Sleep did not come easily to Astrid, and when it finally arrived her dreams were muddled and restless. She tossed and turned all night, learning through trial and error that while it was possible to sleep on her back or side, she couldn't do more than lightly doze while doing so. Further frustrating her efforts to rest was the fact that she was hungry, an insistent ache in her stomach telling her that she needed to find something edible eventually.

She had never eaten in this body, and this was her fourth day, or close to it. One day spent hoping she was hallucinating, another passed in anger and bargaining, and a third in sleeping late, dealing with Inferna, and learning about her worst enemies.

And yet she was only now feeling the pain of hunger...

Another set of questions to ask when dawn came around, if it had not already. The Nightmare was still sleeping in front of her, so it was not time to get up yet. She stirred, stretching and feeling several cracks in her back, from right behind her ears to the base of her tail. She curled her tail up too, lightly tapping her own wings as it bent back as far as it would go for a brief moment.

Then she thought about how she might look, and the fact that she was moving her tail, and it fell limp, which actually hurt a little, given that meant it slapped against the stone ledge.

A moment ago she had intended to try and get back to sleep, again, but the bruise forming on the underside of her tail irked her, and the cause even more so. She needed to gain control of herself consciously. It could not be any more hopeless than trying to get back to sleep while hungry, angry, and in pain.

Astrid lay down on her stomach, closed her eyes, and concentrated on the appendage she should not be able to use. The dragons had all been certain it should have taken her months to learn to walk and talk; she should not be able to do what she did now. Maybe that would make gaining conscious control easier.

She had a tail. Behind the back legs, level with the top of her hips, in line with her spine and the series of cracking joints along it. She knew where her tail was, how it looked. Two complex and deft fins at the end of a long, tapering snake. Not like a Nadder, far less stiff and thick, and not like a Zippleback; she only had one tail, where they had two. All of this she knew.

She knew how to move it, too. It had moved just a few moments ago. But she could not exactly match her memory of moving it to reality. The muscles felt foreign and strange, and when they tensed, when she tensed them–

Her tail slid to the right, sweeping along the ledge, then back again in an uncomfortably abrupt jerk as she pulled the other way. She slowly and deliberately took her tail through its full range of horizontal motion, trying to understand exactly how she had to pull those muscles to gain precise control. Like wiggling each finger… on someone else's hand, reaching over to push and pull at them until she knew just how hard to go, how hard she could go.

But it was easy. Fast, with her control quickly refining itself as she experimented, faster than she thought it would. She cleared her mind, relaxing her tail muscles, and tried to distract herself by flexing her legs, one by one. That took a moment; she had four to flex, and they were strong, with a different range of motion. Then, she decided that she was going to put her tail through a series of precise movements...

And did it. Without flaw, without hesitation, as quickly and as accurately as she intended. Her tail responded to her will with no delay, like it was just another arm, albeit one with an extremely unusual range of motion.

Astrid could not deny herself the small rush of pride and relief that coursed through her; that was more success than she had even let herself hope for. It was one set of movements among dozens, one small thing, but one that was both doable and simple. She knew how to improve now, and it was easy. Simple. Take the limb through its range, focus on how every possible position was obtained, and then do. Nothing more, nothing less. There didn't even seem to be a need for practice or repetition; it was more like she was remembering what had been forgotten long ago.

That thought soured her mood a little. For all she knew, the ease of learning was just another unusual advantage given to her by the Night Fury. He had given her this body, and by extension these reflexes. The feeling of remembering what she had somehow forgotten might mean this quick learning was just because the Night Fury had helped her along somehow. She did not want his help.

But, just like with the body itself, she couldn't refuse it.

She lashed her tail to the left with an absent-minded flick, wondering how much movement she could get in before someone noticed that she was awake. It would look strange, to be lying in a sleeping alcove unmoving except for her tail, which would be apparently aimlessly thrashing about. Not that she cared if a dragon took notice.

