The silence on my porch was thick and heavy, punctuated only by the chirping of crickets and the frantic, overclocked whirring of my own thoughts. Astrid Hofferson. Here. Now. With a eight-foot-tall, blue-scaled, and profoundly uncomfortable-looking Deadly Nadder in tow. Of all the infinite, branching possibilities the universe could have thrown at me, this one hadn't even been on the list of improbable long-shots.
"You're in the program," I said, the words coming out as a flat statement rather than a question. My brain, having rebooted from its initial crash, was now trying to process the data points. Astrid, the government, a mythical creature. The conclusion was unavoidable.
Astrid nodded, her arms still crossed in that familiar, defiant way, but the gesture lacked its usual force. It was less a sign of her iron will and more like she was holding herself together. "For a while, yeah," she admitted, her voice low and tight. "It's… Look, Hiccup, I heard through the grapevine—Agent Smith has a bigger mouth than you'd think—that you were a host, too. And that things were… stable. I'm… We've been having some trouble. I was hoping, I don't know, maybe you could help. Offer some advice." Her gaze flickered towards the anxious Nadder beside her, a look of profound, weary frustration in her eyes. "She won't eat. She barely moves. It's like she's terrified of her own shadow."
A dry, humorless laugh escaped my lips. Stable. Right. My life was about as stable as a house of cards in a hurricane. "Oh, Astrid," I said, a weary smile touching my lips. "You would be surprised. Please, come in."
I stepped back, holding the door wide. It felt like a momentous occasion, crossing a threshold into a new, even more complicated chapter of my life. Astrid gave me a grateful, if hesitant, look and guided the Nadder, Stormfly, inside. The tall, blue dragon-woman moved with a stiff, awkward caution, her taloned feet stepping onto the hardwood floor as if she expected it to crack under her weight. She kept her head down, her piercing yellow eyes fixed on the ground, her entire posture a radiating wave of anxiety.
I was about to close the door when a familiar, heavy presence filled the space behind me. I didn't need to turn around. I could feel the heat, smell the faint, clean scent of ozone and damp dragon. Toothless had emerged from the living room, his curiosity piqued by the unfamiliar voices. He stood just behind my shoulder, a silent, nine-foot-tall monolith of black scales and protective intent.
Astrid's eyes widened as she took in the sight of him. I saw the flicker of professional assessment—the aerospace engineer in her appreciating his sleek, powerful build—quickly followed by a jolt of alarm at his sheer, intimidating presence. Stormfly, however, had a different reaction. She froze mid-step, her head slowly lifting. Her nervous darting gaze stilled, locking onto Toothless.
The air in the hallway crackled with a sudden, palpable tension. This was it. The alpha standoff. I braced myself for a low, rumbling growl from Toothless, a territorial display that would send the already-anxious Stormfly into a full-blown panic. I prepared to throw myself between them, to play the role of the frantic, squishy peacekeeper.
But the growl never came.
Toothless let out a low, guttural sound, but it wasn't a threat. It was a soft, questioning rumble, laced with a note of utter disbelief. His ear-flaps, which had been flattened in a sign of aggression, perked up, swiveling forward. Stormfly let out a soft, high-pitched chirp, a sound like a surprised bird.
Slowly, cautiously, they moved toward each other. Astrid and I exchanged a look of pure, baffled confusion over their heads. This was not the reaction we had expected. Toothless lowered his head, his slitted green eyes wide with a dawning recognition. He sniffed the air around Stormfly, his nostrils flaring. Stormfly, her anxiety seemingly forgotten, leaned forward and did the same, her sharp, avian snout gently brushing against his.
And then, the world tilted on its axis.
A look of what I could only describe as pure, unadulterated joy washed over both of their draconic faces. Toothless let out a loud, happy, crooning sound, a noise I had never heard before. Stormfly answered with a series of excited, melodic chirps. And then, they embraced.
