By nighttime, Toothless was still not back. Hiccup sat awkwardly with the Light Fury, trying to stay out of the other dragons' ways. But when the waterfalls began to lessen, he stood up and watched.

The Light Fury came up next to him to watch as the moonlight became visible through the thinner, calmer stream of water. He reached out instinctively and put his hand on her neck the way he usually did with Toothless, and she froze for a second, debating whether or not she liked the feeling.

"Tide must be lower," he said. "I—I don't know, I'm not really a good sailor. My dad probably would have known."

The Light Fury vocalized something that he didn't really understand, but was in the same tone as a "Maybe so, maybe not." Then she shoved him gently with her wing and tossed her head to the side to follow her.

The lessening of the waterfalls had opened up a whole spiderweb of slick, rocky footpaths between the hooded caverns and tunnels, and the Light Fury guided him down some, past smaller dragons and some stranded fish, which Hiccup tried to nudge back into the water. The Light Fury once looked back to see him do it and chattered at him. Well, what are you going to eat, then, human? I can't let you starve.

"Did you want that?" Hiccup asked. She flattened her ears and gave him a sarcastic, judgmental expression only rivaled by the equivalent one of Toothless's. Hiccup laughed, cringing at himself. "Sorry…?"

She led him down further and further until they were on the slanted mass of a floor, slick and jutted with ridges that made the water sliding down it jump and froth in the daytime. Now it just held pools in its dips, stiller now that the ocean around it had calmed. Hiccup and the Light Fury looked up at the moon and stars, so visible that the sky boasted a spotted stripe of its brightest and closest ones across it. A thought occurred to Hiccup and he shoved the Light Fury's shoulder like she had to him.

"I know what I can call you," he said in a soft voice. Her ears pricked up and her head tilted curiously. "Moon-guider."

Her pupils dilated more than they usually did when looking at him and she cooed softly. That'll do.

"Moon-guider," Hiccup repeated, and reached out his hand towards her face. She looked at it and then back at his face, and sat back on her hind legs, reaching out one of her soft-clawed hands to bat at his human one in a sort of a high-five.

"Alright," Hiccup said, and then dissolved into laughter. "Alright. You know what? That'll work." Moon-guider chuckled too and dropped back down on all fours. Something caught her attention before Hiccup could even hear anything, and her whole body flared out. Wings open, ear-frills up, eyes wide.

Hiccup heard a footstep. The water at his feet shuddered, and Moon-guider barked at him eagerly. This! This is what I told you about. He knows you're here. She did not leave his side as Hiccup turned towards the hole that led to the Hidden World. Something was coming out of it.

One tusk pierced up into the waterfall canyon. Hiccup could hear the sound of rocks breaking and falling under something's huge weight. The tusk grew thicker and taller until the base of a second one appeared, and the face of Drago's Bewilderbeast heaved itself up into the moonlight. Its colossal muscles flexed and strained against its own size until its huge claw crunched down on the lowest-terraced level of the gorge, and its body began to emerge.

Hiccup felt frozen.

And then its eyes zeroed in on him.

But something was different. It had been a year, and the one-tusked Bewilderbeast's color seemed a little fuller, even healthier. Its eyes were not bloodshot, its pupils not so thin as they had once been. Its one missing tusk was still on Berk, but the other was still clamped with a massive metal shackle.

It bellowed, creating snowflakes of the remaining night time sea spray, and came trudging towards Hiccup and Moon-guider, its thunderous footsteps shaking the water as it climbed the gentle slope.

Hiccup was horrified by the last time he'd seen this creature come towards him, and what he'd lost. At least Toothless wasn't here, no other Bewilderbeasts, no Drago, and no one else could get hurt, but Moon-guider stood next to him. He glanced at her eyes, fearing them to contract the way he'd seen Toothless's. But her ear frills remained still, the Bewilderbeast gave no commands. Instead, it got up close to them, its mountain of a face rearing over them and blocking out the moon as it looked down at the familiar human.

Moon-guider had never known what to think of this Bewilderbeast. He had always been sort of sensitive and unfriendly since his arrival, and many dragons tended to avoid him. He usually wanted to keep to himself anyway. But he'd never forced his will onto any of them. Hiccup didn't know this.

Slowly, the Bewilderbeast lowered its head towards Hiccup, sniffing the air to make sure it was the same Dragon-rider he thought it was. His face engulfed Hiccup's entire vision. There was no way he could run away fast enough to escape this dragon.

And it set its chin down on the rock, staring at Hiccup. The massive tusks on either side of him, the stump to his right and the full one to his left. The metal shackle hit the ground and crushed some of the thinner rocks with a crash, but the giant came to a stop, huffing as gently as it knew how to.

He and Moon-guider exchanged a glance, and then looked back up at the Bewilderbeast. Its throat emitted a deep low and its eyes flicked to the shackle, and then to Hiccup. It opened its mouth and groaned mournfully.

