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Broken

Chapter 9: Puzzles

Building barrels was the hardest part of making ale, but Fishleg's father insisted they make their own. Ever since he and Ingifast had argued over the quality of the barrels the shipwright had made, long before Fishlegs had been born, his father had refused to use any barrels but those they made themselves. This currently meant ones Fishlegs had made.

Fishlegs didn't mind spending long hours making barrels for his family's ale. He was actually pretty good at it. Especially the hammering. But his eye for a well built barrel had turned out to be of immense value to his family and for that he was glad. Even if being a cooper hadn't been his first choice of occupations.

He had joined the dragon training class because he hadn't been entirely thrilled with the prospect of making ale for the rest of his life. He'd done it knowing his physique was as much of a hindrance in combat as it was a benefit. His father had been as reluctant to let him train as Stoick had been to let Hiccup. Fishlegs believed his father had agreed only because he was sure his large bookish son would not succeed. That hadn't really bothered him, since he was not the type to dwell on the negative aspects of life. And in the end, being a cooper and a brewer and a dragon rider was a good mix of what he wanted to do and what he needed to do.

The best part of being a cooper was using his hands to do the work while his mind was occupied with other things. Usually those other things were dragons. And often one specific dragon: Thunderguts, his Gronckle.

His fascination with dragons had been once been fed with books. One book, specifically, but there were a few others around Berk that he'd been able to get his hands on. Now he was able to study his subject up close. Studying dragons up close, while initially intimidating, was definitely preferable. He'd learned all sorts of things about them, all first hand. Best of all, what he learned was going to be used in a new dragon manual being written by Hiccup. He was helping teach future Vikings all about the care and training of dragons.

The new way of Viking life was most agreeable to him. The raids had ended, the fighting had stopped and life in the village was slowly starting to improve. Best of all he had his own dragon to study. He liked to watch it eat. He loved to watch it interact with other dragons. He even enjoyed watching it sleep. This was a good thing because Gronckles slept a lot.

That had actually been the first thing Fishlegs noticed about Thunderguts. He'd thought it strange that she spent most of her days passed out on the ground, snoring with a weird buzzing hum. At first he thought maybe she'd been stressed during the battle on Red Death Island and was trying to recover her strength. It didn't take long, however, for him to realize every Gronckle in the village did the same thing.

He was stacking up the staves he'd made that morning to dry while the newest barrel he'd finished sat over a small fire to char its inner walls. He picked up a load of staves, wood chips and sawdust fluttering to the ground like heavy snow. Leaning them against the side of his work shed, he peeked inside the new barrel to check the fire. He picked up a few pieces from the pile of broken staves and wood scraps he kept nearby and dropped them inside to build the fire back up.

He'd just finished stacking his morning's work when he saw Hiccup limping his way. He smiled to himself. A conversation with Stoick's son was always welcome. The scrawniest Viking in the village was the only other person who seemed to have the same level of interest in dragons as he did. Except for Jaspin, who could drive a person crazy with all his questions about everything under the sun. Especially swords. Fishlegs didn't know much about swords, or anything else except making ale and dragons.

Fishlegs noticed two things about Hiccup as he approached. First, his dragon was nowhere in sight. Toothless' absence wasn't all that unusual. As close as he and his rider were, the Night Fury sometimes wandered off on his own for hours at a time. The second thing was the intense expression on Hiccup's face. He obviously had something serious on his mind. This was confirmed by the way he nearly walked into the large stump the Ingermans used as a chopping block. It was only when he stopped, his hand on the handle of the axe Fishlegs had left buried in its scarred surface, that Hiccup looked up and saw where he was. With a slight frown, the burly young cooper wondered if he had actually intended to come his way or had simply wandered by on his way somewhere else.

When Hiccup's eyes met his, the friendly smile that came across his face convinced Fishlegs he'd meant to come to the brewery. He couldn't help noticing, however, that there was still a distracted cast to the expression his visitor wore.

"Good morning Fishlegs. Already hard at work, I see."

He shook his head. "Nah, not really. The hard part's over. This is the easy part." He peeked into his new barrel again, nearly satisfied at the amount of charring. "I'm surprised you're not down in the smithy. I hear Gobber's working like crazy to make things to take on the trading voyage."

Hiccup nodded. "He was. Until he realized how little room there is in Rorik for all the stuff he wants to take. He had to cut back." He gave a soft laugh. "A lot."

