One thing: storms were awesome. If you weren't a coward and actually flew in the storm clouds you not only got very hard to see, but also very fast thanks to the high wind speed at those altitudes. So here I was, flying as fast as a night fury just below the clouds looking for something to eat. Now that food was getting really scarce, this was pretty much the only way to get something. I had been flying all day and only found seagulls. But not now it seemed like fate had finally smiled on me.

For some reason there was a small pile of fish sitting on a beach. Maybe it had been left there by a bird of prey or another dragon, but it didn't matter. I'd just go in, eat and disappear back into the clouds. I dove down quickly downed the closest fish, that happened to be a saumon. Reindeers tasted better, but I wasn't going to complain about that.

- EY!!

Five nets were flying towards me. I didn't even gave the time to blink before they were reaching across me. My wings and tail immediately got tangled.

- Get these off me!

I tried to run away. I didn't know where or how or why, but I had to get out of here. Someone had to have thrown these nets, and I didn't want to go anywhere near them. But one of the nets had gotten stuck on my leg, so I fell to my side. While struggling to get up I noticed four bulky vikings running towards me. I didn't know there were humans on this island. This was bad.

I tried to crawl away, and even managed to move a little bit. But they were running fast, and soon they started throwing ropes around my body. I tried to launch spikes at them but the tail was stuck and the spikes simply fell to the ground. It didn't take long before I was completely immobilized. They had even bounded my mouth shut so I couldn't simply roast them. That's when I saw the dagger one of the Vikings had. Moments later it was embedded in my wing. I was in shock.

- Stop it… please…

It completely ignored my request and kept dragging the dagger further and further across the wing. Dragon wings were very sensitive because they were vital to survive, and I roared in pain. It felt like every muscle in my body was burning from all my effort to escape the ropes. But the knots held and I could only watch as a piece of skin that had previously been on my wing fell to the ground. A large part of the wing area was gone, meaning that even if I had managed to escape the ropes I wouldn't be able to fly. I was grounded. Or, in dragon language, I was dead.

After that the three vikings left without so much as glancing at me ad they did so. They had gone through all this effort to doom me and now they wouldn't even finish me off? I didn't know how much time passed after that. It couldn't have been to long as the sky hadn't begun to darken but it felt like years. That's when I caught sight of a small human, watching me from some bushes.

It was tiny, obviously a female. But she couldn't be too old either. Though she had surprisingly visible muscles. What was a female hatching doing here? The girl locked eye contact with me and started walking closer. A sack was hanging from her shouted and she had a dagger attached to some piece of clothing. Were they sending a hatchling to kill me? But then she spoke, and though I didn't understand the words the tone was kind, as if she wanted to help me.

- Who are you?

She kept speaking gently as she picked up some straps of fur from a sack and soaked it with water from a flask. Before I knew it she had climbed on me and was stroking the piece of fur on the wound in my wing.

- Stop it! It burns!

She stopped what she was doing to look at me. Her sad eyes seemed to say "I'm sorry". Soon I understood what she was doing. She was trying to clean the wound to stop it from getting infected. With the dirty metal blade of the dagger this was a real risk. So I grinned and let her continue. Not that I had much choice anyways.

I had no idea why she was doing this. Dragons' understanding of humans was very limited. There were loads of rumors, but since they often completely contradicted each other it was impossible to know the truth. One thing was certain tough. Three words that had been told by parents to their hatchlings since anyone could remember, and would be told for years to come. And it was that "humans are complicated".

Soon she was back in front of me and had taken out the dagger. I instinctively tried to back off, without success. But when she used the dagger she didn't stab me. She cut the ropes.

- What are you doing?

As soon as I was free I jumped back from that hatchlings, almost whacking my tail into her head in the process. Just because she had freed me it didn't mean I had to keep myself in range of her dagger. Seemingly unaffected by the near miss, the viking took a ĺarge cod out of her sack and held it in front of me. The three bulky vikings had taken the pile with them when leaving, so there wasn't any more food around. I was starting to like this girl.

I carefully grabbed the fish from her hands and immediately jumped back to a safe distance. As much as I wanted to trust her it just wasn't safe to approach a human with a dagger. As if she understood my thoughts, the viking did something I didn't know was possible. She threw the dagger into the sand, leaving herself helpless.

