Hey y'all!

My original epilogue, in my opinion, sucked. I wanted to write one that was open-ended, for the sake of the possible sequels listed below, but I left it too open. Instead of a creak, I flung it wide like Panic! at the Disco's proverbial Goddam# door, no. Basically, all I managed to do was end this like a chapter and not like an ending.

Here's the third try; second was not only written in a snooty state of mind, but was lacking two very important parenthetical pieces, as pointed out by a lovely reviewer.

Hopefully this will be more satisfactory. My apologies for the chaotic posting, I'll revise better for the sequels. ~bows~

DISCLAIMED.

EPILOGUE

They told me, later, that I'd woken up a few times before I really regained consciousness. I didn't remember any of them, any conversations I had apparently had with Dad or Toothless, or mumbling nonsense, as they said I sometimes did.

I do remember something hazy—very hazy, but I hold onto the memory anyway, because it was a pair of lithe and warm arms I'd never seen before, but recognized anyway, and being held by them had smelled like burning air.

Regardless of what I remembered, when my eyes opened, it was to a very familiar sight.

Toothless's wide black snout and enormous green eyes were inches from my face. His nostrils were flaring as he breathed—they had a weird blue glow to them, had he shot a plasma bolt recently?—and the air was kicking my hair up gently.

His lips pulled up at the edges when he saw that I was awake. "Finally!" he said, butting his head into my shoulder with a happy purr. "You lazy Squish, do you have any idea how long you've been out of it?"

It was taking my mind a minute to wake up, catch up—however long I'd been asleep, it had been a deep one. "He-Hey Toothless," I muttered, smiling a little and raising a hand to his head. "Good to see you, too, bud."

The dragon rolled his eyes, and nudged into my palm. The thing in my chest opened, and its warmth spread through both of us, peaceful and pleasant, waking me up a little more.

"Alrigh' now, ye devil, let me see my son."

The voice made me freeze—because that was my dad's voice. My dad was in the same room as Toothless.

Toothless pulled away, and when the big black blockade of a dragon had gotten out of the way, I got to see where exactly I was.

My room? "Wha… how'd I get in here?" I asked, looking around. The sight of my dad sitting, looking comfortable and smiling on a chair next to my bed, made me blink. I couldn't remember the last time he'd come up here. "Why… why're you up here—Dad, why's Toothless…?"

Dad chuckled, and I stared at him in total confusion. "Sorry, son. It's just very good to hear your voice again. You've been asleep nearly three weeks."

Thr—"Three weeks?" I squeaked, eyes huge. It had to be almost winter outside already! "How in Helheim…?"

He nodded. "You should be grateful you're alive, son. That wasn't a little thing you lived through."

…The parasite. Right.

Well, he wasn't wrong about the not little part. Nodding and putting my hands flat against the boards on either side of me, I tried to push myself vertical—only to get a fiery pain down my left leg and side.

"Ah!"

Eyes slamming shut, I fell unceremoniously back onto my pillow, my spine protesting weakly at the sharp drop onto hard wood. "Ow," I whimpered, the sound half-Dragonese, before lifting my head again. "What in the name of the gods was tha—"

The sight of my legs, still under the blanket, made me freeze.

On the right side, there was pretty much what you'd expect, seeing a leg under a blanket. A thin but firm column extending out from a hip, the thigh muscles strengthened by dragon-riding for months, and then a raised knob of a knee, and a skinny shin before the mountain of the foot. Normal stuff.

But the left… I had the thigh, and the knee, but then the blanket just… dropped. No foot-mountain.

Flat.

Nothing holding it up.

Nothing there.

Dad said something, and maybe Toothless too, but I didn't hear. I breathed in sharply, because there was just no way—I was sixteen winters, I couldn't have… there should have been…

Shock was on the horizon, but before it hit, I managed to get myself to sit up, hissing at the twinges of pain coming from the—the thigh. When I was up against the headboard, I grabbed the edge of my blanket and flipped it off.

Cold numbness flashed through my body like a wave of freezing seawater. The right leg was as normal as I'd expected—the left was bandaged halfway down the shin, and there was just… nothing beyond it.

My foot was gone.

I felt my heart beat steady but hard against my chest, a hammer to the sternum, pounding in my ears. My face felt cold when all the blood fled it, and my hand was shaking as I put it on my thigh. I couldn't take my eyes off of it because—there'd been a foot there, my foot, with a heel that had a scar from broken wood when I was eight, a-and five toes I could just barely remember Dad playing with a-and bones that had broken more than once and muscles and tendons and now there was just space.

