A/N: Oh my God, this took me a while. But I at least have some good news... In my usual end-chapter AN. Onwards to read! :)

Chapter Five

He was dreaming again.

Now with a full belly and a freshly found comfortably leeward place to hide and lie down. He finally had the opportunity to sink down into the warm depths of relaxing illusions, where none of his fears or sorrow mattered anymore. He had not been able to sleep peacefully for many months, and he had almost forgotten how nice it was to just forget everything and drift away.

But his dreams came to an abrupt end. As his eyes snapped open his senses tingled with danger he quickly jumped onto all fours, with narrowed eyes and perked-up ears looked at the mouth of the small cave he had bunkered himself in. For a few tense moments, he couldn't hear, smell, or see anything suspicious or dangerous, so he let out a breath of relief.

In that exact moment, fireballs began to swarm his cavern.

Blindingly bright, blue and purple balls of flame were hitting the walls and the ceiling with deep and loud thuds. They came like an angry swarm of hornets, and before he could even think about hiding, a fireball hit him in the chest.

Of course his scales protected him from most of the intense heat, which otherwise would have caused serious or even lethal burns to its victim, but he had no protection against the impact of it. The sheer force of the hit smashed him against the cave wall half a dozen steps behind, knocking the air out of his lungs. The frenzy of fireballs continued as he tried to shake the dizziness out of his head, when another fireball came, hitting him in the chin.

As he blacked out, he thought that those few fish were about to cost him a lot more than they were worth.

"Cease fire!"

A dozen Guards stopped shooting fireballs at once, and for the moment, the only movement around was the thin trail of smoke seeping out of the narrow crevice in the hillside in front of them. The barely detectable scent of some kind of dragon led Salkonyr to strongly believe that the thieves were certain to be inside this cave, and had ordered his fellow Guards to take up a semi-circle formation, twenty steps from the entrance, and fire a continuous volley of low-powered fireballs inside. The blasts weren't strong enough to collapse the cave or kill any dragons, but they definitely packed enough punch to knock someone out with a direct hit.

"You think that was enough?" Lenhardt asked tensely.

"This is how we ask nicely to come out." Salkonyr growled. "If they resist, we'll take a more direct approach."

"Alright! Raylandt, Selara, Howninn, Tharauk! You four take up position at the entrance, and on my mark, you-

"STOP!"

The angry and desperate cry came from above, and within a few seconds, Lenny saw his mother and Ohrana touching down between the Guards and the cave entrance. Salkonyr stepped forward to question them.

"Don't interfere with-"

"Shut up you impatient fool and listen to what I have to say!" Ohrana yelled, earning disturbed glances from the Night Furies around her. "Your lack of common sense is astounding, whose genius idea was to shoot first and ask questions later?! Did any of you even try to identify the thief before shooting him to pieces?!"

"What the... who is 'him'?!" Salkonyr asked back angrily "The tracks clearly showed that there are more than-"

Not even bothering to listen to the First Guard, Ohrana rushed into the cave.

"Wait!" Salkonyr yelled, and ran after her. But before he could enter, Ohrana appeared again, carrying a limp, obviously unconscious form on her back.

"THIS is your wild pack of dangerous thieves." She said coldly. "One lonely, injured Night Fury youngling!"

Lenny felt his jaw drop at the sight. Ohrana was right, there was a young Night Fury on her back, who looked maybe a few years older than him. Realization struck him like lightning, that he almost committed a fatal mistake, and quite easily could've caused the death of a fellow dragon. The rest of the guards looked just as flabbergasted, especially Salkonyr.

"But... but-"

"We have to take him to Elder Tamaana, and fast." Ohrana stated calmly. "I am sure he tried to conceal his identity by taking a fire bath and making lots of false paw prints, because he had no idea what to expect from us. And he did a darn great job at that."

"Resume the standard patrol schedule. We'll discuss what comes next tomorrow." Salkonyr sighed, turning towards the rest of the Guards. The crowd slowly began to dissolve, and most of the dragons took off. Ohrana began to jog towards the clan's place, as she could not fly with another dragon on her back, and Salkonyr accompanied her.

Everyone left the scene, except Lyara and Lenny, who still refused to look into his mother's eyes. Lyara swallowed tensely, and began to move toward her trembling son.

