A/N-Well, to all those who took a shot at guessing the meaning of Tohar's name: you are correct, it means purity. It'll be a while before the next word challenge, so until then it's time to see where our characters have ended up. Enjoy!

Oh, and a quick stats note: the first book Two Worlds Collide has exceeded 17,000 views since posting!

Chapter 15

How to Mend a Broken Heart

Those few days were the hardest times I have ever experienced. Held down by the responsibility to my village, and burdened by a fear I'd never felt both for my father and my best friend, my brother Toothless; for so long it felt hopeless, I felt like I should just give up. I thank God every day now that I didn't, because that experience made me stronger than I ever was before. It taught me to hold on, because even though sometimes we are thrown into situations so bleak we can't see our way out of it, there is still a way.

~Hiccup

Two days had passed since we returned to Berk. Toothless had followed us the whole way back, staying high above the ships and avoiding contact with the other riders until we reached the island. Then, he disappeared into the forest. I knew where he was, that he was watching most of the time, but I also knew that he wasn't quite ready to be approached, so I didn't tell anyone else where to find him either.

Stoick had stayed unconscious, the visible signs of his concussion beginning to show on the way back in the form of swelling temples and his still-weakened breath. He had been laid upon his bed when we returned, and both Valka and Sigrid busied themselves making sure his condition did not deteriorate any further. They had both taken to shifts, one always watching and caring for him even in the middle of the night. Stoick was deep into a coma, however, and we all knew he would likely not wake for a very long time.

Astrid became Hiccup's crutch, the person he leaned on as he attempted to handle the issues in the village, what with his father unavailable for the job. Often when he felt too overwhelmed Astrid was always right there, holding him as his emotions got the better of him on occasion, and taking the burden off his shoulders for a while to fend off the more unruly villagers when things went south. I was there to help as well of course, a face everyone listened to and so the village would wisely follow my orders when Hiccup became stretched too far and Astrid was similarly unavailable.

However, after those two days had passed back on the island I had seen no improvement at all in Hiccup's mood, and the reason why became clear every time he glanced in the direction of the cove. I knew I had to speak to Toothless soon, and try to get the both of them to talk to each other; otherwise I knew we would lose both of them as we knew it, not physically but in mind and soul.

I landed near the forest's edge, quietly so as not to alert Toothless to my being there yet. He sat at the very edge of Cliff Point, as Hiccup had once called it, staring out over the precipice at the ocean beyond the village below and to the east of us, but his eyes were without focus, not really seeing anything. It had rained, heavily, twice since we'd gotten back, but even then he had not seemed to move at all.

I walked forward slowly, the rustling of wet grass under my shoes eventually catching the Night Fury's attention. Toothless turned and focused on me, and I watched the pain once again ignite in his eyes, followed by anger, both at himself and at me for disturbing him. He turned and spread his wings in preparation to take off.

"You know that if you try to leave, I will have no choice but to drag you back down and pin you to the ground until you listen to me," I warned pointedly. "You may be the fastest living dragon species, but I can still change into things that are faster." Toothless froze in place for a moment, before letting out a sigh of defeat and letting his wings and body droop to the ground.

::What do you want?:: he asked tiredly and out of irritation. "I just want you to take a moment and listen to me, right now," I replied softly, slowly moving forward and sitting on the ground next to the Night Fury. Now that I was this close I could see the lines of salt from dried tears on his scales, and the weathered look of his eyes telling me he hadn't slept either. Toothless didn't look at me when I sat down, but he nodded once to say that he'd heard me.

"Okay, first off, you need to know that everything is not as bad off as you think it is," I began. I was about to continue when Toothless' head snapped in my direction, anger flaring in his eyes. ::Oh? It's not? Last time I checked I killed the one person I had been able to look at as a father figure, and the actual father of my best friend!:: he snapped.

"No, you didn't," I panned right back. "For one, you were not the one who did anything. Drago and his Bewilderbeast are at fault here and you know that. They just used you as the tool to do it, to try and break all of us. Second, Stoick is not dead."

At first there was no reaction, and I feared Toothless had ignored me. But then, the dragon's head slowly lifted up, finally looking at me in the eyes as his own widened, as if he was afraid to believe what I'd said. ::What?:: he blurted. I smiled slightly. "The blast did not kill Stoick," I repeated. "Hiccup firing Framherja managed to detonate the fireball before it hit either one of them."

Toothless moved to speak, but I held up my hand to say I wasn't finished. "Now look, that doesn't mean that he's completely okay either. You know how strong electroplasmic explosions are; the blast still hit Stoick hard, and he's fighting off a concussion in a coma right now, but he is alive."

Despite the better news, Toothless still managed to deflate. ::So I didn't kill him, I just critically injured him,:: he toned sourly. I sighed. "Toothless, everyone knows it wasn't you. I don't know how the Bewilderbeast managed to break through to you, but it was him and not you. The other riders reported their dragons going nuts during that period as well."

