The next morning when dawn broke, both Hiccup and Emily got up early when they went to the cove before the training started. Emily was able to sneak into the food storages in the village and got two baskets of fish. They trek the forest down the familiar path and finally arrive at the cove.
Hiccup was carrying the prosthetic tailfin and the basket of fish in his hands while Emily had the other basket which she put some fruits she found in the forest. They both walked to where their scaly friends were and saw that they were still sleeping.
Emily giggled when she saw Optimus sleeping like an owl with Toothless sleeping like a cat. Hiccup had to admit that seeing the two dragons sleeping is a sight to see but he knew that they had to wake the two up.
"Hey, guys." The sound of his voice woke the two dragons up as Optimus blinked his eyes sleepily as Toothless stretched like a cat to get the remaining sleep from their system.
"Morning, Optimus." Emily said lovingly as Optimus got down from his spot and nuzzled her lovingly as she set the basket down for him.
"We brought breakfast. I hope you two are hungry." Hiccup said while setting the basket down before pushing it down and dumping the fish pile in front of Toothless who eyed it hungrily.
So many to choose from! Toothless cautiously approached the pile while Emily takes out fishes for Optimus to eat as he gratefully ate them.
"Okay, that's disgusting. Uh... we've got some salmon, some nice Icelandic cod and a whole smoked eel." Hiccup said as he named the types of fish that were in the basket but the word eel was another story.
Toothless started to back away from the pile while growling as Optimus became a little tense at the word as the instincts in him were telling to get as far away from the eel right now.
Emily quickly searched in the basket and found the eel before throwing it away far from Optimus. Hiccup searched through Toothless' pile before pulling out the slimy eel that he found.
That got an instant reaction from the Night Fury who reared back at the sight of the eel as fear was in his eyes and the two realized that dragons don't like eels. Optimus let out a small yet disgusted sound and she quickly calmed him down with rubs under his chin while Hiccup threw it away.
"No, no, no, no! It's okay." Hiccup quickly reassured Toothless who snorted a little and was calming down from the small scare.
"Yeah, I don't really like eel much either." Hiccup said as he looked to Emily who finished feeding Optimus.
"Emily, can you come here?" He called as she tilted her head and walked to him as he started to whisper.
"I need you to distract Toothless while I try to attach the prosthetic to his tail." Hiccup whispered as she nodded
"Got it." She answered in a whisper and moved in front of Toothless who started to eat his fish while eyeing the blonde female curiously.
Emily starts to distract him while he eats as Hiccup starts to sneak around to his tail with the prosthetic tailfin.
"Okay. That's it. That's it, just stick with good stuff. And don't you mind me. I'll just be back here... minding my own business." Hiccup said slowly as he was by the tail.
He kneeled down and moved the tailfin closer to the tail but the tail shifted. He looked up and saw that Toothless was almost done with the fish and knew that he had to hurry. He tried to attach it but Toothless kept moving and making his tail move in the process.
"I-It's okay." Hiccup reassured Toothless and was able to get a hold of the tail and was now having a hard time putting the prosthetic tailfin on the tail.
Toothless was looking for more fish and took a huge leap towards the basket and caused Hiccup to yelp in surprise. Having enough, Hiccup straddled the tail and started to attach the prosthetic fin to it.
"Okay... okay..." Hiccup said as he started to adjust the straps.
He didn't notice that Toothless already stopped eating as he felt his tail and his wings dropped in shock. He started to spread out his wings and Emily's eyes widened at this and tried to get Hiccup's attention.
"Uh, Hiccup?" Emily called but he didn't seem to hear.
"There. That's not too bad. It works." Hiccup mumbled as he looked at it as Toothless prepared to take off.
"Uh, Hiccup!" Emily said loudly as he looked over to her.
But he didn't get to ask what she needed when Toothless suddenly took off and caught Hiccup by surprise as he held onto the tail for dear life. Emily watched in surprise yet in fear for Hiccup's life.
"Whoa!" Hiccup yelped as Toothless flew higher and higher.
"No! No! No!" Hiccup yelled in shock as Emily and Optimus watched with wide eyes.
The flight was short lived as Toothless started to plummet down toward the ground as Hiccup was screaming in shock. He quickly noticed that the fin was close and wasn't operational and quickly adjusted it at the last second.
He yanked the fin open and Toothless was sent back to the skies with Hiccup on his tail while Emily and Optimus watched in amazement at that. Primus, that boy is something!
Hiccup was terrified of his situation but the view around him was just so amazing that he didn't feel scared at all.
"OH, MY- IT'S WORKING!" Hiccup exclaimed in excitement before adjusting the movement of the tail so Toothless could fly back to the cove.
"YES! YES, I DID IT!" Hiccup felt like crying. He was so happy that an invention of his was actually working.
Toothless heard his voice and then looked at his tail before he realized that Hiccup is on his tail. He then made a sharp turn which threw Hiccup from his tail as the teen let out a cry of shock and surprise and fell down into the water after bouncing on it two times.
"AAAAAGGGGHHHHH!" He resurfaced the lake as Emily was smiling proudly at him.
Toothless looked at his tail when he wasn't able to control his flight for some reason and soon joined Hiccup in the water with a rather large splash. Hiccup couldn't contain his excitement as he threw his arms in the air.
"Yeah!" Hiccup exclaimed happily as Toothless resurfaced.
Emily chuckled and helped Hiccup out of the water while Toothless shook the water from his body as Hiccup just laughed in amusement.
"That was so amazing! I can't believe that it actually worked! Emily, this is amazing! One of my inventions actually worked!" Hiccup cheered in joy as he hugged her to which she returned.
