Through the storm. It felt like a risky plan, but at this point, Maour was fine with that. Flying through the rain day after day was miserable, but they couldn't risk missing one of the islands they wanted to stop and rest on by flying above the clouds. Splitting the difference and having one below the clouds and the rest above would leave too much to chance.

He almost unconsciously flicked the prosthetic tail to keep up with Toothless as they dove, moving a little lower as they gained speed. He was concerned that the tailfin would begin to rust if they didn't shake this storm soon. He had replacement parts for the tailfin safely and dryly tucked away in the saddlebag, but he would rather not use them so soon with so far to go.

At first, flying through the storm as opposed to lingering on its outskirts did not seem to change much. The rain was a bit heavier, the wind a bit stronger, but that was all. Lightning flashed in the distance, gradually drifting closer.

They passed the small island they would have stopped at without comment, pushing forward. Now, they had to keep going because there was no more land until their next stop.

Hours of flight, of cold and wet endurance. It was almost worse for Maour than Toothless because Toothless at least stayed warm from the exertion of flying.

Eventually, the next island came up in the distance, a heavily-forested hunk of rock jutting out of the dark and choppy ocean. The group landed on the shore, the dragons among them panting heavily, and moved inland, seeking shelter.

Maour had dismounted, not wanting to burden Toothless any more than he had to. They spread out a little bit, looking for somewhere to rest. Maour and Heather weren't as exhausted as the dragons, but they were very eager to find a dry spot for the first time in what seemed forever, so they broke off together to cover more ground.

Now was a good time, he supposed, to ask something that had been bothering him. "Heather?"

Heather turned to face him, wiping water off of her face. "What is it?"
"Why did you show Nóttreiði your other ax?" It didn't make sense. "You needed that."

"This again?" Heather sounded confused. "Maour, it has been a week since I did that. Why bring it up now?"
"Well, we might not be alone here," he explained. "And you're voluntarily separating yourself from Einfari. You're vulnerable."

"You have a weapon," Heather countered, ducking under the somewhat effective cover of a stout tree. "So I'm not totally vulnerable."

"I still think you should take one of them when Nóttreiði isn't looking," Maour asserted. "I can give one to you today, when he's asleep." He had not wanted to risk that before, because Nóttreiði might be watching, faking sleep, but after the extra-long trip, Nóttreiði would be too tired to do that this time.

"Maour… no." Heather shook her head decisively. "I want him to trust me. Smuggling a weapon under his nose, on his sister's back, when he thinks I voluntarily gave it up? The second I pulled it out, I could wave goodbye to any chance of him ever coming around."

"And if you couldn't pull it out, you could wave goodbye to life," Maour countered. "I speak from experience when I say it's possible to live on our island without getting on Nóttreiði's good side."

"You were not sharing a-" Heather cut herself off before continuing. "Not sharing a cave with him."

What was she going to say originally? He had a guess, but it was an optimistic one.

"Besides, I will be fine," she continued stubbornly, forging ahead through the intermittent rain and wet foliage. "All of these islands have been-"
She stopped suddenly, freezing mid-step, one hand on a tree and the other hanging limp by her side.

"Don't move," she whispered. "How aggressive are wild dragons, exactly?"

Oh, that was fine. Maour smiled, slowly moving forward despite her warning, intent on getting a look. "Actually, it's fine. They tend to be less hostile once they hear me." The novelty of him apparently speaking mentally and verbally, a side-effect of the link Heather was still a few months away from developing, generally disarmed wild dragons quite effectively.

He moved up beside Heather and looked out upon the small clearing she had almost stumbled into. Within, a grey and blue-tinged dragon lay with its back to them. It was not one he knew, shaped like a Monstrous Nightmare but much larger and with far more wicked-looking claws on its two large hind legs, and a subtly different head shape.

Yes, this was fine. "Maybe they know where we can find shelter," he muttered quietly to Heather.

"We should not wake it," she hissed back. "Maybe it wants a snack!"

