686Chapter 4: The Wizard
The Wizard
Hiccup continued on out of town, Buckland specifically. Or was it Newbury? Either way, he walked the couple miles toward where he had parted with Toothless at the Old Forest, as it was called.
I really hope nothing happened out here.
It was very unlikely that anything had happened. Toothless was a smart Night Fury, and the dragon certainly knew how to stay out of trouble.
Maybe he was just too used to thinking of the worst that could happen.
His pack he carried with him had three fresh fish bought in the market before he left town. He suspected that he probably did not get the best deal since he was using foreign coin, but he didn't really care. Just as he had a hearty meal, it felt considerate to bring something for Toothless since it had been a few days since they had caught anything substantial.
It was a refreshingly calm walk through the countryside, knowing that this was a land at peace and that the greatest problems were normal family squabbles and the search for the occasional escaped farm animal.
If only Berk was more like this. If more people valued a home over glory, who knows how good the world would be?
He finally arrived at the outskirts of the Old Forest perhaps an hour before sundown. The shadows of the trees before him were almost threatening since he had no way of knowing what was within. Well, he would have probably been afraid if he did not know in advance who was somewhere nearby.
"Toothless!"
Sure enough and to his great relief, a dark shape sprang out from behind a small mound a few seconds later. He ran over to where Toothless lay in hiding and then gave his friend's head a big hug when he got to him.
"Hiccup," Toothless happily rumbled.
"Good to see you too, bud. Can you guess what I brought?"
"Fish," Toothless's ears lifted.
"You smell them, huh?" Hiccup chuckled.
Toothless huffed and chuckled.
"I am a dragon. I know the smell of fish."
"Fair enough. No need to share any with me this time. I already ate."
All three fish were gone moments later, and then Toothless lay down in the shade of the tree they were under.
"Now what do we do?" Toothless asked.
Hiccup explained everything he knew about where they were and the Shire place he was told about.
"It sounds good for us. A place with no fighting and with many people who like peace," Toothless admitted after a brief consideration.
"My thoughts exactly. What do you say we fly there tomorrow?"
"Do we have to stay in this forest for now?" Toothless hissed.
"It's probably best, yeah," Hiccup shrugged.
Toothless growled softly at the nearest trees.
"What is wrong?" Hiccup asked.
"I do not like this place."
Hiccup gave him an incredulous look.
"You do not like the forest?"
Toothless huffed and swished his tail in annoyance.
"You are staying close to me, that is all. It feels like we are not alone here."
They looked around at the darkest shadows and saw nothing there. But there was a certain air of just-barely-wrongness about the forest and the trees which Hiccup could not place but could definitely feel.
"I will not argue with you on that, bud."
Toothless tried to wake Hiccup before dawn. They both knew that made for the safest travel since it was most unlikely that they would be seen.
Hiccup, however, had other plans that did not involve waking up.
"Hiccup, get up..."
A paw-nudge in the side did not wake him. Neither did huffing in his face. There was another thing he could do and which was more likely to work.
He bent down and licked Hiccup's face, getting as much drool on him as possible.
That worked.
"Ugh! Toothless!"
Hiccup frantically wiped his face clean and then flicked the drool back at him. Toothless lifted a paw and grumbled softly as he wiped his own face clean.
"Do you know that does not wash out?"
"No? Now I do!" Toothless happily chuffed.
Hiccup groaned as he got to his feet. He also muttered under his breath something about a useless reptile.
"No, that was very useful. You woke up."
More grumbling followed.
"Thanks, dad..." Hiccup muttered.
Toothless almost chuckled, but he noticed that something about that felt wrong. Hiccup had not spoken with the same honor and well-thinking that an offspring should feel toward their sire, even though he himself obviously was not Hiccup's sire. There was probably something twisted in Hiccup's thinking here.
So he spun on Hiccup and stared at him.
"Hiccup, is there something you want to talk about?"
"What? Nothing."
