After I'd finally managed to get a decent amount of sleep, I exited Hiccup and my lodgings to try and find him. Vikings and dragons buzzed about, getting to work now that the sun had come up and given us light. I wandered slowly, enjoying the warmth of the morning sun. I found Hiccup at a work station he'd set up at some point, meticulously bent over his project. I eyed the plans Hiccup had drawn out. It looked like he was trying to make an artificial tail fin that Toothless could control on his own. I smirked and moved closer to him, watching as he worked with one hand and kept the twins out of the way with the other.

"Oh. Looks like someone was productive while I was asleep." He briefly looked back at me, smiling.

"Yeah. Well, that Light Fury won't let us within a mile of her." I nodded

"That's very true."

"And neither of us will be getting any sleep or finding the Hidden World until Toothless takes over." Toothless shot up eagerly and pushed Hiccup aside, looking through his magnifying glass at the tail fin. Hiccup and I chuckled, and I made my way over to where Toothless had been lying to pick up the scales he had shedded. "Hey! What do you think of that? Yeah."

Hiccup picked up the cup with the past we'd made to fireproof Hiccup's armor and extended it out to me. I placed the scales inside, and he began to grind them into a powder.

"You tried this once before. He didn't want it."

"Well, up until now, he didn't have a reason to. Right, bud?" I gagged slightly as Toothless spit into the cup, but that's how it became a space. I watched as he continued to mix the paste together, a smile crawling onto my face. He'd changed so much since I first met him, even since the girls had been born. The old Hiccup still showed at times, but this new him, the him ready to be a leader, gave me hope for the future.

His eyes bounced to me a few times, as though trying to figure out whether I was actually looking at him or not.

"What?" he chuckled.

"No, nothing. I'm-- I'm impressed. I mean, look at you, embracing change. I am proud of you." He grabbed the brush he'd been using to paint the tail fin and filled in the last few spots that had yet to be covered in the black mixture.

"Well, he's my best bud. I want him to be happy. And, besides, it's just until he brings her back."

Hiccup carefully picked up the finished tail fin with one arm, making sure not to hit our sleeping daughters slung around his neck. He quickly pecked the top of my head, catching me off guard and bringing another smile onto my face, then passed the sling off to me and stood in front of Gobber. He fanned open the tail and propped it up.

"All right. Fire when ready." Gobber cried out as Toothless shot a plasma blast at the tail, testing its fireproof abilities. The tail fin came away completely unscathed, Gobber had been coated in a thick layer of ash. Unamused, he licked his fingers to put out a smile fire on the hairs of his mustache.

"Well, at least you know the tail is fireproof." Hiccup froze in place for a moment, awkward and unsure of when to move. Once Gobber wandered away, Toothless bounded over to his rider and panted excitedly.

"Okay, Okay! I know, I know, I know." I giggled as I watched Hiccup struggle to keep Toothless still long enough to put his new tail fin on. "Shh. Okay, I know." Hiccup sat down on his dragon's tail and started to secure the straps. However, Toothless' excitement caused him to move his tail back and forth. "Please, this is not helping."

"Well, well, well." I turned my head to see Eret approaching, smiling at the scene in front of him. "Someone's excited." Hiccup sighed, unable to fight the smile on his face.

"He's fresh off his first date. Now he's love crazed."

"Only we're the ones going crazy," Gobber complained. "The sooner he brings back that Light Fury, the better."

"Yeah. But to do that, he'll need to fly without me." Hiccup finished securing the tail and stood up, admiring his handiwork for a moment. "So, time to give this new and improved baby a shot." Toothless walked in a circle, eyeing the new tail curiously and chittering. "Atta boy. Looking sharp, Toothless. So, what do you think, bud?" Toothless flashed Hiccup his gummy smile, causing me to laugh. "Bring her home." He slipped into an impression of his dad. "By sundown at the latest."

Toothless cooed and nudged Hiccup's stomach, then jumped up and, somehow, hugged him. Hiccup must have taught him that, or maybe, he'd picked it up watching people over the years. Still, it was quite impressive, considering none of our other dragons demonstrated this level of intelligence.

"Ah, no! Save it for your girlfriend," Hiccup cried as Toothless licked him, getting Night Fury saliva all over his clothes. Go on, get out of here."

Excitedly, Toothless bounded away toward the thick of the forest, probably following the scent of the Light Fury. He got pretty far along the way, before he suddenly dug his heels into the ground and halted in his tracks. I moved to stand by Hiccup and placed my free hand on his arm. Toothless turned his head around, looking at Hiccup and I with big eyes, as though he wanted to make sure this was really okay. Hiccup smiled and nodded just enough for Toothless to see.