"They don't eat us, generally speaking," he reassured her. "At least, most don't." Memory of being taken by a Changewing intent on exactly that so long ago made him a little more cautious… but this was not a Changewing.

Still, best to be careful. He accessed his brother's senses and waited the moment it took Toothless to notice and tune in. "We're going to ask a dragon if they know anywhere to shelter from the storm."
'You found someone?" Toothless asked curiously. "Where are they?'
"East of where we split up," Maour directed. "Lying in a clearing."

'Wait, why do you think they would know where to take shelter if they are not doing so?'

Maour shrugged. "Maybe they like the rain?"

The dragon stirred. 'Maybe I liked the quiet.' Her voice was irritated. 'Maybe I do not need two Terrible Terrors asking for directions. Just hide under a bush.'

Terrible Terrors? Well, she could not see them… but Terrors did not talk, so she must be insulting them. "I'm a little too big to hide under a bush," he objected. "But we are sorry for disturbing you."

Toothless hummed uneasily. 'I do not know that kind of dragon,' he remarked, now using Maour's vision, 'but something about it makes me uneasy.'

Just as Toothless said that the mystery dragon shifted, arching her neck to look over at Maour and Heather. Her grey eyes narrowed, though unlike most dragons she did not seem particularly concerned at first sight.

'You are not Terrors,' she agreed. 'Your kind hunts mine, or tries to.' She growled confidently. 'Are you here to die?'

"No, definitely not," Maour reassured her, stepping into the open and showing he was not armed. Heather stood behind him. "We are just looking for shelter."

'Does your friend not talk?' the dragon inquired. 'Why you and not her? Why you at all?'

An intelligent question. "She is not… old enough," he improvised, not wanting to get into the complexities of the link. "A few months from now she will be able to, but for now she talks like all other humans."

"Not old enough," Heather muttered rebelliously. "Somehow, I feel insulted." She wiped her face, squinting into the rain now driven into their faces by the steady wind.

'And you are not humans,' the dragon continued. 'Those run, or attack and die.' She was sure of that. 'They do not speak.'

"Well, actually, we are humans," he clarified. "We'd rather befriend than fight."

'Oh, good, I do not need to kill you. You are not my preferred prey anyway,' the dragon sighed in relief. 'I would save my power for those I must kill.'

That set off a few alarm bells in Maour's head, though he tried not to let it show. Power, for instance, was a strange term for a dragon to use instead of fire, and speaking of those she 'must kill' was worryingly indicative of-

"Maour, what is she?" Heather whispered, forgetting that she would not be understood anyway. "She spoke of power of some sort. Don't dragons use fire?"

'What does she say?' the female dragon inquired curiously, looking over at Heather. 'You say she speaks in her own language.'

"She was wondering what you meant by power," Maour improvised, worried now. "Do you breathe fire?"

'No, of course not,' the female chortled. 'Why do you think I am here?' Bright arcs of white light crackled briefly from her scales and talons, confirming Maour's worst fears. 'This storm is my ally, though it thinks not. We search for prey together, and it keeps me at top strength.'

'Run!' Toothless commanded, his voice cold and scared. 'Politely get out of her sight and then run. We are coming, but you need to get away from her.'

"Your prey?" Maour asked sidling backward. By the way Heather was also retreating, Einfari had relayed a similar message.

'Not you, I just said that,' the dragon, or Skrill as Hiccup suddenly realized, reassured them. 'I only hunt one thing, and you are not it.' She moved closer, staring curiously. 'You know of the dark dragons who skulk in shadows and use blue fire? Those are my prey, and you are clearly nothing of the sort.'

"Why do you hunt them?" Maour asked urgently, disguising it as an innocent question. This could be huge. Nobody knew if the Skrill had a reason, given they always attacked on sight, no matter how suicidal that could be. He was uniquely positioned to get an unguarded, calm answer.

'They are usurpers and traitors,' the female growled, abruptly growing angry. So much for a calm answer. 'Wiping them out of this world is our duty.'

