The sea rose and fell restlessly, waves growing and being subsumed in endless cycles along its surface. The star-studded sky was partially overcast, but the clouds weren't sticking around, scuttling along across the sky as a strong wind pushed incessantly. Light sprinkles of snow fell from some of the heavier clouds, doomed to disappear into the ocean.
Astrid flew through all of this, her scales cold and frost slowly building up on her nostrils, but she barely felt it. Something was bothering her, and it wasn't the weather, which was relatively mild for this time of year. Stormfly flew silently behind her, the usual chattiness replaced by a dogged determination to reach the nest. They were both tired, but Stormfly just wasn't built for multiple long-distance flights without much rest in between and it was wearing on her.
The thing bothering Astrid was not her final conversation with Snotlout; how well it had gone was par for the course at this point. Nor was it her impending actions with Toothless. That was always on the back of her mind, like slowly-approaching waves one could see and watch near the shore some days, unstoppable surges of water.
No, what bothered her was something far more fundamental. Snotlout had asked why the other dragons couldn't help kill Inferna. The answer was obvious; there was a command stopping them from attacking her. Maybe several.
But commands were not absolute. Inferna overrode or discarded her own commands all the time, and even when she did not, sometimes they could be avoided or circumvented. There might be something to all of that, something vitally important.
Astrid kept coming back to the same idea, unable to dismiss or discount it. If all the dragons of the nest used their Solar fire on Inferna, she would be dead. It was not possible at the moment, but if anything would kill her for sure, that would be it. Multiple dragons did not combine their flames to accomplish larger transformations than they could do separately, but that was only because they would not be creating the same thing. Whatever was being changed would suffer for it, but that was the point here.
If it was possible to arrange at all. The Zippleback might be able to tell her something. An unwitting comment from Snotlout had gotten her this far, and though she could not see where this line of inquiry was going to lead, it was leading somewhere. She could not let it fade from her mind.
But that was going to have to wait. There was a time for everything, and right now she was tired, physically and emotionally. She just wanted to sleep until dawn.
Stormfly peeled off before they reached the Nest, heading around to the tunnel Astrid knew led to the sleeping alcoves. "You are not coming?" she asked tiredly. "I don't know where you get the energy."
No, she was not going to the sleeping alcoves. Astrid shook her head and let her tired wings carry her onward. She didn't want to go anywhere close to Inferna, lest she say or do something to sabotage herself. It was stupid, but the only thing the volcano offered that she could not get elsewhere was warmth, and a little discomfort was the least of her problems right now. She could sleep outside, like Toothless did...
Like Toothless. Who she was supposed to be getting used to her presence.
She turned her flight toward the base of the volcano, exhausted and mentally spent, and considered what she was doing, and why.
She didn't want to go into the volcano, meaning that she was cold and had no obvious way to warm herself. He would be warm. She was cold, even in this body with its internal fire. Dragons slept with friends; it didn't have to mean anything. And in less than a day, what they would be forced to do would easily overshadow any lesser act of intimacy. It would be good if she could desensitize herself and Toothless beforehand.
There was no reason not to, so long as she could make herself do it.
It made her uncomfortable, even as she decided not to care, but she did it anyway. She landed by his rock, stepped up to his sleeping form, and curled up with her back to his. He was warm and scaly, though that warmth was only at her back.
There were better positions for her to take if she wanted to more effectively share his warmth, but she still had some reservations. Not to mention that he might wake before her and freak out if she was all over him. He was too fragile to test like that, whether or not she'd be willing to do so herself.
As it was, she was just lying with her back to someone. Nothing to it.
Her exhaustion did the rest, dragging her down into sleep before she could second-guess herself.
~O~o~O~
Astrid knew when it was dawn; there was no ray of sunlight to wake her, but her body always woke at that time anyway. If she relied on the sun to signal the end of the night, she would never wake up in this place.
But that did not mean she wanted to get up yet. Her wings were sore, probably from the trip to Berk and back last night, and she could feel that lethargic warmth that sometimes made getting up difficult to want, no matter how important it was. The wind was cold, but so long as she held still or snuggled into the warmth at her back, she was comfortable.
And speaking of warmth... She could still feel Toothless' back against hers. Neither of them had shifted in the night. She opened her eyes and raised her head, craning her neck to look over at him. As she did, she felt a quick movement against her back.