"Lenny..."

"You were right." he spoke up in a bitter tone "I'm a complete idiot."

"No, you're not-"

"I almost got him killed!" Lenny cried out, tears of shame beginning to trail down his cheeks "I almost had a Night Fury executed because I didn't have the brain to ask Ohrana, who has the best nose in the whole clan! She could have solved this whole issue within seconds, sparing everyone from stress and drama, but no, I went full retard and began preparing for... I don't know, full-scale war!"

"Son." Lyara began softly, in a soothing tone that only a mother can muster "You saw the clues and drew the wrong conclusions. That can happen with anyone, I cannot name one Night Fury who never made a mistake once, not even your father." she nuzzled her son, throwing a wing across his back to hug him tightly. "Luckily for everyone, nobody was seriously harmed today; I'm sure Elder Tamaana will patch our guest up in no time."

"I don't know, I just feel like this is too much for me..." Lenny mumbled, burying his face into his mother's neck.

"Of course it is." Lyara answered "Nobody should bear your burden at your age. But with experiences like this, you will get the wisdom you need over time. We commit mistakes so we can learn from them, this was one tough lesson you won't forget."

"That's true." Lenny whispered.

"You're a clever boy, Lenny, I know that you learned what you had to from this. Don't judge yourself too hard because you were not right this time; imagine how Salko feels for example. Because of what happened to us back home, everyone is afraid, and trying to be cautious."

Lenhardt took a shaky breath, and stayed silent for a moment, letting his mother's words sink in. He still felt terrible for almost killing the stray Night Fury, but deep inside, he was very grateful for Lyara's words, and honest show of believing in him.

"Okay." He finally said "Let's just... go back and see how our guest is. I would like to ask him some questions, when he feels well enough to talk."

"He indeed has a lot of explaining to do." Lyara smiled, releasing her son from the hug "Let's go."

By the time Lenny and Lyara got to the spot where Elder Tamaana usually dwelled, they found the old dragoness already being very busy with the newfound young dragon. He was still unconscious, laying on his back, wings spread wide as the healer thoroughly checked him out, like leaning to his chest to listen his heartbeat, opening his mouth to peek inside, and so on.

But at least now Lenny had the opportunity to take a good look at the lone Night Fury. To say he looked battered was an understatement. His scales were riddled with scratches and bruises, and by the looks of it, he didn't really bother keeping himself clean. That seemed understandable, because he was so thin, the outline of his ribs were visible. He probably starved for a long time before finding Clan Toemnir.

"So, how is he?" Lenny asked quietly.

Elder Tamaana gave him a somewhat grumpy look before answering.

"He took a big knock to the head, but thankfully, nothing major. He is quite underdeveloped for his age but eating frequently will change that. His left foreleg however, is more worrying."

All three dragons leaned closer to the mentioned limb. Only now did Lenny realize that two of the claws were missing out of the four, along with a portion of his paw.

"Looks like a bear bite to me." Lyara commented with narrowed eyes.

"I agree. His ankle was also broken at some point, and it healed badly. I am pretty sure he limps heavily on this leg."

"That's another explanation to the weird paw prints in the snow." Lenny thought out loud.

"And it also explains why he is so underfed." Tamaana added "He simply cannot stalk any prey for a long period of time, not with this leg."

"It's a miracle he even survived this long." Lyara gulped.

"Well, his life will be easier if he stays with us… Will he?" Tamaana asked, looking at Lenny.

"I, uhh… I haven't quite figured out what we should do with him… though I'm not against taking him in, if he wishes." Lenny said.

"Alright then. Stand back a bit, I am going to wake him up."

"Just like that?" Lenny asked in surprise as he and his mother took a few steps backwards.

"Watch and learn, young one." the Elder chuckled, and leaned close to the unconscious youngling. Their foreheads touched, then Lenny could faintly hear a few quiet and unfamiliar words:

"Aebredj, fyathal sharkainn."

Much to the surprise of Lenny and Lyara, the thin Night Fury let out a groan, and slowly rolled to his right side.

"What the f… Magic?!" Lenhardt stared at Elder Tamaana, who just chuckled again and shook her head."

"Do not be silly, of course not. But I find I can focus a lot better if I express myself in the Old Tongue."

