Ch.17
Night had fallen, and Hiccup was worried, he'd not seen Toothless since landing back on Berk. "Why is he hiding?" Hiccup would not find out where Toothless was hiding until Snoggletog. Hiccup did not dwell on why Toothless was avoiding him long as he quickly fell asleep trying to finish the final batch of sketches of new riding gear he needed to make. Hiccup awoke the next morning feeling refreshed, but soon the questions and worries of the last several days came back to him. He sighed and reached to attach his prosthetic that rested next to his bed, "I'm sorry Toothless, I didn't want to leave you the first time." Hiccup believed that Toothless resented that he'd left and come back for him. "Hiccup, what brings you here?" Gobber said surprised to see Hiccup on a day he regularly spent with the other dragon trainers thinking up various ways to test their skill. "Uh…I've..got some things I need to attend to.." Hiccup said backing away from Gobber and into his small enclosed workshop area. Gobber looked on for a seconds before shrugging and returning to his work.
Inside his workshop Hiccup unfolded the completed plans for Toothless's autonomous tailfin, and an idea he'd thought up after Astrid had slapped some sense back into him. "I wonder if I could fireproof his tailfin so he wouldn't be so easily crippled. Maybe if I dried the leather out and replaced the water with a fireproof substance? What would even have a chance of working? Hiccup looked around, and then he saw them. Dragon teeth, Gobber had wanted to keep them to study the properties of dragon teeth and how they decay. "Of course! That's it!" Hiccup gasped his forehead in amazement. "if I could somehow grind this up into a powder and then mix it with Monstrous Nightmare saliva, I might be able to replicate the fireproof surface of a dragon." Hiccup said thinking out loud. Gobber, who'd heard this, was not too keen on his dragon teeth collection being ground to a powder for a tailfin but said nothing.
Over the next several days Hiccup created the mechanisms for the improved tailfin and began to size the leather accordingly. Toothless was eager to help any way he could. Hiccup was careful not to burn or damage the leather as he dried it out. Once he'd finished crafting the mechanics of the autonomous tailfin, he moved on to attempting to fireproof the tailfin. Something Toothless hadn't understood when Hiccup explained it to him. It took another day for Hiccup to tediously smashed, bashed, and chip away at the teeth. Ultimately, he found it most successful to have Toothless crush them into little bits. This was the last method Hiccup tried in hopes of success after a string of failures and broken forge tools Gobber insist hiccup repair.
Once He'd collected enough broken bits of dragon teeth, he set off getting the next item, Monstrous Nightmare saliva. "You owe me a favor now. I don't want to reach into a dragon's mouth like that again." Snotlout said handing Hiccup a pale of watery goo. Hiccup looked at the saliva, and his face soured a bit. "it's a deal." Once Hiccup gathered what he needed, he mixed the now powdery teeth dust, in with a hot mixture of dragon saliva and water. At first, he didn't add water but found it difficult to stir, and the water did boil out before he cooled the solution. When it was bubbling, and the water was leaving, the solution turned from a murky clear to a dirty opaque white. It had a decidedly rancid smell that both Gobber and Hiccup hadn't expected. It showed up shortly after the water left. Letting it cool, Hiccup worked on repairing the forge tools he'd broken trying to smash dragon teeth.
Not wanting to apply an experimental material on the carefully prepared leather only to find it didn't work. Hiccup decided to test his fireproofing liquid on some scraps of leather and compare it to one without the solution when faced with fire. Toothless was no longer waiting outside the forge, so Hiccup had to find another dragon to help him. Outside Hiccup placed the substance on one scrap and none on the second before instructing Gobber's dragon to hit them with fire. Hiccup looked at the two pieces of leather a minute later once the fire had died. One scrap was coated white, untouched where the liquid had been, while the other scrap smoldered and fell apart. "IT WORKED! This is awesome!" Before applying the fireproof solution to the dry leather, Hiccup added a dash of black pigment to match Toothless's scales. It took Hiccup a long time to rub and saturate the leather with the fireproof solution. Finally, it moved like natural leather, if only a touch stiffer. Hiccup affixed the leather to the rest of the tailfin assembly before allowing it an entire day to cure and ensure it was set. When Hiccup was sure it had sat long enough, he went to find Toothless to give him his new tailfin.
