Astrid was thankful she could see in the dark. Flying back to the nest was already disorienting, because she could only trust she was flying in the right direction, unable to see the volcanic island until she was relatively close. Having to fly through grey fog was bad enough; pitch black darkness impenetrable even to her new eyes would be far more nerve-wracking.
There was something else though, something she could not truly explain. The sensation of Solar fire in her chest had mostly subsided with the sun, almost as if it was setting, but she could still feel it. It was resonating now, a light feeling that she wouldn't have noticed if there was anything more interesting than grey fog to distract herself with. Like a hundred little pinpoints of heat in her chest where the large, original ball of heat had been, indistinct but definitely there.
She couldn't be sure what it was, but she had a guess. It had been told to her in passing that a dragon with Solar fire could feel it in others. There were definitely hundreds of dragons at the nest, which she had to be getting close to, and if most of them still had it, that would explain the odd sensation. It didn't seem to have much practical use; it did not point her in the right direction, or offer anything more than a vague feeling that there was something nearby. When she eventually saw the island and volcano, nothing had changed.
Astrid pulled up to land on the smooth slope by the tunnel leading to the sleeping area, dropping lightly onto all four paws and committing the precise series of movements needed for a light landing to memory afterward. She only had to do it once; the strange simplicity that made learning physical movements more like remembering something previously known but forgotten was still in full effect. Learning something the Night Fury had not given her an advantage on would be frustratingly slow after feeling just how quick and easy even the most complicated things could be with the right setup.
However easy it might have been to learn, she was not going to have trouble going to sleep right away tonight. Her body felt like it could go for a while longer if she really needed it to, but she was thoroughly tired nonetheless, as if she had just spent an afternoon training, or maybe running around the beaches of Berk.
Berk. Astrid's thoughts went to the island she had been taken from, and the parents she would never see again, at least to have them recognize her for who she was. That was enough to sap her good mood almost entirely, though the memory of faint, warming light from the sun helped her stave off anything more than a vague sadness.
They were dead to her. No, that was backwards and sounded callous. She was dead to them, and Astrid Hofferson, Viking of Berk, was gone.
Astrid, the Night Fury spy working on Berk's behalf, could not contact the parents she had once had. They would never understand, even if she could scratch runes into the dirt and force them to read instead of attacking or running. If they did somehow believe, their lives would only get worse. Best they think her dead, rather than know she was stuck in a foreign body and life, and not entirely hating it despite being one of Berk's worst enemies.
Not entirely hating it... She had enjoyed her brief taste of flight before being changed, so it stood to reason she would not feel any different now that she didn't need to be carried to reach the clouds. Being almost immediately in total control of her own flight with none of the difficulty usually associated with learning a new skill definitely hadn't dampened her enjoyment either.
It didn't matter. She was still a human at heart, just one getting used to what she could not change.
Astrid walked out onto the sleeping ledge only to find that nobody was asleep. There was a line of dragons at the far side of the ledge, looking out at Inferna.
She almost unintentionally shrank down, creeping to stand behind a large Zippleback. She did not want to be noticed. Luckily, there were hundreds of dragons arrayed across over a dozen major ledges and several dozen smaller ones, and Inferna was staring at one in particular.
Astrid's heart leaped into her throat for a different reason when she saw who the subject of Inferna's attention was. The tan Monstrous Nightmare she didn't dislike was bowing deeply, not looking up at the six massive eyes staring down at him.
"White ones, mind, not brown or black," Inferna said, her deep voice continuing a statement Astrid had no context for, though she could guess at said context easily enough. "Do not mix them up. I require as many as you can carry."
"That means we must raid the island of rock and especially vile humans," the Nightmare responded respectfully, his voice tiny and insignificant compared to the thundering one he was answering. "Would you have us simply raid for food alone, or also cull their numbers and structures to something less dangerous, for future raiding?"
There was a fact Astrid wished she could pass on to Berk. The dragons sometimes just raided, and other times strategically struck to weaken their target for later. It would explain why some raids were so much worse than others, and it would also explain the stories of true attacks in which dragons didn't even try to go for food, instead striking at people and war machines like catapults directly. They were capable of weakening villages if they wanted to. More than mindless hunger drove them.
With that information, raids could be fought more effectively. As it was, nobody on Berk had ever even guessed that one dragon going for a catapult instead of a sheep might mean others would too. That was far too large a leap of reasoning for anyone to make when they thought dragons were mindless beasts.
