Ch.18
Eletra was surprised when she awoke to darkness instead of warm sunshine filling her cave. Then she remembered, "right, I'm on Berk." She sighed. Briefly, she had liked waking up with the sun and sitting in its warm rays at dawn; the feeling, however, soon passed as she felt Toothless stir beside her. "I'd miss him." She thought before clearing her mind of her former home where so many dragons had died. Eletra raised her head and began to move, her tail brushed something, and she whipped her head back fearful of what it might be. It turned out to only be Toothless's tail, "so jumpy, not yet accustomed to living with another dragon." She deemed observing this small action. Something, however, did catch her attention. "Didn't Toothless only have one black tailfin? I'm sure he only had one, no I couldn't be mistaken." Eletra stood up and proceeded to ensure it wasn't her imagination or a dream she was witnessing. "Do you mind?" Eletra jumped back surprised and embarrassed. She forced herself to look at Toothless's gaze. His expression was a mixture of annoyance and bemusement. "I-I" Eletra tried to speak but couldn't force the words out.
"I know my tail is attractive, but I didn't think it required inspecting." "But you tailfins" Eletra blurted out before she could stop herself, "What about them?" The fact Toothless was not telling her outright about his tailfins and instead of making her ask loads of questions frustrated her; this was on top of the fact he knew and even referred to them in the plural. "You-you, you only have one! Where did the second one come from!?" She took no joy in forcing the sentence out, but she could think of no other way to express what she was thinking as clearly. Toothless looked at his tailfins and smiled knowingly before turning back to face her. "Hiccup made me a new one; he finished it yesterday afternoon. When I got back, you were asleep, and I didn't think to wake you. Eletra was processing what he said, and it was just starting to make sense when a thought occurred to her. "Wait, if that's a new tail fin then where is all that other…stuff, you had on as well?" she said aloud. "Hiccup made this tailfin in such a way that I can use it like I would my real tailfin." Eletra's eyes widened, and she was genuinely shocked by such a generous and loving act. "You must mean a lot to him." Eletra said much softer almost as if in awe, "indeed. He means a lot to me as well. Any other questions?" Toothless asked his stomach beginning to growl louder. "No, at least we can eat together now, I mean with your new tailfin there, we can eat and fly together now." Toothless agreed overjoyed at the concept; the two dragons soon left their cave to eat.
Only a few weeks later, Hiccup was discussing the best way for Berk to prepare the shelters for a drastic increase in dragon population with winter upon them "We've finished weatherizing the open stables areas to accommodate the new dragons until a more permanent location is cleared." A Viking was telling Hiccup as he stood at the large firepit in the Great Hall surrounded by the other Vikings. Hiccup looked around about to speak again, "where is Astrid? She was supposed to give progress on the snow clearing efforts." There was no answer, not a minute later though, Astrid pushed her way past the crowd to reach the table opposite of Hiccup. "Glad you showed up, How is the snow clearing proceeding?" "Stormfly and I left Scales and Poison to finish removing the ice from the exposed barn areas. All other Deadly Nadder teams reported back in. " "Great work, had Snotlout returned from patrol yet?" "Yeah, I think he was getting Hookfang his dinner. Should be along shortly." Hiccup nodded and moved to the next issue he planned to discuss. Once the meeting had ended, and the crowd had dispersed Hiccup stood staring into the fire worriedly his hands clasped together resting on the table.
"Something the matter Hiccup?" It was Astrid, tiny bits of snow and ice had stuck to her furs and braided hair and they glimmered against the firelight. "Milady, you look nice." Astrid smiled but brushed it aside trying to sort out why Hiccup looked worried. "Thanks, what's wrong?" she asked again. "It's Toothless." Astrid sighed and leaned against the fire ring. "You've had a lot of trouble with Toothless since we brought him back to Berk." Hiccup, still avoiding eye contact, sighed; "I don't see him around as much, not just how he used to lounge nearby where I was, I just haven't seen him anywhere. It worries me, Toothless is a very social dragon." "Hiccup, Toothless does what he wants, you know that. Besides don't you still fly together?" "He seems distracted half of the time when we do go flying." "So what is it you're saying then? It sounds like you're jealous." "What?! No! I'm not jealous, I'm—it's just Toothless hasn't been himself since we crashed on that island." Hiccup put his head in his hands. "You think Toothless didn't want to come back to Berk? What could make Toothless pick being alone on an island over everything he has here?" Astrid said just above a whisper in an almost accusing tone. Hiccup having composed himself looked at Astrid, realization creeping over his face; "of course. OF COURSE! It makes sense now!" it was Astrid's turn to be confused, "Hiccup? Are you ok?" "Don't you see? It all fits, I can't believe I didn't see it sooner." "HICCUP" Hiccup stopped and looked at Astrid, he quickly realized she had no idea what he was getting so excited about and promptly stopped to explain.
"You have no idea what I'm talking about do you?" he said blankly. "Ah, right, when I was on that island before you found me, I thought I saw Toothless, but it wasn't Toothless." This development stunned Astrid. "Hiccup, do you know what the ramifications of what you're saying are? If you saw a Night Fury, other than Toothless, then there could be even more out there. He might not be that last one after all." This line of thinking hadn't occurred to him yet and only served to add more weight to it in his mind. "It might explain why we crashed at all" Hiccup said thinking aloud again. "What? Hiccup how would that explain why you crashed." "What if Toothless didn't react in time because he was momentarily distracted by the scent of another Night Fury?" "that's—that actually might've happened." Astrid thought to herself, "You might be onto something, but that means it'd have to be a female Night Fury." She stated Hiccup looked back at Astrid confused, "Why female?" she looked at him in disbelief, "you are clueless, Hiccup why would Toothless be distracted by another male Night Fury? Think Hiccup." It took a second to process but once it did he just sat there, his mind blown. It was several minutes before either one spoke again, when Hiccup did finally speak again, it was much more the old excited Hiccup Astrid loved. "This-this is great, we should go investigate, and if there is a female Night Fury, have her come live on Berk. We should get going before the heavy storms arrive." It was at this point Astrid thoughts rapidly applied the brakes. "Hiccup wait," Astrid grasped one of his arms. "We don't know anything about Night Fury courtship or…anything. What if Toothless doesn't want us to know? I think we should stay away, for Toothless's sake." Hiccup was initially agitated by the idea of being content with their assumptions, but once she'd finished, he begrudgingly agreed. "For Toothless's sake."