The fact of the matter was, once everyone learned about Toothless, it wasn't that bad.

There wasn't any screaming. There was little cursing, no banishment, no cries of the gods and their vengeance, not even too many murmurs of supernatural disasters. There was, however, whispering. And slowly, not all at once, the village began to hide; not really outright, perhaps without even noticing they were doing it. They wouldn't go near Toothless, or even Hiccup. The teenagers didn't seem to mind at all, and some of the children. Gobber was equal parts disturbed and intrigued by Toothless, and Stoick, of course, was housing him and feeding him. But most of the adults, the leaders, the parents and warriors, all shied away from the strange dragon-turned human that now roamed their streets.

Still, Hiccup felt a little bit betrayed. He felt sorry for Toothless, because the former dragon obviously noticed that his condition had scared most of Berk. He didn't say anything about it, but Hiccup could tell that it bothered him. "It's alright, bud," He reassured one afternoon, "we'll find a way to turn you back, and everything will go back to normal." When Toothless said nothing, and didn't even smile, Hiccup's confidence faltered. They walked back to the house in silence.

The day after the twins incident, Hiccup ignored the palpable unease in the village and took Toothless out for a stroll on his way to the smithy. They passed many dragons on the way there. Toothless would peer at them nervously, wondering if they'd somehow recognize him. Once it became clear they hadn't the slightest idea that this new human was, in fact, their night fury friend, Toothless began watching them differently. Hiccup realized after a while that he must be evaluating what it was like to see dragons from a human perspective.

Toothless also kept making faces at noises the dragons made. Once, they passed a nadder who was chasing a flock of terrors, all squawking loudly, and Toothless actually laughed out loud. Hiccup could agree their antics were amusing, but he wasn't really sure what was that funny.

When they arrived at the smithy, Hiccup went to work as usual. Toothless looked around the shop, for the first time able to ask questions and receive answers about all the complicated processes involved in blacksmithing. He was very mellow through the whole thing, although Hiccup noticed sometime through the morning that Toothless stood well away from the hot fires – he'd begun to suspect that Toothless was developing a phobia of fire, after a few incidents burning himself. Hiccup couldn't really blame him. After a lifetime of wearing fireproof scales, Toothless probably felt more vulnerable than ever.

At one point, Hiccup was working on a particularly large chunk of metal – what would become a new figurehead for a ship – that needed a great deal of sculpting on a large scale. It called for a great deal of heat, which he had trouble achieving on his own. Like he had a few times in the past, he'd enlisted the help of Astrid's nadder, Stormfly, to get the job done. Nadders had the hottest fire of all known dragons, and the steady, precise stream proved rather useful in keeping large amounts of metal molten but not completely melted on the anvil. As Stormfly crowded the smithy to help, Toothless tried very hard to pretend like he wasn't there, if only so the other dragon wouldn't notice him and figure out his identity. He watched his human and his friend work on the project together for a while. He actually winced whenever Stormfly let out a stream of fire. Hiccup was right there. His hands couldn't be more than a foot away from the flames. How could he do that, just sit there by the heat and not flinch away? Toothless had always thought humans, Hiccup especially, were a bit on the crazy side, but after becoming one, he decided they were near suicidal. Did they even realize how fragile they were?

It was as if his thoughts could affect the scene in front of him. Toothless didn't see exactly what happened, but one moment, Stormfly let off a stream of fire, and a heartbeat later, Hiccup screamed and dropped what he was doing to the ground.

"Hiccup!" Toothless shot up and Stormfly shut her mouth. Toothless rushed over immediately. "Hiccup, what has happened?" He found Hiccup hugging his hand, which was red and inflamed. Hiccup hissed over his injury, and looked up at Toothless wordlessly before rushing to submerge his hand in the barrel of cooling water. Still by the anvil, Toothless was seeing red. It was an accident, he knew it was, but did that nadder even know how much that hurt? She had no idea how fragile these humans were, how much they felt. She probably though Hiccup was being overdramatic – all the dragons thought so. Even Toothless had thought so – everyone knew that humans liked to complain. But in the past days, Toothless had come to understand from firsthand experience. Humans didn't overreact, they really did hurt that understood, and the fact that Stormfly didn't made him mad. He forgot himself.

Hiccup watched in utter bewilderment as Toothless rounded on poor Stormfly and began yelling. It took him a moment to realize that Toothless wasn't speaking in Norse. It wasn't nonsense, though. He was speaking in a language, alright, but it wasn't like any language Hiccup had ever heard spoken before. Stormfly's eyes were wide, and she was frozen, staring and listening at the dark human beneath her.

Once Toothless' tirade settled, Hiccup called tentatively, "Toothless?"

Stormfly echoed the noise with a sound that sounded very similar – it could have been the same question.

