Yay, another chapter! The last one was an absolute blast to write, if I do say so myself, and is my favorite of this bunch. Enjoy!

~.~

90. Trinket

Hiccup and Toothless have acquired quite a few interesting odds and ends during their travels; so many, in fact, that they are no longer capable of carrying them all in one bag, and several so large that they could never fit in a bag anyway.

Some of these trinkets are souvenirs that the duo have bought from a market with their own currency or picked up off of a beach themselves or stumbled across while running for their lives or something equally pleasant. Others—most, in fact—are gifts bestowed to them by various people from the far corners of the world. Some of Toothless' favorites include a beautiful shimmering feather from the tail of an exotic bird called a peacock (a gift to the two of them from a community of curious island-dwelling natives), a very interesting shrunken head (an object used for witchcraft in a place where people build large buildings called castles for undeserving old rich men, and a souvenir that Toothless insisted on owning even though it scared Hiccup witless), and a long necklace of delicate silver chain links with a small pendant made from a rather hypnotizing precious red stone (illegally acquired, although they hadn't known that at the time).

Some of the dragon's least favorites include a large gray rock the size of his head (long story), a towel (very boring), and a molding slab of unrecognizable and inedible meat that Hiccup threw out almost immediately after receiving. They didn't let anyone ask how they had managed to come into possession of the offensive thing.

However, as inconvenient as it was to travel with all of these trinkets, it was always fun to come back to Berk and show them off. Astrid was always very enthusiastic about what they brought back with them, and she never missed a chance to dig through their ever-growing collection of foreign objects. At one point she finds a hinged leather box about the size of her hand that she had never noticed before, and inside lay an elegant circular brooch made of gold, inlaid with diamonds, and decorated with intricate and complicated designs. She holds it out to Hiccup. "How did you get this one?"

That brooch in particular had been a reward to the two of them for rescuing the princess of a village of dark-skinned people from a land of sand dunes, hot winds, and rattlesnakes. The young woman herself—a scantily clad beauty with ebony skin and knives hidden in odd places, who could give Astrid a run for her money in quite a few things—would have been enough of an adventure to encounter even if they hadn't had her ill-tempered captors to deal with. The princess's village had all but worshiped them for returning the girl in such a heroic fashion without demanding payment—what they didn't know was that Hiccup and Toothless hadn't been aware at first that the woman was either royalty or a captive, nor had they known they would be rescuing her until she herself was loudly demanding that they do so. But if they had known then that the experience was going to turn into a two-week odyssey of running from homicidal kidnappers with a high-maintenance, dagger-slinging princess who didn't react well to flying on a dragon, they might have turned and walked away right there.

In other words, the brooch was well earned.

But instead of going into all that, Hiccup just shrugs and says, "Oh, we picked it up somewhere. I don't even remember exactly where, actually."

91. Complicated

"Fatherhood is so complicated," Stoick complained one evening while visiting Gobber and Toothless in the armory.

The one-legged blacksmith sighed. "What did your son do this time?"

Toothless smiled. What hadn't Hiccup done?

Stoick leaned heavily on the table. "Oh, he's just being. . ."

"Hiccup?" Gobber suggested.

"Something like that," Stoick said, massaging his temples in an attempt to ease his headache. "He just makes me feel so bad at being a father sometimes, you know? I don't understand him."

Gobber rolled his eyes. This was not an altogether unfamiliar rant, after all—the blacksmith had become something of a stand-in therapist for his old friend over the last several years. "Stoick, if there's anybody on this planet other than that dragon who understands your son," he said, gesturing to Toothless, "then by all means, send them flowers and ask for lessons."

The Viking chieftain ignored the blacksmith's comment. "What am I supposed to do, anyway? I mean, what do dad's do?"

"Well, I'd suggest—"

"Maybe I could cook for him," Stoick mused. Then a look of dawning horror spread across his features. "Is that why he's so skinny? Is it because I didn't—"

Gobber gave the man a look. "That's the last thing you have to worry about; that lad of yours eats more than I do. If there's one thing that certainly isn't your fault, it's the fact that your son's girlfriend weighs more than he does."

"My son has a girlfriend?"

Toothless grinned.

"You know," Gobber said, realizing that this conversation wasn't going anywhere, "that is, in fact, a very complicated question about one of those strange teenager things that old geezers like you and I wouldn't be able to understand. Why don't you just go ask him about his latest whatever-it-is that he's making? It would make his day to know you're interested."

"Are you kidding?" Stoick exclaimed. "Those gadgets he makes are dangerous! I'm gonna lose a limb if one of those things goes off when I'm around."

"Join the club," Gobber said dryly, and Stoick cringed at his poor choice of wording and rubbed his left leg unconsciously.

"Why didn't we have these kind of problems when we were teenagers?" he wondered out loud.

Gobber smiled at that.

92. Progress

"Hiccup, what was it that—whoa!"

Snotlout stopped and blinked at his friend, glancing sideways at Toothless, who was cowering under a table.

Hiccup looked up from where he was scribbling notes on a piece of paper, the table he was hunched over (and under which Toothless was hiding) littered with glass vials of varying sizes and shapes, each filled with a different amount of some sinister looking liquid. He grinned at the look on Snotlout's face. "What's up?"

This was, in fact, quite disturbing considering the fact that one or more of Hiccup's mysterious vials seemed to have exploded while the boy was still in the immediate proximity. There was a smoking ring on the table, scorched black by some explosion or another, and Hiccup's face was painted a similar color. His teeth were startlingly white against his soot-stained skin.

Snotlout stepped tentatively closer to the table, where several of the vials were smoking copiously. "I came in here to ask you something, but, uh, I can't remember what it is. What are you doing?"

That, Toothless thought, was a question best not answered.

93. Speechless

When it came to confronting Astrid about matters that would possibly make the young woman throw a fit and start hitting things, it was always Hiccup who was called in to do the dirty work. After all, he was the most language-savvy of the village, and could usually relay her the news without working her up. or just use so many large, barely-pronounceable words in his sentences that he told her exactly what was going on without her understanding a word of it, thus avoiding a fit. Or, if all else failed, he could always hit her with the never failing kiss in the middle of one of her endless rants, which would usually shut her down for a good ten seconds or more.

This time, however, he was reluctant.

"Absolutely not! She's going to kill me if I ask her that," Hiccup exclaimed, fighting in vain to wiggle from Snotlout's iron grasp on his arm.

"And if you don't ask her, we are going to kill you," Ruffnut informed him. "Seriously, she'll take it well, I promise. She's been going crazy for months about it. You have, too."

"Just put us all out of our misery," Tuffnut complained. "I'm getting sick of all the moping. Seriously, Astrid hasn't beaten me up in weeks—that's how I know you need to ask her."

"And he's not even the observant one," Fishlegs threw in.

Toothless had known Hiccup for over ten years now, and even the dragon couldn't remember seeing him so unwilling to approach the fierce young woman. He offered his friend an encouraging smile that was too amused to be genuine.

Snotlout moved his grasp on Hiccup from the man's arm to his shoulders. "There she is. Now go. Now!" He gave Hiccup a hefty push in Astrid's direction.

"You're not going to let me out of this one, are you?" Hiccup asked.

The answer came back, loud and collective from all four, accompanied by a stern head shake from Toothless. "No!" Added in as an after thought was a: "You'll thank us for this later, I promise," from Ruffnut.

Twenty awkward seconds later, Hiccup was down on one knee in front of a speechless Astrid.

"Will you marry me?"