"Was this the mind-thingy Dad mentioned once?" Lenny asked, turning to his mother, who was looking at the old dragoness with a newfound respect.

"I guess it was, Lenny. I guess it was."

Elder Tamaana just winked at them mischievously.

In the meantime, the young Night Fury on the ground moaned again, and slowly opened his eyes.

"Ow my head… ehhh… oh crap."

"Easy there young lad, you are safe." Tamaana said to him reassuringly, as she watched him slowly sit up and shooting nervous glances at the dragons around him.

"U-huh. Rrriiight." He mumbled and shook his head, visibly straining to collect himself. "Wh… Where the heck am I?"

"Remember the clan you stalked?" Lenny asked in a chatting tone.

It took a few moments of thinking for the dragon to realize what Lenny is talking about.

"Hehe…" he snickered nervously "Well, this is awkward."

"It is." Lenny agreed "When you feel well enough, I would like to ask a few questions."

"Alright… I guess. Uhm…" he gave an awkward grin with ears flattening to his head "I know this is one fucked-up-"

"Language!" Lyara snapped.

"Sorry. I know this… isn't the best way to introduce myself, but… just… call me Dyner, okay?"

"Sure." Lenny nodded, trying to appear friendly to ease the tension. "We'll talk tomorrow, Dyner."

The next morning, Lenny went to meet with Dyner again, and on the way, two other Night Furies joined. First came Ohrana, because she was worried about Dyner's well-being. Lenny found the half-eyed dragoness' interest a bit surprising at first, then he figured that she probably feels some kind of companionship with the newcomer, given the fact that both of them were sort-of cripples.

The second one was Salkonyr, who was still somewhat ashamed and angered by Dyner's acts of deception. And he also wanted to question the young dragon, probably to see it for himself if he is a threat to the clan, or not.

As they approached Elder Tamaana's place, the old dragoness came forward, exchanging greetings with the three Night Furies.

"How's Dyner doing?" Lenny asked.

"He is fine. A bit anxious about today, nothing serious." The healer replied, and walked on to commence with her daily routine. Lenny, Ohrana and Salko went on towards the tiny glade, and found Dyner quietly sitting under a tall pine.

"Ooh, what a nice welcoming committee." He grinned nervously as he saw the three dragons approaching him.

"Not so much." Salkonyr growled quietly, earning a warning nudge from Lenny.

"Slept well?" Lenny asked politely.

"I guess. Nobody shot me in the head this time." Dyner grinned, but his smile began to fade as he noticed Salko's dark glare.

"I think we could start with you telling a bit about yourself." Lenny went on, ignoring Salkonyr's irritation.

Dyner frowned, then took a deep breath.

"Alright." he huffed. "My name is Dyner, son of Teague. I… I left my clan… They originally lived far eastwards from here, but… so life was pretty bad, and I had no reasons to stay." He looked up to meet Lenny's eyes before going on "I travelled west for a long time, but eventually food became scarce in around the areas I was."

"So when you discovered our tracks, you decided to tail us." Salkonyr scowled.

"Who pissed on your morning fish, buddy?" Dyner asked him with a cocky glare.

Salko looked like he's about to blow up, so Lenny quickly stepped forward to be in between the two dragons before something bloody would happen.

"This is First Guard Salkonyr, he is responsible for the protection of our clan." Lenny described "And he doesn't like being fooled."

"Oops. Uhm… Sorry?"

"Listen here, you sly dipshit. " Salkonyr began slowly in a threatening tone "You've got exactly ten seconds to give me reasons why I shouldn't scale you for shortening our fish supplies!"

"I didn't really have much of a choice!" Dyner explained defensively "And it was only temporary, until I can find a better place. I tried asking help from others during my travels, the best I got was a kick in the butt to get lost. I decided to stay safe, and that's so I made all those fake paw prints and stuff. I didn't… think it would cause that much of a commotion, so… I apologize."

Salkonyr let out an angry huff.

"You better behave yourself. I'll be watching you."

With that, he turned and took off, leaving them on the glade.

"I guess I kinda pissed him off." Dyner commented as he watched the furious Guard leave.

"Sure did, though it's not exactly hard to do these days." Lenny confirmed, letting a slight grin escape him "Anyway, I'd also like to introduce our top hunting instructor, Ohrana. She was the one who figured you were on your own, and stopped us from blasting you."

