The sun was rising, the sky glowing with its reflected light, but something stood in the way.

Toothless squinted at the horizon, trying to determine what it was that had his eyes so dazzled and confused. Something was blocking the light; not a mountain, but something that glowed, reflected, and refracted the glare throughout it. He had never seen anything like it.

There were other shapes on the horizon too, ones that grew clear relatively quickly as the Skrill flew closer. Icebergs, chunks of frozen water floating in the ocean, forming a treacherous maze below. If things were different, he might have wanted to fly through it with Maour, testing their reflexes and skill against the frosted white labrinth.

But things were not different, and instead of exploring on his own wings, he was relegated to passing above in the clutches of Skrill as they flew onward.

The field of ice and water stretched on for a long time, but as the sun rose from behind the bedazzling mountain in the center of it all, he found his attention pulled to it. The mountain was ice too, thick and reflective. It was no mere iceberg, so large it seemed impossible, and streaked with downright unnatural shades of blue and green he could only assume were the products of whatever immense cold kept it from melting in the relatively warm weather.

The mountain was a beautiful sight, and made more so by the specks flying around it. Dragons circled around the distant peak, landing on its many ledges and flying out from what he assumed were caves deeper within. Scales of every color dove into the water, or fired at the water, or flew far above in small groups. It was a nest, one of many species, hundreds of dragons strong. He hadn't seen such a thing in years.

And it was all spoiled by the way he was being taken to it. There was no doubt that the Skrill were headed for the ice mountain; they were flying directly for it. Which meant that this beautiful place was not as beautiful as it seemed.

Toothless remembered the last time he had seen many species of dragon living together. It had been a captive nest, one that only existed because the Queen needed slaves. This one might not be under the control of a Queen, or it might, he didn't know, but in any case it also sheltered evil in its midst. Some of the dragons nearest to them were flying over…

He knew better than to get his hopes up, but it was still a blow when the Skrill called out and flew faster, meeting the two Zipplebacks and Nadder that had come out to meet them.

'You return!' the Nadder screeched, diving between the Skrill. 'It has been-'

'Too long,' Toothless' captor grumbled, cutting her off. She stopped speaking the instant he began, but she didn't seem afraid. He would have called it respect, were he able to stomach the idea of such cruel creatures deserving such a thing. 'All is well?'

'The usual pawful of losses, but yes,' one of the Zipplebacks offered. 'Would you like us to fish for you while you make your way to the nest?' He flew level with the Skrill, one head looking up at him and the other staring at Toothless.

'No need, we will be free of our burdens soon enough,' Einn's captor snorted. 'You can go away now, we have been suitably welcomed.'

'I, for one, would like the company,' Toothless' captor growled, his path diverging from that of the other Skrill. 'I've spent far too long with just him, you see,' he added, speaking to the three dragons who had followed him away from Einn's captor.

'Good riddance,' Einn's captor snarled. A surge of lightning zapped Einn as it worked its way across him, and he flew away.

'How are the others?' Toothless' captor asked.

'All safe and accounted for, of course,' the Nadder said. 'They were too short of wings to spare any for the defenses.'

'It was worth the effort,' Toothless' captor snorted, shaking him a bit for emphasis. 'One extra as well as one retrieved.'

'Yes, we saw,' one of the Zipplebacks huffed. 'What of the weather, though?'

Toothless growled to himself, more than fed up with being so ignored by the three dragons - five if he counted by head, though with Zipplebacks how they counted themselves varied by the individual - and worked up the courage needed to speak and bear the inevitable punishment. 'What of me?' he barked. 'What-'

A shock coursed through him, strong enough that his jaw clenched, and he growled defiantly. He could have continued speaking, but his point had been made. All five pairs of eyes had turned to him.

'Usurpers are not our concern,' the Nadder chuffed, sounding disgruntled.

'No, they are not,' Toothless' captor agreed. 'How about you all go ahead and tell the nest that we have returned?'

'All will want to know,' one of the Zipplebacks hissed. The three dragons hastily departed, flying in different directions.

'You will not be able to ply any of your treacherous tricks here, usurper,' Toothless' captor hissed smugly. 'You are powerless and worthless here, and all know it. None will listen, none will notice. None will care.'

Toothless refrained from answering. He didn't know quite what to think of that entire encounter. Something felt off, but not in the way he had dreaded. There was no obvious leash of control around the dragons of this nest, pulling them away from forbidden things. They seemed to not care about him of their own accord, not because some despot had ordered them to say as much.