She decided that she was going to totally master her tail before she went back to sleep. The tail was just one of many parts of herself, as she had been doing basically everything on reflex so far, but it was somewhere to start.

Over the next little while she gained conscious control over the entire length of her tail, first getting used to moving it horizontally, and then throwing in vertical shifts, and growing more adept at combining them. The feeling of having a limb that did not possess joints so much as one long, flexible tendril was an exceedingly alien one, though she could not deny its usefulness. Now she understood why Night Furies apparently used their tail to point at things; while her front paws were awkward and limited, her tail was far more maneuverable and precise, if not entirely limitless in its range of movement.

Astrid tapped the end of her tail on the stone, trying to figure out the last part of her tail left to master, the fins. They did not move like fingers; she had already tried that. From what she knew, they should be able to individually tilt and fold, but she had no idea how to feel out the muscles that did those things. The tail had been easy, because it was attached to a part of the body that was not totally new; she had a vague idea of what muscles did not belong in that part of herself. Figuring out a new part not anchored to something familiar was proving difficult.

A low rumble caught her attention. It seemed someone had finally noticed her. She opened her eyes to see the Nightmare, staring and waiting patiently.

"How long have you been watching?" she asked. She wasn't even sure how long she had spent learning her tail's movements, much less how long might have been observed.

"Not long. What are you doing?" He motioned out towards the rest of the nest. "I must leave you for a while, to tend to my other duties. Is there anything else you need to know right now?"

"I thought you were going to keep explaining things to me today," Astrid objected.

"Later," he rumbled calmly. "I do have other things to do. Do you have any burning questions that cannot wait?"

If she was going to be left without her useful source of information for some unspecified length of time, she knew exactly what she needed to know. "Yes. How and where do I get food?"

"Learn to fly," he said seriously, "or find the male Bolt and request to share what the Blazes bring for him. We fish for food, but no flame will want to supply a perfectly healthy and capable flame. You are feeling hungry?"

Astrid nodded. "Yes."

"Then you have a few days before it becomes urgent," the Nightmare reassured her. "We do not need to eat every day. Once every four or five is sufficient, assuming one can eat their fill then."

She thought about the insistent, gurgling emptiness in her stomach. "I think it's already urgent," she objected.

"Are you spitting up foul-tasting liquid?" he asked.

"Uh… no?" she said uncertainly.

"Then it is not truly urgent yet," he explained. "Usually meals are taken more frequently than that, but it might be good for you to wait for it this time, so that you know from experience how it feels."

Given she had just learned quite a bit from doing, she couldn't really argue. Even if her stomach wanted her to. "I'll wait," she decided.

"Come find me if it starts," he said. "Otherwise, I will find you tomorrow." He lifted his wings and stood there for a moment, watching her. Then, seeing that she had no further questions, he took off.

Astrid watched him go with mixed feelings. He was an enemy, but he was a helpful one who was teaching her what she needed to know to survive. She didn't want him to leave, but she also didn't want to get attached to him. If it came down to him or someone from Berk in a raid, she'd root for the Berkian.

Such a choice probably wouldn't come soon, though, if at all. Berk was raided once every two months, more or less, almost to the point of regularity. If Inferna ate more often than that, most raids just wouldn't go to Berk. Every island within her range was probably raided just as often, meaning Berk was only one of many.

So it would be some random village she tagged along to when she went with the next raid as Inferna had ordered. That was only a slight comfort. She would have to master flying, because she doubted 'I don't know how' would be an adequate excuse, and everything relied on Inferna seeing her as cooperative. But she could hold off on learning to use fire… for now. Something told her that Inferna would force the issue sooner or later.

She would have to figure that out when the time came. She certainly wouldn't strike against a human to help dragons; in fact, she might even be able to help the human side in the chaos of battle, assuming there was no rule against aiding the enemy. She felt safe in assuming that, because the only dragons who would ever be motivated to aid the enemy would be the same dragons the rules didn't really work on, as she understood all of this. Humans in the same terrible circumstances as her.

