New Homes:

The newly affianced couple had only been in flight for ten minutes when they heard the mesmerizing call again.

Toothless and Luna barely had time to think, Nooooo, not ag... before their eyes glazed over and they swooped around in a half circle and flew back towards the sun. Half an hour later, they flew into a thick bank of fog. Enshrouded by the fog was a fearsome tower of an island with glowing cracks of red throughout the rocky mountain.

The island reeked of sulphur and death. The feeling in the air cried of fear and forced obedience.

It was a miserable place.

And it was home to the Red Death.

The massive Titan class dragon Queen was bigger than a whole fleet of longships, uglier than a flock of wart covered Gronckles, and scarier than a village full of females PMSing at the same time. She lived in the fiery magma depths of the volcano at the centre of the island, making her nearly invulnerable to attack. She demanded obedience and offerings of sustenance from the dragons caught in her siren call.

And they obeyed.

Toothless and Luna were no exception.

Like the mindless drones of a queen bee, they joined a long line of assorted dragons flying through a cave system. It was at this point that Toothless finally shook off the hypnotic call and came back to himself. He never did understand completely how that happened, but the sound of so many wings flapping in such tight quarters made the subsonic tone of the Red Death's call little more than a background buzz that his stubborn will power was able to overthrow.

He looked around him with wide, panicky eyes, confused as to what was happening. Dragons! So many dragons! I've never seen so many different kinds in one place before! And where am I?! And where's Luna?!

"Luna! Luna! Where are you?!" he called, head swivelling back and forth, looking for her frantically. He tried to stop, but there was no room and the other dragons flew into him, battering him with their wings mercilessly, uncaring about anything but following the voice that demanded all of their attention.

With little choice, he continued to fly along with the crowd, but kept to the edge as much as possible and slowed down as much as he dared until a white dragoness flew past him. Nearly sagging with relief, Toothless quickly caught up. "Luna?"

When she didn't respond with so much as a glance from her blank eyes, Toothless tried again, nudging into her shoulder and whimpering a little. "Luna! Please, Luna, wake up!"

Still nothing.

He nudged her harder and practically shouted into her mind while roaring in her ears. "LUNA!"

Luna shook her head as if trying to shake the noise out of her mind and finally looked around her with dawning clarity. For a moment, she wore the same look of confused horror that Toothless had, until she saw him flying beside her. "Toothless! What's happening? Where are we?"

"I don't know," he had to admit. "But I think we're about to find out," he added as the cave opened up into a giant cavern that smelled terrible and was degrees warmer than comfortable.

They settled onto the ledge of the opening as they watched dragon after dragon drop an animal or regurgitate a belly full of fish into what appeared to be the steam of the magma at the bottom of the cavern. But Toothless knew better. He'd heard about Queens from his mother, but had never encountered one, living on Night Fury Island all his life. The closest thing they had to a Queen was Midnight, an ancient dragoness that had lived so long, she had great great grandchildren on the island. (Toothless being one of them.) She was treated with the greatest respect and food was brought to her, but not because she demanded it but because she simply couldn't fly anymore and her extended family cared about her well being.

This Queen, wherever she was in the depths of the volcano, was not someone to respect, but someone to fear. Toothless now understood how he'd become lost. Even if her call wasn't what he'd first heard that had inspired him to leave home, it was what had summoned him to this area of the world. And if she'd done it once, she could do it again.

Toothless shared his thoughts with Luna in a quick burst, and then added on, "We need to get out of here. Now!"

"I totally agree," Luna said just as a mighty roar filled the cavern.

Droves of dragons dove into alcoves and quivered on rock ledges, trying to disappear.

Great Dragon, I think she heard us, Toothless thought, gulping in fear. The Furies froze halfway in the act of retreating as the Queen's willpower took over their bodies with impertinence quelling force. Against their will, they faced the center of the cavern again as a dark grey dragon covered in small red spikes, and nearly as big as the hollow mountain it resided under rose up out of the mist. Six piercing eyes pinned them to the ledge they were standing on.

"You think to escape me?" A booming female voice echoed through their minds as she roared at them again with a cloud of fetid breath, making them wince, eyes stinging from the putrid stench of rotting fish and sulphur. "I think not, my pretty new minions."

Toothless and Luna were forced to their knees by her will, bowing before her. He could barely breathe from the pressure nearly crushing his brain and body into submission.

"You will nest nearby and you will provide me with food every day or I WILL kill you. Do you understand?!"

Luna trembled beside him, tears leaking from her eyes from the pain. She whimpered as she nodded once.

