Chapter Thirteen

The dragon had been in its prison cell for a full day, and he'd spent it curled at the back of his cage, snarling through the muzzle at any Viking that came past in a display of fury. They typically jeered back and pointed weapons, but in the evening they seemed bored of it and ignored him. He hadn't let anyone come closer; the larger human from before who had argued with the Liar Vikings had come back with food and water, which he had neglected. The dragon did not need their pity or their kindness, and he was not going to accept it after what they'd done to him.

The dragon had been resting since the loss of his paw, and warily eyeing the Vikings as they meandered around. They poked and prodded at his cage and jeered. They derived such obvious pleasure from his pain and entrapment. He knew now that not a single one of them could be trusted, and he would not make the mistake again.

The tall, proud spiked dragon had left it in the midday, coaxed from it's pen covered in chains and ropes. He had admired it's desire to fight back - it had even ripped it's muzzle off of its large snout to breathe scorching, sparking fire at the Vikings. He felt none of that now, he only wished to be free of this place and to live in peace. He would not stoop to the level of the monsters around him and actively hunt their kind, killing them in their homes and making sport of it. The dragon food and water he'd been left had not been taken, instead left in the cage with him. His stomach ordered that he must eat multiple times through the day, and in the failing light, he crept forward and sniffed it. Cooked land prey and a bucket of water he could barely fit his snout in.

The dragon sighed, looking at the food and then around the building he was stuck inside of. The guards were not paying attention to him, standing at their posts half asleep as if their mortal enemies did not reside mere steps from them. He swallowed his pride, and then swallowed water from the bucket, pushing his snout inside and supping the lukewarm liquid. Then, he ate the morsel of meat and limped back to his corner.

If it poisoned him, he would at least be out of this cage.

Four days passed, each day the taller Liar Viking had come closer to his cage to jeer at him and rattle the bars, and every day he found less and less fire within himself to snap and snarl back.

The other dragons were all gone now, too, and he was alone with the humans in the cage. At least, on a brighter side, his foot had healed well. Four nights of cleaning the thick fabric with his saliva had helped immensely with the pain. It would not keep him grounded when he got out, and he would be largely unable to fight on the ground, or hunt land prey, but he would fly again.

It was the contraption around his tail fins that worried him, now. His tail ached like his wings had when he'd first been thrown into his prison, but at least he could stretch those. He'd tried smashing his tail tip against the bars of the cage a day ago, but it had done nothing but scare some Vikings awake. Now, the beast sat, curled in the back of his cage away from the gate - something was happening. He figured it to be midday by the sun casting through the door, and all of the guards had left the building to some commotion - perhaps they were under attack, and this would be his chance.

But as they all filed back in, he knew that was not to be the case; especially now there were more of them.

The taller Viking was leading a mountain of a human and a strange Viking with a wooden hand and foot. The former had an enormous red beard; and his gut roiled - he had seen this Viking before.

Before the winter.

The Viking from the stone cage, who had ordered his death by battle, from waves and waves of Vikings.

He instantly berated himself for thinking that poison would be a freedom when he carried with him another who needed to live. He would not forget him again.

The dragon watched, warily as the red haired one stared at him and he saw only hate in his eyes, which he did his best to mirror. Whatever this man wanted from him, whatever he wanted to do, the dragon would not give in to him. The enormous man stepped closer and peered into the bars; unlike the other Vikings, he did not sneer or jab him. A big meaty paw gripped a bar and he drew in, giving him an inquisitive eye. He made sure to keep his legs hidden behind his wings, baring his teeth and hissing at the man.

The Viking said something to the men behind him, and one of them whistled. The two Liar Vikings came forward, one of them with something in his hand on a small thin rope, taking it off of his waist. He didn't need to see through the small procession of Vikings to know he'd had his paw made a trophy. He made no noise, but the larger Viking from the other nest scowled, and everyone wore a disappointed face, but he knew it was not out of anger for the loss of his paw - they seemed to have wanted him whole for whatever they had planned.

