ON WITH THE SHOW!
Nightfall, Part Six
He tears the last strips of flesh off the small fish that Toothless had insisted you fish you fish you now! he eat and admires the shiny colors of the scales caked on his paws. They will be gone as soon as he gets back into the water, but they are colorful now.
Hiccup is constantly aware of his surroundings – the tiniest signal from his beloved Toothless-self and the waves that are pulling away from the shore as the tide goes out and the changing air above them and the drip of thin fish blood that he licks away from his cheek quite absently and the cold of the water and the heat of Toothless' heart-fire and the torn piece on the flying-with that he wants to make better and the faintest whiff of fire that is not dragon-fire and the Uh s-t-t-t-TT on the shore that has not moved very far and is not currently a threat and the calls of birds and the calls of small-cousins further away – it's all open to him. It all tells him something.
He tells Toothless-love about all of it, imitating the noises he hears in the distance and complaining about the broken flying-with and crooning his joy at being with the dragon who is half-himself. He thinks aloud about the Uh st-t-t-t-TT and the paper, chirring his confusion and puzzlement and curiosity.
Toothless listens patiently, contributing small sounds of amusement and love, until the monologue cuts off when Hiccup spots a fish that the bigger dragon can't see and dives at it. It gets away and he snarls momentarily in the fleeing prey's direction, replacing the one-claw where it belongs on his front leg. Such things are common. They hunt far more than they eat.
Still, the brief immersion has drawn his attention to a new element in his environment. Hiccup submerges himself again, following his dragon-self as Toothless moves from shallows to deeper water and back again as he fishes, sensing the currents around him trying to push him into rock there and so many many other things, including –
Returning to the surface, the dragon-boy whistles and gestures listen love-of-mine listen you water good happy curious! and dives. Floating amidst the rocks and the seaweed, which he notes the presence of absently, he listens to the noises far away in the water.
Singing longsong singing, he hums to himself, under the water. Through the rush of the ocean as it breathes against the shore he can hear distant cousins who never fly but sing under the water. With the last of his air he shrieks his own greeting to the ocean dragons in the deeper waters. They may be too far away to hear him, but he can hear them and he reaches out to them instinctively, quite naturally considering himself part of their world.
Toothless decides he has been under too long, even in these shallows, and snaps his jaws gently on the scruff of the dragon-boy's neck, pulling him up to the surface by his skins and dropping his back paws to the sea floor below so he can be sure that his partner-love comes out of the water far enough to breathe.
Singing singing they happy us singing flock far go, Hiccup chirps. Down Hiccup good promise good.
The black dragon drops him with a splash. The dragon-boy shrieks with amusement and splashes him deliberately, purring love love you us happy good listen?
Together they put their heads under the water and listen to the distant speaking songs of aquatic dragons, far away from the shore.
Toothless calls out to their water-cousins, sending their name – it sounds like Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss – and the sound their flock makes to identify themselves to each other and rivals for territory or prey, telling the distant dragons who they are and where they come from.
The dragon-boy rubs their faces together when they come up for air. He loves the sound of the name that is both of their names and the single self that they are with the home they have wandered away from again but still belong to, even if the calling of dragons has driven all the fish away and he is still hungry. He insisted he was not because Toothless needs the food more, but he is.
Automatically, he assesses the area for anything that he can eat to quiet the noises that his stomach will make and make Toothless upset, but the beach is covered in pfikingr things that he does not know and so should avoid. Pfikingr pfikingr strange careful cautious wary worried, Hiccup hums to Toothless as they leave the water a safe distance away from it all.
Hiccup is reckless and impulsive and daring, and afraid of nothing – except Vikings. Vikings hurt and kill his family. He will climb without hesitation over the edge of cliffs that drop away too far to judge the water below, but he will not go so near the Viking she that she might be able to hurt him, and he will not let her anywhere near his Toothless-self.
Part of his attention has been on the Uh st-t-t-t-TT whenever she has been in his field of vision, and even more when she is not, because that is when she could become dangerous. Still, he is surprised when she speaks to him in a way he understands.
Come here you, she gestures in exactly the way the dragon-boy had signaled to Toothless earlier.
Hiccup braces himself against warm black scales and chirrs in shock, staring at her. He crouches down beside the protective presence of his dragon-half. Confused strange confused pfikingr threat? look she strange look confused cautious.
