Author's Note:

So here is the chapter that marks the appearence of Toothless. Again it actually doesn't differ much from the original version but I have added some extra bits and ammended a few things. Thank you everyone for your support and I hope you enjoy the chapter.

I own nothing.

The Night Fury and Ideas

Unfortunately for Snotlout, he didn't see Hiccup until late that night.

His cousin had escaped the jubilant teens as soon as he could and Stoick had caught Snotlout before he could follow and asked him to help with preparing the arena for the next day. Then the others wouldn't leave him alone long enough to go after his cousin, Fishlegs kept demanding that Snotlout tell him what Hiccup's secret to defeating dragons was and the twins kept going on about how he was now the 'useless' member of the village because he couldn't fight dragons the way Hiccup could. This really grated at him and it was an immense relief when he finally managed to ditch the other teens before his stretched patience snapped and he thumped one or all of them. By this time Hiccup was long gone and although he knew he could search the Cove to find him he held back and opted for waiting for his cousin to return home instead.

It was a very long wait and Snotlout's uncle had long since begun snoring before Hiccup finally stole into the house and up to their room.

Snotlout sat up just as his cousin entered, "Hiccup."

Hiccup didn't seem surprised he was awake and he gave a sigh, "I was hoping you'd still be up."

"Why."

"Because I said I'd tell you what I've been doing in the Cove and I'm going to do that right now."

"So tell me."

Hiccup gave another sigh, "It'll be easier if I show you."

Hiccup started to creep down the stairs again and Snotlout followed quickly followed. He idly realised that they hadn't done this since they used to sneak out at night to go hunting for trolls or dragons to slay when they were younger. They stole past Stoick, who was snoring loudly, and slipped outside.

Once they were out Hiccup turned his direction to the forest and hurried towards it with Snotlout close behind. It wasn't until they were inside it that he finally broke the silence, "Does what you've been up to have something to do with your success at Dragon Training?"

"Kind of…" Hiccup answered vaguely, "But it's more like my success at that was just a…side effect."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I could try and explain but it'll be far easier just to show you, it'll all make a lot more sense when we're actually at the Cove."

Snotlout noticed they were getting close as he followed Hiccup down the nostalgically familiar route and he fell silent again eager to see what Hiccup had been doing.

They eventually reached the cove and scrambled down to its entrance ducking under a shield that was jammed there for some reason. The moon had the area well lit and Snotlout peered around looking for what Hiccup had hidden here, he couldn't see anything and turned to his cousin to find him heading towards a large boulder and begin talking to it.

"Hey Toothless, sorry if you're sleeping bud but there's someone you need to meet."

Thinking Hiccup had suddenly gone mad, Snotlout spoke, "Umm…Hiccup, I think that's…"

He stopped mid sentence when the boulder Hiccup was beside looked at him, unfurled its wings and stretched giving a huge yawn as it did so.

Snotlout gaped as the boulder became a creature and it took a few moments for him to register it was a dragon. Then his mind went into overdrive, it was going to eat them! Why wasn't Hiccup running? Wait it wasn't attacking, why wasn't it attacking? Dragons always go for the kill don't they? So why wasn't this one? Was it toying with him, savouring its kill? Oh Gods it was coming towards him!

Snotlout begin quickly back pedalling away as the beast approached him not noticing its look of curiosity and fell back. Hiccup suddenly appeared at his side.

"Whoa Snotlout! Its okay, it's okay. He's not going to hurt you."

He looked at Hiccup in disbelief and saw that his cousin meant what he was saying and looked back at the dragon. It had stopped approaching and was now sat down gazing at him in what looked like amusement, he looked back at Hiccup who was staring at him worriedly and he got back up quickly composing himself while keeping a wary eye on the dragon.

"I'm good and I totally wasn't panicking."

Hiccup rolled his eyes at the blatant lie before walking over to the dragon and began scratching behind the beast's ear flaps. The dragon gave a contented growling noise and slightly closed its eyes in pleasure as Hiccup spoke again.

"Okay, let's try and do this properly." He gestured to Snotlout then to the dragon, "Snotlout, Toothless. Toothless, Snotlout."

Snotlout just gaped at his cousin trying to comprehend why Hiccup was with a dragon and why he'd called such a dangerous creature 'Toothless'. The dragon had sat down to regard him thoughtfully and then showed Snotlout an odd gummy grin revealing a distinct absence of teeth. The dragon then made them spring from his gums and seemed to grin wider at Snotlout's surprise at this. Hiccup sighed, "Really Toothless, are you trying to freak him out more?"

The dragon grinned mischievously in response and Hiccup sighed again and Snotlout found himself dumbstruck at the easy relationship his cousin and the dragon seemed to have. Before he could think on it further Hiccup grabbed his hand and began pulling him over to the dragon and Snotlout cried out in alarm, "Wait! What are you doing?"

Hiccup stopped pulling him and looked at him seriously, "I've learned that you have to earn a dragons trust by proving you're not a threat." He let go of Snotlout's arm, "Now come up to Toothless and hold out your hand like this." He held up his own hand with his open palm facing towards the dragon. Snotlout hesitated but with an encouraging nod from his cousin he took a few steps towards Toothless and held out his hand.

