Okay, I know it's been months since I updated, but I've been trying to see in which direction this story is going, and my HTTYD mode has been a bit... inactive. Hopefully the new trailer for the Hidden World has helped out a little bit.
This chapter is going to be shorter, but it will mostly focus on Pearl and the introduction of a particular... Well, you'll see.
Without any further ado, enjoy!
Dragon's Edge felt… different since Hiccup and the others left.
Without Hiccup in his workshop building new inventions, or the twins making one of their disastrous pranks or Astrid and Heather practicing axe-fighting with each other it almost felt like a different island.
Not to mention it was a bit more populated with the Berk warriors, the defenders of the wing and the kids.
The dragons' kids, that is.
Their mothers (or fathers, in Stormfly and Meatlug's case) and the rest of their siblings had caught up, and more than agreed with the punishment Stormfly, Hookfang and Goblin had given the children for both disobeying and endangering themselves in such a reckless manner.
Of course, Pearl disagreed. If their parents had brought them when they asked in the first place, they wouldn't have had to follow them in secret. Sadly she was the only one who thought this way, her brothers did think they went too far this time. If it hadn't been Sleuther who found them, it if had been a wild dragon, or worse, a hunter…
Still, it wasn't that bad. After a few days they were allowed to roam out of the stables, though still pretty much forbidden from leaving the island at all without being accompanied by an adult. And once again, neither minded the punishment (except for Pearl, of course).
Besides, many of the dragons that resided there had interesting stories to tell about their parents, and the young dragons were very eager to learn of their adventures, given they didn't see them that much these days.
The most interesting dragons were three: Sleuther the Triple Stryke, Garff the Deathsong and Windshear the Razorwhip. The first lived in the Edge and acted as a sort of guardian, while the latter two lived in other islands but often stopped by.
"And that's how Toothless spared my life," Sleuther said. "Then the others arrived, releasing me and the other dragons from that wretched life."
"So you were a champion dragon?" Grapefang asked. "Cool!"
"I wouldn't call it cool. It was wrong, you should never take a life for entertainment of others, but in that place you're so busy thinking about yourself you never stop to think about it. You just wish to stop the torture…" Sleuther sighed. "I'm not sure I'll ever get over it."
"Couldn't you have just killed them all? I mean, humans are puny compared to dragons, you could have dispatched them." Windslicer pointed out.
"Indeed, I could have, but would that have made me better than them? Besides, if you grow up in such an environment you become so afraid of humans you see them as a bigger threat than they actually are."
"Tell that to me…" Windshear said bitterly, laying her head on her paws.
"What about you, Windshear?" Kyra asked, wagging her tail a bit. "From where do you know my dad?"
At that, Windshear chuckled a bit. "You could say he's also my dad in a way."
"What do you mean?" Syrilth inquired, narrowing his eyes a bit.
"They were visiting the wing-maiden island during the time my clutch hatched, and we were to pick a wing-maiden to bond with. However, instead I ran to papa and 'picked' him." She explained, referring to Goblin as 'papa', much to Pearl's chagrin. "The next following days I followed him around and he somehow managed to keep me in line even though I was very naughty."
"Interesting, he never mentioned we had an adoptive sister." Lightingbolt commented.
"He was never around much, anyway, maybe that's why." Pearl pointed out bitterly.
"Would you get over it, Pearl?" Kyra snapped. "I mean, you're always looking for the tiniest excuse to complain about dad! What's gotten into you lately?!"
"Perhaps the hormones are finally getting to her…" Kyroc muttered
"What do you know?! You're not even Skrills!"
"Pearl, that's enough!" Quinart bared her teeth at her daughter as a warning.
"Oh, please, Syrilth and I are Skrills too and we do not show any signs of being reckless, sharp-tongued or aggressive." Lightingbolt pointed out.
"That's because you're weaklings, you're always kissing everybody's scales!"
That shredded what little patience Quinarth had. "That's it, Pearl! You go into the stable and you're not coming out for the rest of the day!" she snarled with bristled spines.
Pearl didn't really care and merely walked away, prompting Windshear to continue with her tale.
Pearl didn't know why, but lately she couldn't bear to be around anybody anymore. It irked her endlessly, as well as the fact her only Skrill brothers didn't share this sensation. It felt like she was becoming the black sheep of the family and nobody even cared.
