A/n: trystrike's idea, and hopefully not the last one I finish today.

Hiccup stared at the line of disgruntled dragons. They were al voicing their complaints, loudly and at the same time, so that he actually had no idea what they were saying anymore.

'Would you be quiet?' he snapped, in a tone which he decided was actually quite polite, given the circumstances. The dragons stopped, blinking at Hiccup in a way which made him suspect that they'd forgotten that he was even there. 'Thank you, he continued pointedly. 'Now, let's do this one at a time. Lump?'

'Those terrors!' the dragon exploded, continuing his anger exactly where it'd been left off, 'They keep getting in the way, tripping me up!'

'I see.' Hiccup said, honestly trying to sound like he cared but not really feeling that bothered. He really could see why it would upset the dragon - with a missing leg from Drago's traps, his balance wasn't the best without interference from the small yet irritating terrible terrors. 'Does anyone have a complaint that isn't to do with terrible terrors?'

The dragons blinked. I'll take that as a no, then.

Part of the reason why Hiccup was finding it so hard to care was that almost every problem that week had been related to that exact cause. He was getting tired of thinking up solutions - none of which seemed to be working, obviously - to the problem.

'Next question,' Hiccup said, 'why aren't you telling this to Toothless?'

It was really getting ridiculous, the amount of dragons who'd decided that Hiccup should be the one to take all the complaints. And the Vikings weren't doing it to Toothless, so there really wasn't a good reason that he should be so incessantly pestered -

'He's busy.' Lump provided helpfully.

'And you think I'm not?' Hiccup took a deep breath. 'Fine. What's he doing that's making him so busy?'

'Gruff has another group where he is.' Cloudjumper told him, landing just in time to hear the question. 'They're making the exact same requests.'

Another deep breath wasn't quite enough to calm Hiccup. 'Right,' he said, voice strained, 'where are they?'

'Hiccup! Thank Thor!' Toothless yelled, gladly taking the distraction of Cloudjumper's landing to leap over to his rider. He nuzzled his head into the Viking as he spoke. 'They're driving me mad! Twelve complaints in the last hour, all about the -'

'Terrible terrors?" Hiccup guessed. 'Yeah, I had a group doing the same thing. Managed not to bring them with me, though.'

Toothless grinned his usual gummy smile. 'So, what's the new plan? Clearly the old one didn't work...'

'Uhh...' Truthfully, Hiccup didn't have a new plan. He was beginning to think that he'd never find a way to control the terrors, after his last desperate attempt involved bribing them with jokes, of all things. It had actually worked for a while as well, but he ran out of jokes pretty quickly, and the terrors stopped obeying immediately after.

'Why doesn't the alpha just control them?' Gruff asked.

'Ah.' Hiccup said. 'I don't - I don't think that's really an alpha thing, per se, more a bewilderbeast... oh why not, Toothless?'

'What? Mind control?' Toothless looked from the crowd to Hiccup. 'I don't know how!'

'Just... concentrate, or something!' Hiccup suggested. 'You should at least give it a try - it's the best we've got at the moment.'

'Are you willing to admit that it doesn't work now?'

Hiccup sighed. There was some pretty compelling evidence that Toothless just couldn't control minds.

"But you're the alpha." he protested, rather weakly by this point, "The queen could, the two bewilderbeasts could..."

'Well thanks for the confidence,' Toothless said sarcastically - I'm really rubbing off on him - 'but I'm really sure that I can't'

"That's what I said to my dad about killing dragons," Hiccup said wisely, "and look at me defeating the red death! Who, might I remind you, controlled the dragons..."

'Fine!' Toothless snapped. 'I'll show you mind control! I'll mind control you!'

"Um, I'm not a dragon, bud. That won't work." Hiccup said, but even as he did he started to notice that Toothless's gaze was a lot more intense than usual. "Won't... work..." he repeated.

Slap yourself. A voice sounded in Hiccup's head. It sounded calming. Something told him that he should obey it's -

Slap myself? The words registered and Hiccup faltered, quite disturbed to find his hand hovering inches from his face.

'Ha!' Toothless said triumphantly, 'Told you I'd do it!'

"I... but... what?" Hiccup stuttered, still staring at his open hand, "You... did it?"

'Yeah!' Toothless grinned. 'Looks like it does work on humans, after all!'

"We'll have to test that..." Hiccup decided. "Come on, let's try it on Astrid!"

With that, the two flew off, thoughts of stopping the terrors completely discarded.

"What am I supposed to be looking at here?"

Hiccup frowned, disappointed. "Toothless's eyes! Look at his eyes!" he insisted.

"Yes, they're very pretty. Now, some of us have things to do today, so if you don't mind..." Astrid stalked off, leaving a very confused Toothless and Hiccup.

"You sure you were doing the same thing, bud?"

Toothless nodded, just as confused as Hiccup. 'Maybe it really does only work on dragons.'

"I'm not a dragon." Hiccup deadpanned.

'Hey, guys,' The two span round to find the two groups of dragons that had been pestering them, led by Gruff. An apologetic Cloudjumper stood at the side. 'Not to be a bother, but have you finished the mind control thing yet?'

'I don't know, let's see.' Toothless said, glaring at the crowd. Slowly, they rose up and flew away. 'Yup, looks like it.'