O-O-O
The world was big.
This was the sum total of Grey's conclusions after a week of observation and a thousand questions. The world was big and she had seen none of it. Even if she counted the things she half-remembered from her time as a hatchling, which really shouldn't count as it was all so fuzzy, she had seen basically nothing.
It was oddly comforting to understand that all of the horrible things she had experienced happened in a tiny, forgotten corner of a wider and hopefully kinder world. Listening to Kappi and his siblings, such was the case. Even when they spoke of war and other problems, all she heard was that these things happened in the past. They were gone and would stay gone, leaving better things in their wake.
"Ready?" Maour asked her, his nasally human voice catching her attention just as thoroughly as the young male Night Fury's voice that came with it.
'Throw it!' she barked, safe in the knowledge that there would be no consequence for being loud or enthusiastic, not even one as inconsequential as Star making some rude comment.
Maour tossed the balled-up crinkly thing – parchment, he had called it, a new word to associate with a new thing – at her, and she expertly batted it out of the air with a paw. It fell to the deck, where she smashed it flat with her other paw. Her claws dug into the wood as she expertly shredded the crumpled result.
One of the humans watching from elsewhere on the deck grumbled something low and long.
Maour shrugged his tiny shoulders at them. "Put it on our tab, then. But this is a dragon trapping ship, what's a few more claw marks on the deck?"
The other human grumbled some more, but Grey did her best to ignore him. She didn't quite understand who these humans were, beyond the bits and pieces she overheard from the two humans who spoke in a way she could understand, but it was fine. Kappi's brother and the unrelated female with blond nubs atop her head had it under control. The dragons hidden inside the ship had all been set free, the cages disassembled so they couldn't be used again on short notice.
Grey had watched as the other dragons were freed, back when the ice field was still visible behind the ship. Some of them had snarled at her – at the Night Furies as a group, maybe, but after so long trapped in their nest she felt it was directed specifically at her – but they had left without picking a fight.
She sometimes dreamed that they had come back and taken her, and that she was being carried back to the ice nest, but those were just dreams. Kappi had told her to be careful, but also not to worry about such things. He and his sister and all the other people on the ship were looking out for her specifically.
That helped her sleep well enough to avoid nightmares, most of the time.
"Did you think about what we were talking about yesterday?" Maour asked, pulling another sheet of parchment out. She watched as he crumpled it up with his deft little claws.
'Fixing my wings?' She wasn't opposed to the result, only the method. 'Is there no easier way than breaking them and realigning them?'
"None that I know," Maour confirmed. "Though you'll have to ask Eldurhjarta when we reach the Isle of Night. I don't want to speak for her."
'I will do that.' And in the meantime she would try to get used to the idea of having her wings broken… It would hurt so much, she still vaguely remembered the pain of having them broken the first time… It was a hard concept to grasp, and a harder sacrifice to commit to.
The alternative, staying on her paws, forever barred from the sky… It had never troubled her overmuch before, but perhaps only because it was an impossibility. Her mother had said to be grounded was to be driven insane, but that had never happened to her, or if it had she had never noticed. She could stand remaining grounded.
For now she had no choice, the one who could fix her was not here. Maybe she would feel differently later. Maybe once she had her life together on her paws, she could retake the air. One thing at a time.
'I might do it, even if she says that breaking them again is the only way,' she told Maour. It was only fair she let him know she hadn't dismissed his request outright. He wanted her to think about it, not forget about it until later.
"It's fine either way, I just wanted to make sure you know what your options are," he said. He held up the new ball of parchment. "Ready?"
'Ready!'
O-O-O
Ruffnut had been waiting for this moment since the first time she laid eyes on the hunky chunk of man that was Eret, son of Eret. They were alone in a small room, Maour and his draconic siblings were elsewhere, the two less than interesting tagalong Furies were lazing about elsewhere, and Eret's crew was busy. It was the perfect moment.
Now if only he would stop unrolling his precious map and notice her existence…
"Show me where this Mahelmetan island is," he said, pinning the map to the table by the corners. "I've never heard of it."