"I think there is. Tell me about life before... us. What was your life like in your nest-city?"
A great, weary, and pained sigh followed.
"I'd really prefer to not talk about it."
"If you cannot talk about it with your... best friend... then who can you talk about it with?"
Hiccup paced in frustration for a while before answering.
"I am useless," he eventually answered.
"Useless? What?" Toothless exclaimed with a flash of anger.
"Yeah, look at... all this," Hiccup held out his skinny arms, "I am so small! I cannot do anything right! I am... useless..."
"Hiccup, why do you think that about yourself?"
"Because I am! I couldn't do anything right back in my tribe! I cannot..."
Hiccup was carefully shoved to the ground and gently held down by a paw to the chest. Toothless glared down at him and growled softly.
"What is it you were trying to do?" Toothless hissed.
"I... what are you doing..."
"Making you talk. You said that you could not do something right. What would doing it right have meant?"
"Well, really helping my tribe... making my father proud of me."
The paw gently pressed against him.
"By doing what? It sounds to me like you are saying it was a mistake to not kill me."
Hiccup froze and heard Gobber's words echoing again in his memory.
'Stop tryin' ta be somethin' yer not...'
'I just want to be one of you guys...'
There were tears in his eyes when he looked back up at Toothless's soft expression.
"Hiccup, you are not a fighter. That is truth. You have a different strength. You knew that you could not be one of them when you spared me. You should stop thinking that you need to make your sire-father... proud of you."
"That is easy to say..." Hiccup sniffled.
Toothless stepped back from him and let him get to his feet.
"You are not useless to me, Hiccup."
"Only because I hurt you..."
Toothless didn't know what to say about that. It was true that he definitely needed Hiccup around for him to be able to fly. What else did they have between them? Would they even know each other if he had not been grounded and unnaturally forced into knowing Hiccup? That possibility that things could have turned out very differently was not something he wanted to consider.
He sat down on his rear and stared at his friend.
"Hiccup, it does not matter if you hurt me before."
"It matters to me," Hiccup muttered.
Toothless purred softly and waited until Hiccup looked up at him.
"You need to talk more about your past. You already told me about your dam. Talk. I am listening."
Hiccup sighed in resignation. He was also secretly glad to have someone else who understood him and was willing to listen.
"Well, you know that I was the worst Viking ever. Many years of it. Even the other kids in my year were not very friendly. One was too obsessed with statistics, one was a dumb bully, the Twins were plain crazy, and Astrid, well, you know her."
"The ax-carrying female who attacked you?" Toothless clarified.
"She was protecting me from you, or so she thought. She was... is the best Viking of the group, a true natural at fighting. Anyway, I kind of like her..."
Toothless snorted with amusement.
"Did you ever mate her?"
Hiccup's eyes went impossibly wide as he was struck dumb at the mere thought of... that!
"Toothless! How could you say that?"
The Fury must have picked up on his obvious discomfort because he pressed the issue further.
"Because you... like her and might want her. Is it normal for a human female to hit the male in a mating ceremony?"
"Toothless! Stop!"
Toothless gave a wry grin and chuckle.
"Sorry, I do not know much about those human ceremonies."
"No, you do not," Hiccup fretted.
The dragon's amused grin faded as he stared off into the distance.
"I do not know anything about my kind in that way either. I saw that life-ceremony among other kinds of dragons. But not other Night Furies. I was always alone," Toothless groaned.
Hiccup's awkwardness melted upon seeing Toothless's melancholy at the idea.
"Sorry about that, bud. I only remember the stories telling about one Night Fury. I did not know that there were others. Of course there would be, but it must be terrible to not know either of your parents or to not have the chance of... having kids."
Toothless stepped closer and gently nudged his shoulder.
"If there is ever anything else about your old life that you want to talk about, let me know. I will be here for you, definitely," Toothless hummed and nodded.
Hiccup rested a palm on Toothless's neck, taking comfort from the reassuring purr he received in return.