Toothless was hardly any better, but his pride wouldn't let him cry. "We understand, Your Highness. We will do as you command." He didn't know what he'd do now about finding his family, but Toothless couldn't take the chance of risking Luna's life by disobeying the Queen.

"Good!" roared the Queen, both mentally and out loud. The cavern shook and the thousands of dragons within huddled even further into the rock walls. "Now feed me your pathetic offerings and you may go. And for future reference, I prefer animals over fish, so you better bring me something with legs at least every second day."

"Yes, my Queen," Toothless and Luna said together, their tones more subdued than either of the strong willed dragons had ever uttered.

The pressure eased off their minds and bones as she opened her massive mouth and waited.

Toothless gulped and looked at Luna. She sniffled but stiffened her muscles with resolve. "Come on, Toothless. We can always get more fish."

And with that, Luna flew off the ledge and towards the waiting mouth filled with teeth bigger than her. Not to be outdone by the courageous dragoness, Toothless followed. They regurgitated their fish into the waiting mouth, in danger of passing out from the smell of the Queen's breath as they did so.

As they turned to fly away, the Queen surged up and closed her mouth with a snap that just barely avoided taking off the ends of their tails.

Toothless shuddered in shock and fear and flew faster as the most spine chilling laughter he'd ever heard, or would ever hear, reverberated through his mind.

They zipped back through the cave, not speaking a word because they were too stunned at the turn of events to do so. With numb minds and faintly trembling limbs, they flew back to their little island out of sheer instinct and landed on the grass hill with trembling legs.

Toothless sank to his haunches and Luna did the same directly beside him. She leaned into him and he leaned right back, drawing support from each other, needing it desperately.

"What are we going to do now?" Luna whispered forlornly, finally breaking the silence.

Toothless sucked in a shuddering breath before answering. "I guess we make this our home for now. We can't fly away or she'll draw us back. She must let us go searching for animals, though, or she'd never get any."

Luna snuggled even closer into his side and he raised a wing and settled it over her. "I don't like this. I want to go home. I want my parents."

Toothless looked off across the ocean in the direction he was fairly certain his family was, an overwhelming wave of homesickness forcing his breaths out in too-quick pants of emotional pain. "Me too, Luna. Me too."

"At least we're not alone."

Toothless turned his gaze to the white dragoness, seeing a glistening tear leak from her eye. He licked up the droplet as it slowly traversed the fine scales of her cheek and his own distress faded as he realized that together, they could face anything. "Yes. At least we're not alone. We have each other. And I promise, you will always have me at your side for as long as you want me."

Luna looked back at the midnight coloured dragon, and felt herself calm at the quiet assurance in his tone. In that moment, she fell in love with him as they formed an unbreakable bond of trust and loyalty. "I will always want you at my side, Toothless. And I will always stand by yours." She licked his cheek to seal the deal and then bounced back on to her feet, wings unfurling as a playful breeze tickled her scales. "Now let's go get some more fish! I'm hungry."

The young Night Fury watched her glide down the hill, eyes blinking with awe and astonishment, not only at her abrupt mood change, but also at the unspoken glimpse of her emotions that she'd let him feel. I think... I think she just admitted to loving me back! By the Great Dragon, she already loves me back!

YES!

The excitement of the moment had him clumsily dashing after her like a baby dragon first learning to fly. He didn't care. He was going to go fishing with the new love of his life and the rest of their problems would sort themselves out later.

6 days later, not too far from Night Fury Island...

A brown Stormcutter flew through the clouds with easy flaps of his four mighty wings, following a small fleet of five longships. On his back, a standing rider dressed in brown and turquoise leather armour and a spike horn covered mask, a red cape, and carrying a staff with carved bone hooks at both ends balanced easily on the flying dragon.

Valka peered through a spyglass at the longship in the lead, frowning at the white haired man dressed in shimmery black leather from the neck down. Despite the colour of his hair, the man wasn't old. He looked to be in his prime and was fit almost to the point of being slender. She also got the impression he was far from a typical Viking, even though the rest of his crew appeared to be.

This man is too well groomed and carries himself too well to be anything like an average, thick muscled and equally thick brained Viking male.

I don't like him.

His men were armed to the teeth and looked suspiciously familiar, making her think they were actually Drago's henchmen. She'd spent too many years rescuing dragons from Drago's evil grasp to not recognize at least a few of them.

And now that she looked, the longships' shields and sails were covered in Drago's symbol of a sword through a dragon head, and the decks were lined with the usual assortment of evil dragon catching paraphernalia.

Whoever this man was, he was new, but he'd somehow earned Drago's trust enough to command a small fraction of the Warlord's army. She wasn't sure how that had happened, though, considered the Warlord was roughly four times this man's size in breadth and was notoriously suspicious of possible usurpers to his position as the 'Dragon God'.

