This chapter is all about the POV of the dragons and Toothless....

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... Love?'

Toothless's ears perked up at the word: from all sounds, it seemed like a voice, a dragon's voice. In the conversation that just occurred between him and Hiccup, his voice came out like a written message that could appear in the mind. Between dragons though, it came out like an actual voice, like humans actually speaking to one another: to them it was just roars and growls and chirps, but the dragons did have their own language. The voice he heard sounded as sad as his and his boy's were a moment ago, but it also sounded lost, like the voice of a scared child separated from its parent.

Toothless turned his head and peered through the smog and mist that was slowly clearing as the first rays of sunlight to ever hit the island of dragons finally came down. Mere feet away surrounding them from all directions, was the Queen's army, every dragon they had seen before in the nest forced to fight while they were under her spell. It was a myriad of colors and shapes, every dragon ever seen and fought against by Vikings was now gathered there, watching the two. But something was different, Toothless could tell: their eyes, their bodies, their whole vibes, there was not a hint of bloodlust among them, no dragon seemed poised to attack, not a single talon or fang was bared.

After an eternal pause, a lone dragon, a Deadly Nadder, stepped out from the crowd, approaching slowly so as not to startle the damaged Night Fury. The Nadder could smell the blood and the rotting skin coming from somewhere near it, a smell known all too well from past raids. Not that he needed to be that perceptive, he had heard the Night Fury speaking to the human earlier – he knew it was there. For some reason, though the Night Fury seemed determined to protect it, shown when he clutched it tighter.

'Please... don't hurt him...' Toothless begged, the look on his face and sound of his broken whimper more scared than fierce, hardly befitting the fiercest of dragon warriors.

The Nadder stopped in its tracks completely. 'What did you say?'

'I said don't hurt him! Try it and I'll kill you!' The ferocity returned and Toothless made the biggest roar he could at that moment. He did the only thing he could do to drive off any potential threats and bared his fangs. His body was near useless now, but he'd be damned if after taking down the Queen some Nadder would be the one to do him and Hiccup in.

'No... what you said before. You said 'love.' Who did you say it to?' The Nadder cocked his head and ruffled his wings, bowing his head to look as non-violent as possible. Toothless' aggressive look died down only slightly, but still remained very evident, showing a glimpse of his sharp fangs that could rend the Nadder to shreds in an instant.

'Why do you care?' He asked harshly. The Nadder winced at the tone, but recomposed himself.

'It's a human, right? You have a human there with you – why would you want to protect one of them? You're a dragon, aren't you, humans are our enemies! They kill us without reason or mercy!' The Nadder argued, numerous barks and roars from the other dragons supporting him.

'Not this human! He's different from the others!'

'Why? What makes this one human so special? What would make you choose him over your own kind!?' The Nadder could help but let loose an accusatory tone in its squaks, even though he was more inquisitive than anything else.

'My kind? MY KIND!? Was I truly one of you; you seemed content to deem me as one of the demons humans accuse us of being!' Toothless's voice was starting to return and his roar more frightening and powerful by the second – dragons were, after all, notoriously fast healers. 'Did you have ANY idea how alone I was? I was ready to return to my sire of death, that solitude was so painful!' All the dragons bowed their heads in shame for their treatment of him. They stayed away to stay alive, not caring how Toothless felt; they should have remembered he was a dragon like them, before anything else.

'This human gave me what no one else did, and convinced me that life was still worth living! You think me a monster, then a traitor for that, but that was only on HER terms!'

The Nadder's head jerked back up instantly. There was something about what he just said that didn't add up. 'What do you mean, WAS?'

Toothless didn't answer: it seemed he'd rather let them piece it together on their own. Granted it took them a few moments, just standing there in silence, but it was that very silence that served as the vital clue needed. Something, or rather someone was missing – they were at the nest, and yet... and it hit them all like a Viking's hammer to the snout.

'W-Where... where is the Queen?' He stepped back slightly, turning his head back and forth in search of her or any sign of her.

Toothless only narrowed his eyes and growled, bringing his tail around his wings to further shield Hiccup. 'This human... what he did for me, me personally, I can never repay him enough for. But what he did for us... for ALL of us... you should be bowing before him...!'