"It's okay."

With a renewed sense of excitement, Toothless bounded into the forest and took off, becoming smaller and smaller in the sky until the black dot of his figure finally vanished. Hiccup continued to smile for a moment, then realized everyone was watching him and I. For the first time, Toothless wasn't here anymore, and it started to dawn on him slowly. He almost seemed lost, as though he didn't know what to do without Toothless. I shook my head and laughed to myself, then turned my head toward Eret and called out to him.

"Hey, Eret?" He looked up at me and smiled. "Can you take the girls for a little while."

"Of course." He made his way over, and I carefully passed the sling to him.

Once my daughters had been passed off to their trusted sitter, I grabbed Hiccup's hand and turned him to face me. With a smile, I whistled for Shriek, and helped him up onto my dragon.

"What're you doing?" he asked as his arms snaked around my waist.

"We're going somewhere." I shrugged my shoulders and patted Shriek to get her to take off.

Hiccup might have been protesting staying on this new island, but I wanted the chance to explore it and get to know the terrain. I could see a mountain off in the distance, what looked to be a massively sprawling field of tall grasses, and, the place I ultimately settled on, a grove closed off from view by the tightly-knit trees. Shriek circled around once before landing, and once her feet were firmly on the ground, I slid off my dragon and offered my hand to Hiccup, who gladly took it. I led the both of us over to a spot where the warm sunlight poked through and sat the both of us down, allowing the light to just wash over the both of us.

"You know, this island really isn't that bad," I finally spoke up, adjusting as Hiccup laid his head against my chest. "I know you've got your heart set on finding the Hidden World, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't, just... as long as Grimmel can't ever find us, maybe stopping here isn't so bad."

He didn't exactly agree with me, but the small nod was enough for me for the time being. So rarely did Hiccup and I get the chance to slow down. Home felt like the one place where the rest of the world never mattered, but Grimmel had tried to take that away from us as well. Whatever bit of control we could have over him, I wanted to take.

"I can't believe Toothless is out there on his own." Although there was something sad mixed into Hiccup's voice, the pride overflowed from his words. "He's found the Light Fury, now he's out there trying to impress her—hopefully she'll want to be with him."

"He's all grown up," I marveled.

"It seems like just yesterday he threw that tail back at me when he came back from finding my helmet," Hiccup chuckled. "I really thought I'd lost him for good..." He trailed off, his eyes falling down toward his feet.

Sensing the change in his emotions, I reached a hand up and gently played with his hair.

"He's still your best friend," I reminded him. "Even if he's out living his own life, he'll still think of you. His life is just changing." That didn't seem to do much to help. "I'm sure Toothless was upset at first after the twins were born and you two stopped going on morning flights. It took him a little bit, but he understood that you had something else that needed your attention."

"That's true." I felt his chest vibrate. "He pouted for, like, a week. Remember when he'd somehow managed to push all the furniture in the living room around?"

"Oh, gods!" I laughed. "I still don't know how he managed to do that. We were gone for twenty minutes, and he has no hands."

The way he smiled warmed my heart.

"Hmm." I ran my hand along his cheek, asking him to share what he was thinking. "Just thinking... Toothless, an absolute dork of a dragon, is out there chasing after a dragon not from Berk, who, on several occasions, has demonstrated she's pretty far out of his league. Sounds pretty familiar."

I scoffed and rolled my eyes at him.

"First of all, you're not a dork." He lifted his head to look me in the eyes, raising an eyebrow. "Okay, you are, but I think that's cute. And second, I don't see you as beneath me at all... you know that, right?" He gently shrugged. "You're the exact person I was meant to end up with. Not to mention, I couldn't imagine raising a family with anyone but you. Somehow, you've managed to change so much, and yet you've kept the best parts of yourself the same."

"What are you even saying right now?" Hiccup chuckled.

"Not really sure," I admitted, smiling. "Ultimately, I'm trying to say that, while you were already a wonderful person, becoming a dad... somehow made you better."

"Don't underestimate yourself," Hiccup cut in, reaching up to take my hand. "I fell so hard for you. I know I've told you this, but even when we were young, I knew you were the person I wanted to be with for the rest of my life. Sometimes I still can't believe you're with me."

"Well, believe it." I raised our clasped hands up and kissed his. "Now, I've heard some villagers talking about some celebrations they're planning tonight, so we should probably take care of Alith and Kerrigan before all of that starts so we can get them to bed."

Hiccup and I got to our feet, but before we got onto Shriek's back, he pulled me tight against him, lingering as he kissed me.

"Come on. Let's get back to our daughters."