Astrid flew out to sea, past the sea stack maze and into the sunlight beyond the fog. She clutched the now familiar shape of the conch shell in her front paws and set down on a small sea stack just beyond the fog barrier. It was one she'd seen before, sporting a dip in the side just above sea level large enough for her to land and hold on to.

She scooped the conch through the water, clutching it with her claws. That was the easy part. Getting it all the way back to the nest without dropping it or spilling its contents was the hard part, and one she had plenty of practice with over the last four days.

She carefully rearranged her grip on the shell, clutching at the side so that when she folded her arm back like she would for flight, the open top of the conch pressed into her stomach, which acted as a cover to stop it from spilling. Then she launched from the divot in the sea stack, flapping powerfully to get up and away from the water.

She could have taken water from closer to the nest. The ash pooled and concentrated around the shores and the bases of sea stacks, so it would not be hard to get a cleaner shell-full of sea water without totally leaving the nest and the fog around it. Not entirely clean, floating specks still congregated even at the far edges of the maze, but clean enough.

That would be lazy, though. She was already going to the trouble of getting water multiple times a day. Cut corners or not, it was still a hassle. She might as well do it right.

One short but awkward flight later, she swooped down to land on the shore of the nest, watching the land and sky around her for prying eyes. She did not want to be seen doing this. If they were Vikings, her tending a wounded, eligible male would start rumors. That would have been bad enough. But they were dragons, the only ones of their kind around, and as such she was literally the only female he could consider, and vice versa. Rumor would be too weak a word for how much talking and speculation there would be.

Aside from a few blurry shapes too far up to matter, she was alone and presumably unobserved. She ran on three paws, still clutching the shell tightly to her stomach, and made her way to the Night Fury's rock. It was large, flat, and close enough to the sheer slopes of the volcano proper to block the wind most of the time, and she often found him there.

She didn't know why he had bothered to claim a rock down by the shore; he was the only dragon to have done so, as far as she knew. The sleeping alcoves where she and the rest of the nest slept were easily accessible on foot, never all that crowded, and warm from the wafting heat of the volcano's lower reaches. They were also private enough that she didn't have a problem sleeping there, and it was not as if he had a reason to avoid them…

Unless he was avoiding her, in which case she wholeheartedly approved. Now that she thought about it, she didn't know what she would have done had she seen him sleeping anywhere near where she took her rest, back before it had fully sunken in that he wasn't going to do anything else… and that she wasn't going to kill him. Better for both of them that he kept his distance.

Now, though, she was visiting him multiple times a day. Morning, twice during the afternoon, and once as twilight set in outside of the ever-present fog bank, at the very least. Sometimes more often, depending on whether she was bored. There wasn't much to do with her time other than fly, and ferrying his conch shell back and forth at least gave her a goal for said flying.

The least enjoyable part of her self-appointed task was actually interacting with him when she delivered the water, but she didn't find that too odious to endure, either. He was quiet, reserved, and avoided provoking her.

Like now. He lay on his rock, wings held close and paws splayed out. His eyes followed her as she approached, but otherwise he held perfectly still. Once she was close enough she laboriously unknotted cramped and locked muscles to deposit the shell on the ground in front of him. It was still mostly full, the small portion of missing water forming a damp patch on her stomach. Far better than the dregs that would have been all that was left behind had she tried to fly it to him without covering the top.

"Thank you," he said, as per usual. His voice was still raspier than it should be, and when he stood to take the shell, he lacked the usual fluidity of motion that had come with their earlier interactions. It was a small thing, one noticeable only in its absence, but enough that she could have guessed he was unwell even if she knew nothing else.

She turned to leave; lingering would only make things awkward. More awkward, that was. There was a baseline level of awkwardness that came with doing a kind thing for someone she had openly professed to hate, and did still genuinely resent, but not enough to stand by and watch him suffer… and she hadn't explained any of her reasoning to him because it was easier to just not think about it. So he didn't understand why she was doing this, but he didn't ask because he didn't want her to stop.

It was easier to leave as quickly as possible.

