The mutilated, many-colored corpse of Inferna slowly sunk into the yellow mists, descending into the magma she had slept in for so many years.

Dragons all around the volcano hovered or glided as slowly as possible, striving to stay in one place. All eyes were turned to the descending bulk. To the horrible thing that now resembled absolutely nothing coherent, an abomination that could not possibly live. Astrid didn't know when, exactly, Inferna had died, or who had struck the final blow. All that mattered was that she was dead now.

Inferna was not the only one dead in the struggle. Dragons had been crushed by her flailing, and those who drifted away from the scene, flying slowly in shock, were fewer in number than they had been. They had not come away with a flawless victory, not by far. But that it was a victory at all, or even a fight, was nigh-unthinkable.

Astrid forced her wings to carry her up to one of the main ledges, being sure to pick one with a tunnel down to the shore. She felt like her body was going to just decide to stop working soon, with how bruised and battered she was. It was a miracle nothing was broken, though the twinge in the right side of her chest reminded her that she was nowhere near unscathed.

Setting down hurt; every muscle screamed at the bruises she had taken. She paced around in a tight circle to test the extent of said bruises, then let her body lapse into merciful stillness, sitting back on her tail.

She made sure to sit facing the volcano's interior. She wanted to watch the dragons. They had spent their entire lives tolerating Inferna's constant presence, be it her ominous snore or her terrible gaze and irresistable commands. The volcano was eerily quiet and empty, devoid of her presence, something that had never happened before.

Astrid didn't know what they would do, or how they would react. They were shocked, fresh off an unexpected battle, but that couldn't last. Something would come next.

The first order of business for most of those still flying around was to get out of the air. The empty space in the middle of the volcano was abandoned, those flying through it only passing through on their way to their chosen landing spots. The large ledge Inferna had smashed crumbled entirely when an absent-minded Zippleback tried to land there, resulting in an attention-drawing squawk of surprise. All the other ledges grew crowded.

Nobody left the volcano, which did not surprise Astrid in the slightest. She had not left either.

Next came looking for loved ones. Many began to move with purpose, to search their ledge and fly over to others, to reunite with those they cared about... and to realize, in some cases, that said loved ones had not made it through the battle.

Mournful howls rose and were respectfully joined, until the entire volcano echoed with loss. Astrid joined in for a moment, mourning her own losses, though her heart was not really in it, too light to readily dredge up old grief.

Then, even as the mourning calls were dying away, it occurred to her that she might have new losses to grieve. She glanced around the volcano, hurriedly looking for signs of the people she knew best. Her worries were quickly assuaged; Mentor and his family were distinctive, and all three were easily spotted. Nearby, the two Terrors turned Nightmare spoke eagerly with the other Terrors, former and current. The blue Zippleback who knew Solar fire was–

Flying right towards her. She nodded respectfully as he landed in front of her, not bothering to hold back a long purr. "It is done," she said happily.

"It is done," he agreed. "Tell me, do you notice anything?" both heads asked.

Astrid knew almost immediately what he was speaking of. The heat in her chest did not resonate with anything in him. "Found something worth using your Solar flame on after all?"

"About that..." the Zippleback chattered slyly, both heads laughing. "We did some quick thinking. To modify herself, Inferna had to burn somewhere she could reach. She is – was – like a Coal, no neck and stubby limbs. There were not that many places she could have burned, and when she showed one off…"

Now she understood. "You were by the tail," Astrid said. "You and some Flickers."

"My assistants," he confirmed. "I was not going down there alone. We flamed the most suspect spots, and at least one of us must have hit it." He shook both heads, almost knocking them together. "I do not know how she did it, or what she did, or how it functioned. But maybe that is for the best. If there were a way to add to ourselves, a way everyone would eventually know..."

That would be a strange kind of chaos. Astrid didn't know what she would even want to add to this body, but she had heard enough Vikings bemoaning their lack of a third arm or actual horns to know people wanted strange things and were rarely satisfied. And that was ignoring how dangerous it would be if any dragon with enough willpower could make themselves as powerful as Inferna.