His eyes were closed, and to all appearances he was dead to the world, but she suspected otherwise. "Get up. I know you were looking at me." If he had been that would explain the movement; he had dropped his head and closed his eyes the moment he knew she was awake.
"Sorry, I was just wondering if you were awake," he groaned, getting to his feet and moving away from her. "Why are you... here?"
"I was tired and you were warm. I am told friends sleep together sometimes, and that it means nothing more than that," Astrid summarized, rising and stretching. "And now I am here, right at dawn, as I said."
"Did you say dawn? I only recall you saying morning," he said.
"Close enough." Astrid grabbed the empty conch shell from where it sat beside his boulder and spread her wings, wincing at how heavy they felt. She had pushed herself last night, and today she was going to feel it. Not that it would affect her flying; she could probably do the entire flight to Berk and back again today if she needed to. It just wouldn't be pleasant.
She spent the quick flight out to the edge of the fog and back puzzling over the impossible. How to clear the way for the entire nest to attack Inferna with their Solar fire… If she kept thinking about it, she might be able to find out the questions that needed to be asked later today. Later, when Toothless was off on the run she had told him he would take, and she was supposed to be out flying. She would not be flying for fun today, not with how sore her wings were. There was no fun in that. She wouldn't be missing anything by spending that time talking to the Zippleback instead.
She returned with a conch shell full of water and a growing desire to get off her wings as soon as possible. He drank while she flicked them in and out a few times and gingerly folded them in, hoping they would recover quickly.
"Done a lot of flying recently?" he asked innocently.
"Maybe," she replied vaguely, hoping he'd recall that he was not a safe person for her to be in the habit of explaining everything to.
"Don't worry about the soreness," he advised, leaving off asking where and when she had flown long enough to be sore since he'd last seen her. "It will be mostly gone by noon, if you keep off them. We recover quickly. It is what makes us such good long-distance fliers."
"I suppose I'm thankful for that," she grumbled. "Do you need any more water?"
"Not for now, and as for later…" He looked past her, out at the sea stacks, then shook his head and returned her gaze. "That depends on what you'd have me doing right now. We are to spend time together, right?"
"Yes. I was thinking…" She trailed off, because she hadn't really thought about what they'd do now. The purpose of them interacting was to interact for the sake of it, nothing more. Grooming came to mind, but she quickly axed that terrible idea in the head and buried it. Flying was out because he couldn't fly, and they'd talked about all manner of things yesterday, so she didn't have any confidence in her ability to carry a fresh, interesting conversation now. It was too bad she didn't have hands and her ax, she could challenge him to a sparring match–
"Let's fight," she blurted out.
"I'd rather not," he said quickly. "I do not think that is a good idea… for a number of reasons. Not in the least that we are supposed to be warming up to each other, not tearing into each other."
"No, not like a real fight," she elaborated, pacing around him. He turned to watch her, placing his paws lightly and always keeping one eye on her tail, of all things. "You gave me some instincts, but they were not so useful on their own, and I have not had reason to refine them since. Teach me how you fight."
"That I can do," he huffed, dropping some of his tense posture. His one good ear and stub flicked up in unison, making him look far more approachable. "But I think you will be disappointed… I was never one for fighting with my claws and teeth, so my skills are basic at best."
"Still better than mine," she asserted. "So? Where do I start?"
"By not starting," he replied. "Or at least by understanding when to get close. We are Bolts, fast and able to strike from a distance. You should never attack an enemy up close without first injuring or disorienting them with a blast from far away. If you cannot do that, at least do not attack without the element of surprise. And do not attack up close without the intention of killing your enemy."
"So I am doing absolutely everything wrong?" she asked dryly, still circling him.
"Right now, yes," he snorted. "I do not know how it works for Flightless, but for us… We are ambush attackers, distance attackers. Other flames have harder scales, more close-range fires, and sometimes just more bulk to throw around. You would not want to come in close unless you were very confident or very desperate."
"Yes, I understand that now," she retorted, "but when I am that confident or desparate, what do I do? How do I approach the fight? That is what I am asking. Not whether to do it, but how to do it when needed."