She says it again, insisting, and waves a paw at the unfamiliar things across the sand. But she makes no attempt to approach them, and Hiccup is not going to go anywhere near them until he is more confident that these things are not traps either.
The dragon-boy remembers the paper and lifts a paw at her, then waves it at the things.
After a minute – although Hiccup does not use this unit of time either, having only the vaguest concept of time on a smaller scale than days, nights, and the turn of the tide – she makes a noise that's part huff and rises to her feet.
He watches warily as she walks among the possibly threatening objects. No dragon-traps bite her feet, or snatch her up and hang her in the air thrashing and crying in distress, or fly out of the trees to strike and snarl her.
Only when she has backed away again, far enough so that he will have time to escape if she moves to attack, does he approach the strange strange new strange cautious pfikingr cautious things with growing curiosity, in a careful slink that keeps him low to the ground and moves him one paw at a time, watching his surroundings all the while.
Toothless tries to follow, vocalizing his concern and love. The dragon-boy sits back in an alert crouch and tells him guard protect trap bite trap you stay love you me trap you no guard. If this is a trap – there is always that risk – half of himself will still be free to rescue the half that is caught.
His attention is drawn to something he recognizes with interest. Egg egg?
Hiccup stalks the eggs alertly. He knows that eggs do not move on their own unless they are egg hatchling egg and the creature inside is coming out, so he makes no sudden leap to cut off his prey's escape. His attention as he moves is instead on the sky above and the shoreline around him, watching for the owners of the eggs in case they object to the dragon-boy approaching the eggs. He raids birds' nests quite often and has frequently been mobbed by the irate creatures. It's an effective hunting strategy for the two who are one, which is why he has learned to do it – he eats the eggs, and Toothless is quite happy to eat the birds attacking his dragon-boy.
The Uh st-t-t-t-TT stays where she is. She is watching him, but he is watching her, and it's an acceptable standoff.
The dragon-boy reaches out a tentative paw and wraps it around one egg. Cold egg cold bad sad cold dead egg, he croons back at Toothless as he inspects it sympathetically.
Sitting up with his prize, crouched ready to leap away just in case, he licks the shell and rubs his cheek against it, trying to recognize the type of egg it is by taste and touch and smell. It's not from any creature he's ever encountered before, and that presents a very important problem.
He holds the egg out towards Uh st-t-t-t-TT and whistles a question.
The pfikingr she shakes her head as if there are bugs in her ears and she's trying to see them. Maybe she's annoyed because she can't talk.
The dragon-boy's nose wrinkles. Pfikingr stupid! he scolds her. But it's important. He truly needs to know. Hiccup would never eat a dragon egg, ever; if he were starving to death he would die without complaint rather than eat one, but he will quite happily eat the eggs of other species. In this he is not so different from humans, who, after all, do eat lamb. No dragon would ever eat another, even in the egg. Kill, yes. Dragons kill each other as readily as humans do, and for many of the same reasons.
But any dragon that would eat another would be a monster more terrifying than any pfikingr.
He tips his head to one side as he thinks, thrumming anxiously. Finally he holds the egg out towards her and roars a quiet dragon roar so as to not scare her away. When she changes color but does not flee, he tries again, whistling fragments of a trilling birdsong. Then he chirps a wordless questioning sound.
Uh st-t-t-t-TT changes color again, closer to the way she was before. Hiccup is intrigued by that – most of his kin cannot do that except hiding-hunting-cousins, who change all their colors at once and then try to attack and kill exploring dragon-pairs who have wandered far from home.
She tries to make the bird sounds and then makes a Viking noise.
He has to be sure – he's very hungry and his stomach is making noises but it's very important that this not be a dragon egg. The dragon-boy tries to fit his mouth around the unfamiliar shape. "Ehkkk," he says roughly. He scavenges up one of his only other words of Norse, lifting a paw towards his attentively watching Toothless-beloved as emphasis. "Drakkkn ekkk?"
Of her reply, he recognizes the sounds he renders as nuh and drakkkn and ekkk. And then ekkk again, and more bird sounds – very bad, but recognizable.
Pfikingr danger pfikingr no us flock egg family dragon worry no egg cold dead hungry hungry sad cold egg no dragon…Hiccup hums thoughtfully, wondering whether he trusts her and weighing his own observations against her half-understood claims.
He decides to risk it, biting through the shell. Its contents spill out over his paws and they do not include a baby dragon, so he licks them up hungrily from his paws and the inside of the egg, spitting out bits of shell occasionally. The second egg is identical to the first so he devours that one as well.