She flew up to the top of the volcano and flew around in loops above it for a little bit, watching the dragons who came and went via the opening in the top, but her heart wasn't in it. She could go find Mentor, but he'd be busy keeping an eye out for fights. She could go flying, but she'd done plenty of that already and there was only so much aerial acrobatics she could do before her wings started to ache in new and interesting ways.

There was no training to be done. She didn't have any chores or responsibilities aside from the self-inflicted one she had just finished with. There was no hut to help repair, no fish to salt and preserve, no Snotlout to avoid or twins to ignore…

There was nothing for her to do, not even anything she'd mildly resent being expected to do under different circumstances. She was fairly certain that there were things she could be doing, were she a normal dragon leading a normal life, but none of those made sense for her now. She had no friends aside from Mentor, and no desire to make more. No rivals, that was for certain. Not even any admirers, so long as one didn't count the Nadder from the arena. Little was expected of her, and nobody wanted anything from her except for Inferna who could go stick her ugly head in the sea and drown for all Astrid cared.

Maybe she could go somewhere and practice fighting… There had to be something she could do to make herself better. Clawing at boulders, perhaps, and pretending they were enemies. As if that would help. Or she could practice with her fire for a little while, though that would be cut short when she ran out of fire and had to wait for it to come back.

A low, insistent rumble interrupted her sporadic thoughts and listless gliding. She looked down just in time to see Inferna's ugly head rising from the volcanic mists.

Inferna never came up unless she wanted to give orders. Everyone knew that, even Astrid by now. The dragons in the air around her all flew down, back into the volcano, and more came down from the fog above. The only ones who wouldn't be attending this impromptu summons would be those who were out fishing, a mere handful out of hundreds.

All Inferna had to do was show herself, and her slaves all came running lest they provoke her ire. Astrid hated it with all her might. But she still flew down, just like everyone else. Her intentions, her feelings, had to be hidden until she knew how to act on them. That meant attending the summons like everyone else.

She made for the ledge that the Nightmares tended to gather on, partially out of habit and partially because of the disgruntled looks her presence there drew from some of the other dragons. She hadn't forgotten the hierarchy that one Gronckle had told her about, even if it hadn't come up since. Her standing with the most esteemed dragons of the nest had to ruffle a few… scales. She liked it that way. It was familiar.

Inferna lingered in the mists, only the top of her head and two eyes visible, and waited. For what, Astrid didn't know. Usually, Inferna wanted one of two things. Something to do with Night Furies, or to order another raid. That she waited implied the former, as she would know that the Night Fury had to walk, and would thus take longer to reach the volcano than everyone else.

Astrid's suspicions were confirmed when the Night Fury walked in on the other side of the volcano, emerging from a tunnel Astrid had never had cause to take onto a ledge populated mostly with Nadders. Inferna quickly rose from the mists, turning to glare at him.

"You, male Bolt," she rumbled like distant thunder, "tell me, what has the female Bolt done with you recently?"

"I taught her how to aim her fire," the Night Fury responded. "And… she brings me fresh water, now. We see each other often."

So much for keeping that a secret. She could have counted on one paw the number of dragons who didn't react in some way to his statement. A lot of confused looks were being directed her way.

"That is… something…" Inferna growled. Then she turned to eye Astrid. "You are caring for him," she hummed smugly. "You are far more accommodating than the last Flightless. Killing one of your past kind, passing my tests, caring for the male Bolt... I almost believe you really are trying."

"I have no choice but to try," Astrid reminded her. "Whether or not I want to." That she had done this of her own accord, not some misplaced sense of obligation, could remain a secret. Inferna didn't need to know there was a difference.

"No, you do not have a choice," Inferna agreed. "But one Flightless is not enough. Next time, I expect you to faithfully and accurately perform the duties your kind always has."

"I have no choice," Astrid repeated, as that was the closest she could make herself get to agreeing.

"Tonight, another raid leaves, and it has the same target as last time." Inferna leered cruelly at her. "So that you may correct your previous failure. If you had not failed, the raid would go elsewhere."

The same target as last time... Berk. She was being sent back to Berk, to fire at and this time harm her own people. To maybe find and reconvene with Snotlout, if she could manage it.