"First, your claws," he instructed, holding out his left paw. He sheathed and unsheathed his claws in two fluid motions. "Keep them out and keep them ready. Never place all of your weight on any two paws, always keep one and only one ready to reach out and strike. Do not rear up when attacking, and do not use your wings as bludgeons no matter how much it seems like a good idea at the time…"
He kept talking, but she stopped listening. This wasn't how she liked to learn, not when the subject was something so visceral and easily demonstrated. "Stop," she requested. "Don't say it. Show it."
"Were you not listening when I said that fighting like this is far too easily turned lethal, even by accident?" he asked nervously. "We should not."
"I refuse to believe flames do not play-fight or teach their young to fight by doing," Astrid snorted. "We will keep our claws and teeth in, and you will take advantage of my mistakes whenever I make them."
She planted three paws in the shifting shoreline – she had retained at least that much from his dry lecture – and lifted the fourth, keeping her claws sheathed. Her tail swayed at the ready behind her. He crouched in response, his eyes wide and uncertain.
She didn't give him time to voice any more objections. She lashed out with her paw, trying to strike like she would with a dagger, aiming to jab him in the chest. But she misjudged the distance, falling miserably short of him and whiffing her paw through the air.
He lunged forward, apparently getting over his misgivings, and she found herself bowled over, his head under her chest and tossing her to the ground, on her side. She tried to turn into the roll, and managed to get on her back before he was on her again, not that such a position was an improvement.
He was over her, pinning her back legs with his tail, but she jerked her head forward and smacked her forehead on the underside of his neck, then twisted out of his grip, breathing heavily as she put a few steps between them.
"What did I do wrong?" she demanded, only a little annoyed by his sudden aggression. This was what she wanted, she shouldn't be mad about getting it.
"You misjudged your reach, and then when you took your paw back you put too much weight on it," he said briskly. "Do you really want to do this?"
"Yes, of course!" she rumbled. "That was exactly what I was asking for. Do it again!" She lunged forward, her left paw down and her right out, and shoved it directly at his face, still bereft of the claws that would be there in a real fight. This time she had erred on the side of caution and ended up punching him instead of the quick forward and back jab she had envisioned, but after the way he bowled her over last time, she didn't mind ramming him.
She hit his body, her paw impacting his side as he turned her strike aside, and then they were pushing each other, shoulder to shoulder. She got the bright idea to twist around and thump him with her tail to distract him – it had to be useful for something, and so far holding it behind her had done no good whatsoever – and tried to do so.
He hopped up, pulled at her wing shoulders with his paw, and twisted with her to land heavily on her back. His paws went to the base of her tail, and then her entire tail disappeared.
Astrid let out an undignified squawk and bodily heaved him off, twisting around to see what he had done. She couldn't feel her tail in the slightest, aside from its weight dangling bonelessly off her backside, and though it was still physically there she couldn't move it at all.
"Sorry," he huffed. "That was unfair. You didn't know about that."
"How do I get my tail back?" she demanded, more disquited than angry.
"Wait, the feeling will come back soon," he advised awkwardly.
"Well… we can do more while that happens," she decided, trying to shake off the disorienting numbness that encompassed everything behind her hips. "You keep jumping on me, am I making a mistake that is letting you do that?"
"No," he grumbled, ducking his head. "That's just how we would fight each other, because we're both so flat and low to the ground. If you are uncomfortable…"
It occurred to her that he had pinned her on her back on their first bout, and sprawled across her back on the second, and that him doing so was potentially… awkward… given what was coming this very night. But they were sparring; it wasn't the same thing. She believed that, down to her bones. The thought hadn't even crossed her mind until he brought it up.
He didn't see it like that, though. And it was not just her whose feelings mattered here.
"Do you want to continue?" she asked.
"Honestly, no." He looked her in the eye. "I don't want to do this. Any of it. Now, or tonight."
"This isn't the first time you've told me that," she remarked.
"Because it feels like I need to remind you, and myself," he explained guiltily. "You are being so kind, you almost make me think you do really–"
"I don't," she growled. "I really don't. If I had my way, if I was interested in you at all, it would be months, years before we got to that point, and my parents would approve the pairing, and there would be a wedding, a ceremony, things to actually make it official." And that was all assuming she would want to be with him at all, which she did not, but there was no reason to repeat that. He knew it well enough. "We just don't have a choice."