Fishlegs made a sympathetic sound. "I see." He looked his friend over, searching for clues but finding none that were obvious. "So, what brings you by?"

The oddest thing happened just then. For a moment Hiccup looked distinctly uncomfortable. Then he put on a cheerful smile and reached into his brown fur vest. He pulled out one of his journals and the charcoal stick he used for writing. "I was wondering if you had anything new to add to the manual about Gronckles."

"Are you feeling all right?"

Hiccup froze. He simply stopped moving. He didn't speak, didn't even blink. Then he made a soft sound that eventually became, "I...didn't... get a lot of sleep last night. Had a... a lot on my mind."

"Anything I can do?"

For a moment the expression on Hiccup's face became terribly somber. He looked at him as though he might ask or say something of great importance. But the moment passed and the forced smile returned. "Tell me you have something new to add to the Gronckle page!"

Fishlegs turned to look at Thunderguts, but was wondering about Hiccup's odd behavior. He thought a moment, then smiled faintly and turned back. "As a matter of fact, I found out something I never would have believed. It was just last week."

"Oh?" Green eyes shone with anticipation of new knowledge concerning dragons. The charcoal hovered impatiently.

"Yeah. I found out that Gronckles don't like cats."

Hiccup blinked a few times, trying to figure out what it meant. "Don't like them...how?"

"To eat." Fishlegs grinned. "I think it's the fur."

"Really?" The charcoal tapped the half empty page thoughtfully. "What happened?"

Fishlegs peered into his charring barrel again and decided it could come off. "Well, you know the orange tom that stays around the Laxdale's house? The real friendly one?"

Hiccup nodded as his friend set the newly charred barrel aside and picked up a small iron tripod. He placed it over the remains of the fire.

"Well, apparently it found out that a Gronckle sleeping in the sun makes a nice warm bed. He jumped up on Thundergut's head, curled up and went to sleep." He picked up a small kettle sitting nearby and hung it on the tripod. He lifted the lid and sniffed the cold stew that would soon be his breakfast. Once the kettle was in place, he sat on the ground to wait. "I watched for a minute, to see what would happen. It was over in a second." He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

"Thunderguts ate the tom?"

"I thought she did at first. It was amazing. She's usually so slow, you know. But she just opened her mouth, twitched her head and the cat was gone. Poof!" He grinned at the memory of it. "The next thing I know, she's up on her feet, shaking her head and growling. Then this wet ball of orange fur comes shooting out of her mouth and takes off for the hills." He laughed. "I didn't know who to feel sorrier for, the slobbery cat or Thuderguts. That cat must have tasted terrible the way she carried on."

Hiccup looked thoughtful. "I don't know. I think having four sets of claws and a nice batch of pointy teeth attacking the inside of your mouth would be of more concern than how it tasted."

Fishlegs stirred his stew. "Don't be silly. Gronckles spit fireballs of lava. Do you really think the inside of their mouths would feel something as puny as cat claws?"

"Hmm. You have a point there." Hiccup nodded. "I guess you're right. The tom must have tasted bad to her." He made a few quick notes in his journal. "Anything else?"

"No. Well...no." He looked pained for a moment. Then he shook his head and said nothing more.

Hiccup was confused. "What?"

"Nothing." But obviously it wasn't 'nothing'.

"Oh come on. It might be important."

Fishlegs studied the smaller teen a moment. He wavered for several seconds before he made up his mind. He got to his feet and looked around the corner of his work shed toward his house, making sure no one else was nearby. When he sat back down, he crooked a finger to beckon him to sit close. After Hiccup had managed to get himself seated, his wood and iron leg thrust out before him, he spoke in a whisper. "You have to promise me you won't ever tell my parents about this."

Hiccup's eyes widened and he leaned back a bit. He had a strange look that almost made him wish hadn't said anything. "Why?"

Fishlegs glared. "Promise not to say anything and I'll tell you." He wasn't usually very good at asserting himself, but this was too important.

With a nod, Hiccup said, "Alright. I promise. Not a word to your parents, ever."

Satisfied, he got back up and tended to his breakfast again. He cast a glance over at the lumpy pile of scales that was his sleeping Gronckle. When he turned back, the pained expression was back on his wide face.

"It was about a month ago. I was stacking staves to dry over there." He pointed at the neat, tidy arrangement of thin wooden boards piled higher than Hiccup's head. "I had just finished cutting the last ones and took them over there to put them on the pile. Suddenly I hear this weird...whooshing...sneeze." He looked pointedly at his guest. "You know the sound they make."

