============

I opened my eyes, and jumped. I was now in Hiccup's house (I remembered what it looked like from seeing a few episodes of DreamWorks Dragons), and a woman who had long auburn hair that matched Hiccup's exactly, except for the random streaks of gray, was examining me intently. She opened my mouth and looked at my teeth, felt my tongue, looked at my sonar-receptor-things, was getting too close for comfort. I drew back and shook my head, licking my now-dry teeth. The woman stood up and smiled, and Hiccup joined her.

"I can't believe it," she said. She had a slight Scottish accent, and her voice was tender and warm. "I just can't. All the while I thought yours was the only one, the last Night Fury. But, look! Son, you found another one!"

I started. SON?!, I thought. What did I miss, exactly?! Is this after the second movie?!

Toothless appeared suddenly and sat down next to me. "That would be Valka, Hiccup's mother," he said. "And Cloudjumper's mistress. Oh, that reminds me, Hiccup is the one Valka is talking to, Astrid is the girl you met earlier and Hiccup's girlfriend, Gobber is the old guy who took care of you earlier and fixed your wing, and Fishlegs is the fat kid who found the dragon root." Though I already knew most of this, I nodded politely. Not only because I wanted Toothless to think I didn't know, but, ever since Cloudjumper called him "Alpha" I felt like I had to treat him with the highest form of respect.

I turned my attention to Valka. She was beautiful, despite being around fifty. Her long auburn and gray braids draped gently over her shoulders, and she had a face that matched Hiccup's in shape. Her freckles were like her son's, varied in size and shape and scattered around at random. Valka's eyes were two orbs of stunning deep green, with a tiny rim of brown around the edge of the iris. She was thin and slight, much like her son. I realized that Hiccup was more like her than his father. Speaking of which, where was his father and Thornado?

"Well," Hiccup said. "I gotta go to the Great Hall. Spitelout, Astrid, Snotlout, Gobber and I are planning out new dragon perches, much safer than the ones I came up with five years ago." I remembered that episode. Hiccup had decided that bars of solid metal were the only way to go for dragon perches. However, they had attracted lightning. Mildew convinced everyone it was Toothless's fault, Hiccup realized that it was the metal, tried to prove that it wasn't Toothless, and got himself struck by lightning through the head in the process. How he survived, I do not know.

Hiccup left and Valka crouched next to me. My dragon instincts kicked in and I pulled back from Valka.

"It's okay," Toothless said. "Just, don't make any sudden movements, and trust that she won't hurt you, 'cause she won't." I eyed Toothless suspiciously, then tried to relax and let Valka touch me. She ran her hand over my head and then held my head in her hands.

"You are a beautiful creature," she said after a moment. "I can sense something special, something different about you. Not the art, but that is special. No, something different. I feel that you know exactly who most of us are, but I don't know why. And, you are intelligent, like all dragons." Valka pressed her forehead against mine and closed her eyes. "You're afraid," she said after a few minutes. She looked into my eyes. "You're not from anywhere near here, aren't you? Somewhere, someplace worse than our land. You live in a broken world, don't you? Where you suffer, where everyone suffers, right?" That was exactly right. It touched me so much, that Valka could see this. My world, the modern Earth, was a terrible place, full of hurt and sadness. Before I knew what was happening, I was crying. I was sobbing. Valka smiled sympathetically, and Toothless put a wing around me. Valka wiped away my dragon tears. "Hush," she whispered. "You're in good hands now...............Paintsplash." I jumped. Toothless gasped.

"How?," I whispered through my tears.

Valka grinned. "I just know." And she was still talking in Norse! I was so astonished! Toothless's jaw dropped to the floor, and suddenly, the strange connection I had felt slightly when talking to Valka was gone, and I couldn't speak to her anymore. She stood up, gave me a honeycomb, and headed off to bed. I ate the honeycomb, then sat there with Toothless, staring into the fire.

"You know," I said after a while. "Valka is absolutely right. I'm not from here. I'm not even from this world! I come from a different world entirely, full of pain and misery." Toothless gave me a questioning look. "But..." I took a deep breath. "I'm really human, okay? I was walking along in the rain when lightning struck me, I turned into a dragon, and got transported back in time and into a world that everyone in mine says is imaginary and made up and fictional."

Toothless flinched. "But, we ARE real!"

"I know," I said. Now for the hard part. "But that's how I know about almost everything that goes on here. I knew exactly who you were when I first saw you, and, well..." How do I explain movies and tv shows to a dragon living in 800 A.D.? "Because you're imaginary in OUR world, well, we have a thing called TELEVISION, where you have a sheet of glass with moving pictures on it, and, you're on it. I know exactly who most of you are, but not Valka and Cloudjumper. See, in our world, Valka and Cloudjumper don't exist yet."