"Okay... as strange as it is, hearing you say things like that helps." He hopped in place, quickly stretching himself out. "I am going running, like you suggested last night. See you later."
"Meet in the Flicker's cave," Astrid reminded him. "You may have to wait for me, or I might be waiting for you. I don't know." It wasn't like they could schedule things exactly. Tracking time would be hard enough if they could see the sun, which they couldn't. Not down here.
"I will be there." He ran off at a dead sprint, heedless to the small pains running on stones and sharp shells probably brought, and was soon out of sight.
The next time they saw each other…
She didn't want to think about that. Instead, she walked away, impatiently waiting for her tail to go back to normal so she could fly. She had questions to ask.
~O~o~O~
It did not take long to find the distinctive dark blue Zippleback that liked to learn about Solar fire. He was on his own private ledge, one of the few above the main ledges as opposed to below. She set down in front of him and sat on her hind legs and tail, nodding politely.
"You look good," one head remarked. "You got around to removing those old scales."
"Mostly," the other corrected. "We advise you find time for the rest, and soon. The Flares will be sure to notice incomplete grooming, and it is tiring to explain to them any failure to maintain basic cleanliness. More tiring than just doing it."
That sounded like advice given from experience. "Had some trouble with them in the past?" she guessed.
"We went a cold-season without cleaning ourselves so as to collect all the old scales at once afterward and use them to try something with Solar fire," the Zippleback admitted ruefully, his left head shaking regretfully at the right. "The idea was that scales might be able to enhance the fire somehow."
"It was a stupid idea," the left head sighed. "Complete guesswork. We just wanted an excuse to get on their nerves. It was something of an ongoing feud."
"Well, I like stupid ideas, because sometimes they turn out useful," Astrid remarked, awkwardly leading the conversation where she wanted it to go. "I have a few of my own, and a few more questions for you, just so that I can understand a little better. All purely hypothetical, of course."
"Be warned, we know not what hidden commands might apply to us," the Zippleback's heads hissed together. "Tread lightly."
"Oh, nothing like that," she assured them. "Though I do want to ask about that. How does Inferna do what she does?" That was a good place to start. Really, she should have asked about the 'how' of Inferna's rule long before now. 'It's magic' was not an explanation, not really, no more than 'I killed him' was an explanation for how someone died.
Both heads growled. "We have long since deduced the answer to that question. You will not like it."
"Here is a riddle," the right head began. "Why does Inferna not have her Solar fire?"
Astrid blinked and looked down into the depths. She didn't know how it worked, but she was abruptly certain they were right. "I never noticed that. So it cannot be something of Solar fire?"
"Think further." The left head shook itself violently. "You have the measure of her. She has a one-track mind. She is lazy and cruel, in that order. Imagine she has no ability to command, but she does have her Solar fire. What might she want more than anything else?"
"Exactly what she has now," Astrid concluded. "But the Solar fire can only change others–"
"Wrong," the Zippleback hissed, cutting her off. "It is never done because it is usually fatal, but it can be done. Solar fire simply takes what exists, and what the wielder truly thinks should exist, what the wielder knows so thoroughly as to be sure it should be there, and changes what is within its range."
"We believe," the Zippleback said quietly, lowering its voice, "that she used it on herself, and added something. We know not where. It is likely not an obvious point of weakness, for she would not have imagined herself vulnerable. But whatever it is gives her this ability."
"When we said the rules did not apply to her, so long ago, that was what we meant," the left head hissed. "She created something that she did not know. We do not know how it was done. We spent many, many seasons trying to deduce it through Flickers. But we still only know that it can be done, not anything as to how."
Inferna had modified her own body to be able to control other dragons… Astrid understood why the Zippleback had no luck in figuring out how; on the surface, that seemed to contradict a lot of what she knew to be the rules of all of this. It was an incomplete flaming, done on oneself, and creating something that nobody had, something that could bestow power… And she had to somehow know and believe that she was supposed to have such a thing for it to work at all, except it still wouldn't work regardless…
"I hope you're not expecting any insight from me," she muttered. "That makes no sense. Are you sure she didn't just have the ability to start with? She could have used her Solar fire on something else."
"Well, we do not know how it was done or if it was done at all, but we do know what it does," the heads remarked consolingly. "Let us tell you."
"I don't have a lot of time to–" she began to object. They were straying from her path of questioning.
