Prompt by Colbalt Sunfire.

Chapter 5

"Dad. Hey, Dad! Look what I can do!"

Dad may not have been able to speak dragon, but the way I bounced in front of him got my meaning through. He crouched down, asking a question that rumbled through my ears. I stopped in front of him, opened my mouth wide . . .

Snck! My teeth shot out of their gums.

Dad laughed. "Well, that's one thing down."

Toothless peered at me. He unsheathed his teeth as well, and then clicked them. Not to be outdone, I closed my mouth, and then opened it again to reveal my sheathed teeth. Toothless sheathed his.

Snck! went my teeth.

Snck! went Toothless.

Snck.

Snck.

Snck. Snck. Snck . . .

"Stop it!" Dad reared back up into a standing position. "You two are giving me a headache."

I couldn't resist sheathing my teeth one last time.

Dad sighed fondly. He turned away and walked deeper into the forge, shouting at some villager peeking through the window.

Toothless glanced at me, and then sheathed his teeth.

I hopped around the forge, scrabbling over a drowsy Grump's tail. Toothless followed, pausing to sniff the other dragon. Usually, Toothless wasn't allowed to be in here, not since he had nearly burned the place down while chasing down a beam of light. With my current situation, however, exceptions were made. I think Dad and Gobber thought that having Toothless around would keep them from stepping on me.

With Toothless's help, I hauled myself onto one of the tables in the back. One of my tables, to be exact. I had a couple: one plain table where I mostly worked on my designs (the shelves upon the table were just bursting with them), and an actual workbench where I put my designs to the test. Upon this workbench today, there was what an ignorant person would call a heap of metal and leather. Anybody who had ever fiddled around with inventing, however, or even lent a hand in one of mine, would know better.

I grabbed a corner of the heap, and stretched it out, unraveling the prototype of my wingsuit. At first glance, it looked like some plain armour with random sheets of leather attached to the arms. But when I was done with this, it was going to be my key to joining Toothless in flight. First though, I had to fix it. There were holes in the 'wings' from the last attempt where . . . let's just say Toothless had a mini panic attack.

"So, what do you think?" I asked my companion.

Toothless placed his paws on the tabletop. He licked one of the suit's shoulders, before trying to swallow it.

"Right, bind the wings tighter to the arms," I murmured. Eyes on one of the rips, I reached for my tools –

My stubby, very un-fingerish toes wiggled in front of my face.

"So much for that," I mumbled. Right. The only natural interaction dragons usually had with metal was trying to eat it. That actually disappointed me more than the whole turning-into-a-dragon thing originally did.

We wandered outside. From the ocean came a cool breeze that buffeted my face and making my wings vibrate. The midday heat bore down on me, blocked only by the shadows of a flock of Terrors as they danced in the currents far above. I puffed my chest out. It had been nearly an entire day since I had changed into a dragon, and I wasn't about to spend my entire journey moping.

"Ready . . ." I crouched. My claws braced themselves against the ground, and clacked when I jumped onto stone. My tail followed with a thump; I still barely had any control over it. But I had mastered the art of controlling my teeth. That still left flying and fire-breathing, but I had no idea if I was old enough to do either of those things.

We walked down to the docks. No, there was no real reason why. Toothless apparently just felt like going down there. I think he liked the smell, as he was leaning into the wind, eyes closed.

I peered into the waves. For the first time since my transformation, I really saw me. I could still see my eyes in that face: green, just like Toothless's, but not so slitted. Not so . . . wild. And rather than the pure black colour Toothless had, there were lighter imperfections on my cheeks. Like freckles. I bet if other Night Furies were around, they would call me ugly.

I headed back to land, careful not to fall through the gaps between the planks. Toothless chose to remain on the docks, while keeping one eye on me. Though I was a grown man perfectly capable of taking care of myself, I stayed within eyesight for Toothless's peace of mind.

I scrambled up to the top of a fence post and stopped to admire my claws. In all honestly, I had thought they would be soft, like the child I appeared to be. But they seemed just as hard as any other dragon's claws though, and strong. I could literally hang from the fence with nothing but the claws on my front paws.

"Hey, Toothless, can you do this, too?" I strutted down the length of the fence. The friction between the wood and my claws was more than enough to keep me steady –

I only noticed then that my tail had fallen to one side.

Time to jump! As the weight of that extra appendage pulled me down, I launched myself off the fence. Genius, if I do say so myself. I was all prepared for a smooth landing . . .

Except I had forgotten to make sure there was nothing in front of me.

I got my paws up right in time. My claws sunk right into the tree trunk. I waited a few seconds for the tree to explode (because something always went wrong for my friends and me). When that didn't happen, I bravely lifted one paw off the tree. I didn't fall.

"Hey, Toothless, look at me!" Remembering afterwards how to translate that into dragon-speak, I squawked. From the docks, Toothless called back to me with a throaty chuff.

I slapped my loose paw back against the trunk, driving in my claws. Then, I carefully dislodged a back paw. Moved that upward. A branch with a single leaf at the end caught my eye. There was my target.

I didn't even think about what I was doing; I just enjoyed the sensation of getting higher off the ground. I don't know if every dragon had this feeling, but I could physically feel the pulsing space between me and the dirt. And down was heavier. Up was lighter. Better.