Screw the stables! She was almost an adult, she didn't have to listen to what mama said anymore, right? With that in mind, Pearl made sure to she was out of sight before taking off unto the sky.
She didn't have a particular destination in mind, she merely wanted to get away from it all? It wasn't like anyone would notice she was missing, right? They were too busy having fun when she wasn't around, which irritated her even more.
Many islands were already occupied by wild dragon packs, most of them consisting of the common species around here. Nadders, Gronckles, Nightmares, and all of them were unsurprisingly hostile to foreigners like her; islands with enough resources and without dragon hunters lurking around were very rare, after all.
Eventually she did find an island that seemed to be unoccupied. It was almost as big as Dragon's Edge without the cabins, overpopulation of humans and with lots of animals. Too bad there were no sheep, Pearl preferred mutton, one of the things she did have in common with most of her clutch.
Pearl spotted a wild boar drinking from a nearby creek. Her stomach growled. She hadn't eaten anything yet. Pearl lowered herself into the bushes and slowly crept towards it, making sure not to step on any twigs or anything that could alert it to her presence. It lifted its head a few times to look around, but it didn't seem to notice her as it went back to drinking.
In a blur, Pearl flew out of the bushes with her talons outstretched. But the boar was out of reach and her talons closed into thin air as the animal fled. Pearl wouldn't give up on her meal, however. She flew after it, dodging trees and rock formations as it ran from her.
When they came to a clearing a larger black blur descended from the sky and took down the shrieking boar. Before Pearl could react she was pinned to the ground by an unknown assailant, who held her down by the neck. As she stared at her stolen prize, she recognized the dragon that ended its life with a sharp bite.
It was a Skrill just like her. His scales were a deep shade of black with no sign of other colors except for a few purple highlights on the tip of his wings.
"What do we have here?" the dragon on top of her hissed. It was probably another Skrill, right? Ah, the disadvantage of having such a short neck and your eyes too close to your nose was that you couldn't look backwards if the former was held down.
They were soon joined by more Skrills, to Pearl's surprise. She didn't know there were more Skrills around in the archipelago. She counted the black one, the one on top of her and those three that just arrived. Five. They all seemed to be males.
"What's such a youngster doing around here?" a Skrill with lavender scales and silver highlighting, notably the youngest of the group, asked.
"Who cares? The point is he came into our territory and tried to take our food!" the one on top of her snarled.
The second Skrill with aqua green scales and whitish underbelly sighed. "It's just a boar, Twilight. We're not starving for someone taking a boar."
"Hey, Eclipse, what do we do with him?" the third Skrill-this one's coloration were reminiscent of a titan gronckle's colors- asked the black one.
"Let go of me!" Pearl snapped, flailing around in a futile attempt to knock her assailant off her. The Skrills gave her surprised looks.
"Oh. She's a female…"
The leader spoke up. "Twilight, let her go."
"What? But-"
"Now."
Pearl crawled out from underneath her captor as soon as she felt his talon lifting off her; she probably knocked him off balance, but she didn't really care. To her surprise, this one looked almost like her father, but younger and evidently reckless, something dad lacked completely.
"Sorry for the… unpleasant approach, miss…" The black Skrill (his name was Eclipse, right?) started, but didn't finish the sentence. She guessed it was a cue for her to introduce herself.
"Pearl." she said warily. The rational part in her brain was telling her to run, but she ignored it. She had never been around other Skrills that were not related to her before. Although it pained her to do so, she begrudingly said. "Sorry for interrupting in your territory."
"It's not like Eclipse marks it very often either…" the lavender skrill muttered only to receive a whack in the head from the green one.
"Pearl… It fits you," Eclipse said after stepping closer-though not enough to be considered an intimate approach-and took a look at her pearlish gray white scales. "You do look like a pearl."
Pearl swore that if dragons could blush like she had seen Fishlegs blush when around Heather sometimes, right then she would be as red as a tomato. "T-Thanks…"
"Oh, sorry, where are my manners?" Eclipse did a small gesture that could be interpreted as a 'gentlemanly bow'. "My name is Eclipse, and this is the rest of my pack," he gestured to the other Skrills. "Windcutter, Thunderfang, Ashwing and Twilight." His tail pointed at the lavender, green, titan wing gronckle-colored and dad's younger look-alike respectively.
