That morning, Ruffrunner had had the terrifying experience of being woken up by his brother. But apart from that, it had started off as a great day. After quickly falling asleep again, he had been allowed to sleep in, and had finally achieved the twelve hour nap that he rightfully deserved. This had been followed by his sister having to bring him fish, something that he would take full advantage of in the following month. He didn't know what was better. The excellent cod that Dart had given him or her furious expression while doing it.
But in the early afternoon, their father had decided to teach them how to fight, and he had been faced with the same furious expression in far less pleasant circumstances.
Annoying, bloodthirsty and seemingly not caring for their own life. As Ruffrunner tried to survive against her sister, he couldn't help by comparing the nightlight with a mosquito. Apart from size, he really couldn't see a large difference.
He tried to jump to the side to avoid the leap but wasn't quite fast enough. The nightlight received a glancing hit on his front shoulder. Luckily, since they were only practising, they were not using claws. And as he took a quick glance at his scales, he did not immediately spot the four bleeding cuts that a clawing usually led to, as Dart was such a great dragon who loved him as a brother and would never hurt him.
Sarcasm.
"Claws retracted Dart! You do not want to hurt your brother!" shouted Toothless as he took a short moment away from his own fight with Pouncer.
Dart really looked like she had something to say.
After two more pain-filled minutes, Ruffrunner's body was screaming 'stop.' Now, it wasn't completely hopeless. He had managed to land a good four blows in this time, and taken a mere forty himself. But somehow, Dart was still fighting, with not even a sign of being in pain. Luckily, Ruffrunner had found a way to momentarily stop the fight without losing his dignity.
"I have a question!" he yowled into the air, finally halting both his sister and the rest of his family. "How exactly does the alpha succession work, and why does it include me having to fight her?" he asked frustrated, not taking his eyes off his growingly impatient opponent. At least she seemed still, for now.
A smile made its way onto the night fury's head. "You do love telling this, don't you?" asked his mate as she teasingly pushed against his side.
"You bet I do," answered Toothless.
Ruffrunner breathed heavily, taking the moment of rest to calm his pounding heart. In the meantime, he kept a good eye on Dart, planning his next move. "You see, it is only natural. The alpha holds absolute power, and keeps it until he dies or resigns. When there is no alpha, someone will claim themselves as the new ruler," explained their father.
Dart seemed intrigued. "And duels?" she asked.
"If someone manages to get the alpha at his mercy..." hummed Toothless. "The alpha will be forced to resign or die. In both cases, a new alpha will be needed."
Ruffrunner tilted his head. "Does this mean that you could lose your power as soon as someone stronger than you decides to challenge you?" he asked worriedly.
The night fury's smile grew broader, enticing a groan from Light. "Your dad is going to start bragging again," warned the light fury before he could continue. The white dragon also noted how weird it was to keep talking in third person.
Toothless took a solemn look at the sky. "Let me tell you a story, about the bewilderbeast, the previous alpha. So big and powerful that no one could even hope to win against him," he said. At that point, the night fury turned around to once more face the nighlights.
"That is, no one except me. I have kept my power for twenty years simply because I am the strongest," he said, basically blushing in the process.
His mate rolled her eyes. "And because he's decent enough that few want to challenge him in the first place. But saying that would hurt his fragile ego far too much, so just nod along."
The nighlights enthusiastically nodded at the explanation, making the night fury frown a little. But for one of them, something more was going on inside his mind. Ruffrunner tensed his muscles as he prepared for the upcoming leap.
"Anyway, back to fighting," announced Toothless, making the nightlight immediately leap onto his unsuspecting sister, swiftly throwing her onto her back. By the time she was back in the fight, he had already pushed his weight onto her. Within five more seconds of struggle, he had pinned down her four paws.
"You're a foul player and a disgrace to dragon kind and I hate you!" barked the creature below him in what sounded like melody to his ears.
"The fighting had started. I win. And nothing you can say will make me let you go free," stated Ruffrunner as he rested on his prey. He looked at her in the eyes with pure satisfaction.
Dart's blue eyes looked at him defiantly. And without once letting go of eye contact or saying a word, Dart let her tail slip into a very personal part of Ruffrunner and used it in a way that did not entice pleasure, but rather roars of pain, sending the níghtlight into an involuntary five metre high jump.
"You monster!" he roared at his sister as he flattened out and tried to get some distance between himself and the source of his pains. This was not okay! Unluckily for him, she followed, and within two seconds was hot on his tail.
