Ice crackled between Toothless' claws as he flexed, and he growled as the numbness began to give way to an agonizing procession of tiny claws and teeth, or as Maour called it, pins and needles. All four of his paws had small accumulations of frost to be broken off, but his left hind paw had the worst of it.

He shook his limb again, smacking it against the stone. His eyelids began to droop of their own accord despite the pain, and he only caught himself drifting off when his chin bumped into his chest.

'Hey, big warrior,' Star called out from where she stood by the pond. 'How was your first night here?' She lifted a wing invitingly, showing off the empty space at her side.

Toothless shuddered and made for her, quickly taking the offered spot. His dislike of her attitude from the day before was still very much present, but at the moment he had far more pressing concerns.

'Ooh, bad if you're this cold,' Star said lightly, folding her wing over his back. She was warm, in contrast to everything else, and Toothless almost fell asleep then and there. 'You used your fire too quickly, didn't you?'

He nodded tiredly. He had run out of fire before the night was half over, as best he could remember, and it hadn't come back quickly enough to fully stave off the cold. He had come out of the icy little cell more tired than he had gone in, and chilled to the bone in a way that made him feel slow as well as cold and miserable.

'You'll get used to it,' Star offered. Her words might have been more comforting if she didn't sound so insincere. 'And if you don't, well, I get a big, attractive male to snuggle up with every day, so fine by me.'

'No snuggling,' Hefnd growled from the other end of the pond. He had been pawing water to his father's face, either to wake him up or to clean him, and a trickle of ice-cold water worked its way into the base of Einn's ear. He barely seemed to notice, tilting his head to the side without even opening his eyes.

Today, Toothless felt a lot more sympathy for Einn's lethargy. Really, he was a lot more sympathetic toward everyone, Hefnd and Star included. He closed his eyes and felt the telltale haze of sleep descending over his mind-

Something exploded right in front of his face, he reared back, and suddenly the length of his tail was immersed in ice-cold water, which had him yelping and leaping forward, only belatedly realizing that something had just exploded.

A Skrill's mocking laughter filled the air, and Toothless knew it was directed at him. 'No snoozing, Usurper,' the Skrill everyone called Sadistic said smugly from atop the ice ledge looking down on their enclosure. 'Night is for sleep, day for regretting that you ever hatched.'

'I'm regretting someone's hatching,' Toothless muttered rebelliously, though not so rebelliously that Sadistic could hear him.

Star purred in amusement and sauntered around in front of him, shaking her wings out in a way that Toothless couldn't help but see as alluring. 'How rude' she murmured. 'But that's the rule, no sleeping. Laying around with your eyes open, though, is totally allowed.'

'I think I'm up now,' Toothless grumbled. His heart was still racing from what had to have been a small lightning strike right in front of him just as he fell asleep, and he needed to do something. 'Thanks.'

'The pleasure was mine,' Star said, returning to her spot by the shore. 'Once you've settled down, you're welcome to come back.'

'Maybe,' Toothless conceded. He was thinking more clearly now, if only because he still felt as if he might have to fight for his life at any given moment, and he didn't know if he wanted to make a habit of laying next to Star.

He wandered away from the pond, feeling the mocking gaze of Sadistic on his back wherever he went. The Skrill was still watching from the same place, and acted as if he would be there all day, sprawling out and idly clawing ice from the edge with his talons.

Again, the impossibility of it all struck Toothless as he watched Sadistic dig at his own perch. How was it that this place had existed for any amount of time without melting away? The ice wall separating them from the rest of the nest was noticeably thinner and easier to see through compared to the day before, and wouldn't last the week at this rate.

'How does it all stay like this?' he muttered, staring out at the nest once more. He was missing something big, but he didn't know what. Nothing had changed out in the nest proper; dragons still flew around freely, none so much as glanced his way, and none gave any sign of worrying about the ice mountain they lived in melting away, though it surely would.

If Maour were with him, he would come up with some far-fetched theory that explained everything, probably involving something seemingly unrelated that Toothless hadn't thought was important.

'It's the…' He searched his mind for the least relevant thing he could think of. 'The… Prisoners!'

He groaned and turned away from the ice wall. 'No, not that.' He certainly wasn't doing anything to keep the ice from melting or the Skrill from killing them all, and he doubted Hefnd, Einn, Star, or Grey was. His kind did not make things cold, he didn't even like being cold.

