I was awoken the next morning by a very insistent mother shaking me from my slumber, rambling on about things I couldn't quite catch the first minute of being conscious.
"Wait, wait, slow down, please, I beg you," I groaned, rubbing at my face. She tutted her tongue at me, waiting impatiently. I took a deep breath, blinking slowly several times before meeting her eyes.
"Hiccup is downstairs and you are making the poor boy wait," she said a couple moments later. I raised my eyebrows, stretching slightly.
"What?" was all I managed. She exhaled harshly, muttering under her breath. I bit back a laugh, lazily watching her head towards the stairs before it finally clicked in my brain what she had been saying.
I bolted out of bed, freezing when I realized I had no idea what was happening nor why he was there in the first place. I settled on brushing my hair while searching for my clothes, placing them on my bed before walking to the staircase. I went down the first couple, peeking my head out. I could spot Hiccup waiting by the front door, my mother apologizing several times.
"Um, hi?" I called out, feeling uncomfortable and under-dressed. They both looked towards me, my mom with a judging glare while Hiccup just grinned.
"May I ask what you're doing here?" I said. I saw my mother mouth my name, a scolding expression on her face but I ignored her, watching the boy currently leaning against the front door.
"Didn't I ask you if I could show you something yesterday?" Hiccup asked. I paused, thinking back to after dinner the night before. He had mentioned wanting to take me somewhere to show me something but I didn't expect it to be so early.
"Wait, that was for today?" I clarified.
"Well, I'm fairly certain I did say 'tomorrow', so.." he drifted off.
"You did not say tomorrow morning, though," I pointed out, but he gave me a confused look.
"I know I didn't, but it's noon," he countered. My eyes widened, and I glanced at my mom.
"It's noon?" I repeated. She nodded, raising her eyebrows.
"Well, that's.. awkward. Whoops," I mumbled, glancing around.
"It's fine, just.. get dressed, would you? I mean, unless you plan on going out like that, then we can go," he added playfully. I childishly stuck out my tongue and he did the same, sending a strange familiar feeling throughout me. It was almost like deja vu, and I assumed our short exchange must have occurred during our childhood, which made sense. I shook my head lightly before disappearing back upstairs, rushing to change. I couldn't quite stop smiling the whole time, not even when I headed downstairs.
"Are you ready?" he asked as my feet hit the final step.
"I don't know, are you ready?" I replied, raising an eyebrow.
"I'm always ready, but I don't know if you're ready," he said, and I could see him fighting a smile.
"I may or may not be ready."
"So is that a yes?"
"Yes," I finally said, grinning.
"Good, 'cause it didn't sound like one. Come on," he gestured to the door and I followed him out.
"Are you planning on telling me where we're going?" I asked as he lead me through the village. I had no idea where he was taking us, and he didn't say anything the day before either.
"Nope," he said simply. I groaned, quickening my pace to be able to walk next to him.
"Are we even going somewhere specific?" I tried. He shrugged, not looking at me. I held my hands up in a questioning gesture, shaking my head.
I finally noticed we seemed to be heading towards the woods, and I gave him a look.
"Really? We're going on a forest walk?" I said, laughing in disbelief.
"Shut up, there's something important I need to show you," he chuckled before giving me a serious look. I raised my eyebrows before shrugging, trailing behind him.
He maneuvered through the trees gracefully, like he'd taken this path a million times. Thinking about it, I realized that he probably had, seeing as wherever he was taking me had something of importance to him. I tried my best to keep up with him, stumbling a couple times and managing to whack myself in the head with branches at least twice.
We eventually ended up in some sort of cove, and as I stepped beside Hiccup, I exhaled my breath sharply. The view was incredible. My eyes trailed along the entirety of it, admiring the open air surrounded by cliffs and the nature in general. Towards the bottom center was a rather large lake, shimmering brightly as sunlight bounced off the top of the water. I was so transfixed that I barely registered the rustling sound of trees and grass moving beside me until Hiccup started to speak.
"(Y/N), I would like you to meet my best friend," Hiccup said. I looked at him, confused because I hadn't seen anybody around but he took it differently.
"What? With you gone, I did have to make up for it," he said playfully, but I only turned away from him, eying the scenery in front of me. There was nobody. Was he trying to be clever and poetic, or something? Was this forest his best friend? Did he turn into some lonely, strange kid who spoke to trees in his free time? I turned to voice my confusion when it died in my throat, eyes landing on my answer.
A rather large, deep black dragon was sat next to Hiccup all of a sudden, with piercing green eyes focused on me with a curiosity. I froze in my spot, eyes glancing between the two. Hiccup looked extremely calm if not a bit excited, which was to be expected. I, however, could not calm down the rapid beating of my heart nor the nervous twisting in the pit of my stomach. No matter how much pep talk I had given myself regarding the changes and how I'd eventually grow extremely accustomed to the dragons, it hadn't quite yet worked. I still had 13 years of unabashed fear of them under my belt and it was not easy to lose something like that in a short amount of time. I was working on it, but regardless of that, I wasn't finished.
Hiccup must have noticed, because he stepped closer. The dragon went to do so as well, but Hiccup held out his hand gently to halt it.
"(Y/N), it's okay, he won't hurt you," Hiccup said softly. I glanced at him for a second before my eyes focused back on the creature. In the back of my mind, I knew this already, with his innocent eyes and body language. He just watched me, tilted his head.
"They're not what we used to think they were, (Y/N)," Hiccup continued, trying to ease me into comfort. I exhaled a breath I didn't even noticed I had been holding. Hiccup moved towards me slowly, extending his hand. I looked at it silently before meeting his gaze.