"Thanks, Toothless. You do the same if you ever feel like you are on your own. I really don't know what that is like to maybe be the only one of your kind."
"I will. We should fly now."
They took to the sky and gained enough elevation that they should appear indistinguishable from a bird at first glance. Their flight took them along the Brandywine River, up to the bridge and the East Road, and then West along said road.
Hiccup was again struck at how green the world was and how many trees there were. Berk had several different shades of grey, depending on how gloomy the gods were feeling on that day. Here, it did not snow nine months out of the year and hail for the other three, slight though that exaggeration was. The plants and food that grew here were most definitely not tough or tasteless. Neither were the people.
Definitely not Berk in any way.
Hiccup stood at a crossroads where four paths branched out in each direction. He stared at a sign by the side of the road. However, what any of it meant was completely unknown to him because he couldn't read the runes. There were probably the names of towns and numbers to show distance to the towns. There was also a large brightly-colored poster that had been recently nailed to the sign.
He glanced again at the slight hill behind which Toothless was presently hiding.
Maybe it would be better to just keep flying. No chance we miss an entire village. What are they going to do? Build their homes underground?
He was still trying to decipher anything of the sign when the sound of singing met his ears. The clip-clop and creaking of a horse-drawn wagon followed moments later.
A very strange-looking man sat in the seat of the wagon where he held the horse's reins. The old man, for he looked very ancient, was very tall, was garbed entirely in grey robes and a silver scarf, and wore a very large, blue, pointy hat. A gnarled walking staff was stashed behind him among his supplies in the wagon. He also had very bushy eyebrows that almost stuck out past the brim of his hat. Most impressive about him was his grey beard that fell down to his lap.
The beard would have been the pride of Berk. The man would have also easily passed as an Elder.
"...where many paths and errands meet... and whither then I cannot say... The road goes ever... woah, woah..." the old man cried.
The wagon stopped some ten paces away from him.
The stranger stared at him in clear surprise while puffing his pipe. His eyes were narrowed in consideration, but they also were as deep springs of memory and mirth. The man was very ancient given the number of winkles on his face and the color of his beard.
"Greetings, good sir. No Hobbit, Dwarf, or Elf are you. You must be a Man then, but where hail you from?" the elder asked in a gruff but also cheerful voice.
Hiccup blinked for a moment at the mention of Elves and Dwarves. Dwarves he had heard of in his time in the tavern, but Elves?
Elves and Dwarves? What is this world?
"Far from here. Maybe sharing names would be good first," Hiccup answered.
"Yes, my apologies, Master..."
"Haddock."
"Master Haddock, a pleasure. Surely you must have heard of me? I am very famous or infamous in these parts, depending on who you ask," the stranger frowned slightly.
"Ah, not really, I only just got to these lands."
"I see. Well, I have had many names across the lands and through the years. The Grey Wanderer, some call me. Olorin and Mithrandir also. You may call me Gandalf the Grey."
"Gandalf the Grey, a pleasure to meet you, sir."
Gandalf laughed softly at that.
"You clearly know nothing of my reputation then."
"Why do I think I will find out eventually?" Hiccup grinned.
"You will if you are heading where I think you are going. The Party, I assume?"
Hiccup thought to play along with it.
"Is there any other reason to head to the Shire right now?" he laughed.
"Indeed. Bilbo's friends truly do come from all over. An incredible Hobbit. They are an amazing people once... stirred to go on an adventure," Gandalf chuckled to himself.
"This is kind of my first time going on an adventure myself," Hiccup admitted.
"Is it? You cannot be more than twenty years of age, I would guess. What are you doing all alone, if I may ask?" Gandalf wondered.
"I'm actually not alone. My friend is nearby, and I am traveling with him. I cannot read the sign here since I don't know these runes."
Gandalf pointed ahead along the East Road.
"Hobbiton is about four miles ahead. You are welcome to travel with me if you would like," he gestured to the empty seats next to him.
