O-O-O

Toothless let out a high-pitch yelp as he fell and his bruised underside smacked against the floor of his cold, icy cell. Even that small noise felt like burning coals in his throat that was so sore and dry from so much howling and roaring. The Skrill were merciless in handling him for his escape attempt, and their punishments stung, both literally and figuratively. He lay still, convulsing and twitching, helplessly enduring the burning agony as he waited for the worst of it to bleed out of him.

He wished that was the worst the Skrill had to offer. No, if he was going to be making wishes, he would wish that he and Grey were never caught to begin with. Go big or go home… or not go home, as the case was here. Go back to his icy little cell.

'Where is he?' Angry roared above the pits, circling erratically. The other three Skrill – Cold, Condescending, and Tolerable – stalked the ice on their talons, inspecting the other pits, and by extension the other prisoners.

Who Angry was talking about was obvious. Star had yet to be brought back, and by extension Sadistic was nowhere to be seen. Hefnd glared in Toothless' direction, and Einn was probably doing his best to sleep through the noise, but Star's pit was conspicuously empty.

'Not in the mountain,' Condescending snapped irritably. 'Calm down before you waste your charge.'

'This is not a night to be calm,' Tolerable growled. A shadow loomed over Toothless' pit, and he glared up at the looming Skrill. A crackling arc of sparks illuminated Tolerable's jaw, but he pulled away without doing anything.

'I am calm,' Cold volunteered, his voice low and all but buzzing through the air. 'But there is still a usurper missing… You will not let me go back to sleep until they are all caught, so get on with it.'

'Sadistic is missing, and so is the third escapee,' Tolerable said. 'You two go look for him. I will search for the prisoner. You watch to make sure there are no more escape attempts.' Toothless couldn't see them, so he didn't know who was supposed to do what, but that obviously wasn't a problem for them.

'Guard them, yes,' Angry muttered to himself, pacing between the two rows of pits, his sparking lights visible as twinkles in the semi-transparent ice. His voice was low and dangerous, laden with a sharp bite that reminded Toothless of trying to talk while he wanted so badly to blast something that it was welling up in his throat of its own accord.

'Not that we should be guarding usurpers,' Angry continued. 'But we have to, but we shouldn't… I would. I'm supposed to…' His breathing was coming so harshly that it could be heard clearly, a rough, irregular rasp of rage. 'Wrong, it's wrong, kill and be done with it, who cares that they live.'

The tip of Angry's barbed tail dangled at the edge of Toothless' pit, and he could see the crackling form of the Skrill leaning down to look in on Hefnd, who was feigning sleep. Talons stretched out toward the helpless Night Fury…

Then drew back, accompanied by a violent crack of lightning that made both Toothless and Hefnd flinch, though it struck nothing but air.

'Can't, won't, shouldn't, should,' Angry snarled to himself, sounding more than a little unhinged. He whirled around, and suddenly Toothless was looking up at two dark grey eyes, tiny crackles of lightning arcing all along the face they were set in.

'I would kill you if I was allowed,' Angry said clearly, speaking directly to Toothless. Two sharp talons scraped at the side of the pit as he leaned forward. 'Clean, quick. None of this.'

There was nothing Toothless could possibly say to that. A few possible responses flew through his mind, but he couldn't imagine any of them having a positive outcome. Words would mean nothing, less than nothing, and anything physical might give Angy an excuse to do… something. To act on that very real death threat, allowed or not.

Sharp teeth clacked together, and Angry withdrew, kicking chunks of ice down at Toothless as he pulled his talons from their grip on the edge of the pit. 'I hate this,' he said clearly, before leaping into the air and presumably continuing to watch from above.

'The feeling's mutual,' Toothless grumbled to himself, breathing deeply to try and calm his racing heart. If he thought hard about what he had just heard and been told, he could probably piece something together from it; insights into how one of the Skrill felt about all of this were few and far between. But he didn't have the presence of mind to think about that now; not when he was still waiting for the consequences of their escape.

He wasn't the only one waiting for the consequences, either. Grey was stuck in her own ice pit, just as caught and just as guilty of trying to escape. Not to mention guilty of prematurely ending their escape, through what he couldn't honestly believe was simple naivety or stupidity.