He knew the term 'usurper' was used by Skrill for Night Furies through hearsay from those who survived fighting Skrill, but traitors? "Who did they betray?"

'Everyone,' she replied, sighing sadly, moving closer still as if to confide in him. 'They led-'

Too close. Her nose was too close, and the wind had shifted. She froze, inhaling deeply.

Lightning flashed across the sky, dividing it into two. Toothless howled in his mind for him to run, for him to not let her any closer, to strike out with his Scythe if he could, anything. Heather scrambled away behind him, catching on that the deception was over.

'And I was almost beginning to like you,' the female sighed, pulling back. 'You associate with them. They lead more astray, even here. I will be kind and make your death as painless as possible.' Energy flared from her body, flashing over her, making her almost painful to look at.

"Wait!" Maour cried out, stumbling back into a tree. "Why?!"

'It is why I am here,' she declared, the white flaring energy gathering in her talons as she stalked forward. 'My kind work to cleanse this world of the traitors we failed to stop long ago. You are with them, so you must die with them.'

Okay, time to run. He was not so suicidal as to try reasoning with her when she was so enraged. He ran, slipping behind a tree and through the undergrowth, his speed aided by years of practice. Running like this was something he was genuinely good at, like using his Scythe or making things. It was almost pleasant to run, though the rain and murderous Skrill behind him did sap the fun out of it.

'Head South,' Toothless instructed hurriedly. 'The shore is that way, and I will be able to see you as soon as we both get there. Heather is on her way, though it is far slower.'

That made sense. He couldn't hear the Skrill behind him… but there was no way she had given up without even trying. It was far too-

An explosion of sound rocked him, a wave of force like wind amplified into a solid object sending him careening into a tree.

He stumbled back up, his ears ringing, to see a smoldering hole in the forest to his right, small fires dying as the rain smothered them.

Move. He needed to keep moving. She was blasting the forest from above. How did she know where he was?
As he ran, that question was answered by more blasts in all directions. She didn't know where he was, and was destroying at random, trying to drive him out into the open. It wouldn't work… if there was no storm.

He caught a glance of her as he passed below a small opening in the tree canopy. Lightning was striking her, lancing from the clouds and hitting her to no visible effect. Was there any limit to how much she could destroy, powered by the weather?

He recalled something Toothless had conveyed long ago. Skrill were most dangerous in storms. This must be why. They had absolutely no shot limit in this weather if such a thing usually applied to them at all.

'Forget the beach, it will see you,' Toothless panted. 'Einfari went after Heather. Can you give me any idea where you are?'

Maour stopped for a moment, hating to be any more vulnerable than he already was. The forest was the same on all sides. There were no good landmarks that would be visible from more than ten steps away, obscured by the chaotic undergrowth. "No. What about you?"

'I'm in the trees just by the shore, alone,' Toothless relayed. 'I guess you should keep heading to the beach, but whatever you do, don't go into the open.'

Maour resumed his run, flinching at every fresh blast echoing through the trees. "What do we do once we get into the air? She will see us for sure."

'Fight, because we're not getting away, not in this storm. But first, we need to get to each other.'

Fight… something hit him. "Toothless, where is Nóttreiði?" Clearly not in the air, as the Skrill was still hunting them in the forest as opposed to fighting a Night Fury.

'No idea,' Toothless remarked. 'I don't know what he's doing.'

"You would think," Maour wheezed, skidding to a halt right by the treeline, "that he would love the chance to vent some anger. I'm here."

'Where, exactly?' Toothless asked. 'Never mind, I see you.'

Maour turned to see his brother slinking through the trees, glancing up every few steps. The blasts were still randomly hitting the forest, and the Skrill was howling now, utterly enraged.

Toothless wasted no time with sappy reunions and nudged Maour towards his saddle. 'Get up there. I do not know if Einfari has found Heather yet, and we need to get that Skrill's attention off of the ground.'

"No argument here," Maour muttered, climbing into the saddle and hunching over, making his form as flat as possible to aid in speed- and to make it less likely he'd get hit. "But this might be hard. The storm is going to be an issue."

