Hello, everyone! Another update for you all while I can! Not sure when the next one will be.
As always, I want to thank aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, Skenjin, NomexGlove, VigoGrimborne, Marce7411, Dragontrainer23, MysteryWriter175, JustAnotherRandomPoster, Silverleone, picothea, and CallMeUrmo for your wonderful reviews!
I'd also like to thank my betas, KwizJunior, Crysist, Samateus, Dys, LapisSea, Reclusive-Shadows, Dragon-Crusader, and Anticept!
This chapter is slightly longer than the others, but I'm sure nobody will complain. I hope you all enjoy! C:
Chapter 19
Stoick
Grimmel, it seemed, was happy to leave us in uncertainty.
Haugaeldr and I crept away and retreated into the deep shadows of the forest. The flight machine rose and swept overhead some time later before heading back to the ship. In the shelter of the canopy, huddled beneath a cave of tree roots, I couldn't imagine them catching sight nor scent of us.
If Grimmel was on that boat…
There was no room for caution.
I was no fool; I knew it was a trap. I knew they would be waiting for us. But I doubted they were prepared for the full strength of a Viking protecting their own.
We waited for the sun to rise and for the men to hopefully think the danger had passed. We swept around the island, skirting its perimeter.
Haugaeldr placed us directly east of the ship, hiding in the glare of the golden sunlight. She was in view now, the men going at their tasks with ease. The flying machine was on the deck, the dragons chained to it staring forward in some kind of daze.
Once we were above the ship, he snapped his wings in and dove. I clenched my hand around my hammer, eyes narrowed, and set my jaw.
The men didn't see us. One dragon—a carapace-covered, spiny thing—lifted its head up.
Grimmel sat at a table. He tinkered with a giant, mushroom-speckled plant, for some gods-forsaken reason.
He didn't so much as cry out when Haugaeldr snatched him up in his claws and flew away.
The men cried out in alarm—I noted an odd silence from the dragons—and then we banked hard into the forest. Chained to their machine, the dragons could not follow us there without getting stuck.
We swept into the foliage and flew deeper, deeper, until the trees bowed around us and the light turned a deep blue-green, the shadows deep as the night.
Haugaeldr thrust Grimmel to the fern-coated ground and landed. He crouched, snarling, as I leapt off of his back. In my left hand, I drew my hammer, and in my right, I pulled my shield from my back.
Grimmel let out a high, wheezing laugh. His white hair stood on end, messy and cut ragged with manic knifework. He eased himself upright on grotesque, rickety legs. His entire body seemed to have been stretched too far, too thin, like all the ambitions he had reached and reached for had pulled him apart. His skin was anemic, pale and nearly green. Bruiselike bags hung below his eyes, making their steely glimmer all the more dangerous. When once I had heard tales of him as a reckless, prideful, full-bodied young man, now he was made only of harsh angles, jutting bones, and a cutting smile to suit them.
He made a show of looking me up and down. "The emblem of Berk on a mountain of a man," he noted. "So you're Stoick the Vast, I assume?" He picked some leaves off of his armored tunic. "Well, this would have been quite a surprising introduction, if you hadn't blundered across me last night. How rude of you to keep me waiting for so long." His eyes settled on Haugaeldr. "An eastern dragon? And you're riding it? How sacrilegious!"
"What do you have on that ship?" I demanded.
He cocked his head to the side. "What do you think I have?" His crooked smile split from cheekbone to cheekbone. "It can't be that the rumors I've heard are true…"
I took a step towards him. He didn't move. "No games, Grimmel. Tell me what I want to know."
Haugaeldr snarled to accentuate this, showing all his rows of needle-sharp teeth and glistening pink gums.
"A healthy specimen," Grimmel noted, taking his first opportunity to deflect. A slippery man, he was. "It even looks like you tend to his teeth. I would've never expected that from you." He turned his steely eyes on me, quirking an eyebrow.
"Times have changed," I said. Eyeing him, I added, "Some, it seems, for the worse."
Grimmel clutched at his heart. "Oh! That hurts. Truly, Stoick. I once heard tales of you in the highest esteem." He scowled. "But then stories began trickling from the north. Of your people befriending dragons. Living with them, caring for them, touting peace and harmony...eugh! Ludicrous! Disgusting!" He waved his arms as if fighting off a horde of Terrors and shuddered all over. "Considering how much you wanted to eliminate the beasts when I last heard of you, I thought, this jibber-jabber has nothing to do with the Vikings! Psh psh psh!" He flapped his hands around wildly.
Then, in a single, smooth motion, he turned a chaotic swing of his arm around his back and had a machine leveled at us before I could blink.
"That ends with me," Grimmel said in a low voice, alarmingly serious. His eyes narrowed, focused and hungry. The machine was lightweight, held with just one of his scrawny arms, and made up of a series of gears and moving parts. I noted right away the iridescent gleam to its blood-red color: the unmistakable mark of dragon-scale paint. It was fireproof, save for the horsehair twining across its width, where a glass dart lay docked and ready to spring.
I remembered Hiccup coming up with something similar all those years ago. His was as big as a cart, made for hurling bolas. Something that could throw an object for you with terrible speed and strength. It was what he used to shoot Toothless down. We had long since broken it down.
That Grimmel had devised one to fit into his palm, and even fireproofed it…
Haugaeldr flinched, serpentine back arching and wings clutched against his sides. His feather-like scales puffed out, making him look twice his size. I stood still, refusing to give him the fear he craved.
"That's enough," I said. "You've spoken only of hearsay this whole time, while stepping around what's on your ship."
"Ah," he drawled. His finger settled on something on his weapon—a trigger of some sort. "But you abducted me, you haven't told me why you are here, or why you even care." He studied me. "Let's make a deal, Stoick. I tell you what's on my ship…" He pulled another mechanism on his machine, and the string and arrow quivered. "...and you tell me where the rest of your flock is."
My heart hammered, but I kept my voice calm. "We are alone. Your turn."
Grimmel smiled. "Oh, Stoick, do treat me with some respect! Don't you know I won't believe that?"
I spread my arms, opening my center to him. "Feel free to fly around the island on your machine and have a look for yourself. You will find no one else."
His eyes roamed mine for deception, and when he found none, he frowned in disappointment. "Then what brings a village man like yourself so far from home?" His eyes gleamed. "Don't you have a son to be training to take up your helm?"
I couldn't stop myself from stiffening. "I've fulfilled my part of the deal," I bit out. "Now you do yours."
