A/N: Hey! Sorry for not updating this in foreverrrr. Lack of internet can do that to a person. Forgive me! Anyway, here's the next chapter. :]

Chapter 5:

He knew he was supposed to be there.

He knew the importance of the voyage, knew he'd probably be in immense trouble for not being there, but Toothless ignored the warning flags. He wouldn't let Hiccup or the rest of the tribe have the privilege of flaunting him about to strangers, not if the dragon could help it. Sure, he may be permanently grounded, but Toothless was still the formidable, illusive dragon he always was.

Sitting at his perch at his clandestine cave, Toothless indifferently watched the ships disembark from Berk. He knew Hiccup was on one of those ships, probably forced by Stoik to tag along despite his absence. The dragon snorted at the thought, tendrils of blue flame seeping from his parted mouth. He had finally gotten Hiccup to surrender his relentless struggle of mending their friendship. Over the past months, Toothless had brooded and mulled over his circumstances, had let his mind fester with stirrings of contempt, lament and resentment—all directed towards the one that made him feel that way in the first place: Hiccup. In the dragon's mind, Hiccup had been his downfall- a dragon unable to fly, preposterous. He had never heard of such a thing until he had to experience it first hand, and by a clumsy teenage boy no less.

He disregarded the fact that he used to adore the boy in the beginning, had wanted to be by his side every waking moment, to let Hiccup glide him through the air—to be contented and happy just by the teen's presence alone. He remembered all the times they used to spend together, just lying about lazily in the sun, eating savory morsels of fish while generally enjoying each other's company. Toothless had to admit, there was an occasional ache and longing he would sometimes feel when he saw Hiccup, but the dragon would quickly dismiss it and instead replaced those emotions with bitterness and scorn. He reminded himself persistently, chanted a mantra even: It's his fault. He's the one that caused you to loose your ability to fly. His entire fault.

And Toothless would let himself drown in those cynical thoughts, not at all perturbed at the level of loathing he had let consume him. So finally, with en entire three weeks liberated, free from the hustle and bustle of the villagers, free from Hiccup, Toothless lowered his head and prepared for an evening of sleep.

Hiccup trudged heatedly back towards the village, his pace brisk and swift. He had spent the better half of the day searching what he could for Toothless, scourging the forest for any signs or trails of the dragon. Wherever Toothless was, he had a pretty good hiding spot—Hiccup didn't know whether he should congratulate the dragon for his illusiveness or be livid at him for making the teen plunder the forest for hours on end. By nightfall, he had finally made it back to his own compound and hastily clambered up the stairs. His footsteps echoed about the shack as he made it to his bedroom, where he then kicked open his door and trudged inside.

His room was empty, he noted cheekily, as it had been for the past couple of months since Toothless started disappearing at night. At the time, Hiccup had been bemused and very much upset that the Night Fury no longer intended to sleep alongside him—oh yes, Hiccup remembered all too well. The boy had waited up all night for Toothless, the teen sitting at his window sill, looking out into the darkness and searching for any tell-tale signs of iridescent scales and sparks of blue flame. Two weeks had past and Astrid convinced Hiccup that whether he liked it or not, Toothless wasn't going to be sleeping with him any longer. Hiccup couldn't understand it—what had he done wrong? Before, the dragon would either hang by the rafters or curl up by the center of Hiccup's bed, his tail occasionally thumping against the wooden bedpost, and Hiccup could genuinely tell that Toothless enjoyed sleeping beside him, and vice versa.

Hiccup huffed and shook the memories from his head, a frown replacing the reminiscence he had been absorbed in. The memories he shared with Toothless, the good ones, always seemed to warm him somehow. They made him feel light and content and overall lost in the ambience of it all, but when his thoughts started to drift and his memories shifted tempo, Hiccup would often get heralded by a flood of images of Toothless snarling at him, nipping at him—ignoring him, as if they'd never been friends in the first place, and a weighted lump would take place in his heart. Hiccup was getting beyond frustrated at the dragon's conduct, and it was making him quite restless to know that he was doing something horribly wrong, enough to warrant evasion from Toothless: his best friend.

