It was light by the time Grimmel reached his old base.
The storm was gone, the clouds nowhere in sight as he and his Deathgrippers swooped down towards the jagged rock of an island.
"Ah, Darling," he said. "Do you remember the fun we had at this place?" She wouldn't have called it 'fun.' He had built it up from what it had once been—barren—to being an expert Night Fury cage. The hollow hole of a chasm had meant that any of the half-starved, poisoned, grieving dragons who had arrived to mourn their mates had not been able to climb out or fly away.
Darling landed on one of the craggy peaks of the crown of volcanic rock and Grimmel dismounted, peering down to look at the prone figure of the last Night Fury.
Toothless lay where he had fallen during the storm, exhausted to the bone and too pained to get up. Hiccup and the Light Fury had called to him during the night once the winds had died down, but they were silent now. He wondered if they thought he was dead. He wondered if they had already left.
"Hello down there, Alpha," he called. "You seem to have lost your friends."
Toothless looked up at him, numb. In their cave, Hiccup and the Light Fury froze at his voice. Hiccup gestured for her to be quiet and prayed she understood. There were only a few rocks left before they could safely crawl out through a little gap around which the weight of the mountain above the tunnel was still supported. The Light Fury whimpered as Hiccup yanked at one of the heavy rocks, barely able to move it after days of flying and a whole night without sleeping.
"Whatever did you do with them? Not crushed them, I hope, nor killed them yourself." Grimmel made his way down toward Toothless, his Deathgrippers not straying too far behind. "I wanted to be the one to prove Chief Hiccup wrong about a dragon's nature. But I don't see a body around, so perhaps I still get to. I do love the spectacle of a Night Fury's death to be shared, to be seen—I confess I enjoy the attention of it —but now it feels almost as though I haven't earned it. You barely put up a fight."
The sun climbed higher behind them and made the world seem colorless. Toothless just watched as Grimmel's lean figure dropped down rock by rock until he reached what had once been a more clear path or ledge; a vantage point for the despair of the Night Furies that the Long Man had shared with others like him, the Warlords, his own men, ever craving the heroism he'd gained from his first killing.
Grimmel tutted disappointedly. "Tsk tsk. You really are disappointing, my friend. All this destructive power, all this incredible rage, and you use it for what? Protecting a bunch of humans on Berk?"
Toothless got to his feet, just barely wincing at a heavy bruise on his side, and stared darkly at Grimmel. The Deathgrippers let out a chorus of rabid hisses from where they perched. The Night Fury was unfazed. Come closer, murderers. I dare you.
Grimmel did, continuing his monologue. "Such power, all chained to a ridiculous twig of a boy playing chief. Your species' ridiculous sentimentality was its death. You are not to blame, of course, it is not your fault. You are a mere animal." He dropped to the ground, on Toothless's level, and the Deathgrippers followed, moving alongside him as they had been trained and locking their eyes on a figure they recognized as a target.
Toothless still did not move.
"Your kind died on this island, Alpha," Grimmel said. "You know this. It's why you do not fight. You want to die here as well. But that is not your fate, no. You will be seen. I'll take you back to Berk before you die, so that all the little dragons who follow you know their Alpha is dead. I will kill you then."
Hiccup pulled out the last rock and made a hole small enough for him to fit through. The Light Fury, on the other hand, was bigger. But there was no time to waste. Hiccup slipped through into the daylight, just out of Grimmel's dragons' vision. But Toothless's ears pricked up on seeing him. The Light Fury whimpered anxiously behind him, frantically trying to squeeze herself into the gap. Hiccup crept quickly to where the rubble of the outcropping he'd been on was slouched down towards the ground, the wood cracked and the metal bent. Light-footed, he braced his peg leg on the steep rock and the others on footholds in the wood. There had been weapons up there. Grimmel still advanced on Toothless with absolute confidence.
"It doesn't really matter of course," Grimmel said. "Even if you fight back, and you win, die now or die later your kind will be gone. You're the last one."
Hiccup rooted through the collapsed observation area hurriedly. "Come on, come on, come on," he muttered the prayer, until finally his hands found the old crossbow and the box of poisoned darts. Not nearly as updated as Grimmel's was now, but it would function. He loaded it quickly and rushed back to a position in sight of Grimmel.
"HEY!" he yelled.
Grimmel and all the Deathgrippers whipped around to look at him, and Toothless inhaled immediately. Hiccup took aim in the moment that his target was stunned and shot a dart at Grimmel. It nearly buried itself in his chest, but a Deathgripper leapt in front of it at the last moment and collapsed to the tranquilizer—which overpowered the carefully dosed amount being pumped into its neck.
