Astrid Hofferson flicked her wings out, testing the fleeting pushback of the air on her strongest, most vital limbs. She smacked her tail against the ground, feeling the lingering sting of scale and flesh impacting solid stone. Her claws and teeth were sheathed and unsheathed a few times, mostly without her conscious thought. She stared out into the sulfurous yellow haze obscuring the volcano's depths and the monster lurking within, and perked her ears to listen to the inconsequential mutterings of the dragons on the ledge she had flown down to and now stood on.
She felt the undefinable warmth of her Solar fire in her chest and let her thoughts land on all she knew of Inferna and her control. But not for long; not long enough to let doubt and uncertainty kill her rediscovered courage.
Her weapons, physical and mental, were sharp in their own ways. Her resolve, newly dredged up though it was, stood strong. She was no longer afraid of anything she had feared, consciously or not, for the past few weeks. Not afraid of Inferna, not afraid of being violated in front of the entire nest, and not afraid of the future. A part of her was utterly terrified, of course, but that fear was not based on the consequences of failure. It was based on whether or not she was capable of winning.
She knew a lot about the enemy she faced, but all of that knowledge had not coalesced into a real attack plan. Priorities, a goal and a weapon, but the path from where she stood to the deed being done was obscured. Improvisation would be essential and deception was built into the very heart of the coming conflict. She was good with neither, or at least had not been as a human. Life had given her a crash-course in both recently, and this would be a test of that brutal and rapid teaching, just as resolving to undertake the test at all was a test of all she had been as a human, as a Viking.
There was irony there somewhere, but she could not pinpoint it or stop to ponder it. That was for others to decide, later, because this would be a story told years from now, failure or success. Dramatic, seemingly hopeless stands against tyrants made for good stories whether they ended in triumph or tragedy.
Astrid stepped out onto the ledge and took a look around. There were dragons around her, Nadders and Gronckles and a single Zippleback. She needed them here, but she did not need them on this ledge. "You all should fly elsewhere."
Her voice was so sure and confident – unlike how she felt inside, but just like how she wished she felt – that some of the dragons who heard her left without question. Not all of them, or even most, but some.
One of the Gronckles who remained glared at her. "I told you once, female Bolt, to learn your place." He didn't sound particularly angry with her; his was an irritation brought on by a petty, mundane annoyance. On another day, she might have responded in kind.
He didn't know it just yet, but this was not just another day. Not for her, and certainly not for him or any other dragon under Inferna's control.
Astrid shrugged her wings, unbothered by the near certainty that he would not know what the gesture meant. "Then do not move. I only say so for your own safety. This is going to be dangerous."
"What are you doing?" he asked, less sure in tone than before. He must be noticing the dangerous air that surely had to hang about her, the way her claws were clenching and her teeth were out despite her feigned confidence.
"Something you will wish to be far from, once I begin," she growled. "But not too far. Stay and watch."
By now, most of the other dragons on the ledge had vacated the area, quietly leaving while she spoke with the Gronckle. The open area around her was enough for her to begin without being immediately thwarted. It would be on this Gronckle's head if he soon regretted ignoring her advice. He wasn't enough to stop her.
"Inferna!" Astrid roared out, following up with a good old-fashioned Night Fury screech, the call that sent fear into the hearts of every Viking who heard it. She was distinctly aware of the sound of buzzing wings, as the Gronckle hastily flew away, finally convinced he wanted no part of what was coming. Inferna tended to have that effect.
Her dramatic breaking of the fearful hush that had gripped the volcano in the absence of Inferna's usual snoring brought an immediate reaction, though not the one she sought. Aside from the Gronckle buzzing his way out of the immediate danger zone, everything stopped. What had been a moving riot of color was now a still one, dragons dropping conversations and landing wherever they could, rushing to escape notice while simultaneously trying to remain in a position to witness what was to happen next. All eyes were turned to her.
All eyes, aside from one pair. A pair waiting nervously in a cavern, a long walk from here. Astrid noted, in a distant corner of her mind, that she had just stood up her date for the evening. Not that he would mind.
But it was a pity that he was not here to watch. In a way, she was doing this for him. For everyone here. For those who had died before she acted, for those she had not and could not have saved. Mentor's first daughter. Those two Gronckles Inferna made fight to the death. Hundreds more. She did not know the stories, but she knew they existed, and that was enough.
