O-O-O
Toothless had grown used to being ignored by the scores of dragons visible beyond the tauntingly clear ice wall separating their little prison from the rest of the nest. They flew around within eyeshot of him, all day every day, but none ever looked his way. They didn't go out of their way to ignore the prison, that would have been some form of recognition. They just didn't acknowledge it.
It was frustrating and demeaning, but compared to everything else he was enduring it was a small thing. They were under the control of the King, there was almost certainly some sort of rule against interacting with Night Furies. So long as he kept that in mind, he didn't really resent their lack of attention. At least they provided something interesting to watch while he sat around and waited for his body to heal.
Such as now. It was midday, and usually the flow of dragons entering and exiting the ice nest via the hole in the top was a slow trickle, one or two every so often. Those who went out were out for the day, doubtless enjoying the brisk air and open skies, playing over the ice fields and filling their stomachs whenever they wanted. Those who stayed inside had little reason to leave, apart from the aforementioned sating of hunger. Fledglings played, adults flew around and mingled, but it all happened inside the nest. Dawn and dusk saw the only large movements through the top of the nest.
But not today. A whole flight of colorful dragons were flying down into the ice nest, many of them visibly injured, their gaits noticeably slowed and awkward. Some sported fresh wounds, while others had nothing visibly wrong with them, but all were tired, and while there were reunions, none were overly joyful.
He knew what a returning raiding party looked like, and he knew that such a party had gone out a few days ago. It was not hard to put the two together. But the raids he knew were all for food, and failure was a consequence of not stealing enough. He saw no dead cattle dangling from the returning raiders at all, so this was either a horrific failure… Or they were not raiding for food at all.
'What do they do out there?' he murmured to Grey. He could feel her watching through the link. The nest was infinitely more interesting than a blank slab of rock. 'Why go out? Who do they fight?'
'Oh, that's the seasonal headbutting tournament returning,' Grey said neutrally. 'That's why so many of them are hurt. Have you ever tried running headfirst into someone with horns?'
'It must be a very popular pastime, for so many to spend so long doing it,' he said dryly. 'Who won? Because they all look like they lost to me.'
'The reigning champion won, of course,' Grey said. 'A big rock.'
'Should have guessed,' he snorted. 'But really, what are they actually doing out there? For the plan.' The escape plan, though he didn't think this was likely to have an impact on it.
'I do not know for sure, I obviously have never been on one,' Grey explained, dropping the humorous tangents as he knew she would. 'But from the things the Skrill have said I think they go out and attack the nearest human nests. Driving them away, keeping the territory clear… They've started doing it a lot more often since shortly before Star was caught, and they come back looking like they lost more often than not.'
'They do it purely to keep the humans away?' The Queen had never wanted that, because she cultivated the humans much like one might cultivate a herd of deer, but if one didn't want them for their steady supply of prey… He didn't see the King rising to receive tribute. The four-winged dragon and his enigmatic rider had descended to land on the ground closest to the King's massive head, but other than that the raiding party was dispersing to lick their wounds.
'Who wants humans close by?' Grey asked rhetorically. 'They're no fun. The one here is not, anyway. I have never met any others.'
'Really?' He wasn't about to go digging into her past, not when she had as much as told him that she wasn't comfortable talking about some of it, but that was a fairly safe topic. 'I honestly don't know if I've ever met anyone who doesn't know about humans. They are as widespread as they are strange, you find them everywhere.'
'Well, I have not been everywhere,' Grey huffed. 'I hatched on a tiny island with a bunch of boulders and not much else, and then after my Sire died we flew here because we heard about a big, safe nest for everyone.' She huffed derisively. 'So safe…'
'That's not right,' Toothless growled, offended on her behalf. 'Who told you it was safe here for our kind?'
'But it was for a little while,' Grey whined. 'Then the Skrill came, and the King spent a long time talking to them, and they… did this.'
So it was the Skrill who started all of this, regardless of what the King had said. Toothless wondered what they had told him, to prompt a change from equality to lifetime imprisonment for Night Furies. It was too bad he was likely never going to get an answer to that; it all wrapped back around to the original question. To why Skrill hated his kind with what was usually an unbridled ferocity. Very much bridled here, though…
Maybe that was why it all happened. If the King was given a choice between five Skrill servants and two Night Furies, one of the latter being a child, maybe he had simply chosen the latter. He humored the Skrill, let them satisfy their needs so as to keep them as servants.
