laying on the ground. It only lasted a few heartbeats. Did you really..?"

"Sixty. Years. Every waking minute of his life." Hiccup thought back. "Gods, Toothless, I can remember things he heard before he had even hatched. I can remember what that felt like! Is that even normal for dragons? Because I sure as Hel can't remember what it was like to be a human infant."

"Well, I can remember that stuff too... not that there was much to experience." Toothless shifted. "Everything? Really everything?"

"Bud, I recall the day you hatched." Hiccup could really remember it as if he had been there. "The surprise. We didn't think you'd come out entirely black. Your mother thought you'd be grey, like her, and I was guessing green. You had the most piercing green eyes though."

Toothless recoiled. "Stop." He whined, falling back until his back paw hit the shallows of the pond. "Hearing you talk like you are him is wrong. My Sire is dead. No crazy lady with unnatural powers can change that, and neither can you."

"Toothless." Hiccup put a hand to his head, trying not to dwell on what he was saying. "I know Ember is dead. I can remember death, just as vividly." He choked. "My death, and Flint's. I wish I could forget."

"You have no right to those memories!" Toothless was growling. At Hiccup. "They aren't yours."

"And I'd give them back if I could!" Hiccup was yelling now, frustrated beyond belief. "But I can't! So stop acting like this is all my choice!" He searched his mind for the best way to say this. "I can't deal with this alone. You protected me from everything on Berk. But now, when I actually need support, you're blaming me for it."

Toothless's growl trailed off, and his eyes expanded. "I..." He took in Hiccup's clear distress. "You're right."

"I know I am." Hiccup looked down, still trying to regain some semblance of normal in his own mind. "I really need-"

Toothless gently pushed him over with a paw, having moved close while Hiccup wasn't paying attention. He caught Hiccup against his side, and in moments the boy was ensconced in a living barricade of black scale. "You are right. It's not fair to blame you. I'm sorry."

Hiccup exhaled. "Thank you. I'm sorry too, for what it's worth. For everything. Getting us into that mess, going to that stupid village in the first place, shooting you down that night. All of it."

"Don't apologize for shooting me down." Toothless huffed, the air ruffling Hiccup's hair. "That was not you. Just a desperate boy who needed to prove himself. You cut me loose and did everything that came after. If I thought you were still the same person who shot me down, I wouldn't stick around."

"And now?" Hiccup choked out a combination laugh and sob. "What about now? I've changed again. Quite permanently, I suspect." Those memories weren't fading. If he had to describe it, they were settling. He was finding it more and more difficult to distinguish between original and implanted memory, as the new ones settled into familiarity. This definitely wasn't going away.

"I didn't consider leaving for a second." Toothless growled, the sound reverberating in the small space Hiccup was occupying. "But we do need to set a few rules."

"Such as?" Hiccup had a pretty good idea he knew what Toothless meant.

"That ability... it's bad."

"I don't like it. But is it bad in itself?" Hiccup asked curiously, having considered the question. "I mean, clearly, killing people for personal benefit is wrong. But I didn't exactly try to get this far. And Ember was... already dead."

"There is something morbid about it." Toothless uncurled, looking Hiccup in the eye. "I don't believe you are evil. But I do think using my Sire's body on a whim is disrespectful in the extreme. Please, please don't. It isn't yours."

That was fair. Hiccup knew he wouldn't like it either if the situation was reversed. But something inside of him rebelled at the idea of just willfully ignoring a part of himself, one he was sure deep down wasn't intrinsically evil or wrong.

"Bud, I'm going to be honest." Hiccup tried to show his resolve. "I don't think becoming Ember is wrong or disrespectful if done for the right reasons. But I will not do it if you don't want me to."

"Thank you." Toothless squirmed a bit after a moment, clearly debating something inwardly. "I suppose you can't forget his memories."

"No. Maybe if someone hit me over the head a few dozen times, but that would be just as likely to kill me as to help." Hiccup forced a grin. "They aren't going anywhere."

"I wish that wasn't the case." Toothless shuddered. "You remember everything. Including very personal, private things, I assume."

