I remember posting two of my 'spoilers without context' for this chapter over on tumblr, and giggling at some of the responses. I'm a mix of excited and nervous for the response to this one... let's see how we go.
-HTTYD-
Valka wasn't entirely sure how she managed to fall asleep, other than sheer exhaustion from being so sick, but when she woke the anxiety and worry for her son and her husband and Astrid all came rushing back. She fumbled for the water by her bedside, rinsing her mouth before she took a proper swallow. The nausea had abated somewhat, so she stood up and stretched, stiff from lack of activity the last couple of days. She splashed some water on her face, then headed outside.
It was cool and dark out, and the brisk air outside was so welcome on her clammy face, where she found Gobber playing with Storm and Junior. Cloudjumper warbled on sight of Valka, crossing over to coo softly at her. She raised her hands to rub his jaw, feeling better already for seeing him.
"How ya feeling Valka?"
"Better, thank you. Are they back yet?"
"Not that I've seen. Will you stop chewing my leg!?"
Chuckling, Valka whistled to Junior, who let go of Gobber's wooden limb to scamper over to her.
"We talked about this, you can't chew on things people need to walk."
Junior huffed, but nuzzled Valka's hand and perked up after a minute before chasing off after his brother. She smiled fondly at their antics, leaning against Cloudjumper's belly for comfort as she worried for those still missing. After a minute or two, he let out a short grunt and turned his head up to the sky.
"What is it Cloudjumper?"
He pointed up with the tip of his tail. Valka strained her eyes against the darkness, and felt relief flood her body when she recognised Tripfire's colours in the distance. She couldn't make out the species following them in the dark, but Stormfly's pale belly was visible against the night sky soon enough. They dove down to land on the ground outside Valka and Eret's hut in a group.
She initially let her eyes fall on Hiccup, relieved to see her son safe as he dismounted his Night Fury. Eret didn't look so safe, she noticed when her eyes fell on him. He was covered in soot, and there were bloody scratches on his face and arm.
"What happened to you?"
Eret waved off her concerns, batting away Tripfire who tried to lick his wounds.
"Oh, I'm fine. You are not going to believe what we found on that ship."
Valka looked behind him, saw a pair of Windwalkers and two of their hatchlings, and another pair of surprisingly bright Woolly Howls, also with hatchlings and what looked like an unrelated adolescent Howl. Toothless darted past both groups, disappearing behind them as Eret grabbed her hand, pulling Valka along.
"Oh my gods!"
"Right? We couldn't believe it either. She's the one who clawed me up, but we're good now."
Eret indicated his injuries, but he was smiling despite them.
"Why did she attack you?"
"Oh. I think she recognised my tattoo and thought I was one of the bad guys. It was Ug and his crew that trapped them. But Tripfire and Toothless set her straight."
Valka edged closer, unable to help but laugh at the confused expression on Toothless' face as two baby Night Furies climbed up on his back, one crawling along to gnaw at his ear plate. The mother Fury hovered nearby, bola marks on her wings and raw-looking rope burns on her front legs. She itched to treat them, but feared spooking the dragon.
"I've not seen another Night Fury in so long..."
"Yeah. Hey Astrid, will you come help me grab some supplies? I think me and the new dragons could do with patching up."
"Sure."
Astrid stretched up and kissed Hiccup on the cheek, then followed to help Eret collect their supplies. Valka dared edge a little closer tto the Night Fury, watching her avidly. Tripfire had returned to her mates side, their four offspring sitting with their parents, observing the newcomers.
There was a glaring difference, Valka noticed, between the female Fury and her hatchlings and all the other dragon parents around them. Night Furies tended to mate for life...
"Aren't all these hatchlings really young? Storm and Junior hatched last season and they're definitely older."
Astrid's voice asked, and Valka turned to see her and Eret carrying baskets on their back and boxes in their arms.