"I have a bad feeling about this," she murmured to Cloudjumper as she tucked the spyglass into a pouch on her belt.

"I agree," Cloudjumper thought back, a subtle growl coming from his throat that rumbled up into her feet.

"Let's get ahead of them and see if we can find what they're hunting."

"Gladly."

Valka reached forward and grasped a spike on the back of her dragon's head just in time to avoid being blown off by the sudden gust of wind as he accelerated to a breathtaking speed. They left the longships behind in moments.

Gods, I love flying! It never gets old, she thought as adrenaline coursed through her veins, and exultant, feminine laughter filled the clouds.

Her dragon echoed her laughter in a deep, rumbling bass, deliberately aiming for the thickest clouds to fly through, just for the fun of it.

By staying on the same trajectory as the longships, it didn't take them long to find the dragon hunters' objective.

Cloudjumper circled the island from afar as Valka pulled out her spyglass again. She gasped as she caught sight of the black dragons that inhabited the mountainous island. "Are those... Night Furies?"

"Yes."

"I thought they were just a myth," Valka nearly whispered in awe.

"Not a myth," Cloudjumper chuckled. "But they are rare. I have only ever seen one, and that was many many years ago. A whole clan of them is almost unheard of."

"Let's see if we can prevent them from becoming even rarer," she said with determination lacing her tone as she tucked her spyglass away again. There is no way I'm letting that white haired snake of a man and Drago's' goons capture or kill these magnificent creatures.

"As you wish." Cloudjumper swooped down towards the island, instantly catching the attention of more than one Night Fury.

A cry rang through the air and within moments every adult dragon was winging towards Cloudjumper and the young were told to go hide.

Cloudjumper landed on the beach, dwarfing the Night Furies that landed in a semi circle in front of him and regarded him with guarded suspicion. Some even growled as they noticed that Cloudjumper was carrying a human passenger.

A big male Night Fury stepped forward from the front of the group and faced the bigger dragon with a confident stance. "Who are you and why have you brought a human to our island?" he demanded of Cloudjumper.

Cloudjumper stared down the leader and the group of about twenty black dragons with calm authority. "I am Cloudjumper, and this is my human, Valka. She is a good human, not like the others. We come to warn you of danger. A pack of the bad kind of humans will be here within the hour. They come to hunt you and kill you for your hides, or enslave you and force you to be little better than attack dogs. If you do not want this fate, you need to leave this island. Now."

The leader quelled exclamations of alarm from his flock with a look before he turned back to the bigger dragon. "Why should we trust your word? You carry a human. It could be making you say these things."

Cloudjumper snorted in dry amusement. As if a paltry human could ever tame and enslave me.

"Does my will seem overtaken to you? Valka is my friend. We work together to free dragons from the humans coming your way. We only mean to help you and bring you to a place of safety." To prove his words, he blasted the whole clan of Furies with an image of the longship fleet along with past memories of dragons in cages, starving and tortured. He also threw in a picture of the white haired human dressed in black armour that looked an awful lot like the scaly hides of these Night Furies. That got the gasps he was looking for.

The leader was clearly undecided as he looked from Cloudjumper to his clan and back again.

"I think we should do what he says, Longwing," a female dragon said as she came to stand beside the leader. "Think of the children."

Longwing sighed. "I am thinking of the children, Ebony. But what about Toothless? What if he comes back and we're gone? And what about Midnight? She can't fly anymore. And the eggs; it's not safe to move them if we don't have to."

"If it helps," Cloudjumper said after shamelessly eavesdropping on their silent conversation, "I don't know what to say about your missing dragon but I can carry your dragoness. And as far as your eggs are concerned, they'll have a better chance of survival being moved than staying here. You do not want to know what happens to the spirits of young dragons raised in captivity."

Longwing hung his head and closed his eyes as he made a hard decision for the good of the clan, no matter how much it hurt to think of Toothless coming home and finding everyone gone. Maybe I can come back periodically to see if my son has come back. That thought helped settle the decision in his mind.

Longwing looked up at the big brown Stormcutter. "All right. We'll leave. I am trusting you on this. Do not make me regret it."

Cloudjumper nodded once. "You will not. You'll like Sanctuary. Or at least, I'm sure your young will. There are many young dragons there for them to play with."

"Oh joy," Ebony said with a roll of her eyes. "More young dragons to try and keep out of trouble."

Longwing chuckled after his mate as she flew off to retrieve the twins, along with a handful of other dragons that went to get their children or their eggs. He looked over his shoulder at Cloudjumper as he turned away. "Come on then, and I'll take you to Midnight. The old girl might actually enjoy this. It's been years since she flew."