Inferna surged up from the depths of the volcano like an eruption, a sight Astrid would never grow used to. Her eyes all immediately sought out Astrid even as molten rock sloughed off the top of her head and over her face. "Female Bolt," she thundered malevolently. "I am not to be summoned. I do the summoning."
"Not today," Astrid said flippantly, hoping the creeping terror she was feeling was confined to the tightness in her chest. She wasn't supposed to be afraid for her life... Back on Berk, where death was honorable and she was to be one of many equally important fighters in a war. That didn't apply here, where she was the only hope hundreds of people had. She feared losing her life, because there was nobody to carry on in her stead. She was the only one who could do this.
"Why are you so confident?" Inferna asked angrily. "Do you think you have won something? I will call the Bolt in here and have him take you now, if this small compromise causes such arrogance."
"It is not that," Astrid said carefully. "I just want to wish you a good, final rest this cold-season." Most of her path forward was shrouded in uncertainty, but she knew that she needed to present a reason for Inferna to doubt, to listen.
"Final?" Inferna growled dangerously, leaning in. "I will outlive you by millenia, Flightless worm. Unwilling flame who has been mated against her will."
"That hasn't happened yet," Astrid said boldly. "Later tonight. But that's not important. You'll find out what I know in the Spring. Or not." She leaped into the air and began to circle Inferna, always within sight of one of those six eyes.
"You taunt me." Inferna's voice grew light and foreboding. "I need nothing from you but your body. I can make the next few moon-cycles torture with just a few commands."
Yes, she could. Astrid knew that very well. But the same threat used over and over again eventually lost its power, even if it was no less real. "But if you do you'll still never wake up," she retorted, refusing to bow to Inferna's will. "I am a complication, one you cannot possibly stop, not when I have so much time. You'll have to kill me and give up your hopes for more Bolts."
"Flames, I order you to apprehend the female Bolt. Force her to a ledge and pin her." Inferna leered at Astrid, all six eyes on her. "What were you saying?"
Dragons rose from all over the nest, scores of them all coming for her.
Astrid ducked and dodged for a few vital heartbeats, knowing that she could not possibly outrun and avoid scores of dragons, though she would have even less chance if the entire nest was not fouling each others' flight in the process of chasing her. "You cannot stop me, Inferna! Not even like this!"
A Nadder nipped at her paws, coming up from below to try and pull Astrid down. In response, Astrid spun and slashed at the Nadder, accepting that she was going to be dealing a few injuries.
Not many, though. "So let us bargain once more!" she howled, still avoiding the masses for a few more vital moments.
"Land, and we will... bargain..." Inferna hummed. "As you have not yet learned that to do so is futile."
She was listening. For the moment. Astrid hadn't failed yet. If only she had such a solid plan for what came next.
Astrid landed and was immediately squished by two Nadders and a Nightmare. "Can't bargain... if I can't talk..." she wheezed. Somebody relayed her breathless words for Inferna to hear.
It was important to remember that the dragons, even the ones currently pinning her, were not on Inferna's side. They would help Astrid in the little ways that did not go up against Inferna's orders, so long as they thought to do so. Another weapon she could wield once she saw a worthy opportunity.
"Flames, disregard my last order, but stand ready to pin her again," Inferna hummed. "So... bargain. What do you have that I want?"
"A way to kill you," Astrid gasped, able to inhale again now that the Nadder was off her back. "I bargain with your life. What do you bring to the table?"
"Table?" a Gronckle muttered quietly. Astrid ignored her. This was where her intentions got sketchy, more of a goal to be accomplished than anything, and she needed to focus.
It was time to create a loophole.
"Your freedom. Of movement, of speech, of life," Inferna intoned. "I can make you suffer for seasons on end. I can remove all choice from you, and leave you a helpless creature composed entirely of pain and regret. A living womb to spawn Bolts, and nothing more."
"Even if you tried, you would not stop what I can do." Astrid bluffed, shaking her head defiantly. "So, again, what do you have to offer?"
"Prove you can kill me," Inferna snarled. "Without eyes, a tail, paws, or a tongue, without wings or any limb at all. I find that... improbable."
"Hard to prove when I can only do it once," Astrid said dryly. Then something occurred to her, a way to lend credence to her claims. "Ask the blue Flare where I was last night, and what we did!"