::Then I should have been stronger than that,:: Toothless retorted. ::I should have been able to fight it off, to stand against it; I should have kept control of myself. I could see myself walking forward, could feel my own body moving against my will, so there must have been some way to stop it from happening altogether and I failed to find it.::

"Not if they were wielding some sort of black magic," I responded softly after a couple moments. "But what happened, happened; much as we'd like to we can't change the past, and I've already had a similar discussion with your brother about this same topic. What we can do, however, is prepare for what's coming, and to do that we need our best duo together again."

I scooted forward so that I was right next to Toothless, and reached up to turn his head to face me. "Toothless, I want you to go to the cove. I'm going to bring Hiccup there, because you two need to talk. He's not mad at you, alright? He already admitted his outburst was misplaced, and he needs you right now."

Toothless only huffed and turned away again, muttering, ::I don't see how he can't be mad.:: I rubbed my forehead in growing frustration. "The one thing he's mad about is that he hasn't been able to have you at his side like always, Toothless. Please, just talk to him. I don't want to force you to, but it needs to happen and if I have to I will drag the both of you to the cove and seal it off until you make amends, and you know I have the capacity to do so."

Silence ensued. Deafening silence. Finally, Toothless sighed and glanced over at me. ::Alright, I'll go to the cove,:: he agreed reluctantly. ::But if something happens at all, I am blaming you.:: He turned and spread his wings, taking off from the cliff and gliding westward in the direction of the cove. I smiled slightly, and spread a pair of wings as well before dropping off the cliff in the opposite direction, gliding over the houses below to find Hiccup.

Hiccup didn't really know how else to feel other than beaten down. Astrid was the only one who seemed capable of putting a smile on his face at all at the moment, while the rest of the village…well, if they weren't actually busy preparing their houses and workplaces for the expected battle to come then they were following him like helpless ducklings, berating him with issues of this kind or that kind (usually unimportant) and giving him not even the slightest sliver of a moment to step back from it all for once and do something that might have actually helped calm him down. He suspected Stoick wouldn't have heard of half these issues if he were still doing the job, as most of the village would have been too timid to approach the man with trivial things.

Heck, Hiccup hadn't even had the chance to thank Hawken and Ember for stepping in and lending a hand to Gobber in working on the new armor suits for everyone (Hiccup had finally caved and shared the discovery of the Myscale with his former mentor, who was now using the compound very effectively for armor joints and the like). And, on top of it all, Mildew and the handful of other people in the village who were still less than friendly with the dragons had managed to catch wind of what had happened with Toothless and the other bonded dragons. Now they were doing everything they could to rile the village up and turn them against the scaled companions.

Hiccup, understandably, felt ready to explode, and when Mildew opened his big mouth in the village plaza again that afternoon, the only thing that kept him from taking it out on the old curmudgeon was the fact that Hawken showed up moments later and did so first, pinning the man to the wall of a nearby house and drilling him for a good five minutes straight about just how shaken the dragons were over the incident as well, and just how badly one of them had been hurt by it.

"….and if I hear even one more word out of your mouth about all of them being untrustworthy monsters just because of one incident were we were, I remind you, forced up against two alpha dragons likely equipped with the help of the sorceress who, may I also remind you, has access to the relics of a guardian of the family Asgard with untold power, I will personally hogtie you and hang you off the end of Raven's Point, and leave you to the birds for which it was named! Do. I. Make. Myself. Clear?!"

Few people had ever seen the boy go off in such a way in public before. While Hiccup knew Hawken had a short temper when on his own and out of sight of others, he was normally reserved with an audience present. This only served to drive Hawken's point home however, as Mildew like the others had only seen him explode under the stresses of the last battle with Jezebel. The man cringed, nodding meekly, and when Hawken let go of him he quickly scrambled away, grabbing his staff and making himself scarce. Then Hawken turned to Hiccup, who smirked a little as the former's eyes faded from black to a more normal blue-green.

"You know, if you hadn't done that I probably would have thrown him in the harbor instead," Hiccup admitted. Hawken nodded, and then bent down, morphing Night Fury. "I know you're busy," he said, "but there's something critical that you need to take care of, someone you need to talk to. So get on."

Hiccup immediately felt both a spark of hope and a sliver of fear appear in his chest, but he chose to go with the former, knowing what Hawken would say otherwise, and stepped forward, climbing up onto Hawken's back and holding onto the dorsal crests as they took off.