"Move," a deep, gravelly voice growled, startling Astrid out of her thoughts. "This is a sleeping alcove, not a 'sit around and stare into space' alcove."

Astrid glared at the sneakily silent and exceptionally fat Gronckle that had waddled into view and chastised her. "I will move when I please."

"You will move the moment I decide to stop tolerating you," he threatened, waddling forward. "The Blaze might coddle you, and the Bolt is too self-conscious to put you in your place, but the rest of us will not be so easy to defy."

Astrid snarled at him, and then resolved to learn how to snarl intentionally later, as she quite liked the sound. "My place?" she asked challengingly. That was a phrase she was all too familiar with, though it was rarely ever said to her face.

"You're a Flightless in the body of a Bolt, that puts you barely above a Flicker who still has their Solar fire," he said condescendingly. "Certainly below a natural Coal with his Solar fire. So move."

The Nightmare had not told her anything of such a hierarchy… but then, she didn't think he would have. Not if it was unimportant, and if there was anything this Gronckle reminded her of, it was someone unimportant blustering about things that didn't matter. "Where I come from, a 'Coal' is barely considered a prize," she growled. "I don't care about your self-inflated status." On Berk, Gronckles were only better than Nadders or Terrors, in terms of honor for taking one down. That was, Astrid now realized, only a measure of how dangerous they were in a raid, so it made sense that ranking might be different here, but she didn't care at the moment.

"Stupid." The Gronckle looked legitimately offended, his fat, lumpy face creasing in new and interesting ways. "And I suppose Bolts are the best prey to be had, in your mind."

"They are, followed by Blazes and... Blasts," she listed, barely remembering what the Nightmare had said Zipplebacks were called in time to use the name, "Then Coals, Flares, and Flickers."

"The only thing you have right is the place of Flickers," the Gronckle grunted. He bared his stubby but numerous teeth, took a somewhat menacing step forward, and glared at her. "You should learn your place. Here, Blazes are the highest, followed closely by Flares. Then Coals and Blasts, on the same level. Bolts are below all but Flickers."

Astrid felt like laughing at that downright stupid ranking. "What is that based on?" she asked with a snort.

"Fire," was his answer, said in a tone of voice Astrid associated with beating sense into Snotlout when he was being particularly dense, condescending and annoyed in equal portions. "Bolts are dark dragons, and their fire reflects that. It might be useful, but it is not respectable. The deep reds and bright oranges of the other flames are far more like the sun."

At least there was a reason, however stupid. Ranking dragons by how much like the sun their fire looked wasn't the dumbest possible method she could imagine, but it was close. "And all of this means you're above me," she summarized.

"We both have our Solar fires, and you were Flightless," the Gronckle summarized," so I am definitely above you. I would be above you even if you were natural." He growled deeply. "When I say you should be put in your place, I mean that you should learn to obey your superiors. Such as me."

"Maybe if you weren't trying to kick me out of a sleeping alcove when there are probably plenty more already empty," Astrid retorted. "Respect is earned, not given freely, and you'll never earn mine." There was only one dragon in this whole place she could possibly respect, and this fat Gronckle certainly wasn't him.

"Then how about fear? Move, or I hurt you," he threatened. "I am sure I can, you do not know how to fight. How would you like to be grounded?"

"About as much as you'd like it, given the penalty for grounding another is being grounded yourself," Astrid countered, grateful the Nightmare had covered that already.

"So the Blaze did teach you something," was the sneered response. "Learn fast, Flightless, and you might not be totally unprepared for when Inferna gets impatient. And while you are learning, get out of my spot."

"Move your fat body and I will," Astrid declared, getting to her feet and glaring challengingly, intentionally lashing her tail from side to side. "This stupid spot is not worth having to deal with you."

