There was no way back.
Astrid wandered over to the tunnel that the Monstrous Nightmare had shown her and slowly walked down its featureless length, out to the dreary eternal twilight of the volcano's exterior slopes. Nobody stopped her; Inferna seemed to have lost interest in her for the moment.
She couldn't even be glad to have escaped that terrifying confrontation with her life. There was no way back. Inferna had proven that, in a terrible and twisted way. Astrid was stuck as this forever.
Stuck as a Night Fury. As a dragon. She continued to follow the sloping path down to the shore, caught up in her own thoughts.
She was not one to give up easily, but the reasons for doing so were overwhelming. A past victim who died never having found a way back. The most specifically knowledgeable dragon she had encountered was unable to think of any possible scenario in which she was able to return to her form. Every dragon she spoke to was unreservedly confused or dismissive of her intentions. It was not a thing that was done, while turning people against their will apparently was.
Most damning of all, she understood the process now, at least a little. This was not some nebulous concept that could be bent to suit someone's whims. It wasn't a counterproductive curse from the gods, or a wish with loopholes wide enough to fit a yak through. It had rules, real ones there were no getting around. She was too big and could not even see some parts of her own body, let alone burn it like the Night Fury had with her much smaller human form. Nobody else knew her well enough to restore her, even if they could somehow defeat the same limitation of her just being too big to fully cover.
It made sense. She had not been expecting that. The magic was self-consistent and there was no ambiguity, no clever way to get what she wanted. She knew the requirements, and they just happened to be literally impossible to satisfy. Less like challenging an intimidating Viking foe to a duel, and more like challenging the sky itself. No matter how she looked at it, she couldn't win, not because she wasn't trying hard enough, but because it was not possible.
She was doomed to be like this forever.
Astrid sat down abruptly, leaning back on her hind legs and mostly-forgotten tail, wincing at the sharp pains in her backside, the shells that made up this beach making their sharp edges known. She looked down into the water in front of her, but it was too choppy, moving waves that would not reflect anything.
After a moment of impotent, undirected frustration, she leaned over and began to paw at the beach. It was made of shells and stones, but her stupid, horrible, stubby legs were strong, and she quickly excavated a small bowl which filled a little with every frothing wave that hit the shore. Once it was full enough to use, she blocked it off from the rest of the ocean with a mound of stones and shells and waited for it to settle down.
She had to see herself. To see what she had become. She had a pretty good idea of what she looked like, and seeing more clearly was going to be terrible, but she had to see, to look into a reflection and know what was staring back. Who was staring back.
Eventually, the water calmed, and she got her wish. She inhaled abruptly, unable to do more than stare.
A Night Fury stared back, her large eyes full of unspoken pain, physical and emotional. Her eyes were still blue, but they were a deeper, almost cobalt blue now, and distinctly reptilian with slit black pupils. Her face was a little thinner and sharper than she had expected, and she had four small frills along her jawline, two on each side. That, along with possessing two working ears that twitched as she thought about them, was the short list of things that differentiated her from the dragon she hated. Nothing more. Aside from the small details, she looked just like him.
She hated herself. She hated this body. It was going to be an unfixable reminder not only of what she had lost, but who had taken it from her. She wasn't just a dragon, she was the same kind as the one who had doomed her to this.
She was a Night Fury. Now, for the first time, that truly sunk in. She was not delusional, enraged, or sure it could be fixed. For the first time, she could truly think about what had happened, even if only to bitterly hate her life.
A Night Fury. She was the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. The dragon Vikings had never seen, and she was one!
A black paw splashed into the small puddle, dispersing the image. It took her a moment to remember that the paw belonged to her. It looked so foreign, so clumsy and dangerous at the same time. Gone were her strong and calloused hands, the nimble fingers that could grip an ax or ball up to punch a Jorgenson.
She extended and retracted her claws, remembering how it was done from when she had accidentally done it earlier. Built in weaponry, but nothing more. No dexterity, no finesse, nothing to make them good for anything beyond rending flesh.
She stood and turned in a circle, trying to get a good look at the rest of herself. It was hard – physical proof of how impossible it would be to flame herself, if she could not even see all of herself – but between what she could see and what she knew she had to have, she got a good idea.