Grimmel smiled sympathetically. "A sore spot?" he mused. "I've heard many a tall tale regarding your Hiccup in particular. Fantastical stories. Unbelievable stories. Please, tell me they're not true, hm?"
"What is on your ship, Grimmel?" I pressed.
"So focused!" he chortled, eyes glittering with victory. "But I yield! I yield. You're not a man to be distracted, I see. My answer is the same as yours." He held out his arms in a mocking imitation of my previous gesture. "We...are...alone! That is to say, there is nothing on the ship."
"Nothing," I said flatly.
"That's right! We're headed for a new land, with fresh new dragons to expel." He narrowed his eyes. "So, now that we've gotten that out of the way and we're being honest with each other...tell me, Stoick." His jovial expression warped into a dark scowl. "Just where are you hiding that Night Fury? And I don't mean your boy who thinks he's a dragon."
I kept my expression passive. He could very well be lying—but why would he demand Toothless and insult Hiccup if he didn't have them trapped? He seemed the kind of man to gloat, to prance around his prey and gleefully inform them of their every mistake. That he would make such a forward demand could only mean one thing.
They were safe. Thank Thor, they were safe.
Twang!
Haugaeldr gave a half-gasp, stumbled, and fell. "King," he wheezed, before his eyes fluttered shut.
But we were not, I furiously reminded myself, holding my hammer and shield up with a curse.
"Ah, ah, ah!" Grimmel said, waggling a finger back and forth at me. He had his weapon reloaded and aimed at me now. "We have so much to discuss! And I can't have you holding anything back from me, hm?" He nodded at Haugaeldr. "Another dose for a dragon of his size will stop his heart. Or I could very well use it on you, and you can be my ship's first occupant...if you wake up."
He let that hang in the air, and when I merely crouched, searching his defenses for an opening, he took the chance to puff up and strut.
"So you agree! Good, good, good! I want to know what poisoned the North's most prominent dragon-hunter and fooled him into building a...a..." he wrinkled his nose in disgust, "...a society with dragons." This, he spat with venom, slicing a hand through the air like he could slap the concept away. "After all, you answered my call, so why hold back your information now?"
"I don't expect you to understand," I grunted. But he was dangling obvious bait before me, and it was too big to ignore. If anything, I could think of a plan while he prattled on. "What do you mean, your call?" I said reluctantly.
Grimmel chuckled and shrugged in fake nonchalance. "Oh, a whisper here...a story there...a supposed sighting with a drawing to verify it, and finally, a willing traveler, too naive to question truth from folly…" As my face fell, he laughed. "Well, don't be too hard on yourself, good man. It did take quite an effort to compose. Once I heard of the fall of Drago at the hands of a Night Fury and a boy who was once changed into a Night Fury, and the subsequent so-called 'peace' between dragons and Vikings…and then confirmed that these rumors were true?"
His smile was malicious now, all bared teeth and gums, snarling just like Haugaeldr had.
"Well, that was a sickness of your people that I knew I would need to remedy myself."
A trick. We'd feared that the Night Furies weren't here, that Grimmel's presence was proof enough that they were gone. But that all of it was a lie, meant to lure us away from Berk's stronghold, where Grimmel could easily close in without the slightest fear of Berk's strength…
Damn it. Gods damn it. I was a fool. I should have known, I should have suspected that it was too convenient, I should have been wary of it the moment I heard of Grimmel's involvement in these lands.
"Berk and its allies don't need your 'help'," I growled. "And if you think I'll give them over to you, you've gone mad," I said. I spun my hammer in my hand, taking strength in its familiar weight. At this distance, I could easily knock him out with a good toss.
"I'm a patient man," Grimmel said. Pride gleamed in his eyes. "I must thank you for so graciously seeking me out on your own, instead of forcing me to storm all of Berk. I honestly thought you would be more cautious! But with you out of the way…" His smile was ravenous. "Catching that dragon and its slave will be all the easier."
All in one motion, I threw the hammer and dove. A TWANG! was followed by a whistle overhead, but no sharp jab of pain. There was a heavy thud and crack!, and when I looked up, Grimmel's weapon had shattered. I had aimed for his head, but he'd shielded himself with his weapon just in time.
I charged him. Grimmel scowled, brought his hand to his lips, and whistled.
I snatched his hand, pulled it from his mouth, and yanked him to the ground. Ripping some spare rope looped around my belt, I pinned him down with my weight and got to work tying his hands to his back, taking note of the brilliant purple vials looped into his belt. He offered no resistance, merely lying there and leering at me with the corner of his eye.
"You know," he said casually, "you call me mad, but I don't welcome monsters that can change a man's very being into my home with open arms. I don't forget their potential to corrupt and destroy."
"Do you think I care about any of this?" I said. "You're wasting your breath." I stood up, looking down my nose at him, and sighed.
Hiccup and Toothless would be so heartbroken to hear the truth.
But now that Grimmel was here—and helpfully told me he planned something against Berk—it was best to nip it in the bud. I was glad the boys weren't here, or even that Haugaeldr wasn't awake.
A Chief protects their own. Sometimes, that involves making hard decisions. Gruesome decisions. They are not to be made lightly.
But this was not a man to turn your back on.
Especially when he carried such hatred for my sons.
I stooped down, picked up my hammer, and lifted it.
"You may pray to whatever god you follow, if you'd like," I said.
"Oh, so cold, Stoick!" Grimmel laughed. "I'm surprised you still have it in you, considering your people bow to the whims of dragons now."
"Very well." I raised my hand.
Grimmel smiled.
Something sharp plunged into my wielding arm, wrenching me backwards. I let out a sharp cry and dropped my shield as I was yanked backwards and shaken. I twisted around, leaning into the momentum and swinging my fist.
It connected against a dragon with sheer black scales. The shock was enough for me to halt.
The dragon melted uncomprehendingly into the shadows. For a moment, I could only mark them as they cracked open their eyes. Then they faded back into view, staring vacantly, stinging teeth still puncturing my flesh, blood streaming around each tooth and dripping down my arm.
A Night Fury.
They really were here?
And this one was protecting Grimmel?!
On cue, Grimmel let loose another whistle, this one sharp and stuttering. The Night Fury's eyes snapped towards me. They began to rear and pull me up along with them, pushing up on their hind legs, so much taller than Toothless—
Its neck was right there, wrapped with a leather collar of some sort. A dragon of this size and age should know not to expose their neck like that. I even had a dagger in my belt; I could easily slice its throat. It was such a foolish mistake that I nearly lost my chance puzzling over it.