'Mom took one out on her own, so three dragons and two humans should be able to do the same here,' Toothless countered.

"She also got driven a huge distance from home and right into the Queen's thralls," Maour objected. "I don't think we want to compare this to that!"

'Too late!' Toothless laughed, flinging them into the sky, up and out of any semblance of cover. 'Now let's get her attention.'

"Done," Maour shouted as they abruptly spun to the side, avoiding a blast of lightning that originated from the Skrill, as opposed to the clouds it should normally come from.

The Skrill let up in her attack on the now scarred and smoldering forest, screeching with a strange hum underlying what would otherwise be a normal sound. She dove for them, her talons buzzing with dangerous crackling lightning. To be grabbed would be very bad, and clearly she was aiming for exactly that.

Death. She wanted them dead, no compromise whatsoever. Why? There was no way to get any further explanation now.

Toothless swerved around, maneuvering slightly faster and more effectively than the much larger dragon. 'She's big enough to grab and carry me with no problem. How is she this fast?!'

"Blame the storm, that's what I'm doing," Maour quipped, unsheathing his Scythe. "Can you outfly her?"

'Honestly… maybe not!' Toothless dropped abruptly, a bolt of lightning passing over them both. 'Not like this. Dodging slows me down.'

"We could use some backup," Maour said, stating the obvious. He took a quick look behind them, staring directly into the Skrill's eyes. Murderous rage, and nothing more. But she had been, if not lighthearted, at least pleasant right until she smelled Night Fury on him…

Her mouth opened, and he ducked, instinctively folding in his side of the tailfin just in time. A strong blast of lightning struck through the air where his head had been.

They pulled out just above the trees, swerving wildly to try and gain some distance.

'We need to stop fleeing!' Toothless roared desperately, flying as fast as he could. 'I'm going to turn and charge it!'

Maour knew what Toothless wanted. He held his Scythe with one of the sharp blades pointed up. "Under or over her?"

'Over,' Toothless replied hastily. 'Those talons look bad.'

Definitely, but he couldn't strike at her from above. He put the Scythe away, concentrating solely on the tailfin. They were going to need to be-

A blast impacted behind them, a encouragingly familiar one, followed by a screech from the Skrill. Einfari had entered the fray.

Einfari and Heather, Maour saw as they pulled up and turned, the Skrill no longer chasing them, turning to engage Einfari. Nóttreiði was still nowhere to be found.

'About time!' Toothless growled confidently. 'Now we can really stop running.'

They pulled up, gaining height as the Skrill was distracted. Einfari was holding her own by a small margin, avoiding the myriad of lightning blasts coming from the Skrill while firing her own plasma shots back. The Skrill took the brunt of each blast, powering through them and forcing Einfari back.

Toothless reentered the fray, strafing the Skrill from above. He and Einfari worked together, attacking from all angles, flying around her. She could not strike at them both at once, and to commit to pursuing one meant being vulnerable to the other. Simply put, she was outnumbered.

Her response to that realization was to go after Einfari anyway, ignoring any other threats. Einfari turned tail and fled, Heather on her back, baiting the Skrill.

'We get one shot at this,' Toothless called back as they gained on both dragons, pulling up above them. 'I'm going to slam her into the trees.'

It was a dangerous plan, but Maour had no better ideas. "Carefully."

'How is that even possible?' Toothless asked rhetorically as they dove, angling through the air, Toothless pulling in his wings to move as fast as possible, a black streak against the grey clouds and driving rain.

The Skrill never even looked up, intent on Einfari and Heather. Maour caught a glimpse of Heather's terrified face right before Toothless hit the Skrill, plowing into her from above.

Maour involuntarily closed his eyes as the impact rocked him, gripping the saddle so hard it felt like his fingers were going to break. There was a familiar lightness to his stomach that meant they were falling again-

And then a second impact, far more powerful than the first, the slapping of branches against him, and a third, final shock, a wooden crunch that followed a split second of sliding.