She was a sleek black dragon, two tail fins and two base fins by her hips. Four legs, two wings, and the face she had already seen. Longer and possibly a little bit darker than the one she hated, the purest possible shade of black compared to black mixed with a dark grey, but other than that, the same.
The same. Her attacker had made her as himself. Other dragons said this body was beautiful and perfect, but not to her. She hated it, and him. He had ruined her life.
No, worse. He had ended her life. Best she just accept that getting on that damned Night Fury back on Berk had been the end. Astrid Hofferson, daughter of Sighvat and Asa Hofferson, had all but died here at this gods-forsaken nest. Not that anybody would ever know that.
Nobody would know. That hurt. Not that they would not know she died a dragon; she preferred they not know that. But in general, the fact that she would just disappear, never to be found…
Even worse – if anything could be worse than her current situation – was what people would think had happened. The assumptions and rumors practically started themselves, what with her and Hiccup both disappearing at the same time. Her family name would be tainted, not that they had much to begin with; the Hoffersons were immigrants to Berk, and the only ones she knew who carried her family name were herself and her parents. Disgraced immigrants, now.
She briefly considered flying back to Berk. It was possible, if she didn't think about it, that she could make it there, and then she could give some lucky Berkian – her mother or father, maybe – the honor of killing a Night Fury. They would never know it had been her. It might be enough to make up for losing her, at least when it came to how the village would treat them.
But she didn't know how to fly, didn't want to learn, and didn't think she could go through with something like that. Tricking her own parents into killing her… No. That was wrong.
Going to Berk was off the table. She wasn't going to kill herself, and she certainly wasn't going to be a dragon, regardless of what her body was. At best, she would lurk in the shadows here until she died, having accomplished nothing.
It again struck her that nobody would ever know what had happened. She moved restlessly, turning to face the mountain.
Someday, she thought, Vikings would make it here. The nest was not protected by any sort of magical barrier that she had seen. It was just a challenge posed by a watery maze and a horde of dragons. Someday, in true Viking fashion, warriors would set foot here and conquer the nest. It might not happen until Inferna was dead, given how truly impossible she would be to defeat by any means other than old age and time, but it would happen eventually.
And when it did... there would be people here. Astrid trotted over to the nearest boulder, a flat slab leaning against the side of the mountain, out of the way and unlikely to ever be disturbed, one rock among thousands.
With a little experimentation, she figured out how to extend just one claw, and began to carve shaky runes. Little more than scratches after just one pass, but she went over them again and again until they were deep and permanent.
'Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third died here,' her blocky, ungainly runes proclaimed to any who laid eyes on them and knew how to read.
She didn't say how or why they had come here, or how he had died. An explanation would just cast doubt on the truth of any of it. Hiccup himself hadn't even known the full story, and the parts he did know would be considered insane were they to be spread around.
It was depressing, in a way. That Hiccup had managed to get this far, totally unaware of the insanity he was going to drop her into, but then died before getting to see any of it himself.
She wondered how he would have coped with it all, had he been in her place as intended. The Night Fury had seemed to think he'd be okay with it, but Astrid doubted it. Hiccup was still a Viking. He wouldn't be taking this any better than she had.
But he was dead, so she'd never really know. She wasn't finished with her makeshift memorial. After a long time in which she came up with and discarded various lines, she knew what she would carve for herself.
'Astrid Hofferson died a few days later, succumbing to injuries dealt by a Night Fury.'
Truth, framed in a way that would clear her family's honor, if only a little. The way she had phrased it, these lines would be interpreted as her own work as she slowly succumbed to whatever the Night Fury had done. Nobody would know she had carved them with a claw. All they would know was that a Night Fury had done her in.
She turned away from the stone, wanting nothing more than to stop looking at it. Some day in the far future, her fate would be known. She was done here.
But she had nowhere else to go, so she hopped onto one of the other nearby boulders and curled up into as small a ball as she could, closing her eyes tightly. All she had left was to wait. For what, she didn't know. There was nothing else for her.
Nothing at all.
~O~o~O~
"Wake up, female Bolt," a familiar voice requested politely. "Inferna requires your presence."
Astrid stirred reluctantly, her head feeling as if it was filled with hot, dry sand. She had no idea how long she had slept, but she did know that she needed water if she wanted to prolong her miserable existence much longer.