No, that didn't fit. One simple order would have been enough to curb their homicidal tendencies; it was enough, here. He hadn't needed to sacrifice one or the other, and there definitely wasn't any need for this strange compromise of indefinite imprisonment. Something they'd told him made him want to treat Night Furies badly on his own, without any pressure from them.
It might just be that the King hadn't needed much convincing. Toothless had yet to meet a King or Queen who was actually a good person. Maybe the Skrill had simply presented a convenient excuse to indulge in his darker inclinations.
It didn't really matter why they did what they did, but he would have liked to know for sure. It was a shame everyone who might be able to give him a real answer would just as soon lie or kill him if he asked.
While he thought, he watched the distant four-winged dragon and his human companion. There wasn't much to see for a while, whatever conversation going on between them and the King inaudible to him. Interestingly, the dragon rider stood off to the side, not in any way indicating that they were interacting with the King, or indeed hearing anything at all.
'Didn't Sadistic go on this raid?' Grey asked, distracting him just as the four-winged dragon bowed deeply to the King. 'I didn't see him coming back in.'
Toothless glanced up at the top of the nest, but the dragons had all returned and there was nobody there. He hadn't seen Sadistic either, and generally Skrill tended to be hard to miss. 'I wonder if he's dead,' he mused. The various pains spread across his body gave him ample reason to hope that was the case, if he didn't have reason enough already.
'I hope so,' Grey said vehemently.
They kept watch on the nest for a little while longer, but Sadistic was nowhere to be seen. Most of the dragons who had returned landed or went back outside. The four-winged dragon and his human companion made their way around the nest, stopping to interact with many of the most seriously wounded. The human often dismounted to do one thing or another – they were just too far away for Toothless to make out specifics, but he assumed it involved tending to wounds given who they were stopping at – while the four-winged dragon looked on.
Toothless was becoming more and more sure that whatever connection existed between the dragon and his human, it wasn't like what he had with Maour. There was no link, no indication that they were bantering or talking at all. When the human interacted with others, it was always with exaggerated movements that ill-fit their body, obviously adapted to put dragons at ease, not words. It would be hard to feel threatened by someone that moved like a kicked fledgling all the time, but that wasn't the same thing as understanding them.
He saw nothing to disprove his theory as they finished their rounds and took to the air. Even when leaving, the human did a passable impression of a fledgling ducking away from a much larger, irritated dragon. It was like they had come to the nest completely oblivious to how dragons acted, and proceeded to learn from the most inexperienced examples available. Without being able to properly communicate, nobody would have been able to tell them that their adopted mannerisms were ridiculous.
The human and the four-winged dragon parted ways on a grassy outcropping. The human disappeared into a crack between boulders, and the four-winged dragon returned to the air, flying…
Directly towards Toothless, and by extension the little prison he was stuck in. 'Now what does he want?' he murmured, turning gingerly to watch as the four-winged dragon flew right up to Tolerable, their overseer for the moment.
'Your kin waits outside the nest, in a crack between two icebergs he says you would know of,' the four-winged dragon said loudly. His voice was deep and booming; Toothless suspected that he said everything loudly, whether or not he meant to.
'What does he want me for?' Tolerable asked. 'I do know the place, but he can get his tail in the air and come here himself.'
'He is badly injured and does not wish to be seen by them,' the four-winged dragon explained, looking down at Toothless and the others as he spoke.
'And you think this is stupid, so you all but roar that he is hurt for them to hear?' Tolerable asked, sparking irritably.
The four-winged dragon flew up to land on the ice outcropping that made up the back wall of the rocky area Toothless and the others were kept in during the day. Tolerable leaped up to join him.
'I would have said he was being prideful, but that was before I saw him mauled by one of them with basic trickery,' the four-winged dragon said dryly. He was still easily audible to everyone nearby, including Toothless, Star, Hefnd, and Einn. The latter three were still lounging by the lake, feigning disinterest, but Toothless had noticed both Hefnd and Star's ears perking up as they listened.
He certainly understood their interest, but it paled in comparison to his own. That had to be Von they were talking about! Sadistic had fought her and lost, badly, though he wasn't dead so he must have managed to escape.
'How badly?' Tolerable asked seriously. 'And tell me he at least got the Usurper responsible.'
