It defied belief. Dragon and human alike gaped, fainted and even puked as they saw the sight for themselves. Some of them muttered among themselves.

Mildew, the dragon hater, had a dragon following him around.

"Disgusting," one Zippleback head muttered to the other. "There's a dragon following Mildew around, of all humans. And why does this dragon look so . . . lovestruck?"

"Devotion to your rider is one thing, but such blatant worship of someone so awful makes me want to vomit," the other head snapped. "And not in the useful sort of way that feeds a hatchling. I mean out of disgust."

Toothless, while waiting for Hiccup outside of the forge, saw the sight and forced down puke. "What the Hel is this?" Sure enough, a male purple Threadtail was following Mildew with a look of adoration in his eyes. He rushed into the forge and dragged Hiccup outside to see.

"Whoa there, bud! What's going on?" Hiccup asked. Toothless gestured towards the little purple dragon following Mildew, and Hiccup laughed. "It seems that Mildew has come around after all!" Hiccup laughed. Toothless mimed gagging. "Aww, bud, what's wrong? Don't you like the dragon?"

"I think they could do better than Mildew," Toothless said. "Even the Terrible Terrors that try to steal my fish every day can do better than Mildew. It's literally Mildew."

"Well, we can't discuss it as mush as we would like, because we've got dragon training classes to do," Hiccup said, taking off and going to the arena.

While Hiccup was teaching, Toothless spread the gossip to the others. "Mildew has a dragon," he said.

Stormfly did a spit-take, choking on her fish. "Mildew what?" she spluttered.

"No way does that old grouch have his own dragon," Hookfang scoffed.

"He does, I swear! There is a big purple dragon following him around looking all lovestruck," Toothless reported.

"What for?" Barf asked.

"And why him?" Belch gagged.

"That's what we'll have to find out when our humans are distracted," Toothless said.

"Aww, why does it have to be us?" Stormfly groaned.

"Spike that, I have plans!" Meatlug snapped.

"Oh. I'm so sorry, Meatlug. What plans would that be?" Toothless asked.

"Napping, eating and sleeping," Meatlug listed happily.

"Napping and sleeping are the same thing, Meatlug," Hookfang sniggered.

"Is not!" Meatlug argued. "A nap is three hours or less. More than four hours spent asleep constitutes as actually sleeping."

"ENOUGH!" Toothless roared. Everyone straightened up. "The point is, we cannot just let that poor dragon idolize Mildew like that! He ought to know who he's dealing with. Stormfly, if Astrid was as bad as Mildew, you'd want to know."

"Fine," Stormfly groaned.

As their humans ate in the Great Hall, their dragons left on a rescue mission of their own design. They found the Threadtail being pushed around at a watering hole and snatched him up. "What the Hel is this?" the Threadtail snapped.

"We're rescuing you, dumb-dumb," Hookfang snapped.

"This is technically an intervention," Toothless said. "We've grown worried about you."

"Well, less about you and more about the company that you've chosen to keep," Stormfly corrected.

"And what company would that be?" the Threadtail asked.

"Mildew, of course!" Barf and Belch snapped.

"Mildew?" The Threadtail tilted his head in confusion, tail twitching slightly. "But I like Mildew."

"That guy?" Hookfang made retching sounds.

"Look, this intervention is because Mildew is a known dragon-hating human. Even if you genuinely like him, there's a very good chance that he might not like you." Toothless fixed the Threadtail with a sympathetic look. "We're trying to help you avoid unnecessary pain here."

"And the embarrassment of having Mildew be your human," Hookfang sniggered.

"I can fix that! He just hates you guys because you don't listen!" The purple Threadtail looked at Toothless with a look of determination. "Trust me, after he meets me, we'll be happy. And together."

Hookfang excused himself to actually be sick, along with Stormfly. Meatlug swallowed hers down. Spewing magma would cause a very big and obvious fire, and they couldn't be having that.

"OK, buddy, I'll make a deal with you," Toothless said, fighting down his own urge to vomit. "If you can get Mildew to accept and like you by the end of the day, I'll take everything back. And I'll see what I can do about the other dragons. Word's beginning to spread, after all."

"So people know about us?" the Threadtail asked, eyes full of hope.

"They know what you're . . . trying to do, at least," Toothless said, smiling awkwardly.

"Oh, joy! I'd better get going if I want to bond with my human!" the purple dragon said, rushing off. Meatlug collapsed to the floor with a thud.

"He does know that you basically gave him an impossible task, right?" she asked, once she was sure that the Mildew-loving Threadtail was out of earshot.

"No, I don't think so," Toothless said.

"Don't you think it's a little mean to set him up to fail?" Barf asked.

"The little guy's going to be heartbroken," Belch said.

"Don't you worry, I've planned for that," Toothless explained. "Now let's go. I doubt you want to spend much more time thinking about that guy mooning over Mildew."

"Agreed," everyone chorused, going back to their riders.

(PAUSE)

The next day, Toothless was preparing with Hiccup for another dragon and rider bonding lesson when he saw something that made him want to be sick.

Mildew was coming up to Hiccup with the Threadtail on a leash next to him. The Threadtail looked extremely smug. Toothless felt weak at the sight of it. Then again, that could have been because Mildew was smiling, and he'd never seen Mildew smile before.

"Hiccup, I've just found the only dragon in the entire damn world worth anything," Mildew announced. "This is Cabbage, named after another thing that I love very much. 'E goes by Cabbie for short."

"He gave me a name!" Cabbage trilled.

"Oh, that's great!" I guess you'll be signing up for a dragon training lesson, then?" Hiccup asked.

"Oh, no. I just came to tell you I won't be needing you for anything more than a saddle. Cabbage already does everythin' I tell 'im to do an' more, don't you Cabbage?" Mildew petted Cabbage's head, and Toothless' eye twitched.

"Oh, sure. Just let me measure Cabbage, and I'll have it out to you in a week, give or take," Hiccup said. Once the measuring was over, Mildew and Cabbage went on their way, Hiccup smiling at their retreating backs.

"He actually did it," Toothless muttered to himself. "I can't believe it. He actually did it."

"Isn't it so sweet? I just knew Mildew would come around eventually!" Hiccup said happily. "Just goes to show that sometimes, all you to do is show them some - Toothless, why are you vomiting?"

"Don't ask," Toothless said.