Egg hungry egg egg good hungry egg? Hiccup wonders if there might be more. He explores the things on the sand but none of them seem particularly edible.
He's intrigued by a flat folding rough thing that when he looks at it closer and pulls very carefully comes apart into pieces of string look look this string want! he purrs happily, taking it apart and winding the result around his foreleg, humming string good Hiccup string yes good until he sees the Uh s-t-t-t-TT moving in the corner of his vision and drops the shredded thing and leaps away back towards Toothless, who has risen slightly from his crouched guarding position in response to his love's retreat.
The Viking she goes very still again with one paw outstretched. Hiccup whistles curiosity and puzzlement as he assesses the thing in her paw. He recognizes it as a boring pfikingr food.
Even when he'd asked her where the egg had come from, he had watched her slightly at an angle rather than looking at her directly so she could not hide under his nose. He'd watched her whole body for any signs that she might be planning to ambush him – tension in her legs, movement of her front or back paws, the way her jaw is set, the colors she turns.
Now he sinks to a crouch beside Toothless and meets her eyes properly for the first time.
Most of Hiccup's language skills revolve around emotion. He is an expert reader of body language, manner, and gesture even in an unfamiliar shape.
She is scared of them. She is angry. She is curious. She is confused.
She is offering him food. She gave him paper but it was a trap and then it was not. She is scared and she is here.
Toothless thrums at him warningly and dips his head to nuzzle at his dragon-boy, half in warning and half in reassurance.
Hiccup lifts his face to the caress, chirping and crooning love good safe good us love stay stay us, and settles back down into the gritty sand, watching her and the food in her paw warily. He is interested, but will not get any closer to the Viking she Uh st-t-t-t-TT than he has already.
When she moves towards them and sets it down, he lifts his head from where he had rested it on his paws with renewed interest, wondering. As they watch curiously, she puts other things with the food and then backs away.
That he's more comfortable with, and he rises to his paws again to edge towards the food.
He doesn't quite get there before small-cousins drop out of the sky shrieking with excitement and hunger and silliness, swarming in the direction of the pfikingr food.
Hiccup was not quite sure he wanted the food before but now he is absolutely sure. He jumps at it and crouches over the prize, yelping and chirping at the newcomers that mine mine mine food you no food mine until they flutter around him and it becomes you hello hello you good while they tumble in midair and ambush each other as well as him.
You you you you you? the flock asks curiously.
Hiccup tells them their name, Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss, and they repeat it over and over, chattering to themselves and taking it apart like a wiggling fish, knocking each other out of the air and making leaps at the disputed food, which Hiccup gulps down as fast as possible, barely bothering to identify it in his haste to keep it out of their many sneaky claws, snarling thief little you thief food mine.
Toothless pounces to scatter them, paws landing heavily a breath's distance from the dragon-boy, who doesn't even flinch. Little little you little big me this me us we fierce good love mine!
Big big big big big, the small-cousins complain, too interested in the new dragons to go very far. You here hunt us here us home-territory us hunt no you!
The bigger dragon growls, challenging them to try to chase them away from any hunting grounds, even if the flock of much littler dragons was there first.
You kin you? some others ask Hiccup curiously, you dragon you flock far flying no here?
Hiccup roars their flock-sound identifier and they croon with interest at the unfamiliar sound.
Us nest home go good good us far, he assures them that he and Toothless are not here to take their hunting grounds.
Hiccup's ears are tuned to dragon-sounds, so even over the racket of almost a whole flock of small-cousins arguing with Toothless-love and each other and trying very hard to argue with the dragon-boy as well he hears the chattering, challenging sound of part of the flock on the hunt.
His head comes up curiously even as a small-cousin lands on his shoulder and licks at his face. No Hiccup food no eat Hiccup fierce big bite, he warns it, snapping his jaws preemptively but harmlessly, and it purrs, amused, saying you dragon strange far dragon. Interested by their flock-mate's interest, others cling to his scale-skins and fight the first one for access to the new taste.
Shaking off small-cousins absently as their competition gets too fierce and claws come out, the dragon-boy sees the hunt going on. Many of the little dragons have taken to the air and are diving at the Uh st-t-t-t-TT, who is waving her front paws rapidly in the air to fend them off, stepping back and forth as they herd her from one group to another. One catches its claws in her long head-fur and she yells and slaps at it, missing.
