"Hiccup I'd like to ask you about something rather personal."

"Whatever position you want me in." Hiccup respond without thought.

"Uh, no. Thank you though." Toothless chuckled. "Maybe later."

"Oh gods. Sorry. I thought that was where this was going." Hiccup's face was bright red. Toothless pressed his snout into Hiccup's leg, knocking his knees together.

"It still could but I still'd like to ask you something more serious first. It'll kinda ruin the mood though."

"No, no ask please."

"I just want to know if you're truly ready for something to happen. Not that I don't think you are but I'm worried that you're going to be different after."

"Different how?"

"If or when this encounter happens, a lot is going to happen very quickly. And no matter how much we direct our people they're going to have to make decisions on their own. Which works or doesn't." Toothless inched a little closer and licked at Hiccup's knees. "I just don't want you to blame yourself for things out of your control. Cause from what I've noticed about you is that you blame yourself for things that you couldn't control the most." He licked at Hiccup's knees again. "Then you try to figure out what happened, and go over it again and again. Which would be fine with stuff that you directly influenced. Which is good. You can learn from stuff like that. And you do that too so it's not like you aren't learning anything when this happens.

But it just so happens that the things you don't control that you dwell on the most. I'm guessing it's because you can't find an answer you like. You don't get the learning experience that you'd like. You play this what if game with yourself and get sad when you can't come up with something that would have turned out positively for you.

Like in the very beginning. We're still learning to be friends. Things are still tentative between us. Cause there should have been nothing between us. And it was sheer luck that we got close enough to figure out that we can be friends. Obviously we learn down the road that there's more to it then that, but that we encountered each other at all.

Then Astrid catches us. Suddenly you and I need to decide if we trust each other enough to get off Berk and find somewhere to hide. And the second we find any sort of safety, you start to wonder what you could have done differently. How many weeks, or months even, did you pull your hair out about what happened. Trying to figure what you could have changed. When the answer was nothing. No matter what we did, nothing was going to change what happened. Cause in that situation at least, if it wasn't her, it was someone else, and if it wasn't then, it would have been some other time.

If you ask me, we're lucky that it happened when it did. Any earlier and I don't know if we make it out of that hole. There may not have been enough trust between us for me to do what we did. And I probably would have died for it. And I wonder who would have blamed himself for that happening.

So I hope you understand why I'm concerned. And I know it's not very fair of me to do this to you. But I didn't really know how else to say this. You're amazing and I don't want you to think that everything is your fault. That type of stress changes people. Sometimes for the better sometimes not." Toothless pressed his snout against Hiccup's leg again. "Sorry." He whispered.

"You're afraid I'll turn mean then?"

"Or scared of everything. Toothless paused. "Though I'd probably prefer that to you being mean or abusive. I've already been through that. And I'm not going to respond to it very well from you."

"Thank you for your concern." Hiccup reached out and cupped his dragon's chin. "But I'd also like you to point out that you pay too much attention, you know that?" He smiled softly. "But I suppose one of us has to pay attention to stuff like that. Thankfully you're doing it then, cause it seems I'm not very good at it myself. I never even really thought about how long I must have been dwelling on Astrid finding us. Gods and you just sat there having to listen to it. How do you even put up with that?"

"Well I do like your voice, so it's not that hard. Plus letting you go for a little isn't going to hurt anyone. You tend to come up with alternate answers quiet quickly when these situations come up. Which is good. To me, it means you're learning. It's up to me to stop you when you've run out of new ideas or solutions to something when you start to get frustrated about not coming up with something better when it was happening. Because I think we've both learned that your biggest strength is coming up with the big picture. How things play out over all. But as the picture becomes smaller you tend to falter because you get caught up in things not perfectly fitting your big picture. Your biggest flaw, as a leader, is your split second decision making. Something you could work on and fix. But it just so happens that I'm more or less the opposite. So we can play off each other like that. And since you can't fly, we have no choice but to be the other half of one another.

Once again it turns out that we need each other. Who would have guessed?"

"You know that isn't true. You're just as good at coming up with a plan as I am."

"It's not the same. Yes I can come up with a plan. Anyone can do that. But your mind is made for it. Like you're playing a game and you can see all the outcomes before anyone else can even start playing."

"Oh, like Maces and Talons."

"Uh, sure. I don't know what that is."

"It's a board game where the objective is to take the other players pieces and eventually their 'king'. It can get pretty intense, there's a lot of strategy, and some people take a lot pride in their ability to play it well. When I was a kid there definitely were some fights because of that game."

"Then yes, it's like that. Except you've skipped over the board game part of that and have decided to play in real life. Where the consequence of losing is that you don't get to play ever again. So it's lucky for us that you happen to be good at it. Even if you're technically cheating by having someone else play with you."