Chapter Text
When Hiccup opened his eyes for the first time after the defeat of the Red Death, there were a lot of surprises that he had to quickly grow accustomed to. Toothless having free reign of his bedroom, for one—did his dad know about this? Having a metal contraption in place of his left leg was another shock, but was something he wouldn’t be able to deal with right now, and so he compartmentalized it onto a little shelf in his brain to revisit later. And of course, he couldn’t forget the aches and pains all over his body reminding him why he didn’t get into battles with giant, fire–breathing reptiles the size of mountains everyday. However, that wasn’t all. The other pressing issue was the itch .
Under his skin, at the end of his stump—and wasn’t that something, calling it a “stump,” but no, he forcibly shook that thought out of his head. It was a persistent, nagging itch all over his body, but it seemed to be concentrated at the base of his stump. He knew he’d be feeling the effects of the battle for a while, but this itch just felt wrong , out of place. He couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of foreboding settle in his bones. Toothless came over to sniff at him, realizing that he wasn’t having the expected reaction to his room being thrown into disarray.
“Sorry, bud.” He chuckled. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Should we go face the masses?”
Toothless nodded enthusiastically, making sounds of agreement as his tongue lolled out of his mouth, gummy smile on full display. Hiccup threw his head back and laughed at the absurdity of the situation—so hard, in fact, that he ended up wincing in pain as his abdomen gave a twinge.
“I should’ve seen that coming,” he said with a grimace. Toothless peered at him in concern.
“It’s okay, bud. Mind giving me a hand? Or I guess, a paw? Er, a wing…” he trailed off. Toothless just snorted and rolled his eyes, kneeling near the bed so that Hiccup could brace a hand on his head as he swung his legs off the side of the bed, and placed his feet on the ground. “Here goes nothing.”
As expected, just standing up sent him toppling nearly to the ground, if not for Toothless, and the first step wasn’t much better. But eventually, he made it to the door, and swinging it open to be met with a roaring Nightmare sent enough adrenaline racing through his body to forget about that strange itch—for now.
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It was days later, and Hiccup was overjoyed to bear witness to a Berk that seemed to accept dragons (for the most part) and friends that actually cared about what he had to say—and that would take getting used to. Yet, all of his problems weren’t solved so easily. He’d made his “tweaks” to the prosthetic that Gobber had made for him, but he just couldn’t get comfortable. Even shaping the socket precisely to his limb and adding a cushioning pad of leather wouldn’t make the itch go away. It was beginning to rankle, only getting stronger with each passing day. He caught himself mindlessly scratching his stump until his skin was red and raw on more than one occasion, but that wasn’t his only issue. The other problem was the dragons.
The dragons had always liked him, but in the days following his accident, they appeared to be more affectionate than ever. Hiccup knew that dragons were intelligent creatures, and they understood the role that he and Toothless had played in freeing them from the tyranny of the Red Death. Still, he wondered if that was the only reason that he couldn’t walk through the streets nowadays without dragons gravitating away from their owners and towards him; nuzzling into his side, ruffling his hair, tugging at his sleeves and pant legs. Selfishly, he relished in all the attention that he had been deprived of for most of his life. He always met their advances with a scratch to the chin, a little cuddling, and a spare fish if he had one. He suspected that they saw him as a dragon, as part of their flock, and that idea filled him with a sense of euphoria that made him feel weightless. He’d never fit in with the rough, burly Vikings, but maybe he’d finally found his place. Maybe he was meant to be among the dragons. He had a soft spot for the Terrible Terrors—smaller than the rest of their kind, just like him—and for the Gronckles, who were always delighted to see him. But his favorite, of course, would always be his Toothless, who could be found shadowing him no more than a few feet away regardless of where he went.
Toothless too, had been acting strangely. His protective instincts were understandable—heck, Hiccup didn’t want to let Toothless out of his sight either—but he was always sniffing around his prosthetic with concern, even gnawing at the metal. Hiccup knew he felt apologetic, but he’d assured Toothless that he had nothing to feel sorry for. After all, they were even now. And he wouldn’t trade anything for the bond they had developed, the sense of being two halves of a whole. A part of him was missing, yet his soul was full; completed by the creature beside him. Still, even when he took the prosthetic off, Toothless seemed captivated by his freshly amputated limb, sniffing and licking at all the exposed skin that he could reach. It could just be Toothless being Toothless, but he had a gut feeling that something else was going on.
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It was about a month later that something fell into place. Hiccup woke up to Toothless licking his face, and hummed in contentment as he extended an arm up to scratch the dragon’s scales. With the morning sunlight streaming through the window, he felt better than he had in quite some time. His muscles weren’t sore at all, his usually nagging headache was nowhere to be found, and as he gazed across the room, he noticed that even his vision seemed to have improved somewhat. In fact, he bolted upright, knocking into Toothess’s head on the way, with the sudden realization that the itch was completely gone.
“Sorry, bud” he said distractedly as he whipped the bedsheets off of his legs with a flourish, only to drop his jaw at the sight that greeted him. In place of his stump was what he could only describe as a draconic limb. Melding seamlessly with the skin halfway down his shin, the limb fit the frame and shape of his body. Yet, it was covered in those unmistakable pitch black scales, and complete with four sharp nails where his toes used to be. He closed his eyes, and opened them again. Nothing changed. After a moment of shock, his mind empty of anything but the image before him, he found himself hyperventilating. This wasn’t a dream. Reality rushed over him like a bucket of cold water as he blinked rapidly, willing himself to focus.
He was changing in ways that he didn’t understand. What did this all mean? Was it permanent, would it continue to spread? Was it a curse of some sort, a punishment from the gods for interfering in the natural order of the dragons? What would the others think, what would his father think? He didn’t even know what he was thinking, at the moment. It had been difficult to reconcile himself to having one leg, and now he once again had to become familiar with… whatever this was. It seemed like the gods couldn’t give him a break.
At the same time, he was good at adapting. Hadn’t he been doing that his whole life? Whether it was crafting a weapon in the forge, workshopping an invention, or training a dragon, he’d always managed to land on his feet. It’s just that one of those feet looked a bit different now.
Catching a glimpse of Toothless’s tail out of the corner of his eye, his resolve hardened. When he’d first stared into the maw of the roaring Night Fury, he’d thought it impossible to leave that cove alive. Later, he’d thought it impossible to befriend the “beast.” Impossible to get him back into the air. Impossible to follow him there. But as it turned out, the realm of possibility had merely been out of his purview. And with Toothless by his side, the horizon seemed wider than ever before.
Toothless purred as he nudged under Hiccup’s arm, looking to give him reassurance. He didn’t seem surprised, as if he already knew this would happen. Hiccup gazed into his eyes shrewdly, patting his head.
“You know what’s going on, don’t you?” he asked. Toothless’s head bobbed up and down. “Why didn’t you warn me?” he groaned, falling back onto his bed. Toothless only snorted, as if to say that he’d been doing that all along.
Amazement at the situation started to bleed in. This was, well, really cool. Hadn’t he just been daydreaming about the idea of becoming part of the flock, one of the dragons? Didn’t this bring him one step closer to them? Not in a way that he had ever imagined, no, but perhaps he could use this to his advantage. This was yet another thing that set him apart, but that was nothing new. Now, it was time to experiment.