I lunged forward, into the bite, baring my teeth against the rending agony of my muscles shredding in its maw. Night Furies were covered in tough scales that would make any unarmed strike useless.
...that is, except for the soft skin of their noses. This, I knew not from my time hunting dragons, but from years of gentle nudges, comforting pats, and watching Hiccup playfully flicking Toothless' snout.
My fist connected heavily, thrown with all my weight and desperation and horror beneath it. The dragon's eyes widened and it released me, flinching back. But where Toothless would have lifted a paw to rub his nose, the Night Fury merely resumed a neutral posture, wall-eyed stare fixated on nothing.
"No, you stupid beast!" Grimmel spat. He whistled again, this time another pattern.
The dragon stiffened and its eyes snapped into focus. Its ears went straight up. It turned to me and opened its maw.
I stumbled through the ferns—snatched my shield—hoisted it—
The fireball connected with the shield, tearing the wood to splinters and hurling me backwards. A moment of weightlessness, burning pain, fear and shock—
My head smacked into something solid. My vision went black before I heard the world-consuming WHAM.
In the resounding migraine and ringing in my ears, my vision swarming with neon darkness, Grimmel burst into his wheezing laughter. It stalked after me as I faded away, until it was all that I knew.
o.O.o
Saw Through Closed Eyes
A dragon flew overhead just as I was beginning to calm down.
I would have never noticed them, were it not for the brilliant glare of sunlight off their scales. The sharp glint through the leaves caught my eye almost immediately. For a moment, catching glimpses of their descent behind the trees, I wondered if I was witnessing a falling star. By the time I realized that I was looking at the blurred shape of a dragon, they had already ducked out of sight.
I scrambled to my feet—and stopped.
They were an Outsider. This could be their territory. They could even be diving to defend it.
Or they could be flying to see what that strange, dead-but-alive-sounding thing on the water was. They could be curious. Looking for adventure. Blissfully unaware of the terrible danger.
A shudder crept through me. I still could almost feel the vines they had thrown on me. The enormous BOOM! of their fire-stealers. Their harsh, jabbering voices. The fleshy paws straining to claw me to the ground. The pain, the breathless fear choking me, the explosion of terror as I knew my life was about to end.
Could I truly do nothing as the same fate befell another dragon?
A few days ago, I would have gladly turned my back on an Outsider. Banished Outside...a fate worse than death, I had once thought. Any dragon in the Shell would say an Outsider deserved to be hunted like prey.
I stood there, head low, wings half-opened, tail swaying.
How easy it was to thrust blame around when you were the one who benefited from it. I was an Outsider now, too. A cursed dragon. One who hurt everyone she got close to. Did I deserve to be hunted?
I knew what my old flockmates would say.
I knew what Killed the Sea Serpent and the nameless male would say, too.
My paws remained rooted to the ground. A tremble went through them. Could I even help this Outsider if I wanted to? Or would I only seal my fate—or theirs—by approaching?
Images of the nameless male, trapped and screaming for help, flashed through my mind. Memories of Escaped the Monsters' story, the stony jaw that tried to swallow him. My own encounter on the thing, nearly stolen from the sky, saved only by the curse of magic. The world-consuming helplessness. The forces entirely beyond my control and understanding. The evil glint of light off the monsters' eyes and flat teeth. The sudden stings of pain as they bit from afar, jabbering all the while.
I couldn't...I couldn't…
I was so alone, so small, so weak...I was nothing but an omen, a curse.
Slowly, I crept backwards, retreating into the alcove and curling my wings and tail around my body.
It was better this way. I would only make it worse.
Heaviness descended upon me, nearly pinning me to the ground beneath its great paw. Guilt. Resentment. Fear. All of them, morphing into one horrible being, exposing my neck like any skilled hunter. I was crushed beneath it, waiting for the final snap at my throat.
There I shivered. I hated this. I hated the monsters. I hated the Outsiders. I hated the whole cursed world for all that it had done, from the mistake my mother and father made in forcing my survival to the blind superstitions of the dragons in the Shell.
But most of all, I hated myself.
o.O.o
Night fell. Regret haunted my thoughts. Fear kept me awake. Exhaustion forced me asleep.
A shriek woke me up.
I snapped upright. My chest tightened, squeezing the air from my lungs. The traitorous magic within me pulsed.
Ears sticking straight up, I sight-sounded into the foliage. I should fly away. I should slink back into the ocean and swim as far as I could, testing my lungs to their limits. So why…
...why was I racing towards the call?
I leapt from a cliff-like hill and swerved between the trees with ease, sight-sounding in rapid bursts. Even as I pivoted back and forth, I wanted to stop, take a moment to think, to have some sense.
But I had spent all night worrying about this stranger, agonizing as though I had betrayed them, betrayed myself, and now—!
If I were them, I would have wanted rescue, too. I would have wanted to know that I was not so achingly, awfully alone.
How weak-willed I was, to embrace my exile so soon.
The harsh, jarring sounds of monster-voices echoed through the forest. I dropped and crouched low, glancing quickly over my sides to check that I was still caked with mud. Once assured, I crept step-by-step forward, pausing before every bush that needed to be pushed aside. The monster-sounds rose, jagged against my ears. Beneath them, like an ocean current, was the sound of deep, even breathing. Even lower than that was a faint growl.
The forest opened up into another clearing. I stopped just behind it, flattened to the ground, staring out from between the leaves.
There was that sun-on-earth dragon, glimmering on the ground. His scent was young, male, afraid. A strange, sickly-sweet tang hung in the air and coated over my tongue like slime. I cautiously sight-sounded, keeping the pitches as high as I could to avoid being heard.
His shape came into focus in my mind: a lithe, thin young dragon, lying limp on the ground. Many...things?...laid on top of him.
Beside him was a monster. His scent was male, dragonlike, reminiscent of ocean and storm and pine. It was rich like the earth after a rainfall. A fainter scent clung to him, something wild that almost made me arch my spine.
A blurred form stepped in front of me. Another monster.
Here was the source of that sticky-sap-dangerous smell. Beneath it, barely noticeable from the cloying sweetness, was a scent like nothing I had ever known. It was like gangrene mixed with soothing freshwater. Wildgrass mixed with acidic stone. A sharp, unnatural, ringing smell that felt like a blow. Ever so faintly, blood.
He smelled of deception. Something awful, unnatural, evil lurking beneath a fake reassurance of comforting, natural smells.
His movements were smooth and graceful. Each sound he made swirled into the next, like a soft rivulet drifting away from its origin. Ever so often, the facade dropped, and he jerked like a dead thing being swung about, his voice briefly harsh and ragged as splitting wood.
