Outwardly, nothing had changed. Astrid was still a dragon, still standing on a ledge, watched by several Monstrous Nightmares and probably most of the other dragons of this nest. The Night Fury – the real Night Fury, not her – was quietly whining a few steps away, wrapped up in his own miseries.
On the outside, to all of them, she had not changed. It had only been a few moments. But on the inside...
She had accepted the truth. Not easily, not fully, but enough to get on with things. She was a dragon, and to all appearances, there was absolutely no way to change that. She was a Night Fury and she had no choice in the matter. Either she accepted her new form and used it to help her real people, the Vikings of Berk, or she lingered here, unable to end or improve her own existence, until the inevitable happened and Inferna ran out of patience.
From this moment on, she was a spy, a saboteur. One restricted by threat of retribution into outwardly cooperating with her enemies, but a hidden danger walking among the dragons nonetheless. Nobody here could know that, just as nobody in a human enemy's village could be allowed to suspect her intentions.
As a spy, she needed to prioritize learning about the enemy. That meant procuring a guide. Not the Night Fury; she still despised him with every fiber of her being. He could rot for all she cared. In fact, if he died somehow, that would be for the best, even if she did not consider how much she personally would like that. No new Night Furies to terrorize villages if he wasn't around to involuntarily participate in making them.
That, if nothing else, she gave him credit for. He seemed to truly hate what Inferna had planned for them. That did not begin to make up for what he had done to her, but it was something, at least.
Regardless, she wasn't going to enlist his aid unless it was absolutely necessary. There was another dragon she felt far less hatred towards, and he was right here on the same ledge as her.
She walked decisively towards the tanish-brown senior Monstrous Nightmare. "I must get to know this place," she said to him. "Will you help me?"
"What would you have me do?" he asked carefully, studiously not looking at the pitiful dragon behind her. He seemed suspicious of her intentions, perhaps because he wasn't privy to the thoughts running through her head. As far as he knew, nothing had changed. "Blazes protect, but we are allowed to refuse requests for anything more than that. We do not persecute on another's behalf."
"I'm done with him for now," she answered. "And you have demonstrated exactly what I want help with. I don't know how this place works or what the rules are." She had to know it all before she could begin to break it down.
"Ah, yes, the rules." His muzzle twisted sourly, and Astrid was half sure she had just watched a Monstrous Nightmare sneer. "Follow me. We will walk as I speak. Unless you would like to fly?"
She needed to master herself, but... "Not today." As he did not immediately move, she headed to the tunnel out of the volcano, and he followed behind.
This was the time for questions, for learning. Anything she did not understand needed to be investigated, if she was to be a spy. That was how they worked, though she only knew the general idea of what a spy did, not how. No good stories revolved around them; they were seen as an uneasy grey area in the tangled affairs of honor and dishonor. Useful, and only dishonorable towards the enemy, but not exactly honorable in their own right. Subterfuge had been mostly skipped over in the tales every Viking boy and girl heard told in the Great Hall on special occasions.
Astrid felt a powerful twinge of regret. She would never see the Great Hall like that again. So much for one day sitting there and telling her own tales, respected in her own right.
No more mourning; she needed to act like a warrior and focus on what mattered. To distract herself, she seized upon the first thing that came to mind, and spoke without looking back at the Nightmare. "First question. How is this tunnel so well-lit?"
"It is not. You are a Bolt, your kind has good vision for the darkness." He paused for a moment before continuing. "But do not flaunt that. Bolts are already a strange kind of flame, wielders of the sun's power but naturally suited for the darkness. You may already face some dislike because of what you are, so do not give them any more reason than that."
"I don't even know what's good and what's bad with dragons," Astrid admitted with a low growl. "Why would that be a bad thing?" Dragons attacked at night, using their flames to ruin night vision as well as strike physically. Their entire method of attack was built around the very concepts Night Furies were apparently disliked for embodying.
