A/N: So back a little bit earlier this time! :3

Thank you for all the reviews! I loved each one of them and it felt really good to hear from you all again! So thank you very much! ^^

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The women and children had been shooed away, cleared out of the village and its surroundings as they had taken shelter in their homes. The other Vikings, those who had no children to protect closely and those who were well enough to do so, had taken out to stand scattered amongst the square and its perimeter. All eyes were aimed upwards and trained on the sky, watching out closely for the prospect of danger. Or, more specifically, Night Furies.

After the teenagers had returned to Berk with the news of their possible return, the village had sprung into its defensive mode. Or… most of them had. Those who knew better and had more foresight were the women and children who stayed in their homes, and the men who took guard outside their door. The others, who were taking orders from Spitelout mostly, were the ones standing nearer to the edge of the island, catapults ready and swords drawn. As if they had a chance to shoot the dragons out of the sky before they even reach proximity. And maybe they did.

Stormfly was sitting a ways off the side, watching the halves of the island with a clouded look. She watched as they had split apart after the meeting, confused and frazzled and frightened, every single one of them. It was obvious that there was no given way to go; there were too many factors and changes and different ways to handle it. And it seemed like there was about a million of them right now. People guarding the island, people guarding their home... she had heard other families debating over leaving on a ship. And though the idea was absurd to the ear, she couldn't very well voice this aloud to the humans.

Stoick had left. Where to, she had no idea. As soon as the group from before had broken up and fled to their own respective places, she had lost track of him. Gobber too. Though, the last thing she had heard from the two was that they weren't on speaking terms anymore. Or at least, face-to-face. The two, seeming so strong together before, had fallen out with one another in the chaos of all of this mess with the dragons, much like the rest of the island had all in all. It was clear that from what had happened with the confrontation between Spitelout and Stoick that Gobber still supported his friend from the sidelines. But supporting one another from afar and working together were very different.

"It's a mess, isn't it?" Stormfly perked at the sudden voice behind her, the Nadder turning around to look back at its origin. Hookfang was tromping over, looking around at the village as he walked over to her. She didn't reply at first, shifting her weight from side to side with a hint of trepidation. When she didn't speak up, he tried again. "The humans have been blind as bats these past few months, haven't they? I know the others have." He grumbled, meaning their group of closely-knit humans as he sat down with a ruffle of his wings.

"Hmm." She hummed thoughtfully in response. "Maybe not blind. Just…torn." The dragoness objected gently, knowing how fiery the male's temper could be. No pun intended, of course. "It's mixed. The other dragons joining Berk was the greatest thing to happen to this place. I guess with Hiccup's attempt to bring in more Night Furies with that female, everyone thought it would be kind of the same deal. But a lot of people had died because of it. It's a lot of complications... especially since there are grudges by now."

"Tell me something I don't know." Hookfang huffed with a roll of his eyes. "Or something that I haven't heard before, at least." Stormfly made a face at the quick brush-off given her way, but before she could say something tart in reply, he was already speaking again. "It seems to me like your human and Hiccup left with something in mind. After all, Toothless and the others wouldn't have left with them if they didn't. That was nearly a few months ago. Now with the Night Furies coming back… it's no coincidence. They're trying to do something."

"Tell me something I don't know." Stormfly couldn't hold back the snap, not wanting to let Hookfang get too cocky as she gave a sharp retort in reply. The larger dragon glanced at her as she said this, eyes flashing a little bit. But then he shook his head, smiling a little bit crookedly. "… Sorry." She offered, realizing a little too late that she needed to make sure she wasn't as sharp as the village had gotten. She had to keep a level head… "Go ahead. What were you saying?"

"Well, you know how Toothless and all of them are. Even more so with Hiccup added in." He explained gruffly. "They always get something in their heads and do whatever they can to get it. Look at what happened in the first place with Hiccup and all of us? That seemed like a pretty thick thing to do and yet here we are. It always works out in the end, so….let them do whatever the heck they have in mind. It'll be fine."

"You make it sound simple." She sighed loosely, turning away and looking back over the clearing and all the people milling around there. Spitelout could be seen on the farthest point from where she sat, barking out orders to the people around him. To fetch more weapons, to spread out more, to cover more ground, to get more armor, to load the catapults… There was so much work to be done for this. And there might not even be a point to it.