But someone had spoken to her, someone who wouldn't be willing to go away. They'd said something about Inferna...
It took her a moment to mentally connect that name to the horror that lived in the volcano and exerted such powerful control over all the real dragons, but she did eventually get there. That got her awake, though it did not restore any energy to her flagging body. She opened her eyes and stared at the Nightmare who had stopped her from killing the Night Fury, the tan one with some measure of authority and a calm demeanor.
"If you do not come voluntarily," he continued quietly, "I have orders to drag you there. Inferna cannot be defied. At best, you can bargain with her and use her laziness to get what you want, if she is in a good mood and you can convince her. You have a small amount of bargaining power, unlike the rest of us, and she enjoys tests of her cunning if you can get her in the mood."
Astrid stood, knowing he was always serious, and thus entirely willing to carry her up to Inferna if she did not walk. "You..." her voice cracked, and she had to work some moisture into her mouth before continuing, "sound like you... don't like her."
The Nightmare stiffened. "None of us like her," he hissed quietly. "We have no choice in the matter. Now come on." He walked away, heading back to the path that led to the large ledge. Astrid followed, knowing she too had no choice.
Almost no choice. If she could be sure she could fly any distance, she might consider just taking off and finding somewhere to hide. Really, she could still try that now. Either she'd figure it out and disappear, or she'd hurt herself trying, and neither was all that bad of an outcome.
The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that if she fled, she wouldn't be the only one she was dooming. She had been warned – threatened, really – that if she left, Berk would be destroyed. She wasn't willing to risk that. There was one way that her current situation could be worse, and that would be her setting a mountain-sized dragon on her home with the intention of complete destruction, not just filling her stomach. Or just the entire nest of lesser dragons flying out to kill or be killed in an actual war, completely incapable of disobeying...
Maybe it was for the best that she was probably going to die here and never return to Berk. Nobody would ever believe her about how dragons were the enemy, but in the same way the Outcasts were, a tribe led by a terrible leader, not just vicious beasts. She did not entirely believe it herself.
Depressing thoughts of being ignored or flat-out disbelieved by her own people kept Astrid occupied on the walk up to the tunnel. At the end, Inferna loomed in the empty space of the volcano. She was obviously far more awake than before, her eyes brimming with an intensity that had been absent before. Astrid felt heavier, just being under the monstrosity's malevolent gaze. The Night Fury was there too, sitting stiffly at attention, but his existence was mostly unimportant in comparison.
Mostly unimportant, not entirely unimportant. Astrid was shepherded by the Nightmare to stand beside the Night Fury, but she pushed back until the Nightmare budged a bit and let her stand a little further away. She wanted him dead, and that definitely precluded standing so close her flank would have touched his. So long as she wasn't allowed to claw at said flank, anyway.
Inferna was quiet save for a low, ongoing malevolent hum, watching closely. The rest of the nest was deathly silent, watching from the other ledges. This ledge in particular was devoid of any dragons aside from half a dozen Nightmares and the Night Fury. She would have thought that ominous, if the entire situation wasn't already past ominous and on to inherently terrifying.
"I see you understand the consequences of disobedience, and have chosen not to test me," Inferna breathed, following up with a horribly loud growl. "That is good. For you and for your former nest. All but the male Bolt, do not speak until I give leave."
Nothing changed. Everyone had been silent before. Now they just had no choice in the matter.
Astrid had not questioned it before, but the casual reminder of just how powerful Inferna was gave her pause. Dragons all seemed to have some sort of magic, if this 'Solar Fire' really was in all of them, but what Inferna could do was something else entirely. There was no fire, no visual component, no real restrictions that she could see. Inferna just spoke in her terribly loud voice, and all others had no choice but to obey.
Except for her, because she was a human… She wished she knew why that protected her. Then again, she wished for a lot of things.
"Now..." Inferna leaned in, all eyes focused on the Night Fury beside Astrid. "You are crippled."
"I am not sure it is permanent," he immediately replied, his voice confident and yet pleading, a bug requesting not to be squashed. "I speak the truth when I say it could grow back in time."
"I would not treat you as I do all other grounded in any case, Bolt," Inferna laughed, a sound that mimicked rolling thunder. "You can serve as a Sire regardless of your ability to fly, and I need that more than I need a snack right now."