All on top of the Skrill, who took the brunt of every hit. There was quiet for a few moments, before the sound of a tree creaking and falling, a reverbrating thud that was oddly muted and followed by a wet crack.

Then all was quiet, aside from infrequent thunder and the pattering of rain on scale, leaf, and mud.

Maour forced his eyes open, blinking away the specks of mud covering his face, and as he saw through slowly clearing vision, all of the saddle and Toothless. Under them was the slowly crackling body of the Skrill, motionless.

Toothless stirred, half-walking and half-falling off of the Skrill, stumbling away from her. 'It's not… not dead yet.'

No, she was not, though she was well on that path, mutilated and broken by the impacts. The tree had collapsed on her wing, breaking the leading edge. There was a short ditch plowed by the Skrill's underside from the fall, her path halted by that same tree. She was broken, her body almost bent around the stump. It was a brutal scene…

And Maour felt nothing but pity in that moment. In a way, this was exactly how he had met Toothless, so long ago. Knocked out of the sky, injured, defeated.

Einfari landed next to Toothless, her mouth slightly open, a blue glow indicating that she was ready to fire in an instant.

Maour took a step forward, towards the Skrill.

'Maour-'

"She's not going to hurt me." How could she, broken like that? He wasn't even sure she was conscious. He came closer, careful not to touch her directly, kneeling by her head. Her eyes were closed. "We didn't want to fight."

One large, grey eye rolled open, bloodshot and unfocused. A spasm wracked her body, white-hot flashes arced across her spines and between her scales. Was she going to say something? It looked like it, as her eye focused on him.

Then she lurched forward, snapping at him, her massive and deadly jaws clumsily knocking him aside as she tried to bite him in half. He scrambled back, terrified, and she threw herself after him, the tree pinning her wing barely holding her down for the moment. Her body struggled, mutilated though it was, in a way that was painful to watch.

Two plasma blasts slammed into her, but she kept going, still trying to pull herself out from under the tree, trying to kill even while majorly injured.

Einfari leapt forward and bit into the Skrill's neck, shaking it. Electricity fizzled around her for a few brief moments before there was a wet tearing sound-

Maour felt sick. He turned away, not wanting to look at what they had done. It was self-defense, it was necessary, but he couldn't help but think that there had to be a better way.

"Einfari?" Heather asked worriedly. "You can let go now."
'I… can't…' Einfari replied, her voice unmuffled because she did not speak physically.

Maour turned back to look despite himself, focusing on the fact that Einfari's body was tense, her grip on the Skrill's now somewhat torn neck was strong. What did she mean?

'Can't open my mouth... help,' she requested with a small amount of panic, beginning to struggle and pull away, still biting down. Small sparks crackled around where she was biting, dying out but not gone yet.

Toothless moved forward, grabbing onto Einfari's wingarm with toothless gums and pulling. The two struggled for a brief moment before the Skrill's neck gave. Einfari tumbled back with a chunk of bloody flesh and scale in her mouth, which she promptly spit out.

"What was that?" Heather asked, eyeing the Skrill's body suspiciously. "It's dead, right?"

'I have no idea how that happened,' Einfari whined. 'My jaw hurts and I feel numb.'

"Are you going to be okay?" The concern in Heather's voice was obvious as she moved over Einfari.

'I will be fine,' Einfari huffed. 'I'm not doing that again if we ever run into another Skrill. It shocked me the instant I bit down.' She turned to stare at Maour. 'Next time, don't get so close.'

"We should have killed it as soon as we saw it was not dead yet,' Toothless agreed.

He didn't like hearing that from Toothless. "There's something to be said for mercy, Toothless."

'For a dragon that tried to kill you the moment she knew you hung around our kind?' Toothless growled at the corpse. 'She almost got you because we didn't finish her.'

They would discuss this later, when they were not standing around in the rain by a dead body. "We'll talk about it later. Right now, we need to… well, keep looking for shelter." The whole ordeal with the Skrill had almost driven why they were here out of his head entirely.