Hiccup pointed to the shackle to confirm he was to go to it and received no feedback. Luckily, understanding dawned on him anyway.

"You want me to take it off," he said. "Okay, okay." He bounced on his heel and tapped Moon-guider's shoulder, pointing to the shackle. "I need to get up there."

The hinge was on the opposite side, the outside of the Bewilderbeast's tusks, and the mouth was on the inside, the thick metal fused together and locked. Irremovable for a dragon, but not for Hiccup, who had trained as a blacksmith.

"You doing anything else tonight?" he asked Moon-guider.

She wasn't.

So together with his sword and her fire breath, focusing the superheat in small areas at a time and intent on tearing apart the welded line, they set to chipping away at the Bewilderbeast's shackle.

—

Other Light Furies came to investigate, touching down on top of its tusk and peering down at where they were perched, forcing their way through the metal.

The Bewilderbeast patiently waited, watching their slow progress as the moon traveled the length of the sky, and adjusted his head so that Hiccup and Moon could retain their balance more easily.

Hiccup pounded rock after rock into the crack, forcing the two sides to stay away from each other as they moved further down it. Multiple times, the force shattered the rocks, sending sharp debris flying out at the onlooking dragons.

"I told you to stay back!" Hiccup scolded them again as they whined and barked at him. They weren't even half-way done yet.

Finally, Moon-guider's shot limit ran out, despite her not using her fire the way it was usually used, and she slumped back down to the ground, looking up at Hiccup, still clinging to the side.

"All out, Moon?"

She choked out a puff of smoke to show him, and he glanced at the sad-looking Bewilderbeast. "Sorry, big guy. Guess I'll come down, too, and we'll finish later." His body was aching anyway. He'd taken a brief nap earlier in the day, after Toothless and Albino had left, but it wasn't really enough, even for someone who was used to pulling all-nighters on projects. He was nearly ready to stop fighting to keep the exhaustion at arms length and let it take over. But before he could, the big Light Fury who had come to greet Moon-guider when they'd appeared in the clouds tapped on the metal above him to catch his attention, crept down to put his face in position, and took over.

This dragon's breath power seemed almost more refined, stronger and more in control than Moon-guider's was. He blasted the crack where she had left off, and Hiccup dug into the heated metal with the point of his sword.

The Light Furies slowly became more confident around the Bewilderbeast, but only after a few of the littler ones daringly climbed up on its chin and spat fire at each other to play. They wound up scampering about on its broken tusk under its watching eyes and those of their elder Furies, tense at first, wondering whether the ill-tempered titan would shake them off or shout at them. It did not.

Hiccup, glancing back at the chattering babies, was reminded of the babies who had played on the Alpha before him. His mother's, who had been far gentler than this one. He'd probably never been abused and shackled, though, Hiccup thought to himself, catching sight of Drago's Bewilderbeast's face. It was totally taken-aback by the trust the hatchling Light Furies were showing in it, totally unprepared for treatment that wasn't cruel or hateful.

"Poor guy," Hiccup said sympathetically, reaching past the shackle to pat its tusk. "You probably never got something like that. Playing with hatchlings your size." The giant turned his eyes back to Hiccup, realizing he was being spoken to. He huffed ice crystals into the air again. The last time he'd used his ice-breath on Hiccup, Toothless had began glowing blue, but now, Hiccup just shook his hair free and smiled at the dragon.

The Light Fury helping him snapped its teeth to get his attention back to the task at hand, and he redoubled his efforts in freeing the beast.

—

The sun began to rise, and the waters began to swell again and pour over the edges of the canyon. Moon-guider climbed atop the tusk they were working on and waited her turn to help again, roaring down to Hiccup to bring his attention to the increasing water flow.

"Yeah, noticed," he called back, not looking, and forced a rock into the widening gap. Then, to himself, "Man, I hope this works."

It had occurred to him during the night that the hinge might have rusted itself in position, but there wasn't really any point in worrying about that now. There was just a little left to go before they had made it through the whole thing. If the shackle had been smaller, he might not have had to brute force it like this, but it was so thick that it had been necessary. None of his tricks would have worked.

The big Light Fury had run out of shots too, and Toothless was still nowhere to be seen, so Hiccup gave up for a break.

But he heard an angry shriek, which he recognized, and before he could even look around to find him, Toothless had slammed down onto the tusk between he and the Bewilderbeast's face. His back arched and he snarled defensively.

"Toothless!" Hiccup exclaimed. "I was just thinking about you!"

The Bewilderbeast just looked at him and blinked. Perhaps the Alpha can help.

Realizing quickly that this was not the sort of threat on Hiccup's life that he had expected, Toothless stood up and his head tilted. He looked back at Hiccup, who was smiling.