But if there was no easy answer, such disdain for his own life was much harder to excuse. He didn't like the idea of this entire nest of dragons being his enemies, but it certainly fit with what he had seen.

The Skrill carried him toward the ice mountain in silence, and he continued to look around as they approached, but the pleasant view was now thoroughly ruined. They flew down, into a cave two thirds of the way up, and through a winding passage of ice just big enough to comfortably fit a Skrill-

Then they flew out into a massive opening, and he was impressed despite himself. He had expected a cold, dreary place of water and ice and maybe stone, bleak and providing the bare minimum of shelter.

Verdant greenery, riotous flowers and plant growth, towering stone cliffs and varied topography, all centered around a clear, deep pool of salt water, was not what he had expected. It was as if a mountain of ice had grown up around an already bowl-shaped island, forming itself into a protective cone that sheltered the life within. Dragons lounged, flew, played, and slept everywhere, all across an array of cliffs that merged stone and ice.

He saw no signs of a controlling, monstrous Queen. There was certainly space for a dragon of that size, but nothing much larger than the Skrill carrying him was to be seen. There were several kinds of dragon that he didn't know, but none like that.

'Gawk all you want, you'll be seeing plenty of this,' his captor rumbled. He flew out over the open space in the middle of the massive, hollow island, and made for a high ledge with a conspicuously high ice wall at the edge of the bowl. It was situated at the very top of one of the cliffs, with no rock above it, and once they flew over Toothless saw that the ice was a flat, downright unnatural pane separating a small expanse of stone and weeds-

Then they were over, into an alcove, and the Skrill carrying him shifted his claws. 'Finally,' his captor groaned, and another shock coursed through him. Then he was dropped.

Toothless held his wings in, partially because he didn't want to land badly and partially because every part of him was contracting and pulling inward anyway, and fell the short distance to the ice floor.

He hit the ground with a thump that drove the wind out of him, and his mind swam. Lingering spasms coursed across him, and he groaned.

But he was free of the clutching claws and instant retribution his captor represented, so he forced himself to spread his limbs, stretching them. The flight from their latest resting point to this ice nest had not been long, not in comparison to the usual ordeal he and Einn were put through, but being carried and occasionally shocked for any length of time was not pleasant.

His spread wings brushed against ice on all sides. There was stone beneath him, but that was it. The hole had sheer walls, was about three times his height if he sat on his back legs, and barely fit him when he stood on all fours, forcing his tail to curl around or rest against the freezing wall behind him.

One of the ice walls was opaque, blue and green with more ice behind them. The other three, he noticed as he stared into them each in turn, were not. They were not fully transparent, he could barely make out shapes, but there were black lumps behind two of them.

One of those lumps might be Einn, but the other? If he weren't wary of being shocked, he would call out to them. They had to be Night Furies like him.

A Skrill screeched, laughing mockingly, and another black body dropped into the space across from him, filling a third pit like his own. 'Welcome back!' the Skrill that had been Einn's captor jeered mockingly.

'Welcome back to you, too,' another Skrill called out, its mental voice accompanied by the same distinctly audible crackle. The two Skrill landed atop the ice a short distance away. 'I half expected you to come back with none, not one, and certainly not two. How do you do it?'

'Time-tested methods, of course,' the other replied smugly. 'We found the mother of all storms headed in the right direction, and snatched them both up at the same time.'

'You must be tired,' the first said. 'But it's been a while since we got a new one, and you like to be there for the first day…'

'I'll cover for you,' Einn's captor snorted. 'Lazy sack of scale and bone that you are.'

'I like to conserve my energy,' the other shot back, not sounding all that offended. 'Besides, you like it when I'm lazy with the prisoners.'

'Go find somewhere to snore the day away.' One of the Skrill roared, probably the one Toothless knew, and the other flew away.

'Wake up!' The remaining Skrill shrieked loudly. 'Only warning!'

All three of the Night Furies Toothless could see rose sluggishly. None seemed to even notice him.

The Skrill descended into one of the pits and rose again, flying out toward the open space of the mountain's interior. He returned far too swiftly for him to have gone very far, and then the Fury to Toothless' right was removed.

Toothless hunched down and braced himself, guessing that he was next. Sure enough, cruel talons seized around him, jerked him out of the pit in a maneuver that felt well-practiced, and carried him the short distance to the open patch of rock and grass he had noticed earlier.