And she would have to leave the Night Fury here. That meant she would not be able to bring him clean water for several days, and now having begun that pattern she was loath to abandon it. Him drinking clean water would only make a difference if he was able to consistently drink it.

That was a decidedly smaller problem than being told to attack her own tribe, but it was one she could conceivably solve…

And maybe she could use it to carry favor with Inferna, or at least to avoid suspicion.

"I will perform the duties expected of me," she announced. Inferna had been eyeing her and the Night Fury ever since Astrid acknowledged her latest orders, and Astrid realized that she might be interrupting any evil scheming going on in the massive monstrosity's mind, but she pressed forward anyway. "But while I am gone, the Bolt needs someone to bring him fresh water. I would… appreciate it if you could have someone do it in my stead."

"Would you?" Inferna huffed a blast of hot air at her ledge, almost knocking her over. She was still staggering while Inferna continued. "I am not in the habit of solving the problems of my lessers... "

"You wished to see me adjusting to my new position in life," Astrid gritted out. It hurt to even pretend to be conceding, but if it worked she'd cope. If it didn't… then at least she had tried.

"Your Flare guard will not go on this hunt, then," Inferna announced. "She will do what you did for the male Bolt while you are gone. I will instead take a report from several different flames who went down to fight. If they did not notice your fire having an impact on the flow of the fight, you will suffer for it."

"I understand," she said stiffly. Inside, she was cheering. Not because the Night Fury would be tended to; she would have made sure of that somehow. No, she was internally celebrating both the fact that it would be the annoying Nadder doing it, and thus not coming along. She hadn't even hoped for such a convenience. It would have been highly suspicious to try and arrange for her designated watcher to be busy while she went to Berk. But if Inferna decided it of her own accord…

Though she didn't know why Inferna had chosen that particular Nadder, and not knowing could be dangerous. Maybe this was a trap. Or maybe the Nadder was simply the first dragon Inferna had thought of, and thus a convenience. Or Inferna suspected the Nadder was not a reliable source – an entirely reasonable suspicion for anyone who has ever met the Nadder to have– and was simply removing her from responsibility at the first opportunity that wouldn't make it look like she was regretting a previous decision.

In any case, Astrid didn't mind the new method of keeping track of her actions. All Inferna had asked of her this time was to impact the flow of the fight. Purely structural damage would do that just fine. Blocking paths, setting things on fire as distraction... Half of what Mentor's mate had pointed out on that first raid at Outcast island had been purely structural targets. Astrid didn't want to destroy Berk's buildings, but it was far better than destroying the people.

The dragons around her all began moving away from the ledge. Inferna had gone, though Astrid hadn't even noticed her disappearing beneath the fog, she was so caught up in finally catching a break.

~O~o~O~

Astrid was growing familiar with the rhythm of a raid from the perspective of a dragon. It had a regular flow to it, a series of events that never changed. First, the dragons gathered above the volcano. Then, they arranged themselves into a formation and flew for most of the night, before stopping to rest. This pattern continued as needed by the dragons least suited to long-distance flight until they reached the island they intended to raid. The relatively frequent breaks were somewhat annoying, as she was pretty sure she could fly all the way to Berk and back in a single flight if need be, but she couldn't deny that the Gronckles and Zipplebacks definitely needed every single stop they made.

With the absence of her chatty Nadder guard time flew by, and almost before she knew it Mentor's mate was gliding above Berk while the rest of the dragons headed down.

Mentor's son was not up there with them this time around. He was down in the fighting despite what his mother would prefer. And didn't that sound familiar; going out fighting when his parents would rather he not… Hiccup in a nutshell, there. All he was missing was the inventive but ultimately pointless contraptions.

It occurred to her that she hadn't thought about Hiccup in a while. That was no surprise, really. He had only impacted her life for a few weeks on Berk, and a few moments in the sky. A small thing when compared to the utter insanity that had immediately followed his death. It was no wonder he was not often on her mind. In fact, the last time she had thought of him was…

When the Night Fury referred to him as a friend, probably. Only that; he didn't seem to have a name for Hiccup, or even to know that name, which made sense. He was a dragon, they didn't give each other names.

"Female Bolt, do you need me to call out targets?" Mentor's mate asked kindly.

