Aranon could honestly say only two or three sheep where stolen before things took a turn for the worse.

"Dragons!" was the indication that the first pack of dragons had been sighted by the Vikings.

From there, everything disintegrated rather quickly. Aranon mentally cursed Celine, who was now out of sight, 'We'll be in, and we'll be out!' He mocked her statement. Dragons criss-crossed over the village, picking up sheep hastily and flying away, trying to avoid the flaming cauldrons that the Vikings had raised so they could see them. The raid was noisy, a constant roar of sound constantly assaulted Aranon's ears: roars, growls, yells, explosions, and the ring of the Viking's weapons connecting with horns and talons. He could hardly hear himself think over the din.

Many dragons and set fire to the houses. They were called collectively 'Stultes' by the rest of the Nest, they were the dragons that usually pulled off stupid stunts back at Dragon Island, and probably couldn't resist being idiots during a raid either. Nadders shot spines, Gronkles bellowed, Zipplebacks combusted houses, and the Nightmares did what they did best, setting things on fire. Already, half the Viking village was on fire, Aranon could see the Viking pups attempting to fight the flames with buckets of water, but they could hardly stop the inferno.

A Monstrous Nightmare Stulte was climbing a pyre that was topped with one of the Viking's catapults, his body alight. All around him, the wooden planks were combusting, burning to a crisp, then falling to the ocean. The Vikings who were manning the catapult were shouting indiscriminate curses at the Nightmare, who chirred and continued his agonizingly slow crawl towards them. He reached the top, chirring uncontrollably at the humans who scurried around on the flaming pyre, trying to put out his flames.

Aranon couldn't stand seeing that the Nightmare was having so much fun with the humans. He had promised Celine and Sorcha that he'd stay out of the searchlight, but the Stulte was getting on his nerves. Aranon knew that he was nothing but a blur to the Vikings, a shadow against the stars.

He prepared his shot in his throat, a whistling noise the only thing giving him away; warning the humans and the Stulte Nightmare, then released the blue plasma blast. The Nightmare had peeled off the tower, chortling at the humans. Aranon streaked over the tower as it exploded, a blue ring from the explosion shot outwards away from the initial orb of blue fire like a ripple of water.

"Jump!" the Vikings screamed, leaping into the ocean and resurfacing, only to be pushed down again by the falling pyre, the catapult atop it landed on some men unlucky enough to be in its way. Aranon winced.

The Nightmare Stulte came up from behind Aranon, "That was amazing! I've never seen anything like that in my entire life!" He cackled, "You sure did give those Vikings a scare!"

Aranon managed a smile, though on the inside, he was tearing the Nightmare limb from wing. "I try."

"Say," the Nightmare rose higher, barely dodging a boulder that had been hurled at him, "You're that Night Fury everyone's talking about! Arrow, right?"

Aranon had no idea how the Nightmare could be so casual during the raid, but he tried to play it cool. "Aranon," The Night Fury replied, "If you don't mind, I need to go find my friends."

The other dragon shrugged off the brisk dismissal, "Stay foolish!" The Nightmare chirred as he flew off. Aranon swiftly did the same, but in the other direction. He skirted around the village, searching for weak points in their defence. All he needed was one sheep. One sheep was his only chance of staying alive in the Nest.

Aranon realized that the raid was starting to take a more violent turn. All of the more peaceable dragons had left with their kill, so only Stulte were left, along with other dragons who were enjoying their ability to move around the Viking village without being challenged, so they stole as many unguarded sheep as they could. A male Gronkle zipped past Aranon, a Viking man clinging to his face and hammering on the Gronkle's tough hide with a war hammer; the two of them went down into the sea when the Viking's weight became too much for the Gronkle to handle.

There was a distant roar of a dragon, and the yelling of the Vikings rang in Aranon's ear holes.

Aranon landed quietly on a rooftop, he was as invisible to the humans as a shadow in the dark. He crept forward, trying to get a good look at the inside one of their structures. He was curious about the humans, though he was not sure why.

Inside this particular building, a rough looking man was doling out weapons and receiving bent ones from other Vikings over a counter. He had a hook for a hand and a strange looking growth of hair on his upper lip, long and knotted, "No time to be choosy!" he yelled at the other men and women, tossing them axes and swords. "Hiccup! Hurry up with that sword!"

"Coming, Gobber!" a small voice yelped in reply, it belonged to an auburn haired pup with pitifully small muscles. The pup dashed up to the counter and handed the sword he was carrying to the older Viking. Aranon was perplexed by this pup. He was much too small to be a Viking, yet he spoke their language and worked in their weapon-making-structure.

"Aranon!" The Night Fury turned, Celine was speeding towards him, her eyes wide in fear, she landed on the rooftop next to him. "Aranon, they have Sorcha!"

"What?" Aranon asked, startled. "Tell me everything."

"She and I, we were on the far edge of the village," Celine said quickly, "The Vikings ambushed us and took down Sorcha. Both of us were out of shots and we couldn't get away. She gave me only enough clearance to get away, I tried to help her, but there were too many humans."

