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After the first time, it becomes a routine.
Every year around the same day, the Chief of Berk will travel with his family towards the edge of the world to reunite with his old friend. It’s not an easy task, with the amount of work around the village and all the troubles to reach others to get themselves known-enough to allow them to trade resources but not to become a target to the rest of the world. They know better now. But the travel is worth it: the chief comes back with new energies, a smile that could bright and warm the deeps of Hellheim. And all the village can feel it and so they allow him to continue.
He is not the only one affected.
In the edge of the world, a black dragon, one who one thought could be extinct, is acting more cheerful around the others. Some dragons, new ones coming from around the world, don’t understand what could be on the surface that can make the Night Fury react like that: there’s only water up there. But the ones who came with him known better, and they rejoice in his happiness, of a better time, of a calmer times in which they were not only one flying around the clouds but two.
It becomes a routine for both dragons and humans.
And times passes.
Summers and winters hit the village. Other people too. The dragons are mostly unaware of those changes, except for the ones who are still reaching the paradise of the Hidden World and come to tell what they saw, the wars they have witnessed, the way humans decided to attack each other imitating their fires, imitating their flight. Those stories spread around and the hive becomes unsettled.
“What if they come here.”
“We cant fight them.”
“They will destroy everything.”
“We must prepare to fight.”
The alpha roars and the mumbles stop. And the hive calms. Because their alpha knows better, he is always going back to the surface, he will tell them when to come back.
Time passes.
The old Night Fury reaches the surface like every year. He patiently lays in a rock that will allow him- and only him- to see the dragon. He is tired. He looks at his wings, weak because of the age. He wonders why he keep doing this, wasting his forces to coming up when he is more and more old and his time is coming to an end.
And then he sees his tail. One fin, brighter like the other, like time hasnt passed over it. And he remembers and he purrs with a way that reflects the love that fills him, fills his memories of early flights and two heartbeats beating together at the rhythim of his wings.
And so he waits.
One day.
Two days.
Five days.
He gets worried. He gets angry. He gets sad.
After seven days he decides to come down back again, grunting over how he is gonna teach the human the concept of being on time.
“Toothless…”
He snaps his head back. His name. The one he gave him. And he feels young again and he forgets his angriness and he comes up…
This is not him.
He can sense his smell, he can smell his offprings and his mate but not him.
He jumps on the boat and starts his search.
“Where…”
“Toothless”, he hears again. It’s coming from his human mate. Astrid, he remembers.
The smell comes from her.
He rushes and nuzzles over the cloak in her hands, trying to find him, he must be hiding under it, he likes making jokes, he-
“Toothless, i’m sorry.”
He doesn’t understand.
“He is not coming back.”
He doesn’t understand.
“I’m sorry.”
He follows the boat back.
‘Berk’, he remembers.
'Home’.
Not without him.
He lands near the pyre.
The villagers gasp, the young ones, the ones who didnt believe the stories of the old chief. The others, the old ones, they cry.
The dragon sniff the pyre. He knows he is there.
And he is waiting for him.
He joins the fire and for the first and last time it hurts him. And he welcomes it.
And he hears it.
A heartbeat.
His.
And him.
Together as one. Forever