Grimmel returned with his dragons to the empty cage, greeted by the six pairs of Berkian footprints drenched in pre-dawn dew. The four dragons who carried the airship set it down and rested gargoyle-like on their stands, peering down as Grimmel stalked out into the grass, flanked by Darling and one of the others. Their surroundings were soft dark greys and lavenders under the moon, and his dragons and the airship stood out like a sore thumb. Even Grimmel's own figure stood out.
He grabbed a handle on Darling's injection collar and yanked her towards an easily-defined Night-Fury footprint. She sniffed at it and then raised her head, tracing the scent into the sky where Toothless and the Light Fury had disappeared to. Not far enough away, not long enough gone to fool her, though.
She huffed impatiently and scraped her claws into the ground to let her master know she had them. The other, older Deathgrippers called down to her as he shook her head with strength she could have fought back against if things had been different and went to climb onto her standing side-saddle, attached to her collar on the side. Balanced on the other side of the collar was a pack full of supplies—weapons included. The other Deathgripper who hadn't been carrying the airship had also been packed with smaller traps and restraint straps. Grimmel commanded the two of them up, and she pushed into the sky, eager to chase her new prey. But first, they circled around so that Grimmel could unchain the rest of the pack's collars from the airship.
"We'll leave the airship here, Darling. We ought to be fast, after all."
The rest of the Deathgrippers launched themselves from the airship at Grimmel's whistle and followed Darling as they chased Toothless's scent.
Darling was not as far gone as the other Deathgrippers. Their years and years of constant sedation and poison and abuse had made her pack numb and dull. They panicked easily at any difference in the amount of drug they were given. They expended effort and strength as if they were unlimited resources, as if they were invulnerable, for no reason. As if all tasks were to be done at any cost. They exhausted themselves far more easily than they should have. They depended on Grimmel for orders and food and stimulation.
She had, in fact, watched one of them decline into this state.
She hadn't always been Grimmel's favorite, had certainly not always been the highest-ranking Deathgripper of the pack. It was not she who had headed the pack against the Night Furies; she had been new, freshly captured and dosed with just enough to keep her dependent. The old favorite had been the male to be released from his tranquilizers and who had bolted back on Berk. He'd once been powerful, energetic, and precise, capable of foresight, and an excellent tracker. But as she had grown, the older male had made more and more mistakes, adapted to his dosage and acted out against their master. His dosage had been increased time, and time again. And now he followed behind her, a shell of what he would have been if he had remained free.
Darling disdained him.
A real dragon would never have been brought down to that level. A real dragon would have fought to stay the favorite. And every day she proved herself to her human master, not quite aware of her own decline. Not quite aware the toll their own poison had on them. Grimmel had to replace one of his Deathgrippers every several years because the drug took their strength, and once they were useless enough, he would put them down rather than release them.
Darling was lucid enough to know something was wrong. Something in her hadn't given up yet, although this thing was not strong enough anymore to fight back as hard as it had used to. Most days its presence was quiet and she could be distracted from it by Grimmel's whistles and clicks and commands and exercises. But some days it would act up and she would grow quiet, waiting to see whether it would win out against her own venom.
It hadn't yet. But the instinct was pacing in her chest, waiting for an opportunity.