So here it is, time for another wonderful update to our wonderful story. Read on, my minions, for the plot thickens with every page...

Astrid pushed deeper into the rocky cave, flattening her body to fit into the small opening. The rain beat mercilessly against the cliff face opposite, but she was just about covered up on her side. Flashes of lightning ruined her night vision. They bathed the cove in light for an instant, each image slightly different as the wind tugged at the trees and whipped up the lake. To her sensitive ears, the thunder felt like Thor himself was hammering on an anvil inches from her head.

She curled up tighter, into a ball. Hiding her head under a wing, she screwed up her eyes and pressed her ear flaps firmly against her skull. Even with the lightning, she was nigh on invisible. There was something strangely comforting about hiding from the world. She could almost pretend that her problems didn't exist. She sighed, sleep would not come easily this evening.

The ground wasn't uncomfortable, it just felt wrong. It was distressing that an opening at the bottom of a sheer rock face could be as warm and inviting as her woollen bed back home.

'Home', she thought. 'Just another thing I can never have again'.

She would have cried, had her eyes not been raw from crying for hours earlier. To say that it had been the worst day of her life was an understatement. She had slept off the immediate exhaustion from her near death experience, waking up to her painful reality just before the storm rolled in. She had sat under a tree for hours, staring at puddle in the ground. She couldn't bring herself to look into the lake. Not after what had happened.

She had seen her new face for the first time. Hairless and smooth, each scale blending into the next to create an armoured hide that only a powerful sword thrust could penetrate. They were a deep black, with perhaps a hint of dark blue, slightly more on the underside. It was the perfect cover for a night attack. On a moonless night there was nothing on earth that would be able to detect her. She had what could be described as a face. Two eyes, a nose and a mouth, but that was where the similarities with her old appearance ended.

Her head was flatter, and shaped like a rough triangle. At the corners, her ears protruded outwards, although they were drooping down in depression. Her snout, if you could call it that, wrinkled every time she sniffed, and her pupils were huge, round, puddles of sadness.

As she sat and stared at her hideous reflection she had been overwhelmed by appalling misery. The undeniable truth of her situation had begun to sink in as she had time to fully consider all the connotations of her predicament. A new life had been thrust upon her, out of the blue, and she had undergone changes more drastic and unnatural than anyone before her. Her body, her human form, the very essence of her being had been destroyed and replaced by a demon. There was no place for her in this world, and yet there she was. Her new body was as real as the drooping tree she had been sat under, until the lashing rain drove her into cover.

Astrid shifted her bodyweight, and tried to rest her head on one of her paws, whilst keeping it out of the biting wind. She was still getting used to being so damn big. The cave could have comfortably housed her and all her friends before, but now it was practically overflowing with dragon. But she could never see her friends again, or her family for that matter. She would have blinked back tears if there were any left. In her mind's eye she saw her father embrace her old form and felt his soft warmth on her skin. She imagined what that would look like now. Her father's hand would be met with cold scales, as smooth and inviting as the broken rocky walls of her cave.

It was as if her entire life up to that point had been wasted, unfairly torn away and tossed to the wind. She shuddered at a vision of her future life; scrambling around like a lizard, desperately searching for food, panicking at the sound of thunder, hiding away in solitude in the dark places of the world, slowly going insane and becoming the feral beast that she truly was. Nobody would ever see her as Astrid the Viking ever again, but only as a dangerous threat to run from or to slaughter. She would almost certainly die brutally and alone.

She made a noise, somewhere between a moan and a sigh. It was long, full of anguish and clearly inhuman. She stopped abruptly. She couldn't bear to hear her new, impossibly low, draconic voice anymore. Forcing herself off this path of dark thoughts, she let the rhythmic drumming of the rain lull her into a troubled state of rest as she drifted away from the future and back into the past.

Astrid thought back to the transformation. She had been a dragon back then. A full, instinct driven creature of the wild. It made her feel sick, how she had taken in the scents of the forest, and swivelled her ears to check for danger. How she had pandered to that male, called him her mate. Oh gods, her mate.

It was clear now why she had been transformed. Astrid wasn't stupid, and had worked out the most likely explanation for what had happened - aside from being cursed by the gods, obviously. There had only ever been one Night Fury. They were rare, so it wasn't ridiculous to assume that he couldn't find another. That male had transformed her so she could be his mate, and have little dragon hatchlings with her, continue a species that was not her own. It was horrifying.