"You two, stop now!" roared their mother with a tone that implied 'or I will stop you myself.' The nightlights landed quietly and looked at the light fury. One of them was rather displeased.
"I was just beginning to have fun..." murmured Dart sheepishly. "And it's not like there were any rules against it..." she said.
"Yes, but I want grandchildren. Go have fun doing something else," stated Light bluntly, ending the discussion.
An utmost grateful sigh left Ruffrunner as he realised the fighting was over. He turned to his sister with a smug smile, doing his best to ignore the dizziness and pain."My dear Dart, could you please bring me a fish?"
Dart looked at her brother furiously. But soon enough she noticed the other dragon's squirming, and how his hind legs were crossed to try to squeeze away the pain that she had caused, and immediately relaxed. "I will. And I hope that you enjoy your little victory," she said with an equally smug smile. "I will certainly enjoy mine."
Laura shuffled her feet nervously, wondering how exactly she had decided to bring fish to Pouncer today.
Oh. Right. Her.
After Pouncer's visit, she had consulted the hideous zippleback Gin and Tonic, who was her best friend/bringer of chaos. Strangely for a zippleback, the two heads were not in a state of constant bickering. As the green dragon had explained, she was fully at peace with herself. It was just the rest of the known world that she had problems with.
Or rather, it was the rest of the known world that had problems with her.
During the meetup, she had started explaining Pouncer's visit in a search for advice. The two headed dragon had smiled broadly as soon as Laura had opened her mouth. And in the middle of their conversation, Gin and Tonic had decided that she had listened enough and would give her opinion. "The alpha's son likes you, and that is great. This can be your chance to join the apha's family! I am sure you took good care of him and did your best to impress him," she had said with the two eyed wink that only someone who had four eyes could manage.
Laura had then awkwardly explained how she had taken his gift of regurgitated fish but refused to take the gift of his favour that the nightlight had so charmingly offered.
Four incredulous eyes had stared at the light fury. "You did what?!" she had roared. "Alright, no panic Gin and Tonic. No panic!" she had said to herself. The two heads had been hyperventilating in sync. "Okay, calm down, calm down, we can still save this. And this is how." Finally, the dragon had closed her eyes. When she had opened them again, they were calm and clear, as the dragon had found a solution.
"Laura, go to Pouncer and spread your legs" had been said in a calm yet firm voice.
"No!" she had replied, the idea in itself not just bad, but repugnating.
The hideous zippleback stood her ground. "Too bad. Wasn't asking."
Laura had watched her best friend with shocked eyes. "Shouldn't I have a say in the matter?"
At that point, a kind little zippleback wing had made its way onto her back as Gin and Tonic had calmly taken her friend for a moment of honest words. "Laura, you are like a sibling to me. And I never listen to my siblings."
In the end, the two had found an acceptable compromise in giving Pouncer fish.
Many might say that there had been better options. And sure, was it truly the best of ideas? Maybe not.
Anyways…
After procuring a tasty saumon, the light fury started her search for the nightlight. And luck just had it that she spotted some black and white figures on top of a cliff. She was about to jump in and offer the catch when she noticed what her target was doing.
Pouncer was fighting.
Against the alpha.
She looked on as the white and black dragon clashed, exchanging wings and paws strikes like there was no tomorrow. The light fury sighed in relief as she saw the retracted teeth and claws, but apart from that…
Pouncer leapt into the air and tightly circled near to the night fury. Laura looked intrigued at this move. Wouldn't that make him an easy target?
The night fury looked curiously at the event. He then leapt and easily threw Pouncer onto the ground. "Bad tactic," murmured the nightlight as he tried to crawl his way out of the night fury's grasp. The two then separated, positioned themselves in front of each other and went at it again.
Okay, it wasn't a duel to the death. But this didn't make it less interesting to watch. The light fury admired as blows were dealt, blocked and avoided as the fight continued. Pouncer was thousands of times less experienced than his father, who clearly had the upper hand. But he tried, changed tactics and tried again. And with every attempt, Laura could see how his movements became ever so slightly more secure and determined. Under his mostly white hide, muscles tensed and relaxed as the nightlight fought on, seemingly not caring for anything else in the world. Not any less interesting to watch at all, thought the light fury.
Suddenly, the nighlight's toxic green eyes then landed on hers, leaving her frozen. "Laura? What are you doing here?"