The other monster was like a firmly-rooted mountain in comparison. Always stable. Always centered. Even as I heard his heart pick up and thunder to match my own, and fear-scent drifted off of him more and more, he did not break. He was steady.
Until, suddenly, he wasn't. He lunged—I blinked—and the liar was on the ground.
Now was my chance. I returned my focus to the unconscious dragon. He hadn't so much as stirred during all the commotion. He was slightly bigger than me; I couldn't carry him off quickly. How could I get him away from the monsters, when they could bite from afar?
The mountain-monster rose to his hind paws. He lifted one paw high up, its end shiny and blunted.
The forest behind him shifted like a mirage.
A dragon resolved from nothingness behind him, quiet as death, looming in the shadows.
Magic. My magic.
Now I was frozen with horror, revulsion, and perplexing relief all at once. The dragon was black as night, shaped so much like me. His scent was male and sickening, with traces of the liar-monster.
He snapped at the mountain-monster. The monster struggled, even managing to land a blow, but the dragon thrust him to the ground and spat a ball of fire at him. The mountain-monster spiraled backwards, much like the fish I killed when I hunted, and snapped his head against a tree. He fell limp to the ground, blood seeping from his skull. I held my breath, straining my ears, until I heard a heartbeat. Not dead, but unconscious.
Some of the tension eased from my limbs. That was still good. Now, maybe, the two of us could fight the liar-monster, and…
...and…
The liar-monster got up, using an enormous tooth to bite through some vines holding his paws together. He slithered directly to the black dragon, lifted a paw, and. Touched. Him.
The black dragon did nothing—nothing!—and stood staring blankly in front of him. He did not jolt away from the liar-monster. He did not crane his neck to check that his foe was down. He did not inch closer to the unconscious young dragon who so clearly needed help.
Why wasn't he snarling the liar-monster away? Was he hurt, too? Could monsters freeze a dragon with a touch?!
The black dragon blinked. Nostrils flaring, he swung his head, eyes flicking back and forth, and met my eyes.
A shiver wracked my body.
Those eyes...held nothing…
Even a dead dragon's eyes still had some vestige of light, a trace of their spirit left in them, the same as the crystals of the Shell that still glowed with the remnants of the first ones. But these eyes...they were as hollow and purposeless as a stray stone. They did not look alive. They did not look like they had ever been alive. They were objects. Things. Just like the thing in the ocean that had wings and a voice but no heart or soul.
The liar-monster spun around. He saw me, too, and his eyes were crazed and manic, like the lightning of the storm I had known would kill me.
It was wrong. A dead-eyed dragon next to a monster who looked so energized, too alive, like he was stealing his life like a leech.
The monster bared its teeth, his mouth ragged like an open wound. A sharp, shrieking whistle cut the air, zinging against my ears.
The nothing-eyed dragon lunged.
"Wait!" I screamed, scrabbling backwards.
He crashed clumsily through the undergrowth, jaw gaping, wings flared, claws swiping. I backpedaled, batting away his paw with a slice of my own. My claws just skinned him, tearing a fine streak down the inside of his paw. He jerked the paw away, but his eyes remained blank and barely focused on me.
With a panic-fueled leap, I exploded into the air, eyes wide, heart thundering, wings a frantic blur. My sight-sounds were loud and haphazard. A form here, a shadow there, the neon dapple of leaves blocking the sun. I ducked and twirled around tree limbs and branches, swooping out of the forest and into the midday sky.
The nothing-eyed dragon simply bashed through the foliage, crashing into the open with a spray of broken twigs and leaves. He flared wings that were far wider and more muscular than my own. With a few confident strokes of his wings, he reached a speed to match mine. One, two, three more—he was seconds from overtaking me.
I had maybe five seconds to react. I pedaled my wings, heaving, useless. Four. My sight-sounds sank into nothingness. Three. Ocean too far below, clouds too far above. One.
He was upon me. I had only one chance.
The wind from his wings brushed across my dorsal fin.
Just like the sea-birds I once hunted outside the Shell, I snapped my wings in, contorted my body in a twisting arc, and plummeted. The sudden force of gravity made my head spin, spots swarming across my eyes.
He careened past me. I flung my wings out, catching the enormous updrafts off the island. He tucked into a steep, neck-breaking turn, his wings perfectly perpendicular to the ocean.
Throwing my tail down, I strained up. The mud caking my wings and tail pulled and tugged at my scales, sending small pings of pain through me with every movement. I grit my teeth. If I could get above him, if I could reach the clouds, then maybe…!
BOOM!
Blinding light. Incredible heat.
I hurled myself aside, my belly brushing against the fireball. The mud seemed to grasp the heat and carry it with me. Burning, almost. When I gasped, the heat in the air hurt. I spiraled away. My tailfins skimmed the fire, agony slicing up the delicate membranes as they were eaten away.
Wingbeats below—no, above—I was upside-down—I shrunk away again, snapping wings in, swung my tail to spin me right-way-up—thrust my paws out—
Our claws locked onto each other. Without so much of a snarl, the nothing-eyed dragon threw us into a wild, descending spiral.
"Let go!" I shrieked. I flared my wings, but he had his tucked all the way in, and the intense winds nearly knocked them both of mine out of their sockets. The world spun nauseatingly, the pressure of the spin pulling us down, down!
At this rate, we would crash into the ocean!
I looked into his empty eyes. His pupils might have been directed towards mine, but there was no focus, no intent.
Just a few days ago, I had fallen with another dragon, and we had wept and anguished and mourned together.
His was the face of the Outside. He did not care. I was nothing to him.
"Let go!" I howled. My fire glowed in my throat, and without hesitation, I shot it—
The nothing-eyed dragon vanished. His grasp disappeared. I fell, gaping as my fireball smashed into the cliffs, before spinning my tail and wings about me. I caught a glimpse of enormous blue—pivoted towards it—spread my wings and tailfins, trying to slow my fall into a dive—
An enormous weight stormed onto my back. Claws dug into my wing-shoulders. A pair of jaws clamped onto my scruff.
I cried out, trying to writhe away. A stone pillar spun past. His claws dug into my shoulders. The ocean engulfed my vision. Hissing, I yanked my wings all the way up, managing to smack him on the temple with an elbow joint. He braced himself against it, merely grunting with the pain. The wind screamed in my ears.
At this speed, if we hit the water—!
"Why are you doing this?!" I shouted. "We'll drown! Let go! Let go!"