Toothless was resting peacefully beside Eletra when he heard a noise, twigs snapping and leaves crunching. "Wha? Hey, you woke me from my dream." Eletra said upset as Toothless's wing brushed against her muzzle. "Sorry, I heard something outside, I was going to investigate" Toothless looked at Eletra apologetically. "You couldn't have let me sleep while you checked out what you heard." Eletra was just frustrated that she'd been woken up without any good reason. "I'll try and be more careful next time; you can go back to sleep now if you want." Eletra lay her head back down and closed her eyes as Toothless climbed out of the recessed cave they'd claimed as their own. Toothless did not see anything suspicious, and the sound had stopped, Toothless was hoping it might've been Hiccup as he'd been helping him create a new tailfin and it had been several days since arriving back on Berk. Toothless did not want to leave Eletra out of fear something might happen to his new mate. Toothless listened but didn't see anything that would peak his curiosity and urge him to search beyond a casual scan of the surroundings. Eletra had fallen back asleep when Toothless reentered their cave. Toothless looked at his mate bathed in the shadows created by the streaks of light in the cave from the afternoon sun. "What a beautiful creature" Toothless thought as he lay down beside her, content to remain idle and lazy for the time being.
Hiccup had searched everywhere he thought Toothless might be and still couldn't find his dragon. "Where is he? Why is he hiding?" Hiccup thought to himself after checking the storage room in the dragon academy. By this time, the evening was starting to set in with the sun beginning to sink closer to the horizon. Hiccup turned to head to his house only to find Toothless waiting behind him in the training academy. He flinched upon seeing his dragon appear without any warning. "There you are, I hope you aren't avoiding me out of frustration. I've finished your tailfin." Hiccup said hugging his dragon briefly before walking out of the academy Toothless following close behind. At the forge, Hiccup presented Toothless with his new autonomous tailfin. "It took me a few days to complete so please don't destroy this one." Toothless scoffed at the color choice, with the red tail fin he could easily see the condition of the prosthetic. Hiccup attached it and stepped away. "Try it, how is it?" Toothless was puzzled how Hiccup expected him to fly without any saddle or way to operate the tailfin but he humored Hiccup all the same. Hiccup had put a lot of thought into this new version. "WHAT!?" Toothless was shocked when it mirrored his real tailfin perfectly. "I know, I know, I could've let you kept the one I removed, but I made improvements to this one. I made this one so I can take control when we go flying but you can fly whenever you like now."
Toothless looked at Hiccup's pleading expression and didn't smash the tailfin into the ground. "This is going to be very useful, how am I ever going to repay Hiccup? He continues to do the nicest things for me." Toothless looked at the tailfin again and gave Hiccup one of his classic grins. "Ah, whew, I was afraid you'd be mad at me for making another tailfin that you can control," Hiccup said relieved. Toothless was already busy thinking up possibilities that he could use this for. He was roused from his thoughts by Hiccup excitedly talking about how he created the tailfin. "…one of the cool things about this tailfin is that I found a way to keep it from being damaged by fire." This statement had Toothless trying to remember if Hiccup had mentioned how he'd accomplished such a feat. "It should work, I'm not sure a Night Fury blast would damage it or not, probably best not to find out." Hiccup was thinking aloud, Toothless before Hiccup even knew what'd happened sent a small stream of plasma at the new tail, amazingly, a few flames licked the surface of the leather but went out after a few seconds. The tail itself was undamaged and not burnt. Toothless was impressed and excited that Hiccup had finally addressed the biggest weakness to a leather tailfin; the ability to be set on fire. "I've got to go show this to Eletra" Toothless grinned at Hiccup again and scurried off the new tailfin looking like it'd been there all the time. Hiccup smiled before walking to his house to give Valka the excellent news.