Hiccup laughs a dragon-laugh at the sight.
Even through the cloud of small-cousins she glares at him threateningly, voice raised in meaningless anger-sounds.
He tips his head to one side curiously.
Bad bad bad bad flock hunt, the small-cousin currently on his shoulder says. It flutters its wings and prepares to take off and join the attack.
Suddenly she makes a diving leap not unlike a dragon's pounce to the sand, and comes up again with a big metal thing that she swings up and at the swarming flock. Small-cousins shriek in indignation and pain and she screams back. Somewhere in there Hiccup hears his name.
Cousins us like good cousins pfikingr no good like cousins, he says to Toothless, who huffs and complains small silly thief small many silly.
If the small-cousins kill and chew on her she won't bring them any more food or paper or string, so Hiccup roars at the flock stop no no ours stop no you hunt US hunt ours stop.
They argue hunt hunt bad bad hunt kill! even as she swings the heavy metal round thing at more of them, still yelling.
Toothless roars now! and they scatter for the cliff tops and tree branches, complaining the whole way.
The Viking she pats her paws all over herself, making recognizably angry noises.
When Hiccup grins at her, amused by the spectacle, she yells a word that he recognizes as "No!" at them.
"Nuh?" says Hiccup, curiously.
"No!"
He struggles to separate the next word, which he manages to repeat as a slightly slurred "Bad?"
She twists her front legs together again and says it again, body language saying she is angry and disapproving.
Hiccup thinks about the word, which does sound familiar. He snarls a disapproving sound, and then looks curious.
"Yes," she says, "bad."
He's quite happy with this development until she says, "Bad dragons."
Hiccup yelps, outraged into using his scraps of Norse. "Drakkkn bad nuh!" He doesn't know what not bad is to pfikingr, so he says it with his entire body, twining his front legs around Toothless and hugging him, nuzzling his cheek against the black dragon's own.
"Drakkkn –" and he hums happily, smiling a dragon-smile.
"Good."
There's a sound in there he can't do. He clicks part of it and adds the "uudt" sound that he can to the end. Understanding what she'd been trying to say – and completely ignoring the significance of that – he spits a contradiction at her: "Pfikingr bad!"
She glares at him, fuming. He glares at her, snarling in the back of his throat.
Hiccup doesn't like this game anymore. From where he's crouched at Toothless' side he turns one shoulder towards her, ignoring her while simultaneously staying aware of where she is as a possible threat. The affronted small-cousins are still lurking, if flocks of small dragons screaming insults from a safe distance can be said to be lurking.
Cave nest safe go us we go safe us love worried cautious you us nest? Toothless asks him, rumbling through the dragon-boy leaning against his side. They are ready to be far away from the Viking she Uh st-t-t-t-TT.
Yes yes yes us happy good go yes nest us good yes love, the dragon-boy chirps and croons back at him, relieved to be speaking his own language again, which he does fluently and quite naturally. His brain has been taught over years to hear and speak the way that dragons speak to each other, and most of the Viking sounds miss him entirely. His ears and brain are not prepared to hear them any more than his throat is prepared to speak them.
And he does not want to talk to a Viking – a hurter and killer of his family – who thinks that dragons are bad.
No amount of string me string flying-with bad hurt bad better string string, he hums thoughtfully as he leaps to his proper place on Toothless' neck, will or ever can change that.
Dragon and dragon-boy race up the precarious slope together, but a cry from below stops them, however briefly, part of the way up.
Uh st-t-t-t-TT has followed them, and they growl at her in unison for the trespass.
The only thing Hiccup understands of what she says is "dragons no bad".
He huffs at her – a convulsive movement that in another dragon would be a blast of fire – and Toothless carries him away.
They have made their home in caves most of their life. If they cannot be in the air, they prefer to be in the safe environment of a cave-nest.
As the afternoon sunlight pours into their temporary home, Toothless itches enthusiastically at the spots where the flying-with he usually wears touches his scales. He never resents wearing it, not when it is even the smallest part of what binds his partner-love to him, but it's always a pleasant surprise and good new unfamiliar feeling to have it off. His wriggling antics across stone and sand are hindered only by the irritatingly broken wing, which will hurt and only take longer to heal if he jars it too hard and besides, Hiccup will be upset if he does.
