O-O-O
Green flames lit the island and the armada beyond it, dots of light that were easily distinguishable as 'safe' by their color. The reds and oranges of dragon-lit flames were gone, beaten into submission the moment the raiding dragons fled. The ships used water, but the village used dirt, and under different circumstances Von wouldn't have cared beyond that. She was standing in the middle of a dirt street, where there was nothing to burn and thus nothing to put out.
Her hip-fin twinged uncomfortably, and she held back a yelp. She set her gaze on one of the dirt-tossing brigades combatting the last big flare-up, a muddled mess of tents that a few Nightmares had thoroughly doused in their signature liquid flames. An armored Gronckle was ferrying the dirt back and forth, dumping a big barrel wherever his rider indicated. Said rider was stuck on the ground by the blaze, so as to not weigh down–
Her fin spasmed again as deft fingers failed to be deft enough, and she yelped before she could stop herself.
"Sorry!" Maour said, though he didn't stop prodding and gingerly pulling at where membrane met hip. "Does it still hurt now?"
"It aches," she said. "But not like anything is broken." She didn't want it to be broken; she needed to fly, and while Night Furies healed quickly, she might not heal quickly enough. Maour needed her, Toothless needed her, everyone needed her to be useful. She couldn't be grounded, not now.
"I think it's just bruised," Maour said, wiping away her fears before they could really set in. "There are a few tiny cuts in the membrane, but those will go away in a matter of days if you just take it easy. So no flying for… two days, let's say. I'll check again then."
"Good thing we're down here in the village, and not up there," Von grumbled, tossing her head in the direction of the rocky cliffs that butted up against the village on one side. She had considered trying to fly up there after the Skill and the dragon rider fled, so as to be in a more easily defended position, but it just hadn't seemed worth the effort.
"Yeah…" He stood, patting her side reassuringly. "You're fine, it's a minor injury."
'Not like what we gave the Skrill and the rider,' she growled, clenching her claws. She had gone in hoping the rider would turn out to be an ally, but that wasn't happening, so she was glad Maour had landed a good hit on them before they fled. She hadn't done much of note to the four-winged dragon. At least there was a chance the Skrill would die from blood loss or disease…
She wasn't used to feeling so bloodthirsty, but it was good to know her enemies were hurt worse than her.
A large figure loomed in the shadows cast by the dying tent fire. Bulky, cloaked, and with tangled hair that looked to Von more like a pile of small snakes than anything a human would want on their head… She recognized Drago from Maour's meeting with him.
He turned away from the Gronckle and rider. She was a good hundred paces away, but she still felt his gaze snapping to her immediately, shadows and the darkness of the lingering night notwithstanding.
She saw him flinch, turning his shrouded shoulder toward her. It was far from an unusual reaction to her existence, but coming from him it was ominous. Especially as he was walking toward her now.
'Maour, Drago is coming,' she warned her brother. 'He does not look happy.'
"I've yet to see him happy, so that doesn't necessarily mean anything," Maour assured her. He stepped away from her fin and retrieved his scythe. It was in the locked position, and he made no move to unlock it, but she knew he would be ready to do so if needed.
"Is the beast under control?" Drago yelled from afar.
"Yeah, you're safe!" Maour yelled back. "And overly cautious," he added under his breath. "Would I be standing here if you weren't safe?"
'I am not safe,' Von objected. 'It is smart of him to understand that.'
"What did you do to the rider?" Drago asked as he came closer.
"Put a blade in their shoulder, through the armor," Maour reported. "They're good with that staff, but not good enough. The Skrill put a hole in our plans, though. Could have done with some advance warning on that."
"Skrill are just another kind of dragon," Drago said dismissively. "Dangerous, but not unmanageable."
"They… You know what, nevermind," Maour said, cutting himself off for no apparent reason. "We should have known. Next time, we'll be expecting a Skrill interruption."
"Next time you will need to anticipate several," Drago said. He came to a stop well out of lunging distance, his blunt face shadowed and impassive. "You bloodied the rider. They will not take that lightly. It has never happened before."
"Will the next time be at another village like this?" Maour asked, gesturing to the ruins all around them. "You predicted this attack well in advance."
"The rider is not predictable," Drago said gravely. "They can be anticipated, but only in broad strokes, and never reliably. This place was one push away from total destruction, and we both knew it. I know not what they will do next, now that you have hurt them. But it may not matter."
