I am once again sorry for taking a long time. But since the last chapter, life happened. Most importantly, I started university and moved to another city away from home, meaning that suddenly, finding and cooking food became the most pressing priority. Fortunately, I managed to discover grocery stores, and fanfiction writing is now back. I hope you will enjoy it.
Together with this chapter being published, the chapters 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11 and 12 were updated, mainly because there were some parts of them that I wasn't happy with. Though it is nothing plot-relevant, and in most cases not more than a few words. Something that is more relevant is that one of this story's characters was named "the capturer". Yes, a truly original and exciting and well thought name for someone who was introduced by capturing someone, but unfortunately grammatically incorrect. Therefore, his name has now changed to "the captor". This name is almost as original as the first one.
The captor was doing something stupid. Though in his defence, he was aware of it being stupid. He was simply deciding to proceed with it anyway.
The monstrous nightmare took a defiant step towards the stream, focused his eyes on a silver-grey trout and with a swift movement snapped it out of the water and swallowed it.
Lemon stared back during all of this, blue eyes facing the orange dragon with nothing but rage and a shock that stopped her from doing anything. The captor displayed his teeth in a grin, responding to her with a defying gaze. He despised her, and he knew he had the upper hand.
For a light fury, Lemon was big and strong. Against him, she seemed tiny, frail, and most importantly, weak. And so, the captor could at any moment leap against her, but if it came to it, she was completely hopeless against him.
"You monster!", she roared. "Go back to the hole in the ground that you deserve!"
The captor gave a sneer smile. His opponent had made a lethal mistake, and he would make sure to fully exploit it. Stalking nearer, he walked on the side of the white dragon and tauntingly eyed the undefended side before dealing the determining blow. "I am already in a hole in the ground.", he barked with a devilish smile. Upon this incredible defeat, the light fury looked mortified.
"But if you have complaints, you are welcome to take it to the alpha.", he continued innocently. "Let's see what he will say about me doing something so horrible such as eating a fish."
Lemon was still fuming (literally, some white smoke leaking from her nostrils). However, she turned part of that anger away from him, towards a dragon that was not present at the moment. "That rotten beast…", she murmured quietly. "That he released you."
Convincing the light fury that he was not the alpha's target had been surprisingly easy. It all hung on how she despised both the alpha and himself. After all, if an enemy's enemy was one's friend, it implied that if one had two enemies they had to be friends. To Lemon, he and the alpha were both a torment. This meant that she had not for a moment doubted the story of Toothless releasing him to let him 'steal' the prey from 'her' cavern. Stupid, but very lucky, for him at least.
Speaking of which, a healthy, fresh saumon swam in the river besides the two dragons. Through a more thorough inspection, the captor determined that it was also particularly tasty.
Lemon's expression was fitting to her name. "This is our cavern, the one we fought to obtain! Who do you think you have the right to walk in-"
The captor interrupted the light fury with an angry growl and stepped forwards, closer, towering over her. "You fought to obtain this cavern. Now we will fight to get it back.", he hummed venomously.
"But you are alone. Noone else wants this to change.", growled Lemon, though her voice came out a lot more quiet. "Do you see anyone else here trying to get fish from us?"
A faint sound of wingbeats became ever louder as two black and white dragons approached, followed by the sounds of heavy breathing and occasional profanities. Within moments, the two dragons, now near enough to be recognizable as similar to, but not light furies, had started aggressively diving into the stream in some kind of extreme fishing. An angry bark rose from Lemon. "Oh, come on!"
Dart reemerged from the water empty-handed. This was not a problem since most of the time, fishing consisted in taking a fish in one's teeth and since Dart, being a dragon, had paws instead of hands. Tragically, her jaws were equally empty. She had not found a tuna, and with every passing second without that happening the chances of Pouncer catching one before her increased. She snarled angrily, taking a moment to recover her breath and look around, reassessing the situation to find some better place to find her target.
While she was looking around, she noted something. An orange monstrous nightmare was looking at her with worry from the other bank of the river, mere meters away, and she could swear that she had seen him before. But where?
"Pouncer!", she barked as a warning as the nightlight reemerged from the stream.
"Distracting the opponent to win?", mumbled the green-eyed dragon, not even trying to divert some of his attention away from the water to look at her. "Typical poor Dart, too skinny to win cleanly."
