Tuff Love (A How To Train Your Dragon Fanfiction | Astrid x Tuffnut)

"Who needs Astrid?!"

Toothless woke up to a tap between his eyes. He opened them groggily and saw in dismay that he was not flying in the homeland of his sweet dreams from a few drowsy moments before, for he was still curled up on his nest of hay and hen-feathers he had seared warm with his own throat-flames in Hiccup's room, which he had entered for a solitary winter nap when Hiccup had not been there at the time. Now, Hiccup occupied the room like a Witch had snapped her fingers and transported Hiccup from his whereabouts to sit in a chair before a desk and create faint scribbling noises with a writing tool that gently piqued Toothless' awakened, sensitive ears in miniscule movements.

The air in Hiccup's bedroom felt toasty to Toothless by the comfortable heat of Hiccup's fire, which had turned from embers on stones of coal to tall and lively orange flames since his master had returned. The room smelled like ashes and aged wood inside and the loud scent of ink carried from Hiccup's endless piles of blueprints and personal maps of places around Berk recorded on parchment that all competed for limited space on Hiccup's desk. The sight of the familiar items in Hiccup's room and the feel of the soft bedding his master had prepared for him every night was soothing to Toothless and drew his eyes to loll backwards into his eyelids until they slowly met together and his neck limped to sink deeper into the hay under his head in a hushed, crackling sizzle. The scritch of Hiccup's stickpen faded slowly from Toothless' ears until they flattened lifelessly on his head.

Toothless popped open his eyes. Another paper-light missile projected from somewhere in the room onto his head.

Vermin, Toothless mentally cursed to Hiccup in his dragon language. The boy had not grown out of his wiles to disturb him when he was trying to relax or escape the world through his dreams, or when he simply preferred to be left to himself. When they had first met, Hiccup would not let him be until he had fit his human contraption on his tail's broken wing that had been snared by Hiccup's own doing to dare to capture him by a projectile net of tough and heavy shiprope. Toothless had thought his wing would heal better in the hands of nature and time from Hiccup's clumsy assault , but Hiccup had been persistent to find him in his place he had landed in the forest, a prison of high rocks in a grassy atoll that he had fell into from the air because he was unsupported by his damaged tailfin. Toothless had been confident he could breach the barrier alone and return to his nest far away from the Vikings' settlement. Although Toothless could not even escape from Hiccup's antics to pester him then, he had unwillingly became fond of the Viking the more he was taunted by his own curiosity of the boy's peculiar inventions he had not seen from any other Viking in all of his dragon-years. He had seen other objects, sharp things and vicious-looking weapons, meant to murder him and his he-dragon and she-dragon cousins and friends simply because they lived. Hiccup had instead created a way for him to survive. It had not made sense to him at first why Hiccup had chosen to help him in that way, but, as their bond grew, Toothless understood that Hiccup was a human to be trusted, and even loved. Thoughts of his much younger Viking master cheered Toothless and soothed him to retreat into his memories and experience a different dream of he and a twelve-year-old Hiccup flying over the sea for miles.

In his dreams he and Hiccup were flying over the ocean with the Sun in their faces and the wind on their skin. Toothless skated beneath a large, arch-shaped rock bed that jutted from the ocean, and Hiccup balanced on his spine and then leaped over the top of the landform to sprint across it and land on Toothless's back. Toothless was encouraged by Hiccup's improving balance and agility, and he pumped his wings until they funneled in the clouds together. Hiccup made a happy sound and Toothless dived backwards as he knew Hiccup wished him to do. Hiccup shouted in high spirits. They accelerated to the rocking waves just before Toothless swiveled upright and speared forward above the water like a black jet. His wingtips created a white trail of ocean spray. Hiccup dipped his hand in the water and skidded the waves to sting Toothless's eye. Toothless growled and dived beneath the surface into the sea to drench Hiccup. When he arose, Hiccup was clutching him in a bearhug and was laughing, and Toothless made a light yet foreboding sound of amusement. Toothless sailed them at a comfortable height and flapped his wings that carried a whiff of the scent of salt from the sea they were soaked by. Hiccup rubbed him eagerly and asked for him to do it again. Toothless flew faster in time for Hiccup's cheer, and suddenly he woke up once more.