'Grey?' he asked, though he knew she was not listening through his senses like she usually did. If it weren't for the feeling of their link still being there, he might have thought that it was broken; she was always using some aspect of it. But not now. She had fully retreated into herself, and when he attempted to see through her eyes, they were tightly shut.

He pulled away from her senses after that, giving up on contacting her. She clearly didn't want to talk, either through fear or guilt. He was accustomed to letting her sit in silence when she was reluctant to speak…

'But this is different,' he growled to himself. Before, he would have been pushing her for no reason, but now she needed to give answers of some kind. She was responsible for their capture, and he needed to know why. It didn't make sense. She had known a random Gronckle's name – or thought she did, or imagined that she did – and she had tried to get them help, where there was clearly none to be had. She knew that the King probably had a mental paw on everyone to some degree, she knew asking for help was almost certainly asking to be caught. But she'd done it anyway.

He shuffled around in his pit and tried to get comfortable, a futile effort though that was. He had no fire to warm himself with, and his co-conspirator was silent. The Skrill might think they had yet to fully wrap up the escape attempt, but he knew better, and that meant he was waiting for the other paw to drop. And he had no idea how to begin planning another escape attempt, or whether he would even be able to once the Skrill regrouped.

It was going to be a long, cold, dangerous night.

O-O-O

Toothless didn't know when, exactly, he had fallen asleep, or how to warm himself when his flame was depleted. He did know that when he woke his entire body felt like an icicle, and his head a snowdrift. Everything was slow, muddled, a direct consequence of being completely without any source of warmth.

It was not a desirable state of existence to face a normal day with, much less one as important as this. Star was back, and presumably Sadistic with her. Neither was happy.

Star stood stiffly in her pit, every so often lifting her left back paw and pressing it against the wall, leaving thin stains of red wherever it went. There was a deep, jagged gash down the back of said leg, and she moved as if completely unaccustomed to the pain, wincing with every loud noise or unexpected jolt.

Both of which there were plenty of; Toothless had been woken by an argument already well underway, punctuated by loud, ear-raising snaps and snarls. He couldn't see any of the Skrill, but he had no trouble imagining how they must look now.

'I took her on the outside of the mountain, up by the lip,' Sadistic was snarling. 'She was hiding there. It took time to find her, but not to catch her. Now shut up about it!'

'That is so clearly not true that you might as well be trying to hide her body and proclaiming the kill an accident,' Cold drawled, sharp disbelief underlying every word. 'I do not see what you have to lie about, just tell us what made you abandon your important duties and let us be done with it.'

There was a loud snapping sound, one of lightning on ice, and then a scraping thump of scale on scale, one that made Toothless think two or more Skrill were doing their best to knock each other over with brute force. 'No!' Tolerable roared. 'Fighting will not distract us. Tell us what really happened.'

'I left to relieve myself,' Sadistic spit angrily. 'When I returned, all three were gone. I was going to find them all before sunrise. They had no chance of actually getting anywhere.'

'And you didn't let any of us in on the fun?' Condescending huffed. 'How rude of you. But it still does not make sense. How did you let any of them get so far, if you were only gone for the time it takes to relieve yourself?'

'I did not hurry, I thought they were all asleep,' Sadistic retorted. 'And it is not easy to flush out vermin without alerting anyone. It was a challenge.'

'Not as much of a challenge as a flightless usurper somehow climbing all the way to the top of the mountain from the inside,' Tolerable said in a low voice. 'I find that very unlikely.'

'You and me both,' Sadistic growled. 'I made sure she won't be climbing anything from now on. The other two did not even get that far.'

'There is that,' Condescending agreed. 'There was a hole, but it got nowhere close to the outside.'

'Even if it had, they'd freeze to death in the ice field if we could not find them,' Cold added. 'Really, we should have let them try.'

'You know we cannot do that,' Tolerable huffed tiredly. Much of the tension seemed to have left him, and by extension the rest of the group. They seemed to believe Sadistic's story.

Even though said story was a lie from start to finish.

Toothless knew he wasn't in great shape to be doing anything tricky, but even now he was well aware that he had leverage. Dangerous leverage, because Sadistic was the sort of dragon to rip one's heart out for just being annoying, let alone threatening to reveal secrets, but leverage nonetheless.