"You make it sound hard." He snorted.

Stormfly glanced his way. "So…what are you going to do?" She asked a little hesitantly. "If they come, I mean. Are you going to be with them?" She swept her tail over to the side, pointing towards the group of Vikings. "Or are you going to stay out of things?" With a slightly bitter mindset, she added to herself that he could easily just fly away and take shelter on another island close by. It would be no terrible feat and if things ever died down, he could easily return and pretend like nothing happened. She, on the other hand, didn't have such a luxury. Her wings were still tattered; they would be tattered for the rest of her life.

"I don't hide." He said in quick response, reminding her of his rider Snotlout as he puffed up a bit at the notion. But, having patience in dealing with such a person, Stormfly wasn't too caught off-gaurd by the sour tone. "I'll do whatever anyone else is doing." Hookfang went on with a noncommittal shrug. "If something happens and it's bad…then I'll do something. If something happens but it doesn't affect me….why should I bother worrying about it?" He looked over at her invitingly. "Right?" He asked suddenly, seeming to be asking for confirmation or support. Which was very unlike him.

"…Sure." She replied with a nod. "Yeah, I see what you mean. That's probably what I'm going to do, actually. And that's probably what everyone else here should do too. Instead of making mountains out of molehills. But….we can't be careless either. I know that Astrid has a good head on her shoulders though. Hiccup and Toothless can be a little extreme together at some points, which is probably Stoick's issue with all of this. But I know Astrid. And she won't be stupid about something as big as this. I know her better."

"Where is Stoick, anyway?" Hookfang asked, blinking as he looked around. As if he expected the Chief to come out of nowhere as if this was a summon for him. But then again, was she allowed to call him a Chief anymore? Was she allowed to put a title to his name? After all, he'd spent all this time so blinded by everything. And just now at this last meeting, the Village had announced that they weren't listening to him anymore. Or, most of the Village, anyway.

"I don't know." She admitted softly, frowning herself. "I haven't seen him since the meeting broke up."

"It's bad enough that everyone had gotten mad as a hare. But now they don't have anyone to corral them together." He huffed in a display of his bad temper. "Some of these days I just have the amazing urge to go over and roast everyone near me until they're burned to a crisp. Maybe something like that will get things to calm down a little bit more around here." Hookfang sighed. It was obvious that he was teasing; no dragons on Berk ever hurt their humans. It didn't work like that. But still.

Stormfly just shook her head, not in the mood to be joking around as well. Not right now. "No." She sighed regretfully, pulling her wings a bit tighter to her sides, as if the frayed things could block out the biting wind like they used to. "It's useless to think like that." She went on, aware of the male's stare on her scales. "And I hate it break it you….but…I have a feeling that things won't calm down here. Not for a long time."

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"I love rain." Leafdapple admitted with a small smile as she walked. Closing her eyes, she raised her snout into the air, taking in a large breath and giving another light smile. "I like the way it smells, and I just love the little noise it makes when it hits the ground. If it could rain every day, I would never get tired of it, you know? I would just sit outside every night and…just watch it." Already, the clouds were rolling in, and the sight caused the slender female to give yet another large grin. "Some dragons think I'm crazy to like something like that."

"Not crazy." Shadowclaw objected with his own little chuff of laughter. "Maybe just a little abnormal." The brown Night Fury shot him a mockingly-offended look, leaning over and ramming her shoulder against his. The male snorted, righting himself and shaking his head. "Rain makes flying a lot harder. It messes up your sense of smell and it just makes a huge mess to try and deal with. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it's definitely not a good one."

"I'm not talking about working through rain." Leafdapple scoffed, as if the answer should have been a simple one to reach on his own. "Nobody should work through rain. It's an awesome thing; too awesome to ignore. I like the sound…and the smell." She reminded. "I like the little things. Not a lot of dragons take the time to appreciate the little things. And not a lot of humans, either, for a matter of fact. I think everyone would be a lot happier if they stopped every once in a while. To smell the roses or to sit in the rain."