"For us, darkness is to be distrusted, and light to be revered," he answered simply. "Fire is good, and not having fire is seen as a terrible thing."
"Which is why you attack humans?" Astrid guessed.
"No." The Nightmare snarled angrily. They passed out into the open air and began to walk down the mountain before he spoke again. "We attack because Inferna hungers for more varied prey than just fish. Some of us consider Flightless to be flames just like the rest of us, because while they cannot create fire naturally, they can summon it given time and the right materials."
This dragon knew more about humans than Astrid would have given him credit for. She would have guessed dragons thought fire came from the hands, for a human, if they thought humans could make it at all. To know that it could be created but was not a part of the human doing the creating was a surprisingly accurate leap of logic.
Or so she was assuming. There had been at least one other human turned dragon here in the past, and this Nightmare had known her. She probably explained it to him at some point. They were not relegated to watching humans, they had their ways of talking to them. Terrible, terrible ways, but still.
Maybe that was why he was so understanding of her now. He knew more than the average dragon about what she was going through.
That was fine by her. Being a spy, to her, meant that she needed to put her own feelings about all of this away and focus on the practicalities. Having a dragon high in whatever hierarchy this place possessed sympathetic to her plight would be useful.
Forced positivity or not, she knew that she was the worst person for this job. She wasn't manipulative, and thinking like this was not how she usually worked. The twins would be great at this if they focused, or Fishlegs, or Hiccup. Of her generation, the only one who'd be worse at than her would be Snotlout, because he'd be too hotheaded. She did not like thinking like this, detached and careful. She was a warrior; she'd rather just start fighting. But that wasn't an option, so for the time being this was what she had to do.
They reached the shore, and Astrid let the Nightmare take the lead. She had no idea where they were going, only that he had some destination in mind. For all she knew, they were just going to spend the afternoon walking in circles…
She could not tell what time it was. Not night, for it was not dark, but other than that, it could be high noon or sunset. The fog was too thick at the moment to see the sun at all. She was assuming it was afternoon, but it could be early morning for all she knew.
The Nightmare noticed her looking up. "You were not disturbed until Inferna demanded your presence. The sun is well on its way down. I checked before coming to get you."
"By flying up past the fog?" Astrid asked. If that was the only way to know, she might be stuck asking others for the time being.
"Yes," he said. "The fog never dissipates here, so you must fly to escape it. Flight is needed for clean water, food, and for everything else, too. You must fly as soon as you can if you wish to fend for yourself."
"I will get to it once I have my bearings," she agreed. He was right, she didn't want to rely on anyone for anything, especially as a spy. The more independence she had, the better. "Why do you care?"
"The last transformed Flightless here died alone and unhappy, as I said before," he replied sadly. "I would not see you go down that path. Already, you are doing better than her, because you are trying to learn."
Astrid didn't exactly want to hear that she was adjusting well, not when she wasn't planning on actually adjusting past what it took to blend in and work against them, but she supposed it could be taken as a compliment towards her attempted deception. "Thank you."
"This is not a happy place," he said in way of reply. "Inferna is lax in many ways, but her attention, when it lands on one of us, is never good. I do what I can to help counter that pain. Far too many of this nest have lost someone to her greed or sadism."
"And none of you can oppose her, because you're stuck following all of her rules," Astrid said thoughtfully.
"As are you," he huffed. "For us, it is not voluntary. We cannot intentionally defy her. You will have to be careful, lest you do it by accident. She will be petty and cruel if you give her an excuse."
"There's no rule against criticizing Inferna?" Astrid asked curiously.
"None," the Nightmare confirmed. He laughed bitterly, a low and rumbling sound that seemed to emanate from his lower chest. "You must understand, nobody would risk her wrath by doing so in front of her. There is no need for a rule. There is also no rule against voluntarily flying into her mouth, for much the same reason."
No rule, because nobody in their right mind would do such a thing. "So maybe you could tell me the rest of the rules now?" She needed to know what she was required to do.