"Oh, that?" She mentally rearranged the map right-side up in her mind, then tried to estimate distances. "Right about… here." in the empty air a good two paces to the South of what his map covered.
"No, seriously," Eret retorted.
"This is as serious as I can be," Ruffnut said. "Take it or leave it. We want to go here, way down South."
"That will be months of sailing, and the people down there are as likely to stab you as trade with you!" Eret complained. He was decidedly less attractive when he crossed his arms and scowled at her like he was doing now. She hadn't even done anything to earn his ire… this time. "How am I supposed to feed my crew? Pay them, even, since your 'friend' let all the captured dragons go?"
"Same way we're feeding four Night Furies, three of which were literally starving when we arrived," Ruffnut pointed out. "All the fresh fish you can eat, no effort required." Though the invalids were eating disappointingly normal portions, a far cry from the massive gorging sessions she had expected. Something about them not being able to eat a lot after so long deprived.
"So we can die of scurvy instead of starvation?" he asked sarcastically. "Bottom line is I'm not taking you all the way out there as things stand. Your dragons can kill me, but so can abject poverty, mutiny, or disease. Make it worth my while or get off my ship."
Ruffnut knew an opening when she heard one. "You want me to make it worth your while?" she asked, smiling seductively at him.
He squinted at her, then shook his head. "Monetarily," he clarified, much to her disappointment. "I don't bed crazy."
"Darn." She could push, but that wouldn't be fun. She was interesting and zany and unpredictable, and if he didn't like that then maybe she didn't like him. All of his playing along and playing the boring complement to her, though…
"Wait." She held a hand out. "To be clear. You don't secretly enjoy the chaos I strive to cause in every aspect of my life?" She had assumed he did, but his position of authority drove him to deny it and act as if she was annoying.
"You're trying to-" He cut off his near-yelled question with a wince and pinched the bridge of his nose. "No. Not going to ask. Just… Find some way to pay my crew well enough that they can tolerate you, or take your dragons and leave when we find somewhere still standing to resupply at."
"Well… Fine!" She spun around, her back to the utterly stodgy disappointment that was Eret, son of the likely equally boring senior Eret. Never had she been so disappointed. What good was a perfect body and a great fake exaggeration if the guy with both wasn't faking and really was that boring? To think that she had spent so much time messing with him! His name should have been the first clue, guys named after their ancestors never had any creativity, or if they did they never directed it in fun directions…
"Maour," she growled. "Hiccup the third, Eret the Eret… You're all the same."
"What?" Eret asked.
"Without a spark of talent!" she declared, whirling back around to glare at him. "That burning flame of passion for all things contradictory and destructive and creative! The need to break the shallow molds all the boring little people wallow in each and every day! To break things and burn things and make fun of the remnants!"
"I have never in my life even thought of any of that, and it sounds terrible to me," Eret said.
"To think I wasted my time on you," she lamented, tugging his map off the table and turning to go.
"Hey, that's my map!" he complained.
"Yeah, and it's not useful," she retorted. "I'm going to improve it." With all the necessary landmarks to navigate home, and if there were some particularly creative doodles in the margins, well, he wouldn't be able to get rid of them without cutting up his precious map.
O-O-O
On a normal day, Maour would have found Ruffnut's strenuous complaining tedious.
"I thought I'd found somebody fun and daring," Ruffnut moaned, scuffing her boot on the dock. Both hands were shoved in her tunic, and she was the picture of dejected misery. "Someone I could break out of the rule-following and stuffiness. Someone with a ship and weapons and a thirst for adventure."
'What part of 'traps and sells dragons' made you think he was adventurous?' Von asked. She sat in plain sight on top of the cabin, sending warning glares toward any human on the docks that so much as looked at her funny. Many of the wounded men tromping off the ship and into the docks of the rugged island outpost shied away from her glare.
More than a week of living in relatively close quarters to several Night Furies would do that to a person. When some of the Night Furies made every effort to keep the wounded too afraid to plot anything, that was. Toothless was the most aggressively intimidating, but Von had done her fair share.