"Nice to meet you, miss!" Windcutter gave a toothy grin and approached her a bit too much. Thunderfang rolled his eyes and pushed him away. "Please excuse him, he doesn't know how to contain his excitement."
"It's not like we can find a girl of our kind nearby these days!" Thunderfang protested.
"Where are you from, Pearl?"
"I'm…" Pearl hesitated for a few seconds. How would they react if they learned she was half-tamed? "I've been roaming around the archipelago for some time now with my… flight! I needed to vent off for a while, and then I got hungry…"
Eclipse looked doubtful, but he stepped aside from the boat. "In that case, be my guest, Pearl. I've already gotten some mutton, anyway." Where did he get mutton? Sheep weren't found in the wild at all. He must have stolen it from a village or something.
While eating the boar she got to know this flight a little better, and learned a bit of her own species' culture on the way. This was a bachelor group: male, mateless Skrills of different ages that came together to make survival easier. Usually they only left the group when they finally found a female to mate with. Eclipse was the leader, or alpha, of this group in particular because he was the oldest and with the most experience. Pearl estimated he must be about dad's age, maybe a bit younger.
"So where is your flight staying?" Ashwing inquired curiously, taking a small piece of wild boar leftover.
"In an island nearby."
"Is it very big? If you need to 'vent off' by yourself, it usually means your herd is so big it can drive you nuts sometimes."
"You could say so. I still live with my mother and clutchmates, but sometimes we don't… get along."
"Ah, the weaning process. I still remember when my parents started snapping at me." Twilight chuckled. "They literally had to chase me out of the nest to have their new clutch."
"Weaning process?" Pearl asked curiously. "That's a mammalian thing, isn't it?"
"It depends on the species, actually. Weaning in dragons doesn't mean stop surviving off mommy's milk," Ashwing explained. "It means that you're getting older and you start putting distance with your progenitors to prepare to fend for yourself. Has your mom started snapping at you and you're arguing more often than ever before?"
The story of her life. "You have no idea." Pearl snorted.
"It's a sign that you're growing independent. It can grow… nastier in Skrills, however, since we are a bit more explosive than other dragons such as Nadders or even Monstrous Nightmares."
"Yeah, tell me. I've had to deal with both for most of my life."
"That's curious," Eclipse spoke up, raising an eyebrow. "Skrill couples don't tend to socialize with other dragon classes in breeding colonies. They usually claim a part of territory as their own to raise their offspring in solitude."
Shit. "Well, mine are unusually… open minded."
"I see..." Eclipse didn't seem convinced, but he didn't seem to suspect anything either. "I guess you're not going back to your flight for a while, then, will you?"
"I don't think I will. We had a particularly heated argue, and frankly I'm not in the mood to get reprimanded for leaving while being grounded." She could already hear her mother's reprimands and her brothers' making fun of it.
"Why don't you stay, then?" Thunderfang blurted out without thinking.
Eclipse frowned at him. "In case you forgot, Thunderfang, I am the leader here."
"Come on, Eclipse, I didn't mean it like that. I'm just saying a young lady shouldn't be by herself around these parts."
Windcutter added. "He has a point. There are many rogue dragons lately, and now that the Night Fury and his group have apparently gone... missing, It's even worse. Remember the Changewing attack?" Pearl lifted her head. They know about Toothless?
"Don't remind me, I think I still have the acid marks on my rear..." Twilight muttered.
Pearl felt a shiver run down her spine when Eclipse looked at her. "If you wish, you could stay for a few days until you... cool down, miss Pearl." She noted how Ashwing perked up his head, bristling his spine crown. She had seen Lightingbolt do this when something caught his interest.
Pearl couldn't help but feel... intrigued by the offer. It was the first time she had been around actual Skrills. Lightingbolt and Syrilth wouldn't really sound since they didn't behave as such, and dad didn't spend much time around anymore. Perhaps he was aware of the weaning process and was letting them grow independent?
Well, she was certain she wouldn't be missed if she didn't go back for a few days. It was a good chance to get to know how her own kind properly behaved.
"I would love to... Eclipse."
Looks like Pearl has found new friends, who would have thought? Those Skrills will get an important role later on, but no spoilers!
