"Those injured dragons were the reason we learned how the fighting nest leaders pitched their battles."

Hiccup lifted his head away from his queen and faced Old Wrinkly. The man winked at Hiccup as he drew Kaja's hand into his lap. Hiccup breathed a silent sigh of relief. His ancestor understood and was aiding him in keeping the topic off of other females.

"Those massive dragons were using their nest call," Old Wrinkly continued. "They kept their calls at a pitch that caused their nests to be more aggressive than normal. Dragons not bowing to an alpha or a queen were drawn in by those calls. The Bewilderbeast and the Foreverwings had the advantage over the Dwellers in that regard."

"Dwellers?" Fishlegs asked.

"What you call Red Deaths," Old Wrinkly said. "The dragons gave the name Lava-dweller to them. The green colored ones also lived in lava and thus were considered a different colored Lava-dweller. The purple colored ones chose putrid, swampy water and were given the names of Stink-dweller by the dragons. Well, the story goes it was a Terrible Terror youngling that gave that name to the species and the purple ones liked it."

"What were the blue colored ones called?"

[Ice-dweller,] Sunburn answered. [They, like the Tusked-kings tended to build their nest with ice. Tusked-kings can shoot ice shards as long Heatwave, tip to tip. Ice-dweller nests are packed ice as they spat boulder sized ice balls that shattered on impact and then were formed much like the human clan back home that creates stone dens.]

"Humans took to calling them Dwellers instead of the name the mainlander originally gave them," Brynja said. "Though that was long after he left and returned to his homeland. No one wished to dishonor a visiting king after all."

"The mainlander was a king?" Gyda questioned.

"Aye," Kaja said. "Said he was. Had an honor guard that acted as if he was. He heard about my husband and Onyxwing ending the wars and creating a human/dragon nest. He, at first, came to deal with the threat they all feared my husband and his dragon would be. He left as one of our friends, though he warned us that his kingdom could give not give us any aid, but neither would they see us a threat anymore."

"Did he give his name?" Gyda asked.

"He tried," Yngvar said with a chuckle. "But his native tongue was hard on our ears."

"Your ears, love," Brynja said. "We understood him fine. Besides, he allowed us to open his ability to hear the dragons and they are excellent translators."

"Huh," Gyda said, sounding as if something she had pondered for a long time had finally been solved.

"What?" Hiccup asked.

"The dragons understood my English words," she said. "And there are many incidents back home where a dragon was called upon to translate for people visiting the kingdom I lived in. I remember being fascinated by that, but never really questioned what was happening."

Hiccup stared at the mage, his brow furrowed. Shadowfire snorted.

[Dragons are universal translators,] he said. [The magic in the Common Tongue allows us to understand any language because we hear your words as if you are a dragon speaking in a high-pitched form of the Old Tongue.]

Hiccup's eyes narrowed. He tilted his head and decided upon an experiment. They had seen and heard the dragons react to Gyda's use of English so he chose to test them with something else. Something Gyda probably did not know, thus he could assume Shadowfire would not know either.

"Ciamar a tha thu?" he asked, staring up at the dragon.

Shadowfire chortled. [I am well, Alpha. Thank you for asking.]

Astrid, still leaning against Hiccup, shifted slightly. "You used the informal you," she said.

Hiccup had to stop himself from kissing her. As part of his teaching her all the things he learned by being a chief's son, he also taught her the Gaelic Johann taught him. He had purposively chosen the informal version because Shadowfire was a friend. He was proud she remembered the difference. Because he could not kiss as he wished due to time and company, he instead gave her a gentle hug to silently convey his pride in her.

"Onyx provided the means for me to understand the mage we stayed with," Old Wrinkly said. "We were not in the lands where people worshiped dragons, but we were close enough that the people living in the area could not understand me."

"Ooh, I need my journal," Fishlegs said, turning to rummage through Meatlug's saddle bags.

The female Tall-singer turned her head again so she could look down. [You are the record keeper?] she asked.

Fishlegs paused, his charcoal stick hovering of a clean piece of parchment. "I'm an elder-in-training according to the dragons."

[Ah,] the female said. [An honorable flight you have chosen.]

Hiccup did not fail to note that the female glanced towards Shadowfire when she spoke to Fishlegs. Toothless' snort telling Hiccup that his brother also caught the eye flick. Shadowfire, though, still seemed oblivious to it all. For a brief heartbeat, Hiccup thought about telling his father and seeing if Stoick would try to play matchmaker again. It had been amusing watching him try with Toothless and Moondust.

"You said the elders you all rescued in the All Tale helped you understand how the dragons fought those battles," he said instead, looking back to his ancestor. "Toothless told me they used their nest calls to try to dominate the souls of the dragons back then."

"When did he tell you this?" Astrid asked.

Hiccup hesitated for a heartbeat but knew he would not be able to get out of telling anyone, especially her.

"Back when we flew down to the docks to get Dad. Before we learned Old Wrinkly's tale."

He felt Astrid stiffen in his arms. She leaned forward enough so that she could look at him over her shoulder.

"Old Wrinkly said you were upset over him being here," she said. "I didn't get a chance to tell you before so I'm doing so now: You will never be cast aside and forgotten just because they are here. They may have started all of this, but you are my future husband and I will never let anyone forget what you have done for us."

Hiccup, again, had to resist the urge to kiss her. He knew with everything he felt right then, the kiss would have been one the sea stack ones and highly inappropriate for the setting. It would also be against the deal they had struck with their dragon and human chaperones and the promise they made to each other so that they did not dishonor the betrothal and cause a question to rise before the marriage rites could be performed. A promise that was getting increasingly harder to keep.

He instead tapped her left spaulder. She immediately removed it and settled back against him. Hiccup placed his chin onto the metal-free shoulder and pulled her closer.

"Toothless also told me then that my call would let my dragons know my mood," he began, fully intending to question Old Wrinkly about that.

He stopped as all the nest dragons in the cove began to purr loudly. Many tried to get close to him. None succeeded. Darkness enclosed him and Astrid.

[Mine!]

"Toothless?!"