Dart barked angrily. She wasn't skinny! The nightlight made a mental note to give back for her brother, later. "The dragon that almost hurt Ruffrunner is here.", she barked, so as to make her brother understand the graveness of the threat.
"Uh-huh", answered Pouncer, who was not paying attention to her in the slightest.
Dart looked back at the monstrous nightmare. "He is looking at us.", she barked hastily.
"Ah.", rumbled Pouncer.
"He is starting to escape!", she barked in warning.
"Sure.", hummed Pouncer.
Dart blinked. Really, talking was not that effective.
"Ow!", whined Pouncer as Dart bit her ear.
Dart, feeling quite proud of her self-control, did not bite down harder. Instead, she released the dragon and explained the situation in the quick and efficient way only she could truly provide. "You are stupid. That is why you need to follow my orders. I order you to help me capture that dragon.", she explained with the sweetest voice she could manage. At the moment, this meant a voice that was firm, but not overly spiteful.
Pouncer still looked quite perplexed, so Dart opened her mouth wide, stretched her teeth and poised herself to eat her brother for added effect. This worked surprisingly well, as Pouncer immediately leapt towards the captor, and more importantly away from Dart's jaws. "I get it!", he barked in panic, desperate to please his sister. Finally they were off.
As they flew, Dart found herself thinking of herself, and how she had managed to deal with her brother. The nightlight concluded that she would make an excellent alpha if it came to it.
In their ramblings, the monstrous nightmare had managed to acquire quite a lead. But for the offspring of a light fury and a night fury, this was not a big issue. Her body was flowing with adrenaline, her heart was strongly and rapidly beating, and her wings seemed to crave to move themselves. Tightly following by the side of her brother, the two made up the lead by the second. The captor was heading for outside this tunnel, and in this familiar racing ground, she could reach fenomenal speed. The open air of the cavern showed itself in the rapidly decreasing distance, where they saw the orange dragon start a dive. As the nightlight tightly tucked her wings, she couldn't help but smile.
Ruffrunner stretched, savouring how his body was relieved from various aches. The nightlight let out a content purr as he pushed his forepaws forwards and did the same with his tail.
How long would it take for his siblings to return with his fish? They had to find a tuna and return, which was an admittedly difficult task. However, when it came to competition, both he and his siblings often found ways to surprise, both positive (a hidden shortcut) and negative (that happened to be so narrow one got stuck in it and had to be pulled out). This meant that Ruffrunner was unsure of how much time would pass.
Calmly, he stepped towards the wider world until he was standing at the edge of their home cavern. The air was clean and pleasant on his nose, but he noted how it was becoming colder. Summer was coming to an end by this time. But the nightlight wasn't overly worried. The hidden world was enclosed with layers of rock and had the seawater literally pouring into it, meaning that it rarely got truly cold. Furthermore, fish were found during the entire year. Winter was not a big deal, with the exception of not being able to enjoy the sun's warm rays.
Ruffrunner looked out to the cavern with a solemn gaze. When his two siblings returned with his tunas, he would be sure to give them a worthy welcome and congratulate the winner. A small price to pay to make sure they didn't decide to keep his fish.
A monstrous nightmare swept by, tightly flanked by two black and white dragons, all three very familiar. Ruffrunner's eyes went wide.
How had they managed to get into that situation?
The nightlight gave a long, longing gaze behind him, at the love of his life. Smooth, warm and always there for him. How he wished to just be able to forget his siblings and just pass more of his precious time with his beloved sleeping slab.
But things were happening. Ruffrunner leapt off the cliff and dove. Resenting his siblings' existence would come later.
Why the captor had decided to dive was a mystery. But regardless of this, it was not a bad thing. The nightlights had no problem whatsoever keeping up, and had to even flare to avoid overshooting their target as the four streaked down the wide path. So no, the captor, despite his best effort, did not manage to keep them behind him. But for the trio to not only reach, but actually do something, was a completely different story.
Dart, being by far the most daring of the three, aimed straight for the tail, and in a high speed pass grabbed it, shoved it aside and destabilized the flight path of the captor.
The orange dragon angled slightly to correct for the movement and returned to diving.
