Archive of Our Own

Past

The Night Fury hatchling was distressed as he tried to hide the best he could like his mom wanted him to do. Normally, Night Furies didn’t cower before anyone – they were one of the best dragons, after all! Even as a hatchling it was obvious to him! – but now things were different. He was too young to be able to protect himself against threats on his own and his mom was dying, unable to help him even if she wanted to so, very desperately.

A part of him wanted to get back to her and stay with her until her time ran out because how could he not be there when she was on the verge of never being there again? But he knew better than to be next to her. She couldn’t run away in case anything happened and she wanted him to be safe, meaning he had to stay hidden and out of anyone’s sight. He was just going to have to hope nobody found neither of them, even if someone was approaching this area of the forest.

And someone was approaching, indeed. The hatchling kept quiet as he peeked through the leaves of the bush that hid him, staring at the shuffling human hatchling that looked around, hands wrapped around his tiny body. He’s never seen a Viking this small. The Night Fury hatchling was used to seeing buff, giant Vikings on his flights with his mom – not this pathetic, lean figure. Plus, this hatchling looked sad and scared. Maybe cold, too. They didn’t look like the others.

Still, it wasn’t safe to come out. The Night Fury had to stay hidden and hope the human left quickly because the hatchling had to see his mom again. He had to be there when she closed her eyes for the last time – he couldn’t imagine not seeing her again only because of this stupid, random human! If only the hatchling could move on a little faster instead of dragging his feet on the forest ground. He wasn’t even trying to be quiet as he moved – had the Night Fury hatchling’s mother been capable, she would have pounced upon the human ages ago.

To the Night Fury’s frustration, the human hatchling seemed to shuffle to a stop before he shakily sat down on the forest ground, his legs pressed against his chest and his arms wrapping around them. “Help me…” He mumbled in his strange human language. The Night Fury hatchling shifted his wings a little but otherwise didn’t move. This wasn’t boding well. What was the human doing? Was he there alone? Surely the hatchling could overcome such a young and small Viking, right? The Night Fury was about the same size as the human, but he could breathe fire and it didn’t look like the human had any weapons on him. Well, other than the shining silver of the small knife he had under his fur vest.

And then the human buried his face in his knees and the Night Fury hatchling stared in surprise as he heard him sniffling. He was crying, he realized. In that moment he didn’t look like the malicious beast his mom had warned him about. He didn’t look like the kind of devil who would murder living creatures in cold blood. He looked sad and miserable and all alone, just curled pathetically in the forest with nobody to aid him in sight.

It was strange. Had the Night Fury felt sad, his mom would usually show up to comfort him, somehow. She was always there for him. As were the other few dragons they’ve encountered through their travels. But it looked like there was nobody around to help the human hatchling. Nobody who would show up to croon softly at him and make him feel better. That was such a sad thing to realize. Was he an orphan? Were his parents gone? Did he have nobody to turn to?

He must have come from the village that was on the other side of the island, but why would adults let a hatchling go away on his own unsupervised unless he had no one who looked after him? But it was still weird – even dragons lived by a code that said that if a hatchling was left without their parents, other dragons would look after him. They wouldn’t leave a hatchling to fend for themselves, after all. Were humans different? It looked cruel to the Night Fury, but he also knew that human were, indeed, cruel.

Well, the Night Fury hatchling was a dragon and despite being young, he wasn’t going to just sit there and watch as the human hatchling suffered if he could help it. Maybe he didn’t have people who were willing to look after him, but the Night Fury was willing to show him kindness. And if the human hatchling somehow ended up drawing out his little knife to attack him… well… the Night Fury was going to have to show he wasn’t going to hurt the human and hope to receive the same treatment from the hatchling.

Slowly and cautiously, he stepped from around the bush until he was right in front of the sniffling Viking. The silent movements of his, though, meant that the human was still unaware of his presence there. So he was going to have to finally let out a sound and let the sad hatchling see him. Taking in a deep breath, the Night Fury readied himself and tried to stop his wings from itching restlessly.

“H-hey.” He crooned softly, hesitantly. His voice was barely a whisper, but apparently it was enough to draw the human’s attention because he froze and then lifted his head slowly, eyes wide as they landed on the Night Fury. The dragon’s wings shifted behind his back but he tried to look as unthreatening as possible. The human was just staring at him. “D-don’t attack me.” He warned.

The human just kept on gawking at him, not looking like he understood what the Night Fury was saying. His lips moved but he didn’t say anything out loud so the dragon had no idea what was going through his mind. And then his shoulders tensed and the human’s hand flew over to his belt, trying to clumsily draw his knife out.

The Night Fury snarled. “Don’t!” He exclaimed, startling the human hatchling who dropped the knife, eyes locking on the dragon hatchling again. His hand kept on trying to grab the weapon, so the Night Fury took a step back. “Don’t touch this thing! Don’t lift it or I’m gonna leave you all alone again! I-I swear I will do it! Just watch!”

Retracting his hand quickly, the human stared at the Night Fury with wide, terrified eyes. “Oh, Gods…” He muttered. The Night Fury settled down a little when the human stopped reaching out for his weapon. This seemed to confuse the human who glanced down at the knife before looking back at the Night Fury watching him warily. “Y-you’re… not attacking me.” He whispered in awe.

“Well, unless you try and attack me first, I don’t see a reason to.” The dragon warbled. The human hatchling really didn’t seem to understand him. “You have no idea what’s going on, do you?” The Night Fury asked. He didn’t expect an answer – which was a good thing because the hatchling just tensed a little at his words, not seeming to comprehend their meaning. “Okay, maybe you can understand gestures?”

To test his theory out, the Night Fury looked down at the knife and then moved his head sharply to the side to try and make the human understand that he wanted this thing as far away as possible right now. He didn’t need to constantly watch out, okay? The human’s eyes travelled down to the knife and then back to the dragon who repeated the motion, a little annoyed. His mom was dying and there he was, trying to disarm a human hatchling that needed someone to be with him.

Apparently, though, it worked. For a moment the human’s fingers touched the knife and the Night Fury growled lowly, wary of the blade the human was picking up. But then the human tossed it away till it clattered behind a few bushes, out of reach. With a relieved sigh, the Night Fury hatchling calmed down and sat down, his earflaps perking up a little as he watched the human tensing up before relaxing a little, too.

“What dragon even are you…?” The hatchling muttered, seemingly to himself. He asked it like he expected an answer from the dragon, but it was obvious he wouldn’t understand a word, anyway, so the Night Fury just blinked at him. “Well, you’re really quiet… and you’re kinda small – though maybe you’re just young, right?” The human suggested and flinched a little when the dragon confirmed it with a grunt. He blinked at the Night Fury with wide, concerned eyes before slowly calming down again. “You’re black – I’ve never seen a black dragon before. Well, I guess the Night Furies are, but…” He trailed off and his mouth opened again as he gasped and stared incredulously at the Night Fury.

The dragon hatchling, on his part, lifted his head a little proudly. “I am a Night Fury.” He confirmed. Despite not understanding his words, it looked like the human hatchling took his warbles as a positive response because he ran his fingers through his hair, looking absolutely stunned.

Blinking at the dragon, the human laughed, though the sound was filled with distress. “Of course – with my luck I had to run into a Night Fury after getting lost.” He shook his head and the Night Fury noticed that his breaths were coming in and out a little quicker than before. “Why are you not attacking me? Y-you’re just… you’re just sitting there.” He waited and the Night Fury hatchling just watched him, unimpressed. “If I get up, will you attack me?”

The Night Fury warbled in annoyance at the suggestion but just shook his head a little to get the message across. Eyes widening, the human’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“You can understand me??” The hatchling asked, leaning a little forward, seemingly forgetting the danger he thought he was in. Not that the Night Fury minded – he really wasn’t going to hurt the human unless he had to. “I can’t believe it! Y-y-you’re like… you’re actually aware of what I’m saying? But they always said you were mindless creatures! I-I-I can’t even… I don’t… Wow!” The boy’s lips moved up.

“How are you doing that?” The Night Fury hatchling asked curiously at the sight of the human’s expression. He stared intently at the tug of his lips and was barely aware of the human leaning back again, as if realizing who he was talking to. Instead of focusing on that, the dragon worked hard to try and mimic the human expression. It was hard and a little uncomfortable, but he thought he was probably doing a pretty good job. Especially when the human gasped and stared at him in awe. “Am I doing it? Am I??”

Lips relaxing a little, the human seemed too stunned to keep his weird expression. “You’re smiling…” He whispered. The Night Fury had no idea what that word was, but he figured it was what the expression he was copying was. Smiling. Alright, that was a thing humans did, apparently. He’s never before seen a human smile but maybe it was just not something they did when they were in the midst of fighting dragons. The human hatchling then proceeded to examine him with slightly narrowed eyes. “Huh… toothless.”

The Night Fury was very happy to drop his lips back down until he felt comfortable before opening his mouth. Yeah, he could retract his teeth. His mom always told him it was because the blast of plasma their kind could emit was too much and their teeth had to be away for them not to just get scorched and ruined from the hit. It wasn’t really something he was very conscious of. His teeth just came in and out according to the situation he was in. And since he didn’t feel too threatened around the hatchling, they were being held back.

But if he only concentrated on them enough… It took him a moment before he heard the surprised yelp of the human at the sight of the Night Fury’s teeth popping out of his gums. The dragon’s eyes shined mischievously as the human pulled back a little, seemingly scared again. “You don’t need to be scared. You’re doing pretty good so far. Maybe there’s still hope for you… as long as you don’t become a killer like the other Vikings.”

“That’s… cool.” The boy said, although it was obvious he was still talking about the teeth rather than the Night Fury’s words. “They can always come in and out? So they’re… retractable, right? That’s the word?” He kept on talking. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Does it hurt?” He asked. The Night Fury shook his head and it seemed to shock the human a little before he got a grip on himself and smiled shakily. “Y-you’re… not going to kill me?” The dragon hatchling shook his head again. “Do you happen to know which way is back to the village?”

Oh, right. He did mention earlier that he was lost. So maybe there were people worried about him, but the human hatchling was just on his own since he couldn’t find his way back to them. The Night Fury did know the way back to the village – and if he didn’t, he could always fly above the trees to find out which direction to take – but going near a human village sounded like a terrible idea for a dragon like himself. Plus, he was supposed to go back to his dying mother.

Sniffing hesitantly, the dragon crept closer to the hatchling that stiffened at his approach but didn’t pull away. Maybe he was just too terrified to move – it didn’t really matter. There was nothing off about his scent – the human smelled like wood and fire and the odd scents of the forest. There was also the odor that always accompanied humans all over him, which made sense. But there was nothing intimidating in the smells.

“W-what are you doing?” The human stuttered.

Instead of offering any kind of answer, the hatchling just kept on advancing until he was mere inches away from the human. Then he sniffed one last time before sitting back and eyeing the Viking silently, waiting to see what he would do. That was it – if the human did something to alert the Night Fury, he would turn away and run away until the human finally left to go someplace else. Because as suicidal as this all has been, the Night Fury didn’t actually want to die cruelly by some little human.

When the human hatchling held out his hand shakily toward the Night Fury’s snout, the dragon huffed and pulled a little away, making the boy freeze. “Don’t.” The dragon growled shortly and then calmed down immediately when the human pulled his hand back, staring at him with wide, confused eyes. And then he took a deep breath, turned his head away and held out his hand, palm facing toward the dragon but stopping right before touching the Night Fury.

Sniffing the hand that was presented to him, the Night Fury hatchling looked from it to the back of the human’s head and then back to the hand. He was trusting him not to hurt him by looking away. He was letting him choose what to do, by that acknowledging that he couldn’t force the Night Fury to do whatever he wanted. The hatchling’s mom never mentioned humans could be this trusting and nice. It felt strangely like he could really trust the human back.

So, a little unsure of his actions just yet, the dragon hatchling pressed his head against the skinny hand of the human and closed his eyes. He could feel the way the contact seemed to make the hatchling tense before he relaxed at the realization that the Night Fury wasn’t harming him. And then the dragon hatchling pulled back and opened his eyes only to find the human staring at him in awe, his hand still held out like he couldn’t be bothered to pull it back.

“Okay, fine. I guess I can trust you.” The Night Fury warbled and the human’s head tilted slightly to the side, like he was trying to understand what he was being told. It was kind of amusing. Until a pained, shrill roar echoed around the two. The Night Fury tensed immediately while the boy scrambled onto his legs and looked around in fright, his hand itching to the spot where his knife used to be only to fall flat at his side at the feeling of nothing hanging there anymore. “Mom!”

The Night Fury didn’t spare a second thought to the human as he started speeding past the trees and plants of the forest toward the spot he knew his mother was at. He didn’t care about anything – he just needed to get back to his mom because she was still hurting and as long as she was suffering, at least he could see her alive. He could still be with her. He had to… he had to be there! She’s been taking care of him all these seasons – he couldn’t just leave her now to die alone!

“Toothless! Wait, w-where are you going??” The human hatchling’s voice reached his ears but the dragon didn’t stop. Even if the human was coming along, he didn’t have anything on him that could harm his mom and he seemed to trust the dragon hatchling, so he was just going to trust the human not to attack his mom. He didn’t have the time to shake him off his tail. “Toothless, wait!”

Was he calling him that? It did make sense, since the human saw him without his teeth. Was this how humans named each other? By observing the babies and deciding what was special about them? Not like the retractable teeth were unique to the Night Fury hatchling alone, but the human couldn’t know that. What was his name, then? Was it Lanky? Green-Eyed? Scared and Alone? Those were all terrible names, really, but Toothless wasn’t as bad, he supposed. Sure, the human could call him Toothless. If anything, it would confuse his enemies and make them think he wasn’t as dangerous as he was, right?