The dragon watched as shiny metal changed hands, and the crowd of vikings parted - he so dearly wished he could shoot fire - more ropes and chains. It would seem they had learned from his last display that he would not be trusted; but he remembered, he had the awfully made tail thing they'd wrapped on his tailtip. He looked at the red-haired one, and the one arm one leg viking. No, and there was a slight pang at harming the latter.

He would wait, further. They saw a wild animal, and he could play the part for the time being.

The crowd of Vikings came forward and opened his cage, and he had not the energy to fight this new, even bigger crowd of them. So he did not. They were all visibly shocked as he crawled to the centre of the cage and begrudgingly ducked his head, shutting his eyes. The worst they could do was to cage him again, for now at least. And he didn't have the energy to fight back, yet. Patience, he said to himself, as they chained him and bonded him.

Patience, as they took him out of the building for the first time in days, down the village again on a cart.

Patience, as he was tied into the hold of a Viking ship, and caged, again.

Not a single Viking came close to his cage as he was trapped inside of it, despite the fact that they hadn't removed the chains - instead wrapped them around the bars and held him, stuck still in the centre of his cage. The dragon did not fight them, reserving his energy.

Patience.

The voyage lasted so long. Rocking and bobbing and rain. The Vikings did not come down to the hold he was in except to throw him a fish - fresh, thankfully - and a bucket of water. This was more than he'd had from the last humans, and relished in the taste of it, fueling his exhausted, sore body with every last morsel. He would need the most energy possible to survive this and escape. They had not removed the device from his tail yet, and he did not think they would; he was making sure to keep it limp under the chains, never flexing it in their presence.

The enormous, red viking - the other's Sire, he realised. He wouldn't use his tail on him, as much as he wanted to. His heart was rotten and there was nothing in his eyes but anger, and a scent so potent all he could smell was the reeking toxicity of it whenever the hulking man came down to silently stare at him. The dragon was being measured, he realised, on the fourth day. This viking who hated him so was sizing him up, like another dragon challenging him for territory or a mate. It seemed he was not about to make the same mistake; a slow, drawn out affair of dozens of his warriors throwing themselves at a desperate, trapped dragon running on nothing but desperation and terror.

Whatever he knew, it wouldn't matter.

The dragon would escape. He had done so before, and he would again - he would be free once more to fly the skies, where he belonged. The vikings may have him for now, but the luxury of his presence would not be forever. They may hurt him and they may scar his body, but he would survive them.

He was unsure how long the ship moved him, but he knew the destination. He could hear the gulls and the crashing of waves before there was any visual indication that they had arrived. A few vikings opened the roof above him - he hadn't even known there to be a doorway there. The cart he was still on in the cage was secured to more chains, and the ones wrapping around him and holding him to the bars. He was then lifted, pulled up out of the boat, and he tilted his head, looking around as the sun hit his scales. There was some kind of strange wooden tower pulling him upwards and upwards, towards the wooden platforms where a small crowd of Vikings were staring at him with revulsion and lividity that barely hid the hot stink of fear.

The dragon held himself proudly as he could while bound, grinning to himself through the muzzle. He would not show them the meek creature he had been, instead he would show the proud dragon that ruled the skies and did as it wished - when it was not tied under these thrice accursed bonds. They placed his cart down with a shaky creak and a thud, and two burly, sweaty Vikings rolled him up the long path back to the village. He knew where he would end up. There was no point struggling yet, he had energy, and they would most likely untie him at some stage in their typical two-legged stupidity.

He watched carefully, making a note of the path they took - what he could see through the swathe of vikings that had turned up to leer. There were fewer of them than the first time, he realised, and much, much less than the last human nest where he had been taken.

A group of smaller Vikings caught his eye, and he turned his head on the cart to face them, taking them in. Two identical viking fledglings. A fat, stocky one with something in his hand that he was scratching on wildly. One of them looked much like the man he had spared in the arena the first time, but, smaller. And then there was one he recognised with another, sudden burst of pain.