She nodded in agreement. "Let that secret die with her."

"There is still plenty more to investigate, though we will have a hard time doing so now," the Zippleback lamented. "There are still some Flickers with Solar fire, but I sense change on the wind, and they may find other uses for that fire. I do not have my own, either, though that has not changed much. At least now I need not worry about finding a fitting way to use it."

She squirmed guiltily, now acutely aware of what she still had. "I may know what you mean. I don't know how to use mine."

The Zippleback stared at her. "You went into this whole fight," the left head said disbelievingly.

"...Without knowing how to use the only weapon that could hurt her?" the right finished.

"I kind of thought that I would just know when the time came," she admitted. "Can you tell me how?"

"Simple," both heads intoned. "You will just know."

"Stop it." She growled for emphasis. "I didn't 'just know' so that is clearly not it."

"We are not joking," the left head objected. "We could lie now, but we are not. You really do just know. That is also helpful in preventing misfires. One has to be sure they need or want to use it. No half-hearted efforts that waste the only shot you get, that way."

"So... why?" She had needed it in that moment perched on Inferna, without a shadow of a doubt, but it had not come. Dozens of other dragons had used theirs under the same circumstances.

"No idea," both heads chirped. "But your Solar fire was not needed, in retrospect, so you might prefer to think of it as lucky you did not use it."

She let out a dismissive growl, putting the minor mystery out of her mind. "Speaking of good fortune..." she was mentally cursing her lack of interest in what gestures between dragons meant, but she was going to do this anyway, "thank you. We would have lost if you had not destroyed her ability to command." She leaned forward, ignoring her aching muscles, and stuck her head between his necks in what she had reasoned was the closest approximation of a hug one could do with a larger, two-headed dragon. She was not one for hugging, but a punch to the shoulder would definitely send the wrong message.

The Zippleback nodded, lingered a moment, and then stepped back. "For the record," the left head remarked, "we are pretty sure you do not mean what that gesture implies between Blasts. It is somewhat vulgar."

Astrid wilted, not at all surprised but dismayed nonetheless. "I still have plenty to learn," she admitted.

"We take it in the spirit it was given," the right head said comfortingly, "so do not worry about it." They looked around. "Now what?"

"I'm just waiting to see what everyone does," Astrid admitted. "I think we are not quite done here." There was a growing crowd of dragons around Mentor, and if anyone was going to take charge it was him. He wasn't going to leave it like this. That wasn't what a leader did.

"Then, if you do not mind, we will watch with you," the Zippleback decided, sitting down next to Astrid. "You could take up our work, you know. You still have your Solar fire and you have a nimble mind."

"That doesn't really interest me," she admitted. "I like what you two do, but I don't think I have the patience for it." She liked the known, not fumbling around in the unknown and trying to discern what was around her. It was an important job, someone had to do it, but she didn't want to be that someone.

"Then we rescind the offer," the left head announced, looking disgruntled. "If you ever find someone with both capacity and interest, send them to us. We will need an assistant now that we no longer have our Solar fire. Someone to tell us if we are missing anything."

"I'll keep an eye out,," she promised. "Now shut up and watch." Something was happening.

"You shut up," the right head snapped, before doing exactly that.

Mentor was flying alone in the air above the mists, taking roughly the same place Inferna's head once had. Astrid could tell he no longer had his Solar fire. "Flames!" he roared. "Inferna has fallen! There are things that should be done!"

Astrid leaned forward, genuinely curious to see what Mentor wanted done. Would it be practical? A move to officially claim a position of leadership? Righting old wrongs, whatever those might be? Or something more symbolic? He was capable of any and all of the above, but she didn't know which was on his mind.

"I wish for each flame, in turn, to come up here," he continued, "and tell the entire flock who they lost. There will never be a better time to remind us all of who we have avenged."

Astrid found herself nodding. Like a funeral, but one more for the victims of the dead creature in question, not the creature herself. Nobody would have a single kind word to say about her.