Her insult did not get the reaction she had hoped for. The Coal stared at her, nonplussed. "And start with learning body language," he advised smugly, moving to the side to let her pass. "That tail movement resembles a fledgling Blast looking for a place to relieve themself."

Astrid did not run away from him, but she did walk fast, her insides burning with embarrassment. It was one thing to not know what she was doing, but it was quite another to be confronting someone only to be betrayed by her own ignorance. She felt as if she had shown up for dragon training without her ax and proceeded to flirt with Snotlout, thinking she was threatening him. Intimidation was something she was used to being able to do; finding out she couldn't be sure she was actually intimidating anyone was not a fun experience.

But unless she wanted to learn by getting into arguments and seeing what worked – not a terrible idea, but likely to make enemies she really didn't want – she had to wait for the Nightmare to come back to learn what not to do. So that had to be put on hold.

Astrid walked down the path to the shore, trying to decide what she wanted to do. She was going to get a drink, though the polluted water by the nest was disgusting and only barely tolerable, but after that...

She could go back up into the main part of the nest, or at least the part she could reach, and observe. Learning how things worked was vital, and that Gronckle had shown her there was more than what the Nightmare would tell her. The Nightmare seemed the type of person to overlook the less than ideal parts of life in his teachings, simply because he either was not affected by them, or did not mind. She could not imagine him explaining that he was at the top of the hierarchy, while she was almost on the bottom rung, above Terrible Terrors and absolutely nobody else.

Not that she cared. She hadn't even seen a Terror up close since getting here, and she had no desire to boss them around anyway. They were all, from that Gronckle to the Night Fury to the Nightmare, enemies. She didn't care if they saw themselves as above her or not.

So she could observe the nest and its inhabitants. Or, she could dedicate the day to learning herself, from her ears to those tailfins she still couldn't quite figure out. Every bit of conscious control she learned, or regained, or remembered, whichever was the case, was one more weakness corrected. And she could do that down here, where nobody seemed to go. Dragons flew overhead, going out into the sea stack maze or coming back from it, but the shore seemed to be mostly ignored by the normal residents of the nest.

Deal with dragons, or deal with herself... Astrid knew which she preferred, and both needed to be done right now, so there was no harm in doing the more pleasant one first. Learning herself it was, then.

~O~o~O~

Astrid had never truly taken stock of just how many moving parts her human body had. That was probably a result of being used to it; she had done all of her learning as a child, and training to fight or move acrobatically was just moving in faster, better ways. Lacking a reference point, she wasn't entirely sure if her new body was actually far more complex, or if she just hadn't noticed how complicated everything was as a human.

It wasn't just the obvious things like wings and tails and ears, either. Her teeth moved, and so did her gums. Through experimentation, she determined that she could make herself entirely toothless if needed by pulling her teeth in and pushing her gums out at the same time. That did also explain the terrible name Hiccup had given the Night Fury.

Little, obvious things like her teeth were easily noticed and mastered. But there was more, so much more. Muscles in her back moved, shifting at will, though she could not really see or feel any practical difference no matter how she shifted them. They almost felt constrained, but she dismissed that as just how this body worked. The muscles in her chest that she discovered almost by accident, on the other hand, definitely had an effect. They cut off her air.

One momentary scare later, she was completely unaware of any purpose such muscles might have. Then she did something else, close to but entirely unlike throwing up, and almost threw up for real. A colorless, foul-smelling gas wafted into the back of her throat, and she accidentally breathed it in again. It did not sit well in her stomach.

Astrid decided to leave those two sets of muscles for last, because she was pretty sure she knew what they did. They were for fire. But right now, she wanted control over her body, not her fire, so they could wait.

Other things were obvious and as easy as learning to move her tail had been, though it was tedious work at times. Her ears had a surprisingly large range of motion, and the thin frills on either side of her jaws moved with them, sometimes, but could also move on their own. Mastering those had eaten up the better portion of an hour. The same could be said of walking and running; she could do it without thinking, but learning to do it on her own took time, if only a miniscule fraction of the months it was supposed to.