A few feet ahead, Toothless and Hiccup were talking together, the first time that they had done so in the past few days. When Hiccup turned back to look at the pair of them, his green eyes had the slightest hint of amusement in them, and the sight was enough to make both Leafdapple and Shadowclaw beam. After all, even if it was only a small hint of it, his green eyes were at least a little bit softer. Not as hard or weighted down with worry and stress. And his voice was nearly the same as he called back over to the two. "You must spend as much time on Berk as we had." He chided. "You get really sick of rain after a while there."

"I could never get sick of rain." Leafdapple chirped back. "You never get sick of something you love. You just see it get better and better and better and better."

Hiccup's smile wilted a little bit as she first said this, and Leafdapple was starting to worry whether or not she should have tried and take back her thoughtless remark. But Toothless saved the conversation, knowingly or not. The older dragon looked back as well, lashing his tail as he attempted to tease them as well. "I dunno. I'm getting pretty sick of all of you guys." He drawled with a lazy tone. "There's only so much of you guys I can take and we all passed that line like two weeks ago."

"You're not sick of us, Toothless." Shadowclaw said sweetly. "You love us to death."

"And that's my problem." Toothless snorted, shooting Shadowclaw a silly look.

"I'll tell you what's bad about rain." Nightflight said suddenly from the back of the group. Mistyeyes was walking in step beside her. At first when Mistyeyes had taken to walking with Nightflight instead of Toothless, Leafdapple had figured it was just to help the blinded dragon maneuver through the forest. That, or to give Hiccup and Toothless time to talk things out a little better together. But the two had been talking for most of the way back to the clearing, she'd noticed. Not politely reserved talk, either. Well, maybe a little bit on Nightflight's side. But the two had seemed to be making the most of their walk as they talked back and forth.

"It slows travel." The Night Fury went on. "This is the third time this week that it's rained, and it's not even halfway over. I say as soon as this one passes, we leave for Berk. The Pack is ready enough, and there'll likely be another storm after this one pretty soon. Sooner rather than later would be a good strategy to shoot for right about now, don't you all think so?" A chorus of mumbled agreement went up around them, and Leafdapple glanced over to Hiccup to see him doing the same. Granted, he looked a little wary of the mention of returning so soon, but he had before, anyway. She had a feeling that no matter how long they waited to return, he would always remain frantic and worried. He would probably remain so until the whole thing was dealt with.

"Yeah." The human said after a small gap in conversation. "We can take shelter through this one. It'd be pointless trying to fly through the rain with all the little ones. It shouldn't take us very long to get to Berk from here; it's the last stop. Then we can land somewhere near the back of the island and hopefully land before anyone can see us. Collect ourselves there and just…go with whatever we can."

"It's as good a plan as any." Toothless agreed a little shortly. "And hopefully it'll be easier than we think it will be to get everything situated."

Another mumble of agreement, but this time much quieter. It was obvious to the group that such a thing would be titled: 'Wishful Thinking.'

The conversation died after this, and Leafdapple blinked as the group fell silent. She glanced back at Mistyeyes and Nightflight, but even the two females had fallen into the dip as well. Mostly everyone was just looking around or thinking to themselves, which the younger had had enough of. She was tired of the lack of conversation between them. They might have made their stances clear just now and they might have made up together but it was obvious that they needed another push to get back into the swing of conversations again. And she could do that.

"So what about you, Shadowclaw?" She piped up, figuring that he would be the easiest to get a reply out of. "What do you like most in the world? Besides us, I mean." She added with a sly little grin. The other perked at the mention of his name, turning and looking at her a little oddly at the question. But the female only gave him an expectant look, waiting for his answer and reply. They had to get some sort of conversation going.

"Um. I dunno." Shadowclaw started out a little lamely. "I guess…nighttime? If you want an answer that was kind of like the one you gave." Leafdapple still gave him her earnest look, and he sighed as he realized he'd have to delve a little deeper. Behind them, Mistyeyes had turned to track their conversation, and Nightflight's ears swiveled forward a bit to hear them better. Hiccup glanced back at them and Toothless slowed a bit in his pace to get closer. Not exactly a helpful addition to the conversation, but it was something at least.

"The sun's too bright and in the summer it can get way too hot during the day." Shadowclaw sighed as he explained himself under Leafdapple's silent urgings. "I like the nighttime because in summer it's not too hot or cold most of the time. And it's got the moon and the stars. Even in winter, at least it's prettier than just the blank blue you see every morning, you know?"