Astrid almost quivered with worry and excitement. She was a spy, and this was something of value she might somehow be able to use or pass on. Her new reason for existing.
Inferna had been quiet for a long while, presumably contemplating her answer. She broke that silence with an oddly muted growl. "Food first, weaken them if you can. I will have at least dozen white ones, or I will make up the difference in raiders. I also want fish."
"Having to fish will split our forces and make the attack on the human village more dangerous," the Nightmare noted respectfully. "We may lose more flames that way."
"I don't care," Inferna rumbled threateningly. "You heard my stomach. Silence it, or be silenced yourself." She sank back into the yellow depths, disappearing from sight.
Astrid's pleasant tiredness had fled long ago, and now her body was buzzing with nervous energy. This was the next raid, sooner than she had anticipated, and she had to go. Berk was forfeit if she broke her deal with Inferna, and she had been told directly that she had to go on raids.
Not against Berk, though. Not this time. She didn't know who the 'island of rock and especially vile humans' might be, but there was no way that described Berk. Soaring cliffs, dense forests, stubborn humans, maybe. Rock was in no way their most obvious feature, and Berkians were no more or less vile than the average Viking. Not in any way that dragons would notice.
The Nightmare circled in the empty air where Inferna had been, looking out at the ledges. He did not speak until her rumbling snore could be heard, vibrating along the stone. "The usual split," he announced to the assembled dragons. "Sires and Dams who have fledglings to tend to and pairs younger than ten season-cycles, you're on fishing duty. The rest of us will meet in the air above the nest by midnight." He flew up and out of the volcano, presumably to wait for the rest of them. Midnight was not far off.
All around Astrid, other dragons flew out into the opening between the ledges, calling out to each other. Some smaller dragons she guessed were fledglings bumbled along, following behind their respective parents on the way out through the tunnels, presumably heading out to fish despite the fact that it was the middle of the night.
Meanwhile, other dragons made their way up and out the volcano, heading out into the night sky. Some parted with dragons Astrid had to guess were family or friends, however reluctantly, and the atmosphere reminded her of...
Well, the closest comparison was probably the night before Berk's finest warriors set out on a nest hunt. There was always a gathering in the Great Hall, and those who would be left behind made sure the warriors going knew just how much they were appreciated, and how much they would be missed. The same worried but hopefully optimistic atmosphere she knew from those occasions lingered here, though this version of the scene was devoid of alcohol muddying and freeing more emotional farewells.
Or maybe Astrid just didn't know what an emotional farewell looked like for dragons. That was also possible. There was a lot of nudging, nuzzling, and general touching going on, and she was pretty sure it all had far deeper and more intricate meaning than she knew.
There was one dragon who had absolutely nobody to say farewell to. Astrid noted that the Night Fury was lingering near the far side of the volcano, alone. None came to him, and none seemed to care about him in the slightest. That was confirmation that there definitely weren't any others of his kind around, if the days she had spent in the area without seeing any weren't enough proof.
She did not quite enjoy the sight of his obvious misery, or at least not as much as she had expected to. She knew the feeling of having nobody to say goodbye to; her parents were never chosen to join the nest hunts, and she knew all too well the sensation of standing alone in a crowded, emotional place, knowing that she had no stake in the danger about to be braved, but wishing she did.
No; she was not going to sympathize with him. She needed to remember what he had done, and what he might do in the future, however unwillingly. This was all his fault.
Astrid leaped off of the ledge and spread her wings, noticing and compensating for the rising heat of the abyss below by flapping slower. It was unnerving, to fly over the creature that was fast becoming the dragon she most feared, but she did it anyway. Inferna was obviously still asleep, and not even visible from here.
Once Astrid was comfortable with flying in the nest, she made a lazy, slow lap around the edge of the volcano, working out the soreness in her wings. Then she headed up, out the top of the volcano and beyond. She flew up, powering through a particularly dense section of clouds and leveling out just above the wispy white, moonlit fog. From above, the ever-present clouds looked like a simple storm moving through, as if it would all just blow away sooner or later. But it hadn't yet, and from what Astrid knew, wouldn't any time soon. The nest was always shrouded in fog, though nobody knew how or why.
No human knew. She could ask a dragon. Astrid glanced around the moonlit expanse of sky, looking for the Nightmare. She found him flying slowly somewhat above and to the right of her, speaking to another, smaller Nightmare. The two flew close, almost touching wings, and she got the distinct impression that she would be interrupting something private if she were to approach them.