The Queen had manipulated them and their ancestors for centuries to steal food and provide for her, indifferent to how many of their kin had lost their lives to the Viking tribes in the process. Families were torn apart because of her: hatchlings lost their parents, parents lost their hatchlings, comrades lost comrades, and yet she considered such needless tragedies beneath her. She may have been their ruler, but it was no stretch to say that every dragon in that nest hated her and prayed for the day to come when someone or something would destroy her and make her pay for the suffering she inflicted just because she couldn't find her own food or fight her own battles. If not for her, the dragons would have gladly left the humans alone, the only grudges against them being the deaths inflicted on their hands, and some dragons were still very sore about those.

The Nadder only stared back at Toothless silently, pondering the meaning behind his cryptic words and their connection to the Queen's disappearance. Toothless only sighed in exasperation as Hiccup did most times – spending so much time together had caused their personalities to rub off on one another, as they did with good friends.

'Behold the ashes that fall before you and litter the earth...' Toothless called out to all the dragons present, who looked around and saw some flakes of ash still falling as well as the ones on the ground. Sniffing the air they could now tell that something was SERIOUSLY burnt. Some part of Toothless, still as mischievous and smug as ever would take great pleasure in seeing the reactions to come, but mostly he was too angry and sad to notice.

'They are all that remain of Her wretched existence... the Queen... is no more.'

A shrieking chorus of shock and disbelief resounded through the air: dragons flapped their wings erratically and some stumbled back until they tripped on the ground. Past the initial shock at their promised day come to pass, they felt like they should be jubilant, happy beyond measure that now their long suffering had been ended, and yet all that came was... confusion. Having been under the evil spell of the Queen for so long, it was so hard to imagine that they now had their free will again. That confusion was what soon calmed the dragons down again, leaving them as silent as before. Though each and every one felt the growing tension in their hearts wringing them dry of the small comfort of understanding their collective realities.

'And how did she meet her demise?' The Nadder asked. Though based on Toothless' earlier reply, they already had a good idea.

Toothless narrowed his eyes and growled lowly, obviously uncomfortable, as he moved his wing above Hiccup to reveal his form to the Nadder slightly. He readjusted his claw to caress his boy's face, a sign of care and warning. The still mighty dragon shut his eyes in recollection between long centuries and short moments. 'This boy... he and I... in countless winters' times, the Queen's power was unmatched. No human could vanquish Her, no dragon could vanquish Her, not alone at least. I trembled as any of you would, even with my own might, at the thought of facing Her, but this human...'

'Why... would a human... go so far for dragons?' The Nadder whimpered.

'To protect us – that was his wish. He carried it out, and now we have a new future.'

No dragon could even blink or breathe, each and every one unsure at what shocked them more, the fact that the Queen was gone forever or that a human had done the deed out of compassion for their kind. Least of all a human so small, but then again, the Night Fury seemed to see something much larger, much stronger in this little human than in any other. Looking at their eyes, Toothless could recognize the same thoughts and emotions that ran through the mind of the Changewing from a week earlier. For all the fear, all the pain and sadness, they wanted so desperately to believe that they now had a protector who cherished them, a leader who would stand for them.

Hiccup moved his left arm up slowly and placed it on Toothless's snout, alerting the dragon to the slightly cold touch. Toothless looked down to see if his boy had awakened, but huffed in disappointment and concern to see that Hiccup was still out cold. The move was entirely subconscious, but that was heartwarming in itself to know that Hiccup sensed how distressed he was out of pure instinct. This move didn't go unnoticed by the other dragons either; it scared them, naturally, yet it seemed so enticing all the same, they wanted to feel such a touch themselves.

The Nadder moved slightly forward to approach Hiccup, entranced by his promise of love so greatly he was ignoring Toothless's growls. Hiccup shifted slightly and moved his arm away from Toothless snout, and to both dragons' surprise, placed it on the snout of the Nadder. The Nadder had stopped thinking entirely, but before long melted into the touch, his soul surging with a power he had never before experienced as it synchronized with that of the sleeping human, the darkness and light in both of them achieving some perfect, universal balance. He stepped back, and bowed his head to the ground and shut his eyes. The other dragons all followed suit.

'A-a new future... I... want-'

"HICCUP!"

TO BE CONTINUED........