~Ouroboros~

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1st – 19. Beginnings of Hope

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I woke up to the same nagging at the back of my mind that I have been trying and quite miserably failing to ignore for the past few sun cycles. It was still early enough in the day that the bottom of my cove (prison, my mind snidely reminded me) was covered by the shadow of the east wall. I cursed in several human dialects as I realized I had been forced from sleep much too early – the sun goddess would be more than halfway through her flight across the sky before Hiccup returned.

Funny name for a human really, though it wasn't as if I could judge considering that I have never met any other hatchlings – be they human or dragon. As it was, I have long since forgotten my own so I didn't even have that to compare to. Still, at least it was only his hatchling name and not his true one.

One of the things he had shared with me several days into our unlikely friendship was that the name he currently carried was given to him at birth, so I knew that my guess based on his size was correct and Hiccup was still a hatchling. I could only hope that once the time came for him to find out his true name it would represent him better than the current one.

A pang of pain shot through the back of my mind and I winced before shooting a plasma bolt off to the side in irritation, causing another charred circle to form on the walls of the cove. As with all the other times, this did nothing to sate the itch that I have long since understood to be the encroaching skylust – a sort of pressure building up in my mind that I could do nothing to relieve.

There really was only one thing that could, although Hiccup's visits helped me forget about it for a while. Ever since we shared food half a moon cycle ago Hiccup's presence somehow managed to abate the itch of skylust – or at least take my mind off of it.

It was for this reason that I tried to sleep my way through whenever Hiccup was not around. With him always bringing me enough fish to sate my hunger I didn't even need to catch food for myself.

Not that I would try even if I was hungry. From the moment the onset of skylust became impossible to ignore, I kept myself as far away from the waters as I could, going so far as to close my eyes tight whenever thirst made it necessary to approach. It had nothing to do with the water itself and everything to do with what I was afraid would be staring back at me from within its reflection.

I could all too well remember the hopeless, dead eyes that stared back at me from the calm water surface – and I feared that the next time I looked into the waters I would see those gazed over eyes staring back at me again.

It has been a quarter of a moon cycle since I had shared food with Hiccup when I first consciously noticed the itch of skylust, and ever since then I have started having blank spots in my memory – moments where time passed unnoticed, where I could not remember what had transpired no matter how carefully I shift through my memories.

Worse still, moments such as these have come on with increasing frequency and length. If it kept going like this it may not be another quarter before one came on that I would not break free from.

Perhaps this is the insanity that came with-

-blink-

- skylust... My thought trailed off; not from surprise at finding myself on the opposite side of the cove, but from a pang of fear as I whipped my head upwards to see how long it had lasted this time. The sun had visibly shifted and her rays fell down into the cove to reflect brightly off the water. From her position I knew that it had been several hours since she had risen – several hours since I had awoken…

Several hours that passed without me noticing.

With an icy feeling in my chest I noted that it had been the longest one yet. I thought once more about making an attempt to go into an eternal sleep as I had tried once before, but as always decided to postpone it – not for my sake, but for Hiccup's. I had come to terms with my upcoming fall into the abyss and the return to the cycle of rebirth a few sun cycles after crashing into the waters of this cove with one of my tail fins missing.

As for Hiccup…

From what little he had told me about his life I doubted he would take my death well. Even now it is difficult to remember the moments after my mother and sire left me without a deep seated sadness and grief. I understood then just as well as I do now that they did not have any choice but to follow their wanderlust where it guided them, but that understanding did nothing to make the shocked disbelief at their abandonment of me any less.

It is exactly because of that that I wanted to prolong the inevitable moment when Hiccup would have to experience something similar for as long as possible…

…Even if it meant coming dangerously close to the insanity of a NaaiNe.

Would I truly risk such a cursed fate for the sake of a single human hatchling?

…Yes.

Somehow, strangely enough, I would.

The sounds of shuffling about from one of the rock walls of the cove warned me that I was no longer alone. Making a conscious effort to force the depressing thoughts away, I turned to look with surprise at Hiccup as he ran along the ledge and began to climb his way down the tree roots that granted him access to the cove.