"I will go first," Mentor called out. "I lost my oldest daughter to Inferna. She was abused before she died, a victim simply because having eggs with her mate was not to be her path in life. I only wish Inferna had suffered more before she died, so that she might know the pain she inflicted on my daughter! But in absence of that, I am satisfied with her demise." He flew down and landed by his mate and son, though they were not reunited for more than a handful of heartbeats.

Mentor's mate nuzzled him and then made her way out into the center of attention. "I too lost my daughter and her mate," she called out. "My Dam also died on a raid Inferna ordered." She flew around for a moment, then retreated to the ledge.

Her son came out, not even waiting until she had made her way all the way back. "I lost a sister, and many friends," he called out. "Who else?"

Those three testimonies together removed whatever reluctance anyone might have had to speak. Astrid lost track of time as dragon after dragon made their way up and spoke about who Inferna had hurt, and who she had killed. There were short stories, simple recitations of names, and even a few detailed accounts of how those the speaker loved had fallen, in one way or another. Some dragons keened as they spoke, while others showed no emotion, or even relief, their losses long accepted and no longer so fresh, while Inferna's demise was new.

Astrid listened to them all, but she did not go up until the very end, not wanting to interrupt the flow any more than she had to. Eventually, she found herself gliding in circles in the center of the volcano, prepared to speak.

"I lost my body," were her first words. "Whether or not I would go back to it now, I lost it, and I partially blame Inferna for that." She also blamed herself, and Hiccup, and Toothless, for they had all played a part in those events. It was not really blame at all, now. Responsibility, maybe.

"I also lost a fellow Flightless," she continued. "I did not know him well, but I think I would have liked to correct that, had he lived. Infera ate him." She would never know Hiccup. But she suspected most of Berk had not known him, either. In fact, the best person to ask about what he had really been like was probably Toothless, given how familiar they had seemed with each other, far more comfortable than Astrid had seen Hiccup with anyone else, including his own father.

"And then I lost my parents," she said sadly. "Inferna didn't even know they existed until they were gone, but she was still the one who killed them." She laid none of the blame for that at the feet of anyone but Inferna. Not even herself, though it was hard not to blame herself sometimes. She had not and could not have known what would happen.

That was all. Four people, if she counted her human self. Nothing compared to the gut-wrenching horrors she had just heard from some of these dragons, but still something to her.

All of which would have been enough for a normal speaker, but she was the last, and she didn't want to end on a low note. "But I lost nobody else!" she roared. "We will lose nobody else to her! That is over!"

The crowd roared with her, long and loud, cheering her back to her place on the ledge. After everyone quieted down, Mentor took charge again. "Now, we have spoken of those lost. Let us look to the future."

Astrid looked to the future, and saw absolutely nothing.

Nothing at all.

She was free. Though Berk didn't know it yet, and would not know for months, the war was over. She was done. As to what she would do next… there was no answer to that question. She had gone her entire life with a vague future of some kind, be it a good one, like being the Shieldmaiden of Berk, or a bad one, such as being stuck here struggling with the problem of ending Inferna. She had thought that would take months or years, not a few weeks.

"Inferna is dead," Mentor announced, repeating the one fact nobody would ever grow tired of remembering. "What do we do now? Where do we go? How do we live?"

Dragons began to growl to each other, to wonder the same things Astrid had just begun to think about. They were all in the same boat.

"I don't know," Mentor continued. "I really don't. And none of you do, either. So I have a proposition."

He inhaled a deep breath, as if knowing he was going to be pushing his luck. "We stay here until the beginning of the life-season."

Nobody immediately objected, but Astrid suspected that had more to do with their confusion than with any amount of respect they might hold for him. It seemed a ludicrous, stupid, and downright unreasonable proposal at first glance. This place was a prison, the jailor was dead, the cell doors open, but Mentor wanted them to stay.

"Just for the cold-season," he continued. "We mate soon. We lay our eggs soon. Now is not the time to fly into the unknown. We should proceed as we normally do, and come back here with our hatchlings. Once they can fly and the weather calms we can go our separate ways, if we must. I do not know what we should do then. But I propose we spend one last cold-season in this safe place."

