Chapter 7

Dad woke up earlier than us, so there was no way he didn't notice that his blanket had gone missing, but he hadn't done anything. When I woke up, Toothless and I were still nestled comfortably inside our burrow.

I yawned. My teeth popped out of their sockets, and I sheathed them again one-by-one. My paws kneaded Toothless's chest – a replacement for stretching. That woke the big lug, and he rumbled before lifting his wing off me. Light, stained brown from the blanket, entered our small cavern.

I crawled out and up to his chin. "Good morning."

He chuffed at me. I rubbed against him.

That was it for morning greetings. I was a young, energetic Night Fury, formerly an inquisitive, teenage Viking, and nature demanded that I do something exciting. Or at least get something in my belly. It felt like a bottomless pit right now, and was wailing at me to go hunting. To Fishlegs, it was, then!

Toothless followed at a leisurely pace. Not that he would have had to try very hard to keep up with me, anyways. For every step he took, it took me a couple of bounds to cover the same distance. When he did catch up with me though, I had made some lovely claw marks in Fishleg's door, and was squawking at the top of my lungs. If Fishlegs didn't hear me, then I knew Meatlug would.

When Fishlegs answered, he was still half-asleep. His helmet was hanging half off his head. Blond fuzz dotted his lower jaw; apparently, he was growing a beard to try to impress Ruffnut. Again. Because his attempts worked so well last time. Meatlug was similarly tired, and she didn't walk so much as she dragged herself behind Fishlegs.

I cringed. Looks like I hadn't chosen the best time.

"Sorry." Fishlegs rubbed his eyes. "I was up all night writing a song for Ruffnut . . . Hey, if you want, you can hear it."

I froze. I had no idea how to refuse without being rude.

But that's what dragons were for. When the first note left Fishlegs's mouth, both dragons dropped and clamped their paws over their ears. With a dark blush spreading over his cheeks, Fishlegs mumbled, "Ah, actually I haven't finished it yet. Maybe another time."

Not if I could help it.

Despite his state of half-sleep, Fishlegs still managed to cook something up. It smelt like fish – it was mostly fish – but I could detect garlic as well. There were a few other green things sticking out of the body, too; Fishlegs had cut open the chest and stuffed it, and poured some kind of sauce in to 'season' it. Put frankly, it looked like some animal had torn the fish open, played with the organs, and hadn't eaten any of it. But at least mine was cooked.

I was beginning to reconsider this idea.

"Okay." Fishlegs had his hands together, as if he had just clapped. "It's ready."

I looked around. Meatlug was happily guzzling hers down. Toothless, not so much. He was confused by the plants in what he thought should have been a pure fish.

Well, it couldn't be worse than Dad.

I balanced the fish on my jaw. My tongue ran along the undamaged side. It tasted . . . fishy. Like a normal fish. So, I swallowed. And it was still fishy. But when I ran my tongue against the roof of my mouth, there was something delicious on it. The sauce, or whatever it was that Fishlegs had made.

I licked my plate clean, hunting for any remaining sauce. Toothless had finished his. Unlike me, he didn't look at all impressed. Which surprised me because it hadn't been bad. The sauce was delicious actually, although I wasn't able to taste any of the herbs.

And it hit me. I watched Meatlug, who alone of the dragons, enjoyed Fishlegs's food. Unlike Toothless or any of the other dragons I'd seen, she didn't just swallow her fish. Instead, she stuck her snout in the opening, and then used that to slaughter the sauce all over the fish's body before eating it. So she could taste it. Fishlegs knew enough to leave the fish as intact and whole as possible, but he didn't know enough to realize what part of the fish needed to season.

"Well?" Fishlegs bit his lip nervously. He had parchment and a charcoal pencil in hand, as if I was actually going to speak Norse to him. "What do you think? Need more garlic?"

I signalled that I was the one who actually needed the writing utensils. When he handed them to me, I grabbed the pencil in my mouth (tasted like smoke), and proceeded to write as best as I could. The letters came out huge and loopy; really huge. Two sentences nearly took up an entire page. I was surprised that I hadn't broken though the parchment.

Fishlegs quietly read my initial verdict to himself. Then he looked at me. "Wait, why shouldn't I stuff the fish?"

I wrote: Dragons can't chew. They only taste the outside.

"Hmm." Fishlegs stroked his chin. He tossed a spare fish at Meatlug and then watched how his dragon swallowed it. Next to me, Toothless huffed, annoyed that he hadn't gotten an extra one, too.

"That's it!" Fishlegs exclaimed. "Oh, thanks, Hiccup. You're a genius!"

He knelt down, put one hand on either side of Meatlug's face, and squeezed gently. "Come on, Meatlug, we've got a lot of experimenting to do!"

Meatlug waddled after her rider as he retreated in preparation for even more cooking. That left Toothless and me alone.

Into the silence, I said, "Uh, bye."

We left. It seemed like it was going to be a good day. The sky was blue, clear except for a couple of white wisps hanging around in the sky. Most of the older Vikings were awake. There was a man saddling up his Nadder not far from us, and a group of kids were playing a game of run-away from a stray Gronckle.

My wings flexed as a breeze hit it. I could faintly see how the membranes bulged, catching the air as if I were aloft. I looked at Toothless, unreasonably excited by my . . .

My joy evaporated.

Oh, Toothless.

He was on his hind legs, wings fully open, walking slowly backwards as he struggled to keep his balance. His eyes were fixed firmly on the sky; the muscles in his chest were braced with the readiness to spring into the air. But his tail . . . his normal tailfin, his natural tailfin, was closed, but the other was open.

"Toothless . . ." I didn't mean to whine, but that's how it came out.