'And my brother,' Einfari remarked. 'Where did he go, anyway?'

'Okay, that's really strange,' Toothless agreed. 'Is Nóttreiði the kind of dragon to run from-'

Einfari burst out laughing, a truly amused sound contrasting the somber scene. Even Heather cracked a smile. 'Nóttreiði is not one to run from anything, ever.'

"So… where is he?" Maour didn't really like Nóttreiði, but it was a little worrying that the antagonistic dragon had apparently disappeared. "There was only one Skrill here, right?"

An uneasy silence fell over them at that question.

"This one didn't talk about another Skrill…" Heather ventured uncertainly.

'But he might have run into something else,' Einfari countered. 'He didn't fly, because the Skrill would have attacked as soon as it saw him, so he's on the ground somewhere.'

'We need to split up again to look for him,' Toothless agreed reluctantly.

'I'll go with Maour,' Einfari replied.

Everyone stared at her in confusion.

'What?' she defended. 'It's the smartest way to split up. We want to be in communication, but sending Maour and Heather off together almost got them killed. This way, both groups can talk to each other, but both also have a dragon with them.'

"She's right," Heather agreed. "I don't know how to work Toothless's tailfin, so if we get into trouble we're stuck on the ground, but it's still the best option."

"Okay, got it." He couldn't exactly object, it was just a little odd. "When did he first wander off?"

'I don't know when, exactly,' Einfari admitted. 'Right after I saw the lightning through Heather's eyes and told her it was a Skrill. He must have heard me say that, because by the time I came back to my own sight to get to her, he was gone. I didn't have time to look for him.'

'Okay,' Toothless decided, 'we'll just search everywhere. Heather and I will look from the ground, and Maour, I guess you and Einfari can look from above.' He sounded only mildly unhappy about that. Maour sometimes rode Von or other Svarturs if the need arose, so it wasn't unheard of, but it was still unusual. Necessity forced it in this case.

And so, Maour found himself searching the forest from Einfari's back, scanning the treetops below for a flash of black. It was still wet and cold, wind and rain conspiring to make them miserable. Einfari called Nóttreiði's name every once in a while, but she made no actual noise. It was a somewhat pointless precaution, given other dragons were just as likely to hear her calling mentally, but she did it nonetheless.

In between calls, however, there was an almost awkward silence.

Eventually, he had to break it. "So… how are things for you?"

Einfari cast him an unamused stare. 'At the moment, terrible. My brother is missing, I'm cold, and we might still be in danger. You?'

"Same," he muttered, rebuffed. Maybe silence was better right now.

Einfari, on the other hand, seemed to prefer talking. 'Why did you do that?'

Maour had a brief flashback to earlier that night, asking Heather the same question about a different situation. "You'll have to be more specific."

'Getting close to the Skrill once we had downed it,' Einfari clarified. 'That was stupid, and you are not stupid by any means.'

How to explain the brief flash of pity? Maybe she would understand if he just voiced his feelings. "It felt like the right thing to do. She was fine at first… I don't like what we did." No matter how fast, unintentional, or necessary some of it was, they had chosen to strike instead of attempting to flee.

'I do,' Einfari growled, surprising him. 'It admitted to hunting us. It spoke as if it was experienced, and Skrill attacks always end in the death of hunter or hunted, so that means it has killed others of our kind before.'

He had not made that connection… but it didn't really make him feel any better. "There should be a better way."

'Is that what you risked your life for?' Einfari warbled curiously, briefly breaking the conversation to call out her brother's name. 'What did you think would happen?'

"I wanted to understand," he admitted. "I don't get why, and it doesn't look like I'm ever going to find out without taking some risks, if they'll all attack the moment they smell me." Next time, he would be smarter about it.

'Don't try,' Einfari advised absently. 'Why does not matter, as they do not stop. Risking your life to understand will change nothing.'

He didn't agree with that at all. "Last time I decided to risk my life to understand a dragon, it worked out pretty well." Sometimes, risks were worth taking.