"But no," Ruffnut groaned, sticking her foot out to trip a guy limping along on makeshift crutches. Maour kicked the lower end of his scythe out and knocked her foot away before anyone stumbled over her. "He really is as boring as he makes himself look. This whole trip has been a complete waste of time!"
'There are plenty more fish in the sea?' Von offered skeptically.
"I am hungry," Ruffnut mused. "Fresh-caught is better than the barrels of salted stuff boring Eret has been storing. Even his food is boring."
"That food was your idea, and it's paying well enough that he's probably going to take us all the way home," Maour offered. The last of the wounded soldiers left Eret's ship. The captain himself was hosting a portly trader below deck. Toothless, Grey and Einn were there too, providing an intimidating presence to make his bargaining position stronger… and to report on what he said.
Maour checked his brother's senses for a moment, reveling in his ability to do so. Breaking his connection to Von had been simple – his sister had always seen it as a necessity and was more than willing to give it up now that their brother was safe – but getting Toothless to break his with Grey was harder.
Toothless was lurking atop an empty crate, glaring down at the trader's head as she bargained with Eret. Maour could see Grey's tail off to the right of the two humans, as the inquisitive scaleless dragon explored the little labyrinth of cargo. Einn would be somewhere nearby.
"I think we can throw in two barrels of island citrus for such a high quality of salted herring," the trader was saying nervously, his voice hitching as Grey flicked her tail and disappeared from sight behind a bundled tarp. "Perhaps we could discuss the finer points in my establishment?"
"Here is good," Eret said smugly, making no effort to hide his amusement. "Sail with Drago for long and you get used to it." His nervous twitching was restrained enough that he could say as much with a straight face.
"Yes, well…" the trader blustered a bit, and Maour could tell his brother was bored by the way his eyes kept sliding over to watch the little hints Grey gave of her progress through the hold.
His brother had been reluctant to part with his link to Grey for reasons Maour could only describe as paternal. He had worried that she would see it as betrayal or abandonment, and that she was currently too fragile to take such a thing well. The eventual solution of presenting the breaking of the link as a way to allow Grey her privacy had solved that, but Maour would have been willing to let it wait until later if necessary.
Grey was… something else. She reminded Maour of his younger siblings – painfully so, sometimes – but in larger form and with far more doubt and fear. She wasn't like Einn, slow and quiet and subdued, and she wasn't like a real fledgling, willing to blindly trust that everything would work out.
She wasn't a lot of things, but it was hard to pin down what she was. Maybe that would get easier as time went on.
Maour returned to his own senses, satisfied that all was well below deck. Eret was even taking advantage of their presence to negotiate better deals, which boded well for the put-upon captain's mood as they continued on toward the Isle. He probably didn't mind putting some distance between himself and Drago's last known position, either.
"... Could have stolen his breeches and shredded them and thrown them in the soup," Ruffnut finished, breathing heavily like she had just completed a long, winded rant. "What do you think?"
Maour glanced over at Von. She gave him a toothy, entirely unhelpful smirk. "Uh," he said, looking back to Ruffnut. "I don't think most breeches would be edible no matter how long you boil them?" He certainly hoped she wasn't going to try such a thing.
"You know, you're right, I need to get some seasoning." Ruffnut agreed. "Thanks for listening!" She darted down the gangplank and disappeared behind a trio of startled fishermen.
"I wasn't listening," Maour admitted to Von. "What did I just help her with?"
'I will not say, but you should not take any food she offers you for the rest of this trip,' Von said with an amused trill.
"Well, that's a thing." He supposed he couldn't complain about her antics too much; they had been turned to useful ends throughout this entire unintended journey. He would just stick to freshly caught fish…
And maybe he'd warn Eret. Accidentally – or intentionally – poisoning the captain right as everything was going well seemed like exactly the sort of thing Ruffnut would do.
O-O-O
Einn rumbled contentedly as he splayed out across the top of the ship's cabin. His back was to the coarse wood, and his stomach was bathed in warm sunlight. Sure, the wind was icy and he was probably overall colder than he would have been sticking to the interior of the ship, but… the sun. And he didn't have to fear being snatched up by Skrill searching relentlessly for him.
