And now an interlude...Chapter 24 will be up next weekend! Have a happy Easter, and don't forget to PM your art request to me on here, Tumblr, or Discord once we hit 500 reviews!
We see a human and dragon.
Night has fallen, and a stone has sunken in his heart in unison with the retreating sun. Tonight is cold and quiet. The dragons have spent their time squabbling and bickering, wailing on the cliffs for their lost, but now their breaths have caught in their throats.
He finishes hammering in the finishing touches on the roof he is working on and sits back to admire his work. His dragon, Noodles, sits atop his shoulder, holding his fire in his maw to provide light. The little thing can't stop shifting and peeping nervously.
Dogsbreath feels it, too. From here, he has a crisp view of the black ocean and sky. Were it not for the pale, dim moonlight, he would have thought the entire world swallowed into darkness.
He has always been one to jump to conclusions, and he has been struggling to hold that part of him back in recent days. Yet his gut tells him that now is not the time for that. Against all evidence, he asks Noodles to find his children and keep watch over them. Just in case.
Noodles does not understand the command, but he does recognize the names of his adoptive family and the fear stiffening the voice of his companion. Now more anxious than ever, the tiny one-winged dragon leaps from the comfort of his human and off the roof, lands onto the still-battle-strewn village street, and sets off into a sprint.
The dragons that see him are set ill at ease at his wild dash across the village. Many are too prideful to admit that he is the dragon they have been looking to in the past few days, but he is nonetheless. Noodles was now among the oldest of the dragons that remained on Berk, and was one of the closest to the transformed King during their slavery under the Queen. As antsy as he was, he has become an authority to them, prompting them to take on his mission as their own.
But Noodles does not see his care of his humans as a mission anymore. He simply wants them to be safe, to spend time with them no matter how loud they were nor how rough they played. The Kings really were right when they told them all those times that humans were not so bad.
To serve his Kings and to protect his home, he now understands that humans are part of his nest, too. Just as the Kings had always wanted.
And he is no longer the only dragon in his nest who holds that very sentiment.
We see Berk.
Noodles darts past countless homes with golden light seeping from their windows. He passes the house of Bergthora, her new companion Rye roosting atop it with smoke curling between his teeth. He passes the house of Thuggory, and as he does, he is forced to dart between the legs of the brilliant orange Deadly Nadder that stands outside, peeking in curiously and hoping for more food.
The humans are still hard at work even in the dead of night, raising houses, tending to their wounded, treating their sick. Dragons shadow some of them, helping in what ways they can understand. The dragons know not of building nor war preparations, but they know that it is cold, they know that almost all the leaders to turn to have vanished, and they know that everyone is hungry. They provide fires and warm sides to rest against, and well-meaning but ultimately rejected food offerings. The humans, in turn, offer still-uneasy company and soft words, maintaining stubborn hope that everything will be fine.
A kind of grim humor passes through both dragon and human, that it is only now that they seem to see eye-to-eye. An unspoken understanding lives in every glance between dragon and human, that now, more than ever, do they need to come together. Without even realizing what they are doing, humans and dragons creep together into groups, finding comfort in their combined numbers.
The village of Berk is small and vulnerable, dark and empty. Even with its leaders and young gone, its occupants have no reason to feel as uneasy as they are. The night is normal and quiet, just like the many ones previously. There is no need to keep their weapons close and their flames ready.
Yet they do.
We see the roiling ocean.
It crashes about with enormous waves that reach up towards the sky as if to tear chunks of it down into the frothing mass. There is not a glimmer of scales of fish, nor the deep bellows of sea serpents and whales.
There are figures that cut through the angry waters. Viking ships, hiding in the night without their fires lit, making a quiet sprint through the stormy waves. They are not deterred by the sheer force of the ocean, even as it spends its every movement trying to persuade them otherwise. The people have lived upon these seas their entire lives. They are of the archipelago, and if needed, they could find their way to Berk with their eyes blindfolded.
They are still unsure what they shall do. But they are tired of the dragon scourge of their islands, and they have finally found its source.
More than anything, they are tired of living in fear. It is time to fight back. It is time to put an end to the war, once and for all.
We see the floating city of shadows.
Thrumming Sharkworms tear them through the waters, their eyes blind and distant. They are uncaring of obstacles, often bolting straight towards icebergs that dot the freezing waters, forcing the men guiding them to shove them in a different direction.
As dead as the night is, the armada is alive with dragon-song. None were spared against the onslaught of the source on the beaches—not even the great Bewilderbeast, prized possession of the master of the armada. Every now and then, someone will lean over the edge of their ship and strain their eyes, hoping beyond hope that the massive beast is still there.