This time, he fell lightly, far more prepared for the sudden drop, and landed on his paws. The stone was gritty and rough under his paws, but it was far better than landing on his stomach or sides.

His first thought was to look for the other Night Furies that had been brought out. There wasn't much room on their cresent-shaped slab of rock. Along one side, a small pool of water abutted a sheer ice wall, the one he had seen before and noted as being impossibly thin and tall.

It was, he noticed, far clearer than any of the other ice he had seen, and offered an amazing view. The entire interior of the mountain sprawled out on the other side of the ice pane, a single blast away from him. He could see everything, and it would not be difficult to get out into the rest of the nest the moment nobody was watching. Actually traversing the mountain might be a problem, grounded as he was, but it was still far too obvious an escape route. He didn't trust it.

Putting the obvious bait out of his mind for the moment, he turned in a tight circle and looked for the two Furies who had been brought in before him. One was standing by the pond, their back to him. They looked mostly normal, bearing none of the immense scarring Einn had. Maybe a little unhealthy, lacking in muscle and as a result surprisingly curvy in odd places, but-

Einn thumped to the ground nearby, and the Skrill cackled as he flew back again, presumably to fetch another dragon.

The curvy Fury turned, and Toothless saw that she was definitely female, though still unusually thin and wasted in appearance. Her eyes were a shade of green not unlike his own, which he found distinctly odd; he had never seen a green-eyed Fury he wasn't related to, but unless she was some long-lost cousin or ancestor, she wasn't family. He wasn't quite sure how that worked, come to think of it. Fishlegs and the Eldurs liked to ramble on about it, which meant it was surely more complicated and less interesting than he would have thought.

'Well, that was short-lived,' she sighed, eyeing Einn with a sort of distant disdain that made Toothless want to growl at her. 'And you…'

Her eyes drifted to him and widened. 'Well, hello big and buff,' she hummed. 'Here to save me?'

'I…' Toothless trailed off, not sure how he was supposed to respond to that. He hadn't come of his own accord, but he did want to tear whatever this was down on the Skrill and get everyone out, that was just common sense, but at the same time he didn't know if saying that outright would be a smart move. He had spent too much time in the company of Nótts to just blurt out the truth when he didn't know what was really going on.

Another Fury dropped down close to Einn and immediately let out a loud snarl, taking Toothless' mind off of the female's question. 'Father,' the newly-arrived male growled, rushing to Einn's side and nosing at his wings.

'I told you not to get your hopes up,' the female huffed, not looking away from Toothless.

Toothless decided he didn't like her attitude and turned away, going over to Einn. The older male was lying on his side where he had fallen, alive and awake, but staring out at nothing in particular. He seemed just as lifeless and defeated as any other time since being captured, despite apparently being reunited with his son.

'He made it for a long time,' the male snarled. 'More than one hundred days.'

'One hundred days of fear and fleeing,' a Skrill snarled. The younger male and female both looked up, and Toothless turned around to see a Skrill perched on a shelf of ice nearby, staring at them. He didn't think it was one he had seen before, though it was hard to tell.

'Newcomer,' the Skrill buzzed. 'There are rules here. You will follow them, or you will suffer and then follow them. Choose wisely.'

'Don't mark up that nice set of scales any more,' the female advised. She slunk off to the side, into his field of view, and spread her wings. They bore a set of scars like Einn's at their midpoints, but less visibly, and the minor crook where the bone had set wrong was far less severe than Einn's injury, small enough that it could be overlooked. 'Protect those good looks.'

'Silence,' the Skrill commanded, shooting the female an annoyed look. A set of sparks spontaneously burst into being along its neck and wings, and the female quickly backed away, looking down at the ground. 'You, new one, listen carefully and ask questions if you are confused. I will not tell you again after today.'

Toothless nodded cautiously. This Skrill was treating him marginally better than the other two had, but he sensed the same hatred lay beneath the cold neutrality.

'No flaming, melting, or breaking ice,' the Skrill intoned. 'Your flame is for keeping you alive, not worthless attempts to flee. You will find no aid, no hiding places, and no way off of this mountain if you could even get out. You are flightless…'

The Skrill trailed off, its eyes going to his wings. 'Sadistic!' he called out.

'Well, no?' Toothless muttered to himself, confused. His grounding injury was decidedly less sadistic than the usual.

'What?' the Skrill that had carried Einn in barked from somewhere out of sight.

'The new one's wings,' the other demanded.