If any Skrill somehow came upon him now, they would gut him and be done with it. He had no desire to die, none at all, but knowing that the alpha responsible for the icy prison and endless suffering was dead… It was a relief. No matter what happened, he would never be taken back there. Hefnd would never be taken back there.
He had escaped that place twice now, but this escape could not have been more different from the first. Gone was the pain, the stress of continuing to evade recapture, the endless pursuit. Gone was even the thought of those Skrill… Four of the five were dead, and the fifth didn't know he still lived at all. There was no guilt over having left his son behind…
Thinking of Hefnd made him… sad. Proud. Tired. Relieved. Everything and nothing all at once. He wasn't happy with how they had parted, but it was more than he deserved. He had known his son would fly his own way, the only difference was whether he would do it resentfully or not.
Einn knew he deserved to be resented, but to be all but forgiven… To be told Hefnd wanted him to be at peace…
He was doing his best to do exactly that. To let his son fly his own path, whatever that was going to be with the warlord who had come to free them and the pseudo-nest who followed him. Maybe someday word would reach the Isle of Hefnd's exploits. Or maybe not.
His chest twinged distantly, but the pain subsided before it really got started. This time.
Hefnd didn't know about his chest pains. He would have worried, and they only really started after that first unintentional escape, so Einn hadn't needed to hide them from him for very long. Now he didn't need to hide them at all, for however much time he had left.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe the pains would cease entirely someday. Or maybe they were precursors to his death, hints that he didn't have much time left.
Whatever was coming, it would come in freedom and among those who cared, and Hefnd wouldn't have to worry about it. Wherever he was, whatever he chose to do with his life, he wouldn't have to live with guilt.
The breeze drifted across Einn's face, bringing with it the scent of pine needles and fresh water. The ship was stopped at a little island to restock on water, and maybe in a little while he would go down to drink from the stream himself, but for now he was content.
O-O-O
Snow blanketed the trees, coating needles and branches alike. The air was still, no wind to chill or sting, and the sun was shining. It was cold, but the still, tolerable kind of cold Toothless was used to.
Off in the distance, where the trees thinned out behind him, Eret's crew was restocking their water supplies from a frozen river, taking full advantage of Von's fire. Einn and Maour would be there too, and Ruffnut was off doing who knew what.
All behind him, for the moment. He would return to the ship in a little while, but for the moment he had a more important task. Keeping an eye on the enraptured grey Fury currently clawing her way up a tree.
Grey had her claws deep in the bark of the tree, dragging large furrows every time she pulled herself free and claimed a new hold in the bark. Melted snow ran in little streams down her back as she knocked little puffs of white stuff free of weighed-down clumps of needles, the snow quickly melting on her warm body.
If she fell he would put himself under her to cushion the fall, but he didn't think she was going to fall. The tree was thick and its branches created an impassable obstacle only a little higher than she was now, three winglengths above the ground.
'I am… not bad at this…' Grey called down to him.
'You're doing great!' he told her. The unhealthy thinness had not left her form yet, but she was much more energetic now, and even back in the ice nest she probably would have been able to climb a tree if necessary. The outer layer of bark was liable to peel off under any amount of weight, but the solid wood beneath was perfect for claws to sink into and wouldn't yield unless the entire tree did. Nothing like the slick walls of ice that imprisoned them there.
Grey stopped as she came across the first branch large enough to hold her weight. Toothless watched as she painstakingly crept over to it and crawled out, gradually shifting her weight from the main trunk to the sturdy offshoot.
'There are many of these all around your home?' she asked.
'Ten times more than here, and much closer together.' He was reminded of playing with Fora and Vern, of watching them climb the Isle's many trees… He missed them. It was good that the ship was taking them home, else the temptation to fly there with Maour and leave everything else behind would have been overwhelming.
He still could fly back, or someone else could. He and Von had discussed it. Their parents were probably going sick with worry and the sooner word was brought to them that all was well, the better. Only the bitterly cold and frequent snowstorms made such a journey perilous, and at some point they would be close enough to home that even a bad storm couldn't hinder a fast flight back.