"Let us tell you," the Zippleback repeated seriously. "You did not ask. We cannot say we suspect you of anything. But you have a little wiggle room, so we will tell you what a rebel might want to know, because there is no rule against volunteering knowledge on a whim."
Put that way she'd be an idiot to tell them no. "Lay it on me." She perked her ears up, entirely willing to listen.
"The control is limited in range," the left head said firmly. "The range fluctuates at random, but never by much."
"The control does not apply to Flightless turned Flames," the right head intoned. "We suspect it does not apply to Flightless at all, though we have no proof of this."
"The commands follow logic," the right head continued. "Logic can be turned against itself."
"The commands cause stress in the mind," the left head said right on his counterpart's heels, barely leaving a break between the words. "Too much stress removes free will completely and breaks down even unconscious actions."
"The commands can override each other," the right head added. "Generally, the earliest command takes precedent, but Inferna has learned to mostly prevent contradictions in order to do less damage to her servants. If it is important she will say to disregard all conflicting orders in order to carry it out."
Astrid felt like she was drowning in information. "Please tell me that is everything," she begged. "I can barely follow you."
"Sorry, we get overenthusiastic." The Zippleback shrugged its wings. "But you got all of that? We can repeat it."
"Yes, I got it." Barely. She had the general idea.
"Any other questions?" Both heads leaned forward.
Astrid took a moment to compose herself. Ever since she had become a dragon, she was being forced to develop skills she had never valued. Deception. Negotiation. Empathy, though she was more learning to act on it than to feel it. And now, it looked like she needed to understand logic. "Can you explain what you mean by logical?"
"Imagine an absolute idiot," the Zippleback requested. "Someone so stupid they cannot do anything but follow instructions exactly."
"Got it." She just had to take the average Viking and exaggerate a little. And make him obedient, but this was just in her head, so that was easy.
"Logic, in its simplest form, is simply yes or no," the Zippleback continued. "Then you add conditions. If, say, the idiot sees green, then yes. If not, then no."
"I see..." She did. It was not so difficult to understand. Yet.
"Then you get more complex," the Zippleback continued. "You tell the idiot; 'if you see green, roar. Else, whine.' That, in essence, is what Inferna does. But we have free will and the world is a complex place, so sometimes there are loopholes. Things the idiot would not know how to deal with, while we could exploit them, intentionally or unintentionally."
"Like what?" she asked. "I think I need an example." So long as that example did not count as plotting against Inferna. It was a hypothetical...
The Zippleback's heads both shot her a smug, sneaky look, complete with shifty eyes and an exaggerated lean forward. "So long as we are simply explaining an abstract concept… Long ago, the only command involving leaving Inferna's domain was 'Do not leave my area of control.' So a small group of Flares flew along the border for days on end, until they found a group of free flames and had the free flames fight them down and take them far away, out of the range. Now, the commands are 'do not allow yourselves to leave my domain' and 'do not allow others to remove you from my domain, to cause you to be removed, or to plan to do so.' So you see, that loophole was closed."
"I get it," she said. This, more than anything, reminded her of the stories she knew. Finding loopholes was a thing done in many stories dealing with magic. "And the more complex what she orders is–"
"The more likely there exists a loophole, but the harder it is for anyone to see it." The Zippleback cackled happily. "You understand. You are not bound by any of this, making you all the more capable of creating loopholes, because to contain you, Inferna has to resort to another layer of complexity. She cannot order you directly."
"We have said enough," the right head abruptly remarked. "We are getting close to plotting to overthrow Inferna. The only thing that makes what we have already said not plotting against her is that we are plotting to hope someone else overthrows her."
"Another loophole," the left sang out quietly. "One she has not yet closed. But we do suspect there is a hidden command about informing on plots, so do not confide in anyone if you wish to come up with any. We will not be able to help ourselves."
"I see. I am definitely not plotting anything, but thank you for the advice." Astrid left them with the expected response. Now she understood what she needed to find. A loophole. One that would allow all of the other dragons to attack Inferna.
To do that, she needed to know what was there to be exploited, every single applicable rule Inferna had ever created. She looked around for somebody to ask about that. Anyone could tell her, but she wanted someone who knew her already. The Zippleback was not an option; he had already gone up to the edge of what he could say without knowing that she was plotting, and further questions risked tipping him over into certainty and forcing him to tell on her.
