Originally, I had planned this chapter to be even longer, but we are nearing the end. Now, after this, there are only three or four chapters left! By that point there will be some (hopefully) interesting news.

Also, those of you who are waiting for the monster to update; I'm working on it, but it might actually be a rather big part, so please have patience!

As always, enjoy this chapter (best you can...) and don't forget to review and favourite and all those good things!

…That has always cheated you

He was lost. Before North the ground had opened up into a chasm that was so enormous and wide it looked like the earth's mouth. But it also looked familiar.

Taking a deep breath, North decided to sit down for a second and think properly. He'd been going through the trip to the dragon's lair in his head so many times he'd been sure he could have found his way no matter what the weather or landscape did to obscure the path. Now the old toymaker had to rethink his strategy.

He'd gone quite straight like he'd thought the road had also done, but somehow he'd been going down a lot more than up. The forest that grew here wasn't dense anywhere, and North remembered the path had been quite narrow at some point. That's probably where he'd taken a wrong turn. The snow must have piled up on the ledge where the road was and made it look like a part of the mountainside.

"Shit. Treacherous land!"

He should have thought of this. You could only navigate through snowy landscape if you knew what the land looked like underneath. Hadn't his father taught him that?

A gust of wind blew into his eyes and North started rubbing them. He was thinking a lot about his parents since he'd started this journey to save Jack. North's father had been a hardened man, a survivalist once, but since they all moved to the Land of the Sun and the climate had been warmer and living easier, that knowledge had fallen to the very back of North's mind. This land where there were there were nights during summer and daylight during winter.

That's right; he had daylight. And even though the air was hazy due to the cover of clouds overhead that also kept the warmth from leaving earth, North wasn't at risk of freezing to death.

"You're still treacherous, Land of the Sun," North told the surrounding nature. Trees and hills surrounded him on all sides but one, where the earth simply opened. "But I'll forgive you once I find Jack."

Standing up, North felt clear-headed, and realized exactly how frustrated he'd been all this time. No wonder he'd gotten lost. Bulldozing forward like a wild boar and barge into the castle screaming was probably the worst kind of tactic against a dragon. The dragon could talk and make deals, but Jack was a smart kid too. He would have figured out a way to stay alive. He might also figure out its weak spot. Maybe he was already coming up with plans to slay the dragon. North just needed to figure out where to go from here and help his son.

"North," he said out loud, remembering the directions he'd once gotten when he asked about an alternative road to Burgess when the one that went straight south collapsed. "Northeast." Because if he'd turned west at Iduna's Outpost, he would have found the main road eventually. "I've already headed east, it seems. So…"

The toymaker turned away from the abyss to follow its edge on a safe distance.

"I'll let you finish walking Philippe," Hiccup said, breaking the moment. "When you come back inside, you'll find me in the sitting room."

Jack really doesn't feel like moving. He wants to stay in Hiccup's embrace and just exist in the only place where he felt calm and somewhat happy. But the dragon had already pulled away.

"Hey, Hiccup. I don't want to go back to Berk."

The dragon turned back around. "That's where your father is though. I know you miss him."

"I do. I really do, but… Have you noticed that I look… peculiar?"

Hiccup stared at him for a long moment, eyes darting over Jack's every feature. "You're…" he started hesitatingly, then gave up. "No, I haven't. What's peculiar about your looks?"

"I'm scrawny, ugly and have white hair."

Almost exactly like Ida had done yesterday, Hiccup's eyes glided up to the crown of Jack's head before looking back at his face with a tilt to his head. "You think that's peculiar when you're talking to a dragon?"

"Ida said so too," Jack admitted. "Except that she's a teapot."

Hiccup nodded slowly.

"So you want to stay here because it makes you feel less ugly?"

By this point, Jack's face was bright red. "Thanks. I needed to feel worse," he muttered and grabbed Philippe's reins to lead the horse back to the stable. "But what I really meant is that I haven't thought about my looks all that much since I came here. I know why any of you don't care and have better things to worry about. But the people of Berk… they won't let me forget."

The dragon made a sound deep in his chest. "Yeah, being scrawny in a village like that isn't easy."

Jack looked away, hiding an appreciative smile at the fact Hiccup had missed the mark and ignored the detail about his hair colour.

"I had brown hair before."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and a few years after I moved to Berk, it went white over the course of about two months. People thought I had some sort of aging disease or was possessed."