The dragon hatchling – Toothless – came to an abrupt halt once he reached the edge of the cove his mother was hiding in. Behind him, the human seemed to stop, too. The sharp intake of air from him let the dragon know that he noticed the large, black shape that was draped over the grass in the cove. Spreading his wings, Toothless took into the air before diving toward his mom. He landed shakily next to her and her big, green eyes opened to look at him with warmth.

“Oh, my hatchling…” She moaned. “You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t see this.”

“I’m not leaving you again.” He crooned back and then stepped closer before snuggling against her side. He purred sadly next to her, the sound coming out of him without his consent. But it didn’t matter, anyway. His mom was about to die. His mom was going to leave him forever and he had no one else. Other dragons would probably take care of him, but he didn’t want other dragons – he wanted his mother. “Just… just hold on, okay? Maybe it will get better.”

But they both knew that wasn’t going to happen. What hurt her in the first place was a stray spear some Viking on a different island threw randomly. It was never supposed to hit anything – the man just tossed it in the air, screaming bloody murder in rage. And the thing was – it would have hit Toothless, but his mom saw it coming at the last moment and threw herself before her hatchling, getting impaled herself. Together, they made their way to this island before his mom collapsed and told him to run and leave her, which he was very reluctant to do.

He was very aware of the blood that was covering his scales slowly but surely from the bleeding wound of his mom but Toothless didn’t move. He couldn’t move. He had to stay right there with his mom and be there when life left her… because she couldn’t die alone after everything she’s done for him since she gave birth to him. How could he possibly leave her now?

A yelp drew his attention to the human hatchling who climbed down into the cove though a small opening. Toothless noticed how wary the human was, but he still advanced toward them, his body wavering in fear. His eyes glided over from Toothless to him mom and then back to the dragon hatchling. There was no malice in his eyes, though – only understanding, like realized what was going on and he felt honestly, truly bad.

The wing of Toothless’ mom draped over the hatchling as she started growling in warning at the human who stopped in his tracks and froze, staring wide-eyed at her. “Not a step closer, devil!” Toothless’ mom hissed violently and her body shifted like she was getting ready to pounce despite her current state. “It’s bad enough that your kind is slaughtering all of us – I won’t let you kill the last of our kind!”

“Mom, no!” Toothless threw himself to the space between the human and his mom right when she got to her feet. He spread his wings as much as possible to hide the human hatchling behind him the best he could. A part of him was surprised at how he didn’t feel worried about the hatchling attacking him while he had his back turned to him. His mom stared at him, stunned. “Mom, he’s not a threat! He threw away his weapon and put his trust in me! You can’t hurt him! He won’t hurt you – he’s just here because he followed me when I left.”

“He’s human!”

“He’s lost in the forest. He was crying and there was no other human around to help him. I-I just tried to help him. He… he even gave me a name! Please, don’t hurt him.” He crooned pleadingly. His mom looked over his wings to see the human hatchling. By the sound of it, he was still motionless behind Toothless. Then the female Night Fury released the air in her lungs and settled back down wearily. Toothless’ wings lowered back to the side of his body as he chanced a glance at the boy who stared at the two dragons in wonder before locking eyes with Toothless.

Furrowing his brows in slight confusion, the hatchling lifted his hands, as if showing he had nothing on him. “T-Toothless, what’s going on?”

The dragon hatchling sighed and then walked toward the hatchling. He twitched a little but didn’t flinch back, which was an improvement. Cautiously, and aware of his mom’s eyes trained on him and sizing his every move, Toothless nudged his head against the boy’s hand before gesturing with his head toward his mom. The older Night Fury warbled, a little uncomfortable with the situation, but didn’t stop Toothless so he took that as permission.

It didn’t take long for the human hatchling to understand what Toothless wanted. “Oh…” He let the small dragon lead him over to his mom and then shuffled his feet in front of Toothless’ mom, looking awkward and uncertain. There was still a glint of fear in his eyes, but he seemed to really put his trust in Toothless. “U-uh… h-hey…” He gulped. “You, uh, must be Toothless’ dad. Or mom. Uh…” He looked around like he wanted to run out of there. His eyes turned to Toothless. “Mom or dad?” He whispered.

The dragon just looked at him, unimpressed, before padding over to his mom’s side. The adult Night Fury took him in immediately, her wing draping over him before she stifled an agonized screech the best she could. Toothless whimpered and the human hatchling cringed before his eyes landed on the open wound that was slowly taking the life out of Toothless’ mom.

“Oh no…” The human whispered.

“He calls you Toothless?” Toothless’ mom inquired, voice weaker than before. Moving around must have made her feel worse. “And you accept it? This human name?”

Toothless purred again. “I don’t mind.” He replied. “This human is nice.”

His mom grumbled a little but didn’t disagree as they both turned to see the human staring at the open wound with slightly parted lips. “Y-you’re dying…” He mumbled under his breath but loud enough for the dragons to hear. Toothless whimpered and the human glanced at him before looking back at the bloody gush. “Someone hit a Night Fury? I thought it was impossible! This looks really bad… Maybe I could wrap something about it to make the blood stop, but…” He pressed his lips together. “I’m not sure it will help at his point…” He looked at Toothless, eyes shining. “I’m sorry.”

With a shake of his head, Toothless beckoned the human to come a little closer. Sure, he didn’t know the human very well and his mom was wary of him, but Toothless knew he felt something deep beginning to develop and he was about to lose his mother – he wanted to have someone there with him when it happened, and the human was right there, available.

Hesitantly, the boy shuffled a little closer and then cautiously sat down next to Toothless and his mom, careful not to touch the female dragon that eyed him through slightly blurry eyes before turning to Toothless again. “My hatchling,” She warbled. Toothless looked at her immediately. “Remember the stories I’ve told you about the nest of the queen. When you fly, be sure to fly far enough away because if she ever got a hold of you, she won’t let go until you either die or lose yourself to her tyranny.” She pressed her head tiredly against Toothless’. “Trust your instincts. You have to survive this war.”

He nodded. “I-I’ll try.” He warbled weakly and then whined when his mom let out a heavy breath, her eyes drooping down. “Mom… Mom, not yet.” He pleaded. It didn’t help, though. Her breaths seized and her body stilled, the warmth beginning to subside. Toothless shut his eyes tightly and whimpered. “Now I’m really the last Night Fury… I will survive. I won’t join that nest…” He rubbed his head against the still head of his mother and then squirmed toward the human from under the large wing that was covering him. “I pro-promise.”

“Oh…” The human hatchling bowed his head, showing respect to the dead Night Fury and Toothless moaned sadly and then collapsed next to the human hatchling, dropping his head in his lap. “Whoa! Wha – “ The human shrieked and then calmed down and looked down at Toothless in concern. His hand awkwardly landed on Toothless’ scales and then started rubbing them soothingly. “I-I’m sorry, Toothless.”

They stayed there, sitting together and mourning the recent death, in silence.

Toothless was shaken out of his grieving state by the feeling of the human shuddering underneath him. Lifting his head, the Night Fury looked around only to realize that the sun had already set and they were embraced by the darkness and the cool air of the late hours. Glancing at the human, Toothless realized that he was shivering from the cold. As a dragon, Toothless didn’t have that problem since he had his fire to warm him, but humans probably didn’t have that advantage.

Getting up, Toothless stretched his legs and tried to ignore the body of his dead mother as he shuffled a little. The human hatchling watched him wearily, teeth chattering and arms wrapped around his tiny body to keep warm. Seeing as this wasn’t helping, Toothless spread his wings and wrapped them around the surprised human. He focused on the fire burning inside him and looked at the hatchling as he huddled closer to Toothless’ body, shivers dying down the longer he stayed enveloped in the warm body of the dragon.

“Thank you…” The human whispered and then his eyes closed and Toothless listened to his breaths as they evened out. The human hatchling was out like a light, probably exhausted. Toothless spared a look around, checking to see that they were really safe, and then got comfortable and let sleep take him.

At least he had no dreams that night.

The next day Toothless woke up to the sound of water splashing. He turned around quickly, ready to fight off whatever came at him, only to spot a familiar figure bending over the lake in the middle of the cove, two dead fish lying next to him on the ground. Creeping closer to the human hatchling, Toothless watched as he used a stick to impale another fish before pulling the dead creature out of the water and putting it down next to the other two.

“Hmm… you’re not bad at this.” Toothless warbled, voice a little rusty with sleep.

The human hatchling startled a little before turning to face Toothless, his shoulders sagging. “Oh, good morning, Toothless.” He said and smiled. The dragon tried to copy the gesture again. “I was just hungry… and I figured maybe you could use something to eat, too, right?” He nodded at the three fish and then held one out for Toothless. “You do eat fish, right?”

To answer the question, Toothless opened his mouth, teeth hidden, and allowed the hatchling to drop the fish into his maw. He swallowed easily and then bent down to pull in the second fish. Once he finished he waited for the human to eat the third fish but was surprised to see a somewhat sheepish expression on the hatchling who rubbed the back of his neck and looked from the fish to the dragon.

“Umm… the thing is that… humans don’t really eat raw fish.” He said slowly. Toothless blinked at him. So what did they eat? Why did they always have fish if they never ate them? “We cook them before.” Toothless still didn’t get it. “You know, with fire. We hold them over the flames until the fish is ready and then we eat.” He explained further.

That was strange. Toothless huffed at the human but then turned around, focused on the fire in his stomach, and opened his jaw before letting out a small plasma blast. It burned the grass not too far from the two and little flames kept on flickering there, dancing under the light of the rising sun. He turned to look at the human hatchling and found him smiling cheerfully as he impaled the dead fish and went over to the fire before just holding the fish there, letting it burn slowly.

“Humans are odd.” Toothless grumbled but then turned his back on the human in order to focus on his mom. She was dead. She was gone. “Night Furies never show themselves…” He warbled under his breath. Those were his mom’s words. Vikings didn’t even know what they looked like. Well, except for the one cooking his meal behind him. “So I can’t let them find you here. I’m sorry.”

With bitter determination, Toothless fired at the body of his mother and set it aflame. He averted his eyes when the fire spread, eating at the last relative he had. His eyes focused on the human who looked at the fire and then at Toothless with sadness. Normally, Toothless wouldn’t have wanted a human’s pity, but now it was the only thing he had. This Viking was the only being in existence that knew about Toothless and seemed to care about him.

Walking toward him, Toothless let his body drop next to the hatchling, his paw only a few inches away from the human’s leg. He waited as his friend ate the burned fish – how that could taste good was beyond him – and then shuffled back to his feet. The human came with him to be there for Toothless during his mom’s last moments. Now Toothless needed to help the hatchling find his way back to his family. They were probably worried about him at this point. And the human hatchling needed to get back to his home.

Luckily, the hatchling seemed to understand where Toothless was going because he followed willingly, chatting with the dragon the entire way, even if he couldn’t always understand what Toothless tried telling him. Apparently, his name was Hiccup and he was the son of the chief – Toothless had no idea what that meant but he just listened to his new friend as they walked through the forest side by side. Hiccup just started working as the blacksmith’s apprentice, meaning he made weapons for the Vikings. That part didn’t bode too well with Toothless but he decided it wasn’t Hiccup’s fault that he had to help his tribe. At least he wasn’t a warrior himself.

According to Hiccup, he had two friends. Or more like… acquaintances, at best. A boy and a girl his age that tolerated talking to him but were distancing themselves from him like the rest of his village. So Toothless wasn’t wrong about that – the human hatchling was pretty much alone. It sounded like his own kind didn’t want him. For a moment Toothless entertained the thought of taking Hiccup with him to wherever he was going to go from this island, but then he realized he couldn’t. Whether or not his village liked him, Hiccup had a father that probably loved him. He couldn’t take the hatchling from his family.

It didn’t take them long to reach the edge of the forest. There was a house really close by, standing over the other houses, as if looking down at them to make sure everything else was okay. “That’s my house.” Hiccup said, pointing at it. Then he gestured for Toothless to hide. “If my dad sees you, nothing I say will prevent him from trying to kill you, buddy.”

Like a Viking man could ever truly hurt Toothless. The dragon had wings and could just fly away, if he wanted to. He just felt like he shouldn’t. He didn’t like the thought of heading out on his own, without Hiccup. He didn’t know the human hatchling for long, but it felt like he just formed a bond with someone – and a strong bond that was based on trust, at that. How could Toothless just leave it all behind to go be on his own?

Bending down next to Toothless, Hiccup put his hand soothingly on the top of the dragon’s head. “I’m sorry I can’t stay with you, Toothless.” He said and he sounded earnest. “I’m sure you’re feeling pretty bad right now since your parent…” He trailed off awkwardly and cringed a little. Toothless crooned though he didn’t really say anything. He just wanted to calm his human down. The hatchling smiled. “Maybe I’ll see you again… someday…”

“I’ll come back.” Toothless promised and nudged the human’s hand a little. “I won’t forget.”

Hiccup pulled back with a sad smile as Toothless spread his wings, preparing to take flight. The dragon and human maintained eye contact for a long moment, just staring at each other. Toothless felt like the more he was looking, the more he was getting to know this strange Viking. But then he flapped his wings and skyrocketed into the sky, letting the air rush past him as he moved away from the island. He didn’t look back – he knew that if he did, he would have turned tail and stayed there, on that island – but he could still swear he could feel Hiccup’s eyes on him as he flew away.

Honestly, Toothless had no idea how long it took him before he heard it – the call that seemed to sink invisible claws into his scales, pulling him into the foggy area that was filled with stone pillars sticking out of the sea. The Night Fury flew toward it, his mind beginning to swim. His mother’s words echoed inside his head, warning him about getting too close to the queen and the nest. Warning him about following this call.