'Tail, ask the overgrown fledgling why, I don't care,' the familiar Skrill said disdainfully. 'It's grounded, no need to ground it again, something like that.'

Toothless held his tail out to the side so that the Skrill could see what the other meant; he wasn't about to get his wings broken because someone didn't fully understand what was going on. Hopefully, showing off how he was grounded wouldn't give the Skrill any ideas about maiming their other prisoners the same way. Einn had somehow gotten around his wings being broken and set wrong, but a missing tailfin was far harder to correct. He knew that from experience.

'I see…' The Skrill lecturing him huffed and sparked in irritation. 'Fine. Same rules anyway. What did I tell you?'

'No breaking or flaming ice, my fire is for keeping me alive,' Toothless repeated. He didn't like being so compliant, but until he had something to work with, defiance would just get him hurt and keep him in the dark. His captors were giving him information, knowledge about what he had been dropped into, and he needed it. He couldn't afford to act up yet.

'Good,' the Skrill growled. 'No mating. If we find an egg, we will not kill it. Your spawn will suffer alongside you. Be smart and avoid that.'

Toothless noticed the distinct lack of a fatal punishment, and again he wondered why. Skrill killed his kind, that was their whole reputation, but these weren't even willing to smash eggs, and he didn't quite buy the excuse of it being crueler this way.

'I notice something you did not say,' the female hummed.

'That rule has not changed, no mating at all,' the Skrill snarled. 'No attacking us, no talking to anyone but each other. No killing each other, no fatal wounds, no exceptions or clever work-arounds to any of the rules. I don't care for you or this, I would shock you hard enough to stop your heart and be done with it if it was up to me. Do not test me.'

A moment of silence passed. Toothless stared up at the Skrill, and it stared down at him.

'You have questions, and I will not answer them after this,' the Skrill huffed. 'Ask them now.'

'Okay... ' Toothless wracked his mind for a question that would be useful while not also giving away that he fully intended to escape at the first viable opportunity, and settled on the one closest to his stomach. 'How does food work?'

'You are brought one meal a day,' the Skrill replied with a low growl. 'No fighting over it. Starving each other counts as trying to kill each other. Next question.'

'Why am I here?' he asked.

'Because you are a usurper and deserve to suffer,' the Skrill snarled.

'I understand you think that,' he said diplomatically, 'but if you could explain why I deserve to suffer, and why you call me a Usurper, I would have a much easier time respecting your authority.' He wanted to throw up in his mouth for practically groveling to such vile filth, but if that got him answers, it was worth it.

'You don't get to know,' the Skrill snarled. 'Next question.'

'What happens if I do break a rule?' Toothless asked, seeing that he wasn't going to get anywhere with that line of questioning. 'I mean, so I know what I am avoiding.'

'Suffering,' the Skrill hissed. 'From me, from one of the other guards, whoever is there at the time.'

A thought occurred to Toothless, an ugly one that he couldn't bear to ignore. 'What is going to happen to him?' he asked, gesturing toward Einn with his wing.

'Less than he deserves, as he is fragile,' the Skrill hissed. 'I don't know and I don't care. He did not escape, he was… discarded by mistake. The fault does not lie with him.'

'Discarded?' Toothless asked, appalled.

'It was a mistake that will not be repeated, ask something else or cease speaking to me.' The Skrill flashed with power, little strands of lightning lashing at the air and ice around him.

'What… What are your names?' He was struggling to think of anything else to ask, anything more useful than that.

'You will never know,' the Skrill thundered. 'You hear me, never. Your fellow insects have come up with things to call us, false names we use around you, but those are not our names. The next time you address me or ask me a question, I will give you a scar.' He leaped up into the air, a half-dozen strands of electricity leaping out into the air ahead of him, and flew off to a much higher perch.

Toothless watched him until it was clear he wasn't going anywhere else, and would be perched above, probably listening in, for the time being. 'Well,' he said, trying to gather his thoughts into something coherent, 'he's touchy about names.'

'We do not need another fool cracking jokes at every opportunity,' Einn's son snarled. 'I wish you had not been captured.'

'I don't know, I like our current idiot,' the female said lightly. 'Maybe this one will add to the fun.' She flicked her tail at him and turned, showing herself off. 'Look but do not touch, those are the rules.'

'And don't look unless you want to cause trouble,' Einn's son added venomously. 'If anyone gets to have her, it would be me, not you. Big or not, I can give you a thrashing you will not soon forget. Do us both a favor and avoid that.'