Aranon's ear flicked up, he heard a slight noise. His eyes shot downwards and he saw a human. It was the pup, the auburn haired male from the weapon-making-structure, standing between the buildings, looking up in awe of the two rarest dragons in the archipelago. He held a small dagger in his hand; Aranon couldn't help but admire the boy's bravery, no matter how foolish. But as Aranon looked closer, he realized that the pup couldn't see him, only the Grapple Grounder. "Celine," he whispered, "below you."

She screeched in astonishment, then flared her wings to make her escape. The pup stumbled as the wind blew him backwards into the house Aranon was perched on, cursing loudly.

While the pup was distracted, Aranon took off after Celine. But once he was in the air and over the sea, he had lost sight of the Grapple Grounder.

"Celine!" He roared, "Celine!"

"I'm here!" The Grounder responded, seemingly melting out of the ocean below him, she sounded shaken.

He glided closer to her, "Celine, are you alright?"

"No!" she keened in response, "Sorcha's been caught, and it's all my fault," The Grapple Grounder hardly held a steady course, dipping and rolling over the waves, "She's going to die because of me!"

"Stop that!" Aranon barked, cuffing her over the head with his wing. "Sorcha is strong. She'll find a way out." I hope. He thought silently to himself.

They flew silently back to the Nest, catching large fish in place of the livestock they failed to catch in the village. The tuna wriggled for only a few seconds, gasping for air with blank eyes, before Aranon put it out of its misery.

They were the last dragons back to the Nest, so the Queen wasn't too impatient with them – she greeted them with a roar and an open mouth. Each pale eye following his progress and each bloodied tooth made Aranon want to rip them out of their sockets. The teeth and eyes.


The horrible dreams had been coming for the past few days, each one worse than the last. Tonight's was considerably the worst.

Aranon floated above the ocean; his large black wings pocketed the buffeting winds that flew up from the surf. It was a perfect morning, the sun rose red over the Crescent Isle's rocky horizon, bathing the black pebble beach and forest in an orange light that streamed around the mountains.

To his left, other Night Furies dove headfirst into the waves to retrieve fish from the thrashing sea for their pups, and to his right, other dragon species were trying to copy the acrobatic children of lightning – Monstrous Nightmares, Deadly Nadders, even a few Gronkles were trying to replicate the perfect fishing of the Night Furies.

The sky quickly but steadily became crimson instead of the blue of day, and he seemed to be the only dragon to notice. All the others continued with their fishing. Tempest flew up behind him, "You finally decided to come back," she said "I was beginning to worry that you wouldn't make it in time."

Torok flew up also, a malicious look chiseled onto his face. "Don't listen to her – We're all dead because of you. You didn't come back fast enough. All dead –" Torok shivered. Suddenly, his body began to shake uncontrollably, his flesh melted off his bones until only a skeleton remained. The bones rattled as they struggled to keep flying in the shape of a Night Fury, but they slowly sunk downwards, away from Aranon.

Aranon looked down in fear, all the dragons, Gronkles, Nightmares, Nadders – were skeletons. They moaned, "dead. dead. dead."

Tempest was the only other living dragon, "Aranon, is it true?"

"It is true!" Another living voice conjured itself into Aranon's dream, Sorcha flew amongst the flying skeletons, joining the Tempest and Aranon. She was pumping her wings heavily against the Viking net that stretched over them, unable to shake it off. "You didn't come back for me, Aranon, you could have saved me if only you had turned back."

"I couldn't!"

Suddenly, skeleton dragons rose up and clamped their fleshless jaws onto the legs of both females, dragging them down. "Tempest! Sorcha!" Aranon cried desperately. He beat his wings, but was unable to move towards them.

Another character entered his dream, Celine, her midnight blue body twisted like a coiled vine against the blood-red sky. "Choose Aranon. Who will you save?"

"Both!" Aranon cried, straining his wings desperately.

Celine hissed, "You cannot save one without losing the other! It's them or us. Choose!"

Aranon didn't want to respond. He only had two choices, only one of which he could choose – the Night Furies or all the other dragons of the Barbaric Archipelago. He could go back home and take his people away with the threat of them being killed by the Queen or he could stay and hopefully kill the Queen and take the Island for his people, but by then it would be too late.

Skeletal talons clawed at his legs, dragging him down. Down into the water.


Aranon woke with a start. His heart beat fast and his breathing was shallow. His eyes were wide from fright. Celine lay close to him, her breathing rhythmic. She had slept beside him that night instead of going back to the ledge that was home to two other dragons, they had no sympathy for her and had pushed her from their ledge when she keened for Sorcha.

Tyon was growling in the corner to himself, the gold Nadder ever moody. The Night Fury assumed he was angry with him for not bringing Sorcha back with them, and he had secluded himself even more from the other dragons– a feat Aranon had not thought possible. The Nadder was now almost completely hidden himself from sight.

