The villagers were in the great hall, celebrating their victory and discussing what they would do to the prisoners over a strong brew of liquor. Hiccup could hear their rowdy voices all the way from the forge. The pliers weren’t in their proper place and he shuffled around on the floor for several moments before finding it and in his excitement- forgetting about the counter he was under, his head colliding with a loud thump followed by Toothless’ deep chuckles. “Haha! Go ahead and laugh. Don’t mind how that hurt.”

Toothless leaned in, examining him closely before snorting hot air in his face- clearly certain he was far from injured. Hiccup shoved his snout away. “Come on. Let’s hurry back.”

He thought he knew exactly where they left the dragoness but he didn’t see her as they circled down from the sky. “Where is she?” He mumbled as his eyes scanned the landscape. If he thought he was somehow missing her, he had no better luck once they landed. He looked around for a moment as Toothless stretched his wings lazily and then settled them around his back seeming very unconcerned over the missing dragoness. 

“Aeh!” Hiccup scrambled backwards dropping the tool and withdrawing with an uneasy air at said dragoness’ sudden appearance. “How… how’d you do that?” He questioned, his voice strained with fright at the sudden heart stopping surprise. Toothless’ eyes widened a fraction but then a second later he scoffed and turned away to stalk off. “Toothless! Hey, bud.” Hiccup hurried to cut off his path, spreading his arms and baring his way (sort of). “Hey, what are you doing?” The nightfury sat down on his haunches before turning his nose up and Hiccup puzzled over his reaction for a moment before smiling. “You feel like you’ve been outdone.”

Outshined was more like it.

“Well alright, I see you need a moment.” Toothless was easily the most impressive dragon Hiccup had ever encountered and probably didn’t take well to his title of most ’most awesome dragon’ being threatened. Hiccup walked back over to the dragoness and picked up the discarded tool- regarding this puzzling task for a moment longer. “If you could lay down… I can probably get better leverage to pry this off.”