'Nobody needs to thrash me, or entice me, or any of that,' Toothless growled, favoring Einn's son and the female with equally annoyed looks. 'We are all prisoners for no reason that I can tell, I think there are far more important things to focus on for the moment.'

'That moment came and went years ago,' Einn's son retorted.

'Okay, fine,' Toothless grumbled. 'But I still don't want to fight. What's your name?'

'Hefnd,' the male spat. 'Sterkurhefnd.'

Toothless tilted his head. He didn't know if he knew that word; Cloey had taught him a lot of different words as a fledgling, and it sounded familiar, but it wasn't coming to him.

'And I am Stolturstjörnu,' the female said brightly. 'Star, to my friends. What about you, big guy?'

'I'm not that big,' Toothless grumbled, glancing at Hefnd. The other male was, admittedly, just as thin and lanky as Star. He supposed he might be big and bulky in comparison, but that was just what a normal Night Fury should be. 'My name is Svarturkappi.'

'Warrior,' Hefnd spat. 'Cute. Well, warrior, get ready to do a whole lot of not fighting, not against anyone that matters.'

Einn stirred, and Hefnd put a protective wing over him. 'And what were you doing, getting my father caught?' Hefnd said accusingly.

'No, he was sheltering at our island-'

Hefnd leaped forward, startling Toothless, and landed right in front of him. 'You were homeless and alone out there, don't lie,' he snarled, staring into Toothless' eyes. 'We all were, and the Skrill would hunt down anyone else out there, so you must have been too.'

'Fine, I was alone and always have been, but you don't have to be so rude about it,' Toothless muttered, hearing what Hefnd was really saying. The last thing he wanted was to inadvertently send the Skrill back to the Isle by letting them know more Night Furies lived there, or to put them on guard for when Von came looking…

He sighed, doing his best to seem bothered by his apparent loneliness and carefully not looking up at the Skrill watching them. It was easy to fake it because he was lonely. He still felt the absence in the back of his mind that shouldn't be. Hopefully, Maour, Von, and Ruffnut were okay. They wouldn't have given up, but they wouldn't know where he was, either. He was on his own for the time being.

'Star, help me drag him to the water,' Hefnd requested, turning away. 'You, Kappi, whatever, go explore. We all did at first. You'll be done soon enough.'

'And when you are done, you have an open invitation to sit next to me,' Star called out.

'Thanks,' Toothless muttered. Looking around did sound like a good idea, regardless of how rudely it had been given to him. They might have given up on escaping, but he certainly hadn't. Even if it would be hard.

And the Skrill had come to drop off a prisoner four times aside from him, not three. There was still another prisoner to find, somewhere in here.

He made his way over to the pond, wondering if offering to help move Einn would be met with gratitude, or as seemed more likely, derision and anger. Hefnd and Star seemed to have it under control, and Hefnd telling him to go do something else might have been meant to prevent him from getting involved…

He growled and took a mouthful of the pond water, deciding not to intervene. For now, he needed to keep his head down, take in the situation, and learn as much as he could without making waves. Being pushy and offering help where none was wanted would make him stand out.

The water was cold, and as he gulped it down he shivered. The ledge that was his prison was entirely encased in a sheer wall of stone and ice, though he still had no clue how the pond water didn't eventually melt the thin ice wall it sat against, or how it was formed in the first place. Curiosity took him around the edge of the pond to where the ice wall met stone, and he walked along it for a bit.

It was melting. Not quickly, but drops were running down it. The sun hadn't reached it yet, but he had to imagine that when it did the melting would intensify. Hopefully the cold would abate too; nothing was warm in the area he had been relegated to, while warm sunlight streamed in to illuminate and heat the center of the mountain.

He looked out at the green, sunny places, and felt a pang of pure hurt. Scores of dragons of all kinds could be seen living their lives out there, happy and content, and yet there was a cruel sort of prison for others literally within eyeshot of their paradise.

There had to be some sort of manipulation at play; he could have believed such cruel aloofness of a nest of Skrill, but never of regular dragons with no reason to hate his kind. He had not seen such disdain in the Queen's nest of slaves, and to see it here was stranger than it would have been back there. He was missing something big, though he didn't understand what it could be if not a Queen.

Staring out at the happiness did nothing but make him feel bad, so he turned away, instead following the ice wall all the way across to where it met the sweeping, opaque cliff of ice that subtly curved around the edge of the giant bowl of the nest. A tumble of rocks, some bigger than he was, lay in the corner, looking unstable and dangerous, so he avoided it, skirting around the rubble.