Her muscles tensed and eyes widened in fear. "Fnajskjfnjerw jenjdna sdjfnj as acdc fish!" she blurted out in a fraction of a second to avoid being caught staring and thus seeming weird.
The night fury groaned curiously as Poncer immediately forgot about the fight and walked away. Pouncer's eyes were understandably confused. "What did you say?"
Somehow, she managed to calm down. "I said: you seemed a little down yesterday so I thought to cheer you up by bringing you fish," she explained patiently with the tone of an old bewilderbeast who once more explained the same basic concept to hatchlings that were particularly bad at listening. She offered the saumon.
The white nightlight looked at her warily and considered his options. On one hand, he had promised to himself to never trust females again. He could still remember the feeling of betrayal, despite it being almost twenty-four hours ago. On the other hand, there was her. And those well defined features of hers that kept popping up in his mind again and again. But Laura had hurt him. If he decided to give her a second chance, he would make it clear that he was not pleased by yesterday's events, and that if she didn't make up for it, he had no problem in leaving her.
"Do you expect this to be enough for me to forgive you?" he asked sternly as he pointed at the saumon.
The light fury looked at the ground with an amused grin. "My dear Pouncer, if you don't want to I will simply leave right here and now…"
"No no no I was kidding this is totally great I am very thankful for you giving me fish please don't go!" barked a frightened Pouncer, completely ignoring any and all previous thoughts about Laura having to make up for her actions.
"Good to know," replied the light fury as she took in the sight of Pouncer eating her fish, the initial signs of reluctance immediately gone.
Pouncer annihilated the other dragon's gift in all of five seconds and then proceeded to look at her with a smug pride. Surely, that had been impressive, he thought. He had even managed to get most of the fish inside his mouth, he thought while looking at the light fury.
The light fury gazed upon him wide eyes and slight panic.
It was then that his siblings decided to destroy the otherwise perfect moment. "Laura. Hi," said Dart as she passed them. "Do you want me to teach you a little trick that you can use on Pouncer?" she asked radiantly.
Laura tilted her head. "What is this little trick?"
"You probably don't want to know. Pouncer, you certainly don't want her to know," explained Ruffrunner as he limped past them, his hind legs awkwardly moving to try not putting too much pressure onto what was between them.
"Do you want to go somewhere?" asked Pouncer at the light fury, fueled by the sudden desire to go away.
"Where?" asked the light fury.
Pouncer looked at his siblings. They were in front of him, on his left. He pointed behind him, to his right. "That way?"
Quickly enough, the two were out of harm's way. And at that point, the nightlight toxic green eyes shifted back to the light fury in front of him.
"Thank you for the saumon. Will you let me repay your gift?" said Pouncer as he tentatively slid his tail towards her underside.
"Aww, you don't have to..." she answered as she calmly but decisively stepped on said tail and nearly perforated it with her claws. A silent yelp escaped the other dragon. "But anyway, what were you doing against your dad earlier?"
"He was teaching us how to fight. And I had the honour to go up against him while Dart dismembered Ruffrunner," explained the white dragon. "Do you want me to teach you? You seemed to enjoy…" he held up his tail, displaying the four little red marks where her claws had pressed down on.
Laura smiled. "Oh, but it is only fun against you," she reassured. "By the way, did you remember the cavern where you first met me?"
"How could I forget? Such remarkable minds…" said Pouncer, gaining a very much not convinced look by the female. "And they weren't too unpleasant to look at either," he admitted sheepishly.
"Have you visited again? I went there to fish your saumon and noticed how the light furies seemed wildly upset about something," asked Laura, recalling how the white dragons were gathered in a circle and animatedly growling, something quite unusual for the otherwise calm and elegant individuals.
"I haven't been there since we met," reasoned Pouncer. "Perhaps the poor dragons are upset since they just miss a beautiful male to take care of them?"
"It seems possible. But a small earthquake that by coincidence dropped small rocks on all of their heads seems more likely," she hummed, leaving the mystery unsolved for now. "If you haven't courted other females, what have you been up to?"
"Wondering about the mysteries of life, guiding vikings into the hidden world… thinking about shapes and curves, especially of a specific dragon..." he almost slid his wing towards her, but the lingering pain in his tail held him back.
Among the useless and disturbing information, something caught the other dragon's attention. "Hold on. Vikings?"
"They get here bringing fish and we show them around. For some reason, humans think that dragons are interesting. Maybe they like to tell stories about us," explained the white dragon.