Hiccup made another thoughtful sound. "I hope you're not looking for sympathy, because then you're in the wrong crowd."

"Duly noted," Jack said around a small smirk.

They reached the door to the stables and Hiccup looked at the rakes and shovels that stood there at hopeful attention.

"You guys go clear the path between the entrance and the gate," he told them, and the tools fell over themselves in a hurry to obey.

"I think you just made them really happy," Jack said. "They all looked so disappointed that this area is already perfect."

"Most tools are happy to be used. But I think the ones out here just show-offs out for praise. They won't do anything unless anyone's watching."

"Oh. I never thought of that."

They led Philippe inside and Jack removed the blanket and picked up the brush to groom him.

"See you later, Jack. You too, Mulch and Bucket."

After leaving the teen with his work on the horse, Hiccup went straight to the west wing. He was happy, really happy to be proven wrong, that Jack really wasn't afraid of him. That the boy really had no bigger problems but his looks. The thought almost made Hiccup laugh in sheer incredulity.

At the same time Hiccup was nervous to the point he was almost sick.

Barging into the west wing, Hiccup went straight for Toothless. Still stone. All of the Night Fury, still grey, hard and dead.

Hiccup turned on the rose, seeing it turned to him with its dying face. In Hiccup's eyes only, there really was a face there, smirking at him, taunting him. It was just his imagination, but it didn't change facts.

"I trust Jackson Overland," the dragon hissed at the wilting flower. "I know he's not afraid of me now. I'm fulfilling your cursed demands. What else do you ask of me?!"

His only answer was another petal falling, joining the seven dried ones already scattered underneath it.

Time was running out. Time was just running away from them all. Even for Jack.

Hiccup grabbed the mirror. He'd been using it too much lately, putting yet another strain on his heart. "Show me the toymaker."

His reflection contorted, blurred and changed. Jack's father wasn't far away, but he wasn't on the trail. Instead he'd travelled further east and was now following the rift north. Which would bring him straight to the castle.

Hiccup wasn't blind to the man's equipment either. It didn't take a genius to figure out what the toymaker's plan was, leaving Hiccup with only one choice; send Jack to meet him. Send Jack away.

Hiccup put the mirror down and leaned over the rose, hopeless tears dropping on the glass.

He'd failed.

Flynn Rider had thought this journey would be a cakewalk. It was supposed to take only one day to reach the main road by horse, and Overland had been walking. Now the inn owner had come to realize the toymaker was craftier than that; he was using skis, and the snow in the mountains was so full of tracks, moved around now that it was melting, and Flynn had completely lost track of the Overland elder.

"Damn you, toymaker. Now what?! I can't go back without either of you!"

Merida snorted and stomped behind him as he had hopped off to help her up a steep, slippery part.

Sitting in a tree above, Eugene was debating pros and cons of intervening, helping out. He didn't want to help this person who wore his face for many reasons, but he did want to move forward fast. The weather was still this too-warm for November and hazy and Eugene didn't know which way he was supposed to go to find Iduna and her outpost. Bird eyes were no help in search of trolls.

On the ground, Flynn suddenly froze after having slipped. Underneath the snow he found something bright red. A toy train made of wood. It reminded Flynn that when all this had started, North had come this way with a load of toys to sell in Burgess.

"This means I'm on the right track, at least," he told the horse. "According to the people I talked to we're supposed to arrive at an outpost and turn east."

Those were words Eugene very much appreciated. It meant he didn't have to keep following the doppelganger more than necessary. But it also made him worried. East of them were only a couple miles of land before the rift, and Rapunzel hadn't wanted him anywhere near there.

But what if Mother Gothel really had been that bold? The familiar didn't want to believe it. Didn't want to go any further east than he'd already gone.

"Jack is apparently stuck inside a castle, according to North," the human on the ground said, talking to the horse still. "Can you believe it, girl? I'm sure it's not the kind of grand building I'm imagining, but what could a toymaker call a castle? Probably just a large scale house, like a mansion."

Eugene so dearly wished he didn't have a doppelganger in Berk. Then the familiar could have gone around and asked for information, acting like a traveller and no one would have suspected anything. Now he was doomed to hear these snippets of details mixed with assumptions and was left none the wiser. This Flynn idiot didn't even know what Iduna's Outpost was supposed to be!

