A/N: Ah, the epilogue. So sad. But don't worry, I promise to get the sequel/companion piece up right away! It's gonna be called Volcano Quest. It won't be as long as this story or Time's Running Out, but it will set up something important for the next story.

One more thing: I'm writing my own OC dragon manual with all my OC dragons in it. I've only got one chapter up so far, but I figured some of y'all might wanna know more about the OC dragons. Just click on my name, go to my list of stories, and you'll see it right there: Qille's OC Dragon Manual. Okay, I'm done rambling. ON WITH THE FLUFFY CHAPTER! This chapter is basically all Hiccazi fluff...

Dead by Dawn

"Done," muttered Hiccup as he examined his new dagger. The handle was a sturdy metal covered in padding for a firm grip, and the blade was actually the talon of the Shadow Dragon.

Hiccup walked away from the fire and into the back room. He sat the Shadow Talon dagger on the table and took off his fireproof gloves.

He picked up the dagger and twirled it expertly, checking to see that it was perfectly balanced. He caught the handle and flung the dagger across the room, where it imbedded itself into the wall.

"Perfect," said Hiccup, walking over to the dagger. He grabbed the handle and started to pry the dagger loose from the wall... but he heard something that made him stop.

Just outside his work room, Hiccup thought he heard footsteps.

Tap, thunk... tap, thunk...

The footsteps were uneven and it sounded like the person was limping. Hiccup walked over to the curtain and drew it back, expecting to see Gobber. But no one else was in the Forge.

Hiccup took a careful step out into the main room of the forge, looking around for the source of those footsteps. When he didn't see anything, he started to turn around and go back to dislodging the dagger from the wall, but he stopped when something caught his eye.

He slowly walked towards the open window, where he had seen the gleam of something metal. There, lodged in the window sill, was what looked like a tiny metal dragon tooth. Or a tooth of some type of predator that had perfectly rounded metal teeth that came to a point.

Hiccup pried it out of the window and held it up, somehow managing not to prick himself. He studied the metal 'tooth' for a moment before leaning out the window to get a look at what left it. Just as he placed his hands on the window...

"Hiccup?"

Hiccup gasped and whipped around, dropping the fragment onto the floor where it fell through the floorboards. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was Camicazi who had snuck up on him.

As he faced Camicazi, he just missed something dark darting by the window and into the forest.

"Aww, did I scare you?" asked Camicazi in her fake pity voice.

"N-no," stammered Hiccup, trying to slow down his heart rate. "You just... caught me off guard..."

"Sure," she said, smiling. "I see your hand's better."

"What? Oh, yeah..." said Hiccup, flexing his now bandage-free right hand.

"What about your chest?" asked Camicazi, taking a step closer and leaning her head against Hiccup's shoulder.

"It's healing," muttered Hiccup, looking down at his shirt where a small spot of blood was starting to appear, having leaked through the bandages. "Remind me again, why didn't you let Toothless heal me?"

"How many times have you been exposed to Night Fury tears or Night Fury blood?" asked Camicazi, looking up at Hiccup.

"Uh... a couple times..." said Hiccup, shrugging.

"Well there ya go. If you're exposed to Night Fury blood or tears too many times, they your body is probably gonna get used to it, and it won't work," said Camicazi, slipping her hand into Hiccup's. "I'd guess that they'd only work one more time on you before you're immune to them..."

"Probably," muttered Hiccup. He turned to face Camicazi. "So how's your head?"

"Are you questioning me about the cut on my head or my sanity?" asked Camicazi.

Hiccup thought for a minute. "Yes."

Camicazi laughed and pushed her bangs back, revealing the long thin scar across her forehead where she had hit the wall after being thrown across the room by Ombra. "The cut is doing perfectly fine."

"And what about your sanity?"

"Meh..."

They both laughed and stayed that way for a while; holding hands and watching the flames flicker in the Forge's fire pit.

After a while, Camicazi said; "So... did you finish that dagger you were working on?"

"Yeah," said Hiccup. "I finished it just before you got here. Wanna see it?"

"Of course!" exclaimed Camicazi, standing up.

Hiccup led her into the back room where the dagger was still lodged into the wall. He walked over to it and, with a forceful shake, yanked it out of the wall. He brought it over to his desk, where Camicazi had taken a seat.

"Okay, what I did was I melted this part of the handle," said Hiccup pointing to where the talon and handle connected, "and the talon just stuck there."

"Aren't you worried about the talon shattering?" asked Camicazi, taking the blade in her hands and turning it over, inspecting it.

"Well, originally I was before I found out how hard these things are," said Hiccup, gesturing to the wall. "Plus, this thing spent like 5 minutes in the fire. I think that made it harder."