Hiccup's face turned beet-red as he made the connection Toothless was implying. "Ehh... yeah. That's really, really weird. Thank you so much for bringing it up. I hadn't considered that" he rolled his eyes, "and now I can't stop thinking about it! Please change the subject." He did not want to dwell on that. Though to be honest, it wasn't the memories of the act so much as the fact that he technically was his best friend's own father, in memory if not blood, that disturbed him.

That, in turn, brought him to another line of thinking. "How in Thor's name am I going to explain any of this to Astrid?" Astrid specifically, because, well...

Ember's life had messed that up too. He still kind of liked Astrid, but now he could also remember being the dragon equivalent of happily married to Flint for many years. He could also still feel the heartbreak her death had wrought in those last moments. That wasn't going away. Who knew how it would affect things with Astrid, going forward? Not that she had seemed particularly interested in going forward for her part these last few weeks anyway. Hopefully, she'd stay aloof long enough for him to figure all of that out.

Toothless obliged him in changing the subject, following his comment about Astrid. "You don't. No one should know."

"Why not?" Hiccup spoke lightly, already seeing how the village would react. "I personally don't get enough strange looks on a daily basis. Revealing that an immortal murderer cursed me with her abilities might get me to my daily quota." No, the village definitely couldn't know about any of this.

"That at least is still entirely you." Toothless snorted, pawing at Hiccup. "Sire was never one for sarcasm."

"I know." Hiccup could remember that Ember had been a solemn dragon, save with Flint and his hatchlings. "I believe quiet encouragement was more my- sorry, his- forte." He winced at Toothless's uncomfortable rumble. "It's hard. I am trying."

They lapsed into silence for a long while. Hiccup sat against Toothless's side, trying to bring some modicum of peace to his mind. It was difficult. He stared out at the pond, eyes not really seeing the water. Reliving Ember's memories was an activity he found himself drawn back to, time and time again. They weren't so vivid anymore, now closer to matching his own memories. The important stuff stuck, and if he tried he could recall certain details, but the day-to-day faded into obscurity. It was a small blessing. Being hyper-aware of every moment of sixty years would be even more of a curse.

His mind was drawn back to those last moments, but every time he recalled seeing Flint's lifeless body, he felt like breaking into tears. Needless to say, anything was better than that. He recalled the happier memories instead, as the lesser of two evils. The thousand small moments with Flint, with Spark, Beryl. Those put his mind a bit more at ease, though that little voice in his head that kept reminding him he hadn't actually been there was not silent. It was fading though.

O-O-O-O-O

Hours passed like that. The sun rose to its height, and began the descent back into the West, casting shadows across the cove. Toothless was apparently content to sit there in relative peace. Hiccup had wrestled his thoughts into stillness. With relative peace though Hiccup was able to concentrate on less deep matters.

"Toothless?"

Toothless blinked, coming out of almost a waking sleep. "Yes?" He dreaded the continuation of their emotionally-charged discussion.

"Do you care if I call you Beryl?" Hiccup shifted slightly, clearly uncomfortable. "I mean, it is your name. Your real name."

"Well... you can? I don't mind either way."

Hiccup picked up on the sadness in Toothless's voice. "That's a lie."

Toothless snorted. "I really don't mind. I just don't like how you found out. I wish I could have told you myself."

"So do I." Hiccup inwardly sighed in relief. Even that small decision eased the overwhelming confusion he felt, the conflict between old and new memory. It was one less thing he had to think about, to consciously decide. Beryl was his best friend's name.

"It's getting late," Toothless remarked, looking at the setting sun. "Should we spend the night here, or go back to the nest?"

"Nest?" Hiccup shook his head. "Why would we go there? It's empty." Not to mention, it was a few hours away.

"Oh, no. I meant the nest on this island. The No-scaled-not-prey nest."

Hiccup was abruptly reminded that Toothless was technically speaking a different language. "Oh, right. The village." He searched his mind, but there didn't seem to be a word for village in the way dragons spoke. Which made sense. For all intents and purposes, a hypothetical village of dragons would just be a nest. So, of course, they didn't have a separate word for it.

But as for the question at hand... "We can spend the night here. We aren't due back for a few more days. No hurry."