Toothless blinked. "Wow."

"And," I continued. "I'm am permanently a dragon now in YOUR world with the ability to read, write, and draw." Toothless stood up.

"Okay...," he said, a little dazed. "I'll just...go...to bed now....."

"Okay," I said. I laid my head on my paws, and fell asleep in half an hour.

============

I barely awoke some time later. Hiccup was just coming come. He was at the door saying goodnight to Astrid. She gave him a sock in the stomach before standing on her toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. Then my eyelids fluttered and I drifted back to sleep.

============

The next three weeks went by uneventful. My wing was healing, and Toothless had accepted the fact that I knew most everyone and that I had come from a different world. I was becoming more and more of a dragon, but I still drew and sketched on the paper Hiccup provided. Valka took care of me during the night, Gobber would check in off and on, and Hiccup took care of me during the day. He sometimes was gone for the longest time, and I didn't know why, but Valka was always there when he was gone. There was still no sign of Stoick and Thornado. So, one night, I decided to ask Toothless about it.

We were staring into the fire like we did every night, as we had become good friends. That's when I asked the question.

"I've been wondering....," I said. "Where's Stoick and Thornado?"

Toothless jumped slightly, and looked away. "Thornado doesn't live here anymore. Stoick set him free five years ago so he could take care of his dragonets. Stoick got a new dragon, that Rumblehorn Skullcrusher that Eret was taking care of."

"But what about Stoick?," I pressed. "Where is he?"

Toothless avoided eye-contact. "He...," he started, drawing in a deep breath. "He.........got killed in an accident a few months back...."

I gasped. "Oh, no! I'm so sorry! What happened?"

"I don't wanna talk about it," Toothless said stiffly.

"Please?," I said. I started to put my good wing over Toothless, but he pushed it away and stood up quickly.

"I said I don't wanna talk about it!," he snapped, running up the stairs and into Hiccup's room.

I sighed and pulled my wing back to my side, laying my head on my paws. I stared into the fire for a while, and thought. Hiccup must have been devastated. And Astrid, too. What would the tribe do without a chief? That's when an almost terrible thought hit me. It couldn't be possible, not yet. He was still too young for that. But, since there was no Stoick......... I shook my head. No, no, he can't be yet! This can't happen yet!!!

Just then, Valka came in with a bowl of chicken broth. She noticed the distress I aired and kneeled beside me, once again taking my head in her hands.

"It wasn't his fault," she said after a few minutes.

What wasn't his fault?, I thought. And who's he?

"He was just brainwashed by that terrible beast!," Valka continued. She spat out those words as if they were poison. "Drago was an evil man, and his Bewilderbeast was just as bad. The Bewilderbeast got control of--" She stopped when I started to look worried. Valka shook her head. "I won't tell you any more," she said. "You're still in pain, you don't need these horrible stories to haunt you." Valka stood up swiftly and walked off, and I swore I saw a tear slip out of her large green eyes.

I looked at the chicken broth. It steamed, and smelled delicious. It reminded me of the soup my mother would give me when I was sick........ Then I started to cry, and shoved the bowl away. I cried silently for a while.

"Oh, mom, dad," I whispered. "Please, if only you were still here. I miss you so much, I've been on an amazing adventure that would be perfect if you were here with me. I know you're looking down on me, smiling, proud of my independence, but, I wish you were actually here...." I continued sobbing. Then I could feel a cold, clammy presence on either side of me. I opened my eyes, and, though I didn't recognize them, I knew who it was. Two Night Fury spirits, or, to be more accurate, angels, were next to me, smiling; my mom and dad.

"Mom?," I whispered shakily. "Dad?" They both hugged me. "But, how come you're dragons?" My mom smiled.

"So we'd be more true-to-form," she said.

"We're very sorry we had to leave so soon," my dad said. "We didn't want to, but fate has a way of changing our plans."

I grinned. "You're talking like some wise old man now."

My dad laughed. "You're still as funny as your mother said you were," he said soothingly. "God is looking out for you, don't worry. He can't wait until you come home."

I smiled. Then, my parents closed their eyes, and faded into the darkness. I sighed contentedly, but then I was back into a depressed mood. What happened to Stoick? How did he die? I knew how Hiccup felt, having a loved one die, but I had two. Still, Hiccup had lived with Stoick for twenty years. I had only lived with mine for twelve years combined. When you only have one parent for your whole life, then you lose him/her as soon as your other one appears, I assumed you'd take it pretty hard.

Then I felt someone watching me. I looked to my left, and jumped. Toothless was sitting in the stairway. His eyes were bloodshot, and he had tears dried on his scales.

"I'm sorry," he said, walking down the stairs.

"For what?"