It is intoxicated by something. Its frills poke out of the crashing waves like giant shark's fins. The Bewilderbeast follows, but it no longer powers their great city upon the seas, bringing them to what feels like a crawl after having carried them for so long.
Only one person upon the armada does not shift and stir with anxiety. He is confident that his Bewilderbeast will stay with them, as useless as the dull creature has become. He is confident that his men will guide his armada around the glaciers that threaten it.
He is confident that the demonic dragon-boy and his Night Fury companion will meet him at Berk. All dragons fight to the death for their territory, and they are no different. They will come. They will fall before him. And they will finally learn their place, as all dragons do. After having a breath's moment of enticing freedom, they will be too disheartened to fight him again, and will fall obediently back into his hands.
More than anything, he is confident that he has found a solution to the very forces that sent his life's work into motion.
The entity the dragon-boy called the "source" is almost as unresponsive as its infected victims, but this does not worry him. The very sight of him makes it cower, vivid eyes flashing in the bleak shadows. This creature is one that can attract and subdue all dragons. With it at his disposal, he will make quick work of the archipelago, ripping all the mongrels from their rampages through the villages.
And then he will make away with them, so that their monstrosity would never reach the realms of mankind again.
Only then, will none bear the fate he himself has suffered. Only then, will families and villages and vulnerable young boys be safe from the talons and flames.
And We see the source.
Rage and terror and defeat blast through it over and over.
It is trapped, again. It is bound within darkness, again. It has lost all control, again.
It cannot sing, for its muzzle is crushed under the weight of heavy metal chains. It cannot fly, for the cruel, traitorous gods above still blaze it with Their contempt. It cannot fight, for it does not have its only key out of this damnation, the spark of hope so cruelly held just out of reach.
Its mind flashes to them, to him, and a muffled bellow of fury and sorrow escapes it again. It does not understand why it cannot reach them anymore, but somehow, they have slipped from its claws. Now its only two chances are gone, and with them, its very heart has been whisked away.
For a brief moment, hope reignites. Almost too quiet to hear, more of a memory in the depths of its mind, it hears that word. Soulfire.
Desperately, it crashes through the shells of safety it has made, bouncing from dragon to dragon until it reaches the one with him. It sits there with pleading eagerness, forcing its entire being into that space, staring into him with pinpoint clarity. Hoping beyond reason, more of an unheard prayer doomed to fail, it tries to convince itself that he has come to see reason. Maybe now he knows what must be done. Maybe now, this half-creature that has so easily gained Their favor...this still-broken yet somehow recovering creature that has been plagued by its very own demons is showing it…
Dare it believe that this is...kindness? Empathy? Listening?
Cracks snap through its shell. It curls away, aghast, as the safety and control begins to chip away bit by bit. With a painful, breathless jolt, it realizes what is happening.
He and his companions are shoving it away. They are throwing everything it has ever wanted at it, they are mocking it with the very things it has craved for a lifetime. Love. Warmth. Happiness. Soulfire. Returning to itself again, both in spirit and in physical form, no longer cursed as this.
Fury and jealousy and sorrow streak through its core. If only it could shriek its song at them from here. If only it could convince them.
If only it could keep a grasp on its shell.
The shell shatters around it, and the terror of it is too much. With one last, mourning glance at them, it is forced to flee before it is left exposed and vulnerable. Within the last wisps of its confinement, it hears their relieved voices, and the very sound of them fills it with rage at the injustice.
It's not fair. It is so very, very unfair, for it to have laid itself out bare before him and still be so greatly misunderstood. For it to have taken the divine punishments it still bears and to still lie in such unending lament, while he finds relief.
The shadows curl around it as it is brought back to its senses, back to the mockery of its unwanted form, to the emptiness it feels deep through its soul, to that hollowness at its center where its spark should be.
Terror fills it as it realizes that it is no longer alone, but not in the way that it has craved for so long.
Before it stands the monster of darkness that has trapped it here. It has returned to torture it, to howl at it, to force submission from it. It does not understand what the monster wants, and the punishment for this is severe. Its form shifts and wavers, but the monster has quickly learned where to strike and how to draw out the agony of each blow. With every bit of pain inflicted on it, memories of battles and terrors and horrors and monsters long-since gone swoop upon it, making it all that harder to bear. The present and past melt together, leaving it awash with torment.
Now, more than ever, does it need to be itself again.
Now, more than ever, does it need its soulfire, that spark it so longs for.
Now, more than ever, does it sob to its absent gods to let it be whole again.