'It would leave them to die, yes, we know,' Condescending rumbled. 'No killing the usurpers, no letting them kill themselves, no letting them escape. All the vines we need to choke ourselves to death.'

'Be glad "no complaining" is not one of the rules, and put it out of your mind,' Tolerable advised. 'And Sadistic… No more leaving without getting someone to take your place.'

'You aren't in charge here,' Sadistic snarled.

'I'll go to him if you want authority,' Tolerable shot back.

There was a brief silence, save for talons scraping ice.

'Don't do that, I'll be more careful,' Sadistic conceded with a reluctant growl. 'And I'll deal with the punishment for them, too.'

'You ruined our sleep, we are not going to reward you by letting you punish them,' Condescending objected.

'You all know I'm best at it,' Sadistic argued, sounding more exasperated than anything. 'I know just how far to go before it is truly life-threatening.'

'She's right, you don't deserve the satisfaction,' Cold interjected. 'Let the overgrown fledgling do it, he needs practice tearing usurpers apart. Just in case we ever get the chance to do it for real.'

Toothless dug his claws into the ice, tensing up even as the telltale prickles of blood rushing back into his extremities started up. He had hoped that the Skrill would do to him what they had done to Einn upon retrieving him, which was to say nothing. But if they were discussing who was to punish him and Grey, that they were doing it all wasn't under debate.

'Make him leave their legs alone,' Condescending suggested. 'I want them all capable of doing my tricks.'

'Do whatever, just keep them from screeching loud enough to wake me,' Cold grumbled. Wings flapped, and a shadow passed over the pits, presumably signalling his departure.

'I ought to carry them over and bleed them directly above him, see if that wakes him,' Sadistic growled. Both of the other Skrill laughed coarsely.

'Next time,' Tolerable said amiably, a low chuckle still buzzing in his throat. 'But for now, you can go join the raid that is going to leave soon. The four-winged annoyance wanted at least one of us to come along, just in case–'

'In case that usurper shows its face again,' Sadistic interrupted. 'Oh, yes, I will definitely go do that. Enjoy teaching the welp to get his claws dirty.' The sound of flapping wings signalled his exit from the conversation, though he did not pass over the pits on his way out into the nest.

'I,' Condescending said slowly once he was gone, 'am going to go do something I enjoy. Do not expect me to join that pointless excursion.'

'It's about as pointless as you climbing on top of that self-flaming imbecile you've taken a liking to,' Tolerable said calmly.

'If you all weren't such pent-up lunatics, I might not need my lesser companions,' Condescending retorted with a sharp growl. 'I do not know if it is this place or just my luck, but all four of you are obnoxiously erratic and strange.'

'Stranger than consorting with males who barely share the same bodily shape as you?' he asked amiably. There was an air of familiarity between the two of them, twisted and warped by their crackling voices, but still present. 'I cannot imagine doing as much, and I've been stuck here longer than you.'

'That's because you're boring,' she huffed. 'Like I said, I will be busy for the next few days. Make Sadistic take any of my turns watching them, he deserves it. And I want my pets in acceptable condition when I get back!'

She roared wordlessly, he roared back, and the two of them took off together, the image of a pair of old friends.

Said image was disturbing to Toothless, because they were Skrill and their in-jokes referenced torture and killing. Not as disturbing as thinking about some of the other mental images Condescending's remarks had given him, though.

It occurred to him, after a short time spent pointedly not thinking about most of what he had just heard, that they had been left without a guard. Cold was off napping, Condescending was looking for her "friend", Sadistic was joining a raid, and Angry was presumably somewhere else, as the other Skrill had talked as if he wasn't around to hear them. Tolerable had left with Condescending, meaning nobody was watching their captives.

'So much for keeping a closer guard,' Toothless snorted. That boded well for the next time he tried to escape. They might talk about being more careful, or at least making Sadistic be more careful, but talking and doing were two different things.

'You're a mind-numbingly stupid hunk of waste.'

'Hello, Hefnd,' Toothless sighed. He didn't even bother looking over at the ice wall that separated him and the acerbic male. 'I'd appreciate it if you let me wallow in dread in silence.'

His attempt at making light of the situation rang hollow, and reminded him of Grey, who he still needed answers from. He checked their link, but she was still to all appearances asleep. That wasn't necessarily a good thing; if Tolerable meant to have him and Grey punished imminently, it would be better for her if she was awake and aware before they began.