Toothless's blast tore through the rock prison that the Light Fury struggled in and she burst out instants before the whole thing came down, the canyon's massive face all cracking and shifting down as it all broke. The Light Fury released a blast of her own at the Deathgrippers as she leaped into the middle of them, shrieking. Toothless, seeing her, summoned the strength to move, and jumped towards Hiccup, who swung into the saddle as if it had always been natural to him, and Toothless launched into the sky, calling the Light Fury after him.
Hiccup looked back as Toothless flew further away. "Come on, come on," he urged the dragon again. The Light Fury kicked off of a Deathgripper and narrowly avoided one's tail, making her escape as Grimmel whistled for his dragons to follow, climbing on one's shoulders before he could chase after.
The sky was too blue for Toothless to disappear, so Hiccup directed him down towards the ocean, where fog and craggy, black ocean rocks jutted out as the surf rose and fell wildly, having not calm down since the storm winds the night before. Strong winds still stirred the water violently, moving targets for Hiccup and Toothless to dodge. The Light Fury dove after them, shooting a fire bolt in front of her and diving through it, disappearing as soon as it touched her. As they got closer and closer to the water, Hiccup only just looked in time to watch it happen, and he yelled, "WOAH!"
Turning back around, he bent as flat as he could over Toothless's body and held on tight.
Toothless yelled frantically to alert him, and they barely dodged a wave as it rose up suddenly. The choppy ocean could hide them, but could also sweep them under, and he knew it.
Five Deathgrippers crested the mountain behind them, their eyes searching for the Night Fury in the sky, and then circling around manically as they tried to catch sight of them in the ocean.
Toothless flapped powerfully, putting air between he and an upcoming arch of rock. The trailings of hardened volcanic spray reminded him of his old Nest—only less eery, the ocean more active, the sky more visible. Below them, the bottom of the Ocean dropped away and the water became far darker.
Good, Hiccup thought. It wasn't perfect camouflage, but it was better than their other options. He looked behind them again and saw the further-and-further-away figures of the Deathgrippers plunge down after them. Toothless's eyes grew more afraid and he flapped harder, flying faster than they had in a long time.
"It's okay, bud, it's okay; we have a head-start!" Hiccup tightened his grip on Toothless's saddle and made himself as aerodynamic as he possibly could.
To his left, a ripple in the air revealed the presence of the Light Fury, and he did a double-take as she revealed her white scales again. Unable to quite match Toothless's raw speed, she called to them and tossed her head before turning sharply to her left. They would out-maneuver the Deathgrippers, at least. Hiccup shifted his foot in the harness and Toothless understood him, wheeling around to follow her. A massive wave climbed in height behind them and cut off their pursuers.
Un-drugged, the Deathgrippers could have matched Night Furies in speed and agility, but they found themselves now crashing into huge waves head-on, unable to dodge and weave around them like Toothless and Hiccup could. Darling could maybe have stood a chance, but she lay unconscious to the old poison dart back in the mountain, having taken the hit for her master.
Grimmel was in a rage against his dragons, berating them for flying too low into the waves, pulling up on its harness. He whistled for them to fly higher up but was interrupted by a wave that knocked he and the dragon he was riding clean out of its trajectory.
Toothless's lead only grew as the two Furies flew faster and faster, their wings whistling as they cut through the air as if it was something solid. Hiccup felt it tugging against his face and his armor, grateful for his helmet. Heart racing, he turned around to look one last time, not seeing the Deathgrippers or Grimmel's misfortune.
"Stay low a little bit longer, bud," he yelled against the wind, just to be safe. He and the Light Fury swerved in and out of massive waves, one after the other nearly half the size of the Bewilderbeasts, light from the recently-risen sun glistening yellow, green, and turquoise through them. They were showered in water droplets as the waves collided with one another. The Light Fury shouted in frustration as it happened for the eighth time and powered herself up into the sky.
"WAIT!" Hiccup yelled, and Toothless mimicked his voice's urgency, chasing after her as if to bring her back down. Soon, he was nearly vertical, climbing into the sky as easily as they had practiced. Hiccup looked back the way they'd come as Toothless flew up, a dizzying rush of adrenaline gripping at him as he saw how far he would fall if he let go of the saddle. After all these years, it never grew old.
But he couldn't see the Deathgrippers. The island they'd come from was tiny in the distance and grew further away by the second.