'But if it's not us, and it's not the Skrill, and it's not any of them…' he trailed off, thinking hard. Something or someone had to be maintaining the ice. If it wasn't the Skrill, and it wasn't any of the prisoners, then it had to be another dragon in the nest.

He whirled back to the ice wall and all but pressed his head to it, staring out at the verdant nest beyond with new interest. There were scores, hundreds of dragons flying around, lazing on ledges, or cavorting on the ground, and many were species he had never seen before. One of the species he didn't know could be responsible for the ice…

And therefore a potential weakness. A plan was coming to mind, or the bare bones of one part. If a dragon could make ice, a Night Fury could go anywhere with them, even on paw. All it would take was an endless ice bridge over the ocean. By the same reasoning, that dragon not adding to the ice wall, or the terrible ice pit he had failed to sleep in, could create a vulnerability that didn't need fire to be exploited, a tunnel out through the wall somehow.

He purred to himself, pleased with his cleverness. Some of the dragons out there looked like likely candidates, now that he was thinking about who might be keeping the ice fresh. There was a scattered assortment of bulbous dragons that seemed like larger cousins to Gronckles, and he could see one swallowing a huge chunk of ice. Alternatively, there was a dragon sporting a crazy assortment of frills lurking by the water that made up the center of the ice nest, doing nothing but looking appropriately exotic. It would be a strange dragon, to make ice instead of fire.

'Which are you?' he muttered, settling down to watch. The moment he saw any dragon adding to the ice somewhere, he would know who to contact, bribe or threaten, and then escape with. Not being able to fly didn't matter if he could walk to the nearest island and do… something. His plan was vague beyond that; getting out was enough of a challenge on its own.

Not that it mattered; he had all the time in the world to think up the next step. So much time…

An explosion just behind him made him jump right into the ice wall, slamming his forehead on the surprisingly strong expanse.

'No sleeping!' Sadistic crowed from afar.

Toothless growled and refused to turn around, denying the Skrill the satisfaction of seeing his anger… or his deeply rooted exhaustion. Instead, he began sharpening his claws on the stone underpaw, and remained standing as he stared out at the nest. At worst, he might be able to learn to doze on his paws…

O-O-O

Two Big-Gronckles smacked their bulbous tails together, then turned around and butted heads… Or possibly the other way around; Toothless still wasn't sure with some of them. A third, smaller dragon of the same kind watched from a nearby rock, unmoved as the two combatants began trying to knock each other over.

'You're obnoxious!'

'I'm proud!'

It was, Toothless mused, somewhat fitting that the argument going on by the pond, between Hefnd and Star, so perfectly fit what the dragons he was watching fight might very well be saying. He couldn't hear them, of course, they were on the other side of the nest, but Hefnd and Star were good substitutes.

'Which is another word for obnoxious,' Hefnd snarled in the background, his voice lacking any real bite to it. Toothless had heard worse from a certain Nótt back in the day. Hefnd and Star weren't arguing like the Thorstons usually did, there was genuine annoyance on both their parts, but it was somewhere below serious, like a petty squabble they had gone over a thousand times before, damped down with the lethargy that infected everything in this terrible place.

The not-Gronckles continued to slam their heads or possibly tails together.

'And what does being proud have to do with stinking up the whole pond?' Hefnd asked loudly after a long pause.

'I did not,' Star barked. 'I do not stink!'

'Oh, right,' Hefnd growled. 'That was it. You're so proud you think your-'

'And I am a delicate, impressionable female, so watch your mouth!' There was a distinct slapping sound, just as the dragons Toothless was watching both smacked into the ground in a clumsy maneuver he bet they both immediately regretted. On the bright side, he now knew which side was the head; they wouldn't be reeling around in a daze if they had just smacked their tails.

Another slapping sound rang out, and Star yelped. 'That hurt!' she complained.

'Yes, it did,' Hefnd retorted. 'That's what you get. Want more?'

Toothless went back to attempting to ignore their bickering, more interested in the scene in front of him. The big-Gronckles, whatever they were called, were parting ways, and the smaller one that had watched their fight went with neither of them. That proved wrong his theory that they were fighting for a mate, so the whole thing had accomplished nothing…

Much like his watching the nest. Not one dragon had looked his way, and none had come to maintain the ice wall, which was noticeably thinner than it had been the first time he saw it. By this time tomorrow, running into it like he had would probably shatter a good portion of it.