Toothless' hairline fell back in a clear expression as he realized what he'd just done. He tossed Hiccup a desperate look that told the Viking he hadn't meant to do that, to explode, to speak in whatever language he'd just spoken. Stormfly seemed to have understood him, and she was looking at him strangely, now, with an agitation Hiccup hadn't ever seen in a dragon. More and more, he was beginning to realize how very human these beasts really were behind their scaly faces.

"I… Hic…" He stopped when Stormfly squawked at him. He flushed bright red, turned, and ran.

"Wait, Toothless!" Hiccup called, forgetting his hand (his arm was now soaked halfway up the sleeve) and charged after his friend, still in his smithing apron. Toothless was at the house by the time Hiccup caught up. "Toothless, what was that?" he asked, shutting the door behind him. Stoick was out, it seemed.

Toothless wouldn't look at him. He looked down at Hiccup's hand, and said, "Does it hurt badly?" He asked, frowning. Hiccup shrugged. He would normally gloss these things over, if it were his dad or his friends. But he'd learned not to lie to Toothless, because in his new environment, the fury needed honesty in all things.

"Well… yeah," Hiccup admitted, although he didn't want to.

Toothless went over to a chest and pulled out a medical kit, which he'd become relatively familiar with over the past weeks. He sat down with Hiccup and did the best he could bandaging his friend's burnt hand.(thankfully it was his right hand, not his dominant left) Hiccup had to help here and there, but Toothless was becoming adept with his hands and thumbs.

"Toothless, you spoke to Stormfly," Hiccup said. Toothless didn't say anything. He might not have noticed that he'd pursed his lips closed, and Hiccup thought he might not yet understand the small nuances of natural human body language, or how to know when he was speaking with it. Hiccup pressed on anyway. "I remember… you spoke something similar when I first found you." Toothless glanced up for a second, but looked away quickly.

"The language of the dragons," Toothless said quietly. "I shouldn't have."

"But… Humans can speak the language of the dragons?" Hiccup was confused. Something in him had figured that, because dragons could not speak human languages, humans would be unable to speak dragon languages. It only made sense, or so Hiccup thought.

"You sound surprised. The human voice is the envy of many creatures, Hiccup. Your kind has a great vocal range, if not limited on some ends."

Hiccup absorbed this. "And… but obviously Stormfly was surprised. I suppose not many humans speak it, huh?"

"Dragonese?" Toothless asked, and shook his head. "There are stories, old legends, from the far eastern countries, in mountains far away that I have never seen, of great human men and women who learned to speak dragonese. They are revered in our cultures, even if their stories are ancient, and not all true. A human fluent in Dragonese is unheard of in modern times." He looked sheepish. "With Stormfly… I forgot my human voice. You were hurt, I was angry at her for burning you. I did not think."

Hiccup wanted to say something else, but the words stopped on his tongue as Toothless tied off the bandage and stood to his feet. He looked glum. "She has told all the dragon kinds by now," he said somewhat mournfully, and looked into the fire for a moment before saying quietly, "I hope they do not hide from me as the vikingr." He shuffled away, and crawled up the stairs quietly.

Hiccup followed him up sometime later with lunch – roasted trout and peppered potatoes. He set a plate down by Toothless along with a cup of diluted ale. Toothless eyed it, but he didn't look inclined to eat, or do anything at all.

"Toothless," Hiccup said, taking a bite of potato out of his own plate, "do you think… could you teach me Dragonese?"

Toothless turned his head to stare at Hiccup. Hiccup thought he might ask a question, why,but he didn't, he just looked at him, big green eyes studying him carefully. A moment more, and with a blink, a smile spread itself over his face. "Géa," he said.

"What?"

Toothless smiled at him. "Yes."

Astrid came over sometime later. She saw Hiccup's hand, and he explained the morning's events to her, including how Toothless had spoken in Dragonese. She encouraged Toothless that he ought to go to the dragons and explain his situation. For all they knew, one of the dragons might have heard of something like Toothless' situation happening before, if not have some idea on how to help get Toothless back to normal. It was better than the leadless ambition they were running on at the moment. Hiccup agreed, but Toothless looked sheepish and unwilling to go. Eventually, the humans coaxed him to at least agree to think about it. He did, and looked a little defeated.

Hiccup took his mind off of it by asking more about Dragonese. Toothless taught him many words. Yes, no, day, night. Dragon, human, Viking. Hiccup's name translated at Gicpa, while Astrid's stayed the same. Of course, Hiccup asked what Toothless' name in Dragonese was, but he wasn't expecting his friend to falter.

"Well," He said, "as you know it, it would be Tóðléas."

"As I know it?" Hiccup frowned. Toothless shrugged.

"It is not the name I kept before we met."

Hiccup blinked, and asked quietly, "What is your name?" He'd almost called him Toothless there at the end.

"Æðelin," Toothless told him, just as quietly. He hadn't heard anyone say it in a long time.

"What does it mean?" Hiccup asked, because all names had meanings. Toothless ducked his head.

"Roughly translated, it means 'prince'."

"Oh. And… were you?"

"A prince? Well." Toothless shrugged. "It's the closest translation, I suppose."

