After leaving everyone else around the fire eating dinner, the I walk through the village to the forge. Torches and small fires light the dark streets in the night. Once I get to the forge, I go to the back room that Gobber like to call my "idea room". He's right in a sense. The walls are covered with tacked-up sketches I've drawn of all the inventions I've ever thought of. My desk is littered with blank and crumpled pieces of parchment and my journal lies on top of the desk. Picking up my journal and a charcoal pencil, I turn to the page where I drew Toothless. I draw the missing side of Toothless's tail fin. If he won't be able to fly on his own, I can try to help fly with a bit of help.
The entire night is dedicated to making a new tail for Toothless. I try my best to estimate the size of the tail, and get to work on building it. I cut, weld, sew, hammer. After burning my arms at least twice and what feels like hours later, and probably is, I stand in front on the blueprints nailed up to the wall above the desk and compare them to the finished product.
Don't worry bud, I think to myself even though Toothless can't hear me. You'll be up in the air in no time.
Despite my lack of sleep, I'm wide awake with excitement as I walk to the cove the next morning, despite dragging a basket full of fish behind me. I figured I might need something to keep Toothless distracted as I attached the prosthetic fin to his tail. And because he's probably hungry. After a lugging the full basket for what seems like hours through the forest, I finally get to the cove.
"Hey Toothless," I call out. I struggle to bring the large basket over my shoulder as I walking further into the cove.
"I brought breakfast." I say with a grunt as I drop the basket on the floor, "I hope you're hungry." I tip it over with my foot and the basket falls on its side, the slimy fish spilling out the now open top onto the floor. It wasn't a very pretty sight.
"Eew, okay that's disgusting." My nose wrinkles at the sight. Toothless doesn't seem to mind as he pads over to the pile of the fish and starts sniffing.
"Uh, we've got some salmon, some nice Icelandic cod, and a whole smoked eel."
Toothless suddenly backs away from the fish and growls at the eel I just mentioned. Seeing his reaction I grab the eel by the tail and hold it up to him. It was a pretty bad idea. Toothless's eyes widened and he backed up even further and made a scared-sounding roar.
"Oh no, no, no okay," I try to calm him down and throw the eel far from where we're standing. "Okay." I say again as I bring up a hand to help Toothless calm down. He sniffs my hand and snorts when he smells the eel on it.
"Yeah, I don't really like eel much either," I say as I wipe my hand off on my brown pants. Now that the eel in gone and Toothless has no problem with the pile of fish in front of him, he starts to eat.
"That's it. Now don't you mind me, I'll just be back here. Minding my own business…" While he's busy eating the fish, I begin to inch closer to his tail so that I can attach the new tail I made him. When I kneel down to attach the fin, his tail moves a few inches away.
"No no, it's okay." I think he's moving his tail because I'm about to touch it but it's because he's moving while eating the fish. "Just," I place my hands on his tail to stop his moving, "hold still." He doesn't seem to mind me touching him so I sit on his tail so my weight keeps him from moving. His next movement pitches me forward. He had stuck his head into the basket for more fish.
I quickly grab the new tail and fasten it on to Toothless before he can move and throw me off-balance again. After finishing I lean back to examine my work. The prosthetic is attached to his tail using two straps at the top and bottom of the tail fin. I pull out the tail completely to compare it to Toothless real fin. They're both the same size.
"Not bad," I murmur to myself. "If it works- Aahhh!"
Toothless had taken off into to air with me still on his tail. I grab on tightly to his tail as the ground beneath me becomes farther away as Toothless continues to beat his wings and take us higher into the air. I scream as we begin to drop suddenly and look at his tail fins. The artificial fin is closed up and not functioning. The only way for it to work is if it's fully extended, so I grab the tail and pull as hard as I can to open the fin. As we're nearing the ground, the tail fin snaps open and Toothless is able to level out. He climbs upward into the air above the trees.
"Oh my gods, it's working!" I exclaim as we fly through the air. Toothless banks to his right and I adjust the tail fin to we could turn. We soar back down and glide over the surface of the water in the cove. In the reflective surface I can see myself latched onto Toothless's tail while holding the tail open.
"Yes! Yes, I did it!" I guess Toothless hadn't noticed me in his tail until that point, because he flicks his tail and sends me flying through the air before splashing into the water. Bubble swirl around me and I open my eyes underwater. As I make my way to the surface, I see Toothless fall into the water. I'm too happy to be mad that he threw me off his tail.
"Yeah!" I shout as I break through the surface of the water and throw my hands up. I tread the water as I watch Toothless resurface with an almost surprised look on his face as he makes his way back the bank of the lake. I've started swimming back as well, but I'm not the strongest of swimmers, so by the time I'm trudging out of the water Toothless has already partially dried himself off.
The fact that I'm drenched in water doesn't even dampen my mood. My invention worked. I'm practically bouncing on my toes and I walk over to Toothless to take the tail off. Aside from being wet, he seems to be fine. Just a bit grumpy. Note to self: Night Furies are moody dragons. But I still smile as I walk towards him. Though he still seems a bit annoyed, there's a playful gleam in his green eyes. He's flown for the first time in days, so he has to be happy about that.
"Bud, I am a genius." I laugh to myself as he brings his head around to look at the prosthetic. He begins to try and grab it in his mouth, which results in him trying to catch his tail and I laugh even harder. "Okay, okay, calm down. Just hold still." He watches as I take the now wet invention off of his tail and lay it out in the ground to dry in the sun. He pads over to where I set it down and sniffs it, makes a crooning noise and nudges my hand.
"Yup, I made that," I explain as I pat his head carefully. I still don't know much about him, but he did just willingly nudge my hand so I guess he's okay with me touching him. Maybe he's just lonely and needs a friend. "With a few adjustments, it'll work without me having sit on your tail." I smile at him as he turns and trots off to where he was taking a nap yesterday. I squint up at the sky and then see the eel from earlier lying at a distance on the floor. Training should be starting soon, and I have an idea.
I know what you're thinking and I am so so so sorry for taking so long to update. Things got really crazy these past few weeks and I hardly had any time to write. And I'm sorry this chapter is so short. I didn't want to keep you guys waiting any longer so I wrote this up really quickly. Sorry it's just a filler chapter but I'm working on the next one right now!
Thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed, favorite, and followed. You guys are amazing and you make my day :) See you soon.. hopefully... Just kidding xD Don't forget to review!