I fought for freedom, but nothing I did could shake him!
"Please, let me go!"
No response.
My heart thundered.
A sob escaped my throat.
I could hear the waves crashing below.
I closed my eyes.
The first ones would not forgive me.
Because I would not deserve it.
The warmth of my heart exploded in a great rush. The tingly-painful zinging crawled over each scale, sliding in rivulets from my chest outwards. I flung my tail backwards, spinning us aside, and finally, finally, wrenched myself from his claws. I seized the change, throwing both my wings out, pushing myself straight down and then spinning in a steep, upside-down loop that made my head spin. Sudden strength flooded my wings, and in that dizzying rush, anything felt possible.
I wasted no time spinning into my ascent, risking a glance backwards, sides twitching with the revolting wash of magic over—
I nearly stopped my ascent.
The magic wasn't working.
Where it should have melted into nothingness, my hide was still plainly visible, coated in mud. Gaping with disbelief, I brought a paw up closer to my eyes. Where the mud had once shielded me from sight, now it did the opposite: my white scales had disappeared, but not the dirt. I clamped down on the magic, strangling it, and watched as the patchwork white of my scales faded back into view.
My sacrifice was useless.
But there was no time to mourn my stupidity.
The black dragon was already swinging around. I shot a blast of fire in his direction, but he tucked his wings and swung under it with ease. Better to focus on getting away. If he caught me again, I wasn't so sure I would have enough strength to fight my way out of his grip again.
If I pulled my wings in and plunged for the ocean, he might intercept. I doubted I could reach the cloud-cover in time.
That left only one refuge: the forest. I was once one of the most agile fliers in the Shell. I could escape him there.
I had to escape him there.
I threw myself into a straight ascent. My wing-shoulders felt like they would rip apart from the fresh wounds there.
An eerie whisper of wind racing over wings rose below me.
I shot out a burst of sight-sounds. The cliff reached up above. I strained my eyes against the sky, the blinding blue, the sun glaring overhead, the sharp flash of luminescent red.
Wait, red?
No time. I swung over the island's edge. The forest sprung into view. I curled towards it.
There was a sharp whistle.
Somewhere below, several voices screamed as one, "Hunt!"
Then came a storm of wingbeats. A high-pitched, unnatural sound grated on my ears. That hateful, familiar dead-alive groan.
In between me and the forest, my sight-sounds reflected off of...something, like the thing on the ocean, but up here. The dragons I heard and saw were attached to it somehow, their shapes melting into it like they were a part of it. It was all perfect, sharp angles, so wrong here next to a forest. Atop the thing, my sight-sounds returned a blurred figure.
Though I could not see him, I could smell him. The liar-monster.
I lunged for the forest.
"HUNT!" howled the dragons.
The black dragon swung above, blinking out the sun and casting me in deep shadow. A gale of wind rushed from beneath his wings. He was silent, empty, meaningless and heartless, just like all of the Outside.
A sharp sting struck my neck.
And—
o.O.o
Toothless
"You're in my spot. Get out of my spot."
This grumble, accompanied by a rough shove to my wing, had me plenty awake.
I uncurled from around Hiccup and snapped my head around, ears sticking straight up, struggling to blink the sleep out of my eyes. To my shock, the sun had risen. We had slept in, and when we had so much work to do!
But who was talking? There was no dragon nearby, and certainly not close enough to rouse me. I sniffed the air, searching for a scent—
The boulder right next to us snapped, "Go on! Get!"
"Gah!" I yelped, lurching away. Hiccup's protesting groan was muffled by my wing.
The dragon was so well-camouflaged that even looking at him, it was hard to see where dragon ended and mountain began. He was heavy-set, like a Hum-Wing, with stocky legs and small wings. His scales layered over each other in giant, pointed plates from nose to tailtip. Their coloration was exactly that of the rocks around us. Judging from his wickedly long claws, squat stature, and powerful shoulders, this dragon spent much more time burrowing than flying.
Hiccup popped his head out from under my wing, looked around, and frowned. "Where—"
The dragon snorted and stamped his foot. "Don't make me repeat myself, younglings!"
"Woah!" Hiccup yelped, stumbling backwards.
"Sorry," I stammered. "We didn't know—"
"Clearly!" he grunted. "Now off, off!"
He lurched towards us. I spun around, snapped up Hiccup's scruff with sheathed teeth, and leapt upwards towards a much more tenacious outcropping on the cliff. There, I carefully set my brother down, who looked both embarrassed and grateful to have been carried off like a hatchling.
The dragon stamped around in a circle, long tail scraping along the ground and smoothing it of stray pebbles and scales. With a long sigh, he settled onto the sun-warmed outcropping and stretched his legs out. He soaked in the warmth, rumbling with a purr, and then abruptly snapped his head towards us. "Well? Be gone, then."
"Uh, hello," Hiccup chirped, his overtone near-obnoxiously friendly. He'd drawn his dragon-self up over his head, hiding his human fur. The fake "ears" he had attached to it stuck up in the wind, making him look just as surprised as I felt. "Do you mind if we ask—"
"I do mind!" the dragon growled. "Your kind bring nothing good! Be off, you, and your hatchling, too!" He opened his maw wide, showing a mesmerizing, green flame glowing within.
"What do you mean, we bring nothing good?" Hiccup asked, undaunted. He did inch over to my shoulder, however. I leaned over, tucked my head between his legs, and boosted him up onto my shoulders.
The dragon gave a long sigh in that I'm-so-above-this attitude that only elder dragons could manage. "Well, if you keep flying from mountain to mountain, obvious as you please, you'll find out soon enough."
"Wait," I said. My claws dug into the stone. "Were there other Shadow-Blenders here, once?"
He snorted, baring his teeth. "Were there dragons that brought hoards of humans here? Yes, there were. And seeing as how I'd like to keep my spot, you need to leave!" He snapped his teeth.
"How long ago? Where were they?" Hiccup asked. "Please, tell us and we'll go."
"I don't know how long! Seasons, maybe? And I don't go flying from peak to peak, out in the open, like you two obviously do!" He narrowed a critical eye at us. "Ah, yes, don't think you went unnoticed. Now you'll have these slopes crawling with humans, scaring off all the good prey, trying to steal good dragons from their caves."
Hiccup stiffened. So did I.
"Where did they go?!" I demanded, leaning forward so much that I nearly slipped off the precipice.