Laura tilted her head at that. "What's so interesting about creatures who spend four fifths of their time eating and sleeping? Do these humans not have anything better to do?"
Pouncer wondered about that. Yes, her description was pretty spot on. But come on. "Well… we two are dragons. And I can tell many interesting stories about us."
Laura was confused. She had been around Pouncer for as much as thirty minutes in total. How had he managed to have gathered many interesting stories about them in such a short time? "Really? Let's hear."
Dart had a problem. Noone else deemed it important, or relevant, or what she should be focusing on, but it was a problem nonetheless.
When humans returned, how would she carry all of them into the hidden world without Stormfly's help?
Assuming that humans did return, and that she would be allowed to take care of them once more, that her brothers would still help her and that the number of humans was the same that it had been previously, she would need to find one more dragon.
But who?
"Ugh. Disgusting. Please tell me that is not going to become a thing," complained Ruffrunner as he took in the sight of his brother and his brother's only interest returning. Their tails were swinging from side to side, their steps were bouncy and erratic and they were happily laughing at something one of the two had said.
Dart looked at the two. And yes, it was impossible to not feel repulsed by the scene. "That would be terrifying," she agreed wholeheartedly. She didn't like Laura. She was likely one of these petty light furies who thought themselves better than anyone else without having anything to show for it. And the fact that she seemingly tolerated her brother was not a point in her favour either.
But quickly enough, her mind wandered back to her problem at hand. Who would this dragon be? And with that mindset, when she once more looked at the light fury, she did not see a lost soul, a sign of the decadence of dragon kind or simply just a person with a horrible taste.
"Terrific," she said while looking at the dragon.
"So you fought against twenty deathgrippers and won, but you tragically had a wound on your lower belly which I was forced to lick clean with my tongue every day as I nursed you back to health, but it wasn't awkward for me because the sheer pleasure from being this close to you cut out negative emotions?" asked Laura, summarising Pouncer's self-centred, overly suggestive story that bore absolutely no links to reality. The light fury couldn't help letting out a small laugh.
"I never specified it had to be true stories," stated the nightlight defensively, a suggestive smile creeping onto his face.
"Such great memories. Because what would be more enjoyable than licking your wound and getting a taste of your blood?" she said with an equally suggestive smile, making the other dragon mildly terrified.
A third dragon descended from the heavens, crashing down straight in front of the two. The ground thomped as Dart made her very hard to miss landing, making the other two yelp in fear. "Hello Laura. I am sorry for my brother and I have a question for you," stated the nightlight bluntly. Her brother didn't seem very pleased.
After recovering from the shock, the light fury managed to assume a somewhat normal face. "What is it?"
"Sometimes vikings come here. And it is my duty to make sure they safely visit this cavern and then leave. But they are too many for me and my helpers to carry on our own," explained Dart without missing a beat or mentioning who these helpers were. "Will you help me take care of the humans when they return?"
"You seem happy," noted Toothless after seeing the blue-eyed nightlight trotting with bouncy steps as she returned into the cavern.
"I managed to recruit another helper. When more humans arrive, I will be ready to take care of them," she said confidently.
The night fury was perplexing. "You talk like you know that there will be a next time. There is no guarantee that they will return." Toothless then looked at his mate with worry. "Does it ever feel like you really shouldn't have said something?"
"Tomorrow, we will reach Berserker again," announced Helga at the front of the ship.
"Ug. My parents live there," said little Eret, sounding displeased.
After staring at her son for a few moments, the viking resumed her speech. "You know what people on the island think about dragons," she said honestly. "I am asking you to not tell others that we have met dragons, so that the dragons remain safe."
Done with her talk within the young crew's twenty second attention span, Helga stepped off the ship's fore. The sailors soon resumed their regular actions, and among them the viking found a moment to speak to big Eret.
"You think they will listen?" she asked.
"Maybe they will keep the secret. Maybe they will tell but people will just think of them as sailor's tales." He sighed. "There are ways for this to not end badly."
Helga rolled her eyes. "Wow, that's reassuring."
Her husband looked at her blankly. "You are the one who wanted to go there."
"Oh, so now it's my fault?" asked Helga dramatically. Eret nodded, and she gave a groan. "I guess it is…" This wasn't the first time they had told the children to keep the dragons safe. They had repeated it multiple times throughout the journey. Tomorrow would prove if it was enough.