But he couldn’t resist.

Present

The Night Fury sailed through the air, camouflaged against the dark sky as he followed the other dragons who flew over to one of the islands, the queen’s orders clear in their minds – they needed to get more food, no matter what. And that meant another raid on a Viking village. Another pointless fight. More blood shed on both sides. Less dragons coming back.

Luckily – or maybe it was actually his curse – the Night Fury never had to get too close and could always attack from afar. His job was to take care of the Vikings’ defenses, out of sight and undetected until it was already too late. They hated him, he knew. Both dragons and humans. They all thought he was either too spoiled to be bothered with dealing with the humans face to face, risking his life, or that he was the most dangerous kind of dragon to ever exist, with how sneaky he was. Unfortunately, as far as he could tell, the most dangerous dragon was the queen – he had nothing on her other than speed.

Gliding over the island, the Night Fury observed the fight and flinched a little at the sight of a Nadder being taken down by the Vikings, roughly being shoved to the ground. He wanted to help her but the queen’s hum irked him, warning him not to get involved in such a thing. He had other things to worry about. Like the watchtowers of the village. He needed to take them out quickly and swiftly. That was his job and he needed to do it so that the queen could see he was doing his job and was worth keeping around, alive.

And so, he tucked his wings close to his body and dove toward the nearest watchtower, the whistle of the fire building in his mouth and his speed alerting the Vikings below who screamed his name in fear and jumped away to take cover right before the Night Fury let out a plasma blast that took out the watchtower. Nobody was hurt, but the job was done. Evening his flight, the dragon soared back up quickly, not wanting to stay too close to the fight in case anyone managed to notice him despite his black scales.

Next one.

Flying over, the Night Fury did the same thing to the second watchtower, taking it down without a hitch. He was used to doing that and he was used to being shouted at by the Vikings who cursed him and his kind. Like there was any other Night Furies left… he wasn’t sure why there weren’t any left because he could barely recall his own parents, but he was certain of the fact that he was the only one remaining. And he was going to survive for as long as possible because he didn’t feel like going down easily.

Preparing to strike the third tower, he dove down and let the fire build in his throat before he opened his mouth---- and immediately swallowed the burning gas back down. The dragon blinked down in confusion. There was a human – a small one compared to the others – standing on the ground next to the tower. He wasn’t looking at the sky but rather at an angry Monstrous Nightmare that was approaching him, seemingly playing with his prey.

Of course, there wasn’t anything unusual about the sight – dragons and humans fought. It was the nature of their relationship – if you could call it that – for years now. So he wasn’t supposed to be this taken aback by the sight. But as the Night Fury watched, his mind buzzing unpleasantly, he felt more and more on edge as the human backed away from the Nightmare who opened his mouth and got ready to spit liquid fire at the Viking.

The watchtower, Night Fury.

The dragon shook his head a little at the sound of the queen’s order pressing on him from the nest. That’s right – he was supposed to fire at the tower, not stare at the doomed human. But… but there was just something about it… he couldn’t look away. He needed to – because the queen’s orders were law – but he couldn’t. his body tingled as he felt his wings moving against the will of the queen, helping him dive toward the ground.

What are you doing?!

Honestly, he wasn’t sure. But the next thing he knew, he was on the ground between the Monstrous Nightmare and the human, his back to the human and his face turned toward the other dragon that loomed over them, blinking in confusion at the Night Fury’s appearance. Snarling, the Night Fury hissed at the Nightmare in warning. Sure, he was smaller than the other dragon, but he could take him on, no trouble. Night Furies really were amazing.

“W-what are you doing??” The Nightmare demanded, shocked.

Shaking his head, the black dragon let his wings expand a little. “This human didn’t do anything – you need to get food, not play with your prey! Get back to work!” He growled. The Nightmare just stared at him, obviously shaken by the weird behavior. “Come on, get lost! Help the others! Unless you want her to eat you alive when you come back with nothing of worth?” With a low grumble, the Monstrous Nightmare shot back into the air before joining the other fighting dragons. The Night Fury’s wings shifted. “Good choice…”

The watchtower! The watchtower! What do you think you’re doing, Night Fury? Get back to work before I end you! I’ll end your race before you can –

“Toothless?”

The human voice somehow cut through the racing, angry words of the queen and the Night Fury turned around sharply to see the human he saved. He was really small compared to other Vikings, and didn’t seem to carry any kind of weapon. His mouth was wide open and his eyes shining. But there was no fear on his face. He didn’t look like he was scared of the Night Fury like he was from the Nightmare, only awed.

Glaring at him, the Night Fury observed the human carefully, his teeth still out and ready to strike. He had no idea who this human was – he had no idea what was going on – but he could feel something in his mind, trying to come out from under the oppression of the queen. Her voice fought it, battling over the control and the dragon just found himself staring at the human, unmoving. He’s never before set foot on the ground during a raid. This felt strange. Especially since a human was seeing him without trying to launch an attack.

This felt weird.

This felt right.

Hesitantly, the human lifted a hand toward Toothless. “H-hey… remember me?”

“Stay away!” The Night Fury snarled and backed up, his wings spreading again as he got ready to fight. The human faltered a little at the response but didn’t pull back. Instead he just stared intently into the dragon’s eyes, as if searching for something. “Who are you? What are you doing? Stay away from me! I won’t – huh?” The Night Fury blinked a few times at the human that took a deep breath in before turning his head away, still holding his hand out for the dragon. “W-what’s going on?”

No, don’t fall into his trap!

The Night Fury took a few cautious step forward, keeping his eyes on the outstretched hand and the head that was facing away from him. And then he sniffed the limb that was being presented to him and it felt… it felt familiar. Like he’s been in this situation before. And the cries of hurt dragons and Vikings somehow made it even more similar to a memory the Night Fury couldn’t recall.

Step away from the human, Night Fury! Or better yet, kill him! Kill him now! This is your chance!

Kill him? His fire started building up in his throat at the order but the dragon shook his head in despair, trying to fight it off. Because whatever the familiar scent coming from the human was… whatever it meant… it gave the dragon the feeling of safety. For some reason he felt like he could relax around this human, whoever he was. He didn’t want to kill him. It wasn’t like he was trying to kill him, after all. The queen was wrong about him – he wasn’t dangerous or tricking the Night Fury. He was just… he was… showing trust.

“I won’t. I won’t kill him for you.” The Night Fury whined. The voice of the queen intensified, getting stronger and louder until his head started aching. The human retracted his hand and turned back to look at the Night Fury, face scrunched up in concern. Concern for the Night Fury. “I won’t kill him!”

“Toothless?” The human said hesitantly.

The dragon shook his head some more as he fought off the queen’s orders, his wings beating to take him off the ground. He blindly hovered in the air, his eyes closed as he tried desperately to fight for his mind to be his own again. He couldn’t remember a lot of his past from before the queen got to him. He could barely remember who he was or where he came from because the queen took these memories and locked them all away. But he knew that if his instincts told him to protect this human… well, then he needed to listen to them.

Trust your instincts.

The words echoed in his mind, but the voice didn’t belong to the queen – it belonged to another female dragon. Probably his mom. He tried to picture her. She was dying, bleeding, on the ground of a forest. He was there, feeling miserable but knowing he couldn’t do anything to save his mom… and was there someone else there? The human, right? He was there… smaller than he was now, but still smelling the same.

“Leave me alone! Let me go, you tyrant!” He roared.

Kill him! Destroy this village!

He whimpered in pain as his head seemed to explode from the hum of the queen’s voice. Opening his eyes, the Night Fury found the human still standing below him, looking very worried as he called out to the dragon in confusion, though his voice was already pretty far because in his frustration the black dragon has made his way higher and higher, getting further and further away from the ground and the human the queen wanted dead, for some reason.

Kill him! Bring me back the food you find! OBEY ME, NIGHT FURY!

“No! No, I won’t! I won’t… let go, let go…”

HOW DARE YOU FIGHT ME?! WHO DO YOU THINK KEPT YOU ALIVE ALL THIS TIME?! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU OWE YOUR LIFE TO?! DO AS I SAY, NIGHT FURY!!!

“TOOTHLESS!”

The dragon’s eyes snapped to the side just in time to see the screeching dragon that was struggling forward, flying away from the Vikings below. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem for the Night Fury, but he was already out of it from this mind game he was having with the queen so he didn’t have the time to swerve out of the way, resulting in the dragon flying straight into him. They collided in the air and the Night Fury was sent painfully down, toward the forest. The queen kept on screeching at him, the human screamed after him in alarm and the Night Fury shrieked in fear as he tumbled toward the ground.

And then he crashed and everything went black.

The first thing he processed was the pain. In his entire body, head to tail. His muscles all ached and his head swirled a little as he blinked his eyes open slowly, trying to understand where he was and what was going on. And then the worst pain hit him – it was at the end of his tail, where his tailfin was. He moved it a little but found out that he could only feel one tailfin and not the other.

Panicked, he turned around and stared at his tail. There was his black tailfin, moving accordingly, and next to it… empty space and a little dried blood. He felt sick just looking at it because he knew what it meant – if he didn’t have his tailfin, he couldn’t fly. If he couldn’t fly… what the hell was he going to do?? He was a dragon – he was a Night Fury! He could survive this long because he could fly faster than other dragons, but now he was grounded, bound by gravity like the humans.

Shaking his head, he tried to shake the pain in his head away before he realized something new – his head was… quiet. There was no angry, female voice inside, bossing him around. No buzz of ruthlessness or possession. He was finally at peace, his thoughts his own and his alone. And after finding that out, he could finally try and access his memories.

His mom and he, flying side by side. His mom fishing for the both of them and then giving him all the fish he could ever want, mocking him about his big appetite. His mom and he lurking on an island and observing the sheep that walked around, waiting for the right moment to strike. His mom and he flying over the raids and watching as dragons fell all around them by Vikings. His mom telling him to stay away from the queen and her area of influence because it was impossible to get away from her once she had you.

Well, apparently that little piece of information wasn’t as accurate as it should have been. Luckily.

“Toothless!”

The dragon perked up at the nasally voice, his earflaps flicking in the direction it came from. He remembered now. How could he have ever forgotten? The queen must have blocked the memories because she thought it might be too dangerous if he remembered the human, but now that she had no control over him, he could picture the little human hatchling that offered him his trust and then was there to comfort the Night Fury when his mom died. The human that fished for him – maybe not a lot, but enough. The human that gave him a name.

He's forgotten his own name!

“Toothless!!” The human called again. The voice was older now – not by much, of course, but enough to be a little different – but the quality of it was the same. There weren’t a lot of humans with this kind of voice, after all. “Oh, the Gods hate me…” The human moaned and the Night Fury – Toothless! – started going toward him silently. “Some people lose their knife or their mug. No, not me. I manage to lose an entire dragon??” He continued, sounding upset. “Toothless!!! Come on, where are you…?”

The Night Fury moved between the trees, keeping an eye out, until he saw the human walking nearby, his eyes roaming around as he looked for something. Someone. For Toothless. “Hiccup!” He warbled and watched as the human stopped walking before turning to look in Toothless’ direction, eyes wide. Moving forward, Toothless made his way closer to Hiccup until he was right in front of him. The boy wasn’t running away in fear, but he didn’t get any closer, either. “It’s me again. The queen’s gone now.”

The words didn’t seem to register in Hiccup’s brain, of course, but the human still smiled a little at Toothless’ soft croon. “Toothless?” Hiccup asked, voice a little strained, like he was on edge. When Toothless took a cautious step closer, careful not to scare the human away, his friend’s lips tugged up. “You remember me, bud? It’s you, right?” He lifted his hand toward the dragon who sniffed it, just to confirm that this person was, in fact, the same human from all of these years ago. It was. “I’ll take that as a – whoa!”

Cutting him off, Toothless jumped forward and nudged Hiccup’s abdomen – perhaps a little too enthusiastically. With a surprised yelp, the human fell to the ground and Toothless pinned him down with his head that he rested on top of the boy that started chuckling, not even bothering to try and get back up.

Toothless’ memories from his time serving the queen were a little off and foggy, but he remembered how the other dragons always stayed away from him, too annoyed with his less life-threatening missions. So he never had a draconic friend in the nest. But Hiccup was his friend – he remembered that. The human even came looking for him after watching him getting tackled out of the air.

Hand scratching Toothless’ scales, Hiccup leaned back on his elbow to lift his head enough to look Toothless in the eye. “Thanks for stopping that Nightmare.” He said. “Although, for a second there it looked like you were going to shoot me, too.”

“Sorry…”

Finally, the human tried to sit up so Toothless adjusted himself until his head rested in the boy’s lap rather than on his stomach. “Wow… you definitely grew up since the last time I saw you, huh?” The boy commented and Toothless huffed. “Well, I guess I did, too, but definitely not as much.” He added dryly and then a small frown appeared on his face as he looked up and away from Toothless. The dragon warbled curiously. “Sorry, I’m just… thinking. I wish I knew what happened back there, but you can’t really… explain it to me.”

The Night Fury snorted. “It’s not my fault you don’t understand.” He grumbled. Hiccup blinked at him quizzically but then just sighed and smiled. “Yeah, I know, that didn’t help. Maybe someday you’ll get it. It’s not THAT hard.” He swished his tail a little before whimpering in pain at the reminder that his tailfin was gone. “Right, almost forgot about that…” He warbled to himself and looked back at his tail again.