The old dragon glared. Some inner turmoil seemed to pass through him, maybe brought on by the desperation in my voice. With a long-suffering sigh, he put his head down on his paws. "Some died. Some fled. I don't know where they went—they disappeared one day, gone away in the night. The only reason they waited was for their eggs to hatch, I presume. It was some seasons ago, but not before you stumbled out of your shell. Definitely before you did," he glanced over my shoulder at Hiccup. "There's some caves and tunnels scattered about, here in the mountains. But don't go sniffing around out in the open, for all the world to see!"
"And the humans?" Hiccup asked.
He scowled. "Vermin," he spat. "I had a cave here long before those wobbly-legged things first washed up on the shore. Every so often, they come out here, hunting dragons like prey. But when your kind were here, they infested the mountains." He shook his head. "You two are the first I've seen in many seasons."
My breath left me.
We were too late.
"Now, now," the elder hummed, looking somewhat regretful. "Plenty must have gotten away. They just left. And so should you!" He perked up, and in his bright tone, he realized, "Yes, yes, if you leave quickly, the humans won't notice, and you'll have an easier time finding your own. So why don't you go?"
Suddenly, the behavior of the other dragons we had seen made sense. The little dragons that ran screaming into their tunnels. The long-winged dragon that took off at full speed the moment they saw us. The flare that violently ejected us from their territory.
It wasn't simple fear of the unknown. It was something deep, long-remembered, so terrible that new generations of dragons were taught these legends and followed their instructions closely. So closely, in fact, that the mere sight of us made them afraid.
Shadow-Blenders were an omen here.
o.O.o
We had a half-hearted breakfast near a stream surrounded on all sides by towering mountains. They loomed overhead and pressed in. I could almost feel their judgment prickling across my scales.
I snapped up another fish, shook it, and tossed it to our pile. Hiccup pounced on it. I had waded out into the middle of the stream, where the water came nearly up to my chest. I opened my wings underwater, forcing the fish to swim straight towards me to pass. It was highly efficient, if not uncomfortable. Though this climate was warmer than Berk, winter was still fast approaching.
I stared at my distorted reflection in the stream. Was I the last Shadow-Blender to lay eyes upon this land? On these waters?
"Hey," Hiccup said, voice soft.
I startled, snapping my head upright. I'd been looking into the waters for so long that I had lost myself in them.
"Let's eat," Hiccup said. "I think we have enough."
I plodded out of the silty water, shaking myself off some distance away from Hiccup. When I eventually settled down next to our modest catch, he scooted over to push his side against mine.
"I…" My eyes settled on the pawprints I had left behind in the mud. "I had so dearly hoped…"
Hiccup curled closer. "I'm so sorry, Toothless."
My breath came out in a rattle. "If they left seasons ago...who knows where they went?"
"Maybe some other dragons know," Hiccup said. "Or even...some of the people in the villages."
I was already shaking my head. "No. If they're as dangerous as they sound, I'd rather be captured myself before letting you walk into one of those places alone."
Hiccup huffed, just barely hiding his agitation beneath it. "I'm not helpless, Toothless."
I grimaced. "I know. I'm sorry. It's only…" I curled closer to him. "Even though I've never met these dragons...I still feel like I've lost someone. I can't risk losing you, too."
He pressed against me. "It is fine," he soothed. "We were careful not to be seen yesterday. We only saw a few villages when the sun was already setting."
"And I want it to stay that way," I said. "Do you think we should only travel at night, to avoid being seen?"
Hiccup paused, considering, and nodded. "For all we know, that dragon was just saying hearsay. But if he's right, and people here send out hunting parties just at the sight of a Shadow-Blender…"
I wrapped my tail around him. "We're not going to even give them a chance to know we're here."
o.O.o
So, naturally, that never came to pass.
We made it through an entire day without straying from our course. Having decided on avoiding humans during the day, but still desperate to find the coastline, Hiccup and I spent our day preparing for our new nocturnal lifestyle. We hunted more fish, dried them in the sun, sought out plants Hiccup needed to eat, stared uselessly at the map, and tried to doze the sunlight away.
Of course, neither of us got a blink of sleep. By the time the sunset cast long drapes of shadows deep into the valleys, we were near-manic with restless energy.
We had just finished setting our first marker of the night. Hiccup had instructed me to shelter my head with my wings, shielding any sight of my flame from seeking eyes. Though the success was small, it was enough to lift my spirits. At least we had done something.
That was when we heard an echoed CLANG!, followed quickly thereafter by a scream.
I froze, ears and frills standing on end. Hiccup clambered onto my shoulders before the shriek could finish bouncing off the mountains.
All it took was a shared look, our link pulsing with alarmed concern, and we charged towards the sound.
A dragon wailed. The sound bounced across the maw of mountains. We swept around a gnarled tooth of stone and into a low-lying cloud bank.
Now I could hear the rattle of chains. The scrape of claws and teeth on metal. The whimpers and sobs of a trapped dragon.
Baring my teeth, I reached inside to my heart, where my magic lay dormant. With a frantic pulse, I opened my channels, allowing the power to flow through my veins, my muscles, my scales. Then I pulled us hard out of the cloud, banking parallel to the ground in the sheer moonlight. When we emerged, the silver light appeared to pass through me.
It was Shadow-Blender magic, allowing me to trick the eye, nearly becoming invisible. It was difficult to master. I could only use it for so long before a thought-rending headache pierced my skull. If I pushed past even that, then my magic would sputter like a dying flame...and take me with it.
"There," Hiccup whispered, pointing to a rocky outcropping in the shadow of a mountain. A metal cage gleamed in the darkness. Within, a dragon's scales glimmered in brief, vibrant flashes.
My eyes darted back and forth. I couldn't see any humans.
I tucked my wings into a silent dive, swooping past a tall tree and coming to a landing on the outcropping. Opening my mouth wide, I took in a deep gulp of air.
Fear-scent. Metal. Fish-smell, almost overwhelming.
Human-scent was here, too, but old.
I let my magic slip away, melting back into sight. The dragon—a very young male of the broad-winged species—let out a gasp.
"Where—"
"Shh!" Hiccup and I hissed.
Hiccup leapt off of my shoulders and slunk towards the cage, keeping low, his dragon-self drawn up over his fur. I paced the perimeter, nosing the ground, seeking out the human-scent. It led away...up towards a thin splint in the rock.
"It's okay," Hiccup whispered to the dragon. There was a clinking of metal on metal. "I know how to free you. Just be quiet for a moment…"
I squinted up the crevice, approaching it with my head lifted to the winds. I could smell something almost…almost…
...familiar.
Fwip.
Pain. Nausea. Dizzy. Can't see. Can't speak...