"I would not–" he began.
"You would," Inferna cut in, "if I told you to. Do not speak until I give you leave, male Bolt. I am done with you for the moment."
That terrible, six-eyed gaze turned to Astrid, who shivered.
"Tell me, female Bolt, how do you fare?" The question was innocent enough, but the total lack of curiosity behind it implied there was something more to it than an exchange of pleasantries.
"I am miserable, hopeless, and trapped forever in a body I despise," she said honestly, lacking any alternative. She could have lied, but there was no reason. She had nothing to gain from lying.
The Night Fury beside her flinched at her dull proclamation, but she ignored him.
"You will come around," Inferna asserted. "Already, the male Bolt has started you along."
Astrid wasn't sure what Inferna meant, and she worried that if she pretended she did it would come back to bite her later. "I don't understand," she admitted.
"Male Bolt, I give you leave to answer this. Did you use her?" Inferna asked expectantly.
"I did not," the Night Fury said through gritted teeth.
There was a moment where Astrid thought Inferna was surprised; she didn't immediately reply, and her self-satisfied, thunderous growl tapered off to something lower and more genuinely perturbed. "Frustrating," Inferna remarked after a moment, her gaze equally split between Astrid and the Night Fury. "But easily corrected."
Astrid's eyes widened as she understood what Inferna was about to do. She spread her wings, preparing to leap into the abyss, either to fly away or die. Either would be better–
"Restrain her," Inferna commanded.
All six Nightmares leaped at Astrid and quickly had her totally pinned, two to each wing and one to each tailfin, which was almost absurdly overkill. One could keep her pinned despite her best efforts; six was ridiculous.
Being pinned by Nightmares was not what Astrid was trying to flee from, so she didn't really notice them in her frenzy except as insurmountable obstacles. "Don't you dare!" she shrieked, speaking both to Inferna and the Night Fury.
Inferna growled loudly, cruelly amused. "I had forgotten how fun Flightless can be. The last one was far too depressing in the end." Her eyes narrowed. "Dare? It is my right. Let me put it this way, unwilling flame. I want more Bolts, and you will give them to me."
"I will fight this," Astrid promised, hating that she had so little control, but remembering what the Nightmare had told her. "If it is against my will, I'll find some way to deny you what you want." She needed to make it clear that forcing her into anything would be an effort, if not impossible. To bargain, as ridiculous as that seemed at the moment with her having next to nothing to bargain with, beyond her cooperation.
"Will you?" Inferna made a show of looking over the Nightmares pinning her, eyes flicking independently of each other in a display that had to be intentionally unnerving, as she was large enough to easily see them all regardless. "You have no way of fighting him off if I order him to take you here and now."
"I'll die," Astrid threatened, verbally searching for something to give her the upper hand. "You cannot make me eat, drink… you cannot stop me from throwing myself off this ledge the moment nobody is looking."
"Rocks to hold your jaws apart, flames of any kind to pin you, Flickers to crawl down your throat and feed you," Inferna said casually, completely undisturbed by what she was describing. "All I need from you is a living body to couple with the male Bolt and create eggs. The rearing of hatchlings can be done by others. I need the compliance of neither of you."
Astrid became acutely aware that this body could not sweat, because she felt certain she should be breaking out into a cold sweat right about now. That was horrible on a level she could not truly imagine.
But she had to stick to her strategy, even if she was now risking something worse than death. "That sounds like a lot of work on your part," she growled. "Overseeing all that, watching the whole time to make sure I do not find some way to spite you."
"Quite, but I want more Bolts," Inferna agreed readily. "Worth the effort, if there is no better way."
"There is a better way," Astrid called out. "Force me into nothing, and you will get what you want voluntarily."
Of course, Astrid had no intention of actually cooperating. Her cooperation was a plausible bargaining chip, but not really available. Not while she had any defiance left in her. She would throw herself into the depths of the volcano before going that far.
But the Night Fury didn't know that. He shied away from her, staring in utter bewilderment.
"It appears the male Bolt does not share your enthusiasm," Inferna observed.
"Then when I am ready to comply, I will come to you, and you can force him to do what is needed," Astrid suggested coldly. "Give me time to 'adjust' as you say I will, and you'll get what you want with little to no effort on your part."