The long, flat wall was, as best he could guess, less than a hundred paces long. There was nothing but rock, water, and a few hardy weeds on his side of the wall, and nowhere to hide. A depression in the rock away from everything else could conceivably hide him if he crouched in it, but the vile scent coming from that direction told him it was already in use as a waste pit. Hiding there would just get him sick.

He stopped walking and looked over at the pond. Einn, Hefnd, and Star were all lying near it, huddled close together. Three Night Furies. If it weren't for Star mentioning a fourth, he might have second-guessed his assumption that there was another aside from himself. But he didn't know where they were. There didn't seem to be any caves or open spaces in the rubble pile, and he feared accidentally shifting something and crushing someone if he went poking around.

The more he thought about it, the more he was sure the fourth Fury had to be within the rubble. That was the only place they could hide.

'Hello?' he called out hopefully. 'Is someone in there?'

Aside from the distant squawking and roaring of the dragons beyond the wall, he heard nothing.

O-O-O

Toothless flamed the rock under his paws, stamping down and trying to absorb the warmth. Moving kept most of him warm, but not comfortable, and he was beginning to suspect the sun never reached this little prison. It was too high up on the inside of the mountain; aside from a general glow coming through the thick ice above, none of the light could reach them. Noon had to be near, judging by how the shadows were out in the nest proper, and not a single beam of sunlight had reached the ice well, much less those behind it.

He understood now why the Skrill had said fire was for keeping alive; the cold was tolerable for a time, but he could entirely believe that it would kill in the night, or in the colder part of the year, which this was not yet. As hard as it was to believe, it was still closing in on the end of the hot months of the year, though it felt like the beginning of the cold season.

'One mystery down, a dozen to go,' he grumbled, speeding up in his pointless circling march. He had gone around their enclosure a hundred times by now, but it was something to do that was not laying down next to Star. She bothered him; there was something about how she acted that got under his skin. Like he was supposed to be blinded by the fact that she was a female.

Maybe he would have been, if she was the first one he ever saw. But he had a mother, two sisters, and at least one close female friend. None of which he liked in that way, of course, and Star was a little bit alluring, if worryingly thin in all the wrong places. But her personality had not made a good first impression.

He passed by the seated trio of Furies once again, and huffed to himself. It was possible he was not being fair to Star; none of them had made good impressions earlier, and they were not in a good situation. It wouldn't be fair to judge her on a few words in a single encounter, especially when he could not place what it was about her that had raised his hackles in the first place.

The same could be said for Hefnd; he was mad and confrontational, but maybe only because he had just learned that his father had been recaptured, hurt, and brought back to this terrible place. That would anger anyone.

A Skrill screeched nearby, and Toothless looked up, but it wasn't the one that had been watching over them this whole time. Another was flying in, clutching a bunch of grey objects in its talons.

'Finally,' Hefnd grumbled, getting to his paws. 'And Angry, too. No delay.'

'Would you say this makes today a good day?' Star asked impishly, remaining where she was.

'Not by a long shot,' Hefnd growled. 'But it makes today less horrible than it had the potential to be.'

The Skrill, which Toothless thought he recognized as the one that had captured him, landed in the middle of their area, dropped the fish, and quickly divided the extremely meager pile into five portions.

Toothless' stomach rumbled, and he stared forlornly at the three fish that made up his share. They might have made a good light meal when he could look forward to one or two more servings throughout the night, but as the only food he was getting until this time tomorrow, it was a pitiful, lacking attempt he would have laughed at in another setting.

He understood now why Hefnd and Star looked so malnourished, they were malnourished. It was not just a look, they barely got enough to live off of. No wonder they had spent all morning lying still by the pond; they probably didn't have the energy to spare for anything else.

'I'm not going to bring yours over,' Hefnd growled, passing by Toothless to collect three of the five meager piles. 'Get your own food.'

'I did not expect you to,' Toothless murmured, trying to put his mind off of the impending hunger. The Skrill had not fed him well while they were travelling, but they had provided as many fish as they could catch in a short time, which was much more than this.

He walked over to the remaining two piles and swallowed his three, one after the other in quick succession. Then he looked at the last trio of fish, his mind going to something else entirely.

'I have not yet seen whoever this belongs to,' he said, looking over at Star and Hefnd. 'Where are they?'

