Okay ladies and gentlemen, mark it down on your calendars: today is the day that I have updated a fanfiction two days in a row! This is probably a first for me; I am famous for neglecting my fics. That said, you guys are amazing. Keep the feedback coming, everybody. Oh, and a note about #9, 'Crazy,' you know how some animals are attracted to shiny objects? Toothless has always struck me as a critter who would fall under that category. He's not a pyro or anything like that, as far as I know - but then again, he is a dragon. Who can tell? Anyway, enjoy!

~.~

6. Nonsense

When Toothless saw someone draw for the first time, it was Hiccup, sketching away in the sand. The dragon had been intrigued—reptiles weren't gifted when it came to putting charcoal to paper, and how anyone could so easily create an object's likeness on a scrap of parchment was beyond him.

But that didn't mean he wouldn't try.

Whenever Hiccup decided to pass the afternoon by sitting out in the sun and sketching, Toothless would always join in: uprooting the nearest tree and dragging it back and forth across the ground in incomprehensible scribbles. It wasn't really art, only nonsense, but by Hiccup's delighted reaction you would never have known that, and the fact that Toothless's scribbles could please the boy made the dragon feel special. After all, nobody else in Berk made art for Hiccup, even if it wasn't really art, of course.

But then again maybe it was art, to Hiccup anyway. After all, artists saw beauty in the oddest things. So even though it made absolutely no sense to him, Toothless drew nonsense for Hiccup, and Hiccup turned it into art.

7. Stare

The first time Toothless noticed it, he didn't realize how significant it was. The second time he saw it, it caught his attention, and he wondered what she was doing. The third time, he stopped to watch her and see just how long she could do it without blinking.

By the fourth time Toothless caught Astrid staring at Hiccup for incredible lengths of time, he had finally realized what it meant. It made him grin.

By the fifth time, he had a plan.

Positioning himself, the dragon reached his tail around Hiccup and tapped the boy's shoulder with the fin, and Hiccup turned toward the touch. "What—" His eyes locked with Astrid's, and he froze mid-sentence.

Toothless watched with delight as the girl went a most interesting shade of red, and whirled around. Sticking her nose up, she stalked away. "What are you looking at?" she challenged them as she passed, but it wasn't very convincing due to the fact that she was still blushing deeply. Toothless smirked, and she shot him a very dirty look that clearly said "I'll get you for this one."

She probably would, too, but it was worth it. And Hiccup stared at her until she disappeared around the corner.

You know, Toothless was getting good at this.

8. Hug

Sometimes, Toothless felt sorry for Ruffnut and Tuffnut.

He never shared this thought with anybody, because for one, humans couldn't understand him, and for another, the twins would never have wanted anyone to know what Toothless knew—if they had even realized it themselves.

Everyone in Berk knew how the twins worked. They were tough and sturdy and dependable for the most part, and loved nothing better than a good brawl or heated argument, especially amongst themselves. That was another thing that everybody knew about the twins: they had no tolerance for each other. Half the time, the battle wounds they landed themselves with were inflicted by one another. The genuinely disliked each other, it seemed.

Toothless had found this to be mostly true, except for the last part. Ruffnut and Tuffnut didn't have any tolerance for each other, and they did hurt each other a lot. . . but they didn't really dislike each other.

Toothless knew this because he had noticed something that nobody else had, not Hiccup or Gobber or anyone else. Probably not even the twins.

Whenever something really dangerous happened, like an attack from a rival Viking tribe or an accidental fire sweeping through the village, the twins were always part of the first line of defense, always some of the first people on the scene—and always some of the first in danger. And almost always, either one or the other would nearly get themselves killed—like the time Ruffnut was taken hostage, or the time Tuffnut stepped in front of Snotlout and willingly took the near-fatal blow aimed at the other boy—because that was just the kind of people they were.

And whenever that reunion happened, that first time that they saw each other since being told that their twin had nearly been killed, always happened the same way. A not-so-subtle "For the love of Thor, what were you thinking?" followed by a not-so-friendly side-tackle, followed by a not-so-pleasant fist fight.

But Toothless noticed something about that tackle. In that split second from the time that one twin has wrapped their arms around the other to throw them to the ground to the time that they start fighting, that isn't a tackle. It's a hug.

And it hurt Toothless. It hurt the dragon to see two people that he likes so much concealing their affection from each other. Ruffnut and Tuffnut were siblings. Twins, even. They shouldn't have to hide something as simple and wonderful as a hug from each other. But they do.

And Toothless felt sorry for them.

9. Crazy

Toothless was mesmerized.

It hypnotized him—the flickering and erratic movements of the bright colors, the way they threw shadows on the ground around them. The palette of glowing reds and oranges and yellows, the way they melted and merged together endlessly, always changing, like brilliant sunsets all existing simultaneously as they licked and fluttered. The dragon couldn't take his eyes from the way the bright fingers wove shapes and stories around each other, vanishing just as quickly as they appeared, tantalizingly close, but untouchable. It was amazing, the way it emitted an essence of exotic beauty, so wild, so—

"Toothless. . . that's a campfire."

Obviously.

"Why are you staring at a campfire?"

Now that was a question. Why was he? The dragon grunted softly. Because it was beautiful. Duh.

Hiccup limped up, putting one hand on Toothless's black scales to steady himself as he took the weight off his prosthetic leg. There was a moment of silence as the boy and the dragon stared at the simple campfire.

Toothless couldn't take his eye's off it. It was mesmerizing.

Hiccup seemed to get the message. "Toothless, you know you're crazy, right buddy?"

Humans. Toothless snorted. He wasn't crazy. He was enjoying nature's art, something that the human race seemed incapable of doing. He wasn't crazy. Right?

Of course not.