HOW TO LOVE YOUR DRAGON: GIFT FOR THE NIGHT FURY
"Alright, alright, I'm up…" Hiccup mumbled as he slowly pushed himself up, moaning a little at the weight of his belly and the slight strain on his back before he reached over towards the helmet to put it on. It had been a considerable few months since their wedding and they had recently just settled into their new home. Everyone chipped in to build the newlyweds home the week after the wedding, and it was built about a few blocks away from his old home with Stoick's.
Every day was like a new day for the newlyweds as they continued to play their role in educating the village on how to handle and train dragons, and everyone, though a little awkward at first, slowly eased in to the fact that Hiccup was 'different' than them, physically speaking. Due to his condition, he was not allowed to do any rigorous flying but he did coached at the sidelines as he and his fellow peers taught new recruits how to ride their dragons, and since now the dragons' manual "Book of Dragons" was considered obsolete due to their new discoveries, Hiccup and his team would gather at night in the Great Hall to rewrite the manual, adding new information to the book about the dragons they learnt.
Hiccup's pregnancy went pretty smoothly as the months progressed. He didn't have much of a morning sickness (it only lasted for a week) but he did have a big appetite, eating probably thrice the usual helping he usually did, which was fine with Stoick and the others, since Vikings have always had a healthy appetite and, well, Hiccup much less than most. He wasn't sure how long does an actual dragon pregnancy last, or whether or not it would follow a human's pregnancy or even a mix of both, and unfortunately since Toothless was not female (as all female dragons are born with the instinct to know these things), he couldn't tell exactly the duration of the pregnancy either. But by far, the midwife has been giving him and the baby a clean bill of health, and its growth was pretty much as normal as it could be, though Hiccup would sometimes feel like he was some kind of beached whale.
After freshening up himself, he went outside, yawning as he rubbed his arms for warmth. Looking up, he saw Toothless waiting up there on the roof, looking very excited as he felt it through their bond.
"Well, good morning, Mr. Bossy," Hiccup greeted humorously, in which Toothless replied with a dragon chuckle. Hiccup copied him sarcastically before coming closer to him, "I know our baby needs the regular morning flight exercise, but do we really have to wake up so early to go flying…!"
Hiccup's prosthetic foot lost friction on the ice and he slipped, but thankfully Toothless got down just in time to hold onto Hiccup before he fell. He held onto Toothless for support for a moment before he tried to regain balance.
"Stupid leg," Hiccup complained as he shook it a little to see if nothing was bent out of shape.
Toothless nuzzled Hiccup's belly worriedly, sniffing at it and purring, asking him through their bond if he was OK.
"Thanks, buddy, I'm OK," Hiccup smiled tenderly as he kissed his forehead. He preferred to call him 'buddy', his way of calling him 'honey' or 'hubby'. "Yeah, we can go flying now."
Toothless chirped happily, accidentally burping out his breakfast he had beforehand at Hiccup's face.
"Eew, wait, what, eew~!" Hiccup groaned disgustingly as he waved the smell of fish away, pouting. "Toothless~!"
Toothless gave his toothless grin, as if he didn't think it was any problem.
-:-
"By Odin's beard, Gobber," Stoick said in amazement as he walked with the peg-legged blacksmith, making his rounds to see the progress of the preparations. "Vikings spending the winter holiday with dragons. What would our fathers think?"
"They'd think we lost our minds," Gobber laughed along with Stoick. "So how goes Hiccup and the Devil? Excited to be a grandfather soon?"
"Well, I dunno what to think of it actually," Stoick replied. "I must admit I am a little worried, since Hiccup is quite young to be a mother. We're not sure when's the due date, but I have a feeling that it'll be any day now, and Hiccup's a little too small and weak to handle a birth."
"Aww, give the lad a little more credit there, Stoick. What he lacks in strength and size, he compensates with spirit. He tamed that ol' Devil now, didn't he?"
Stoick chuckled, knowing that Gobber was right. Hiccup had been through things no Viking had ever imagined to face, and came out a hero and a man. And with Toothless, he would be sure to pull through. Taking another look at the village, he soon addressed them.