Leafdapple nodded, finding no fault in the answer given. And to her pleased delight, Mistyeyes contributed from where she walked a few paces back. "I disagree." She announced plainly. "I think the best time of day would be sunset. If you're going by how pretty something looks, at least. When it's morning all you get is blue." She glanced up at the sky overhead now, through the gaps of the branches. "Or gray. And at night all you get is black and darkness. Sunset, you get purples and pinks and oranges and reds and blues and a mix of all of the other colors."

"Fair point." Shadowclaw admitted breezily. "I guess that's true."

But Leafdapple wasn't about to let the line of talking fall short now. Flapping her wings peppily, she cleared her throat and hopped over to Toothless. "Toothless!" She purred, stepping on his tail gently. The adult glanced back at her, eyes flashing as he gave an exasperated smile in return. "You have to answer a question now."

"Do I?" He asked skeptically.

"Mhm." She hummed shortly. "So. What's the first thing you thought of Hiccup? When you first met him, I mean. You couldn't have liked him at first, right?" She giggled as the human threw her a look at the badly-worded question. "So what did you first think of him? Or what did you do when you first saw him?"

"What I thought of him?" Toothless repeated with a look at his human. Hiccup met the stare, and he paused a second, obviously wondering if he was at liberty to joke with the dragon after they had only come onto better terms with each other about an hour ago. He was a little uncomfortable obviously, but Toothless offered a small gateway as he answered accordingly. "I thought he was a walking stick that would probably be endlessly irritating and annoying. And I was pretty much right."

"Oh come on." Hiccup sighed, looking away with a relieved smile.

"It's called instincts, Hiccup." Shadowclaw interjected. "And you need to hone them."

"Is Leafdapple's instincts to ask really random questions? Because she's doing a great job." Mistyeyes teased. Leafdapple looked back, fully prepared to fire another question, except this time to the gray dragon's way. Random and senseless as the questions might seem, they were talking now. They were laughing and teasing one another, and it was a pleasant change from what it had been before now.

"Your turn." She said cheekily.

"Oh geez." Mistyeyes sighed down towards the younger dragon. "Here we go."

"What was your childhood like?" Leafdapple asked curiously, pressing on the conversation stubbornly.

"That's really random." Mistyeyes sighed in her defense, ears flicking irritably as she gave a smile despite herself. "But it's aimed at the wrong dragon." She admitted next. "My childhood wasn't much to speak of. I was by myself for a lot of it. Well- I was with my father, but that doesn't really count for friendship when someone's responsibility is to make sure you don't run off and kill yourself." She allowed a grin at this, and Leafdapple felt a small rush of relief as the elder of them didn't seem angry at the personal question. "I spent most of my time working on flying and hunting and stuff like that since I didn't have much else to do. Actually, I always wanted to be around these two." She said lightly, laughing as she indicated both Toothless and Nightflight. "But they were joined at the wing and I only got heartache from it. They put a rock in my food once."

Nightflight ducked guiltily at this, Toothless turning fully as he walked backwards, going so that he could look at Mistyeyes fully. "Hey, that took a lot of skill to get that rock into there." He argued, Mistyeyes's blue eyes softening as he teased. "Don't go making it seem like that was just bullying. That was art."

"Looks like you and Hiccup have a lot in common, Mistyeyes." Shadowclaw commented.

"I resent that." Hiccup replied neatly without looking back.

"I resent that!" Mistyeyes fluffed up in response to the human.

It was nice. To take a break from the worrying. It was out of place and probably not the best thing to do. But it was nice. It was nice to joke and tease and build back a little bit of their friendship. After all, like Hiccup said before: they might not have another chance after tonight. After they would wait out the rain, they would leave for Berk. And if things went really bad, they could end up being split up and then what? Leafdapple didn't want to think about it right now. She just wanted to talk and have fun while they still could.

"My childhood was great." Shadowclaw jumped. "I-"

"Your childhood isn't over yet." Toothless snorted, turning to look his way with a flash of his green eyes. "Much as you like to think differently, I would like to remind you that you're not as old as you think you are."