Now, she was ready to try the most vital thing of all. Her wings.

First came moving them. That was simple; they might be oddly shaped, but they felt like a misshapen set of arms, even more so than her front legs did. The elbow was much further up the length of her arm, and her 'fingers' were long and connected by the membrane of her wings, but the feeling and by extension the movements were close enough to be eerily similar.

But while the setup was the same, the movements were not. There would be no grasping of objects or deft movement of the fingers; everything was constrained. If these were hands, then the fingers could not bend, only move from side to side, spreading or coming together at will. The 'thumb' was the outermost edge, ending at the very tip of her wings, and almost immobile.

So... arms and hands, but very restrained ones. She tried not to think about how restrained it all was, feeling just how limited in motion these new limbs were. They folded in and out, and could bend a little, but that was nothing compared to her old human arms, or her new tail.

The tail. She focused on that for a moment, moving it all around. This was her replacement for arms; the wings were meant for something she had no equivalent to. Looking at it that way, she did not feel claustrophobic or restrained by the limited range of movement.

Astrid spared no effort in putting her wings through their full range of motion. If she somehow messed this up, it would come back to bite her almost immediately. She needed to fly, and she was not going to the Night Fury to be taught. He had put her in this position, but she would make the best of it without further interference. Even if that ended up being a little more dangerous.

Once she had gotten the hang of moving her wings, she spread them out as far as they would go and flapped them. It felt like she was trying to push down on a solid object, and her body felt light for a moment. She craned her stocky neck to look back at herself, amazed that she could flap that hard. She knew exactly how heavy this body was, though it did not feel heavy to her. Her wing muscles had to be strong, to lift all of that without an issue.

But try as she might, she couldn't just fly up into the air like this. Her wings shoved air down as fast as she could move them, and she felt that if she jumped she'd just keep going up, but no matter how high she leaped up, she just fell back down, albeit lightly and with much flailing. There had to be more to it, but she was momentarily at a loss as to what.

Then it occurred to her that her tail wasn't getting involved at any point in the process. She knew from past observation that the tail, and the fins she still couldn't work, were vital to flight. How, though, eluded her no matter what she tried. Flapping the fins, angling them every which way, swinging her tail like she was trying to smack the ground, none of it did anything.

Astrid eyes the path up to one of the ledges consideringly. She knew for a fact that she could fly if she just stopped thinking about it, and any distraction seemed to work. Any at all.

A part of her quietly condemned the idea of just jumping and hoping the unreliable instincts she had been given would take over long enough for her to learn; she knew from experience that they stopped working the moment she started thinking. And unlike with the rest of her learning, stopping what she was doing and carefully replicating it intentionally was not possible while falling; there just wasn't enough time. She should put aside her pride and hate, and ask the Night Fury to demonstrate. That was safer.

He'd like that, though. Learning on her own was preferable to going to him… and some small risks were preferable, too. She could jump from a low enough place that the fall would not be lethal, and that would be good enough.

Her course decided, Astrid made her way up the smooth slope, mentally judging how far she could fall before the impact would hurt, break, or kill her. She could stand some bruises and cuts, so there would be a little leeway. The ones she had obtained in her first few days here, stumbling and generally making a fool of herself, were already gone as if they had never existed. This body would heal quickly enough.

Astrid stopped at a boulder hanging off of the edge of the path, overlooking the shore. This was a good place to learn; high enough that she would be afraid of falling, but low enough so as to not kill her if her instincts didn't kick in soon enough to save her from a full-on crash. At worst, she'd break a leg, and she had a few to spare now.

She stepped up to the edge, walking carefully and reveling in the fact that she now had precise control of her walking, not whatever her unconscious instincts decided was sufficient. The same was soon to be said of her wings if she had any say in the matter. All it would take was a leap of faith, a short and horrifying fall, and a moment of flying to analyze later. Then a painful but not permanently injuring crash, and she was done. That was all.