Heavy, legs heavy...wings drooping...eyes can't...open...
"Toothless!"
A dragon's roar. Human voices...unfamiliar...wrong...claws wrapping around my midsection...
...sleep...
o.O.o
"...but even so, you brought them here?!"
"Mother, please, they needed help!"
"Once my brother wakes up, we'll leave—please, just let us stay until then."
"No! I'll not have my nest invaded again!"
The scent of smoke wafted over my nose. Though the shouting could be ignored, that awoke something within me. An urgent drive to alert, to protect. I wanted to spring to my feet, teeth bared, claws extended, wings open to take that first beat of flight.
Instead, I barely managed to flutter my eyelids open.
Blue moonlight crept across the ground, stones, a...ceiling? A cave.
A brilliant orange-red dragon made entirely of wings paced in anxious circles, long tail flailing madly. A smaller dragon of her kind crouched in front of her, submissive but still keeping guard over an even smaller dragon behind him…
"Hiccup," I breathed.
All three of them whipped around.
"Toothless," Hiccup sighed, the tension in his posture melting away. He turned his back to the mother dragon—a sight that sent a spike of fear and wakefulness through me—and scrambled four-legged over to me. When he reached me, he put his paws under my chin and helped me lift my head. "How do you feel?"
Like I could fall back asleep at any moment. "I'm alright," I grunted instead. I dragged floppy paws underneath me, struggled to sit up, and swayed. My vision blurred. Were there four dragons there now? No—the images merged back together into the reasonable two. "What...ugh…" I clenched my eyes and choked down a wave of nausea. "What happened?"
Hiccup stood on two paws, holding me up as best as he could. "You were hit with a dart," he explained. "There were dragon trappers waiting in the rocks. They spoke the same language as the ones on the ships. This dragon, Farflight, saved us." He pointed with his nose at the young dragon.
An unusual name to match these unusual lands. I had long since put to rest my urge to smart at unnecessarily-named dragons, though, and bowed my head respectfully. "Thank you, Farflight."
"It's the least I could do for saving me from dying." This he said very pointedly at his mother, who rolled her eyes in exasperation. He turned back to us, green eyes wide and welcome. "Could you teach me how you did that? That way, if I see any dragons trapped, I can help, too."
"Absolutely not." His mother loomed tall, smoke spilling between clamped teeth, her enormous wingspan blocking all the light.
"That's Galewing," Hiccup whispered.
A thought burst into my mind. "I agree with your mother, Farflight."
Both mother and son jolted with surprise.
"It's far too dangerous to go approaching cages on your own like that. You might end up needing saving yourself, just like we did," I explained. Galewing nodded along, shooting her unruly yearling righteous looks. Encouraged, I went on, "A better way to help dragons is to make sure they're never caught in the first place."
Farflight drooped. "I didn't know it was there. I only smelled fish. Then that...thing...snapped up around me, like teeth closing in." He shuddered violently and his mother's harsh expression softened. She leaned down and nosed his head spines, nibbling between them.
"It's an easy mistake," Hiccup said, overtone sympathetic. "But now you won't do it again, and you can warn other dragons not to do the same."
"You should listen to them," Galewing said. "They speak wisely." She paused, and added reluctantly, "And...I must thank you for running the risk of sparing my Farflight. If he had been lost, too…"
Farflight pressed close to his mother, winding his neck up towards hers. "I'm too strong for that, Mother."
She shook her head. "Foolish words. No dragon is too strong to be brought down."
My heart ached, sharp and unexpected. They reminded me so much of…
I tried to brush the thought away. No, I couldn't sit here and ruminate, no matter how much the memories I'd worked so hard to suppress fought to be heard.
"I have not seen your kind here in many seasons," Galewing said, as if determined to bring everything crashing upon me at once. "I thought they were all gone."
Hiccup and I exchanged a forlorn look.
"We're actually looking for them," Hiccup said. "We blew in here on the storm two days ago. Another dragon said something similar, but we hoped…"
I slumped, this time from the weight of it. "We had heard that a human was hunting them all...but that even so, others had been seen here."
Galewing frowned. She tucked her head against her body like a crane and rose to her feet, using her wings and hind legs to walk. "Follow me," she said. She opened her maw wide, and a blaze erupted between her teeth, brilliant gold like the setting sun.
She took us deeper into her cave, winding between stalagmites, rockfalls, sheer drops, and tight squeezes. The air became cool and humid, condensing in dewdrops on my scales. Soon, the darkness closed in such that Galewing seemed to fade into it, even though she was only a winglength ahead. Farflight stood at her haunches, shouting warnings and directions to Hiccup and me. Hiccup followed just ahead of me, walking carefully on all fours to avoid any tumbles and occasionally holding onto Farflight's tail. At the rear, I had no excuse to fall at all, but still managed to slip once or twice.
The tunnel got colder and colder. We slipped past a small cavern. Earthy smells came from within, with just a hint of the salt of the nearby ocean. If I squinted, I could just make out rounded shapes resting on the foliage, which glimmered with low-burning embers.
"Mother's eggs," Farflight pointed them out.
"Farflight!" she gasped. "Never tell a stranger where your eggs are!"
"But they're friends," he grumbled.
"We won't tell anyone," Hiccup soothed.
I, on the other wing, was rather insulted by the implication that we would harm an egg. An egg! Gritting my teeth, I swallowed the retort that leapt immediately to my tongue. We weren't Kings here. We were in Galewing's cave, and judging by what I had overheard when I awoke, she had plenty of reason to be overprotective of her growing young.
Deeper we traveled, the soft scrape of our claws echoing on the ancient stones. I sniffed the air and was surprised to smell fresh water. Soon, I could even hear a trickle of water.
"Here we are," Galewing finally said. She squeezed through a slit in the stone I had barely noticed. One by one, everyone in front of me disappeared through the gap. I tested it, almost got stuck, and then turned my head sideways and wriggled through, landing in an undignified heap on the other side.
The mountain yawned into a wide cavern. Light filtered from above—not firelight, but blue skylight, diffusing in beams from gaps in the ceiling. There were so many that it almost appeared like the sky had filled with radiant stars, each supplying enough light to challenge the moon.
Hiccup let out a gasp. He lurched backwards, away, one paw reaching for me, eyes locked in front of him.
Then I saw it.
Half-sunken into the shadows, a shallow, smooth pit had been carved into the floor. Frail, crumbling leaves and brambles lined its bottom. Three rounded shapes, heartwrenching and familiar, nestled within the little nest.