"Thanks. About that, I cannot really leave my friend," Hiccup answered.
"Well, tell him to come with us too. It would be a merrier gathering."
"Uh..."
He was stumped and was not sure what to do at first.
Gandalf is like a nice old man. And we are on our own out here. There may be no better time to introduce them.
"I don't know about that. You, everyone else, might not like my friend at first."
"And why would that be? I have no great dislike for anyone of goodwill in Middle-earth," Gandalf objected.
"Yeah, but you've probably never met anyone like my friend before."
"Oh, really?" Gandalf's impressive eyebrows lifted, "Try me. I am older than I look, if you can believe that, and I have seen things you probably could not imagine."
Hiccup shuffled on his feet for a while, struggling to make up his mind. Gandalf's warm demeanor and grandfatherly temperament won him over after a few moments of consideration.
"Alright, my friend is a... you see, he is... uh... a dragon."
Gandalf blinked and frowned.
"A dragon?" he questioned.
"Yeah, he is very friendly and he can talk too!"
Gandalf's warm smile froze and turned suddenly wary.
"Do not jest with me, Master Haddock. Dragons are no laughing matter."
"I am not lying to you, Gandalf the Grey. My friend, his name is Toothless, is a dragon. He is hiding just over that hill there," Hiccup pointed at the grassy hillock off the road.
Gandalf did not move for a long moment. The old man's eyes never left him. There was an odd power in the man's eyes, something far different from wisdom of old age. Or maybe it was just the evident skepticism of an old man hearing something he definitely thought was impossible and crazy.
"Is that so? Well, how about you take me to this... friendly dragon?"
Gandalf then grabbed his walking staff and, with surprising grace for a man of his advanced age, jumped down from the wagon. Hiccup took the lead.
"Follow me. He will not hurt you. You don't need to worry."
"I will be the judge of that," Gandalf muttered.
They ascended the slope together.
Hiccup glanced back at the old man plodding along after him, seeming to have little trouble with the steep slope. He grinned to himself, imagining how this meeting would have gone back on Berk. It probably would have involved a hammer, shouting, a glorious charge, and lots of fire in self-defense.
Probably blood and tears also.
No chance that dad would have let this happen. Gandalf seems far more reasonable. Toothless knows what to do. What could go wrong?
They finally arrived at the top of the ridge and saw what was on the other side.
"Toothless, there you are!" Hiccup announced himself and started down the hill.
The black dragon's head lifted from the grass where he had been crouched low in hiding.
Hiccup took a few steps forward and then was driven to the ground by an unseen force that struck him like a punch from behind.
"Hiccup!" Toothless shouted.
Hiccup rolled over, feeling something very strange holding him down, and saw something impossible and terrifying.
Gandalf still stood at the top of the ridge, but the old, robed man looked very different now. He held out his staff in front of him like a weapon. His formerly gentle eyes were narrowed as he stared toward them, and a phantom wind whipped his grey cloak around him.
Then Gandalf spoke in a booming voice that echoed from the air and rumbled from the ground.
"Begone, fell creature!"
His voice was one of power and command completely unbecoming of an elderly man. It was almost as if the man could summon strange powers.
Which he most definitely could.
"No, stop!" Hiccup shouted in fear.
Everything took a turn for the worse when a glowing plasma blast flew at Gandalf and appeared to strike him in a massive explosion not unlike those that had destroyed towers at night long ago.
The strange force that had been holding Hiccup down vanished.
He pushed himself to his feet and barely had an instant to look around before Toothless jumped up next to him. The dragon looked very dangerous now with his bared teeth, smoking maw, and narrowed eyes.
"Toothless! What did you do!"
"He was attacking you!" Toothless growled back.
Neither of them had any more time to say anything because the smoke cleared and revealed Gandalf still standing at the top of the ridge, his staff still held out before him like a weapon. The blast had not ended him after all.
"Stop this! Both of you!" Hiccup shouted.