"No, I've got it," Astrid replied, focusing on the task at hand. She needed to make an obvious impact on the battle but she hadn't yet determined how best to do that. She eyed the village, noticing that almost everyone was funneling through certain paths towards the fields, travelling in small groups, often with gaps between them.

Berk really needed a more open village layout, anyway. Astrid decided to collapse the buildings on either side of three important paths. She was choosing storehouses only used in the spring, so nobody would lose anyone or anything, and repair would be easy. That was six of her shots accounted for, probably enough to satisfy Inferna. The Night Fury never used all eight of his shots in a single battle, so she didn't need to either.

Then something caught her eye, something both worrying and promising. There was a solitary Viking standing at the bottom of a familiar rocky scree and looking to the sky. Snotlout.

She had almost forgotten about him. He had to be looking for her, going back there. He didn't have his sword, which was a good sign.

She could find out what he wanted once she had done what was required of her. There was no more time to plan, but she hastily added a fourth thoroughfare to her list of targets, more to exhaust her last two shots than anything, and began to fire.

Building after building exploded and collapsed outward, each shot connecting in the right general area. Her aim was good enough for this; Inferna's tests had been harder. She did accidentally hit to the side of one targeted building, but the other one made up for that by entirely collapsing onto the street.

Mentor's mate growled her approval. "Excellent, if a bit wasteful. You have bought our raiders time."

She had also bought herself time. She nodded, doing her best to look troubled, though that basically consisted of letting her ears droop and putting a quiver into her voice. "I did, but... it is a strange feeling. I will rejoin you when we go, but for now, I need to think." She flew away, making it look as if she was going to fly out over the ocean, and then doubled back once Mentor's mate had returned to her assigned task of watching and calling the raid when necessary.

Safe in the knowledge that none of the dragons knew what she was doing, she swooped down to the hillside to grab Snotlout with all four limbs, yanking him into the air with absolutely no warning. This time his screaming cut off almost immediately.

In its place were angry questions. "Was that you just now?" he demanded. "You just messed up half the village!"

His words hurt, though he was exaggerating, because in the end she had struck at her people, and helped the dragons in a major way. But she was not a traitor; she was simply protecting herself and minimizing casualties. That was not the act of a traitor, that was an act of someone who knew that the true enemy was neither Viking nor raiding dragon, but what caused the raids.

If that was not enough, there was also the fact that if she did not appear to cooperate with the dragons, Inferna would take it out on Berk. She knew she was doing the right thing. As the only one who could see the whole picture, the only judge of her actions that mattered was herself.

With that resolution, she put the moral implications of her actions out of her mind. This time, she dropped Snotlout on the edge of one of Berk's cliffs, not on a sea stack. He had earned at least that much trust.

He glared at her, tapping his foot in the dirt. He still wanted an answer; her internal musings on the subject wouldn't mean anything to him.

'Now is a time for answers,' she wrote. 'I made sure to not kill anyone.'

"That's not good enough," he huffed. "You slowed them all down, and we're losing sheep right now because of that. I should be out there."

'You have more important things to do,' she objected.

Snotlout seemed to remember that as he read her words, again out loud and slowly. "Oh, right!" His face fell. "But I haven't had a chance to get to Fishlegs yet. We've all been busy."

That was fine. She did not expect anything to come of his efforts in any case.

"But I've got you, babe, don't worry," he blustered. "Next time."

'Next time,' she agreed. 'Tonight, I have things to tell you.' She had not expected to come back so soon, but since she was here, she might as well. There were things she knew that Berk could definitely stand to learn, both about her experience and about dragons in general. Snotlout would be her mouthpiece, though she had no idea how he was going to present his new knowledge so as to not arouse suspicion.

'I am a dragon,' she began, writing as quickly as she could manage. Her wrist was already beginning to ache.

"Duh," he remarked. "I know that."

'You did not know dragons talk to each other,' she continued.

He scowled at her, blatantly unamused. "No, they don't. We'd hear it."

"Shut up you idiot, obviously there is another language you would not know," she said out loud, enunciating every word. It came out as a floating wave of growls, rumbles, and a few guttural noises that all blended together quite well if one was listening solely for the sound, not the meaning.