Following his line of sight, Hiccup seemed to notice the lack of a second tailfin, too, because he furrowed his brows and tilted his head to the side. “That… doesn’t look right.” He noted. Toothless blinked at him blankly. “Did it happen when you fell?” The boy grimaced. “This looks painful. Do you mind if I take a look?”

Not too thrilled about this, Toothless brought his tail closer for Hiccup to inspect warily. The boy didn’t touch it, luckily, and only observed the area with a thoughtful frown. He looked like he was trying to figure something out before he shrugged and leaned back and away from the damaged limb, mumbling in sympathy to Toothless before asking if he was going to wait until the pain subsided before leaving the island.

“I can’t leave.” Toothless said. Hiccup just stared at him, not realizing the gravity of the situation. Alright, Toothless was going to show him, then. And he was going to hate it, but at least his friend would understand. “Okay, just… duck if I get to close, alright?” He spread his wings and prepared his only remaining tailfin even though he knew it wouldn’t be of any help to him now. “Here comes the pain…”

He pushed off the ground at once and heard Hiccup’s confused voice asking if he was really leaving already. Toothless heard the words as he tried to stabilize in the air only to feel unbalanced. The air flowed all wrong around him and his wings couldn’t keep him up. And so, muscles tensing in preparation for the incoming pain, Toothless’ body started to plummet down before he crashed again, not too far away from the human who got up and ran to his side quickly, looking shocked and concerned.

The crash-landing was definitely something Toothless expected would happen, but the fact that it actually did… it still made him whine in frustration. Because it made the reality he was living in all the more clear – he couldn’t fly. He was a Night Fury that couldn’t fly and that meant he couldn’t leave the island and couldn’t hunt food properly and if he looked into the future… well, he couldn’t look too far ahead because if Toothless stayed on the ground like that, he wasn’t going to last very long. He was a creature of the sky – he couldn’t survive on the ground alone.

“You can’t fly?” Hiccup muttered. “I’m sorry, Toothless. You wouldn’t have been in this situation had I not been there in the first place. I guess now the people of Berk aren’t the only ones who think I’m always in the wrong place at the wrong time…” He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair before looking up at the sky. Toothless was pretty sure the raid happened close to dawn but now the sun was already about to set again. Wow, he was out for quite some time, then, huh? “I need to get back. I wish I could take you with me, but if my dad saw you, he’d probably chop your head off or something.”

Without his ability to fly, the threat was a lot more real than ever before. Toothless gulped uneasily, looking down at his predicament. He was going to die, wasn’t he? All alone, in this forest on this island. Berk, Hiccup called it? Well, at least he would die on the same land as his mother had – wait! “I’ve got it!”

He started running, not waiting to check and see if Hiccup followed or not, but he was certain the boy would be on his tail. Just like the last time. It wasn’t hard to find the cove where his mom had died. Her body was no longer there, but Toothless would forever remember this place. Hiccup seemed to remember it, too, because as he panted and tried to regain his breath, his eyes widened at the sight of the cove.

Jumping down, Toothless spread his wings to glide into the cove and only stumbled a little as his paws reached the ground. He felt a little like a hatchling again. A few moments later, Hiccup joined him down there, looking around curiously while nodding. “You’re gonna stay here, then, I guess?” The boy assumed. Toothless burned the ground at his feet and then settled down comfortably. The human smiled. “I see you already feel at home, bud. So I’m just gonna go… but I’ll come back with something for you to eat the moment I can – I promise.”

“If you bring me two fish at a time again, I can guarantee that’s not gonna be enough.” The Night Fury warbled but let the human touch his snout briefly, as if they were sealing a pact. He imitated Hiccup’s smile the best he could and then crooned softly. “It’s okay – I’ll be fine till you come back.” He glanced up at the walls of the cove. “I’m actually not sure I’ll be able to get out of here if I tried… Might not have been my brightest plan…”

And then he watched as Hiccup climbed back out of the cove, his footsteps fading out as he got further and further away.

“My dad put me in dragon training!”

“In what?”

---

“I nearly died today from a Gronckle.”

“Wait, what??”

---

“My dad and some other Vikings set out to try and find your nest, again.”

“Let’s see how many return this time, then.”

---

“I’m pretty sure Gobber thinks the one who would ‘get the honor of killing his first dragon’ would be the only teen who survives dragon training.”

“Who’s Gobber and why is he trying to kill you?!”

---

“Yeah, I don’t like eel much, either.”

“You’re a dragon at heart – it makes sense.”

---

“I may or may not have totally blown it today in training. Astrid was pissed off…”

“Astrid who?”

---

“Yeah, what do you think about it? Hey, stop squirming! It’s okay!”

“You’re touching my injured tail – it’s very much not okay!”

---

“Yeah!!”

“We just crash-landed in a lake – what are you celebrating?!”

---

“Toothless, is this some kind of… dragon… nip?”

“Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care… This is so nice…”

---

“Stop messing around and let me put the tail on!”

“Let me have one day when I don’t need to crash!”

---

“Remember how when I scratched you under the chin you went down immediately? I used it on the Gronckle in training today and it worked, too!”

“Of course it did – now do it again, do it again!”

---

“You’re officially a giant cat, bud.”

“Ugh, stop comparing me to other animals and instead hop down and help me find that sneaky dot of light!”

---

“Keep it down, will ya? This is already way too risky…”

Yeah, Hiccup was right about that. Toothless tried to keep his head down and made sure his steps were silent as he followed his human into the village of the Vikings, a jammed hook connecting him to Hiccup. According to the boy, they needed the tools he had at the forge back in the village to separate the two of them again, but for that… well, they were going to have to sneak together into a village where everyone hated dragons like Toothless. Well… it’s not like the dragon had any other options. Unless he just wanted to spend his life attached to his best friend.

Okay, it didn’t sound TOO bad.

Still, he followed Hiccup silently, trusting the boy to keep him hidden while also glancing around at the dark village. There were no people outside, other than one or two guards that seemed to walk around and make sure everything was in order. Hiccup smiled nervously at those ones, pretending everything was fine while Toothless kept hidden behind houses, his dark scales allowing him to hide in the shadows a lot better than other dragons. At least they had that going for them. That, and the fact that a lot of people from the village weren’t even there since they were looking for the dragon’s nest. Which would be their doom, but Toothless couldn’t say that to his friend, so he just tried to forget about it.

Walking into a human building, Toothless followed Hiccup into the dark space and observed his surroundings. It wasn’t the most welcoming place on the island, that’s for sure. Especially with all of the weapons hanging off the walls or lying around. He stuck his snout into a bucket when a funny scent hit his nose but there was nothing inside and it just irked Hiccup who urged him to keep it down and not draw attention to their presence.

“Hey, I’ve never seen anything like this before.” He crooned and observed a hole in the wall. It was made of bricks and there was coal inside, just lying there. Toothless had no idea what it was for, but he figured it was related to human stuff. So captivated by everything new around him, Toothless missed it when Hiccup called for him to follow him deeper into the closed space so the Viking tugged on the cord binding them together and made Toothless jerk in his direction, his limbs hitting a few tools that fell to the ground with a loud clattering sound. “Oops.” Toothless warbled. Hiccup cringed and gawked at him. “Well, it’s your fault.”

But he did sit quietly as Hiccup pulled up something made out of metal and started trying to work with the harness attached to Toothless’ saddle. It didn’t feel like anything was changing, but Toothless trusted Hiccup to make it work, eventually. The boy built this contraption in the first place – surely he could manipulate it enough to free them from each other.

“Hiccup? Are you in there?”

The two raised their heads at the voice that came from outside the forge. Toothless crooned questioningly while Hiccup’s face was overtaken by a look of terror. He quickly let go of Toothless and whatever tool he was messing around with and whispered for the dragon to stay quiet and hidden inside before jumping out to talk to the female. From the sound of it, her name was Astrid. Toothless was pretty sure about this because Hiccup said it at least three times for no apparent reason.

It sounded like the girl was asking Hiccup whether things were okay because she was suspicious of his behavior – which made sense considering he was hiding a Night Fury in a human forge – but Toothless tuned them out, trusting Hiccup to keep them safe. Instead, he focused on a sheep that stared at him, eyes wide with horror at the sight of a dragon. Honestly, Toothless didn’t like eating sheep much since he preferred fish, but the scared animal amused him.

Bleating, the sheep took a few steps back in alarm and Toothless advanced toward it, in return. When the sheep backed up more, Toothless pulled forward even more, though he felt some kind of resistance so he tried a little harder only to remember Hiccup was still attached to him and that he was trying to have a conversation with another human to try and keep everything he was doing a secret. Well, that was obviously out the window, now. Especially since Hiccup was pulled back into the forge by Toothless, looking stunned for less than a second. Then the boy got up, pulled a metal tool nearby and mounted Toothless.

The two made it out of the forge before that Astrid girl could even understand what was going on. Using the night as their cover, Toothless and Hiccup flew out of the village and back to the cove where Hiccup went right back to working on the jammed harness. “You know, for a sneaky reptile, you suck at not attracting attention to yourself, bud.” Hiccup muttered as he pushed on the harness with his tool.

“We didn’t get caught, did we? That Viking girl didn’t see anything.” Toothless warbled. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”

Rolling his eyes, Hiccup sent the dragon an annoyed look though his lips were tugging up, like he found the situation somewhat amusing despite almost getting found out. Toothless nudged him lightly, making the boy chuckle and rub his scales a little. “Yeah, yeah… okay. Whatever you say, bud. But let’s try not to do this again, okay? I-I’m a terrible liar – I don’t think anyone would believe me if I had to cover for us again. Especially Astrid.” His voice softened a little when he said the name and Toothless glanced at him curiously. “She’s too smart to be fooled like the others…”

Intrigued, Toothless sniffed Hiccup a few times but he couldn’t detect the scent of a female on him. Nothing major like what Toothless expected to find in case the human had a mate. All he could smell were Hiccup’s usual scent and his own – spending so much time together was ought to rub off on the human, after all. Hiccup probably didn’t know about it since the Night Fury realized at some point that humans didn’t seem to have keen senses like dragons, but the scent of Toothless probably helped the boy who needed to face dragons on a daily basis.

Sure, a lot of dragons disliked Toothless because of his job under the queen’s control, but the free dragons who didn’t care about the queen and the raids only cared about the fact that the boy smelled like a Night Fury – a living one. Meaning he was close to him. Meaning he was safe. Because if someone spent this much time around a dragon without also catching the scent of a dragon’s blood, it meant that the dragon let this human get this close. It meant that this human was okay and wouldn’t harm the dragon, which also translated to the fact that this person could probably be around other dragons without trying to harm them.

Anyway, Hiccup didn’t catch any other human smell so that girl couldn’t be his mate. Then again, maybe it was still the beginning of something? Or maybe it wasn’t reciprocated. Or Toothless was simply reading this all wrong and the boy didn’t really have anything to do with that Astrid girl, although he has mentioned her a few times, always sounding awed.

“Humans are confusing…”

With a creak, Toothless noticed the feeling of the tiny pressure of the cord finally giving way. “Yes!” Hiccup sighed and then beamed down at Toothless. “If you ignore that disaster – today wasn’t too bad, right?” He said and took the sheet of paper from Toothless’ saddle before putting it safely away. Toothless warbled nonsense in agreement and let Hiccup take the saddle off his back. The moment it was gone, the dragon settled back down and closed his eyes contently. There was a puff of air from Hiccup. “You know what, I just realized this would have all been solved had we just taken the gear off – we wouldn’t have needed to sneak into the village had I thought of that… t-that’s my bad.”

Toothless shook his head a little. “It was fun, though.” He crooned. “Maybe we can sneak back again, sometime. At night, when it’s dark. I’ll try to stay a little more hidden this time so that you don’t get in trouble.” He cracked one eye open to see Hiccup’s reaction. The boy just smiled at him in amusement, clearly not understanding a word. Well, they had time for the boy to somehow learn the language. It could happen, right? If Toothless could understand Norse, what stopped Hiccup from learning to understand dragons?

“I’ll see you tomorrow, bud, alright? We’re gonna finally try this for real. We’ll be fine, right?”

The Night Fury glanced at the bundle of leather and metal his human was holding and felt a burning flame of determination and excitement stirring in his body, making him restless. He was going to get back up there, to the sky, where he belonged. He was going to share this experience with his best friend for the first time. “Yes. We’re gonna make it.” He crooned softly and nuzzled Hiccup’s hand until the boy pressed his palm to his head, rubbing slightly with a smile. “And you’re gonna love it.”

Eyes sparkling, Hiccup chuckled breathlessly and pressed his forehead to Toothless’. “You’re gonna fly again.” The human whispered. “I’m gonna make sure of that. I promise, Toothless.”

It wasn’t the smoothest flight, but Toothless didn’t really expect it to go perfectly okay on their first real try together. Well, first try in the air, above water, without the safety of the ground nearby. In fact, simply not plummeting to their deaths was a pretty great achievement according to his standards.

Obviously, they had to start off slowly because it was still a test, and, of course, it was Hiccup’s first real flight. But Toothless was anxiously waiting for the moment he could really fly and cut through the air. He was built for speed. He was used to maneuver easily across the sky. But for Hiccup’s sake, he took it slowly. They had to learn how to operate the artificial tailfin and get in sync before doing anything crazy.

Hiccup was mumbling something to himself as they glided over the sea toward a stone arc they wanted to pass through. They could do it. They would do it. Toothless braced himself, gulping a little. On his own, he would have made it without a hitch. It wasn’t even an obstacle. But he had Hiccup on his back, controlling one of his tailfins. He couldn’t treat anything lightly – this was a life or death situation, even though he was determined to make sure Hiccup made it out of this alive, if he could help it.