"How so?" Maour asked.
Drago eyed Von suspiciously. She opened her mouth just enough to give him a glimpse of her teeth.
"I will tell you when you need to know," Drago said. "You accomplished the task I set out for you here. I am… pleased. Keep your beast under control, and I will remain pleased."
"Keep your end of the deal, and I'll be pleased," Maour retorted.
"Quite." Drago looked away from them, toward where the armada was anchored. "We leave at dawn. Be ready."
"We will," Maour agreed.
Drago backed away, never turning his back on them. On another human Von might have thought that funny, but the deep distrust in his dark eyes was unsettling. It was the sort of distrust that stemmed from something and might yet turn into something less benign than a healthily fearful respect for her kind.
"I didn't think telling him that Skrill all hate Night Furies was a good idea," Maour said quietly. "Who knows what he'd do with that information."
'Good idea,' Von huffed. Drago might be working with them, tolerating her presence, but she didn't think that was a stable arrangement. Best he didn't know that Skrill shared or surpassed his dislike of Night Furies. They had enough problems with Skrill as things were.
O-O-O
The trek across the village and down to the armada was slow and tiring. Crossing the armada to get to the ship they were staying on was even more so; Von was thankful Maour was the one who had to do all the talking to get the necessary gangplanks lowered for her. She was able to stand in the background, keep a wary eye on everything, and stifle her yawns in relative peace.
Drago's armada functioned with an ease born of experience, a pattern that her presence did little to disrupt. Cages were being dragged around, tarps were being tossed over them, and captive dragons – most still unconscious – were everywhere. Some of the larger, metallic ships at the back of the fleet seemed to be the final destination of all the cages being moved around, but no two sets of cages were coming from the same place or taking the same path there.
They made it to the visitor ship they slept on without any major incidents, though Maour was slumping even as he walked by the time they got there. Von was ready to collapse on the floor of their cabin, shove Ruffnut aside if she was taking up the good spot, and sleep for a week.
The armored Nadder that dropped down onto the deck in front of her dashed those meager aspirations quickly enough. It was not the same one she had spoken to before, sporting pale white and pink scales under the usual dark armor. 'You agreed to meet our leader the night after making landfall,' the Nadder remarked. 'I am to take you there now.'
'I'm stuck on my paws for a few days, and it's late,' Von objected. 'Can we meet some other night?'
'The next chance to speak directly to him will not come for some time,' the Nadder warned. 'It is inconvenient, but if you could ditch your human rider and follow, I can lead you there on talon.'
"Man, I'm tired," Maour announced, casting Von a meaningful look. "If you want to wander around a bit, go ahead.'
She wasn't totally exhausted… 'I'll come,' she conceded. 'But I want to be back here before the fleet sets out again, and I don't know when that will be.' She wouldn't be separated from Maour.
'Easily arranged, they cannot leave until midday.' The Nadder leaped across to the next ship over with a flutter of her wings. Von followed, pushing her flagging strength into the jump so that she didn't have to convince someone to let a gangplank down for her.
"I'll be watching," Maour said. He was, of course, with her in mind if not body. "Just in case. I don't get the impression they'd have let me come if I asked, otherwise I would have."
'They didn't let me come along when you met Drago, so it is only fair,' she murmured. She was meeting the leader of the dragons, after all. He had to be at least a close second to Drago. The busy sailors and soldiers she and the Nadder were passing barely gave the Nadder a second glance, despite its lack of a rider.
She definitely got a lot of second glances, and quite a few outright stares or muttered curses, but obediently following the Nadder across the ships seemed to calm most of the people who noticed her. They were used to dragons occasionally roaming about unsupervised, so long as those dragons were clearly on their side. She supposed she counted, after tonight's battle.
She was tired, and the trip across the ships was an exhausting series of jumps and occasional walks across hastily-lowered planks, either of which could land her in the water if she slipped up or misjudged the distance. She was sorely tempted to try flying despite Maour's warning. Only the possibility of grounding herself for longer held her wings to her back… and only for the time being. If something went wrong in this meeting with the leader of the dragons, she'd throw caution to the wind and fly away.
The Nadder led her all the way across the Armada, to the pair of metal-plated ships that all the dragon cages had been brought to. That was winding down, only a few stragglers still busy hauling their catches across, and the decks were veritably covered in tarp-draped cages.
