"And you, Hiccup, are not like us. Normally I don't like to separate you like that. You're one of us. But you won't suffer the way we do when your mate dies." Toothless explained.
"I'm sure you've told me before but what do you mean?" Hiccup asked. Truly curious.
"Why are you even entertaining the idea?"
"I'M NOT!" Hiccup shouted. "I'm just wondering what you mean by that. You're acting as though you don't trust me."
"I don't." Toothless said plainly. "Not right now."
"Wha-? What? This is what you don't trust me on?"
"Look me in the eye, Hiccup and don't for a second look away." Toothless commanded. Hiccup gave him a hard, cold stare. "I will tell you everything but if you look away for even a second, I'll make sure that you'll never be able to accept even if you wanted to. Do you understand me?" Hiccup continued to stare Toothless down, only blinking occasionally. "Whether they know it or not, being told that you may be the king are poisonous words. The simple idea that you could be, plagues your mind. It's been used in the past to hurt more than help. I don't know if it'll work on you but normally it'll send you down a horrible path. One you don't recover from. You are permanently scarred, broken, and no one is there for you. You lose everything but can bring everyone together. But not in the way you want. You force them together. You could be the nicest king to ever be. But you'd have no friends, they fear you." Toothless looked away, and sat down. Hiccup's eyes dropped to the ground. Toothless smiled and brightened his mood. "Normally Hiccup, I'd be perfectly willing to give up my life if it meant helping you."
"Don't say things like that." Hiccup whispered.
"I don't lie."
"I know. That's what scares me when you say things like that."
"Come here." Toothless cooed. Hiccup made short, slow steps towards his mate. Just as slowly he reached up and weakly wrapped his arms around Toothless' neck.
"Never leave me Toothless." Hiccup's voice nearly inaudible. Toothless slowly wrapped himself around Hiccup, tripping him but giving him something soft to land on. Toothless chin rested on Hiccup's chest.
"It would take every god to have ever existed, teaming up to take me away from you. Even then I'd go through every realm, and plane to get back to you. They'd make a monster. Worse than anything they've seen before. They worry about Nidhoggr, but I'd take down the nine realms myself if I must."
"Just don't get slain before I get to see you again, my monster." Hiccup placed kisses along the side of Toothless' head.
Toothless pulled his head back and looked out towards where the Bewilderbeast was coming from.
"Worried?" Hiccup asked.
"A bit." Toothless admitted. "Mostly just wondering where the scouts are. They should be back soon."
"And if they don't come back?"
"They will. They're some of the fastest and were ordered to not get close enough to put themselves in harm's way."
"We'll just have to wait and see." Hiccup huffed.
"We really shouldn't be sitting here. We need to get that ship out of here."
"We can sit for a minute Toothless. Need to conserve all we can." Hiccup pressed himself against the dragon.
"Yeah well the earlier they leave the further they get." Toothless sighed. He stood up and stretched. "If we get a bit of time before this whole thing, I'll gladly sit down with you for a while." He pressed his snout against Hiccup while he was getting up as well. "But for now we need to think of our people before ourselves." Toothless lowered himself allowing Hiccup to climb on. Hiccup settled into his normal spot on Toothless back and they slowly made their way inside.
"Toothless do you ever think about us being alone again?" Hiccup whispered.
"Yeah, sometimes."
"Are you happier when you think about it?"
"As long as you're there I'm happy." Toothless added a little hop to his step bouncing Hiccup a bit.
"Toothless you need to think about yourself sometimes." Hiccup crossed his arms.
"Hiccup for me there isn't 'self' anymore. When we take mate you never think about how something would benefit just you. You have to think about how things benefit both of you. So for me this place is what benefits both of us the most. While I did like being alone together. It was much quieter." He chuckled. "Helheim adds a huge layer of protection we didn't have back then." Toothless stopped before entering the hole leading inside. "I did like being alone. I didn't have to worry about you getting hurt as much, I didn't have to worry about how others will think of you. I didn't have to worry about a Bewilderbeast attacking my home⦠Probably. We would only have to worry about each other, and it's not that hard to feel only two people, even with how much I have to eat. But we aren't going crazy being isolated from everything. And if something goes wrong we have others to rely on. And we get to lead people in a way we think is best.
Maybe one day we step down and go back to living like that. Living in a small little house, letting our minds rot, and the only words we remember how to say are 'I love you'." Hiccup hummed at the idea of rotting away with Toothless. "Well what about you then? You brought it up, you must have some feelings about it."
"I don't know. I was just wondering if you were happy here or not. It just seemed like maybe you have to watch out for me too much. Always having to warn me about things I don't know about. You just seem stressed out about it sometimes. I guess maybe I just thought that going back would be easier on you."
"Hiccup I don't mind my life having a little toughness in it."
"No, it's not that. I used to think that dragons all lived alone and defended their territory. Kinda like wolves or really any other pack animal. But it's so much different and maybe I just can't fully wrap my head around that dragons live in a way that's so similar to humans that it's psyching me out."
"Hey! Give us some credit, we can be big dumb monsters when we need to be." Toothless chuckled. Toothless ducked into the hole, arching his back so Hiccup could get through. "Alright, wanna go send off the little ones?"
"Yeah let's get that done before it's too late."