The two of them flew under the stone arc and once they made it to the other side, Toothless heaved a sigh of relief, feeling a little more sure of himself. “Yes! It worked!” Hiccup said enthusiastically. A moment later they hit a stone pillar. And by ‘they’, Toothless meant ‘he’. Shaking his head, he grumbled a little in annoyance. “Sorry!” Hiccup called. They hit another pillar.

“Focus, Hiccup!” Toothless growled.

“That’s my fault.” The Viking admitted and Toothless retaliated by smacking him with his earflaps. The boy grunted a little but seemed to take it in stride. Sure, ‘cause he deserved it. “Yeah, yeah, I’m on it. Position four. Uh, three.” He muttered to himself.

That wasn’t very reassuring but Toothless just let that go and focused on moving accordingly. Adrenaline flooded every cell in his body as they both began to ascend upward. “Yes! Finally!” He roared joyfully, hearing Hiccup’s own excited calls of encouragement and delight. Letting his tongue slip out, Toothless let the cold air and the breeze envelope him in a familiar hug he’s missed for a while now. “Told you you’d love it up here!”

They were climbing higher and higher, both ecstatic at finally being free from the ground and the gravity that bound them to it. “Oh, this is amazing! The wind in my – CHEAT SHIT! STOOOP!” Hiccup’s enthusiasm suddenly turned to horror and Toothless wasn’t sure what was going on, but he obeyed the command, his wings spreading by his sides as he waited to see what was going on. His eyes widened in alarm when he looked up and saw Hiccup getting separated from him from the thrust of their climb, his limbs flailing in the air.

And then they both started getting pulled down toward certain death. “OH, GREAT ALPHA, NO!” Toothless roared in fright as he tried and failed to control his flight. Without Hiccup to control his tailfin, he couldn’t do anything. Not save himself and not save his human. “NOT AGAIN, NOT AGAIN, NOT AGAIN!!” He thought back to the night he met Hiccup again, falling from the sky and getting badly injured. Sure, he might actually still survive this lethal fall, but Hiccup wasn’t as sturdy as a dragon. “HICCUP!!”

In the back of his mind, Toothless noted the fact that compared to a flightless creature, Hiccup was managing to keep his cool. Sure, he was screaming while desperately trying to find a way to stay airborne but he wasn’t helplessly plummeting, instead trying to figure out a way to survive despite finding himself in midair, heading toward the ground. A lot of dragons in such a situation would have lost their minds, but Hiccup was doing pretty well. It was actually somewhat calming.

“You gotta kinda… angle yourself!” Hiccup called over the roar of the wind and Toothless tried to listen and do as he was told, but instead he ended up spinning in the air, out of control. “Okay, no, no, no. Come back down toward me! Come back down – OW!” Toothless finally managed to stop the spinning when he felt his tail connecting with Hiccup’s face, making the boy flinch in pain. That was a disaster! That was most definitely a disaster!

Screeching, Toothless spread his wings to slow his descent and tried to right himself like he would have done had he still been able to fly. With his wings spread like that his plummet slowed down enough for Hiccup to catch up to him because he felt the human grabbing onto the saddle again before pulling himself into place. The tailfin opened as Hiccup’s leg connected with the mechanism that was responsible for the activation of the contraption and Toothless shrieked as they kept on falling, waiting for Hiccup to do something because without the boy he couldn’t steer or stop this terrible fall.

He heard the flip-flaps of the paper Hiccup was holding – the one that explained the positions of the tailfin – before the sound faded away and a movement against his tail let him know that Hiccup changed the position of the tailfin. Toothless immediately reacted and adjusted himself quickly, his speed coming into play now that the two of them were navigating between the sea stacks that were directly in their way.

Toothless’ mind seemed to narrow down until his thoughts were consumed by the thrill of the speedy, quick and sharp ride. He moved without sparing a single thought to the movements of his body, instead letting his instincts take the wheel and steer him in the right direction. A part of him was amazed that Hiccup managed to keep up with him because Toothless was moving like he used to before he got hurt and whenever he needed to escape something or someone. He was moving erratically and yet his human was handling it, moving the tailfin and his entire body to help the best he could without uttering a single word.

And then the sea stacks were gone and Toothless blinked at the open sea that was spread before the two of them. They weren’t hurt. They were both perfectly okay, if a little stunned. The adrenaline from this show of skill was pumping throughout Toothless’ body and the dragon felt like he was on a high. Sitting on his back, Hiccup was quiet as he seemed to take in the fact that they were still alive.

“YEAH!!!” Hiccup called eventually and Toothless warbled in content before shooting a plasma blast to celebrate their success. A moment later he remembered that Hiccup wasn’t fireproof when the boy’s enthusiasm seemed to dim at the sight of the ball of fire they were flying toward. “Oh, come on…” He mumbled. Toothless cringed as they passed through the fire and Hiccup’s body tensed a little before he started coughing madly. The moment he calmed down, though, he patted Toothless’ head lightly. “Let’s find somewhere to rest a little, bud.”

“Yeah, okay.” The Night Fury warbled in agreement and pointed in the direction of a small island he thought Hiccup might appreciate. The Viking let him lead and somehow, despite having a rocky start, he seemed to fluidly move along with Toothless, not even a hitch in their flight now that they moved past the hard part of, you know, nearly dying. “You’re a natural. Not surprising, but still.” He noted.

The boy’s only reply was a sigh – small and happy.

Everything started going wrong from that moment on. First, Toothless heard Hiccup coming down to the cove, saying something about running away – which the dragon had no problems with, but it was still a little strange. But before he could come out to greet his friend, he noticed the other Viking – a female that was sharpening an axe nearby. He sniffed the air quietly and narrowed his eyes at her. When Hiccup finally noticed her, he yelped in alarm and then started stuttering like he did a few nights earlier – so that was Astrid.

The girl demanded answers from Hiccup about his success in dragon training, which the boy couldn’t answer honestly, of course. When she hurt his human, Toothless stirred and his muscles tensed. He didn’t like her. She was willing to hurt a fellow human to get her stupid answers? Hiccup wasn’t even being rude or unpleasant – he was only trying to get her as far away from there because he didn’t want her to find out about Toothless. He was even lying to try and get her away – if that could even be called lying. It wasn’t very good.

But then the girl threw Hiccup to the ground and bounced the handle of her axe on his stomach and Toothless had had enough. He lunged forward, ready to take care of her for his human, but when he launched at her, she shoved Hiccup back down and away and held her axe fearfully between herself and the dragon. Roaring, Toothless prepared to lunge forward only to stop in his tracks at the sight of Hiccup getting back up, throwing Astrid’s axe away and stepping between the two, his hands held high to stop them. The girl ended up on the ground as she eyed both of them with anger and fear but Toothless could only growl, not understanding why Hiccup was protecting the girl that a moment earlier was trying to get answers out of him by force.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Hiccup told Toothless and then Astrid. The human turned to look at Toothless again, widening his eyes as if to emphasize a point. “She’s a friend.” He waited until Toothless relaxed – just a little – and then turned to face the girl. Toothless tried to move past him for protection but as the girl got up, Hiccup put his hands on the Night Fury’s snout, trying to hold him back with his small body. “You just scared him.”

“I scared HIM?!” Astrid yelled. And then she seemed to replay the words in her head again, her eyes moving from Hiccup to Toothless. She was frightened, but Toothless figured she deserved that at the very least. “Who is ‘him’?” She demanded.

Taking his hands off the pissed-off Night Fury, Hiccup gestured as he introduced the two. “Astrid, Toothless.” He said. The girl did not look like she wanted to make friends. Then Hiccup turned to Toothless, his expression a little annoyed and desperate. “Toothless, Astrid.” He widened his eyes at the dragon, urging him to accept her and be nice. Yeah, nope. The boy cringed and then glanced at Astrid when Toothless growled and hissed at her. Her reaction was to shake her head at Hiccup before turning around and running away. “Ta-ta-da, we’re dead.” Hiccup deadpanned.

“Fine by me.” Toothless warbled and walked away.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Where do you think you’re going?” Hiccup called after the dragon. Toothless only stopped walking when the Viking ran toward him before stepping in his way. Grumbling, Toothless eyed him with the most unimpressed look on his face. It didn’t deter the boy, though. “Toothless, if she gets back to the village, they will all know about you and what we’ve been doing. We can’t… we can’t let her get there. Please-please, we need to show her you’re not the monster she thinks you are.”

What did it matter anyway? Hiccup mentioned running away, didn’t he? Why should they care what the people in the village thought about him if he wasn’t going to go back there? But the look on the boy’s face made Toothless stop. He couldn’t ignore it. His human still cared about the people he grew up with, no matter how badly they treated him. He wasn’t going to leave now that someone knew about Toothless. So, very reluctantly, Toothless let Hiccup get on his back and the two of them took to the air, flying in the forest to try and catch Astrid.

Of course Toothless’ plan worked. Hiccup wanted to show the girl how nice Toothless was? The dragon didn’t mind that, really. But first he was going to get her to apologize because he wasn’t going to just let someone insult and hurt his best friend and get away with it. Astrid needed to know there were consequences to her actions and that wasn’t negotiable.

So Toothless took into the air with the girl and boy on his back, unrelenting. He did everything he could to make the girl scream and cry out in terror, ignoring Hiccup’s dry comments as he tried to make Toothless stop. None of them worked, of course. Toothless loved Hiccup but this boy had no self-preservation, apparently, so Toothless was going to make sure no one hurt his human on his own.

And it worked. After screaming her throat raw, Astrid’s apologetic words reached Toothless’ ears and the dragon spread his wings and evened out, his mad flight stopping in its tracks. She yelped one last time before everything went quiet. Toothless glided through the air slowly, comfortably, allowing Astrid to relax and unwind after the crazy maneuvers he forced her to tolerate. He heard her awed voice as she seemed to take in the view. After a short while, Hiccup relaxed again, too.

He mostly tuned out their voices as they chatted on his back, knowing that he didn’t really need to pay much attention to that since they were talking about Viking stuff that he didn’t mind much. And yes, he still heard Astrid’s hushed whisper about Hiccup having to kill a Monstrous Nightmare – he already knew Hiccup might face something like that since the boy had mentioned it before.

What Toothless did focus on was the new hum and buzz in the air. It was familiar and enchanting. Calling him, pulling him in, urging him to fly further and further away from Berk and toward… toward… His mind started getting foggier as he flew into the mist over the surface of the water. He heard crooning and warbles, all of them from dragons that showed up around him, flying in the same direction – toward the mesmerizing voice.

He could also hear other voices – strange voices that belonged to no dragon he knew. The voices were hushed and came from nearby. One of them was female, the other male. The male one seemed to almost itch at his brain, like his mind tried telling him something but he couldn’t make it out. A touch on his head made the Night Fury jerk his head and he was glad to note that whoever it was that touched him flinched away.

Come to me, dragons! Come home and feed me!

The voice seemed to come from all around him, but it also revibrated inside of his skull, emanating from within. The Night Fury listened to it because it was familiar. Because it was tugging on him, making him want to listen and obey. He dove in sync with the other dragons around him, following them and the buzzing voice inside a mountain on a foggy island. His muscle memories kicked in a moment later, reminding him that this was familiar territory. So why did it feel so wrong?

Feed me! Give me your prey, your kill, your contribution!

The voice came from the center of the volcano, from the depth of the mountain. The Night Fury glanced down at the red light that came from the core of the mountain and noted the fact that he had nothing to give to the queen. Because that was the queen. His queen. His ruler and alpha and dictator. He needed to give her something, but he had nothing. He usually had nothing, so that wasn’t very surprising.

On his back, something shifted and his focus drifted from the queen to the pressure on his back. There was something there. Someone. No, two. Were they his prey? Was he supposed to give them to the queen? He flew toward the center of the volcano before his mind screeched at him not to go through with this. No, he needed to get settled somewhere and watch the others. He didn’t give the queen anything – he only worked for her. And the ones on his back… the ones on his back weren’t supposed to be the queen’s food.

Changing directions, the Night Fury made his way to a high, narrow stone shelf and hid in its shadows, watching as the dragons dropped their kill into the queen’s mouth, way down there. On his back, the strange creatures whispered to each other in a strange language. They weren’t dragons. No… no, they sounded like they were humans. Why was he carrying humans on his back, again?

Fool! Betrayal! How dare you serve me such a poor fish?!

The queen’s roar made the Night Fury flinch a little and he watched as her head picked up. Two sharp inhales came from his back as the humans seemed to take in the sight of the queen, stunned and horrified. And that was definitely justified, if you asked him. He didn’t move, though. The other dragons all shifted and started preparing to take flight and try and escape the angry queen but he couldn’t move. Not when she ate the Gronckle that upset her and not when she sniffed the air, probably detecting the strange scent of the intruding humans.

Night Fury! You’ve returned to me with the humans as gifts!

“Alright, bud,” A hand landed on the dragon’s head and when the Night Fury looked up he saw the face of a boy looking at him intently. “We’ve gotta get out of here.” He urged and the Night Fury glanced back at the queen. His thoughts were racing as she roared at him to stay in place so that she could get the humans but the human asked him to move and his voice was so familiar and so achingly good… it made him want to listen. It made him feel like another dragon with the ability of the queen was pulling him in a different direction.

He wanted to listen to the human.

NIGHT FURY!! GET BACK HERE!!!

The screech of the queen followed them out of the mountain as the Night Fury flew further and further away, escaping her fury and rage and teeth along with the other scared dragons. He flew between the sea stacks, desperately trying to get as far away from the nest and the queen as he possibly could. And the further he got, the clearer his mind got.