"I will humor your desperate lies," Inferna declared. "Blue Flare! Show yourself."
Stormfly leaped up into the open from behind a taller Nadder. "Here!" she squawked timidly.
"Do not move. Speak only the truth. Report accurately the events the female Bolt refers to so confidently." Inferna's voice was clipped and tense. Some part of her believed Astrid, believed there was a real threat and not just an empty bluff, else she wouldn't be bothering to try and pick it apart.
"She and I went to the island of humans she came from," Stormfly said nervously. "We retrieved a Flightless she hates. She did something with him while I watched, burned a circle in the snow, and scratched a lot of lines in it. I do not know what they were doing."
"And you did not kill this Flightless?" Inferna asked dangerously. "It worked with her?"
"I didn't want to kill, it wasn't attacking me," Stormfly reasoned guiltily. "It worked with her, but they didn't like each other. I knew that one from my time as a prisoner. He was brash and overconfident."
"Hardly a ringing endorsement," Inferna remarked angrily. "Female Bolt, what did you do there?" Stormfly fled the moment Inferna's attention was no longer on her.
"Something no other flame can do, and something no flame can counter," Astrid barked. "Flightless have their own strengths, and I had enlisted him to work on a way to combine what I was and what I have now. He came through." It was too bad she was lying through her teeth; she'd much rather be doing this with a real magic superweapon backing her up.
"What do you threaten me with?" Inferna thundered, looming high above Astrid. "Tell me!"
"It's a secret," Astrid chuffed. "So, we bargain. I want–"
"I want more Bolts, so I can be rid of you!" Inferna roared. "I want you dead, but not before then." The volcano shook with the volume of her anger.
"And I want you dead, but this attack is likely to kill or cripple me, too, so we bargain." Astrid was shaking now, not from fear or anger, but from pure nerves. She had kept Inferna on the right line of thought so far, balanced between confidence and doubt, but if Inferna at any point decided she was too dangerous or just too much trouble, she would die. And if Inferna decided this was a trick, she would wish she was dead.
"Flames of the nest, I order you to do whatever it takes to stop the female Bolt from harming me while I sleep," Inferna thundered. "Still want to bargain, worm?"
"That won't work, so yes," Astrid countered. "They might be able to stop me, but as is, you'll wake up to find your entire nest insane or dead, with that kind of command." Or not, it was not that complex of a command… but Inferna didn't know for sure what she was asking of her flames. Astrid glared at Inferna, staring down the monstrosity with impunity... for the moment. "I will not bargain unless you take that command back."
"I think I will," Inferna hummed malevolently, her eyes alight with dangerous intent. "All flames, disregard my last order, in favor of this one. Disregarding all conflicting orders, do whatever it takes to stop the female Bolt from assaulting me." She laughed loudly, partially deafening Astrid for a moment.
Astrid made a show of growing angry, though what she actually felt was far different. "My first condition is that you take that back!" she roared. In some ways, it was a much tighter order than the last, one that neatly cut out her ability to make other orders conflict with it.
"Because you are powerless with it in effect!" Inferna accused.
"Because it annoys me," Astrid asserted, putting all of her recently acquired skill at deception into play. She needed to seem outwardly confident, but inwardly scared and weak, and Inferna needed to almost but not quite see the second part.
And she needed to do one other thing, but not to Inferna. "I... I..." she stuttered loudly, before closing her eyes and mumbling to herself.
To herself, quietly enough that Inferna would not hear it... but the dragons all around her, ready to leap into action, would.
"The only way to stop me is to attack Inferna yourselves," she muttered, praying someone would hear and be able to sneak away and spread the word. "Vengeance will stop me. I cannot kill her if she is already dead."
At its core, it was a simple trick. Astrid introduced complexity, and any command centered around her could be exploited, because the dragons who needed to enforce it could choose to believe anything she said. If they believed her, then the commands would force them to do exactly what she said if she worded it right, and Inferna had told them to ignore conflicting commands in the process of 'stopping' her, cutting through all of her safety nets and backup commands without thinking about it.