A blonde haired female was staring at him in fury, and he knew its name where he could not recall the others - 'Astrid' - more of a concept than a creature to him. She was brave, she was strong, she was a real Viking. He let out a bayed call of pain and shut his eyes as unbidden memories rushed into his mind, crushing against his being.

A freezing winter night in a tiny human dwelling, hitting something with something else, a weapon - for her.

Watching this girl play with other small Vikings, much smaller this time - as he stared on from a distance.

She stood over him with the others and they all laughed at him - what had he done?

These were both his, and not his memories. The others, they must be, but why could he see them? Why now? The cart he was on creaked as his body shook slightly, and he realised - the other wanted out. He growled slightly, a few of the surrounding Vikings jumping back and clasping weapons at their hips, but he paid them no mind.

The dragon shut his eyes tighter, focusing now. He couldn't give the body back, yet. He would have to fight again, and if the other tried, he would perish, certainly. The other was of a gentle kindness not fit for this life, and that was not an option to be even slightly considered. But again the pain rushed over him as the other fought back from the back of his mind - the other was stronger, but he could not give in to his desire. These Vikings would not simply listen to him, or understand him, or do anything but try and make trophies of his body as one already had.

The other must have seen what had happened to him, what he had endured in the last days at the hands of humans, or be at least aware of how the body they inhabited was now missing a paw. But still, the pain rolled over him and his eyesight blurred as the cart was wheeled into the stone arena. He whined and continued to fight, but each step the Vikings took with the cart closer to the hole in the wall he was to be confined in again, his eyes drooped more and more, and it got harder to stay conscious. As if the other was pulling him to sleep.

As they unloaded him from the cart, and unceremoniously dumped him into the pen, his eyes hazily falling closed at last, all the dragon could think of was that the other was the most stubborn creature.

Small-Claw woke up in a bleak, cold, darkness. He had a vague recollection of where he was, and why his body felt like someone had gone at it with a dozen sharp instruments, and possibly even why his left back foot was missing. Which might all explain the crippling headache he was suffering from.

What he did not know was where Toothless was; and to him, that was much worse than the current situation. His first instinct was to panic, and panic he did, scratching and screeching at the large wooden gate to his cell, and calling for his brother. He revisited the jumble of scenes that had occurred, not quite to him, but to something that held his body hostage. Small-Claw had no idea what it was, even now, but it had kept him safe for a good amount of time, until the other two-legs had snatched him up and taken him away.

After making the racket for a while and receiving nothing back, he slumped and fell down in the middle of his cell. He hadn't actually been allowed to walk normally for weeks, and he could feel it. His legs and remaining paws ached now that he could rest them properly. Small-Claw started to slowly stretch his tired wings out and wiggle his tail, trying to take his mind off of things. The appendages creaked as he worked them, lifting his wings and stretching them to the sides and above him as much as he could with a quiet groan of relief. His tail was going to be more difficult, he realised, as he pulled the tip before him and looked.

Small-Claw wanted to roll his eyes at the hunk of metal and leather on his tail, the metal covering it spiked and heavy, yet not enough to set him off balance. Trust two-legs to make a weapon out of something meant to restrain him. He looked down at it and tilted his head slowly, looking over it and flipping his tail to inspect the underside. There was nothing he could prize off, but there were two small pins on the underside. He hooked a claw under one of them and tugged a little, finding it surprisingly easy to give way, but then paused. The two-legs would most likely come to either feed him or set him loose to fight, and if they saw he'd removed the one thing keeping him grounded, they might try and find a more permanent way.

The Night One let out a low growl of aggravation now, his worry falling aside to a burst of anger. Two-legs were stupid and cruel, he knew now. Even when he was one he knew this, but he'd had some kind of misplaced desire to please them, to be one of them. Now, he just wanted to be away from them.

