Here we go everybody, another chapter. You people are amazing, so you deserve it. I figure that drabbles 11 and 12 kind of go together, and you could also throw 13 in there - they're all similar in a way. You'll probably know what I'm talking about when you get there. Enjoy!

~.~

10. Snow

"Oh, look," Hiccup commented wryly as he stuck his head out of the door. "No blizzard. Must be a heat wave."

Heat wave indeed, Toothless thought to himself as he followed Hiccup out into the winter wonderland left in the storm's wake. The blizzard had lasted for days and had only come to an end about an hour ago, but already the fresh snow held proof of life—footprints made intricate criss-cross designs on the thick blanket of white, telling stories of people and animals with places to go.

The snow muffled the sounds that floated up from the heart of Berk, making the entire village seem peaceful and quiet as the boy and the dragon padded along, making their own trail in the soft snow, simply relishing the silence. Of course, it didn't last long. Toothless wasn't surprised, somehow. It never did.

Astrid burst from the nearest snowbank with a yell, Snotlout and Fishlegs on her heels, all three laughing as they made the most of the fresh snow. Hiccup only had time for a slightly panicked "Oh, great—" before he was snatched up by his friends and whisked away. Toothless watched with distaste as they shoved each other into the soft piles of snow, thoroughly soaking themselves but laughing the whole time.

The dragon had never liked snow much. It was too cold for his taste, and while it was pretty when it was fresh, it only stayed that way for so long. Besides, it brought out a certain annoying giddiness in otherwise respectable Viking dragon riders.

Thwack!

Toothless froze on the spot, feeling the cold remains of the snowball that had hit his head scatter across his back.

Not far away, Hiccup slapped Fishlegs a high-five. "Bulls-eye!"

Now they were just asking for trouble. The dragon allowed a mischievous smile to spread across his features.

Okay, so he still didn't like the cold weather, but snow or no snow, nobody could outrun a dragon. And snowbanks were the perfect places to bury the dead bodies of troublesome, dragon-harassing teenagers.

11. Wounded

It happened so fast. Toothless could barely process what was happening. One second he was defending Berk from the Vikings that had attacked from the North, swooping down on them at lightning speeds, running purely on adrenalin, defending the village with his life because he knew that if he didn't there would be no village left to defend. And the next moment—

Then what? He could barely remember. It had happened so fast. Something had hit his chest, he remembered that much. He didn't know what it had been, but it had hurt. Lots. It had made him dizzy and weak and within a second, he was falling. That had been unexpected, and the only thing that the dragon could think of as he plummeted down was how glad he was that he hadn't been far from the ground, close enough that Hiccup wouldn't be too badly hurt when—

Then everything went black.

It had happened so fast.

12. Cry

Hiccup doesn't cry easily, but Toothless hates it when he does. Mostly because he knows that whatever is making Hiccup cry can't be fixed—not by him, anyway.

After all, Toothless can't fix it when friends—good friends—are lost to war. He can't fix a leg that no longer exists. He can't fix the deep, growing emotional rift between father and son. As hard as Toothless tries, he can't fix everything.

Toothless hates it when Hiccup cries. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's painful to watch, to listen to, because it's all of the raw, awful frustration that comes with Hiccup's life pouring out of him. And the misery of it seeps into Toothless and makes his heart ache, and he wants to fix it. But he can't fix everything.

Hiccup doesn't cry easily, but Toothless always makes sure that when he does, he isn't alone.

13. Free

Of all the things that Hiccup has done for Toothless, there is one in particular that the dragon always remembers. Of all the favors, all the sacrifices that Hiccup has made for his best friend, there is one that by far means the most.

Hiccup made Toothless free.

When the dragon lost his tail fin, and therefore his ability to fly correctly, he had thought he was finished. After all, what was a dragon who couldn't fly? Just a big, temperamental lizard with useless wings. Not a dragon anymore. Just an animal. Just another ordinary, flightless ground-dwelling animal. After all, if a dragon lost it's ability to fly, it lost it's freedom and it's pride and it's very way of life. In other words, a flightless dragon was just another dead lizard walking.

And Hiccup changed all that. Ignoring the fact that it was, technically, the boy's fault that Toothless couldn't fly in the first place, he invented that odd, awkward contraption, and, with practice, gave Toothless his freedom—and his life—back.

And now Toothless tries his best to make it up. He wants Hiccup to understand just how much the boy really did when he latched that sail-like strip of cloth onto the dragon's tail. He wants to show Hiccup what free feels like, and when he launches himself into the sky with the boy on his back, it feels right. When the boy loses his leg, it feels even more right somehow. Maybe because they're both underdogs, disabled and broken, who are beating the odds.

Because despite what fate threw at them, they're still free.

14. Bubbles

You know, Toothless really liked bubbles, especially the ones that popped into and out of existence on the surface of that little stream that ran along the edge of Berk. Toothless was very fond of that miniscule trickle of water—it was crystal clear and cool and, of course, full of bubbles.

Hiccup and Astrid liked that stream, too. Mostly Toothless figured that they enjoyed watching him as he staggered around, enjoying himself to no end as he snapped away at the bubbles that boiled to the surface as the water flowed over the rocks. The only problem with this was that it was always immensely difficult to get the dragon home after spending half the day there. He acted a bit. . . tipsy, to say the least.

"Oh, for the love of Thor. Hiccup, I believe that your dragon is drunk on stream water. I didn't know that was possible."

Hiccup grinned. "Neither did I, but it could be worse. We should be thankful that it's only the bubbles he's drunk on; the last thing I need in my life is a Night Fury with a fetish for alcohol."