Hello, everybody, another chapter! Now, I know that there have been a lot of questions about #17 and #18. About those - I'm not going to comment. I, of course, had my own backstory to them when I wrote them, but by telling you, I'll be infulencing your interpretation of the drabbles. Sorry if I'm being confusing, but I want you guys to have your own opinion. Make up your own backstory! As for #19, not telling that either! The gang will take that secret to the grave. . . That said, I think that a lot of you are going to have some problems with #23. Sorry about that, but I couldn't resist. Enjoy!

~.~

20. Theory

"Toothless, eat your vegetables."

Haha. Right. Not happening.

"Toothless. . ."

Uh-uh. Toothless was a carnivore, solid and true. It was fish or nothing. Besides, nobody went around telling Hiccup, who had taken a recent liking to vegetarianism, to eat his beaver livers.

"C'mon buddy, it's just a carrot. It won't poison you."

That's what Hiccup thought. It was only a theory. Toothless had never even eaten a carrot—how did anyone know that it wouldn't poison him? Dragons didn't eat vegetables. Nobody knew that they wouldn't be poisoned by carrots.

And Toothless wasn't going to find out anytime soon, thank you very much.

21. Warrior

Toothless crept through the darkness, his ears up, barely making a sound as he stealthily followed the figure in the distance. Toothless didn't like to spy, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him.

He quietly followed Stoick through the dense trees and into an open clearing full of gray, unmarked rocks each about the size of a human head, lined up in rows on the grass. Graves. Toothless had followed Stoick to Berk's graveyard.

The Viking chief had the dragon's interest now. What was he doing in the graveyard, of all places? Wait, was the Viking talking to one of the gravestones?

Indeed he was. Toothless listened.

". . . I just don't understand him. He's so different, I've never met anyone like him in my life. We don't think the same way, don't understand each other. . . for the love of Thor, we don't even eat the same things. I just. . . he doesn't make any sense to me. And I know that he doesn't get me, either. I can tell. Gods, I'm so bad at this stuff. . . you'd know exactly how to handle him, if you were still here."

Hiccup's mother. Toothless realized that Stoick was talking to his wife.

"He's a hero though, you know. He might have already told you, but he saved Berk. I bet he watered it down for you—he's so modest. That's another thing I don't get about him. But he's a hero. A. . . a warrior, in his own way, I guess. He lost his leg, too. I bet he never told you that. Probably didn't want you to worry. Didn't want you to know how close. . . how close he came to meeting you."

There was a silence. Then Stoick continued.

"But it just don't get the lad. And it's only gotten worse as he's gotten older. Heck, I guess I saw it coming; I've been dreading the teen years since he was three. But still, I never expected this. I mean, the lad's a bloody legend! A warrior! I really wish you could meet him—you'd love him. You'd understand him. You'd help me. . . help me feel like a father again."

Toothless stood in the trees, watching the Viking as he poured his heart out in a very un-Stoick-like manner to the one person who could really understand. The only person who could ever come close to knowing what to do—and never be able to answer.

22. Rain

It was one of those wonderfully warm summer storms that gathered on the horizon in a matter of minutes and opened up without warning, dumping millions upon millions of fat, glassy raindrops into the sea and onto the Viking village below. It was one of the very few weather characteristics of Berk that Toothless figured could actually be enjoyed without causing harm, meaning that is wasn't a week-long blizzard with eighty below wind chills, nor a violent thunderstorm that hit the trees with lightning and sent half the forest up in flames, nor was it fist-sized hail or deadly flooding or slick, icy sleet.

It was just rain.

And it could be enjoyed in a variety of ways. Toothless enjoyed flying in the gentle rain—it was a different sensation than just soaring through air, and now there was no danger of getting fried by lightning or being blown away by wind. If you were Ruffnut and Tuffnut, you pelted each other with mudballs with large rocks hidden inside for that extra satisfying thunk! If you were sane, you ran for cover. If you were Fishlegs, you stared up at the oncoming raindrops dumbly and blinded yourself.

And if you were Hiccup and Astrid, the dragon noticed with a smile, you danced.

23. Seconds

Berk was in flames. The entire village was in chaos, turned into a war zone, a death trap, by the attacking Vikings from the North. There was no order, no definite right or wrong, just self-defense and escape: You ran for your life, and if you saw someone you didn't recognize while doing so, you killed them. Simple as that. There was no regard for age, or gender, or loyalty. You just fought, and tried to avoid being burned alive by the roaring flames that consumed the village of Berk as the night wore on.

Toothless was furious. He was in shock. He was terrified. And he was struggling. Of all the things that could bring down the mighty Night Fury, it was a tree, weakened by the flames—a tree, for the love of Thor—that had fallen on his weak form and trapped him beneath it's heavy trunk.

But he had to get free. It didn't matter how much it hurt or how weak he was or how many bones the massive oak had crushed, Toothless needed to escape.

Fifteen feet away, just beyond the dragon's reach, Astrid dangled from a cliff face with nothing between her and the churning surface of the sea but a thirty second drop. The only thing anchoring her to solid ground was Hiccup, leaning as far out as he could without endangering himself as well, clutching to her fingers.

But he wasn't going to last. Astrid was weak. Hiccup was weaker. The girl, with all her muscle mass, weighed just as much as Hiccup did, and he wasn't in the same physical condition that she was. He couldn't hold her for long, and she had lost so much blood in the battle, it was a wonder she was still conscious herself.

Toothless fought against the heavy trunk of the tree. He was almost free. If they could just hold on for—

It wasn't going to happen.

"Astrid, do you trust me?"

She nodded. Toothless could only see the top of her head as she hung from Hiccup's fingers, but he saw it move.

Their hold on each other slipped, and they both cried out. Toothless heaved the heavy tree trunk off his chest. He was free, and oh, gods, he could barely stand, barely open his wings—but it didn't matter.

They had thirty seconds before Astrid hit the water. And a fall like that could only end in tragedy.