Small-Claw heard activity on the other side of the gate and growled a little louder, standing and stepping back slowly, his limp very obvious now he walked on the missing limb. He hissed a little, from pain this time, as he backed into the far edge of the stone cell walls and watched the door apprehensively, his life-fire flaring up. He heard a cracking noise and the 'thunk' of something above his cell, and the doors slowly swung open.

The scale-wing hissed at the intruder to the small cage he was in, and narrowed his eyes.

It was someone he knew, again. A man with a paunch, and two missing appendages, with a bucket of fish under his arm. He did not look afraid, for all that Small-Claw had done to earn it, he simply looked curious. But the hook on his left arm where a paw would be was telling enough to him, and he backed into the wall a little further.

"To think yer afraid of us, still."

The words had no meaning, falling upon obfuscated ears, but he stopped growling at least as the man stepped in. Small-Claw scented the air suspiciously - it was only the man in front of him, and he smelt of metal, fire and worry. Worry wasn't quite fear, but he knew this man had worked around scale-wing kin his entire life and had lost limbs to them. It was the closest any Viking would ever get to understanding them, most likely.

He watched carefully as the man - Gobber, herecalled suddenly with a pang of homesickness that disappeared under the wave of apprehension - stepped inside the cell and dropped the bucket to the right side of the door inside. He felt the two-leg give him an appraising eye, and hadn't bothered to hide his wounded leg.

Small-Claw's stomach gave him enough reason to step forward, knowing that the one-legged-two-leg would not hurt him without purpose, and buried his snout into the bucket. The fish was at least two days old, but it mattered not to his belly as he ate them quickly. He felt Gobber step closer to him and stopped eating, hesitating as his breathing picked up. The man did not hurt him, instead kneeling with something in his working hand he could barely make out through the corner of his eye and pausing. He tugged his snout from the bucket and looked at the male with a slightly aggressive huff, warning him.

Gobber rolled his eyes and muttered, but soon deftly set about cleaning the underside of his stump. The first touch brought an unwarranted hiss from his lips, the feeling making him sick, but the one-legged-man shushed him and cleaned the stump with a cold, wet cloth. Small-Claw growled as he endured it, feeling the muscles in his leg flex as if his paw were still at the base of it and he relaxed after a moment.

"Even dragons get that, hm? No-one's safe from it."

Small-Claw limped backwards as the two-legged stood and gave him another look, this one meeting his eyes. He didn't drop the gaze, instead looking at Gobber with slight curiosity. It was very strange how the man wasn't afraid - granted, that most likely came from the fact that he could kill him with a twist of his hooked arm - and how willing he was to be this close to him. He watched carefully as the heavy Viking stood and collected his things and cast a last glance toward him on the floor.

"Ta think ye killed the lad in such a ruthless fashion, and you're here on the ground, mewlin' like that over a little scratch."

The dragon grumbled something back at him and sighed, curling back up on the cool stone as the gate closed and he was indulged in the thick blackness once more. He pictured that he might be invisible if he shut his eyes with how little light was in his cage. Small-Claw sighed and wished he was literally anywhere else. He very much missed Toothless, and even the stone in this cage wasn't nice, or warm like the stones in his home nest. He missed the presence of other scale-wings, the buzzing of their being around him and the cry and chorus of flight.

He missed not being afraid and angry.

Small-Claw growled and scratched the ground beneath him. He was sick of being in a hole in the ground, too. But there wasn't anything he could do, other than sleep. He rested himself on the ground, comfortable as he could get, and shut his eyes.

The nap didn't do much but treat him to more awful flashing nightmares. He had no idea how long he slept for, intermittently woken up by the awful terrors, or the thudding footfalls of Vikings above him. He assumed it to be night now, as when Gobber was here he had seen the shadows, telling him that it had been midday. Small-Claw opened his eyes again as he heard a loud metal clunking from past his gate and scrambled backwards; he heard a lot of Vikings moving towards his cage.

He pulled back to the furthest edge of the cage and growled at the door, hearing the grating metal and wood sounds of the mechanisms coming to life. He hissed a little, and scraped at the floor when he found the wall blocking his retreat. Small-Claw could scent yet more Vikings outside, further past those directly outside of his cage. He didn't even have to gaze into the crisp blackness of night to know who it was and why their numbers were so.