"Get away from that monster!" Gandalf commanded in the same voice of power.
"No, he is not a monster! He is not dangerous!"
"Not dangerous?" Gandalf exclaimed in disbelief.
"I am very dangerous!" Toothless growled back.
"Not helping, bud..."
Toothless stepped closer to Hiccup and then spread his wings wide while growling softly, partly putting himself between Gandalf and Hiccup.
"Stay with me, Hiccup. I will protect you."
Hiccup put a hand on Toothless's neck to give them both some reassurance and also to keep Toothless from doing something regrettable. Then he looked back up the slope at the very strange man.
Gandalf was now staring at them both with clear disbelief in his eyes. He kept his hold on the staff before him.
At least he was not doing whatever the unnatural thing was that he had been doing before with his staff.
The silence stretched out between them until Gandalf spoke in a normal but skeptical voice.
"How about you tell me what is going on here, Haddock?"
Hiccup levelly stared back at the strange old man who was far more than he had appeared at first.
"This dragon is my best friend. His name is Toothless."
Toothless snarled softly with all his teeth fully bared. Hiccup then groaned and flicked the dragon's nearest ear.
"Not helping, bud! We need him to like you!"
"He tried to hurt you!" Toothless snarled, his eyes still narrowed on Gandalf.
"I did no such thing!" Gandalf protested.
"You hurt him by pointing your stick-thing at him!" Toothless pointed a paw at the old man.
"I was protecting him from you and your snare!"
"Snare? What?" Hiccup exclaimed in confusion.
Gandalf looked at him with pity.
"You have never heard of the dragon-spell? They can control your mind if you look into their eyes!"
Hiccup blinked in surprise.
"No! I do not believe it!" he protested.
Oddly, Toothless hung his head slightly, showing his first sign of any weakness in this encounter.
"Hiccup, it is true. Remember that the monster I told you about could do that to other dragons."
Toothless then looked up again and snarled at Gandalf.
"But I cannot do that, and I would never do that to him even if I could!"
None of them moved for a very long time until finally Gandalf stepped forward several paces, slowly descending the slope. He still kept his strange staff extended toward them.
"Why are you protecting this man, dragon?"
Toothless snarled again.
"My name is Toothless!"
"Toothless? I can see the irony of that," Gandalf briskly answered.
"Uh, he has retractable teeth," Hiccup explained.
Toothless did not deign to demonstrate and instead rested his chin on Hiccup's shoulder while breathing heavily and glaring at Gandalf.
"Why am I protecting him? He saved my life when he could have killed me. He is important to me," Toothless explained.
He swept out his tail and lifted it, wiggling the one remaining natural fin.
"I also cannot fly without him."
"You need him around because he is useful to you?" Gandalf clarified.
"Yes, he is. And he is my friend."
A long silence followed between the three of them.
"I see that there is much about you two that I do not know. Do you two care to explain this to me? Gandalf asked.
Hiccup was about to answer when Toothless spoke up first.
"Why do we have to explain ourselves to you?"
"Toothless, we can tell him. It's fine."
Toothless growled softly and snorted.
"He attacks us first, and we must answer to him? No. He must earn our trust!"
Gandalf chuckled at that.
"As cunning as any dragon, indeed. If you must know, I am what the common folk call a Wizard. I work to protect Middle-earth from the forces of evil."
"Forces of evil?" Hiccup exclaimed in confusion.
"Many of the powers of the Enemy still remain in this world."
That mention of an enemy was vague. Maybe he could ask what it meant later, assuming that this misunderstanding got resolved.
"But if you are a Wizard, then you must have... magic?"
Hiccup put his arm out around Toothless's neck for reassurance. He had always assumed that magic was not real, but the last few minutes had thoroughly shattered that idea.
Gandalf grumbled while fingering his staff.
"That is a rather crude way of putting it, but yes, I have magic. I cannot use it freely, and most of my power is... veiled while I dwell in Middle-earth. I can, however, use my power in times of great need, such as when facing monsters like dragons."
