A/N: I highly suspect that this chapter and others will devolve into drabble-like collections. I WILL HAVE PLOT IN THIS STORY. However, like I've said, a large part of this story is simply a character study. I've got lots of snippets in my head, and instead of wasting time trying to fit them together with stupid filler stuff, I'm going to jump around to them as they seem to fit, and plug in the important plot points as I go. So. Enjoy!

Time had healed a number of wounds between Hiccup and his father. And yet, whenever they really got to fighting, the fray was just as spitfire as ever. No matter how different they were, Hiccup had inherited one pillar of his personality from his father: stubbornness.

"You expect me to just… believe that this… this stranger is your dragon?!"

"Would I lie to you?"

"Would you lie to yourself? Hiccup, you don't know-"

"I do know, he's Toothless,"

"But how?!"

"I'm not exactly sure, but we'll figure it out, but in the meantime, we need to help him out with this mess,"

"What, you expect me to house some stranger under my roof? A stranger you discovered in the woods?"

"I told you, he's not a stranger!"

And so the argument continued. It was a loud and repetitive affair, and Astrid was looking rather bored in a corner. Toothless, on the other hand, was standing uncertainly against the wall, small as he could make himself, looking guiltily down at the floor like it was all his fault.

Eventually, Astrid stepped in between the warring males, putting a hand out to each. "Would both of you just stop for one minute?" If it'd been any other person, the Chief and his son would have most likely ignored them, but it was Astrid, so they both froze on the spot and stopped talking. "Hiccup, give your father some time to think, for Odin's sake, it's a lot to take in. And sir," She turned to the Chief, tone slightly more formal (but no less aggravated) as she told him, "Please, hear him out. I know it sounds crazy, but I saw it for myself. He is Toothless," She glanced over at the dragon, whose big eyes glinted in the firelight before he turned them away.

Chief and son looked at each other with begrudging frowns, and Astrid stood between them like a longsuffering mother arbitrating a toddler fight over a toy. "Now," She said diplomatically, "since we've all heard each of your arguments tenfold by now, why don't we let Toothless have a word on the matter?" They all turned to the figure in the corner.

Toothless didn't have his expressive ear flaps anymore, but his dark hairline shot back in a sudden burst of fright. He looked up at the three other humans, mostly at Astrid.

"It's alright, bud," Hiccup said encouragingly.

"I-i-isss Toothless," He said, glancing at Stoick. "Hiccup finds in humanskins after napings, not understanden whyne."

Stoick was squinting at the newcomer. Hiccup intervened.

"He said that he is Toothless, and that I found him as a human after he woke up from a nap. He doesn't know why it happened."

Stoick stared for a long, silent moment as he studied Toothless. Toothless fidgeted under the scrutiny. Usually confident and sure of himself, he seemed sheepish in a human body.

"When did he learn to speak?" Stoick asked.

"Today. I think." Hiccup glanced at Toothless. "He told me he's been able to understand Norse for years, but has never managed to speak it before."

"He's not very good at it."

Toothless shot Stoick a hurt look.

"Not yet. I thought it'd I'd try to teach him, after he learns to walk correctly."

"What, you're planning on keeping him like this that long?" Stoick turned to his son.

"Well, we don't exactly have a choice! I don't know what turned him into a human, and I sure don't know how to turn him back! We can't count on it being a quick process. And until then, I think it'd be a good idea to make sure he can live as normally as possible."

Stoick sighed. "Right." He stared long and hard at Toothless, and eventually took a step toward the former dragon. Toothless was tall enough to look Stoick straight in the eyes, but his wiry build seemed insignificant next to the wall of muscle and beard that came up crowding in his personal space.

"If you really are Toothless," Stoick said quietly, "answer me this: that day, at the battle, when I thought Hiccup had died, and you saved him, what did I say to you?"

Toothless was looking straight into his eyes. In the back of his mind, he was contemplating how odd it was to stand nose-to-nose with the chief rather than slightly above him, but more immediately, he was preparing his words so that he could say them as clearly as possible. "'You brought him back alive. Thank you for saving my son.'" There was an accent, but Toothless' voice was clear enough to send the entire room into silence for a moment.

Eventually, Stoick stepped back and nodded. Hiccup and Astrid were watching the exchange with interest. Hiccup in particular looked impressed that his friend had suddenly mastered pronunciation. It wasn't to last long, of course. "I'm sorry this happened," Stoick told Toothless, looking him up and down. "I'll see to it we get you some new clothes."

Toothless shifted and cleared his throat. "Thankings,"

Stoick nodded. "Keep this quiet for now, until we figure this out." he turned to tell the two teens. "Hiccup, you get him set up to sleep somewhere. Astrid, I'll walk you home." He put out a massive hand on Astrid's shoulder, and led her out the door. She turned and smiled at the two boys behind her, trying to be encouraging.

Once the door was closed, Hiccup sighed. "Alright, bud. Let's see if we can get you settled for the night."