Small-Claw watched the group and backed away, shaking his head, his eyes wide. He didn't have to see them to know they were mere slits. His sire, his sire's brother, and the one-legged-two-leg, Gobber, were before him. He watched them, terrified - last time he'd been in a situation like this he'd been nearly killed and had to do awful things to others to stay alive. He watched them, terrified as Gobber gestured to him with a wave of his false-arm, grumbling something to the group that he couldn't understand.

"Stoick, actually look at 'et. Couldn't 'arm a fly. This is definitely no' the beastie from the last wee 'ceremony' we 'ad. Sto' lookin' at it as a dragon, and look at 'em like a wild animal. Whaddaya see?"

Small-Claw bayed and whined, staring between them as the cluster of Vikings in the rear held weapons a little tighter - his eyes frantically searching for any way he could get around them, of any way past the wall of two-legs who hated him so. He saw that scowl of his sire's that wrought up awful memories that he barely paid attention to as he saw him.

"It's… Gobber I don't see the point in this. So what, it's scared. It bloody should be."

The tone and scent from his father was hurting him almost, visceral stabs to his life-fire that left him whimpering on the floor, belly lowered and wrapping his forepaws over his head as if to shut the vision of it out. This was some sick joke, surely - he tried to grasp at anything that he could find, what this could be to them - Astrid, he'd told her, the female her age he'd… loved so much. Small-Claw had… he'd… scrawled those lines! He'd told her, somehow, a long time ago, he remembered the look on her face as she knew it to be true. Then where was she? He - she could stop this! She could say to them who he was, that they knew him! Where was the blonde two-leg? Why wasn't she helping him?

Small-Claw peeked out through his paws. The Vikings were having some kind of argument about him again, and Gobber kept looking and gesturing at him. There was no way out of this stupid cave, this arena, this village. He looked at his sire. If he could breathe his fire, he could just incinerate the loud, stinking Viking in front of him and dash past them in the confusion and the fire.

He hated vikings. He could do it. If he tried hard enough, right here and now, he could figure out his fire and blast through them all.

But he wouldn't do it. Not to his father, Gobber… Spitelout. Ivar. Boarlegs.

Small-Claw's head pounded profusely with all their incessant talking, and shouting. Some were hitting weapons on the ground to emphasise their points, but he didn't care. He took in a deep breath, squared himself in the middle of his cave, and let out a roaring screech as loud as he could.

"If you are here to kill me, do it already!" The Night Fury screamed. Letting out all of his rage and fear and sadness in one echoing bellow.

It worked, the Vikings stopping their squabbling and forming rank alongside one another. For argumentative, evil two-legs, it would seem the threat of a malnourished, exhausted scale-wing was enough to pull them together. He would laugh, if there weren't more than three pawfuls of Viking weapons pointed at him. The scale-wing growled and snapped at them before sitting down again with a roll of his eyes.

"Well, I say we jus'... kill 'et and be done wi' it."

"We should kill it. Take it's head and it's wings."

"No! I'll not have this devil taken as a trophy. Not after it killed… my boy."

Small-Claw sighed, letting his head droop. He looked up at the night sky behind them, up at the stars and let the Vikings discuss his fate. The scale-wing chuffed a little at them and gazed. He missed flying, though he could scarcely remember the sensation. Everything before he woke up was a blur - he knew they'd tried to get to the Queen's nest but then, nothing. There were snippets, like some kind of a dream. But, now, he was stuck here.

He saw a shape, flickering over the stars. A bird, from this distance. But then he saw more. He saw more and more shapes and there was a group of them - dozens of shapes blotting out the pinpricks of light from the stars. Small-Claw balked, and renewed his efforts to scramble back into the furthest edge of his cage. The Vikings didn't seem to notice his redoubled attempt to escape the stone cage and he whimpered a little - those could only be from the Queen's nest. Panic welled up in his gut and he screeched again, with terror.

