Everyone gets off the boat at what they assume is the Nest - the unnaturally thick fog has dissipated, but its even more eerie now than the last voyage to find this place. The island…it looks dead.
There's ash everywhere, a thick layer of it that coats their boots at once - something burned here, something big. Maybe the rest of what that giant foot was attached to. There's no plants, no animals...nothing alive on the island but them.
The only sign of any recent life on the place is the burned-out fire that looks only a few days old at most. And there's only one person that would've been here.
Bloom.
This is Dragon Island.
This is the Nest.
Bloom clearly didn't expect them to come after her, as there wasn't any attempts to hide the fact that she'd been there. The fire was allowed to burn out, the campsite - if it could even be called a campsite, at that point - left to time and the elements to destroy. As if she expected them to just get on with their lives, instead of going after her.
Like we did, Asher's mind points out. Like what happened last time she left Berk with no plans on returning.
The monstrous hole in the mountain doesn't bode well for whatever dragon it was that was here, and neither do the scorchmarks that Gobber thinks go down through the earth. There's nothing growing on this island, not even a tree or bush…or even a single weed. The creepiest part, though, is the silence.
Bloom called this place 'Dragon Island' but…its completely dead. Not even the sound of a Terrible Terror scuttling around.
When the Twins and Snotlout take a look inside the mountain with a hole the size of Berk in its side, what they see is…a massive cavern, with a pit in the middle. A very stinky pit, at that, with cooled lava and they-don't-want-to-know down at the bottom. And scorch marks, claw marks, and what looks like massive teeth marks heading up the sides - even a perfect impression of a bite mark that makes poor Fishlegs actually soil himself at the sheer size and number of teeth when they drag the others up to see it - right up until the sides suddenly end abruptly, with a massive hole like whatever made all of that simply broke out from the inside.
Out of the massive - no, gargantuan - pit that clearly housed…something. Something big, and deadly. Something that, from the marks on the walls, didn't care about any damage it caused. Asher's mind, upon seeing the pit, goes back to the strange foot that washed up only a few weeks after Bloom left. By all the Gods, what was down there?! Some unholy offspring of Surtur himself?! From the state of the sea stacks that can be seen, there was a fight of some kind...and it was one Hel of a fight at that.
They keep going to the Northern Markets after exploring the place
Stoick, Asher, Gobber, Snotlout, Fishlegs, and the Twins get out of the boat, thrilled to be off after a solid two weeks of trying to find this place. Johann gave them directions, but it still took them two weeks to actually get here.
And they were going slightly mad by the time they got here, just from dealing with Snotlout and the Twins constantly.
There were a number of times Asher wished he could ride a dragon simply to speed up the travel time, it was so bad. He's been going insane, dealing with Snotlout and the Twins all this time with nowhere to escape them and no way to vent.
As it turns out, the Northern Markets are massive - there are stalls lining the streets, as well as buildings that could be any kind of business. A few are obviously bars, but others…others are nondescript and they avoid them. Luckily, Bloom's reputation as 'the Dragon Tamer' is well-known to everyone they ask.
Unluckily, most everyone they ask clams up as soon as they ask about her.
"The Dragon Tamer?! No, leave now. I don't want any trouble from her! If she learns people have been asking about her, there's no telling what she'll do!"
"Are you kidding me?! No, get out! I don't make trouble, and that's that! Whatever business you lot have with the Dragon Tamer, you can take it somewhere else!"
"Get out! I said get out! Anyone that asks about that woman and her dragons is looking for either trouble or a fiery death, and I'm not!"
"What, do you have some kind of death wish?! Go on, get! Go ask somewhere else!"
Several dozen shut-down conversations and more slammed doors than they can count later - and one instance where a graying old man says he can see the lovesickness on Asher's face, and he'll need to pray to Freya herself for some help after another conversation gets roughly shut down at the mention of 'the Dragon Tamer' - they learn half the people on the place are practically terrified of her and anyone affiliated with her based solely on a bounty that was put on her by one Viggo Grimborn up until a few weeks ago.
Apparently, nobody could actually collect that bounty, though many went in search of it, and those that found her had some truly unbelievable tales to tell. Fire shooting from her hands, her tossing grown men three times her size around like ragdolls without laying a hand on them, controlling wild dragons with nothing more than a few words, and even a fighting style and weapons no Viking would possibly know or be able to counter.
The sheer amount of fantastical - deadly - stories of encounters with her is the only reason they're taken as truth and not drunken hallucinations.
The Bartender of one of the less-filthy looking bars knows of her, and doesn't instantly clam up or tell them to leave, but only because he's seen her around a few times and she doesn't make trouble for him. She's a paying customer when he sees her in his bar, and hasn't involved herself with any trouble that's been started.
Plus, she's never struck him as a demon - yes, apparently, people believe she's a demon half the time, and a child of Surtur the other half. They're just too terrified of what she'd do if they tried to make her leave to not accept her business.
That seems like the sort of thing Bloom would encourage - or, at least, not deny - to make things easier on herself in the long run.