Finally! I couldn't stop myself from thinking. Finally he was here!

The perpetual nagging of skylust abated enough for it to become lost in the background noise of my mind, even as I sprang up and sauntered off to meet him; the question of why he came back so early buried deep even before it could be brought up. The happiness that his visits always brought to me and the relief that I would not have to wait hours more by myself consumed my mind.

"Hey there Toothless! Good to see you ali- awake."

I sat down half a wingspan away from him and tilted my head slightly in confusion. Hiccup's voice sounded relieved and perhaps slightly panicked, reinforcing the feelings I felt from his mind. I also did not miss the hitch and quick correction he made, not that I knew what he wanted to say; ali- what exactly?

He must have sensed my unspoken question as he hastily stuttered out a few 'um's and 'er's before continuing.

"It's nothing – just forget it. A-anyway I hope you are hungry because I brought you something extra today." He said before dropping the basket of fish in front of him, jarring it slightly and causing it to release the appetizing smell of fresh fish. As I had done before I did not make a single movement towards his food, even though I knew that it would be mine in a few moments if things went the same way as his previous visits.

I couldn't supress a flicker from my wind sensors though – even though I was not ravenously hungry, the fish smelled freshly caught and Hiccup usually brought fish that had been at least a few sun cycles out of the water. Not a problem considering the cold climate and my iron stomach, but freshly caught was always so much better.

"You know, this is starting to be almost a ritual for us" I heard Hiccup mutter before he shook his head and continued in a normal though still slightly breathless voice.

"Right – These fish are yours, so you might as well get started." Having said his piece Hiccup tipped the basket to the side allowing the fish to spill from it.

He hasn't been joking when he said he brought something extra – the basket must have been completely full as the amount of fish before me was almost double what he would usually bring. There was more variety too – most of it was cod of course, but I could easily spot almost a moonfull of salmon along with several other slightly rarer kinds of fish that I had not tasted in a long while.

"Hope that satisfies you – cod, salmon, several herring and trout too. Got an entire eel in there too, and those are quite rare. Hope Gobber doesn't notice it missing when I replace the fish…"

I was already on my seventh fish when Hiccup's words permeated into my mind and I hastily drew away. Smelling the food pile again I released a cry of alarm and shuffled away even further. The deadly smell of the eel was there, hidden originally under all the other fish but evident now that I was warned of it and paying attention.

We dragons can handle just about any kind of food – my sire told me that there are even dragon races to the far west that live on nothing but seawater or are capable of digesting trees and solid rock, and I have no reason to doubt his words. Eels however are deadly poisonous for all dragons. No one really knows why this is so, but there is something within them that interacts badly with the flames within all of us. While a single bite could be survived, consuming an entire eel was a guaranteed flight to a slow and agonizing death as the remains of the eel's flesh caused your body to cool down and quite literally freeze from the inside.

A truly terrible fate for a being of fire.

"No, no! It's ok!" I heard from the side, along with sounds of Hiccup scrambling forward. I watched warily as he made a grab for the eel, and took a step back when he actually picked it up. My eyes broke away then to franticly search around me for an escape route, for in the state of panic I was in I had completely forgotten that the only way that cursed eel could hurt me is if I actually ate it.

It was only when amidst my flickering view I spotted that Hiccup had tossed the eel off into the grass away from me that my rationality started to return and I began to slowly calm down. Surprisingly it took quite a while for me to do so, mostly because in my panicked state I did not notice Hiccup also releasing waves of panic.

Once I was calm enough to do so though, I pieced together what was occurring and focusing on my own mind closed it off for a moment from everything around me. A moment later I was completely calm once more, though it would take a bit longer for my heart rate to drop into an acceptable range.

It was quite obvious in retrospect what had occurred – when Hiccup saw and felt my panic at discovering the abyss forsaken eel in my pile of fish, he was also driven into a hysterical frenzy, unused as his recently unfrozen mind was at handling extreme emotions. The raw wave of panic flowing from his mind only further strengthened my own, leading us both into a downwards spiral.

