Alrighty, so #103 is from Dmazie, who gave me the word "dove," which inspired me. #104 came from a prompt from Paraxenos, and I think it turned out pretty well. #105 came from a suggestion by Mary Penelope, and is personally my fave of this bunch. Lotsa angsting, muahahaha! Anyway, I know it's been awhile, and I'm sorry about the wait, but I was procrastinating :P Enjoy!

~.~

103. Dove

The two of them sat in silence, the sun filtering down through the leaves above their heads as they relaxed and watched the busy-bodied little birds for no reason in particular, besides the fact that they were just the strange sort of souls who did that. The birds themselves had forgotten about the misfit duo long ago, and they went about with their natural and quietly fascinating business, the dove especially.

Neither bothered to move when the little white bird alighted on the forest floor in front of them and hopped about for a bit, complaining and cooing to itself charismatically. Nor did they stir when it took wing and vanished into the greenery for a while, then returned, landing closer this time, so close that Hiccup could have reached out and touched it had he wanted to. It studied them for a minute, then seemed to deem them acceptable, and demonstrated this by flapping up onto Toothless' back after regarding him for a mere moment.

Upon feeling the slight dig of the mourning dove's talons along his spine, Toothless got the urge to roll over and dislodge the little creature, but he fought it. He could feel Hiccup's eyes on the bird, and see the slight smile on the young man's lips—Hiccup was, after all, sentimental enough to enjoy the irony of the situation. Toothless was massive and powerful and dark, strong enough to knock over trees and crash through walls, and this delicate, fragile, and obviously insane little bird had decided to sit on his back when Toothless could step on the little thing and not even notice he had done so (although he would probably feel bad afterwords).

The dove paraded around a bit, and Toothless ground his teeth together in agitation when it pranced across his shoulder blades, but he did not move. And after it had made it's presence known and established that it was obviously in charge of the situation here, the bird pushed off, and was lost in the foliage once again. It had decided to trust Toothless, and the dragon had followed through.

Hiccup smiled slightly at Toothless before raising his eyes to the treetops once again, and neither moved again for the longest time.

104. Bystander

Toothless does not pretend to be an expert at reading people, but there are a few cases where he is pretty confident when it comes to interpreting expressions. And just as he doesn't pretend to be an expert of the human race, he won't pretend that he doesn't know exactly what's going on inside Stoick's head when he sees his son choose the company of his friends and Toothless over that of his father.

Toothless does not have children—although considering how much trouble Hiccup gets into and how much Toothless goes around trying to fix his problems, that is debatable—and he doesn't intend to have them anytime within the next couple hundred years, thank you very much. But the dragon fancies that he has a pretty fair idea of how Stoick the Vast feels about being stood up by his son.

The man is, when it all boils down, heartsick.

He has no family besides his only child, and if ever there was a chance of the two of them having a successful father-son relationship, it was dashed when Hiccup's mother died. Stoick never was one to embrace the world outside of Berk, and when he finds that he has a son who all but walked off another planet, he is unable to make the connection. Unable to forget the fact that, no matter how hard he tries, he is never going to have a proper Viking for a son and that Hiccup is always going to ride dragons and read books and conduct a variety of dangerous and disturbing experiments.

So when he is reminded again and again that Hiccup would rather socialize with overgrown, mute, flying lizards rather than him, he is understandably hurt, and disappointed, and angry.

But not at Hiccup, or even Toothless, really.

After all, it's his own darn fault that he's nothing more than a bystander in his son's life.

105. Survivors

Toothless touched down in the middle of the forest, out of range of the smoke that billowed from the burning village of Berk, and nearly collapsed. Blood had been trickling from a deep gash on the side of his ribcage for the entire half-hour long flight, and his head was spinning and his vision was blurred and all he wanted to do was sleep.

Hiccup slipped down from the exhausted dragon's back and knelt beside him. The boy hardly looked any better—he was bleeding and limping, and had a far-away look in his eyes that suggested a severe case of battle shock. The only one who had any energy was Astrid, who all but leaped from her perch on Toothless, whipped her ax from her back and threw it for all she was worth with a yell of frustration. It spiraled through the air faster than thought and stuck deep into the trunk of a tree, quivering.

Radiating fury and frustration, Astrid stomped over and ripped her weapon free, whereupon it left a pale wound on the mighty tree. She looked worse than Hiccup, despite her demonic energy, with blood soaking through her shirt and trickling from her nose, a black eye, and a steadily darkening bruise engulfing one side of her neck.

She buried the blade of her ax into the loam at her feet with a violent downward swing and another infuriated cry and leaned back against the nearest tree, breathing hard. Beside Toothless, Hiccup hadn't moved. He stared off into the distance, focusing on nothing, his face scarily expressionless. The boy looked dead.

Astrid looked up at them, her hair falling across her bruised face, and Toothless could see all the mixed emotions that Hiccup presently lacked reflected in her eyes. "Do you think anyone else made it out?" Her voice was quiet, in contrast to all the yelling she had done.

Hiccup's only response was a slight, noncommittal movement of the head that could be interpreted as anything. Astrid exploded unexpectedly. "Of course nobody else made it out!" she yelled, more to herself than anybody else. "Gods, how could they? The whole village went up in an inferno! There's no way anybody but us got out! It was impossible!" She whirled , yanked her ax from the ground, and sent it spinning again. It disappeared into the forest, and Toothless heard the thunk! as it embedded itself into another tree, but she didn't go get it.

Astrid deflated as suddenly as she had blown up, and she sunk to her knees with a strangled gasp. "Of course nobody else made it out." Her voice was quiet again, and quavering. "We're the only survivors."

Nobody replied.

106. Sink

"Fishlegs . . . why don't you like water?"

The boy gave Ruffnut a sideways look. "What are you talking about?"

Ruffnut glared at him pointedly. The two of them were walking along the beach with Tuffnut and Toothless, making themselves scarce since Stoick seemed in the mood for giving out jobs today. Hiccup, Astrid, and Snotlout had already been enlisted to run errands, and so their friends—ever so helpfully—had decided to become temporary fugitives and escape Berk. Toothless had considered sticking with Hiccup for the day, but then had been offered a walk on the beach. Only a fool would choose scrubbing pans and hauling carts and putting up with Astrid's moodiness over a nice walk on the beach.

"What do you mean, what am I talking about?" Ruffnut demanded. "You go to incredible lengths to avoid water. Why?"

Fishlegs frowned, but he was too honest to lie. "Well . . . it's deep."

"Not always," Tuffnut said.

"But you never know," Fishlegs insisted. "And I don't like deep water."

"Why not? You just have to swim."

"That's kind of the point."

"What, you mean you can't swim?"

"Well . . ." Fishlegs stuttered a bit. "I mean, it's not like I, um . . ."

Tuffnut gave him the classic are-you-kidding-me? look, and he broke.

"I sink!"