"I can honestly say I'm thankful for that." Dyner smiled at the older dragoness "I have a vague memory of the firepower I received."

"I'm glad I could help." Ohrana nodded, returning his smile. "Next time however, please be so kind and not freak us all out by feigning a Skrill attack or something, right?"

"I guess I can manage that." Dyner laughed, shaking his head. After the laughter died down, he looked at Lenhardt again. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"What's a whole clan doing out here, travelling for so long?"

"That's a thing I wanted to talk to you about. How well do you know the area around us?"

"Relatively… well." Dyner answered "I've spent a few days in the mountain range to the west a good while ago, I only went away to explore a bit. In fact, I was trying to head back, but first I got grounded by a heavy snowstorm, then I found you guys."

"Perfect." Lenny nodded. "Y'know, we are searching for a new home. You could use some company. So if you know a place which would be nice for a clan of Night Furies, and lead us there, I'll take you in to our clan, or let you stay with us for as long as you wish."

"You'd take me in?" Dyner asked in disbelief. "I thought that's a privilege of a Leader or something…"

"I am Lenhardt, son of Lohengrin, acting Leader of Clan Toemnir." Lenny stood up and took on a stance of authority. "So, what's your answer?"

It took Dyner a good few seconds to overcome his astonishment. But eventually, he did.

"I… uhm… alright, sure!"

Lenny decided to keep the newcomer Night Fury's involvement in the search for new home a secret, at least for a while. He thought it would be a bit too much to expect everyone to not only accept a sneaky thief into their ranks but follow his lead as well. He was sure in Dyner's harmless intentions, but convincing everyone else, especially Salkonyr proved to be a challenge.

While the younger dragons found him funny and fun to hang out with, the older ones found his cheeky attitude rather irritating. He even managed to get an angry look from Elder Ragnar sometimes, which counted as utterly uncontrollable, frothy rage from him.

But to Dyner's credit, he tried his best not to be dead weight, just another mouth to feed. He volunteered to be tried out in a number of roles, to see where he could be the most useful... although sometimes those trials were less than successful. Once, he tried to fetch a specific tree bark for Elder Tamaana. He quickly found in the woods what he was looking for, but at first he didn't notice the rather bad-looking mushroom growing on the other side of tree's bole... So he had to discover that his body reacts quite violently to that kind of mushroom. He spent the rest of his day with an extremely runny nose and face so swollen one could barely tell the difference between his nose and eyes, earning disgusted looks from older dragons, and screams of terror from young ones.

Trying to feed a whole clan while they're on the move, and barely have time to actually hunt because the hunters need to rest for next day's migration made things quite stressful. There were days when the catch was so scarce, only the younglings got anything to eat, and the others had to wait for the new day and new hunting grounds to get something. So when Macharon and his six other hunters spotted a rather large herd of reindeers, the experienced hunter looked endlessly relieved.

"Alright." he began "we take off, get up high and dive on them. If nobody screws it up, we can bring back one reindeer each for the others."

"Six doesn't sound enough, how many of these would we need to get everyone stuffed?" Dyner asked.

Macharon looked at him, and thought for a few moments before answering.

"At least three times more." he finally said "But the other hunters are away as well, so there's just us."

As the others gotten ready to take off, Dyner kept thinking about the sudden idea he had. When they were just about to begin, he quickly approached Macharon.

"I have an idea how to catch more. Did you see the forest with the frozen riverbed crossing it, a while back south?"

"I did." Macharon replied slowly "What are you suggesting?"

Dyner swallowed tensely before beginning to describe his plan.

"If you and the others hide in the riverbed, I'll shepherd the whole herd right towards you, make them cross the riverbed more than once so you guys can get more chance of catching them."

Macharon took a long look at the scrawny-looking dragon, who was more than ungraceful on the ground and even smaller than his age would justify... but he had seen him flying before.

"Are you sure you can pull this off?"

"Trust me, you won't regret it." Dyner grinned "And if it doesn't work out as much as we want, we can still try diving on them and catch a few ones gone astray."

"This better work out." Macharon shook his head. "Alright fellows, change of plan."