"She shot a fireball?" Hiccup sounded confused. "At what?"

"At me!" Fishlegs abruptly slapped both meaty hands over his mouth. He looked around the corner at his house again, then sat back down next to Hiccup. "At least that's what I thought at first," he added, once again whispering. "It was a tiny lava ball, really. Not much bigger than my hand." He shook his head, remembering his own disbelief. "But she fired it right at my feet!"

"Was she trying to hurt you?" The very idea disturbed Hiccup as much as it had Fishlegs. "Did she do it on purpose?"

Fishlegs nodded. "She did it on purpose, but she wasn't trying to hurt me." He looked again at the nearby stack of lumber. "I was standing right next to the staves, so it knocked the pile over and ruined a dozen boards. Burned holes in them."

Hiccup understood his friend's dismay. He knew what it was like to have large amounts of his work ruined by forces beyond his control. "What did you do?"

"Well, at first I didn't know what to do," was the slow response. "She'd never done anything like that before. I looked at her, ready to yell at her for ruining my pile and burning my staves. But she was just looking at me, calm as could be. Then..." He looked at Hiccup, real worry on his face. "Hiccup," he hissed. "She nodded at me!" He shook his own head, jowls wobbling slightly. "As thought she was happy with what she'd done!"

Hiccup leaned back slightly, a strange look on his own face. Fishlegs assumed he was perplexed by the dragon's odd behavior. For several moments, he just stared. Then, in a flat tone asked, "And then what?"

Fishlegs shook his head. "Nothing! She took off, flew off to a sunny spot, thumped to the ground and went right to sleep!" A tendril of steam came from the stewpot and he stood to stir it again. He brought a spoonful of brown liquid to his mouth, then put the spoon back in and sat down again.

"I got mad. She messed up my work, made me have to cut new staves. But then I got to thinking." He looked up at Hiccup, the worry still plain to see. "My parents, they made me promise to get rid of Thunderguts if she turned out to be too dangerous to keep around the house. I was afraid if I told them what she'd just done, they would make me get rid of her. Or worse."

Hiccup nodded. He understood such a predicament completely. "I don't know what to make of it. It doesn't make sense."

"It took me a while to figure it out. But after I pulled down the rest of the wood so I could restack it, I found something." Fishlegs got up, went inside the work shed and returned with an oddly shaped object. He placed it on the ground next to Hiccup's knee.

It was brown and burned on one end. The other end was shaped in a disturbingly familiar way. Hiccup could make out eyes, the thin slit of a mouth. He gingerly picked it up and looked closer at it. There was no doubt.

"She killed a viper?"

"I never even knew it was there. Close enough to bite me, I know it." He gazed at his dragon again. "She protected me."

Hiccup was impressed. "Wow. That's quite a story. And quite a shot, too."

Fishlegs picked up the tripod and moved it away from the fire, his calloused hands immune to the hot metal. "Yeah," he said softly. "And that's the hardest part to figure out."

"Huh?"

The burly teen stared at him. "You were there. During our dragon training. We all fought against her several times."

Hiccup suddenly seemed uncomfortable. "Yes. So?"

"So...you should put in the new dragon manual that Gronckles can fire small, high precision bursts of lava fire." He paused. "But only when they want to."

"Umm..."

"Think about it, Hiccup!" Fishlegs was still keeping his voice to a whisper, but he waved a ponderous arm in agitation. "How many times could she have injured or killed one of us during those first days of training? We barely knew how to hold a shield, and yet that was all she ever hit. Except the walls, once in a while. Not our exposed legs or our heads."

"I, uhh..."

"With that kind of control, she should have wiped us all out that first day." He took the stew kettle off the tripod and set it on the ground next to Hiccup. "Want some? It's barley and mutton."

"Ah, no, thanks." A weak, nervous smile crossed the smaller Viking's lips. "I've already eaten this morning." He watched as his friend dug into his breakfast. "So...do you have any...ideas?"

Fishlegs paused in the act of raising his spoon. "I suppose it might have been the captivity," he said thoughtfully. "All that time spent in the arena, being fed and never hunting on her own, fighting the same kind of enemy over and over." He looked at Hiccup, his expression clouded with uncertainty. "It might have dulled her instincts, made her aim...sloppy." He heard his doubts clearly in his own voice.