Von shivered as the Nadder led her down an aisle between the rows of cages, toward the tall cabin jutting out from the deck near the back of the ship. It felt wrong to be idly walking by so many trapped dragons, even if they were her enemies.
They went around the cabin, out to the very back of the ship. The ocean behind this particular ship was clear, a dark expanse under the cloudy sky. The deck was empty, and the ship's position in the formation meant that they were standing in what might be the only blind spot the armada as a whole possessed. There were not even any dragons in the air to see them from above.
It was the perfect place for an ambush… or a clandestine meeting. She wished she could be certain which she had just walked into.
'No humans see us here,' the Nadder said sharply. 'Ours are busy or distracted. Yours is oblivious.'
"Or so they think," Maour said in her ear. "Now, let's see what they're so keen to keep from the humans here…"
'You may meet our leader, our alpha,' the Nadder said primly, stepping back and bowing her head down to the deck.
The water began to bubble ominously a stone's throw from the back of the ship. A single spire of smooth material pierced the surface, mottled grey and white. As it rose Von had to repeatedly adjust her understanding of the pure size of the dragon it was attached to, going from normal to large to worryingly massive as the spike jutted further and further up.
Then a whole collection of spikes just broke the surface, and a massive blue eye barely peaked out from under the dark water. It was larger than Von herself, and she found her own eyes drawn to its piercing gaze.
'You need not fear me,' the same female Nadder said to Von.
"Queen," Maour all but hissed in her ear. "Talking through the Nadder, Von you need to run–"
Von whipped around to stare at the Nadder, though she kept one eye on the ashy grey and white bulk out in the water. 'What is this?' she demanded.
It was possible that the Nadder was actually the leader, she didn't want to believe that their new allies were under the paw of another slave-taking monster. And if they were… They needed eye contact to get her, and she was giving it to neither the Nadder nor the big dragon.
'Nothing that will endanger you,' the Nadder said quickly. 'Do you know why I speak for the leader?'
'You are the leader, speaking through her,' Von accused.
'If it helps, she is happy to assist me,' the Nadder said seriously. 'You know of me and mine already…'
The big bulk out in the water descended, waves lapping back over the spines as they withdrew.
'Does the removal of my gaze comfort you?' the Nadder asked, tilting her head curiously. 'Or the removal of my presence?'
Nothing visibly changed, save for the Nadder straightening up and shaking her wings out. 'I do not know what the leader wants me to say to assure you,' she added in a much more informal tone of voice, 'but it really is a privilege to help him. We keep him secret from most of the humans, just in case one of them decides to turn on us. Or if the rider sometimes walks among them and pretends to be on their side. The stupid ones cannot reveal what they never knew to begin with.'
"The Queen couldn't control Toothless and her own body at the same time," Maour muttered suspiciously. Von got the impression that were she to check, she'd probably find him pacing around in their shared cabin, scowling at nothing. "We know that, and we just saw this big dragon move. If the same is true here then this Nadder is either telling the truth, too afraid to break character, or just under orders not to give the game away…"
'Why not tell me this before leading me here?' Von demanded. She wanted to believe that all of this was okay, but she wasn't going to let them convince her that easily. 'If you wanted me to feel safe, you would not have brought me here at all. He could have spoken to me at any time, through any of you.'
'In fact,' she added thoughtfully, 'for all I know I have never spoken to any dragon but him.' There was no way to know for certain, but it was entirely possible. The dragon she first spoke to when approaching the armada, the Nadder on the deck who first mentioned their leader, this Nadder here as she was escorted over, they all could have been their leader speaking through them to coerce Von to do what he wanted.
She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at the Nadder. 'Even now. You never said anything while he was moving.'
'You know much of my limits,' the Nadder growled. She tilted her head again, a visual tic Von took to mean she was not speaking for herself anymore. The choice of words helped her notice the change, too. 'I did not think you would, as you flew here of your own free will. Had I known, I would not have brought you here, for fear of giving you the wrong impression.'
'No, I think I am glad to know exactly what I am dealing with here,' Von snarled. 'You will not take me. Ever.'
'I will not try,' the Nadder said. 'I was going to ask you to join me, as I have many others, but the key part of that is that I would have asked. If you are bothered by following me, then you may refuse.'
'I refuse,' Von said immediately. 'And I am never changing my mind, no matter what is said or done.'