It would probably be Von who went when that happened. She could fly unburdened, probably faster and further now than back before this whole ordeal. Carrying Maour and Ruffnut around at her fastest speeds had given her a wiry leanness that he doubted he could match until he was fully recovered.
'I can see the sail from here!' Grey announced as she leaned forward. One paw went a bit too far forward, bending the thinning branch down, and she hastily pulled back. 'That is it, right? A sail?'
'A big wing sticking up from a ship is a sail, yes,' he confirmed.
'Good.' No labored punchline followed. Just a satisfied purr he could hear despite the distance between them.
Her habit of cracking jokes had died a quiet death since they left the ice nest. The change was so fast and complete that some days it seemed that she was missing an integral part of herself. Silences often produced gaps in the conversations she held with others, where it looked as if she was going to speak but never did. Like she was holding herself back… Or reminding herself that she didn't want to make jokes anymore.
She didn't mix well with Ruffnut and based on that probably wouldn't get along with the Myrkurs in general; their caustic ways of existing would rub her thin skin in exactly the wrong ways.
Or maybe with a little exposure to the whole family she would decide that humor wasn't just a coping mechanism. He had no idea, and he knew her better than anyone currently in her life. Though that wasn't saying much.
She was trying to remake herself, and it felt wrong to have an opinion on how she was going about it. So long as it seemed to be working, that was.
He really needed to talk to Shadow and Cloey. They were certain to have some insight on the subject of helping someone grow up without being overbearing.
'Huh,' he murmured to himself. It had just hit him that he was going to be asking his parents for advice on raising a fledgling, more or less. Grey wasn't a fledgling, and she wasn't his responsibility… But she sort of was, at the same time. 'Well, that's going to be hard to explain.'
'What?' Grey called down to him. 'Go out further?'
'I didn't say that!' Toothless objected, his attention drawn to how she had been subtly creeping out toward the thin end of the branch, where it split off into many clusters of pine needles. Her nostrils were twitching and she was leaning in to sniff them.
She inhaled deeply, and a few needles tickled her nose. Her face scrunched up. Toothless knew exactly what was going to happen in the next few heartbeats and positioned himself accordingly.
Grey sneezed, a small bolt of fire incinerating the needles, twigs, branches, and everything else directly in front of her face. Her claws dug into the branch she was standing on, but she rocked back and something cracked under her.
'No!' she barked, letting go with both front paws and jumping right for him.
'Wait–' he exclaimed in the heartbeat he had between her jumping and her hitting him. He tumbled with her, rolling them both to a stop on the carpet of pine needles that covered the ground, shielding her weak skin as best he could. She ended up on top of him, though she just as quickly jumped off once they came to a stop.
'I didn't hurt you, did I?' she whined.
'No?' he said tentatively, waving his paws and tail around from where he lay on his back. 'I'm fine. I was ready to catch you… Not so ready for you to jump on me… Not hurt, though.' Just a bit winded and bruised. 'Why did you jump?' He had been ready to catch her falling, not her leaping and hitting him at an angle.
'I was going to fall,' she said simply.
'Right.' Not the worst instinct… Not the best, either. 'Just… be sure to aim for soft landings.' He laboriously rolled over.
'Sorry,' she quietly huffed.
'Nothing to be sorry for.' He gave her a reassuring chuff. Now was not the time for her to linger on a perceived mistake. 'Let's see how fast you can run! Follow me.'
He set off at an easy trot. The soft crunch of paws in paw-deep pine needles and snow told him she was right there behind him. Active, inquisitive…
He really missed Fora and Vern. She would get along well with them. Maybe they could teach her more about growing up than he could. She wasn't a fledgling, he wasn't going to make the mistake of being condescending to her, but her time as a fledgling had been stolen from her. It was only right that she was taking it back now.
O-O-O
Many cold days and dark nights later, the Isle of Night rose in the distance, a dark green blot against gray seas and gray skies. Von flapped her tired wings with renewed vigor, making for her sorely missed home. There were no dragons frequenting the skies, but it was the middle of the day and she suspected many were out searching, even now, months after their disappearance.