"You might be lying," Inferna said thoughtfully. At some point in the last few moments she had ceased her incessant growling, and the way she slouched back made Astrid think of the few traders that came to Berk. Pretending to be disinterested, but engaged by the struggle of words and offers and counteroffers… There was a sordid, disgusting undertone to all she did, but the same general feeling was there. They were just haggling with fates worse than death instead of animal pelts and gold.
"I might," Astrid conceded. "But I can't stop you from changing your mind at any time and forcing it, so you can trust I'll be... incentivized... to get used to the idea in any case." She held in a grimace. She was not used to talking so casually of unspeakable horrors, especially when she would be the one suffering them.
"I was willing to wait in for a natural female Bolt to wander into my domain," Inferna mused, "and this does sound like less of a hassle..."
Inferna was actually considering it. Astrid would count this as a win as long as Inferna's horrible plans were not begun here and now. Anything to give herself more time to really find a way out, to learn to fly or just throw herself into the ocean and put her trust on the currents to save her or drown her as they would.
"You will be one of my nest," Inferna rumbled. "You will follow all of my rules as if you had no choice."
"For as long as I live as one of yours," Astrid promised readily. She would never be one of Inferna's, so her promise was worthless.
"You leave holes large enough to fly through," Inferna scoffed. "If you leave my control, I will burn your entire island to the bedrock. Fly away, your former people die. Kill yourself, they die. Leave some other way, they all die."
Astrid didn't have a retort. She didn't have power here. She was offering convenience, and Inferna was promising massive death and destruction. All she could do was accept the terms and hope the potential annoyance she posed was enough to get her a deal she could tolerate, even if it was just a stay of her ultimate fate.
"I am liking this proposal more and more," Inferna remarked smugly. "If you do not agree, then we will go with my first inclination, right now. Obey all of my rules voluntarily, and I will allow you some time to adjust, and allow you to do it at a more natural pace."
What had been a vague, unimportant future she didn't intend to allow to come to pass suddenly became very real, and very important. Astrid had to say yes. She had to swear to follow all of Inferna's rules, whatever those were, and if there was no way to avoid it...
It was terrible, but she had no choice here. It was either promise to maybe do it later, and hope something happened in the meantime, or have all choice taken from her and do it right now. One was an uncertain future with a terrible fate lurking in the shadows, and the other a living horror in which she had absolutely no agency whatsoever.
"I swear to follow your rules, if you permit me time to adjust," she said bitterly, internally cursing everyone who had a part to play in bringing her to this point, herself included.
"We have a deal," Inferna sighed happily. "Much less annoyance for me this way… so long as you keep your word. Find out the rest of the rules from anyone of mine, they all know them. And remember," she murmured threateningly, her voice a distant earthquake, "what you are avoiding. Cross me and your little diversions cease to be amusing. I will force you and have your former home turned to ash."
A moment passed, Inferna eyeing the ledge and its occupants.
"Blazes, dismissed," she announced. "Male Bolt, you may speak as you wish. All others, disregard my last command." She sunk down below the mists once more, speaking as she went. "Female Bolt, I expect you to go on the next hunt."
The Nightmares stepped off of Astrid, letting her up. She jerked away from them the moment she was free, pulling her wings in and folding them on her back without even thinking about it, backing away from the ledge.
Every time she thought things couldn't get worse, they did. Now, she could not escape or even kill herself. Not voluntarily. She had only barely forestalled the worst possible outcome imaginable, and that temporarily. Nothing was stopping Inferna from feeling restless and forcing her to–
No, she was not going to think of that. She had no intentions of ever letting that happen. Somehow.
Abruptly, she was given something else to think about. The Night Fury whirled and paced towards her, visibly conflicted. "What are you doing?" he asked acidly, glaring at her. "I did not consider you to be insane, but now I have to wonder."
"My choices were talk her into giving me time, or suffer your vile intentions now," Astrid hissed angrily. "What would you have had me done, and on second thought, why do you care? You'll get what you want sooner or later. Or are you mad I prevented you from getting it right now?" She was pretty sure that wasn't it, but she wanted to strike at him, and cruel words were all she could use with the Nightmares watching them.
