Another Nightmare Book 3: Facing Nightmares

Chapter 2

Note!: The How to Train Your Dragon 3 has already come out in some places (including here apparently) but not necessarily everywhere yet, and not everyone goes to see it anytime soon so I will have to ask that no one post anything in comments about anything in the movie that could be considered a spoiler in any definition of the word. Wattpad seems to include the option to delete comments and by the Bewilderbeast I will use that if you try to spoil the movie for others.

I would also like to add before anyone asks that nothing in that movie is likely to appear on Another Nightmare anytime soon. Book 3 is well enough planned that anything of significance being adapted from the movie for it is unlikely at the very least. Also, the dragons going away suggested in trailers and otherwise is something that I will not allow in Another Nightmare.

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Hiccup slowly woke to the familiar, warm darkness. He twitched his legs to make sure he still had at least the one good foot. He could have sworn, for a moment, that he'd still had both... His left leg kept hurting even below the cut. Unfortunately, his hallucinations couldn't change the reality. Whenever he looked down, there was only one.

At least he wasn't in as severe pain as on the first days, especially with Toothless forcibly taking most of that pain onto himself. Hiccup never felt okay about that, but at least Toothless didn't seem to suffer from it as much as Hiccup had, one more way the dragon was stronger than he could ever be.

Toothless started waking up next to Hiccup. He had even changed his sleeping rhythm for Hiccup, and they usually woke up at the same time. Hiccup petted the strong black leg reaching over his chest, holding him in Toothless' grasp. His fingers traced scales all the way to the deadly blades of Toothless' claws. Hiccup blinked and breathed deep as an image flashed in his mind of a man's blood being crushed out of his body past those claws and onto Hiccup. The rage and bloodlust radiating from the black form doing the crushing was overwhelming. Hiccup squeezed his eyes shut.

Toothless cooed. A black head replaced the blood spray in Hiccup's memories. Toothless brushed Hiccup's hair with his snout. His leg turned, trying to hide the tools of death from Hiccup. Hiccup held onto it.

'I'm sorry you had to go through that,' Toothless said. 'I should have remembered that you would feel everything.'

'You mean feeling you coming to save me,' Hiccup said as he brought his fingers up to Toothless' claws. 'I knew it would be ugly the moment Whiplash found me. I knew what you had to and would do, and I let it happen just as it did. I am supposed to help you stay calm, but I was so happy to see you, to get away from there, and some part of me wanted them to hurt. I feared that they would come after me again if they lived.'

'You still do,' Toothless said. His claws twitched under Hiccup's fingers.

'I'm not afraid like that with you,' Hiccup said. He squeezed the scales under his hand, and could feel the steely muscles under them. 'They wouldn't know what hit them if they tried something, but it would be dangerous for the whole flock and... I don't want to go through a carnage like that again. I hope we can stay here and be accepted as we are. To live without constant danger and battle... I think we've both had enough of that already. Berk, the nest, raids, hunters... I'm tired of it all.'

'I can be happy like this as soon as you can walk again, and fly.' Toothless' hot breath warmed the back of Hiccup's head. 'I think Fishlegs is getting up. Do you want to?'

'I'm not sure,' Hiccup answered. 'I can be happy just staying like this.' Hiccup paused for a few seconds and then brought his hand over his head to meet Toothless' snout, smiling. 'I guess you should stretch your legs at least.'