They later spent an hour or so flying, Toothless fishing for food. When they returned, night had fully fallen on the cove. After they had eaten, Toothless settled down to sleep.

Hiccup, mind addled by fatigue, spoke unguardedly, yawning as he did. "Ignoring everything else... this is good, right? Me understanding you."

"If we could ignore everything else, yes. But it is an inseparable part of something much less clear-cut." Toothless growled. "I would be happy to go back to the way things were, before any of this. We didn't need to talk. It's nice, but not necessary."

"I don't know." Hiccup closed his eyes. "Maybe this is for the better. At least now Vithvarandi isn't using Ember's body."

"Yes, that was terrible." Toothless whined softly. He didn't like thinking about those moments. "So terrible..."

Sleep came easily to both of them. But it was a troubled sleep, one that held off on nightmares solely because they were too deeply tired to dream.

O-O-O-O-O

Laughter woke both Hiccup and Toothless in tandem. Their reactions were immensely disturbing to the one who had woken them.

Toothless's reaction was to bolt upright, teeth bared and ears flat against his head, rearing to face the noise in an instant. His body spoke of imminent violence, and his eyes of some unnamed terror. Beyond the obvious tension, there was something akin to fear, lurking behind the facade of aggression.

Hiccup also started awake, his face one of pure stress. While he looked almost the same, there was a depth to his eyes that hadn't been there before. It was almost imperceptible, but it was most definitely there. The depth of experience, of time.

Astrid had stumbled across them in her morning training routine, which now also involved scaling the walls of the cove. The sight of the two asleep on Berk days before their trip was supposed to end amused her. And so she had laughed, fully intent on the sound waking them. This reaction was not at all what she had been expecting.

She took a step back, wishing Stormfly had accompanied her that morning. Toothless had been uptight before, but this was another level, and Thor knew what was going on with Hiccup.

She had seen the look in his eyes, but not identified it. It was simply another unsettling detail. "Hiccup? Mind calling Toothless off?"

O-O-O-O-O

Astrid's voice made Hiccup realized exactly what was going on. But in the haze of having just awoken, he didn't stop to consider what to say, or how he would come across.

"Beryl!" It was a way to gain his attention. He had used it often when Beryl was a hatchling. A sharp snapping warble, underlaid with a growl to convey seriousness.

The issue was, he tried to say it as Ember would. The result was an embarrassingly high-pitched sound that resembled nothing any dragon or human would consider language, cut off in a coughing fit as his throat protested the strange signals his confused brain was sending.

That odd noise did grab the attention of both Beryl and Astrid however, so it did end up working. He gagged a little, forcing himself to stop coughing. Very carefully, he formed his next statement in the language this body could use, also taking that time to reorient himself. He was not Ember, no matter how much his own head thought otherwise. He had no right to speak to his friend with that authority he had tried to summon.

"That... hurt." At least that statement came out right, though his voice was raspy thanks to the trauma he had just put his vocal cords through.

"You're telling me?" Astrid put a hand to her ear. "That sounded like it hurt." She glanced at Toothless, who was staring at Hiccup, concern clear on his face. Reassured that he was no longer a threat, she put her hands on her hips, a stern tone in her voice. "So much for getting him to ease up. He looked ready to kill me."

Hiccup winced. Astrid had no idea what they had gone through. "Maybe don't startle him awake next time then." He tried to keep his voice neutral, but it ended up sounding defensive. "My dad does the same if you wake him up like that. The number one rule in my house is 'don't wake Stoick unless you want to practice running for your life'."

"Still. You were supposed to be fixing it, not making it worse."

"Astrid, I know that." Hiccup stood, gesturing to Toothless. "Well, we might as well go back to Berk now."

The shortness of his tone clearly surprised Astrid. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the cove." She left, not looking back to see if they were following.

"No, I woke up in the wrong body," Hiccup muttered that, well aware that only Beryl could hear him. "Trying to talk in your language isn't fun at all. My throat feels like I tore it to shreds."

"So that's what happened." Beryl rumbled uncomfortably, stretching and flapping his wings. "I thought you were choking. Why did you try?"

