A long time passed. There was shouting and screaming all muffled through the wall like door that kept her caged. All she could do was just sit there and worry about what was going on. Most of all worry about her father. Some time had passed when suddenly with little warning her cage door opened up. The sudden barrage of light stung as her irises struggled to quickly adjust. Standing in front of the entrance was a man she did not recognize. He was the standard viking and his most notable feature was a large straight mustache that reminded Astral of Nigel Thornberry from the Wild Thornberrys cartoon. Behind him were other vikings she did not recognize and Astral was quick to deduce these were the vikings they were under attack by. Astral retreated to the corner of the cage. It was the only place to go that was farther from them and it wasn't like she could bolt past them not with the pain of her injury slowing her down.
"Oh my Thor! That's a baby Nightfury! Oh Alvin is going to pleased at this catch. Bag it up boys!" The man known to his people as Savage commanded his men. Only two moved in to capture Astral though. It was more than enough. As Astral bolted to try and get past them one of them just barely managed to catch her and he caught her by the tail. She screeched out in pain which seemed to only quicken them shoving her into a small bag. They carried her by the bag as they moved out. She assumed out of the arena but now could see nothing. She was enveloped by darkness. Whatever this bag was made out of it was thick. She cried out in terror and tried to rip up the bag with her claws with no success. Biting it wasn't an option as the cramped space afforded little movement. She couldn't twist her head enough to get a good grasp of the material. All the while her tail was screaming out at her over the uncomfortable position it was in. Eventually the pain wasn't worth the fruitless struggles and even her shouting stopped when they kept hitting the bag to get her to shut up. At some point she must have been carried to a boat as she felt rocking back and forth without stability. Time crawled on as she panicked over her predicament. She tried to calm her hyperventilating with marginal success. She'd even consider being someones pet if someone would please rescue her. Time dragged on and on but she was awoken from her trance when the instability of the sea changed to the stability of solid ground. It wasn't too long at least not compared to everything else before the bag that carried her was dropped. She quickly darted out of it only to find she had been dropped into a more traditional cage. This time there were cages all around some of them even occupied by humans. It appeared she'd been thrown into some sort of dungeon. While it was technically under grounded and seemed to be carved out of rock the passage through the cells was open to the sky. In some distant cells there even seemed to be some dragons. Whoever she was captured by it seemed prisoners were common place. Why did they capture her though. What purpose did they have for a hatchling dragon. The only thing she could come up with is they planned on eating her as some sort of delicacy.
A full day passed and nobody bothered her. Strangely both humans and dragons seemed rather chatty given their condition but she supposed you'd have to be to keep from going insane. Unfortunately that meant she was going to go insane herself. Astral hadn't been able to communicate in the first place but she could at least make commentary to herself on her environment, only now her environment was unchanging and there was nothing to do except realize she was getting hungry and thirsty. Every time a guard walked by she feared they were coming to her cage to kill her or something. Her fear increased exponentially when she heard a group of at least 3 people walking through the corridors. They came to stop at her cage and the man in the middle was huge looked a lot like Toothpic's father. Was he their leader, had he come to inspect his future desert?
"By my beard you caught an actual Nightfury. Well done boys." Alvin said with a little chuckle. "Hiccup won't be the only one now. Imagine me on a Nightfury. Shame it's so young. It's got strange eyes though. Is it sick?" The Vikings with him just shrugged. "Well make sure to train it boys. Make it do little tricks or something. I want to make it clear that we are in charge and it will do what we say or else." With that Alvin left with no intention to return till she was older.
As time passed Astral almost wished they did cook her and just end it. She didn't know what the after life was though if there was one. She'd gotten a second chance and she doubted there would be a third. Not that she could consider her current life a life. Her tail did eventually heal up but it provided no reprieve from pain. The humans wanted her to do stuff but she wasn't always sure what and they'd kick her and hurt her until she did something. Astral still wasn't sure it was what they actually asked but every week she had a new injury. The scariest was when they used their weapons to threaten her and they weren't shy to show how easily their blades cut her soft scales. Thankfully it was usually only shallow cuts but sometimes by accident they would go a little deeper. They thankfully left her alone when that happened and let her heal, but every time she wondered if death would take her as a result. All it took was a drunken miscalculation or an especially upset viking and they could cleave a whole limb off. Astral wished she could show them she was more than willing to cooperate especially when they waved their weapons around. She was as submissive as she could be but it wasn't enough for them. As time went by she was starting to learn some of their words and that made ever so slightly better. The dragon language though was still beyond her if they had a proper language beyond animalistic basic stuff.