'Quite badly, and no,' the four-winged dragon said bluntly. 'A false claw to the neck is the worst of it. He is lucky to be alive at all, if it had struck at any other angle he would not have survived. As it is, he is having trouble eating and even breathing, and my human's attentions are of limited help.'
'Your pet never does do much for the real injuries,' Tolerable growled.
'She does more than any other can, and he may well have died by now if she had not done what she could, so keep a civil tongue in your mouth and do not call her my pet,' the four-winged dragon snarled dangerously. His wings were out, subtly separated, and he was definitely larger than the Skrill facing him.
'I take it back,' Tolerable said neutrally. 'Forget I said anything. What did the Usurper do, exactly? I noticed that the attack seems to have gone more poorly than usual.'
'This Usurper joined up with the human flock that has been troubling us for so long,' the four-winged dragon growled irritably. 'She has a human too, and the two of them sought me and mine out right at the beginning. Your kin distracted them for a little while, but we had to come down and save him, and then her human injured mine and I barely got us out in time. The attack did not go well without our guidance, and the traitors continue to grow in number despite us killing them where we can.'
'Humans, traitors, and Usurpers,' Tolerable spat, little bolts of lightning snapping loudly along his body as he spoke. 'A disgusting mix. You should do better, and never underestimate Usurpers.'
'I learned my lesson, and my human has too,' the four-winged dragon assured him. 'For that matter, I am not just here to tell you of your kin's plight. I am going to go down and look at your captive Usurpers.'
'You what?' Tolerable huffed. 'Did the Alpha give you special permission?' he spat bitterly. 'Everyone who is not a Skrill has been ordered to not interact with them unless it is to stop them from escaping.'
'I thought so,' Toothless huffed. He hoped Grey would take heart from that confirmation; her Gronckle surrogate Dam hadn't voluntarily betrayed her, at least.
'I am not going to interact with them, I am going to look at them,' the four-winged dragon said carefully. 'They will not speak, I will not speak to them. I just want to get a good look without being in the midst of a bloody battle.'
'It must be nice, being under such vague orders that they can be twisted to fit your whims,' Tolerable growled. 'Go, get a good look, and then get your human-loving behind out of my territory before I try and get creative with the rules preventing me from shredding those fat wings of yours.'
'You are not very good at convincing me that you do not deserve to be bound by our Alpha's rules,' the four-wing retorted, before leaping down into the enclosure. He landed with a heavy thump, all four of his wings spread and at the ready, and completely ignored Sadistic's impotent snarl of rage as he stalked forward. Towards the trio of Furies by the pond.
Einn, his back to the approaching dragon and as unresponsive as ever, didn't even seem aware that something was happening. Star and Hefnd both stared, but Tolerable was glaring down at them, and neither took the risk of saying something. They'd all overheard the four-winged dragon explaining his excuse for looking at them, and nobody wanted to know what the consequences would be if they spoke up. Not that he knew of any reason for them to want to say anything, consequences or not.
The four-winged dragon eyed Star and Hefnd as he approached, his wings still held out in a very intimidating fashion. Also a vulnerable one, if somebody got it into their head to put a blast in the shadowed armpit between upper and lower wings… Toothless couldn't see any scales there, and he suspected it was a weak spot. He wondered if the four-winged dragon was aware he was giving his enemies a glimpse at such a thing… And if Von had thought to exploit it when they fought.
Not that he was likely to be fighting the four-winged dragon himself anytime soon. The massive, tan-scaled male stared at Star and Hefnd for a few moments, walking around the pond in an arc large enough that he never came very close to them. He glanced over at Toothless once or twice, but didn't seem interested. Grey, of course, was hidden in her usual place, and thus completely out of sight. Not that the four-winged dragon would want to look at her, if he was trying to get an idea of what a normal Night Fury looked like.
Toothless wasn't sure he believed that excuse, though. It seemed like a very flimsy reason to go to all the trouble of arguing with Tolerable. There wouldn't be much to learn from looking at two out-of-shape, tired and mistreated examples of his kind. Star and Hefnd weren't even examples of healthy Night Furies, and they wouldn't be demonstrating any sort of fighting technique. The four-winged dragon was almost certainly learning nothing he hadn't already learned from an encounter with Von.
'For someone interested in them, he does not seem very interested,' Grey said quietly.
'My thoughts exactly.' They both watched as the four-winged dragon huffed and took to the sky, flying right over the ice wall and back into the nest proper. 'Do you think he was here for something else?'