It wasn't a human hug. It was a full-body, draconic envelopment. Toothless wrapped his powerful arms around Stormfly's leaner frame, lifting her slightly off the ground. She, in turn, wrapped her own arms around his neck, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder, her long, spined tail giving a series of happy, twitching wags. They held each other, swaying slightly, making a chorus of soft, happy sounds that were a language all their own. It was a reunion of profound, heartfelt emotion, a moment of two souls finding a piece of their old world in a new, alien one.
Astrid and I just stood there, our jaws hanging open, utterly speechless. The two mythical creatures who had turned our lives upside-down, the sources of our individual and collective stress… knew each other. And from the looks of it, they weren't just acquaintances. They were friends. Close friends.
After a long moment that felt suspended in time, they finally let go, though they remained close, their hands resting on each other's arms. The transformation in Stormfly was astonishing. The anxious, miserable creature who had stood on my porch was gone. In her place was a vibrant, confident being. Her posture was relaxed, her head was held high, and her eyes, now fixed on Toothless, were bright with an inner light. She was beautiful.
Then, as if suddenly remembering their human chaperones, they both turned to face us. Their expressions were nearly identical: a mixture of excitement, impatience, and a clear, urgent need to make us understand.
Toothless was the first to try. He pointed a single, black claw at Stormfly, then tapped his own chest. "Friend!" he rumbled, the word a deep, emphatic pronouncement. It was one of the few abstract concepts he had managed to grasp, and he used it now with the force of a legal declaration. He repeated the motion, pointing back and forth between them. "Friend! Friend!"
Stormfly, lacking even that limited vocabulary, was no less clear. She looked at Astrid, her eyes pleading, and then gestured from herself to Toothless, before making a series of weaving motions with her hands, as if describing a long, shared path. She then patted her own chest and let out a soft, melodic chirp, the same sound she had made when she first saw Toothless. It was a name. Her name, in her own language.
"They know each other," Astrid whispered, her voice filled with a dazed wonder that perfectly mirrored my own.
"It would appear so," I replied, running a hand through my hair. "My life just reached a new, previously unimaginable level of weird." I looked at the two dragons, who were now chattering at each other in their own language of clicks, chirps, and rumbles, completely absorbed in their own world. "Well, I think this calls for… sitting down. A lot of sitting down. And possibly coffee. Strong coffee. Living room, this way."
We retreated to the living room, a strange, mismatched procession of two baffled humans and two suddenly-reunited dragons. Toothless, in a gesture of chivalry that surprised me, gently guided Stormfly with a hand on her back, steering her towards the largest, most comfortable sofa. She sat, and he immediately sat beside her, their thighs pressing together, a casual, comfortable proximity that spoke of years of familiarity. For the first time since she had arrived, Stormfly stopped tugging at the hem of her too-small dress. The oppressive cloud of self-consciousness that had clung to her had simply… evaporated. The presence of her friend had been the antidote to her anxiety.
Astrid and I took the armchairs opposite them, creating a bizarre tableau. It felt like we were the parents, meeting our children's friends for the first time, except the children could bench-press a car and their friend was a mythical creature from another dimension.
"So," Astrid began, leaning forward, her sharp, analytical mind already working to piece things together. "Let's compare notes. My experience has been a nightmare of passive resistance. Agent Smith drops her off at my apartment—my tiny, one-bedroom apartment, by the way—with a folder and a pat on the back. For three weeks, she's barely said a word. She hides in the corner, refuses most food, and looks like she's perpetually on the verge of a panic attack. I thought I was doing something wrong, that my place was too small, that I was… I don't know, a bad host."
I snorted. "A bad host? Astrid, my experience has been a nightmare of… active participation. Toothless decided on day one that I was his, the house was his, and therefore my personal space was a purely theoretical concept. He sleeps in my bed, follows me into the workshop, and as of this evening, has developed a keen interest in synchronized bathing."
Astrid's eyebrows shot up. "Synchronized… bathing?"