"I'm so happy for you, Hic. But we should head back before we're late for training." Emily told him as he nodded and picked up the baskets and the eel as Emily gave Optimus a rub on his chin and a pat on Toothless' head.
The two hurriedly left the cove after bidding their friends a 'see you later'. The two quickly reached the arena just as the teens were arriving. They caught their breaths as the other teens gave them a confused look but Astrid eyed them suspiciously while Gobber told them to pick up a bucket with water and both were paired up with Fishlegs.
"Today is about teamwork." Gobber said just as the gates of the Zippleback cage burst open as greenish smoke started to surround the teens while Gobber went to the side.
Emily just took a small yet quick whiff of the smoke and gag when she smelt that it smelled like gasoline. They could hear Gobber but they looked around their surroundings for the dragon.
"Now, a wet dragon head can't light its fire. The Hideous Zippleback is extra tricky. One head breathes gas, the other head lights it. Your job is to know which is which." Gobber said as this only put the teens on edge more.
Hiccup and Emily were looking everywhere but they were on edge more than ever when they heard what Fishlegs was saying about the dragon and it just made Hiccup tell him to stop.
"Razor sharp, serrated teeth that inject venom for pre-digestion. Prefers ambush attack, by crushing its victims-" Fishlegs mutters nervously but is cut off.
"Will you please stop that?!" Hiccup snapped at him on edge as Emily was nervously eyeing the smoke.
"Not helping the least, Fishlegs." Emily told him.
"Sorry!" Fishlegs squeaks out nervously.
Somewhere in the smoke, Snotlout and Tuffnut were back to back while keeping an eye out for the dragon.
"If that dragon shows either of his faces, I'm gonna- there!" Snotlout exclaimed when he saw the silhouette in the smoke.
He and Tuffnut threw the water from their buckets at the shadow but the smoke parted to reveal a slightly soaked Astrid and Ruffnut as both girls were looking at them in annoyance.
"Hey! It's us, idiots!" Ruffnut said with annoyance.
"Your butts are getting bigger. We thought you were a dragon." Tuffnut said as he snickered at his joke.
"Not that there's anything wrong with a dragon-esque figure- Ow!" Snotlout said but Astrid just walked up to him and gave him a hard punch to the face while Ruffnut threw her bucket at Tuffnut.
Tuffnut sat up in a daze before screaming in shock when he was pulled in the smoke. Ruffnut became concerned and was about to go after her brother but Astrid notices something was wrong and stops her while looking around.
"Wait." Astrid readies her bucket but a tail suddenly sweeps both girls off their feet.
Astrid dropped her bucket as she and Ruffnut fell down when Tuffnut suddenly ran out of the smoke while exclaiming in pain.
"OH, I'M HURT! I AM VERY MUCH HURT!" He exclaimed while running past a stunned and nervous Hiccup, Emily and Fishlegs.
"Chances of survival are dwindling into single-digits now." Fishlegs said nervously and the two couldn't agree more.
"Look out!" Both Emily and Hiccup exclaimed as one of the Zippleback heads came out of the smoke.
It sniffs the trio and goes after Fishlegs who panicked and threw the water at it. That somewhat annoyed the Zippleback as it made a gurgling growl sound as gas like smoke started to spew from its mouth.
"Oh. Wrong head." Fishlegs said nervously only for the dragon to spray the gas at Fishlegs who was startled by this.
Gobber was a bit alarmed as Fishlegs runs off to the side, screaming in fright.
"Fishlegs!" Gobber yelled in worry.
Fishlegs screams like a little girl while running away and leaving Hiccup and Emily behind. The dragon looks at the two while the second head appeared while creating small sparks as it looked at Hiccup as he took a step back from fright as Emily gulped nervously.
"Now, Hiccup!" Gobber exclaimed.
Hiçcup tries to toss the water at the sparking head but misses as the water lands on top of him as the Zippleback just stared at him with amusement as he groaned while looking at the dragon with annoyance.
"Oh, come on!" Hiccup groaned in annoyance.
The sparking head lowered itself to his level before letting out a growl as he fell back in shock with Emily who yelped in shock.
"Hiccup! Emily!" Gobber exclaimed in worry and was about to come to their rescue but stopped at what he was seeing.
"Back! Back! Back! BACK!" Hiccup mastered up the courage to stand back up as Emily watched him in amazement as the other teens watched in dumbfounded amazement.
"Now, don't you make me tell you again! Yes, that's right! Back into your cage. Now think about what you've done." Hiccup was able to get the dragon back in it's cage before opening his vest to reveal the eel that he forgot.
He then tossed the eel in the cage as Emily came up to him to help him with the gates. Hiccup apologized to the dragon quietly and promised to get the eel back as the dragon cowered against the wall. The dragon looked at the human boy curiously before both Emily and Hiccup closed the gate while he wiped his hands on his vest before Emily nudged him.
He looked at her as she glanced at something in front of them. He looked up and was only met with looks of shock from everyone as they had their jaws drop from what they just witnessed while Fishlegs didn't pay any attention to the bucket that he dropped. An awkward silence settled around the arena and Hiccup quickly thought of an excuse so he and Emily could get back to the forge.
"Okay! So, are we done? Because me and Emily have got some things we need to, uh..." Hiccup excused himself as he grabbed Emily's hand as he started to speed walk with her.
"Yep. We'll... see-see you tomorrow!" Hiccup exclaimed as he let go of Emily's hand as they left the arena but missed the suspicious look that was on Astrid's face as she sensed that something was going on around here.
Both Emily and Hiccup arrived at the Great Hall as they sat down to get something to eat while quietly talking among themselves about what they should make.
Emily perked up and suggested to him that he should build a saddle to which he found was a great idea as he sketched it down as Emily took out her own design for a staff with hooks on either ends and knew that she would need the materials to make it.