This is my first How To Train Your Dragon fanfiction. Really, it's just a novelization of the end of HTTYD, but I was using it to get used to writing as Hiccup, for future oneshots and maybe even a full chapter fanfic. I've got a general story thought out, but I need a plot bad. I'd also like to write something from Toothless' point of view, but I'll try that later.

Disclaimer: I don't own How to Train Your Dragon, or Hiccup, or Toothless, or any other characters in this. Even if I do wish I had a Night Fury. How awesome would that be, to show up at school on a Night Fury?

"Let's see if this works."

The midnight blue dragon turned in conjunction with my controls, we of one mind, dragon and rider, moving in perfect synchronization. We headed straight towards the massive dragon we were against.

"C'MON! Is that the best you can do?" I roared at the dragon in the hopes it would hear me over its own roars. Toothless screeched his own dragon insult, and that seemed to get the great foe's attention better than I had. It roared louder than ever and moved to snatch us up. But we were too fast.

Toothless half-folded his wings and we went into a dive. The giant "queen" dragon as Astrid had called it was deceptive in its size. One would think something so big would be a lot slower than a small, aerodynamic dragon like Toothless. But every flap of the queen's wings equaled several of Toothless'. I was terrified somewhere in my brain, but right now adrenaline was canceling that part of my brain out.

My foot worked the controls, but they were moving just a little too freely. The replacement fin I made for Toothless had caught fire in the last fire blast given off by the dragon queen. I caught sight of Toothless' eyes. The pupils were round with fear. He could feel his control of his flight beginning to fail, his balance beginning to tip.

"Stay with me, buddy, we're good, just a little bit longer!" I called to him. I hoped neither of us would dwell to long on what we were going to do after "a little bit longer". Now was not the time for either of us to be panicking. Last time they panicked, we nearly slammed into the ground spinning in desperate circles.

"Hold, Toothless," I murmured. I closed my eyes and listened to the beast right on our tail as it gathered gas in its throat and prepared to shoot flames. "NOW!" At the last possible moment, Toothless turned so that he was falling backwards, me clinging to his neck, and shot a fireball into the belly of the beast. We continued to freefall for a moment as we watched the dragon's body lurch from the internal explosion, its long-disused wings ripping from the attempt to slow its body before it hit the ground. Toothless and I zoomed past its head and shot back upwards as the queen dragon slammed into the ground, its body catching fire from the ground up, licking at our heels even with Toothless flying as fast as he could. A part of me knew we should break off and head for ground before the tailfin tore or completely burned away, but there were flames everywhere, there was nowhere to go but up. Maybe if we made it past the flames, we could turn and glide towards the ground. It would be a rough landing, but we could do it, we'd had rough landings before.

Toothless weaved expertly between spines on the beast's back, tongues of flame, and any other random objects that got in our way. He was in the lead now, I simply followed his movements. But as we flew, the controls continued to loosen. Suddenly, they freed altogether. My foot moved loosely in the controls; the fin had completely burned away. I had hope that our momentum would carry us past the flames so we could at least glide towards the ground and maybe one of the others would come help when we were close. At least until I saw the tail. The tail for bashing and crushing, the tail we were supposed to stay away from.

"No…" my foot moved frantically in the controls, trying to direct Toothless' flight with a fin that was no longer there. The lithe dragon angled his body away from the tail, flapping frantically, but we continued going straight forward like a bullet. We had no control over our direction.

"NO!" I cried in defiance, but as I tried to turn my Night Fury one more time, we slammed into the tail at full speed. Toothless sprawled out in the air, I fell from the saddle. My harness was no match for that impact. I fell face up, like Toothless when he blasted the dragon. The other dragons will be safe now though, I thought, and the other Vikings now know that dragons aren't evil beasts. Maybe that's all me and Toothless were meant to do. I looked back at my dragon; he seemed to be trying to angle himself, pointing his body straight at me, using his wings to propel him forward. I knew he'd never make it in time though, so I closed my eyes and accepted my fate. If the gods were merciful, an impact would kill me before the flames. Already the heat was intense, almost too much to bear.