I blinked. Not better. Ground was where Berk and Toothless were. That was better. Home.

By this point, I was on a branch. The rapture of climbing had begun to wear off. But I hadn't reached my goal yet, so I drove myself higher, higher . . . I was small enough that even the thinner branches merely bent under my weight.

The leaf was within my sight. I crawled forward, nearly on my belly. The leaf swayed back and forth on its perch.

Suddenly, the branched dipped. Hard.

I leapt back just in time. The branch snapped up to its regular position, almost hitting me in the face. Alright, no hunting leaves today. I could deal with that.

It occurred to me: I had to get down.

Sure, no problem. I would have to do the same thing, but in reverse.

And here was where my plans finally went wrong. It was one thing to climb upwards, where you could drive your claws into the wood with all your weight behind it. It was another to go down, where you had to stretch out your legs with barely any bodyweight to support you. In other words, I wasn't going anywhere. I thought about going down headfirst, but I studied my claws, saw how they hooked downward and made the discovery:

Dragon claws, at least young dragon claws, were only meant to climb upwards.

I was trapped.

Okay, don't panic. This is why I kept a giant, flying lizard as a pet.

"Toothless! Toothless, help me! I can't get down."

Toothless looked up at me. He trotted over to the tree, and reared up to stare.

Oh, no. The tailfin. He couldn't fly on his own.

"Okay, never mind. I'll find someone else."

I looked around. Skullcrusher was hanging outside the forge, probably waiting for Dad. Good enough for me.

I squawked. I squawked loud and clear. My voice didn't carry far enough, however. In frustration, I kept squawking and didn't stop, drowning out the sounds of Toothless's curious barks.

The tree shook.

I glanced up at another branch to see a stray Nadder. She stared down at me, head cocked. Before I could try to communicate with her, a Terror popped up next to me.

It slowly dawned on me that dragons were swarming my little tree.

If they couldn't sit in the tree, then they were gathering at the base. The poor tree itself was starting to bow; flakes of bark rained on the ground. And where there were dragons, there came Vikings. Seeing the commotion, much of Berk had decided to go on break and observe the heir-who-was-a-dragon and his sudden entourage. Just perfect.

"Can you help me down?" I asked one of the dragons. I pointed downward with my paw.

They all stared at me. It was terrifying.

"Down. Down! Come on, you have to know what I'm talking about. Me, down. I can't make it any more obvious than that!"

I was right on one part. I was being obvious. But to the Vikings, not the dragons.

"I think he's stuck," I heard someone gasp. Not a horrified gasp, but an Is this actually happening? gasp.

I could feel a hundred eyes boring into me. I whined at the Nadder, who stretched out her wings and flapped them.

"I don't know how!" I complained. I had no idea what kind of sounds were actually coming out of my mouth, but it was making the buzz downstairs increase.

"Hiccup?"

I froze. That was Dad's voice.

Odin, help me.

"Hiccup!" Dad shouldered his way through the crowd. "Hiccup, are you okay?"

I uneasily scanned the crowd below me. No one was concerned – of course not. We were dragon-riding Vikings. It would take more than a little fall to kill one of us – mostly, they seemed a little bewildered. I could sense they were on a knifepoint, just a nudge away from finding this hysterical.

"Hiccup, what are you doing up there?"

I peered over the branch, and hoped he could see my smile from here.

"Hiccup, are you . . .?" Dad lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. "Are you . . . stuck?"

He just had to say it.

I closed my eyes and nodded.

This was so embarrassing.

When the giggles started, I covered my head with my paws. Which meant I only had my back paws keeping me in the tree. Which would have been perfectly fine, except that another, heavy Nadder tried to land on my branch. The branch nearly went perpendicular to the ground. The Nadder retreated, the branch –

I shrieked as I was thrown into the air.

Something closed around my waist.

"Got you!"

I recognized Astrid's voice. She was sitting on Stormfly, and I was neatly contained within the Nadder's talons.

They lowered me gracefully. I tumbled from Stormfly's talons not-so-gracefully. Once again, I was the center of attention for all the wrong reasons.

When I saw a flash of black, I dove for the safety of Toothless and buried myself against his side. He caught on and enveloped me in his wing, blocking me off from the outside world.

To him, I mumbled, "I'm never coming out again."

Review Response:

Guest: Probably, for the first question. I can't answer the second one.

Jazz: Who knows. I mean it's been how many years since KH II...

C: Thanks!

a random person (#1): Fishlegs isn't bad. He just hasn't figured out how to appeal to dragons.

More about adjusting to being a dragon.

a random person (#2): Haven't you heard? I'm evil!

dragon lifespan: To be fair though, so do fish and most sea turtles. Although I don't know if sea turtles go that far north.

I agree: there is a limit. It just so happens that the long lifespan doesn't hit mine XD

I wouldn't say that Eragon himself is stupid... just that nobody in that entire universe really understands the implications of the magic system. I mean, if the whole risk factor is that you could run out of energy and die, then just add "Unless it would kill me" to the beginning of each sentence. Problem solved! A magic system like that is so easily abused.

Thanks! Hiccup is mentally still 100% Viking , and everyone knows it. I mean, if you think about it, Hiccup already was the bridge between dragon and Viking... now he's even more so!

Good point about the similar species. HTTYD 3 perhaps? XD