As her luck would have it, the only one around that she knew was Mentor's mate. Mentor and his son were not in the volcano at the moment, and Stormfly was off somewhere. None of the Flickers turned flame seemed to be present, either.
Astrid flew up to the top of the volcano and caught the eye of the Nightmare in question, before landing right on the lip of the open-topped hollow mountain. This would be a dizzying height for humans, but it seemed a fear of heights only came to those who could not navigate the air itself. Her perch was precarious, but she was not afraid in the slightest.
Mentor's mate landed next to her, closer than Astrid had anticipated. "You come to me with questions," Mentor's mate asserted. "I am not your Dam, but I can answer them in her stead."
"Actually..." Astrid stopped herself. She doubted Mentor's mate had correctly anticipated what her questions were. But it couldn't hurt to hear her out first. "Go on."
"You will know you are carrying an egg by the end of the first fortnight," Mentor's mate said slowly. "You will feel heavier than usual. We generally make the flight to the hatching island before then, but if you feel heavy, then you need to go immediately. One fortnight after that, a moon-cycle in total, you will lay your eggs. It may be one, or it may be many. While you are carrying them, you will need to eat regularly, at least twice as much as normal, and likely far more than that."
Astrid was just glad dragons didn't do the whole talk, and instead skipped to what came after. She was pretty sure Mentor's mate wasn't done though.
"While you are carrying you will feel sluggish, do not push yourself despite the feeling," Mentor's mate advised. "You may also want to eat more. In general you will be heavy, slow, tired, and hungry for a moon-cycle. There is more, but any questions you might have about hatchlings can wait. All that you need to know about that be taught to you while you sit with the eggs. It is tradition to do that in the ample free time we will have there. Is there anything specific you wish to know beyond that?"
Astrid shrugged her wing-shoulders, though she knew now that such a gesture probably meant nothing to the Nightmare in front of her. "A few things," she said. "How likely are eggs if you only try once for them?" That was the important question, or at least the important one that was on-topic.
"Not at all likely," Mentor's mate assured her. "it usually takes many tries. So take heart. If you only try once, this advice will be useless for a while, though Inferna will likely force it out of season as well, once she wakes to find no hatchling Bolts."
Astrid let out a sigh of relief. That was a fairly large comfort, all things considered. But it was more the principle of the thing that made her dislike it, not what it was naturally intended to do, so she was still very much against it.
"Okay... and this might be a little odd, but can you list every active command Inferna has you following?" Astrid asked hopefully.
"Not the ones I do not know or am not meant to remember," Mentor's mate warned, clearly unsure as to why Astrid would want her to do that, "but yes."
Astrid listened carefully as Mentor's mate went through every last command. She couldn't ask for specifics without raising suspicion, but the whole list was innocent enough. Nobody would be able to tell what she was looking for.
The relevant commands, however, were disappointingly airtight anyway. 'No flame is to strike at Inferna, or to allow another to strike at her. No flame is allowed to let Inferna come to harm through inaction. No flame is allowed to use Solar fire against Inferna in any manner.' That was all, but it was thorough.
Once Mentor's mate was done with the list, she didn't stop talking. "But that is not all. We punish certain things among ourselves. Things Inferna may or may not punish. Female Bolt, I fear I know what you are planning to do."
"What?" It didn't sound like Mentor's mate actually did know; she'd be happy to know Astrid was working on ending Inferna.
"Inferna has anticipated it," Mentor's mate continued in a low growl. "No flame is to break, abandon, lose, give away, or otherwise mistreat any egg. That rule may not apply directly to you like it does to us, but we will be forced to report it if your egg goes missing, to say nothing of how angry Inferna would be regardless."
Astrid was floored. "You really think I'd do that?" she asked incredulously. "Break an egg?" That would be like stabbing a pregnant woman in the stomach. Viking law didn't see it as any worse than stabbing a woman who was not pregnant, but even a sign of new life was to be honored, not destroyed. Maybe it was just that Berk could not afford to lose potential children; they even kept the runts and those born out of wedlock, while other tribes sometimes got rid of them. In any case, she could not fathom doing that. Especially not when it would be worse than pointless to do such a thing, given Inferna's inevitable response.