'That was an example,' she wrote.

"So… growling," he said doubtfully.

This was a waste of time. 'You will not be able to understand it. Just know they do speak to each other.'

"Okay, sure. So they're talking animals." He squinted at her, then looked back over his shoulder toward the village. "Do they plan things?" he asked.

He was catching on to why dragons being capable of complex communication was important, at least. She wouldn't need to spell out everything. 'Yes. They are like us. People.'

"So they're just another tribe of jerks raiding us!" He frowned at nothing in particular. "Nobody will like that."

She was honestly surprised he didn't seem to mind. It probably just fit with the whole fantasy scenario he was clinging to. Of course the dragons all talked, everything talked in the stories, if only to throw insults and gloat most of the time.

'Truth does not have to be liked.' Now for some more useful truths. 'The nest is a desolate island volcano at the center of the fog.'

"Really..." He stared at her. "You can take us there!" That idea caught his imagination, and he began posing heroically. One hand on his hip, the other holding an imaginary sword, eyes half closed as he envisioned more interesting surroundings than a dark cliffside... "Snotlout Jorgenson... tames a mighty beast, and forces it to lead the brave fleet to the nest!"

She growled at him. He flinched.

"I said tame," he said consolingly, holding his hands out as if to placate her. "You can act tame, right? Let me knock you around a bit, maybe get you tied up, and take us there. Uncle Stoick will believe it, he's desperate to find the nest."

Yes, that might work… Or they might just take the bird in the hand and cut her heart out. Stupid risks to her own health aside, though... 'No fleet would survive.'

"Oh yeah?" Snotlout flexed his right arm, staring adoringly at his own muscle for a moment. "What's there? A dozen Night Furies? Two hundred Skrill? We've got that in the bag."

'One Inferna,' she wrote, spelling Inferna out in runes. The name even looked menacing written down.

"I don't know that word," Snotlout muttered. "Is that a kind of dragon?"

'Yes.' If one could call something that massive a dragon at all… She was talking about something entirely out of his league, but he wouldn't understand that. Snotlout was a Viking, she was pretty sure he wouldn't believe just how futile it was to attack Inferna with conventional weapons, no matter what she wrote. She still had a hard time comprehending the scale on which her enemy existed, the power she could bring to bear if she wanted, physical and mental. He certainly wouldn't get it second hand, no matter how eloquent she might attempt to be.

But... she could just outright lie. She needed Snotlout to come to the correct conclusion, it didn't particularly matter how he did so. 'It has magic. As long as it lives, no human will survive attacking the nest.' Snotlout might not believe in being outmatched in physical strength – his ego outweighed his gullibility – but he would believe it if there was magic involved.

"So how did you get there?" His face had fallen at her lie. "If it's not even attackable."

'Brought by a dragon. Hiccup died. I almost died. Dragon changed me.' She shook her head. 'Night Fury changed me.'

"So you're a Night Fury because one did this to you?" Snotlout shook his head. "That might be important, but I don't know."

She didn't want to spend time on this topic. It was pointless. 'Another thing. The dragons do not want to fight.'

"Of course they do! Are they cowards?" Snotlout glared at her. "And you attacked Berk. I still don't get that."

'Same reason. No choice. Inferna commands, they obey. Cannot disobey. Want to, but cannot.' She would lump herself in with them. The only difference was one of leverage instead of dominion. 'Inferna is the reason for war. No Inferna, no raids.'

"That's…" he waved a meaty hand in the air, as if searching for a fitting word to describe the magnitude of what she had just told him. "Huge. Nobody will believe it."

'No, they will not,' Astrid agreed. 'Surprised you do.'

"You're Astrid, you don't lie or make stuff up," he asserted plainly, as if speaking an obvious fact. "If you say they talk, they do. If you say they're slaves to one big, magic demon-dragon, then they are."

He didn't know that she had already lied to him. That she was manipulating him and holding things back even now. He thought she was perfect, if slightly less perfect than himself. She would have found that nauseating, but right now it just made her feel guilty.

But this was how things had to be. There was too much at stake to just give him everything and hope he didn't take it the wrong way. If she wrote out all she had said and done since becoming a dragon, he would probably turn his back on her at the very least, and she needed this connection to the human world far too much to risk that.