"Well, if they live where I grew up, the usual hatching season would be pretty tough weather. The ground would still be frozen. Besides, not all dragons mate or lay eggs at the same time. Triple Stryke dragons have a season early in the year rather than late too."
He'd hastily wrapped the scratches on his arms, but Eret hadn't cleaned himself up properly yet as he headed over to prioritise the dragons. The female Fury still looked wary of Eret, but a reassuring sound from Toothless seemed to encourage her to let Eret clean and bandage her various injuries. Hiccup approached his mother, gesturing to the Night Furies.
"Did you know there were Night Furies up north?"
"No. They don't mind the cold, but tend to like at least one warm season. If she's part of a pack, perhaps they adapted for the colder northern weather."
Eret gestured to Valka and Hiccup to come over, and Tripfire and Cloudjumper shuffled closer too as introductions were made.
"This is Valka. She's very nice too, and that's her dragon there with Tripfire. His name is Cloudjumper. And you've met Hiccup. He's Valka's son. We're not like those other humans, we love dragons."
All moving slowly, they took turns letting the female Fury learn their scent, let her come to them until she'd pressed her head into each of their hands in turn.
"May I?"
Valka asked, wanting to look closer. Hesitantly, the Fury nodded. Valka didn't touch her much, but looked at the bumps under her chin and the shape of her ear plates, the double line of spines down her back. She had sharper claws than Toothless did, which may have been for handling digging through the ice, and she was quite a bit bigger than Toothless despite the bumps under the jaw saying she was only a couple of years older. Valka relayed the information she found as she went, talking so the dragon understood what she was looking for, that she meant no harm, only curiousity.
The other thing she noticed was the sad looks the Fury gave the various pairs, and it seemed to confirm Valka's fears that the trappers had killed her mate.
Perhaps curious about the human who was investigating their mother so closely, the baby Furies abandoned their using Toothless as a personal playground to climb up on their mothers back, chirping and squeaking at Valka. They couldn't have been more than two or three months old, based on their wide eyes and nubby spines. There were no teeth visible, but Night Furies could retract their teeth, so that wasn't always a telling sign with them.
"How old are they?"
Hiccup asked, a smile on his face as he watched the little black bundles chirrup and bounce excitedly.
"A couple of months, maybe three?"
Eret had moved on to treating the injured Woolly Howls, and Tripfire was watching very closely - Howls could be prickly creatures. But they seemed to trust Eret well enough after he rescued them, and once he was done with them he moved over to the Windwalkers.
"Any serious injuries?"
Valka asked, proud of how diligent and careful Eret was as he handled the dragons.
"No broken bones or badly injured wings, but the adolescent Howl should get a couple of days rest before they fly back up north. Assuming they decide to leave. Berk is cold enough for them to manage just fine."
Done bandaging the dragons up, Valka had Eret sit down so she could clean his scratched up face, since he seemed to be forgetting about taking care of himself.
"Always getting yourself into scrapes."
"Yeah, well, I wasn't expecting a fight when we got there otherwise I'd have been wearing my very nice and safe fireproof armour."
Hiccup cocked his head curiously, obviously having been listening in.
"Your armour is fireproof?"
"Yeah. Paint made from crushed up dragon scales and saliva is flame resistant. You have to pick the right spit though. Stormcutter spit is flammable, so it wasn't as effective. Tripfire wasn't pleased. I'd be happy to teach you."
Hiccup nodded slowly, then turned to Astrid, who had been watching everything quietly.
"It's too late now, but we're going to have to call a town meeting tomorrow and figure out what to do."
"About the Night Furies or about... what did you call her Eret? Griselda?"
"Yeah, Griselda."
Eret confirmed, and Hiccup nodded.
"Both. I want to go north and find these other Furies, but as much as it pains me to say it, we have bigger problems if the dragon trade hasn't shut down."
Astrid tapped her fingers against her leg, humming as she thought.
"Yeah. And we have to assume not everyone on that ship is dead, and that some made it to port to say they found Night Furies."