She didn't know the first thing about the dragons' social structure. Hell, it was only after being transformed that she realised they could talk to each other. But she had been a dragon then, and had thought about returning to the nest, a safe place where they could raise their younglings… Oh Gods…

She almost regretted saving herself from drowning. If there was a risk that she would bring more demons into the world than it might have been better for everyone if she had just died in that lake.

But she hadn't. At the last moment her nerve had gone, and she hadn't felt the same since.

New instincts affected her every decision. She doubted that her walking would be as good as it was if not for their guiding influence. She was able to control her wings and tail without really needing to practise. Not that she would need to soon. Nothing could fly in this storm.

Flying, now that was something. She hadn't been paying attention at the time, but she had flown. Back when her mind was not her own, flying was as easy as walking. It had seemed so natural to her. Pushing up off the ground, her powerful shoulders burning as she laboured to gain altitude. The clouds, rushing past. Her wings angled to catch the most air possible. Two enormous, jet black sails carrying her anywhere and everywhere….

Crashing. That was what followed. A bola had hit her, full on. Expertly aimed, it had clamped down around her wings and face. She had used her tailfins to angle the fall, but there was no stopping the inevitable crash. She had landed hard, ripping through the treeline, her new weight splintering mature birch trees like kindling. A deep trench, carved out of the soft ground, had slowed her down, but she had still hit her head hard on a boulder.

That was when the spell was broken. It was also the reason she could still feel a throbbing in her forehead whenever her heart rate quickened. Whatever that monster had done to her mind had been undone, at least in part. She could still feel a subconscious pull out to sea, towards the horizon, but it was clear that overall, Astrid the Viking was in control.

Was she? In the lake, something had happened. She had let go of her body, waiting for death, and the next thing she knew she was coughing up water on the shore, exhausted but alive. She had made every conceivable effort to end it all, but she was still in the land of the living. Astrid grimaced as she thought back to the feral force that had propelled her out of the water. As much as her continuing existence pained her, she no longer yearned for death. Somewhere in the murk and cold of the water, she had changed.

The weather was getting worse now, the trees were being bent and twisted beyond recognition. The rain was falling harder, and she could feel the tiny vibrations as each drop slammed angrily into the rocks around her. Looking up, she saw a small, watery landside demolish part of the wall. The last of the summer storms thundered wildly overhead, as if its wailing could stop the seasons altogether. Her drooping tree was thrashing around now, as if it had been driven into a mad frenzy by the swirling winds. She watched transfixed as leaves and branches were torn off, whilst the trunk remained anchored and unmoving.

For the first time the dragon smiled. Despite the changes, at her core she was still the mighty Astrid. Leaves and branches could be ripped away, but her inner strength would not be so easily toppled. She was not ready to die. Not yet. Not until she had tried everything she could to turn back. She would not give up without a fight. She could still bring pride to her family's name. Astrid, the legendary warrior, who had lived through hell and come out stronger.

She curled up again, hugging herself with her wings. Despite the biting cold, she was warm inside. She smiled, closed her eyes, and slipped into a fitful sleep.

She would not go quietly into the darkness. Tomorrow, she would get out of that cave. She would contact her village, find that Night Fury, and force it to change her back. If it didn't, she would just have to teach the race of dragons a lesson that they, and the world, would never forget.

"Hey, are any of you going to read the book?"

Snotlout looked at Fishlegs as if he had just committed a war crime, not that the son of Spitelout was one to shy away from violence.

"The only thing I'm gonna read are the runes that I carve into my sword, once I kill a dragon. I'll kill it, then I'll carve its name into the sword, and then I'll kill another one, and I'll only stop once I run out of dragons!"

"Or runes, you only know about five Snotlout" Ruffnut smiled viscously as the arrogant boy started to work out that he had just been insulted. Tuffnut sensed weakness, and pushed harder.

"Yeah, and how will you know the names of the dragons you kill? Dragons can't talk, stupid. Even if they could they wouldn't talk to you. I bet I could talk to ten times as many dragons as …"

Tuffnut was silenced by Snotlout's swinging fist, which connected with the smaller boy's fleshy cheek, loosening a few teeth. Snotlout followed up with a head-butt, but his opponent had already ducked and his thick forehead smashed into Tuffnut's helmet. In a flash, they were both wrestling on the table, knocking food, drinks and the Book of Dragons flying. Gobber glanced up from his perch in the far corner of the hall, before returning to his hook, which he was lazily wiping with an ale soaked rag.