Without lingering on it any further, Astrid pushed off and leaned into the open air, surrendering to gravity with her wings spread wide. The moments seemed to stretch as she fell forward and she did not pull up, though her wings were out. Her fall slowed, tilting from directly down to a steep angle down, but what she knew was not nearly enough. Something was missing.

This was going to hurt. Astrid closed her eyes and braced herself, giving in to terror. She had been stupid to jump, asking the Night Fury was the smart move, she was going to hurt herself out of stubbornness, she wanted to fly up into the sky and away from this place–

Her tailfins snapped into action, flattening and fully extending, and her wings began to beat in a slightly different way, circling instead of just going straight up and down. The base fins by the back of her hips were suddenly catching wind.

Astrid opened her eyes and tried not to think about what she was doing. It didn't work; the moment she saw the ground becoming distant again, her mind went to her body, and she stopped moving midair, her tail fins going where the wind took them, and her wings stuttering, everything going from effortless to impossible as she flailed without understanding–

No! She knew some of what needed to be done, now. In the heartbeats before she hit the ground, she forced her wings to beat as they had before, a flat circle, and studiously ignored her tail, focusing totally on her wings.

Her tail snapped to attention, and she was going up again! Then it folded shut, but she had gotten the measure of where those muscles were now, and what to do with them. She shoved her tail fins open and held them that way, still flapping in the correct manner.

The air caught under her, and she was going up under her own power, ascending steadily. For a moment, all was well with the world.

Then she realized that she only knew how to fly up. This ill-advised endeavor was nowhere near over. In all her flailing and moving up and down, she was still over the shore, which was far below her now, so clearly she hadn't gone very far forward yet.

The 'how' of learning to fly forward stumped her for a moment, a moment in which she continued to gain height. A distraction was needed, something to get her to stop thinking so that her instincts could take over, but she was no longer afraid of falling.

Feeling slightly stupid, Astrid concentrated on her ears, a randomly chosen body part not at all involved in flying. She put all of her focus into moving them in an arbitrarily complex pattern, not thinking of anything else.

Her wings tilted of their own accord. She was quicker to catch on this time, and managed to consciously follow the patterns her body had set up without messing up in the transition. Flying forward was less strenuous strokes of the wings, with a subtly tilted pattern of flaps. She began to pick up speed.

Descending and general turning were quickly outed and understood in the same fashion, Astrid catching on after a single distraction necessary example. If she could convince herself she needed to learn it, throw her body into a position where it was necessary, instinct would take over long enough to do it for her, and that was all she needed.

"Got it," she growled, immensely pleased with herself. If only learning all skills could be as easy as this! Flight was complex, and she could feel that she was on the tip of a massive iceberg, just barely comprehending a small fraction of it. That small fraction would surely have taken her months to puzzle out on her own, or weeks to master under a willing teacher. This way, she had gotten the hang of it in moments.

She dove down, slicing through the fog with her wings, and totally concentrating on what she was doing. She still had a safety net consisting of the latent instincts in case she encountered something she could not do, and that maze of sea stacks was beginning to look like an interesting proving ground...

Throwing herself into situations she didn't know how to handle was how she was learning, so it only made sense to do so again. She let herself fall until she was just below the height of most sea stacks, not that far above the water, and slowed down, learning how that worked on the fly. She flew with a strange mix of concentration and distractions now, focusing on something insignificant if she ran into a maneuver she did not know to let instinct guide her through it, and in the process adding it to the rapidly growing list of things she could do intentionally. From the outside, it might not look like anything was changing as she switched back and forth, save for the possibly visible faltering when she went from instinct to intentional flight, but inside was a confusing mess of mental acrobatics. Every time she encountered something new, her skill grew to match what her body showed her.