"Of course," he agreed. "I will tell you all I remember. One of the side effects of what Inferna does is that one cannot forget her rules unless she requires it, so the only rules I will not tell you are the ones I myself cannot think about."
Astrid wasn't quite sure how he could follow a rule he didn't remember… but however it worked, it wouldn't work for her, so she could not be expected to do the same. "I know one rule already," she said, trying to sound eager to learn. It helped that she was, if only in the hopes that there would be something useful for Berk. "No killing yourself."
The words turned to ash in her mouth as soon as she had spoken, and a heavy feeling settled over her. That there needed to be a rule prohibiting it… She was walking in a waking nightmare, and all the false optimism in the world couldn't disguise that.
The Nightmare led her to the beginning of yet another smooth walkway up the side of the mountain, speaking as they went. "Yes," he said neutrally, unaware of the dark turn her thoughts had taken, "that is the oldest one still in effect. We are also prohibited from leaving her territory, or going anywhere away from the nest alone. Her influence has a definite edge, far from here. You might not be able to feel it when close like we can, but anyone can tell you where it is."
"There's an actual line?" she asked, seizing upon the potentially useful detail. That seemed oddly specific.
"There is, of sorts," he clarified. "It is not something you can see. Her territory is the area in which her commands must be obeyed. Her influence, if you will. Inside, nothing short of death can release us. Outside, her commands hold no more power over us than they do for you."
Something tickled at the back of Astrid's mind at that explanation, a connection of what she had just learned and what she had experienced in the recent past. She and Hiccup had been flying above Berk, getting further and further out. Then, the Night Fury carrying them had flinched and turned towards what she now knew was the nest. Months prior to that, Hiccup had shot it down, and generally, shooting something down might involve knocking it off-course...
"That line wouldn't happen to be near my home, would it?" she asked carefully.
"The place the Bolt was shot down?" the Nightmare asked. He continued without waiting for an answer. "It is close, though it shifts over time. You should try not to think about that. Dwelling on what was will only make what is harder to accept."
"I'm trying to move on," she lied, "but I was just... Nothing. It does not matter now. What other rules do I need to know?"
"No killing other flames," he answered. "Fighting is not strictly prohibited by Inferna, we Blazes enforce the peace, not her. Grounded flames are her food, and if you ground somebody, you will be grounded in turn as punishment, so grounding is suicide, meaning that anyone smart enough to follow that line of thinking cannot do it. Tread carefully there, though. There is a reason we break up fights instead of letting flames battle it out. There is enough death here without avoidable strife and accidental rule-breaking adding to it."
Already, this talk was shining light on a lot of things Astrid hadn't understood in the moment. Now, she knew what Inferna had meant in reassuring the Night Fury that she would not treat him as she treated other grounded dragons, though she had suspected the normal answer to grounding was not good.
Still... to kill one's own injured subjects... that was callous. "Is there a reason she eats the grounded, or is it just gluttony?"
"She wants to be the only useless mouth we feed," the Nightmare said glumly. "And probably gluttony. The Bolt will have a hard time living as he is, now that I think about it. We are not used to taking care of grounded flames. I will assign a few Blazes to his care, so that he does not starve."
She had not wanted the Night Fury to be cared for. "I'd rather you not," she said, fully aware that such a request was vindictive at best and petty at worst.
"Helping each other is not a rule, it is just the right thing to do," he rumbled sadly. "Your hate is misguided, but I will not ask you to change that. It may not be possible, and you have more than enough adjusting to do right now anyway."
At least he understood that. This Nightmare reminded her of her father, in some ways, though Sighvat was far less considerate. On the other hand, she still loved her father, which was more than any dragon on the face of Midgard would ever be able to claim. If she could dislike some dragons more than others, it stood to reason she could dislike some less than others. This was just one of the dragons she disliked less than most.