That, she understood. Most of them would have children.

But not her. She felt like leaping for joy, that whole aspect of all of this coming to the forefront of her mind. No being forced to mate! No eggs! No children she did not want! She might know absolutely nothing of her future, but that nothing was also an absence of horrible things, an absence she had only barely managed. If she had experienced her revelation and put her plan into motion only a few days later, she might have been stuck with at least one child and a memory she would never get rid of, an experience forced into and unwanted.

It had come so close to happening… She had accepted the inevitability, slept touching him, tried to get him used to the idea, and by extension herself. She had been planning to let him do the rest, too, or even to coerce him into it to prevent something even worse. None of that mattered now.

She could leave… Though she didn't know where she would go. Berk was home, but she would not be welcome there. She knew nothing else of the world, and exploring was not her desire, not what she enjoyed. Wandering was not in her blood.

These dragons would want to leave. They were going to go somewhere in the Spring, together or separately. Mentor's suggestion that they all stay here for the Winter seemed to be accepted as what they'd do, and for good reason. Everyone had to make a lot of big decisions soon, and having a few months to do that was better than doing it all at once, now.

Where to go. Whether to strike out alone, or go with others. How to live. Their lives had all been upturned. They were dealing with it, so she could too. Mostly by not stressing about it. By staying here, acting like Inferna was just asleep, and weathering the Winter. Maybe in that time she would figure out what came next. And if not, she would be no worse off than before.

Astrid consciously pushed away the question of 'what next' for now. It would return; she was not stupid enough to hope she could just forget about the empty abyss that had only been pushed back to Spring. But for now she wanted to enjoy the moment. This was not how she had planned to spend this evening and it was infinitely better, infinitely less awkward.

Less awkward... she latched onto that thought and looked around with fresh eyes. Many dragons were watching her, some subtly and some blatantly. They expected something of her, more so than ever before. She was foreign, other, and she had saved them. Just like with Mentor, she had a claim to power if she wanted to pursue it. Or she could do nothing at all.

The former option did not appeal to her at all. She didn't like making heavy, dangerous decisions. Doing it for herself was hard enough; she wanted no more responsibility than that, not when there were other people to do it far better. Mentor was the leader here, and she did not mind that. If she could defer to anyone for a while, it would be him. Whether he wanted power was a different question, but she knew he would hold it for the Winter. After that, he could discard it, but for now the flock needed a guiding hand, or in this case, talon. He was the one who usually provided that in the Winter, in Inferna's absence, so him doing the same now would not be odd at all.

But her feelings on the subject weren't obvious to everyone around her, not if she kept them to herself. She roared, catching the attention of everyone around.

"I have no idea what I am going to do, but I am planning to stay here through the cold-season while I think about it," she announced, directly supporting Mentor's suggestion. "In case anyone was wondering, I don't want power, or fame, or any of that. All I did was give you all a chance to fight. You did the rest."

Then, in a spur of the moment decision, she laughed and continued. "And you can all see that. I still have my Solar fire, because I didn't get a chance to use it!"

That got the response she was hoping for. Chuckles, rumbling laughter, and some all-out shrieking from some of the more high-strung dragons. They were no longer expecting anything of her. She was just someone who had been in the right place at the right time to free them. Nothing more.

That rang a little hollow. She didn't want to be just another face in the crowd, either. She wanted a purpose, something to be respected for. Another thing to figure out over the Winter.

She was distracted by a trio of Nadders flying out to the center of the volcano.

"Don't mind us," one of the Nadders cried. "Just getting some revenge!" With that, streams of yellow-colored liquid, made even more vibrantly flourescent by the yellow fog behind it, dropped from them into the mists below.

"Well, that's one way to do it," a Gronckle near her muttered approvingly. "You know, I had some fish yesterday." She buzzed out to join them.

Astrid turned away as the dragons of the nest began another, far more vulgar round of celebrations, dishonoring whatever remained of the corpse of Inferna in every way they could think of. She had no desire to participate in that.