Making up his mind, Eugene spread his wings and went ahead. He could circle one mountain at a time if it was a human building he searched for.

Hiccup had promised to meet Jack in the sitting room, and he dearly wanted the rest of the day to be enjoyable. He had to tell everyone of the situation and he had to tell Jack his father was coming. The dragon looked forward to neither.

"Hiccup? What is it?" Gobber asked.

The dragon looked up at the clock. They were still just down the corridor from the west wing, and Hiccup was very careful to eye each and every other object before he even opened his mouth.

"The toymaker is coming back."

Gobber wasn't the most intelligent of them all, but he had no troubles piecing all the bad news together from that.

At first he looked crushed, but just as quickly he accepted the inevitable with a shrug. "We did our best. You made at least a few good memories together, yes?"

"I'll try to make another one. The toymaker is moving on skis and hopefully he won't be here until tomorrow morning. I still need to…"

"He can't stay the night," Gobber said, and there was steel in his voice.

No, he couldn't. Hiccup knew that too, but he wanted to hold on to the boy, to the hope, just a little longer.

"I trust him," the dragon spoke quietly as he rubbed his head and face. "I do trust Jack. And he's said he trusts me too. Where are we failing?"

"Read me the curse again."

Hiccup snarled, hating the words that had taunted him for so long. "You will return yourself and everyone to their original state when you can trust, and when you hold the love and… ah."

"Love and trust of a stranger, was it?" the clock asked. "Either takes more than a month to build."

"One last push then," Hiccup said. "I'll… be really cuddly today… or something."

"Yeah, because I know exactly one person who was ever actually cuddly with dragons," Gobber harped at him.

"Oh, thank you for those unhelpful words, Gobber."

"I'm helping," the clock objected lightly. "I'll go to Jack's room to pack his things, then have Dagur prepare some provisions and leave everything in the stable where the horse will be prepared and ready for departure before nightfall."

Nightfall. It was still barely midday now. They had some time still. Time for Hiccup to plan how to tell Jack.

As promised, Jack found Hiccup in the sitting room after he washed up from his work in the stable. For some reason, the dragon's eyes were intense, making Jack's heart do summersaults in his chest.

"The man of the honour," Tuffnut said happily.

"Hour, Tuffnut," Fishlegs corrected tiredly. "Man of the hour!"

"What are you guys doing?" Jack asked, nodded a greeting to Tooth and went straight for Hiccup. He was determined to make sure the dragon knew Jack wasn't afraid of him; that he in fact wanted him near. So he sat down in the circle Hiccup's body made on the floor and tried to look like his whole body wasn't tingling from the feeling of boldly and uninvited stepping right into someone else's personal space.

Hiccup looked mildly surprised, Tooth seemed to gasp silently before catching herself. Fishlegs looked surprised too, but it quickly turned into giddy glee. Only Tuffnut stayed oblivious.

"What's the likeness between a horse and a cucumber?" the mug asked Jack.

"I… excuse me, what?"

There was a huff of breath from Hiccup, whose head was right beside Jack's.

"We're doing riddles," he explained.

"And I'm winning!" Tuffnut bragged. "Because my riddles are the best. Now, what is the likeness between a horse and a cucumber?"

Jack glared at Tuffnut who looked like he was about to crack at his own joke of a riddle.

"There aren't any likenesses between animals and vegetables," he stated sourly.

"Of course there is," Hiccup suddenly interrupted, making the human suspicious. "They both grow on trees."

"Oh, come on! Horses don't grow on trees!"

"Neither does cucumbers!" Tuffnut cried happily, laughing like he was about to die.

Jack turned to glare at the dragon, who had the gall to look all innocent with his wide green eyes.

"Who even made that up?" the human demanded.

"Someone who got a kick out of twisting people's minds. It's your turn."

The human leaned back against the dragon's body. Since Hiccup lay sideways in a way that reminded Jack of a dog, there wasn't all that much to support him, but he still liked that he was allowed to do it. That Hiccup let him be here, even though they were doing riddles.

"I can't come up with anything. I never did this before. I always hated riddles."

"Boring!" Fishlegs and Tuffnut said in union.

"My turn then," Hiccup said. "Or Tooth?"

The dresser thought for a second before she lit up. "Two daughters and two mothers went and bought three pieces of confections. They got one piece each. How is that?"