Hiccup propped his head against the desk situated in the living quarters of his house, huffing a puff of breath and scuffling the pages of paper littered about the desk surface. They were all drawings of Toothless, some of them fairly recent and all done in a pasty charcoal. On the contrary, he hadn't given up on drawing the dragon, Hiccup realized with a small smile, but the teen was starting to worry when he'd eventually give up on Toothless altogether. He had already given up trying to make amends with the dragon, though Hiccup still didn't know why he was getting treated so horribly from said Night Fury, and he was really starting to doubt if they'd ever be friends again. Hiccup frowned at the thought.

He didn't want that to happen. Ever.

Hiccup straightened himself against the back of his chair and slammed a fist down upon the desk, vibrations shooting across the age-old wood up through his fingertips.

"I can't let that happen," Hiccup whispered angrily, his features softening. "I can't loose my best buddy."

Hiccup was startled from sleep by a horrendous roar.

The boy shot up from his bed, hair all askew and unkempt, and practically sprang from under his woolen blankets. Heart pounding at a rapid rhythm, the young Viking hastily hopped over to his prosthetic limb and fastened it to his leg. With a shaky breath, Hiccup wobbled over to his window and threw it open, poking his head outside. Another loud roar resounded in the distance, and Hiccup realized that it was a particularly familiar roar, all potent and dominant and wholly majestic- his heart nearly leapt out his chest.

Toothless.

"He's here!" Hiccup shouted in elation. He withdrew from the window and quickly gathered a set of leggings and a gray tunic, forgetting the fitted woolen vest in his haste. When he was fully clothed, Hiccup bounded down the stairs as fast as his prosthetic allowed him. Kicking open the front door, Hiccup barreled across the cobble-lined streets and out into the constricted, twisting roads of the Village. The teen looked up towards the sky; hope quivering across his eyes as he increased his speed, the metal point of his prosthetic trouncing against the stone ground.

If he'd been listening correctly, he guessed the roar was coming from somewhere farther along the island. He would have liked it to come from the grotto, but no such luck. However, with a solid resilience and a swiftly growing determination, Hiccup continued his course and plundered into the forest. He trampled over rotting wood and scaled across gnarled tree roots, his prosthetic limb occasionally snagging against a serrated piece of rock. Despite these trivial setbacks, Hiccup kept at it until another grandiose roar rung out across the sky, this time accompanied by an abrupt blast of cobalt flame. His heart palpating at an unruly speed, Hiccup nearly yelped in delight and ran towards the blast, the Night Fury's howl ringing in his ears and propelling him onwards.

After an undetermined amount of time, Hiccup halted before an unusual clearing spotted with broken tree trunks and flattened vegetation, most of it charred beyond recognition. A lofty rock cliff about 100 feet high stood at the opposite end of the clearing, standing stark against the battered foliage. Squinting his eyes, Hiccup noted that there was a definite fissure at the very top of the looming rock barricade, looking decidedly hollow and shady, as if something lived there.

This was proven in an instant. A loud bellow rang across the clearing, the resonance pending from the cavern in the wall, and swirls of coagulated smoke filtered about the atmosphere above. Hiccup stared up with wide eyes, his bangs cascading across his forehead as he pressed his forearm to his face.

Toothless was definitely up there, that he was sure of.

"Toothless!" Hiccup cried, happiness clouding over him.

And everything seemed to still. The birds stopped chirping, the clearing turned silent, and even the rustle of the trees seemed to quiet. Hiccup watched as the last tendrils of smoke died out and dissolved into the air, and waited patiently for Toothless to appear.

He didn't.

A/N: I'm torturing Hiccup aren't I? Usually I make bad stuff happen to the weaker characters in my fanfics, but don't worry, nothing horrible will happen to Hiccup…or will it? :O

Please review guys! They make me happy and productive. :]