Whenever Hiccup visited I always opened my mind further than was considered safe so as to actually feel his own close by, and in this case it came back to flame me.

Snorting once to both laugh at my stupidity of falling into an emotional feedback loop, and to remove the dregs of fear still clinging to my chest, I moved back to finish my food – obviously not before taking several deep breaths, smelling and tasting the air to make sure there wasn't another eel buried inside.

"That was the only eel there. Rest are all fish. Honestly didn't think you'd react that way – sorry." Hiccup sounded apologetic, though I could hardly blame him for not knowing that they were poisonous to me. His words did make me breathe easier though, and I took a tentative bite, then another.

I finished off the rest of the pile slower than I usually would; as any sane dragon in such a situation, I was still a mite cautious – tasting the scent of each fish before swallowing. I trusted Hiccup – strangely enough I really did, even though he was a human and I vividly remembered exactly what those were capable of. Even so, having come so close to freezing to death made me slightly paranoid.

Having never felt cold in my life I couldn't imagine such a way to die, but knowing that it would take several sun cycles to do so along with harsh warnings from when I was a hatchling made it hard to decide which was the worse fate – freezing to death or becoming a NaaiNe.

Neither fate was something I wanted to experience.

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It was only when Toothless took a cautious bite from the pile of fish that Hiccup allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief, muscles he didn't know he had loosening themselves. Just a few moments ago he had been in the worst state of panic he had ever experienced in his entire life. The fear and dread felt like they had permeated into every inch of his body, and grown stronger still until his very soul was nearly consumed by it.

He had honesty never felt this way before, not even when he had stared death into the face at the claws of just about every kind of dragon he knew of. Hel take him, he had never felt even a fraction of the emotions he had experienced just now! His hands had felt like they were made from lead and it took all of his will power to just move his feet – it was only the thought that the smoked eel was what was causing Toothless to back away in fear and the knowledge that he was the only one that could help the Nightfury that allowed him to rush forward and throw the smoked eel off to the side.

… And then a few seconds later the all-consuming fear seemed to evaporate off of him, leaving him weak in the knees and feeling quite emotionally spent. All his emotions gone, much like a drop of sweat on a white hot sheet of metal.

Could it have had something to do with Toothless and his fears? He wondered. He could still feel a tiny prick of apprehension coming from the dragon, and it was not too farfetched to believe that Toothless' fears could have overwhelmed him; it wasn't as if feeling a dragon's emotions was typical by any Viking's definition of the word. There was bound to be some unforeseen consequences.

If so, wonder if there is anything I could do to prevent it from happening again… he thought, and glancing over to the eel lying in the grass a dozen or so feet away he couldn't stop his ever keen mind from wondering exactly why Toothless reacted this way…

And what about the other dragons – would they react the same?

The sound of Toothless biting into yet another fish with a content croon that was only slightly marred by worry brought Hiccup back to reality. Seeing as Toothless was unlikely to be doing anything else in the near future considering his slow pace, Hiccup decided to take the time to get rid of the eel and bring over the tailfin that he had finished building just this morning. He had left the fin at the entrance as he didn't want to have to breach that topic before Toothless was well fed (and in a better disposition because of it, much like his father always was).

At least I wouldn't have to think up of an excuse for the sudden disappearance of the eel that Gobber had been looking forward to, he thought as he carried the eel away. It was quite rare to catch them after all. That didn't prevent him from holding it at arm's length though – considering how Toothless reacted it would be quite stupid to get any more of its smell on him than he had to.

Dropping the eel amidst the rock formations encircling the roots he used to get in and out of the cove, Hiccup picked up the prosthetic fin and watched carefully as he opened and closed it several times; making sure that it was still working the way he designed it to. Not that there was anything that could have ruined it since the last time he checked it, roughly halfway between his village and the cove. Still, after the most recent fiasco the motions were at least slightly reassuring.

His non-existent plan back on track, Hiccup jogged back towards Toothless, unknowingly carrying their fate in his hands.