That remark, and the thoughts it provoked, lasted Astrid all the way up to yet another tunnel. This place followed its own pattern, at least. She knew what she was going to find at the end of this tunnel. Another ledge, filled with dragons, just like the last. It was almost boring.
As it turned out though, this ledge had one more surprise. "It's the middle of the day, why are they sleeping?" she asked quietly, not wanting to provoke anyone–
That was a sour thought – her life's work was supposed to be provoking dragons, to put it mildly – but she was a spy now. She wasn't supposed to attract any more attention than absolutely necessary, and she was already a visual outlier, one of two black dragons among hundreds of colorful ones. Causing trouble wouldn't help her.
"The reason is unique to the dragon," he replied quietly, leading her past the alcoves holding slumbering dragons of all kinds, possibly over a dozen in all. "Exhaustion, if they flew especially far to flee Inferna's wrath on the night you arrived. Grief, if they were friends or family of the two Coals Inferna killed as an explanation." His statement carried no specific condemnation, but Astrid felt it all the same. She was the reason those two dragons were dead, and no part of her could find pride in that fact. Nobody deserved to die like that. "Or laziness, maybe. You would have to ask to find out which."
It wasn't that important, on second thought. Astrid looked away from the resting dragons. "Coals?" It was time to ask about one of the things that had confused her for a long while, though she thought she had it now. "The lumpy, smaller dragons?" Gronckles, but he didn't use that name.
"Flames." The Nightmare stopped, turning to look back at her, though his neck did most of the turning involved. "That sound you make means nothing to me."
"Dragon?" she asked.
"That one," he confirmed with a swift growl. "You mean to say flame."
"No, I don't. Flame means fire, to me." She had long since figured out that it also meant dragon here, but that didn't mean she understood why.
"Which is why we call ourselves flames." The Nightmare awkwardly shifted all of his considerable weight to his left wing arm, and lifted the right to wiggle his talons. "These are good, and teeth are too, and our wings are special, but our flames, our fire, is what makes us who we are."
"Okay..." Astrid ran over the more specific words she had heard used in a strange context. Coal, Flicker, Bolt... "So the more specific names–"
"All refer to the fire of the flame in question, yes." Without warning, the Nightmare's entire body burst into flames.
That word felt weird to use now, like it had lost its meaning.
The Nightmare stood there for a moment, burning away, before somehow shutting it off, the individual flames flickering away as if suddenly running out of fuel to burn. That part had always confused Astrid; igniting a fire was easy enough, but stopping one without doing anything...
"My kind are Blazes," he rumbled. "Yours," and at this he motioned to her, "are called Bolts, after the bolts of fire you are capable of wielding."
That made sense, though it was strange to think that dragons named themselves after their fire, when often that fire wasn't all that impressive. She lifted one of her front paws and pointed at one of the sleeping Nadders, all of which seemed to rest standing up, weirdly enough. "What about that kind?"
The Nightmare stared at her for a second before seeing her paw and looking where she meant. "Flares. Your kind usually uses their tail to point."
That didn't seem all that important; she'd stick to using her paws, like she would her hands if she were still human. Adjusting was one thing, but she didn't intend to change any more than necessary to survive and succeed at her new mission. "And those?" she asked, now pointing to a lone Zippleback.
"Blasts," the Nightmare explained. "You already know those with lumps and rock fire." He tilted his head inquisitively.
Astrid got the distinct feeling she was being taught something, now. She didn't really like being patronized like that; it felt far too friendly. This dragon was an enemy, and she needed to keep that in mind, no matter how kind he was being.
Really, she needed to do better at keeping the whole 'they're still your enemy' concept at the forefront of her mind in general, not just with this Nightmare. Looking back, her recent behavior was dangerously comfortable with all of this.
But she needed to be comfortable to blend in. Even if it was wrong to feel even slightly relaxed in enemy territory.
She didn't have the time to think about all of this at the moment. If her natural state was to not be constantly freaking out over the utter absurdity of it all and her new... everything... then so much the better, for now.