"Then I am doubly glad to help. No dragon deserves to be grounded. Flying is our life." Cloudjumper said as he followed the Night Fury towards the center of the island.

Meanwhile, Valka had nearly been vibrating with curiosity, dying to know what was happening with the dragons. Unlike Cloudjumper, she couldn't eavesdrop on mental conversations unless they were specifically broadcast to her, and then it wasn't really eavesdropping, was it. "What's happening?" she said quietly as they flew across the island.

"They are coming with us. I am going to carry an old dragoness that can no longer fly."

"Ah. Good. That's good," Valka said with a relieved smile. "I hope our Bewilderbeast doesn't mind the addition of another flock so soon after the last batch we rescued."

"I doubt that will be a problem. Falkor is a generous King. But... Perhaps I should have told the Night Furies that they are going to have to become his loyal subjects in order to live in Sanctuary. It appears this flock is unaffiliated with a Queen or King and they might not like the slight change in lifestyle."

"I think, in this case, it is better to explain after we get there. There is no time for any second guessing."

"I agree," Cloudjumper thought as they came in for a landing on a big, moss covered ledge on the side of a mountain. "We'll tell them later." He bowed to the ancient dragoness that toddled forward to meet them, cloudy green eyes wide with curiosity. She looked much too old to still be alive; with tattered wings and scales turned to grey around the face. "Hello, my Lady. I am here to give you a ride to your new home."

Two weeks later, unnamed island...

Toothless landed on the beach, calling for his girlfriend, excitement thrumming through his veins. "Luna! Luna!"

Luna emerged from the ocean where she'd been diving for fish and quickly swam over to the beach, shaking off the water when she made it to land. "What is it, Toothless?"

He bounded over to her, radiating his excitement. He touched his nose to hers briefly in a warm hello after not seeing her for a whole day before giving her his news. "As you know, I followed a Deadly Nadder that was bringing the Queen a furry animal on a regular basis that she likes the best, wondering where he was getting the sheep and yak from."

"Yes. And...?"

"You'll never guess what I found!" Toothless was practically bouncing with the energy filling him.

"What? What did you find?"

"It's amazing! And perfect!"

Luna was about ready to smack him upside the head for not actually giving her a real answer. "What was perfect, Toothless?" she said, holding onto her patience out of determination alone.

"A hidden cove! It has a lake with fish, a waterfall, is surrounded by rock walls, is almost inaccessible to anything that can't fly, and has a nice network of caves to spend the winter in. And best of all, no one else lives there! Ooooo. And even better than that, it's on the same island the furry animals come from. Feeding the Queen will be easy!"

"It does sound perfect," Luna admitted. Their current island was fine for the summer, but it offered very little in the way of protection from the winter elements. (Even fire breathing dragons preferred to stay out of the cold if they could.) She narrowed her eyes at Toothless as she realized the cove sounded just a little bit TOO perfect. If it is such a find, why aren't other dragons living there? "Alright. Spill. There has to be something on the downside you're not telling me."

Toothless looked down at his toes when he couldn't meet her suspicious gaze anymore. She was too smart sometimes. Not that he'd want a stupid mate, but still... "There's a herd of humans living on the island too. It's their animals the Deadly Nadder has been stealing."

Luna gawked at him for a few seconds, jaw actually dropping a bit. "Let me get this straight. You want us to live on an island already occupied by the dragon killing humans and steal their animals? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!"

Toothless flinched at the mental screech. He glanced up at her disbelieving blue eyes before studying the individual grains of sand under his paws again. "Yes? And No. I think it's a perfectly feasible idea. They have patrols constantly scanning for dragons coming in from the ocean and weapons that are worthy of respect. But if we already lived there, we wouldn't have to worry about that. We can snatch an animal in the dead of night while the humans are sleeping. One of the caves lets out onto a cliff face just above the ocean. We can swim in unseen every time we come back from feeding the Queen."

Luna sucked in a deep breath and carefully thought through everything he'd said. Perhaps he was right and this might just work? "All right, Toothless. Show me this cove of yours. I'm willing to give it a shot, at least."

Toothless finally looked up and grinned widely at her before pouncing on her and licking her face enthusiastically. "Thank you, thank you! You won't regret it, I promise! You'll love it there, it's so pretty. There's even some sand to make pictures in."

"All right!" she laughed as she licked him back once and then pushed him off her. "You've convinced me." She stood and shook off the sand and then nudged her cheek against his when he'd done the same. "Come on, my persuasive one, let's go brave the land of the humans."