She roared to announce her presence to all around as she swooped in over the trees. Still, there was no sign of anyone around.
For a moment terror gripped her, seizing her heart and squeezing it tightly. They had been gone so long, what if something else had happened? What if the Isle had been attacked, by humans or Skrill or something else entirely? What if–
A dark shape flew into view in the distance, diving down from the low-hanging clouds and making for her. At the same time, one full-bodied roar and two much smaller barks echoed from the trees below, near the entrance to the Svartur caves. She knew those roars and those adorable barks, and they knew her.
She threw caution to the wind and crashed down into the forest, breaking branches and taking whipping leaves to the face in her hurry to see them sooner. Another back and forth of roaring gave her a direction, and then she was running.
Vern was perched atop a small boulder, gripping it with all four paws and tail to hold himself steady as he shrieked his little heart out. Fora was behind him, yowling with equal vigor. Cloey –
Cloey was there, striding forward and pouncing on her. 'Where were you?' she demanded. 'Are you hurt, are Kappi and Maour hurt? Do you need help or rescuing? Those Nadders told us there were Skrill taking two of you away, we're all ready to hunt them down if you know where to go.' Her teeth were out and though she was obviously relieved there was so much worry and anger there too.
'We were in danger but are not now and nobody you care about is hurt,' she blurted out, trying to assuage her mother's fears all at once. The frantic licking wetting the back of her neck was not exactly reassuring in that regard. 'They are on a ship a night's flight out, I would have come sooner to tell you if it was not for the storms keeping us all grounded up until now.' The weather had been awful in that regard, and for obvious reasons she just wasn't willing to fly through, over, or anywhere near a thunderstorm now.
Cloey sighed heavily, the hot air gusting down Von's back. 'Oh, that's such a relief,' she said. 'What happened?'
It occurred to Von that her mother didn't yet know just how much danger they had all been in, beyond that there had been Skrill involved. She would find out soon, but… maybe not just yet. 'We can explain better when we're all back. The ship should get here sometime tomorrow afternoon, but if you want–'
'I am flying out to it, and Skuggi will too the moment he gets back from his patrol,' Cloey interrupted, pulling away from her to look back at her younger children. 'Vern, Fora, we are going on a long flight!'
O-O-O
The deck of Eret's ship was shortly crowded with Night Furies and the occasional human. Eret and his crew had retreated below in the face of so many new, lethal dragons, completely missing the actual emotion behind the reunion.
Einfari watched from above as several different families were reunited all at once. The Svarturs were a big pile of entangled limbs, Maour, Toothless, and Von at the bottom of the pile and Vern and Fora jumping and squeaking on top. Meanwhile, Ruffnut was dodging swipes from both Boom and Blast, crowing something about telling the tales of her exploits. Tuffnut jumped down from Blast's back, his face solemn. Ruffnut said something flippant, but was cut off when he embraced her.
Einfari winced and waited for the trick, and as best she could tell Ruffnut did too, but there was no trick coming. Blast and Boom came in close for another surprisingly serious group hug, completely bereft of the usual Myrkur shenanigans.
Off to one side, by the railing, two new Night Furies were enduring Eldurhjarta's close examination. Einn – for it could only be him there, his crooked wings noticeably more so now – seemed relaxed, while the new, odd grey female was much more tense.
Einfari was tempted to fly down and speak to the grey one, if only to understand why she was like that, but there was little room on the deck for another Night Fury to land, especially now that the Svarturs were reluctantly pulling apart and spreading out.
It was all very heartwarming, and she was going to have to go down and hear what was certain to be the first of many explanations for their absence, but she was waiting for something first. The sun had only set a few moments ago…
The other side of her link stirred, Heather tapping into her hearing first. Einfari reached out in turn and heard the rustle of wind in a distant forest. 'Heather?'
"They're back?" Heather asked, though she could see through Einfari's own eyes that such was the case.
'Yes. You and my brother?' They were out together specifically because they were not linked. Togi had not taken the disappearance well at all, and no Nótt was allowed to leave the Isle without a link to someone remaining, now. Maybe that rule would be relaxed soon.