A crackle of light up at the top of the mountain caught his attention, and he looked up to see a Skrill descending, its body flickering with lightning, as usual. The other dragons gave it a wide berth, likely because of the lightning, not its general personality, and it flew onward, passing directly over him and flying down to deposit their daily fish.

'You're late!' Sadistic snarled from his spot above them all.

'You don't care anyway,' the Skrill retorted lazily, flying up to perch near Sadistic. 'Can I put them back early, or are you going to whine about it?'

'No, you can't,' Sadistic rumbled. 'Shut up and sit down.'

Toothless waited until he was sure they wouldn't be saying anything else, then made his way over to the meager pile of fish. This time it was one big, disorganized mess, and Hefnd was already there, sorting it out into five portions.

Hefnd looked up, noticing Toothless just as he finished pawing the fish around. He growled quietly and tossed his head in the direction of the closest pile. 'Yours.'

Toothless looked at the three fish, two small and one large, that he had been given. Then he eyed the two portions Hefnd was standing over, both of which contained three large fish. They were both unfair portions, and his first instinct was to call Hefnd out on it… But he could be smart about it.

'I think fairness is important,' he said calmly, meeting Hefnd's stare with one of his own. 'But some of us need more than others. If you were just giving your father the best of the fish, I would understand.'

'You're new around here,' Hefnd growled back. 'You don't get to call me out. Those who have been here longest get the best fish when there are no piles.'

'What's the order of seniority, then?' Toothless asked. He wasn't entirely sure, but he didn't think that was really how Hefnd was dividing up the food. His pile was smaller than Hefnd's, but so were the other two, both containing three small fish.

'You are at the bottom,' Hefnd snorted. 'Then Star, then me and my father. Grey doesn't count.'

'She would be on top?' Toothless asked.

'By a long shot,' Hefnd grumbled. 'But like I said, she doesn't count. She's smaller and doesn't eat as much. So take your share and stop whining about fairness.'

That was a challenge, and Toothless knew he couldn't back down without there being consequences, such as being relegated to the worst portions of fish. 'Make me,' he growled, holding back half a dozen more creative responses for the time being.

Hefnd stiffened, his eyes narrowing to slits. 'What was that?'

'Make me, if you can,' Toothless said coldly. He was tired, but not too tired to fight someone who looked half-starved… and tired enough to be willing to fight, just to end the argument. 'You talk like you want to fight, so back it up.'

Hefnd glanced at the wall behind Toothless, atop which one of the Skrill was perched, and shook his head. 'Not now,' he snarled, stamping on the tails of his share of fish and piercing them with his claws. 'The moment nobody is watching, I'll put you in your place. Not before.'

'You'll try,' Toothless snorted. This was probably where Maour would advise he patch things up with the other male, but he just didn't feel like it. Maybe later. He took his fish, small though they were, and swallowed them. None were large enough to be worth biting into, and his stomach gurgled forlornly when he was finished, as if complaining about his stinginess.

'Get used to it,' he grumbled to himself, keeping his eyes off the other fish piles. He wasn't going to steal from the others; that was a fast path to everyone hating him… or fearing him, if he backed such an act up with threats. Not what he wanted.

Two rocks scraped together on the far side of the area, and Star's ears perked up. 'Time for a show,' she purred, coming up to take her fish and quickly retreating to Hefnd's side.

Toothless settled down a few paces away from the others, mostly to avoid being right across from Hefnd, and watched as Grey came out to eat her fish. He felt oddly rude, staring at her smooth, pale form as she ate. Everyone aside from Einn was watching, waiting for whatever performance she was about to put on.

Maybe it was just his lack of sleep and twitchy nerves that had him nervous about what was going to happen. They were all prisoners and Grey apparently liked entertaining people; it shouldn't have been odd that they were all anticipating the one interesting thing that was likely to happen that day.

'Does anyone have some ice?' Grey asked, having finished the last of her fish.

Toothless looked around at the walls of ice penning them in, and the massive ice mountain above their heads, wondering if she was serious. Was taking ice even allowed? Their Skrill guard certainly didn't seem to care; he looked half asleep, his tail dangling down from his perch.

'Because I know how to make some, if you don't,' Grey said lightly. 'Just spit and wait!'

Toothless forced a small chuckle, mostly to break the awkward silence.

'See, he gets it!' Grey exclaimed, her voice bright and cheery. 'And believe me, it's the best way to make ice around here. The other ways aren't so great when they melt, as we all know...'