Jack was completely lost, shaking his head at the impossible math of four people sharing three pieces of candy.

"They must have been daughter, mother and grandmother, right?" Fishlegs said. "Because the mother is a daughter too."

"How did you even figure?!" Jack demanded.

"My turn. What's the height of being small?" the dragon intervened.

"To dangle your feet when you sit on a pebble," Tuffnut answered instantly, looking proud.

Jack gave up. He really hated riddles..

"Looks like someone doesn't have the patience for this game," he heard Tooth's voice say.

"I don't," Jack admitted. "Every time I encountered riddles in books he always skimmed through the text until I found the answer."

"Amateur," Fishlegs said, and there was both fondness and pride in his voice. "I always stopped reading until I figured it out myself. It's quite rewarding if you're right."

"What about the times when you were wrong?"

"I'd review my logic and find the flaws. That way, next time I'd be more careful not to get stuck in the same traps."

Jack stared at the book. Fishlegs had these moments once in a while where he gave Jack words of wisdom, but the book's voice always sounded light.

But he still didn't want to continue with the riddles.

"Don't you have some good stories instead?" he asked. "Like, you've been here for more than ten years, right? It can't all be death and depression and curses."

They all went silent for a long while. Jack's heart sank, regretting he'd ever opened his mouth. The stupid riddles were better than…

"I think the coat hanger dressed up as a maypole once?" Hiccup said.

The reminder had Tuffnut figuratively explode with laugher.

"What's so funny?" Jack asked, unable to not smile back in the face of the cup's mirth.

On the wall, Tooth looked scandalized. "When did this happen?!" she demanded.

"Long ago. Do you know what the midsummer festival is about?" Hiccup asked Jack.

"Of course. It's about fertility and the maypole…" Jack's eyes widened in comprehension. "The coat hanger didn't know?"

"Nope," Fishlegs shared, he too unable to hold back a smile.

"It dressed up as a decorated penis!" Tuffnut cried, out of breath. "Complete with the circle it goes into!"

"It's not funny!" Tooth objected.

Jack was also leaning towards the "not-funny" feeling, at the same time he couldn't help but chuckle. "Did you tell it?"

"Astrid felt obligated to. Didn't see the coat hanger for about a month after that. It took a lot of coaxing to get it out of hiding once I did find it."

"Poor thing."

Tooth Fairy went on to tell a different story. It wasn't as funny, rather a romantic story between Bunny and his late wife Easter who'd gone on a date through the castle. It was nice. It was warm. The way Hiccup curled up tighter around him made Jack feel happy.

The toymaker was coming back. Astrid stared at Gobber, unwilling to believe it.

"How does Hiccup know?" Ida asked so quietly she was barely heard over the rush in Astrid's ears.

The clock shrugged. "I do believe the Enchantress left a little gift. A window to the outside world, I think she called it."

Astrid remembered that too. "It's a handheld mirror," she said. "Hiccup keeps with near the rose."

The rose. The clock that ticked away their time along with an approaching threat that took away their best chance to break the curse.

"Maybe Jack can come back," Ida said with too much desperate hope in her voice. "He could convince his father to leave until…"

"Who are you trying to fool?" Dagur growled. "Hiccup doesn't say anything but we all can tell time is running out. I'd be surprised if we were still here coming spring."

The faucet sighed and closed her eyes, deciding to give up then and there. She would stay in that limbo state until the last petal fell. It wasn't the first time. She'd come around after Jack had become a steady guest in the kitchen, but she would probably not wake again.

Astrid couldn't even feel anything. She just stood there, blind and deaf, realizing that this was it. This was their fate. They'd just stay like this until they rusted and broke and fell apart.

"Think you can fix some food for the boy, Dagur?" Gobber asked.

The candlestick wanted to set the clock on fire. Wanted to burn the entire castle down, throw it all into the abyss. Or the toymaker. Burn him, never let Hiccup know. Make Jack stay.

"I'll put something together," the oven said dejectedly. Because what else could he do? He was stuck to the wall, moulded into it.

"I'll go tell Mulch and the others to get Jack's horse ready for travelling."

They'd given up. Gobber and Dagur and Ida and all of them had just given up!

"Astrid."

The candlestick turned mad eyes towards the teapot.