He pauses, upside down, to croon a delighted sound at the little dragon currently tucked away in an out-of-the-way corner of the cave. Hiccup is half-buried in the tangle of torn and stressed flying-with that he is repairing with his clever paws in the good light with the sharp-thorn from one of his pouches and the string he stole from the pfikingr she. Toothless would be very embarrassed if anyone else saw him like this, sprawled across the stone and with his tongue half-hanging out, wings in all directions and tail slapping across the floor and every wall within reach, which is just about all of them if he writhes just right, but this is Hiccup, who is half of him.
Albeit half of him who uses the advantage of his vulnerable posture to swarm onto his stomach and pretend to pin him there in the same way Toothless so often teasingly flattens his dragon-boy. Hiccup drops his jaw onto the bigger dragon's black scales and imitates the way Toothless laughs at him, and then turns his head to rub his cheek against the soft smooth black scales, humming love love love.
Toothless lets him stay there, knowing through the way he breathes and the soft noises he makes, that he is quiet and subdued rather than vocalizing every thought to the other half of himself, the way he lowers his face to hide it against the black dragon's scales and the familiar scent of him, that Hiccup is unsettled and wanting more than anything to know that he is loved and they are together.
The black dragon knows how he feels – feels it himself even more than he would when simply sharing the emotion with his other half. There is something terribly wrong in this place and he does not know what it is. It is more than the pfikingr she who continues to appear to them but does not attack or run, more than the knowledge that many many many enemies who will kill them if they can or separate them which would be worse are not far away, more than the deep ache from the broken wing or the itch of the cuts that are healing. It itches at his mind when it is quiet, digging in from the corner of his awareness like sand caught in scales.
They wish together most intensely they could leave. They are wanderers – it is in Toothless' bloodright as much as it is in the nature of his companion – the sky is theirs and all the world as well, but right now they want to go home.
Wandering far from home is a sadness when they have no choice.
But they are strong and together, they are two-who-are-one and that is a great and passionate goodness and nothing can ever, ever change that.
No words could possibly say this, not even the way these two dragons speak aloud. No words are needed. Toothless shifts slightly onto his side so that Hiccup can place his head directly in the hollow underneath the bigger dragon's jaw without leaning on his throat, dragon-boy breathing in the dragon-musk of their combined scent and bringing his own heart and breathing into rhythm with that of the black dragon's as Toothless rests his head on his beloved's shoulder and back and breathes him too. He wraps one foreleg around Hiccup and holds him there, not that the little dragon is making any effort to escape.
Together together together, they say to each other without words, without sound, without movement. You are me and I am you and we are one. It goes beyond any language.
Hiccup pulls away before he falls asleep as he is tempted to do, scratching as he moves at an itchy spot he knows is difficult for Toothless to reach on his own before having to be asked. He returns to his corner and crouches over the work thrumming low in his chest contentedly, which makes his dragon-self happy to hear. Itches soothed in body and mind, Toothless wriggles on the floor of the cave just for the fun of it for a while, and then rolls over to a more controlled crouch, comfortably resting on the sun-warmed stone that his antics have mostly brushed clean of sand.
Sun, the dragon hums contentedly, lifting his head and closing his eyes into it, good sun us you me us sun safe nest good safe us.
The renewed scent of his other half on his skin far outweighs everything else, and he shifts into a minor key of joy.
They are together and he is not afraid of the wrong itching mind thing.
The sun comes out from behind a faint wisp of cloud and becomes too bright for Toothless' eyes, so he curls around to look into the cave and watch Hiccup work with his clever paws, sharp-thorn pinched between soft-claws and biting into the leather.
In the back of his memory, someone tells him not to chew it. He doesn't remember who said it or when and the memory is gone as quickly as it had come, leaving no trace.
Hiccup is rarely silent, a quality the black dragon usually appreciates about him in that he is a match for the bigger dragon's intelligence like few others, but there are some reasons why he would be completely quiet. He is silent when he hunts, stalking prey on the ground or with Toothless in the air; when he is truly and deeply happy; when he is truly and deeply unhappy; and, like now, when he is concentrating so hard on the work he is doing that his body and mind can do nothing else. He goes into this silent state when he draws, when he thinks of new things, and when he is making things with a succession of sharp-thorns – they break, get lost, or go dull so easily, and they cannot be sharpened again like dragon-claws, the pair has learned – and clever ties.
Toothless loves to watch him do so. It is part of what makes him unique among dragons and precious to the flock and one of the many, many reasons why Toothless would do anything for him. It is a thing that he can do like the way Toothless can see in the darkest cave and other dragons cannot.