It was a moot point, one he could figure out if it ever became relevant. Skrill were rare, thankfully.

'Nóttreiði!' Einfari called out, a hint of worrying evident in her voice. They flew close to the treetops. 'Where is he?'

A few minutes later, Toothless accessed Maour's hearing. 'We found him.'

"Really?" Maour ignored Einfari, who was responding to Heather, likely holding a very similar conversation. He accessed Toothless's sense of sight.

A small hollow, a ravine of sorts, one that had been struck directly. Three trees, all bearing scorch marks and entirely separated from their stumps lay across the ravine, forming a bridge of sorts…

"Where?" He couldn't see any signs of Nóttreiði.

'Look under the fallen trees,' Toothless directed in a heavy voice. 'Heather is climbing down now. I can't fit. We'll know more once she gets down there, but it doesn't look good.'

Maour focused on the place Toothless had indicated, though thanks to how the link worked he could not actually focus his vision. There was-

There was a barely-visible hint of a black wing, pinned under the fallen logs on the edge of the ravine. It was impossible to tell from this angle what the situation was under the trees, in the ravine itself, thanks to the layout of the terrain. Toothless couldn't get close enough to look over the edge without risking sliding in himself, as the ground was slick mud.

Maour's mind quickly put the pieces together. He felt Einfari turn and speed towards the scene. Nóttreiði was in real trouble.

They arrived quickly, before Heather even made it down to the bottom. Einfari set down as close to the edge as she dared, wrapping her tail around a tree to anchor her as she landed, her paws sliding dangerously on the mud.

Maour hopped off, grabbing the same tree. "Heather, what's going on down there?"

"Hang on, it's hard to go anywhere without falling headfirst," Heather called back. "The knives from your saddlebag aren't much help."

"They weren't intended for climbing," Maour remarked, "and how did you know I had those?" He had only brought them in case ropes got inextricably tangled or some other edge case.

"Does that matter?" A brief pause ensued. "Okay, I'm down at the bottom."

'How is he?' EInfari asked anxiously.

"He's dangling by the pinned wing," Heather reported. "The only reason he didn't fall the rest of the way is that part of him is resting on a ledge in the side of the ravine. If we move the fallen trees, he falls, but if we don't, he's stuck. I think he's still breathing, but he's definitely not conscious."

Dangling by a wing… Maour winced. "How much weight is on the wing holding him up?"

"I can't tell, but it's a lot," Heather shouted back. "The place where his wing meets his back looks weird."

They needed to get him down as soon as they could. He was hanging by a likely dislocated wing. "How far is the drop?"

"Not far, but he might fall head-first."

'Okay,' Toothless interrupted, 'so do we pull him up or lower him down?' He inched closer to the ravine, ready to do whatever was needed.

That question helped Maour focus on what they needed to do. "Up. If we lower him down, he's stuck at the bottom of that ravine." It was narrow and twisted, and very likely would be a nightmare to get Nóttreiði out of later if he couldn't climb out himself.

'I'll shift the fallen trees once you've got a grip,' Einfari volunteered, shuffling over towards the trees. Her paws squished mud in every direction as she moved, sinking a little into it with every sliding step.

'I can get a grip if I know what I'm grabbing,' Toothless agreed. 'Wait for me to be sure I've got him.'

"Heather, is there anything you can see that might snag Nóttreiði when Einfari moves the trees?" Maour called down to her. He was feeling annoyingly helpless, but climbing down to join Heather would be pointless. She was smart and observant enough to do whatever needed to be done down there.

"Yes, there are some branches in bad spots," Heather reported. "Move the fallen trees to the… right, from Einfari's perspective," she directed.

'Got it. Toothless?'

They waited as Toothless secured himself by Nóttreiði's wing and maneuvered around to bite down on the leading edge. 'Ready. Be quick, I will need to start pulling up as soon as possible. He's not going to be light.'

Maour didn't bother asking if Toothless could do it. If he couldn't, he wouldn't place himself in a position to fail. He did, on the other hand, worry about Toothless overestimating his strength… but there was nothing he could do.