Toothless snarled softly, and Hiccup sighed in dismay.
"Not this again. You sound just like everyone back on Berk."
"Berk, is that where you are from?" Gandalf asked.
"Yes, it is far to the North off the mainland."
Gandalf frowned and muttered to himself.
"I did not know that there were any islands out there. I am certain that there are none anymore. But you know dragons from there."
"Yeah," Hiccup groaned, "they raid the island and take livestock. Toothless said that they do that to feed another, bigger dragon that controls them."
"A big dragon, you say?" Gandalf looked at Toothless.
The Fury blinked and remembered to glare back at him.
"Yes, it eats other dragons that do not bring back food for it," Toothless explained.
"Evil consumes itself in the end. It cannot make anything that can endure. It can only mock and pretend. That is how dragons were created," Gandalf said.
"What?" Hiccup and Toothless both exclaimed.
"Dragons were mockeries made by the Great Enemy. All dragons are descended from his evil. They all carry his corruption in their souls."
"What do you mean, his corruption?" Toothless asked in curiosity.
Gandalf was amused by the question and leaned on his staff.
"Tell me, dragon, do you not want a gold hoard of your own?"
Toothless blinked.
"A gold hoard?"
"Yes, some great cave filled with gold, precious jewels, and the bones of your enemies."
Toothless sighed and looked up at the clouds.
"Why would I want to sit in the dark on a pile of shiny rocks when I could fly with the clouds and my friend?" he whispered.
Gandalf smiled for the first time in this meeting.
"My last encounter with a dragon was hardly so peaceful. The great fire-drake Smaug lived far to the East in the ruins of Erebor, a Dwarf kingdom. I helped get Smaug killed some sixty years ago. What do you say to that?"
"You are a dragon killer. Why?" Hiccup exclaimed.
Gandalf sighed and appeared very tired or stricken in that moment.
"Because Smaug killed or ate hundreds of innocents in his life and destroyed the entire city of Dale. He also burned Lake-Town and killed dozens more before his death. There were other reasons also, but those are the ones you need to know about."
Toothless and Hiccup glanced at each other.
"If that is all true, then I say that dragon, Smaug as you called it, was a monster and deserved to die!" Toothless growled.
"Toothless would never do anything like that. He proved to me that he is not a monster when he let me go," Hiccup added.
"What?" Gandalf exclaimed in genuine surprise.
"Oh yeah, well, the first time we met I kind of could have killed him, but I let him go free instead. And he did the same for me when he could have killed me," Hiccup sheepishly explained.
Gandalf fixed Toothless with an intense and scrutinizing gaze.
"Why did you do that, Toothless?"
"Because he looked as afraid as I had been. It did not feel good to hurt him when he let me go. He is all that I have now," Toothless solemnly replied.
Gandalf inhaled and looked away from them both after hearing that answer. A long and poignant silence followed as the Wizard stared off along the road.
When he finally looked back at them both, it was with a strange, considerate look in his eyes. His voice was also far more inviting when he spoke.
"I once told another person that true courage is not in knowing when to take a life but rather when to spare one."
He lowered his staff.
"Your story is most incredible and I must hear more of it, but I believe you. Something in my heart tells me that you are not a monster, Toothless."
Toothless huffed and rolled his eyes, but he did lower his wings and sheathe his teeth.
"Very kind of you to tell me that I am not a monster," Toothless grumbled.
"It is more than I ever imagined could be said for any dragon," Gandalf answered.
An awkward silence followed between them all.
"If you will excuse us, we need a moment to ourselves," Hiccup interjected.
He and Toothless stepped aside down the slope to speak among themselves. Gandalf stayed at the top of the ridge.
"Well, that went well," Hiccup grimaced.
Judging from his drooping ears and sad warble, Toothless still felt disturbed by something.
"Talk to me, bud, what is wrong?"