- What… what are you doing?

The girl held up her hand in front of her, as if she wanted me to touch her. I examined the wound. The blood had been cleaned and a white bandage had been placed on top. This viking had really helped me. Maybe she deserved this.

I let my snout touch her hand. She had helped me and now she had let herself be completely at my mercy. This girl wouldn't hurt me. I closed my eyes too, not wanting to let this beautiful moment pass, because I wanted to feel this connection as long as possible. Also, because her hand smelled like cod.

She made a sign for me to follow and started walking. I examined my options. A painful attempt proved that I couldn't fly, so I was stuck on this island. And considering that girl had done nothing but help me, she was my best bet. She led me along the coast for about half an hour, in which time I managed to get her name, Astri or something down the line. Then, after clearing a cliff I saw something that made my heart skip a beat. Illuminated by the deep red evening light was an actual viking village.

Hundreds of vikings were walking around and chatting, eating and doing their other daily business. To make things better most of them were carrying weapons.

- No, no, no! I'm not going in there!

Maybe there were some good humans, this girl seemed pretty nice. Certainly there were loads of bad ones that killed enormous numbers of dragons every year. In a village with this many people I'd be basically at their mercy, and that wasn't something I had an intention of putting myself into.

And then she looked me with such big eyes that I just couldn't refuse. But I made sure to stay close to her. We stayed at the outskirts if the village, which was lucky because the villagers gave strange looks every time we neared them. It was almost like if she understood what I wanted. She led me towards a large hut with a large black smokestack coming from it. The smell of iron told me that this was where they made they're metal tools. Maybe. A strange viking made his way out of it. He seemed to lack both a hand and a foot, tough on different sides. And then he started walking towards me.

- What do you want?

The language barrier was really starting to get on my nerves. But the viking didn't seem threatening, it didn't even carry a weapon, so I did nothing but push myself towards the girls side for protection as the viking examined at the wound in my wing and made various signs on a piece of leather. She was the only one I felt like trusting in this place.

The light was almost gone as she took me to a strange building. Large tall stones had been put in a circle, supported only by logs and by each other. This formed a wall about five meters tall surrounding the area. The girl led me through the seemingly only entrance, a large wooden door. The structure had no roof and seemed to be still under construction. The there was no decoration like on the other huts and the few logs made up the floor covered only about half the surface. I happily noted a basket of fish in one of the corners. But what struck me the most wasn't the building. It was the gronkle inside it. Also, though I didn't notice it immediately because of the dark, a night fury.

I turned to the girl for explanation.

- What's this?

She kindly petted my head while making yet more incomprehensible sounds. Then she started walking away, after making sure I understood that she'd be back soon. The door closed behind me, leaving me alone with the two dragons.

- Excuse me? What's going on?

The night fury answered. His deep voice told me this was a male.

- That's what we're trying to find out.

Finally I had found someone that could speak to me and explain what was happening. And now they didn't know either? He continued.

- You shouldn't've come here. Some of these humans aren't exactly friendly.

- I've noticed.

I showed them my wing and the gap in it. Normally other dragons would cry or try to comfort someone who had lost their wing. But instead they showed me their own injuries. The gronkle had a gap in the wing just like me, while half of the night fury's tailfin was gone. But he was carrying a human contraption that seemed to be a replacement fin.

- They grounded you too?

- You're a genius.

- Well excuse me for not being superior to every one else just like your kind!

He narrowed his eyes. I didn't mean it to come out this aggressive. The few night furies I had met were always bragging about being "the best" but this wasn't a reason for judging this one. Maybe it had been a stressful day. Luckily the gronke noticed the situation getting salty and jumped in to settle peace.

- Oookaaayy, how about we start with with introductions? I'm Meatlug, and you?

It took me a moment to snap out of the standoff.

- I'm Stormfly.

- I'm Toothless. And yeah, it's a really funny name and you should definitely laugh.

I smiled. Maybe this was a nice guy after all.

- Wait, wait, wait… the humans decided to befriend dragons by cutting off their wings?

