Ch.20

A week had passed since Toothless's joyous discovery of the egg, and it remained unhatched. "No movement I take it?" "Toothless you've asked me that at least once a day for the past three days, you'll know when our egg hatches." Changing the subject Toothless thought about the upcoming Viking holiday. "I'd like it if you went with me to Snoggletog." Eletra looked at Toothless puzzled, "What? Sn-ogg-le-tog?" "It's something the Vikings do every year; it's a big deal. I've never quite figured it out, but they think it's a big deal." "I see, I thought you were trying to keep me hidden? I'm pretty sure bringing me to Snoggletog will make that difficult." Toothless grinned, "I only wanted to keep you hidden until you'd had time to adjust to Berk, plus I did say I wanted to show you off, I still want to do that. The Vikings do need to find out about you at some point, and this seems like the best place." Eletra was flattered that Toothless wanted to show her off but unsure how the other dragons would take to her. "If I go, I'm going to stay close to you, and our hatchling needs to be at least a few days old first." Toothless smiled, "agreed."

The next day Toothless was gone for most of the day helping Hiccup with Snoggletog decorating, and Eletra was left to tend to their egg. Eletra was surprised by how much knowledge she'd acquired from her mother on the subject. This thought spurred more thoughts about her mother, and soon she was engrossed in thinking about her. "Hello there little one, you can open your eyes, it's safe." A mass of blurry images and kind words filled Eletra's head as she remembered, for the first time in ages, her first moments in life. The memory soon faded and dropped her into another memory. "Eletra, do you know who that Night Fury over there on the rock is?" she looked at her mother, a striking Night Fury, piercing yellow eyes with a deep purple coat. Eletra chirped excitedly. "That's your father. The leader of our clan, Maloven1." Eletra looked on at her father in awe, an ashen Night Fury with grey-green eyes. "Majestic isn't he" Her mother stated before pulling her hatchling away back into their cave. Eletra chirped, she wasn't finished looking at her father, "calm down little one, you'll see him again. It's time for you to eat."

The memory all at once skipped to that night. "Is she asleep Eclipse?" "I don't know; she wanted to see you, so it's possible she's awake." Maloven walked over and nudged his hatchling, she looked at him and chirped placing her front paws on his muzzle, and he smiled. That memory would soon fade as well, replaced by yet another memory. "MALOVEN!" Eletra shuttered remembering one of the more unpleasant memories as her father took apart a Night Fury who'd made advances towards her mother. Eletra did not see anything but the screams could not be escaped. She remembered him coming in after he'd won, a bleeding claw wound across his neck. "Why did you shout at me Eclipse? I wasn't going to lose." Eclipse looked at her mate, "I was worried about you." "How is Eletra?" he asked, "She heard the screaming, you should comfort her." The memory faded as her father comforted her "it's alright, Eletra, I won't let anything bad happen to you or Eclipse." Eletra felt a nudge but ignored it, but when she was nudged again, she opened her eyes to see Toothless staring at her. "Eletra, are you ok?" The dream having dissipated Eletra smiled, "Yes, I'm doing great." Toothless moved to sit down next to his mate as the late afternoon sun illuminated the cave and Eletra realized just how long she'd been asleep.

Only minutes later the egg began to quiver and shake, Eletra checked the egg to ensure she didn't imagine it. Carefully she moved the egg to the discarded fur in front of the two Night Furies and watched. Toothless was puzzled, "what are you doing?" "just watch, our egg is hatching." A few seconds later, glowing blue cracks could be seen popping up all over the egg's surface. A small explosion momentarily covered the fur in smoke. It took only a few seconds for it to clear and there on the fur was a jet black baby Night Fury. The newborn Night Fury was lying on the fur ear flaps pressed firmly against its head. It was quivering out of fright from its dramatic entrance into the world. Both Eletra and Toothless's hearts melted upon laying eyes on their hatchling. "He's adorable" Eletra cooed in delight. "How do you know our hatchling is a 'he'?" Toothless whispered at Eletra, "The tailfins. On newborn females they are rounded, they lose their roundness as they age. Newborn males always have the same tailfin shape."