Together they are the best of dragons.
It's long since dark when the stranger lands in the mouth of their cave.
The two of them had soaked up all of the warmth that the stone had held until long into the night, looking up into the clear dark sky. They navigate by the stars and each familiar one is a guideline in their night like a warm thermal, leading them somewhere. Sitting against the bigger dragon's flank and looking up into the night sky, Hiccup had purred constantly and quietly, a deep hum beneath his own frequency range and detectable to him only as a vibration through their bodies, temporarily but perfectly happy. Dragons tell no stories about the stars; they see no shapes in them, but some deep and primeval part of them recognizes sky fires and feels a draw to them. They recognize that they move with the depth of the night and the coming of morning, and they know that they go away and come back with the coldest of winter and the comparative heat of summer.
Hiccup had dozed off against his dragon-self's side and Toothless had regretted having to wake him up to bring him inside in the warmth, but the days when the dragon's growth had outstripped the dragon-boy's and Toothless could carry him around like a hatchling in his mouth were more or less over. As it was, Hiccup had raised his head from his paws, blinked, hummed a muted noise half question and half plea, and shambled into the shelter of the cave, leaning heavily on Toothless' warm shoulder and curling up under his wing, where he has been accustomed to sleeping for years, without ever fully waking up.
Not so now – Toothless is awake and on his feet and on high alert instantly, growling a challenge at the snake-necked dragon that has made a clumsy landing on their ledge, grasping long lethal claws around edges and coiling its long limbs to fit in the space, head dipping down in a way that makes Toothless hackle and shift so that Hiccup is well-hidden behind mantled wings and a body crouched to leap to the attack or hold his ground against an impact.
They have fought as one many times – Toothless is comforted even as he roars by the knowledge that Hiccup knows what to do if they must fight again.
He is already braced against the bigger dragon's side, close enough to touch so that Toothless knows where he is, but not so close that he will be in the way if Toothless leaps first. His growl is lost in Toothless' roar, but the black dragon can feel it where they touch, backing him up and giving him courage and a reason to fight.
For Hiccup who is half himself Toothless will fight anything, and they will win.
You? whistles the fire-skin, you? what you? dragon you? flock?
Go away! Toothless roars. Cave nest ours cave you go we fight!
Fight? fight? hunt hunt kill hunt you dragon flying?
The black dragon bristles, suddenly afraid. The wrongness is here like a stink of dragon blood on the wind, like it has stuck to this intruder.
He does not wait for it to back off. Toothless goes on the attack, firing a single blast that knocks the wrongness-smelling dragon off the ledge and into the air away from them.
It screams to itself as it circles, dragon dragon hunt no hunt dragon eat SHE SHE hungry scared dragon eat hunt flying no dragon hunt kill SHE prey dragon…
There is sickbadwrong itching in the air in its wake and Toothless is terrified. He must drive it away from them, now, now!
He knows he cannot fly but the fire-skin does not. The bigger dragon shifts slightly to one side, signaling Hiccup to move away and free him up to run and the dragon-boy obeys instantly, claws tic-ticing on the hard rock as he moves. When the faint noise stops, Toothless rears up as far as he can in the cave, summons up the shrieking whine of heart-fire blasting power, and charges at the fluttering, ranting dragon.
Mad it may be, but it flees before Toothless has to admit that he can't go any further than the limits of the rock ledge. He fires the blast after it as it retreats, though, knocking it off balance rather than doing any serious damage.
It makes him feel a little bit better. He has defended himself and his dragon-boy partner-love and his territory, and the itching stink is fading from his awareness.
Toothless stares after it in the darkness, and jumps when Hiccup lays a paw on his shoulder, crooning soothing sounds carefully and gently. Only then does he realize he's trembling from nose to tailfins, unsure what has just brushed past them and afraid to know and afraid to turn his tail to it.
Hiccup pets him gently as the dragon pants, whining with inexplicable terror. Abruptly, Toothless turns away, shoving his head into Hiccup's paws to hide against his smaller chest the way the dragon-boy does against Toothless' own ribs.
Now it is Hiccup's turn to lead the bigger dragon back into the cave and soothe him back to sleep, but Toothless' dreams will be filled with monsters and the itching in the back of his mind. He wraps his wing more closely around his other half and sighs when he feels a gentle paw over his heart to take with him against the dreams.
To be continued.