'Two nights, maybe four if the weather worsens,' she heard on Heather's side.
"Soon enough," Heather confirmed. "No telling when Fishlegs and Berg will return, though. They don't have any way of knowing the search is over." She had a right to sound slightly smug about that; the other families had failed to follow the lead of the Nótts when it came to safety while searching, and now the Eldurs were stuck dealing with the consequences.
'Let them look, they're making good impressions all over the place,' Einfari snorted. 'If the tales of 'Thor Bonecrusher' and his gods-given companion are any indication, that is. Do you know Berg told me they were investigating some sort of runic circle on a mountaintop before they left last time?'
"Let the Eldurs search as the Eldurs search," Heather said absently. "Maybe they found something unrelated. Fly down and get a good look at Maour for me, would you?"
'Sure.' She dove down, abandoning her easy circle above the ship, and dropped into an open space right behind the grey female, who yelped at the sudden noise. 'Sorry. Maour!'
"Einfari!" the man himself called out, disentangling himself from a fledgling tail and turning around. "And Heather?"
'She'll be back soon,' Einfari relayed. 'She was out searching.'
Maour frowned, his eyes downcast. "Sorry for all the worry," he apologized. "I missed you."
"Missed you too," Heather said. "I'll be back soon." Einfari conveyed the message.
Behind her, Eldurhjarta murmured something to the grey dragon. The grey dragon yelped again, her voice curiously high-pitched and indicating that she was much younger than Einfari would have guessed. 'No,' the grey dragon said, 'I did not sleep with a male with a fungal infection! That's not why I look this way!'
Toothless' head swiveled around so fast Einfari was surprised he didn't hurt something. 'Eldurhjarta!' he barked.
Einfari snorted and turned around, quickly using a wing to pry her way in between the grey female and Eldurhjarta. 'Has your caveside manner gotten worse recently?' she asked Eldurhjarta. 'If you asked me about male fungus I would make you eat your own scales.'
'That is because you are all too easily offended by perfectly normal diagnostic questions,' Eldurhjarta grumbled. 'I will leave it alone for now. What of your diet?'
'Fish,' the grey female deadpanned.
'I do not believe you ate a Skrill's tail and learned to throw lightning!' Boom yelped from the other side of the deck. 'And I do not believe you drugged a Skrill and got him to spill his secrets, either! Tell the truth!'
Einfari chose that moment to throw herself back up into the air and escape the rapidly loudening madness below. The lost ones were back, with a new friend. And a few new human allies, though if she had interpreted Von's explanation on the flight over correctly, they would need some coaxing to actually be allies instead of surprisingly knowledgeable dragon trappers going forward.
The important thing was that they were home.
Author's Note: And thus ends Living Freely. This story was a challenge, but one I'm mostly happy with in the end, despite its flaws. The same could well be said of this series, as this may be the last story.
I had (and still have) very, very vague plans for two, possibly three more books (two main and one side-story), but they are 'plans' in the sense of existing as one-sentence concepts. No full-on plots, no entirely written (and entirely flawed) first drafts, not even a paragraph of actual writing to their name. This does not a new book make, much less one that will immediately follow this story. As to whether I'm even going to write anything more in this universe…
I'm not saying no, but I'm certainly not saying yes, either. To the reader either option will look the same for a long while, as I definitely want to write other things first, and then it'll be many months or years before I can go from a sentence inspiration to another full book, and I am not posting anything until said hypothetical book is done and fully beta-read. I've twice now made the mistake of committing to a story while it's unfinished or flawed to the point of needing to be redone midway through, and while it's doable, it is in no way ideal.
So whether or not I continue this series, it will be a long while before anyone else sees the fruits of my efforts. If a new book is ever completed and soon to begin posting, I will drop a 'teaser' addition to this story. That will go in the hypothetical chapter after this one, so to keep an eye on the future just 'follow' this story, if you haven't already.
Thank you to all my readers who enjoyed this series! (And to FizzleMcSchnizzle, who beta-reads this series and put up with my often hectic schedule and uncomfortably late chapter drops. It has been and continues to be a pleasure working with you.)