Astrid flung herself forward, entering the maze of stone and water with almost reckless abandon. She quickly learned sharp turns, almost wiping out on sudden sharp corners. Then came hovering, as she ran into a dead end and was forced to stop, unable to fly up fast enough to clear the sea stacks and keep going. Each new action caused only a slight hitch in her flight, and only the first time.

This was no challenge, not really, but it was exhilarating. She couldn't stop herself from speeding up, confident and willing to test her limits. She knew this feeling, the adrenaline rush sparring brought, but better, because she faced the world around her, and her enemy was only as powerful as she chose to let him be. Conquering and understanding in equal measure, taking danger and mastering it.

Sea stacks flashed by on either side, and she rolled to avoid one rapidly approaching her, commiting the move to conscious memory without even trying. The water flew by underneath her, waves stirring in her wake as she pushed herself faster and faster, straining to discover a top speed, if she even had one.

Then, almost without warning, the maze ended and she plowed through a particularly large bank of fog, emerging on the other side only to be immediately blinded by the blazing midday sun. She faltered, tilting to the side, one of her wings skimming the water. Instinct took over and pulled her up, using the arresting drag of the water to pull off an incredibly tight turn and catapult her up and back the way she came, back into the fog.

Astrid slowed there, hovering just inside the fog bank while the frantic pounding of her heart returned to what passed as normal in this body. She had almost died, but that wasn't how it had felt in the moment, too fast to properly process. It was almost unreal, with how easily escaped her predicament had been, but she was pretty sure hitting the water with no land in sight would have been the end of her.

She had been a heartbeat from death by drowning, but she didn't care. One more move added to her knowledge, using the water to make an abrupt and incredibly tight turn. Not something she would do often; she knew it was a dangerous last resort.

The sun's blinding greeting had almost gotten her killed. She hadn't seen it in days.

Astrid decided to go greet the light she had so missed, properly this time. She glided slowly out of the fog after gaining some height and let her eyes adjust to the world of bright, vibrant color.

The water was a deep blue, no longer ashy grey and dull. There were clouds, white and pure, not the dull gray mist of the nest. The sun was a glowing ball of whitish-yellow light, one that she wanted to stare at, to just absorb the warmth and pure energy. Something stirred in her chest, back behind the muscles she suspected were for fire, a comforting warmth that she could almost see if she closed her eyes, a light casting shadow on the inside of her eyelids.

Solar fire. She could feel it now, and maybe use it if she could not before. She still had no idea how, and there was no point anyway; that had not changed. But it was a comforting feeling, as alien as it was. It was too bad this feeling was limited to dragons... Berk was a cold place, and she was sure people would be far more comfortable there if they had an internal heat source.

Or maybe that was just her actual dragon body providing the heat. For all she knew, Solar fire provided no more heat than fire drawn with charcoal on a stone tile; an idea, not reality.

Astrid didn't really care about that, though. She flew high, up between and past the clouds, and let herself glide in the sunlight, angling so her black scales and skin absorbed as much as possible. She had not realized just how much she had missed the sun, these last few days. Simple and pure, where everything else was… complicated.

If one word could describe her existence right now, it was definitely that one. Complicated. She lingered outside the fog bank that marked the nest until the sun had totally set, unwilling to go back into the shadowy darkness when there was still light here.

But eventually, when the moon rose and failed to provide the same comforting warmth, she flew back into the fog, turning her back on the world she was so familiar with. Her purpose was not out there, it was here for the time being. She was still a spy, and she would still be killed on sight by anyone who saw her out beyond the fog. Berk would burn if she left this nest, this tyrant.

The sun could not fix everything. It could only make her feel a little less hopeless.

Author's Note: Another intentional choice on my part; this story works better if Astrid's not stuck at the nest learning to fly for a few weeks. Generally, while 'learning to fly' sequences are interesting, they work better in more introspective, slower-paced stories. And yes, she's already really good in the air; blame Toothless, because the instincts and reflexes she was given had to come from somewhere.