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Finishing up the last fish (an exceptionally fresh salmon that I had picked out just for this honor) I licked my snout and turned my attention back to Hiccup who was sitting on the grass a wingspan away and absentmindedly playing with a strange object between his claws. His slightly twitchy movements only accentuated the thinly veiled feeling of dread coming off his mind that he seemed to be attempting (and mostly failing) to keep down.

Turning towards him I warbled once while pushing the feeling of curiosity towards his mind in the hopes that he would understand the unspoken question; unspoken from his point of view at least. A few sun cycles after his mind thawed I found this to be a way to converse with him – primitive, but better than nothing.

:: What's bothering you Hiccup? :: He couldn't hear me of course, but actually saying it helped me focus on the message I wanted to get through to him. Either I had gotten better at this over time or he got better at understanding, but sometimes it felt almost as if he understood me completely.

"It's nothing. Well, not exactly nothing but… Okay, just try not to kill me if I offend you or something – um…" Hiccup's apprehension spiked a bit at that, and I could tell that he was trying to stall.

:: Well? :: I prompted.

"See Gobber teaches us about dragons and stuff, and I am sure it's really nothing, but one of the minor points he made was that… um… you dragons can't survive long without flight…" Hiccup faded out towards the end and I doubt that I could have heard him if I wasn't so close.

The itching at the back of my mind made itself known for a moment before retreating once more, or perhaps it was just a vivid memory brought back up by Hiccup's mention of my escalating problem. I really did not want to tell Hiccup just how little time we had left, and had in fact intended to try getting out of the cove once more in a couple of sun cycles so that he did not have to see my body once my soul vacated it. Of course that plan was useless now – and perhaps it was better this way.

Turning to gaze directly into his eyes I pushed down all of my emotions deep into the core of my mind, layering their clouds flush against the weave of my memories. The only feelings I allowed to flow freely were determination and acceptance as I slowly nodded my head and moved closer, pushing him slightly but firmly into the chest with my snout.

It's fine. I thought. I have accepted my fate. I just wish I didn't have to leave so soon…

"so it was…" Hiccup's voice was barely heard above the rustle of the leaves and the cascade of the small waterfall along the opposite edge of the cove, and yet with my ears only a claw's length away from his mouth, I could not miss them.

Nor could I miss the horrible agony present within his voice.

"no. I – I won't let it end this way. It's not quite finished, but I made this and it can't possibly be worse than nothing right!?" He whirled around, pushing away from me all the while raising his voice until he practically screamed out the last word – the sheer desperation concentrated within it more than enough to cause me to flinch slightly.

Worse still, the wave of hope that welled up within his soul as he shared his glance between me and whatever he was clutching between his paws with enough force to turn them white was strong enough to push into my mind and infect it as well – hope that I had thrown away only sun cycles after finding myself in this cove.

"Look, just look, ok! It needs some work, but if you just give me time I can get it working I promise!"

Water streamed down his cheeks and his breath hitched several times, and yet his eyes gazed at me with such intensity that it took quite a bit of effort to look away from them when he held the strange object towards me and opened it up.

For a moment I stared at it with incomprehension, taking in the brown material it was made from and the almost skeleton like structure that held it together. Weird, that's what it is. What with the five 'bones' stretching the brown material it looks almost like my-

My breath hitched as my throat clamped shut, and yet I did not feel any of that. My entire mind ground to a halt as I realized just what the strange thing in Hiccup's arms looked like. I do not know how long I just stared at it, but it was only when Hiccup folded it together that my mind managed to restart its thought processes, making me realize that I had been holding my breath the entire time and causing me to release it in a single snort.

"…already guessed, but anyway – tada! It may not work the same way as your old one, but it's better than nothing… So, want to try it out?" I completely missed whatever Hiccup had said before then, but I did not need much prompting.

My tail slammed into Hiccup's chest, causing him to let off a single 'oomph' as he crashed back down onto the grass, my tail twitching merrily on top of him.