'What else is there?' Grey responded. 'Maybe he just wanted to be the bearer of bad news… Or to humiliate Sadistic!' She sounded taken with that idea, eagerly carrying on. 'Sadistic was probably whining about being hurt, and insulting his human even when she tried to help, and after he and his human intervened in the first place… He must be getting Sadistic back, and coming to see us was just a ploy to make it seem like he had a good reason to be here.'
'I'd hoped for something we could use, but…' Toothless had to admit that sounded likely. Maybe Sadistic wasn't whining, but he seemed the type to be surly and unappreciative, and even Tolerable was capable of getting on the four-wing's nerves when it came to his human. 'That does seem likely.'
Still, they could both appreciate the good news for its own sake. Tolerable might be glaring down at them, and the food might be miserably inadequate, and his injuries were aching, but at least one of the Skrill was suffering too. And Von and Maour were still out there, with new allies.
They were doing their part. He really needed to make some progress on his end… and this was the perfect conversation-starter. His injuries might disagree, given his plans all seemed to require moving, but he was feeling relatively good, and a good mood was rare enough that he wasn't going to waste it.
'That was something,' he said casually, hauling himself to his paws with all the grace of a hundred-year-old invalid. 'Want to see if the good news will make them less terrible than usual? We might get them to think about escaping, if the worst of the Skrill is seriously hurt.'
'No… You can do it.' She tried to sound confident, but Toothless heard right through her forced bravado. She was the most optimistic of all of them – though he was fairly sure much of her demeanor was forced, given it came and went so unpredictably – and she had almost decided against trying again after just one failed attempt.
If her attempt with him had been her first, of course. Another piece of her history she might share if he asked.
He limped over to the pond, made a show of taking a drink there, then let himself collapse by the water's edge, only a half-dozen paces from Hefnd's restlessly twitching tail.
'Am I the only one who is enjoying the thought of Sadistic being badly injured and hiding out?' he asked, keeping his voice low. Tolerable usually didn't intervene in conversations, but he would still probably listen if he could.
'It will just make him more irritable when he returns,' Hefnd growled. 'But… yes, I do like the thought of him limping around.'
'Serves him right,' Star muttered from her position snuggled up next to Hefnd. Her few, relatively minor injuries were healing slower than Toothless' own, which he attributed to her generally wasted form. He wasn't so far gone yet, though his stomach was constantly growling at him.
'And did you hear that it was one of us that hurt him?' Toothless asked.
'That four-winged idiot could be heard halfway across the nest, of course we heard,' Hefnd snorted. 'She should have finished him.'
'Still, he's out of it for now,' Toothless pressed. 'He was the worst of them, from what I've seen.'
'To you,' Star said, lifting her head to glare at him. 'Some of us are capable of keeping our heads down. You should learn.'
'That only works for her,' Grey said morosely.
'Sadistic is out of it,' Toothless pressed. 'Does that really just make you want to keep doing what you've been doing?'
'Sounds like he didn't hit you hard enough,' Hefnd said dismissively. 'There is nothing else to do.'
'Escape,' Toothless said bluntly. He resisted the urge to glance up at Tolerable, that would be as good as waving his tail to get the Skrill's attention. His voice was low, and the intermittent crackling sound Tolerable emitted when frustrated had yet to die down, meaning he could hear that the Skrill wasn't nearby. 'Sadistic is out, and the other Skrill know there is a Night Fury out there, close by. Won't they go after her?'
'She'll be caught, or she'll flee,' Star growled. 'Nothing to do with us.'
'But there'll be three or fewer Skrill around, and there are five of us,' Toothless suggested. 'Does that really not tempt you at all?'
'Five counting the imbecile and the comatose,' Star corrected. 'Einn wouldn't move if the mountain was collapsing around us, and Grey might be stupid or smitten enough to do what you say but she's no good in anything important.'
'Smitten?' Toothless snorted. 'You're mistaking basic decency and hope for something else entirely.'
'Hope is right,' Star said smugly. 'Hope for the impossible. She'd jump off a cliff if you asked.'
'I would not,' Grey muttered, as always audible only to him. 'Unless you had a good reason. You always do.'
'We're getting away from my point,' Toothless huffed at Star. 'Do you or do you not want to leave this place?'
'Talk about a stupid question,' Hefnd muttered. 'Obviously we want out. It just isn't possible.'
'So stop talking about it,' Star concluded.