"Well done, well done, all of you," Stoick praised his villagers for their effort. "I never thought I'd see this day: Peace on the island of Berk. This will surely be the greatest holiday we've ever seen."
All the villagers laughed and cheered in agreement, concurring with Stoick's statement. It was definitely a holiday to be remembered for generations to come.
Suddenly Stoick felt a strange atmosphere in the air. He looked up and saw that there were flocks upon flocks of dragons in the sky, flying away to the direction of the South, all seemingly anxious to go somewhere. All the Berk dragons seemed to react the same as well as one by one, they growled and chirped excitedly and started taking off into the air without warning. Hookfang, Snotlout's Monstrous Nightmare, flew off in the middle of helping him to nail in the decors on the roof. Meatlug, Fishlegs' Gronckle was already halfway there racing towards the cliff. Stormfly, Astrid's Deadly Nadder already started flapping her wings and lifting off. It was a strange and alien sight to behold, and only one thought came to everyone's mind.
"Where's Hiccup?"
-:-
"Whaddaya say, buddy?" Hiccup asked as he patted Toothless' head. "Wanna go up higher again?"
Before Toothless could reply, they saw the incoming dragons ahead of them. Hiccup exclaimed in surprise as he and Toothless weaved around to avoid hitting any of them. In midst of it, one of the dragons clipped Hiccup's helmet and it came off, plummeting a couple thousand feet below.
"Oh no, my helmet!" Hiccup said, which prompted Toothless to go after it, as the dragon knew that it was a keepsake from Hiccup's mother and precious to his mate. Hiccup was taken by surprise as Toothless went after the helmet like it was the Holy Grail and shouted, "Woah! No, no, no, no~! Toothless, stop!"
Toothless heard him and opened his wings, stopping and flapping his wings in midair, the bond asking Hiccup why they stopped as his eyes darted around to see where the helmet dropped down to.
"We'll get it later, bud," Hiccup said, emphasizing it with his feelings through the bond. "We need to get back and find out what's wrong."
Toothless looked up at the dragon knowingly and looked around again for the helmet, then relented and followed Hiccup back to Berk. Hiccup could feel that Toothless knew something about this phenomenon through their bond, but he thought it would be best to know about it once they were in solid ground. If this were happening right now, Berk would probably be affected. As it turned out, he was right. He saw the last of Berk's dragons leaving the village with frantic villagers chasing after them in vain. Astrid begged Stormfly not to go but it fell on deaf ears before she noticed Hiccup touching down.
"Astrid!" Hiccup called out to her as he got off Toothless, running towards her.
"Hiccup, what is going on?" Astrid asked in panic. "Where are they going?"
Before Hiccup could answer, the villagers, driven by panic and confusion, surrounded him.
"Why did they leave?"
"What's happening?"
"What if they never come back?"
"Wait…stop…" Hiccup was overwhelmed by all the bombarding questions before he was saved by his father's booming voice.
"Calm down! Give him a chance to speak!" Stoick commanded as he pushed through the crowd. "Are you alright, Hiccup? Is the baby OK?"
Hiccup could only nod. He barely had time to catch his breath.
"Hiccup, where have our dragons gone?"
"Dad, I…I don't know…" Hiccup admitted sadly, but then saw Toothless conversing with Stormfly before the latter left to join the flock. "But I think Toothless does. Toothless!"
Toothless roared a goodbye to Stormfly before turning towards Hiccup, purring as he nuzzled his belly.
"Toothless," Hiccup took Toothless' cheeks and made him look at him face to face. "Talk to me. What is going on?"
Toothless purred a little in a reassuring tone before pressing his head against Hiccup's forehead, speaking through their bond. After almost 15 minutes, Hiccup got the message and stood up, facing Stoick and the villagers of Berk.
"What's going on? What did Toothless say?" Stoick asked eagerly.
"You might wanna gather everyone in the Great Hall for this," Hiccup replied.
-:-
"But how long will they be gone? That's the question," one villager asked worriedly.