The owner of a weapons stall with weapons similar to what Bloom had on her - as well as many other types, not a good sign for them as they've got no clue how many she has now - says she comes around every so often to see his wares. Inspiration, apparently.
She's also got the reputation of 'don't mess with me, or I'll kill you' around here after she stabbed one Dragon Hunter in the hand without a second thought when he tried to sneak up behind her - at his stall, as it happens. Grabbed him, yanked him forward, buried one of his daggers up to the hilt in the back of his hand without a second's hesitation. He shows that bloodstain and hole in the wood off with pride to every new customer.
And then, after she'd bought some supplies, she found two Hunters trying to take her Light Fury - one managed to run, the other was the one she focused on instantly…for daring to lay a hand on her dragon. Nobody's dared mess with her since.
Unfortunately, nobody knows where she lives - or, if they do, they aren't talking. It doesn't help matters that she flies four circles around the island before disappearing up into the clouds and out of sight.
What they do get are vague descriptions of what she can do, a vivid description of her temper, wild speculations that she's more than likely been happy to let grow about her being either blessed by Freya or a demon from Helheim, and how she met up with two other dragons riders…that rode a Razorwhip. From there, they get vague directions to a place called 'Wingmaiden Island' - apparently, a crew washed ashore there during a storm, and found a bunch of ladies with wings on their backs.
Luckily, though, the Wingmaidens were friendly enough and repaired their ship. The crew booked it out of there as soon as they could, since the sight of ladies with metallic wings coming from their backs via baby Razorwhips clinging to them was rather disconcerting.
It certainly sounds like a group that would ally themselves with someone known as the Dragon Tamer. And a group that Bloom, dragon-loving Bloom who stayed with the dragons hiding in the forest whenever she could, made friends with a Light Fury because the humans in the village except for Gobber scorned her, would all-too-happily stay with.
Its become alarmingly clear that dragons have become Bloom's entire life, and not in the way they'd thought they'd be back when she was in Warrior Training - she's got a way with dragons, as Gobber once said over three years ago, but not the way anybody but her thought.
Asher climbs up to the top of the mast, giving Stoick the excuse that he's going to keep a lookout - in reality, he wants to be alone with his thoughts. Thoughts that aren't particularly helpful to him at the moment.
He's almost compulsively going over every memory of Bloom he has after hearing all those tales about her, trying to find any detail he missed that might've given them all a clue as to her magic and her attraction towards dragons.
He can't find anything, though. Any instance or sighting of her that could have clued him in to the detail that she was meeting Brightfire in the forest or that she had magic and was practicing to control it during those meetings. He doesn't know if that says something about his lack of observance and attention, or about her acting skills.
Of course, according to her diary - and wouldn't that just get his hair set on fire if she ever learned about him reading it? - she always took special care to heal any unexplainable bruises and get any leaves and twigs out of her hair and clothes before heading back to the village. And she was careful to never reveal her sudden increase in balance or reflexes, slowly showing her improved performance in balance so she could explain it away as a lack of childhood clumsiness…that she never really had in the first place.
Her reflexes, though, she only ever revealed to Dagur - resulting in the scar on his upper right arm, when she caught a dagger he'd thrown near her head before it hit the wood and threw it straight back. He didn't catch it, and it buried itself to the hilt in the wood…and taking a slice out of his upper arm. She then put her forearm to his neck and threatened him, according to what she wrote.
He actually remembers that year, and he thought Dagur was being unusually…well, behaving himself, for some reason. Now he knows the reason - Bloom somehow scared him halfway to Valhalla. She didn't write down what she said, but he remembers Dagur not so much as glancing at Bloom the entire time. And then, snapping his head over to stare at Snotlout and the Twins in utter shock when they insulted and taunted her, like they'd just asked to be left outside with no weapon during a dragon raid. Now that expression makes a lot more sense - Dagur might not have known about her magic, since Bloom wrote she was careful not to do anything too incredible, but he was scared of what she'd do to him nonetheless.
And then Asher's thoughts turn from her secrets to a simple question.
Why?
Why would she return to Berk? Why would she come back to the Archipelago, when she had anonymity and a badass reputation out here? When, by her own admission, she's neck-deep in a war with these Dragon Hunters? Wouldn't she have much better things to do than go flying around her old island? Especially since she hates her old island? And everyone that lives on it minus Gobber?
She didn't plan on coming back at all, you heard her. It was pure chance that she found the Dragon Hunters in the area, else she and the dragons would've been long-gone.
Dammit. Sometimes, he really hates that voice in his head, pointing out stuff like that.
AN: Hey, everyone! Last semester before I graduate! Good news, it SHOULD be an easy semester! Hooray! Classes start Monday, but most of them are online - again, yay! I'm good at online classes, for the most part.
Anyway, the next chapter is up! I hope you guys like it! And, please be patient on 'The Girl Who Survived' - I've never been out of the US, so I've got to do a lot of research on things to do in different countries. So, pretty please with a cherry on top be patient for the next update on that, I want to make it good instead of fast.
Enjoy! Please review, they make my day!