'Grey only comes out once a day,' Star purred, tossing her head in the direction of the rubble pile. 'Come over here and get ready for the only entertainment we get around here.'

Again, Toothless was bothered by her tone, but he wasn't quite sure why. He joined Star and the others by the pond, but sat a short distance away from them.

'Why so standoffish?' Star asked, slapping her tail on the stone between them. 'We all share body heat here, you're going to want to get used to me.'

'Not too used to her,' Hefnd grumbled.

'I'm good, thanks,' Toothless said, hoping they wouldn't get into another argument, either with him or about him.

'You'll come around,' she assured him. 'Now, where is Grey?'

'Looks like she is not coming out today,' Hefnd rumbled. 'Odd. I lay claim to her fish if she doesn't show.'

'I thought we were not supposed to steal food from each other,' Toothless said. He imagined that he could feel the Skrill's eyes on his back, and avoided looking up.

'It's not stealing if she gives it up for no reason,' Hefnd asserted. 'Right, father?'

Einn blinked at him, then closed his eyes. He was even less active than he had been on the journey to this terrible place, if that was even possible.

'Right,' Hefnd growled to himself. 'There is nothing against giving away food, so long as you are not trying to starve yourself.'

'About that,' Toothless said, seeing a chance to dig into one of the big mysteries around this entire situation. 'Why do they want us alive?'

'Because they hate us,' Hefnd said simply.

'Yes, obviously, but in my experience Skrill kill,' Toothless huffed quietly. 'I have heard of humans taking captives or slaves, but this is something unheard of for dragons.'

'These do, and their whole nest goes along with it,' Star rumbled. 'It's best not to question these things. Just take it for granted and live with it.'

Toothless scowled at the ground. He didn't like that answer at all; it reeked of giving up and doing nothing. But if they didn't want to tell him, he would just have to get his answers from somewhere else-

'There you are,' Star exclaimed. 'What, did you fall asleep?'

A grey shape was pushing out from under a spot near the edge of the pile of rubble. Toothless couldn't see how all the rocks weren't collapsing on top of the dragon… But he was abruptly distracted by the dragon herself.

She was not like the others in any way. No lightning scars marred black scales, not on this one. She had no black scales, no scales at all. Her body was grey from paw to wingtip, leathery and devoid of scales of any color, like they had all fallen off and never returned. The same marks of malnourishment he saw on Hefnd and Star were far more pronounced here, entirely visible on smooth, flat skin. She had to be immensely old, to be so weathered and dull.

'No,' Grey said in a young voice. She sounded surprisingly cheery, given the circumstances, and couldn't possibly be much older than he was, despite how she looked. 'You know me, I just lost track of time.'

Toothless stared at her as she made her way over to the fish. Her body was not old and naturally aged, it couldn't be unless her mental voice was somehow deceiving him, but he didn't understand how she had come to look as she did.

'Give us a joke, then,' Star called out. 'It's all you're good for.'

'Well, I definitely am not here for my looks,' Grey quipped, flaring crooked wings in a mockery of how Star herself had shown off earlier. She took her fish and bit one in half, rolling it around in her mouth for a moment before swallowing. 'Or my dainty eating habits. Did I tell you the one about the rock-eaters and me?'

' No, this is new,' Star hummed. 'Go on.'

Grey finished her fish slowly, delaying. When she finally finished, she let out a happy purr and turned back toward the rocks. 'Two Gronckles fly up to my rubble pile. They start eating it. I ask them to stop. What do they do?'

'What do they do?' Hefnd huffed. He didn't sound particularly interested in the answer, but he asked anyway.

'They eat me!' Grey barked.

Star burst out into laughter, Hefnd rumbled a bit, and Toothless politely chuckled a little, though he didn't find that joke funny in the slightest. He supposed he wasn't quite bored enough to see the humor in it, especially when the tail of the joke was Grey's own strange appearance. Making fun of that seemed rude, even if she was the one doing it.

Grey glanced at him, then turned her tail on them and quickly walked back to the rubble pile, worming her way underneath an overhanging stone Toothless was sure would crush him if he tried the same. Smaller stones were shifted in front of the opening shortly after Grey disappeared inside.

'Why does she do that?' Toothless asked. 'I thought sharing warmth was important.'

'She's weird,' Hefnd huffed. 'She has been here longer than any of us. Don't question it, she will just joke and refuse to give a straight answer.'

