DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN HTTYD, GIFT OF THE NIGHT FURY, THE SCENES, THE DIALOGUE, OR THE CONCEPTS. THEY ALL BELONG TO CRESSIDA COWELL AND DREAMWORKS. I OWN NOTHING

A/N: First thing's first! Welcome to my story! This is Gift of the Night Fury from Toothless's (third-person) POV. I know it's been done, but this is a sort-of sequel to my other story No Longer Alone. That was Toothless's POV of the entire first movie. You totally don't need to read that to understand this story, but the format is very similar, and it would help you understand the way Toothless is characterized. In fact, I was requested to write this while I was writing my other story.

I'm still a bit new to fanfiction-this is my second one, actually. So still be kind! Also, the story will be broken up into short parts/chapters, which will be posted once a day until the story's completion. I hope you enjoy!

Though he had lived among them for a while now, Toothless still failed to understand many important things about humans. He did not understand why they insisted on cooking their food, or why they remained in one location, all year, no matter how unbearably cold it became. There were other perplexities too-such as their apparent need to build large, artificial trees out of dead wood despite having living trees all around them. Though as far as Toothless knew, they had only started that odd tradition recently.

However, he couldn't be sure of that-he had never stayed on Berk for a winter before.

But even with all those really strange activities, there was one thing about humans that vexed Toothless more than anything: their sleeping schedules.

Before Toothless had started living among the Vikings, he would sleep during the day, and fly from dusk until dawn. But the humans had it completely wrong. No, they slept through the night and through most of the morning. That left only a tiny window of opportunity to do...well...everything!

Under different circumstances, Toothless wouldn't have allowed their absurd routines to affect him. But there were certain...conditions...in his life that prevented him from following his own rules. The biggest one? His inability to fly without a rider-a rider who just so happened to like sleeping until midday, when given the chance.

But Toothless was not going to let him get away with that...not in this weather, anyway.

It was bitterly cold as Toothless roared and pounded his paws against the roof of the Viking hut, trying to wake his sleepy rider. Every impact broke shingles and dislodged possibly crucial pieces of the edifice, but the dragon didn't care. He had beaten on this roof plenty of times before-it had become a sort of habit, actually. Stoick would fix whatever damaged he had caused, anyway.

Before meeting Hiccup, Toothless had never stayed in Berk for winter. He had always migrated somewhere warmer-somewhere that suited a fire-breathing, cold-blooded animal of his stature. Of course, Toothless never traveled to the nesting grounds with the other dragons. He had only journeyed there once, and upon seeing the apparent lack of Night Furies, he had promptly left.

But now, Toothless couldn't and wouldn't go anywhere without Hiccup, which pretty much meant that he couldn't leave at all. His rider's life was firmly tethered to one place-Berk-as Vikings' lives often were. In Toothless's experience, they usually settled on a life-long home and stayed there. And Hiccup, despite being different from the rest of his people in many ways, had unfortunately adopted that tradition as well. He was thus very disinclined to leave Berk for more than a few days, let alone a whole season.

That unwillingness annoyed Toothless a lot, especially considering the catastrophic blizzards that constantly plagued the island this time of year. Such relentless storms could ground them for days on end, sometimes even weeks. And nothing-nothing-aggravated Toothless more than being unable to fly. Flight was his lifeblood-his greatest strength. He had already almost lost it once; He was not prepared to lose it again-for anything.

However, the clouds apparently disagreed with him, and they sent him enormous snowfalls that looked more akin to solid marble walls than frozen water droplets.

In truth, staying in Berk during the winter wasn't as bad as Toothless pretended, but he supposed if he was sacrificing at all, then his rider would have to make some sacrifices too.

And that meant that Hiccup would have to get up now, whether he wanted to or not, so that they could take advantage of the rare good weather. It was freezing, yes, but not a blizzard. And to Toothless, any climatic conditions short of cataclysmic were perfect for flying.

The dragon roared again, pounding on the roof with increased force. Hiccup better come out now, or else he would go inside to get him. Toothless had left the (in his opinion, confining) comforts of Hiccup's room to scope out the weather earlier than morning, and he could go back inside just as easily. It wouldn't be the first time Toothless had actually dragged the boy out of bed.

But an extreme course of action soon proved unnecessary. A helmet-clad Hiccup finally stumbled out of the house, rubbing his eyes with exhaustion.

"Well...good morning, Mr. Bossy," he greeted sarcastically, looking up at his dragon with mild exasperation.

Toothless tried to give him a dragon's version of a derisive laugh to express his amusement at his rider's dissatisfaction, but it ended up sounding more like deep-throated warbling. That only made matters worse, because Hiccup began mocking him instead, imitating the poor attempt at a laugh with even more derision. From the boy's mouth, it sounded more like hyperactive barking. That wasn't how Toothless sounded!

But this sort of teasing was customary between the two friends, so neither of them took it seriously.

Hiccup proceeded to walk to the side of the house, which was where Toothless was carefully dismounting from the roof. There were patches of ice and snow between the shingles, and without strong vigilance, slipping and falling became a likely possibility-and Toothless hated falling. His cautiousness paid off, though, and he made it to the ground safely.

"Do you always have to wake me up so early to go flyiiiiiing-!" Hiccup slipped on the icy ground, and his snide complaints soon transformed into a surprised yelp. But the dragon had noticed the ice before Hiccup had, and it was almost like he could anticipate the blunder.

Once again using his head as a crutch for his rider, Toothless managed to catch Hiccup and push him back onto his feet. The boy still held the dragon as he looked down resentfully at where his lower leg should have been. Instead, a tarnished, metal prosthetic was in its place, gleaming coldly in the gray winter light.

"Stupid leg," he mumbled, shaking the prosthetic with impatience-as if that would somehow improve his walking ability. But Toothless suspected that Hiccup would have slipped on that ice no matter what, real feet or not. In truth, the boy hadn't been very coordinated to begin with.

Hiccup let go of Toothless's head, standing unsteadily by himself for a few moments. The dragon was prepared to catch him again if necessary, inching his head forward to do so. But he was soon waved off when Hiccup said, "No thanks, buddy. I'm okay. We can go flying now."

He patted Toothless's head, and the dragon let out a happy sigh, already excited by the very mention of the word "flying". His breath was evidently unbearable by Viking standards, though, because Hiccup quickly retreated backwards, waving his hands wildly and crying out indignantly.

Toothless thought that reaction was ironic-humans always smelled bad to him.