"Hey! I'm nearly your height!" Shadowclaw objected. "I'm literally almost up to how tall you are! Don't go saying that I'm still a youngling! Let me remind you that I was flying age when you first came back to the cave? And that was years ago!"

"Maybe Toothless is just really small for his age and you're just tall." Mistyeyes sneered.

"Now I'm resenting something." The other announced.

"Hiccup! What do you fear most?" Leafdapple asked, breaking through their conversation as she blustered out yet another left-field question that begged an answer. Hiccup turned back at this, forehead creased with confusion for a second as he debated her question. His eyes flashed, and Leafdapple blinked rapidly as she realized that she had asked the completely wrong question if she had wanted to steer everyone into better hopes. Hiccup probably was afraid of everything going on right now; she could almost see each thought pass through his eyes as he looked at her.

Good going. She scolded herself mentally.

Hiccup's eyes darkened briefly, and the rest of the group seemed to realize the blunder as well as the side-conversations trickled down, starting to get a tad quieter. Crossing his arms, Hiccup cleared his throat, glancing down at the ground as he coughed a little bit. Leafdapple's ears flattened and she opened her mouth to apologize for her mistake. But then Hiccup looked up, offering a little smile at the others as he finally spoke up. "…Spiders are pretty freaky-looking." He replied.

Leafdapple grinned with relief and gratitude, Shadowclaw rolling his eyes at the question as he laughed. Mistyeyes on the other hand seemed to share the opinion, making a face much to Toothless' amusement. Hiccup watched the reactions and seemed to get a little lighter himself. He could have answered honestly and caused the entire mood to break. But what was the point in that? He knew what Leafdapple had been trying to do and it was working. He'd rather not think about things for the moment anyway. It was better like this.

"What about you, Leafdapple?" Hiccup pressed. "What scares you the most?"

"You can't repeat questions." The young female replied with a giggle.

"Oh. Excuse me." He exclaimed. "Uhm….do-"

"Why are we doing this?" Nightflight asked, speaking up for the first time in a long time. Ever the one to be serious, of course this would be the first thing to escape her mouth. Granted, her voice wasn't angry or irritated. It was just a question. Why were they walking around and asking silly questions that didn't pertain to the issue at hand? Why were they wasting time? They could be doing a million other useful things right now. They were going to leave for Berk in the morning, so why were they being so careless? If careless was the right word.

"Passes the time." Leafdapple explained a few feet ahead.

"You know what else passes the time?" Nightflight asked invitingly. "Battle strategy."

"We can do that later." Shadowclaw sighed. "This is fun for right now."

"Fun doesn't solve issues." Nightflight pointed out reasonably.

"Neither does being a stick in the mud." Shadowclaw sang.

Nightflight opened her mouth for a retort, but snapped it shut with a disgruntled look. Shadowclaw snickered the reaction and she glared sourly his way as she heard the small laugh. "We haven't been including Nightflight." Leafdapple declared, watching as the female's look only got sourer with this. "Alright, Nightflight. I've got a question for you."

"Joy." She sighed.

"How come you do that thing?" Leafdapple pressed, not taking no for an answer. Nightflight didn't reply, looking confused at the vague question. So the smaller one took in a short breath before rephrasing and being more specific. "How come you're able to do that thing with your eyes? You know what I'm talking about." The rest of the group had turned back at this, the interest spiking at the new unfold. Nightflight grew quiet for a second, and Leafdapple knew that meant that she had gotten the question this time around. But just in case, she rephrased one more time. "How you get people to listen to you or understand you."

"There's gotta be some reason." Shadowclaw agreed.

"…I'm not sure of the reason." Nightflight mumbled after a beat of hesitation. Leafdapple's ears perked and Mistyeyes glanced over at Nightflight with interest. The Night Fury's voice was a little distant as she went on. "My mother was always prone to…not focusing. When she wasn't talking about something that would happen later on, she would be looking at leaves of trees or marks on rocks. She wasn't exactly the most level-headed of dragons. Not to say that she had no sense. She was….scatter-brained." Her ears flicked back and forth decisively. "She didn't really pay much attention to anything and when she did, it wasn't for long.