The three nightlights surrounded their target, circling around it slowly and warily as they kept descending at high speed. In his mind, Ruffrunner was formulating a plan, a maneuver that would throw off the captor for long enough that he would be forced to flare or crash into a wall. But it was surprisingly difficult to think in the current situation.
As it turned out, that wasn't necessary, as the monstrous nightmare flared a moment later, aiming for a forgotten tunnel, landing on the ground and running to pass through the tunnel's narrow opening. For one particular nightlight, this opened an opportunity.
Panting, Dart followed at high speed, with no intention of slowing down. Her eyes fixed on the opening, she approached with her wings tense towards a point just slightly below her target. As the rock got dangerously close, Dart spread out her wings and angled upwards. Now with enough vertical momentum not to crash, she tucked her wings, streaking down the narrow hole without losing two of her limbs or scraping away her underside. The nightlight emitted a jovious roar, but soon focused back to the task at paw.
Her eyes were back to the orange dragon, precise movements in the wings leading her just above him. A feral grin on her teeth, she stopped down her paws and landed squarely and heavily onto the monstrous nightmare's back, nearly collapsing him into the ground. She barked triumphantly as the dragon stopped. "Ha! I caught you!"
Her jovious blue eyes quickly widened in terror as she looked up to see that the dragon she had 'caught', massing about five times her weight, turned around and cast a quite irritated stare at her. During the moments before the disaster, Dart took a moment to consider that maybe, just maybe, her decision to approach this dragon had not been such a good idea.
The captor flipped to his side, during which the nightlight desperately held on, and then shoved her onto the ground by raising his tucked wings. Dart found herself on her back, trapped below his wing, and before she could escape by wiggling away, the wing had been replaced by a heavy and potentially lethal hind paw.
"This is not how this is supposed to work!", she whined desperately. This wasn't fair!
"You should not-", she attempted, but a second paw pressed down on her throat, depriving her of air. Pained half-coherent sounds emanated from her as she tried to claw away both of the limbs keeping her down, with no success apart from superficial scratches. Pouncer and Ruffrunner landed the next moment to the scene and looked horrified at the scene in front of them.
"Fly away. She will pass out, and I will hide. Everyone will live.", stated the captor coldly. "If you don't fly away. She is dead. Are we clear?"
"Don't harm her!", deplored Pouncer. "I need help to attract females, and I will be old and senile before there is even a chance that Ruffrunner becomes-"
"Are we clear?!", roared the monstrous nightmare once more. The two brothers, through a seemingly independent decision, nodded and tensely backed off. If a fight broke out, their chances were too low, and it would be far too easy for something truly bad to happen to Dart.
As soon as Pouncer and Ruffrunner were on the other side of the narrow opening and out of sight, the darker dragon hastily explained the best course of action. "I will call for help. Get somewhere where he can't see you, but make sure to be ready to grip in if Dart ever seems in real harm."
Pouncer looked at him with a worried, low growl."Why does everyone keep acting like if I am stupid and giving me orders?!"
Ruffrunner put a kind yet firm paw onto his brother's shoulder and gave him a serious look, toxic green eyes to toxic green eyes. "Because that is just who you are."
Oh, please be fine, thought Light she pushed her wings to their limits in a battle for speed. As her muscles became heavy, and her speed started to drop, Toothless gained speed and passed in front of her. The light fury placed herself in her mate's slipstream to save energy. At the grueling rate of the climb that they were maintaining, this was by no means resting, but it prolonged having to slow down for precious moments. From the moment of Ruffrunner saying 'captor' and 'making Dart not breathe' to her, her mate and all of their advisors taking flight, less than five seconds had passed. Her adrenaline was filled to the maximum, but right now, she couldn't be anything but grateful for it.
The black and white dragons climbed rapidly, their path near-vertical in the tunnel, looking for the cavern Ruffrunner had described. And as the correct ledge became visible, the light fury's breath stuck in her throat.
A loud roaring emerged from this ledge. "I will go into that cavern, alone if I have to, and take his air away! You can't stop me from having my revenge!"
Light sighed in relief. "She is fine."
Meanwhile, Toothless thought about what his daughter had just roared. "Not for long.", he growled.