His name was Toothless. He was a Night Fury that had only one tailfin. The other one was torn when he fell out of the sky but the human on his back – his best friend, Hiccup – had worked hard to create an artificial tailfin that would allow Toothless to explore the sky once more. He was carrying another human – one that was a friend (or something like that) of Hiccup and who hated him a short while ago but now thought he was good. He was no longer under the queen’s influence. Hiccup had managed to pull him out of it.

Hiccup had the ability to pull Toothless from under the queen’s call.

It was nighttime by the time Toothless had regained his mind completely and he whimpered quietly as he realized how close he was to delivering his best friend to the queen. That evil tyrant… A comforting hand on his scales made him glance up at the smiling Hiccup. He looked a little distressed, but there was also reassurance in his gaze.

“It’s okay, Toothless. We’re out of there, it’s okay.” Hiccup murmured softly.

“You nearly got killed.” Toothless grunted helplessly.

Hiccup rubbed his head a little. “It’s okay…”

It was NOT okay.

Toothless’ nap the next day was interrupted by a familiar, distant scream. His head rose and his earflaps perked up as he focused on the sound of Hiccup shouting in alarm. His test in front of the village was that day. He was supposed to kill a Nightmare, which they both knew wasn’t going to happen. What went wrong, then? Not that it mattered – what mattered was that it sounded like his human was in danger and Toothless was stuck in that stupid cove, unable to fly out of there on his own.

Still, he was desperate enough. Logically, it was impossible to get out of the cove without flying since the walls were too high and there was nothing to hang on to. Still, Toothless tried over and over again, not taking no for an answer because he wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing. Especially when it didn’t sound like Hiccup was being rescued by any other Viking in his village. Where was Astrid? The kid’s father??

Finally – FINALLY – his claws managed to dig into the dirt at the top of the cove and he pulled himself up, heaving a little, but he didn’t stop there and instead bounded forward immediately, trying to glide by using his wings every once in a while to advance faster toward the village and the source of Hiccup’s alarmed shouts. The closer he got, the more shocked and scared voices reached his ears. And, above all, the angry roars of a dragon. A Monstrous Nightmare, to be exact.

Toothless saw the crowd of Vikings surrounding the kill ring – the place where Toothless knew the Vikings held their captured dragons from the raids and where dragon training was. He jumped over the Vikings, already letting the fire build inside of him. The people ducked at the whistly sound that he emanated and someone screamed his name in both awe and fear as Toothless blasted the iron poles that surrounded the kill ring, blocking the dragons and Vikings inside of it. He jumped through the hole his blast had created and then focused on the enraged Monstrous Nightmare that held Hiccup under his giant claws, locking the boy and preventing him from escaping his next attack.

Not thinking twice about it, Toothless lunged at the larger dragon, managing to pull him away from Hiccup who rolled out of the way and scrambled away. But he didn’t leave – the human stayed nearby and watched anxiously as the two dragons fought each other, both screeching in anger for two different reasons. Apparently the dragon was angry because he was just startled earlier by some sharp, metallic sound and he went after Hiccup since he was right in front of him.

“I don’t care! Get out of here, now!” Toothless roared at him, snarling and glaring at the red dragon while standing between him and Hiccup. When the Monstrous Nightmare tried to protest, Toothless snapped at him again. “Get back to your cell right now! If you ever hurt this human, I will personally end you!"

Finally, the Nightmare backed away and into his cage. Toothless watched him for a moment and then turned to eye the other Vikings that started hopping into the arena, their weapons drawn out. Were they crazy?! He snarled and prepared for the attack, his tail curling around Hiccup who tried to shove him away, urging him to leave and get out of there. As if that was going to happen when his own people were shouting and coming toward them with sharp sticks and shouts of outrage. No, Hiccup wasn’t safe and so Toothless wasn’t going to leave him.

It was a mess after that. Toothless fought the Vikings that came toward him, though he could tell who the real threat was immediately – the giant man with the battle axe who eyed him with so much anger in his eyes, Toothless felt like this was personal, for some reason. He didn’t care – this human was a threat to both him and Hiccup. So he ignored the others, practically tossing them aside, and made his way toward the red-head Viking.

They fought, and of course Toothless had the upper hand. He pinned the human to the ground and opened his mouth to blast him – from this range, the Viking had no chance. But then he heard the desperate cry of Hiccup, shouting at him to stop. Toothless swallowed the gas in his mouth and sent his human a curious, confused look. Hiccup only breathed heavily and gave him this broken, hurt look, his shoulders slouched.

And then Toothless’s head exploded in pain as a fist connected with his snout and the tables turned, ending with him being pressed to the ground by the Vikings, the red-head Viking commanding them all. Commanding… the chief… that was Hiccup’s father? Wow, the resemblance was really lacking, huh?

Toothless looked up with anger as the chief glared down at him, the axe tightly clasped in his hands. And then he thrust the weapon into the hands of a nearby Viking. “Put him with the others.” He ordered. Considering Toothless expected a quick death, that took him a little by surprise. Still, he was just glad Hiccup seemed to be okay. Astrid was holding him back so that he wouldn’t get hurt or do something really stupid, though he did look like he was trying to fight her in order to get to Toothless.

The fight leaving him at the realization that Hiccup was safe now, Toothless let the Viking lead him into one of the cages in the arena. He found himself sharing a cell with a blue Nadder who trilled at him curiously. When she sniffed him carefully her yellow eyes seemed to brighten a little in surprise.

“You’re the Night Fury that boy hangs around with?” She asked. “He smells just like you.”

The Night Fury ignored her and started pacing the small space, keeping to his own half of the cell. He could hear the Vikings muttering and shouting and hissing. He heard their footsteps as they started to leave. He heard Hiccup’s voice as the boy tried desperately to talk to them and get them to free Toothless. He heard his voice getting further and further away, too, like he was being led out of there.

Feeling helpless, Toothless crooned sadly and lied down.

When the doors opened again, the Vikings bound Toothless and carried him to a ship. Apparently, they were going to use him to find the nest. He tried looking around for Hiccup or Astrid – some familiar face amongst the sea of angry Vikings – but he could barely move. Though by the brief look the chief sent upward, toward the edge of the cliffs of Berk, Toothless assumed that Hiccup was watching all of this from above – probably forbidden from getting any closer.

And then they were off.

Toothless kept on telling himself throughout the entire ride that he could handle it. That he could ignore the queen’s call. That he could prevent the deaths of all of these Vikings. Not because he particularly cared about them, but because his human did. But the moment he was close enough, Toothless found himself drifting easily toward her voice, listening to the buzz and wanting – needing – to follow it. He thought thinking about Hiccup would somehow help because the boy seemed to possess some kind of power only alphas had, but it was in vain – the queen was there while his human wasn’t.

One thing was different, though. The queen pulled him in with her enchanting voice, but his mind didn’t get blank like it always did. Instead, Toothless remembered exactly who he was and what was happening around him. He remembered Hiccup and Astrid and the cove. He remembered his tailfin and the fact that he was strapped against his will because of Hiccup’s dad. He remembered it all. He was just helpless.

Come… Intruders… Kill them all… Last chance, Night Fury.

He whimpered when the ships reached the shore of the island and the chief hopped off first, the buzz of the queen hushing immediately. Toothless whimpered as he blinked her influence away. He was a goner. They all were. And even if he somehow came out of this alive, Hiccup might never forgive him for leading his tribe toward their untimely deaths.

“Back away while you still can, humans.” Toothless crooned. The blond Viking that seemed to be close to the chief glanced at him, a furrow between his eyebrows. Toothless locked eyes with him but the Viking quickly looked away. The dragon slumped down in devastation. “I’m sorry, bud.”

Toothless wasn’t afraid of the fire that was enveloping him, slowly eating at the ship’s wooden planks. No, he was afraid about what would come next – he was still strapped, unable to break free, and the ship wasn’t going to last very long. Once it went down, Toothless would be left to sink in the ocean and there he would drown and die. That was definitely not something he wished to experience. But his body wasn’t strong enough to escape the chains holding him in place.

There was chaos all around him. At first, he could only pray the queen would remain inside the volcano and only send the other dragons to fight for her, but the dragons fled the island the moment the Vikings went to attack the nest so Toothless’ hopes crashed down and died. A few moments later the queens emerged, roaring angrily and spitting fire everywhere. The Vikings screamed shrilly at the sight of the monster, finally realizing their mistake. Sadly, that was when they ran toward the ships only for the queen to light them all on fire, thus sentencing Toothless along with the humans – they were all as good as dead.

“Ruff, Tuff – watch your backs! Move, Fishlegs!”

The voice jarred Toothless and he blinked up, trying to see past the smoke to no avail. But he knew the voice – that was Hiccup. And by the sound of it he came along with more dragons and, maybe, more humans. Toothless renewed his attempts at getting free, now finally feeling hope again. If Hiccup was here, there was still a chance for all of them to get out of this. They had to try, at the very least.

“Look at us – we’re on a dragon! We’re on dragons, all of us!”

“Fishlegs, break it down!”

“Okay! Heavily armored skull and tail made for bashing and crushing. Steer clear of both! Small eyes, large nostrils! Relies on hearing and smell!”

“Okay!” Hiccup’s voice was different, more commanding and less awkward. He was in his element. Toothless crooned a little and then kept on fighting the chains. “Lout, Legs, hang in its blind spot. Make some noise, keep it confused! Ruff, Tuff, find out if it has a shot limit! Make it mad!”

“That’s my specialty!”

“Since when? Everyone knows I’m more irritating. See?”

“Just do what I told you! I’ll be back as soon as I can!”

“Night Fury!” The last voice belonged to a dragon. The Nadder from the ring, Toothless remembered. He called back to her and a moment later she appeared, carrying Hiccup and Astrid on her back. “Oh, thank the Gods. You’re okay.” She trilled as Hiccup jumped off her back, handing Astrid a rope that helped her hold on to the dragon. “Come back and help as soon as you can! We won’t be able to keep her back for long!”

He nodded at her. “We will.” And then he turned to look at Hiccup who ran toward him after Astrid and the Nadder left, flying back to join the fight. “Hiccup… you’re crazy.”

The boy didn’t reply, obviously, instead working as hard as he could to free Toothless. He took the strap around his mouth off, first, and then went to try and get the chains holding Toothless in place loose but they didn’t budge, no matter what he did and the fire only spread more and more around them. Toothless anxiously looked at the human before him that tried desperately to free him and he felt more and more panicked as time went on without Hiccup succeeding.

Unlike Toothless, Hiccup wasn’t fireproof. He had no chance at surviving all of these flames so what was he thinking? He needed to get the hell out of there and keep himself safe because if anyone was going to survive this, it had to be Hiccup. His human couldn’t die, alright? That wasn’t an option. But Hiccup wasn’t listening to Toothless’ pleas and instead kept on futilely fighting the metal binding Toothless, like more time would change the circumstances, somehow.

And then a flaming pole crashed onto the boat, making Hiccup yelp and fall to the side before the queen’s leg landed on the boat, destroying it completely. Toothless found himself fighting the chains even harder on his own, pulling and tugging as his body started to sink under the deep water around the nest. He could survive underwater longer than humans could, he knew, but he still would drown. Eventually. And the thought wasn’t too pleasant, to be honest.

A shadow caught his attention and his eyes widened at the sight of Hiccup swimming down and toward him, still set on trying to set Toothless free. Gods, his human was crazy! And reckless! And absolutely mad! But Toothless knew, as he thrashed around to try and somehow help Hiccup’s failed attempts at cutting the chain, that nothing he would ever do could change Hiccup’s mind – his human would try and save him at the expense of his own life. It wasn’t something Toothless could force him to change because he would have done the same thing.

Before Toothless’ eyes, Hiccup’s body started to weaken before he started drifting a little away, eyes closing and bubbles escaping his lips as he ran out of air. “HICCUP!” Toothless roared, the sound barely even audible under the water, as a meaty hand grabbed the back of Hiccup’s tunic and pulled him out of the water and back to the surface. Eyes widening, the Night Fury stared at the unsettled surface of the water for a moment and then went right back to trying to free himself. Hiccup was probably safe, having been dragged back to a place where he could breathe again. Which meant that Toothless was the only one dying, now. Not including the queen’s massacre up there, of course.

For a few more seconds he fought but then his air started running out and Toothless’ body sagged in despair. He had no chance of getting out of this, he knew. He was going to die at the bottom of the sea, strapped down and unable to even see whether his human was really okay or not. He was going to die alone, unlike his mother who had the company of both Toothless and Hiccup. He was going to die and he couldn’t help but wonder what Hiccup would do if he survived all of this but ended up without Toothless. Would his human be okay? Would he look for him? Would he somehow drag his body out of the water?

Nah, the queen would probably kill him along with the others.

His mind became a little sharper when he noticed a large shadow getting bigger and bigger as a Viking swam closer to Toothless. The dragon stared up at the imposing figure of the man that was apparently Hiccup’s father. The chief stared him down, returning his glare, and then reached out toward Toothless and the Night Fury flinched back, wanting to get as far away from the Viking that would surely attack and hurt him, just like he did during their last encounter.

Surprisingly enough, the Night Fury felt the restraints around him getting loose before he opened his eyes and found that the Viking was running out of air but still staring at him after FREEING him. Huh. Maybe there was a bit of family resemblance between him and Hiccup after all. At least, that was what Toothless thought as he stared a moment longer into the chief’s eyes. They were identical to Hiccup’s. And for once, there was no malice in them, but only resignation. This human was trusting him, for the first time.