'Then we will speak no more of that,' the Nadder agreed. 'You would not be the first to refuse, and you will not be the last, not even tonight. I hold no grudge, though it is a grievous loss to be turned down by one such as yourself for no reason other than a wariness that I do not consider warranted when applied to myself.'
"Fancy words for someone trying to guilt-trip you into reconsidering," Maour said disapprovingly. "But if he's serious… Ask more about how it works for other dragons."
'And if I were not one such as myself, would you speak to me with such politeness after I refused you?' Von demanded, though if it were up to her she'd have said something equally polite and fled. Maour did have a point, she had asked, but she would rather not continue this nerve-wracking conversation.
'Why not stay and see?' the Nadder offered. 'All of these unfortunate captives we have obtained tonight will be given the choice before the sun has risen. Some will join me, some will not, and if you return tomorrow night you will see exactly what happens to all.'
'I just might do that,' Von said. She was curious now, though she'd definitely be going somewhere out of sight if she stayed. All of the captives were locked in cages, and the humans would surely notice a massive dragon rising out of the sea to stare at them…
The Nadder hopped away, going back around the cabin to the cage-lined front of the ship. Von glanced nervously back at the innocent-looking ocean, then jumped up, digging her claws into the wood and metal structure of the cabin. It was a multi-storied thing with a few slit windows, and between the metal ledges and wooden stretches she had no trouble scaling it in a matter of moments.
The top of the cabin was a disappointingly slanted bit of slick metal, and she had to set herself in the exact middle to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of slowly sliding down toward the far edge, but she could see the front of the ship, and beyond it the rest of the armada.
"Sunrise is coming," Maour remarked. "Whatever he's going to do, it's going to be fast and totally unremarkable, if he doesn't think any humans will notice anything amiss. I wonder what they think they've brought all these caged dragons here for."
'I wonder if they're as stupid as he seems to think they are,' Von murmured. She saw the Nadder stalking along the cage rows and tugging tarps off, lashing out with her tail and yanking them with practiced ease. The dragons within were all stirring, having long since slept off their defeat and capture…
"It occurs to me that Drago's men favor knocking dragons out while securing them," Maour said slowly. "And that doing so is how you free a dragon from a Queen's control. I don't know how much they know, or how much Drago knows, but it definitely isn't nothing."
'I don't like what that implies,' Von said uneasily. 'Maour, do you think there's another Queen out there? In the ice nest?'
'Now that we know there is one here, there has to be one out there,' Maour said grimly. "Otherwise there wouldn't be a fight at all."
O-O-O
The Nadder was coming, yanking tarps off of cages as it went. Ruffnut despised the sort of do-gooder efficiency it was employing, doing every cage without fail and without being distracted. She preferred the easily-avoided human blunderers that most of the armada employed to do the menial tasks.
But this was apparently a no-human zone; she hadn't seen a single soldier set foot on this ship since the last of them left after delivering the cages. She had hung back, draping herself in the tarp hanging off one of the larger cages, ignored the content snoring of the morbidly obese Gronckle trapped within, and waited to see what was next.
Getting caught by a busybody Nadder was not what she had expected, and she wasn't planning on letting it happen. The cage she was hiding by was close to the overly elaborate cabin of the ship, and all the cages between her and there were still covered. The moment the Nadder stopped her efficient march to disentangle a tarp from where it had snagged on a bit of warped metal, Ruffnut moved.
Out from under the tarp, back behind the next cage in line, and then past the half-dozen cages between her and the ship's cabin. She hit the forebodingly large door with a muted thump, then belatedly grabbed at the handle and pulled.
The old Thorston luck came through for her, and the door came without any resistance, proving once again that all the security in the world would never stop a determined infiltrator so long as idiots forgot to lock things. She slipped inside, closed the door, and took in her new hiding spot.
It was a totally boring, totally dark cabin. There were stairs leading downward, and that was something she intended on investigating, but there was still the question of what the Nadder was taking all the tarps off for… Many of the dragons were grumbling or roaring, there was no point in getting them riled up if nothing else was going to happen.
The Nadder stripped the last tarp off, a bare dozen steps away from Ruffnut's barely-cracked door, and fluttered back to the front of the ship.
'You are confused!' the Nadder announced, so loudly that every dragon listening heard her. Whatever she might lack in slacking capabilities, she at least had a good set of lungs on her. Ruffnut approved.
