The moment Moon-guider realized she could move her muscles again, she surged to her feet and leapt towards Hiccup. He was lying flat on the ground, staring blankly at the ceiling with his hands still trying to put pressure on his side.

He, with help from Albino's fire-breath and his own sword, had tried to cauterize the wound some time ago. He hadn't had any idea of what else to do; he had no cloth to bandage the wound, all his clothes were scale armor, and he'd needed to stop the bleeding. He wasn't sure it had worked, but it had certainly been painful. Hiccup had never been a doctor's apprentice, and only knew the basics of it. All he could do was his best.

As Moon's round Night Fury-adjacent face appeared over him, wrought with worry and chattering anxiously, Hiccup reached up to her weakly with one hand. "Hey, Moon-guider," he said. She cooed, distraught, and nudged his chest gently.

On the other side of him, Albino vocalized something and the Light Fury's teeth unsheathed, enraged. She roared with a shocking amount of hostility towards the pink-eyed Night Fury, who withdrew her head, snarling defensively.

COWARD. Moon-guider shot an explosion at Albino, just over her head, and fragments of stalagmite went skittering across the rocks on the other side. Albino protested frantically.

But the Light Fury only became angrier and berated her again, so loudly and with such incredible hostility that dragons on the other side of the gorge flinched. YOU COULD HAVE SAVED HIM.

Hiccup reached up to her again, catching her shoulder before she could throw herself at Albino. "Moon…don't. Just don't."

Her nostrils huffed, revolted, and she still glared loathing at the dragon she'd been so eager to introduce Toothless to. More loathing than Hiccup had ever seen, even when he was fifteen and dragons had still been attacking Berk. The anger didn't seem meant for a Light-Fury's features. Hiccup tried to push himself up to a sitting position and winced. "Hey—I have to get back to Berk." Moon's neck twisted so she could keep looking him the face. "Please. We have to go back."

But that's days away.

"Well, whatever! If you know somewhere closer that's friendly to dragons, then let's go there." Hiccup put his arms on Moon-guider's head and picked himself up with her help. Still, he gritted his teeth against the pain. "I'm okay. I'm okay."

Shooting one last dirty look at Albino, the Light Fury lowered her body to help Hiccup climb on.

"Okay." He situated himself and took account of all the parts of his body that didn't hurt. Arms okay. Legs okay. So he'd have to just rely on those to hold on, without tensing his abs too much. "Take me back to Berk. Please"

Moon-guider carefully slunk past the Night Fury and was followed as she tried to smooth her steps. Hiccup tried to hide that it wasn't helping. Once they were flying it would be easier. He and the Light Fury did not have to duck their heads through the waterfall; it was the dead of night, the crescent moon was high, and the currents had slowed to a trickle. The moonlight reflected off of the white dragons' glistening scales.

Hiccup adjusted his grip on the saddle-less Light Fury's neck and took a breath. "Okay. Let's go."

She crouched and pushed off, feeling Hiccup's hold loosen on her neck. Steady, human. Hang on.

Albino cried out and followed after her and Moon snapped savagely over her shoulder. Now you try to follow? Stay here like you always do, you useless excuse for a Fury.

Hiccup looked behind unsteadily as Albino flapped to keep up as Moon rose above sea level. The pigment-less Night Fury roared again, but he didn't know her well enough to know what she was saying. "Come with us," he called back.

She looked like she was going to, until the Light Fury swept over the open ocean and the Night Fury came up short, looking after them. Moon-guider huffed resentfully and kept flying, picking up speed. Hiccup needed to get home as fast as possible, and it had taken them many days of flying to get here.

—

"Don't worry, Alpha, you're not going to die here."

Toothless's muscles had already sprung back to life, but he lay still, his wings and legs bound by one of Grimmel's old Night Fury traps. His face was in a metal muzzle that didn't let him open his mouth wide enough to be able to shoot fire. He knew he could squirm, and he could snarl into Grimmel's face, but not much else. He had tried.