"Naturally, I resented the times where she never paid attention to me. She was always commenting on the other dragons and younglings or the weather or things of that nature. It was irritating to get anything out of her, it was like pulling teeth. So…one day I wanted to go outside and play with my friends. She wasn't paying any attention to me- she was just rambling about the way that the stars had looked then night before and how she was excited to see them that evening. I got sick of it and planted myself right in front of her. I locked eyes with her and told her that she would listen to me and let me play outside." The others were silent now, and Nightflight had their full attention. But the black female didn't pay heed, too lost in thought to mind as she went on. "And she let me. She listened to me as soon as I looked at her. I thought I would get in trouble for snapping, but no. She just…did what I asked. It was strange, considering this was nearly the first time in my life it had happened. Sure, I had managed to get her attention before, but it was only for a short conversation before she changed the topic again. This time it was instantaneous."

"That's so weird." Leafdapple said in a small mumble.

"I enjoyed it a little too much." Nightflight admitted in a sigh. "For a youngling who had never gotten much attention before, it was liberating. It took me a while to make the connection, and when I did…I just went with it." She frowned thoughtfully. "I always grew up wanting to be something more than I was. I grew up always wanting more. I would try my best to get what I wanted, and I wouldn't stop until it was mine. There's always the phrase of as long as you want something hard enough you can make anything happen. But I don't think that's what qualifies here. … Because I wanted to have Astrid come out okay." Hiccup frowned at this, but didn't seem angry as she brought it up.

"No other Night Fury can do what you do." Mistyeyes pointed out. "Or none that I know of."

"With all that's happened, I'd say that's a good thing." Nightflight joked wryly. Then she shook her head. "Maybe it was just me being a blind youngling; even when I did it to Toothless so long ago. It was me just being too stupid to see past my nose. I knew what I wanted and I was going to get it no matter what it took." Toothless perked at this, studying her closely as she said this sentence. Something flashed oddly in his eyes, but Leafdapple didn't bring up the weird emotion. She just pushed it away under the pretense that it didn't matter.

Nightflight was quiet for a second before clearing her throat and looking over at Leafdapple. "So to answer your question: I'm not sure. I'm not really sure what brought it on, I just know that whatever it was it probably had something to with how thick-headed I used to be." She smiled a little at this last part and Leafdapple gave a slow nod in reply. She guessed that that fit. Or at least it was more answer than she had been hoping for to her questions. And she'd had said question for a longer time than she would have liked to admit.

They had finally made their roundabout way back to where the rest of Pack was. By now at this time of night, they were all tucking themselves away for rest. Taking the hint that they would wait out the rain, most had taken to sleeping underneath overhanging trees or underneath large bushes. What little conversation there was, was muffled and muted in respect to the others who were attempting sleep. Over on the other end, Leafdapple could see Astrid sitting on a rock, obviously waiting stubbornly for Hiccup to return. And when she caught sight of him, she crossed her arms over her chest, looking irritable. It looked like she hadn't agreed with the boy suddenly looping away like he had.

But if Hiccup noticed, he did a good job of burying whatever he felt about it. Instead, the teen turned and nudged Toothless in the shoulder with a clear of his throat. "I have to do a walk around the other end of the island." He explained a little reluctantly. "…Come with me?"

Toothless gave him a look, lashing his tail. "One lap." He consented with a nod. "Just one. Then you need to sleep, because I feel like if I poke you, you'll keel over and never get back up again." He smiled. Hiccup returned the gesture, grinning as their easy way of conversing had seemed to come back. "I'll be back." Toothless said in parting to Mistyeyes, who flicked her ear with a beam. The two looped off towards the southern end of the island, and Leafdapple gave a light huff of air at their departure.

"C'mon." She said, turning and poking Shadowclaw's side. "Let's go find a spit to sit."

"Sit?" He repeated, as if the word was foreign to him.

"Yeah, I wanna watch the rain." She stated.

"But I want to sleep; I'm tired."

"You'll watch the rain."

"But-"

"Watch it with me." She chirped, leaning down and grabbing his tail gently in her mouth as she tugged him off. The male groaned dramatically, looking over to some of the other dragons that were already sleeping with a forlorn look as he allowed himself to be dragged off. Mistyeyes watched with a bemused expression, biting back a smile as Shadowclaw complained under his breath with every tug caused by Leafdapple.