With the sun rise Astral awoke to another day in prison or dungeon whatever same difference. She was slow to get moving though as had become the norm with their infrequent feedings. She couldn't tell if she was malnourished, if it was something else, or a combination. She'd long ago established on berk that despite being a reptile she was warm blooded however here she for some reason felt more cold blooded in the sense that in the mornings soaking up as much heat as she could in her cell gave her more energy and if she moved into the shade or it was cold her energy reserves seemed to drop. One cold month had gotten especially cold and she barely even thought about stuff. She was just un-moving black speck for the most part, only moving to eat and drink. Thankfully the vikings did leave her alone during this time.
Looking up at the sky she'd woken earlier than usual and the reason why became quickly apparent. Some dragons were in an intense either argument or vocal contest. She didn't know what reason they'd have for a vocal contest while caged though. They had their own territory that was their cage and there was no way to fight over a mate. She listened though out of pure boredom and as she listened something seemed to click. Every growl and sound they made there was the tone of the growl itself but there also seemed to be some deep sub tones of some sort she was only now beginning to notice. As they continued she listened and more and more stuff was starting to sound familiar and have meaning. There was a pattern developing in her mind and something just seemed to click. She tried replicating some of it. "Bruns...bons...bones...bones!" At her little experimenting the other dragons went completely silent for a moment.
"Did the Nightfury just speak for the first time?" A Gronckle asked the Nadder he'd been having a discussion with.
"She did but what is she trying to say?" The Nadder added. "Is she speaking for the first time?"
"Ime...trime...time." Astral continued experimenting just trying get it to come out right copying what the other dragons were doing. She still didn't know what she was saying just that she was saying something, she hoped.
"Hey can you understand us?" The Gronckle asked Astral and by coincidence understand was the word she worked on copying. "I guess she does. Strange time to suddenly start up. Shock must have finally worn off."
"I think she was just copying you." The Nadder said.
"She's a little old to not already know her first words though." The Gronckle replied unconvinced.
"Well depending on when she was captured maybe she never got the chance to learn maybe she never even had any parents. That's the first Nightfury I've ever seen. I had been told they'd gone extinct."
"Haven't you heard of the one over at that Human village where they get along. Maybe they are it's mother or father."
"That's just a rumor. Dragons and Humans getting along is absurd.I don't think she's even two yet, so both parents must still be around and that rumor says it's only one Nightfury." The Nadder said with conviction.
"Hey! Shut up!" One of the viking guards yelled at the dragons.
The moment Astral was secure Toothless rushed over to Hiccup charging right through him and tossing him on his back. He was eager to end this raid. Not only were they threatening the home of his friend but also the home of his daughter now. Taking to the air he quickly made it to edge of the island where outcast ships had docked and outcast vikings were making it up the beach or throwing grapples up the cliffs to make their way to the village. Meanwhile slowly at the edge of the village berk vikings were grouping and preparing a defense. All the dragon riders and their dragon partners were gliding above taking in what was going on. With all the attacks by dragons back when the Red Death was still around the teens had never really seen any viking verses viking battles as all the tribes were preoccupied with said dragon threat. The teens hovered mostly aimless waiting for Hiccup's instruction. Hiccup didn't know what to do either though. They couldn't just blast their ships as then the outcasts would have no way of retreating and he didn't want to have to kill anyone. Maybe he could isolate their leader but where was their leader? There were a few who were shouting orders but who was shouting at them to shout orders? By now the outcasts were about to engage with berk and the teens were shouting at Hiccup asking him what they should do. They all kinda just hovered confused as the two tribes engaged. As people they knew got wounded or worse some of the teens joined in out for blood. After his peers began fighting Toothless began charging up a plasma blast to join in and end this as quickly as possible but Hiccup begged him not too. Reluctantly Toothless listened.