A warm nose pressed gently into my ribs, working its way under my shirt and onto the skin of my side. Heat flowed through the point, and while it wasn't a connection, it was still centering, soothing, and it let me finally release the breath I'd sucked in.

He pulled back away and looked at me. "Hiccup…" Toothless murmured, his voice soft.

"No!" I closed my eyes and swallowed. Slowly, the numbness eased away, though some of the shock stayed; my stomach roiled. I screwed my eyes up and forced myself to ignore it before opening them again. "N-no. It's—it's… it's okay."

That parasite had been big enough to fill a mountain, older than the village itself—it would've been a miracle on par with Oðin himself dropping out of the sky naked if we'd gotten out of that completely unscathed. "I'm oookay."

Barely. I met Toothless's gentle eyes, desperate. "Cousin…" I whimpered, and my voice cracked painfully.

Toothless crooned again and bent down to sniff at the-the stump, then turned up to face me again, his eyes soft. "I'm sorry, Hiccup."

The words hit and stung, like driving rain or sand thrown into the face, but I didn't flinch, only whined helplessly. I looked back down at it and, slowly, took a deep, deep breath; in through the nose, out through the mouth. Like Petri had taught me.

I needed a few of them, but it worked. The last of the shock eased a little, enough, and a gentle, warm press into my hand centered me even more. "Okay," I said. My voice was shaky, but didn't crack anymore. "One foot. Okay. I can do that."

"I'm sure you can," my dad said. I looked over to him, and there was a quiet shine in his eyes—wa-was that pride? "Gobber's bringing your prosthesis in the mornin'—well. Couple hours from now, I guess."

"Prosthesis," I repeated, and right. I would need one. I nodded sharply. "Right…" A thought came to mind and I couldn't help but blink, then smile shakily at Toothless.

The change made him cock his head, which only made my smile a little bigger. "L-looks like we match now, right bud?" I asked, jutting my chin towards his tail. Toothless looked around and lifted it, spreading his singular right fin. When he turned back to me, his eyes were wide. "Guess all that balance stuff you never shut up about actually wasn't just a big load of yak droppings."

He snorted, any vestige of tenderness long gone. "Of course it wasn't, you stupid Squish. They're very delicate, very powerful and intricate creations of the gods." He lifted his head, proud as always. "They're not the only ones, of course."

"You realize you just called yourself delicate," I pointed out.

"Powerful, and intricate."

"No, the word 'delicate' was definitely in that sentence there." I grinned.

"Obviously, your Squish ears are failing you. No big surprise there, though, they're nothing near a dragon's—what're you—hey!"

As he'd been going on, I'd reached up over my head and grabbed the bundle of feathers on the closest shelf, picked one out, and tossed it at him. It landed right on his nose, and I laughed. "At least we know you can stand a feather to the face, O Delicate One," I chuckled.

Toothless growled and shook the raven feather off. "I'll show you delicate—"

Aaand he proceeded to lick me all over, my face and chest and everything he could reach, even putting a paw carefully on the bed across my middle to get at me better. Laughing, I tried to shove him away. "Get—get off—get off me, you big arrogant lump!"

Just to spite me, he dragged his tongue one more time from my sternum to my forehead before moving back with a huge smirk on his face. Still chuckling, I wiped at the slime over my mouth and eyes, then smeared what was on my tunic. "You dam# lizard, you know how hard it is to wash this out!"

It was only when I caught Dad recoiling in the corner of my eye that I realized I'd said it in Dragonese.

I froze, winced, and looked at him carefully. "Uh… sorry," I said nervously, rubbing the back of my neck.

Dad's jaw clenched, but he shook his head. "Don't apologize, son. If it weren't fer you an' tha' devil o' yers, most o' the village would be settling in at Fólkvangr and Valhalla." He looked between me and Toothless. "Astrid told me what she knew."

That made sense, so I just nodded. Dad paused, looking unsure and a little awkward, and when he spoke, he did so haltingly, like he was picking every other word. "I'll be willing… ta listen… if-if ye want." I blinked at him in surprise. "Ye keep a lot o' secrets, son, and we…"

We had a lot to make up for. I knew that.