They approached the correct ledge and entered the narrow opening to find both Dart and Pouncer physically intact, with Pouncer struggling to keep hold on Dart's tail as she tried to wiggle herself free. Naturally, this was accompanied by various profanities, ranging from one's complete lack of consequence thinking to this being the reason one would never be appreciated by females. In other words, safe and sound.
Toothless barked sharply to get their attention. "What happened?", asked the night fury
"I heard wingbeats shortly after Ruffrunner left. Then I came back here, and saw Dart unconscious on the ground while the captor was gone. She regained consciousness a few seconds later, and started demanding that I let her go and chase after the captor.", started Pouncer.
"Which this disgrace for a brother did not allow.", continued Dart before giving the night fury a view of wide, impossibly innocent blue eyes. "But now that you are here, could you please tell him that I can have my lovely, sweet revenge?"
After breaking their daugher's heart and sending their offspring away, the night fury and light fury devised a method to find the captor in the tunnel they were now finding themselves in. The problem, as it turned out, was that there were over a hundred caves into the tunnel's walls, and only one of them contained their target. One mild head scratching later, the inventive solution of 'search through all of them' was found, and the now calmer Light, Toothless and the rest of the advisors prepared for their next task. Gathered just inside of the narrow opening, the night fury explained their course of action.
"Hookfang, Stormfly, help me search these caves. Make yourself noticed if you find anything.", explained the alpha. He gave his advisors a serious look. "And when someone calls, get there fast. Clear?"
Light stepped forwards, trying her best to hide her nervousness.. "I will also join you!", she barked.
Her mate tilted his head and displayed an amused smile. "Do you deem yourself capable of surviving an attack by an angry monstrous nightmare?", he asked teasingly.
"Well, that just isn't a fair comparison.", started the light fury in a conversational tone. "You spent years dealing with aggressive dragons and humans alike together with Hiccup, and cannot expect me to have the same level of…" She was cut short by the light fury lovingly licking the side of her neck, and nuzzled her head onto his back with a sigh.
It was the right course of action, but that didn't mean she had to like it.
"Be careful.", she purred softly.
The night fury purred back, just as softly. They bumped heads before taking to the sky.
Light was not pleased of not being a part of the search and fight, but that didn't mean she couldn't watch. The light fury was admired as the three dragons flew in and out of caves. The beasts would quickly disappear into them with complete focus, seemingly ready for everything, just to come back seconds later, veer aggressively and move to a nearby cave. Seeing her mate, Stormfly, and Hookfang acting like this felt strange, as they were so… professional. It was different. But considering who they were up against, it likely was for the best.
Finding her use, Light started keeping track of which caverns had been searched, and made sure that no cave was taken twice so as to ensure efficiency, while the three dragons moved further and further into the tunnel. The dragons settled down in a steady rhythm, and time quickly started to fly. This time, the captor would be theirs.
But by the end of the search, only one world stood out. Empty.
The night fury looked around, at the many caves that they had examined. Some had been long, some had been short, and some had been… average length. But they had searched through all of them, and none had contained their target. "How is this possible?" His emerald green eyes flicked rapidly towards his mate, suddenly filled with worry. "Did we make sure that the narrow opening was guarded at all times?"
"Pretty much.", answered Light promptly. "Well, I cannot see all of the tunnel system every fraction of a second, but almost."
The night fury, increasingly nervous, flicked his tail to point at the wider tunnel. "But could he have escaped by passing where you were not watching, and while we were searching in caves?"
"It doesn't make sense. He would have had to pass impossibly quickly, or I would have seen him.", barked Light defensively. She could miss a spot for one, maybe two seconds. That was by no means enough time to reach the opening.
"What if he went from cave to cave, always making sure to hide when you were looking in his direction?", asked Toothless, loudly, as his advisors looked nervously from the sidelines.
The light fury shook her head. "Still, it would be almost impossible for him to…"
Light stopped, her heart suddenly heavy in her chest. Almost. It was almost impossible. "Are you completely sure that he cannot have escaped?", asked Toothless, one final time.
The light fury looked down, a wave of guilt washing over her. She couldn't believe that it had happened, and she still found it hard to figure out just how it was possible, but the harsh truth was that she was just not sure. "No. I am not."