Still bruised and very much battered, Astrid opted to leave the volcano on foot, heading out the tunnel and down the slope beyond. She sighed, her entire body slowly relaxing despite the aches all over. The danger was past, the tension gone, her fears and worries uprooted and tossed aside.

But something was missing. Something left undone, a color absent from the celebration she had left behind–

Toothless.

Astrid growled at herself and stopped halfway down the slope. She had stood him up, so he would have been in the Terror's hideout when it all started. He couldn't get out without some Terrors to push the boulder, so he was probably still trapped in there.

She ignored her confused jumble of opinions on him, all outdated and in need of revisiting now that Inferna was gone, and turned around, running back up the slope. No matter what she thought of him, she wanted to be the one to bring him the news.

~O~o~O~

Finding a Terror was easy; they were everywhere, well aware of the fact that most of the flock was now devoid of Solar fire and probably not thinking of changing Flickers at the moment in any case. Getting one to listen long enough to understand what she wanted, on the other hand, proved surprisingly frustrating.

"What?" A blue Terror raced past, knocking the green one who had spoken off of his feet. "Just a moment." He ran after the blue Terror and shoved her right off the ledge, forcing her to fly back up, before returning to Astrid. "Say that again."

Astrid shoved down her annoyance. At least this one was still talking to her. The Terrors were all clowning around, overjoyed for a number of reasons. Most would lose track of what she was saying if they were interrupted, which happened every time she tried to talk to one for longer than five heartbeats. This was far from the first Terror she had managed to stop. "I need to go to the place the Blast does his experiments, so I need some of you to open the door."

"Door? What's a door?" He looked around, making sure the blue Terror was not coming back for revenge. "And why would you need to go there, anyway?"

"The male Bolt is there, and he is probably trapped with no idea what is going on," Astrid explained, exasperated. "I don't really need to go in, I just need you to get him out so he is not stuck in there until things calm down."

"That could take days if you waited for enough of us to remember on our own," the Terror agreed absently. "Give me a little while to round up enough of us to do it. Nobody will want to bother with that right now."

"You have until I get there, or the boulder entrance might be a little obvious as I plan to stand outside it," Astrid threatened, leaving him before he could complain.

The walk down to the entrance to the Terror's hideout was a long one, and Astrid forced herself to go at a normal pace, on foot, so as to give the Terrors a reasonable timeframe. On the way down, she wondered what Toothless thought had happened.

Nothing good, probably. She wasn't sure what to think of him, or how she felt about what they had almost done, but he was probably going to need some sort of comforting, and she would help him understand that he was free…

But he wasn't. There was one dragon who was going to be staying at the nest, like it or not. Toothless wasn't able to leave.

Maybe somebody else would stay with him. The Terrors liked isolation; if everyone else left, they might very well stay here, just for that quality alone. He would not be alone for the Winter; his situation was another thing they could all afford to ignore for a little while longer.

~O~o~O~

By the time Astrid got to the entrance to the hideout, the Terrors were there and ready to let her in. She quickly squeezed inside, wondering at the fact that Toothless had not been frantic to be let out and told what was going on. "Did anyone check on him?" she asked.

"We were told not to go into that chamber today," a bulky, at least for Terrors, female replied. "And you're going in there now, so should we come back later?"

"No, I'm going to bring him out," Astrid decided. "Stay here. We'll be going in a moment." A door only Terrors could open was a great security mechanism, but it was quite inconvenient.

It was, as always, dark. Astrid didn't care, and it really didn't matter. She made her way to the large chamber and walked into it without a second thought, not even bothering to marvel at how quiet it was.

Toothless was on the floor, his eyes closed and ears pinned by his paws, the picture of abject misery.

Astrid tapped his back with her tail. "I'm here," she said softly, not sure what to expect.

He looked up, his eyes snapping open to focus on her. "So you are safe, she was not mad at you," he murmured. "Nothing has changed." He stood, shuddering. "I will try."

Astrid held in her completely inappropriate amusement, coughing to stop herself from laughing. It was not funny, not at all, but she couldn't wait to break the news. He was so...