Then the Nightmares both turned and came her way, clearly heading to her. Astrid rose to glide on their level, idly wondering just how much higher she could go. The air up here was... thinner, if that word could be applied to air, and she didn't know if it would support her weight if she went much further up. A question for another day.
"Female Bolt," the Nightmare she knew called out, greeting her pleasantly enough. "I was not aware you were flying already." There was a small measure of awe in his voice and in the way he looked her over, clearly impressed.
Astrid felt a small flash of pride at that. "I figured it out today. That's why I'm here. I flew for half the day, will I be able to make it to the raid and back again?"
The other Nightmare laughed at that, her voice obviously feminine, though far deeper than any human voice could ever be. "We do not fly straight there. It will be a trip of several days and nights, and we rest during the day."
So that was how it was done. Now she knew why they were leaving at night, though that made her wonder whether or not dragons were nocturnal. They slept at night here at the nest, but not when out on raiding trips. Maybe it was the same as with food, and they just slept whenever it was needed.
"My mate is right," the male Nightmare rumbled, "you will be fine on the way there. It is when we get there that worries me. What do you plan on doing?"
Astrid found herself answering honestly, for lack of any reason to lie. "Hanging back, watching, and nothing more." Everyone would be watching to see what she did, so any clandestine actions against the dragons would be noticed. She would wait a few raids to begin considering how to sabotage things.
Not that they would know that part. "Is that okay with you?" she asked innocently. "Or whoever is in charge of all of this?" She had best find out now, rather than finding out when somebody ordered her to start fighting for the dragons in the middle of the raid.
"It is totally fine, only Inferna would expect you to fight for us so soon," the Nightmare she knew replied. "As long as you can fly for half a day at the speed of a Coal without setting down, you will be fine on this trip."
"Of course she can, look at her!" the female Nightmare exclaimed. "At the very least, the male Bolt did right by you in that department. He could have left you weak and slim, but instead he gave you what is probably the biggest, most powerful form that wouldn't be unnaturally large." She glided over to Astrid and circled her once. "Some would prefer to be bigger and stronger than the females of their kind, you know," she said quietly, casting a teasing glance at her mate. Astrid noticed that he was slightly smaller than his mate, and possessed a thinner tail. "But the male Bolt is better than that."
Astrid was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable, for all that what was being said was meant to be complimentary. "I didn't want any of this," she objected.
"Oh, I know, but if you had to be one of his kind, at least you are strong," the female Nightmare replied happily. "We have seen it happen where the transformed one is small, or weak, or just flat-out inferior, because the flame doing the transforming wanted their future partner to be subservient. It's subconscious, you know, so they can't help but create what they actually want, deep down."
Astrid shrugged her wings, sacrificing a little height to put some space between them. "Okay, I get it." she said firmly. She didn't want any more insight into what the Night Fury was thinking when he changed her. It was easier to hate him with what she already knew and nothing more.
"You may want to wait until she is more comfortable in her own scales to try and talk her into forgiving him," the male Nightmare remarked, rumbling in amusement. "She is not ready to be persuaded."
He had that right. Astrid would have crossed her arms if she still had them, and maybe walked away, even if that was rude. As it was, she could only fly a little further away from them, though she did not leave entirely.
The two Nightmares came together once more, flying wing to wing, again almost touching. They spoke quietly to each other, occasionally laughing or making some other louder sound. Very much like any Viking couple might, if one ignored the setting and appearance.
Astrid did not like where that thought was leading her. She didn't want to worry about either of them, and she definitely didn't want to get attached to a pair of Monstrous Nightmares, but seeing them now... she was having a hard time looking at them and feeling certain that they were the enemy. She was not callous enough to wish either of them dead. Taken out of the war, for sure, but not dead.
Taken out of the war, like the dragons Berk kept captive for training purposes. Though those dragons did not live long; injuries were not treated. To do so would just be a waste of resources, what with the relative ease of replacing their training dragons instead…
She flew away from everyone, up higher than most, and settled into a waiting glide, trying her hardest not to think about anything. It was easier that way.
~O~o~O~
Dragons gathered above the clouds, arriving in twos and threes. The moon was beginning its downward descent when all of the Nightmares burst into flames, their bodies blazing beacons in the night sky. One, a green Nightmare Astrid recognized from her first day at the nest, roared loudly. "We fly until dawn," he announced. "No splitting off, no flying outside of the formation, and no fishing. If you need food or water, talk to one of us first. We are not losing anyone on the trip there. We're already short on wings."