"I told you what I want, and yet here you are!" He flapped his wings deliberately, staring at her. "I said fly away. Now, you really can't, not without breaking your all-important word and calling the whole nest down on the Flightless you came from."
"What's the difference between here and anywhere else?" she demanded. She would still be a dragon, regardless of where she was.
"She would probably not have cared enough about you leaving to take revenge on your people if you left before she really thought about you," the Night Fury hissed. "And even if she did, you'd be gone!"
"I still don't see why you should care," Astrid growled.
"I only had one tattered piece of hope left," he said hollowly. "And you've all but taken it from me. I just wanted to see you leave this place alive, and never come back." His voice broke, and he sat down right there, on the ledge by the abyss, curling up into a surprisingly compact circle of scales and wings. "I keep failing, over and over again."
"Get used to it," she said cruelly, and turned her back on him. It was some small comfort to know how absolutely miserable the Night Fury was, especially now that she actually could not even try to kill him, and he wasn't going to die anytime soon, by the looks of things. Maybe letting him live and suffer was a better revenge anyway.
It had better be, because she had no choice. She had as little as he did, now. No future, no plans, no hope. Just her honor, for all the good that would do her. She had to live with what she was, and where she was. She was going to have to go on raids, and eventually, even if she did everything she could to avoid it, she was going to end up bearing this miserable, horrible dragon's spawn, and making the fight that much harder for her own village. If she didn't, Berk would be destroyed.
There was nothing she could do to make it any better. Nothing she could think of. If she left, everyone she knew would die. If she stayed, life got harder for everyone. She would be stuck as a dragon either way, stuck among her enemies and forced to act like she was one of them.
Forced to make good with her enemies, for a time, at least on the surface. Learn their ways, their strengths and weaknesses, things her people would have killed to know, but would never know…
They'd never know unless she told them.
She wasn't dead. She wasn't confined to this miserable island, Inferna had expected her to go on raids.
Inferna wouldn't punish her if the humans got smarter seemingly on their own. If they 'figured out' things they had no right knowing.
It was a mad idea. It would require learning her own body and accepting it, because she could not continue as she had, if she wanted to actually achieve anything other than waiting for the inevitable. It would mean being on at least neutral terms with most of the dragons, because it was clear Inferna was the one to worry about. She would need to actually learn about this place, and its people, in order to undermine, subvert, and maybe even pass the knowledge on.
In short, she would be a spy, a prisoner who was not as broken as they all assumed. If she could pull it off at all. She was not a deceptive person...
But she had already gotten used to deceiving in her short time here. She might actually be able to manage it. And the penalty for failure was no worse than the penalty for playing it safe. She had little to lose. She was already stuck as a dragon, stuck here. The least she could do was make it worth something.
Astrid closed her eyes, staring into the darkness behind her eyelids. This needed to be done. And if there was something that needed to be done, something worth doing, then she was still fighting.
She was a dragon, and she was never going back. No more delusions, no more pointless rage or denial, and no depression. Astrid Hofferson was not gone, she was just hurt, badly disfigured but still fighting. Human or Night Fury, she didn't care. Couldn't let herself care. What was done was done, and if she had to continue on in this world, she wasn't going to do it half-heartedly.
Truly saying goodbye to her real body was a bitter, painful experience, but she did it anyway, still standing with her eyes closed on that same ledge. All that she was in body had been burned to ash a day or so ago, and what was left needed to grow accustomed to what she had been forced into in exchange, whether or not she liked it.
She forced herself to let go of the mental image she carried of her human body, athletic, agile, strong, and as good as she could make it, sky blue eyes gleaming with confidence, hair waving in the wind, ax at the ready. It would do nothing but hurt her now, and a warrior had to be able to cast away pain if it hindered them. Some Vikings lost limbs, others family. She had lost herself, but that was no worse than any other loss. She had to accept that it was gone.
Gone. She was still Astrid, but nobody would know her. Her own family would not know her. Better they think her dead than... this. Her own people would kill her given the slightest chance. She was loyal anyway.
Berk did not know it, but they had just gained a spy with the body of a Night Fury and the mind of a Viking.
Author's Note: This is the end of the first arc. Doing Astrid's shift in mentality was far and away the hardest part of this arc, and I had to go back several times to correct it after writing these first five chapters. But we're over the biggest hump, and getting into the main plot of the story.