A/n: I've got a lot of great suggestions lately, so I'm doing another of those next! This one is from trystrike - thanks for the idea! (In response to TNT: I'm sorry for not responding sooner; if it's a guest review I can't just PM you, so I have to put it in the chapter. I plan on using all the ideas - they're really good, especially the dragons-in-our-universe one - starting in the next chapter.)
'We need to move the grass closer to the nest. And can we get the caves expanded? We barely fit as it is, and we...'
Toothless sighed quietly, trying not to alert anyone to the fact that he was practically drifting off to sleep after just ten minutes of listening to the same bunch of complaints over and over again, worded only slightly differently each time. He was sure to be stuck in the same place for at least an hour.
He spared a quick glance to Cloudjumper, trying to gage his expression to tell whether the older dragon would be willing to bet on how many different complaints would be filed today. Toothless had a good feeling that there would only actually be four, and he was waiting for the perfect opportunity to propose the bet to the dragon across from him.
'Yes,' Toothless said, trying to sound as official as possible. 'I'll start working on it immediately.'
That was, of course, a complete lie. Most ideas that came from dragons were either impractical or impossible, with a few just plain stupid ones thrown in for good luck. Toothless knew from experience that it was best to kindly ignore the less well thought out ideas - he didn't want a repeat performance of the fire-prof sheep incident.
The monstrous nightmare stood up then and left, having finished speaking just in time for Toothless's polite dismissal of everything he'd just said.
'Next.' Toothless said dully, not even trying to sound enthusiastic. And why should he? He could've been spending the day with Hiccup, practising their newest stupid stunt, rather than sat in a small clearing in a not-so-small forest, listening to dragons drone on about the same non-existent problems.
A nadder replaced the nightmare, and it was time for the endless cycle to repeat itself.
Just as the mind-numbing speech commenced, Toothless felt an itch starting to develop behind his ear. Deciding that moving to scratch it would look entirely undignified, Toothless planned to ignore it. He planned, but it didn't turn out that way.
The itch continued to grow, no longer a slight niggling feeling in his head but now truly distracting, keeping Toothless from his hard work looking like he was listening.
Cloudjumper caught Toothless's absent gaze, reminding him with a glare that he had to at least appear to be contributing. Toothless huffed quietly; he was the alpha - why weren't people getting things for him?
'And we need a bigger nest. It's really cramped: not as much room as the sanctuary.'
Toothless resisted the urge to make a witty comment about how the nest here had been bigger because they'd had a massive dragon willing to make he whole thing for them. A dragon dwarfed in comparison... well, what chance did he have?
Cloudjumper was glaring at him again. He didn't know why; he was doing a marvellous job of pretending his face wasn't itchy as Hel. He just wanted to - ah, the nadder.
'Great. I'm right on it...' Toothless lied again. As soon as the other dragon walked off, he collapsed dramatically to the floor and started to finally scratch the itch that'd been bothering him.