Just barely in the light, a gleam of white pressed up against them.
A skull. A Shadow-Blender skull.
My chest constricted. I couldn't breathe. The air—it wouldn't come in. Too tight, my chest, my heart—crushing. My lungs were collapsing. My heart fluttered uselessly. I gasped and gasped and still drowned in the open air. It hurt. It hurt.
Hiccup's warm paw pressed on my shoulder, and I managed to take in a rattling breath.
I flicked my eyes around, taking in more and more. Here was a scorch mark. There, a dropped sword, its deadly gleam stifled by a coating of dust. Hunched against the wall of the cavern, a crumpled collection of bones—human bones. Just behind it, backed into a corner, another heap, but this one familiar but small—a young dragon, not even a yearling, maybe not even a fledgling, trapped against the embrace of its home.
More and more, the cold light settled on them. Bones so white and grayed that I had mistaken them for rocks. Humans everywhere. Weapons scattered like leaves in the fall. The adult dragon, her fledgling, and her three eggs had faced them alone.
And they had all died.
Died alone.
Died in their nest, their home.
Died beneath human paws and hatred.
"Oh," I whimpered.
I lost my balance—my legs were shaking, when had that happened?—and sunk to the cold stone. My chest constricted, strangling the life out of me. "Oh…"
"It was several seasons ago," Galewing whispered, as if she could wake the dead if she disturbed them. "Starcatcher's mate had disappeared. He had left to help some other dragon, I think, but I hadn't been close to them. The others had been hunted and started to disappear, but she had her eggs here. She waited for him. I came to her sometimes, urging her to go, if only to keep the humans from swarming the mountains. I even offered to help carry her eggs, but she was terrified of leaving and never seeing her mate again."
She leered at the human skeletons. "An entire flock of humans eventually found this place. Most who entered the mountain never left it."
I took a heavy step forward. Then another. My paws landed on a small bone—human—which splintered beneath my weight. My breath caught. Cold washed down my spine. Fear and dread pinned me by my neck. I wrenched myself free and stumbled the rest of the way to the nest, sinking to my belly just at its edge.
The Shadow-Blender had curled around her eggs in her final moments. The bones of her paws spilled along the ground next to them, along with those of two wings. I could imagine her pulling them to her heart and covering them with paws and wings, just as I did to protect Hiccup, ducking her head into the false safety of her shelter as the humans poured in and the stench of blood and death clogged the air.
Had she watched her fledgling die, or had it been the other way around? Had she given in to despair? Had she been mortally wounded, having spewed all the flame within her, and retreated to her eggs in one last desperate attempt to spare them? Had the unborn hatchlings stirred in their shells, their first flickers of awareness those of fear and confusion, before their mother's body chilled around them and they froze to death?
A soft paw settled on my shoulder. Hiccup. I sluggishly turned to him, meeting his glistening eyes. Our link flickered and flared.
Dead. Dead. Dead. The evidence was here beneath my paws, the bodies left to rot unburned, and yet I couldn't bring myself to believe it. I didn't want to believe it! It wasn't possible—it couldn't be!
Hiccup would not say baseless statements of hope and maybe-they're-somewhere-else, not now, not when a dead mother and her hatchlings, killed for cruelty's sake, lay before us. He could offer nothing but his presence and his love, and did so with all his being. He brushed against my gruesome imaginings of Starcatcher's final moments and shooed them away. I imagined his comfort as wings, wrapping around me, shielding me from the sight. He wished I had not seen this—not when the fate of my own family was so uncertain—but knew it was a selfish thing to want, when we had left in search of our kind.
My breath came in shaking, shallow pants. I passed a thought to him, and his eyes and heart filled with sorrow. He nodded.
I turned from Starcatcher and her eggs and walked to the corner where the fledgling lay. The scraping of my paws on the stone and the rattle of bones swept aside by my tail were far, far too loud.
I stood before the fledgling's remains and felt my throat clog up. At least the eggs had been with their mother. This poor dragon had spent their final moments at the mercy of hatred, cornered and alone, and their only companion since had been the monster that had likely struck them down.
I leaned down, nosing the bones, and gently gripped the back of their skull, as is lifting them by their scruff. Hiccup came up from behind, the step-step-step-tink-step-step-step-tink of his pawsteps the only sounds filling the cavern. He swept his arms around the bones and lifted them up, rising to two legs.
Galewing took in a sharp gasp, but said nothing. She and Farflight stood at the very corner of the cavern, not daring to tread upon the open wound of this place.
Together, Hiccup and I returned the fledgling to their mother. We settled them around the eggs, still in their mother's embrace, but offering protection of their own. I imagined the fledgling would have wanted to be brave, to protect their siblings, and that they would have found peace dying for them, too.
Then we turned to the humans and their filth. I snatched up the bones, uncaring of keeping them separate and individual. Once I had gathered too much to carry, I lurched to the mouth of the cavern, pushing Farflight and Galewing aside. Once a safe distance away, I flung them away. Turned around. And did it again. Hiccup was obscenely respectful even with the human bones, taking care not to shatter them in his grasp.
Last were the weapons. We did the same for them, until there was only one left.
Hiccup crouched before the sword, his paw trembling just above it. As I approached, he looked to me, eyes distant and anguished, the dust on his cheeks cleansed in thin lines by his tears.
"I can't," he whispered.
A pang of realization struck me. I had been so consumed by our task...I hadn't even thought about the sword. About the death. About what it meant to Hiccup, who almost met the same fate at the paws of his own father. "It is fine," I murmured, nosing him and licking his face clean. I carefully gripped the cursed thing in my teeth and tore it away from this place, where it never should have been, where I would never allow it to hurt anyone again.
Only when the cavern had been cleansed did we tend to the fallen Shadow-Blenders.
"Dragon of the Sun," I whispered. Gas collected in the back of my throat. "Dragoness of the Moon...fill their wings with your strength, and guide them to your safety."
As carefully as though I were lighting a coal-bed, I flared my fire to life, guiding a stream of blue-purple flame downwards. The bones and nest grasped my flames, blazing orange and crackling in the sudden heat. Compared against the choking cold, it was like a shock of lightning across my scales.
Hiccup pressed close to me. "I wish I could add my own," he mourned, shoulders drooping.
I curled my tail around him, eyes locked on the bones as the flames ate away at them. "They will understand," I said. "I know it."
The smoke drifted in spirals, dancing upwards into the starlike light above. We held vigil over them as, for one last time, Starcatcher grasped the heavens in her claws, guiding her young under her wings.