A hot blush crept up my neck. "We're working on boundaries," I said quickly, deciding to gloss over the mortifying details of the bathtub incident. "He's not hostile, he's just… a lot. He's possessive, clingy, and has the spatial awareness of a black hole. But he's intelligent. He's learning. And under all that… he's a good guy, I think." My gaze drifted to Toothless. He was listening intently, his head tilted, picking up on my tone if not the specific words. He met my gaze and gave a soft, rumbling purr, a clear sign of affection.
As we talked, Stormfly did something remarkable. She reached out and gently placed her hand on Astrid's knee. It was a simple, comforting gesture. She then looked at Astrid, then at me, and then back to Toothless, her expression one of profound, heartfelt gratitude. She couldn't speak our language, but her meaning was crystal clear. Thank you for bringing me to him. Thank you for taking care of me, even when I was difficult.
Astrid stared at the blue, taloned hand on her knee, and I saw her normally rigid posture soften. A small, genuine smile touched her lips for the first time that evening. "So she just needed a friend," she said quietly, more to herself than to me. "All this time, she was just… lonely."
"And scared," I added, looking at the ill-fitting gray dress that was stretched tight across Stormfly's powerful frame. "And probably profoundly uncomfortable. Can you imagine being dropped into a world where nothing makes sense, you can't talk to anyone, and they force you into clothes that don't even fit your body? I'd be a nervous wreck too."
The conversation flowed easily after that. We spent the next hour trading stories, the mundane and the bizarre. We talked about the food situation—my discovery of Toothless's all-consuming passion for canned tuna, and Astrid's struggle to get Stormfly to eat anything at all. We talked about the communication barrier, my flashcard system, and her fruitless attempts to use a government-issued translation app that only seemed to work for known Earth languages.
It was a relief. A profound, soul-deep relief to finally talk to someone who got it . My life had been so solitary, so consumed by the sheer strangeness of my new reality, that I hadn't realized how isolated I had become. Astrid, my childhood friend and academic rival, the person I had spent years competing with, had suddenly become my closest confidante, the only other member of the world's most exclusive support group.
As the night wore on, the two dragons on the sofa grew quiet. Their excited chirps and rumbles subsided, replaced by a comfortable silence. At some point, Stormfly's head had come to rest on Toothless's broad shoulder, and his arm was draped loosely around her back. They weren't asleep, but they were in a state of deep, peaceful repose, content simply to be in each other's presence. The sight was strangely domestic, a pocket of serene normalcy in a sea of utter chaos.
"She can't go back to my apartment," Astrid said, her voice soft but firm, her eyes on the two dragons. "It's not fair to her. She's happy here. She's calm here." She looked at me, a silent question in her eyes.
I knew what she was asking. My house was bigger. My workshop was a potential sanctuary. I already had one dragon; what was one more? The logical, rational part of my brain, the part that had enjoyed a quiet, orderly life just a month ago, was screaming in protest. It was a terrible idea. It would double the chaos, double the expense, double the chances of a plasma blast accidentally vaporizing my television.
But then I looked at Stormfly, at the way the tension had completely drained from her body, at the peaceful, trusting way she leaned against her friend. And I looked at Toothless, who seemed more settled, more content than I had ever seen him. He had a piece of his home back. How could I say no to that?
"She can stay here," I said, the words feeling both insane and absolutely right. "We'll make it work."
Astrid's shoulders slumped with a relief so profound it was as if a physical weight had been lifted from them. "Thank you, Hiccup," she whispered. "I mean it. Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet," I said with a weary smile. "Wait until you see the grocery bill." I stood up, stretching the kinks out of my back. "It's late. We should probably figure out sleeping arrangements. I have a guest room. I think it's time we put it to use."
The night was far from over, and a whole new set of logistical problems lay ahead. But for the first time since this whole mess began, I didn't feel like I was facing it alone. My strange, isolated existence had just gained two new members. And as I looked at the two powerful, mythical creatures resting peacefully on my sofa, I had a sinking, terrifying, and strangely exhilarating thought: This was just the beginning.