"Do you trust me?" he asked gently. I nodded almost instantaneously, and the corners of his lips perked up as he reached for my hand. I let him guide me to his dragon, who hadn't moved an inch. My heart was still fluttering, and I still felt nervous, but it was subdued. I did trust Hiccup, and sooner or later I'd have to get over whatever this thing was that I had with dragons.
"His name is Toothless," Hiccup said as we neared him. Toothless gave me a gentle look and I furrowed my eyebrows a bit. It was like he could understand us, understand my lingering aversion.
Hiccup moved my hand so that I'd extend my arm, guiding it towards Toothless's head. I felt my heart speed up, and Hiccup glanced at me.
"It's okay," he repeated in a near-whisper, lightly squeezing my hand before letting go. I looked at him for a moment before swallowing and returning my gaze to the dragon. Our eyes held for what felt like an endless few seconds before his closed and he nudged his snout to the palm of my hand. I resisted the urge to jerk my hand away the moment it happened, almost a reflex, and instead stared incredulously at what was happening.
I could see Hiccup smiling out of the corner of my eye but I didn't do much else to acknowledge it as Toothless opened his eyes to look into mine. It was an incredibly surreal moment, something I couldn't even begin to comprehend let alone explain, and it ended almost as quickly as it had started. He gave me an expression close to a smile (can dragons even smile?) before pulling away, sitting up straight. My hand was still extended in the air, lips parted as I continued to stare.
"See, that wasn't so bad, now, was it?" Hiccup finally said a few seconds later. I looked at him, letting my hand fall to my side. Now that my thought process wasn't entirely controlled by the fear of what could have happened, I realized that I did not recognize the species of dragon that Toothless was. At least, not in the sense that I had personally seen it before. I did, however, remember a description.
"Is he a Night Fury?" I asked, and my voice sounded like I hadn't spoken for months. I cleared my throat as Hiccup nodded, still smiling.
"The last one. Well, as far as we know anyway," Hiccup added with a shrug, moving back over to Toothless.
"How did you manage...?" I drifted off, watching them. Hiccup had started to pet and mess with Toothless in such a loving way, and the dragon was reacting just the same. I couldn't help but feel a warmth in my chest at the sight of it.
"Oh, uh, it's a long story," Hiccup said absentmindedly. I raised an eyebrow, taking a step closer. He finally broke his gaze from Toothless to glance at me.
"Well, I kind of shot him down a couple years ago back when we were all still fighting each other," he started. I huffed a laugh, shaking my head.
"He lost part of his tail, but I fixed it for him, see?" Hiccup gestured to a bright red prosthetic just as Toothless wiggled his tail. I nodded, and neared the two. I reached my hand out to pet Toothless cautiously. He seemed to lean into the touch, making a satisfied noise and I bit back a smile. Hiccup watched me passively as he leaned against his dragon, continuing his story.
"Thus began a wonderful friendship, in which he got his revenge by ensuring I lost this," Hiccup looked down at his own prosthetic and I laughed that time, looking at him.
"You never did explain how you lost it," I pointed out. He sighed, crossing his arms.
"I guess now's the time, huh?" he agreed. I shrugged, continuing to caress Toothless. I still had an anxious feeling being this close, but it wasn't as bad as before. It was also being overridden by extreme curiosity and wonder.
"Right, well, there used to be this huge dragon, I mean huge- anyway, it was sort of their queen dragon, I guess. It basically controlled the dragons around here. Toothless and I managed to kill it, but prosthetic tail fins and exploding dragons do not go together," Hiccup said sarcastically, "so I ended up falling off Toothless, and he managed to save me but in the process.. this happened."
Hiccup gestured to his leg and I only puffed air out of my mouth, eyes wide.
"That sounds really intense," I said. He nodded. I looked up at him.
"It was you, wasn't it?" I said suddenly. He furrowed his eyebrows.
"You changed it all. The dragons, I mean. You managed to change how the tribe treated dragons," I tried to explain my thoughts but they didn't come out as clear as I would've like. He understood, however, and placed his hand on the back of his neck, shrugging a shoulder.
"Yeah, but I mean.. It was Toothless, too. I couldn't have done anything without him, right, bud?" he said modestly, glancing at the aforementioned dragon, who only made a noise of agreement, nudging Hiccup with his head and I grinned.
"So, yeah, this is it, basically. This was the important thing," Hiccup said a couple moments later, a tad awkwardly.
"Well, I'm glad you decided to introduce me," I replied with a soft smile. His eyes caught mine and we held a gaze for a moment before he looked away, cheeks tinted ever so slightly. I tried to think of something to say to get rid of the sudden awkward atmosphere but his expression changed for a split second, looking surprised.
"Oh, I almost forgot," he started, turning back to me. I tilted my head, waiting.
"Since you don't have a dragon, you could always ride with me and Toothless. I mean, if you ever needed to, or something, I don't really know why you would right now, but.." he added in a mumble. I ignored it, beaming.
"That'd be awesome, actually. I definitely need to get used to it so it'd be great, right?" I offered. He nodded quickly, before glancing at Toothless, who nodded once. I smiled, still finding it charming how intelligent he seemed to be.
We ended up spending a bit more time just talking about the most random subjects we would think of until Hiccup informed me that he had to be somewhere. He didn't specify anything, but I wasn't one to argue, so our day had currently come to a finish. I went back home feeling more enthusiastic about my future here then ever before, and with another feeling I was eagerly trying to ignore.
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DRAGONS. a real live dragon. in a httyd fic. what a surprise
if u were expecting meeting toothless to be a cool, calm, and collected kind of thing u were absolutely wrong. imagine being raised to be scared of spiders and being told they will set u on fire, and all of a sudden everyones friends with them except u and now one of ur best friends is making u meet a giant spider. u would be freaked out too. not sure why i used spiders as an example but lets just go with it