As the fight went on Hiccup found an area he could help. During the fighting the dragons without riders were startled and couldn't tell who was who once the vikings had all massed together and started making disorienting noise with their weapons. So they attacked indiscriminately. And the berk vikings either those still having a grudge against dragons, or those thinking they had joined the outcasts, and who knows what other silly and logic less thoughts began attacking and killing the dragons. It became a three way war outcasts verses berk verses dragons. Hiccups mission was to stop the dragon part of it. Toothless was a little more helpful being able to actually tell the dragons to calm down and letting them know how to distinguish them. The latter wasn't very effective so they just worked on separating the dragons from the fight altogether.
Despite Hiccup's disagreement and wanting to check on the village first Toothless went straight for the training arena. The moment Astral was discovered to have gone missing Toothless knew she'd been captured by the outcasts. Nobody in berk would dare open that cage and decide to take her, he'd track them down in a heart beat. Using his head Toothless rammed into Hiccup and tossed him back unto his back once more. While Hiccup was still scrambling to get stable the angry Nightfury sprinted out the training arena and leapt into the air expecting his friend to take over on his prosthetic tail fin. Hiccup only barely got his own prosthetic to open the tail fin in time to keep from falling. The action was almost instinctual and only now was he given the chance to say anything about his kidnapping. "Whoa, where are we going bud?" Toothless thought that was obvious, he was going after his daughter. The only way he could think to communicate that while also letting out a little steam was to let out a nice bellowing roar. It came out more distressed than it did threatening though. "No first we make sure everyone is ok. There is going to be fall out with what happened with the dragons and we need to make sure it doesn't blow up." Hiccup said sternly. Toothless ignored making it out over the ocean. "No!" Hiccups said again. "We can find Astral once we make sure the village isn't going to implode on itself or rather explode on the dragons." With that he took control of the tail fins and forced Toothless into a sharp banking turn. Toothless would have none of that though and subverted the action by doing a barrel roll and plummeting down. "What good would it do to find Astral if she doesn't have a home to return to?" Hiccup shouted over the passing wind. Toothless opened his wings at the last moment gliding back to land and flinging Hiccup off before landing ungracefully himself. In his desperation he turned around and tried flying solo with no success. "I can't even talk to you, why are you doing this to me bud?" Toothless just gave another of his anguished roars in response. "Well I'm going to make sure the other dragons don't get executed by my father and as soon as that's all squared away I'll come back and we can search for Astral." With that Hiccup left.
Out of options there was only one other person that knew how to work his mechanical fin and as much as he hated her Toothless searched every corner of the village for Astrid. It would be so much easier to find her if he could just fly. Couldn't Hiccup at least have found him someone else to help him find his daughter while he went to placated the villagers over the latest drama. In the end he had no luck and instead turned to the dragons first of which was Stormfly.
"Stormfly you got to help me. The outcasts took my daughter. I can't fly after her and Hiccup isn't willing to help me."
Stormfly was taken aback by this. "He isn't? That seems out of character, why not?" She asked.
"I don't know something about the village and the dragons and some confusion that happened and trying to calm them down."
"Oh my I didn't even think about that. Do you think they'll kick us out?" Stormfly asked worried.
"I don't know but please could you follow after Astral for me." Toothless pleaded.
Stormfly though seemed to be zoning out on something else. "I got to go find Astrid now. I can't leave her alone, not with this going on."
With that the natter took off. Angry at having been ignored Toothless launched a plasma blast her way streaking right over her back and just past her head.
"What the blazes was that for?" The nadder asked with a squawk.
"Stormfly my daughter, I can't lose her. She's the only family I got the only other of my kind that exists. The Nightfury said solemnly.
"I'm sorry Toothless but I got to find my family too I got to find Astrid." With that she truly took off with no interceptions.
Finally after what seemed like forever Hiccup was on his back and behind him struggling to keep up were the other dragons on their human teens. He was upset it had taken so long to get moving but was glad for the extra help he was getting in going after his daughter. The only lead they had was she was captured by Outcasts so they would start searching on outcast island. The only one missing from the usual group was Hookfang and Snotlout. After having been deemed too aggressive and uncooperative Hookfang along with half the dragons on berk had been kicked out only with the diplomatic pleadings of Hiccup were any allowed to stay at all on top of no dragon executions. But it meant Snotlout was without a dragon and Toothless thought that was for the best. There could be no mistakes or insubordination on this mission.