"Huh," Hiccup grunted. "Could be."

"No." Fishlegs shook his head, his voice strengthening. "That doesn't make sense. Even if her abilities had been diminished, the odds would eventually have her killing a trainee."

"Legs, people have died during training."

He nodded. "I know." He gave his smaller companion a strange look. "Do you know why?"

Hiccup frowned slightly. "Well, I would have to assume it had something to do with the fact that they were fighting dragons at the time."

"No, I mean what they did wrong."

A shrug was all the answer the blacksmith's apprentice could give. "How would I know?"

"It's in the records."

Hiccup stared blankly. "Records?"

Fishlegs nodded. "Gobber keeps records of everyone who goes through dragon training."

"Really?" A single raised eyebrow added a dose of disbelief to his sarcastic statement.

"Oh yes. I've read all of them. When I was preparing for training myself. Not that there's much in them. Gobber's not big on writing, it seems."

Hiccup gave a quiet chuckle. "Can't say I'm surprised." He looked again at the viper's head he was still holding. "So, what did they do wrong? All those people who got killed during training."

After swallowing another spoonful of stew, he answered, "They didn't listen to Gobber. Made the stupidest of mistakes. They just...did everything wrong."

"Hmm. So, what does that tell us?"

Several spoonfuls of thick, chunky stew disappeared as he considered the question. "That stupid people shouldn't fight dragons."

Hiccup sighed. "Brilliant. What else?"

Fishlegs frowned as he continued to turn it over in his mind. "I don't know, Hiccup. That, maybe, she wasn't trying to hurt us when we were fighting her?"

Now the smaller of the two paused in thought. "Interesting idea. But why would she do that? Dragons always go for the kill, right?"

"I guess." Wide shoulders shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. It doesn't make sense."

Nothing else was said for a minute. The stew vanished without being tasted. Fishlegs' gaze returned to the sleeping Gronckle again. "That isn't the only puzzle about dragons."

"Oh, tell me about it," was the quiet reply. That brought the larger lad's head back around.

"Do you wonder about them a lot?"

Hiccup gave a rueful chuckle. "All the time."

Fishlegs nodded vigorously. "Like...where did all the dragons go?"

Hiccup nodded, suddenly more animated. "Yeah." He leaned closer. "You heard them say how many dragons came pouring out of the side of that mountain."

"Hundreds!" he agreed. "My dad said maybe almost a thousand!"

"Hiccup raised his arms toward the empty sky. "Right, so where did they all go? There's maybe a hundred-"

"Probably less!"

He gave a nod despite the interruption. "Less than a hundred have shown up here at Berk. So where did all the rest go?"

"And out of those, why do only a few stay in the village? You've seen the rest of them, right? They stay around the island but never come into the village itself. Why do they hang around? What do they want?"

Warming up to the subject, Hiccup leaned closer and lowered his voice. "You want to know what bothers me the most?"

"What?"

Hiccup shifted his false leg to get more comfortable. He leaned forward, setting his journal on the ground before him. "My dad sails to the island, breaks open the mountain and attacks. All the dragons inside scatter like frightened seagulls. All but the Red Death." He looked at Fishlegs, his expression deadly serious. "We show up on the dragons from the training arena and they are more than willing to fight against it. Against another dragon!" He hitched a thumb over his shoulder, pointing in the general direction of his own house. "Toothless..."

For a moment, Fishlegs thought Hiccup had forgotten what he was going to say. The slim young man just stopped speaking, a truly strange expression on his freckled face. When he did resume speaking, he had to strain to hear him.

"Toothless acted like he wanted to kill it. He... he seemed to hate it."

"Well, I thought the idea was that it was controlling the dragons, making them feed it."

Hiccup's head snapped around. "If it controlled them, why didn't the dragons in the mountain swarm over everyone on that beach? Why did they fly away? And why didn't our dragons have any problem attacking it? That's not what I would call control!"

Fishlegs could only shake his head and shrug helplessly again. "I have no idea, Hiccup. I really don't."

The smith's apprentice subsided, thoughtfully turning his eyes down to his journal. The sounds of sheep bleating to each other and sea birds calling overhead filled the quiet moment. "There's just too much we don't know," he eventually said, his voice tinged with bitterness.

