"…And that's how Gobber gave the Bonenapper's bone back."
Hiccup was sitting on a stool in the living room telling Alvis a bedtime story, the only light a dim fire in the fireplace. Alvis yawned and snuggled deeper under his covers, clutching his toy dragon.
Hiccup smiled, whispered "Goodnight, pal." and got up to go to his own room, letting the fire die out.
But as soon as he heard the door to his parents' room shut, one of Alvis' eyes shot open. He quickly threw his blanket on the ground and scrambled barefoot to the front door.
It hadn't been locked yet.
Toothless, who had been dozing off and on in his stable became alert when he saw Alvis, offering up a fish and grinning.
Pretty soon, he was navigating the open sea nervously with Alvis piloting him past large rock formations jutting out of the ocean, larger waves that almost sunk them, and hordes of wild dragons that thankfully could not see them in the dark. Toothless desperately indicated where and how they should turn to avoid the dangers by nods of his heads. Alvis obeyed him, oblivious to the deadly obstacles.
They eventually made a crash landing on a beach. As Toothless shook himself off indignantly, Alvis ran off inland to explore.
They had arrived at a forested island in the dead of night. The beach lead up to a rocky cave and farther along to a mass of trees almost as thick as the forest on their island.
Toothless began to follow after the boy but a crab scuttled across his claws and he licked his lips. After the long flight on nothing but a fish, he was hungry. He snapped and growled at it until it managed to get away into the surf. It was then his attention returned to Alvis.
Who wasn't there.
Toothless yelped and without missing a beat turned around and kicked off into the air.
Back in Berk he landed forcefully at Hiccup's window. He nudged the closed shutters with his head making a banging noise.
Astrid woke to the noise.
"Mm...wha…?"
Hearing a response inside, Toothless roared loudly.
"Hiccup…Hiccup! Wake up, something's wrong."
She opened the window and Hiccup groaned awake.
Toothless poked his head in and roared urgently. He pulled at Astrid's sleeve, as she was closer to the window, and gestured outside.
"Bud…? Okay, okay, we're coming…" Hiccup rasped, pulling the covers off and helping Astrid to her feet.
Hiccup lit a candle and they walked into the living room to the front door to meet Toothless. His candle light fell on Alvis' small and empty bed.
"That probably has something to do with it." Hiccup stated flatly.
Outside, Toothless was running around frantically, circling and head-butting them.
'Astrid, I think Toothless knows where Al is."
"Good, let's let him take us to him then."
"No, you better stay here, I'll go."
"No way Hiccup, I'm going too."
"But Astrid, you're—"
"—Going to find my son."
"…Okay. Let's go."
It was almost dawn when they reached the island. The further they got from Berk the paler Hiccup and Astrid got at the thought of Alvis getting so far away.
The second they touched down Hiccup jumped onto the beach and Astrid wasn't far behind.
They spotted him walking out of the cave, holding something about as big as his was.
His parents immediately scooped him up and hugged him tightly.
"Alvis what were you thinking? Why did you ever come here?"
"Yeah and why did you wander away from Toothless, pal? You know you're supposed to stay with him if we're not around."
"I had to stay with him so he wouldn't be lonely, Daddy."
Hiccup finally noticed what he was carrying.
"Is..is that a dragon egg?"
Hiccup stared blankly.
"Yup, that's a dragon egg." Astrid concurred.
"Wait, if it was by itself, where's the mother dragon?"
Hiccup went to investigate the cave and came back in a few moments.
"Well, good news is there's a mother dragon. Bad news is she, uh, went to meet Odin if you know what I mean."
"I said, Daddy! I found him when we got here. He was by his'elf so I stayed wi' him."
Suddenly the egg began to shake and Alvis dropped it.
A tiny dragon burst out of it, green and sightless, puffing out smoke and mewling.
Toothless backed away slowly, his ear-like scales pulling back like a frightened cat's ears.
Alvis on the other hand squealed and hugged the dragon in a vice grip
"Baby dragon!" he cried.
"Give him some space, pal."
Hiccup gently took Alvis' hands off it and picked the infant dragon up by his middle as he squirmed to get free.
"He seems healthy. I guess Alvis carrying him until morning kept it warm enough to survive."
"Does that mean I can keep him?" Alvis asked.
"I don't see why not." Astrid said.
"Yeah, he'll die if we don't take him home with us." Hiccup said. "The grown dragons won't like him, but I guess we can keep him inside until he's big. So, Al, what should we call the little guy?"
Hiccup absently picked off bits of his egg off the baby dragon's head. He examined it before saying
"Hey...what about Eggshell?"
Eggshell burped a smoke ring and fell asleep the whole way home.
A/N: And Alvis has his own dragon now :) Thanks for reading the chapter and thank you for the reviews!