The following morning Hoch Dünn was awoken by a timberjack with whom he had become friends recently. The dragon had only joined the nest a few weeks back, and was one of only 47 of his kind on the island. Hoch Dünn greeted his friend warmly, promptly disregarding the lecture the queen had given him the night before.
"Good morning Hoch." said the Timberjack. "What are you doing out here?"
The Night Fury looked at him, unsure of what to say. The dragon across from him was a terrible gossip, and tended to exaggerate things so that others would pay attention to him. Hoch Dünn decided to lie, despite his lack of ability in the field of deception.
"I was.. feeling warm, so I decided to sleep outside." It was plausible. Dragons could be sensitive to temperature, and it was mildly hot inside the nest.
"I thought so." said the Timberjack. He was not one to question those of a higher status than him, and he liked to seem smart, so he often said he 'suspected as much' no matter what had been said. Once a group of Terrors told him that the beached blue whale that had obviously been washed up in a storm was actually a kill that they brought for the queen. Of course he said he thought so; although he did not.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked "You just show up and wake me from my nap, all willy-nilly and ridiculous."
"Nap?!" said the other dragon, with false incredulity. "It's well past mid morning and you and I were supposed to go whaling with Blau dünn in the west sea, yet here you sit lazing about like a- a- a Walrus!" He sputtered at the end of his rant, for he could not think of good mammal to compare his friend to.
"A Walrus!? Klein, you wound me." This was said with a heavy layer of sarcasm.
"Yeah whatever. Hurry up and let us get out of here." he said. "I want Orca and they're impossible to find at night."
"It isn't even mid day."
"That's not the point."
Hoch Dünn snorted. He did not really want to go, but he had promised so whatever. He got up and stretched, fanning out his wings and fins, and jumped into the air. They Quickly flew west to find Klein his beloved Orca.
At this point I feel that I should mention that while the TimberJack is a relatively high up member of nest society, they are still treated poorly because they are so few of them. Most of the dragons above them in class hardly gave them the time of day and they often had to do the dirty work. Removing excrement, clearing forest debris to avoid fires. If there were more of them they would not have to do these kinds of things, yet they did.
Anyway, let us carry on.
Blau Dünn, Klein, and Hoch Dünn were flying over the water looking for whale.
Blau, a Deadly Nadder, had actually caught a beluga whale already and was flying with it in her claws. Hoch had a seal in his, he did not really care for whale.
Klein dove for an Orca but missed, making an utter fool of himself.
He had been talking up his hunting skills for some time, trying to impress Blua for some unknown reason. What was it with Timberjacks trying to woo Nadders? They were different species and could not produce viable offspring. Probably.
Maybe with a Nightmare, but Nadders were just too different.
Nadders could not form words, their telepathy was nigh on non existent, but they could still communicate well enough, relaying emotions and what not.
Hoch Dünn looked around, it was getting dark. He xchanged a glance with Blau, she wanted to leave.
"Klein!" He called. "It's time to go back!"
"I cannot yet, I don't have anything caught!"
"Just steal a sheep!"
"...No"
"Yes!"
"No."
"Ugh!"
At this point, Hoch had nearly decided to turn back without him when Klein suddenly dove in and came back out with a Narwhale.
"What is that? It looks like a walrus mated with a whale."
"It is a Narwhale."
"Wat?"
"A Narwhale." He said, Completely serious. "Like a sea unicorn."
"...Ok"
After the brief exchange it took them less than an hour to return home.
He sat on a ledge in the rock, munching on the seal, marveling at the fact that there
were no dragons around. Coincidently, that was the first time that there were no other dragons around that Hoch could remember. It was not uncommon for them to be on a raid, but that rarely happened at this time of night.; in fact, this was when they would typically come back from the raids. He never went inside the nest after a raid, it was to crowded and noisy. It bothered his ears a great deal to be in that cacophony of noise; Night Furies had extremely sensitive hearing and it was just easier to wait until the hoard dispersed. Still, even when they were returning from a raid he could not remember a single instance of there being no one around. He had just made up his mind to go and see if they were inside of the nest when he heard a roar, and suddenly hundreds of dragons flew out of the top of the mountain.
"So they had been in the mountain." Hoch dünn thought to himself. "Did they just get here? They never all go inside at once." Curiously, he flew inside to investigate. Landing on a pillar of stone, he looked into the pit. At first there was nothing unusual. A couple of bones, bits of wool, that sort of thing. Although after a few minute of inspecting, he saw something odd on the floor near Tolle Sache.
"Is that.. A wing?" he thought to himself, a wave of cold running through him. No, it couldn't possibly be a wing. The queen might look down on the other dragons, but she would never kill them. At least he did not think she would. But maybe.. No. it was impossible, right?
He looked at the queen, for the second time in as many days he started to doubt. Maybe she wasn't the benevolent thing that he thought she was.
Just as our hero considered this, he heard something that sounded like sing coming from the direction of Tolle Sache's stomach.
It went a little like this:
"...eagles wings can tickle, bear's have a nasty bite! Sheep are soft and squishy, there wools is very light! Humans can be tricky, there blood is red and icky! You'd better stay away, seek some other prey, or you shan't live past this day! Take a look into the deep, maybe steal a couple sheep!.."
It went on like that for a while.
"She can sing with her mouth closed." Hoch said without thinking, he had thought that she was taking a nap and did not want to wake her.
"Someone with their eyes closed is not necessarily sleeping; so it follows that someone with their mouth closed is not necessarily singing."
"What? Does that mean that it's not you?" Hoch asked "Who else could it be?"
"It is a singing supper." She said this as it might be the simplest thing in the world, and not at all confusing.
"What is a singing supper?" he asked, eyeing what he was now certain was a dragon wing with something close to horror. She must have noticed him staring at it.
"To understand that, you have to first understand what a super is" he said "I believe that we are all suppers to something else, and that is just supper to something else, and on and on and on. The worm is supper to the fish, the fish is supper to the bigger fish, the bigger fish is supper to the seal, who is supper to a dragon, who was supper to me. When I die, I shall be supper to the worm, and like all dragons, I will start to sing."
He looked at her for a second. Then it dawned on him, she had eaten a dragon and the singing he heard was it's death song. Oh, he was going to be sick. He threw himself into the air and flew away.