The next morning, one of the children on board the God Enrager was happily enjoying his ration of meat, cheese and fish when it was snatched by another child. The conflict quickly escalated from bad words to threats of violence, and Helga took a big breath as she prepared to step in for the umpenth time in the journey.
She didn't want to. Throwing one child, both children or even just herself overboard were all more appealing options. She was tired. And her husband was too. The week of sailing had felt like a long, drawn out fight between them and the eleven young sailors. Previously, she had thought that children were cute. She didn't now.
But as the child that took the other's ration clenched his little hand into a fist, Helga's options were running thin. She let go of the railing and stepped towards them, ready to once more teach that child a lesson…
"You little troublemaker! I see you again after seven days at sea and these are your manners?!" shouted an adult woman that was not Helga. After a week of seeing the same twelve faces, Eret's wife looked astonished at the cause of the event.
The answer proved to be the simple fact that they had arrived. Back to Berserker island, back home, and the child's mother had just stepped onboard.
The woman separated the first child's ration from the second child's grasp and returned it to its previous owner. She then proceeded to give a stare that implied either death or torture to her offspring and lastly proudly stood in front the other two adults, a terrified child in her hand and a radiant smile on her face. "Thank you for taking care of my little angel. Lovely, isn't he?"
Neither Eret nore Helga had washed themselves since the start of the journey. And over the seven days, they had achieved a combined total of seven hours of sleep. The result of this was the two most unenthusiastic and painful nods in Berserker history.
But still. They were home.
By evening, eleven children would be claiming to have seen dragons, with no one believing them.
Big Eret did the closest a human could get to purring the following morning. The emotion of waking up in an actual bed, as opposed to a barely big enough hammock was just too overwhelming.
He gave a small sigh remembering that the children had all revealed having seen dragons. Luckily, as his wife had predicted, this hadn't been bought. A few vikings had asked them about it, and the two had answered 'totally,' further lowering suspicion. At the end, the dragons seemed safe, for now. And in their small goal, they had succeeded. Eleven young vikings very much liked dragons now.
"Good morning," said Helga as she stepped into the room.
The ex dragon-trapper smiled. "Morning. What is the source of this lovely smell?"
"Eight days ago, I asked you to get me to the edge of the world and back. And you did not only jump on board, but even found a way to pay for the boat, as well as sailed it. So thank you. I wouldn't have made it without you," said the blue-eyed woman truthfully. She then presented a plate to him. "And to answer your question, this lovely smell is your reward."
Eret, son of Eret, looked down on the plate. It looked delicious. Grilled meat, cheese and pieces of fresh bread that were soaked with grease, likely from yak. The viking rubbed his hands. With this kind of diet, vikings had been known to live for incredibly long, some even surpassing sixty. "My favourite. Aren't you going to try one of your new recipes?" he asked lovingly.
The blessed woman shook her head. "You deserve something edible," she said. "Just like you deserve to sleep in today. I will take care of the tavern this morning."
Big Eret thanked his wife and once more closed his eyes. Gods, he loved her so much.
It was already afternoon when he opened them again. Slowly, the ex dragon-trapper managed to put on clothes and wash his face into something almost bearable. He wandered around the building with curiosity, savouring how everything was not bobbing up and down and bearing the marks of those devilish creatures that people called children…
And found his wife and child making their own devilish marks with a contraption that he was pretty sure hadn't been there that morning, papers scattered on the wall and hammers pushing nails into pieces of wood. This scene reminded him far too much of the Thorston twins back on Berk.
"What is this?" he asked with notable worry.
"Dragons are awesome, but there aren't any here, we are building a live sized deadly nadder out of wood," declared little Eret. "And then I will fly on it!"
"That you won't fly on because it's dangerous," retorted his mother.
"Neither of you will try anything close to flying," stated big Eret. "The closest thing to a flying machine was the prosthetic fin that Hiccup made, and he nearly died designing that."
His wife looked at him astonished and opened her mouth to retort. There were a few seconds of tension until Helga's eyes turned sad, and she closed her mouth again. "Of course not. That would be stupid."
"It would," said Eret, before a rare moment of silence descended on the tavern.
"But can we still build it?" asked little Eret hopefully, eagerly grabbing a tool in his small hand.
"Sure. Will you help us?" asked Helga to her husband, making his eyes go wide.
Soon enough, the three of them found themselves busy looking at their best drawings of the dragon, and more and more wooden pieces started to add themselves to the design. "Still," said Hegla, wiping some sweat on her forehead. "The trip was a success."