Flashes of what he'd felt in the nest returned to him and he felt sick again. But then he scented something - someone - he'd never see again. He heard the telltale featherlight gait, and the Vikings crowed something, turning their backs to him, weapons out. He could only barely bring himself to try and see over them, sitting up.

Valka had, long ago, made a solemn vow to herself. For no reason would she ever return to Berk, for any reason. It was not that she doubted herself to be able to leave, but she could not hurt those she'd left behind with the slightest hint she was still alive. Though it hurt her cause, she would let them all believe what had happened that night. The wife of the Chief of Berk had been taken from her home, protecting her baby in the crib, by a dragon with four wings and intelligent eyes.

But the life of a Night Fury was no small thing.

In the nearly two decades she'd been living amongst dragons, she'd never even heard of one. Not from trappers, from hints around the nest, from the wilderness she found herself in every day - and now she'd become responsible for two, she was not going to let one slip her grasp. She'd been living day to day the last month with him, and she'd rarely seen a dragon of her nest so utterly distraught. When he wasn't depressed, he was livid. Blasting fire at anything that annoyed him, and then returning to his sadness. Mated couples who lost one another seemed to be about this bad, but she couldn't even look the larger Night Fury in the eye anymore for the torrential wave of sadness she found within.

Cloudjumper and herself had spent days tracking the smaller of the two Night Fury siblings, and upon their last trail going cold - a dragon trapper tribe to the east of Berk - she'd nearly given up hope. If not for the lost brother's insistence to land at Berk again, on the small island, and then Cloudjumper catching the scent as they circled the docks to leave, they never would've found him again. But they'd spied him, as a Viking had come into his cage in the Kill Ring, she could barely make him out from the distance they'd adopted, but she could see him.

Valka had headed back to the nest for reinforcements two days prior. She had to get the smaller Night Fury out of the Kill Ring, and the only way any Viking of Berk would listen to her would be through a show of force. There were too many guards to try and sneak in.

This brought her to the evening. The moon was waning, and her and an assembled flock of two dozen dragons flew high above the Kill Ring of Berk. Valka had snuck carefully into the ring, and watched the assembled few dozen men and women armed in front of the Night Fury's cage. His brother was up in the clouds with the others - she'd desperately tried to keep him away, as he'd been flying with very little rest for days now, but he simply refused to rest while his sibling was not safe and he could stop it.

She made sure her masked helm was tight to her head before tapping her staff on the stone ground and clearing her throat for the benefit of the cluster of men in front of her.

Valka watched as the well armed gaggle of hairy, bearded men turned around in confusion, clearly not expecting a stranger so deep in Berk and calling attention to themself like this. She saw the tell-tale deep breath Stoick took when his gaze fell on her; she was standing up as straight as she could, adopting a more 'human' posture for once instead of her stealthy, kneeling gait. She did not speak - she simply looked at each man, and then pointed her staff at the cage the Night Fury was in.

She could not make him out so well, but she could see those glowing eyes flash with something as he recognised a friend. A smile curled on her face as his ear plates lifted up a little and she rattled her staff at the men again.

All were confused, but Stoick had his hand to his hammer and a hand on his hip.

"State yer business, stranger to Berk. You are before her Chieftain, and you are trespassing." He barked at her, all aggression and biceps as he watched her.

Valka did not speak - he would know immediately, she knew it. But, especially right now, she did not want to go back to him as she once would have. She could see the cage the kind-spirited Night Fury was being kept in, if you could call a hollowed out rock with doors a cage. She simply pointed at them, and then the dragon again, before smacking her staff to the floor with a rattle, tilting her head to the side.

Gobber seemed to be enjoying the slight awkwardness of it, and looked at Stoick, before speaking,

"Stoick, ah, I don' think our new arrival appreciates you havin' the Night Fury. Am I right, sir?" The smith asked, his charming smile and his moustache wiggled as he enunciated.

