Being a zombie is a pain. My fingers keep falling off when I type. And yes. That's the excuse I'm going to use to explain why I haven't updated this in, like, six months. It's a good excuse, right? Anyway, you know the drill. Read and review and enjoy and all that jazz. *drumroll*
~.~
122. Release
"He's not usually like this!" Hiccup insists as Toothless pulls sharply out of a nose dive and starts corkscrewing like crazy. Astrid doesn't seem to hear him; She's presently digging her nails into his shoulders as she hangs on to him for dear life. Toothless yanks hard to the right and spirals for a bit, ignoring Hiccup's complaining as he waits for the ridiculously stubborn Astrid to give up the fight.
The same way that she clings to Hiccup now, she is still clinging to her beliefs, her stereotypes, her fears. As Toothless practices his aerial somersaults, he waits for her to let go. Let go of her hate and her misguided fears and open up to the world that has always been around her but that she has been to stubborn to see.
The dragon is contemplating whether he should do another nosedive or continue somersaulting when he hears her – "Okay! Okay, I'm sorry!"
Wham! His wings go out, and Toothless steadies himself. His rocky midair acrobatics level out to a perfect glide, calm and weightless, and he soars gently on the twilight. Behind him, he feels Astrid loosen, lift her head from Hiccup's shoulder and then, slowly, release him from her vice grip. Tentatively, reluctantly, she begins to release all of that fear, those stereotypes that have been her way of life for so long.
He smiles to himself as she reaches up to the clouds, opening her arms wide—also her heart, her mind—and releases completely her hold on Hiccup.
123. Fairytale
Hiccup reads him stories sometimes. Not boring works of nonfiction with titles like "Fungi of the Southern Midwestern Regions" or "A Study of Acids," (although he reads those to Toothless too) but actual stories.
Toothless likes one particular story the best – The tale of a princess who falls in love with a common blacksmith's son. In the story, there are dragons and monsters and cranky old bearded guys called "wizards" who wear funny hats and can do all kinds of fantastic stuff, and there are talking cats and mermaids and short people with pointy ears. In the end, everybody gets to live happily ever after except the evil king, who gets dropped into a pit of lava by a fat lady with wings called a "fairy godmother."
Toothless wishes real life was like this, that cats could talk and the bad guy always dies in the end and the good guy always saves the pretty girl. He knows that things don't work like that, but he likes to imagine it, and keep an eye out for mermaids, anyway. After all – there's a dragon in Toothless' favorite fairy tale.
Maybe he can be that dragon.
124. Educate
Sitting across from them at the table, Toothless notices immediately the way Ruffnut frowns at the open book that lies on the table in front of Hiccup. She's been like that for a while, staring at it over his shoulder as he reads and completely ignoring her food, which is entirely uncharacteristic of her. Toothless notices that her eyes don't follow the lines like Hiccup's do.
After some time, Hiccup notices too. He glances up at the scowling Viking girl.
"I could teach you, if you like," he tells her.
"Teach me what?" Ruffnut asked defiantly.
"To read."
The Viking girl opens her mouth, probably to swear at him, but then she looks away. After several seconds of awkward silence she glances sideways at him again, looking shy, a hesitant little smile on her face. "Okay."
125. Frost
Toothless sat at the window, admiring his artwork. With painstaking precision, he had managed to scratch a picture in the frost that coated the glass – A Night Fury, to be exact. Granted it didn't look much like a Night Fury, or anything, really, until you tilted your head to the left and squinted through one eye, but that was beside the point.
Walking by, Hiccup glanced over and noticed. "Nice –" the Viking boy tilted his head to the left and squinted "–dragon, buddy. But the picture isn't done yet." Reaching over, he carved a quick stick figure in the frost, giving it a hat with horns, a big smile, and a book in one hand. "There you go."
He walked off, but Toothless sat there, smiling at the boy and the dragon in the window.