Her husband couldn't deny it. "It was."
"And we should make another trip soon," said Helga.
Her husband looked up. "Wait what?"
Days passed, and with each day, the risk of someone actually believing the children seemed to diminish. What didn't seem to diminish was the demand for more trips. Because despite everything, the children had learned their share on how to sail. Surprisingly, it was also noted how they had considerably improved at cooking.
"I am good at cooking! How would they otherwise have learned it?" stated Hegla.
"They were forced to learn because they couldn't eat what you gave them!" retorted her Husband.
During this time, work on the wooden deadly nadder continued, until it was ready for a test flight. In little Eret's opinion, the fact that they wouldn't be using a 'young, promising test pilot' was tragic, but he had not managed to convince the other two to let that happen.
"By the way, why choose to make a model of a deadly nadder instead of a fury?" asked the kid.
"That hatchling had a ripped wing. And when trying to fix it, I was forced to take a close look at the other, healthy wing…" The woman couldn't help but feel a tinge of worry. How was the seam holding up? From that short moment, she had learned so much… And afterwards, she had put that knowledge into this machine, where half of the effort had been put into achieving a copy of that remarkable limb. While on the rest of the model, they had taken liberties to make it easier to manufacture, the wings were as close to a deadly nadder's wings as they could manage. Bird wings existed too, but they were far too small for what they had in mind, and feathers were nearly impossible to replicate with leather. Dragon's wings were not. Berserker island was one of the most populated islands in the archipelago, but that didn't mean that there weren't any remote cliffs to drop a glider off of.
"After the test flight, can I hold on to it as it flies?" asked the impatient child.
There was no answer other than the glider being dropped down, thrown against the wind streaking at the cliff. The three watched in awe as it gathered speed, streaking over the pasture below, but instead of crashing down, lifted itself up to fly horizontally. The three then watched in worry as the contraption kept pitching up, rising and slowing down, until it was nearly vertical. When the machine crashed backwards into the ground moments later, the spectator's emotions were not positive.
"No, you can't," answered Helga.
Dragons were a thing of the past, as everyone believed. To say this made Ulf restless was an understatement.
"When he had said he'd teach 'em to be sailors, I ain't thought it mean telling tales," chuckled the second viking at their table, sipping on his glass of mead. The third viking was, as was tradition, asleep on said table.
"It might be true," said Ulf with a low voice. Sailor's stories were very common, but from the little he knew, they were all telling the same story. It seemed too coherent for something made up, especially considering that children were the one telling the stories. Some details seemed just impossible, such as dragons that were black and white, practically a recipe for a complete lack of camouflage and extinction. But the ex-dragon-trapper was by now highly confident that there was at least some truth in said stories. There were still dragons around.
For his comment, the viking received a slap on the back by the second viking. "Clearly, yer don't have kids," he said at Ulf, who growled. The second viking, a long-time friend of his, had gotten soft.
"You are the one who believed in dragons when two drunken sailors told you, and now that your son says it, you've changed your mind?" he retorted angrily.
The second viking chuckled. "Ye don't know ma son."
Completely ignoring Ulf's protests, the second viking continued his explanation. "There ain't enough blood, in my opinion," he said. "My son tells of a nadder taking Eret in its claws, but not how he threw a spear through the nadder's throat to save him? Them could have come up with better while them were at it."
It was at this point that the second viking noted Ulf, who was extremely attentively listening to his words, a deadly seriousness on his face. "What?"
"Eret is the one who took them on the trip?" asked Ulf.
The second viking looked at Ulf for some time. Before he could answer, the third viking rose, declared "ye" and immediately fell onto the table again.
Ulf took a clunk of the glass of mead and looked around the tavern, Eret's tavern. He caught sight of the tall viking almost immediately, and for a split second, the two made eye contact, Eret seeming surprised at Ulf's cold stare.
If dragons were still out there, that viking knew where. Ulf had something to follow.
I very much enjoyed writing this chapter (especially the "romantic" scenes because I'm a sucker for those kinds of things) and hope you enjoyed reading it.
I also need to talk about rating. This story is currently rated T. However, some of the scenes in this story, such as in this chapter, should not really… exist… at this rating. Therefore, I decided the following. If you are 13 or older, read my fic and think that you're too young to read about the kind of things that happen in it, you can tell me and I will raise the rating. We're not here to traumatise children. Well, I know that traumatising children happens in the story but… eh, you get it.