"We've failed to force the curse to break before," Ida said, and despite the tears that made her brown eyes glassy, she was the most solid presence in the room. "And this is about Jack. If he doesn't trust Master Hiccup yet, don't you think he will once he's freed?"

"Don't hope!" Astrid hissed between her teeth. "Don't you even dare hope!"

Hiccup can't delay it anymore. The room had lapsed into a comfortable silence after the last short, sweet story. Outside he could hear the sound of Gobber's ticking. Time that was running away, the steps of a killer coming closer. He could feel the effect of the news already affecting the outside of this room. It made his stomach twist.

"Jack. Come with me," he said softly.

"Okay."

Rather than nervous or even worried, Jack just smiled up at Hiccup, not suspecting anything.

'He does trust me,' the dragon thought and wanted to scream. 'Why won't the curse lift?!'

Instead of screaming, the dragon just nodded stiffly. Gobber stood outside, making a minute movement of his head to let the master know everything was ready, and that he would take it upon himself to inform the people inside the sitting room.

They moved through silent hallways towards the west wing. It made Hiccup realize just how much life Jack had brought them. He tried to avoid looking at the petrified reptiles. He knew each frozen expression by heart, knew how many there were in total and of each kind. He'd failed all of them. Because of him this beautiful race would go extinct, his friends would fade and he would be here, stuck in this place with madness eating away at his mind the way it had done for so many others in only ten years.

"Hiccup. Is something wrong?"

He looked down at the young man at his side. Jack had reached out and grabbed his hand. As the dragon watched, Jack's face morphed from fragile into something determined and stubborn. He took a firmer grasp of Hiccup's hand and the dragon felt he was challenged somehow, but couldn't understand what it was.

"Yes," he said instead, hearing how weak his own voice was and squeezed the soft hand holding his. "Something's very wrong."

Saying no more, Hiccup pulled the teen along. He had to admit Jack's hand was comforting, grounding even. It gave him the strength he needed right now to not just crumble on the floor.

The west wing. Hiccup wondered if anyone other than him remembered what had happened here. It had been quite chaotic. All the outcasts and the dragons and the people from Berk in an all out battle, him and Toothless chasing after Alvin until the Enchantress had started to cast her spell. Hiccup remembered it as a blur. He'd turned Toothless around, seen the Enchantress with the blue flower, a flash of light. The roars of dragons going silent.

Something pulled at his hand. Jack stood beside him, almost pressed against his side. Hiccup hadn't realized he'd stopped.

"Can you tell me what is wrong?" the boy asked.

For an irrational second, Hiccup didn't want to. He wanted to turn back to the sitting room and turn back time.

"I'll show you."

Jack swallowed. He had a strange sense of foreboding, like something was about to go wrong. The image of Alvin, all metal teeth and evil grin invaded his mind's eye, and Jack wouldn't put it past the curse to revive Alvin when nothing else had been salvageable before.

But when Hiccup pulled open the doors to the room, nothing attacked them. The room was filled with the grey daylight filtering through the windows, lighting up layers of dust Jack hadn't been able to see the last time he was here.

Hiccup didn't spare the room a glance. He just stepped forward, towards a glass dome holding a flower Jack had almost forgotten. But rather than the full bloom of a month ago, the rose was now wilting, petals hanging listlessly and just waiting to fall. Underneath it were several petals already in different states of drying.

But it wasn't the flower Hiccup reached for. Instead there lay a different object there that the dragon picked up and glared at, looking like he'd rather heave this thing into the rift.

"This is a magic mirror the Enchantress left for me," Hiccup said. "It will show you anything you want to see in the world. And anyone."

He handed the mirror over to Jack. He accepted it with trepidation, not sure what he was supposed to do with it. He felt his stomach clench as the dragon stared expectantly at him.

"There is someone you want to see, Jack. Ask the mirror for it."

Cold horror filled Jack all the way to his core. "It's about dad," he said around the lump that formed in his throat.

Hiccup just nodded.

Now Jack really didn't want to know. What had happened to his father? Was he sick? Or worse? Had the villagers done something to him?

With a trembling heart, Jack turned the mirror around and saw his own pale reflection. He looked like he'd seen a ghost.

"Show me my father."

The image contorted, distorted his face and changed. Jack's eyes widened when a familiar figure in a red coat came towards him inside the glass, arms pumping as the elderly man moved up a slope on his skis.