"Will they ever be back?"
"What if they're gone for good?"
"Snoggle-tog is ruined~!" one of the villagers moaned sadly.
"It's not ruined," Stoick protested as he took over the public speaking. "We're Vikings! We've been perfectly celebrating without dragons for generations, and there's no reason we can't do it again. Now we don't know where they've gone off to, but we know why they left, and we have to have faith that they will be back again soon. Am I right?"
"He's right! We are Vikings! We're tough!" Gobber supported Stoick, though the decors all over him was not exactly convincing. "Most of the time. Let's sing some Snoggle-tog songs…"
Hiccup and his teens had enough of that sad sight. Prompted by Snotlout, they left the Great Hall quietly without anyone noticing they were gone. Hiccup felt really bad and wanted to stay to see if he could help, but Astrid shook her head and took his hand, leading him out. There was nothing else he could do. He had already explained what Toothless told him and it was up to the villagers to take the news. As they walked back to their homes, they gloomily lamented about their plight.
"That was depressing," Ruffnut groaned.
"I know," Astrid agreed. "I was looking forward to spending the holiday with Stormfly."
"Yeah, now we're not even sure whether Hookfang would even make it in time to celebrate Snoggltog," Snotlout grumbled, though soon he and the others seemed to notice that Fishlegs didn't seem too bothered with it as he was whistling away like nobody's business.
"What are you so happy about?" Tuffnut asked suspiciously. "Don't you miss Meatlug?"
"Me?" Fishlegs was caught by surprise at first, then saw all eyes were on him before he cleared his throat and started 'sobbing'. "Well, yeah…I…I miss him so much…Well, good night."
The gang watched him tottering off with a slack-jawed look and shook their heads in a 'Why do we even bother' way. Fishlegs was always the weird one next to Hiccup anyway.
"I got an idea!" Astrid gasped as she turned to the team. "Let's come up with some new holiday traditions, you know, to bury the sadness."
The team groaned. Things were depressing enough as it was. They didn't need to come up with lame ideas to remind people that having dragons was a better tradition than theirs. Astrid turned to Hiccup for support.
"Actually Astrid might be on to something," Hiccup said, trying to be supportive.
"Easy for you to say," Tuffnut said as he gestured to Toothless who was at the front porch of their home looking out to the horizon. "You're here and having his kid, so you don't need a nest or anything, and your dragon can't go anywhere without you."
"Must be nice," Ruffnut agreed in a jealous tone as she walked off with the gang grudgingly, leaving Hiccup behind.
Hiccup laid his hand on his belly and looked up at Toothless sadly. Tuffnut was right. Toothless couldn't go anywhere without him. He had to be riding him and controlling his tail before they could go anywhere else. He had grounded him for life, and his promise to help solve Toothless' flight problem was still not yet kept since the day he made it.
It was time he fulfilled that promise.
-:-
Hiccup could hear Astrid's voice at a distance as he buried his head in his latest work. After what Tuffnut had said to him last night, he couldn't really sleep and decided to screw it and made his way to the workshop, busily sketching and designing and building. By the time he did most of the work, it was already morning and he hadn't slept a wink. To his midwife, if she were to find out, it would be disastrous to her, like telling her he went skinny-dipping in the cold sea water last night, but what she doesn't know would hurt her.
"Hiccup?" Astrid's voice was soon heard inside the blacksmith stall.
"Yeah, I'm over here, Astrid," Hiccup said as he grabbed a pair of pliers. "Coming."
"Here, happy holidays," Astrid said as she was holding a tray (technically a shield) towards him. There was a jug and two cups, containing some sort of mead-like frothy beverage. "I'm not sure whether it's OK for you to drink while pregnant, but I can assure I didn't add anything alcoholic in it."
"Thank you, milady," Hiccup said as he took one that was already filled for him and was about to drink it when Astrid noticed his work.
"What are you up to?"
"OK, you're gonna think I'm crazy but I couldn't stop thinking about what Tuffnut said last night," Hiccup said as he set his drink down and showed her his work. "Toothless can't come and go like other dragons, and, well, that's just not fair. And I did make a solemn promise to him that I would fix his tail for good. So I was up all night and I think I found a way to fix that."