A snort and a growl brought their attention to Thunderguts, who had rolled onto her back as she continued to snooze. Fishlegs smiled to himself at the display. "Too bad we can't just ask the dragons." Gazing at the Gronckle, he didn't notice the way his slender friend twitched or the slight widening of his eyes. A few moments of peaceful silence passed.

"What if we could?"

Fishlegs was taken by surprise. The question was simple enough, innocently asked. But it still alarmed him on some level. The only response he could give was a grunted, "Huh?"

Hiccup waved a casual hand at Thunderguts, his expression almost bored but his eyes were locked on Fishlegs. "What if dragons could talk? What do you think they'd say?"

Taking the question at face value, he spent some time thinking about it. For him, however, it was a line of thought that didn't really go anywhere. Eventually he just shrugged. "I don't know. Probably 'Feed me' or 'Let's go flying.'"

For a moment there was no reply. Hiccup just stared at him, his expression unreadable. Then he nodded and picked up his journal, tucking it under his vest. "Well, I've got a few other things to do today. I'll talk to you later, Legs." He got himself standing with only a little wobbling. He gave a smile and headed off.

Fishlegs watched him go, wondering what to make of the last question his friend had asked. Why would he wonder about dragons trying to speak? Or what they would say? He knew Hiccup was smart and that he had learned a lot about dragons. Possibly more than any other Viking ever had.

When he thought about what Thunderguts had done and what Hiccup had asked, he started to get a weird little itch in the back of his mind. He was great at memorizing and learning, but putting things together and solving problems wasn't his strength. It didn't take long for him to set the whole thing aside and leave it for his friend. He had other tasks ahead of him. He picked up his newly charred barrel and brought it inside the work shed, humming to himself.

It was hard to do anything sneaky in Berk. Everyone knew everyone else. Everyone knew where certain folks belonged and where they didn't. It was even harder when you had an artificial limb that squeaked and thumped and announced you wherever you went. But Hiccup didn't want to be seen doing what he was doing. That meant he had to try being sneaky.

Luckily for him, his goal was acting like a pile of rocks in a spot between a few houses where few eyes would see.

Ordinarily he wouldn't have disturbed a sleeping Gronckle. They were notoriously hard to wake and were never in the best of moods when cheated out of their sleep. Since Hiccup didn't know when such an opportunity might come again, he decided to risk getting thumped by a grouchy dragon.

Thunderguts was just lying there, breathing with the usual buzzing sound she made when she slept. But when he came around in front of her, he saw her eyes were partly open. She was tracking his movements the instant he came into her view. He didn't know what to make of that, but decided it was his good fortune that he didn't have to actually wake her.

"Hello Thunderguts." As soon as he said it he remembered what Toothless had inferred about dragons having their own names. Since he didn't know her real name, he had to simply push ahead with his idea. "I was wondering if I could talk to you."

She didn't react. He hadn't known what to expect from her, but he had hoped she would at least acknowledge him. Suddenly he wondered if Gronckles slept with their eyes partly open. He moved a few paces around her large head, watching her eyes. She tracked his movements, even blinked once. Otherwise, nothing.

He looked around again, making sure no one would see him trying to talk to someone else's dragon. He and Thunderguts were still unobserved. He leaned forward slightly and spoke quietly. "I'm sorry if I'm bothering you, but I wanted to ask you a few questions."

Another slow blink was the only movement other than her breathing. He wondered if she were one of the dragons who couldn't understand Norse. He pressed on anyway, hoping his luck would hold.

"I'm trying to understand you and the other dragons, but it's hard to figure out a lot of what's going on with you guys. I was really hoping you could...maybe..."

Thunderguts had closed her eyes.

"Please, I need your help. I'm worried about what might happen if Vikings don't do a better job of understanding dragons and the things they do."

Nothing. Hiccup sighed.

"I only want to help. I'm... I'm worried."

Still nothing.

He reached out a hand toward her snout, but hesitated to touch her. He wasn't really afraid she'd hurt him, not intentionally. Fishleg's story about the orange tom cat came to mind and he couldn't quite bring himself to lay his hands on her. He dropped his arm to his side.

In desperation he said, "I know dragons have their own names. I'm sorry I don't know yours or I'd call you by it."

Her eyes opened, still only partially but nonetheless looking right at him. He felt a little quiver of excitement.

"Please, if I ask you some yes or no questions would you answer me? You can just nod or shake... your..."

She'd closed her eyes again.