The days following were eventful, if not long and rather stuffy, cooped inside the house as they were. The first problem to address was the problem of clothes. Stoick had managed to get some clothes made for Toothless specifically (although how he'd managed it without questions remained a mystery – Hiccup supposed it was a perk of being an intimidating Viking chief). Soon, the dragon-turned human was sporting a pair of black leggings and blue tunic that Hiccup had to remind him to lace up correctly almost constantly. Although he'd been given a pair of boots, he much preferred to roam the world barefoot. Astrid had suggested trying to braid his pitch-colored hair back in braids to keep it from his face, but it wasn't really worth trying. Toothless' mane was not short, but not long enough to hold a braid more than a few knots. It stuck up at bizarre angles and had the tendency to change direction every few minutes.

In addition to clothes, Hiccup was pleased to find that, so long as he had a full belly and a night's worth of sleep, Toothless was a far better student when it came to walking. Having accepted his situation at least for the time being, Toothless was determined to master the skills he would need to be a human.

The day when he'd finally learned to take steps on his own was also the day when they'd discovered Toothless' human laugh. It was a hearty, lilting laugh that actually made Hiccup stop and stare, because it was so Toothless but so human that he wasn't sure what to make of it. It was pleasant on the ears, and when Toothless took another successful step and laughed in glee again, Hiccup found himself beaming, too.

"Walkings! Walkings, Hiccup!" He cheered happily, and then had to dive sideways in order to keep his balance.

"See, I told you you could do it." The Viking smiled.

And soon, Toothless was walking just as effortlessly as anyone, and then jumping, and then running. He was a very fast runner, they'd discovered, and enjoyed racing. He'd raced Astrid over and over until she could run no more (he continued to bounce around her anyway). He'd raced Hiccup once and won by metres, although more often than not, Toothless enjoyed walking with Hiccup more than running past him.

Once, as Toothless sat by the fire, Hiccup noticed that the ex-dragon was staring at him as he moved around the room.

"What are you looking at?" He asked. Toothless looked up at him, face serious. "Is Hiccups hard at walkings?" he asked, and glanced at Hiccup's legs. The Viking suddenly understood, and he glanced down at the prosthetic leg that Toothless had been studying for the past several minutes.

"Sometimes," he said. "I had to relearn at first. But it's easy, now."

"Toothless learning at walkings with two leg on once, but Hiccups learnings twice. Hiccup being better walker more then Toothless," he said.

Hiccup felt a warm feeling wash over him. Toothless was obviously athletic. He was quick, and springy, and fascinated with movement. And he'd called Hiccup better than him. Because of a handicap. Hiccup couldn't help it when he smiled.

Toothless spent a good deal of his free time experimenting with his hands. Hiccup hadn't really given much thought to the fact that Toothless' finest articulation as a dragon had been his mouth, but he supposed fine motor skills were an entirely new phenomena for him. Dragons had wings and tails that defied gravity; Humans, he supposed, had hands that allowed them to do things that no other creature could. So Hiccup indulged Toothless' curiosity. He taught him how to snap his fingers, how to handle books. He taught him how to hold a charcoal pencil, showed him how he studied his surroundings and drew pictures from them. He even taught him how to write his name in Norse Runes (albeit sloppy ones).

"Why not vikingrs never understandingsen at Toothless?" Toothless had asked him at the time, charcoal smeared on his hands and face.

Hiccup had been wondering how he'd end up addressing the problem. He supposed now would do as well as any time. "You understand Norse well, bud, but… your speaking is kind of hard to understand. You haven't got all the pronunciation and grammar right," Hiccup said.

"Oh." Toothless looked down at the parchment he'd been experimenting with, and eventually back up. "Hiccups can teaching at Toothless?" he asked, hopefully. His success with walking and moving hands had encouraged him to be more open to learning. Hiccup smiled.

"Sure."

For all the progress that Toothless made, there were plenty of accidents. Some more humorous than others.

There was the night when Stoick had been planning to roast salmon for dinner. Toothless had spotted the fish before it'd been cooked and, like he always had, went at the thing raw. The offensive taste had him spewing out in non-words for a while, while Stoick growled about messing with his dinner, and Hiccup tried not to laugh. He'd been so traumatized by the experience that he almost refused to eat the cooked version later on. But, after some coaxing, he'd eaten his share of the fish and enjoyed it. Still, he tended to look at raw fish with a sense of betrayal after that.

A less humorous escapade had been when Hiccup had accidentally dropped a cooking pike into the fire at dinner. Toothless, trying to be helpful, had gone to retrieve it. When asked about it later, Toothless would moan that he'd forgotten that humans didn't have scales, and pound his feet in pain and frustration as Hiccup bound up his blistered arm with salve and bandages. It took nearly a month to heal. Toothless had begun to watch Hiccup differently after that. Eventually, he'd asked why.