Astrid glided awkwardly behind the main group, looking around and trying to figure out where she should fly in the rapidly-forming formation of dragons setting out. The Nightmares formed four points on a vertical diamond, with the rest of the dragons between them in a loose grouping by kind. The Gronckles flew together, as did the Nadders, and so on. There was even a small flock of Terrible Terrors down near the bottom of the diamond, silently flying along.
She was intrigued by the Terrors, in particular, because she hadn't seen much of them at all, not even in passing. She maneuvered to fly above them in the formation, hoping to get a closer look at the reclusive dragons.
Some of the Terrors looked up when she dropped down to fly over the middle of their group. They quickly looked away, and though she didn't hear anything, word must have quickly spread, because the group as a whole clustered in to fly closer together without most of them ever acknowledging her presence.
She watched for a bit, but their odd reaction wasn't enough to scare her off. She knew Night Furies were scary, but not to dragons, surely. As absurd as it was, their fear hurt a little. She drifted a bit further down. "Hello?"
The spherical group of Terrors exploded outward, many of them fleeing in random directions before remembering their place and returning to the tight grouping. There was a small internal debate between them, conducted too quietly to hear, before a blue one reluctantly flew up to her, taking a position to the left of her wings; still somewhat far away, but close enough to talk to.
A small, tense voice growled out from the blue Terror's body. "What do you want?"
Astrid wasn't sure how to convey any particular emotion through body language, so she settled for what she hoped was a neutral tone of voice. "I do not need anything. I was just curious. I have not seen much of your kind."
"Nothing?" the Terror asked a little more confidently. "You are happy with the male Bolt?"
"Not at all, and I never will be," Astrid growled, more confused than angry. That was such a strangely irrelevant thing to ask. "What do..."
She trailed off when she noticed the Terror was gone. Then she looked down, and saw that there wasn't a Terror in sight. Confused, she banked to the right and veered away from the flock of dragons, trying to figure out where several dozen small dragons could possibly have gone in a matter of heartbeats.
Eventually, more by virtue of her good night vision than anything, she spotted one, and then the rest. They were flying just under the Nightmare at the back of the flock, a few even clinging to his back spines, hitching a ride. The Nightmare in question was tolerating them, and when he saw Astrid drifting over to them, he shook his head sternly, gesturing to an open space near the top of the formation. The order was clear.
Astrid wasn't particularly inclined to obey said order. She didn't need any more dragons telling her what to do. But there didn't seem to be any point in pursuing a reclusive group of dragons who were clearly terrified by her presence, so she didn't press the matter, returning to her original place near the bottom of the flock as a compromise.
~O~o~O~
The night passed quickly, though there was nothing to do but fly, ignore her aching wings, and watch the stars. That was enough to keep Astrid occupied; she used the time to experiment with small changes in the way she flapped, or held her tail, or even positioned the fins at the base of her hips. Morning was upon them before she knew it.
With the morning and a small change of course came a small, barren island. Astrid didn't recognize it; there were plenty of islands around, and only the ones good for something were marked on any Viking map. This one had nothing but sand and a small patch of grass.
That was all dragons needed, though. The majority of the flock touched down and claimed spots in the sand, while a few skimmed the water and periodically flamed it before swooping down to collect the dead fish floating to the surface afterward. There was no rhyme or reason to where or when they flamed, as far as Astrid could tell, but it seemed to work. She didn't try it, as she had no fire and no particular inclination to learn how to eat raw fish just yet. By the Nightmare's calculations, she had a few more days before it became urgent, and the small empty pain in her stomach was totally ignorable at the moment.
After a while spent just watching everyone else, Astrid found a place near the water, away from all of the other dragons, and forced herself to sleep. Her wings ached, and her body was truly tired now, but the sun was blazing down on her face no matter how she settled her wings and sleep did not come easily.
But it did come eventually, even if it also departed what felt like a moment later. It was dusk, and the Nightmares were waking everyone, roaring and firing into the sky. Another round of fishing she didn't partake in, and they were off again.
Later that night, the lead Nightmare roared loudly, silencing the low chatter that had preceded his roar. "We are nearing the target," he announced.
"As always, we do this safely," the Nightmare Astrid knew added from his place at the top of the formation, just as loudly. "Protect each other, and make sure we get as many of the white-furred prey as possible."