To try to get some sense we had each explained what we knew. And honestly, I felt more confused than ever before. Meatlug summarized the thing.

- So the plan of you and Hiccup didn't work.

- Well, they don't cut off all the wing, but you're right. Something went very wrong with our plan.

- But why would they do that?

- Isn't it obvious?

They stared at me. They really couldn't understand it? Great. Not only I was stuck in this place at the mercy of vikings. I was stuck here with two idiots.

- They want to enslave us. They probably believe that by stopping us from flying away and totally outnumbering us they can make us do whatever they want...

A shiver went down my spine as I said the next part.

- …and they're right. We're completely at their mercy.

- They aren't much better than the queen then.

Meatlug and I glanced at Toothless.

- They aren't much better than what?

- The queen? The Red Death? The little, one hundreds meter long, flying and firebreathing problem?

We shook our heads in unison.

- Wait, you guys aren't from the nest are you?

Toothless had started explaining when the wooden door opened and three vikings walked inside. But they were armed with fish instead of weapons. I recognized the kind girl and chipped happily before guzzling at her side. She scratched my scales and fed me the cod and it just felt so good. She was the one thing that made sense in all of this. A kind person that helped a dragon in need. Meatlug nuzzled the largest of viking while Toothless went on to straight up lick the remaining viking.

- Is that…

- Hiccup, the best viking to ever exist!

After eating and a metric ton of cuddles the humans set up hammocks. Largest viking put Meatlug's prosthetic wing on her with the help of the others, before attaching what Meatlug explained was the control rope to his wrist. I hoped I'd get a prosthetic soon. The humans laid down in the hammocks to sleep, the sun had set after. For a moment, as we looked at the pitch black cloud covered sky, everything seemed well.

- Isn't it strange? One moment we're comparing humans with a monster that keeps dragons as slaves and the next… we're cuddling with them like hatchlings with their mother!

- The true power of fish.

- These aren't ordinary humans. They're kind and gentle, and they care about us!

And that would've been the end of that. But I just had to ruin the good mood.

- Still, why did they ground us?

- Or better, what do they want to use us for?

It took me a solid half a minute to get an idea

- Toothless, dragons raid here for food right?

- Right.

- And you and Hiccup have shown that dragons can be befriended right?

Five pairs of eyes turned on me as I tried to explain.

- They know we are friendly, they know we can fight, they're trying to make us fight on their side!

The two dragons were basically gaping while the vikings, who didn't understand a world just seemed curious.

- We need to fly to fight. That's what the prosthetics are for!

- And that's why they're here! We need them on our backs quickly to be able to fight!

Finally, sense. Things still looked bad, but they made sense. Toothless started to shake.

- But… but I can't fight them! I have friends there! What would Scarnose think if…

He froze.

- I - I've told Scarnose that they shouldn't attack the humans to try to make peace. But the humans don't want peace now, do they? The fuckers want war, and now they're using us as a weapon to fight our own! Shit!

- Wait, isn't that a good thing? They won't try to fire on us. It will be easier.

He locked his eyes on me. They were narrowed and filled with rage. I backed as much as I could in the small building, not wanting to be in a night furies wrath.

- Those dragons are the closest thing I still have to a family. I've been fighting and living with them for nine years. Apart from Hiccup, they're the only friends I've got. And now I have to fight them while they stand there helplessly because I told them to! So no, it's not a good thing that they're gonna get fucking slaughtered!!

He threw himself in the rock wall repeadetly while roaring into the night sky. Two heavily armed vikings ran in too see what was happening. It took the comforting words of me, Meatlug and most importantly Hiccup to stop the scene from becoming a bloodbath, and even then the night fury kept swearing far too much for this story's rating.

- When is the raid coming? Maybe we can find out something till then?

- I don't know when it's coming! We need surprise to raid! But what can I do when I'm stuck in this thing?!

He bashed his head into the wall once more and cursed just about everything that existed. I don't really remember what happened next, but after a while he managed to calm down, and we laid down to rest. I don't think Toothless got any sleep that night, but the rest of us managed to eventually doze off.

That is, until a few hours after midnight. From the sky came the roar of a deadly nadder.