I screamed as something sank into my left leg, teeth and claws that desperately pulled me against what I could tell would normally be a warm, scaly body, but against my now overheated skin felt cool. The pressure on my leg was brief but intense, and it was after several moments of being enclosed by smooth scales that I realized it was on fire. I squirmed against the reptilian legs holding me secure, against the pain in my leg, tears streaming from my eyes but my throat too raw from the smoke to scream.

After several agonizing moments that seemed to last days, Toothless' body slammed into the ground, and my body jerked to a painful halt before everything went black.

I had the feeling it had been possibly several days when I next woke. I vaguely remember waking between that horrible time in the fire and when I really awoke a few times, but I could remember nothing but garbled bits of conversation, the occasional face, and a lot of pain.

However, I now awoke to an eager dragon tongue licking my face. "Hey Toothless." He continued to gleefully lick at my face, apparently happy to see me awake and responsive. I wondered how difficult his time without me had been. Toothless could not fly without me, but from what I could tell he hadn't left my side since I blacked out. Maybe to go do dragonish things like eat fish, but no extended time.

"I'm happy to see you too, bud." Toothless leaned over me, joyfully welcoming me back into wakefulness, and this was all well and good until- "OW!" –he stepped on my stomach. It was only then that I realized…

"I'm in my house…" I muttered, looking around, then, more importantly, "YOU'RE in my house. Toothless, c'mon, does my dad know you're here? Toothless! TOOTHLESS!" The dragon had gamboled around my room in delight and come to rest on a high beam near the ceiling. "Aw, come on-" That's when I realized, as I'd made to jump out of bed, my balance felt wrong. I stopped and slowly pulled the covers back. I stared at my left leg, the one that had caught fire, that Toothless had grabbed onto to pull me into the safety of his wings.

I carefully put my right, booted foot onto the ground, then my new prosthetic left leg. It had a small but powerful spring, a carefully constructed 'foot' part, and a wooden part to hold it to my leg. It reminded me a lot of Toothless' replacement fin I made. Obviously someone that knew me and my creations well-probably Gobber- had forged this.

For a moment, as I sat up with my legs over the side of the bed, I felt like I was drowning. On the verge of hyperventilating, I looked up at Toothless with wide, panicky eyes. He stared back with eyes that, all at once, said "I'm sorry", desperately begged forgiveness, and were completely understanding. I was sure this was how he felt when he lost his tailfin, and he now knew how I felt when I discovered the severity of what I had done to his tail. A downed dragon was a dead dragon, after all.

I carefully stood, putting most of my weight on my right leg, and then carefully stepped onto my left. It seemed able to carry my weight, and I took a full successful step. I still felt…wrong, it was strange not to be able to feel my foot hit the ground inside of a boot. But it gave me confidence, so I tried to take a normal speed step forward, head held high. But I landed on my new leg wrong, what was left of my old left leg crumpled, and I fell. I started to put my hands out to catch myself, but it wasn't necessary; Toothless was there in an instant to catch me. The look he gave me told me everything he couldn't actually speak. You gave me back my flight. Now I will help you walk.

And we really were two of a kind now, weren't we? We were both the odd ones of our species. He wouldn't kill humans or take food. I wouldn't kill dragons. We'd both lost an important part of us; he had lost his left tail fin, throwing his entire balance off so he couldn't fly without me, and I'd now lost my left leg, making walking impossible without the new leg I now had to get used to. But together, we made each other complete.

Slowly, he helped support me as I limped towards the door. I opened the door, only to slam it shut at the sight of a Nightmare. "Toothless, stay here." I opened the door again, only to find the exact opposite of what I had expected. A group of Nadders perched peacefully on a nearby roof. A couple of Zipplebacks fed at a large bowl of fish. A Nightmare was lounging on a balcony. All sorts of dragons all about. And not a Viking in sight had a bad word to say about it, a bad look for the dragons.

"I knew it. I'm dead." I uttered disbelievingly. There was no way possible that the Vikings and dragons took to each other this well. The entire village had transformed from hating dragons and wanting them dead, to happily housing the beasts. It was everything I'd wanted when I tamed the Nightmare before the crowd in the ring. That's why I knew none of it could be real. I was the exact opposite of what the Vikings of Berk were.