All of that passed through her mind almost instantly, a quick line of thought that wasn't all that important. "Coals," she said confidently, remembering what the Nightmare had called Gronckles. That one made more sense than the others, though she had never seen a Gronckle eat coal specifically. Any rock would do in a fight, and fighting was all she knew of them.
"Yes, good. There are others, such as Flickers, which you will only rarely see around here," the Nightmare remarked, looking around as if to prove his point. "They keep to themselves."
"Flickers are small and agile, right?" She assumed they were talking about Terrible Terrors.
"Yes. Aside from the flames I have mentioned, there are many others not present here," he concluded. "No need to know their names, unless one stumbles into this place by accident in the future. And of course there is Inferna. We have no name for her kind, just her."
"Do you have names, though?" she asked. "For just you, or for any specific person?" In all of the time she had been here, nobody had ever used a name for any dragon but Inferna.
"Why would I need one?" the Nightmare rumbled curiously.
"To tell each other apart, and to reference specific," and here Astrid hesitated before deciding she needed to blend in, "flames?"
"Scent is good for remembering specific flames, and if you need to talk about one, you can describe them. It is not much of a hassle." He looked around, taking in the ledge they were standing on, entirely devoid of conscious dragons aside from himself, and lowered his voice anyway. "The last unwilling flame didn't have a name. Is it something Flightless do, or just you?"
"No…" Astrid said slowly, somewhat confused. He was saying that the last person like her... "She didn't have a name?"
"She never told me if she did, and even her own fledgling did not call her anything but Dam." He shook his head sadly. "It is possible she simply did not want it known."
Astrid was distracted by a far more relevant piece of information. The one like herself had a child here. Suddenly, the distant future she faced was all the more stark and real; it had happened before and could again. But there was still nothing she could do about that at the moment.
Learn this place and its people, learn herself, and look for things to exploit. That was all she could do. She clung to those goals, trying to stop herself from freaking out. Straight, measured breaths, no flinching at the very thought, that was in the future, if at all. The far future.
"You are distressed," the Nightmare observed unhelpfully, nosing at her chest.
She jerked away, entirely unsure of what this dragon meant by its actions. A confused growl leapt unbidden from her throat, and she shied away. She didn't know enough to know how to take that.
The Nightmare, seeing her reaction, deeply bowed his head. "I have upset you."
Astrid let out a small huff. "Yes," she said curtly.
This was where she would, were she home in her normal body, punch him in the face. He had touched her chest with his nose, of all things. That deserved at the very least a broken nose in return. But...
"What did I do wrong?" the Nightmare continued quietly, fixing her with a regretful stare and backing away as if to reassure her.
That, right there, was the problem. She was not human, and neither was he, and while she definitely still had boundaries, probably more now than before, she didn't know where they should be.
"I don't know, that's the problem," she said shakily, hating her confusion and weakness, but knowing that she needed explanations more than dignity right now. "What did you mean by touching me?"
"That? I was..." He swayed slightly in place, leaning first on one wing arm and then the other, humming. "It is hard to explain. That is a gesture that usually means worry. All flames use it, though specific motions vary by kind, and it might have other meanings for Bolts..."
Astrid shook her head. "That's not it." She wouldn't know if it had other meanings for the kind of dragon she was. As far as she could tell, her dislike stemmed entirely from comparing all of this to human interactions. "Humans just don't do that." They definitely didn't shove their faces into her chest.
"And you do not know what we do?" he guessed.
"Exactly." Every time she ran into something she didn't know, her new role as a spy required that she learn, not reject. Even if she wasn't going to like what she learned. "Tell me what all dragons see as off-limits."
"I only know the basics between different kinds, and all of what my own does," he objected. "If you want to know all that applies to yourself, you'd have to learn from the other Bolt."
"He would only teach me about Bolts, and I don't need to know that," she objected. Not to mention she hated him, but by this point the Nightmare definitely knew that, so it went without saying.