This whole meeting was fairly pointless. She didn't have anything immediately useful to pass on, and he hadn't even had time to do his own investigating.

'What is happening in the village?' she asked. News of home would probably make her feel worse, but she felt compelled to ask despite that.

"Like, in general?" He shrugged his shoulders. "The arena dragons escaped somehow."

She searched his face, but she couldn't see a single sign that he suspected her involvement, despite it being pretty obvious. If he didn't know or even suspect, she certainly wasn't going to confess on her own. That would just complicate things.

'How did they end dragon training without a Nightmare?' she asked.

"Gobber came up with this metal dragon costume, and a few guys ran around in it, but it wasn't the same," Snotlout muttered. "And Tuffnut won, anyway."

Tuffnut won the entire thing, in her and Hiccup's absence. That was... well, not really a surprise. Fishlegs certainly wasn't up to it, and Snotlout's overconfidence and ego had probably tripped him up somehow.

'Just Tuffnut?' she asked. That only one of the twins had won was odd. She had gone through dragon training with the impression that their performance would be judged as a single unit, not two individuals. They lived

"Oh, yeah, he and Ruffnut are arguing. It's a big one this time." He shrugged. "They'll get over it."

'What about?' Her wrist was really hurting now, so she switched to her other front paw. She was either ambidextrous in this body, or just equally horrible at everything. Or both, in the case of scratching out runes. Her writing speed didn't change, at least. It was still miserably slow.

"How should I know?" Snotlout complained. "I don't care what they do."

Right, of course, this was Snotlout. She shouldn't have expected anything more from him. His delusions of grandeur only covered the extraordinary, not the mundane.

'How is the Chief holding up?' His son was dead, after all, and Snotlout had to know something about the Chief of the entire village.

"Holding up?" Snotlout snorted. "He barely cares, as far as I know. He just drinks more often now, and yells at everything. If anything, he's more of a Chief now than before!"

Of course Snotlout would see it like that. But if Stoick was still leading, that was enough. Berk needed a leader, especially if Inferna decided to keep sending raids there to spite Astrid. Hopefully, tales of how effective Astrid had been would put a stop to that, if Inferna thought she really didn't care.

Astrid looked to the sky, but she had not missed the roar while asking all of her questions. The raid was still going.. But surely not for much longer. 'I should go soon.'

"Do what you want," Snotlout agreed. "Next time we meet… I'll figure something out. You won't be stuck like that forever." His enthusiasm was if not fading then at least becoming more solemn. "What's it like?"

'Different,' she said truthfully

"Duh," was his unimpressed response. "How, though?"

'I have a tail,' she elaborated. 'Wings. Moving ears and teeth. I only need to eat once a week or so.'

"Well that sucks," Snotlout asserted. "Who would want to eat once a week? You'd be hungry all the time!"

That wasn't how it worked, but she didn't feel like explaining that hunger wasn't the same as a dragon. She felt it, even now, but until it passed a certain point it didn't bother her. It was just a feeling telling her how long it had been since she last ate.

'I can fly, breathe fire, drink seawater,' she continued, feeling the need to be honest. 'I am still strong and quick, more so now than before.'

"Not like I expected anything different," Snotlout said slyly. "But you'll be very grateful to be back to normal, right? Very, very grateful?"

'If you can manage it, you will get exactly what was bargained for last time. Nothing more.' She hissed at him for good measure. 'Next time, just come here during the raid.'

"There might be other dragons in the woods," he objected. "Do I get to bring my sword?"

She gave him a flat stare. 'No, there are not. I would know. And no, you do not. I would take it from you.' She didn't trust him with a sword.

"Fine. I don't need a sword to kick dragon butt anyway." He paused. "Wait... do you have one of those? It's hard to tell."

She didn't bother responding to that. He had behaved extremely well for the most part, so she'd skip slapping him for that as a reward.

"Never mind, I don't want to see it anyway," he continued. "Hey... if you're a Night Fury, and there's another one around..."