They all wanted to do what she said, so they would try their best to truly believe, or just to find enough reasonable doubt. That was why Stormfly had been able to allow her to go to Berk with an entirely insufficient escort. She believed Astrid would come back of her own free will. If Stormfly had been a more suspicious dragon, she would have been physically unable to let Astrid go very far beyond the nest, because she would not believe Astrid did not intend to flee, and thus would consider leaving the nest fleeing, which she had orders to prevent.
There were probably many ways to trick Inferna into giving Astrid control. But the conditions all had to be right. Inferna had to be wary, impatient, and sure she was in control, but only for the moment, and thus eager to protect herself. And all of this could only work with a human turned dragon, because they were the only ones who could not be shut down with a simple 'tell the truth'.
Inferna could not force the truth out of her. Not when she didn't know what Astrid was capable of. So she had no choice but to act as if Astrid was telling the truth. Stormfly and that last meeting with Snotlout had ensured she could not just dismiss all of this as empty threats.
There was a tiny flicker of movement – no, it was an actual Flicker, darting away to another ledge. The word was being spread.
"It annoys me," Astrid called out, regaining her confidence. "So we bargain. I hold your life, and I want things to change around here."
"I will not bargain... but list your demands," Inferna said imperiously. "And be aware that once we are done here, I will do all I threaten."
"And I will do all I can," Astrid countered. "You will eat no flame. You will feed your own miserable lump of a body, or you will starve or die. My condition is for you to reveal and destroy whatever unnatural addition you have made to your own body, the one that allows you to command flames and be obeyed."
Inferna's jaw literally dropped, a ponderous chunk of thick scale akin to stone falling away to reveal her dark red maw, teeth and all. "How do you know about that?"
"I know many things," Astrid chuffed, physically ready to dart away in an instant. She wasn't entirely sure how fireproof she was, and if Inferna could fire she was already aiming in the right direction. "But that was easy. No dragon can just command others like this! It is horrible and unnatural, and you are missing your Solar flame. The pieces fit!"
"You are too dangerous to live," Inferna hissed. "All flames..."
This was it. Astrid launched into the air, ready to flee. Dragons all around her flew into motion, most keeping pace with her, but some slipping away in the confusion. If she had stalled long enough, if the word had traveled fast enough...
"I order you to–" Inferna began, only to abruptly lurch forward, roaring louder than Astrid had ever heard. Every dragon in the sky dropped like a rock, herself included, totally disoriented.
Astrid hit a ledge a little further down, thankfully at an angle that didn't immediately break anything vital. She rolled and skidded to a stop, bumping into the inside wall of the volcano, and sprang to her feet. Her body was strong and durable, though there was a bloody stain on the rocks. An old one, not from her… Not from her as she was now.
She leaped into the air, leaving the ledge where it had all begun. Leaving the blood of her human self behind, because it was old and gone.
Inferna was craning her neck, trying to look at the thin gash that was now present in her back, a line that looked a lot like a single chop taken by an ax at a tree. The first of many strokes required to fell the tree.
"What have you done?" Inferna boomed, frantically looking for Astrid. "What is this?"
Astrid revealed herself, knowing she was in for the fight of her life. She flew in a tight loop, feigning celebration. "The first of many things! I will kill you if you do not concede!"
Inferna still didn't know what she had done. Astrid intended to keep the deception going as long as possible. Long enough for other dragons to get into position and unleash their Solar flame on Inferna's otherwise invulnerable hide. Her orders against them doing such a thing were being overridden by her most recent, fatally flawed order, and she hadn't realized it yet.
"Die!" Inferna's massive body loomed in the sulfurous fog, which was now frothing like a bubbling cauldron. She lunged at Astrid, throwing her head forward.
Astrid dropped out of the way, glad she had long ago mastered what this body could do. If she had to rely on instinct, she could not think ahead, but thinking was essential. She twisted, riding the thermals rising from above and using a single moment to prepare.
Then a torrent of fire blasted from behind her, enveloping her. She screeched and spun to the side, seeking a way out of the suffocating heat–
And found it by hitting unforgiving stone with a painful smack and falling down, out of the plume, to strike one of the main ledges.
She assessed herself in the seconds it took to roll to her feet yet again. Hurt, injured, but not badly. Bruised, labored breathing. Maybe a cracked rib. Other than that, nothing. She was strong and apparently quite fireproof. Not something she'd ever had reason to test before now.