"Anyway," said Ruffnut, entirely oblivious to her brother's battle which was slowly rolling across the room behind them. "Reading is for girls and Saxons, I'd sooner use it as a bludgeon, or maybe a shield, or firewood."

Fishlegs was at a loss. He looked to Hiccup for support, but the son of the Chief sat with his face in his palm, slowly shaking his head from side to side.

"But you're a… You're a…"

"I'm a what Fishlegs?" Ruffnut leaned over the table, menacing Fishlegs with a glare. Hiccup quietly slipped away from the table, picking up the book as he went. In the far corner, their hooked mentor finally stood, yawning and cracking his back as he did.

"Right then students! That storms getting worse, you'd better all head home before you're parents start banging on my door."

As he made his way out, the grizzled Viking grabbed Tuffnut by the feet and pulled him along, whilst Snotlout was hoisted up by a hook speared through his trousers. The two boys continued fighting even as they were dragged out of the hall. The fire retreated as the door swung open, and a fierce chill swept across the tables. Hiccup waited, shivering in the shadows, until the last of his classmates had left. The door banged shut behind Ruffnut, leaving him alone.

Hiccup piled a few more logs on the fire and pulled up one of the rickety wooden chairs. It was probably better that he was on his own. He would rather not raise any suspicion when he left the next day to find that dragon. Although his father was gone, the village tended to keep a communal eye on him. More than a decade of fire and explosions had taught them that the hard way. Tilting the book towards the light, Hiccup opened it somewhere in the middle.

"The Terrible Terror… burns, slashes and cuts its victims… dangerous in packs, yada yada yada. Extremely dangerous, kill on sight. Neat."

He turned through the pages on the various different species. All went into great detail, especially when it came to the gruesome methods each dragon used to dispatch their victims. Not only did it say how long it would take a family of 'Murderous Hide-Rippers' to skin a grown Viking alive, but also the amount of pain that said Viking was likely to experience, that sort of thing. Apparently, when it came to dragons, it was the little details that mattered.

"…Extremely dangerous, kill on sight. Bleeds victims, Blinds victims, Boils victims alive."

Hiccup was looking for a specific page. If he was going to go hunting for that Night Fury, he was going to go prepared. Whilst he knew that he wouldn't be able to kill the beast, anything which would keep him alive long enough to get a decent look at it, and maybe even a picture, would be valuable information.

"Extremely dangerous, Kill on sight. Extremely dangerous. Kill on sight. Extremely dangerous…"

He turned over the page.

"…Kill on sight. What a surprise"

There were only a few pages left with any ink in them. The last quarter of the book was left unfinished, in case the good people of Berk were terrorised by and new breeds of hellspawn. Hiccup frowned as he flicked past the last used page and into the empty ones. Was it possible that so little was known about the Night Fury that it didn't even warrant an entry?

"No, no, there has to be more…"

He turned to the very back of the book, and his heart gave a little jump when he found what he was looking for. On the last page, separated from all the others, somebody had scrawled a few choice words about the deadliest dragon known to man. Unlike the others, there was no picture, just an empty space. Fitting, for a dragon that nobody had ever even seen. Well, maybe not nobody.

"Night Fury. Speed: Unknown, Size: Unknown". Hiccup frowned. For all the damage it caused and the amount of fear it struck, even in the hearts of the most courageous of Vikings, the Night Fury wasn't even that big. It was bigger than him - that was for sure. But then again everything was bigger than him…

"The unholy offspring of Lightning and Death itself. Oh, so that's where the saying comes from. Never engage this dragon. Your only hope is to hide and pray that it does not find you."

Hiccup closed the book. Bork the Bold might have been a local legend, but his knowledge on Night Furies was severely lacking. Was it that he could never find one, or maybe he just didn't want to? Night Furies were rare, maybe there were so few that it was impossible to conduct a detailed study. Perhaps they only arrived later, when Bork was too old to go adventuring. It was one of the last entries in the book after all.

He went back to the first few pages, the ones with 'General Information' about all dragons. 'There must be something in here I can use'.

'Dragon Diets. Dragons have been known to eat all kinds of animal life. Generally speaking, they are carnivores, although some Timberjacks have been known to chew on the bark of the trees that they fell. Most dragons will be satisfied with meat, be it the tender flesh of a child or the tough meat of an aged yak.'

"Well this is interesting. I wonder if I could feed Snotlout to the Night Fury…"

'Fish, however are their favourite food. A large pile of fish can be a good distraction to help flee from or ambush any dragon. Icelandic Cod are especially effective when used in this way. Apparently, Vikings do not taste as good as Haddock, Halibut, Herring, Salmon, Skate or Smoked eels.'