'You deserve everything you're going to get,' Hefnd spat. 'Where do you think you were going with Star? And why do you think she's yours to take?'

'What?' He turned to look at the orange-eyed male. 'Grey and I went without her. Sadistic took her somewhere before we left.' He had assumed Hefnd would know of that particular oddity, given it was a semi-regular occurrence.

'No, you saw wrong,' Star interrupted, her voice shaky with pain. 'You left first, and then I decided to go out and see what was what.'

'That's… blatantly untrue.' He stared at her, wondering what she was up to. Or what she had been threatened with, to keep her silence. 'You do realize Grey and I both know that's not right.'

'Are you accusing Sadistic of lying?' Star asked doubtfully. 'I hope not. You're enjoyable to look at, but you won't be anymore if he gets wind of that.'

'What happened?' Hefnd demanded. 'Star, you went after them?'

'Yes, and if he says otherwise he clearly enjoys being mutilated,' Star said primly. Her affected nonchalance was ruined by a quiver running up her back legs and how she winced as she pressed her cut against a fresh patch of ice.

Toothless decided against pressing the issue; Star clearly was lying to protect herself from further retribution, and it didn't help anyone if he challenged that. If he was going to do anything with what he knew of the truth of last night, it would involve the Skrill, not his fellow prisoners. 'Never mind, I must be remembering wrong,' he said bluntly. 'You're right.'

Two Skrill flew overhead, both bright with pent-up lightning, and Toothless braced himself in his cell, holding his wings close in anticipation, though they were not coming for him just yet. 'Grey, wake up!' he called out, barking loudly. It was time.

He would endure. Whatever they did, they weren't going to kill or maim him. Anything less, he could suffer through.

O-O-O

There wasn't much blood. Pain, tortured screeching, but not much blood. Drawing more than a little blood was dangerous, and if there was anything that had been driven into Toothless, it was that there were many ways to cause pain without it being potentially fatal, so long as one knew what one was doing.

Scratchy panting filled his ears and tore at his throat, necessary and agonizing in equal measures. He was on his side – he didn't remember how he ended up like that – with his stomach to a wall of ice.

'They can take a hit to their backs, so long as you target the wing shoulders,' Tolerable's infinitely less tolerable voice proclaimed. He sounded so disinterested, like he was teaching someone to dig a waste pit or something equally boring and simple.

What felt like a boulder crashed into Toothless' back, cracking against his shoulders with a force that made him cry out yet again. Lightning came with it, just enough to keep him convulsing, unable to fight back in any way. He was helpless, and had been since the first lightning bolt. There was no fighting the coursing shocks the Skrill imparted with every touch, and they had yet to run low on lightning.

He could try to seek refuge in the other set of senses in his head, but feeling Grey would only leave him feeling similar pain. She was somewhere behind him, back in her pit, nursing her wounds. They had done her first, and though they had totally refrained from shocking her or drawing blood, that just meant she felt every bruise and fracture all the more keenly. Her senses were no better than his own.

'But not several,' Tolerable continued in his maddening monotone. No further blows fell, leaving a few heartbeats of respite as he spoke. 'The spine is weak. Drive down on it from above, use your leverage correctly, and it will break, killing the usurper.'

'I would want to do that,' Angry said eagerly.

'Yes, if you aimed to kill,' Tolerable confirmed. 'A strike from above is ideal, or below if they are unobservant. If you do not aim to kill, avoid the center of the back, from the hips upward.'

Star was… somewhere. Toothless had a hard time keeping track of Grey, who was literally in his head. He had no chance of remaining aware of Star once the pain really started, except to know that they had stopped hurting her a while ago, too. He was new, and he was rightly considered the instigator. They were mostly focusing on him. A part of him was glad of it, the same part that shied away from Grey's senses even though she was arguably in less agony, but the rest of him just wanted it to stop.

'What about the stupid little fins?' Angry asked, speaking of one of the few places Toothless wasn't already hurt. They had bitten his tail, bruised his paws, broken at least one rib, and torn scales off his chest. His head was throbbing – though they hadn't hit hard enough to knock him out – and his gums were oozing blood. One of his eyes stung, though that might just have been from having his face rubbed against the unforgiving ice. There were bruises everywhere else.