"I didn't think." Hiccup began putting the saddle and prosthetic on so that they could fly out of the cove. "That was the problem." He didn't tell Beryl about what he had tried to say, or how he had tried to say it. That upon waking, his mind had immediately connected the need with Ember's experience in handling his hatchlings, not with Hiccup's experience in calming his friend.

He didn't tell Beryl that though he still remembered the name 'Toothless' and wasn't uncomfortable using it, it was disturbingly easy to slip into the habit of thinking of his friend as Beryl first. It felt right to do so, as one of the few things both sides of his experience now agreed upon. He as Hiccup had made the decision to use his friend's true name, and he as Ember agreed with that decision. The issue was, that was one discrepancy among many. Most of the rest involved physical issues, such as whether or not he had wings. That feeling of confusion would hopefully fade.

The sight of the village brought mixed feelings to Hiccup, as he and Beryl soared overhead. Home. Kind of. For part of him, anyway. The other part of him didn't really have much of a home. He didn't even know where that island they had raised Beryl and Spark was, or where Thorn and Herb lived.

That hurt more than he had expected. He couldn't go back even if he wanted to, because he didn't know the way.

He tried to concentrate on the here and now. The village. Beryl set down in the plaza, and they were bombarded with greetings.

Hiccup made another discovery. "Gods, I thought it was bad before!" He muttered to Beryl, resisting the urge to cover his ears.

Before, he had heard the greetings of the Vikings, with the ever-present noises made by dragons as an indistinct background noise. Now, he heard the meaning, not the sound. A dozen, a hundred voices he didn't recognize greeted Beryl and even in some cases himself, congratulating them on a safe return, among other things.

It was actually difficult to concentrate on what any given person was saying. The greetings came in on two different levels, in two different languages. They mixed and fouled each other, creating a torrent of pure nonsense Hiccup could not separate into anything coherent.

He had to settle for waving and smiling, all while subtly urging Beryl away from the crowds. Beryl was as eager as he was to get away, and they soon found themselves in an alley, away from the masses.

They only had a few moments before they were found and unable to truly converse. Hiccup shook his head. "That was confusing."

Beryl laughed. "Now you hear everything. It's always like that. Especially for those of us that understand your kind. Our languages are different on many levels. They don't play well with each other."

"Wait, not all dragons understand us humans?" That made sense, in retrospect. Ember didn't understand humans. He definitely hadn't taught Beryl or Spark that either. So Beryl must have learned it after... his death.

He shivered. Really not the best thing to keep remembering.

"No, very few of us do," Beryl growled. "It's an acquired skill, and most don't care enough to bother. I learned from you, those weeks in the cove and from the people around you in the months you were asleep. A few others know, but most don't."

"Great. And it always sounds like that to you?"

"Whenever No-scaled-not-prey and kin talk at the same time, yes. Why do you think I don't enjoy living here that much?"

"I'm sorry, bud." Hiccup shook his head. "At least now I know. I hear it too."

What else would this change? He hadn't expected anything like this. Vithvarandi's actions had ramifications he hadn't foreseen. This was likely not even close to the biggest change he had accidentally wrought.

Author's Note: A few things of interest:

Languages: They don't play well together, is the short version. Knowing both is fine, hearing both at the same time while being able to understand both is extremely disorienting, and makes it hard to understand any of it. This is a result of the languages of dragons and humans operating on different 'levels' of sound and in the mind. I could BS a real, scientific explanation involving sound waves and amplitude, but it doesn't feel necessary. Just know there is (hypothetically) a scientific explanation.

Toothless or Beryl: I'm aware that some fans dislike any renaming of Toothless, and I personally don't generally do it without a very good reason. Here, it really wasn't avoidable, given Hiccup's state of mind. It also helps that he can remember giving Toothless that name, just as he gave him the name Toothless. The prior name has the prior claim. A beryl, by the way, is a type of gem that comes in many different forms and colors, one of which being green.

Lack of a battle for Hiccup's mind: Yeah, no epic showdown. If anyone thinks Hiccup's reaction or opinions on all of this are weird or out of character… make no assumptions. It's hard to be clearer without spoiling something. Just know that his mental state/status is not fixed, rather evolving over time. It has begun in this chapter, but is far from over.

Next chapter up tomorrow!