Star let out a barking laugh, loud and long, and Hefnd chuckled along with her. This time, Toothless remained silent, mostly because he didn't get the reference.

'Oh, Grey, I think you need to explain that one,' Star said, looking over at Toothless. 'My new friend wasn't here to see that.'

Grey's face froze for a moment; it was a subtle shift, the way her ears stilled and her eyes darted from Star to Toothless, but he saw it before she shook her head. 'I don't think that's as funny as the jokes I have-'

'No, it's better,' Star purred. 'Go on, tell it.'

'Okay…' Grey turned away from them for a moment, then turned back again, her face as bright and open as ever. 'So, you know the pits we sleep in, right?' she asked, looking directly at Toothless.

'Sleep is a generous word,' he said.

'Yes, it is,' Grey said, nodding vigorously. 'Well, back when I first got here, I had a plan to escape.'

Toothless glanced up at the Skrill, and saw that he wasn't paying any more attention than before, even though Grey had said 'escape' loud enough to be heard.

'My plan was to make ice,' Grey continued. 'The more ice I made, the shallower the pit got, and eventually I would be able to jump out, right?'

'Right…' Toothless said slowly, wondering where this was going.

'So I did, I made as much ice as I could, but when I went to sleep, it froze around me,' she said quickly. 'And then I had to melt it. So that didn't work. Now, my next joke-'

'Wait, you didn't tell the best part!' Star interrupted.

'I think I got it,' Toothless said. He had just gotten what Grey was talking about, and he wanted nothing more than to move away from that terrible story. There were only a few ways to bring water into that pit in any substantial amount, and neither of the two he could think of were pleasant to be trapped in and then forced to melt around oneself in the morning. 'Let's talk about something else.'

'But it's so much funnier when she tells it,' Star insisted.

Toothless stood, turned, and glared at her. 'No. I don't want to hear it.' He turned back to Grey, who was watching them both, her face blank of any telling expression. It was odd to see her not beaming with happiness. 'You said you were coming up with a joke for me?' Toothless ventured, feeling more uneasy than ever.

'I was!' Grey exclaimed, going back to cheerful and excited in a heartbeat. 'Here it is. What is black, missing a tailfin, and inside this mountain?'

'Me?' Toothless asked, utterly bemused.

'A Changewing in the dark!' Grey declared proudly.

Star snorted rudely. 'That was terrible,' she proclaimed. 'Look, he's not even laughing.'

Toothless realized that he hadn't laughed, which made sense since he was pretty sure he didn't get the joke. 'It was funny,' he protested weakly. Never in his life had he felt so awkward and uncertain.

'I'll come up with a better one,' Grey promised, before turning her tail on them and running back to her hiding place.

'And that is how you get rid of her,' Star chuckled. 'Just don't laugh at her jokes. They're the only reason she comes out every day.'

'Am I…' He trailed off, trying to get his extremely mixed feelings into words. 'What was that?'

'A terrible attempt at a joke, obviously,' Hefnd grumbled. 'Just don't encourage her.'

'Encourage her?' Toothless asked incredulously.

'Yes, her.' Hefnd gave him a decidedly unimpressed look. 'Just go along with what we do.'

'Rotten fish to that,' he shot back with a glare. He felt terrible about what he had just witnessed, and the more he thought about it, the more he understood why. 'You're acting like she's just some fun entertainment to mock and laugh at and ignore.'

'Because she is,' Star huffed.

'If I could bite you right now without getting shocked,' Toothless said venomously, 'I would. Something is twisted here aside from the Skrill and this never-melting ice and the dragons on the other side, and I'm not going to just laugh and join in.' He felt soiled just from sitting next to Star, however warm she was.

'You're making a big deal out of nothing,' Star growled. She bared her teeth at him, apparently bothered by what he had said. 'Stop throwing a fit about the only real entertainment we get around here.'

'I'd rather die of boredom than laugh at something like that,' Toothless snarled.

'Then go die of boredom and stop bothering us!' Hefnd growled.

Toothless turned his back on them and walked away. He stalked over to the ice wall and stared out into the mountain refuge beyond, mostly so he didn't have to look at the people he was trapped with.

His thoughts were still whirling, as confused as a flock of Terrors when a larger dragon dove through them, and he growled to himself as he tried to put them back in order.

There was something deeply wrong with the display he had just sat through, the way Grey was all cheer and no bite, taking Star's mean-spirited comments and requests in stride. He knew friendly joking and even not-so-friendly joking, nobody lived on the same island as the Myrkurs for any length of time without becoming familiar with their style of humor. This was nothing like that.

