That night, Albino paced restlessly on the half-crown, circlet-shape of rock and crystal directly over the Hidden World, holding its own against the sea. She looked out over the turns of the Waterfall Gorge anxiously, her stomach turning.
Her wings flapped without enough power to take off. She pawed at the ground. Her tail lashed the ground and her fins flicked open and closed.
She let out a loud roar over the ocean canyon, calling to Toothless, and was not even met with an echo. The crash of distant water hitting the rock floor below her continued and the waves nearer to her feet lapped at the rock.
Another roar without reply. She turned and paced around to the other end of the rocks.
She had seen too many Night Furies leave this place without knowing where they were going. Too many Night Furies had never come back. They never laid their eggs here. Why didn't they ever lay their eggs here?!
But she—if she left, how would she find her way back? How would she find anything? She knew nothing about the rest of the world. She remembered nothing about the time before her parents brought her here. What if she lost his scent in a storm?
She snarled at herself and turned around again. One last lap around the rocks.
If he didn't come back…
If the other Night Fury didn't come back, if his human died before saving him and putting an end to the massacre, what was the point in staying here? She would live, she would grow old, she would die of old age without having ever touched the rest of the impossibly unknown world. The Night Furies would still all be dead. What was another hundred years of a pale Night Fury who did nothing but wait for her kind to come back. Didn't she have to try?
There was an inherited fight in Night Furies' hearts that she had lost sight of. Years without having to had made her more conflict-avoidant even than other dragons in the Hidden World. But it was there, keeping her alive. Plenty of dragons here had petty disputes about food, which she tried to avoid. She knew she couldn't afford to risk herself to something like that. Fights were not worth it.
She came to the end of the rocks, staring past the canyon to the sea beyond it.
This fight was. Two Night Furies were worth fighting for. Two Night Furies were worth the risk.
She let out another short roar, growing angry. Moon-guider had been right. She was pathetic, strung to the Hidden World as if chained there. The other dragons had fought to get there, had earned their place, and what did she do? Fly in circles, and play hide and seek. Frivolous, ridiculous dragon.
And then another, a long, decisive scream. She could fix it—she could break free and seek the world for him the way her parents had searched. When she was young she had been adventurous by heart and had known the Hidden World's nooks and crannies better than any. What was the world but a bigger home to explore? Her eyes cleared as she looked around her at the calm ocean.
And she crouched, and bounded forward, and launched herself into the sky.
Over the whole gorge she flew, within her bounds, to the very edge, to the open ocean. She had done it hundreds of times before, and come up short at the end, turning around to soar back towards the Hidden World. Her eyes landed on the open ocean beyond the limits of the Waterfall Gorge. She narrowed her eyes, determined, and sped up, flapping powerfully towards what she had seen her whole life as a force field. She scrunched her eyes shut and braced herself as it came towards her—
—and collided with nothing but air. Her pink eyes flew open again, stunned, and she looked all around herself. She was still air-bound, flying as well as ever, unimpeded. There was no chain holding her back, nothing clinging to her and pulling her wings down. The ocean waves flashed past beneath her, the sea spray receding into the background. She roared, the pitch high and full of thrill.
Hang on. I'm coming.