Toothless didn’t waste any more time as he launched forward, grabbing the chief with his claws and speeding out of the water. He put the dripping human on the shore and then bounded up to a rock from which he gazed upon at the queen who fought the few dragons and Vikings Hiccup had brought. A part of Toothless wanted to grab his human and run as far away as possible from this mess because their chances of survival were pretty slim. But he couldn’t. He knew neither of them would be able to just escape this hell without doing anything about it, or at least trying.

Looking back, Toothless spotted Hiccup standing there, watching him with wide, happy eyes. He was drenched and soaked but it didn’t matter. Next to him, his father was climbing back to his feet. “Let’s go.” Toothless said with a vague gesture of his head toward the giant dragon that was trying to kill everyone in sight.

Hiccup smiled with determination and relief. “You got it, bud.”

As he ran and sat on top of Toothless, getting everything ready to fly together, the queen shrieked, her nostrils flaring as she seemed to sniff Toothless amongst this mess. The Night Fury turned to look at her as her voice echoed around them, roaring at the dragons and at him.

NIGHT FURY! SERVE ME ONCE MORE AND I’LL HAVE MERCY ON YOU! KILL THEM ALL!!

His mind started getting fuzzy for a moment and Toothless shook his head before he felt Hiccup’s hand on his forehead, briefly touching him as if to confirm that his dragon was okay. Toothless focused on the familiar touch and growled angrily up at the tyrant looming over the island, roaring madly. She couldn’t get to him anymore. Not now that he had a way of fighting off her call. Hiccup may not have been a dragon, but his effect felt like an alpha’s. Toothless was going to follow his lead rather than the queen’s any day.

From his back, Hiccup was having some kind of conversation with his father. Toothless didn’t listen to most of it too much since he was busy also taking in the battlefield they were going to head into, but he did hear Hiccup’s note on how it was an occupational hazard to be a Viking like they were.

“Please don’t put yourself in more danger than you have to, though…” Toothless warbled. He was very well aware of the fact that Hiccup wasn’t really paying attention to the fact that he was speaking, too busy talking to his dad. At least it sounded like they were making up for everything that went down.

A few moments later, Toothless glanced up at the feeling of Hiccup getting ready to launch and he let his own muscles tense for a second before they both skyrocketed into the open air, quicker than any other dragon Toothless could name. Only this time their flight didn’t bring them much joy or freedom – this time they were both going to fight a giant monster that they, unfortunately, called a dragon. This wasn’t fun and games.

They got way up in the air, overseeing the chaos as they glided above the other Vikings. Toothless noticed the downed Gronckle that sniffed at a blond, large Viking around Hiccup’s age. Not too far away was a Monstrous Nightmare – the one that tried to kill Hiccup in the arena. The dragon looked up with worry in his eyes but didn’t fly up and just stared at the tyrant and the others around. A Zippleback with a Viking on each head flew toward the queen, the Vikings on top of it – which looked pretty much identical – arguing and screaming at each other the entire time.

And then Toothless nearly stumbled in the air at the sight of a Viking running ON TOP of the queen! That was… crazy. The human jumped off the head of the dragon and landed on the body of the Zippleback before the two-headed dragon flew down to join the Monstrous Nightmare and the Gronckle and other Viking. Which left only Toothless, Hiccup and that Deadly Nadder and Astrid in the air. Before their eyes, the queen opened her mouth and started sucking in air, pulling the Nadder and Astrid toward her mouth.

“Toothless!” Hiccup called, sounding slightly alarmed and urgent. The dragon didn’t need to be told twice. He let the fire build inside him and started diving down, focusing on his target as his whistle became louder and louder, alerting the Vikings below who still stupidly ducked down, screaming in terror. The human and Night Fury ignored them, though.

As usual, Toothless didn’t miss. He hit the queen’s jaw and made her wince in pain. The Nadder was thrown out of the air and plummeted toward the ground, but Toothless knew she was going to be okay. The problem was that Astrid was falling down, too, screaming in alarm as she flailed helplessly in the air. Together, Toothless and Hiccup leaned in sync before racing toward the shrieking girl. Any other dragon wouldn’t have made it in time. Toothless, luckily, was fast enough.

He caught Astrid in his paws and she stopped screaming immediately. “Did you get her??” Hiccup asked.

Looking down, Toothless looked at the upside-down Viking that was dangling from his grasp. He caught her legs, so she probably wasn’t the most comfortable, but she still caught his eye and smiled at him. “She’s alright.” He replied with his own smile – the expression was becoming less and less uncomfortable by the second – and then flipped her over so that her legs were closer to the ground. A moment later he let her go, knowing she would be fine on solid ground.

Where are you?!

The queen’s screech was loud enough to rattle the bones in Toothless’ body as Hiccup and he climbed way up in the air, aiming for the cloudy sky. “This thing has wings.” Hiccup said. “Let’s see if it can use them.”

They both dove back down again. “Up here, psychopathic monster! Come and get us!” Toothless roared at the queen who lifted her gaze just in time to see him flying past and blasting her wing’s joint. Toothless heard it when she fell sideways on the ground but didn’t look back, instead opting to fly as far away as possible because despite not being under her control anymore, this dragon was still strong. She could crush him with her tail alone, if she wanted to.

“You think that did it?” Hiccup asked.

You pathetic, little nuisance! WITH YOUR DEATH, YOUR KIND WILL BE EXTINCT FOREVER, NIGHT FURY!

“Yeah, pretty sure it worked.” Toothless grumbled as he chanced a glance back to see the imposing, huge shape of the queen, wings spread by her side and flapping loudly against the air and wind. “I hope you know what you’re doing!”

Hiccup didn’t sound as terrified as he probably should have. “Well, he can fly.” He noted. Toothless wanted to tell him that the dragon chasing them was a female but figured it didn’t really matter whether a male or a female was going to blow them to oblivion.

They flew closer to the sea, now, swerving between the sea stacks and hoping the queen would get hurt by the stone pillars. Unfortunately for them, all she did was crash right through them in her chase, hurtling insults at Toothless the entire time and mocking him for letting a human ride on his back. He ignored her mockery and focused on his speed, making sure she couldn’t get to him. Sure, he was fast, but she was huge and would probably catch up eventually. He couldn’t let her, though. They had to survive. And if not the two of them, then at least Hiccup.

The Vikings cheered them on from the ground when they moved close to their group but the Viking and dragon ignored them in favor of, you know, trying to stay alive. “Okay, Toothless,” Hiccup said and the dragon glanced up at him. The human was looking at the cloudy sky before sending Toothless a meaningful look. “Time to disappear.” He said. He changed the position of the tailfin and Toothless adjusted quickly before the two started climbing up, back to the gray sky. “Come on, bud!” They avoided getting bitten by the queen but a moment later Toothless could hear it when she prepared to blow fire at them. “Here it comes!” Hiccup yelled.

Leaning to the side, the duo avoided the flames and sped up toward the cover of the clouds, the queen still giving chase. That was Toothless’ specialty – staying hidden and out of sight of others. Hiccup was smart to think about the Night Fury’s strength and using them to their advantage. They both circled the queen as she screeched, calling for Toothless to come out of his hiding place, sounding agitated.

The thing was, if the queen couldn’t see them, then Toothless assumed that Hiccup couldn’t see her, either. Which meant that now it was mostly up to Toothless. He could see – or at least feel where things were – in dark spaces. So he knew where the queen was and how to get to her. He just had to hope Hiccup would be able to keep up with Toothless without seeing what was in front of them. They had to work together perfectly for this not to fail.

COME OUT HERE, COWARD! THE DISRESPECT OF THE HUMAN HAS SENTENCED HIM TO DEATH! YOUR OWN DISOBEDIENCE HAS SENTENCED YOU TO DEATH! COME AND RECEIVE YOUR JUDGMENT!

Ugh, couldn’t she be quiet for just one second?

Toothless dove at once, feeling Hiccup leaning into the movement and trusting him to lead them in the right direction. Good, this could just work. He let out a plasma blast that hit the queen, making her roar in agony and rage. They crossed the space next to her, too quickly for her to do a thing about it. Then they moved away, hiding, before targeting her once again. Toothless didn’t need to be told by Hiccup where to aim his shots – her wings.

True to his nature, Toothless never missed his target and the queen roared and shrieked in pain with each hit, missing them every time they whistled past her. Until she opened her jaw and sent a wave of fire everywhere, lighting up the sky in anger and frustration. That Toothless couldn’t avoid even if he tried. He heard Hiccup warning him to watch out but it didn’t matter anymore. They flew straight through the flames and while it didn’t affect Toothless and seemed not to harm Hiccup, there was one thing that suffered from the fire.

Toothless flew forward, not missing the heat that registered in his brain, coming from his tail. He himself couldn’t catch on fire, but his body had a leather contraption attached to it, as well. And if that was on fire, they didn’t have much time to stay in the air and fight. Apparently Hiccup came to the same conclusion because they both escaped the queen and her flames before Hiccup commented on their lack of time. So they dove down quickly, taunting the queen as they flew past her and trusting that the queen would be on their tail soon enough.

And she was, roaring at them in anger and knowing that she was going to win this fight. How could she not when her prey wasn’t even going to be able to fly properly for much longer?

Pretty quickly, Toothless’ control of his flight turned a lot less accurate and he heard Hiccup’s leg moving in the metal contraption attached to the tailfin, but it did nothing as they swerved a tiny bit. “This does not bode well for us, buddy!” Toothless growled, eyes wide with fear at the approaching land.

YOUR DONE FOR, NIGHT FURY! THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO ESCAPE YOUR DOOM. ACCEPT IT! ACCEPT MY CONTROL!

“Get out of my head!”

“Stay with me, buddy!” Hiccup called over the rush of the wind. “Just a little bit longer!” His muscles were as tense as Toothless’ but he was obviously trying to keep as calm as possible under the circumstances. “Hold, Toothless…” Hiccup muttered, only for him to hear. The Night Fury let fire build in him as he listened to the queen’s own breath changing, getting ready to blast them out of the sky with her own fire. Hiccup’s plan hit him at once and he squared his shoulders, narrowing his eyes and hoping for the best. “NOW!”

Turning around in midair, Toothless had just enough time to see the queen’s mouth wide open and filled with green gas that she was going to ignite to use her fire. He didn’t let her, though, and instead fired a short plasma blast straight into her jaw. The queen roared as her mouth started flaming and Toothless and Hiccup struggled to get repositioned after turning upside-down like this, the tailfin no longer functional.

The queen spread her wings to try and slow down her descent and save herself but the wind tore her wings open after the previous attacks cut them a little. That meant that there was nothing to save the queen and Toothless and Hiccup had a front row seat to the show of her smashing against the ground, instantly bursting into flames as her entire body burned from the inside out.

It was a gruesome thought but Toothless couldn’t even focus on that. Instead, he had to try and get them out of there. Without his tailfin, there wasn’t much he could do but he still tried to climb up and away from the explosion on the ground to keep the two of them safe. Fortunately for them, Toothless was still faster than the fire chasing them. Unfortunately for them, the queen’s tail was right in their path and Toothless couldn’t swerve out of the way to avoid it.

“No, no, no, NO, NO!” He screeched in alarm, Hiccup screaming the same thing as the realization of what was going to happen hit him. And then Toothless felt the tail smashing into him and the pressure on his back disappeared. He blinked in confusion as he realized that the hit barely even grazed him only for his eyes to widen at the sight of Hiccup, eyes closed and body limp, falling toward the blazing fire below. “HICCUP! NO, WAIT! HANG ON!”

His tail wasn’t helping, but Toothless refused to let it stop him from preventing Hiccup’s death. He flapped his wings urgently and dove toward his human, keeping his gaze locked on the unconscious teenager. He tried to reach him in time but the only thing he was close to was Hiccup’s leg. Well, he was desperate. Toothless forced his teeth to retract as he closed his gummy mouth around the boy’s leg but he couldn’t keep his hold on the leg for long because his gums were too slimy and the boy started slipping away.

Inhaling sharply, Toothless willed his teeth to come back out. “I’m sorry.” He whimpered as he felt the way his sharp teeth tore into his human’s leg. The taste of blood filled his mouth but he tried to ignore it in favor of pulling Hiccup’s body up and into his grip. He managed to wrap his paws and wings protectively around Hiccup a moment before they hit the ground and the world turned black.

Hiccup was okay. Or at least, he was alive. Toothless woke up to the sound of his father calling his son’s name, sounding frantic. When the large Viking finally found him in the middle of the dusty area, he looked heartbroken at not finding Hiccup and Toothless realized after a few moments that the chief was mourning, thinking Hiccup was gone. So he unfurled his wings to allow the man access to his son. His very much alive son, who was only unconscious.

Despite the man’s happy tears and grateful words, it was clear that he was worried about the state of Hiccup from the moment that other Viking – blond mustache and bald head – mentioned that Hiccup wasn’t ALL safe. Toothless crooned sadly as he turned to see the bloody limb that used to be Hiccup’s very healthy leg. Now it was viciously torn apart and there was clearly no chance for it to survive this.

The taste of blood intensified in Toothless’ mouth as he finally realized how horrible this was. He was the one who had severed Hiccup’s leg. The state the boy was in was Toothless’ fault. Could he really not think of any other way to try and save him other than to bite his leg? Really?? Maybe it was the stress or the adrenaline, but right now Toothless just couldn’t comprehend the fact that Hiccup’s leg was never going to be the same and it was all his fault. He had to wash the blood out of his mouth before he threw up all over the place just from the thought of it all.

He couldn’t move when they took Hiccup away because his body was sore and he could feel the adrenaline finally leaving him exhausted. Still, he tried to screech at the Vikings in warning about taking his human away, but then the chief turned to him, Hiccup in his hands, and he promised Toothless that they were just going to treat him and try and see what they could do to help Hiccup. He couldn’t prevent the human from receiving medical attention.