Toothless nodded, and took a few paces into the caver, before suddenly giving an angry, wordless roar. He and all of his advisors, searching all morning, had not found anything. But in just a few minutes, his hatchlings had managed to find themselves face to face with the captor without even trying, and then those three had managed to chase him into a one way-cavern, almost die, and managed to lose him. The night fury thought about the three dragons. "They are incredible.", he stated. Not only in good ways, he thought.
A few days later, the captor lay once more on the ground in the stupid cave. The other dragon had returned a few moments ago, bringing fish and a particularly bad mood. Unfortunately, this time, the captor had not found a reason to roar back. He could do nothing but look down as the other dragon paced angrily around him.
"Flying far through the main opening in full daylight to a populated cavern and causing trouble.", hummed the other dragon. "How on earth did you think it was a good idea?!", roared the other dragon after some time.
This wasn't true. The monstrous nightmare had known about the stupidity of the plan since the start, and tried to explain this. This had the result of the other dragon no longer being angry at him for making a colossal error of judgement but merely being angry at him in general. It was progress, though it didn't really feel like it. "How on earth have you survived until hatching and beyond with that chronically faulty excuse for a brain?!", roared the other dragon. The captor looked down, but his claws were rumbling.
"And what have you done?!", he barked back suddenly. "Thanks to me, that light fury has been hurt! The alpha has been filled with trouble! The entirety of the hidden world knows that Toothless is not capable of protecting his hatchlings! So tell me, what have you done besides giving me orders and telling me to keep a low profile?!", he asked in one long, powerful roar. There was a silence as they stalked each other.
"I have recruited people.", said the other dragon in the end. The monstrous nightmare was taken back as the other dragon started explaining in detail. "I have met dragons that are willing to help us. We are still too few, but I am changing that. The day that we rise up, we will be enough to avoid failing miserably."
At this point, the other dragon gave an angry growl, directed at him. "But that is not going to work if the alpha takes away our people faster than we can get them. That is why I want you to, for once, keep down until we can take him down with enough force, without disrupting our plans before we can even start."
The orange dragon growled. "You want me to be stuck in this cavern for eternity?"
"For the time that it takes to gather enough people.", answered the other dragon, the voice now defeated. And this time, the captor couldn't keep looking at him. He wouldn't be stuck here forever. They would rise up. He would become powerful. He would become free. And it would not take forever to do so. Slowly, he nodded, accepting the other dragon's demands. And the more he thought, the more his grin growed, until he was quietly chuckling while looking at the cave's stony floor.
"What are you so happy about?", asked the other dragon.
The captor displayed a toothy grin."The alpha, and his family. They know that I am still out here, still capable of harming them. And the thought of them being stuck somewhere for safety, shivering, shaking in fear, because of me… feels good."
"So, while searching for the captor, dad found this great new racing cavern, with ledges, beautiful coral, and holes that are juuust big enough to fit through during a dive.", said Dart with one of the broadest smiles her brothers had ever seen. "What do you think?"
"Great!", barked Pouncer, Ruffrunner, and Laura in chorus.
The nightlight hadn't expected anything less for an answer. However, one dragon's presence sparked a question. "Why are you here?", she asked Laura. She did not dislike the idea of one more dragon joining their races, but was curious in to how it had happened.
"Pouncer asked me if I wanted to join you in a race.", answered Laura before giving a sly smile to the dragon in question. "And I told him yes."
Dart looked at the night fury, thinking about how she felt for the dragon. Pity, mostly, because she apparently enjoyed spending time with her brother. But at the same time, she was bringing this upon herself. The nightlight couldn't help but feel that it was a fitting punishment for a dragon that had made the mistake of accepting Pouncer's offer. "If you wish so.", she hummed at the end.
The four dragons then approached the cliff's edge, and looked down onto the imposing cavern as the waterfall's roar filled the air. It was Laura, who was eager to show her worth as a racer to these three dragons, who decided to set the stage. "Racetothebottomandwinnergetsawish?", she asked, trying to imitate the way the nightlights usually started their races.
"Racetothebottomandwinnergetsawish.", confirmed the other three, and the game was officially on. Muscles were tensed, legs stretched and wings pushed back against the air as gravity took hold and accelerated them towards their goal. Right here, right now, there was nothing else in the world.