"He's fine," Jack gasped. "Damn it, Hiccup! Dad is fine! What the hell! You said something was wrong, but dad is-"

"On his way here!" Hiccup hissed through his teeth, his expression one Jack couldn't interpret.

Actually, Jack's first reaction to hearing his father was on his way was happiness. He'd get to see his dad again! But Hiccup's face said something else; that this wasn't a good thing.

The dragon's breath came out like a whine, like someone hit him, and rubbed his face. "It's your old man we're talking about. I should have expected this. Jack, why do you think the toymaker is on his way here?"

"For me," Jack answered, and only now did he start to realize what this was really about. "I… I'll go meet him! I'll talk to him first, I can…"

Hiccup's green eyes stared at him, and there were too many emotions there for Jack to comprehend, and not a single one of them were positive.

"You will go to meet him," the dragon said, his voice strained. "But you won't be bringing him back here."

The teen stood rooted on the spot. He couldn't understand. Hiccup said so little, so few words, and Jack felt like they were too much. He'd just been accepted into Hiccup's arms. It wasn't even an hour since he'd been encircled by the dragon's body!

"I will come back," Jack promised, even though he too heard the way his voice broke. "I will explain everything to dad and come back. He will understand."

Those green eyes closed and Hiccup turned his face away. "Your bag's already packed. Philippe is already saddled and waiting for you."

Jack almost threw the magic mirror at the dragon, but stopped in the las second, stomping his foot instead. "WHY?! Why are you throwing me out?! I'm telling you I can-"

"I'M TRYING TO SAVE HIS LIFE!" The roar echoed around in the room, broken by the heavy breathing of the beast. "The toymaker is coming for you, his son who is held prison by a devil. He's already been here once, everyone knows he's a threat to me. A single man with only a sword will be killed as soon as he clears the gate."

In that moment, Jack realized how young he was, and how selfish. But Hiccup wasn't only thinking about himself.; he thought of both Jack and North and everyone else in the castle, took their viewpoints into consideration.

"I'll… take North back to Berk," he said reluctantly, barely managing to speak over a whisper. "It might not be right away, but I will convince him you're not a monster." New determination filled him. "And then I will come back."

Hiccup looked like a shadow before him. Even his eyes that had always been so clear seemed to have gotten darker.

"You're so stubborn."

"I told you before, this morning to be exact, that I don't want to go back to Berk. So I will be back, eventually."

Something glittered in the green orbs, but it was fleeting.

"Deal."

Satisfied, the human went to place the mirror back beside the glass dome, but Hiccup help up his hand.

"Please, take that with you. It has already showed me more than I can bear."

Walking from the west wing to the stables Jack felt smaller than he ever had in this building. It was strangely quiet everywhere and there were no boundaries between the light coming through and the shadows of the castle. Gone were the small noises of movements, the whispers that always seemed to fill the hallways. If Jack didn't know better he would have thought he'd somehow stepped through the wrong door and ended up in a different place that looked exactly like the one he'd left behind. But there were the niches with sculptures covered with snarling dragons, here were the silent armours on guard.

Not a single movement, not a sound besides the one that came from Jack himself. This place that had been his home for a little more than a month, that had been alive with people that liked him, and also those who didn't, was suddenly unfamiliar and cold. Ida had often complained about the cold. Now even Jack felt it trickle into his bones.

He walked down the stairs to the grand hall. He felt like he'd done this a hundred times already. The memory of his first day was from this very staircase. Ida had been riding her cart from his room and the cart had glided down the railing. Back when everything was suffocating and frightening.

It was the same now. There wasn't a single candle lit, the sitting room was so dark Jack didn't even dare go near, feeling he wouldn't be welcome.

"I promise, I will come back!" the human said loudly, but all that answered him was his own voice bouncing between these stone walls, mocking him.

Jack couldn't take it anymore. He fled towards the stable. As promised, Philippe was saddled and Jack's bags were thrown over his flanks. The teen shoved the mirror into the bags and couldn't make himself look around, too afraid that he'd see nothing. No friendly smiles from Mulch, no Bucket making thoughtful faces and no tools lining up to pamper Philippe when they got back. Instead he just burst outside, tore through the courtyard and through the open gates.

Behind him, the air filled with a terrifying dragon roar.

The tears wouldn't stop.