"I can't see them, bud," he yelled, and Toothless's flight leveled off. He rumbled back a question over his shoulder and Hiccup rubbed his neck with a wary kind of comfort. Immediate threat gone, but remain vigilant. "It's okay, bud. They're behind us." Hiccup checked over his shoulder again, all around, just to make sure he was right.
Toothless mumbled stubbornly and kept pushing himself to go faster. The Light Fury was still ahead of them, and he wanted to catch her. His eyes narrowed. The ocean turned bluer and bluer below them as they sped up.
"Uh, bud?" Hiccup asked him.
Toothless inhaled, the flammable gas in him screaming as he charged up a shot. The Light Fury looked behind her in confusion, and Toothless shot a blast at her wing, hitting it spot on and throwing her off. She squawked in shock and fumbled in the air, only for Toothless to catch up to her and latch on to her as she fell.
"Toothless?!" Hiccup yelled, nearly losing his grip as the Furies spun in mid air, falling towards an extensive series of sandbars visible just below the surface of the water. His stomach jumped as they lost their place to gravity's pull. Toothless roared angrily at the Light Fury, clamping his claws onto her wings as she panicked, her pupils shards of panic. The world spun—the ocean above them, beside them, twirling around the sky and leaving Hiccup utterly disoriented. "BUD!"
Toothless ignored him, locked onto his new opponent.
The sandbars were much, much closer, he thought, and the Light Fury's lungs dragged in air in preparation for a shot.
Her fire barely missed Hiccup's shoulder and, feeling himself about to pass out from the g-forces of the dragons' spin, he reached towards his prosthetic leg and jammed the gear into the position that meant Toothless could fly on his own. Then he let go of the saddle and pushed himself away from them with his legs, unfurling the wings of his flying suit so that he could coast away from them. He turned himself to the best he could, looking back as they careened towards the water.
"TOOTHLESS, STOP!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, "DON"T!" And at what might have been the very last second, the dragon heard him, turned his head towards him, and pulled out of the tailspin, supporting himself and the Light Fury for just long enough to stop their acceleration. And then he dropped her with a huge splash onto one of the sand bars and landed opposite her, roaring hoarsely.
Hiccup wheeled around, kicking his legs and spinning his arms until he was coming back towards them.
She righted herself in the water and hissed back at the Night Fury, confused and betrayed. Hiccup dove down towards them as Toothless pounced on her again, water sloshing around their chests and shoulders as they collided, rearing up to bat at each other with their claws.
Hiccup began to pick up speed.
Each hit was almost audible with its strength as the two Furies battled desperately. Toothless forced her back and he back legs slipped down a dip into the deeper ocean, but her teeth clamped onto his arm to drag him with her. When he flapped to get away, she scrambled back onto the sand bar and bellowed at him. He came at her again from another angle and they stood up on their hind legs again to grab at each other.
He was close enough now for accuracy. Hiccup aimed himself at the Light Fury and braced himself to slam into her, nearly closing his eyes.
His momentum carried her to the side, disengaging her effectively from Toothless and leaving Hiccup's chest and arms feeling bruised from the force. And suddenly he was in between two battling dragons. Toothless dropped back down on all four legs and stared past Hiccup angrily as the Light Fury got up again and snarled at him defensively.
"Stop," Hiccup said, reaching one hand out to each of them. "Stop! Both of you!" They both glanced at him for a brief moment but continued to circle each other, each trying to find good footholds in the uneven sand.
A wave rose up and washed through all of them, reaching Hiccup's chest and pushing them to the side, sand slipping past their feet. He lifted his feet up to find purchase again as the Furies rose above the water and shook water from their wings and feinted at each other.
"Toothless," Hiccup appealed, keeping himself in between them. He opened himself up to his friend more, keeping his arms outstretched. "Hey, listen to me. It's not her fault. She was just showing us; and you deserved to know what happened to them. It's not fair to you to have to wonder where they went until we stumbled on that place on our own."
The Light Fury stumbled in the water and Toothless, whose eyes had calmed a little, snarled at her, charging at her until Hiccup got in the way again and bounced this way and that so that the Night Fury couldn't get around him. He was close enough to touch Toothless, but he didn't try, feeling that it would make things worse. At least they were both too wet to light their fires.
"She just wanted us to know," Hiccup said. "What happened to them is horrible, bud, and I'm so sorry. This is not fair, and there is nothing I can do to fix this. But she just wanted us to know. You deserve the truth."