"You will eventually, if you intend to keep your side of the deal with Inferna," he reminded her.
Astrid didn't manage to stop the flinch this time. She did not want to be reminded of that. "Right now I just need to know what should offend me, and what shouldn't."
"We should go somewhere else for this," the Nightmare remarked, looking behind her. "We will wake other flames if we do that here. As it is, we should not be here. This is a ledge for those who wish to rest."
"Then why did you bring me here in the first place?" How far she had come, to expect a dragon to use reason and logic! But she knew she had to expect it because if she did not there was no way to anticipate anything involving them.
"I wanted to show you where to go when you are weary," he explained, nodding to the alcoves behind them. "Take any open place, or if you are cold, which can happen in the cold-season, lay with whoever you feel comfortable with."
Astrid didn't respond, walking back to the tunnel. She needed a moment to get used to that idea, though Winter, assuming that was what he meant by the cold-season, was still a month or so away. But sleeping with any dragon she 'felt comfortable with'...
This had to be something dragons just saw as normal, but she didn't see it. And that raised another awkward but extremely important question, one she resolved to ask as soon as they were out of this tunnel.
That came quickly enough, the strangely light darkness of the tunnel fading into a slightly brighter darkness. The sun had to be setting outside, by how the fog's refracted light was fading.
The moment she was out on the smooth slope leading down to the shore, Astrid turned and waited for the Nightmare, who walked somewhat slower than she did, being larger and less agile. He walked out without a word and took a few large paces down the slope before turning to look at her.
"Here can work," he said, looking around, "though we may be interrupted by flames coming in to sleep. Not many, most will enter the nest from above and just fly through to the sleeping ledge, but some. Where do you want me to start?"
"By telling me..." she inhaled, fighting through the awkwardness. "Can dragons of different kinds be attracted to each other?" She really had no idea what the answer would be, but she was dreading some form of 'yes.' Especially because that would mean she'd have to be wary of this dragon, too.
He rumbled quietly, and she got the distinct feeling he was holding in laughter. "No, that does not happen. Rarely, some other kind of flame will take a liking to a Flicker, but that almost always precludes changing them with their Solar fire, and the liking is nothing more than a speculative thing until the change has happened."
So if she slept with other dragons for body heat, there was no risk of them trying something, or even being tempted. That was one small, distant fear assuaged, along with the looming one she had so suddenly developed. This Nightmare was not attracted to her, as strange and unlikely as that would be, given how ugly this body was.
She had more awkward questions to ask before she could truly be comfortable with that idea, however. "And with the same kind, sleeping together..." she wasn't sure how to phrase this question in a way he'd understand.
"Does sleeping together have a further meaning for humans?" he guessed, before rolling his eyes, a distinctly startling gesture given Astrid had not known dragons did that. "For us, it means nothing more than some sort of bond. Friends, family, or mates. There is no distinction, though generally mates sleep alone, aside from each other and any young they are caring for. Friends might sleep in large groups simply because it is convenient, and being friends with a flame does not mean you have to sleep with them. It is not a formal thing, and there are no real rules, just habits and trends."
Okay... that was utterly strange, but she could see the implications. One more painfully awkward question, and she was done. "So how does the whole... mating... thing work?"
Now the Nightmare was purring. "You truly are trying to get used to the idea," he said thoughtfully.
Astrid leaped back, almost falling off of the slope, and shook her head wildly. "No, I want to be sure I'm not sending the wrong kind of signals to random dragons!" she protested. The Night Fury and her deal with Inferna hadn't even been on her mind when she asked that. She just needed to know so that she wouldn't do something stupid or see something she wouldn't be able to forget.
"In that case..." He shrugged his large wing shoulders. "Again, it is mostly unique to the kind. You will not see any of that until the cold-season, anyway. While eggs can be made and hatched any time, we tend to do it then, for several different reasons."
