Chapter 6

Half an hour had passed since Hiccup was separated from Astrid and her dragon. Her temporary torch had burned out but she knew to light another one if the Whispering Death came back. Dawn was approaching which provided enough light for Astrid to not be flying blind. She had still not found Hiccup which was really scaring her. She had called and called for him but got no answer.

When he had fallen, neither she nor Stormfly was able to save him but luckily he had not fallen from a fatal height. Astrid could not understand why they could not find him. It would be foolish for him to wander on foot and possibly get farther away from them.

Suddenly she noticed something ahead. In the large cluster of perfect evergreens covered in snow there was one that had the top snapped and was hanging partially still connected to the trunk. Getting closer Astrid saw another one damaged next to it and another next to that. They flew over the line and Astrid carefully landed Stormfly to the snowy ground. She looked up and followed the damaged pines and noticed the damaged area of the tree was getting lower to the ground. Two pines growing close together had an opening between them that was created by something. She parted through the branches with her dragon following and gasped at what she saw on the other side.

Hiccup was lying on his side several yards ahead motionless in the snow. She ran over to him and tried to wake him. He did not so her trembling hands checked his pulse. She sighed with partial relief to find he had one. The sun was rising and providing some more light so Astrid could conclude what had happened. When he fell Hiccup must of activated his flight suit to glide to the ground hence the fabric folds hanging loosely from his arms. This made for a slower landing but he did not have anyone to protect him from the trees.

Astrid pushed Hiccup over so he was lying on his back and she inhaled sharply. Hiccup's left side had a gash below his arm but above his waist. The cut ripped right through his armor and was a few inches long. She looked over to see blood coating the snow from where she had moved him.

Trying not to panic Astrid looked around and saw a boulder that had a somewhat flat and sloped top. Grabbing Hiccup under his arms she started to drag him over to it to get him out of the snow. Stormfly helped by going over to the boulder and very briefly fire blasting it so it would be warm. Astrid thanked her while she still worked on getting Hiccup on it. She laid him down so his head was higher up and took and closer look at his injury. He was still bleeding and the cut was deep enough to need stitches.

Astrid turned to Stormfly and yanked one of her bags off the saddle. Rummaging through it she found what she needed; a bowl, a cloth, a small dagger, a needle and thread and a vile medicine. She filled the bowl with clean snow and put it in from of her dragon.

"Stromfly, make this hot water," she asked.

Stormfly nodded and gave a quick fire blast to the bowl and snow. A Deadly Nadder may have some of the hottest fire, but they had been training so the dragon could do controlled blasts without always destroying the target. The training payed off when Astrid now had a bowl of steaming water. Taking the cloth she soaked with with water and picked up the dagger. She carefully cut away the bloody armor around the gash and applied the cloth to stop the bleeding. She looked up at Hiccup's face to see he was still unconscious. Astrid was now glad for this since it would a lot harder to do the next part if she was causing him pain. Once she was sure his bleeding had slowed down, Astrid cleaned the needle and thread in the hot water and removed the cloth. She took a deep breath and started to stitch up the wound.

Once she was done and cleaned up Astrid took the vile of green medicine and rubbed it over the area to help with pain and quicker healing. Finally Astrid wrapped a white bandage cloth around the wound and his middle to properly protect it.

Stormfly peered over Astrid's shoulder worried so the viking hugged her head with her arm. "He'll be okay girl, I just need your help setting up camp for him."

Toothless stood at the edge of a cliff sniffing the air. It was snowing but not enough to be considered a blizzard. He had not found a trace of another Night Fury and was beginning to loose hope. Even if he did not pick up the scent of another Night Fury he figured that if one was ever nearby that it could find him instead.

By now returning to Berk had crossed his mind many times. He was very lonely but he figured it would be bad of him to go back by now. Cloudjumper would not want to give back his Alpha title which would cause problems and the biggest issue would be Hiccup. His friend would have moved on by now and would probably be angry at him for coming back. Toothless knew he could not handle Hiccup rejecting him which was a big reason why he left in the first place.