"Are you sure he's ready to talk?" Hiccup asked cautiously. Hawken sighed beneath him. "Well, I convinced him to at least meet with you," he replied. "Whether or not he thinks he's ready, I think you both are. And this distance between you two is affecting you both severely, so it's past time you at least tried to reconnect again." Hawken looked back at his temporary rider with a slight smile, reassurance in his eyes. "Toothless needs you right now too, as much as if not more than you need him. He's scared that if something like that happens again he will end up hurting or killing someone; he's terrified it will be you. But I know that together the two of you are stronger than that, I've seen it before; somehow there is a way for you to help him. I don't know how, but if anyone can keep him from being taken under again, it's his brother."

Hiccup had heard the reference of him and Toothless being like brothers before, but at that moment, after everything that had transpired the days before, it still gave him a bit of a surprise to hear the reference. In more ways than one, though, it made perfect sense. He nodded in acknowledgement, lips pursed together in thought as they continued flying.

The two of them soon landed in the cove, quietly, and after Hiccup jumped off Hawken turned and flew up to the edge of the cove, giving the two below him privacy while still watching to ensure nothing went wrong.

Hiccup took in a deep breath, steeling himself for what he knew would start out awkwardly, and looked around the space. His eyes soon settled on the drooping, dark figure of a Night Fury sitting dejectedly and waiting at the other end of the pond. Hiccup's heart immediately leapt with relief, what with seeing Toothless for the first time in nearly three days, but then he noted the dragon's appearance, and remembered how Toothless probably felt at the moment. He closed his eyes, took another deep breath and cleared his head before walking toward the Night Fury slowly.

"Hey," Hiccup greeted quietly. Toothless flicked his ear at Hiccup's voice, but made no move beyond that simple action. Hiccup deflated a little further, but pressed on. "Toothless, I…listen, I'm not mad at you, if that's what you're thinking. I'm sure Hawken said that already, but I needed to say it to you myself as well. Look, even if everything had gone wrong, and I had lost my father in that battle, there's no way I can hold a grudge against you for something you didn't want to do, and you know that."

Toothless didn't answer, so Hiccup sat down on a rock nearby and continued. "Toothless, they used your fire, but it wasn't you who took the shot; it was Drago and his Bewilderbeast, they're the ones to blame here." He reached over and placed a hand on Toothless' flank. The dragon flinched at the contact, but luckily did not make the choice to do anything more.

"I…I know I yelled at you back on Dragon Island, and I know I said that I blamed you," Hiccup admitted, voice starting to shake, "but I was unstable, I wanted a way out through my anger, I was hurt and I wanted something to blame. I took it out on you because you happened to be the first thing I focused on and I felt like there was nothing else I could lash out at. And I was wrong, so…terribly wrong." He looked up at Toothless, and the first tear rolled down his face. "It wasn't ever you, and after I realized what I'd said I felt like I had just stabbed myself. That's a pain I can't let go of now either, knowing I struck out at you."

::But it was still me,:: Toothless finally spoke, turning toward Hiccup, and the boy had to choke back another sob when he saw his dragon's face. Dragons don' cry, not very often. They only do so when they think they're alone, or when around people they truly trust. Even then, they don't cry unless they feel truly broken, so another pang hit Hiccup hard as he watched tears drip down Toothless' scales as well.

::I watched myself do it, I felt myself move, and fire at both of you,:: Toothless continued, voice cracking. ::My mind was still there, I could focus my own eyes, not like when I was under control before you shot me down those years ago. But I…I wasn't strong enough to keep it from happening. Hiccup, it was me, because I couldn't stop it. I don't see how you can even think of forgiving me, or even want me around anymore.::

"Toothless, it wasn't you!" Hiccup implored, getting up and kneeling in front of Toothless. "I don't know how they got through, but they did, and I'm sure at least in part they made sure you could see what they were doing. Toothless, they wanted to break you, they wanted to break all of us, and they nearly succeeded."

::But if they come back, and they managed to do it once, there is no way you can be safe around me!:: Toothless cried. ::If I can't control myself then next time I could end up killing you, or someone important to both of us, and I could not live with myself if that happened!:: The dragon shook his head and turned, standing up. ::No, it's better if I just leave. I can come back, maybe, after I know you'll be safe, but-::

"Toothless, I can't live without you!" Hiccup yelled, grabbing Toothless by his front legs. "Look, we've never been 'safe' around each other, heck I'm so clumsy that if you and Hawken weren't around to catch me all the time I probably would have burnt down half the village again in the recent months! We broke you out of the Red Death's control once, and I'm sure as long as the two of us stick together, we can figure out a way to break whatever curse the Bewilderbeast has too."

Hiccup moved forward again and lifted Toothless' chin up, looking the Night Fury straight in the eyes. "We both know that we're stronger together than when we are apart; we always have been. Toothless, I will never, ever let you go or give up on you, I will never let you just get away from me. You are a brother to me, and I love you as much as any blood sibling could, and you are the best thing that EVER happened to me! Like it or not, we are stuck together until the day we both die of old age. We're…." he paused as he tried to remember the word he'd heard both Hawken and Ember use before, "…we're echad. We're one."

