Chapter Text
“Okay— okay what do we know about her?” Hiccup taps his charcoal against one of his notebooks. “She’s… colossal. As large as a mountain, probably. She has no care at all for the dragons in her nest, she’ll kill them if they displease her, and she’s killing them anyway through starvation, making them give her all the food and leaving nothing for them. We know fire and lava will do nothing to her on the outside, since she was sitting in the lava pit itself.”
He scribbles some notes into the notebook, “So then… she’s too big for weapons to do anything more than scratch her at most, and that will aggravate her. We don’t need that happening. She’s too fireproof on the outside for your blasts to have any real effect on her.”
“What to do, what to do…” Hiccup bites at his lip, deep in thought, trying to think of everything he knows about dragons that might help him. That’s when it hits him, thinking back to the other day with Nipper. His own words ring in his mind, ‘Huh, not so fireproof on the inside, are you, little guy?’
“If we can make her mad enough to fire at us, which shouldn’t be an issue, then we should be able to time it right to light her up from the inside… hopefully, she’s not fireproof there too.” He keeps tapping his charcoal against his notebook, working through the vague plan in his mind. “We need to get her out of the volcano. If we set her alight while still inside… we’ll almost certainly be caught in the blast. The lava will only amplify it. You’re fast, bud,” he pats Toothless’ head, “but I don’t want to risk it…”
“We should get the dragons away from the nest first. Their safety is why we’re doing this, so we can’t risk that. And then we get the Queen out of the nest and… and make her mad, I guess. We could probably get her out of there if we annoy her into chasing us…”
Toothless grumbles disapprovingly at that.
“I know, I know bud. But we’ve gotta do this. This is our best shot at taking her down and saving those other dragons from her tyranny and starvation. And then when it’s over, we can lead the dragons who don’t want to stay in that nest anymore back to the Edge. Or make sure they have a way back home… I’m sure her thrall caught dragons who were just passing through. Let’s just… keep them away from Berk. We don’t need to lead them from one death trap to another.”
Toothless warbles in agreement.
“Hey, thank you Toothless. I couldn’t do this without you. And… I’m really sorry to drag you into this.”
Gently, Toothless smacks the back of Hiccup’s head with his tail, a look in his eyes that says Hiccup is a fool if he thinks Toothless isn’t willingly at his side, helping him with this. Then he nudges Hiccup with his nose and licks his hair.
“Ugh! Bud, you know that doesn’t wash out easily!”
⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏࣪﹏𓊝﹏﹏⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹
“You can all stay back, you know?” Hiccup says to the dragons standing in front of him. He’s standing next to Toothless, preparing to leave the Edge and head to the tyrant queen’s nest. “I just freed you from one death trap, I won’t drag you into another…”
Despite his insistence that they don’t need to come, Skylight, Blaze, Rocky, Splotch and Spark, and Nipper all stay standing right in front of him and Toothless.
“You’re sure about this…” Hiccup is a little in awe, he won’t lie. He’s never had any friends before who so resolutely stuck by him and his decisions. “…thank you. I promise, whatever it takes, I won’t let you get stuck under her thrall. I won’t let this be just another death trap for you.”
“Alright,” Hiccup climbs into his saddle, “let’s do this.”