I am writing this from the afterlife, because I choked and died on the fluffyness of #53. Just a warning; that's how bad it is. But oddly, it was fun to write! Anyway, enjoy.

~.~

53. Clouds

"Whatcha thinking about, Hiccup?"

"That cloud looks like a rabbit."

Toothless smothered a snort. Oh, the brilliant inventor, savior of Berk, famous for his radical thinking, how does he spend his free time? Looking for rabbits in the clouds.

"Which one?"

"That one. The one I'm pointing at."

"That is not a rabbit. I have no idea what it is, but it's not a rabbit."

"Not that one, the one next to it."

"You mean the one that looks like bird?"

"It's not a bird, it's a rabbit."

"Look, I am not going to have this argument with you. Who cares what it looks like? It's a cloud."

"It's a cloud? Is it really, Astrid? I had no idea!"

"Stuff the sarcasm, airhead, or I'll do it for you. And I promise it'll hurt, too."

"Oh, I'm terrified. Hey, look, that one looks like a dragon."

Toothless glanced up. Indeed it did.

"That big lumpy one? That's some ugly dragon."

Toothless was offended. He had thought that it looked a little like himself.

"I'm sure it can't help it if it was made ugly."

"Hiccup, it's a cloud. It doesn't care. And neither do I, now that I think about it."

"You are a tyrant, aren't you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing. Hey, that one looks like. . ." He trailed off.

Astrid looked up. "Now what are you gawking—"

They both went silent for a second. Then Astrid leaped up, ranting at the cloud as she stomped away. "Oh, no way am I tolerating that! Birds and rabbits and deformed dragons are one thing, but when I start having my fortune told to me by some stupid cloud, I am not going to stick around and wait for inspirational quotes to start popping up on my dinner plate! That is the stupidest thing I have seen all week, for the love of Thor. . ." Her complaining faded into the trees.

Toothless stared after her for a moment, then bounded over to Hiccup, who was still sprawled out on the ground, staring at the sky. He looked at his friend.

Hiccup pointed upward. "Now what are the chances of a coincidence like that, do you think?"

The dragon followed his best friend's finger. Far above their heads was a cloud, and although it had already been slightly smudged and smeared by the wind, Toothless could tell that several seconds ago it had been in the perfect shape of a heart.

54. Instinct

Toothless has yet to meet a Viking who isn't a warrior. He doesn't understand how it is that an entire race of people—not just one family or one bloodline, but an entire village, an entire race—can all be warriors, but that's the way it works with Vikings. They're all fighters. Their styles differ, as to their levels of skill and bravery and experience, but underneath the differences, they're all the same.

Toothless likes to think that he is a warrior, although sometimes he wonders. Warrior or not, he is a dragon. That means that he was born with the ability to fight for what he claims as his own. Vikings, on the other hand, are humans. Few humans are born with the bravery that Vikings possess, which means that their fearlessness in tight spots is not instinct to them; it was taught and learned. Toothless' Viking friends were not born with recklessness, like he was, but as normal human beings, which means that they had to work, to conquer their fears, to push themselves to achieve their level of bravery.

Humans were not born to fight to the death, like dragons were. And deep, deep down, Toothless wonders if he will ever be the warrior that his friends are. Because while some of it comes naturally to them, most of their bravery was acquired by them overpowering their misgivings. But he is an animal at heart, albeit an intelligent one. He was born without fear of challenges—just an internal drive to fight.

The dragon knows that when he fights, he isn't acting on courage, but on instinct. A feeling that drives him to throw himself into battle without a second thought. Because he is a predator. He was born to fight. To kill. And for him that takes no bravery—only instinct.

55. Lost

Toothless ducked down as one of the walls of a nearby building collapsed, sending a shower of sparks high up into the dark sky. He couldn't remember exactly when it was that the village had been torched, but it was too late now; there was barely a building in sight that hadn't been touched—or engulfed—by the incredible inferno.

The uncontrolled flames did nothing to quell the battle that raged. Toothless, over the years, had come to accept battle with enemy Viking tribes as an unappreciated but unavoidable part of life.

It also had a rule: kill or be killed.

Hiccup approached from a distance; Toothless recognized the young man's silhouette through the smoke and his gimpy, off-balance stagger of a run. "Toothless!"

Snotlout, who was not far away, was attracted by his friend's desperate call. He decked his opponent, who fell back onto a burning wall in an explosion of sparks, and dashed to the dragon's side, catching Hiccup around the torso to keep him from collapsing as he staggered to a halt. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Hiccup steadied himself with one hand on Snotlout's arm and the other on Toothless' shoulder. Blood from a gash on his temple ran down the side of his face, and he was breathing hard. Searching his friend's faces, he panted, "Have you seen my father?"

Toothless wracked his brain for the last time he had seen Stoick, but there was a sinking feeling in his stomach. The Viking chief wasn't young any more, not by a long shot, and not even someone like Stoick could stay powerful forever. The battle could easily end sooner than expected for him, if he was not careful.

The dragon had no answer for his best friend's plea. But looking at Snotlout, he could read something in his face. The man had seen something, or heard something, that he wasn't willing to repeat.

Hiccup saw the answer he had dreaded in Snotlout's eyes, and fell to his knees.

56. Tracks

Walks were something that Toothless quite enjoyed sharing with his friends on days when the weather allowed it, and if ever a chance to go one one arose, he would never be one to forfeit it. He liked just wandering around and enjoying the day, breathing the fresh air, having no sense of urgency or responsibility. (Even though his walks with Hiccup often turned into battles for his life, depending on who accompanied him.)

One of the things that he liked most about walks though was how easily he could identify his friends' exact paths by the tracks they left in the loam. Call him easily amused, but he could always identify who had walked where simply by the distinctive way that they walked.

The twins' footsteps were always identical. It didn't matter if they were running or staggering around or being general nuisances, you could always tell where they walked because their tracks were exactly the same. Astrid's footsteps were similar to the twins', but the length of her stride was considerably shorter than theirs because her legs weren't as long. Fishlegs tended to shuffle when he walked, so his footsteps were always just shapeless smudges on the ground, making them instantly recognizable, and Snotlout stomped when he walked, so he left a deep, detailed trail of tracks in his wake.

It was Hiccup's tracks that Toothless liked best though. They were the most distinctive by far, one the shape of that of a normal persons, and the other a deep, thin, vaguely rectangular gouge left by his metal replacement. His tracks were interesting and different than those of his friends, but at the same time quite similar also—just like Hiccup himself.