Loud clanging could be heard as Toothless approached and emerged with the prototype armour. Hiccup took it from his dragon and inspected it for damage. There were some scuffs but no real damage. He laid it out in front of everyone to show them what it looked like.
"How does it work?" The female looked at it confused.
"So I made these plates and the harness specifically for SkullCrusher. But I think with a little modification this could fit you as well. Would you like to try it on to see?" Hiccup asked. The female looked a little apprehensive about it but agreed. "Toothless stand on the other side of her and catch the otherside would you. Toothless and Hiccup got into position. "Ready?" Hiccup called out.
"Yeah." Toothless called back. Hiccup tossed the harness over the back of the female like a blanket and Toothless caught it before the metal whipped back and hit her. They laid it across her back and Hiccup took a step back to look at it on her. He nodded to himself, thinking about changes he'd make to it for her.
"Alright I'm going to do the straps now, tell me if it's too tight okay?" The female nodded. With the straps finished the harness was a little loose around her but good enough for the demonstration. "I'll have to make changes so that it fits you better but if you want them I'll give them to you."
"And these would just replace my old plates?" She asked. Hiccup nodded.
"I modeled them after Skull's plates since they're technically supposed to lay on top of his existing ones and act as another layer of protection. So if you want I can also change their positions so that they fit onto you back better as well."
"Why are you doing this for me?" The female asked confused. "Why would you want to help me?"
"This is just something I think I should be doing as an alpha. I have dragons here that have unhealable wounds. But with a bit of thinking I can make things to help them get back a normal life.
When Toothless and I met he couldn't fly because I ripped one of his tail fins off. So I dedicated all of my time to making something that would give him that back. And I made the first one and it kinda worked but I wanted to make sure he could fly again. And I made fin after fin making them better and more durable until I made one that made him feel normal again."
Hiccup looked over to his mate. "I'm so lucky to have met him. Even more that I fell in love and it must have been a miracle that he loved me back.
But umm… With that knowledge I've started to create things for my dragons here so that they can all live normal lives. And because I'm paranoid that we'll be attacked some day I've also started creating this armour. I don't know how much I'll be able to make realistically. Especially since I'd like to focus on making sure everyone can lead regular lives. More active in a fight is going to be better than having a couple who are armoured.
So yeah if you want them we can work on moving them around and resizing it to fit you properly."
"I, thank you." The female whispered. Hiccup smiled and undid the buckles, and pulled the plates off her.
"Well no more stalling, we have to get these scales done. Please lay down again and try not to move as much as you can. I know it'll hurt but the less you move, the faster I can finish this." The Rumblehorn did as he was asked. She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw. "Be careful with doing that." Hiccup warned. "I don't want to be replacing all your teeth too." She took a deep breath.
Hiccup placed the edge of his knife under the first scale and pried it up. He felt the powerful muscles contract under his hand. Slowly he took each scale off. Each one done a little better and a little faster until he was able to get into a rhythm. Once done he wiped off the blood from the area he'd been working and inspected it. Happy with his work he moved around towards her head.
"Well it's done. You're going to be a little tender there for a while, so done go rolling onto your back for a while. But all in all once your skin heals and the scales start to grow back you'll be just fine."
"Really?" She asked. Hiccup nodded. "Maybe for a human you're not that bad after all." Hiccup snorted.
"Thank you. I'd like to say that you're the first to say that but…" He gestured the gigantic mountain full of dragons. She laughed.
"I can see why they accept you as a leader. Even if it is the most odd thing I've ever encountered."
"Is this your first time seeing me? I made a speech last mating season like the others."
"Oh, no I didn't go last time. I stayed home last time. I was one of ours who watched over the hatchlings instead of going."
"Oh I see. Oh no. There are going to be so many hatchlings here during spawning season. Toothless, gods, are we ready for that? We have to deal with the freeze then spawning season right after." Hiccup started to pace.
"Relax Hiccup." Toothless said calmly. "We've never had any issue with food during spawning season. Is it going to get more cramped here, yes. Is there going to be a food issue, no. So we're okay on that. We'll have to deal with the space issues though. We can keep letting people go lower and lower but then we're our people who wish to be alone. But we can talk about that later."
"Really? Good. And I knew about the space thing. We'll figure that out too." He looked up to the sky. "It's not as late as I thought it would be. Which means that we can go help find a sleeping spot for all of you." Hiccup walked up to his dad. "Thanks for being there." He smiled.
"I didn't do anything Hiccup."
"It's good that you were there if I needed you. She could have started to try and pull away from me when I was doing that. You and Skullcrusher would have stopped her from doing that. Luckily she was very resilient, otherwise I could be half way through instead of finished. Which would have been a nightmare trying to do that without any light. Anyway, I have to figure out where to put that group for the night.
Uh, you're still free to roam around and stuff. Just don't wake anyone who's sleeping, unless you want to lose all that hair." Hiccup chuckled.