"And you killed a Shadow Dragon with it," said Camicazi. "That's gotta count for something."

"We'll see," said Hiccup. After a minute of thought, however, he said: "Watch this!" He ran into the front room of the Forge and came back a minute later with a giant, thick metal shield that probably weighed three times as much as him.

Hiccup painstakingly dragged the shield over to the wall and propped it up. After catching his breath, he walked back over to Camicazi and took the dagger. He turned around, faced the shield, and hurled the dagger at it as hard as he could.

The dagger connected with a solid thunk! They both walked over to see that the talon had penetrated all the way through the 3 inch thick metal shield.

"Isn't that awesome?" asked Hiccup excitedly.

"You're such a boy," said Camicazi, rolling her eyes.

Hiccup smiled and pulled the dagger out of the shield. He stored it away in a custom holder.

"So... it's a beautiful night," said Camicazi. "Wanna go for a walk?"

"Sure," said Hiccup, thankful that the light in the room was dim, because he was blushing so deeply that you couldn't see his freckles.

Camicazi grabbed Hiccup's hand and pulled him through the door, out into the warm starry night. They walked down towards the abandoned docks, hand in hand.

"Where is everybody?" asked Camicazi.

"Probably at Mead Hall, getting drunk," said Hiccup. "I think my dad told me something about there being an 'adult only' party tonight."

"That kinda scares me," muttered Camicazi. "Did someone remember to check everyone for weapons?"

"I have no idea," said Hiccup.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the docks. They walked out to the end of the docks and sat down, watching the reflection of the stars and full moon in the unnaturally still water. The peaceful sounds of crickets chirping and dragons chattering filled the night air.

Camicazi leaned into Hiccup, and Hiccup put his arm around her. After a minute, they turned to face each other and kissed. The kiss was interrupted a few minutes later when a large flock of Terrors flew overhead, all of them chorusing "Awww..."

Hiccup broke away from Camicazi and looked up at the flock. "Do you mind?"

The Terrors giggled and flew off.

Hiccup looked back down at Camicazi. "Sorry..."

"Don't be," she said. "The last time we kissed was two weeks ago. You're just a little bit out of practice."

Hiccup sighed. "I can't believe it's really been two weeks..."

"Well if it's been two weeks and she hasn't come back, then she's not ever coming back," said Camicazi.

"Well, yeah, but... she was a Shadow! I shouldn't have been able to kill her that easily," said Hiccup.

"Easy?" exclaimed Camicazi. "Hiccup, you got half of your chest ripped out trying to kill her. You call that easy?"

"That's not what I meant!" exclaimed Hiccup. "I just meant that I don't really think she's gone."

"Hiccup, you need to calm down," said Camicazi. She stood up and grabbed Hiccup's hand. "C'mon!"

"Where are we going?" asked Hiccup, standing up and following Camicazi.

"You'll see."

Camicazi ran up the hill back to the village with Hiccup in tow. They eventually stopped right in front of Hiccup's house. Camicazi was about to slam the door open, but Hiccup stopped her.

"Camicazi, wait!"

"What?" she asked, turning to him.

"What if Toothless and Stormfly are in there? I don't wanna walk in on... whatever they do in their spare time!"

"Don't worry, I saw them heading off towards the Cove earlier," said Camicazi with a wink. Hiccup just blushed.

Camicazi slowly pushed the door open. The house was empty. She pulled Hiccup into the center of the room where they both stood next to the fire pit.

"See?" she asked. "The fire's red; not black. She's dead, and you're safe."

Hiccup sighed a bit, staring into the fire. The warm red glow of the dying embers comforted him.

"You're right..." murmured Hiccup.

"Yes, I am," said Camicazi, a hint of smugness in her voice.

Hiccup smiled and took her hand in his.

"Well, c'mon," said Camicazi, tightening her grip on Hiccup's hand and pulling him out the door. "The night's still young, and so are we. Let's make the best of it."

"Can't argue with that," said Hiccup, following her out into the moonlit night, closing the door behind him.

Everything was peaceful.

...Or so they thought...

Back in the Haddock house, deep in the dying fire of the fire pit, while all the embers burned red, there was still one single ember burning black.

Because you can never truly kill a Shadow...

To be Continued...

A/N: It's done! I wanna thank all y'all reviewers out there who threatened me with my life when I threatened to discontinue this. Thanks for letting me know y'all still cared, and thanks for all the positive helpful reviews! I hope y'all stay this positive with my next HTTYD stories.

That's all I can think to say other than I LOVE ALL Y'ALL! HTTYD FOREVER! And congratulations to whoever the 100th reviewer will be! This is my first story to make it to 100!

Qille out (for now)! =D