Silence returned to the cove as Hiccup waited for a response, watching powerful emotions roll through Toothless' flickering eyes. Finally the dam broke, and tears came streaming out of the dragon's eyes as he hung his head over Hiccup's shoulder and wept. Hiccup leaned forward as well, wrapping his arms around Toothless' neck as the Night Fury embraced him with a paw and curled his tail around the both of them.

The two stayed there, both of them releasing everything that had built up over the days past and crying as hard as they could, for an unmeasured length of time. Fears, worries, hopes, dreams, everything passed between the two of them without a word spoken. None were needed, as both Hiccup and Toothless found strength in each other once again, and the bond that had been forged between the two so many years before exploded into life once more, stronger than braided Mysteel and deeper than the oceans.

"I love you, bud," Hiccup eventually whispered, a smiled breaking across his face. Toothless turned his head, catching Hiccups' eyes with his own. "I love you too, Brother," he replied, speaking in English so he was sure Hiccup would understand him, and they both started laughing.

"Look at the two of us, crying like dorks," Hiccup giggled. Toothless didn't reply, instead choosing to lick him, leaving a thick layer of spit on the boy's face. "Ewwww, Toothless!" Hiccup groaned, trying to wipe off his face while still laughing. "That doesn't wash off, you know that!" ::Why do you think I do it?:: Toothless teased, tail thumping in amusement as he guffawed. Hiccup snorted and wiped his hand across his forehead, throwing the spit that came off with it back at the dragon, who growled in mock anger and crouched, signaling an incoming pounce.

Hiccup immediately scrambled to his feet and ran, Toothless coming right up behind him and chasing the Viking around the cove. Hiccup laughed harder and turned, running for the water and scooping up a handful of the liquid, splashing the dragon with it.

::Oh, you're soo getting it now!:: Toothless snickered, dipping his tail into the pond and throwing it at Hiccup, soaking the boy. A moment of motionlessness, and then they burst out laughing again and continued splashing each other, making a mess, before Toothless pounced forward and turned their water fun into roughhousing.

Hiccup fell back, facing upward as Toothless stood over him and batted away with his paws. "Oh, and he's cornered!" Hiccup joked, throwing mock punches at the scaled appendages that poked and prodded at him. "Dragons and Vikings, bitter rivals once again! It's back and forth, but only one can win! Who will come out as the ultimate vic-Aaauuuhhhhhh!"

Hiccup gasped as his breath was knocked out, Toothless collapsing with a grin onto his rider's stomach. The boy laid there for a few moments, continuing to make odd noises as he tried to regain his oxygen supply, before Toothless scooted his head forward slightly and began licking him again.

"Augh! Stop! Stop it, Toothless! Ha ha, s-stop it!" Hiccup sputtered as he tried to fend off the slimy appendage that was the dragon's tongue. Toothless paused only to bark, ::You can't get away this time!:: before continuing the sticky bombardment.

Hours passed, and eventually the duo tired, lying in the cove against each other and staring at the sky with contented smiles. Slowly, Hiccup turned to glance at Toothless, expression one of relief. "Well bud, what do you say we head back to the village now, huh?" he queried. "We'll get the rest of this mess cleaned up in no time, and find a way to kick Drago and Jezebel's fat"-

::You don't have to finish that sentence, and you shouldn't, to know my answer,:: Toothless growled back, grin fading slightly as a fire reignited in his eyes. Hiccup nodded knowingly and got up with the dragon, climbing up onto Toothless' back as they aimed for the sky.

"Oh, and while we're at it," Hiccup drawled as they took off, "we need to find our other nutty 'brother' as well. We've been gone the whole afternoon, Lord knows where he probably went off"-

He was cut off as the sound of laughter followed them up into the sky, and they both turned to see a second Night Fury gliding up to meet them. "Oh, don't tell me you were just watching the whole time," Hiccup groaned. "The whole thing," Hawken replied, chuckling. "But seems I didn't have to tell you for you to figure that out. You thought I would really just skedaddle without making sure two of my brothers were okay?"

::One might hope that he doesn't use the scenario as blackmail against us now,:: Toothless muttered, earning another chuckle from Hawken. "No, no, there won't be anything like that," he reassured, his expression softening as he glided closer. "I'm glad you two have worked things out. Nothing is the same without the dynamic duo around; glad to have you both back."

Hiccup could only smile at the heartfelt words as they turned toward the village. Perhaps things would be alright now; they were together again, and ready for anything else that could possibly get thrown at them.

A/N- We all know Hiccup can't carry a grudge, but it does take a lot of convincing to get a Night Fury to change his mind. But, they're back, and good thing too as the situation won't stay calm. We have a little while before the action takes off again, but hopefully you'll all stay around.

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