"I wonder how he learned all of this. It can't all be right. Still, if the dragon wants fish, the dragon gets fish."

Hiccup returned the book before heading home. It was pouring with rain, and the occasional flash of lightning out at sea illuminated the empty streets. Distant thunder could be heard rumbling. Hiccup smiled for the first time that day. The storm would likely follow the wind and miss the village. It was instead headed towards the forest and the other side of the island. He struggled back up the small slope leading up to his father's house.

His smile quickly died, however, as the storm wouldn't miss them by that much. The wind still howled around the mountain, hurling fat raindrops against the thick wooden walls. Hiccup struggled to close the door against the wind. He stumbled, soaking, upstairs to his bed, kicking of his leather boots. 'Odin protect anyone caught outside in this weather', he thought before he closed his eyes and drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Astrid awoke to find her lower body submerged in water. During the night, without her realising, the water level had risen significantly, and the water had found its way into her cave. It wasn't surprising really, she had been sleeping at the bottom of the cliff, right next to the lake. She uncurled her body and stepped outside. Each step felt strangely wrong as she shifted her unfamiliar weight forward. Placing each paw carefully, one at a time, she edged forward, splashing through the shallow muddy water. Her hesitant gait brought her out into the open. The sun blinded her for a moment as she passed out of the shadows and into its glare. As it fell on the cove, it rippled in the lake and the rocky walls glistened with dew. Surveying the cove in the daylight, Astrid felt almost giddy. Part of her still firmly believed that none of this was real.

She gave another inhuman moan, this time with pleasure as she stretched out her back and tail. Astrid didn't care, she had conquered her suicidal thoughts from the day before, and now she had a plan and a purpose. She laughed a deep, warbling laugh when she realised how much she must have looked like a cat, back arched and paws outstretched.

Locating the muscles in her back took some time, but eventually she found a way to unfurl her wings. It was the first time she had the chance to look at them. They were thin, like a layer of fabric, and yet they were made from the same scale as the rest of her. She was astonished that they were so big, although her human body didn't exactly have anything to compare them to.

She felt the urge to just start moving, and explore her surroundings. Her slow, deliberate steps brought her to higher ground away from the lake, where the ground was not completely submerged. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she willed her legs to move faster. She was struggling to outrun her human walking pace.

'Think Astrid, think…'

She remembered how her body had saved itself in the lake, how it had suddenly remembered to swim when she let go of her conscious thought.

'How about we try a different, less hands-on approach.'

She smiled inwardly at her own, terrible, pun as she willed her legs forward. Soon enough she was walking slightly faster, her paws having found a natural rhythm. She barked in celebration and excitement. It was all a game, and her new body was the toy.

She took off around the cove with a light trot, somewhere between walking and running. She could scarcely believe she was moving so effortlessly. The grass was sodden, and squelched under her paws. She could smell the fresh rainfall in everything, and the birds were chirping merrily. For once, she was not desperately sad or angry, and just took the opportunity to enjoy what must have been one of the last days of the summer.

After a few laps, she had seen and smelt everything she thought she needed to. With her confidence up, Astrid felt ready to leave the cove. She wasn't exactly sure how to do that, since the rock faces were mostly sheer and far higher than she could possibly jump. She was determined to try anyway. Setting herself up by the wall, with only a small strip of grass below her and the lake stretching out behind, she readied herself to jump. Pushing hard with all four of her legs she threw herself upwards towards the top of the cliff.

She smacked into the wall and fell backwards onto the soft moss, inches away from the water. All she had succeeded in doing was winding herself.

'Okay, maybe this isn't going to be so simple.'

Astrid knew deep down what she had to do, but she didn't want to. Her wings gently spread open once again, as she turned to look at them.

'I can't fly… I shouldn't. I… I… That's what dragons do.'

'Well you're a dragon now, so you had better deal with it!' another, more assertive part of her responded.

Determined, she shuffled around, setting herself up to launch, but stopped when she realised that she had absolutely no idea what she was doing and almost certainly looked like an idiot.

'It's just like walking, or swimming. Just do whatever feels right."

Feeling deeply foolish, she closed her eyes and felt around for some dragon instincts. Sure enough, her haunches lowered, her wings unfurled fully and her hind legs bent themselves low to the ground. She grinned. It felt natural, ready, and above all powerful. She could feel the tension in her muscles, and in her head she saw each of her legs as a coiled spring, like Hiccup used in his inventions and left lying around the armoury.