He growled again, louder this time, and pointedly turned his back on the scene out beyond the ice. Star and Hefnd might be terrible people, or just very bored, or something else entirely, he didn't know and he couldn't bring himself to care. What he did care about was the cracked, false cheer with which Grey had responded to him not getting the joke. It reminded him of Maour, back when they had first met, though the situation was entirely different…

Or maybe not, on second thought. He was flightless, trapped on a hostile island, and someone clearly needed a friend. He might as well fall back on the basics; his interest in Maour had served them both well last time. Maybe Grey could help him escape.

In fact, he thought as he turned toward her rock pile, she definitely could help him plan an escape. She was probably the most knowledgeable prisoner, and by far the most agreeable. Too agreeable; he would be more comfortable talking to her if she wasn't so relentlessly cheerful.

His comfort didn't matter, though, so he sat on his tail by the pile of rubble and chuffed loudly.

There was no response, which he really should have expected. 'Grey?' he called out.

'I am busy thinking of better jokes,' Grey replied, outwardly cheerful. He had a hard time believing she was actually in a good mood, and the few cracks in her composure he had seen recently seemed to support that.

'Your joke wasn't bad,' he said. 'I just did not get it. I do not know what a Changewing is.' He didn't feel so good about lying to her - he did know what a Changewing was - but getting her into explaining things seemed like it would be helpful. Doubly so if it made her think her joke not making him laugh was his fault, which it partly was.

'You do not?' Grey asked. 'How could you not? There are a dozen living out there, they are very noticeable.'

'There are many exotic species I don't recognize,' he rumbled. 'Maybe you could explain the joke to me?'

'Explaining jokes takes all the fun out of them,' Grey grumbled. 'But okay. You are big and black and missing a tailfin, right?'

'Yes,' he hummed, declining to argue that he wasn't all that big. Compared to her or the other Night Furies held captive here, he definitely was.

'So I set it up so that you would think I was talking about you, but I was actually talking about a Changewing in the dark, because they can make themselves clear like ice and don't have tailfins. Clear in the dark means black like a shadow, missing a tailfin… get it?'

'Now I do,' he assured her. 'It is funny. Maybe you could tell me more about this place, so I will understand all of your future jokes?'

'I can do that,' Grey said quietly after a moment's pause. 'What don't you know?'

'I don't know why I am here, or what kinds of dragons live out there, or why they live out there, or where we are, or who is in charge, or anything about this place,' he said. 'Any of that would be helpful.'

'So it would be fair to say you know what you don't know, but don't know what else you might know?' Grey asked.

Toothless couldn't see her, but he had no trouble seeing the humor in that. 'I don't know,' he chuckled. 'Do you know?'

'I know some things,' Grey said cheerily. 'This is the ice nest. Everyone says it is the biggest, best nest ever.'

Toothless glanced around the miserable little enclosure they were stuck in, then looked out at the rest of the mountain's interior. 'For dragons who do not happen to be like us, I guess,' he said.

'For everyone else,' Grey agreed in a flat voice.

'Why is that?' he asked.

Grey didn't answer.

'Why do they call this the best nest?' he asked after the awkward silence was too much to bear. If she didn't feel up to answering, then he would pretend he hadn't asked, and ask something else.

'They have plenty of food, all the space they could want, and safety,' Grey huffed. 'I do not think I want to answer any more questions today.'

'Okay, sorry if I am bothering you,' Toothless hummed reassuringly. He could afford to go slow with her; time was one of the few things he had plenty of. Apparently, his captors intended him to be here indefinitely, just like the others… and the longer he waited, the more time Maour and Von had to find him, or at least find out where he was, and get help. Or pull off some crazy plan, though he'd rather his siblings go home, bring an army of their kin, and not take any dangerous chances.

'Ask tomorrow?' Grey asked hopefully.

'I'll be here,' he promised.

O-O-O

"This is as good a place as any," Maour said quietly.

Ruffnut leaned forward, her hand on his armored shoulder for balance, and did her best to memorize the layout of the island in front of them. Von was coming in fast and at just the right angle to make actually seeing the island tricky… and the island's layout wasn't doing her any favors in that area either.

'It looks like a terrible place,' Von observed. 'No green at all.'