'Let us go!' someone bellowed. A rising chorus of less defiantly-put pleas followed him.
'Listen to me and you will have your freedom when I am done speaking,' the Nadder declared. 'Those who do not listen may not, though.'
A sullen silence dropped over the ship like a smothering blanket.
The Nadder began pacing down the lines of cages, eyeing each and every prisoner as she passed them. She made a full circuit in silence, returning to the front of the ship before she spoke again.
'You are confused,' she repeated. 'You were told many terrible things about what we do to those we capture. That we kill them, or that we torture and enslave them. None of this is true. You were enslaved–'
Some of the caged dragons snarled at her, while others didn't react. Ruffnut would give this speaker points for keeping an audience's attention if she didn't have them all in cages to start with.
'Or you lived in that ice nest of your own volition, and simply accepted the leadership of your alpha, it matters not to me,' the Nadder concluded. 'Now, you are all free to make another choice, or to make your first choice.'
'You may leave,' she said, moving with sharp, jerky motions. She flicked her tail at the sky, and at the line of glimmering light growing on the horizon. 'To go back to the ice nest, or to go elsewhere and be free of this fight entirely. Or you may stay and fight to free the rest of the ice nest.'
'If you stay,' she continued after a short pause, 'I will be just as strict about you following orders as your previous alpha was. You will fight with us, and you will cooperate with the humans, not as their thralls, but to use them as you already do. I will not allow you to rebel against myself or the human leader. Once the enemy alpha in the ice nest is defeated, I will release you entirely. Or you can choose not to join us, and fly free instead.'
Ruffnut wondered whether the dragons would actually be allowed to leave. She didn't remember Eret saying anything about what Drago did with his captured dragons, but he didn't seem the type to placidly watch some of them fly away of their own accord.
'Each of you will be brought to the back of the ship tomorrow night,' the Nadder concluded. 'You will be asked for your decision then. Think long and hard about whether you are willing to leave your friends and family trapped in that ice nest, and about whether what you have seen done there strikes you as the work of a good alpha, now that you are free to consider it. Consider whether your former alpha gave you such a choice instead of simply claiming you for a lifetime of serving his whims.'
The armored Nadder flew away, leaving many cages with many confused dragons. Some of them struck up conversations, while others sat in sullen silence.
They were from the ice nest, one and all… The same ice nest Toothless and Einn and the Skrills were sitting around at.
"Time for an interrogation," Ruffnut said to herself, leaning back from the door to crack her knuckles. Sure, her presence would probably cause an uproar, but she could talk to them and they could talk back. At least one of them would want to tell her all about the Skrill and their Night Fury captives–
A Night Fury jumped down and approached the nearest cage. 'Tell me about my kin at your nest,' she demanded of the Nightmare in the cage.
"Or not," Ruffnut grumbled. "Thanks a lot, Von." It would probably be easier for Von to get the full story… She wouldn't have to deal with the obligatory 'I am a human and I talk like you' explanation, at least.
Besides, there was still a foreboding ship's interior to explore. It wasn't like Ruffnut had nothing to do. If she was lucky, she'd find the mead storage down those stairs. Eret couldn't object to a drunken party if she supplied the stuff to get drunk with…
O-O-O
Toothless knew little about being drunk, all of his limited knowledge on the subject from Maour's off-handed comments, but he was under the impression that it dulled the mind and maybe dulled pain, or made it easier to ignore.
He would very much have liked to be drunk right about now, if that was how it worked, impaired judgment notwithstanding. It wasn't like he'd be making any big decisions today. Or any decisions at all, given he'd need a capable, non-broken body to do anything.
Tolerable dropped him to the ground with no consideration for his injuries, and he collapsed bonelessly with a yelp. His everything hurt, save for his wings, tailfin, and hip-fins. He knew he was supposed to take those being left untouched as a warning, but compared to the rest of his body it was hard to see it as anything other than an unintended mercy.
His legs were all injured, ranging from bruised to broken, but he forced himself to limp on the less-pained ones. He collapsed again near the pond, worn out, and took several mouthfuls of water.
He would just… stay here. At least for today. No need to move until midday, when their painfully small portion of fish would be delivered…
He could see now how the others had grown so downtrodden and unmotivated. With time, and maybe another failed escape attempt or two, he might find himself similarly sapped of his drive to escape. He was going to have to emulate Einn for a while if he wanted to heal, and once he was healed it would be easy to just continue to do nothing.