'Let's do this!'

Facing the rock face, she leapt upwards, her powerful legs propelling her to a massive height. At the same time, her wings beat down, pushing her even higher, and closer to the top. She scrambled madly for the cliff's edge as her wings beat a second time, but something felt wrong.

Her left wing buckled and tilted downwards, completely throwing her off balance. Memories of her fall into the lake were still fresh as she clawed at the rocks. Large chunks of stone came crashing down and rolled into the water as she tried to gain a foothold. But it was not to be. She spun around, falling.

Instinct kicked in and she spread her wings as best she could, eyes firmly shut. She was falling from a much greater height than before. A pocket of air seemed to lift her upwards, and then cushion her in the air. Astrid's eyelids cracked open. She was above the lake, floating on nothing. Keeping her wings as level as she could, she was gliding across the surface and barely staying airborne. Her claws dipped into the water as she made it the short distance across the lake to the other grassy bank.

Landing head over heels, she rolled to an abrupt stop, splashing the shallow water everywhere. Her torso was wrapped up in her wings and her tongue hung out of her mouth. For a second all was still.

With a short roar, Astrid leapt up, exhilarated. Sure she had crashed, but for a second, she was flying. Her, Astrid the shield-maiden, flying with her own wings. It was ridiculous. It was amazing. She wanted to do it again. All thoughts turned to repeating her first flight as she bounded back to the rock face, not noticing that she was running quicker than before.

She prepared to jump for a second time, tensing her legs and ensuring that she was evenly balanced. There was no hesitation. She sprung again, careful to make sure that her wings beat down together at exactly the same time. She got even higher up than before, but again she spiralled out of control. This time she fell to the ground directly below her. Her wings flapped wildly, kicking up dust and making great ripples in the lake as she cushioned what could have been another hard landing.

Her elation turned to annoyance after she fell for a fifth time, and landed half in the water of the lake. She was getting tired now. She wasn't hardly flying, just jumping and using her wings. The competitive streak of her previous life shone through. It angered Astrid that she couldn't achieve something as simple as escaping the cove, despite her best efforts. It was doubly maddening, since she would have been able to escape easily had she still been human.

She screwed up her eyes and thought back to night of the transformation. It had seemed so easy then. She was in complete control of her movements that night, soaring just below the clouds, gently adjusting her tailfins to account for the breeze. What was she doing wrong now?

Astrid took a deep breath, and relaxed. So far, trusting her instincts had been the most reliable way to stay alive. Surely they could help her fly. Moving away from the rock face, she let go of all conscious thought. As far as she was concerned, the dragon within her was in control. Focusing on the physical world surrounding her, she hunched up, jumped forward and flapped.

She took off with hardly any effort, almost straight up. Each flap brought a noticeable increase in altitude. Like a swimming stroke propelled her forwards, so too did her wings propel her upward.. Soon she was high above the ground, almost level with the top of the cliff. She subconsciously decided that it was time to level off and flap over to the edge.

The moment she tried to ease forward into a glide, her left wing dropped, just like every previous attempt. This time, however, she was high enough to cause some serious damage. She was spiralling down in a series of tighter and tighter turns, despite beating her wings desperately. The ground was rapidly approaching. There was no water below her, only hard mud and rocks.

She had to break out of the spiral or risk getting badly injured. The Night Fury folded her wings completely, halting the turning motion, but she was flung straight towards the rocky cliff face with what remained of her lateral energy. She threw her wings back open again, straining the joints to their limit. She slowed down just enough to hit the ground and not the rock wall. She closed her eyes and prayed.

When she opened her eyes she was lying upside down in a scaly heap. She had made another trench in the ground, but luckily, nothing was broken. Groaning, she rolled onto her front, accidently sitting on her tailfins. It was unusually tender, but she didn't know why.

She brought her tail up for inspection, and what she saw pushed her straight back into depression.

Her left tailfin had been completely shorn off, as if it was never even there. All that remained was a thick, black scab covering the wound. The latest crash had drawn a thin line of blood, which oozed out of the old wound. She slumped down in despair. She was never going to escape the cove.

She would never escape, never find the Night Fury, and never get changed back. She wouldn't even die in a blaze of glory. She was going to slowly starve and there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it. Once again, she was on the brink of tears.

It was at that point she heard something clatter to the ground, followed by a muffled curse.

She turned around and locked eyes with the Viking boy.