20 years later...
The chatter of scutteclaws outside my inlet startled me from my beauty sleep. Groaning, I changed my tail into an elongated deadly nadder's and swatted at them, spikes extended. They screeched, dodging out of the way, only to return. Hmph, must I ALWAYS get up before dawn! I thought, growling at the scuttleclaws my half-brother sent each morning. They seemed particularly insistent this morning, so something special must have happened to get them riled up. Kylrm! Kylrm! Kylrm! they kept shouting until I shook my wings and tail into stormcutter form and body into night fury form. That was my favorite combination, combining speed and beauty with grace and agility. I still am not sure which pair belongs to which form, annoying Vaka and Cloud Jumper to no end, but now that I was awake, I went through my daily exercise of running through my different fire types and special abilities. I even tried an alpha stab at the scuttleclaws. I almost nabbed one of them, but he slipped away like an eel. Shivering at the thought of the slimy creatures, I nearly hit my prized mirror, a thin sheet of metal scavenged from smoldering smokebreaths. Seeing my reflection reminded me of the last thing I had to do before venturing outside of my inlet. Concentrating on my desired image, I expertly crafted a light mirage that would settle on my scales and wings to hide the scars and mauling from my nightmare at Drago's... never mind that. Thinking on that too long always brought back painful memories.
Once I finished the illusion, I looked over myself in the mirror, tilting it this way and that so the ice on the walls of the cave would catch my reflection from different angles. To keep the other dragons of the "Great Bewilderbeast's" nest - ironically, he was only a couple decades older than me - from suspecting I was not weak like most duones, I had to keep the illusions flawless. Emerging from my inlet into the main cavern, I marveled at the skill with which my half-brother maintained the magnificent ice sculptures and temperatures of the cavern. Dragons from all types of habitats could coexist here because of his abilities, and he was hopefully going to begin teaching me how to form structural masterpieces instead of just minor sculptures that fell apart when even dragons as small as terrible terrors perched. A few of the scuttleclaws flew back at me, gently nipping at my tail and head frills and immediately darting away. They knew I could easily swat them into a wall now that I was a broadwing.
Snapping out my vertical, third tail fin, I separated my wings into x-formation and tried a vertical take-off again. For a moment, it seemed like I was about to fall back to the ground. Then, I found a rhythm to my flight and was able to hold altitude for a few seconds before making a 90-degree turn up to my way out of the cavern. Any new broadwing would have rammed into and likely been impaled by the millions of broken sharp pieces of ice jutting from a "smoke hole" as Valka, our resident human expert, called it. However, I had spent weeks flying at night to learn the ins and outs of this mini tunnel. I was just the right size - who am I kidding; I made myself just the right size - to weave in between the shards and rough edges. The twists and turns would have befuddled even the most experienced night fury and out-sized the most skilled stormcutter, but by combining the two forms with my smarts, I was reached the hardest point of all; the sharp turn at the top. Just before it opened out, there was a giant stalactite of ice. If I turned to early to my right, I would ram into a sharp wall of rough, spiky ice; on the other hand, if I turned too late, I could get any part of my body or wings impaled by the giant cone. I expertly waited until the last second and... zipped away from the cone just in time, angling myself slightly more upward to account for a slight, unexpected downdraft this early in the morning.
Soaring above the ice castle, I dipped up before plummeting down and towards the east, where the sun was just starting to peak above the horizon. Thank Thor! Or Odin, I can never remember which. I chuckled at my instincts, yet lack of understanding of human customs. Valka had taught me a few things about my mother's heritage, but I was always more intrigued by the stories of my real people, the dragons, in which the great Creator gave a piece of the true story to each dragon, and one day, when we are all united, we will rediscover the entire story of our fore-sires and return to the place from which we came. No matter, today's lesson was to be on building endurance and firepower to face the challenger my brother could sense coming.
As supreme Alpha, my brother had a duty to protect our people from those who would seek to destroy us. Somehow, "our people" included humans, even though Valka was the only one who seemed to truly care about dragons. Sure, there were rumors about Berk... Wait, was that a night fury? Startled, I pulled up from my dive and let the wind whip me behind the cover of a few rocks. Letting my skin adopt the camouflage of a changewing, I watched a group of tidal dragons bring the black, catlike figure into the holding cave where we typically judge dragons who are deemed dangerous or whose loyalties are unclear. Curious, I was about to follow them into the place when I my brother called me to his side back in the main cavern. Oh well, I guess that means we'll have to entertain a guest. Although, I could have sworn I saw a saddle on the poor soul. I switched back to standard form, a full-out stormcutter with similar markings to Cloud Jumper. Any new dragons just assumed I was his daughter. Taking a shortcut through one of the many whispering death tunnels, I weaved through the surprisingly unfamiliar passageway until I came out to a small ledge right behind my brother. A majestic, glistening white with brown lobe tips and slightly bluish leg and body fins, he reclined beneath the waterfall, letting his body heat warm the water for the other dragons to drink if they wished.
Flying up to my typical resting place near Cloud Jumper's den, I settled down to wait for the night fury to emerge. My brother was about to warn me that this one was different, when suddenly I felt the atmosphere in the thunder change. The first to emerge after Valka was not a night fury, but a human! The entire thunder stood up in shock. Why would the Alpha allow a human to come here of its own bidding? and right behind it was... Emerald? Everyone exclaimed, shocked. Sure enough, he rumbled an affirmative.