"Hey, puke can be green," Ruffnut objected. "By the looks of it, they've got a lot of taverns, so they'll have a lot of puke too." The island was one half docks and the sort of seedy operations that always seemed to grow near busy docks, and one half large stone buildings. There wasn't a single tree on the island, and if there was any grass, it wasn't visible from where they were. The closest thing to open space was the loading bays near the docks, dotted with pallets of raw material, but otherwise unoccupied. Not that she cared about those.

"Lots of sailors, plenty of money changing hands, and more importantly, plenty of information," Maour said calmly. He was calm far too often for Ruffnut's liking. It wasn't a normal, boring calm, it was one that made her want to tell him to lighten up. Not that she would; he was entitled to act like a scary… whatever… if it got them closer to rescuing Toothless. Or even just finding Toothless. She would be the same way if someone had taken Boom from her.

"We're going with the first plan, then?" she asked eagerly.

'If I can find somewhere to drop you off,' Von rumbled. 'I did not expect the island to be so active in the middle of the night. Do these people sleep in the day?'

"Some of them might," Maour allowed. "Try circling around, there might be an alley or garbage dump or something. Waste has to collect somewhere to be gotten rid of."

"Waste goes out, we go in," Ruffnut quipped. Neither Maour nor Von sighed, or groaned, or otherwise indicated that they had caught her dirty joke, which she was inclined to believe meant it had gone right over their heads. She could have made it more explicit, but that would take the fun out of letting them figure it out afterward.

"Focus on why we're here," Maour said in his scary quiet voice. "You're a crazy thrill-seeker looking to put a knife in a Skrill's eye."

"And you're a dark, mysterious hunter who's after information on dragons in general, where they gather, everything and anything," Ruffnut retorted. "I know my cover story, you know my cover story, I know your cover story… should I go on?" She didn't even need to know his story, despite his insistence that it might be useful. They weren't planning to go to the same taverns; the less time they spent on this island, the better, even if splitting up was more dangerous. Not that she intended to get into any trouble; she could easily pass for her brother, and nobody ever looked twice at him. She was magnificent and alluring, of course, entirely worth robbing just to get a look at her face, but Tuffnut was not.

"Go on and find out where the Skrill live," Maour said as Von pulled in close to the backside of the island. The stone buildings were packed tightly along the edge of a rocky slope that led down to a dismal excuse for a shoreline, but there were still spaces between them, however narrow. Filthy spaces she could already smell as they approached, but that just added to their charm. And hers, since she fully intended to keep some of the muck that was certain to get stuck in her boots.

'Ruffnut,' Von hissed as she dropped down to land in the alleyway, and what Ruffnut assumed was not a paw-deep coating of mud. 'You will not track any of this onto my saddle.'

"Wouldn't dream of it," Ruffnut said flippantly, hopping off to land on her own two feet. She had already abandoned breathing through her nose, so the squelching noises and odors she was probably provoking by stirring the muck didn't bother her. "Back here before dawn?"

'Just before,' Von confirmed, leaping away from the alleyway with a low moan of disgust. 'Humans are horrid.'

"More so in high concentrations," Maour muttered. "Good thing nobody thought to put windows in these… warehouses, I think."

"Windows would be way too fancy for this heap of cracked stone, rotten wood and booze," Ruffnut agreed, stepping out onto the dirt-packed excuse for a road that wound between the stone buildings. Nobody saw her exit, and a moment later Maour came out into the moonlight, draped in a black cloak she only knew he had because he had been breaking it out to use as a blanket recently. He was crazy, keeping something like that under his armor all the time, but it was a useful kind of crazy. He couldn't rearrange his hair and slouch to pass as a random Viking guy with muscle issues like she could.

"Before dawn," he said, pulling his hood down.

"Before then, and if you don't make it I'll have Von try and burn the place down," Ruffnut said, pulling the ties out of her hair and messing it up, demolishing her signature look in moments. She was on the hunt for information, and while she didn't think anyone on this miserable island would know what a Night Fury looked like well enough to recognize her signature hairstyle, one never knew.

Author's Note: Short chapter this time around, mostly because the next events in both timelines are much better done as beginnings to long scenes, not shoved in halfway through or at the end. I'm planning on doing a hybrid chapter structure to follow the two separate plot threads. It'll go 'Full A, half A and half B, Full B, half B and half A' in structure, so that we never go two full chapters on the same perspective, but also don't jump back and forth every single chapter. This would be a 'half A and half B' chapter (though, again, a shorter one than usual).