Toothless laid down and whined sadly. He thought leaving would be better for everyone but it was quite obvious this was not the case for himself. If he returned to Berk he assumed to find his rider with a new dragon and would not want to take back the dragon who killed his father.

He started to think about forgiveness and something new entered his mind. He forgave Hiccup for hurting his tail because it meant he gained the best friend in the world. And Hiccup forgave Toothless for biting his leg because it meant he saved his life. Hiccup and Toothless both knew Stoick's death was an accident. He remembered Hiccup telling him once that he died to save him. Because of that Hiccup was still alive which meant everything to Toothless.

Toothless raised his head and perked up his ears in realization. And after that Hiccup pursued Toothless and freed him from Drago and the bad Alpha. If Hiccup truly hated Toothless for the accident, then he would not have done that. What happened was a tragic but it resulted in him defeating the Alpha and restoring peace. All the events led towards a great new era on Berk. Of course Hiccup was sad for loosing his father, but he always tried to prove to Toothless that they were still the best of friends.

Toothless wanted blast himself in the face for not realizing this sooner. He and Hiccup were a team and he could not just leave him to try and fix things. It would be difficult but he now planned on returning home and try everything necessary to get Hiccup to forgive him.

Toothess stood up with a new wave of confidence. He was going home and nothing was going to stop him. As the Night Fury happily dived from the cliff he blasted a few times at the mountainside with excitement. Suddenly he heard an angry squawk. Toothless opened his wings and flapped them to hover and listened for the sound again. A blur of colors shot past him and Toothless now saw three angry Deadly Nadders flapping in front of him.

"You blasted our nest!" the lavender female Nadder screeched.

"I'm sorry it was an accident," said Toothless and tried to fly away from them.

His flight path was then blocked by the other two Nadders so Toothless growled at them.

"Get out of my way and I'll leave!" Toothless yelled.

"No! You can't just destroy our home and then get away!" said the green Nadder.

Then the blue Nadder squawked towards the mountain and received a much louder reply. A Titanwing Deadly Nadder emerged from the cave and joined to others. He was about a half a size bigger than the other adult Nadders with maroon and black scales. The four dragons circled around Toothless yelling threats to him. Toothless no longer carried the power of an Alpha so to them, he was just a troublemaking dragon. The Night Fury did not want to fight them. He needed to hurry home and did not want to get hurt or hurt them.

He fired a plasma blast purposely narrowly missing the Titan Nadder and used the quick distraction to fly upwards and then speed away. The Nadder's flew after him but Toothless was faster and they could quickly see that. The Titan yelled an order to the other Nadders and they split up. Toothless turned his head around to see them disperse and thought they were giving up. Suddenly a whistle of spin shots flew past his head making him stop flying forward and dodge. He then heard a dragon below him and saw one of them breath fire up at him. Toothless flew upwards to miss the flames but did not get far before a new set of flying spines came towards him. Still avoiding the fire, Toothless had no time to react before a dozen Nadder spikes hit him in the back. Toothless roared in pain and felt that one had jammed up his tail fin. Almost instantly he started to plummet but had enough time to twist around and fire at the approaching ground to blast away the trees. He collided with the burned ground hard and was very dazed. He shook his head to clear it and slowly stood up. Seconds later the four Nadders landed in front of him. The Titanwing stepped forward and started to inhale for a fire blast. Toothless fired into its gas filed mouth making it fall to the ground instantly. The shot did not kill it but was definitely enough to scare it. He stood up and gagged before fleeing as the others followed.

Now that the danger was gone Toothless had a chance to look over his injuries. He turned around to see spines sticking out from his shoulders to the end of his tail but none pierced his wings. He pulled his tail around and started to carefully remove the spines he could reach with his teeth. This fixed his tail and got rid of a couple but there were still half a dozen in his back. He started to feel dizzy and remembered that Nadder spines are poisonous. He started to lick his wounds on his tail to try and fight the dizziness but it got worse.

It was not long before he laid on his side and fell unconscious.