As the hunters took up positions in the riverbed, Dyner took off as well, rapidly climbing towards the thick white clouds high above. He reached the clouds and disappeared, going below cloud level only for moments to check his course. Once he was above the herd, he folded his wings and began to dive.

The moment the reindeers heard the sharp whistling sound of a charging Night Fury, they all looked to the sky in terror. But before they could scatter into all directions, Dyner shot a few precisely aimed, low-powered fireballs a bit north of the herd. They naturally began to flee towards the opposite direction – which happened to be the direction of the forest where Macharon and the others were waiting for them.

He just circled above them, and shot a few motivating fireballs to keep them going where he wanted them, until they entered the forest.

"This is where the fun begins." Dyner laughed, and kept grinning as he quickly descended and threw himself after the prey, into the forest of towering pine trees.

Macharon stuck his head out of the riverbed when he began to hear the hooves barraging the snowy ground, and the sight made his jaw drop. He saw dozens of reindeers desperately running from Dyner, who flew through the thick maze of trees not only with astounding speed, but with dizzying manoeuvres to avoid collision. One tiny mistake would break his wing or even worse, but he kept spinning, twisting and turning, wingtips narrowly touching the snow sometimes. Not only did he continue circling around the herd, but he even found split-seconds to let loose fireballs, constantly directing the herd towards them.

"Here they come!" Macharon roared through the blasts, and as soon as the first few deer began to jump over the riverbed, the five Night Furies below them jumped into action, aiming at their throats with their talons and fangs. One after another, they caught a deer, pulled them down, finished it with a quick blow and went for another one.

By the time Mach rose up from the carcass of his fifth prey, his ears met complete silence. The constant shaking of the ground caused by the myriad of hooves disappeared, just as the blasts of Dyner's fireballs. As Mach looked over his four other companions, he saw his own puzzlement mirroring on their faces, but what's more important, he counted almost two dozen fallen reindeers!

With loud wing beats, and vivid wheezing, Dyner landed behind him. The young Night Fury kept panting for a while, before he finally managed to blurt out a question.

"So...? How was it?"

Macharon laughed heartily as he hugged the hyperventilating and physically drained youngling with a wing.

"All I'm going to say is that I no longer doubt Lenhardt's sanity for letting you come with." the older dragon grinned. While he said this, the other four dragons all gathered around them, giving appreciative nods, and agreeing smiles. "That was crazy just to watch. Why were you starving again?"

"I'm okay with chasing things..." Dyner grinned back "I'm just not so good at catching them. Holy shit, that was fun."

"Yeah, and good teamwork." Mach nodded "I never thought I'd be saying this again, but we're going to need help carrying all this back."

That night, the whole clan was feasting on reindeer meat and celebrating Macharon's hunting group, Dyner in particular. Once Macharon told the tale of how they got this much food, Dyner practically disappeared in the crowd of congratulating Night Furies. Lenny couldn't help but laugh at his awkward face, as he really did seem uncomfortable with so many dragons being around him.

While Lenny was sitting atop of a small hill, looking down at the happily feasting crowd, he saw Ohrana approaching him. They both greeted eachother with a nod, and as the dragoness sat down beside him, she spoke up:

"You have good eyes, Lenhardt."

"I... do?" Lenny asked in confusion.

"Of course." She nodded "Not everyone would accept someone like Dyner into a clan, and a lot of us doubted the reason behind your decision. But despite the circumstances, you've managed to see the value in him, and gave him a chance to prove his worth."

"Well..." Lenny began, a bit unsure what to say "Now... at least we know he'll find his place among us."

"Yes, he's settling in slowly but surely. Now we just need to work on that foul mouth of his." Ohrana chuckled.

Lenny let out a short laugh too, as he looked up at the cloudy sky above... and the mountain range in the distance. He just hoped that his supposedly good eyes will find a place between those slopes tomorrow.

A/N: Alright my lovely readers, I hope this one was fun! Truth to be told, this chapter just kept getting bigger and bigger, until my editor fella said that I'm taking in too many new things without talking them enough so... I chopped the chapter in half. Good news are, that the next installment is halfway done, I plan to upload it on next week! Stay tuned guys, time for me to make up for all the wait.

In the meantime, don't forget to tell me what you think. ;) Ratecommentreview!

I

I

I

V

p.s. ttt my fella, your timing was most excellent. ;D