"Um, I'll take that as a yes then?"

:: Yes! Now hurry up with it! :: I accentuated my thought with a loud warble, having completely forgotten that he could not understand me. Of course the way he eagerly scrambled out from my tail and rushed to pick up the new tailfin showed that he managed to infer enough in any case.

The first attempts for him to attach the new tailfin failed spectacularly considering that I was so excited that I could barely keep myself in one place, to say nothing of keeping my tail still long enough to allow Hiccup to work. By this point I had completely forgotten all of my reservations about allowing anyone to come close to my last remaining tailfin – the thought of having the second one back had burned away all of them faster than a tree bathed in my blue flames.

"Not that I am not happy that you like my idea; but could you hold your tail in place!? I can't do anything with it twitching about!"

:: Just jump on top of it or something! :: I yelled out as I forced my tail to lie on the grass, still twitching erratically to the sides but not as much as it had been. Attempting to draw in my excitement was working out about as well as keeping skylust away, but I tried anyway.

"Alright, fine! Just don't flame me for this." Hiccup replied back with exasperation before straddling my tail and managing with his almost negligible weight to stop most of my tail's movements.

"That's better." He muttered before shoving my second tailfin in place opposite to my remaining original one; the sight of two of them together like that sending an uncontrollable spasm through my body, nearly unseating Hiccup when it reached him.

"Oh come on! Hold still until I finish!" he yelled at me in exasperation, and I growled off a wordless reply, focusing back on keeping my excitement from overtaking me.

I couldn't keep my eyes away though.

Seeing as I had my tail curved around with its tip lying in front of me, I was in a good position to watch exactly what he was doing. From what I could see he was using several vines made from the same brown material as the membrane of the tailfin to tie it to my tail.

Surprisingly enough the five bones fanning out from the core mirrored my original fin almost perfectly, the entire structure fitting snugly into the roughly indented scar that was all that remained from my original fin. It wasn't perfect by any stretch of imagination – the front bone was much too long, making my tail look sort of lopsided. The other bones, while managing to come close to the original's curve, were wrong as well – with the third bone being the longest instead of the forth as it should be.

And yet even as my mind processed all of this and pronounced the chance of me flying normally with the new tailfin as equivalent to the sun goddess deciding to take a day off; in my eyes my tail looked just as good as it had ever been. As Hiccup removed his hands from my new tailfin to make some gestures that I only noticed in the periphery of my eyes, I felt the tailfin that had been missing for what felt like forever reconnect back to me.

I felt whole again, and I could honestly say that there has never been a better feeling. Perhaps later I would compare it to the moment Hiccup and I shared physical memories for the first time, but right now the feeling of wholeness and rightness of it all swept away everything else.

I uncoiled around, not even noticing that Hiccup, who had still been sitting on my tail, was forcibly thrown off into the lake when my tail flashed to the side. Lightning passed through my body, twitching my muscles and sending shivers along my scales. Spreading my wings I crouched and without even a few steps to build up speed I leapt into the air. Both my wings were open and beating rapidly even as my muscles cried out in protest, not having been used in over half a moonfull sun cycles. Both my rear fins opened and in their climbing position, the sensation of air flowing around them bringing with it calmness and excitement in glorious chaos of feeling.

Better still, both my tailfins were wide open and catching air as they should be.

I flew straight forward and up; up and over the edge of the cove, gaining elevation until I could see the endless ocean around the island. There was nothing that could break the elation I was feeling at the moment, and it wasn't until I leveled out that I consciously realized that I could not actually control the other tailfin as I could my remaining original.

It wasn't much of a problem of course – so what if I could barely turn without coming dangerously close to performing an unplanned dive, so what if the only thing I could do better than a newly released hatchling was to fly in a straight line… and even that was only because hatchlings never flew in straight lines.

It mattered not – because no matter how horrible I flew, no matter how precariously close I always was to loosing what little control I had, I could still fly!

Fly freely through the air like I was always meant to – like all dragons are!