'I don't feel like telling jokes today,' Grey said. She was nowhere to be seen, using their link to speak to him, and he assumed that she had crawled to her usual hiding spot.
He felt bad about not thinking of her before now; she was not quite so badly injured as him – neither was Star, for that matter, but when he looked over at her she and Hefnd both gave him such a glare that he hastily looked away. But it was Grey that he really felt responsible for.
'How are you?' he asked quietly.
'I don't want to make jokes,' Grey repeated sadly. 'I don't… feel good. I haven't felt this bad in a long time.'
'I'm so sorry,' he whined. 'I got you into this.'
'It was fun to believe…' she said. 'But now you'll be broken and mean like them.'
'What?' he asked. He didn't quite see why she had made that leap…
Or maybe he did. She was worried he'd grow bitter and push her away. Maybe that had happened with Hefnd and Star. Surely they'd both tried to escape at least once since being trapped here.
It was tempting, wallowing in his own pain and disappointment, but he wasn't going to. He was just letting himself sulk for a while.
'Next time I'll have a better plan,' he assured her.
'There will be a next time?' She sounded genuinely surprised.
'Of course, there will be a next time,' he told her. 'I'm not going to let a beating put me off escape forever. This is just a setback.'
'It hurts, though,' Grey whined.
'It does, and I am not saying otherwise,' he rumbled reassuringly 'But that doesn't mean we're done. It just means we have to wait until we've healed to try again.'
'I don't know if I want to try again,' she admitted.
'Then I'll do it myself and come back for you,' he replied. 'I am not going to leave and never return if I do get away.'
'Promise?' she asked quietly.
'I promise.' He didn't know what kind of person he'd be if he left any of the Furies here. 'But I'd rather escape with you.'
What might have been a touching moment was ruined by a loud bark from Hefnd just as Toothless finished speaking. 'If all that muttering to yourself means you are crazy, do us a favor and be crazy away from our drinking water.'
'I am no crazier than I was yesterday,' Toothless barked back.
'So the answer is yes,' Hefnd snorted. 'I guess you'll be trying again soon… It will take a few more beatings to get rid of that much stupidity.'
He looked to Star, maybe hoping for her to say something snide, but she was sprawled out on her side and paid them no attention at all. Toothless would be hard-pressed to say whether she or Einn looked more out of it on this particular day… though from the few injuries he could see, Star had gotten off surprisingly lightly. Bruises and cuts, but not nearly as many as he was currently trying to ignore on himself, and as far as he could tell she hadn't any broken limbs.
Stupid,' Hefnd snorted. 'Both of you. There is no way to escape. If there was, I would have gotten out of here years ago.'
A retort came to mind, something about how Einn had gotten out and Hefnd was still here, but Toothless held his tongue. If he made Hefnd mad, there was nothing stopping the other male from walking over and adding to his injuries. Best to let him have the last word.
'I… am not sure I want to try to escape again,' Grey said in his ear, reminding him of what they had been talking about prior to Hefnd's interruption. 'But I can help you plan?'
'Of course,' he rumbled, taking care to keep his voice barely audible to himself. 'Our first plan did not work out… Want to go over what went wrong?' When something he and Maour made failed, the first thing to do was to find out why. The same applied to plans.
'I got us caught,' Grey sighed.
'Well, yes, but that came after our plan failed,' Toothless corrected. 'Why did you do that, though? You did not have time to explain your reasoning.'
'I thought Nærandi would help us,' Grey whined. 'I hoped… but she didn't want to.'
'Who is Nærandi?' he asked. 'How do you know her name?'
'She was from before,' Grey said sadly. 'She helped take care of me after my father died. Before this place, before the Skrill and the King.'
'When you were very young?' Toothless guessed, the pieces clicking into place in his mind with no difficulty at all. He had two young siblings at home, he was often reminded of how they trusted him instinctively, without hesitation. The same would apply to anyone who interacted with them before they were old enough to grow out of that, even after years apart.
'Yes, my father died right after I hatched,' Grey confirmed. 'He was sick… He was always sick, my mother told me he had a cough that wouldn't go away the entire time she knew him. But he didn't expect it to get worse.'
'So Nærandi started helping you and your mother,' Toothless said. 'And when you saw her tonight, you thought she would help again. Any decent dragon would.'