'Necessary for complex flight, but not enough to ground a usurper without other injuries,' Tolerable said coldly. 'Annoyingly hard to do crippling damage. You are better off going for other targets if you are close enough to attack, lethal or not.'

Toothless yelped as a hard talon unexpectedly rammed down on one of the small fins by his back leg, crunching it against him. A renewed current of muscle-tearingly strong pain jolted through him, making spots appear in front of his eyes.

'Good for pain and little else,' Tolerable concluded. 'Now, there is more, we have barely touched the wings, but can you tell me why am I not going to demonstrate anything else?'

'Because it would kill the usurper?' Angry guessed. There was a distant buzzing in Toothless' ears that made him suspect Angry was right.

'No,' Tolerable said. 'Because we need to save something for next time he tries and fails to escape.'

A pair of wicked talons suddenly clutched at Toothless' tail, and he was dragged along the ice, none too gently. He saw through his one good eye Angry, watching closely, and Tolerable's tail.

Then he was falling, and the ground rose to meet him with one final blow. He wheezed a few times, the last of the lingering shocks working their way out of his trembling limbs, and fell still. Everything hurt.

'Remember this next time you think about testing your luck,' Tolerable called down from above, still sounding unnaturally, inexplicably calm and detached. 'Except next time, it will be worse.'

Toothless looked up at his tormentor, then tried to suppress a whine as he pressed his bruised chin to the ice. He knew there would be no "next time". He was well and truly trapped.

O-O-O

Drago's fleet was always moving, but there was a definite difference to be seen, heard, and felt when they were in a hurry to get somewhere. Men rushed about their individual ships like ants, adjusting sails and shoveling coal and doing many other things Von didn't understand.

She watched it all from above, carrying Maour back to the armada after a long fishing trip. The relatively unimpressive wooden ship they had been given quarters on did offer food, but one look at the grey swill that passed for a meal had her heading for the open ocean, and Maour was right behind her. Ruffnut…

Well, Ruffnut had left their cabin at daybreak with a breezy assurance that she'd be fine, and disappeared somewhere among the many, many ships and hundreds of humans. For all Von knew, Ruffnut was at the bottom of the ocean by now.

She tried not to think about that; pessimism wasn't helping anything. Ruffnut was probably fine. Probably more than fine, if her track record was any indication. Theoretically, none of them were in any danger from Drago's forces, human or dragon.

The only one in real danger was her brother, stuck in an enemy stronghold with dragons who surely wanted nothing more than to see him suffer. She had a hard time feeling positive about any of this. The best she could manage was probably a neutral determination.

"It's weird, travelling with the fleet of dragon-fighting mercenaries," Maour remarked as they made their way back to the armada. A visible wake of turbulent water followed the many ships, like a line drawn in sand by a dragging tail. There was some turbulence at the very front of the armada, too, in front of the largest lead ships, but she attributed that to their weird, scooping prows made entirely of metal.

'So long as they are on our side,' she said. Though she had the feeling that if it weren't for the ice nest being so overwhelmingly hostile, Drago's forces wouldn't be on their side. The enemy of their enemy was their friend, but only because they had a common enemy. Without that…

She didn't like the thought of trying to fight all of what was laid out under her now. Dozens of wooden ships, many more with metal carapaces like floating crabs of doom, and a few large enough that she didn't understand how they could float at all, let alone move so fast. The human element alone was intimidating, to say nothing of the dragons she barely ever saw except when they were out on patrol.

Another duo of armored dragons rose from the deck of one of the ships in the middle of the armada, exchanging places with two of those that were flying loops around the edges of it all. The patrolling dragons were flying lower than Von, seemingly unconcerned by her presence, but she could see their riders looking up at her.

'We are safe here, right?' she asked Maour. 'If I go look in on those dragons, wherever they are going, they will not try to cage me?' She remembered her encounter with the one talkative guard on their way in. She hadn't felt unwelcome. It was the humans she was worried about.

"That's what Drago claims, and I haven't seen anybody disobeying him yet," Maour said doubtfully, "but it's probably best to stay away from the people in charge of handling those dragons. I get the feeling that if we get into a conflict big enough to involve him, he's not going to take our side."