'So long as you're thinking about it,' Toothless muttered, turning away from them. On the one paw, they were still rude and dismissive. On the other…
'I did not think they even wanted to escape anymore,' Grey said.
'Yeah. There's that.' At least they shared the same overall goal. If he could come up with a real, reliable plan, he might be able to talk them into participating.
O-O-O
Nobody ever slept well in the ice pits. It simply wasn't possible. Light, troubled slumber was the best Toothless had ever been able to get, and that was when he wasn't injured. With the constant pain, he would be lucky if he dozed at all before daybreak. How Grey had managed it, he wasn't sure.
So he stood awkwardly, touching as little ice as possible, and waited for the night to pass. The Skrill tasked with watching them – Cold, the one he knew the least about – didn't seem to care that he was obviously awake. So long as he was in his designated pit, there was no reason to bother with him.
It was dark out, and the nest was mostly silent. Occasionally ice cracked or crashed in the distance, and Cold often sparked erratically for no reason that Toothless knew of, but other than that all was still and quiet.
Toothless fully expected to go the entire night without a single interesting thing happening. So when he heard the telltale buzz of Gronckle wings somewhere close, he perked up. It was probably just a Gronckle going for a midnight snack or something…
The buzzing drew closer.
'Everything important is the other way,' Cold called out lazily. 'There's nothing down there.'
'Sorry, I thought this was the… Never mind.' The Gronckle was female, but given Toothless couldn't see her that was all he could tell about her.
'Get going, you're not supposed to be here,' Cold said casually. 'And why you'd want to in the first place…'
'I must have gotten turned around, I was having a bad dream,' the Gronckle said weakly.
'Go,' Cold snorted.
'Yes, I will,' she answered. The buzzing of her wings faded away.
It was a strange encounter, one that stuck with Toothless through the sleepless night. When morning and the Skrill's grasping talons came for him, it was still on his mind. He would tell Grey about it once she was properly awake; she might have some insight.
He was dropped by the pond, as usual. Grey was already hidden away in her rock pile, and the smell of fresh fish drifted on the wind…
He inhaled deeply, his stomach all but snarling at him as it twisted in on itself. That wasn't normal, the Skrill didn't bring fish in the morning.
He glanced over at Star and Hefnd, wondering if he was hallucinating. 'Do you smell that?' he asked.
'Yes, but there are no fish here,' Hefnd grumbled. 'It is probably just Sadistic taunting us from afar since he cannot do it in person.'
'Or someone with a stomach-ache vomited somewhere upwind last night,' Star said pessimistically. 'Whatever it is, we're not going to get it, so you should just ignore it.'
That made it sound like they hadn't even bothered to follow the smell and see where it was coming from… Toothless was wary of walking right into some cruel taunt or trap, but at the same time, he was starving. The possible reward was worth the risk.
He turned his nose up and scented the air. There was a faint breeze coming from over Grey's rockslide, meaning the smell was coming from that direction. There wasn't anything there beyond the rocks and the rugged stone and ice cliffs behind them, so whatever was causing the smell was probably out of reach.
Probably. Not definitely. He limped over to the base of Grey's rockpile, intent on climbing up.
Then it occurred to him that an old landslide wasn't necessarily stable, and that Grey was currently huddled under it. 'Grey, how likely is all this to collapse if I climb on top of it?' he asked.
'What?' Grey murmured lethargically. 'It… The pile? No, it should be fine… Star made a game of testing it when she first got here. She has stood and jumped on every rock in it.'
'I'd appreciate it if you came out while I go up there anyway, just in case,' Toothless admitted. 'I smell something… It's probably nothing, but I would feel stupid if I didn't make sure.'
'Okay,' Grey said reluctantly. Toothless was reminded of Star's accusation the day before, that Grey would do whatever he said. But this wasn't a big thing, he was just asking her to stand clear for safety.
Even if Star was right, and Grey was interested in him… He wasn't going to take advantage of it, or of her. Especially as he didn't see her that way in the slightest. But Star was probably blowing smoke anyway.
Grey emerged from her hiding place, crawling out from under the low-hanging rock that stopped Toothless or anybody else from trying to get into her place. She emerged, bleary-eyed and moving stiffly, her own injuries still plaguing her every step. She was lucky – and so was he, come to think of it – that all of her injuries were healing normally. An infection in a place like this might be the death of them.
'I'm out,' she mumbled sleepily, seemingly uninterested in what he was doing or why he needed her to get clear.