"No way! You built him a new tail?" Astrid said in admiration as Hiccup sipped her drink, oblivious to his reaction towards the taste of her so-called Yak-nog. "So he's gonna be able to fly without you!"
"Mm-hmm~" Hiccup hummed, trying hard not to swallow but trying hard not to spit it out and offend her.
"Wow, what a great gift!"
"Hum-hnnh."
"What if he never comes back?"
"Hnn…" Hiccup hadn't thought about that.
"Pssh! What am I saying? Of course he will."
"Mm-hmm."
"Well, I'm gonna spread some more holiday cheer," Astrid said as she turned to leave, much to Hiccup's relief. "You're amazing!"
Making sure that Astrid was absolutely gone, Hiccup quickly spat out the Yak-nog. It really tasted like yak milk—the kind of rancid-tasting milk that Vikings would go for as a last resort if their livestock were not producing enough milk—and raw eggs and a combination of spoilt curd and fermented cheese. If they weren't best friend, he'd thought she was trying to murder him and his baby. After managing to get the filthy taste out of his mouth, he turned to the finished tail. Hesitation lingered a little in his heart as he thought of the possibility that Astrid was right, that maybe after getting his new tail, Toothless would relish the freedom of no longer being grounded and fly off into the sunset and never come back, but he shook that thought away as he carried the new tail.
Toothless was his mate, his husband, his love, and he was carrying his child. He had to have faith that Toothless would never do such a thing.
-:-
Toothless came down the roof, surprised to see that Hiccup was not coming out of the house as usual from his frantic thumping, but from the direction of the village. He saw his mate carrying something quite big and heavy and berated him through their bond for doing such things in his condition. Hiccup smiled his worries away and showed him what he had.
"Whaddaya think of that?" Hiccup asked as Toothless sniffed curiously at the tail before looking up at Hiccup questioningly. When he made his way towards Toothless' tail, Toothless was still wary of the odd contraption and circled away from him, as if trying to avoid him, making Hiccup chuckle. "Toothless, come on, bud. Lemme put this on you."
Feeling the reassurance in their bond, Toothless slowed down to a stop and let Hiccup do his thing, watching him curiously.
"Yeah, you are going to love this," Hiccup said albeit slightly reluctant as he finished fixing it on him.
Once the tail was fully strapped onto him, Hiccup got off his tail and stood a slight distance away. Almost immediately Toothless could feel that there was something different, something wrong, about the tail as he tried to shake it off, growling anxiously. He spun around in circles, chasing his own tail, growling and roaring at it to get it off. He didn't like it. It felt weird, it felt foreign, it felt…un-Hiccup.
"No, no, no, Toothless, please stop…"
When Toothless flared his good fin to try and snap it off, the new fin flared along with him in perfect unison, catching the dragon's attention. He then realized that Hiccup had modified the fin in such a way that it would work in cohesion with his good fin when the mini joint was strapped on and attached to it. As he lowered his tail and brought it closer and flexed his good fin, the new fin followed as well as if it had always been there, as if his tail had never been damaged. A feeling of comprehension was evident in their bond.
"There you go," Hiccup sighed in relief as his mate finally got the idea. "See? Got it?"
Toothless turned to Hiccup with a heartfelt look in his eyes, as if asking 'You did this…for me?' Hiccup smiled back and reminded him through their bond of the promise he made to Toothless when made the first prototype fin: that he would fix his tail for good. The dragon looked almost like he could burst into tears as he stared longingly into Hiccup's eyes, and Hiccup was glad to see that his mate was really touched over this gift.
"Toothless…" Hiccup reached out to give him a hug but Toothless withdrew from him all of a sudden. When Hiccup came even closer, wondering what was that about, he only got 'I'll be right back' vibe from Toothless before the latter immediately took off, flying away alone on his own for the first time in months and leaving Hiccup down on the ground, looking up in confusion.
Though the bond did not tell him so, Hiccup felt the worst.
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