Toothless's eyes widened and he wailed softly, with so much pain that Hiccup nearly cried hearing it.
"I'm so sorry," he said again, his voice breaking, and Toothless gave in, butting his head into Hiccup's chest for a hug and sniffing. "Aw, Toothless, I'm—I'm so so sorry." Hiccup hugged his friend and stroked his neck, and they stayed like that. The Light Fury watched them, tense as she waited to see if the Alpha would still be furious.
Slowly, her wings lowered.
Another wave lifted them up, but this time Hiccup and Toothless stood together, and the impact was not as great. Toothless crooned into Hiccup's embrace and Hiccup lifted his face up so that they could look at each other. Toothless's wide green eyes seemed to glisten with tears. Hiccup had never seen him cry before, and the dragon blinked the moisture away, rumbling sadly. Hiccup put his forehead to Toothless's and they closed their eyes.
Toothless had not been born into a world of tenderness. In the Green Death's Nest, it was kill or be eaten, and he had watched countless dragons succumb to the latter fate, having not brought enough food back.
It had been the job of the Night Furies to ensure the flock's safety while they raided Vikings and fished the oceans for enough tribute to be worth returning with. Not that there had ever been more than two Night Furies guarding, really. When he was a hatchling, he remembered looking up to his mentors and protectors, and there were two of them. He remembered, a little later, waiting for them to come back as he and the younger dragons of the lair practiced their flying around the volcanic bubbles on the inside of the mountain.
And then, all of a sudden, one of the adults hadn't come back. The other went to look for him and failed night after night to bring him back. He remembered when she'd given up and, in her grief, just taken to showing him the ropes of flying.
He remembered destroying house after house on Berk with her, before he knew its name, before he had met Hiccup. He remembered the invisibility, the targeting—which Vikings were the most dangerous and which of their weapons were highest priority. He remembered realizing how lucky he was to not have to bring food back and growing further and further separated from the hatchlings he was growing up alongside. They grew more and more aggressive, fighting each other for little fish and for scraps, when there wasn't anything else. The Vikings made more and more mistakes as one of their children caused catastrophic problems within their ranks.
For the longest time, Toothless didn't really know any colors other than the red of fire, gray rocks, black sky and shadows, and the white moon. He always flew at night, when he knew he could be invisible, and had learned to turn away from nights when the sky lit up in green and pink ribbons. In the Green Death's lair, the dragons' scales had all looked red.
And then, without warning, his mentor fought back against the Green Death. It rose out of its depths, heaving its bulk upwards to eat a Nadderhead that hadn't caught anything, and his mentor had shrieked, blasting the Queen's head away so that the blue-scaled dragon could escape and swooping in to distract her attention. She'd been sucked down, the air disappearing under her wings as the massive beast of a dragon had inhaled, and then she was gone into the red mist. And so Toothless had been on his own.
Until he met Hiccup.
The panic of having been shot down, falling, bracing himself against the islands' trees, and hitting the ground was long forgotten, unlike the first moment he saw his captor the day after. The skinny teenager who had been causing problems in the Vikings' ranks. Toothless's eyes had widened recognizing him. You?
And then hearing the rope snap as it was cut. The boy frantically released him, rushing so fast he nearly cut his own hands, incapable of finishing the job he'd started. Toothless remembered the regret in his eyes and how he had roared into the boy's face.
REPENT.
He had. Hiccup had come back, again and again, showing him kindness. Bringing him offerings of food while he was trapped to make up for his mistake. Risking his life to come face to face with a dragon. Tossing his weapons away over and over to prove he wasn't a threat. Using his ridiculous little human hands to rebuild his tail. Re-teaching the Night Fury how to fly, and committing himself to being there for it every time. Leading him into the Viking village up close for the first time and never calling for help or betraying him. Toothless began to wonder how Vikings could be so violent to the dragons if this boy was so kind, and so curious, without trying, and the doubt whether they really were.
Hiccup's kindness had been some of the first Toothless had ever experienced. He'd watched his mentor sacrifice herself for a Nadderhead, but that just meant she was abandoning him. He'd seen dragons bring food to the Queen, but that just meant they were being controlled. He had protected the Queen's flock, but that was just his job. He had left the boy alive knowing he could have just walked away, never to come back for him or see him again. Toothless could have stayed in that peaceful ravine until he died. But…he hadn't.
And that was because of Hiccup.
And here they were, six years later, having found what had happened to the others together. And this human was still with him.
There was still one Night Fury left. And now he knew who had taken the others.