"For snapping at you like that," Toothless replied once he sat down next to me. "You've had it hard; lost both your parents at a young age, broke your wing, got transported into a completely different world and time, and I had no right to be that way with you. Ever since I became Alpha, everything is harder. The fact that I...............well, that doesn't help, either."

I eyed Toothless. "The fact that you......what?"

Toothless sighed. "You know how you wanted to know what happened to Stoick?," he said shakily. I nodded slowly. "Well.....it..............he........I...killed him......"

I gasped. "WHAT?!!!"

"See, we were fighting Drago Bludvist and his Bewilderbeast," Toothless continued. "Stoick had just arrived at Valka's dragon sanctuary about half an hour before, and now they were fighting Drago along with Hiccup, the Alpha (Valka's Bewilderbeast), and I. Drago's Bewilderbeast killed Valka's, ran his tusks through him. Then all the dragons, except for me, Cloudjumper, Stormfly, and the other riders' dragons, joined Drago. Then the new Alpha started a weird buzzing noise similar to the one that drew me to the Red Death six years ago--you remember that. Anyway, the noise made my pupils start dilating and slitting off and on nonstop, and I started feeling hypnotized. Then, I didn't know who I was or where I was or what I was doing, all I knew was that I was supposed to kill Hiccup. I started stalking him, despite his desperate efforts to snap me out of my trance. Once I had him backed against a wall of ice, I charged up my most fatal plasma blast possible. Then Hiccup looked up and saw Stoick running toward him. He tried to stop Stoick but...but it was too late. Stoick shoved Hiccup out of the way right, right as I...fired. H-he crashed into the ice wall, and-and a ton of ice fell on him. Hiccup, Hiccup ran and pushed the ice off Stoick, and t-tried to roll him onto his back. Astrid and Valka joined him, and rolled Stoick over. Valka listened for a heartbeat........"

Toothless looked back at me, his eyes full of tears again. I was starting to cry, too.

Toothless drew in a deep, shaky breath. "There was no heartbeat. I k-killed, I killed my best friend's father. I had tried once before, six years ago, when Stoick tried to kill me, and I didn't know better at the time. I was a teenager, I didn't know who this person was, I thought he was trying to hurt my friend. Now, six years later, I tried again. Granted, under the spell of evil, but I tried. And succeeded. Stoick was dead. I shook out the hypnosis, and saw the sin I had committed. I tried to nudge Stoick, but Hiccup drove me away. 'NO! GET AWAY FROM HIM!!! GO, JUST GO!!!!' He pointed to the Alpha, crying and shouting at me to just go away. So, I obeyed, showing Hiccup that I was still willing to do anything for him, and I ran back to Drago, tears welling up in my eyes. The Alpha gained control of me again, and........I don't really remember much after that."

I was silent. This was a lot to take in. Tears rolled down my scaly cheeks quietly, and Toothless cried as well. I finally looked up at Toothless after what seemed like an eternity.

"How did you become Alpha?," I asked, wiping away a tear.

"I fought Drago's Bewilderbeast," Toothless replied. He smiled at me tiredly. "And won. I used a skill I didn't know I had, where my scales, spines, and wings glowed blue with plasma. My enhanced fire let me shoot more than the six-shot limit, and each blast was ten times as powerful. I injured the Bewilderbeast, and snapped off one of its tusks. It succumbed and dove into the sea, swimming away to wherever it came from, Drago in tow."

I smiled. "What about Hiccup?," I asked. "What role does he have in the village?"

"After I defeated the Alpha," Toothless said. "Hiccup was anointed chief. He is now the chief, though young and, may I say, still has a lot to learn. Yes, he has some experience from being head of the Berk Dragon Training Academy, but that's not entirely the same."

"And Astrid?," I said with a grin.

Toothless gave me a sly look. "She's Hiccup's very close girlfriend. They've been dating for six years, just really started getting into the whole 'boyfriend-girlfriend' thing three years ago. You can tell they really love each other, but they never say it. At least, not that I've heard. After I defeated the Alpha, Astrid joked around with Hiccup and flicked open the back fin on his flight suit. He made some smart remark, then wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her on the lips. Astrid flinched slightly, but then gave a small, content sigh, closed her eyes, and kissed him back. I will never understand WHY humans do that, but you do. I've also seen them exchange numerous cheek kisses. About fifty, I'd have to say, and nine on the lips. That's a big difference."

I giggled, and that same flirtatious feeling I had when I met Toothless came back. He gave me an endearing look, and my heart started doing some dubstep crap. Then, Toothless crawled up the stairs into Hiccup's room to go to bed. I laid my head on my paws and pounded it. Why am I falling for a DRAGON?!!!, I thought fiercely. I am a human, I am a human, I AM A HUMAN!!!!! With that, my eyes closed, and didn't open till the next morning.