'On three,' Einfari huffed, setting her side against the fallen trees and digging her paws deeper into the mud. 'One, two… three!'

Einfari began pushing, shifting the trees. Because she was pushing from the other side, Toothless's end didn't move as much as hers did, but it was moving nonetheless.

Toothless began pulling up, straining with a long and steady growl. Nóttreiði's limp body began to slide into view, wet and splattered with mud, as Toothless pulled back, fighting for every inch. First came the wing, and then the lump that was Nóttreiði's torso, sliding limply across the muddy edge of the ravine.

'Heather, are you clear? I want to shove these in once Nóttreiði is out,' EInfari panted. 'If I let go, they'll fall right back onto him.' She had lifted the logs up and out of a muddy depression they would roll right back into if she faltered.

"I'm under a ledge," Heather agreed, "so go for it."

Meanwhile, Toothless was still pulling Nóttreiði, now trying to get the unconscious dragon up onto solid ground, out of the slippery mud. The moment Nóttreiði's body fully cleared the ravine itself, Einfari shoved one final time and knocked her end of the broken trees into the ravine. A loud crash was heard, and the logs settled into the mud on Toothless's end, a slanting ladder down into the depths.

'I've almost got him,' Toothless grunted, still straining. 'Einfari, can you jump across and help me?'

'I might slip,' she admitted, flaring her wings, 'but I can try.'

'No, I've got it,' Toothless corrected, wedging Nóttreiði's chest between two close trees as he pulled back. 'This should be good enough.'

"I'm coming up," Heather called up. "It might take a few minutes. Everything is wet and slippery."

"Be careful." Maour considered the ravine separating him and Einfari from Toothless and Nóttreiði. "Einfari, can I hitch a ride over to the other side?"

'Of course.' She let him onto her back before flying up and over, landing in another small clearing on the other side and walking back to Toothless.

Maour dismounted and immediately went to Nóttreiði. He couldn't do much without climbing on the unconscious dragon, given the lower half of his body was lying on the mud, but even from here he could see the dislocated wing-shoulder. It didn't look good, though so far it seemed to be Nóttreiði's only visible injury.

'Now what?' Toothless asked tiredly. 'We only have a few hours before we have to leave if we want to get ahead of the storm…'

'Rest,' Einfari replied tiredly. 'Nóttreiði needs to wake up before we can get him out of here, and he probably won't be able to fly when that happens. We aren't getting ahead of the storm, and there is no shelter on this stupid island.' She kicked angrily at a small bush. 'So we just have to sleep in the rain and wait.'

"Fine by me," Heather panted, slogging carefully through the mud on Nóttreiði's other side, a muddy and bent knife in either hand.

"We wait," Maour concluded. This entire attempt at getting in front of the storm had been a disaster, from start to finish. No shelter, a Skrill, and now this. They would be lucky if Nóttreiði's dislocated wing could be fixed well enough for him to fly on it without issue, and they only barely had a few days to spare if they wanted to be sure Maour's message to Dagur got to him before he had a chance to act on the information that Heather had been taken from his men.

Author's Note: To Nghtmarem00n, who commented:

'They're gonna run into a skrill.'

Congratulations, you were correct. I did drop quite a few hints, and thematically storms aren't a good thing… but still, you called it without hesitation. Nice. As to where things go from here though… far more unknowns and options.

And one more unknown. Next chapter will come out a day early, on Wednesday, and as of now I don't know exactly how the next three months or so are going to work beyond that. I'll be keeping as best I can to a weekly schedule, and I'm leaning towards moving this story to post on the same day as When Nothing Remains, so Saturdays. No matter what, I'll be keeping both stories up to date in terms of overall progress, so if a chapter is late, know that I'll bring things back up to speed in one way or another. I'll be almost entirely wifi-free this Summer, so replies to reviews and other such things will be similarly sporadic. And no matter what, I'll be returning everything to normal schedule-wise before the end of August, though I hope there won't be much to fix at that point. We'll see how things go.