'Not when he thinks I'm a catastrophe lying in wait,' Von muttered. She really didn't know how she felt about Drago, but that at least had come across quite clearly. She was dangerous and bound to turn on Maour sooner or later, according to him, and was not to be trusted except as far as Maour was holding her metaphorical leash.

That was part of why she felt the urge to go investigate the dragon side of this armada, now that she thought about it. There had to be a hierarchy of sorts, somebody the others all looked to, and she might have better luck understanding them, whoever they were. Maour might too, but… she wanted to do this on her own. Ruffnut was making herself useful, if annoying. Maour was their point of contact with Drago. She was just the ride as of now, and that didn't sit right with her.

She touched down on the grubby wooden deck of their designated ship with a dissatisfied huff, and stared right back at the foreign-looking human who was eyeing her from his place by the railing. His bald head reflected the green light of the odd lantern hanging from the base of the mast, making him look like he had one green eye instead of two mostly black ones.

He blinked first, glancing away and palming a suspiciously dagger-shaped object hidden in the folds of his cloak. She kept an eye on him until she and Maour were safely below deck–

Only to be completely caught by surprise when a fat man wearing clanking armor walked right up to Maour. "Oy," the man said as she flinched and twisted to look at him, "Drago wants ya as soon as possible in his cabin, said he's gonna give you your first task. Don't bring the devil."

"The devil can amuse herself while I'm gone," Maour said dryly. "So long as everyone remembers not to mess with her."

'I won't be sticking around here anyway,' Von said as they went right back up to the deck. She didn't want to hang around where the suspicious bald man could see her. 'Good luck, brother.'

"If you want to explore, now's probably the best time," Maour muttered to her. "They already see you as being under my control, if you get into trouble I can blame it on us being separate."

'I'd rather not get in trouble at all…' But she did see his point. 'Good luck.' She bumped her muzzle against his back, then took to the sky again, this time without him.

She flew low, swooping over squat masts and avoiding the taller ones. A low mutter of shouts of surprise fell behind her like the spray when she flew too close to the ocean, most likely coming from those who noticed she had no rider.

She felt extremely vulnerable without Maour, but it was a fleeting feeling rooted as much in the atmosphere of this place as in reality. She would be fine; word of a single Night Fury on their side had surely swept through them by now. She was a novelty and an ally. They wouldn't strike at her without provocation, and simply moving about the armada was not provocation. Not quite.

The ship she sought out, the one she had seen the dragons flying up from and landing on in turn, was one of the partially metal masses that looked like it should have sunk to the bottom of the ocean long ago. It was grimy and stained with soot, bearing three of the green lanterns and no other sources of light. The middle of the deck was taken up by a massive grate, presumably leading below.

More importantly, there were two dragons standing guard on either side of the deck. One, a Nadder, wore no armor except for a piece of metal covering the underbelly. The other was a Gronckle so fully covered that she couldn't see their scales at all. Neither had a human standing guard with them, though they were tethered to the deck with thick chains that made Von uneasy.

She opted to approach the Nadder, reasoning that she could more easily speak with someone she could see under the armor. 'What are you guarding?' she asked, landing near the grate.

The Nadder stared at her for a few long, awkward moments before shaking his head irritably. 'The others,' he said in a rough voice, clicking his beak ominously. 'You are not one of ours.'

'I'm working with you all for the time being,' she hastily explained. 'We're on the same side.'

'Then you are welcome,' the Nadder said, 'but the humans below may not think the same if they have not been told about you. They are slow to adapt and slower to pass orders.'

'I'll just stay up here, then,' she decided. 'Will you get in trouble if we are seen talking?'

'They don't know enough to know that we are talking, so no,' the Nadder replied. 'Most of them know very little, in the end. But they have their uses.'

'In my experience, humans can learn, but very rarely choose to,' Von said vaguely. 'Is it annoying, having to take them up with you when you fly?'

'Is it annoying for you?' the Nadder retorted.

'Mine are not like yours,' Von objected. 'It's not the same. You just said yours were stupid.' She didn't know where she was going with any of this, but it was something. A conversation that she could lead around to things she wanted to know, sooner or later.

'All humans are stupid to some extent,' the Nadder said dismissively. 'There is maybe one here worth heeding, and we all do heed it. The rest are simply extensions of its control. Slow, stupid extensions. We tolerate them, little more.'