Hiccup's mouth fell slightly open, and he stared. He felt like he'd opened a door into a whole new world about his friend. Toothless stole a sideways look at his friend, and smiled shyly when he saw Hiccup's gape-mouthed expression. "Before I came here, I was not very unlike you, you know. Son of the foreládtéow, heir set to lead the weyr one day. I did not, perhaps, have the same difficulties you have had here in Berk, but I would never say we are different from each other, Gicpa."

Hiccup looked down at his lap, trying to process everything he'd learned. Toothless was a prince – son of a foreládtéow, which Hiccup guessed meant 'chief'. That meant he had a tribe out there, somewhere. A family. A father. Hiccup's head spun. He'd only just begun thinking of Toothless and the other dragons as intelligent and complex like humans – now, he was learning about a life he'd lived beside but never known until now, of someone he cared very much about. Where could he possibly start? "Why did you leave them?" Hiccup asked, "your weyr?" Toothless bit his lip.

"I did not mean to, I suppose. My kind do not enjoy travelling for long days, but we can if we need to. I had gone from the island where we lived to visit the mainland – better hunting there – and was caught in a storm, and thrown off course. I was pulled in by the Queen's presence – I believe you Vikingr call her the Red Death – and could not leave. I do not know how long I stayed in these waters, serving her, I know it was years." He frowned, as if he'd had a thought that he hadn't had in a while. "I suppose my weyr must have thought I was dead, by that time. Then, you knocked me out of the sky."

"I'm sorry about that," Hiccup said impulsively. Toothless' eyes darted to him and he shook his head.

"No," He said. "No, you cannot say that, Gicpa, ðu níet ne áhogian-" he stopped himself, realizing his mistake. It seemed that discussing his past and the dragon tongue itself drew out Toothless' mothertongue. "You must not remember it that way, Hiccup, in shame," he corrected carefully. "You saved me. I know you think only of the tail I lost. I was mad about that at the time, because I thought I was going to die. But then, I got you instead." He smiled. "I never think of the tail any more, you should know. Not even when we can't fly."

Hiccup suddenly couldn't talk, because there was a lump in his throat that he couldn't swallow. He was blinking rapidly, and looked down before Toothless could recognize the tears in his eyes. (he was far too observant to miss them) "You said we were the same," Hiccup said from where he was looking down at his lap. "I saw it before. When I found you. After I… well, you know. When I was… I did plan on killing you." He was looking anywhere but at Toothless. "I'd been trying to for a long time, I don't know if I've ever said. But then… When I saw you, I thought you looked a bit like me." He stole a glance at Toothless, who was watching him patiently. He looked away quickly again. "Scared. Alone."

Toothless gave a long, slow nod. "I had not realized that I was either, until I saw it in your face, after you cut me free." Hiccup looked up to him. Toothless paused, and gave a stern frown. "That was an incredibly stupid thing to do, you know."

Hiccup actually laughed. "And I thought Dragons were supposed to always kill vikings," he said.

Toothless shrugged. "You were not a Viking."

Hiccup actually felt insulted. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That day, you were not a viking, and I was not a dragon," Toothless looked up as he spoke. "We were only ourselves, and we were like each other."

There was a long silence, until Hiccup looked over at his friend and wrestled with his tongue until he could say, "Æðelin." He was sure he'd pronounced it wrong. Toothless didn't care, and he smiled wide enough for his cheeks to crinkle away half of his eyes.

"Gicpa," he replied, and his voice sounded lower than normal, but happy. The two looked at each other, straight in the eyes for the first time since their conversation had started. Toothless said softly,"Ic þē þancas dō," For whatever reason, from the way he said it or by some strange intuition, Hiccup didn't need to ask what the words meant.

Thank you.

A/N: Well, delving into some more serious conversation between Hiccup and Toothless, which, honestly, is mostly why I started this fic in the first place.

Eagle-eyed linguists among you may notice that I'm using Old English for Dragonese. I know, I know the Dragonese of HtTYD has been laid down by the lovely creator Cressida Cowell, but I while I definitely respect its canon-osity, I just find that Old English gives me more versatility and, without trying to sound disrespectful, sounds less silly than the book Dragonese.

If you're wondering why I chose Old English, of all languages, there are several reasons. 1) it's a dead language so I can't offend anyone by butchering it, unless of course they're Old English scholars of some sort, in which case I offer my sincerest apologies, because I know my usage is probably indecipherably bad. 2) It's a language that is not Norse, or related to Norse. I was tempted to use a smaller Norse-Germanic derivative, like Faroese, but again with the offending people by butchering. Also I figured I ought to pick a language that was more foreign to Hiccup. 3) Finally, having established the need for a non-Norse language, I figured, what the heck, the Vikings hated the British, and the Berkians and Dragons used to hate each other, why not give Toothless the language of the Viking's historical rivals?

I actually already know what the next chapter will be about, and am rather excited about it. It may be up soon because of this.