'She didn't, though,' Grey whined. 'I guess she wasn't allowed to.'
'The King will have made sure none of his people are able to help us, even if we ask,' Toothless agreed. 'It probably was not her fault.' Though the way she had looked at them and then roared for help didn't strike him as the act of someone who wanted to help as much as they were allowed…
He'd rather let Grey feel bad about the King controlling everyone than about her parental substitute betraying her, though, so he left it at that. 'But that happened after our plan had failed. Do you know what went wrong before that?'
'We ran out of fire,' she said. 'The wall was too thick.'
'Too thick, not enough fire, or not enough time, take your pick because they all mean the same thing,' he grumbled. 'I underestimated what we'd need to get through.' He had no way of knowing, of course, and he had bet on it being thin enough, else their plan was dead in the water… But it hadn't been. That was his mistake.
'Sadistic talked about Star climbing out…' Grey said tentatively.
'I don't think we can do that,' Toothless said bluntly. 'If she was even really doing it in the first place. One slip from high enough up and we're not risking recapture, we're risking death.' He might still have considered it for himself regardless, but the interior of the ice mountain was sloped inward towards the top. He'd be clinging upside-down and using only his claws to hold to the ice. That would never work for such a long climb.
'There are only four ways out,' Grey said thoughtfully. 'By wing, by climbing, by flaming, or by swimming. We cannot fly, climb, or survive a swim. So we must flame.'
'That's it, yeah,' he grumbled, somewhat surprised she had put it so succinctly. Every time he thought he understood how she would act, how she functioned, something changed without him noticing. He didn't think he knew which was the real Grey, not really.
The real Grey…
'Grey isn't actually your name, is it?' he asked. She called the Gronckle Nærandi, and Grár, the equivalent word for grey, would make no sense as a name for a hatchling… If she hatched grey at all, which did not seem right. She had not hatched scaleless, so far as he knew.
'No,' she said readily. 'Star calls me that. And Hefnd. And the Skrill. But it fits me better than my real name, now.'
'Would you mind telling me your real name?' he asked gently. He wished he could see her face, but he wouldn't ask her to move with her injuries just for his convenience. Also, he didn't want to move a muscle. The pain was a dull background ache so long as he wasn't actively moving.
'It's a joke, and I do not feel like joking,' Grey said bitterly.
'Okay, then,' he conceded. 'Let's go back to figuring out how to fix the mistakes of our last escape attempt.'
'That's no better,' Grey complained. 'We need more flame, it's the only way to go further into the wall, which is the only way we have to get out of the nest. And the only ones who can give us more flame to work with…'
'Are stuck in here with us,' Toothless sighed. Einn, Hefnd, and Star. A distant mute who acted as if he was waiting for death, an angry male with a chip on his shoulder, and a cruel female who didn't act much like an unwilling prisoner. There were reasons he'd foregone trying to get them to cooperate on the first escape attempt.
But that hadn't worked out so well, in the end. Grey was right; they needed more fire, and the only source of fire that wasn't stuck obeying the King happened to be their fellow captives.
'Tomorrow,' he groaned. 'If we have to do anything with them, it's waiting until tomorrow.' This was not going to be pleasant, even by the standards of his captivity thus far. Giving up and waiting for rescue was tempting…
Tempting in a way he knew all too well. He wasn't going to wait more than a decade for random chance to save him. Not this time. He could work against his enemies, so he would. Doing nothing was not an option.
Hefnd was right. It was going to take a few more beatings, at the very least. He was far from done trying to escape. If anything, he needed to go bigger this time.
Author's Note: Grey is tricky to write, sometimes. Not in the least because who she is as a person is mostly buried under who she feels she should be, which in turn is hidden beneath who she has to be to keep herself going most of the time. Thus, her mood and behavior swings wildly depending on the situation and how she is feeling, and the thing about such an oscillating character is that it's especially hard to keep them in character. Like trying to color within the lines with a constantly shaking hand.
If anyone wants a musical suggestion, 'Wrecked' by Imagine Dragons makes me think of Grey, but not directly enough to be a spoiler for her character.
In other news, special congratulations go to the reader QuiteARandomFan, for being the first to correctly deduce that Drago's Bewilderbeast was talking through the Nadder from a few chapters ago! (And possibly the only one to do so without the advantage of having seen somebody else make the same guess, I'm not sure.)