'So you say,' Toothless murmured. 'But she will say something.' She seemed happy and approachable, more so than any of the other Furies. He had half a mind to try and talk to her, now that he knew where to go. Even if she gave no straight answers, she might say something useful by accident.

'Don't bother with her, she's only good for amusing the rest of us,' Star said dismissively. 'And she knows it. You'll get bored of her quicker if you try to talk to her.'

'I'll determine that for myself,' Toothless growled. Her discouragement only made his mind up for him, ironically. He stood and made his way over to the pile of rocks, crouching near the blocked-up entrance.

'Hello?' he called out. 'Grey?'

There was movement inside, a rustle of skin on stone. 'Yes?' she said hesitantly.

'My name is Kappi,' he offered. 'I was brought in this morning.'

'You should have introduced yourself as Óheppinn, then,' she chirped. 'Unlucky. You know, because you ended up here. But then I guess we're all Óheppinn. That would make things confusing.'

'Names around here are already confusing enough,' he agreed, hoping to keep the conversation going. 'I still don't know what I'm supposed to call the Skrill.'

'I gave them nicknames,' Grey revealed. 'The one who lectured you is Tolerable. The others are Angry, Sadistic, Condescending, and Cold. There were a few more, but they're not around now.'

'You actually call that one Sadistic to his face?' Toothless asked, torn between appalled and amused despite himself. He had thought of the Skrill carrying Einn as the sadistic one of the two, and his own captor was definitely angry a lot, but calling them that directly? And them even adopting those names and using them? It was absurd in a dark way, a joke shared between abused and abusers.

'He likes it,' Grey rumbled. 'Making him happy without pain is a good thing. You'll learn. Try not to end up like me.'

'Like you?' Toothless asked soberly, any amusement he had felt sucked away by that warning. 'This is something he did?'

Silence was the only response he got, and he sensed that he had stepped on a sore spot for the otherwise cheerful Fury, though that made no sense since she had joked about the same subject herself. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend,' he offered.

'You can't offend me,' Grey said gleefully, as if she wasn't bothered at all. She sounded genuine. 'Everything is funny, I'll just make a joke out of it later.'

'That is very… optimistic.' He couldn't imagine being that happy in a place like this, but if it worked for her, who was he to judge?

'Do you want me to make a joke for you?' she asked. 'I can. I do for Star and Hefnd and Einn.'

'I would rather learn about this place and you,' he admitted. 'I have a lot of questions, and you seem like the best one to answer them. How did you get here?'

'I'll make you a joke,' Grey said again. 'Or a riddle, but I'm not good with those. Something funny.'

'Okay,' Toothless rumbled, humoring her. 'How do we do that?'

'I do that,' Grey said. 'Come back tomorrow? I will have it done by then.'

'Can I ask you about other things in the meantime?' he requested.

'I need to think of something funny,' she objected. A soft, churring rumble followed that statement, the first physical noise she had made since they began talking.

'I'll come back tomorrow, then,' he conceded.

She barked a short, abrupt laugh, then fell silent. He lingered there for a few moments, silent, then stood and walked a few paces away and sat down again, at a loss.

There was something about her that bothered him, sort of like Star but not in the same way. Star made him feel defensive and wary, but Grey just confused him. Something was not right… Nothing was right, more like, even if she was a shining beam of positivity in this otherwise dark, gloomy place.

'New, straight wings,' Grey mused. He didn't think she was talking to him; she probably didn't even know he was still nearby. 'Grey, scaleless, ugly… Something about rocks? But I already did that, and it might insult him…'

Toothless moved away, even more confused by her attitude. He couldn't even blame some nefarious Queen for the attitudes of his fellow prisoners; their minds were their own, no Queen could change that.

But now that he thought about it, they all had strange things about them. Einn didn't speak, Hefnd was confrontational, Star was condescending and trying far too hard to be alluring, Grey was optimistic in a way that seemed genuine despite everything…

And that was without even thinking about the Skrill, or the nest he could see even now, or the ice that should have melted by now, or the fact that these other Furies had been here for years…

Toothless sat down with his back to the ice wall and closed his eyes, bearing the constant chill in the air for the moment. He needed to think, to piece all of this together into something he could understand. Something he could exploit, fix, and use to get out and find Maour and Von and go home. Ideally after destroying all that was wrong about this place in the process.

If nothing else, it seemed like he would be given ample time to think without distraction, so long as the cold and the rumbling that was already starting in his belly didn't count.