"No, but I fear you would act rashly and regret it later," Mentor's mate murmured. "I do not know if you took my advice on getting to know him or not."
"I kind of did," Astrid said thoughtfully. To some degree, anyway, and not with the goal of actually getting to know him so much as maintaining a truce. Helping the both of them cope with what was required of them. "I was not planning to break an egg, anyway."
"Then I am sorry to have accused you of such a thing, and I hope I helped," Mentor's mate said solemnly. "I am always around to answer questions."
Astrid repositioned her paws and leaned forward, off her precarious perch. "I know. Thank you." She slipped down, back into the volcano, and idly flew around the interior.
Many eyes followed her, more than ever before. Enough that she noticed, even though she was generally inured to being stared at.
They all knew what was going to happen to her. Of course they did; word traveled fast among dragons, just as it did among humans. She had always been spoken about, good or bad. That had not changed.
They knew it was wrong. That was also a comfort. Toothless was right, it was better that what was happening was acknowledged as a horrible thing. She couldn't imagine keeping her cool if everyone around her was congratulating her, or something similarly galling.
She flew down to one of the ledges at random, her thoughts flying their own path. The way everyone looked and then looked away was not terrible, but it was not good either. They were accepting what was about to happen, they just didn't like it. There were no protests, no shows of solidarity… They could be doing more. They'd shown the ability to act together before.
Not that she would ask it of them. No, so long as they were disarmed and helpless, she could ask nothing more of them than what they were already giving. Open disapproval in the face of Inferna's ominous silence below was too much, too risky. If they had the tools to make a meaningful attempt at saving her, she'd demand they try, but they didn't.
Only she had the tools, and she didn't yet have a solid plan as for how to use them. So she was just as helpless, just as resigned but resentful.
Resigned to going to Toothless, coercing him into doing something neither of them wanted to do, and then hoping her luck held out and she was not made an unwilling mother the first time around. Hoping she could figure something out before it happened, if not now then the next time Inferna lost her patience, if she even regained it in the first place.
A Gronckle said something loudly enough that it might have been directed at her, but she didn't hear and didn't respond, stopping just short of the tunnel out to the exterior of the volcano.
She wasn't going anywhere. Unless she was going to the Terrors and their hideout early, to wait for the fate she'd resigned herself to.
Her breathing quickened, and she shut her eyes. This was necessary. It was either this or letting Inferna accomplish the same thing a day later, but worse in every way. She didn't like it, but she had no plan. A weapon, a basic understanding of the enemy's weak points, and a burning need to escape, but no plan.
Something came over her then, something unexpected but not unwanted. A cold, calculating calm that was not in the slightest bit reassuring. The full weight of what she was doing, heavy and unobscured, in all its ugly complexity.
And she was appalled.
Since when had she let herself become resigned to inevitability? Since when did she shirk risk and let her enemy torment her until she could be sure her retaliation would be successful? When had she lost her drive, her need to avenge, to fight?
If it was impossible, that would be one thing. It had been, initially, and she'd made the right decision then in bowing her head and waiting for a better position to strike back from. But that was then, and things had changed. She had a fighting chance now. Not a perfect plan, but she'd never fought with perfect plans to follow before, and it suddenly didn't seem likely she'd be able to start now, even if she waited and suffered and schemed.
She had no plan, but plans never survived contact with the enemy anyway. She'd have to wing it, and that was fine. Maybe she'd fail, but fear of failure was not acceptable. Not when it was tricking her into sacrificing so much.
She grit her teeth, feeling them as they slid out of her gums, and shook her head in a mute denial.
Astrid Hofferson did not meekly bargain for scraps of leniency. She did not let herself be backed into a corner and then forced to submit, to give up her body or her will. She had a weapon and she had an enemy who she would love to see bleeding at her feet. That was all she needed, all she had ever needed.
She was a warrior, a fighter, a Night Fury and a human in equal measures. Dangerous, intelligent, daring, trained by her people and gifted with instincts from a friend. She had a life-altering flame in her chest, and enough knowledge to maybe free the scores of others all around her.
It was time to act like it. Time to strike.
Author's Note: Is it possible I have led you all on in thinking this story was going to cover a lot more time before Astrid challenged Inferna? Is the final battle really here? Is Astrid really going to attack Inferna with the power of improvisation and pretty much nothing else? Tune in next week to find out!