Troubled. Stressed. Willing to try anyway, and deal with whatever guilt and self-hatred that might cause. She was glad he wasn't going to have to go there, and not just for her sake.

"Follow me outside," she requested gently, her amusement dying away. "And stop freaking out. We're not doing anything. Tonight, or any night."

"I do not understand," he mumbled. Despite his confusion, he did manage to follow her out. He jumped a little when the Terrors pushed the boulder back almost before they were both clear, and Astrid growled at them. The little jerks were probably impatient to get back to their celebration.

"I..." Toothless began as they walked out onto the shore, still unaware of the situation. "What is going on? I don't want to wait for Inferna. You were right, doing it ourselves is better."

Astrid purred loudly. "How about not at all? Toothless, what do you think has been happening since you went into the cave? What was going on with Inferna?"

"I... I assumed you had gone to her to beg for more time, and she was gloating," he admitted. "Or maybe torturing you. It could be either, that place muffles the sounds far too much to hear what she says. All I could tell was that she was angry. I couldn't leave, all the Flickers disappeared. There was nothing I could do."

"That didn't happen," she said kindly. "What actually happened was that I went to Inferna and talked her into making a mistake, then the whole nest worked together to kill her. She is dead."

"Dead?" he asked numbly. "I wish."

"I am serious," she said with a huff. "I would not joke right now, not about that. You heard her arguing with me and then being attacked."

"I don't believe that," he said weakly. "Nothing could kill her."

"She is dead," Astrid repeated, knowing it was going to take time to sink in. "Totally, utterly dead, in a way nothing could crawl back from."

"Dead..." he repeated yet again, shaking now. "Dead."

She probably could have done this better. She moved closer, putting a wing over his head to block out the outside world. Maybe that would help him cope. "You are free," she told him. "No more commands. No more being forced into things."

He collapsed, his legs giving out with absolutely no warning. Astrid hastily followed him down, poking her head under her own wing to check on him. "Are you okay?"

"No," he moaned, "I cannot... really?"

"Really. I would not joke about something this important." To joke about that would be cruel in the extreme, and she was long done with being cruel to him. If anything, with the benefit of hindsight she knew she should have been more careful to tell him in a way that would not be so laughably unbelievable.

"Oh..." he whined. "Astrid... if she is dead, you must leave."

That was not where she had been expecting this to go. "Maybe, but everyone has decided to stay here through the cold-season. I am not leaving yet." And she still had no idea where to go when she did leave.

"No... you have to go... don't you see?" he looked up at her with wide eyes. "My father only stayed away because he was afraid of Inferna. If she is dead, he will make his way here, looking for my mother. If he sees you…"

Astrid felt a flash of dread, strong and specific. She had absolutely no desire to meet such a creature as Toothless had described.

Of all the dragons here, Toothless alone would not gain everything he wanted from Inferna's death. He alone had been able to stave off another demon through her. No longer.

"Not soon, though," Astrid objected. "I will be safe. The other flames will not let harm come to me." In fact, if Toothless' father showed up during the Winter, and Toothless identified him, the pack would probably do their best to kill him. Dragons did not tolerate the things he did, or at least this group did not.

"No, he will probably wait until the life-season at least," Toothless agreed. "And news has to travel, so he might not even know until then. But you should get a head start. Go now."

"No." She was not going to run in fear. "Right now, we should focus on what we have gained. You are safe. We do not have to do anything." She wasn't entirely sure why he wasn't more happy with that.

"Okay," he whined, curling up into a tight ball. "I need time to think. I need to... to think. Please."

"I will see you later when I bring water," Astrid asserted, unsure of what to do now. "So…"

"Please... please go... do not stay here," he whined. Then he was silent.

Astrid flew away, knowing she would not get anything more from him at the moment, and tried to put away her new worries. Toothless would be fine. He was just having a hard time coping with all of this. She was too, so it was understandable.

They had all of the coming Winter to work all of this out and decide the future. Everything would be fine.