"You're doing great Snotlout. Now, turn your eyes away from Toothless."

"What!" Snotlout stared at his cousin like he was crazy, Hiccup expected him to look away from a dragon.

"I promise he won't hurt you Snotlout. Please, just trust me and him."

Now he had a lot of faith in his cousin but Snotlout really didn't want to put that much trust in a creature that he had been taught was the enemy. He inwardly fought with himself from a few moments until, with colossal effort; he looked away from what he knew as one of the most dangerous creatures in existence.

There was an agonising moment where nothing happened and then a scaled nose was gently pressed against his palm.

Snotlout slowly looked back at the dragon and saw Toothless with his nose against his hand. The dragon drew back and then gave him another gummy smile, this time minus the sudden addition of teeth, and he couldn't help but grin back especially when Toothless went back to Hiccup and curled around him as the older boy sat down.

"So this is what you've been hiding?"

Hiccup had once again begun scratching Toothless and just nodded in answer and Snotlout asked another question.

"How did you manage this?"

"You know when I claimed I hit a Night Fury and no one believed me?" Snotlout slowly nodded guiltily (he'd guessed where his cousin was going with this) and Hiccup continued, "Well I had and I came out here to prove it and found Toothless but when it came down to it I couldn't kill him so I let him go instead, when I did he pounced on me and I thought I was a goner but he simply roared in my face and ran off. I thought that would be the last I saw of him but after what Gobber said the first day of training I had to come back to find out why he hadn't killed me and I found him trapped in here. I came back again the next day and I can't really explain how but I formed a sort of connection with him, I then realised that he was trapped here because my invention had ripped off his left tail fin. Without it he couldn't fly and I began working on a prosthetic fin for him."

"That's why you were gone for such long periods."

Hiccup nodded, "Yeah, if I wasn't in the forge making the fin then I was with Toothless testing it, it took a lot of tests but I finally came up with a system where I could control Toothless' prosthetic fin and help him to fly again."

Hiccup began petting the Night Fury who'd settled down behind him and Snotlout noticed the saddle with the complicated connections to a brown canvas fin as another thought came to his mind, "So the arena dragons?"

Hiccup grimaced slightly, "When I was hanging out with Toothless I accidently discovered some things about dragons which helped me calm the ones which came at me in training. Unfortunately everyone started to think that I was going to be a great dragon slayer." He sighed, "And now I'm considered the best recruit."

Snotlout was wondering why this was a problem, "So?"

Hiccup stared at him, "So I can't kill dragons and my final exam is tomorrow."

He still couldn't see what Hiccup was worried about; all he had to do was kill a Monstrous…Oh. Now he got why Hiccup was worried, "That's going to be awkward."

"It's going to be a lot worse than just awkward." Hiccup sighed sadly, "I almost flew off on Toothless to leave Berk forever but Astrid caught me first."

Snotlout's eyes widened in alarm, Astrid would've been furious when she discovered Toothless and would've immediately run back to the village to tell everyone or tried to attack and he was pretty sure that would not have ended well for her. He eyed Toothless worriedly, "How did you stop her trying to kill you or telling the whole village? Toothless didn't…you know?"

Hiccup hurriedly shook his head, "No, she's fine and headed home just before I did. She did try to attack and Toothless was going to fight her but I managed to stop him before he did, then after a pretty…eventful flight," He gave Toothless a brief glare and the dragon seemed to give a smug smile in response, "I managed to convince her that we might've been wrong about dragons all this time or that at least Toothless wasn't an enemy. After that I realised I'd left you in the dark for too long so I went back home to tell you and you know the rest from there."

Snotlout sat down on the ground heavily, "So now what?"

Hiccup placed his head in his hands, "I have no idea. Dad's expecting me to kill my first dragon tomorrow but there's no way I can do that now, I know why the dragons raid us all the time but if I try and tell dad he'll kill Toothless and embark on a suicide mission so I can't say anything yet. I need to come up with something that'll help support my case that dragons don't have to be our enemies."

Snotlout thought desperately about how to help with this, he trusted Hiccup and although he'd only had a little bit of contact with Toothless he was certain that what Hiccup said was true. His cousin wouldn't have told him all this if he wasn't sure and from what he'd experienced so far tonight he could see Hiccup's point about the dragons and he sighed, "Too bad you can't show everyone that dragons aren't as bad as we think like how you've just shown me tonight."

Hiccup suddenly perked up and stared at him in amazement, "Snotlout, you're a genius!"

Snotlout grinned, "I know." He then realised something he needed to clarify, "Wait! What did I do?"

Hiccup bounced up from where he'd been sitting, "You've given me an idea for tomorrow. I know what I need to do."

With that he bounded off and out of the Cove leaving Snotlout alone with Toothless. He looked at the dragon who just gave him a look that quite clearly said 'I have no idea' before fire blasting the ground and settling down on it to sleep. Snotlout looked back to where his cousin had left the Cove.

"Great."

PS-So there we go and next chapter is the Monstrous Nightmare. As always please let me know what you thought.