Eret's face clouded when Astrid said that, and Valka reckoned he'd realised the same thing she had.
"Grimmel."
They said in unison as they looked at each other, drawing attention from the others.
"Who's Grimmel?"
"He's a dragon killer. He's not interested in trapping or trading, he does it for sport. And he's the main reason we never see Night Furies anymore, they are his favourite prey. And because he made them so rare, they're big business for the trade too."
"And you didn't think to mention a Night Fury killer before?"
Eret shook his head.
"Last I heard, he retired. Got hired occasionally by Drago to take out nests that were causing him trouble, because Grimmel's Deathgrippers are unbelievably lethal. But even then, he's been silent for at least two or three years, because there weren't any Night Furies out in the open that we knew of until Toothless. But not many people know about Toothless."
Valka nodded.
"Eret's right. I didn't think to mention him either, but Griselda will know about Toothless now, and she'll share that information with the others. We have to assume it will get back to Grimmel, and that there are Night Furies in the north too."
Hiccup sighed deeply, giving a weary nod.
"Alright. So what do we do mom? Do we go for the Furies first, and try to get them to safety? Or do we go after the hunters and try to take out the threat?"
Valka chewed her lip, trying to think logically rather than let immediate instinct say dragons first.
"The mother here needs to rest before she can make the trip back anyway, and I don't think we'll find the others without her. So I think for now, everyone should get some rest. You're all exhausted. We'll decide what to do in the morning. I'd avoid telling the Berkians about the new Furies just yet, or they'll all want to see and I don't want her to get spooked and bolt. You can stay up here with us and the Stormcutters tonight, if you like."
Valka addressed the mother Fury with her last sentence, and a pointed look to Cloudjumper had her dragon rumbling in agreement. There was plenty of space up there. Sufficiently cleaned up, Eret got to his feet.
"Hey, you guys must be hungry, huh? I'll go get some fish."
Food and water and the reduced number of people when Hiccup, Astrid and Gobber left helped relax the mother Fury even further, though Toothless was very reluctant to leave at all. Valka couldn't blame him - he'd been a solitary Fury for so long. Cloudjumper had been beside himself when Tripfire came to stay at the mountain. There was very little likelihood even the Alpha was ever going to be considered as a potential mate by her, but that didn't stop the female Fury and her hatchlings representing the potential of many more Night Furies, of others just like Toothless for him to meet and bond with.
The Woolly Howls and Windwalkers picked spots and went right to settling down to sleep once there was a little more peace, and Tripfire ate a few fish before she joined her mate and their children for some sleep too.
Eret brought out some of Storm and Junior's old blankets so the little Night Furies could curl up comfortably, and once she'd warmed the ground to her liking, the mother Fury finally settled enough to get some rest. Valka was too wide awake to sleep, and had spent half the day in bed already, but her husband was clearly exhausted, not to mention wounded. They left the front door of their hut open so they could hear what was happening outside easily, and check with just a glance toward the doorway. Eret cleaned the cuts on his arms properly, and Valka dressed them for him.
"I guess the fight isn't over, huh?"
Eret spoke quietly, tiredness showing in his voice.
"No, but so long as we're needed, we'll fight."
Valka sat with her back up against the side of their bed, and Eret pillowed his head on her lap, the side of his face not covered in scratches pressed against her leg as he dozed. She ran her fingers through his hair and, other hand resting on her belly as she periodically looked outside, seeing the various dragon parent-and-child groups sleeping. Eret hadn't really talked about how it was his old tribe that they'd gone up against that night, but she supposed there was only so much they could talk about all at once, and he'd chosen to prioritise Griselda and the Night Furies.
There would be time to talk more in the morning. For now, she let Eret rest.
-HTTYD-
I know in THW Grimmel said Night Furies can't survive in the cold, but I call bullshit on that because Toothless was fine on "it snows nine months of the year, and hails the other three" Berk.