Moments later, the albino Night Fury landed next to him and pushed him off of the tusk, chastising him vocally. Don't harass him! Him, meaning the Bewilderbeast. Toothless snapped his teeth at her and she snapped them back, and then he landed next to Hiccup again, crooning a question.

Hiccup tapped on the crevice they were creating in the shackle and asked, "Can you help me heat this metal, bud?"

Shooting one last glance at the Bewilderbeast, who was still peaceful, Toothless focused his breath on the place Hiccup specified.

Hiccup angled his sword at the freshly heated metal and gouged at it, pushing his sword in as deep as he could, and noticed that it was coming apart naturally as the metal softened to the heat.

Moon-guider stood on the top of the shackle with Albino as they kept working, watching.

"Hey!" Hiccup threw his arm around Toothless as they came towards the end of the shackle. He pointed to the end, which was creaking and groaning and about to snap apart and said, "It's coming off!" Moon leapt forward and blasted fire into the tail end of the welded crease. "You too, you too," Hiccup urged Toothless. "Don't stop!" The Night Fury reapplied himself and Hiccup pushed his sword between the two sides of it with all his strength.

For some seconds, there was only the sound of the waterfalls, metal on metal, and the Light Furies' fire.

Albino looked from the shackle to the Bewilderbeast excitedly.

Then, with a great and horrible whine of metal that caught the attention of all the dragons on the surface and opened the Bewilderbeast's dozing eyes, it popped apart.

Hiccup cheered, and lodged his fingers in between where it had been welded, heaving with all his might to very little avail (as he was human, and not a very muscular one at that). The Bewilderbeast raised its head up instinctively. Moon and Toothless helped Hiccup widen the gap as they were lifted up, further and further from the sea floor, straining their serpentine dragon muscles as the hinge creaked angrily in protest. Albino joined in.

A heavier dragon with hooks for claws landed near them to help, and finally the hinges began to work and it swung open.

The Bewilderbeast shook his head in excitement and the shackle fell away, landing with a loud crunch and splash into the thin white-water stream of rapids covering the rocks now. Unfortunately, Hiccup was also shaken off, the solid mass of the tusk disappearing beneath his feet with this same action. Toothless shrieked in alarm and dove after him, catching him by the shoulder-armor just before he disappeared below the water.

Hiccup, who had not even been scared of the falling, whooped in triumph as Toothless flipped him up onto his back and carried him back up to face-level with the giant. "Yeahaha!" Hiccup yelled to it, punching the air as best he could. "You're free! You're finally free!"

The Bewilderbeast bobbed its head with the excitement of a smaller, less dignified dragon, eyes focused on Hiccup and Toothless. Moon-guider and Albino raised up on either side of them, crowing triumphantly.

It raised its head to the sky and bellowed loudly. The dragons around it also called out, launching themselves over to him to circle his head and congratulate him.

The Bewilderbeast turned its head to bring its freed tusk back under Toothless's feet as carefully as a dragon of any size, and he landed. The area that had been under the shackle was cleaner than the rest of it, noticeably a lighter shade than the rest of it had become. Hiccup was sure this was the shade that his mother's Bewilderbeast's tusks had been. Maybe there was a way to clean them that this one had just never learned.

The pitch of this Bewilderbeast's whale-like vocalization had never sounded higher. FREE. FREE.

—

Albino knew all the dragons in the Hidden World, but none were so humorless as the grey, one-tusked Bewilderbeast. She didn't know years, but she counted the days instinctively by full moons, day-length, and the cycles of the bioluminescent life as the seasons passed. Their colors would change from solstice to solstice, and they had been about this shade of blue when he had arrived.

The monumental beast of a dragon had been covered in scars, smelling of humans, when it had first lumbered down the winding canyon, bathed in the waterfall rainbows, into the pit of the Hidden World. Other Bewilderbeasts here—not that there were more than ten—did not like him much. They had never had to use their power of will to make their subjects submit to them; they had been respected by their flocks, dignified leaders, like the one he had killed, and had done a great deal to bring them somewhere safe. There were not enough Bewilderbeasts anymore to afford to be killing each other.

He, on the other hand, was younger, and bad-tempered, and didn't know how not to fight. Once they knew how he had lost his tusk, they avoided him. Parents kept their hatchlings away from him if he did not drive them away first.

Slowly he had become less frightening. As the dragon-head-sized glowing barnacles in the world had changed colors, he became more gentle, if still grouchy. Watching his step when he moved. Allowing dragons to pass by him without forcing himself into their minds to move them away.

She beamed at him to see him freed.

HUMAN. And a feeling of warmth swept through Albino as the former-Alpha broadcast the message to the dragons flying in front of him. All his chains were gone now. She looked over at the other Night Fury's rider, who sat on Toothless, pumping his little arms excitedly into the air. GRATEFUL. The Bewilderbeast had never been so talkative. Albino whirred to herself and her eyes dilated.

For the first time since she'd known him, this massive, feared giant, so did his.