"I guess we don't have to see into the future to know where they'll end up." Mistyeyes noted as the pair of young dragons got out of ear-shot. Nightflight perked where she sat at her side, giving a small hum. But that was the only reply that was offered, and Mistyeyes realized that she could be tired. Out of all of this, with her loss of sight, Nightflight was probably the most-taxed out of all of them with trying to keep up. "Alright..." The pale dragoness allowed after a moment of silence. "I'll let you sleep then. We leave for Berk tomorrow, after all."

Still nothing.

"Goodnight, Nightflight." Mistyeyes said as she got to her feet, ever as friendly.

"Wait."

She stopped short, having only taken a few steps. Turning back and looking at the female questioningly, Mistyeyes tilted her head to the side. "Something the matter?" She asked slowly, trying to guess what it was. Maybe Nightflight had been more affected by Leafdapple's question than she had first thought? Or maybe she felt bad about Mistyeyes's answer to her own question? There were many things, just as confusing as the last. All in all, she had seemed fine. Mistyeyes couldn't think of anything that could be wrong.

"I have a question for you." Nightflight pressed.

"Oh." There was no hiding the surprise and confusion in Mistyeyes's tone. "Okay. Uhm…what is it?"

"I asked you a few days ago and you never really answered me."

"What did you ask?" She asked in befuddlement, trying to remember.

"All those years ago in the cave." Nightflight mumbled, bridging out slowly. Mistyeyes's forehead creased with confusion. "Why?" Oh. It's this question again. Mistyeyes realized with a dim sort of feeling. "Why did you save me?"

"Why wouldn't I have?" Mistyeyes asked simply.

Nightflight threw her a sarcastic look.

"…Fair enough." She huffed after a moment's pause. She sighed, sitting down again and thinking for a moment. Contemplating. Finally, she gave a small nod. "Because I knew that…I had to." She started bluntly. She remembered what she had thought back then and tried her best to put it into words. But it was hard to put a feeling or a blind tug into words. It was really hard to explain herself she didn't really know in the first place. "I guess I was so worried about you because….I just had a feeling that…you couldn't die. That I couldn't let you die. Not if I had a chance to stop it."

"Even after Toothless told you all of what I had done?" Nightflight asked. Not sounding sorry for herself, or angry, or bitter. Just confused. Like she was trying to make sense of it all.

"Well. Yes." Mistyeyes answered. "I guess you could say that…I knew better."

A pause. Then she looked over at Nightflight and gave a smile. "I knew better." She repeated, stronger this time. "You were too important to die. I knew that you could do better things. I knew you would do better things. Greater things. So I couldn't let you die. And I was right, wasn't I? Without you, none of this would have happened." She said happily.

Nightflight blinked slowly, allowing a weak smile to flit over her face as well.

Mistyeyes hummed softly a moment before leaning over and nosing Nightflight's ear in an affectionate gesture. "Well, I'm going to turn in." She said, leaning back and starting to turn back so that she could find a dry spot to rest too. "You should too, before too long. You'll be too tired for tomorrow, and we don't know what will happen once we leave this island. It's probably best to get the most amount of sleep you can."

"Yes, I suppose that's true." Nightflight relented after a moment. But she didn't get up or make a move to follow through with Mistyeyes. So the pale dragon stepped back a bit again, realizing that it was probably too much to ask for Nightflight to follow her directions the first time around. She would want to be alone for a little bit longer probably. When she didn't move and a few beats of silence had passed, she cleared her throat and reaffirmed herself as she said: "Goodnight, Mistyeyes."

Mistyeyes grinned. "Goodnight Nightflight." She said with a dip of her head.

Then, before it could start raining and before she could lose any more sleep, Mistyeyes turned and went to search for a spot to sleep. Tomorrow was a mystery and it wouldn't be wise to lose any more sleep. Starting tomorrow, they would need all the strength they could get. There was no telling what could happen.

At least now it was certain that they would all have each other's backs from now on.

(~**~) (~**~) (~**~) (~**~)

A/N: Ta-Da! Next chapter things start to go down! So drop by a review and I'll update super quickly!

Sometimes I forget that it's nice to slow down and let the characters have a little fun for a change lol. And considering next chapter is when things are going to pick up again, I thought it only fitting that this would be the last chapter to make sure they're all happy :3