Toothless cocked his head. He dropped back to his feet and trotted up to me, acting as if he hadn't just been wishing he could fly. No, if anyone had been watching, they would have thought I was the one who needed comforting, not him. I moved into him, resting my head against his leg, wishing I knew how to apologize as a dragon. However, all Toothless saw was a despondent little Night Fury (formerly his rider), and he sought to comfort me with a lick.

I turned away. "I'm fine, Toothless."

He clearly didn't think so. He sniffed, trying to use that sense to figure out what had me bothered. And that just made me feel worse.

Trying to distract myself, I muttered, "The tailfin won't be done yet. It's too early. Astrid's probably still sleeping, and I have no idea where Dad is. I don't see any way to get you off the ground . . ."

And apparently, Toothless was just as disturbed by the fact that I was grounded. He tried to pick me up by the wings again, and I responded by sinking to the ground and spreading my wings out flat. Yep, there wasn't much for him to grab now.

Black filled my vision –

And everything went dark.

I squirmed. Warm walls pressed against me on all sides. A moist draft, carrying with it the scent of fish, came from behind me and filled the space like smoke. Blind, I groped for an exit, and even my tail mapped out the area as best it could. It was small, whatever it was.

Part of the wall gave. It split horizontally, and I crawled toward the crack . . .

I poked my head out of Toothless's mouth.

I glared at him. "Really, Toothless? Really?"

I suppose that I shouldn't have been too shocked. While I had certainly never seen an adult Night Fury interact with a young one before, I had seen Nightmares and Gronckles carrying their children around in their mouths. The Nightmares would leave their mouths slightly open, and their kids would peek out from between the teeth. Gronckles seemed to use it more as a punishment because they would swallow one kid and then sit there. Toothless seemed to be leaning toward the Nightmare style of things, though.

He seemed to have some kind of destination in mind. Plus, I doubted my chances of wrestling free, so I let him carry me. I scanned his face; my presence made his cheeks puff out, but other than that, having a little dragon in his mouth didn't seem to bother him. Again, not much surprise there. He had once carried around my helmet in his mouth.

He took us home. Exciting, I know. But don't worry: it got better. He walked right up to the door, and then leapt and attached himself to the wall next to it.

". . . Toothless?"

If his laboured breathing and clumsy movements were anything to go by, baby Night Furies were better climbers than grown ones. Toothless kept trying to use his wings - not necessarily to fly and skip the whole process - but just to try and keep himself attached to the wood. His claws didn't seem able to grasp the wood as well as mine; his weight kept tearing them out and kept him scrabbling for a hold. But we got up. Eventually. In about three times the amount of time it would have taken me.

His jaws loosened, inviting me to walk on my own feet again. I took that offer very happily, thank you. Please ignore that I am now covered in drool.

"Okay, we're here. Now what?"

Toothless chirped. At the fore of our house, a wooden dragonhead protruded out into empty air. Toothless perched on the nose of that, wings half-raised. With a jerk of his chin, he ordered me to follow. Easy. The wooden dragon was more than wide enough for me to walk down.

A shadow passed over us as a bird darted through the sky. Toothless dug his claws in, and opened his wings wide. I crawled underneath one, coming to a stop just beyond his left foot.

He squawked. (Hah, I knew the meaning of that!) The wings spread even further, until his very bones seem to be trembling with the effort. His front claws dislodged from the wood; they rose too, even as he checked whether I was paying attention.

He jumped.

His one real tailfin snapped open. The other rattled, flicking back and forth indecisively before settling on closed. In the few seconds that took, Toothless picked up speed. A lot of speed. Too much, I knew, for a dragon looking to land.

The uneven tail made his right side pitch up. His wings splayed oddly, trying to keep him level. It lasted about three seconds. Not because he rolled over or anything. But because he landed. Crashed. Whatever. At least he got his feet under him this time.

He shook himself and shuddered. That should have been the end of this little excursion, but then he had the gall to look back at me and call me down.

I backed away from the edge. "Nope. Not happening."

Toothless cocked his head. He sprung at the walls and started to climb.

There was no way this was going to end well.

"No. Oh, no. You stay back!" I reared up and hissed. Actually, I spluttered a little bit. The splutter ended quickly because my lips caught on my tongue. Fearless as ever, Toothless walked right up to me. He stared at me, then out into the empty air beyond the wooden dragon's head, and chirped.

Go, he was saying.

I shook my head. Not on my life.

Toothless was not amused.

And he decided to express that by grabbing my tail.

I flinched. What was he –?

He flung me into the air.

"Toooooothless!"

It didn't even occur to me to open my wings, but the air caught their corners and pried them from my sides. My tailfin was already open. Not like that meant anything because I had no idea how to steer. I somersaulted through the air, like a typhoomerang closing in for the attack.

I hit the ground tail-first, followed by the rest of me. A disorienting tremor went through my body, but other than that, I think I was okay. Let me just check . . . yep, tail's not broken. Wings? Check. Legs? Sore, but working.

I laid there, listening to my own heartbeat.

Toothless crashed behind me.

"Serves you right," I grumbled. Of course, Toothless was all smiles. He actually wanted to climb up again.

"No," I told him firmly.

He stared at me.

He started to open his mouth . . .

"No! I said no, Toothless!"

With Toothless hot on my heels, I ran.

Review Responses:

Guest: Request granted! Thanks.

Jazz: It would have been hilarious. :) This takes place after Gift of the Night Fury, which is why Gobber and Stoick were commenting on how Toothless rejected it last time.

A Random Person: Okay, this week you are the only random person. Flying will be an ongoing arc. He won't really get the hang of it until later, despite Toothless's best efforts :D