So he had finally picked up on that. 'Inferna likes that. Neither I nor the other do. Nothing will happen for now. But if I cannot hold Inferna at bay...' She let the absence of an explanation serve as the explanation itself. His mind was already in the right place to connect the dots.

"So kill the other one," he suggested, taking his hands and miming a jabbing motion with an imaginary sword. "Problem solved! If I had my sword and it wasn't magically protected, I'd say take me to the nest and let me kill him. You promised me his body, right?"

'If I could have killed him, I would have.' She ignored the fact that she had been given exactly that chance a few days ago and had chosen instead to help him.

"Okay..." he trailed off. "Could you trick him into getting himself killed?"

A loud roar sounded, signaling the end of the raid and thus their conversation. Snotlout grinned at the noise, looking smug. "Always the same dragon, right? You can tell we're doing well when it sounds scared."

The roar had been more worried than usual. 'Yes, same dragon. I must go.' She bounded away, leaping into the air and finding the flock.

Said flock was in a total disarray, making it easy to approach without anyone noticing where she came from. Mentor's mate was nosing at Mentor, who seemed fine, if bloodied and cut in several places, and their son flew behind them, so everyone Astrid personally knew on this raid was fine. But, as she looked around, she saw that they had brought in maybe half of the normal amount of sheep.

She rose up to Mentor's mate. "We did not do well?" she asked worriedly. If they had not done well, but it was not her fault, she didn't know what Inferna would decide to do.

"You were a great help, but no," Mentor sighed, answering immediately. "We should not have come back so soon. They were ready for a fight after the last raid, we lost the element of surprise far too quickly."

That made sense... and it was therefore Inferna's fault she would not be getting much food. Not that she would see it that way. Astrid had a feeling some of the larger dragons around her might not live past returning, and by the worried murmurs all around her, they knew it.

Hopefully Mentor and his family were safe. They were Nightmares, and there were relatively few of those in the nest. Inferna seemed aware of the need to keep up the population, if only so she had more food and food-gatherers, so the Nightmares were probably safer than most dragons.

At that... she could ask. "This might be a bad question, but... does Inferna eat Blazes?"

Mentor stared at her, his eyes narrow and pained. "Yes," he eventually replied with a dark snarl, "she does. My first daughter was eaten last cold-season, when she bore no eggs for the third cold-season in a row, despite Inferna's 'help'."

"Help, as in forcing her mate aside and having all of the other males not related to her try," Mentor's mate added bitterly. "She just could not have eggs, it happens sometimes. But to Inferna, that made her a snack, not a servant."

"I am sorry," Astrid whined, feeling terrible about digging up old grief. "I should not have asked."

"No, but you do not know better," Mentor sighed. "And you would have heard about it sooner or later."

The three Nightmares fell into a heavy silence, one Astrid did not want to break. She found herself thinking of Snotlout, of all people. Again, he had surprised her. His bravado was the only thing that made him recognizable tonight. He had been straightforward, open to new ideas, and calm. She could not blame all of that on his ambitions and delusional plans for the future. He was just better when things were serious.

When someone was counting on him, and him alone. Maybe all he had needed to focus was that kind of push... and a lack of a pretty girl to stare at. Though he was doing all of this in hopes of getting the pretty girl back and indebted to him.

No matter. The fact remained that he was capable of being a pretty good person to turn to in a crisis, assuming she saw all that was going on. If he was betraying her behind her back, or turned on her once he figured out she could not be trusted.

Trust… she wasn't sure she deserved it. Not from him, not really. He didn't know so much. That she was tending to the Night Fury instead of watching and hoping it died. That she had friends among the dragons. That she did not consider them enemies at all, aside from Inferna.

Seeing Snotlout had done no practical good, but it had certainly put her own choices into perspective. She was not doing what he would do, or even what he thought she would do, and she was pretty sure she knew why. In turning to accept that Inferna was the enemy, she had by necessity also put some distance between herself and Berk. They would not understand until it was over. And until then, she wasn't really any more on their side than she was on the dragons' side. Whatever it took to survive and hopefully take Inferna down, and nothing more.

She had changed. It was impossible to pinpoint when, exactly, the idea of not being totally on Berk's side had become acceptable, but it clearly had, because she didn't really mind the idea.