Then his voice grew cold. "And contrary to what you might think, it is almost always voluntary for both flames. Inferna interfering would have been the only thing stopping the nest from punishing the Bolt, had he forced himself upon you while you were helpless. We do not tolerate that sort of thing."
Not only did dragons internally watch themselves to stop killing or maiming, they also punished less life-or-death crimes like this one. Astrid was continually astonished by how civilized they were. Some Viking tribes couldn't claim to be this civilized, and while most Vikings thought there should be a balance between barbaric and civil, Astrid personally was of the opinion that said balance should only apply to dealing with other tribes. There was nothing to be gained by mistreating others of the same tribe. It just weakened Berk overall when people, say, didn't respect one of their brightest and best future warriors… Like her.
Astrid closed her eyes for a moment, trying to resolve that lingering resentment. Now, more than ever before, it didn't matter, for a number of reasons. She wasn't on Berk anymore. She wasn't a warrior anymore, not in this body. She couldn't even hurt a dragon who knew what they were doing. How Berk treated her was no longer an issue; as far as they would ever know, she was either missing or dead.
It was a strange, painful sort of freedom, to know her previous problems did not matter anymore because she could never get any of her old life back, but it was freedom nonetheless. She didn't need to resent that now. It didn't apply to her.
Far from subtly wishing she would be defeated by someone, the average Berkian would now try to kill her on sight. Not exactly an improvement, but at least it had a different, less discriminatory cause. Though she was going to be more hated than the average dragon. Yet another thing to blame the Night Fury for. He had made her one of his own kind, not just a dragon.
It was an irrational thing to hate him for, given he apparently had no choice in what kind of dragon she would be, but she hated all the same.
"Female Bolt?" the Nightmare asked worriedly, not coming closer, but looking like he wanted to. "You understand?"
Astrid jolted back to the present moment, annoyed with herself. She was not one to get lost in thought; that was something Fishlegs and Hiccup did on occasion, not her. She nodded sullenly.
"It is basically night," he continued. "Perhaps this should be continued tomorrow."
Astrid didn't feel all that tired in mind, though her body was curiously weak. "Fine. Tomorrow." A full day would be better for more in-depth questions, and maybe a night to sleep and think would help her be a bit less confused, and less likely to drift off into pointless tangents of thought...
Yes, sleep was a good idea. She followed the Nightmare right back through the tunnel, inwardly impatient with all the walking they had done today. This place was a mess to navigate on foot–
Because, of course, almost nobody here walked around all that much. They flew. She needed to get to that, too. Tomorrow.
Astrid chose an unoccupied alcove and settled down at the very back, remembering that apparently this body slept best on its belly, not its side or back, and after a moment of contemplation curled into a wide curve, trying to find a better way to sleep.
The Nightmare made to leave, but then hesitated. "I know you will not be comfortable with close contact, but would you like me to sleep... here?" He moved to within a few paces, just barely in the alcove, before settling down, looking out into the nest, his back and tail to her.
More like a guard than anything, really. He could make sure no other dragon, or one in particular, came anywhere near her.
"Yes, that is fine." Really, he was acting like he had nothing else to do with his life but help her, at this point. The other Nightmares circling the entire interior of the nest showed no signs of settling down to rest; he was probably abandoning other duties to tend to her.
She wondered if she should thank him. Maybe, but despite what was almost worryingly fast progress getting used to the idea of dragons as people, she wasn't comfortable with that just yet. He was still an enemy, though clearly a lesser enemy compared to dragons like Inferna or the Night Fury. She needed and appreciated his help, but that didn't mean he wasn't a dragon.
But she was a dragon too...
Somehow, Astrid didn't think she'd get much sleep. There was too much to think about.
Author's Note: Well, that was a lot of information. Let's be fair, Astrid needed the info-drop as much as I'm sure plenty of you probably wanted it.
Also, have I said yet how long this story will be? I don't think I have. It will be 25 chapters in total, with an average length of about 6k words each.