Disappointment filled his heart as he turned and walked away. Maybe he'd have better luck with Snotlout's Monstrous Nightmare. It would be harder, though. Those two were often together, at least as much as Toothless and himself.

Hiccup had only taken a few steps when he heard a rustle and the sound of wooden boards being moved. He stopped and turned to look. Thunderguts had gotten up and gone to the scrap wood pile that Fishlegs kept for his fires. She was pawing through the broken bits of wood, looking for something. Apparently she found what she wanted fairly quickly, for she took one broken board in her mouth and walked toward Hiccup.

She sat down with the board between her front legs and began gnawing on the end. Her eyes were solidly on Hiccup, watching him intensely. She crunched the wood easily yet carefully. With a gentle huff, she spit out chunks of wood she'd bitten off the board.

Hiccup watched for a minute, thoroughly confused by what he was seeing. Was this related to his asking her to help him? Was she hungry and this was her way of expressing it? Was she bored?

More splinters and chunks of wood were expelled from her large mouth. All the while she kept her gaze on him. At times he could tell she was digging her teeth into the wood with deliberate care, other times she was simply biting off small bits and spitting them out. She looked at her progress a few times, seeming to judge her work. To his eyes, she was doing nothing more than turning the end of the board into a ragged collection of bite marks.

After a few minutes, Hiccup decided some dragons were weirder than he'd ever expected. He turned to leave Thunderguts to her odd habits. He took no more than a single step when he heard a warbling growl. He turned back to find her staring at him, her shredded plank momentarily ignored. She grumble/snarled to him again, and he remembered Toothless 'talking' to him on the islet. He decided to wait and find out what this was about.

Thunderguts went back to her chewing. Still she watched only him, taking her eyes off him only to examine her work. It took only a few more minutes before she seemed satisfied with her efforts. She bit the frayed end of the board off and dropped it to the ground. She then hit it with a tiny blob of lava fire. As soon as the wood started burning, she stepped on it, snuffing the flames. She turned it over and repeated the process until both sides were as charred as the inside of one of Fishlegs' ale barrels.

Finally, the Gronckle took the splintered, burned piece of wood in her mouth and brought it directly to Hiccup.

"Uhh, for me?" He really had no idea what it meant or why she had done it. He carefully took the bit of wood from her and looked closely at it. It resembled nothing more to his eyes than exactly what he expected. He made himself smile to her. "Thank you, this is very... nice!" He brushed off the dirt and grass that had been pressed into it when Thunderguts had stomped on it to put out the fire. "I appreciate it, really!"

Fishlegs' odd dragon set her wings to beating and lifted up just enough to take her back to her sleeping spot. As soon as she landed she collapsed onto her side and lay still. Not knowing what else to expect, Hiccup made a hasty retreat toward his house. He needed to think about some things.

He got away from the Gronckle without anyone noticing his strange little encounter and made his way through the village. He passes a few folks and gave casual greetings to them. As he made his way up the steps to his door, he glanced at the gnawed wood again. He saw no reason to keep it, so he casually tossed it away.

Hiccup missed a step and fell, but having fallen on steps so many times because of his leg he had taught himself how to throw out his arms and tuck his left leg to keep it from hitting anything hard. He succeeded in averting another injury to his shortened leg, then turned his head in the direction he'd thrown the bit of chewed wood.

His eyes had to have been deceiving him. It couldn't have been what he'd thought. He'd only gotten a glimpse from the corner of his eye as it spun away into the grass. But he had to know.

He carefully turned himself to a seated position on the steps, then got up and went looking where he'd thrown the charred fragment. It didn't take long to find it, black among the newly green grass. He held it before him, staring at it, turning it slowly. Where was it? He rotated it, spun it, moved it slowly until suddenly he saw it.

With the light behind it and held at just the right angle, Hiccup could see the purpose of Thundergut's careful work. It was astonishing how much detail was in it. It was astonishing she could do it at all. But it was obvious to him now. The outline of a Night Fury was something with which he was quite familiar. And not just any Night Fury, but one with a missing tail fin.

"Oh man." Dragons were people, dragons were puzzles, and now dragons were artists.

The longer he stared, the easier it was to see and the more amazing it looked to him. He noticed something, though; a single detail that didn't make sense unless it was a mistake. Right in the center of Toothless' tiny charred black body were two holes, right about where his heart would be.

(c)Wirewolf 2011

"How to train your dragon" and all attendant characters are copyright

Dreamworks Animation and used without permission