"He does know dragons. He knew about what the monster in the nest could do to other dragons," Toothless moaned.
"Okay, but what is really bothering you?"
Toothless warily looked up at him.
"What about the rest of what he said? About dragons being bad creatures from the start? He truly believes that."
"I do not believe it, Toothless. You are not a monster. Even he agreed about that."
"Maybe," Toothless warbled.
"He trusts us now. We should tell him that we were planning on going to the Shire to live there."
Toothless nodded in agreement.
They turned together and approached Gandalf. He was patiently waiting for them both at the top of the hill while leaning on his staff.
Hiccup started to explain their situation.
"We were going to the Shire because we heard that it is a peaceful place. We left Berk because Toothless would be hunted there, and no one was going to listen to me."
Gandalf, deep in thought, stroked his massive beard.
"You wish to bring a friendly dragon into the Shire? Hobbits are indeed peace-loving folk. But I do not think that they would like seeing a dragon in their world."
"But surely they will give him a chance. Toothless has done nothing wrong," Hiccup objected.
"No, but it would be major disturbance for them. They also like to keep to themselves, in case you have not noticed. Sometimes too much even," Gandalf explained.
"Couldn't you say something to them?"
Gandalf laughed heartily at that suggestion, again showing the mirth that had been in his eyes at their first meeting.
"My speaking in his favor would not help you much. I am not favorably thought of by most of the Hobbits. At least not the older generations."
Gandalf then turned to Toothless.
"What is it that you want, Toothless?"
"Hiccup. Flight. Fish. Peace. Other dragons like me," Toothless immediately answered.
"Hmm, all good things to want, I suppose. I would add that there are other options for you both even if you cannot stay here in the Shire," Gandalf mused.
"What do you mean?" Hiccup wondered.
Gandalf waved his staff toward the horizons.
"I mean that Middle-earth is very wide and has many important powers, good and bad. You could both make a difference in the world."
"Make a difference?" Toothless rumbled.
"Yes, you certainly could. I believe that some of the Elves would be willing to give you both a home once they hear your story. My word carries weight with them all. For now though, I have an old friend's birthday party to attend. Hiccup, would you ride with me and tell me more about your story? Toothless, you should come with also, but do try to stay hidden. I would not want to scare the Hobbits without reason."
Toothless laughed his deep, throaty laughter.
"I am a Night Fury. I can avoid being seen if I need to stay out of sight."
"Night Fury?" Gandalf's eyebrows lifted in amusement.
"Yeah, that is what we called his type of dragon back on Berk. That and the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself," Hiccup explained.
"Really? I did not know that," Toothless lifted an eyeridge and chuckled.
"Yep, I have no idea where that title came from either. Do you?"
Toothless shook his head.
"How curious. There is more to you both than meets the eye. Well, shall we?" Gandalf gestured toward the road.
"Toothless, stay close will you?" Hiccup whispered to him.
Toothless nodded and tapped him with a wing.
"I will. We can trust Gandalf, but I will stay near you as long as I can. Oh, one more thing, ask him about the fire on his finger."
"Huh? Okay, I will," Hiccup agreed.
The three of them made their way down the slope toward the road. Hiccup was about to object that Toothless would probably scare Gandalf's horse when the Wizard strode up to the horse, gently held its proud head, and whispered words in its ear.
"Uh, Gandalf, what are you doing?"
"Telling the horse that she does not need to fear the dragon."
Hiccup held a palm to his brow in total confusion.
"How is that possible? Do horses talk here too?"
"No, but many of them do understand the language of the Elves."
The mare looked over at Toothless, whinnied softly, and settled down, now entirely unconcerned with his presence.
Hiccup was helped up into the carriage and took a seat next to Gandalf. The horse started walking without any prompting after another glance at Toothless. Toothless started following alongside the road so that he could disappear into the trees at a moment's notice.
Hiccup sank into his seat with a weary sigh and stared up at the passing clouds.
Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, and Wizards. What is this world?