"I forgotten how break-able vikingrens are," Toothless had explained. His Norse was improving, but far from perfect. "Hiccups have burnined his skins many times, not moaned." He looked at Hiccup. "Hiccup musts be more braver than Toothless."

The comment made Hiccup pause. Toothless was rubbing the sore edges of his healing burn, and Hiccup thought of all the times he'd been working in the forge and burned himself, just to hiss and move one. Toothless' had been the target for stray coals and flames all the time, but he'd never complained. It appeared that he was only now discovering what it was to be vulnerable to flame.

"Not braver," Hiccup had told him, "just a bit more used to it." But on the inside, something told him that this, all of it, the walking, the running, the eating, the burning, it was all healthy. Good. Progress toward some goal. What goal, he wasn't sure. But he was excited to see where it'd take them.

Hiccup was used to sleeping with cold feet and hands.

Toothless was not.

Not to long after Toothless had learned how to walk, Hiccup had awoken one night to complete blackness, with the unshakable feeling that he was being watched. His eyes scanned the dark shadows of his room, and he rolled over. He turned to the other side of the bed only to meet eyes with Toothless, whose face was only a few inches away, where he had presumably been staring at the back of Hiccup's head.

"What the-" Hiccup jerked back awkwardly. "Toothless, what are you doing?!"

"Cold." He said quietly. "I are cold."

Am. I AM cold, Hiccup's newfound inner grammar teacher wanted to correct, but he only sighed. "I'm sorry?" He offered. "I'm cold, too. It's always cold up here."

Toothless blinked. "…Always?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

Toothless looked down. This was unacceptable.

"You, shares?"

"What?"

"Shares warming."

Hiccup blinked at the non-dragon. "Toothless, this bed is not big enough for both of us."

But Toothless didn't hear, and went over to the pile of furs where he'd been sleeping, and picked them all up in a massive armful. He plopped them all at once atop Hiccup's bed (with Hiccup still in it). He took up one of the larger fleeces and wrapped himself up in a cacoon and curled up at the foot of Hiccup's bed, which left an odd portion of the mattress for Hiccup to sleep in, smashed against a mixture of furs and bony joints that fidgeted to find a comfortable spot.

"Now, less colds." Toothless hummed through a smile. Hiccup sighed, but knew there was no use arguing.

He did suppose he was a little less cold than before. So if the neck-cramping sleeping arrangements became semi-regular in their nighttime routine, Hiccup wouldn't complain.

Hiccup had never really thought about what a fat dragon would look like. Not that Toothless was a dragon at the moment. And definitely not that he was fat.

Well, maybe a bit.

It was something that Hiccup hadn't noticed when he'd first stumbled upon Toothless in the cove. The ex-dragon was tall and lean, with defined shoulders and arms, and calf muscles that bunched healthily beneath a layer of hair and freckles. But around his middle, disguising the abs that Hiccup was sure he had, was the slightest layer of pudginess.

It wasn't something that Toothless was ashamed of or even noticed, obviously. He'd grasped rather quickly that it was imperative that he keep his trousers on at all times (although he grumbled about them itching) but he liked taking his tunic off from time to time for the sake of comfort. It was one such time, as he was lounging about playing with a pencil, that Hiccup noticed that Toothless had slight pudginess around his middle and along the sides of his back that seemed to contradict the muscles that moved clearly around his shoulderblades.

Then, Hiccup recalled to mind images of Toothelss wolfing down fish, hunting sheep and chicken across the island, rolling about in the dragon grass and napping in the sun. Well, it wasn't as though Toothless had lived any sort of demanding lifestyle. Hiccup laughed to himself.

Toothless heard, and looked up. "What?"

"Oh, nothing, bud. It just makes sense." Hiccup continued smiling. He never explained himself, so Toothless merely shrugged and went back to what he'd been doing.

"I am boring," Toothless moaned.

"No, you're bored," Hiccup corrected automatically.

"BORED."

"I'm sorry, bud."

"We could goes to cove?" Toothless looked hopeful.

"No, you know how dad is. He doesn't want anyone to know about… this." He gestured to Toothless.

"Vikingrs already askings where I am," he said, and it was true. Hiccup only had so many excuses left to burn before he'd have to spill the truth. He picked at the wood floorboards he was wallowing on. "I don't likes being vikingr," He pouted like a toddler.

"We'll find a way to turn you back eventually. Dad says I should go talk to Gothi about this, but she hasn't been letting anyone into her house for a week. Something about meditations of some sort. I think she just likes the excuse for peace and quiet. But don't worry. As soon as I can, I'll go up and ask her about it."

Toothless was lying on his back with his arms crossed, glaring at nothing in particular.

"…And I'll ask dad if you can at least go outside sometime soon."

"…boring," Toothles said again, rolling over. Hiccup sighed.

"Bored."

A/N: I did not proofread this chapter at allll! So feel free to let me know how many typos I made. Hope you enjoyed it, despite it being disjointed!