Stoick visibly bristled, and Valka held in a sigh as he held his hammer tighter, growling at her like the dragon he stole the stature of. He looked at her, up and down, before staring at the Night Fury. She took a single step to the side, and then twirled her staff - 'be ready' - and she didn't need to see Cloudjumper to know he was.

"You'll not be having this monster. You are an intruder to Berk. You're clearly not a member of a tribe, as otherwise you'd know the heavy price for what you're doing." Stoick grunted at her, sneering, his lip raised. He continued, anger and sadness tugging at his voice chords, "This thing killed my son. I will not be letting it go for some… wild-persons wants!" He barked at her, and her chest tightened, before she shook her head at him.

The Night Fury, while one of the most feared and respected species of scaled firebreather, never held the look in its eye as if it was a killer. She had seen it plenty of times; the sadness a dragon could carry in its gaze for what it had done. Valka knew them to be more remorseful than most Vikings she'd ever known, and the smaller sibling was not guilty of anything. A misunderstanding, to be sure - she was not protecting her sons killer. She drew herself up to her full height and twirled her staff, shaking it back and forth so the small bone charms at the head and tail end of it rattled quietly.

Valka heard the rush of air before she felt anything else, and a cacophonous blast of fire jetted over her as Cloudjumper and the other Fury made their entrance alongside her own cadre of dragons. She picked the entourage for their aggressive looking attributes - vikings only understood strength, and she had brought enough Nightmares and Rumblehorns for even Stoick to think twice in his mournful rage.

Every dragon came to her back with Cloudjumper as the chain roof above them melted, casting her in a soft red and white glow. Her scaled friends lighting fire in their mouths as the vikings cried out and retreated into a protective circle around Stoick.

"This is impossible…" Gobber muttered, his hand prosthesis scratching his jaw in his atypical reaction. But she could see her husband, his face white as he saw her. Though he did not know, she so desperately wanted to show him her face, to let him know she was no enemy.

"If you take this Fury, monster-kin, I promise. I swear an Oath to Odin and Thor, to every God at the Kings Table; I will not stop coming for you. I will find you, and I will slaughter every dragon at your back before I come for you and that monstrosity." Stoick snarled at her with all of the ferocity she'd ever seen - it was almost enough to make her think twice.

Almost.

She cleared the way to the cage and to the Night Fury, his brother at her side, snarling and snapping at the Vikings in his path, her back to the group who were all spinning in circles to try and cover every angle against her friends, and she found the small thing. In the slight light from the fires, what she saw sickened her to her core.

Cuts, gashes ran over his back and sides. He was missing a paw. His tail was in some leather and metal contraption that his brother immediately whimpered at. They butted cheeks and nuzzled, the larger of the two licking and reassuring his kin as she inspected the damage.

"Can you fly, little one? We've got to go. We won't go far, I promise you." She whispered, petting the top of his head and he gave her a small warble.

Valka set to his tail, using her nimble fingers to remove the trap on his tail fins, and watched him flinch as he awkwardly spread them for the first time in a while. He whimpered as he did so, extending them their full length, his entire tail trembling.
The other Fury slid to his brother's rear end and pushed his head down under his back legs, and lifted him up onto his back with some work, before trotting from the cage. Valka followed suit, and they were quickly both in front of Cloudjumper.

She was furious. She knew, again, that Vikings could not and would not learn, even when the answer was right in their faces. Torturing a dragon like this, trapping them and seeing them so meek and terrified and still finding some apparent glory in it because a handful burn their homes. Her chin quaked as she looked at the vikings and she pointed her staff down at them, before lifting it skyward. Cloudjumper pulled her up with the claw of his wing edge, and soon they were airborne again. Her cadre of dragons chirping and squawking to the wounded member of their group as she slumped against Cloudjumper, cuddling into his neck as she breathed heavily.

Seeing Stoick like that - was her son truly dead?

The question tormented her all the way from Berk.

Apologies for the wait on this one.

Life happened and kicked me down but I got inspired again and finished this up to post. More to come.