That was it. No further planning, and no real discussion about what little had been said. It all had an air of practiced routine, one which Astrid obviously didn't know. It was a good thing she was just going to be watching; she would get a chance to learn what else went on from a good, distant viewpoint. She knew what being down in a village during a raid was good for. Fighting, and nothing else. Certainly not seeing the bigger picture.
Said bigger picture was just now becoming visible. Astrid resisted the urge to speed up, opting to keep her place in the formation and study the island as they approached.
First and most importantly, it wasn't one she knew. That was no surprise; she could count the number of islands she knew on one hand. Or, she could have, back when she had hands. Berk, Berserker island, and a few small, uninhabited islands with no name. She had only been to Berserker island once, on a trip her father and mother had taken with the Chief. That island had a massive mountain, larger than any of Berk's minor peaks. As this one was unusually flat and lifeless, that meant she had never been here before.
Lifeless... that was what stood out most. The island looked as if some force of the gods had scoured most of it clean of anything that lived there at some point in the past. The Eastern half of the island was totally devoid of anything but large tan-colored rocks. The Western half was only slightly better, consisting mostly of flat fields and small, crudely-constructed guard huts. If there was an actual village anywhere, Astrid couldn't see it, though the rocks near the middle of the island might be hiding some buildings.
As they drew closer, Astrid could see what made this place the home of the 'especially vile humans.' An uneasy undercurrent of muttering and worried growling ran through the formation as everyone else began to see it too.
The fields, three in total, were totally enclosed by crude, thick fences. On some of the large fence posts dragon carcasses hung limply in various states of decomposition, from relatively freshly killed all the way to a pile of bones at the foot of the post. There had to be dozens, possibly hundreds of corpses, of all kinds.
The practical side of Astrid winced at just how terrible that had to be for the sheep enclosed in the pen made of rotting bodies, and for that matter how horrible it had to be for everyone who lived downwind. Vile was the perfect word to use for these Vikings, and she would have added stupid to the list if she were the one naming them. Such a display had stink badly enough to demoralize the same people it was meant to encourage.
"Do not be intimidated, they fight and die like any human would," one of the Nightmares called out, his voice low and insistent. They were getting close now. Lights were visible from between the rocks in the center of the island. There really was a village there, albeit a small one not easily seen from above. "Remember, only the white-furred prey."
Here was where Astrid would have expected a rousing cheer, were these Vikings. The raid was about to begin, and getting warriors pumped up before the battle was an important part of keeping morale high. But nothing more was said. Dragons began to split off, three roughly equal groups circling around to target each of the three fields. The Nightmare Astrid knew – she really needed to come up with a name for him, if only for her own use – led one of the groups, but his mate stayed behind, circling high above the imminent battleground.
She caught Astrid looking at her, and motioned for Astrid to fly up to her. "I'm in charge of calling it. If we're losing too many flames, I sound the retreat," she said as Astrid came up. "if I sound the retreat before we have enough prey, Inferna eats some of us. It's a balancing act."
That was not a light responsibility. Astrid had to revise her opinion of the Nightmare's mate; she might seem simple, but if they were entrusting her with this, there had to be more to her.
"First contact will happen soon," the female Nightmare announced. "Watch closely. We need a Bolt to make this safe, and if you can't participate tonight, you can at least try and see where you might have intervened."
When Astrid had imagined watching the raid from above, she had not imagined doing it with a spotter pointing out where she could be helping the other side. She really didn't know if she prefered that to being alone.
She tried to focus on the fight instead of thinking about the Nightmare up there with her. The three groups were descending upon the fields now, flying as silently as they could manage–
But apparently not silently enough. A loud, discordant horn sounded and was quickly echoed by two more. Lights – torches carried by the Vikings quickest to respond – began to swarm out from between the rocks, converging on the pens.
"Here, you could have blasted in front of the pens, to ruin their night vision," the Nightmare remarked. "We would be seeing far less accurate ranged attacks."
Astrid winced as a bola took down a Zippleback, knocking it out of the sky to by chance impale itself quite neatly upon one of the fence posts, displacing the Terrible Terror corpse spiked there. The casualties were already mounting. Two Gronckles buzzed away with limp white bundles between their claws, but that wasn't nearly enough; the fight was nowhere near done.
Vikings swarmed the pens, throwing spears and bolas as they rushed for the gates, which were for some reason built on the far side.
"We would rather you not blast those gates, though they make a great choke point," the Nightmare suggested. "A few kills during one raid does not offset the long-term damage them rebuilding the gates closer to their nest would do. As it stands, they are too lazy or stupid to do it without the excuse of having to rebuild anyway."
