[ a/n; I can't imagine just what it's like to deal with what Hiccup deals with. Just my take. ]

Losing a leg was no small ordeal, completely different the any average scrape, sprain, or scratch. Sometimes, in those hazy, soft hours of the early morning, Hiccup would jerk out of sleep and sit up in bed, panting and shaking faintly- his injured leg, searing and smouldering in an agony that felt like burning coals placed on his skin, making him writhe and tangle himself further in the ruffled sheets.

His body was still trying to adjust to his new lack of limb. He knew that. So, the thought a fervent and desperate mantra in his mind, he would remind himself constantly that "it would get better. The pain would stop. He would heal."

Over, and over and over again, until the words were meaningless syllables that he continued to repeat, grasping for a distraction.

Every time, the sensation was intense enough to cloud his vision at the edges, his teeth gritted to restrain a scream from bursting loose and irrepressible, shameful tears stinging at his eyes.

Every time, he'd be paralyzed with terror with the possibility that this torture would haunt him for the rest of his life. That it wouldn't get better, that the pain wouldn't stop, and that he'd never be really whole again. If that happened, he didn't have too much faith that he'd be able to survive with his sanity intact.

Every time, his dragon would awaken, a crooning, soft hum of sympathy rumbling out of his lithe form as he padded towards the bed on phantom-silent paws.

And every time, that beast- so "fearsome." so "dangerous," would, with the utmost care, lick away the vestiges of moisture on his human's face, hunched beside him. He would remind his rider of his own handicap, show the boy that they were both crippled, but if Toothless could be strong through his injury, Hiccup could, too. He would stroke him with his feather-soft, harness-free tail, or what remained of it- the same way he remembered his dame doing- until the brunette's face cleared, breathing eased, and he fell back into the silken clutches of sleep.