Wind whipped around Astrid as she leaped out of the way and only just cleared the ledge before a lumpy, misshapen paw larger than most Viking huts smashed through it. Rubble rained down around her for the brief moment it took her to clear the area.
Inferna howled again, thrashing in her pit. Astrid turned to look, wary of her massive opponent all the while, and saw another deep gash in the monstrosity's side. At the very heart of the already-cauterized wound she could see a tiny line of green standing out amid the deep reds and browns of scorched and raw flesh. Some small part of Inferna now belonged to a different kind of dragon. Two small parts, actually, and counting.
"All flames!" Inferna howled, almost deafening them all once more. "I–"
Astrid fired three strong blasts at her eyes and was rewarded with yet another howl of pain. She needed to shut Inferna up; any new commands would either complicate things, cause a contradiction, or flat-out negate the one allowing the dragons of the nest to strike at her. All Inferna had to say was 'disregarding all conflicting orders, stop' and it would all be over. But if she couldn't speak she couldn't say anything, not even that. Another weakness that could be exploited.
While all of this was going on, dragons were flying out to Inferna, more and more as the moments passed. They were getting the idea and striking, slowly but surely. Astrid could see three more dragons all flaming together, the fires lighting her scales.
Inferna's eyes, bloodshot and damaged, followed Astrid's line of sight, and looked down. Down, at the three flames using their Solar fire on her.
"No!" She slammed to the side, crushing all three dragons against the side of the volcano. The flickering light that signified where the Solar fire would act died away, as if it had never been.
The dragon had to survive long enough for their Solar fire to work, else it wouldn't do anything. That could be a problem.
Astrid lobbed two more blasts at Inferna's head to forestall a far bigger problem, and dove in. They only had a few more heartbeats before everything went bad, and she needed to add her own Solar flame to the mix. She had wanted to strike at the neck or head, somewhere that would do hopefully fatal damage, but Inferna was thrashing randomly now, like a Viking trying to crush stinging bees as they attacked, and there was no way she could land there.
Inferna shrieked in pain, and a huge, lumpy tail flailed about in the yellow fog. A Zippleback and three Terrible Terrors flew away from the tail. Astrid took the opportunity to swoop in, blast the eyes, and by extension stop Inferna from speaking one last time. She doubted any other dragon's fire could cause enough pain to do that, especially now that Inferna was closing her eyes, and she wanted all of them focused on dealing permanent damage, not distraction. The time for distraction was over. She herself could do one last thing, and then it was out of her hands.
Astrid dove and landed on Inferna's back, barely able to hold on through her flailing about, though it was less violent here than on the head. Inferna was so frenzied as to not even consider hiding in her obscured pit, though that might not have worked anyway.
Astrid inhaled–
And realized, in a moment of both horror and embarrassment, that she didn't know how to call up her Solar fire.
Then she was bucked off by a particularly powerful moment of thrashing. Inferna howled loud enough to wake the dead and slammed herself against every side of the volcano in quick succession. Dragon bodies crumpled and fell like rain, disappearing below. Rubble tumbled down from above, rock shaken loose by the titanic impacts.
Astrid crash-landed on a ledge for the third time in this short fight, adding to her collection of bruises. She stumbled up once more and spun to face Inferna, just in time to get a good, full view of Inferna opening her bloodied eyes and glaring right at her. "All flames, disregarding all orders, stop!" Inferna bellowed.
Dragons all around Astrid stopped moving or just glided, their eyes wide and unbelieving.
Something was different. Astrid could feel it in the air, a lack of weight, something missing. Her frills all moved on their own, flicking back and forth.
Inferna huffed a huge sigh of relief and glared at Astrid. "Never," she rasped, "has any flame challenged me. I will make your death last decades."
"I bloodied you," Astrid called out defiantly, knowing she was doomed yet curiously unafraid. Let that doom come; she had done her best. It did not feel as if she had lost.
"I am going to stay awake all cold-season to oversee this personally," Inferna continued, her voice dripping with pain and spite. "Everything I can think of will be done to you."
As Inferna promised all things horrible for Astrid, something small happened. A single Terrible Terror stood from his unmoving crouch and slipped away, dropping out of Astrid's line of sight. Her heart leaped back up into her chest and did its best to explode then and there. She felt like she was floating, no, free-falling, dropping out of the sky and enjoying every second because she knew she had wings. The fall was not fatal; she would continue to live past this moment.