Astrid spared a moment to think back to Berk's architecture, but thankfully she couldn't think of any similar mistakes her own people might be making. The village was not so stupidly arranged that their own design decisions hampered their response. She wouldn't have wanted to be the one to tell her people otherwise.
The Nightmare groaned loudly, startling her. "And now he is fighting," she said sourly. "He should not risk himself like this, but he insists on sharing the danger."
Astrid quickly located the Nightmare the female was talking about, the one she knew. He was fully alight, setting fire to a portion of the fence while fending off three extremely large and bulky Vikings, each of whom wielded a shield and club. He seemed to be doing well.
It remained unclear whether she wanted him to do well, though. She shouldn't be rooting for a Monstrous Nightmare, or for any dragon at all. Sure, it was just him, she didn't care about the rest of the dragons, but it was the principle of the thing.
"And here we could really use your firepower," the female exclaimed, losing the calm, mostly detached attitude she had been holding, true anger entering her deep voice. "See the black-furred monstrosity of a human over there? He leads them, and personally spikes every corpse they create onto their barbaric wall of death."
Still conflicted over which side she felt attached to, Astrid reluctantly looked to the human she was being told about.
A large, truly massive Viking with dirty black hair, both on his head and on his face, yelled loudly and swung dual axes, cutting down a distinctive brown and yellow Gronckle, laughing evilly. He was so loud, Astrid could hear him from high above the island, a distant cackle that broke through on the quieter moments.
Several things suddenly jumped out at Astrid, details she had somehow missed, things that explained the larger picture. These Vikings had no ships of their own and no docks to speak of. They lived on a mostly barren, barely habitable rock. They had a massive, black-haired brute of a chieftain with a loud and disturbing laugh, who wielded two axes. All of that told her the tribe, now that she put it together.
The Outcasts. The tribe that wasn't really a tribe, a group of men and sometimes women whose only common tie was that they had been thrown out of their original tribe for some crime. They had no permanent docks or ships because they were sunk on sight by every other tribe in the archipelago, and the brute was Alvin the Treacherous, the greatest enemy of Stoick and by extension, Berk.
These were Berk's enemies. Astrid suddenly wished more than anything that she could use her fire. This was one fight where she could support the dragons without an issue. Anything that weakened the Outcasts was good.
But she didn't know how to fire. Aside from the instincts that probably lurked in the back of her mind somewhere, she couldn't see when and where she should fire, which was just as important. The Nightmare only pointed out targets in retrospect, after the moment striking them would become useful. She couldn't participate, even though she now wanted to.
The rest of the raid went well enough even without Astrid's involvement, though it could have gone better. The dragons managed to pick up a dozen more sheep during the chaos, and none of the Monstrous Nightmares were killed during the fight, though Alvin had just begun to fight one when the female Nightmare by Astrid roared for the raiders to retreat. Dragons disengaged and flew away, deftly avoiding parting shots by angered Outcasts, and regrouped in the air far above the island, panting or groaning depending on whether they were more tired or in pain.
The most striking thing about all of it, at least to Astrid, was the speed. She knew that raids were relatively fast fights, but that had felt like it was over before it began, almost. Maybe it was her preoccupation with which side she was on, or the fact that she was watching from afar instead of being in the middle of the action, but the entire ordeal felt almost disappointingly short.
The female Nightmare quickly found her mate among the returning dragons, and flew by his side as the flock of dragons sorted itself back into the normal travel formation. Over a dozen dead sheep dangled macabrely from the grips of various dragons. The raid had been a success.
Astrid found herself looking back at the island, and her night vision afforded her a clear view of the figure she was sure was Alvin hoisting a dead Gronckle, the distinctive one, and spiking it on a fence post, slamming the large and dense body down like it was a fraction of its weight.
Maybe next time she could end him herself. He deserved to die. This was one island Astrid would not object to raiding. Her moral quandary had been quite effectively rendered moot for now.
But she couldn't help but feel she had been given only a temporary reprieve on that front. She had rooted for the Nightmare she knew before she knew who he was fighting. These oddly treacherous sympathies wouldn't go away just because they had raided the Outcasts once.
Astrid had not participated in the battle, but she almost felt as if she had. Her mind was unsettled, and she didn't think she'd sleep much whenever they set down to rest, just as if she had been fighting moments ago and was still too worked up to relax.
And in a way, she had. But unlike the raid, her own personal fight against her shifting feelings had no clear ending.