I flew forward, feeling the shackles that had tied me down for what felt like eternity unravelling into nothingness behind me, burning away in the bright rays of the sun goddess. My entire word became nothing but me and the wind embracing me, a single thought all that existed in my mind.

I Fly. I thought, and so I did.

For the first time in what felt like forever, I flew.

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I felt as if I had flown for an eternity when I glided back to the cove and crashed into the waters trying to align myself to land, losing my tenuous grip on flight, both from my nearly non existing control and from sheer fatigue. A single glance at the sun goddess told me that it hadn't even been a single hour, but even the burning from my completely spent muscles and the realization of just how atrophied they were could not destroy my excitement.

Making my way out of the waters, the fear of its reflection just more ash in the wind, I glanced around and spotted Hiccup huddled against one of the rocks, trying unsuccessfully to start a fire. Sauntering over to him I let off a low powered plasma bolt that set the gathered pieces of wood on fire and startled him enough to cause him to jump away with a yell. I laughed at that, for the first time since ever.

"Yes, yes, very funny, laugh it up you big reptile. Anyway – did the fin work out?" Hiccup spoke and I could easily discern the happiness in his voice, happiness and pride.

:: Yes! By the goddesses of the sun and the moon it was perfect! I just can't- The sun goddess embrace you for what you did! My- ::

I was babbling, and I knew it. Perhaps if there was anyone around to actually hear me I would have felt embarrassed at this, but likely not – anyone who knew the situation would have understood. Like a breath of fresh air to a drowning dragon when one had already lost hope, my feelings were simply indescribable.

"… it's not perfect, I know, but now that you have let me come close to your tail I can fix it up to be the same as your other one – I had to work from the pictures you let me draw that one time and as you can see it came out good but not exactly what I hoped for. By Loki's ever shifting words, I still don't know how to get the fin to open and close when you want! I just jammed it in the fully unfurled position this time so I imagine it didn't handle as well as your real one did. It didn't, did it? I need some time to work on that…" Apparently I wasn't the only one babbling as Hiccup let off a slew of thoughts, barely taking the time to take another breath whenever he ran out.

I had already curled around the opposite edge of the fire, and moving my tail around I lightly hit him on the head with it, startling him and causing him to look to me as his paws grabbed at his head. We stared at each other for a moment, and then Hiccup started chucking. His chuckles grew into loud laughs, and I found myself laughing along with him, my laughs much deeper and more like a cross between growls and barks in comparison.

Relief – that's what it was. It took perhaps a minute for us to calm down, and we were both much more at ease with everything than ever before.

:: Thank you Hiccup. Truly, no matter what you think you know about us, I doubt you can understand exactly what you have done for me. ::

"Maybe not, but you are welcome none the less." He answered, and with a shrug began removing his waterlogged clothes, throwing them on top of my wing that was lying on the ground closest to the fire. "While we are both resting here I might as well dry them, hope you don't mind."

I didn't of course. I doubt I would have minded if he had asked me to tear out one of my scales for keepsake (not that he would of course – not Hiccup). Laying my head down on the grass no more than a claw width away from the flames I closed my eyes and basked in the heat. I did not bother giving any reactions when I felt Hiccup grab my tail and place it closer to himself, nor did I bother moving when he started tracing the bones of my original tailfin with his claws.

I was content, and there was absolutely no anxiety to be felt at having him so close to my tailfins. Why would there be?

He had after all given me back my flight, banishing the encroaching skylust away as if it had never been.

My life was his in return.

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A/N

So there you go. Although the scene drew quite a bit from the original movie, quite a few parts had to be re-written. Overall the entire part where he flies on Toothless' tail in the original was just about as endearing as it was impossible. I really cannot see how Toothless didn't manage to notice someone clinging to his tail until Hiccup shouted out about his success, let alone was able to fly with a deadweight on his tail (sure Hiccup is a walking fishbone, but still… and did you see how well he flew? The two of them managed to do quite a high & wide loop together…)

Also, having Toothless be able to fly (no matter how poorly) without Hiccup was something I planned on for quite a while.

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Saienai