But for some reason, I stiffened. It was ridiculous, because Dad had always known about my secrets, but I couldn't help it. Maybe it was because I was so used to hiding everything from so many people. Because eventually, I'd gotten to the point where I didn't tell even him anything, even though he knew about the Gifts. Maybe it was because I'd started hiding Toothless, and everything I knew about the dragons, from everyone, no exceptions. But whatever the reason, the fact was, everything inside of me was screaming to not tell him anything. Not tell my dad anything at all.

Dad picked up on it—I could see walls rise in his eyes, hiding his emotions behind them. I set my jaw and met his eyes, and he blinked and stopped whatever he was about to say.

"I-I…" I screwed my eyes shut and forced the words out. "I promise to tell you the truth," I said, my voice cracking because that was a promise I'd never made before. "From now on."

When I opened my eyes again, Dad was looking at me gently. He moved in his chair, resettling before resting one massive hand on my shoulder.

"An' I promise ta listen," he said, and I gave him a shaky smile. "From now on."

And the thing in my chest buzzed contentedly—because it knew everything would be okay. From now on.

We ended up talking for hours, about every little thing that happened. From the very moment I thought up the Mangler, right on down to what I thought I'd been doing during the Kill Ring. Everything came out into the light—the air was cleared.

It was not a very calm and peaceful few hours. We fought and railed, and Dad nearly completely dismissed me a couple times…

…but every time he came close, for once, he'd actually see the way my jaw would tighten. Or it could've been Toothless giving him cues by snarling. But either way, he'd stop, take a breath, pinch the bridge of his nose, nod once, and put his hands on his lap before meeting my eyes steadily and nodding for me to continue.

The following weeks would not be easy. Dad would sometimes forget, and he'd brush me off or mutter under his breath, and I'd feel the same sting as always. During those few times Toothless wasn't around to make him realize it, I'd just ignore it until I could scream into my pillow; the only reason I didn't go out to scream in the forest, or go flying, was because my leg was… busted… and our flying equipment was even more busted.

(There were also the nightmares; I had one that same night. Several, actually—swirling flames and blindness, fear from falling into a great fire and terror as arms held me down in a dark cell, sharp glints of thin metal threaded with leather, and by Thor so much pain—but it ended the moment a familiar black weight settled by my side and let warmth chase the fear away.)

((Those nightmares never really left. Luckily, neither did my cousin.))

It did get better, though… eventually. But things take time, that's a fact of life. Even the gods don't fix their problems with a snap of their fingers.

Rather, they like adventures. Anyone who doesn't know their Gifts from birth has them, as they try and find them out—myself included.

I thought I knew what my Gifts were, because I'd been able to o so many things others couldn't, from birth. I thought my Gifts were only mine because I'd been born into a certain family.

But I was wrong; my Gifts were my own, like all Gifts should be. I found that out by finding my cousin, who is also from that family, true, but it was my own decision to befriend him. And it was him who let me see my real Gifts—through an adventure of my own.

The gods like to send those who don't know what their Gifts are on adventures. I've had mine, now.

(Or well. I've had my first.)

Plans in order of solidity ("probably coming" to "plotbunnies unsure of the future"):

Tie for a prequel/running movie addition, and Riders/Defenders of Berk- anyone who knows Merlin well enough knows about the "Question of _" series, by Alaia Skyhawk. The series'll be a bit like that; original stories and problems mixed in or alternating with episodes. A couple scenes and a hidden-to-various-characters story line... with accompanying trust issues! :D I'm gonna go step-by-step on a rewatch and write everything down, then do my basic writing technique. With the running-movie/prequel combo, I've got research to do, a style to assume, and then the technique follows.

Original Sequel-a basic first concept, a couple scenes, some lines...

How To Train Your Dragon 2-a set up and a few emotional scenes...

Legend of the Bone Knapper-one line, a possible scene

Gift of the Night Fury-uh... nothing, I guess? ':D So far.

And the majority of this from the last week. :D Isn't having a muse by your side fun? New ideas every minute! I hope s/he/preferred pronoun doesn't try to leave, now that I've jinxed it...

I want to thank everyone reading for joining me on this wonderful, long journey. You're all dear to my heart and the lights of my life, lifting me in bad times and joining me in the good. I wish you love, happiness, and pure joy in all your lives.

PEACE,

~Tibki

It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it.

And I feel fine.