"Still got some fight in you, then? How? Your rider is dead, your Cloud Fury female is nowhere to be found, your flock under watch back on Berk. Your species is gone. You cannot fly. Why bother fighting?" Toothless stilled himself, staring bitterly into Grimmel's face. He had been taken back to the central arena among the crown of rock where his species had been killed.

Darling had been fitted with another collar and stood guard over Grimmel. Toothless hadn't been able to before, but he could tell a difference. The dragon who Hiccup had befriended, and even the dragon against whom he and Moon-guider and Albino had fought, was shrouded under the influence of the drug. Her eyes had become vacant once more and she stared at him, unrecognizing.

Was Hiccup dead? He'd had no one there to heal him. How was he to get back to Berk in time? He let out a high, trailing low, his eyes worrying. He couldn't be.

He couldn't be. Not after everything.

"Missing your rider?" Grimmel asked. "You'll join him soon enough."

Toothless snarled and writhed to no avail, and Grimmel walked back to his own campfire, ignoring him. Darling stood watch over him, pacing around him. Toothless called out to her, urging her as Alpha to shake off her collar again. But then Grimmel caught his eye in the firelight. He was settling himself down, reclining back against his travel pack, and something purple glinted in his hand. He let out a sigh and closed his eyes, and his hand dropped to his side again. The purple was gone. Toothless must have imagined it. It was only a syringe.

—

Moon flew for a day and a half without stopping until, exhausted, she came upon a flock of Timberjacks flying the direction they were. Weakly, she called out to one of them near the back of the flock and it swooped down to her, minding its long, sharp wings, so that she was near its face. It did a double-take at Hiccup's unconscious body on her back, leaned backward.

A human? It tossed its head. The other members of the formation craned their heads easily to look back at them. Moon-guider flapped her wings in frustration, getting closer to the Timberjack's head. She snapped her teeth and shook her head irritably, blinking hard to keep her eyes open. The Timberjack huffed in return and moved smoothly under her, allowing her to coast on his back for the time being. Moon landed on his serpentine body as lightly as she could and scratched its back gratefully before lying down. It flapped its massive wings once more and they glided up towards the rest of them.

Moon-guider and Hiccup's weights combined were still easily carried by the Timberjack's wingspan. Hiccup had once said to himself, when he and Toothless had first met one, This dragon is like ninety-nine percent wings. And he had been right.

Presently, Moon-guider shifted her shoulders to jostle him awake. Hey, make noise so I know you're alive.

Hiccup blinked his eyes open and saw the open blue sky, clouds chasing after them as they travelled. He pushed himself up using his arms as exclusively as possible and looked around at the Timberjack's island-wings. He met The Light Fury's blue eyes and tried to smile. She rumbled sympathetically and closed her eyes.

"Thanks, Moon," he said hoarsely. "You should rest."

He reached down and drank the last of his water from a flask that fit into a pocket in his armor. There had been a larger water-skin attached to Toothless's saddle. But he didn't know where Toothless was. A lump formed in Hiccup's throat and a scream of panic in his chest, both of which he tried to force back, as a mental image swirled into being of Toothless lying dead in the Night Fury graveyard with the others.

Turbulent gusts of wind rattled the Timberjacks' wings moving through the whole flock like a wave and were swept away. The one Moon-guider had hitched a ride on flapped to regain some altitude that additional weight had taken away and went back to gliding.

Was Toothless already dead? Would Hiccup return to Berk to be healed only to find out his best friend had been killed? These thoughts were only followed by imagining how scared Toothless was. He'd seen the Night Fury fearful before, crying out for him while he was separated from him. He wasn't helpless on his own, but Darling had been throwing acid at him and holding him by his tail, which meant it could be damaged. He might not be able to escape. And if he could, he wouldn't be able to fly away. The thought made Hiccup feel sick, and tears dropped from both of his eyes, which he wiped away.

"We're gonna come find you, bud," Hiccup whispered a promise to the wind. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to you."