Below them in the pit, Aranon could see the Smouldering Smokebreaths flying, spreading their wretched smoke around the mist to shroud the Queen from the view of the other dragons. After last night's raid, the mist that surrounded her had been diminished from the amount of animal carcasses that had been dropped in.

The Smokebreaths did everything the Queen couldn't do for herself, other than getting food, which was for bigger dragons, but they patrolled the island, carried messages, and provided information on dragons that participated in raids.

Aranon shifted his wing over Celine, who was feeling dreadfully cold for a dragon inside a volcano mountain. The Grapple Grounder shivered, her face contorting in pain. She was having a bad dream like he had; Aranon could only imagine what it was about.

The Queen bellowed from the pit, she was obviously unhappy about something. Probably is too fat to move herself. Aranon thought maliciously, hoping that no dragon would make a move to aid her. Celine muttered in her sleep in a language Aranon didn't understand. "Hahim. Mujhe ghara calro." She shifted out from under his wing. Celine tensed as if expecting something to hit her – then whimpered. Aranon couldn't stand to see her in the clutches of her dream anymore – he nudged her awake. Her head shot up, "Nukasana?"

"It's just me, Celine." Aranon leaned back from the startled Grounder.

Celine relaxed, "Thank-you for waking me." She muttered to herself in the foreign language again. Aranon watched her warily, remembering her role in his dream. He shook the thought when an acid yellow Terrible Terror ambled across his path. The little dragon lazily wandered past him, humming out of tune as if he had eaten too much dragonnip – if any dragonnip grew on Dragon Island.

Aranon hooked the Terror's tail with his talon, "What are you so happy about?" The Night Fury asked in a disgusted tone. The Terrible Terror just hung upside down from his tail with his pink tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, his eyes staring vacantly like balls of coloured glass. The small dragon was unexpectedly heavy. "You've stuffed yourself at the raid," Aranon spat, dropping the Terror on its head, it didn't seem to mind, it just kept on ambling along. "You're lucky. The Queen won't eat you because you wouldn't make a bite's worth."

Celine purred, then pushed the Terror on its way with her foreleg gently. "Aranon," she said sadly, "Back where I come from, we all believe that all life is sacred."

Aranon's ear twitched in bemusement.

The Grounder continued, "We also believe in a thing called karma. What goes around comes around."

"So you think I'm going to get shot out of the sky by Vikings for dropping that Terrible Terror on its head." Aranon said flatly.

"No," Celine said softly, casting her gaze to the red pit. "I'm saying that I think the Queen will pay dearly for letting Sorcha be caught." Her expression hardened. "We're not the only discontent ones here, Aranon. The dragons here are willing to fight, but they need a leader."

Aranon looked around to see if anybody was listening, the only one who might hear would be Tyon, but he wouldn't exactly spread rumors. "Are you suggesting that I lead a revolt against the Queen?"

Celine looked dead him in the eyes, "That is exactly what I'm asking you to do."


"I had no idea that when I refused to lead a revolt you would try to feed me to a grumpy old dragon." Aranon said irritably.

"Just talk to him! It will be fine, it's not like he'll eat you." Celine nudged him forward, "I did mention before that not all of the Night Furies had left."

"Very quietly! I hardly caught it!" Aranon snapped back. He looked into the cave. It was a small entrance, just big enough for a Night Fury, which had been dug into the inner wall of the Nest, located the farthest possible from the pit.

Aranon gave up his struggle against the she-dragon and moved towards the entrance of the cave. It was dark and dry inside, Aranon found himself sucking the roof of his mouth for moisture. "Hello?" He whispered into the dark.

"Who is it?" a voice snapped angrily, "If it's one of those insolent pups, so help me I'll-" A dark shadow slammed Aranon into the wall. Aranon struggled to see through the black spots that danced across his vision, he blinked them away. It was an incredibly old child of lightning pinning him down. His ears were greyed around the edges; white teeth were filed down to dull points.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't kill me, Sciens*." Aranon said dryly to the elder dragon, "I like my innards intact."

The old Night Fury leapt off of Aranon in astonishment. "Another Night Fury," He breathed, seemingly not believing his eyes.

"That does appear to be what I am, yes." Aranon replied, rolling off his back into a standing position.

The older Night Fury muttered to himself, "Then it is almost time."

Aranon cocked his head to the side, "Time for what?"

"I am old – very old." The child of lightning said to Aranon, "If you're here, that means it is time for me to join the gods." Aranon realized that this Night Fury had been away for a very long time from any others of his kind, no one believed in ascending to Valhalla after death anymore.

"What are you talking about?" Aranon asked, knowing that the elder wouldn't give him a straight answer.

"There must always be one Night Fury on Dragon Island. Always." The elder shook his head, "In spe melioris venturi."

=0=

(In case you weren't paying attention) Celine is originally from India, so her native tongue is Hindi. I'm not an expert on the language and I always use the phonetics when dealing with foreign languages.

* Sciens – knower, (once again, Latin) an honorific title reserved for elderly Night Furies