So he settled down on the ground, restlessly staring at the distancing Vikings that huddled around the chief and his unconscious son. And then a shadow loomed over Toothless and he bared his teeth only to retract them and stop growling at the sight of Astrid. Right, he knew her. He could trust her, since Hiccup trusted her. So when she sat down next to him, Toothless just crooned sadly at her.

“He’s gonna be okay, Toothless.” She said, determination – or maybe desperation – shining in her eyes. Her hand settled on Toothless’ snout and she offered him a sad, weak smile. “You’ll see – Hiccup is too stubborn not to survive something like this.” She pursed her lips and then smiled again, a little more genuinely. “Thank you for saving him.”

“I hope he’s gonna be okay…” Toothless crooned and lowered his head to rest on his paws. Astrid watched him sadly but didn’t say anything, obviously not understanding him, just like Hiccup. The Night Fury noticed the Deadly Nadder from before prancing toward them, eyeing Astrid and Toothless with bright, yellow eyes. She looked calm enough and pretty fond of Astrid, it seemed. The Nadder just nudged the girl a little before sitting next to the human and Toothless. “Thank you for helping my human.” Toothless warbled.

The Nadder purred a little. “He’s been so nice to all of us during the humans’ training. Always coming over with that amazing grass or scratching us… He even brought us food sometimes, when it was late and there wasn’t anybody else around.” She squawked. “It was a pleasure to fight alongside him, even if just for a short while.” She looked at Astrid with warm eyes. “And this human is not half bad, either. I’ve gotten rather fond of her.”

Toothless watched Astrid’s confused expression at their conversation with his own amusement bubbling up inside him. “Yeah, she’s not as bad as I’d thought the first time I met her.” He confessed. Then he growled a little and shook his head. “How did you all fight off the queen’s control?”

“She never even tried to get us. She was only after you, Night Fury. We were only pests to her – you were her real target.” The Nadder glanced around at the ash and bones of the late queen. “I’m glad her reign is finally over. Now the war can finally end.”

That was a nice thought.

“Rest, Night Fury. We shall watch over you and your human – no harm will come to either one of you, I swear on my life.”

With that, Toothless closed his eyes and let sleep overcome his tired mind and body.

Future

Obey the human!

He didn’t particularly want to obey said human, to be honest. If anything, the Night Fury was fairly certain he really, really didn’t like the human the alpha was referring to, but he couldn’t exactly say such a thing because he needed to obey the alpha and the alpha wanted him to obey the human and so he had no choice in the matter.

Obey the human! Obey the – sheep?

Yeah, there was a sheep bleating in fear as it was being tossed in front of the alpha’s confused and enraged face. Behind her, the Night Fury could see a dragon hatchling carrying on his back a Viking. They got closer and closer but the alpha was busy staring at the sheep.

What’s going on here?!

A horn from the village below sounded and the alpha turned to stare at it, finding no one there. The dragon hatchling and his rider flew closer to the Night Fury and the mean human he needed to obey. The heavy, big, uncomfortable human that the Night Fury really wanted to just toss off his back but couldn’t for he was under the command of the alpha, like every other dragon should. Why was the baby so disrespectful? Oh, right… the alpha couldn’t control hatchlings like he could all the other adult dragons.

What is the meaning of this?!

A black sheep was tossed, too, and it bleated and landed above the mouth of the alpha, only barely hanging there. One of the Vikings that threw it called something about ten points in triumph, like it made any sort of sense. Frankly, none of this was making much sense to the Night Fury. He could barely remember what he was doing there. Not that it mattered – all he needed to take care of was the human on his back. He needed to listen to him. They were, apparently, on the same side.

Foolishness. I’ll crash you, imbeciles, like – !

The alpha was cut short once again by the bellowing horn. The massive dragon turned to glare at it, patience gone, before he blew a frozen breath in that direction, making a Viking jump with a start from behind it, trying to take cover from the ice that appeared there out of nowhere, destroying the horn and putting an end to the stupidity.

Perish!

And then the chaos and idiocy seemed to end with the arrival of the blurry Viking on that dragon hatchling. The Night Fury could see the Viking like he could see everything else – out of focus, but still enough to know that if he needed to strike, he wouldn’t miss. That was all the alpha’s doing, of course. It made sure the dragons under his control wouldn’t mind what their target was and kept them in line. It kept them under his control, no matter who they had to hurt. The Night Fury was used to it, already.

Wait, was he?

“You certainly are hard to get rid of, I’ll say that.” The human on the Night Fury’s back said those words, voice low and throaty. The Night Fury didn’t like it. He felt the urge to toss him off once again, but he couldn’t move – only glare at the approaching, slim human and the unbothered dragon hatchling.

It didn’t look like the human’s words reached the hatchling’s rider as the person there seemed to only be focused on the Night Fury. “Toothless…” He said, voice nasally and strangely familiar. The Night Fury tried to see past the blur to understand why he recognized the voice when he didn’t remember anything to do with it, but there was only a faceless, shadowed blur in front of him, getting closer and closer steadily.

“Hey, please don’t shoot me, okay? I’m too young to die.” The dragon hatchling warbled softly, eyeing the Night Fury a few times before flicking his eyes away. The black dragon couldn’t even see the hatchling’s features – not enough to identify him in case he knew him from someplace. Not to mention the Viking he was carrying on his back.

“Hey, it’s me, bud.” The human said softly. The light voice didn’t seem to match the feelings stirring inside of the Night Fury’s mind. He felt shame. He felt lonely. He felt grief and guilt swirling inside him at the sound of the voice. Why was he feeling these things? Who was this person? “It’s me, it’s me. I’m right here, bud. Come back to me.” The human seemed to hold out his hand toward the Night Fury, but he didn’t move quickly, instead opting to get closer bit by bit, slowly.

The large, annoying man on his back laughed darkly. “He’s not yours anymore. He belongs to the alpha.” He said. The smaller human on the hatchling didn’t seem to mind his words at all, though. “But please, oh, great Dragon Master, try to take him. He will not miss a second time.”

A second time? What was he talking about? What was going on? Was he really familiar with this small Viking? He felt like it was true – whoever this person was, the Night Fury knew him. He knew his voice. He associated it with grief and guilt and hurt, but also… also something good. There was something good, he just couldn’t reach it, couldn’t make any of it out.

NIGHT FURY, THIS HUMAN IS THE ENEMY! END HIS MISERABLE LIFE ONCE AND FOR ALL!

“It wasn’t your fault, bud.” The little human persisted and the Night Fury started opening his mouth, listening to the words but also obeying his alpha, his master, his king. He had to, because that was in his nature. Dragons had to obey the alphas. They had no way of fighting it, after all. They couldn’t NOT obey. No one has ever managed that before. The Night Fury couldn’t either. Not that it mattered – he didn’t know this human. He… he couldn’t have because he’s been serving this alpha for… for… how long? “They… made you do it.”

DESTROY HIM! KILL HIM! THROW HIM OFF THAT DRAGON AND BLAST HIM TO OBLIVION! DO NOT MISS, SUBJECT!

No, wait… there was… a queen. Yes, there was a queen that the Night Fury could remember, living deep inside a volcano and sending the dragons in her nest to attack Vikings in order to get her food. The Night Fury was hers, not this alpha’s. There’s been some kind of… some kind of a mix-up. The Night Fury was under the wrong dragon’s control.

Where was the queen? How could she let her Night Fury slip away so easily? No, wait… she didn’t let him. She… she never wanted him gone. He’s the one who broke away from her control. He fought her and killed her. She was dead – burst out in a grand explosion that left nothing behind and painted the sky orange. She was dead… because the Night Fury had finally killed her. He’d done it. How had he done it?

Why was this voice so familiar? Why was this Viking getting closer? Why was he talking so softly to him when the Night Fury knew deep down that he was supposed to be angry and upset, scream at him in rage and anger for… for doing something. Something bad. Something under the command of the alpha. This human on his back… he’d made him do something. What was it? Who were these people? Who was the Night Fury??

“Stop, wait!” The Night Fury objected, shaking his head as he fought to try and make sense of it all. The human kept on approaching slowly, maintaining eye contact, but the dragon couldn’t tell for sure with how blurry he was, though he seemed to come in and out of focus as his thoughts became more and more insistent on being heard. “What’s going on?!”

HE'S A MENACE, A THREAT! KILL HIM! END HIM! DO AS I SAY, NIGHT FURY! OBEY MY ORDERS RIGHT NOW! SHOOT HIM DOWN! OBLITIRATE HIM!

“You’d never hurt him.” The human said. Who was he talking about?? Orange, the Night Fury recalled vaguely. Orange, red hair, green eyes. Screaming a ridiculous name and running forward to push another human out of the way of the Night Fury’s shot. A still body being nudged by a confused and scared Night Fury… and then yells. Someone yelling at him to go away and leave. He’d killed someone. Someone important. “You’d never hurt me.”

The hand kept getting closer and it was inches away from his snout when the Night Fury’s vision turned a little sharper, pushing most of the blurriness away. He recognized the familiar features of a human with unruly, brown hair, earnest green eyes that were clearly on the verge of tearing up and a faint smile that sparked the Night Fury’s memories a little.

And then the human’s hand landed on his scales and his eyes widened.

He remembered an encounter in the forest with a human hatchling his age. He remembered trusting the human and letting him be there when his mom died. He remembered snapping slightly out of the queen’s control to protect this hatchling before falling out of the sky. He remembered getting to fly again with a contraption made by the human. He remembered protecting his human from a Nightmare and then from Vikings before getting locked away. He remembered nearly drowning, his human helplessly trying to free him. He remembered fighting and killing the queen and then desperately trying to save his human – the taste of blood in his mouth… it was something he never thought he’d be able to forget.

“Hiccup…” The Night Fury – Toothless, that was his name – crooned.

Above Toothless, the large, heavy person grumbled. “How are you doing that?”

Neither dragon nor human paid him any mind and instead Toothless kept on staring at the face of someone he knew he recognized. He knew. They were best friends. Of course he remembered him. “Please, you are my best friend, bud.” Hiccup said. And of course it was Hiccup – his voice was definitely unique enough for Toothless to recognize it amongst a hundred more.

“I remember…”

DON’T LISTEN TO HIM! IT’S A TRICK! A LIE! KILL HIM! KILL HIM NOW, NIGHT FURY! YOU CAN NEVER BE HIS FRIEND. HE’S A HUMAN! HE HATES YOU! HE DESPISES YOU! HOW COULD YOU EVER HOPE TO BE BY HIS SIDE WHEN YOU’RE THE REASON HIS FATHER IS DEAD?! KILL HIM!!!!!!

Orange-red hair. Green eyes. That was Hiccup’s dad, the chief. Stoick. He was gone. He was gone because Toothless, under the alpha’s control, tried to shoot Hiccup and kill him, but his dad jumped in front of his son and ended up dead, instead. Then… then Toothless got a few moments of clarity again and he nudged the dead, large Viking before Hiccup shoved him away and told him to leave. He was upset at him. He didn’t want him around. How could Toothless ever hope to make up for such a thing? How could he expect Hiccup to forgive him?

KILL HIM!!!!!!!!!!

“My best friend…”

But there were tears in Hiccup’s eyes as the Night Fury snarled a little, trying to decide who he was supposed to listen to. There were tears in Hiccup’s eyes and he sounded sincere and honest as he didn’t seem to back down, no matter how agitated Toothless was. He kept his hand on the dragon’s snout, looking straight into his eyes and not showing an ounce of hate or resentment. He was begging Toothless to come back to him. He didn’t want him gone.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, NIGHT FURY?! HE’S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!!

Shaking his head, Toothless closed his eyes and pulled away from the hand that stayed in place but didn’t force itself on his head. “Get out of my head! I won’t be your puppet, anymore! LET GO!”

With a snap, the alpha’s voice seemed to disappear, only leaving his buzz of protest – the external one and not the one that’s been swirling around Toothless’ head, forcing him to do things he never would have done had he been able to fight if off. And with the outside influence gone, the Night Fury could finally focus fully on the smiling Viking that was before him.

“Hiccup! You came back!”

“Attaboy, that’s it! I’m here!” Hiccup called excitedly, face brightening.

“You’re riding a hatchling!” Toothless chortled and leaned a little forward until Hiccup’s hand was just to the side of his mouth, pressing against his scales warmly. “You’re almost the same size of him – you look ridiculous.”

He nearly forgot about the Viking sitting on his back until he heard his enraged roar of protest and the man tried to hit him with his staff. Toothless pulled away from Hiccup and grabbed the staff with his teeth before using it to throw the large human off his back. Then he turned back to look at Hiccup who almost looked amused by his actions.

“Did you see that?” Toothless warbled happily, flapping his wings a few times. Hiccup seemed to share his enthusiasm about the falling man. And then Toothless started falling down since without a rider on his back to control the tailfin, he was not going to stay airborne for long. “A little help!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Hiccup threw himself off the hatchling’s back and dove toward Toothless, not looking the least bit worried about it. “Hang on!” He called. Toothless found himself turning in the air and trying to follow Hiccup’s figure with his eyes as the boy reached his hand out to try and get to him. “Almost there, buddy. Almost there.”

And then he felt it when Hiccup pulled himself onto his back and put his pegleg in the pedal of the tailfin. They grazed the water a little before pulling up, finally flying together again. The adrenaline and the thrill of the close call made Toothless’ body buzz as they both flew around the cliff of Berk. The fight wasn’t over – not even close. They still had an alpha and a bad human to take care of – but Toothless didn’t even doubt they could make it.

Although he never expected to become an alpha in the process.

Well, he’d do just about any impossible thing imaginable for his human, right?