"No, but you gave it your best shot," Stoic the Vast, my father, climbed the stairs in front of the house and put an arm around my shoulder, leading me down to see the new Berk, for which I was grateful, as I still hadn't gotten my balance on this new leg. "So, what do you think?" What did I think? There were no words to properly say what I thought. It was…amazing. It was everything I'd ever wanted from the moment Toothless gave me that goofy toothless grin of his. And more importantly, it was finally somewhere I could belong. As if to accentuate my thoughts, someone called "It's Hiccup!" As people came running to see the Hero awake and well-for the most part-I reflected on how strange this was. They were not accepting me for the phony I had been the past several weeks before they found out about Toothless. They were accepting me for…me.

"Turns out all we needed was a little more of…this." My father held his hand out towards my body, but in a way that suggested more. That he was also gesturing towards my thoughts, feelings, actions, and abilities.

"But you just gestured to all of me," I pointed out; I was well used to this, though, they'd always done so when saying that I needed to 'stop all this'. But this time, instead of a disappointed scowl like someone had skimped on the meat in his sandwich, he gave me a warm smile full of pride. I had made him proud. This meant more to me than a whole world accepting of dragons.

"Well, most of you, that bit's my handiwork, with a little Hiccup flair thrown in! Ya think it'll do?" Gobber shoved his way through the crowd. As frustrating as he'd always been, and how insistent he was to make me change my ways, he was really the only one that ever stood up for me or wanted to give me a chance. I was almost sure my getting the wish to train with the other teens was his doing.

"I might make a few tweaks," I said with a good natured smile, and the crowd in general chuckled, since they all knew I practically lived to tweak things. Suddenly something hit me on the shoulder, causing me to nearly fall over.

"That's for scaring me," Astrid frowned at me. Our budding relationship that had begun on that romantic flight through the night sky had had to be put on hold because of the whole business with Berk finding out about Toothless and having to battle the queen dragon. So I wasn't surprised that my near-death had her mad at me, but it still irritated me that that was the welcome I got from her.

"Wai- Wha- What, is it always going to be this way, cause-" She broke off my sentence for me by pulling me close. Our lips touched and I forgot I was supposed to be irritated. I forgot all about her hitting me for scaring her. I just thought about how amazing she was and how lucky I was to be here right now… "-I could get used to it." She smiled at me, a more relaxed smile than I'd seen on her face…pretty much ever. For the longest time she was only concerned with beating me, and I with impressing her.

"Welcome home," Gobber walked over and handed over a brand new saddle and tailfin for Toothless. I had no words for this. It was the best welcome I could have asked for. Suddenly there was the sound of movement from the direction of my house.

"Night Fury!"

"Get down!"

Toothless scrambled over the crowd, perching for a moment on the shoulders of a couple of Vikings before they collapsed, happily staring at me expectantly, making cheerful dragon noises. Astrid laughed, and smiling I began to suit up Toothless. For a moment I was worried about how I would work the fin with my new leg, but then I saw the little slot where the metal part could click in place to move the contraption that moved the wire. Everything else worked exactly the same, so no worries there. Gobber thought of everything. Astrid waited patiently astride her Nadder. I never really noticed how pretty a Nadder was, with shiny multicolored scales. I scrabbled onto Toothless' back with a little difficulty and strapped myself in.

"You ready?" Toothless winked back at me cheerfully. Of course he was ready. He was probably itching for this moment for days, the day we were back in the air together. I looked around at the new Berk. Every Viking it seemed had a dragon. Each dragon looked content and well cared for. There was no aggression from either side. This was home.

This is Berk. It snows nine months of the year, and hails the other three.

Toothless and Astrid's Nadder took off, racing each other, each one flapping hard, slipping around different obstacles. No doubt, Toothless was the faster dragon, but my adjusting to the new controls was slowing him down. We were catching up though.

Any food that grows here is tough and tasteless. The people that grow here are even moreso. The only upsides are the pets.

We took a quick shortcut through a bridge while they ducked under so we could pull ahead. Both of us shot through an opening in the rocks, Fishlegs right behind us and the twins and Snotlout coming from the sides to join us. Hard to believe that just a few short weeks ago, these people were further from my friends than anyone. Finally, this truly was my home. Finally, I was one of them. Or, more appropriately, they found a little more of…this.

While other places have ponies or parrots, we have… Dragons.