Toothless was admiring his new son when Eletra spoke up. "Hello there little one, you can open your eyes, it's safe." The little Night Fury stopped quivering, and his ear flaps perked up at this new sensation. He struggled to open his eyes, it took him a second before they fluttered open and his brain was flooded with this new sensory input. It was a wash of strange colors and blurry objects. As his vision slowly focused, One particular object grabbed his attention and mesmerized him, it was a fuzzy black shape, with two green orbs, one on either side. Eletra smiled at her new son gleefully. The little dragon's vision could not remove the fuzziness around the edges of his mother, but this hardly bothered him. For all the newborn hatchling knew, fuzzy edges were normal. Eletra lowered her head so he could stare into her eyes. His eyes were almost an exact duplicate of Toothless's, save a few hints of grey at the edges. "I'll call you, Alchemy." She said gleefully, but neither dragon could be sure if the little Night Fury understood his name was Alchemy, let alone who or what he was.

Toothless retracted his teeth and carefully picked up Alchemy in his mouth. This greatly frightened the little dragon briefly as he had a whole new perspective to adjust to. Alchemy didn't have long to gaze awestruck at this new look on his still new surroundings, Toothless gently set his hatchling on his mates head. "Thank you; I was about to ask you to do that." Alchemy was continually amazed and overwhelmed as he took everything in. Just when the little Night Fury thought he'd seen it all, he turned and saw another black object very similar to the first one he'd seen. His eyes widen in awe at the large orbs that stared lovingly down at him. Within minutes, the excitement used what little energy Alchemy had in him, and he yawned before falling asleep on Eletra's head, his tail dangling off to one side. "Toothless, he's adorable," Eletra whispered to her mate careful not to wake Alchemy. "Do you want to move him behind your earflaps?" "yes, let's do that." It took some doing, but Toothless managed to position Alchemy behind Eletra's earflaps without waking him. "How long before Snoggletog again? Might be fun now that our hatchling isn't inside an egg anymore."

The big Snoggletog celebration happened three days later, in that time Alchemy had done very little, he'd woken up for a short time and found his vision had sharpened, everything was new and different again. He munched down two regurgitated fish and promptly fell back asleep. He'd also begun to chirp, a precursor to speaking. Alchemy had yet to realize he had wings and a tail, much less how to use them. At the Great hall, Astrid had engaged Hiccup in conversation regarding how to potentially deal with what she dubbed "stealth ice" which was the refrozen water on the ground after the Deadly Nadders cleared a path thru the snow. "You're just trying to distract me from the fact that Toothless didn't show up, everyone is here with their dragons, except me." Everyone in the great hall suddenly got very quiet. Both Hiccup and Astrid noticed this and upon turning around got the surprise of their lives. Toothless was standing inside, closely guarding another Night Fury, who looked very familiar to Hiccup. Astrid put an arm around Hiccup and kissed him on the cheek. "You were right Hiccup, Toothless did find another Night Fury, except he brought her to Berk instead of having us bring her."

Hiccup didn't know what to say. He was just so stunned to see another Night Fury, especially a female. "I—I, To—I—bu—" his mind was blown "Toothless this is awesome!" It was at this point that the Vikings began to return to their activities or conversations. Valka came over, glad to finally meet this new Night Fury, "hello." Eletra was startled that this was same Viking she'd met with Cloudjumper months ago. "I don't see what all the fuss is Toothless, or did you not figure that out either?" "I haven't figured it out either." Eletra felt movement from her ear flaps and started to worry. "Toothless Alchemy is waking up, what do we do?" "Relax, nobody will even get near him. At most Hiccup might fall over in shock." As if on Que, Alchemy stirred but the abundance of strange smells and new noises frightened him. "CHIRP!" Toothless and Eletra stood still for a second, the entire hall had stopped and was once again staring at the Night Furies. "Did I hear what I thought I heard?" Astrid asked Hiccup who was frozen with shock. Valka smiled having expected a hatchling to appear at some point. Shortly after Alchemy had announced himself unknowingly, both Night Furies sat in a corner observing the festivities. That night Eletra ended up using Toothless's head as a pillow as their tail intertwined back at their cave. "Thank you Toothless for all you've done." She said before drifting off to sleep.

1Maloven –Mal-Low-ven

What? the story is over? But I want to read more...AAUGH! Fear not, for if you go to Archive of our own and find me (same username), I have a "story" that is dedicated to unused/ deleted content from my story. It's definitely worth the look if you want to see all the avenues (and excessive drama) the story could've used instead.