"Let me tell you the story of my people, the Soul Binders," I said quietly. I walked over towards the cliff face and stared down into the water. Valka and Hiccup followed close behind. "Many long years ago, a colony of people were travelling the seas, looking for a place to call home. They landed upon a lush green isle, with gentle harbors for their boats and green pastures for their livestock. When they finally set their sea-weary feet upon the shore, dragons came to meet them. Night Furies. They had come to protect their land. But my people were kind to them, offering them plentiful supplies of fish among others, and the Night Furies grew accustomed to their presence on the island. They did not mind the tiny settlement my people set up.

"Then my people began taming the Night Furies. Well, taming isn't the the best word, more like befriending. We work together with our dragons...as one. This is where we ultimately received our name, the Soul Binders. As we learned the ways of our Night Fury companions, we learned of a certain poem, etched into the rock in the center of the Night Fury nest. Every Night Fury on the island nested there, in one huge circle, with a ring of trees surrounding the black patches of scorched earth where the dragons slept. The poem went as followed:

An Isle of Night for the rarest of all, awaiting the day when people would call,

A friendship strong and a friendship sweet; a soul to hold, a soul to keep.

Give my soul to bind, to share, this dragon's soul now in my care.

That is the binding spell. It must be performed in front of the relic where the poem is etched, and the person who is reciting the spell must have a strong relationship with the dragon beside them. Otherwise, it fails. While there was great power and strength behind soul binding, there was also great danger. The relic also held a warning:

Take heed, those who wish to exploit the magic of the Isle of Night. The dragons who reside here are rare, and their numbers are small. Beware the man who dreams beyond, and openly wishes to control them all."

I sighed. This was the flaw with my people. They ignored the warning of the relic. And their folly resulted in the loss of their own lives as well as their dragons'.

"My people ignored the warning, knowing none of their kind would betray their morals of peace and their friendship with their dragons. But they did not count on anyone as cruel and heartless as Drago Bludvist to come."

"Drago Bludvist went to your village?!" Hiccup asked, incredulous.

"Yes...and...he wanted to know our secret. He wanted to control more dragons. He didn't realize the circumstances required, and my people refused to give it to him. He sent his dragons upon them...upon us. They all perished...except me."

Valka laid a hand on my shoulder, stroking a strand of hair back from my face. Hiccup looked down, unsure of what to say or how to react, then took my hand sympathetically.

"As a result, all their Night Furies died. For when the souls are bound, if one half were to perish, the other must perish alongside the other. And so the Night Furies have dwindled down to Comet and Toothless."

"But...But...I don't understand...there have to be other Night Furies somewhere! They can't be the only two. Weren't there wild Night Furies? On other isles?" Hiccup exclaimed.

"Night Furies refused to leave their home. They had everything they ever needed, and didn't need to compete with other dragons for food or shelter. They stayed within their community, and all other dragons kept their distance. But since the island was small, their numbers were forced to remain slightly low. This didn't bother them at all. They didn't need huge, overwhelming population numbers. They were a community where every dragon knew the other, similar to both my village and Berk, I'm sure. Regardless, a Night Fury egg is hatched only once a decade. And because my people grew and expanded into the village, their numbers eventually grew to match the number of Night Furies on the isle, and because everyone wanted a dragon companion..."

"There were no wild Night Furies left," Hiccup completed. "But how did you know for sure? What if there is an egg still waiting out there?"

"We can communicate wordlessly with our dragons, when our souls are bound. Some have the rare and unique ability to do it by strength of friendship alone, but most of the people in my village required the binding spell. We could communicate with the dragons, and they mentioned two eggs, a rare occurrence, that were safely tucked away in a magma-warmed cave, awaiting the day they should hatch. But then disaster struck. About 20 years ago, a few months before I was born, a heavy storm struck the island, grounding the Night Furies and forcing everyone to take shelter in their homes to escape the searing winds and rain that fell like arrows. It was this fateful night when the Nesting Cave was raided. One egg we found hidden deep inside the cave, positioned safely on a perch surrounded by magma. This egg hatched the same day I was born, but I did not meet her until I was a little older. The other we never heard of again. Since then, only 2 other Night Furies have been born, and both were bonded at the time of the attack."

"Do you think the egg, the lost one, managed to reach Berk somehow?"

"I can only imagine it had. And then it hatched in a wild and unknown place, not knowing any other like it, and it probably got mixed in with the...Green Death, you called it?"

"That must have been what happened. I can't believe it though. Why would anyone steal a Night Fury egg? And how, then, would they lose it?"

"The people who stole the egg might have worked for Drago, though unlikely since it was so long ago, or they had heard of legends of Night Furies and their power and sought to take on for themselves. They were probably shipwrecked on Berk or were attacked by dragons, who took the egg safely away. Otherwise it wouldn't have hatched on Berk. You are lucky to have met Toothless, though. Of all dragons, Night Furies are the most loyal, intelligent, and protective of all."

Hiccup paused, contemplating everything I had just said. Even as I thought back over, I could hardly believe what I was saying. It sounded like a depressing fairy tale, a bad dream that we were waiting to wake up from. But I knew better. We all knew better.