'Is there somebody in charge among our kind?' she asked, trying to phrase it in the way he was talking. 'I would like to meet them.'

'There is,' the Nadder confirmed. 'He is here for his own reasons, and we all… follow… him. He is not shackled to this place or these humans.' He paced forward, stretching the chain to its fullest extent. A taut line extended from around his left leg to a hook set in the metal portion of the deck, but he barely seemed to notice.

Von stood her ground, even as the Nadder stared down at her. 'I'd like to meet him,' she repeated. 'So that I will know who I am working with.' She felt Maour looking in from wherever he was at the moment. His presence emboldened her, if only because she didn't want to back down while he was watching. 'Now, if at all possible.'

'It is not possible,' the Nadder said seriously, flaring his wings for a moment. Von saw scars down them, old wounds long since healed. 'To meet him face to face… He will want to, but now is not a good time. Come back the first night after we next make landfall, when the ships are still and there is no fighting. Then he will be ready to greet you as a new ally.'

"At least you've got an appointment," Maour murmured in her ear.

'I will find you then,' Von agreed.

'Find whoever is out on deck, it will likely not be me,' the Nadder corrected her. 'Come without your humans. This is a matter for our kind and our kind alone, however intelligent your humans may be.'

'Mine are smarter than yours, in any case,' Von said defensively, glaring up at the Nadder's avian face. His cruelly hooked beak and squinting stare were not enough to cow her. Not by a long shot. 'But if you insist, I'll bring them some other time.'

'After you meet our leader,' the Nadder conceded. 'Speak to him about it. If he allows it, then maybe. It is not as if a human more like us than not would be a new thing. Just new for our side of all this.'

'So the enemy human is real?' Von asked. Sure, Drago had seemed convinced, but she was more than happy to get a second opinion from someone who didn't seem to fear Drago and thus wouldn't feel obliged to share in his delusions if he demanded it.

'As real as the tide, and it has killed many of us,' the Nadder hissed. 'Nimble, subtle, cruel. If you get the chance, kill it, but be wary, because it does not fight fair and it does not fight like a human should. I have lost scores to it.'

'You, personally?' Von asked.

The Nadder turned away from her and did not answer. He stared out at the armada, his spiked tail twitching ominously.

"Maybe don't push him," Maour advised. Von hadn't intended to, but it was nice to get instant confirmation that her instinct in this instance was right. She took to the air, leaving the Nadder behind. Her back began itching again, the not so subtle feeling of being exposed returning in full force now that she was on the move again, and she gave in to the urge to fly high, well above the effective range of anything humans might think to throw at her, then higher still. Above the clouds and up into the realm of unfiltered sunlight and icy chill.

"So the dragons here are mercenaries," Maour said thoughtfully. Von checked his sight and saw that he was sitting on a bench on the deck of one of the fully metal ships, watching a crew working on one of the larger masts. He was seemingly talking to himself, but she doubted he cared how it looked.

'It did not look that way, with the armor and the chains, but I guess they are letting that happen,' Von murmured. It was a strange contrast, how the dragons outwardly seemed subservient, but spoke as if they were only tolerating the humans at all because they chose to.

"Drago is definitely the sort to grasp for control, so I can see why they might make a show of obeying, if only to keep him happy," Maour offered. "You could ask about it when you meet their leader."

'There are a lot of things I'll ask about,' she assured him, feeling proud. She had gotten a meeting with the leader of the dragons, and from how the Nadder had talked, that was something neither Ruffnut nor Maour would have been able to do. 'Have you met with Drago yet, or is he keeping you waiting?'

"I spoke with him already," Maour explained. "He was busy. He says our first task is to seek out and defeat the dragon rider when they attack in two days."

'How does he know they will do that?' Von asked.

"Something about how they tend to raze islands in a pattern, and we're two days out from a settlement they haven't completely destroyed yet," Maour said. "I'm not sure they will attack, but if they do we have our orders."

'Our orders…' She turned to face the sun, bright and warm on her scales, a pleasant counterpoint to the frigid winds all around her. She wondered if Toothless could see the same sun.

'We have our orders,' she agreed after a moment. Whatever happened, they were coming for him. With allies, with an entire armada of humans and dragons, so long as they did as Drago asked. It would be enough.

It had to be enough, because she didn't know what else they could do. It was Drago or nothing.