All throughout the night Hiccup was tormented. Unable to stop the flood of horrible thoughts. At one point he crawled out from under Toothless' wing and paced around, ripping his hair out. He didn't know what to do and his worry just built.
In a moment of clarity he remembered the special connection that was given to them. He ran to the front of the dragon's head and placed it in his lap. Feeling the warm breath on his hand did calm Hiccup a little. He took a deep breath and tried to communicate to Toothless.
"Hey bud." He started. "I totally forgot that we could talk like this." He thought cheerfully. What Hiccup got back made him both happy and sad and almost more concerned than before. A mess of words with nothing coherent, like they were random.
Hiccup leaned down as far as he could. Enough that he could rest his cheek on the the dragon's neck and listen to the blood moving through his giant cranium. It calmed Hiccup some more but he was still high strung. He turned his head, placing his forehead on the neck now.
"Please get up!" He quietly begged. His tears quickly beginning their trips down the side of Toothless' throat. "Please, please." Snot and drool joined the tears in the small puddles below as Hiccup, quietly as he could, cried his eyes out. A combination of 'please' and 'I'll do anything' and other similar things was all Hiccup could think to say. He continued to plead until he fell asleep.
When he woke his back and legs were stiff, along with his foot being asleep. He grit his teeth as he moved his leg forcing him to sit and wait as the pain passed. Trying to distract himself from the pain radiating from his foot, he looked to see if anything has changed with Toothless. He noticed that Toothless was laying on his other side. Hiccup still wasn't happy that Toothless hadn't woken up but that he moved gave him hope. It also reinforce his idea that the injury was wiping out the large reptile's energy, and it just be a matter of time before he was able to wake up and stay awake. But he had a hoard to run and couldn't justify sitting around waiting for Toothless.
With hope in his set sails, Hiccup carefully got up, walked towards the ledge and got the attention of a few dragons.
"What is it?" The first to arrive asked.
"Tell everyone that there is going to be a gathering. Let's get this place up and running again." He smiled. The dragons nodded and began to tell others and soon everyone was packed into a small area waiting for their alpha to join them. Hiccup had forgotten how hard it was to get to the gathering area without flying there. When he arrived he was sweaty and out of breath. He took some deep breaths and made his way to his spot. And as he arrived he wasn't allowed to keep the breath he just got back. He looked around in awe. He knew that they grew in numbers but to him it looked like it was more towards doubled. Dragons packed closer together and higher up than ever before.
As he spun around to look at everyone he tripped over his own foot and fell. Almost immediately the old pack members started laughing. The new members looked mortified and confused. Laughing at your alpha was a sign of disrespect.
Hiccup laid there for a second, embarrassed.
"Of course I did that." He mumbled. He listened to the laughing and couldn't help but smile. "No wonder Toothless stayed so close when I did these. I guess there's no saving me from myself." Hiccup thought. He slowly stood back up and his dragons began to cheer, mocking him. He placed his hands on his hips and hanging his head down for a second he took in the ridicule before looking back up and waving his arms to quiet them down. Once done Hiccup started.
"We'll that's quite the first impression." He yelled trying to make his voice carried all the dragons way up top. There were some more chuckles as he continued. "Alright so as much as I'd like nothing more than to tend to my mate right now, this place needs to get back up and running. My first priority right now is getting ready for the freeze. I know it still seems far away but with the huge amount of growth we had, we need to make sure that we can sustain our new population. There are a lot of new mouths to feed.
So first off I guess, welcome, and thank you for giving me and my mate a chance. Secondly I like to thank all of you for sticking with us. If Toothless wasn't up in our den sleeping off and injury he'd be down here thanking you as well.
Alright now let's get down to business. So what I would like to happen is for everyone to move around a bit. I'd like everyone who is new go over there." He pointed to his left. "Then everyone else go over here." He pointed to his right. "And group up into your jobs and parties." He continued to point and instruct until each job had a dedicated spot to be. On his command the giant mess of dragons stirred and in the chaos Hiccup found himself pinned to the stone.
It wasn't until everything had cleared up that a large male Nadder had decided he was an easy target. Hiccup was pinned down on his back by one of the Nadder's powerful legs. Hiccup immediately realized what this male had planned. Hiccup curled his stomach and legs, getting his feet under the male's crotch, and kicking as hard as he could. To his surprise he lifted the Nadder off the ground before he had time to react and fly away.
The Nadder took deep breaths, trying to recover from the sharp pain in his crotch.
"Woah, woah." The Nightmare Hiccup had patched up before mating season started crawled up behind the aggressive Nadder. Meanwhile Hiccup took a defensive stance and hoped that the old Nightmare was talking some sense into his attacker. "What do you think you're doing?" The Nightmare asked slyly.
"You heard him." The Nadder spat.
"Yeah I did. But I obviously didn't hear what you did. Like to clue me in?" He raised his brow, feigning curiosity.
"His mate's hurt which means they won't be coming to his rescue. He's weak and alone. Doesn't have anything to defend himself with. We just have to take him out. It'll be easy."
"Okay I guess we did hear the same thing. But I think that you haven't thought of everything. Like, what if you win. You main him or kill him, or whatever it is you plan to do. He's not going to go down without a fight, he's fighting for a lot more than you are. So then you win and then what? Cause I'm going to tell you this right now, you're going to be hurt and tired, so what's stopping me from immediately attacking you? These people have no loyalty to you, there not going to help you. Then we fight and either I win and am now tired and hurt, or you win and are even more so. So then it just goes on like that until the Night Fury decides he's going to get up from his injury and take his spot back, and nothing changes. Just a bunch of us are hurt or dead? I'm just trying to follow you idea here.
I mean to be fair to you this is the best time to attack him, his Night Fury isn't here. You'd already be a goner if he was. So that's good. For you. But I want you to look around and ask yourself. 'Am I going to be able to hold my new alpha position once I take it?'" The old Nightmare looked towards Hiccup. "This might take a while." He called over. "I know you had this whole thing planned out but, this one, he's, well you know… So just sit down or get some water, or something." chuckling started all over.