'I won't be long,' he assured her. He leaped up onto the lowest rock large enough to provide a pawhold, then sniffed the air and followed the scent being blown down on them. It was coming from further up, so he kept going. Thankfully the rockslide was not all that steep or treacherous; his chest was already aching from the exertion and he had to make every move gingerly so as to avoid pulling something.
Still, he could climb… and the smell was getting stronger. Fish, not fresh but not that old either, maybe a day or two out of the water at most. The breeze had faded away but the smell remained, getting stronger and stronger as he moved upward–
He almost walked right by the first fish. It was nothing more than a smell and a glimpse of silver-grey among the tan rocks, stuck between two boulders in a crevice barely big enough for his paw at its widest point.
He pulled himself back, stuck a paw down the crack without a second thought, and snagged two claws through the fleshy side, pulling it back with as much care as he could muster. Once it was free, he swallowed it in one greedy movement, not even tasting it in his haste.
That was one fish, there were fish here… But the smell remained, too strong to be from the leftover slime smeared between the rocks. He cast about, looking down into other gaps and out-of-sight nooks.
There were five, in total. Five wonderful, unexpected fish, enough to sate his hunger and then some. He ate them all as soon as he found them, for fear the Skrill would take them away from him…
But their watcher for the morning was Angry, and he was busy glaring suspiciously at Grey as she stood in the open. He had apparently decided that her unusual presence was the potential threat.
Toothless heaved a sigh of relief and began making his way back down the rockslide, thinking as he went.
Obviously, he wasn't going to keep all the fish to himself. He could bring some of them back up for Grey. There were five in total, theoretically enough for everybody to have one… But that felt like a waste. One had just made him hungrier, it would do the same to the others.
No, he wasn't going to share with everybody. Grey could have half, enough to actually be a small meal. She needed them the most, especially as she was the one he would be relying on in any future escape attempts. More than Star or Hefnd, even if they cooperated.
And then there was the reason these fish had appeared out of nowhere. He didn't believe in coincidences, not when they were this far-fetched. A Gronckle had come over the night before and given Cold an excuse. Fish were waiting in a semi-hidden place this morning. A Gronckle had wronged Grey only a few days ago, betraying her when she least expected it, even if it was involuntary.
The fish were probably meant for Grey. An apology, one that did not involve interacting with her except by proxy and thus apparently complied with the King's rules against interaction.
'Can I go back now?' Grey asked the moment he set paw on solid ground. She looked so small, scaleless and huddled in the open, obviously wanting nothing more than to return to her hiding place. She only ever came out for food, and there was none of that available now… Or so she thought.
'Sure, just a moment,' he rumbled. He threw a wing over her, ignored her surprised flinch, and pulled her close. He ducked his head under his own wing and heaved, ignoring her confusion long enough to toss up three barely-digested fish.
'We've got an ally in the nest,' he told her as she scarfed down the fish. The moment she was done he pulled away, hoping that the sudden embrace wasn't too suspicious. 'I think I might go rock-climbing every day,' he said loudly. 'It's surprisingly rewarding.'
'I suppose that means I have to come out every day?' Grey asked neutrally.
'Yes, for safety,' he told her. And for food, if this wasn't a one-time occurrence. He thought it might be, but on the other paw, a few measly fish weren't exactly a satisfactory apology. There might be more.
Even if there were not, this one-time smuggling of fish had given him hope. They had an ally in the nest, one who would help if she could figure out a way to do it while getting around the King's orders. Von and Maour had joined up with humans outside the nest. Star and Hefnd were at least open to being convinced to help in an escape attempt, if he could put a good one together.
He just had to figure out how to put it all together in the right time and place. To heal, plot, and wait for a good opportunity. He could do that.
Author's Note: A week late? No, surely not. It's only been two weeks, right?
Let's just say that while I expected moving to take up a few days, I didn't anticipate the preparations for moving dominating a week of my life, and then some. I do still intend to do a chapter every two weeks. If nothing else, there are only ten chapters left. That's not that much, comparatively speaking.
Also, for anyone wondering: My new story, Unwilling Flame, is not going to cut into any of my writing time for this story. I wrote it two years ago, and rewrote it in bits and pieces over this summer. That's done, all I'm doing every week is uploading the latest chapter. Living Freely is actually the only thing I'm currently writing. So no worries on that front. If you must worry, worry about the college workload burying me…