That change she had felt in the air… The one everyone but Inferna had noticed...
Inferna rocked back, howling with pain and disbelief as another line of Solar flame carved into her chest, cauterizing and changing as it went, shrinking a patch of her massive body into something far smaller, a tiny chunk of blue scales. Dragons all across the cavern howled in pure rage and flew at her, swarming around her very much like the bees Astrid had compared them to. More lines of Solar flame began to appear, and Inferna thrashed, but she could not kill them all.
Astrid, out of normal fire and unable to use her Solar flame, could only watch. She did not know how Inferna had been robbed of her ability to command–
Or maybe she knew but hadn't recognized the event as significant at the time. It was a physical part of Inferna that granted her ability, located somewhere in her body, the part she had added in a way nobody would ever understand or replicate. One of the gashes littered across her massive form must have overlapped that extra part. It was damaged or gone entirely, and with it, her power to command and be obeyed.
Astrid took to the air one last time, forcing her bruised and battered body to rejoin the fight, and flew in tight circles around Inferna's misshapen head, distracting her. Inferna couldn't feel the Solar flames until it was too late, thanks to the same scales that made her so invulnerable to everything else, so if she could not see those attacking her, she could not kill them.
"No more commands," Astrid taunted, trying to draw as much attention to herself as possible. This was what a Viking did. She could be the Viking now, because she was one of many again, and the least dangerous of them all, because she did not know how to use her weapon. She could fall, and others would take her place. Any dragon could hurt Inferna, any dragon with their Solar fire. Despite the violence, despite those who had been crushed and killed before their attack could be finished, there were more than enough dragons with Solar fire to finish the job.
"No more food," Astrid continued, dropping out of the way of a torrent of fire. "No more obedience."
"I will kill all of you," Inferna rasped, shaking her head in an effort to be rid of Astrid, like a dog with a persistent fly. "I will make you suffer!"
"You will die," Astrid corrected. "This is for everyone who ever suffered on your account. For the war you waged." For Toothless. For Berk. For Hiccup. For Mentor's daughter. And for everyone else, too.
Inferna's head abruptly dropped, falling to one side. Astrid pulled away, knowing that there was no more need to distract, and wanting to see the end. Wanting to see the fate she had dealt out to one who deserved the worst anyone could think of.
Dozens of dragons still flamed Inferna, even now. Dozens of glowing lines and patches were being traced across her body and now head. Each patch was completed in turn, the dragon who created it flying away as the glowing spot they left behind burst into unnatural colored flame and then shrunk, receding and leaving behind yet another horrible gash in the already mutilated body of a tyrant.
The last moment was the most memorable. The moment Inferna's much smaller, ragged body sunk into the mist, utterly destroyed, an abomination of all kinds of dragons. Nightmares, Gronckles, Terrors, Nadders, Zipplebacks, altogether almost outnumbering the parts of her that remained the same.
Each patch of scales represented a dream. A loved one, a memory, a hope for the future. A fantasy, a goal, a vision. These dragons were not just hurting Inferna, they were giving up what they wanted most in one of their kind, be it themselves or someone that did not yet exist. Each wound was literally a dream sacrificed to end a nightmare. Small dreams, large dreams, selfish dreams, noble dreams, all alike only in that they had been sacrificed, given up for a larger purpose.
The story about the sun had painted fire, Solar and normal, as something that created. The message it had been intended to impart was about greed, about being satisfied with what one had, and maybe also about forgiveness.
Astrid saw a different meaning, here and now. That which could create could also destroy. The story supported that; the sun had destroyed its own creations in its enthusiasm, burning the old by accident while creating the new. They were doing the same here, but they were doing it on purpose.
Solar fire wasn't meant to be a weapon. She knew that. All it did was change, create, work with the desires of those using it. To use it like this was like taking an ornate sword made for a wedding and using it to kill the bride and groom, a perversion of its intended purpose. To kill with it one had to misuse it, to be greedy, to try and change something beyond their means.
Astrid could feel the Solar fires fading out of the world around her, growing fewer and fewer in number. Some remained; nobody would flame a dead corpse, not when it was even now fading from sight, sinking into the magma Inferna had slept in, to burn or decompose, whichever came first. But most were gone.
Inferna was dead. That was something worth sacrificing a dream for.