Toothless wanted to just rush in, find his daughter, kill anyone in his way, and bring her back home. It was only thanks to Hiccup that his boiling blood didn't get him killed. Their first task was to simply observe. Finding a nice high cliff they landed upon it and simply watched the comings and goings of those below. Toothless knew this could take a lot of time he'd done something like this with Hiccup once before still he couldn't help but pace back and forth upon their ledge as he stared intently below looking for any openings any weaknesses in their defenses. Another question burned within his mind. How was watching them going to tell him where Astral was?
"I'm so bored." Tuffnut said right before slapping his sister in the face.
"There's nothing to do." Ruffnut agreed returning a slap to her brother. The two continued slapping each other in a lazy but in no way less painful manner each phrasing in different ways just how terrible this was and how they should do something and ten minuets hadn't even passed.
"Shut up or I'll toss you off the cliff." Astrid threatened the twins.
"Please!" They replied in unison. "Me first." Ruffnut requested. "No do me!" Tuffnut interjected.
"Why in Thor's name, couldn't we have left them behind with Snotlout." Astrid complained to Hiccup.
"Because that leave just you me and Fishlegs and we're going to need everyone we can. I would have brought Snotlout along if we could have." Hiccup answered his tone rather neutral and matter of factly spoken.
"I would have been fine with just the three of us. Or just the two of us." Astrid added.
"I still think she could do better." Ruffnut threw in a comment in reference to an earlier scenario in dragon training. It pissed Astrid off enough to chase Ruffnut down and teach her a lesson or two. Soon enough Tuffnut joined in and the twins formed a game out of getting beat up by Astrid.
Hiccup released a deep sigh "The gods still hate me."
Those that were left realized they were on borrowed time when one day they woke up and the twins had vanished. They had to come up with a plan and now.
Gliding down upon their dragons the teens touched down where they thought the most likely place to keep prisoners was. They bust open the door and charged in hoping to get what they came for and get out. Unfortunately the building they had chose was home to the majority of off duty Outcast warriors. Acting quickly their dragons spewed fire in front of them blocking line of sight and preventing the Outcasts from following as they made their escape back out where they entered. The commotion they had caused alerted everyone around of their presence. Quickly they took off to regroup all except Toothless who refused to take to the air. Every Outcast that approached he knocked out trying not to kill them as he knew the human on his back wouldn't stop complaining about it for a very long time. How badly he wanted to sink his teeth into them though. "Toothless we need to go now! There's too many of them. Toothless continued his revenge rampage and before long Alvin himself along with many bola wielding Outcasts appeared tossing their weapons of entrapment at the duo. Toothless managed to dodge or swipe away all cumming his way but one ensnared his rider pining Hiccup's arms to his sides and knocking him off Toothless. Jumping over to Hiccup Toothless shielded his friend with his own body. Outcasts after Outcasts tried to pile on top of the Nightfury to pin him but each one was batted away with a wing, claw, or tail. Then Alvin was right in front of him. Leaping away from Hiccup Toothless pounced upon the large viking pinning him to the ground. Alvin's eyes widened in fear as Toothless began collecting the gasses in his throat to fire upon him. "No Toothless don't!" Hiccup cried from his restraints. Toothless would not listen though. This was not Hiccup's father and was the man responsible for kidnapping his daughter. "Toothless please!" Hiccup pleaded. His friends pleas reached him and Toothless backed down. A familiar scene played out as he got pinned to the ground by vikings piling on top of him before getting knocked out by a hammer with a hit to the side of his head.
Toothless woke up in a cell with nobody in sight. Not his daughter, not his rider, not even other prisoners. Time dragged on day after day with meager food and nothing to keep him entertained. He fell into a deep depression as he lost everyone that was mattered to him and it was all his own fault.
Two large men sat in a dark room across each other with nothing but a table separating them. The intensity between them threatened to erupt the very ground beneath them. "What it'll be Stoic. It's a win for both of us. You pay the ransom and get yer boy back and never hear from us again seeing as we'll have the funds to feed ourselves." Stoic stared at Alvin with a glare that could almost kill. The Outcast leader went unanswered for a time. "You'll get your gold traitor but you will regret this." With that Stoic stood up and exited the room. "Ohhh don't be like that Stoic this could be the start of healthy trade between us." Alvin said before laughing in his signature almost stereotypical evil laugh.